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Barbara made her name on the 60s folk circuit before breaking big with enchanting pop hits, including Another Suitcase In Another Hall and her chart-topping duet with Elaine Paige, I Know Him So Well.
Now, at 76, the self-styled puritanical Scotswoman returns to her Fife folk club roots for her 38th album.
The sadness in Barbara’s voice has always been uniquely moving and it’s put to effective use on the haunting and delicate The Maid Of Norway.
Misery abounds here. Not least on Willy’s Drown’d In Yarrow – a Scottish border ballad about a girl who finds her absent lover’s body face down in their local river. The Banks O’ Red Roses is another old and morbid folk tale about a rogue who takes a young woman to the banks of another river and stabs her with a knife.
Reynardine, popularised by Fairport Convention in 1969, tells the chilling story of a werewolf who entices beauties to his mountainside castle for an undisclosed but presumably wretched fate.
The 11 tracks are a mix of original songs, covers and traditional folk numbers embroidered with strings, Uilleann pipes – Irish bagpipes –and the occasional bouzouki.
There are lighter, poppier moments. Opener Moonlight And Gold perks up in its second minute and there’s a hypnotic take on The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows. But an air of melancholy hangs over the album like a thick Highland mist.
The Dunfermline-born star – Scotland’s best-selling female singer – is about to pull the plug on live shows with a farewell tour in February.
She will continue to write songs and record for the sheer pleasure of it and for the delight of her fans. For Barbara, fame was the by-product of her talent, never an end in itself.
Making music has always been her primary goal.
