*** Maddy Prior

FLESH & BLOOD

(PARK)

At 50, clarion-voiced Maddy Prior has lost a bit of the lung power that drove Steeleye Span back in the '70s. But with age she's developed finesse, both as a singer and as a conceptualist. On the new Flesh & Blood, a G.K. Chesterton poem flows into a moving a cappella interpretation of Todd Rundgren's "Honest Work." Death being the lifeblood of trad balladry, we get a royal incest and murder song whose end (depending on how you interpret a metaphor) may be remorse-ridden self-castration. Based on an apocryphal gospel, "Bitter Withy" has the naughty Christ child drowning snotty rich kids. Prior's writing with husband and one-time Steeleye Span bassist Rick Kemp brims with the naturalistic mystery and horror of Britain's folk tradition.

-- Bruce Sylvester