Woodsmeister’s Note – FolkBlog is privileged to have Australian music journalist Sue Barrett as a regular contributor of artist profiles and interviews. The following article is provided courtesy of Sue Barrett and she holds all copyright.
By Sue Barrett
“I love words, and if you are to sing with conviction, you must understand what you are singing about. The great composers of song chose the most beautiful poetry to set to music.” (p. 204)
“Clear enunciation is of the greatest importance, as words are the artistic expression of any song. One must be able to make ugly sounds as well as beautiful ones, if the words suggest ugliness.” (p. 165)
“To be able to toy with rhythm without losing control of it is one of the attributes of great artistry…[Some performers] may never learn to read music, but they are born with an ability to handle rhythm which enables them to juggle with words and phrases in a way which makes a delightful whole.” (p. 121)
(Joan Hammond, A Voice, A Life, Victor Gollancz, 1970)
A recent issue of Sing Out! magazine featured songwriters Billy Edd Wheeler (cover story), Bruce Robison (two CD reviews) and Delaney Bramlett (whose obituary appeared as part of the “Last Chorus”).
It seems that many people compose music/write songs – with allmusic.com now containing works by 280,000 composers and Google yielding 13.2 million results for the term “singer/songwriter”.
Writing a song doesn’t, however, necessarily make someone a songwriter. According to Australian Steve Barnes, “Not being a singer imposes an editorial process on my songs – it means that a song has to be good enough that somebody else wants to sing it.” And for American Cris Williamson, “When somebody else does your stuff, then there’s a good chance that you might actually be a songwriter.”
Billy Edd Wheeler, Bruce Robison and Delaney Bramlett have pretty good song writing credentials – with ‘Coward of the County’ going to #3 on Billboard for Kenny Rogers; ‘Travelin’ Soldier’ being a #1 country hit for the Dixie Chicks; and ‘Superstar’ reaching #2 on Billboard for the Carpenters.
In her autobiography, A Voice, A Life, Australian opera singer Joan Hammond reflected on a career spent interpreting the musical works of other people, among them Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, Puccini and Johann Strauss.
Now Faith Petric, Jon Arterton, Judi Connelli and June Tabor share their experiences of being a singer for the songs…
FAITH PETRIC
Faith Petric is an American folksinger, whose father was an itinerant school teacher/carpenter/farmer/Methodist minister. After graduating from Whitman College (Walla Walla, Washington) in 1937, with radicalism planted deep, Faith worked at a Seattle bookstore, then had her heart captured by San Francisco (“I watched the 1938 Labor Day parade; tears in my eyes as the Longshoremen’s unit marched in silence…frighteningly powerful. A socialist world owned by idealistic labor was surely only a few years away.”). In the late 1950s, Faith became involved with the San Francisco Folk Music Club (which still meets every other Friday at her home), then took to the road as a folksinger after retiring from her 9-5 job with the California State Department of Rehabilitation in 1970. Faith writes ‘The Folk Process’ column for Sing Out! magazine and has a repertoire that includes songs by Utah Phillips, Malvina Reynolds, Jean Richie, Hazel Dickens, Biggs Tinker, Van Rozay and Carole Etzler.
On 13 September 2009, Faith Petric turned 94: “I plan to spend the day with a friend whose birthday is Sept. 4th. We will go for a walk on the beach which is one of the favorite things I do in my life. There is something about the Pacific and the great breakers rolling in that I find enormously satisfying. I think how many thousand years they have been doing that and will continue thousands after my walk…Sort of puts things in perspective. It’s hard to think I have been here for 94 years – a long time for a human. (There is an Indian saying to the effect that the length (and importance) of a human life is, in the larger sense, the same as a single puff of breath from a buffalo on the prairie grass.) Then we may go to a special Japanese place for a sauna, hot tub, steam bath and other delights and after that take each other out to dinner. That should do it.”
What are some of your earliest memories of music?
My earliest memory of music is singing in church – the joy of just opening my mouth and letting the words roll out sweet, loud and clear. Hymns are as good as sea shanties for singing for the joy of it. My father had an excellent tenor voice and played piano and our little family pump organ. With him I learned many “heart songs” of the early 1900s.
When, and how, did you become a performer?
It just sort of gradually happened and grew. I’d learned, and kept learning, lots of songs, and people would ask me to play at parties. Then, in the late 1950s, I discovered the San Francisco Folk Music Club – a great place to play and sing. When I quit the 9 to 5 job in l970, I’d no plans of what I was going to do and the opportunities for travelling and performing were suddenly just there. For the next 40 years I had this great career of a travelling folk singer in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia – which has enriched my life enormously.
Why do you primarily perform songs written by other people?
When I “needed” a song for any special event or cause it seemed as if Malvina Reynolds, Pete Seeger and any one of a dozen or more songwriters had already written one which was exactly what I needed. I sing a wide variety of songs, some because of their loveliness, the sheer pleasure of singing them, others for special audiences or occasions. Categories include songs of work, workers, unions; women’s lives and experiences; children’s songs; country and western and cowboy songs; love songs and ballads; topical, political and socially conscious songs; hymns; humorous, outrageous and novelty songs; any song whose words and tune appeal. I think of myself as liking to sing and I try to sing what I feel and what a song means to me. I hope that those hearing the songs will like them and feel them too.
How do you go about choosing and preparing songs to perform?
It depends on the audience, the area, and the purpose of those sponsoring the event.
To what extent do you listen to other people’s versions of the songs in your repertoire?
I do not seek out different versions or singers of any songs. I’ve heard a song, liked it and learned it and will undoubtedly always sing it the way I first heard and learned it. Over the years I’ll certainly change songs, bits of tunes and words, unconsciously.
What do you try to achieve with the songs?
The pleasure of communicating with an audience, getting people to sing along, to enjoy the songs. Sometimes in special situations to give information and stimulate action. To do a good performance, to have a well pleased audience, is an enormously satisfying experience, a creative work of art.
According to the song, ‘For 90 Years’ by Sonny Ochs and Greg Artzner (which appears on the compilation CD produced in honor of your 90th birthday), “She often sings outrageous lyrics/Causing folks to gasp or grin/To ask her to be more sedate/Would surely be a grievous sin”. Are there songs that you have performed despite knowing that they might get a hostile or disapproving reception?
No, I would not challenge an audience. I think of those who come to listen to me sing as friends. We are there for the common purpose of enjoying ourselves, perhaps to learn and to be inspired. (I do remember a program in a conservative area where I did “push the envelope” with a particular song – fortunately it went just fine!).
In what ways does an instrumental accompaniment and/or supporting vocals contribute to your interpretation of a song?
This is a hard one to answer as I am not a fancy guitar player and seldom have other instrumental accompaniment. I play well enough to keep myself in key and I do also try to keep my accompaniment emotionally expressive of the song’s moods. The same with supporting vocals, an accompanist or band. They can be of tremendous support.
