The Fairfield Four
Still Rockin’ My Soul
Release Date:
09 March 2015
Release Date:
09 March 2015
Dynamic, powerful and thrilling are just a few words to describe The McCrary Sisters live performances. Steeped in tight soulful harmonies, the Sisters will have the audience dancing in the aisles celebrating life with words of hope and love.
The McCrary Sisters (Ann, Deborah, Regina and Alfreda) are the daughters of the late Rev. Samuel McCrary—one of the original members of the legendary gospel quartet The Fairfield Four. The daughters were raised in harmony, singing at home and at their father’s church, but word soon spread of their individual accomplished voices and each began sharing the family vocal legacy as solo artists with a wide range of performers to include Bob Dylan, Elvis, Isaac Hayes and Stevie Wonder.
In 2011, the Sisters officially formed their own group, The McCrary Sisters, and have recorded or performed with the Black Keys, Martina McBride, Eric Church, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Jonny Lang, Robert Randolph, The Winans, Donnie McClurkin, Nashville’s Jonathan Jackson, Mike Ferris and many more. They have been featured on Bobby Jones Gospel and TBN’s Jason Crabb Show.
While working with Bob Dylan, Regina McCrary met Dr. John. In 2012, the Sisters performed with Dr. John and Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys to promote Dr. John’s Grammy award winning CD, Locked Down, which featured them as background vocalists. Most recently the group was included on Dr. John’s 2014 Concord Music release.
Performance highlights include the 2014 and 2013 Americana Music Awards backing Loretta Lynn, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, Dr. John and working with celebrity band members Don Was, Ry Cooder and Buddy Miller. The McCrary Sisters were also featured in live musical tributes to Gregg Allman, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Dr. John and Mavis Staples. Recent performances include A Salute to the Troops at the White House in Washington D.C., Sandy Beaches Cruise with Delbert Clinton and Friends, and tours in the U.K. and Scotland.
The McCrary Sisters’ new CD Let’s Go is slated for a spring 2015 release and was produced by Buddy Miller and features The Fairfield Four. The McCrary Sisters and The Fairfield Four also shared the stage during the taping of the All-Star PBS Pledge Special, Rock My Soul: A Celebration of the Gospel Quartet filmed at the Nashville Downtown Presbyterian Church. This national PBS special featured special guest artists Lee Ann Womack, Buddy Miller, Amos Lee, Lucinda Williams and Van Hunt.
The new album Let’s Go and the National PBS Pledge Special DVD Rock My Soul will join the existing 2011 CD Our Journey and 2013 CD All The Way (available though McC RECORDS/THIRTY TIGERS)
Tracklisting:
1. Let’s Go
2. That’s Enough
3. By The Mark
4. I John
5. Dr Watts
6. Fire
7. Use Me Lord
8. Don’t You Let Nobody Turn You ‘Round
9. I Am Free
10. Hold On
11. Driving Your Mama Crazy
12. I’d Rather Have Jesus
13. He Split Te Rock
14. Old Shoes
15. Hold The Wind
16. Walk In The Light
‘ROCK MY SOUL’ PBS NATIONAL PLEDGE DRIVE SPECIAL IN USA MARCH 2015 TBC
Guest artists:
Lucinda Williams
Lee Ann Womack
Van Hunt*
Amos Lee
Buddy Miller
Interview segments:
Robert Plant
Patty Griffin
Jackson Browne
Peter Guralnick – Author, Music Historian
Dom Flemons – Musician, Music Historian
Michael Gray – Museum Editor, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
John Rumble – Senior Historian, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Ann Powers – Journalist, Music Historian
Dr. Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr. – Professor of History and Dean of the School of Humanities, Fisk University
Dr. Paul T. Kwami – Musical Director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
Buddy Miller
Lucinda Williams
Van Hunt
Amos Lee
Joe Thompson,
Robert Hamlett,
Lee Olsen
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If there’s a pedigree for a modern country music star, then Angaleena Presley fits all of the criteria: a coal miner’s daughter; native of Beauty, Kentucky; a direct descendent of the original feuding McCoys; a one-time single mother; a graduate of both the school of hard knocks and college; a former cashier at both Wal-Mart and Winn-Dixie. Perhaps best of all the member of Platinum-selling Pistol Annies (with Miranda Lambert and Ashley Monroe) says she “doesn’t know how to not tell the truth.”
That truth shines through on her much-anticipated debut album, American Middle Class, which she co-produced with Jordan Powell. Yet this is not only the kind of truth that country music has always been known for—American Middle Class takes it a step further by not only being a revealing memoir of Presley’s colorful experiences but also a powerful look at contemporary rural American life. “I have lived every minute on this record. My mama ain’t none too happy about me spreading my business around but I have to do it,” Presley says. “It’s the experience of my life from birth to now.”
