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Holsworthy is to be found in North Devon, where the Orchard family are now settled. Tom and Jean are both Gypsies, with a long and strong family tradition of singing, playing and stepdancing. Here, joined by their son Ashley, they bring together songs and music from a variety of sources; unconcerned with putting labels on them, more rightly choosing material which they have enjoyed within their family, and are now sharing with the rest of us. Tom and Ashley are melodeon players, with the title track being one of Tom's compositions for his instrument. Their playing is both robust and melodic, and very functional as a driver for the stepdancing at which Tom excels. It may seem strange to portray stepdancing through an audio recording, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to picture the performances!

The songs are drawn from a wide range of sources, from the Child ballads 'Dark Eyed Gypsy' and 'A Wager, A Wager' (often known as The Broomfield Wager'), to Foster and Allen numbers such as, 'Do You Remember'. Whatever the provenance, Jean's approach is to sing the material strongly and clearly. Her voice has a good range and is relatively unornamented, which gives her delivery an immediacy and intimacy.

This is a fine recording of an important strand of the tradition, and one which is worth seeking out.

The Living Tradition

Here we are privileged to hear a gypsy family singing, playing, and stepping. Introduced with a 12-page booklet with family history and photos, this CD is a charmer. Jean's singing has a fetching directness, and the two fellas play nifty melodeons. The material is both familiar and unusual.

Tom, Jean and Ashley Orchard are a Gypsy family from Devon. Tom and Ashley play melodeon, Tom stepdances and Jean sings and plays the whistle. The CD has a nice mix of songs, tunes and stepdances. Stepdancing is an interesting concept on an audio recording but like clog, Northwest Morris and rapper you can tell how good it is just by listening to the stepping. The tunes come from various sources - family favourites, pub sessions, Jimmy Shand records and folk festivals - and the songs are traditional or from Foster & Alien recordings. It is the singing that fascinates me. Jean's singing reminds me of that great gypsy singer, Phoebe Smith. Perhaps it's just a typical Romany style but whatever it is, it works for me. Jean learnt three of the traditional songs, Over Yonder's Hill, Sixteen Come Sunday and A Wager, A Wager from members of her family and the other one, Dark-Eyed Gypsy, from Chris Coe. Comprehensive sleeve notes provide a lot of background information on the Orchard family, the tunes and the songs.

Mardles

I knew that it would be a pleasure to review this CD, the latest from Veteran, and I was not wrong - after all it's traditional, what is more it's local. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to attend an Orchard Family get together or to be in the bar of the Kings Arms at South Zeal during the Dartmoor Folk Festival will probably know what I mean....but listen....this is different....there's no chatter, no approximate accompaniments and no background hubbub.... and what a difference it makes. The tracks have been well balanced - a melodeon tune from Tommy followed by a song from Jean and then a track with Tommy stepping to a hornpipe played by Ashley. Jean, who also plays the penny whistle on three tracks, sings with a confidence and strength to match the very best Gypsy ladies, full of emotion and expression but still with great clarity. Three of her songs are from her family tradition, Over Yonder's Hill, Sixteen Come Sunday and A Wager, A Wager, but then there are two that she learned from Foster and Allen recordings and The Dark Eyed Gypsy which Jean first heard sung by Chris Coe in the late 1970's. The Orchard Family have never been afraid to supplement their traditional repertoire with songs and tunes from other sources and why shouldn't they?

Tommy's style of melodeon playing is instantly recognisable as 'Gypsy' and Ashley has followed the tradition, playing with lots of umph and adding twiddley bits whenever the opportunity arises. Some of the tunes are from the family tradition, Holsworthy Fair is one of Tommy's own compositions and the Jimmy Shand and Bob Cann influences are also evident.

The CD booklet includes a fascinating Orchard Family history compiled by Jean with several photographs. There are also notes on the tunes and songs and it is now possible to access the words to the songs on the Veteran website.

What's Afoot

Veteran have produced a nice twelve page booklet (through Jean) for this CD with the history of a large part of their, very extended, Gypsy family. Based in the West Country Tom (dad), Jean (mum) and Ashley (youngest son) have started to take their music out of the family circle to new audiences. The music travels well, as it should, bearing in mind its origins and here we have sixteen of their tunes, songs and dances. Tom and Ashley play the tunes on melodeon joined occasionally by Jean on whistle. When Tom steps, Ashley is the musician and when Jean sings she might be unaccompanied or with Tom ... or with Ashley ... or with both. Good innit? It's all there, a complete pack­age, a family . .. which is what they are.

The tunes can be from anywhere. Scotland provided Bonny Dundee/The Rock & Wee Pickle Toe (a bit like The Athol Highlanders), Ireland tipped up Smash the Windows and England, The Dorsetshire Hornpipe. Tom steps to that one and it's a lively sound.

