Kate Rusby: The Girl Who Couldn't Fly

KATE RUSBY The Girl Who Couldn't Fly Compass 4420

If you want to know how far removed we are from the days of the folk revival, ask a group of acoustic musicians to describe their own music then count the number of labels they invent to avoid saying the "F" word. A glorious holdout from this flight from fancy is Kate Rusby, who steadfastly releases old-fashioned folk albums that shimmer with inner beauty. Rusby never rubs our faces in the music; the humor embedded in "Game of Fours," for instance, is suggestive and puckish, not overt. Likewise, John McCusker's arrangement is subtle. Listen carefully and you'll hear the perfection of a plucked fiddle note here or some horns from the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band there. And who, besides Rusby, could even get away with such a pretty version of the defiant Jacobite song "Bonnie House of Arlie"? As on all Kate Rusby albums there's one cut that simply freezes you in your tracks with its sheer beauty; in this case it's her stunning cover of "You Belong to Me," a torchy chestnut written by Pee Wee King and first roasted by Jo Stafford in 1952.

There are a few departures on the new album. On "No Names" she warbles a duet with Roddy Woomble from the punk band Idlewild, whom she sufficiently tames to sing backup on two other tracks. "Wandering Soul" is catchy enough to be a pop single, and even the cover art has a story; it was drawn by the former lead guitarist of Blur, Graham Coxson. Who knows? Kate Rusby might just make it hip to be square.

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