Yet the specificity of the album’s twelve gems only makes it more universal. While zooming in on the details of her own life, Presley exposes themes to which everyone can relate. The album explores everything from a terrible economy to unexpected pregnancies to drug abuse in tightly written songs that transcend the specific and become tales of our shared experiences. “I think a good song is one where people listen to a very personal story and think ‘That’s my story, too,’” Presley says.
Mission accomplished.
She has created a hugely resonant album, one that is simultaneously a completely new sound and also deeply entrenched in the beloved traditions of country music, much like Presley herself. Her early life in the mountains was one that taught her to respect her heritage while being invested in the future at the same time. Her parents made sure she knew Carole King and Janis Joplin as well as Ralph Stanley, Merle Haggard, and Bill Monroe. She studied the melodies and lyrics of Indigo Girls yet sometimes skipped school so she could drive over to Loretta Lynn’s home at Butcher Holler to seek inspiration.
Presley grew up in a place where the lush mountains and dignity of the people were juxtaposed against a spreading prescription pill problem and rampant unemployment. She doesn’t hold back from exploring these tough issues while also managing to have a rollicking time on the record, often combining the harder subjects with a more driving and joyous delivery but without ever sacrificing the seriousness of the topics she is cutting wide open.
Before creating this solo effort Presley meticulously crafted her own sound for years. “I have paid my dues. I’ve been through the grind, and so many people have told me no. But I kept on making music. I had to,” Presley says. “I never would compromise because I couldn’t. Part of the waiting has been my own unwillingness to follow the formula but now I feel like the formula has caught up with me. Maybe I was just ahead of my time.”
That particular sound is one that is equal parts tradition and originality on a concept album in the tradition of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger or Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love, albums that tell a succinct and powerful story through a signature sound and masterful songwriting of true artists. Presley knows how to have a big time but she is also fiercely dedicated to her music, keenly intelligent, and determined to tell her own truth.
Presley wrote five of the twelve songs by herself and her co-writers are a virtual Who’s-Who of the best songwriters in the business: Mark D. Sanders, Matraca Berg, Lori McKenna, Sarah Siskind, Bob Dipero, Barry Dean, and Luke Laird. She credits her co-producer, Jordan Powell, with assembling an enviable cast of pickers on a record that allows room for the instrumentalists to shine. Among them are Keith Gattis (who’s acoustic solo on “Life of the Party” offers a standout moment) and Audley Freed on guitars,mandolins, and dobros; Josh Grange on a beautifully grieving pedal steel; mandolins, and dobros; Fred Elrtingham keeps things rocking along on drums; Grammy winner Glenn Worff and Motown-influenced Aden Bubeck on bass (with both upright and electric bass adding sizzle to “Knocked Up”), David Henry on haunting cello and strings; and John Henry Trinko driving it all home with a wonderful job on organ and piano. To cap it all off, there are also amazing harmony vocals from standouts such as Patty Loveless, Chris Stapleton, Angie Primm, Keith Gattis, Kelly Archer, Sarah Siskind, Gale Mayes and Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls).
The honesty, the aching delivery, the picking, the beautifully crafted songs—they all come together to form an album that has been awaited with bated breath by fans and the industry alike and does not disappoint, announcing a bonafide country music star who doesn’t just have the pedigree, she also has the magic in her to transform and move her listeners.
“In this fast-paced day and age, it’s so hard for us to slow down and live in the moment,” Presley says. “I just hope my songs can be three minutes for a person to experience something in the moment, to connect, and to feel something, whether that be tragedy or joy or something in between. I want to tell the truth.”
That truth is something that listeners know when they hear it. It’s the solid truth of someone like Presley, who doesn’t just talk the talk but has walked the walk and knows what she’s talking about. That’s real country music and with American Middle ClassAngaleena Presley emerges as the clear, fierce, and joyous voice of her generation.
