If there is one thing that we know for certain around these parts it is that, ironically, traditions have to change in order to stay alive.
We cannot hark back to the “good old days”; we cannot ignore the new ways; we cannot grumble into our beer that it “was better in my day”. Nor can we pretend that the music being made today, right this second, isn’t as vital, as thrilling, as when we first found Alan Lomax or any of the Carthys/Watersons or Fairport or whoever it was that led us down this rickety old path. If we were to block our ears and shake our heads, think of the things we’d miss out on.
At the start of 2025 we’d miss the extraordinary roster that Broadside Hacks are building. We’d miss the re-energising of the tradition that Shovel Dance Collective are undertaking, we’d miss the reinvention and re-imaginings that Frankie Archer is creating. We’d miss the wholesale changes that Boss Morris are bringing to the Morris dance tradition.
If we were to miss all that then, truly, we’d be missing out.
Boss Morris are an all-female side from Stroud, formed in 2015 (we’ve mentioned them once or twice before…). They take the tradition of female Morris dancers, built on the foundations of the likes of Mary Neal and her Esperance Girls, and reshape it for new audiences. They’ve already performed at The Brits, as part of the Wet Leg phenomenon of a couple of years ago, have graced The Barbican stage, are routinely described as “wild, colourful and urgent” and, now, release their debut album. This album is, in fact, billed as “the music of Boss Morris”; they are the tunes created for dancing and the sounds of that dancing – the bells and the clack of sticks – are entirely integral to these seventeen glorious tunes.
If the tradition is constantly in need of updating then there can’t be three musicians who breathe new life into it more regularly than Sam Sweeney, Rob Harbron and Miranda Rutter. From Bellowhead to Methera, Leveret to The Full English, all three have the ability to look forward whilst recognising that which has gone before.
On Boss Morris, Sweeney, Harbron and Rutter were recorded live, alongside the dancers (Lily Cheetham, Maddy McLeod, Josie Wickes and Alex Merry); they easily capture the warming rays of a May Day sun, the smell of cut grass and the convivial murmurs over a pint. They have a foot in olde England but they are creating something vital and alive.
Filberts, already familiar from Leveret’s Forms album, starts slowly with the noise of bells and sticks, the sound of feet lifted and friends coming together. Sweeney and Rutter soon join, the two fiddles dancing with just as much dexterity, just as much fluidity as Boss Morris themselves. Considering this is a tune written by Harbron it fits beautifully into the tradition – it would be silly to say that it sounds ancient as it is flecked with modernity, but it is timeless.
For Valentine, the music unfurls a greensward carpet, lush and soft, for the dancers to dance upon. Saul Rose taught Sweeney this tune whilst, improbably, installing a bathroom and it is stately and romantic, gently swooning until it gives something for Boss Morris to really get their teeth into. If Harbron, constantly, allows the dancers to find their feet then Sweeney and Rutter provide the curlicues, the individual flourishes. Maybe it is here that the image of a stout yeoman is entirely banished, and a more graceful, more thoughtful, more feminine form is allowed to take shape.
The overriding sound of Sweeney’s Tom Merry’s Jig is that of the dancers. The bells start as a cough and a wheeze somewhere in the distance but, as the fiddles sweep in over the hills, they get louder, more insistent. Soon those bells are steam engine pistons, rhythmic and powerful, matching the train-chug of the trio of instruments. Sticks and bells fly on Upton-on-Severn Stick Dance too, a joyful volley noise, full of fun and laughter.
There is simply so much to love on Boss Morris. Sweeney’s trademark pause/jump on Archie Churchill-Moss’ Iron Bell, the bows and curtsies of Jack a Lent and the full summer vibes of The Rose/Maid of the Mill. These are tunes that should waft across many an English field, tugging at ears, snagging at feet.
Then Miranda Rutter’s Golden Blackbird Jig becomes the centre-point around which the album twirls. Also found on her remarkable Bird Tunes album of last year, it is sweetly gorgeous. Here it is a tune for dancing rather than for charming the birds from the trees but it seems to sum up everything that makes this record so special. It is connected to nature, tethered to the ground while exploring the treetops, it has a heart full of song but carries enough rhythm for dancing, it is, at once, as old as the hills but born yesterday.
We can talk about Morris On, if you wish, (after all Shepherd’s Hey, Trunkles and Princess Royal feature on both albums) but this is not about looking back fifty-three years. There seems little point scratching our chins, wondering whether Kirkpatrick did it better than Harbron or Dransfield is more “authentic” than Sweeney or Rutter. Who cares? Boss Morris is an absolutely brilliant folk album for right now. This is music made for the glorious, pulsing, ever changing scene that many of us see around us every day. This is music for dancing.
Boss Morris is available now on digital and CD from Bandcamp.
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