Barbara Dickson and Rab Noakes

Reunited (Neon)

2 Stars

IT SOUNDS like a meeting made in heaven.

Two scions of the Scottish folk world get back together after one, Barbara Dickson, has hit the pop high spots and the other, Rab Noakes, has never quite emerged from the time when you could number the leading lights of the Scottish revival on the fingers of one hand.

Unfortunately, it just goes to prove that nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

Leaden guitar strumming, uncertain harmonies and poor balance between voices and instruments produce a result that would be fine from the floor of a folk club but doesn’t really repay repeated listening.

The high point is Dickson’s The Same Sky, lowest is Noakes’s Que Sera Sera.

But covering songs made famous by Doris Day and Aretha Franklin (Do Right Woman) makes no sense at all.

Both can do better than this, either together or apart.