By Sue Barrett

Walk into any record store and you’ll invariably find a jumble of flyers, stickers and free music magazines.

A browse of ‘the [...]]]> woodsmeister’s note – Sue Barrett is a music journalist from Australia who occasionally submits articles to FolkBlog.  All rights for this article are hers alone and it is presented here by her permission.

By Sue Barrett

Walk into any record store and you’ll invariably find a jumble of flyers, stickers and free music magazines.

A browse of ‘the Classies’ (classified advertisements) in a recent issue of one such magazine found drums, guitars and keyboards for sale; tuition available for voice, guitar, bass, drums, piano/keyboards, sax and harmonica; musicians seeking groups (including people playing bass, double bass, drums, tenor saxophone); and bands and studios seeking drummers, guitarists, bass players, keyboard players, even people to play accordion and tabla.

This is a variation on the story – it tells of four musicians who add something special to rock, pop, folk and new music, with kick ass fiddle and beautiful and tender violin.

• Shari Ulrich was born in the USA, but lives on an island off the west coast of Canada. Her new solo album, Find Our Way, features her daughter on violin.
• Ruth Ungar Merenda grew up in the Hudson Valley of New York State and, with The Mammals in hibernation, provides the ‘Ruthy’ part of the folk music duo, Mike and Ruthy.
• Lyndell Montgomery is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist, who lives in a very old farmhouse in Ontario and is about to release her first solo album.
• Sophie Kinston is an English-born, Australian-based, violinist/ceramicist who plays electric violin with the Rosie Burgess Trio.

Now over to Shari, Ruth, Lyndell and Sophie…

SHARI ULRICH (www.shariulrich.com)

Shari Ulrich was born in San Rafael, California. After leaving school, Shari moved to Canada, where she became part of the Pied Pumkin String Ensemble – an acoustic trio described as “singular and quirky”, “hippie folk”, “eccentric” and “whimsically eclectic”. A multi-instrumentalist, she subsequently joined Valdy’s backing band, which went on to become The Hometown Band (and to win a Juno Award for Best New Group). After leaving The Hometown Band, Shari commenced a solo career (winning a Juno for Most Promising Female Vocalist and being twice nominated for Female Vocalist of the Year). From time to time, Shari joins team projects, including UHF [Ulrich Henderson Forbes - Bill Henderson (ex-Chilliwack) and Roy Forbes (aka Bim)] and Barney Bentall and Tom Taylor (with whom she recently released the CD, Live at Cates Hill). In addition, she has co-hosted a television series with David Suzuki; written and hosted BCTV’s Inside Trax; composed and produced pieces for Sesame Street and soundtracks for several documentaries. She also teaches lyric writing in both the workshop and university setting. Shari lives on an island off the western coast of British Columbia, Canada with her partner, jazz musician and composer Bill Runge, and 19-year-old daughter Julia (also an accomplished pianist and violinist).

What are your earliest memories of making music?

My earliest memories include singing Christmas carols with my father who played recorder; learning the songs my sister was playing in her piano lessons, and learning all the harmonies to the Beatles’ songs.

Do you call your violin a fiddle or your fiddle a violin?

Heh…I say I play violin, but I often call it a fiddle.

Do you bow left handed or right handed? And does this reflect your handedness in other things?

Oh, I think all right handed people bow right handed.

When and how did you begin playing the violin?

When I was in grade 4, we were offered instruments to learn in school. My girlfriends and I wanted to stick together so we all chose violin. Three of the five went on to be professional.

What qualities attract you to the violin?

It has such a range of emotion – it can play kick ass fiddle tunes that make you HAVE to dance, and the next minute break your heart with the most beautiful and tender of sounds. I have to admit, I have never mastered the kind of gorgeous tone my daughter has. I now get her to record all the lovely arco parts on my albums.

Tell us about your violins?

I used to have electric violins – a white Barcus Berry and a five string electric. But I’m too in love with the real thing, so now I just have a pickup on a good German violin.

How do you look after your violin, including on the road?

With shameful neglect.

To what extent do you write music on the violin?

I’ve only written a couple of instrumentals on violin. Every once in a while in sound check I come across something that I think could make a very cool accompaniment for my voice – for a song, but I haven’t yet had the time to experiment.

Do you generate sounds from your violin other than with a bow?

Just pizzicato. Though sometimes I use it as bongos!

Does one need a special technique to play violin and sing at the same time?

It’s a special kind of challenge. There’s something about playing a fretless instrument that needs to be adjusted for intonation, along with singing that needs to be adjusted as well, that is particularly difficult. It’s some sort of bizarre left brain right brain thing. Once I figure out what to play while I’m singing, I can do it without thinking, but I have to practice it a few times so the violin part is second nature. The same thing goes for talking and playing violin at the same time. I can talk while I’m playing guitar or piano with no problem, but trying to say something to someone on stage while I’m playing the violin is very odd.

Are your violin parts arranged or improvised or a mixture of both?

A mixture of both. Some of my parts as part of the song arrangements are pre-arranged, but much is improvised. My favourite thing is to accompany songwriters on songs I haven’t heard, as in a song circle type performance. I love serving the song and the level of presence it requires to be with the song regardless of where it goes.

How you go about getting your violin parts heard on stage?

My violin has a pickup and I just make sure I’m not too loud or too quiet.

What physical impact does playing violin have on your body?

OUCH!! It’s totally unnatural. I have neck and shoulder pain.

How do you keep your playing fluent if you’re not performing for a while?

Well, the grown up answer would be – I practice every day. The truth is, I rarely fulfil my intentions. I just trust it will be there when I pick it up again, and it magically is. But if I practiced every day I’d be much better than I am! If I were only a musician, it would be easier, but as a songwriter, recording artist, and being self managed, there’s always LOTS to do.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in studio recordings?

Train classically, practice playing along with all kinds of music, practice your sight reading, and work on a variety of tones and textures. Show up 15 minutes before the session, trust your skills, and stay focused.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in live performances?

Pretty much the same advice! And ALWAYS tune your instrument!! For a live performance, have a good pickup (don’t count on microphones), a good pre-amp, and make sure your chords and gear are in good working order with a warm sound.

What songs/pieces of music do you most enjoy playing on the violin?

Hmmm…it’s so varied. I love playing a wide variety of music.

Of the recorded songs/pieces of music that feature you playing violin, which do you suggest we listen to and why?

The Pied Pumkin is the group that really made me a fiddle player. With Joe Mock’s guitar often playing the role of the bass, and Rick Scott’s dulcimer playing the role of the drummer, I get to be everything else – so I’m often sawing my little heart out from the starting gate.  Half of the music has intricate arrangements and the rest is improvised, so it demands that I really be present and on mygame.

I also like what I play with UHF. They bring out the best in me. We have two CDs, but are overdue for a new one.

What other instruments do you play?

I play mandolin, piano, guitar, dulcimer, flute, and used to play alto sax and cello, but I couldn’t put in the time to keep them up.

What’s been happening in your life over the past year?

I’ve had a great surge in creativity and productivity since my daughter went to McGill University. I’m the type of person who requires a LOT of solitude to write and record. So 2009 was my year to record a new solo CD [Find Our Way] at home. But I’ve also produced a CD for Barney Bentall, Tom Taylor and myself [Live at Cates Hill] – which, along with creating the cover, was a very satisfying experience. I LOVE playing with those boys.

And what are your plans for 2010?

LOTS of music – playing it, performing it, writing it, and recording it. I LOVE IT!

RUTH UNGAR MERENDA (www.mikeandruthy.com)

Ruth Ungar Merenda grew up in a musical family in the Hudson Valley of New York State. Her father is fiddler Jay Ungar (‘Ashokan Farewell’) and her mother is singer Lyn Hardy (Rude Girls). Although Ruth moved to New York City to pursue a career in acting, she quickly became involved in the music scene (as a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist), including with Rhinegold and, subsequently, The Mammals. These days, Ruth and her husband Mike Merenda perform as the duo, Mike and Ruthy. From time-to-time, Ruth performs with the Sometymes Why folk trio; the Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band; and the Mother-Daughter Stringband (alongside her mother and Abby and Rosie Newton).

What are your earliest memories of making music?

I remember singing “aaaaaah” with my mom with our mouths very close together so we could hear the overtones. I guess I was about five. I also remember playing “low, middle, high” on my fiddle around that time. My dad showed me how to bow the pairs of strings that way.

Do you call your violin a fiddle or your fiddle a violin?

Ha ha. Occasionally, I refer to my fiddle as a violin. My one year old son calls it an EEEeeeEEEeee.

Do you bow left handed or right handed? And does this reflect your handedness in other things?

I am right-handed and play that way. Nothing interesting here, unfortunately.

When and how did you begin playing the fiddle?

I played sporadically through my childhood, starting around two or three years old I think.

What qualities attract you to the fiddle?

I like the vocal quality and the ability to use dynamics. I like using sustained notes when backing up a singer. It can be fun to harmonize that way with my own voice, too.

Tell us about your fiddles?

I have an 1800s German made fiddle that my dad gave me in my teens. I played that exclusively until a few years ago when he bought me a new fiddle for Christmas! It is a new hand-made instrument by Eric Aceto of Ithaca Stringed Instruments here in New York State. I love the pickups that he builds and I asked my dad for one for Christmas. He went ahead and got the whole instrument! It has a great acoustic sound and sounds very lifelike when plugged in too. Both of my fiddles are relatively loud and bold-sounding.

How do you look after your fiddles, including on the road?

I put it in its case immediately after every gig. The mics, cables, guitars and such can lay around, but I always make sure the fiddle is protected before I say hi to folks. I try to keep it from experiencing hot or cold and I always carry it on the airplane. At home in the winter it needs to be humidified a bit. A damp sponge in a zip-lock bag with holes in it does the trick.

To what extent do you write music on the fiddle?

I like writing tunes on the fiddle. Songs seem to come out on the guitar, uke, piano – or without an instrument at all.

