CD Review: Roly Veitch - Wherever Ye Gan

Roly Veitch (vocals, guitar, banjo, ukulele)

(Review by Ann Alex)

Have you finished your Christmas shopping? No? You’d do well to buy this lovely CD for someone. Here we have many typical Geordie songs such as The Keel Row and The Water Of Tyne, but what struck me is that we don’t listen carefully enough to these lyrics: for instance, the title track, Wherever Ye Gan You’re Sure To Find A Geordie, suggests that you’ll meet a Geordie even in the afterlife! How many of us could tell the story of the Lambton Worm in detail, or draw a timeline of the Blaydon Races journey? Roly gives us a gentle, homely take on these songs that we think we know, presented with excellent musicianship and touches of sly humour.  The much-maligned banjo and ukulele come across as serious instruments in Roly’s hands, and the guitar fares well.

Jazz and folk influences abound in the music.  There’s 1 instrumental track, Morpeth Rant/Hesleyside Reel, so well played and arranged that I’d have welcomed more tunes. Cullercoats Bay is sung with gentle sincerity; Wor Nanny’s A Mazer, a sort-of love song, has jazzy guitar and train sounds to represent the journey which was prevented by drunkenness; Alang The Roman Wall is accompanied by a marching rhythm; the lullaby Bonny At Morn is done to slow steady guitar riffs; The Pitman’s Lament (new to me) isn’t about a mining disaster as you’d perhaps expect, but it’s a father’s lament that his grammar school son has become posh. The other tracks are: Wor Geordie’s Lost His Plenker; Ma Bonny Lad; I’ve got A Little Whippet; Keep Your Feet Still Geordie Hinny; Bobby Shafto and the CD is well rounded off with a tribute to God’s own country, Canny Tyneside, followed by a few bars of There’s No Place Like Home on the ukulele.

The CD was available from December, on the GJF label GJFCD008.  More details of how to purchase the CD are online at www.rolyveitch.20m.com

Ann Alex