Tracklisting
1. Ain’t No Man
2. All I Ever Wanted
3. Grocery Store
4. American Middle Class
5. Dry Country Blues
6. Pain Pills
7. Life Of The Party
8. Knocked Up
9. Better Off Red
10. Drunk
11. Blessing And A Curse
12. Surrender
Watch: “PAIN PILLS” Official Music Video
Angaleena will be performing in London at The Borderline
30th July
Orange Yard, Manette Street, London W1D 4JB
www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/ygb3007y<http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/event/ygb3007y
31st July
CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL 2015
Info: www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk
Further dates to be announced shortly …
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Garland Jeffreys returns to the UK following his amazing, lively London show in 2014, for a run of dates in February 2015 including West Kensington, London’s venue Nell’s Jazz & Blues. Jeffrey’s will be performing tunes from his acclaimed most recent album Truth Serum. Whilst in the UK, he will also be recording the Johnnie Walker show on 22nd February
Truth Serum
Fifty years into his storied career, Garland Jeffreys is enjoying the kind of creative second wind most artists can only hope for the first time around, earning a swarm of critical accolades and experiencing his most prolific stretch in decades. ‘Truth Serum,’ his second album in two years, is a cri de cœur, a stripped-down tone poem from an artist taking his rightful and hard-earned place in the musical pantheon.
More than a dozen years had passed without an American album from Jeffreys when he came roaring back into the spotlight with 2011’s ‘The King of In Between.’ Hailed by NPR as “as good a classic roots rock record as you’re going to hear from anybody,” the record—which featured an appearance by old pal Lou Reed—earned raves from The New Yorker to USA Today and led to a performance on Letterman, as well as appearances onstage with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Levon Helm.
Written on guitar and demoed into a portable cassette player, working with the same core of musicians from ‘The King of In Between’—including Steve Jordan and Larry Campbell, along with Zev Katz, Duke Levine and Brian Mitchell.
The result is an album that stands among Jeffreys’ very finest. The record is a call to arms, a reflection on the world we live in and a vision of the world we owe it to ourselves to pursue. It’s the unvarnished declaration of a man whose time has come.
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The Fairfield Four, the most distinguished proponents of traditional African American a cappella gospel singing working today, were organised in 1921 by Reverend J.R. Carrethers, assistant pastor of the Fairfield Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. The a cappella style of the Fairfield Four was drawn from the Birmingham, Alabama quartet tradition exemplified by recording groups such as the Bessemer Sunset Four, the Birmingham Jubilee Singers, and the Famous Blue Jay Singers with lead vocalist, Silas Steele.
The Fairfield Four were among pioneers of African American gospel groups that used radio to reach broader audiences. Radio led to making records and, beginning in 1946, the Fairfield Four released sides on the Bullet, Dot, Delta, and M-G-M labels, and later on Champion, Old Town, and Nashboro. Extending themselves through the far reach of media, the Fairfield Four would influence both sacred and secular vocalists across the land, among them blues singer B.B. King. “Before I left my hometown of Indianola, Mississippi,” says King, “the Fairfield Four used to come on the radio every morning real early before we went to work. I became a great fan and, in fact, (Sam) McCrary had a lot of influence on my singing over the years, and that’s the truth.”
Today, the Fairfield Four are best known from their appearance on the soundtrack and on screen in the Coen Brothers 2000 film, O Brother Where Art Thou. They are multiple Grammy winners with albums including Standing in the Safety Zone (1992) and I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray (1997) on Warner Brothers, Wreckin’ the House (1998) on Dead Reckoning, The Fairfield Four and Friends Live from Mountain Stage (2000) on Blue Plate, and by their bass singer Isaac Freeman with the Bluebloods, Beautiful Stars (2003) on Lost Highway.
Among their awards and honours, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Heritage Award, 1989; Tennessee Lifetime Achievement Award, 1994; Nashville Music Award Lifetime Achievement Award, 1995; James Cleveland Stellar Award, 1996; Grammy Award, Best Traditional Gospel Recording, for I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray, 1997; Gospel Music Hall of Fame, inducted, 1999.
The Fairfield Four, continuing to perform a cappella, have been singularly important in revitalising and preserving the oldest style of traditional African American spiritual and gospel singing. Amazingly, the current line-up still maintains its ties to the earliest configuration of the Fairfield Four. Robert Hamlett was a key figure in the Fairfield Four’s reemergence in the 1980s and now, as an emeritus member, has been intimately involved with keeping the group in the tradition. Joe Thompson, a relative of the Fairfield Four’s founding Carrethers brothers and its current bass singer, worked with Reverend Sam McCrary’s Fairfield Four throughout the 1950s. –Jerry Zolten
The current members of the Fairfield Four are Joe Thompson, Levert Allison, Larrice Byrd, Sr., and Bobbye Sherrell. Their soulful voices combine into a rich harmony that’s as soothing as a cool breeze on a hot summer day.