Do you generate sounds from your fiddle other than with a bow?

I like to pluck the strings on a few of our quieter songs and then bring in the bow later in the arrangement.

Does one need a special technique to play fiddle and sing at the same time?

I make sure I have the playing and the singing down independently, and then I usually decide which one to favor. If it’s very important that the singing be strong, I slowly bring the fiddle part in each time I practice or perform the song. Or if it’s more important that the fiddle be solid, I coax the vocal in slowly. After you do it over and over without thinking about it, it’s really quite easy.

Are your fiddle parts arranged or improvised or a mixture of both?

I love arrangements. The best arrangements contain things that were originally improvised or felt. My theater background tells me that you want your most improvised moments to feel like they are part of the arrangement and your most arranged moments to feel improvised. I always work to bring it all together like that.

How you go about getting your fiddle parts heard on stage?

If I’m playing with a loud drummer I will definitely use my pickup, preferably with my own preamp. In those situations it’s also nice to have an in-line tuner to mute when you’re tuning. If it’s a folkier setting with no drums, I usually prefer to play fiddle into my vocal mic. A Shure 58 does nicely. Fancy mics are not really my style in a live setting, and I’ve never liked having two separate mics aimed at the vocal and fiddle.

What physical impact does playing fiddle have on your body?

When I’m learning a new tune or a new style I have to be very careful not to hurt my neck and shoulders by unconsciously tensing up. One time I tried to learn to play Irish music. I threw myself in a bit too hard (a workshop during the day and jamming all night) and the next day I couldn’t turn my head. Normally, I keep my body as fluid as possible and feel the beat of the music from head to toe which seems to make my muscles happy.

How do you keep your playing fluent if you’re not performing for a while?

That sounds like a fantastic idea. Mostly I keep the music going in my head at all times, but I don’t find much time to practice with a young toddler to look after. But I do try to make the most of the moments I have with my instrument.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use fiddle in studio recordings?

Play into a Shure 58. Expensive condenser mics can sound fantastic on vocals and group live recordings, but I think they bring out too much detail in a fiddle sound. I have played into ribbon mics too, which are great, but nothing is quite like that Shure 58.

Also, editing is your friend. If you’re recording into ProTools or something like that it’s very possible to edit fiddle takes. Just be very consistent with your playing volume and distance from the mic and the edit will just sound like your bow changed direction.

And don’t play too quietly. A softly bowed fiddle generally sounds too scratchy on recordings. Get less of yourself in the headphones if necessary and play a bit louder for a better tone. They can always turn you down.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use fiddle in live performances?

Have fun, make eye contact, and don’t forget to breathe.

What songs/pieces of music do you most enjoy playing on the fiddle?

My husband Mike wrote a song called ‘For this Love’ which I love to play and sing. I really like the arrangement and the way the fiddle weaves in between the lyrics. I also love playing tunes with my dad, Jay Ungar. When I play the harmony part on ‘The Lovers’ Waltz’ and ‘Ashokan Farewell’ it’s really nice to match his phrasing and dynamics closely.

Of the recorded songs/pieces of music that feature you playing fiddle, which do you suggest we listen to and why?

‘For this Love’ I already mentioned, and another song from our first Mike and Ruthy CD, The Honeymoon Agenda, is a Bob Dylan song called ‘I’ll Keep it with Mine’. I really like how that turned out. It’s a slow song in C with some great moments. Or if you’re looking for something more fiery, there’s ‘June Apple’ on our second CD, Waltz of the Chickadee.

What other instruments do you play? And what do you enjoy about playing them?

I play ukulele and guitar and a bit of piano. The ukulele is great because it’s such a nice rhythm instrument and it gives a light-hearted air to whatever your playing. Guitar is such a staple, something I always come back to for songwriting and a solid foundation. Piano is a very unexplored world for me, and for that reason I love exploring it. We got a piano from my mom as a wedding gift three years ago which gave me the opportunity to begin that journey.

What’s been happening in your life over the past year?

Our son, Will, is nearing two years old and he’s already playing my littlest childhood fiddle. His favorite song is ‘Let me Fall’ (check out the version by Foghorn Stringband) which he sings loudly. He loves to end that tune (and all tunes) with a “big finish” which essentially amounts to some loud tremolo followed by a raised arm and then one final whack. This is a trick he picked up on the drums but has transfered to fiddle more recently.

And what are your plans for 2010?

We’ve recorded another CD of all original songs, which we’d like to put out this year. It features more of a “band” than our previous Mike and Ruthy recordings. We’re accompanied by bass, drums, and a bit of pedal steel. I think the fiddle tracks came out great, there’s even one song where I did a bit of classical-sounding orchestration by laying down three harmonized parts. We just hope to keep touring and recording and writing new music. Ane we’d love to go to Australia again!

LYNDELL MONTGOMERY (www.lyndellmontgomery.com)

Lyndell Montgomery was born in British Columbia, Canada. A classically trained musician (The Royal Conservatory of Music), she has composed music for film, performed live music for dance and recorded and performed with a range of non-classical musicians, including Ember Swift (collaborative partner for 13 years), Ferron, Alix Olson, Pamela Means and Chris Pureka. Lyndell co-foundered the performance troupe, Taste This, and co-authored the book, Boys Like Her: Transfictions. In 2009, Lyndell, Ivan E Coyote, Anna Camilleri (who were part of Taste This) and video artist Leslie Peters formed the interdisciplinary performance troupe, SweLL. When not on the road, Lyndell lives in an 1877 farmhouse in Ontario, where she focuses on creating and embracing sustainable living practices.

What are your earliest memories of making music?

Driving over an hour each way into the city of Vancouver once a week so I could “study” violin at the age of five with Dr. somebody important (whose name I can’t remember at all). I recall being so intimidated by him that I’d nearly peep myself trying to tune my violin.

Do you call your violin a fiddle or your fiddle a violin?

Depends on the music that comes out of it really! I think every instrument comes with songs tucked away inside it and the trick is to find a way to get them out. Even though I love fiddle music, my current instrument likes being a violin.

Do you bow left handed or right handed? And does this reflect your handedness in other things?

Right hand on both counts.

When and how did you begin playing the violin?

When I was four I begged my folks for lessons. We were at someone’s house for dinner and after the meal the two teenage kids played a couple of violin/piano duets. I sat on the piano bench in complete awe of them both. On the car ride home I started asking to be able to do that. Gratefully my folks were in a position to make that happen for me. So my first lesson was shortly after my fifth birthday – a couple of months after seeing these older kids play.

What qualities attract you to the violin?

It’s such a smooth dance between the instrument and the player – I always wanted to be a good dancer.

Tell us about your violins?

I have only one at present and it’s a home made number that I bought from an elderly man for $100 when I was 13. He found it in his grandfather’s barn in Germany then brought it with him when he immigrated to Canada.

How do you look after your violin, including on the road?

I never leave it in extreme weather conditions. I always bring it with me as carry on for a flight. Make sure that it’s not too dry, especially in Australia eh!

To what extent do you write music on the violin?

I write a fair bit on my violin and certainly a vast majority of the studio work I do is with my violin.

Do you generate sounds from your violin other than with a bow?

Lots of plucking – both traditional pizzicato and also if you can picture playing it like a mandolin.

Does one need a special technique to play violin and sing at the same time?

Just practice practice practice. It’s hard to do when the violin is crammed against your throat and under your chin. I usually just rest it on my shoulder if I’m singin’ too.

Are your violin parts arranged or improvised or a mixture of both?

Depends on who I am playing with and what they want. Often I get to throw some improvisation in the mix though!

How you go about getting your violin parts heard on stage?

I have a pickup on my fiddle – an L R Baggs running through a ToneBone pre amp.

What physical impact does playing violin have on your body?

I have to make a concerted effort to loosen my left shoulder but otherwise, I’ve not noticed anything high impact. Anything a person does over and over and over again is likely to have some kind of impact physically. Guess my time will come!

How do you keep your playing fluent if you’re not performing for a while?

I play for myself and I happen to be the practising sort.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in studio recordings?

Go for it – play your guts out. Remember though that if you move around a lot when you play – the studio will require that, if you want a consistent sound, you are married to a mic.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in live performances?

Put a pickup on as well as a pre amp and some kind of parametric EQ control ideally. Spend some time making sure that your violin actually sounds good.

What songs/pieces of music do you most enjoy playing on the violin?

Can’t say I have favorite songs/pieces. I’m all over the plot with my likes.

Of the recorded songs/pieces of music that feature you playing violin, which do you suggest we listen to and why?

Oh Lord – probably a Chris Pureka recording (to be released April 2010) called ‘Broken Clock’. It’s just a killer good song and I think the string section arrangement is aces!

What other instruments do you play?

I play a lot of instruments…but give my time dominantly to violin and bass.

Piano – grew up studying it along side violin.

Bass – I’m having a torrid love affair with it still (been ten years of playing it now) and the love is only getting deeper! I love the way bass physically moves air and consequently people’s asses!

What’s been happening in your life over the past year?

The story is too big and the words are too small still. It’s been a year – let’s just say that!

And what are your plans for 2010?

Touring with North American artists and finally yes finally, finishing my own solo album.

SOPHIE KINSTON (http://kinstonart.com)

Sophie Kinston was born in London (England), to an English mother and an Australian father. A classically trained violinist, Sophie moved to Melbourne (Australia) three years ago to further her violin studies at VCA. Sophie is currently part of the Rosie Burgess Trio, where she plays a red electric violin, with associated delay, octave and wah-wah pedals. In addition, Sophie has her own group, the Gestalt Ensemble (www.myspace.com/gestaltensemble) (made up of violin, electric violin, double bass, piano and a DJ), which focuses on innovative, and written and improvised new music. Sophie is also a ceramicist (whose influences include Claudio Casanovas, Eduardo Chillida and Gerda Steiner/Jorg Lenzlinger), specialising in ceramic sculptures, bowls, espresso cups and jewellery.

