«First and foremost however, June Tabor is an extraordinary teller of tales. She may claim that it is a love of the rhyme rather than tales from the stave that motivate her, but her marriage of meaning and music is nonpareil. As “Always” shows, she has repeatedly experimented in areas far removed from the “confines” in which she is generally pigeonholed or perceived to operate. Furthermore, it demonstrates that she has regularly brought the waft of the new – and the new as only she could do it – to the over-familiar. Long ago liberated to fly out of the folkie cage, all it took was imagination, accompanists, audience and, signally, a repertoire which has gone from the cinematography of Anglo-Scottish balladry and Ralph McTell to “kicking out the jams” à la Grace Slick, from Brecht to Barker, from German folksong to French trouvére ballad, from Carlos Antonio Jobim via the Gershwins to Yiddish threnody. It all sounds so simple with hindsight.»

Ken Hunt