Tracklisting:
1. Rock My Soul
2. Come On In This House
3. Baptism of Jesus
4. Children Go Where I Send Thee
5. Jesus Gave Me Water
6. I Love The Lord, He Heard My Cry
7. My Rock
8. I’ve Got Jesus, That’s Enough
9. Don’t You Let Nobody Turn You Around
10. Highway to Heaven
11. I Love the Lord, He Heard My Cry (Reprise)
Producers: Larrice Byrd, Lee Olsen
‘ROCK MY SOUL’ PBS NATIONAL PLEDGE DRIVE SPECIAL
The release of the album will be accompanied by a US PBS TV special airing in the States in March, which celebrates the rich musical legacy of the black gospel quartet featuring The McCrary Sisters and The Fairfield Four in concert with special guests, plus contextual interviews with artists and historians.
Guest artists:
Lucinda Williams
Lee Ann Womack
Van Hunt
Amos Lee
Buddy Miller
Interview segments:
Robert Plant
Patty Griffin
Jackson Browne
Peter Guralnick – Author, Music Historian
Dom Flemons – Musician, Music Historian
Michael Gray – Museum Editor, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
John Rumble – Senior Historian, Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Ann Powers – Journalist, Music Historian
Dr. Reavis L. Mitchell, Jr. – Professor of History and Dean of the School of Humanities, Fisk University
Dr. Paul T. Kwami – Musical Director of the Fisk Jubilee Singers
Buddy Miller
Lucinda Williams
Van Hunt
Amos Lee
Joe Thompson, FF4
Robert Hamlett, FF4
Lee Olsen, Keith Case & Associates
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YouTube
Both artists are currently known for their contributions to the indie folk rock landscape. The recordings are, in many cases, defined by bare instrumentation, driven by a simple yet bold vocal delivery, the depth of feeling complimenting that of the subject matter. This album is an obvious labour of love; a comment based on the genuine reverence which Avett and Mayfield clearly hold for Smith. At times, the songs feel light as a feather, while in others, thematically leaden with heartache, they are given a deep breath, a different dimension, a new colour. In modern fashion, melodies intensely whispered by Elliott Smith are sung in a harmonious way, akin to the folk aesthetic of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
THE MEDIA PICK UP
Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/seth-avett-jessica-lea-mayfield-prep-elliott-smith-covers-album-20150107
Consequence of Sound: http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/01/the-avett-brothers-seth-avett-and-jessica-lea-mayfield-announce-elliott-smith-tribute-album/
American Songwriter: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2015/01/seth-avett-jessica-lea-mayfield-announce-elliott-smith-cover-album/
Diffuser.fm: http://diffuser.fm/seth-avett-jessica-lea-mayfield-cover-elliott-smith/
American Songwriter:
http://on.aol.com/video/seth-avett–jessica-lea-mayfield-prep-elliott-smith-covers-album-518588489:
If you want to go behind-the-scenes, watch this video:
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Jessica Lea Mayfield’s Twitter
The Avett Brothers’ Twitter
Apparently the Renaissance Faire community also needs a holiday album of its own, so here it is. The titillating ensemble name notwithstanding, this batch of time-tested Western European carols, most in English, a couple in standard Latin, others in Middle English and Medieval Latin just for fun. The sextet is supplemented on several songs by additional female voices, creating a light, effervescent vocal experience.
The Baebes have recorded a hauntingly beautiful version of Auld Lang Syne.
This single adds another glorious track to their festive repertoire and celebrates the USA/Canadian launch Of Kings & Angels and the highly sort after green vinyl version of the album. The lead vocal is taken by Sophie Ramsay, the latest addition to the Mediaeval Baebes line up, who hails from Scotland and therefore has chosen to sing the original old scotch lyrics as penned by Robert Burns. In keeping with the nostalgic message of the song The Mediaeval Baebes have chosen the most authentic version of the song in keeping with the lyrics and with Katherine Blake’s brilliant production skills, have come up with a sparse yet powerful and true rendition of the classic Auld Lang Syne to be released digitally worldwide on December 12th.
Auld Lang Syne is an old Scots song. The words were written by the poet Robert Burns in 1788, though the phrase ‘auld lang syne’, meaning ‘old long since’ is also found in older folk songs. It is a song is about nostalgia, reflecting on old friendships and love, raising a cup in memory. For this reason, it is a popular favourite all over the world at New Year. Auld Lang Syne is set to two different tunes. We sing the lesser-known, which is said to have been Burns’ preferred version, while his editor preferred the one that became famous. The better-known version feels appropriate in a rowdy pub, but the other is subtler, more reflective and perhaps more expressive of song’s meaning. I first heard this tune from the singing of Gill Bowman. Below are the lyrics we sing (leaving out one of the original verses).
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Watch: A live performance of “Auld Lang Syne”
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Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?
CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
And surely you’ll buy your pint cup!
and surely I’ll buy mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine†;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
CHORUS
And there’s a hand my trusty friend!
And give me a hand o’ thine!
