For Pence & Spice Ale
Comprised almost entirely of ancient British and Celtic folk songs, this collection is a luminous statement of the power of a cappella folk singing. The Watersons have become the best known and most forceful voices in British music because of their ability to combine high, raw vocal parts with a blinding tightness. So much history and art is contained in songs like "Swarthfell Rocks," "Swinton May Song," and "Swansea Town," that words fail. Any lover of vocal music, folk or classical, needs to hear this record.--Roy Francis Kasten