Mary Epworth & The Jubilee Band - Lean/ Black Doe

‘Woodsy, psychedelic-demonic folk-rock’ Tom Cox, The Sunday Times, 2nd
August 2009

Mary Epworth follows up her debut single The Saddle Song with a
striking new song Black Doe, backed with Lean & available on iTunes
from 10th August, and as a 7” single on 14th September via her Hand Of
Glory label.

Those lucky enough to have been seduced by The Saddle Song’s Pagan
slow-march will be further thrilled and challenged by what Black Doe
has to offer. If The Saddle Song depicted a band enchanted with an
almost supernatural idea of an Old England - criss-crossed with
ley-lines and touched by ritual & magic - then beneath Black Doe’s
velvet cloak, the halcyon days of late 1960’s British psychedelia (and
early 70’s prog) are married to the halcyon days of, say, the 1860’s,
challenging the very notion of what a modern English folk band should
sound like in 2009*.

Strident and powerful, Mary’s voice carries Black Doe’s mysterious,
sensual lyric, while banjo, brass and fiddle are pitched against a
malevolent Sabbath-like fuzz-drone and electronic ticks and whistles
as the song draws to it’s climax.

Nurtured through London’s folk/ country scene through clubs like
‘What’s Cookin?’ and (Rockingbird) Alan Tyler’s ‘Come Down And Meet
The Folks’, Mary - who once sang bv’s on the first two Broken Family
Band albums, and was a member of The Folk Orchestra collective - has
recently been the subject of features in FRoots & Rock’n’Reel, playing
the St. Georges Day concert of the former at Cecil Sharp House earlier
this year. Indeed, Mary has been slowly coming to wider critical
attention since the end of last year, when she performed three songs
at a Sandy Denny tribute at Queen Elizabeth Hall, The Guardian noting
that “It was a challenging night for young female singers, but Mary
Epworth matched Sandy's varied moods with a gutsy Come All Ye and a
sad, powerful treatment of Solo…”

*Incidentally, The Jubilee Band is the second generation of what
originated as The Jubilee Band in 1887, when Mary’s Great-Great
Grandfather Pumpata, or ‘Pompadour’ Chilvers was a featured artist.
They were popular in the Middleton/ Blackborough End area, near King’s
Lynn in Norfolk. Say’s Mary; “My Great-Great Grandfather was called
Pompadour because he used to practice the songs while he was working,
going ‘pom pom pom’ to imitate the brass parts. I founded my Jubilee
Band in the honour of him.”

http://www.myspace.com/maryepworth

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