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Artist:Battlefield Band
Release:Opening Moves
Released: 1993
Label: Topic Records
Catalog#: TSCD468
Format: FLAC / Lossless / Log (100%) / Cue
Country: UK
Style:folk,celtic


1. Silver Spear/Humours of Tulla
2. The Shipyard Apprentice
3. The Cruel Brother
4. Ge Do Theid Mi Do M'Leabaidh
5. The Battle of Harlaw
6. Jenny Nettles/The Grays of Tongside
7. Tae the Beggin'
8. The Tamosher
9. The Blackbird and the Thrush/The Moray Club
10. Lang Johnnie Moir
11. The Brown Milkmaid/Dunnottar Castle/Maid of Glengarrysdale/Disused Railway
12. The Lady Leroy
13. Miss Drummond of Perth/Fiddler's Joy/Traditional Reel/The Shetland Fiddler
14. My Last Farewell to Stirling/Cuidich 'N Righ
15. I Hae Laid a Herrin' in Salt/My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing/The Banks Of The Allen
16. The Battle of Falkirk Muir
17. Joe McGann's Fiddle/Center's Bonnet

OPENING MOVES is a fine sampler of the Battlefield Band's earliest material. The original albums from which these songs have been culled--THE BATTLEFIELD BAND (1977), AT THE FRONT (1978), and STAND EASY (1979)--were long available only on vinyl (STAND EASY has since been re-released on CD). While featuring variations in the group's personnel, the compilation retains the Band's top-notch musicianship and sense of musical tradition.

The contributions of Jamie McMenemy (cittern, mandolin, whistles, bouzouki and vocals), and Irish guitarist, vocalist, and bodhran player Pat Kilbride are especially notable on story-ballads such as "The Shipyard Apprentice" and "The Lady Leroy." Elsewhere, Scottish reels and Irish jigs are given sprightly, energetic treatments, as on "Silver Spear/Humours of Tulla," and the trio of dance themes that includes "My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing." Also impressive here (in addition to the musicianship of founders Brian MacNeill and Alan Reid, whose work can be heard on later Battlefield efforts) are John Gahagan's tin whistle playing and Duncan MacGillvray's moving Highland pipes. Taken together, these 17 cuts provide an overview of the group's early oeuvre, showing why they became one of the mainstays of Scotland's progressive folk scene.