How do you go about constructing a set list for your shows?
To me the set list is of primary importance. Depending again on the area, the purpose of the event and the sponsors, the probable composition of the audience, I spend a great deal of time selecting songs that I feel are appropriate to the particular situation. Putting these in order also demands careful attention – the performance must flow. From the first song to the farewell encore, the smoothness of the song changes, the emotions invoked, the relationships are carefully considered. I think I am very good at constructing set lists and friends and co-workers tell me the same.
How do you keep the songs in your repertoire fresh? And what leads you to add or retire a song?
Times change and good songs are added as they come along with current significance plus just great songs continue to be found and new ones written. I don’t know that I’ve ever given any thought to “retiring” a song but certainly some have a comparatively short shelf life and just drop out. I will admit that I sometimes update songs by changing words or even adding phrases or verses.
As a singer, how do you take care of your voice? And does that care process vary according to such factors as when, what and where you will be performing?
I carelessly don’t do regular care. Sometimes practice excellent vocal exercises received from Frankie Armstrong. Gargle with hot salt water. Yes, this varies by what, when and where I am singing.
As a singer, to what extent is it also important to take special care of your physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing?
I’m afraid these truly important factors are ignored by me. Such special care is admirable, I just don’t do it.
To what extent is singing, and music more generally, part of your life away from the stage?
For the past 40 years singing and musical events and organizations have been the center of the non-family part of my life.
In his novel High Fidelity, English writer Nick Hornby covers such vitally important things as organising music collections. Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
The collection of songs I sing is divided in two ways. One is an alphabetical filing of songs, words and music, in 3 hole binders taking up about 17 inches of shelf space. The second is a listing of the names of songs by subject: mining songs, children’s songs, women’s songs, love songs. work songs, etc. etc. etc. Subjects are in alphabetical order. In addition, cassettes, records and CDs are in alphabetical order by artists and books are alphabetical by author under subjects.
What’s been happening in your world in recent times? And what are your plans for 2010?
I’m truly slowing down and doing significantly less performing and travelling each year. This will continue. It depends on physical and mental abilities but 2010 may well be my last year as a professional folk singer.
What tips do you have for songwriters?
Keep it simple. Eschew navel contemplation. Choose themes of universal interest and concern – these can be illustrated through the experience of one individual or one event. Don’t try to put everything you feel about everything into one song – best to stick to one subject and keep it short.
And what tips do you have for singers?
Open your throat. Project but don’t bellow. Remember the audience is there because they want to be. They are your friends, not your judges. You are all there for the same reason, to enjoy the songs and music. So relax and enjoy it yourself. Never underestimate your audience and trust the songs.
JON ARTERTON (www.jonandjames.com)
Jon Arterton was a choirboy at Washington’s National Cathedral and holds a Masters Degree in Choral Conducting from the New England Conservatory of Music and a MFA in Acting from Smith College. Jon founded (and was vocal arranger for) the gay a cappella group, The Flirtations (which performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall and Yankee Stadium), before becoming part of the close harmony trio, The Three Marys. Among the songs recorded by The Flirtations/The Three Marys are: ‘Why Do Fools Fall in Love’ (Lymon-Levy), ‘Breaths’ (Diop-Barnwell), ‘Shooting Star’ (Williamson), ‘Surfing USA’ (Berry-Wilson), ‘Everything Possible’ (Small), ‘Time After Time (Lauper-Hyman), ‘Do Not Turn Away’ (Bucchino), ‘Mister Sandman’ (Ballard), ‘Wallflower’ (Gabriel), ‘Angel’ (McLachlan) and‘(Something Inside) So Strong’ (Siffre). These days, Jon lives in Provincetown, conducts an 120-voice community chorus (The Outer Cape Chorale), serves as the Director of Music at The UU Meeting House in Provincetown and runs periodic singing workshops.
What are some of your earliest memories of music?
My father was a minister, so singing in church is something I remember from the early days. Then, from the age of seven or so, I would sing in the choir – I believed, at the time, that was the only kind of music there was. I built myself a crystal radio set when I was about twelve and I remember tuning into a station that had gospel music on it and just being transported by the energy and the spirit. When I was about thirteen, my sister took me to a Ray Charles concert – which was my first big out-of-church concert – I was hooked!
When, and how, did you become a performer?
I sang all through high school and, with a couple of friends, we started a folk music trio. I went to college and majored in music. One summer, I auditioned for a chamber chorus that performs at Tanglewood (a summer music festival run by the Boston Symphony in western Massachusetts for many decades). Then I went off to New England Conservatory and got a masters degree. When I got out of graduate school, I wanted to escape the Vietnam War, so I got myself a teaching job. After teaching four, five years, I got the theatre bug – so throughout my late 20s and early 30s, my focus was on musical theatre. I auditioned for shows in New York City – and spent one night on Broadway! When I was 35, I came out with wild abandon and, about three years later, started The Flirtations.
Tell us about The Flirtations
We were an openly gay a cappella group, toured for almost a decade and produced three albums. We had, I think, 14 different singers in 11 different incarnations of the group. We finally folded in 1997 – I was the only singer there from the beginning to the end.
What have you been doing since The Flirtations?
In 1993, I moved from New York to Provincetown and Cape Cod to get out of the big city – life on the road with The Flirtations was so hectic and demanding – energy, energy, energy – that I wanted a place to cool out. Since The Flirtations, I’ve been involved in all kinds of music and have returned to one of my first loves – choral conducting – there are three groups that I conduct here in Provincetown. I also do a lot of singing – some of it classical, but most of it pop/theatre. My husband James and I do a two person show about gay marriage – called Just Married – The Musical. And I still teach vocal workshops – including a yearly one out in Hawaii every January.
Why do you primarily perform songs written by other people?
I’ve always been singing oriented. I’ve always been consumed by the voice. And that, I think, led me to my love of a cappella singing, which led to the formation of The Flirtations. I’ve being writing vocal arrangements ever since college, but I very rarely take up the pencil (or, I guess, I should say computer keyboard at this point) to write songs, although I actually just wrote a classical piece called ‘The Old Lie’, which is a pretty strong anti-war piece for chorus and instruments (www.theoldlie.com).
How do you go about choosing and preparing songs to perform?
For me, the words are the most important part in choosing a song. If the words are meaningless, then the song, no matter how good the music is, will be meaningless as far as I am concerned. So the songs that hook me always have some kind of a lyrical content, which is particularly why The Flirtations was a cappella – when you sing a cappella, the words are right there in your face – you’re not being drowned out by drums or guitars or keyboards.