What are your earliest memories of making music?

Playing violin, and also singing – both of which being accompanied by my dad, and my grandfather (his dad) on piano. Then various orchestras and choirs at school, and at Saturday/Sunday music clubs.

Do you call your violin a fiddle or your fiddle a violin?

It depends what style/kind of music you are playing I guess. I have two violins. If you’re playing in an orchestra, it’s obviously a violin, which my acoustic, wooden one is. So you’ve got violins, violas, and cellos. Makes sense. If that one had a pickup for plugging in and making electric, then it would be a violin with a pickup. But the one that I’m using more, at the moment is an electric violin, which uses various wah-wah, delay pedals etc.

Do you bow left handed or right handed?

I bow right handed. I’ve never heard of anyone, or seen anyone bow with his or her left hand. I’m classically trained, and so learnt the way that a lot of violin students learn, via scales, exercises, and simple pieces etc. In England, I did grades 3 up to 8 (I started from grade 3, but it is possible to start from grade 1. When I started doing the grades, I was at the level of grade 3, so no point doing grades 1 and 2, and then doing various further studies at school, foundation, university, and postgraduate level.

You hold the violin with left hand, and the bow with right hand. I didn’t think that it was possible to bow left handed, and hold the violin in the right, as this completely switches the make-up of the violin, putting it back to front, having everything the wrong way, and which is not really possible.

When and how did you begin playing the violin?

My whole family is musical, – brother, parents, grandparents, cousins. When I was about seven years old, at school, we got a choice of learning the flute, violin, or piano I think it was. Maybe a couple of other choices. I learnt recorder there, and also started singing a few years after that, but for some reason, wanted to learn violin, and so here I am, 20 years later, still playing, and actually making music my career, slowly but surely. Amazing.

What qualities attract you to the violin?

It’s an instrument that I just love the tonal qualities of. I really feel comfortable playing the instrument, and was something that I found came quite naturally. Each teacher and mentor I’ve had has taught me new things, and ways of playing. I’m now using a lot more electronic sounds with my electric violin, using various pedals – delays, octave, wah-wah etc. over these past five years or so. In the coming years, I can see myself working more and more with different sounds adding to the pedals that I already use. It depends completely in what direction these next years take me.

When I began violin, the instrument intrigued me, but over time, I’ve had a love of just making music, and playing all these beautiful, emotional works, particularly of the classical and romantic eras. Then also through the years, I found that you could create all these undertones, scratchy, warped, and ethereal sounds through different ways of playing, and through particularly one of my mentors. I’ve also since been playing in various theatre productions, and with various artists including with the Rosie Burgess Trio over the past year and a half or so, finding new ways of playing as a soloist and ensemble player. Working within the sound of a folk/blues/gypsy style of playing has been interesting, seeing how as a violinist, I can personally add to a group with my individual voice.

Tell us about your violins?

One is an acoustic violin, 1924 by John W Owen, Leeds, England. Really beautiful, rich sounding tone. The other is an electric violin, made by Bridge. It is red and has a real presence on stage, particularly when working in theatre environments, where everything on stage is a character/element to the story.

How do you look after your violins, including on the road?

I change the strings every few months, using different types of strings. This is depending on whether it’s strings best used for acoustic, or for electric. I also get my bow re-strung, although this is expensive to do, having to be without my bows for a couple days so that they can be re-strung. It is difficult to find time, particularly when away, and on the road. I mostly take my electric away on the road, and not the acoustic, whilst with the Rosie Burgess Trio.

I clean/varnish my acoustic violin every few months, and also clean off the rosin dust. With my acoustic, I also get the fingerboard smoothed down, and get the sound post fixed from time to time. I’ve also had the varnish re-done a few times, and also have had to get cracks fixed. With a violin that’s so old, it reacts to heat, cold, and different spaces it’s in, so the fingerboard, soundpost, bridge, and wood etc. change.

With the Bridge electric, I’ve found that it’s quite a strong instrument, with minimal problems. Though with the acoustic, the wood is very old, and so the instrument tends to need to be fixed/cleaned/varnish much more often.

To what extent do you write music on the violin?

I’ve been studying up until two years ago, and only over the past three years, have made music my work really. I’ve particularly found Australia easier to do my music. Before then I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and had been learning violin, playing lots, but not made it my career really. It’s much more common I think, for classical/jazz/session musicians – going through school, university, further studies on their instrument, and then finally after many years of education, getting music work. There’s such a high standard, with lots of competition, but some people figure out that they want to do something else. It all depends how life changes and how we develop as individuals. I’m really grateful that I’m able to do my music, play violin and have my own voice.

With a lot more singer/songwriters I have found that music is something that they have to do, and have played for many years, not going through the normal expected way of doing things through study, I guess.

Three years ago, when I started playing with Rosie, she wrote a lot more of the violin, melody parts, as we were learning how to play together (me with a singer/songwriter, and her with another solo instrument). Now though, I write a lot more of the parts, and figure the solos out. As the Rosie Burgess Trio, we work together in creating a unified sound, with a shifting focus between the three of us, back and forth.

Rosie plays a major role in the group obviously, as the singer/songwriter, saying what she wants, and what sound would suit. Sam Lohs, our drummer/harmony singer, also provides her slant on what works, and what she thinks works from what I’m playing, and what doesn’t. We all have our voice on the overall sound, and working together as an ensemble, towards the same goal.

I also write violin parts for other recordings, and artists. And also for my work whilst at VCA, and generally whilst practicing etc. etc., trying new things out.

Do you generate sounds from your violin other than with a bow?

I bow, but also pluck sounds, and use my pedals, as I said before. I’ve seen items attached to violins, such as balloons, fluffy animals, and things stretched across the instrument. When playing electric violins, these different sounds get picked up, depending on how you play. I’ve not incorporated this into my playing, although could potentially do so, in the future.

Are your violin parts arranged or improvised or a mixture of both?

Arranged, but also improvised. Depends who I’m playing with. I’m also always trying new things, and the things that work, tend to become almost my signature riffs/sounds, that I play often, and become the parts, alongside the particular lines for particular songs.

How you go about getting your violin parts heard on stage?

Performing as much as possible. And trying to get a good sound-technician for the gigs.

What physical impact does playing violin have on your body?

I tend to find I get a lot of upper shoulder pain, and upper and lower back pain. This comes with playing a lot, sleeping probably not that well, traveling lots – sitting in cars, flying loads, and general doing other work alongside this.

How do you keep your playing fluent if you’re not performing for a while?

I tend to perform a lot, particularly since I completed my studies at the VCA, and also touring with the Trio. You keep things fluent by practice, rehearsals, listening to other musicians play, going to gigs, and keeping on hearing music. I tend to immerse myself in my work. Over the years, I’ve been playing in orchestras, string groups, solo works, singing in choirs etc. The trio that I’m currently in, and all my other projects, and teaching etc. keeps me fluent. When I do have a break from performance, I’m practicing and rehearsing etc. Though you can also feel a bit uneasy when playing, with general life’s distractions, as you always have times that you don’t feel like you’re playing at your best, or feeling not up to scratch. It’s just handling this, and getting through these times.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in studio recordings?

Know what you’re wanting to record, as recording can take a long time, and most people want things to be perfect. Make sure you’re working with a good studio engineer, and with people who are clear with what they want.

Also, get the strings to be rich in tone, lots of vibrato, and nice thick sounds. You can always double up the sounds, many levels, with just using one string musician. I will at times in recording, play the part four or five times or so, so it sounds almost like an orchestra.

Make sure you know what you’re doing, and what sound you want, but work with string players who are flexible and can contribute their own energy, and can add ideas such as doubling up sounds to make thicker textures. Also work with people who’ve got a broad experience. Doesn’t necessarily need to be someone who is the best, or the most expensive to hire, but someone who has done a variety of work, and knows who they are, and that can bring more to the recording than you had initially thought.

What songs/pieces of music do you most enjoy playing on the violin?

Many pieces. Classical/Romantic works – by Massenet, Mozart, Beethoven, also solo works by Ysaye, Bach, etc. New contemporary works – Anthony Lyons, Anthony Linden Jones, Stuart Greenbaum, Robert Davidson and many more.

What CDs, if any, include you playing violin?

Rosie Burgess – Wait For The World (studio album)

Rosie Burgess Set – Raw (live album)

Rosie Burgess Trio – new upcoming studio album

Pataphysics – new upcoming studio album

Simon Paul – For Broken Hearts & Lovers (studio album)

Tony Varcoe – Long Hot Days EP

What other instruments do you play? Do you also sing?

I also have played some African drums, but I’m now, primarily a violinist. And I have sung in the past, but not at the moment.

What took you to Australia?

My father is Australian. I’ve always wanted to come back out here. Finally after many visits, I feel settled, and able to create a life here. When I came out to Australia straight after university for an intended three months, which became six months, I decide I’d go back to the UK, and practice to get into the VCA, Melbourne. I loved Melbourne (despite only being here for one week), and wanted to get into the VCA to further my violin studies, and get to know Melbourne, through a very fluid and positive way. A year and a half later, I auditioned for the postgraduate performance diploma, and got in, and now have been living here for about three years. Only recently over these three years have I really found that I could contribute, as a violinist. And it’s taken 20 years of study and learning, to get to the point intonation wise, and confidence wise, being able to play as a performer.

Particularly in Australia where I feel comfortable and happy, am I really able to see myself as a musician, get work and have the time and can afford to do it. The UK is so intense for me as an artist. I really believe that you need to feel happy and content with the space that you’re in, working with people that you love, feel happy with, and enjoy working with, to be able to create in a positive way, and therefore able to commit to what you’re doing.

Life is hard, and to really have belief is tricky to overcome. It’s hard to find a good teacher, and hard to move from the stage of studying, through to actually being able to perform as a musician, and make a living from it.

