Del Amitri keyboardist Andy Alston on his new collaborative Fringe show Broadside Ballads Live
Del Amitri keyboardist Andy Alston and Mudville vocalist Marilyn Carino on their new Fringe show, which revolves around contemporary adaptations of pre-20th century broadside ballads.
Keyboard player Andy Alston and guitarist James Kirk are Scottish rock royalty, alumni of Del Amitri and Orange Juice respectively, who have been writing together for a number of years, first as Crooked Timbers and then as the comically classic rock-referencing Alston/Turner Overdrive.
Their music, however, is rooted in a far older popular music tradition, that of the broadside ballad, a pithy alternative to the protracted narratives of the traditional folk forms which Alston had tried researching for songwriting inspiration.
“They are often too rich or metaphorical or with a 19th century religious background,” he says. “I was looking for something more in-your-face tabloid adventure story where you want to know what happens next.”
He was directed to the National Library of Scotland’s online collection of 16th-19th century broadsides, one-sheet notices encapsulating the news of the day which were sold on the streets for a penny – the Fringe flyer of their day.
“These were written for ordinary people as short rhymes,” says Alston. “You want a story about romance? We’ve got one of them. You want a story about larceny? You want a story about forgery? You want a story about a bandit? You’ve got everything that concerned people at the time, kind of like social media now.”
Alston and Kirk set to work, adapting broadside ballads into classy, contemporary pop vignettes for an album called Broadside Ballads Reconfigured.
“Sometimes you’ve got to change the words - they could be slightly racist or sexist,” says Alston. “Often you start with an old text but you might want to make it disco.”
Their first ballad was seafaring song, Blown Away, reworked as a blend of earthy narrative and siren seduction over decidedly non-folky sonorous strumming and baroque keyboards. Alston and Kirk found themselves “casting” the songs on the album, with Frank Reader of Trashcan Sinatras crooning Banks of Primroses, Hedrons’ singer Tippi joining Alston for the pacey, accordion-dappled Brannon on the Moor and psych folk singer Lavinia Blackwall gliding through Nothing Can Unsay.
One of the first recruits for the project was singer Marilyn Carino, who swapped Brooklyn for Scotland in 2016 following a UK tour with her band Mudville. Carino opened the album with the slinky electro melodrama of American Stranger, despite being initially unfamiliar with the broadside form.
“I didn’t really get it at first,” she admits, “but then I started to hear them as songs because they are quite concise and punchy. You can feel the humanity of the people who wrote them and are written about.”
“The song American Stranger grabbed me right away, a flipping of the saga of the old world and the new. At the time people would go from the old world to the new world, they would go to America to find their fortune and find a bride, and this guy did it the other way, which is exactly what I did. I had one foot out the door already and it’s just incredible the difference in how I’ve been treated as a musician in Scotland. The level of respect I’ve got here has been tremendous. The vibe is creative in a free and open way, it’s not about money.”
Carino joins the house band for the Fringe run of Broadside Ballads Live, a multi-media presentation of the music embellished with a visual collage of historical imagery, plus pop-up appearances by guest singers. “We still have to corral all of the hamsters,” says Carino, “but it’s all there.”
Alston, meanwhile, is getting to grips with the idea of swapping the comfort zone of a freewheeling rock show for the trim yet theatrical Fringe experience.
“It’s like when someone goes to a cremation - it can’t overrun,” he says. “In the theatrical world of the Edinburgh Festival, people want something that’s informative, surprising and entertaining. Not everybody will be familiar with what we are doing so it’s got to be clear what the message is, a message that went straight into somebody’s heart 250 years ago that goes straight into somebody’s heart right now. That’s the core thing about these verses. They mean the same now to people as they meant back then because people are the same.”
Broadside Ballads Live, Gilded Balloon Patter House, 15-22 August
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