In terms of writing vocal arrangements, that is something you come to with experience. There are certain ways in which you can craft an a cappella arrangement for mixed voices which help to bring the lyrics forward. When I buy choral sheet music, I’m often amazed at the choices that some arrangers make, particularly with the rhythms. Some arrangers seem to be trying to imitate the rhythmic nuance that a solo singer might have and to try to get a group of singers to sing those rhythms can be problematic, counterproductive. I’m constantly simplifying rhythms and thinking about how to make the texture work, so that the main melody line and the main words can predominate.
Tell us some more about arranging
One of the things that you’ve got to pay attention to is that there are two kinds of music – music to be performed with microphone and music that’s meant to be performed acoustically.
In relation to arranging for various types of groups – male, female, mixed – it’s not too different. The ranges can, of course, be different. If you’re lucky enough to have men with falsetto voices, like we did with The Flirtations, then you’ve got a wider range than you would have with typical female voices. Although Ysaye Barnwell [Sweet Honey in the Rock] does sing down to a low F, she’s a rarity – most women lose volume when they get four or five notes below middle C. And then women’s voices tend to get “screechy” above E flat or so (a tenth above middle C). Everybody has different registers in their voice and there are breaks in voices in certain places. And with women singers, there’s a real dichotomy between the chest voice and the head voice, which is something to be reckoned with.
I should say, however, that when you write for mixed voices, and probably for women’s voices, the melody is usually on the top. When you’re writing for men’s voices, frequently the melody gets into the middle of the texture somewhere. And that does make a difference.
How do you get vocal groups to engage with the lyrics of a song?
With a small group, it’s important that everybody be in sync with the content. One of the rules that we had with The Flirtations was that any one of us could say that we weren’t going to do a particular song. We just didn’t want anybody to sing words that they thought were problematic in any way.
One of the subtleties of singing in an a cappella group is allowing the other parts, when the time is right, to come through. One of groups that I conduct here is a twenty voice a cappella chorus and teaching them how to phrase, and teaching them how to back off when they’ve got an accompanying part, is a life long endeavour!
Do you think there are singers with a “beautiful voice”, who never really engage with the lyrics?
There are certainly singers who have a beautiful voice, but whose performances somehow leave me flat. Frequently it’s because they’ve chosen material that I consider to be without any heart, without any emotional connection to it.
Are there songs that you have performed despite knowing that they might get a hostile or disapproving reception?
Oh sure. Of course. When you’re an openly gay group, you get hostility, no matter.
The Flirtations once got invited to sing a couple of nights at a theatre in Montana – one of our most conservative states. A local record store, which for years had sold tickets for the events at the theatre, refused to sell our tickets. Then it got into the newspaper and we had to add another show!
I also distinctly remember singing at an outdoor park in New York City – where people didn’t know who we were. Three businessmen walked through the park and one of them muttered something about “fags” loudly – so that people would hear it. The crowd turned on him and hissed.
That kinds of sums it up. At some point, you just have to sing the things you stand for, even if it’s not going to be necessarily popular.
There’s a wonderful song by Labi Siffre called ‘(Something Inside) So Strong’, with which we almost always ended our concerts. It has a verse that goes:
“Brothers and sisters/When they insist we’re just not good enough/When we know better/Just look ’em in the eyes and say/I’m gonna do it anyway/I’m gonna do it anyway”
Another song I should mention is Fred Small’s lullaby, ‘Everything Possible’ – an incredible song which is on all three of The Flirtations albums. I can’t tell you how many times people have come up to me after a concert, with tears in their eyes, relating their experiences of how their parents had treated them growing up. That kind of feedback, and the buzz that you get from hearing that type of comment, makes other kinds of laudatory comments seem trivial and unimportant and has made it for me impossible to sing “filler” songs.
Last winter, James and I got the opportunity to perform ‘Everything Possible’ in Boise, Idaho – which is also a pretty conservative place. In the introduction, we talked about how our parents had this attitude towards gay people. After the show, a man came up and said he had been in the role of the un-accepting parent – he had rejected his son, been cruel to him, abandoned him – and his son had died of AIDS three years later. Then he told us how, in the following years, he’s been doing all he can to repair his life and to make it up to his dead son.
As a singer, how do you take care of your voice?
There are things that people can do to damage their voice, even though your voice is an amazingly strong instrument which is able to recover from a lot of abuses (as we all know if we’ve gone to sports events!). Your voice is basically a whole bunch of tiny muscles that control your vocal folds. Those muscles can tire out, although they normally do recover. But there are things that people do that can harm their voice – like jazz singers who do that gravel thing for years. One of the things I do with my choruses is really warm them up – slowly and carefully.
In terms of taking care of your voice, something I’ve learned later in life is that our voices sound much more beautiful if we just back off. The more we push, the more edge there is to the voice and less beauty. When all those tiny muscles in the back of our throat and our tongue (our tongue is nothing but a huge muscle) are gripping, it’s like the sound of an electric guitar that’s not plugged in as opposed to a beautiful acoustic guitar. When those muscles are relaxed and the sound is vibrating around tissue that is relaxed and pliable, the sound is just much more pretty than when it is hitting something that is hard. In voice workshops, I am constantly saying “10 per cent less”, in some cases “20 per cent less!”.
I mentioned earlier the two different voices – the chest voice and the head voice. With the head voice, or the falsetto, there is a lighter touch and they are much less muscularly involved. I think that the whole key to learning how to sing is to bring that less muscularly involved place down into the whole voice, rather than trying to force the more muscularly involved way that we sing when we grit things out with our chest voice because you run into places where the muscles go “I’m not going there”.
I learned an awful lot about singing in my early life when I was involved in classical singing. And I learned so much more about singing with microphones because you are able to sing in a lighter, less strenuous place.
Another thing that is really important is picking the right key – that’s vital – even the best singers have breaks in their voices. Sometimes it sounds like a singer just can’t get the song out – like there’s something blocking it – and you move up a note or two or down a note or two and suddenly it becomes alive. Of course, if it’s a big song with a high note at the end, you want to put that on your money note and adjust everything else and hope that the low parts of the song aren’t too low.
How do you go about constructing a set list for your shows?
To me, it’s important that when you are introduced, and you first come on, that you don’t talk – you get right into a song. And that song has got to be up-tempo and it’s got to be something that everybody will enjoy and is bright and happy. And I think you’ve got to follow that with a song of the same vein, but perhaps a little slower and maybe a little bit more heartful, but nothing too deep. With The Flirts, we sang a lot of varied kinds of music and we would do wild transitions and the audience would go with us. You also want to figure out what is your dénouement, your ultimate song. For The Flirtations, it worked to end with our two most powerful songs – ‘Everything Possible’ (a lullaby) and ‘(Something Inside) So Strong’ (a rousing song). You’ve got to end with a song that ties it all together and which gets them on their feet. And right before that, you’ve got to sing something that is the emotional crux of why you’re doing the whole act in the first place. Between the opening and the end, you’ve just got to be careful that you don’t have three slow songs in a row or in the same key or that you don’t have too many songs in a row that hit them over the head.