I see myself as an artist/musician, and not just as a violinist. I obviously work as a violinist, but I also work as a producer, running events, and organizing works as an artist/facilitator.

How does your art fit in with your music?

Somehow I try. Instead of renting a studio, I’ve been doing my ceramic sculptural and commercial work at home, which is actually much easier, as I can work at any time of the day. I’m on tour for a few weeks at a time, and so in and out of Melbourne. It has worked out much easier to work at home when I can, than working at some other place, wasting money, as I’m not always there. This is how things are at the moment, but as time changes, and I might do less work, but hopefully more and more work, then I might consider moving into a studio. It works, me doing my work at home, as I’ve had the space to work, which is important and a key factor when I’ve been looking for places to live. Space isn’t the most important factor, but time is more of an element. Trying to balance my music with my art, and prioritizing both, at different times, keeping a focus on both. I guess needing to not do too many things is key, creating too many distractions.

Where can people buy your ceramics?

Check out my website – www.kinstonart.com – not all the info is on there at the moment, as I’m still working on it. You do, though, get a good idea of my work, and can see some of the pieces. If people are interested in the work, then I can also send on images. Just email me on srk1uk@yahoo.co.uk

What’s been happening in your life over the past year?

After finishing VCA studies, I’ve mainly been working with Rosie Burgess. With the recent addition over the past year and a half of Sam Lohs (formerly of Fruit) as our drummer/harmony singer, we’ve been working hard, touring the various studio and recent live albums all over various states in Australia, and in Tasmania. We’ve gone to most parts a few times, and are now in the process of recording the new album. In September 2009, we also toured North America and Canada, and are now planning a two-month tour for July/August 2010. Primarily this group has been my main focus, as you have to have a priority, in something that you really believe in and want to do. I have also slowly been working away on my own group, the Gestalt Ensemble, and recording and working with a couple other groups, and theatre productions, and also on my ceramics espresso cups, bowls, and jewellery.

Also I have been teaching violin to a few students, and working for a care home, on the side. After working in many homes, I’ve finally found one that I love, and really feel like I’m helping them by being there. This is part of my work for a catering agency.

What are your plans for 2010?

Currently recording new album and video clip for the Rosie Burgess Trio. Touring lots, all over Australia, and heading over for the second time to America and Canada with the Trio in July/August 2010, we hope. Then also playing various gigs with a few other groups. I also hope to start putting on various exhibitions/events again, selling my ceramics, and working more on my new music/sound group. I’m though, mainly working with the Rosie Burgess Trio, seeing where it will take us.

What advice do you have for performers who want to use violin in live performances?

Don’t just use violin because of it being a cool thing to have. Use it because you want that string element/quality, and for a purpose. Work with someone that you work well with, and who has a similar energy and passion. And make it fun and inspirational.

SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, who has a special interest in women in music and a wind-up gramophone that belonged to her violin playing great grandmother.

© 2010

By Sue Barrett

“I love words, and if you are to sing with conviction, you must understand what you are singing [...]]]> 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

By Sue Barrett

They read Les A. Murray from the hilltop with a wide vision of Batman’s land Dropped him without a word except ‘Amen’ – So be it. ‘I don’t know why anyone studies history,’ said one. ‘It’s so futile. It always repeats itself. We have to learn from [...]]]> Editor’s Note – occasionally,  Australian music journalist Sue Barrett contributes articles to FolkBlog.

By Sue Barrett

They read Les A. Murray from the hilltop
with a wide vision of Batman’s land
Dropped him without a word except ‘Amen’ –
So be it. ‘I don’t know why anyone studies
history,’ said one. ‘It’s so futile.
It always repeats itself. We have to learn
from our own mistakes, each generation
over and over.’

(Rae Sexton, from ‘The Historian’, On Looking at 30-Year-Old Slides, 2005)

A little while ago, between ANZAC Day and the Memorial Day weekend, a photograph of singer/songwriter Holly Throsby’s drummer appeared in the social notes of an Australian newspaper.

For Americans, the coming of Memorial Day brings memories of the men and women who have died while serving in the US armed forces – in current wars, in wars long past, in so-called “forgotten wars”. Memorial Day also brings memories of those who have died subsequent to serving. And it brings fears for those women and men still serving and for those who carry the scars of serving.

In Australia (and New Zealand), a key day of remembrance is ANZAC Day – 25 April. As Holly Throsby and her drummer subsequently toured north America, she may well have run into Canadian singer/songwriter, Heather Bishop. For Bishop, 25 April marks a different event – her birthday. A seemingly little known fact about Heather Bishop is that the artwork for her first three albums for children was done by Lynn Johnston, the creator of the comic strip, For Better or For Worse.

Over the years, For Better or For Worse has combined humor, drama, everyday life and social commentary. In November 2006, For Better or For Worse took readers to a Remembrance Day ceremony, where 15 year old April asks, “When will it end?”:

http://www.fborfw.com/strip_fix/archives/002136.php

The impact of war is a recurring theme for songwriters – songs of glory, anger, sadness, despair…

BRUCE ROBISON (www.brucerobison.com)

Bruce Robison is singer/songwriter from Texas, whose father bought him a Fender Precision bass in seventh grade. Bruce has performed as a duo with his brother Charlie, in groups (including Chaparral) and as a solo performer. Over the years, Bruce’s songs have been recorded by such people as Kelly Willis, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Lee Ann Womack and George Strait. Bruce’s song, ‘Travelin’ Soldier’, was a No. 1 country hit for the Dixie Chicks.

What are your earliest memories of war?

I have some memories of Vietnam television reports. I was young. My step grandfather was a World War II veteran. He spoke of his experiences some.

Tell us about ‘Travelin’ Soldier’ and how you came to write it

I wrote the song during the mobilization for the first gulf war, many casualties were predicted. A young co-worker of mine was called up to the National Guard. I decided to write a song about one person going off to war and not coming back.

What reactions have you had to ‘Travelin’ Soldier’, including after [Dixie Chicks] Natalie Maines’ comments about the Iraq War in 2003?

I have had hundreds of people tell me about their feeling for the song, including many veterans. Almost every day. It is a simple song of compassion, not political at all, so no one really has a problem with the song. Some reaction to the Chicks of course, over the years.

Have you written other songs about war?

No other war songs.

What other things do you write about?

Thinkin or drinkin songs.

So what is new/different for Bruce Robison in 2009?

Back to work after eight years of changin diapers.

MICK THOMAS (www.mickthomas.com)

Mick Thomas is an Australian singer/songwriter, whose songs have appeared in films, on television and in theatrical productions. After many years as the primary songwriter and vocalist for Weddings, Parties, Anything, these days Mick performs with his band, The Sure Thing. Now Mick explains how he came to write, ‘Scorn of the Women’.

What are your earliest memories of war?

Pretty much the earliest recognition would have been my grandfather’s artificial leg in the hallway of our house in Yallourn – from injuries sustained fighting in France. After that, it was the medals and yearbooks my father had from the Navy in the Second World War. War was pretty present in my family I suppose.

Tell us about ‘Scorn of the Women’ and how you came to write it

‘Scorn of the Women’ was written for an old friend I used to spend a lot of time with in the early days of the Weddings. We would go out drinking and he’d fill me full of wonderful tales of his exploits travelling around during the great depression, working on the waterfront and that sort of thing. He’d sing songs and I’d sing some back to him and we’d spend a lot of time just bumping around Melbourne and generally enjoying ourselves. One day I sang, ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ [by Eric Bogle], and I think it must have touched a pretty raw nerve for him as he proceeded to tell me of his life during the war which was so much different from the experience of my father and grandfather. Being clinically blind he hadn’t been eligible for service and had therefore suffered incredible scorn and indignity as a result. My mother’s brother had a similar experience and it actually ultimately drove him to an early demise in the opinion of his family – so I guess I was pretty sympathetic to my old mate’s plight. In some ways it was a really easy song to write in that all the material was right there in front of me.

What reactions have you had to ‘Scorn of the Women’?

From the start people always seemed to think it was one of my more “important” songs. What it is saying is reasonably involved and convoluted – that war hurts people in a myriad of ways – but nobody really ever seems to have had much trouble grasping the meaning of the story.

Have you written other songs about war?

None that have made it onto record. There are wars that people are fighting everyday trying to keep their heads above water and I guess I have concerned myself with them.

What other things do you write about?

I have been a professional songwriter for over twenty years now so you can cover a fair bit of ground in that time. The back catalog speaks for itself hopefully.

So what’s new/different for Mick Thomas in 2009?

My current album, Spin! Spin! Spin!, has managed to actually chart – which is the first time in a long time – so that is good. There’s some musical theatre stuff for later in the year and I’ve already toured Europe and Australia. There’s a Weddings, Parties, Anything reunion gig on Grand Final eve [Friday 25 September 2009, Billboard The Venue, Melbourne, Australia] and there will be at least another one or two tours thrown in for good measure – so it’s a pretty reasonable year of work when you look at it like that.

CHARLIE KING (www.charlieking.org)

Charlie King is an American singer/songwriter, whose songs have been recorded by Holly Near, Ronnie Gilbert and Pat Humphries. For more than a decade, Charlie toured North America as part of the Bright Morning Star ensemble. These days, Charlie performs with his partner, Karen Brandow. In May of 1998, the War Resisters League gave their Peacemaker Award to Odetta and Charlie. Pete Seeger nominated Charlie for the Sacco-Vanzetti Social Justice Award, which he received in November 1999. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is just one of the songs that Charlie has written about the impacts of war.

What are your earliest memories of war?

I was vaguely aware of the Korean War. I was six when it ended. As John Prine says “I still don’t know what for”. I was raised in a home strong in conservative anti-communism and that was the template for my viewing the Vietnam war until I left home for college. There I read descriptions of the impact of war on flesh and saw all of it confirmed as policy in the ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] classes I attended. I changed, stopped going to those classes and applied for Conscientious Objector [CO] status.

