Enoch Kent
Songs Of Love, Lust & Loathing
Second Avenue(2003)
www.enochkent.ca

Back in the 50s and 60s, Glasgovegian Enoch Kent sang traditional music in the United Kingdom, most notably with The Reivers and The Exiles. Later he moved to Canada and has recently commenced to blossom forth with solo traditional albums. Last year he released I'm A Working Chap http://www.greenmanreview.com/CD/cd_ImaWorkingChap.html and you might want to read my review of that as well. This album too is a rather unadorned acoustic album of mostly traditional Scots music. Enoch has set several of his own verses to traditional (or his own) tunes, and one song is a "cover."

Love, Lust & Loathing is about women. It's amazing that more men don't record entire albums about women, as we are such enchanting creatures! Enoch has a great attitude! The most interesting are actually ones he's written himself, as they have more bite. (This is not my typical opinion of self-authored songs...) Standing out especially is his "Stanley's Song For Women" which bluntly enumerates injustices have commonly been done to women but not to men. For example:I wasn't drowned in the Yangtze's muddy stinking swirl
For being born without a penis, just being born a girl.
A more traditional style composition is "Edinburgh Maggie," set to the tune of "Johnny Cope," (which for some reason I didn't recognize!), written from a cute pub tale about a woman hung for concealing an illegitimate pregnancy...Hauf hangit Maggie, they called her. "My Mother's Sewing Machine" is an antiwar song about The Singer Co." While reading the liner notes, I noticed the wry "cover" tune, written by Nancy Nicholson, called "They Sent a Wumman. The ironic equality lyrics are great, but I bet I played the CD 20 times without noticing the song!

The traditional songs are lighter. My favorite is the Irish "Francis Street" telling the oft-told tale of the drunken sailor who woke in the morning to find even his clothes stolen...by a woman, of course. The also Irish "Nell Flaherty's Drake" is about a murdered duck, and reminds me of Andy Irvine's unrecorded? "The Man Who Shot the Dog." Recognizable Scots songs include a nice "The Lichtbob's Lassie" and a matter-of-fact "The Three Gypsies."

Enoch's voice continues to be crusty but melodic, with r's that roll so hard that I've wondered if we've rolled to Mother Finland. Wow! He plays guitar as well on most tracks with some help from the Second Avenue band's flute and fiddle. The arrangements are fairly subtle and support the singer. Actually I had to go back and listen again to even notice them, but that's OK, because Enoch is the focus here...sort of like de facto a capella.

gennett at gorge dot net

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