Do you have any general advice for songwriters?
One bit of advice is that if you are an original songwriter, you don’t have to just sing your own material. People do like hearing songs that they’ve heard before and, because of who you are, you can put them into a different context that will make the experience deeper. Last December, my big chorus did a program of all Beatles music and we turned people away at five different concerts. And the thing I keep hearing is, “I knew that I loved the Beatles, but I had no idea how rich the words were until I heard them sung in a slightly different way”. So my advice to songwriters is that your own material will have a lot more impact, will be listened to in a more purposeful way, if it’s not one of your songs after another after another after another. There are many great songs that are already out there and that people know – so let them hear those songs, but sing them in a way that gives a message that maybe people have missed along the way that relates to your message. And what you sing before and after the song will give the audience a different listening experience.
To what extent do you listen to other people’s music?
Surprisingly, I don’t listen to very much music. My head is always thinking of music and remembering things and tunes are running through my head, but I rarely actually sit down to listen to things unless it’s for some project that I’m working on.
Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
My collection used to be organised into: a cappella, gay, women’s music, jazz, classical, theatre, pop. But these days, I very rarely listen to my CDs because I subscribe to the Rhapsody music service and my CDs are in plastic containers.
And so what do you try to achieve with songs?
I try to pull an audience into a story that has either an emotional atmosphere or an emotional story line that they can identify with so that when the song is over they’ve had insights, they’ve had memories come up for them or they’ve had thoughts, particularly thoughts with an emotional connection.
To be a strong performance, it’s got to hit more than just the head – it’s got to hit the heart. In the folk music medium, there can be a tendency for performers to browbeat their audiences with their political message, to spell out a political message with a hammer.
The Flirtations were a political group and we usually “sang for the choir”, as we say here, for gay audiences, but obviously there was a whole range of people in the audience. When we wanted to sing a song about the AIDS crisis, we could have chosen to sing a song that went “oh, we’re in a terrible crisis and people are dying all around us” or we could just say between songs that we’d lost a member or two to the AIDS crisis and then begin singing:
“I’ll be seeing you/In all the old familiar places…”
JUDI CONNELLI
Judi Connelli is an Australian performer, whose career spans opera, operetta, theatre, musicals, television and cabaret. Although born in Brisbane, Judi spent part of her childhood on a farm in south east Queensland. Judi’s roles have included Golda (Fiddler on the Roof), Zozo (The Merry Widow), Mrs Pearce (My Fair Lady), Carlotta Campion (Follies), Matron Mama Morton (Chicago), Fraulein Schneider (Cabaret) and Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard). Over the years, Judi has worked with Opera Australia, the Victorian Opera, the Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras and the Sydney Theatre Company. As well as performing in Australia, Judi has performed overseas, including in New York and London. Judi’s television appearances include GP, A Country Practice, The Young Doctors and Cookie Brodie in Prisoner [Cell Block H]. In addition to performing solo, Judi has performed two person shows with Suzanne Johnston (Perfect Strangers; Take Two!) and as part of The Three Divas. In 2004, Judi became a Member of the Order of Australia – for service to the entertainment industry as a musical theatre and cabaret performer and as a recording artist and to the community through support for charitable organisations.
What are some of your earliest memories of music?
This goes back to the age of about seven or eight. We’d moved from Surfers Paradise to Brisbane and then out to a small farm in the Lockyer Valley. Mum and Dad would sing together and separately. My father was a trained tenor, but could never quite stay on the note, and my mother was born with a natural singing voice. As news got out in that small town that Mum and Dad could sing, they would often be asked to sing a song or two. And in the home, my parents would sing if Moira Birch was playing the piano – it was nice, really nice, and it went on for years. You could be assured after a Sunday lunch or afternoon tea, we would all burst out in song around the piano. It still happens sometimes. When Christmas comes and my siblings pay me a visit, and there is usually a piano player in the room, we’ll have a sing-song. It is lovely to hear everyone singing.
At what point did you seriously start thinking that you could make a living as a performer?
When the late Bernard King gave me my start in Brisbane, it didn’t occur to me that I’d be making it my career. Bernard heard me sing at a social event at the Milton tennis courts and was impressed with this raw voice. He came to me one day (I was 18 and selling cosmetics in David Jones) to tell me that a new room was opening in town and asked whether I would join him in this review he was writing for the downstairs room and singing songs with a band upstairs.
Those show business years in Brisbane were varied – singing with bands, performing skits in reviews, being part of a comedy team for television and performing in theatre restaurants. It was a fantastic learning time for me with so much variety. I was very young and just doing it. It wasn’t until I moved to Sydney that I would start singing lessons.
I think I really became a performer after working for a few years in Sydney. My singing teacher Max Speed (my one and only singing teacher my entire career) discovered in my voice a capacity for opera – a mezzo-soprano range. My voice began to sound more full and together and I guess when I finally found my true voice I then began to develop my style. Max recently passed away – which was a very sad thing for me. He found my voice and I am forever grateful to him.
Why do you primarily perform songs written by other people?
I’ve never had the desire to write my own material – it has never been part of my need. I’ve always been extremely thrilled by the discoveries of what other people write. Stephen Sondheim is a passion for me – it isn’t necessarily the music, but the lyric. His songs provide a whole spectrum of expression from which to pick and choose.
Do you have any advice for songwriters?
No – because I hold so much admiration for people who write anything. I think songs are pure poetry.
How do you go about preparing songs to perform?
Singing is like painting a picture. It’s about how thick you apply the paint or how thin. You begin with a blank canvass and simply express what you want to say.
Back in the ‘80s when I was doing cabaret a couple of seasons a year at the Tilbury Hotel in Sydney, my personal life was an emotional roller coaster ride – from moments of extraordinary passion and happiness to the depths of despair. The audiences at the Tilbury were subjected to an emotion-packed show. I offloaded a lot of different emotions through those songs, night after night. I felt better always after each show, I just hope the audiences were okay. But as my reputation for highly charged emotion grew to a larger audience, they seemed to expect this emotional performer to come out and rip the paint from the walls.
In 1987, I discovered a softer, honey-like quality in my voice, another colour. It came in handy when I wanted to caress those special songs. I found it when I was performing in a show called Jerry’s Girls. The director asked me to simply stand beside a pillar and not move a muscle and sing this particularly beautiful song as softly as I could. It was an auspicious moment in my career. I think I hadn’t allowed myself to go into these soft places until I trusted my voice and trusted the experience of singing.
Is singing still a mechanism for the outpouring of your emotions?
These days, things are more balanced within me. I have grown to appreciate having these powerful emotions and as a result have become more comfortable with who I am. The emotions are still with me and continue to be expressed through gardening, painting and singing from time to time.
Are there songs that you’ve performed despite knowing that they might get a hostile or disapproving reception?
