Penguin Eggs, Patrick Langston Not tempted by a love song about a bonnie wee lass? Jump a couple of tracks and you'll find another tune about a comely gal, but this one a murder ballad. If that's not to your taste, Scotland-born, Canada-dwelling (for 42 years now) Enoch Kent will sing to you about bawdy interludes, children's games from decades ago or cremation. As long as the story rivets and carries an air of traditionalism -even if he's written the thing himself - he'll perform it. And by the time he's done performing, he's made the song so totally his own that subsequent interpreters are left seriously considering a career change. Born into a working class Glasgow family, Kent is a smoky-voiced vocalist with not a retiring bone in his body. His work is pure delight, an infectious blend of knowing humour and deep compassion, and the world would be a better place with more Enoch Kents in it. NOW Magazine, Bryan Borzykowski - Rating: NNNN Glasgow-born Enoch Kent has been playing traditional Scottish music for more than 40 years. His authentic sounds have made him one of Canada’s most sought-after purveyors of Scottish music, so it’s likely more than a few folks here and overseas will be excited by his new disc, One More Round. The album consists mostly of traditional tunes like Itches In Me Britches and Harlaw, and the few originals – Children’s Games and The Dancing Fool – still have that old-timey sound. Minimalist arrangements and warm vocal sounds make this disc perfect for that Scottish wannabe in your family. Montreal Gazette, Mike Regenstreif - Rating: 4 Star On his fifth album in six years, after a recording layoff of more than three decades, Kent continues to mesmerize as one of the great masters of traditional Scottish folk singing. **** Alberta Local News, Donald Teplyske It may well be a lingering genetic connection to my faint Celtic roots, but of late I've found myself enamoured with the folk music of the British Isles. Folks such as Nic Jones, Dick Gaughan, Mary Kathleen Burke, and Jackie Leven are finding themselves on my stereo with some regularity. And now, Enoch Kent.Forty-two years in Canada has not thinned the soup that is Enoch Kent’s rich Scottish brogue. It’s a delightful sound to acquaint oneself, and keen listeners will soon fall under his rhythmic spell. A contemporary of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, this collection of tales, ballads, and love songs features traditional music depicting 15th Century battles (Harlaw), bawdy humour (Supper is na Ready), songs likely older than written language (The Butcher Boy), warm remembrances of childhood (The Dancing Fool) and observances of how some childhoods have changed (Children's' Games). Kent’s singing voice is a pleasure to hear, and on most of these sixteen tracks he is ably supported by Pat Simmonds and Kelly Hood on a variety of uilleann and Scottish small pipes, whistles, accordions, guitars, and fiddles. Beautiful, if you ken whit ah mean. ========================================================================================================================== The Toronto Star, Greg Quill Having tapped successfully into the international Celtic folk market with two outstanding collections of traditional and original songs -- I'm A Workin' Chap and Songs of Love, Lust & Loathing -- this remarkably resilient Scottish expatriate, a veteran of the British folk revival of the 1960s who set out again on his quiet and contemplative musical trail after an absence of more than 20 years, has surpassed all expectations with a stunningly beautiful third recording in less than two years. For The Women, produced by Toronto singer-songwriter Tim Harrison and embellished sparsely and elegantly by guitarist Ian Bell, flautist Shelley Brown and fiddler Anne Lindsay, is an affectionate exploration in 16 parts of the feminine mystique, and a declaration of male astonishment at the courage and generosity of women, culled from Kent's apparently limitless store of Scottish folk music and spoken word gems (Sheena Wellington's "The Women O' Dundee", "The Poor Pitman's Wife", "Green Grow The Rashes", "Billy Taylor", "The Tyne Boatman", Sheila Douglas's "Monday Nicht") and contemporary pieces (most notably "Sewing Machines", Toronto singer/songwriter/satirist Nancy White's paean to immigrant workers in the Spadina textile mills). Kent's gift is his unique ability to communicate powerful ideas and complex emotions with a smoky whisper and a minimum of fuss (his richly rolled "r"s and profound Scottish burr notwithstanding). He is a folk artist of the finest order, a riveting performer and a compelling yarn spinner, whose rediscovery of his artistic roots is a potent and enriching experience for all who listen. Penguin Eggs, Solon McDade With his third recording in recent years, singer/songwriter Enoch Kent has put together a wonderful repertoire of material dedicated to the lives and loves of women. For The Women is a fine blend of traditional and contemporary songs mostly arranged by Kent. For this recording he has assembled a cast of talented musicians (Ian