A good tribute album often can be a benefit if the subject of the tribute is relatively obscure, serving as a chance to place a figure or style squarely in a new context. While Migrating Bird itself is like many other efforts -- a mix of the quite enjoyable and the well-meant but not always successful -- as a chance to showcase British folksinger Lal Waterson, who came to prominence in the 1960s as part of her family group, the Watersons, and then performed and released irregularly on her own and with others until her ...
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A good tribute album often can be a benefit if the subject of the tribute is relatively obscure, serving as a chance to place a figure or style squarely in a new context. While Migrating Bird itself is like many other efforts -- a mix of the quite enjoyable and the well-meant but not always successful -- as a chance to showcase British folksinger Lal Waterson, who came to prominence in the 1960s as part of her family group, the Watersons, and then performed and released irregularly on her own and with others until her passing in the late '90s, it's a gentle treasure. It's also a good sampler of whatever the psych-folk scene can be called these days, ranging as it does from a near contemporary veteran of Waterson's (Vashti Bunyan, who concludes the disc with an interpretation of the title track) to Young Turks such as Alasdair Roberts, whose "The Bird" is a lovely, delicate interpretation with just voice and piano able not only to demonstrate the song's beauty but his own fine gifts. Other efforts of interest come from Victoria Williams, whose older, twang-tinged voice comes off to intriguing effect on Waterson's most well-known effort, "Red Wine and Promises," and the inimitable Michael Hurley, with his own striking singing and the gentle touch of accordion resulting in one of the album's warmest, most inviting contributions on "How Can I Leave?" Charlotte Greig matches him with a similar instrumental approach on "Her White Gown," her own resonant voice another strong standout. At its worst the disc is fair but never horrible; if songs like Nancy Elizabeth's "Cornfield" and Jeb Loy Nichols' "Stumbling On" leave little impact, they still sound pleasant and aren't a disservice to Waterson's memory. ~ Ned Raggett, Rovi
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