One of the things that I’ve realised singing in cabaret is that you can’t have secrets between you and the audience. I feel it’s important to be who you are as then the lyrics can mean something.
The first day of rehearsal for The Pack of Women back in ’84, Robyn Archer, the writer and director, showed us footage from when she had done the show in London. Well I was surprised and immediately thought it wasn’t my type of show, I hadn’t really been a political spokesperson up until that point. We were covering all sorts of subjects in the songs, from ‘Menstruation Blues’ through to songs about growing old. The Pack of Women was a fantastic show to be part of, I suddenly had opinions about so many subjects.
There was another show that I did called, Women Behind Bars, which was written by Tom Eyen (who also wrote Dreamgirls). My agent at the time didn’t want me to do it. It was based on the film, Caged. And it shocked a lot of people.
In what ways does an instrumental accompaniment and/or supporting vocals contribute to your interpretation of a song?
For me, dreamtime is a small intimate space, with the greatly talented Michael Tyack playing the piano and maybe an acoustic bass. I am happy. Michael is a very gifted accompanist, he makes the piano sound just like a full orchestra. I think that I began working with Michael when he was musical director on Chicago, that famous Sydney Theatre Company production we did in the early ’80s. Michael is a rare breed.
How do you go about preparing a show and preparing for a show?
Putting shows together has always been pleasurable – whether it was The Three Divas, the shows with Suzi [Suzanne Johnston], or me solo.
With a show that goes for a year (performing eight times a week), it takes discipline to try to produce the same quality every night. I find that hour or so before a show – when I’m putting on the makeup and focussing on things – to be a most precious and wonderful time. Regardless of where you are performing (whether it’s the Opera House or the Recital Hall or a small room in New York), the preparation time is always the same – before a show, I need to be quiet and if I can be alone that is an extra bonus.
When I am working on my own shows, I think of what I want to say and then, when I’ve worked that out, the title comes and it all falls into place. In Matters of the Heart [2006], I sang some songs that I love to sing and also included songs that people wanted to hear me sing again and some new songs.
With The Three Divas, a show we toured in ’96, Michael Tyack and David King assisted us in organising the many arrangements. The show involved three divas – Suzi, Jennifer McGregor [and later Rosemary Boyle] and myself – so lots of harmony, lots of famous songs, including Gershwin, Rodgers and Hart, Rodgers and Hammerstein. We all sang a solo and a duet, as well as singing together.
Putting a two-hander together can be very challenging, but in doing the shows with Suzi, it’s probably easier as I’m working with my partner and we can talk for hours about what we want to say, etc. I enjoy the experience of singing with Suzi – and it’s a lovely thing to do together.
As a singer, how do you take care of your voice? And to what extent is it also important to take care of your physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing?
In the opera world, the focus on the voice is very different to the focus in musical theatre. In the opera world, it’s all about the voice. In musical theatre, your voice tends to be over-used. Opera singers would NEVER sing eight shows a week.
A singer must look after his or her voice. Try to get plenty of good sleep before a show and always wrap a scarf around your throat and keep that area warm. I try to minimise mucous-forming foods – so not a lot of cheese, milk, etc. I always avoid air-conditioning, it has a very bad affect on my nose and that usually affects the voice. Air-conditioning is also drying, so when you’re in a theatre, where there is generally air-conditioning, you always need a steam machine in your dressing room. Sometimes in a production there can be smoke – and smoke is not so good for a voice. If you’re having an emotional crisis, that can have an affect on the voice. Other parts of your body can also affect your voice. When I was playing The Witch in Into the Woods in ’93, my role involved bending over from the neck much of the time. Well, the muscles in my neck went into spasm and wouldn’t let my vocal chords do their thing. And, of course, the nightmare of any singer is an infection in the throat. The voice always needs to be warmed up, ready to go. That’s part of the hour before the performance. It’s also wise to warm down your voice by humming a few notes after the show.
While performing can be fun and it is certainly an adventure, it’s also a very lonely sort of life. If you are in a show, you know the old saying, “the show must come first”. It is your responsibility, as a singer and an actor, to produce the goods day after day. It’s not party after party or going out night after night drinking. On Tuesday and Friday nights, a matinee looms on the horizon, so it’s off to bed early to be rested for the two shows the next day.
I think people are now more aware of what goes into performing on stage. That wonderful BBC television series showing behind the scenes at Covent Garden, that was very revealing.
How do you keep the songs in your repertoire fresh? And what leads you to add or retire a song?
It begins with you and the discipline that you learn and acquire as a performer. The audience is the most important thing – they are paying their money and they need a quality performance. So keeping songs fresh involves a lot of discipline and respect – self respect and respect for the text and the composer. In a constructed show, that you’re involved in for 12 months, you can’t change the songs. You are engaged as an actor and a singer to perform the same songs eight times a week.
How do the challenges of presenting your own life story on stage differ from the challenges of a role that involves taking on another persona?
Cabaret, opera and musical theatre are different worlds, they bring very different experiences. The only common dominator in there is the voice and what that particular role demands from the voice.
When I was doing my life story, Back to Before, I found it difficult, at times, to be so open with the audience as I was letting them into my personal landscape. I’d like to re-look at Back to Before and re-construct it and show images of the life that we had together as a family and maybe go into it a little deeper.
In other roles, Mrs Lovett (Sweeney Todd) for instance under the direction of Gale Edwards (which was a wonderful experience), it’s not so personal, Mrs Lovett was not my landscape. And, in those roles, you’re in a costume, you wear a wig and you become that character.
When I first took on the role of Katisha (The Mikado) in 1985, it was certainly a challenge. The songs for that particular character were written for a very big deep voice – I don’t know whether it was meant for a man in the days when there was a cross-over between operetta and pantomime and they would sometimes get a man to do these roles – but it’s always been a difficult role because you have to do this gear shift between your chest voice and your high voice. When I last did the role, in 2006, I think I was singing Katisha better than I had ever sung her before. My voice had become very much more powerful.
Many labels have been applied to female performers over the years – for example, soul sisters; country queens; women of heart and mind; chirps, thrushes and nightingales; hillbilly fillies; pop chicks; rebel grrrls; fierce folkies. Where do you fit in?
I’ve been described as “a force of nature” and “the woman with her heart in her voice”.
To what extent is singing, and music, part of your life away from the stage?
I love listening to music (and I go to shows and recitals). I love listening to ABC FM. But I prefer the quiet – I live in a place where I don’t hear much noise and I love listening to the birds.
Do people recognise you when you’re at a show or a recital?
I don’t think about being recognised and I don’t expect to be recognised – but it happens. And, as I don’t go to a lot of fuss in dressing up, sometimes it’s very embarrassing – because it looks like I’ve just done the washing!
Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
I’ve got the music in folders. My arrangements all have to be written for me – I don’t ever sing in the written key – so they’re quite precious. My CDs are in drawers and are organised into women’s voices, men’s voices, shows, etc.