Bell, Shelley Brown, Anne Lindsay) to support his dark lilting voice as he weaves wonderful stories of love, war and the trials of of women workers in the last two centuries. As with his previous recordings I'm A Workin' Chap and Love, Lust & Loathing, Kent and company create a warm ambiance that captivates the listener quickly. Songs such as "Come Me Little Son" and Kent's own "Standing There" stand out for their arrangements and great performance, but it is his solo a capella singing on the CD that most clearly communicate to the listener the talent and charms that make Kent a national treasure in both his native Scotland and his home, Canada. Sing Out, Mike Regenstreif Enoch Kent made his early mark as a folk singer in his native Scotland, then in London as a contemporary of Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in the Singers Club. Almost four decades ago, he moved to Toronto and continued performing, mostly at local clubs and festivals, while working in the advertising business. However, performing was strictly an avocation and - save for a track on a Mariposa Folk Festival live LP in the mid-1970s - he refrained from recording during this period. Kent retired from the business world several years ago and returned to the recording studio for the first time in 36 years in 2002 to make I'm A Workin' Chap, a magnificent collection of traditional and contemporary songs written in traditional styles. He quickly followed it with the equally magnificent Songs of Love, Lust & Loathing and completes the hat trick with this compelling collection of songs centering on women's lives. Among the most beautiful songs on the album are MacColl's "Come Me Little Son" in which the song's narrator is a mother explaining to her young son why the child's father is working far away from home, and Robert Burns' "Green Grow The Rashes", a tribute to all womankind. Among the most moving songs are "The Testimony of Patience Kershaw", which puts into verse the 1842 testimony to a British government commission of a 17-year old girl working long hours in a coal mine, Nancy White's "Sewing Machines", about an immigrant woman working in a Toronto sweat shop, and Kent's own "Standing There", a deeply felt love song written late-in-life to a life-long love. Kent accompanies his expressive voice on the guitar with subtle, but effective support from Ian Bell on guitar and accordion, Shelley Brown on flute and Anne Lindsay on fiddle. ========================================================================================================================== The Toronto Star, Greg Quill After two decades of silence, Scottish emigre and British Isles folk music legend Kent, fit and feisty in what are supposed to be his pension years, comes roaring out of producer Tim Harrison's east-end Toronto studio with his second album in little more than a year. This is another rich collection of traditional pieces - some drawn from the singing of homeland folk heroes Ewan MacColl and Paul Lenihan - a Nancy Nicolson feminist masterpiece ("They Sent A Wumman") and a couple of luminous originals ("Stanley's Song For The Women", "My Mother's Sewing Machine") that draw from the deep well of Kent's experience as a ribald troubadour, seductive yarn spinner, social critic and committed proletarian party boy. With sparse and eloquent help on guitar from Ian Bell and Harrison, on fiddle from fellow Glaswegian Lawrence Stevenson and on flute from Shelley Brown, Kent's soft, burred voice is a magic instrument, roundly expressive, intuitively musical in the truest sense, and astoundingly fresh. A wonderful follow-up to last year's "I'm A Workin' Chap". "Songs of Love, Lust & Loathing" is a treasure. Sing Out, Rich Warren Enoch Kent embodies the epitome of the fusion of Irish-Scots-English traditional music with contemporary songwriting. This second CD for Toronto's Second Avenue label skillfully combines the tradition with the contemporary. Sometimes he sings the trads straight as he learned them; others he polishes and embellishes, leaving them the better for his wisdom. He sings three originals set to traditional melodies and there's a Robert Burns song for good measure, and one by Nancy Nicolson. Kent's voice resembles highly polished titanium, never shiny, but deep, rich and burnished. Its deep patina wraps each song in a powerful authenticity. He performs several songs a cappella, some accompanying himself on the guitar and a few with light accompaniment. Picking outstanding performances on this CD presents the same challenge of choosing just a few chocolates from a Godiva assortment. Fortunately, this is a CD, or I would have already have worn out the grooves on Kent's interpretation of Burns' "Mary Morison". Then there's his unique twist singing his own collection of lyrics of "The Lichtbob's Lassie" to the tune of "I Know Where I'm Going" which mostly parallels "Katy Cruel". "Stanley's Song for the Women" is as strong of a feminist statement as written by an woman. Nicolson's "They Sent A Wumman" continues that thread. Kent borrows the tune for "A Man's A Man" to combine an ode