Thirty-five-year-old singer/fiddler Eliza Carthy springs from sturdy musical stock. Her parents, Norma Waterson and Martin Carthy, can justifiably lay claim to a significant role in creating the signature sound of late 20th-century British folk. Over the course of seven solo albums, Eliza has nurtured her own modern take on her folk heritage.

Although she regularly works with her parents in the group Waterson:Carthy, Gift is, surprisingly, her first collaboration with her mother. If there's a concept behind Gift, it's the importance of family — the ties that bind and the tragedies of separation. It's a family sing-along, with contributions from cousins Oliver Knight (guitar, cello), Marry Waterson (singing), dad Martin, and old friends like Danny Thompson (bass) and Martin Simpson (banjo). Much of Gift sounds like a spontaneous, intimate exchange of songs and stories garnered from two lifetimes of musical travels.

Eliza's increasingly husky larynx curls around the Americana-flavoured "Prairie Lullaby" and the English country ballads "Pretty Grey Hawk" and "The Rose and the Lily." Norma's voice is weathered and steadfast, a commanding presence across tracks as diverse as "Poor Wayfaring Stranger," a wandering blues picked up during an American trip in the '70s, to the dignified work song "Shallow Brown." As… read more »