Eliza Carthy & Norma Waterson: Gift

THIS first collaboration as a duo between the mother and daughter sees the pair singing individually and in duet to generally spare accompaniments from the likes of Danny Thompson on bass, Martin Simpson on banjo and Aidan Curran and patriarch Martin Carthy on guitar.

It opens with Norma's soulful rendering of American standard Poor Wayfaring Stranger, while Eliza gives emotional but beautifully considered voice to The Rose and the Lily and The Nightingale, the latter over strings and tolling church bell.

In contrast, the pair deliver Bonaparte's Lament with sprightly relish, driven by rattling triangle, while there's a bubbly excursion into 1920s vaudeville with Ukulele Lady in an unlikely but surprisingly effective pairing with the 1960s Amen Corner hit (If Paradise) Is Half As Nice. The hoary old Boston Burglar plods, but there is warm-hearting duetting on old chestnut, The Bunch of Thyme.