to his mother and her sewing machine with an angry indictment of the Singer Company which ceased manufacturing sewing machines in the 1980s to concentrate on weapons of war. If you like trendy cocktails filled with sugar and froth, perhaps Kent won't appeal to you. If you're a connoisseur of single malt scotch or good cognac, you needn't let Kent age any further. His music is ready for moving the soul and enjoyment now. ========================================================================================================================== -- Bruce Baker, Dirty Linen Enoch Kent is a singer and a crafter of songs in the fine old mold of Ewan MacColl, and Kent's broad, smoky, powerful voice is every bit the equal of MacColl's. Kent learned his songs in Glasgow, though he now lives in Canada. To give a flavour of his songwriting, it is only necessary to point out that he is the author of "The Farm Auction". A strong streak of old-fashioned Clydeside socialism runs through Kent's songs, expressed powerfully yet elegantly in "A Drunk Man Looks at the Weavin' ", and "My Father's Cause". The traditional ballads and muckle sangs are an important part of Kent's repertoire as well, and Burns also has his tune here. Any lover of songs needs to find a handy place on the shelf for this fine recording -- Mike Regenstreif, Sing Out! Enoch Kent has a long history as a performing folk singer. First in his native Scotland, and in England, where he was a founding member, with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, of the Singers Club, and, since the 1970s, in Canada. On this quietly powerful and very compelling CD, Kent performs traditional songs and a variety of contemporary songs, including some of his own, which are steeped in the Scottish tradition. Kent opens with the title track, his adaptation of a traditional song that he found in a book. In this song, Kent strongly identifies himself as a man who is well aware of the struggles that generations of working class people have faced. Struggles that will come up in other songs dealing with farmers facing bankruptcy, Atlantic fishermen facing depleted cod banks, and a lifelong idealist trying to make sense of inequity, terrorism and government war machines. There are also some stunning love songs on this album. In "Tales of a Favourite Lass", Kent creates a beautiful new song from Gerry Hallom's setting of "The Outside Track", a poem by Henry Lawson, the great Australian poet of a century ago. Kent uses some of Lawson's chorus in his story about old men remembering young loves. In "I'll Lay Ye Doon, Love", Kent is a rambler promising to return to the woman he loves. "Green Eyes" weds a gorgeous fiddle tune that Garnet Rogers wrote for his wife to equally gorgeous lyrics that Kent wrote for his. Kent occasionally sings a cappella. His interpretation of Ewan MacColl's "Jamie Foyers", about a hero who died fighting fascism in the Spanish Civil War is riveting. Throughout most of the album, he plays guitar and also receives occasional backup from Ian Bell, Tim Harrison, Shelly Brown, Lawrence Stevenson and Tam Kearney. -- Greg Quill, The Toronto Star, Sept 12, 2002 Enoch Kent's Scots folk reborn in powerful new album "A bit of a break" is the way veteran Scottish folksinger Enoch Kent describes his 30-year absence from the recording studio. "I was waiting for a reason to make a record", says the 70-year old singer and songwriter, founding member in the 1950s and early 60s of folk revivalist stalwarts The Reivers in his native Glasgow, and then The Exiles in London. Kent was one of the original members - along with legendary songwriters, song collectors and stoic socialists Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger - of The Singers Club (also known as The Critics Group) in London during protest music's first flowering. He immigrated to Canada in the late 1960s and earned his living as a schoolteacher, then a graphic designer in the advertising trade, but never stopped writing, never stopped playing guitar, never stopped singing for himself in his Etobicoke home. If it hadn't been for a handful of people (Toronto folk enthusiasts, fiddler Lawrence Stevenson, songwriter/producer Tim Harrison and guitarist/producer Ian Bell) badgering me to get some songs onto a record, I'd probably not have done it", Kent explains in a rich and raspy, full-throated Glasgow burr. "I kept asking them, 'what's the point?' He's talking about "I'm A Workin' Chap", a collection of 15 powerful, evocative and quite beautifully performed ballads - some from the traditional Scottish repertoire, most of them originals, or original lyrics paired with ancient folk airs, all of them squarely in the Extreme Folk mold, but far from mouldy - which has just been released on Harrison's Second Avenue label. The event will be celebrated Sunday night at a concert featuring Kent, presented by the Flying Cloud Folk Club at the Tranzac Club. The album is an instant classic, an all-but-flawless exercise in folk art and craft, combining perspective, brave and often provocative lyrics - Kent's political faith is as strong as