Album Notes

PETE CASTLE has been a professional performer since 1978. At first it was just folk clubs around the UK but then he added storytelling and educational work so that now he divides his time into thirds - the folk scene, storytelling, and work in schools. He has worked in Europe and in 2007 he paid his first visit to the USA when he was invited to take part in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC. A great experience and a great reception.
Pete is known as a fine singer of traditional songs, an accessible storyteller and a good guitarist with a distinctive style.
POOR OLD HORSE, Pete's latest album, illustrates all those aspects. It is mainly songs (Pete doesn't feel oral storytelling really works on CD, it needs an audience) but there are two told stories amongst the sung ones. With two exceptions they are all traditional English. There are a couple from his place of birth—Kent, and a couple more from his present home of Derbyshire. The two exceptions are the story—the Storytelling Stone, which has its roots with the American Indians and the final song When That I Was A Little Tiny Boy. The words of this are by William Shakespeare! It’s the final speech of Twelfth Night which Pete has set to an Appalachian tune—the Dreadful Wind and Rain with which it (almost) shares a refrain. His trip to USA is also represented by the song Virginia.
On Poor Old Horse Pete is joined by SARAH MATTHEWS on fiddle, viola and vocals; DOUG EUNSON on melodeon and vocals; (Sarah and Doug are a duo rapidly making a name for themselves around Derbyshire and beyond) and EDMUND HUNT, a young whistle/Northumbrian pipe player plus his wife SUE CASTLE on vocals. Together they make a good, big sound.
There is no definite theme for this album but it could be ‘re-visiting old friends’. Pete's been aware of many of the songs for a long while even if he hasn’t sung them. The whole album has been influenced by James Reeves’ essay ‘The Lingua Franca’ in his collection of traditional lyrics from the collections of Baring-Gould, Hammond and Gardiner ‘The Everlasting Circle’ (thanks to Harvey Andrews for the book!). The LF is the underlying language of symbolism which is within all true folk songs. Put simply: folk songs are written in a short hand. If someone, particularly a ‘maiden’, goes out on a ‘May morning’ or even a ‘mid-summer’s morning’ then she is probably looking for ‘love’. Gathering rushes, or hay or flowers is symbolic of the same thing. If he mows her meadow, ploughs her field, fishes in her pond and so on that love is taking on a physical form! It’s not as simple and crude as that sounds. It’s not “Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, I bet it wasn’t his fiddle he flashed at her!” but it is an additional level of storytelling happening in parallel to the actual words. All the old singers would have subconsciously known this but it was completely misunderstood by the Gentleman Collectors of the late 19th/early 20th century who either didn’t see it at all or expurgated it as being crude and rude. Those of us who have lived with traditional songs for the last 30 or 40 years probably sense it without having to spell it out just as those ‘ol’ boys’ (and girls) did way back when.

As well as performing Pete edits FACTS & FICTION a UK based storytelling magazine which is read all over the world. (see www.factsandfiction.co.uk)