Tell us about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and how you came to write it

I was hopeful for some change with the defeat of G H W Bush by Bill Clinton. Bill had made a campaign promise that he would order equal rights for gays and lesbians in the military. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” capitulation was the first campaign promise he broke.

What reactions have you had to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’?

I think it most surprised listeners who knew me as an anti-war singer/writer. The heroes in the song are military personnel, at least one a career officer, and the song does not criticize war. It targets the hypocrisy and self-destructive impact of “don’t ask, don’t tell”.

You’ve written a number of other songs about war. Why is this?

Once I had come out as a CO, I could no longer understand war. Why does my country keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results? Is it some form of magical thinking? Why does anyone show up for war? Why would anyone pay the price that soldiers pay? “Pay” is an operative word here because I’ve come to believe that the ideological engine that drives war is the profit motive. Some very influential people make a lot of money off war and as long as that is true I’m afraid we will keep up this insanity.

What other things do you write about?

Most of what I write is about people in interesting social/political situations. When I’m at my best I don’t write about “things”. The people in my songs may be wrestling with workplace struggles, gender identity conflicts, alcoholism, politics, murder, the fate of the earth etc. Mostly I write about people who live lives of courage or mischief who give me hope that change is possible. Sometimes I write about the insanity, banality or stupidity of the high and mighty.

Your 1995 album, Inside Out, with its songs about the impacts of war and economic circumstances, seems as relevant today as it was back then. How do you feel about that?

Since I still sing more than half the songs on that album I feel glad that I got it right and sad that things seem to stay the same. My friend Ted Warmbrand reminds me that it’s easier to write a song than right a wrong. So I do other things besides music, and hope for the best.

What new/different for Charlie King in 2009?

I’ve helped my kids through college, I’ve faithfully filed contracts as a union activist in the musicians union, I’ve made it to 62 without killing myself and I find myself in a shrinking market with no monetary reason to swim against the economic tide. With pension and social security income I have more economic freedom to do good work than ever in my life. That feels good. Karen and I were able to find the silver lining in the perfect storm of economic recession and bought a house with monthly payments less than what we paid to rent our one room apartment. So I’m free to travel and longing to spend more time at home, free to do good work and not quite sure what that work should be. Hmmm. It’s kind of like graduating from high school!

COLUM SANDS (www.columsands.net)

Colum Sands is an Irish singer/songwriter, who has sung in more than 30 countries around the world. He is a member of the Sands Family (which performs together and solo), presents BBC Radio Ulster’s Folk Club program, has six solo albums to date and a book of songs and stories, Between the Earth and the Sky. Colum has produced over fifty albums for independent songwriters and traditional musicians, with studio credits including work with countless young musicians and well known names like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. His work in radio and studio production won a Living Tradition Award some years ago. He produced a number of tracks for Sound Neighbours, an album of music from Northern Ireland which was released by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC – the album was short listed for three Grammy nominations in 2008. Now Colum tells the story behind his song, ‘The Last House in Our Street’.

What are your earliest memories of war?

War was something in books, films and television until the arrival of what we called “The Troubles” in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Tell us about ‘The Last House in Our Street’ and how you came to write it

I was playing a concert in Belfast in the early 1980s…lost my way going there and ended up in a street where all the windows were either broken or bricked up…it looked like there was no one living in the street anymore until I noticed, at the very end of the street, a little girl playing with a ball, an old tennis ball, she was throwing it back and forward against the wall and the sound of it bouncing off the wall and back into her hands made a sound and created a kind of rhythm that stayed in my mind. So too did that picture of the little girl playing a very natural kind of game in a most hostile environment. She was living in the last inhabited house in that street and when I arrived back home later that night I wrote this song, trying to imagine how Belfast might have looked through the eyes of a child. Although things in Belfast are much better now, I still sing this song very often because that little girl could be a child in any city that’s visited by war, when often the ones who suffer most are the children.

What reactions have you had to ‘The Last House in Our Street’?

The song has struck a chord with many different audiences around the world. The child in the song is throwing the ball against a wall…a kind of subliminal reference to the so-called “Peace Wall” which stands between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast to this day. This symbol was a very relevant one for audiences in Berlin before 1989 and also for audiences in cities like Jerusalem. Probably the most memorable reaction was from a former British soldier who asked me to sing the song at a festival in England – he told me that when he had first heard the song, it helped him to arrive at a decision to leave the army.

Have you written other songs about war?

Yes, songs like ‘The March Ditch’ which refers to the dividing wall or fence between neighbouring farms, a boundary which can also be seen as a border between countries or even the walls we build in our minds; the song “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” about suspicion and paranoia, this one has been translated into several languages; ‘The Child Who Asks You Why’ written after performing in Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace), the first integrated school and village for Jews and Arabs in Israel.

Why do I write them? I think the songs insist on being written – melodies, rhythms, ideas, images and words are always around me, whether on my travels or at home. Now and again they all seem to get together and knock on the door, Now and again I open the door, let them in and by the time they are ready to leave they have shaped themselves into a song.

What other things do you write about?

I also write songs about the little rituals and ways of life, the humour and wisdom of the ordinary, the twists and turns of language which always make me think that the winding back roads of dialect are much more interesting than the straight motorways of perfect grammar. Many songs inspired by individuals, for example ‘Buskers’ was inspired by Vedran Smailovic, the cellist of Sarajevo who played his cello on the streets of Sarajevo as a protest to (and in the midst of) the devastation of his home city. When Smailovic heard this song, he came to County Down where I live and played his cello on a recording of the song…he liked this part of the world so much that he decided to stay and he now lives a few miles down the road. One of those songs that you write and people step out of the verses into your life!

So what’s new/different for Colum Sands in 2009?

On the world stage the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House comes as a great symbol of hope for the future, here at home the political situation has greatly improved and yet there is still much to work for. On a musical level I’ve had the privilege of bringing my songs to Australia, Germany, Denmark, England and Scotland, there’s a trip to Newfoundland coming up in August, between these gigs and some in Ireland as well I’m putting the final touches to a new album of original songs called Look Where I’ve Ended Up Now – due for release in September 2009. There’s also a DVD planned for release around November, recorded last Easter over a series of concerts at the National Folk Festival in Canberra, Australia.

TRET FURE (www.tretfure.com)

Tret Fure is an American singer/songwriter and audio engineer/producer, who also teaches guitar and song writing. As a young performer, Tret opened for the J Geils Band, Yes and Poco, worked as a guitarist/vocalist for Spencer Davis and had her first solo album produced by Lowell George (Little Feat). The cookbook, Tret’s Kitchen, features her own recipes. ‘Hawk and the Dove’ is one of Tret’s songs about the impacts of war.

What are your earliest memories of war?

Vietnam. When I was seventeen, my boyfriend was drafted. He and his twin brother both went. You were not supposed to have both go to Vietnam because of the chances of parents losing both sons, but they wouldn’t go without each other. It was a good thing, because my boyfriend’s twin brother got shot and my boyfriend carried him out of the jungle and to safety. He wouldn’t have made it otherwise. But when he got home, he was a different person…and we parted right away.

Tell us about ‘Hawk and the Dove’ and how you came to write it

I wrote Hawk and The Dove on 12 September 2001, the day after the twin towers came down. It was devastating for us as a nation. Fear was rampant. I was with my partner, Jane, at her parents’ house and I needed to put all that fear and terror somewhere. I couldn’t believe the loss of life, the way events unfolded and I felt a need to express that. I went out on the back porch and wrote that song in about five minutes. It was a powerful experience and that song carried me and the fans through those difficult times.

What reactions have you had to ‘Hawk and the Dove’?

I sang it at a folk conference the year we decided to invade Iraq. We folkies were having an anti-war rally in the lobby of the hotel where the conference was held. All the major news stations were there. I opened the show with that song and people wept and then cheered. It was a powerful moment. Didn’t stop the administration from going in…but we had made our statement.

Have you written other songs about war?

Yes – the songs ‘Try’ [Drums and bombs and little children/Heading off to war/Wired cars and wired martyrs/Falling to the sword] and ‘Eyes of God’ [In something we should know by now/From time and war and grief/We’ve got the right to live as humans/In the Eyes of God].

I think our last administration did a lot of damage for our country and who we are in the world…It makes one feel powerless. It’s my way of finding power and expression.

What other things do you write about?

I write a lot about love, family, compassion, the human condition.

So what’s new/different for Tret Fure in 2009?

I’m staying off the road more, teaching more guitar and song writing. I’m writing songs for the next CD but won’t start it until 2010. Mostly enjoying my life in these hard times. Economically music is not a great way to make a living these days, but it is still my heart and soul.

STEVE BARNES (www.steveandrosbarnes.com)

Steve Barnes was born in England, but has been living in Australia for the past 20 years. In addition to writing songs, performing as part of the Steve and Ros Barnes duo and being Artistic Director of the Fairbridge Festival, Steve is a geologist with expertise in nickel and komatiites (magnesium-rich lavas). Alec Campbell, the subject of Steve’s song, ‘Water to the Trenches’, was Australia’s last surviving participant of the Gallipoli campaign.

What are your earliest memories of war?

My earliest memories of war are probably hearing about the Vietnam War on radio and television as a kid. And, growing up in England, there was always a heavy presence of World War II movies on tv.

Tell us about ‘Water to the Trenches’ and how you came to write it

‘Water to the Trenches’ is really a song more about the bloke [Alec Campbell] than it is about war. What really inspired me to write the song was reading a number of biographical stories about him around the time he died. As the last surviving veteran of Gallipoli, there was a lot of media coverage – the Howard Government decided to put on a State Funeral and there was all this talk about his experiences at Gallipoli. But reading about him, the thing that stood out was the fact that Gallipoli was something that happened to him for an incredibly short time, very early in his life – he was 16 years old when he went off to Gallipoli and he was there for something like three or four months. The Gallipoli experience then sort of proceeded to define his life for the rest of his 103 years. He lived a very, very long time after Gallipoli, but still the thing that everybody remembered him for at the time of his death was those few months that he spent as a teenager at Gallipoli. He lived a fascinating life – he did all kind of things – the major thing being a union organiser on the railways in Tasmania. So he basically spent his life working for the good of working people – which was kind of a mirror of what he’d done as a soldier at Gallipoli where his job was carrying water to the trenches – hence the title of the song.

