Ray’s sisters sing together at Ray’s Tribute Concert Pic: Pete Heywood
Review by Clare Button
“If Ray were here tonight, she’d have been singing along”, remarked the lady next to me as the Ray Fisher Tribute concert came to a joyous close. And she was surely right. Hearing the massed voices of the audience raised in chorus not only encapsulated all that is best about traditional music, but also all that lay at the heart of Ray Fisher.
Born to parents who both liked a song and surrounded by siblings who would come to be, like herself, key players in the folk revival, Ray – who died in August last year – could hardly avoid music. It was fitting then that this tribute, falling in the middle of the musical melee that is Celtic Connections, was preceded and followed by impromptu sessions in and around the Concert Hall: this sense of music as continuous and omnipresent would have delighted Ray.
The evening burst into action with a rabble-rousing display of sword-wielding “rapper” dancers from England’s North East, where Ray lived for most of her life. As Ray’s chief delight lay in sharing and passing on the songs she loved, she would have been thrilled at the young talent that made up the first part of the concert. Ewan Robertson’s strident ‘Gin I Were A Baron’s Heir’, Siobhan Miller’s lusciously assured ‘Twa Corbies’, Emily Smith’s lark-voiced ‘The Shearin’s No’ For You’ and Fiona Hunter’s bewitching ‘The Pressers’ all deserved the accolade bestowed upon them by host Archie Fisher: ‘the tradition is in safe hands’.
From the ‘safe hands’ of a new generation to the deft touch of Ray’s contemporaries, Martin Carthy performed with characteristically understated magic, especially in the old ballad ‘Willie’s Lady’, set by Ray to a haunting Breton tune. Sheila Stewart, herself from a famous singing family, enchanted the audience as nobody else can. As everyone present raised their voices to meet Sheila’s in ‘Jock Stewart’, Ray’s presence seemed to be conjured more potently than by any of the beguiling photographs of her projected above the stage.
As with all the best tributes, there were tears - Sheila admitted to briefly leaving the hall after Archie read one of Ray’s poems - as well as laughter. Indeed, the images evoked of Ray morris dancing in a Playboy Bunny outfit and of her kick-dancing in the aisles of a tour bus will never leave me…
Finally, who better to draw the evening to a close than Ray’s own family? Archie, Audrey, Cilla, Cindy and Joyce joined in fine unison (despite Cilla’s poignant assertion that ‘[Ray] was the rock… none of us remember what key we sang in’), with songs such as ‘Fisher Lassies’ and ‘Joy of My Heart’. As the Fishers were joined on stage by friends and family from the audience for a rousing finale in celebration of a life well sung, I’m sure, if we had listened closely enough, we would surely have heard Ray’s voice raised in chorus with our own.
- Clare Button writes for The Living Tradition magazine, which promotes traditional music in Scotland, the UK and Ireland. For more information visit livingtradition.co.uk.
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