What’s been happening in your world in recent times?
I’ve actually taken this year off from performing – although I’ve sung the occasional song. It’s been very beneficial for me to take this time out – so wonderful to have the time to reflect and also to retreat from being Judi Connelli. In 2010 there are a couple of things happening [including the roles of Miss Andrew in an Australian production of Mary Poppins and Celia Peachum in the Victorian Opera’s production of The Threepenny Opera], but until then I will continue to enjoy my time out.
And, finally, what do you like doing after a performance?
One of my most favourite things in the world is going home to the quiet and having a cup of hot tea!
JUNE TABOR (www.junetabor.co.uk)
June Tabor is an English performer, who sings traditional and contemporary songs, both accompanied and unaccompanied. She began performing while studying French and Latin at Oxford University, but only became a full-time performer after working as a librarian and running a restaurant in the Lake District. Invariably, the title of June’s solo albums begin with the letter ‘A’. As well as her solo work, June has collaborated with such people as Danny Thompson, Peter Bellamy, Martin Simpson and the Oysterband. In addition, June and Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span) have recorded two albums as the Silly Sisters. June Tabor lives in an old house on the border of England and Wales, in an area that she describes as “green, lumpy and with lots of sheep, woods, fields and rivers”.
What are your earliest memories of music?
I grew up in a country town on the edge of the west Midlands – Warwick. We didn’t have a television when I was very small and so my earliest memories of music is the radio – it was in the days when the radio was the most important thing in the house.
I don’t come from a musical family, as such, but singing has always been a perfectly natural form of expression. My parents would sing around the house for the pleasure of singing – popular music of their day or more recent stuff. I seem to remember that my mother was very fond of Elvis Presley.
I think I sang pretty much as soon as I could speak and I would copy and absorb what I heard on the radio. I’ve actually discovered that I know the words of many standards – which I’ve never consciously learnt – but obviously absorbed from things like ‘Family Favourites’ that were on the British Home Service as it was then (now Radio 4).
When, and how, did you become a performer?
Recently I was asked if I have any photos or any memories to contribute for my first school’s 125th anniversary – it was an infant school and a junior school, which I attended until I was ten. And I’ve remembered that our singing teacher, when I was about nine, took us to see a production of The Mikado at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon – it was D’Oyle Carte – the Shakespeare season was only in the summer and they had other things in the winter then. We were so entranced by The Mikado that we asked the teacher whether we could do it ourselves. She got the vocal score and taught us the songs and then we improvised the dialogue we remembered from seeing the performance. I was Nanki-Poo and I can still remember the songs – even the difficult bits! We performed The Mikado for other members of the school and I get the feeling that that was my first semi-public performance.
Apart from when I was about six, I was not in a choir, although I eventually acquired some sort of reputation, within the school, as somebody who could sing. While we were actually taught to read music at grammar school, I forgot and so I still can’t do it!
At grammar school, I started to have trouble singing the hymns in assembly in the keys that they were set in for girls voices. I had this strange voice with an upper and lower register and I used to have to swap registers to be able to sing the hymns – because I couldn’t manage the high bits. (By the bye, when I left school, and stopped singing hymns, the upper register disappeared altogether and I was just left with the bottom one – which has grown somewhat.)
At the age of 15, 16, I discovered the tip of the iceberg of traditional music from a couple of programs that were on television (possibly Hullabaloo and Hallelujah) – they were religious programs, on at about half past five on a Sunday – which was probably the only way that folk music could have got on to television then. One was presented by Sydney Carter (who wrote ‘Lord of the Dance’) and that was the first time I ever saw Martin Carthy.
Then a friend at school told me that there was a folk club opening in Leamington and asked me whether I fancied going. I didn’t really know what a folk club was, but I knew that I had heard some “folk music” which I liked, and off we went. It was a sing-a-round type of folk club with a resident group. She had been to a folk club before and knew what happened. As soon as we got there, she walked up to the organiser and said, “My friend sings. Will you put her on?”. Somewhat reluctantly I sang the only two songs that I knew which I thought would fit in, which I had learnt from the religious programs. And that is how I started to perform.
I think that I’d just got a record player at that point – my sister (who was nine years older) bought me one. I had some singles – Cliff Richard. (Oh God, I’ve just admitted that!) But I didn’t have any folk music on record until I went to visit my sister in London and she took me to a record shop – Dobell’s – which was folk and jazz. I looked in the folk section and I found an EP – a Topic Records EP – with four songs sung unaccompanied by a woman. It was Anne Briggs – The Hazards of Love. I took it home, shut myself in the bathroom – best acoustics in the house – and I taught myself how to sing.
I never got to meet Sydney Carter, but I did see Anne Briggs perform – twice, I think. She came to the Heritage Folksong Society in Oxford, when I was at university. There was one of our number who always recorded the Folksong performances – even at the age of 19 or so, he was an avid recorder of everything. And he recorded Anne’s performance. She performed in the upstairs room of a town pub down in Jericho, in one of those terraced streets behind Oxford University Press. It was summer term, so downstairs they were playing Aunt Sally (which is a form of skittles). It was a wonderful bit of field recording. Anne was singing unaccompanied and every now and then you’d hear the roll of a ball, a click as the skittles went down and a muffled ‘yeah’ as the home team knocked them all down, then Anne would be singing a bit more.
Why do you primarily perform songs written by other people?
When I started performing, pretty well everybody sang songs written by other people. It was the Beatles, in a way, who started this breaking away from the reliance on the professional songwriter. Songs that were sung in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s and the beginning of the ’60s tended to be written by professional songwriters, not by performers. It was the Beatles saying that they were going to write their own music that made people realise that you could do it – and you could create something individual. Sadly, this was not to be my path.
I did try, at one point, to write a song. I probably took on rather a difficult task. Marie de France, a 12th century Breton writer, wrote a werewolf tale called, ‘Bisclavret’. And I thought it would make a fantastic ballad in English. So I tried to render it into an English ballad form. I’ve still got it. From time to time, I take it out, look at it and think, “No”.
I discovered quite early on that I have ideas on what I would like a song to be about, but I am so self critical and unable to create anything original. My skill is as an interpreter.
How do you go about choosing and preparing songs to perform?
My starting point is finding songs from all sorts of musical backgrounds, with good words, which tell good stories. There are an awful lot of good songs out there. There are songs written by people who can sing. And there are quite a few songs written by people who can’t sing, but whose songs deserve to be taken away by someone who says, “You’re really good. You speak to me. And I want to share what I’m getting from you with other people”.