What reactions have you had to ‘Water to the Trenches’?

The song generally seems to go over well – I think people get the spirit of the song – which is that Alec Campbell’s life was exemplary in a lot of ways other than what he did as a soldier and that being a soldier was only a small part of what he was.

Have you written other songs about war?

I don’t actually think that I have. I’ve written one called ‘The Weaver and the Buffalo Boy’ – which , although not specifically about war (it’s about a refugee), is about that experience of life being torn apart by cataclysmic events.

When did you start writing songs?

I started writing after I came out to Australia. One of the first songs that I wrote, ‘Green Among the Gold’, has been recorded by a few people, including Geraldine Doyle and Seán Keane. And Judy Small recently recorded, ‘Anchor and Sail’ [Judy Small – Live at the Artery].

What triggers your songwriting and your choice of topics

I come very much out of a folk background – so the songs that interest me tend to be narrative, tend to be story songs that have interesting characters in them or characters (like Alec Campbell) and incidents that stand for something bigger than themselves.

For me, the real golden age of song writing was the Cole Porter era – I think the Cole Porter-Irving Berlin generation of songwriters produced absolutely wonderful work that has been pretty well unequalled since – they were craftsmen.

I travel a bit in my job and that provides a source for stories. Song writing is something that needs time and space and I’ve found time on the road doing field work in remote places is good for reflection and song writing.

For successful song writing, I think you’ve actually got to be thinking like a songwriter – you’ve got to have your songwriter’s head on – and that means being awake to ideas and phrases and ready to capture them. To be writing good songs, you’ve got to be looking for them all the time.

I’m probably a bit unusual among songwriters in that I don’t sing my songs myself – Ros sings them. 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. If you’re just singing them yourself, there’s probably one element of the critical filter that isn’t there. The best possible complement anybody could pay a songwriter is to sing one of their songs.

So what’s new/different for Steve Barnes in 2009?

Our current project is a group called Five Point Turn (with Andrew and Karen Winton). I’m still Artistic Director of the Fairbridge Festival. And Ros and I play traditional Irish music – we’ve regular session goers at the local pub!

JUDY SMALL (www.judysmall.com.au)

Judy Small is an Australian singer/songwriter, who works as a legal aid lawyer specialising in family law. She has a life-long commitment to peace and justice and has written about how “it’s not only men in uniform who pay the price of war” (‘Lest We’). Recently, John Schumann (‘I Was Only 19’) recorded Judy’s song ‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’ for his album, Behind the Lines. Now Judy talks about another of her songs, ‘Widow in Waiting’, which tells the story of the partner of a serving member of Australia’s Special Air Service (SAS).

What are your earliest memories of war?

One of the salient memories of my life is asking my Dad, when I was 7 or 8, “Who won the war?”. He looked at me – I’ll never forget this because it is so clear in my mind – he looked at me with this very sad look on his face and he said, “Nobody won, Pet. (He used to call me ‘Pet’ when I was little.) Nobody won, Pet. Everybody lost.”. And that was the end of the conversation.

My Dad was a journalist and a World War II veteran. He died when I was 14, so I didn’t really ever have any adult conversations with him about this stuff. But I remember him, when I was about eleven, giving the ANZAC Day address in my home town. He spoke for about 35 minutes without notes and it was riveting. I remember feeling so proud of him at the time. Basically he was saying let’s not glorify this, there’s nothing glorious about dying face down in the mud with a bullet in your brain. And that’s where I first remember anything about war being other than either something that happened in history or being glorious.

Tell us about how you came to write ‘Widow in Waiting’

A friend was involved in arranging celebrations for the Australian troops who were coming home – the ones who landed in Fremantle, Western Australia. The SAS doesn’t march in these parades because their identity is secret, so they had a separate reception. She told me about a bloke at the reception who was sitting there laughing way too loud and drinking a lot. He was really on edge and his wife or girlfriend, or whoever it was, was hovering around him and looking worried. That’s where the song started.

What reactions have you had to ‘Widow in Waiting’?

People come up to me afterwards – grown men with tears in their eyes – to tell me their regiment details and say things like, “Good song.” It’s really quite moving. And some the SAS guys have introduced themselves to me after hearing the song – I remember one of them telling me how it made him cry.

In a sense, ‘Widow in Waiting’ is the first time I’ve ever really done a “we can support the soldiers, without supporting the war” song. I think we learnt that from Vietnam. I don’t think we should ever make that mistake again – of blaming the soldiers for the war.

I actually sang ‘Widow in Waiting’ in Fremantle at the KULCHA club (which is a folkie, alternative music venue) just before the funeral of one of the SAS soldiers who had been killed in Afghanistan. In the introduction, I said I was very conscious that I was singing it that context, but the audience certainly appreciated the song. And I think it was the right thing to do.

When I wrote ‘Home Front’, in the late ‘80s, I would get a lot of the women talking to me – now I get the men. I think that part of the reason is that, although ‘Widow in Waiting’ is about the woman, it’s actually acknowledging the impact of war on the men. I think those guys have rarely had it acknowledged publicly that war affects them in a really deep, emotional way which they can’t talk about, or they don’t talk about, to their family. And we’ve seen from Vietnam what that does to them.

You’ve written a number of other songs about war. Why is this?

I wrote them because nobody else was writing those songs at time.

‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’, which was the first one, didn’t start out as a song about war at all – it was a song about my mother’s generation. As I was writing, it turned into a song about war.

‘Lest We’ [written about 18 months later] came out of the demonstrations that were held in Australia in 1981 in memory of civilian women who were raped and murdered during war time, particularly women who were raped. The rape crisis centres throughout the country had these demonstrations and the reaction to the demonstrations was really quite aggressive.

‘Home Front’ came out of the tours I did with Redgum in 1983 and 1985 – when all the Vietnam vets would go and talk to John [Schumann] after the show and their wives and their girlfriends would come and talk to me.

And ‘Silo’ is about the people who, if there was going to be a nuclear holocaust, would be the ones who pressed the buttons. The song tells of what that type of job does to people who are not necessarily combatants as such, but who are certainly involved, and what destruction of human lives at our own hands does to us as human beings.

What other things do you write about?

I write about women. I write about the environment. I write just plain stories.

Writing about women was a deliberate thing. Writing about women was absolutely deliberate. I wanted to sing songs about women because I was a feminist and because I was a woman and there weren’t songs to sing. I had to write songs like ‘From the Lambing to the Wool’ and ‘Mary Parker’s Lament’ and, later, ‘Planning for the Future’ – songs about the lives of ordinary women, in all their aspects.

Mary Parker was my great, great, great, great grandmother. And what I’ve done with that song is record what we know and add to it. The transcript of her trial is still extant and the implication is that she may have been being abused by the master of the house and, reading between the lines, thrown out of the house when the mistress of the house found out. She came back to get her stuff and she was discovered in the attic of the house and charged. Although there is no record of her having had a child in England, the things that she came back for were things you would think she would need not just for herself, but for a child. Mary Parker was a very real woman and had, I think, seven children after she came to Australia and married John Small.

I wrote ‘The White Bay Paper Seller’ because I saw her [Beatrice Bush] every day when I lived in Rozelle and Balmain and was going to Sydney Uni. And there she’d be, little spindly legs and a short skirt, winter and summer. She was amazing. [In 1996, Judy sang ‘The White Bay Paper Seller’ at Beatrice Bush’s funeral.]

‘The Manly Ferry Song’ is a true story. I took Cora on the Manly Ferry to the beach at Manly and then we came back again on the ferry. As we were driving home, Elton John’s song ‘Blue Eyes’ came on the radio. And Cora looked at me – she was six and had been very sick – and said, “You could write a song for me”. The next time I saw her she asked, “Have you written my song yet?”. She’s now a women in her 30s, with three children!

And, of course, the other thing I write about is being gay. I have always sung about being gay – ‘Turn Right, Go Straight’ was on my second album; ‘Annie’ [written by Fred Small] was on Home Front; ‘No Tears for the Widow’ was on Snapshot. When Home Front was released, I can remember a radio interviewer saying something like “and you’ve recorded a song about a lesbian school teacher”. He kind of dumped it on me. And when I just went on with, “Yes, I have – it’s a really nice song – it’s about prejudice and forced dishonesty”, he seemed quite taken aback that I wasn’t embarrassed or upset. Over the years, I’ve realised that the more normalised we make being gay and lesbian, the more normalised it is.

So what’s new/different for Judy Small in 2009?

I’m very much a part-time folk singer these days – I even see myself now as being semi-retired! I play probably ten to a dozen times a year and that’s absolutely satisfying for me. When I’m not doing it – I don’t miss it. When I do it – I love it.

I think it’s time for other people to pick up that mantle and it’s really encouraging to see young women like Ami Williamson doing that. Ami’s got that combination of the humor and the serious songs and an amazing stage presence – she’s incredibly musical (she’s opera trained).

Over the last ten years or so, my life has increasingly gone in the direction of the law and the practice of law – which I find incredibly stimulating and satisfying. What I’m doing in my legal aid work is in many ways what I’ve done with my music and, before that, with my psychology work – I see them all as corners of the same field –social justice and human rights.

SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. One of her vivid childhood memories is hearing radio broadcasts of the results of ballots for Australia’s compulsory selective National Service scheme during the Vietnam War.

© 2009 Sue Barrett

By Sue Barrett

So if you need something when times get hard You can probably find it in my dad’s yard And if you need hope If you’re coming apart You can surely find it in my [...]]]> Editor’s Note – Sue Barrett is an Australian music writer who occasionally contributes feature articles to FolkBlog.  This article appears by the author’s permission.