his love of a wry and ribald ditty - with graceful melodies, sparsely embellished with guitar arpeggios, some fiddle and flute, and a seasoned singer's unwavering commitment to conveying the full meaning of what he knows are songs of the very highest quality. Now retired, and a good 20 years after he last performed at the Mariposa Folk Festival - where he used to be one of fabled programmer Estelle Klein's regulars - Kent has recently rediscovered the joys of public performance. Earlier this year he was invited to sing at the Edinburg Festival, where he was welcomed at half-a-dozen performances by admiring young fans, many of them singers and writers inspired by Kent's own early work. "I was astonished that they knew me at all, but when they started quoting songs and singing bits and pieces of The Exiles' repertoire... weel, who'd have thought? And what they're singing and writing about are the same things we were doing, back in the CND (Committee for Nuclear Disarmament) and anti-apartheid marches, when they called us pinkos and commies - big things, big ideas about political and social systems and war and greed, the stuff that can change the way people think. "Maybe they were the children or the grandchildren of the people back home I used to know ..." His wellspring is still the stories of the working people and hard-minded ideals of the hometown Kent says he occasionally visits, "but not often enough". In one song, "My Father's Cause", he laments not being able in the new millenium to explain to his grandchildren the reasons for acts of terrorism and of the murderous retribution of the wealthy and powerful. "At our kitchen table, my father would always find a way to help us see why these terrible things happened and how they could be avoided", Kent says, his voice breaking ever so slightly. "I have to tell the kids, I have no idea, I do not know... "It's a different world, but the same things still make my blood boil. When I read in the newspaper that the Singer company, which made the sewing machine my mother made all our clothes on, was now making guidance systems for nuclear weapons, it drove me to distraction... I had to write a song". The same thing happened when, a few years ago, Kent witnessed the sad finality of a bank-enforced farm auction. The song tells of that experience, "The Farm Auction", has been recorded by half-a-dozen other artists - never till now by Kent himself - and is well established in the traditional song repertoire. "People pass it along as if it were a folk song, as if it was always there", Kent chuckles. "That makes me so proud... knowing that there's something out there, something I made, that someone else finds useful". -- Roddy Campbell, Penguin Eggs, Winter 2002 The Exile's Return "Bob Dylan was a charming wee boy", says Enoch Kent as he reminisces about his career and most recent recording, "I'm A Workin' Chap" - his first in 36 years. Roddy Campbell starts the tape recorder rolling and stands back. He could talk the limbs off a lion, that Enoch Kent. Introductions barely out of the way and he veers off on a million wonderful tangents, returning only when prodded to a career that began at the very outset of the British folk revival. His colleagues then included Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger. And Kent would share songs with a young Bob Dylan. Recently though, he recorded "I'm A Workin' Chap", his first disc in 36 years. Deceptive in its simplicity, Kent's writing retains heartwarming morals - a legacy of a Scottish working class upbringing in a family renowned for its left wing politics (his sister Janie married long-time British Labour MP, Norman Buchan, and author of several renowned Scottish folk songs including The Shipyard Apprentice). Now 70 years old, Kent has lived in Ontario since immigrating to Toronto in 1966. And while Canada inspired such songs as No More Cod On The Banks, and The Farm Auction, there are also profound international issues raised on the Widows of War and My Father's Cause, with its smoldering opening verse: Farewell tae my father's ancient cause that all men might be free And revolution bring the laws and the worker's dignity An' then he died and he left tae me a world I cannae explain Where men plant bombs near children's cots and leave them dead or maimed. "Every song I write, there is no cure in it", says Kent. "All I am asking for is somebody to have another look, please. I mean there are some great songs that say: "Join the union while you may, don't wait 'till your dying day' [Blackleg Miner]. Now that's a directive. I don't have directives because I don't have cures... All I can do is write a song. But it is not all revolutionary and it is not all bold face. Some of the songs I write are quite funny". A Drunk Man Looks At The Weavin' on the new disc certainly applies. His best known song, surely, is The Farm Auction. Garnet Rogers, Jean Redpath and The McCalmans are among those who have covered it. It was inspired by a first-hand experience newly after arriving from Scotland. "A woman my wife worked with invited us to what she said was a