A New Song by Anne Briggs.

The latest issue of Uncut magazine arrived here on Thursday. I don’t usually buy music mags these days, the last time I bought this magazine was a couple of years ago when they had a Nick Drake special issue with a free CD of cover versions of Nick’s songs. What made me buy this latest edition was because it contained a free CD called Deep Roots, A Celebration Of Topic Records. What really got my interest is that it said it contained a previously unreleased song by Anne Briggs. I needed to hear this song!. I knew that Anne hadn’t been anywhere near a recording studio for about 50 years, so where did this song come from I wondered. As soon as I got my hands on the CD I put it in the music machine. Topic Records is one of the oldest independent record labels in the world which is celebrating its 85^th birthday this year. This CD contains some wonderful folk music by the likes of Richard Thompson, Martin Carthy, June Tabor, Nic Jones, Norma Waterson, Shirley Collins, Martin Simpson, and many more. 

To my ears though it is Anne who effortlessly steals the show with her version of The Cruel Mother. This song is a traditional English murder ballad which has been a popular folk song since the middle ages. It has been recorded previously by the likes of Judy Collins, Ewan McColl, Joan Baez, Steeleye Span, and Bonnie Dobson. Anne’s recording was apparently found on a reel-to-reel tape recording along with three other songs. These four songs will be included this year as bonus tracks on a de-luxe reissue of her seminal 1971 album Anne Briggs. That is something really to look forward to. On this dark haunting song Anne’s transcendent ethereal voice is accompanied by her gentle unobtrusive guitar playing. Last night I looked on YouTube to see if anyone had uploaded a video of the song and was surprised to find that nobody had. “People have to hear this song!”, I thought to myself. I have never made a video from an audio file before but decided to try and do it. You can see the resulting video below. I hope you enjoy it as much as me. The video only has one photo of Anne on it, but that was all I could manage to do. The joy is in the listening however, and I must say after all these years that it is wonderful to hear a new song by Britain’s finest ever folk singer. Thank you very much Uncut magazine and Topic Records.