I always start with the words. If the words speak to me, then it’s got a good chance. I suppose I look at songs in many ways as I would look at a short story. A song doesn’t have to be a logical, narrative progression – although some goods songs are. A song might just seize on a moment in the path of a story and illuminate that particular scene, with use of language in the song such that it stimulates the imagination as to what came before or what is going to happen next – whether it’s right or not, it doesn’t matter – it’s your involvement with the song or the short story. Or it could be strong use of language which conjures up very clear visual images. Or it could be a combination of those things.
If it’s a traditional song, I reckon it’s possible to make alterations. When you see a traditional song, it’s still in a transient state. It was created by a person or persons unknown (or possibly by a person known – there are huge amounts of arguments about that). As people sing it, they make alterations – whether to suit their audience or themselves or because they forgot something or because they put a piece in from another song because it made it sound better. Traditional music is not frozen in the state that it was collected from whomever it was collected – it should change, in a positive way.
With a song that has been written by a single person (known), then if there is something about it that jars, then I would probably just pass it by. I think you should respect the feelings of the person who wrote a song. Although I might possibly leave a verse out (if I thought it made the song stronger), I wouldn’t alter a song wholesale that had a known creator.
To what extent do you listen to other people’s versions of the songs in your repertoire?
Oh, never. I’m a spoken word person really. And if I listen to music, I’d probably rather listen to instrumental music. Although there are a few singers whose work makes me go, “That is just the best way to sing that song.” Dick Gaughan singing ‘Craigie Hill’, for example. That is just perfection.
What do you try to achieve with the songs?
I think largely that it’s being the medium through which a song passes to a listener. I want to be able to communicate what a song makes me feel, think, see, to whoever hears my version of the song.
I have a very visual response to a lot of songs – they really do unroll in my mind’s eye like a film. The strongest of songs are like little films in my head as I sing them and, what’s more, every time, not just the first or second time, every time I sing them. For example, the traditional song, ‘Bonnie James Campbell’ – if there was ever a film in a song, that’s it. I see it SO clearly EVERY time. From a modern point of view, you don’t need to look much further than Lal Waterson’s ‘The Scarecrow’ – that’s Bergman encapsulated in three, four verses.
Are there songs that you have performed knowing that they might get a hostile or disapproving reception?
There’s somebody out there going to disagree with everything. If the song speaks to me, then I think it has a right to be heard.
Tell us about Alistair Hulett’s song, ‘He Fades Away’
That is such a song and, like quite a few songs in my life, it found me. We were travelling in America and we had a long car journey ahead. A friend who we were staying with in Philadelphia gave us some tapes to get us through New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont. One of the tapes was a compilation tape of guitar music, but on the back he had put Alistair Hulett’s Dance of the Underclass album. So we played the guitar tracks, then we turned it over. We were on a freeway in Vermont, I think. We got to ‘He Fades Away’ and we had to stop the car – and just sat there and cried. We learnt the song and started performing it. A couple of years later, we actually met Alistair – he was living not far from where we live here. He said that it was great that I’d got the album that he’d sent me through my record company. And I told Alistair that I hadn’t ever received his copy. So that song was obviously meant to find me.
In what ways does an instrumental accompaniment contribute to your interpretation of a song?
Although I began singing unaccompanied, these days I mostly sing with accompaniment. For another person to accompany you, when you have a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to singing, is very hard. Accompaniment is a phenomenally difficult art to do well, particularly in this field of music where you are not working to a written score of any sort – where everything is done by memory. The people who are good at it are beyond price. I was very lucky to encounter, pretty early on really, Martin Simpson – who is an exquisite accompanist. When you have only performed unaccompanied, being given the chance to work with someone who is a great musician gives you a much bigger range of songs that you can choose from. Not all songs work unaccompanied, particularly modern songs. Where a song was written to an accompaniment, often the accompaniment forms part of the circle – if you imagine it as a complete circle – of the words, the music and the accompaniment. If you take the accompaniment away, there is something missing. So songs that I had wanted to sing, but didn’t work unaccompanied – like Lal Waterson’s ‘The Scarecrow’ – suddenly became possible. Then when Martin went to live in America full-time, again somebody was looking after me, and I found Huw Warren. This time it was piano – not guitar – a piano is an orchestra in itself and that made even more songs possible. I just can’t underestimate that experience of finding amazing musicians to help underscore the strength of the words of the songs.
How do you go about constructing a set list for your shows?
I love to put together programs of songs that complement each other – usually from the point of view of subject matter. If you do that, the audience is suddenly confronted with a song that they ordinarily wouldn’t have expected at that time, they know it, and they start thinking about it differently.
It’s great to take some new things, some old things and re-think how to accompany them and how to put them next to something that has a connection and that starts on a journey of songs that takes you to places that you might not have expected to go. And it’s very interesting and exciting for me and the musicians – Huw [Warren], Mark [Emerson], Andy [Cutting], Tim [Harries] – and the audience.
In constructing a set list, there are starters and finishers. For the beginning, you want something that is a good way of grabbing the audience’s attention. They are already fairly committed – because they’ve made the effort to buy a ticket. But you want to start with something that goes, “Right. Now, come with me.”. Then you need to look at instrumentation – how many people play, full sound, minimal sound. There is often a thread of story connecting one song to the next. Recently, we’ve done concerts whereby we do little suites of songs. And I like to talk. I like to talk about the songs and set them up in such a way that an audience is given a good, fighting chance of getting a lot out of a song that they might never have heard before. It is difficult to take in everything – well, you can’t – on a first listening. This is not the kind of performance whereby everybody’s got the album and they’ve learnt the words from the booklet and they’re not even really listening because they know it all by heart anyway. I hope that our performances contain a number of surprises or unexpected items which will make them think about what they thought they knew about the more familiar items from the repertoire. You also get quite a lot of people who don’t have a clue about who I am or what I do and who have just come along out of curiosity or because their friend said, “I’ve got a ticket”. To end a performance, it’s got to be something that brings it all together. There aren’t that many songs in the repertoire that will stand as starters or finishers for a set. Very often we finish with ‘Lie Near Me’ (At the Wood’s Heart), which is a superb song of re-found love, an affirmation of love lasting through all kinds of mental and physical hardships and coming out the other side. That’s a lovely way to finish a concert.
How do you keep the songs in your repertoire fresh?
It was said about Charles II, who was renowned for his love of the ladies, that “His Majesty never discards a mistress, he just adds to his hand”. And that’s me with songs. They are all in there, somewhere, and sometimes they get rested – they might get rested for 20 years – and then I’ll do them again. Because I do a patchwork of songs, I don’t feel obliged to just do the new stuff. It’s good to bring songs back and see how you feel about them.
And what leads you to add a song?
When we have a rehearsal, we always do something new. It might not go into the show that we are rehearsing for, but it’s the start of getting use to a song.
Tell us about Eric Bogle’s ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’
It’s another one of the songs that found me. I was with some friends in a pub, I think called the Pack Horse, just outside Bath – it was an informal sing-around. The friends, who had spent some time in New Guinea and in Australia, were being visited by other friends. One of visiting friends, Jane Herival, had also lived in Australia. She knew Eric and she sang ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’. I sat there, in the back room of that pub, and cried.
