biogcontent

Winter Wilson

MILESTONES

Independent

***1/2

The lyrical content, harmonies and multi-instrumentation makes this an album out of the ordinary... Winter Wilson are the acoustic folk duo of Lincolnshire based musicians Dave Wilson and Kip Winter. Having joined forces in 1995 through performance after performance they have built a reputation for themselves in the UK as a solid and engaging live duo. Exploring folk and blues this harmony power collaboration of male verses female very often works well on a listening album and this is no exception. The songs written by Dave Wilson, explore life experiences and events. What Mothers Do is one of the most poignant songs for it’s wonderful telling of such a simple story - a song about getting your child to school on time, being the tooth fairy, getting homework done and playing football in the back garden. ‘Now get on with your homework, and we’ll play football in the backyard/ Can I be United? Mam, don’t kick the ball so chuffin’ hard/ Oy, you wash your mouth out! You didn’t learn language like that from me/ Over here, on the head son, shit the ball’s got stuck in the tree.’ A Soldiers Tale is also another standout track about the fact that there are more ex-service men and women in prison or in mental institutions than that are currently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The song is a heartfelt one. Albeit a simple album, the lyrical content, harmonies, and multi-instrumentation on Dave Wilson’s part, is something really quite extraordinary. Songs like When The Ship Began To Roll, Butterflies featuring Kip taking lead vocals and My Only Crime about loving someone who didn’t love you back, are all wonderful examples of some truly great material on this record. Definitely a duo to catch on the live circuit if you get a chance! Laura Bethell

Laura Bethell
Maverick AAG Publishing Limited
Company Registration:04350455
24 Bray Gardens, Maidstone, Kent, ME15 9TR
www.Maverick country

Dia Woosnam

Next year will mark ten years since Dave Carter died. And folkies in America will continue to lament his far-too-early passing from a heart attack. And they will continue to pine for a new duo that could fill the shoes of Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer.

Well they should pine no more.

For all these years since the hottest duo on the American scene was so cruelly broken up, across The Pond in Lincolnshire, England, there was a superb English duo, slowly making their understated way to some degree of prominence on the UK scene.

Winter Wilson consist of Kip Winter and Dave Wilson. Milestones is their fifth album, and possibly their best to date. They seem to improve with the years. Their vocal harmonies just ooze certainty: and Dave’s thrilling guitar work is just as authoritative. And thus those Carter & Grammer fans looking for a “same sound” match, need look no further.

Whether they’d find that our British “Dave” is a songwriter of the same quality, is a more moot point. I would argue, that at his best, he is the greater writer: however, his work is not as consistent. As evinced here, in this slightly uneven album. So, preamble over, let’s get down to business with this review.

There is a song on this CD that our American friends would go crazy for, if only they could get to hear it, and it could be given wings to cross the ocean. (As it might well do, if previous champions of his work like Vin Garbutt and John Tams will do the carrying!) I refer to an extraordinary song called What Mothers Do: a song universal in its sentiment of getting unwilling children off to school, despite containing the occasional British vernacular word like snap and chuffin’.

The delivery of this little gem is quite beautifully judged, and Kip’s voice on the chorus just speaks to the heart. (Just listen to them sing the word “knows” together in the last line of the chorus: the frisson you’ll get from that alone, is worth the price of this record! That and the wonderfully atmospheric flute break from Kip in this number. It is a veritable song-and-three-quarters! And it is the clear high-water mark of an album that runs the gamut from combat-stressed Tommies fighting Afghans (those last 2 words are mine, and decidedly not Dave’s!), to rope-making in 18th century Lincolnshire.

And they include a rather good song called Millstones Or Milestones: a song that questions the significance and nature of passing time, but ends up optimistic and not fearful of the years ahead. A song that, despite accepting that time accelerates, and in a way ends up cheating us all, still sees happiness at the end of the road. Despite the grey hair and the artificial knee referred to in the lyric.

It is the first song I have heard in a long while that makes me think of that great line of John Denver: It turns me on to think of growing old. Mind you, The Milky Bar Kid evidently changed his mind and deliberately (? ?)
… [yes, Dai, yes: be brave, forget the question-mark!] flew his plane into the sea.

But JD’s mind-change apart, I ain’t changing my mind re this CD. This album shows that Winter Wilson are, as I said, always seriously good performers. And also occasionally, Dave can write a seriously good – indeed, quite brilliant - song.

Dai Woosnam

LEICESTER BANGS

Winter Wilson – Milestones (Independent)
From: UK
Genre: Modern Folk / Folk Blues
Influences: Bonnie Raitt, Everything But The Girl, Richard Thompson.

The Word: “These songs haven't just been written, they've been lived. As ever, sung with feeling and minimal fuss. Emotion that's stripped to the bone. Think of Richard Thompson, think of Townes Van Zandt, think of Bonnie Raitt, think of John Tams.

Just think of songs that have a purpose that are sung with a passion.
This is the fifth album from UK-based duo Winter Wilson and as with the previous four Milestones gets straight to the heart of the songs without trying to make it too pretty around the edges.

Both Kip Winter and Dave Wilson have great voices that convey the spirit of the songs and the two together have a knack of producing superb harmonies. Whilst Dave is no slouch on the fretboard, he's kept the song arrangements sparse, "if it ain't broken, don't fix it".”