Year after year Kate Rusby, one of the undisputed stars of the British folk revival, turns out quality albums and even better live performances. Ten years ago she celebrated a decade in the business with a collection of re-recordings and unreleased material. Ten years on, she has put together a double CD that features a number of star collaborators and less well-known but equally talented friends and contains new versions of her favourite songs.
The magic Rusby touch is characterised by a sweet and soft-toned vocal style and a heart-warming melancholy. It’s not by accident that the family company, Pure Records, should be named for a quality that excludes unnecessary adornment or excessive show. Kate Rusby has always gone straight for the heart, and she is joined on this double CD by musicians who travel the same road, from velvet-toned country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter to a stripped-down Paul Weller. All the voices have been chosen to provide a textural counterpoint to Rusby’s trademark sweetness: bluegrass newcomer Sarah Sarosz on “Planets”, the Irish giant Paul Brady on “All God’s Angels”, Richard Thompson on “Who Will Sing Me Lullabies” and the influential and under-rated Nic Jones on “The Lark". Jerry Douglas’s gently sliding guitar provides an extra transatlantic flavour on a couple of tracks. The arrangements are flawless, with a combination of passion and understatement that holds the vocals well.
The collection’s uniformity of tone – the happy sadness that goes with melancholy moods – makes it a perfect homeopathic cure as autumn draws in, though there is something unrelenting about the mid-paced gentility of it all. And yet, Kate Rusby deserves praise for the characteristic generosity she demonstrates in bringing together such a treasure-house of like-minded talents.