Customer Reviews
Five good reasons to like Eliza Carthy - By: Edmund, 10 Jun 2006 
1) She's part of folk royalty (if you didn't know) - her dad is Martin Carthy, her mum is Norma Waterson (both legends in their own right), her aunt & uncle are Lal & Mike Waterson & Oliver Knight is her cousin!
2) She can't half play the fiddle.
3) She has one of the most beautiful voices you'll ever hear, & she can reallly sing, I mean, reallly. I saw her live & the first song she did accapella... gobsmacking. And she's from Yorkshire! What more do you want?!
4)Her versatilty. Some of her songs are thigh-slappingly folktastic but then you get songs like Stumbling On, which is more or less jazz, or Billy Boy, which starts of sounding almost like dub reggae, goes folky & then has a Santana-ish guitar solo. And it's not just genre that changes: if Ms Capromn's Reel doesn't make you want to dance, you're daft, & then Diego's Bold Shore is guaranteed to give you shivers down your spine at the beauty of it. This album is a good introduction to the brilliantly talented Ms Carthy, & is a good starting point for people getting into folk in general as it is definately folk but not too comicallly 'hey-nonny -no', if you see what I mean.
5) Oh yeah, fifth reason: she's absolutely gorgeous.
The Definitive Collection - By: Rich Milligan, 10 Mar 2005 "Collections" type albums are always a good place to start when discovering a new artist to oneself & this excellent album featuring songs from 4 of Eliza's solo albums & offerings from Waterson-Carthy albums represents a pretty comprehensive opening into this talented artist.
What makes several of the tracks very nice is that they are medleys, & usuallly of two songs with complete opposing styles. So for example you'll get "Billy Boy" a rather plodding moody track coupled with "The Widow's Wedding" a rather more upbeat jig altogether. This is mirrored on "Greenwood Laddie" about the nearest thing folk comes to Jazz, with "Mr's Capron's Reel" a bouncing jaunty number.
I find the pacier tracks are where Eliza comes into her own & certainly this is where her fiddling skills are shown to their best. That's not to say she can't play a haunting lament ("Mother Go Make My Bed") but I just enjoy the fun in tracks like "Cold Wet & Rainy Night" & "The Light Dragoon"
If you buy & like this then I'll definitely predict you'll be after one of her studio albums soon.
