Smilingly Home: Eden Burning Live

Description

Smilingly Home, sub-titled Eden Burning Live, is a live album by the British Celtic folk-rock band Eden Burning, independently released in UK on FFG in 1993, distributed by Kingsway Music, and on Storyville Records in the US, a division of R.E.X. Music (featuring different cover artwork). The album was produced by David Pickering Pick and the band. Features a cover of “Medicine Bow”, a song written by The Waterboys.

Yep, here ’tis, the one to prove that all those words of praise Cross Rhythms have printed about Cheltenham’s finest folkies are not hype. For here the band finally deliver an album which shines with the glow of dues-paying, brings into focus all the rich potential of contemporising English folk music, and which captures all the sweat, drive and passion of their live concerts. ‘Smilingly Home’ couldn’t fail to do the latter of course as this is a live album, cut in their hometown during the last concert of their Vinegar And Brown Paper tour. And quite an historic gig it was for you got two mandolin players for the price of one, the band’s superlative Neill Forrest (now off to pastures new) and the team’s new picker Charlie Ingram. I suppose there might be some Edenites who, when they scan the sleeve, will feel a tad disappointed at so many familiar songs (there are two songs from Thin Walls’, three from ‘Much More Than Near’ and five from ‘Vinegar And Brown Paper‘). But many of these live versions leave the studio cuts for dead. There are one or two glitches – Paul Northup’s singing is gruff, gutsy and moving on most tracks but on «If I Go Up» his pitching is way out (shame, producer Dave Pick could have dumped the track – the playing time is a generous 50mins 22 sees). Also, the band’s version of the Waterboys’ «Medicine Bow», though a favourite with the crowd, doesn’t do anything for this reviewer. But overall, this is a delicious, romping delight from that opener «There Was A Time» to the engaging «Feel The Rain» closer. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, June 1993]

> iTunes (https://music.apple.com/us/album/smilingly-home-live/1453215619)

CD tracklist:

01. There Was A Time – 3:45
02. The Calling – 3:36
03. Much More Than Near – 2:59
04. Alec Murphy’s – 1:04
05. Hold The Dream – 3:14
06. Medicine Bow – 2:47
07. Jigs And Hornpipe – 1:59
08. My Senses Fly – 4:03
09. Jubilee – 3:45
10. The Place I Live – 3:41
11. If I Go Up – 3:47
12. The Reel Of Pickering Pick – 1:17
13. Working Out Tomorrow – 3:24
14. Midnight Sun – 5:06
15. Feel The Rain – 5:45

Note: Released on cassette and CD by both FFG and Storyville Records.

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