By Sue Barrett

So if you need something when times get hard
You can probably find it in my dad’s yard
And if you need hope
If you’re coming apart
You can surely find it in my dad’s heart

(Catie Curtis — ‘Dad’s Yard’)

Catie Curtis was once a teenager, playing drums and basketball. Then she became a house painter and a social services agency worker. These days, she’s a professional musician, with a string of albums, a documentary on her life and songs dotted through television shows and films.  And now the Massachusetts-based singer/songwriter has a new CD, Hello Stranger (as part of a string band side-project).

As a songwriter, what feeds/impedes your creativity?

My creativity is fed by time plus coffee plus a little nervous energy plus love of guitar plus good conversation and books. And my creativity is impeded by a lack of those things.

How has your career, and your life as a musician, been affected by technological developments, such as CDs, websites, email, cell phones?

I can reach more people through technology, but then at the same time, so can everyone else! So there’s a state of saturation that is different from the mid-90s, when I was launched by EMI/Guardian Records. As a frequent traveller, I feel a lot safer on the road with the cell phone and GPS — that’s been life-altering. It’s a lot easier for me to be in touch with fans now, which I love. I update my own website, and write newsletters. But the best part is putting all that down and returning to the process of writing songs, which is by nature a slow, solitary, pencil-paper-guitar process. And performing remains, as always, about being in the moment.

When interviewed ten years ago, you had a friend with a chronic illness who was really struggling and you said you couldn’t play Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Should I Fall Behind’ (which you were learning for a wedding) without crying. Have you continued to experience songs/circumstances where singing is really difficult?

Funny you should ask. My friend Mary Reeve, who lived with ALS for 12 years and who I spoke about in 1999, died recently. I played ‘Look at You Now’ at her funeral. I had to get into the right space to do that. There are times at shows I lose it because I’m thinking of how a certain song applies to someone who I know is in the audience.

You attended Brown University on a basketball scholarship and you’ve maintained an interest in women’s college basketball. Have you written any songs about basketball or about female athletes?

No and I haven’t written any songs about dogs (which I also love) either. What is WRONG with me??!!

How do you arrange your touring schedule/touring arrangements so as to maximise the positive things and minimise the negative things?

I take 6 AM flights home, I sleep on planes, I take short trips, many of them. I don’t take every gig I’m offered. But I also get a lot of quiet time driving in the car. I have to admit to loving that. And I try to kidnap friends and take them with me on the road whenever possible. I love playing music, still, after all these years!

When you’re on the road, do you continue to “call home, once a day, at least”?

I call home incessantly. It’s a problem. I try to wait until I have a lot to say but usually it’s like, “hi just checking in. again”.

Have you ever had the chance to observe the reaction of your children when they hear one of your songs on the radio or on television or in a film?

When Celia was four, my song ‘Sweet Life’ came on the radio, and I said, “Celia, I got a song on the radio!”. She said, “I got a big fork and a big spoon”! And when Lucy was six, she heard ‘100 Miles’ in a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen movie and yelled to me “Ma, your song is in this movie”, sort of like “you left your shoe in my room”.

Over the years, you’ve made references to reading books. What have you been reading recently?

I read Anne LaMott and Rumi poems. ‘Fools’, from my last CD, Sweet Life, was written after reading a Rumi poem about living with courage. Lately I’ve been reading some parenting book about playfulness. There’s a lot to learn on this parenting journey.

You used to work for a social services agency and your songs include observations on vulnerable and disadvantaged people. Can you tell us about your New York City guitar initiative?

I was given a guitar when I was 15 years old. I have been wanting to pay it forward ever since then. So I started Aspire to Inspire, to raise funds to give guitars to young musicians. We gave away the first 15 guitars to kids hand-picked through the Fresh Air Camps by teachers from the ASCAP Foundation. There’s an online endowment at http://www.HopeEquity.org/catiecurtis if anyone wants to help give guitars to aspiring musicians!

How did you come to start recording in Nashville?

I’d always wanted to record in Nashville. The opportunity presented itself with Sweet Life because my label, Compass Records, is based in Nashville and they have a really great vintage studio in their building. Garry West owns Compass with his wife Alison Brown. Nashville is the perfect place to make a recording that sounds warm and friendly.

Catie Curtis’ new CD, Hello Stranger, is available through iTunes and Compass Records and includes a duet with Mary Gauthier of A. P. Carter’s song ,‘Hello Stranger’, and a re-recording of Catie’s song, ‘Dad’s Yard’.

More info:

http://www.catiecurtis.com

http://www.myspace.com/catiecurtis

Select Discography

• Dandelion
• From Years To Hours
• Truth From Lies
• Catie Curtis
• A Crash Course in Roses
• My Shirt Looks Good on You
• Acoustic Valentine
• Dreaming in Romance Languages
• Long Night Moon
• Sweet Life
• Hello Stranger

Documentary

Tangled Stories: A Year with Catie Curtis

Select List of TV Shows

• Grey’s Anatomy
• Dawson’s Creek
• Felicity
• Alias
• Desperate Housewives
• Chicago Hope
• North Shore

Select Filmography

• 500 Miles to Graceland
• A Slipping Down Life
• Three of Hearts: A Postmodern Family
• Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School
• Our Lips Are Sealed

SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. Sue first interviewed Catie Curtis in 1999 for Rhythms magazine (Australia’s roots music monthly).

© 2009

By Sue Barrett

“Tuesday night I reorganize my record collection; I often do this at periods of emotional stress…When Laura was here I had the records arranged alphabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order…Tonight, though, [...]]]> Woodsmeister’s note – The following article is by FolkBlog Australian contributor Sue Barrett and published here by her permission.

By Sue Barrett

“Tuesday night I reorganize my record collection; I often do this at periods of emotional stress…When Laura was here I had the records arranged alphabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order…Tonight, though, I fancy something different, so I try to remember the order I bought them in…”
(Nick Hornby – High Fidelity, 1995)

At breakfast, a few days ago, Ronnie Gilbert was singing ‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’; June Taber performed ‘He Fades Away’; and Totally Gourdgeous sang ‘Strangers and Foreigners’ – on tape, that is, not in person.

Ronnie, June and Totally Gourdgeous present something of a problem for music collectors, however, given their mixture of solo and non-solo recordings.

If one looks to Rob (the record shop owning anti-hero of High Fidelity) for a solution, then one probably isn’t going to find it. Although Rob’s alphabetical phase was probably the most practical, alphabetical order doesn’t cope well with all circumstances – including Ronnie’s albums with The Weavers and Holly Near; June’s albums with Martin Simpson and Maddy Prior; and the solo albums of the various members of Totally Gourdgeous.

There could be a case for keeping all Christmas recordings together, rarities together and signed copies together. One might want to shelve Hunter Davis’ Torn with the Cris Williamson recordings (because of their duet performance of ‘Arm and a Leg’), to put Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin’ with the Dusty Springfield albums and to slip the Young Blood II compilation album (with its Kings of the World track, featuring Jen Anderson) amongst Weddings Parties Anything’s output. And coping with Gretchen Phillips, given her many collaborations and handmade covers, is definitely for another day!

Then there’s the issue of what to do when a performer does something that is totally different to their previous recordings – like a singer-songwriter releasing an album of covers.

Actually, singer-songwriters releasing a covers album is an issue in its own right, one about which singer-songwriters Kate Campbell, Richard Shindell and Cyndi Boste have first-hand experience…

KATE CAMPBELL (www.katecampbell.com)

Kate Campbell is an American singer-songwriter, whose compositions focus on “people and everyday living”. She was born in New Orleans (Louisiana), spent some time in Sledge (Mississippi), but has lived most of her life in Nashville, Tennessee. Kate’s CD, Twang on a Wire (2003), focuses on songs written by other people and released by female performers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Dolly Parton (‘Down from Dover’), Donna Fargo (‘Funny Face’) and Emmylou Harris (‘Boulder to Birmingham’). The album takes its name from the song ‘Twang on a Wire’, which Kate wrote with Mark Narmore.

When and how did you begin writing songs?
I wrote my first song when I was six or seven – so I’ve been writing since I was a very little girl. I wrote it on the ukulele. My father is a minister and I hung out with teenagers (who were playing guitar, doing Dylan, singing Peter Paul and Mary). I thought that everybody played guitar and wrote songs and sang – so I did! My parents gave me the ukulele, then I started taking piano when I was about seven. I played clarinet in the band – starting in the fourth grade or whenever you could. I really began to write by the fifth or sixth grade – like 12 years old.

Of your own songs that you’ve recorded, which are the oldest?

Well, you know, there are recordings which no one will ever hear that we have from before my first album that was officially released! But some of the older tunes that I’ve recorded since I’ve been making records are ‘Trains Don’t Run From Nashville’, ‘Jerusalem Inn’ and ‘Would You Be a Parson’.

When and how did you begin performing your own songs?

I think the very first time I ever sang was when my hands were bigger and I’d started moving from the ukulele to the regular guitar. Me and a friend sang ‘Silent Night’ in the third grade. Another of the very first songs I sang was a Dolly Parton song – ‘Daddy was an Old Time Preacher Man’ – and my sister and I sang that at church for an event they were having for my father. I mostly sang at church – it was a good place because people were encouraging – even if you were bad they wouldn’t tell you.

How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?

It’s harder. It’s harder, for me.  When I was first learning – when I was playing the piano and picking up the guitar here in Nashville (I’ve mostly lived my life in Nashville – my father’s family has lived in Nashville for 200 years), the Sunday paper [The Tennessean] had this colored insert called the ‘Sunday Showcase’ and it used to have the TV listings and the chords and lyrics of a song. I would get the song out of the paper and sit down at the piano or guitar and try to play it. I would have heard the song on the radio, ’cause it was mostly pop songs (although every now and then there would be a country song). Most often it wasn’t in a key that I could sing it in, so I figured out how to transpose.