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.
CHORUS
St Paul & the Broken Bones
Tiny Desk Concert: NPR
Set list:
– Half The City
– Call Me
– Broken Bones and Pocket Change
2015 March Tour
– 09/03/15 – Paradiso Noord, Amsterdam, NDL
– 10/03/15 – Botanique, Brussels, BEL
– 12/03/15 – Transbordeur Club, Lyon, FRA
– 13/03/15 – Coopérative de mai, Clermont-Ferrand, FRA
– 15/03/15 – Bikini, Barcelona, SPA
– 16/03/15 – Teatro Barcelo, Madrid, SPA
– 18/03/15 – La Paloma, Nîmes, FRA
– 19/03/15 – La Sirène, La Rochelle, FRA
– 21/03/15 – Theater Aan Het Vrijthof, Maastricht, NDL
– 22/03/15 – Ampere, Munich, GER
– 23/03/15 – Kaufleuten, Zurich, SWI
– 25/03/15 – La Belle Electrique, Grenoble, FRA
– 26/03/15 – La Cartonnerie, Reims, FRA
– 27/03/15 – La Maroquinerie, Paris, FRA
– 28/03/15 – Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, UK
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The Mediaeval Baebes are launching Of Kings and Angels and two other albums in the USA via Thirty Tigers in the US with a States side tour in December.
In the UK the Baebes will put on a Christmas Carols Show on November 24th at Bush Hall and release Of Kings and Angels on GREEN VINYL on the 24th November 2014
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1. I Saw Three Ships
2. We Three Kings
3. The Holly And The Ivy
4. Ther Is No Rose of Swych Vertu
5. Ding Dong Merrily On High
6. The Angel Gabriel
7. In The Bleak Midwinter
8. Good King Wenceslas
9. Gaudete
10. Once In A Royal David’s City
11. Veni Veni Emmanuel
12. Away In A Manger
13. In Dulci Jubilo
14. The Coventry Carol
15. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
16. Silent Night
17. Corpus Christi Carol
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24th November Bush Hall – London
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2nd December The Lyric Theatre – Stuart, FL
3rd December Duncan Theater at Palm Beach State College – Lake Worth, FL
5th December University of Florida Performing Arts Center – Gainesville, FL
6th December David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts – Tampa, FL
8th December University of Mississippi Artist Series – Oxford, MS
10th December Walton Arts Center – Fayetteville, AR
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Winter wonderland meets arabesque mysticism on the Mediaeval Baebes’ new CD Of Kings & Angels (A Christmas Carol Collection), which will be released in the US in October 2014, after rocketing to the top of the UK classical charts last year. The vocal quintet known for their angelic voices, innovative arrangements and poetic beauty re-imagines classic carols as they may have been heard on a snowy Christmas in 13th century England or on the balmy Middle Eastern night of Jesus’s birth.
Fans of Christmas tunes and early music aficionados alike will be enchanted by the Baebes’ sophisticated takes on 17 carols including The Good King Wenceslas, Ding Dong Merrily on High, We Three Kings, Away in a Manger, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Silent Night, The Holly and the Ivy, and many more. In highly imaginative arrangements penned primarily by Baebes founder Katharine Blake, ancient lyres, viola da gambas and recorders join more exotic folk instruments like hurdy gurdy and musical saw to bring an ethereal quality to beloved carols. Earthly roots stretch up to the heavens, where it all began, offering a graceful antidote to the commercial frenzy of the modern holiday season.
The Times in UK praised the “come-hither lilts from the Baebes,” and called the album “simply too appealing to resist.” The Sun said, “The simple, medieval inspired arrangements return Christmas to its traditional roots.” Uncut wrote that the “spartan recital of Corpus Christi Carol really does elicit goosebumps on the neck.”
The Mediaevel Baebes’ special brand of holiday magic will figure prominently in their December US tour, the first organized by IMG for the Baebes.
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Beautiful and bedazzling, magical and mysterious, the Mediaeval Baebes will seduce you with their interpretation of mediaeval music and poetry, and transport you to an enchanting world very far from our own. They sing in an impressive array of languages ranging from Latin, Middle English, Mediaeval French, Italian, and German to the more quaint and obscure Cornish and Mediaeval Welsh. In addition to their repertoire of traditional mediaeval songs, the Mediaeval Babes also take texts from the period and set them to their own compositions, often branded with the group’s inimitable and sometimes dark sense of humor. From moving tales of unrequited love, musings on humankinds vanity and morality and chilling stories of the darker side of faerieland, to humorous accounts of alcohol induced misadventures, the Mediaeval Baebes bring vividly to life the preoccupations of mediaeval times.