Jean has learned songs from Mum (who learned them from Gran) and Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves, in fact anywhere and everywhere, just as it should be. Her delivery is redolent of music hall and club singer and Hollywood in the 50s, a charming melange of observed styles. You wouldn't think that a 'rue dum a-day' chorus would sit well with that style, but it does. Track seven, Sixteen Come Sunday, has a chorus like that, and it just does. Maybe it works 'cause Jean is so unselfconscious, and is singing from bang in the middle of her own culture. I wish that was the way with other people today but sadly, if they pop their heads over that particular parapet, there are regiments of bystanders waiting to batter them back down. I'll Never Stop Wanting You, from the Foster and Alien stable is track ten. Not a folk song which ever way you hold it up to the light. But Jean doesn't care, it's one of her favourites, she likes it and it shows in the way she sings it, and I dare the whole 1st Reg. of Bystanders to take issue with her. A Wager, A Wager of the Broomfield Hill/Wager family, is the finisher, collected all over the UK and Europe. Firmly accompanied by Tom and Ashley in waltz time, it's a truncated version of the usual twenty seven verses but all the story is contained therein if a little hazy in parts.

The family is visiting festivals now and sharing their music whilst learning new songs and tunes. What goes around, comes around, it's a lovely process and the more it happens the easier it will be for social music to regain a foothold in society. A vain hope? I hope not.

Tykes News

Tom and Jean Orchard and their son Ashley are three members of one of the best-known West Country Gypsy families. They grew up in a musical environment and Tom and Jean formed a family band that appeared at festivals and fairs all over the country as well as meeting the musical needs of their own part of the world.

Following the tragic deaths of Tom and Jean's sons (and members of their family band) Nathan and Anthony in 2001 the family band understandably came to an end and the music stopped for a while. Ashley's learning the melodeon at last put the desire to make music back into Tom and Jean, and now the three of them perform together.

Like much of the traditional music played and sung by English Gypsies, a strong musical influence is the music of the settled rural population. In a less technological time travellers provided a large part of the seasonal labour force needed to keep farms and the rural economy going, and, of course, drank in the pubs where they were camped. Often enough local singers and musicians would be attracted to those same pubs, looking for a chance to share songs and tunes, with the inevitable result being a great deal of cross-fertilisation (in many senses of the term) - the Gypsy input into English traditional music is too frequently overlooked. Equally, English Gypsy music has, by and large little in common with the guitar and violin-based modal sound of Eastern Europe or such as the Gypsy Kings or the Keinhardt family. Yet it ain't quite the same as the settled tradition either.

"Holsworthy Fair" is a mix of dance tunes and songs. The songs are all sung by Jean, whose singing has a subtle ornamentation that slides up to notes, or pitches slightly outside the scale in a way that is distinctively Gypsy. She sings in a quiet, understated way that puts the emphasis on the song rather than the singer. There's two songs Over Yonder's Hill and Sixteen Come Sunday she learned from her grandmother, a couple of Foster and Allen numbers, a version of Dark Eyed Gypsy inspired by Chris Coe and finally the traditional A Wager, A Wager (Broomfield Hill). Some of the songs are unaccompanied, some have a tastefully simple melodeon support that serves to enhance rather than detract from the song.

Tom and son Ashley both play the melodeon, but unusually for English musicians, their chosen instruments are of the 3-row variety rather than the generally used 1 or 2-row. They sound very "Dartmoor" in a Bob Cann /Mark Bazeley sort of way, picking very strong melodies and letting the tune speak for itself. The playing is very relaxed, precise and confident and the CD's worth the price for the Mexican Tune and Tom's Gypsy Waltz alone. Jean's whistle playing joins the melodeons on some tracks.

The Orchard's dance music is very functional; it's a style that modern ceilidh-goers might find a bit old-fashioned, but the dance tunes on this CD are great and are played with lots of confidence and life and provide a lesson in playing music to dance to. The functional nature of the music is underlined by the percussive step-dancing that accompanies some of the tunes (or should that be the other way round?).

There's no fancy arrangements, huge studio budgets or screeds of famous guest musicians involved in making this CD. It has no pretence to be other than it is - an honest recording of honest music.

Shreds & Patches

Tom, Jean and Ashley are descended from an old West Country Gypsy family though they now live a more settled life in Holsworthy, North Devon (pronounced ‘Holsery’). They will be well known to any regulars at the Dartmoor Folk Festival. There is a strong family tradition of making music, singing and step dancing and an earlier generation were recorded for Topic and Folkways in the 1970s.

On the CD there are 6 songs - 3, ‘Over Yonder’s Hill, Sixteen Come Sunday and A Wager, A Wager’ from family tradition, 2, ‘Do you Remember, I’ll Never Stop Wanting You’ from the Foster and Allen stable and 1, ‘the Dark eyed Gypsy’ learned from Chris Coe in the 70s. The other 10 tracks are tunes or sets of tunes with 3 used for step dancing. Tom (dad) and Ashley (son) play melodeon on most of the tracks, Jean (Mum) sings the 6 songs and plays the penny whistle. The step dancing is performed by Tom.

If the idea of dancing to an audio recording seems strange. one only has to remember that traditionally step dancing competitions are conducted by a judge sitting underneath the farm wagon, on which the dancer performs, so that only the sound of the steps is heard. By this criterion Tom’s stepping is very good.

The tunes, which are a valuable source of performable material for any aspiring folk musician are from a variety of course - family tradition, self-composed, collected from other musicians at fairs of family gatherings and of course from old Jimmy Shand recordings.
 

A very enjoyable CD to listen to and, as usual with Veteran, the booklet is very informative on the family background and on the sources of all the songs and tunes.
 

Puddlestone

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