sale fairly near Caledon, north of Toronto. When we got there, there was a wee bit of a drizzle coming down and they had lovely furniture out on the lawn and nobody was taking it back into the house. This surprised me. There was an uncaringness about it. I thought, 'My God, this must be valuable to these people'. And I happened to look up at a window and there was a woman and a girl. When I looked at them, they stood back as if they were ashamed. I felt ashamed too. I felt a regret and disappointment in myself and I'm tagging along because I don't know the rules. Or maybe that's my excuse now that I know the rules. So when the song came I wrote as if I was a member of the family, an equal". "I'm A Workin' Chap" would probably never have seen the light of day if it were not for Toronto-based, Glasgow-born fiddler Lawrence Stevenson, singer-songwriter and producer, Tim Harrison, and his publicist partner, Lisa Weitz. Stevenson and Kent took an initial stab at making a record but it didn't really work out. And then Harrison made him an offer he couldn't refuse. "Tim said, 'Would you like to record at my place?'. I said, 'Where's your place'? 'At my house'. So I recorded at his house. It was wonderful. The best place to sing is in somebody else's kitchen. You're not going to get any critics. You're not going to get any standing ovations. It's going to be equalization. So, I had a great time doing it and I felt like I was singing at home". Enoch Kent grew up in Glasgow and learnt to sing in his parents' kitchen accompanied on occasions by his father's concertina. On leaving school, he studied ceramics and sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art, became a teacher before working for a printing company. Along with the likes of Josh MacRae, who wrote "Messing About On The River", he formed The Reivers - the first group to play traditional Scottish folk songs on national television. Kent's employers, however, moved him to London. There he eventually opened his own art studio and sang arond town at nights with Bobby Campbell and Gordon McCulloch under the banner of The Exiles. And drank a fair amount. They would record two splendid LPs for Topic Records. On his rounds he met up with Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger and A.L. Lloyd and together they would form what became known as the Singers Club. "MacColl knew my family from left wing associations. He liked the way I sang and what I was singing and we clicked right away. I met Peggy in Glasgow before that and I'd known Lloyd a wee bit. I really liked him. Joe Heaney was the Irish branch of all this. Nobody knew Joe. He was kind of a mysterious guy, but he was a lovely man. So Ewan came up with this idea of a Singer's Club and we went around London looking for a pub that had an upstairs room that we could sing in. Ewan was right when he said the pub is essential because the pub is the last place of communion where you don't have religion involved. I thought that was very deep at the time and I still do". The pub they eventually found was the Pinder of Wakefield, which became a pivotal venue in the development of the British folk revival. Numerous travelling American blues and folk singers including Big Bill Broonzy, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan all showed up there. "I gave Bob Dylan a couple of songs. He was charming wee boy. He wasn't the usual American college boy singer. I remember he sang John Birch Society Blues. I thought, 'This guy's got it; he's one of us'. His pal had just died in a motorcycle accident, Dick Farina. Mimi [Farina] was there. So they were all kind of free moving. Vietnam hadn't started yet, but there was a movement saying they weren't happy with what they were getting in America". After six years in London, and now married, Kent and his wife immigrated to Canada, largely for financial reasons. In Toronto, he quickly established himself in the world of advertising. A personal tragedy, however, temporarily put an end to his singing. His wife lost a child soon after birth and it drove Kent into a severe depression. It took fellow Scot, Tam Kearney - a co-founder of the Friends of Fiddlers Green Folk Club in Toronto - to get him back on track. "I'm sitting there waiting to go to a movie in the big mall in Yorkdale. And this fat guy comes up and says, 'Are you Enoch Kent?' (feigns a gruff Glasgow accent). 'Yeah I am'. 'How come you are not singing?' 'I don't really feel like singing right now'. 'Well, you're singing in our club in two weeks. It's called Fiddler's Green. Are you in the phone book'? 'Aye'. 'I'll phone you, then'. He is the guy that started me singing again. I will owe him for that. I always mention it whenever I can. If it wasn't for Lawrence Stevenson I wouldn't be doing all this. If it wasn't for Tim it wouldn't have been done. And if it wasn't for Lisa you wouldn't have known about me. So all these people, they work to look after me, and I really like them for doing that". ============== Green Man Review ============= Kevin's Celtic/Folk Music CD Reviews © Site Designed and Created By CBS Group Inc