All of us owe a huge debt of gratitude to people like Alfred Williams who recognised the value of the songs, saw that they were disappearing and made records of them before their echoes finally passed into oblivion.
As artists we have been greatly influenced by the research and singing of Len & Barbara Berry (Bob’s parents) of songs which Alfred Williams collected in Oxfordshire. This album has songs mainly from the collection, but from Wiltshire - the county that we have made our adopted home.
Many of the songs had no tunes, so they have been adapted to fit new tunes or arranged to suit our own interpretation. We make no apologies for altering words and tunes and feel that Alfred would have ‘echoed’ our sentiments.
The image on the album front was inspired by a line in the song “Out with my dog in the morning” which describes the joy of singing by the fireside. There is nothing better to connect us to the rural people for whom singing songs like these was an integral part of their lives and labours for hundreds of years.
