Jon Boden & The Remnant Kings
Parlour songs were the sentimental – often outright maudlin – ballads so beloved in Victorian times, when most families with enough money had a piano and at least one person who knew how to play it. They were more wholesome than music hall songs, the PG-rated pop of their times, and the sheet music sold like hotcakes in a pre-recording era.
Boden, probably still best known as the frontman of Bellowhead, wanted to explore the area where folk songs and parlour ballads meet in an album that gives him chance to play more piano. So far, so good, but in the end, while he and his band give the material a lush treatment, very little of it has actually come out of the parlour. What we’re hearing, mostly, are folk songs, like the opener “On One April Morning,” which was collected in 1908. It’s a lovely, heartfelt version, in the style of a parlour ballad, but bringing a very different history.
Only a couple of the pieces here really qualify as proper parlour ballads. The others have their origins in folk, music hall, poems by John Clare and Kipling, and further afield. It says a great deal for Boden’s vision that he more or less unites them into a credible whole. He certainly has the voice for this, with plenty of drama (and melodrama), and a strong sense of dynamics he can bring to bear very effectively on the uplifting, hymn-like song “Merry Mountain Child.”
Several of the pieces here are well known, like “Rose Of Allendale” with a glorious singalong chorus, popularised by the Copper Family, but originally a real parlour song, or “Bonny Bunch Of Roses,” recorded by so many people. Ultimately, perhaps, the source doesn’t matter, and Boden is scrupulous about naming them all. What counts is the end result, and that’s a satisfying collection of music from Boden and the Remnant Kings. Sentimental, but enjoyable.
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