Red Shoes : All The Good Friends and an anthem for anti-hunt campaigners everywhere

Carolyn Evans is angry. She’s been watching the traditional Boxing Day hunt scenes on the TV news.

“Some people feel because of their status in society, they are beyond the law and in the name of tradition still illegally hunt,” she says.

“It is illegal in our country to hunt down the fox with hounds and barbarically kill it. But people with money believe they are beyond the law’s reach.

“Once, on an anti-hunt rally, I was forced against a hedge by a rider and was threatened with my life as he reared his horse up towards me.

“I have never been so scared in my life. I felt as if I was the fox.

“Over many years I have been verbally and physically threatened for my views on fox hunting.

“Even as a musician and writer I have been asked not to talk about or sing about it because it would not be good for my career.

“Sod that. No-one tells me what I should and shouldn’t write about.”

Hence the eye-catching cover of Red Shoes’ eagerly awaited return, and the damning album opener, Red Coat Ride, which takes no prisoners in its condemnation of cruelty.

Rooted in folk tradition but boasting a riff surely inspired by The Move’s Brontosaurus, it is an anthem for the anti-hunting lobby, its message delivered in Carolyn’s heartfelt vocal.

Not that this is simply a family affair. As the album title might suggest, Birmingham husband and wife Mark and Carolyn Evans get by with a little help from their friends, a veritable who’s who of Midland music.

From Fairport Convention come Dave Swarbrick, Dave Pegg and Chris Leslie; from ELO there’s Bev Bevan and Bill Hunt. Fiddler Ric Sanders also joins regular Red Shoe shufflers Bert Priest and Tony Kelsey.

Highlights there are many.

The heartbreaking Sunday Afternoon is a plea for one last lease of life; If This Is Life recalls early Matthews Southern Comfort; Swansong bids a bittersweet farewell.

But it’s an extraordinary cover version of The Move’s Blackberry Way which will have the hairs rising on the back of your neck.

Caressed by violin, the song is slowed right down, given a folk inflection and married to the James Bond theme.

  
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