Reviews

Stewart Hardy & Frank McLaughlin: Root2 (Claytara records)

The instrumental pairing of Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin is one of traditional music’s great examples of cross-Border co-operation. Hardy is based in the northeast of England, although his fiddle playing on the Earl Grey strathspey here could place him as an Aberdeenshire native, and guitarist and piper McLaughlin lives in Edinburgh. When they get together, however, each belongs wherever the music takes them, be it in The Pilgrim’s Way’s Spanish dance steps or in the brilliantly mobile Irish set that culminates with Paddy Fahey’s Reel. Hardy brings a terrific range of colourful expression to his playing, from the gentle, poignant lilt of his slow airs, through the slippery hornpipe bowing that lights up The Locomotive and the swooping, steely poise of his own Thunderfoot, and McLaughlin is both an imaginative accompanist and an assured tunesmith, often transferring his piper’s phrasing to the guitar strings. All in all, Root2 is a treasure chest of traditional music making, with every listen revealing new riches.

Rob Adams, The Herald, Scotland

Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin: Root2, CLAYTARA RECORDS

NORTH-EAST England fiddler Stewart Hardy and Scots guitarist and piper Frank McLaughlin take an unhurried yet masterly approach in this sweet-sounding album of traditional and self-composed tunes. Hardy's fiddle sings in airs such as Bonnie Dundee, while he takes an agile and affectionate delve into the great Irish tune book in Sgt Early's No 1, and does indeed root himself back in his heartland with skittering tunes associated with the Tyneside hornpipe King James Hill. McLaughlin's guitar can chime with a delicacy reminiscent of Tony McManus, or work up powerful drive, while his small pipes sound crisp melodies around which Hardy's fiddle twines, as in the lovely development of a stark tuning phrase in Pig and Hannahs. There are some distinctly continental echoes in The Pilgrim's Way or the jaunty Clarology, while Long Wait has a stately, early music feel to it. The pair's sinuous lightness of touch and sense of enjoyment is a lesson for some of our more determinedly iconoclastic young players.

Jim Gilchrist, The Scotsman

STEWART HARDY & FRANK MCLAUGHLIN - The Gift
Claytara Records CLCD1801

FIDDLE and guitar partnerships don’t get much more mutually responsive than the Northumberland-Edinburgh axis of Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin. Both players draw on a range of techniques and a great variety of touch and attack to deliver their shared passion for a good melody, more often than not with a story attached.
There’s a lovely richness of expression in Hardy’s fiddling and he uses this to superb effect whether the tune is essentially joyful, wild or written in sadness. On Something for Gordon, for example, he plays Ross Ainslie and Jarlath Henderson’s tribute to the great piper and tunesmith Gordon Duncan with a respectfulness of someone who has really got into the thoughts of the composers.
He can be cheeky, too, though and he and McLaughlin take the Scottish-born fiddle master of Gateshead, James Hill’s Factory Smoke into the swinging realms of Minnie the Moocher before delivering Hill’s XYZ in more typical, robust, rollicking style.
Day for Giggles features joined at the hip flat-picked guitar and nimble fiddle assurance on a twisting melody and elsewhere McLaughlin’s sympathetic finger-picking and hammering on underlines their commitment to fashioning arrangements as equals. Great stuff.

Rob Adams , The Herald

STEWART HARDY & FRANK MCLAUGHLIN - The Gift
Claytara Records CLCD1801

Edinburgh’s Frank McLaughlin is a first-class guitarist who I last encountered back in the mid-90s. Much in demand for his ability to create innovative arrangements, Frank has worked with many players on the traditional music scene and has numerous recording credits as a session player, composer or producer. He regularly performs in a duo with Stewart Hardy on fiddle and the combination is an interesting one. Stewart is a melodic fiddle player (formerly with the late John Wright’s band) and the pair’s shared musical heritage is rooted in Northumbrian and Scottish traditions with the Border styles clearly influencing their compositions and the treatment of same.
The Gift is an intriguing instrumental album of predominantly fiddle and guitar duets, but not as we know the genre. The pace is slower, generally; the tunes are obviously written more as listening exercises than dance tunes, and while the tempo picks up occasionally, it never lifts into overdrive. But then that’s probably not the point, as this duo is about taste and sensitivity rather than gut punching verve and dynamics and the proof is in the listening. Both instruments work as leads to one another; there is no accompaniment to a lead instrument per se. Both players work off one another in a manner not unlike Martin Hayes and Denis Cahill or Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. But the excitement of the Carthy / Swarbrick duo and the studied intensity of Martin and Denis is not in evidence, instead there is a stately sense of grace and sublimity achieved in each player’s understanding of the other’s strengths and melodic nuances. The Storm Party reels show they can blast away when needed, but the taste factor is always present. The graceful tones of Lord Joicey’s Gift, two James Hill tunes, Factory XYZ, and the closing Brunswick Street display what lies at the heart of The Gift –two musical minds entwined creatively, each gifting the other with their presence and personality, producing music that’s at once emotional, beautiful and graceful – savour.

Jon O’Regan, The Living Tradition

Stewart Hardy and Frank McLaughlin: Compass and Root2

A tasty pair of releases from an inspired duo, Compass offers a polished studio set with attendant layering of sound, guest musicians and even a touch of subtle electronic whizzery - though generally not so much as to frighten the sheep - whilst Root2 strips things back to the bare bones of fiddle, guitar and Scottish smallpipes.

Hardy has built up an enviable international reputation for his fiddle playing, venturing easily across genre boundaries, as beautifully exemplified in the Balkan twists of ‘Mwche’ and the Middle Eastern flavour of ‘Angus Dei’ on Compass, though drawing mainly on the traditions of Scotland and the North East of England here.

McLaughlin, too, is no slouch, having previously brought his considerable skills on pipes and guitar to bear on compendious projects focusing on the songs of Burns and Tannahill. The studio work, as rich in atmosphere as in melody, displays why they are in such demand for television: close your eyes and the pictures appear.

Lush soundscapes abound but, and I’m first to admit it’s probably the die-hard traddie in me as much as the music itself, Root2 has a more direct line to the heart. The one tune common to both albums, ‘Joy Together’, steps altogether more lightly in its fresher guitar and fiddle arrangement and sets the tone for the easy yet never complacent interplay between these fine musicians.

Whether drawing from the Scottish and Irish piping repertoire, from Tyneside’s rich heritage of tunes, or forging their own compositions from these traditions, Hardy and McLaughlin show themselves to be players of immense empathy and spirit.

Oz Hardwick , Rock’n’Reel - R2

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