Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is perhaps natural in the modern world, to hear the voice of the traditional musician, the established song, and think of it as a quaint reminder of what life was like before the advent of the electronic revolution or the influx of genres that either you have embraced, or which leave you cold. It is that quaint reminder that left the Blues suffering towards the end of the last century, along with its bloated sense of entitlement which kept people from holding it too close, and left Jazz in a quandary of how to reinvent itself in the 21st Century.
The traditional is often thought of as being obsolete, a nice diversion for an afternoon’s education, people giving up their time just to keep a memory alive, the gift shop paradox, a talking point round the dinner table, the congratulations on keeping a moment of the perceived past alive and being thankful that some still cares.
Being traditional, especially when it comes to bringing stories to life through the medium of art and music, is more than just the Sunday afternoon drive to the local community theatre, the family outing in which well-meaning but often absorbed in their self-congratulations find solace for their soul. Traditional is the fire that rages, burns deep, it is the anger that sees villages, communities bind together when Government fails them or stabs them brutally in the back, it is the song that brings the image of the steel worker, the fisherman at the helm of his boat, the wife left at home with grief and memories and The Collier Laddie, the man to whom the song sings with beauty above ground and with sweet temper of resonance underground.
George Duff is The Collier Laddie to whom the fire rages, but to whom also the recognition of his craft is a powerful character, a significant respecter of a search for a truth in the music that is vital, a life blood that never slows, never fails and like the coal mines themselves, a sincere reminder of importance of what made the country flow.
Alongside comrades and friends, Kevin Macleod, John Martin, Mike Katz, Jim Wilson, Mike Dunlop, Martin White and Rob Hiley, the beautiful performances of this soul searching, of soul delivered musicianship makes tracks such As The Blackleg Miner, The Prince of Darkness, Green Grow The Rashes, The Eight Hour Day, The Recruited Collier, Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers and When These Shoes Were New the spark of the flame which catches the message alight, that burns brightly and with purpose.
A marvellously penned album, The Collier Laddie is traditional in its purest, most demanding and positive form, one that brings a true lump to the throat as the listener finally understands the heroics of such men that braved the pit-face and the darkness that threatened to absorb them.
Ian D. Hall