How hard is it to perform very moving songs?
It is extremely difficult. In a way, adrenalin gives you a false courage to get through a song. If you’ve got a very vivid imagination, like I have, it is not easy to sing, but you do it because the song deserves it.
When the In Flanders Fields Museum opened in Ypres, Belgium, we were asked to perform at the opening ceremony in the Cloth Hall. By complete chance, it happened to be ANZAC Day [25 April]. Although the majority of the pieces performed at the concert were relating to the Western Front, I said that I had to perform ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ – which I hadn’t sung for a long time. I practiced it taking the dogs for a walk up in the woods and I couldn’t get through it without bursting into tears. At the ceremony, in front of a rather large audience of important people, we performed with silent back projection of footage from Gallipoli. I couldn’t see what was going on behind me. And Huw [Warren] later said, “I’m glad you couldn’t see, because otherwise you probably couldn’t have got through the song”.
As a singer, how do you take care of your voice?
Oh, dear. I once did a workshop at a folk festival in Canada – I don’t do workshops, but they put me down for one, so I had to turn up! There were a couple of voice teachers on the panel and when I was asked about my practice regime, I had to tell them that I don’t have one and that I don’t do vocal exercises. So they moved on quickly to someone else on the panel.
If I’m learning a song, I sing it, quite a lot, wherever I happen to be. I once made a man nearly fall off a bicycle. I was walking up the road singing and I got to a really loud bit, just as this chap came around the corner on his bicycle. So you’ve got to be a bit careful. Maddy [Prior] did that once. She was staying here and went for a walk up the hill to get a bit of air in her lungs. And she ripped into a song and gave two walkers coming around some bushes a hell of a fright.
Undoubtedly, doing vocal exercises is very good for some kinds of voices. But I don’t have that sort of voice. To me, performing is my practising. As I get older, I know that my voice is not going to last forever – it can’t.
You are vulnerable, as a singer, in the nasal passages and throat department. I got a very bad viral infection on a plane going to America once. You know what it’s like sitting on an aircraft for eight hours. It’s like sitting in a class full of five year olds – you’re going to catch something – and I did. I was very ill and I had to cancel 22 dates out of 28. And the virus left me with quite a sinus weakness.
Before a show, I always have a spoonful of runny honey. About half way through each set (we usually do two sets of an hour or slightly longer), I try to make sure that they do an independent instrumental so that I can nip off stage and have another spoonful of honey. Tea tree oil is good. Gargling is quite good too. And massaging the sinuses.
As a singer, to what extent is it also important to take special care of your physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing?
Gardening, and being outside, is pretty important. Walking is a good way of getting the lungs working and all the muscles that you need. If I feel that I’m getting a bit peaky, the best thing is a brisk walk – up the road or up the hill. Walking and gardening, regardless of the weather, make you feel better about everything.
Many labels have been applied to female performers over the years – for example, soul sisters; country queens; women of heart and mind; chirps, thrushes and nightingales; hillbilly fillies; pop chicks; rebel grrrls; fierce folkies. Where do you fit in?
I am the last person to give myself a title or category! But I would like to be known as someone who sings songs that tell good stories. That’s the most important thing.
Do you have any advice for songwriters?
Ooh, now that’s tricky. Economy of lyric – that’s one of the things that I look for in a song. Sometimes it can be a really interesting piece of writing, but it would have been a lot better at half the length. So less is more generally.
Then you look at a song like ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’, which is a long song, but it’s fantastic and you couldn’t miss any of that out. The first time I ever did the song on radio was for The Peel Sessions in 1975. I was standing in for Maddy [Prior] actually, who had a sore throat and couldn’t sing. Tim Hart was going to do half the slot and he asked me if I would come along and do some unaccompanied songs. When we arrived, we met John Walters, who was John Peel’s producer, and he enquired as to what I wanted to do. I told him that I had song which was quite long and I asked him whether there was a limit on how long a piece could be. He said, “Well, I think the longest piece we’ve had so far is Tangerine Dream and that was about 17 minutes and 30 seconds. Is it longer than that?”. So I sang ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ and people still come up to me and say that they heard it. One person told me that they were at boarding school at the time and weren’t supposed to listen to the radio, but they had a radio hidden under the bedclothes, and they still remember hearing me sing, ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’.
Bill Caddick’s ‘The Writing of Tipperary’ is another long song
Ah, that is a song and a half. “If only history lessons could be like this”, someone once said to me.
In his novel High Fidelity, English writer Nick Hornby covers such vitally important things as organising music collections. Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
As a former librarian, things should be organised a little better than they are. I CAN actually find things – because I remember what they look like. One of the things about working in a library, and being able to find things, is having a good memory, including for what a book looks like and where you saw it last!
I have just managed to put all my music books together – they’re around the corner, near the piano. The light’s not very good – we live in an old house with small windows – so I often have to take a torch if I want to look for something on the bottom shelf.
With my CDs, one section is near the CD player. Those are the things I might want most often – they are grouped into folk music, jazz and other, in alphabetical order. Then there’s the rest of the CDs. I never dispose of a CD. I always keep them. (It’s like the books – you can’t move in this house for books.) So there are the other CDs, the next others and all the other others (amongst which it takes a while to find something).
There are the tapes – because some things are only on tape.
And, upstairs, there is vinyl – some of which is much treasured because it has never gone onto CD, although it’s a bit of a performance to get the deck working to listen to something.
And so what’s happening in your world?
We’ve just done a concert in London, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, as part of the celebration of Topic Records’ 70th birthday. The concert was thematic – with the songs illustrating the special relationship of the people of these islands and the sea. I think that the new songs from that concert will form the basis of an album that I hope we will record early in 2010. It’s NOT going to be called, A Vast Behind, but its title will begin with ‘A’!
DAME JOAN HAMMOND was an Australian opera singer, who was also an accomplished violin player, a champion golfer and a sports writer. After spending three decades based in Europe, Dame Joan returned to live in Australia in the mid-1960s, becoming the Artistic Director of the Victorian Opera Company, the head of vocal studies at the Victorian College of the Arts and a vocal teacher and consultant. Two of Dame Joan’s best known operatic parts are the title roles in Puccini’s Madame Butterfly and Tosca. When Dame Joan’s home at Aireys Inlet was destroyed during Victoria’s Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983, she lost thousands of books, annotated music scores, a Steinway piano, personal diaries and her address book. Dame Joan died in 1996, aged 84. In 2008, Allen & Unwin published Sara Hardy’s biography, Dame Joan Hammond: Love & Music.
SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She recently visited Dame Joan Hammond’s grave in the Bowral Cemetery, in the southern highlands of New South Wales.
© 2009