I like to sing songs from the radio, but from early on I would mostly sing what I wrote. Early in my career – I was through college and back in Nashville trying to get a publishing deal – I got hired a couple of nights to do cover tunes in a bar. I hated it and I’m sure I was awful. I had to use notes because I’m just not a cover tune person.

With my tunes, even those from the very first record, I’m asked to do them frequently enough for them to come back easily. There are probably only three or four of my tunes that I couldn’t do and that’s only usually tunes that I never, for whatever reason, did very much in the first place in concert.

I hardly ever do any of the Twang on a Wire songs in concert because I can’t remember the words. There are so many songs in my head now that I have make myself learn the words (the words more than anything) to perform somebody else’s song.

Why did you decide to record an album of songs mainly written by other people? And how did you come to select the songs on Twang on a Wire?

I’m truly a product of the American south and its music. I was born in New Orleans, lived in the Delta and I’ve spent most of my life in Nashville. I’ve done half of my records in Muscle Shoals [Alabama] and written for Fame Publishing. My mother’s from Kentucky and my grandfather in Kentucky loved bluegrass music – even though the least amount of influence that people will hear in my music is bluegrass. I like to tell people that I have a lot of blue but no grass in my music! There are three main strains that people hear in my music – Mississippi acoustic blues underneath, gospel music and the Nashville country sound.

The tunes on Twang on a Wire are tunes that I remember inspired me as a girl and that I think are great songs, great performances, great songwriters. Twang on a Wire is my tribute record to those women, those songs and those songwriters (some of whom were men). The songs come from a critical time in my life – it was when I was really beginning to sing and play the guitar. I was listening to the radio. I was in Nashville. And the women’s movement was also beginning to grow.

With some of these songs, it’s amazing that they were on the radio, on AM country radio, in Nashville – songs like ‘Honey on His Hands’ and ‘Mississippi Woman, Louisiana Man’, songs by Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.

Then there was ‘Funny Face’, which was not necessarily a strong woman’s song, except that it was HUGE hit.

I could have put any number of Dolly Parton songs on – but I think ‘Down from Dover’ is an incredible song. I think it’s so pure, how Dolly Parton writes. I haven’t met Dolly, but my mother sat next to her on an airplane once!

Kris Kristofferson wrote ‘Help me Make it through the Night’, but what changed the song is that a woman sang it – it was a number one for Sammi Smith in the country music market in the early ’70s.

Those songs definitely influenced my life. I don’t necessarily agree with all the thing in the songs – but they definitely formed my musical heritage. And I wanted everybody else to enjoy them as well.

Did you write the song ‘Twang on a Wire’ particularly for the album?

I wrote the song close to doing the album – I wrote it with my friend Mark Narmore. I have no idea where the title came from – sometimes you feel like titles fall from the sky – and I just felt that I had it one day. I spent a year or so thinking about it, then Mark and I were talking about it and we ended up writing the song – truly about me playing the guitar. It’s kinda my story. The song came first, then I realised that it was a way to do my country women tribute record.

Did you listen/re-listen to other people singing the songs before recording them?

I listened to the versions that I remembered – I didn’t listen to any other people recording them. Then me and the guys got together and played them. We had a great time! There’s a different feel on some of them, but with some of them I felt the original feel was so lovely (like Rose Garden). I wasn’t trying to do a reinterpretation by any means, although there are a couple of songs that we did kinda re-invent (like ‘Would You Lay With Me in a Field of Stone’).

In recording Twang on a Wire, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?

No – it didn’t enter my mind at all! I guess by the time I did Twang on a Wire, I felt that people would truly see this as a tribute record. And I think that’s how people have seen it. Lots of times people want me to sing ‘Boulder to Birmingham’ in concert – so I’ll do an encore of ‘Boulder to Birmingham’. Every now and then, people want me to do ‘Harper Valley PTA’, but it’s much better with a band. I just loved those performances and those women and those songs. And I hope that other people like it and remember those songs and remember country music and the impact that music can have on us all.

What’s been happening in your world in recent times?

I came out with a new CD last October, called Save the Day. And people seem to be enjoying that. From a recording stand point, it sounds super. John Prine is one of my favorites and he is absolutely spectacular on it. And, of course, Nanci Griffith came and sang along. Mac McAnally, who appears on a lot of my CDs, shows up on this one. I’m proud of it; I think it sounds well; and I hope I continue to grow as a songwriter.

What are some of your future plans?

This summer, I’m have some song writing camps – I’ve been doing 2 or 3 every year for about 5 or 6 years. Then I’m going back to the UK in October 2009. And it looks like in 2010 that I may do a little trip to Ireland, where I’m the host and we see the sites and listen to music every night in a pub.

We’re thinking about, maybe, doing a live album. I think there are very few great live albums – I can only name a couple, like the Allman Brothers Band and the Steve Miller Band. I just can’t envisage someone wanting to hear me sing and play guitar live over and over again – but we’re contemplating it. It’s something that I have to talk to Will Kimbrough [producer, songwriter, guitarist] about. So that may be next.

I’ve never done a holiday record (and I really don’t want to), but I kinda want to do a peace record. One of the songs that I’d want to record is Will’s song, ‘God Forgive our Warring Ways’.

In his novel High Fidelity, English writer Nick Hornby covers such vitally important things as organising music collections and making compilation tapes. Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?

I’ve read Nick Hornby’s book and I have the accompanying CD!

I’m a very eclectic listener.

I love classical music and I have my classical music together. I really like requiems.

I like jazz – usually jazz blues, blue dark jazz (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk). So I have that together.

And then I’ll kinda do stuff in alphabetical order.

I love southern rock.

I also like electronic out-there stuff – like Air.

I love the great songwriters – I’m a huge Tom Waits fan and I have all of Springsteen’s. And people like Guy Clark are great – but they’re not heard on the radio that much.

I’m on a Rolling Stones binge right now – I’ve been listening to Beggars Banquet over and over again. To me, the interesting thing about Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones was their ability to write their own music, but to also do tremendous blues covers and country music songs.

If I was to make a CD to listen to, then it would be The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley (he did some really weird recordings and those are the ones I like the most), Bonnie “Prince” Billy (he’s really dark – and I like him a lot), Ray LaMontagne.

No one would ever probably know the songs I write by what I listen to!

Editor’s note – after the jump- Richard Shindell and Cyndi Boste

Richard Shindell has been living in Argentina for much of the past decade, although he was born and bred in the USA. Richard’s CD, South of Delia (2007) is a collection of cover tracks, including Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street’ and Josh Ritter’s ‘Lawrence, KS’. The album includes Richard Thompson on electric guitar and Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson on harmony vocals.

When and how did you begin writing songs?

The first one arrived in 1987. Although I had tried to write songs prior to that, I had never finished one. They all got abandoned when it became clear that they were terrible. Then one day, I finished one (which, ipso facto, means I did not think it was terrible!). As to why, I can only chalk it up to the fortuitous meeting of good love gone bad and a particularly resonant stairwell.

When and how did you begin performing your own songs?

I was living in New York City at the time. There was a coffeehouse at Columbia University (across the street) which would let me play – not as much as I wanted, but as LITTLE as I wanted. I wanted to perform the songs as they began to roll off the presses. But I had a horrible case of stage fright. So a club that would let me play for as long as I could stand it (and no more) was invaluable. Little by little I learned to love the audience.

How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?

Three steps:

1. I start as a fan, listening to a song obsessively, over and over.
2. After a while, I stop listening and move on to something else. Meanwhile, that first song is gestating in my brain somewhere.
3. Some time goes by, during which I forget enough about the original version to be able to sing it as if it were mine.
4. I play it from memory.

Sorry, that’s four steps!

Why did you decide to record an album of songs written by other people?

We all start off singing songs by other people. It’s the most natural thing in the world. We also start off as fans. Then one day some of us go off and transform ourselves into auteurs (in stairwells, for example). Once this transformation happens, this earlier relationship gets complicated, or even lost. This is unfortunate. So my little record is just me doing what I’ve done ever since I can remember, authorship be damned.

How did you come to select the songs on South of Delia and how did it come to be a collection of songs, with the possible exception of the two traditional tracks, written by male songwriters?

I chose songs I like, songs that I feel capable of singing as if they were my own. Perhaps that explains the skewed representation. But I must say that in considering the suitability of a song for my repertoire, the gender of the writer is of no importance whatsoever. Having said that, I could do an entire record of Joni Mitchell songs (and I would still be on my feet).

How did you come up with the album title, South of Delia?

It’s from a line in Josh Ritter’s song, ‘Lawrence, KS’. I looked on a map, and it turns out that Delia, Kansas is more or less in the geographical center of the continental US. Since I conceived of the record in part as a return to Americana (after the Argentine-tinged Vuelta, released in 2004), it seemed appropriate. And the titles of all of my records (with the exception of the latest one, Not Far Now) are place-names.

Did you listen/re-listen to other people singing the songs before recording them?

No I did not. Like I said, I prefer to thoroughly internalize the songs and then let them emerge as I would sing them, as if I had written them (as if!). One exception: my version of ‘The Humpback Whale’ is not derived from the original by Harry Robertson, but from the astonishing Nic Jones version.

Can you tell us about some particular songs on South of Delia?

‘Born in the USA’- a much misunderstood song that I thought needed to see the light of day again.

‘Deportee’ – I had wanted to cover this one ever since I heard Hoyt Axton’s version of the song a million years ago. Also, it was (in part) the inspiration for one of my own songs, ‘Fishing’.

‘The Humpback Whale’ – I’m a huge Nic Jones fan, who sang the definitive version back in 1980. This is as much homage to Nic as anything else. But it’s a beautiful song about a barbaric practice.

‘Mercy Street’ – Written about [poet] Anne Sexton. This has always been my favorite Peter Gabriel song (along with ‘Here Comes the Flood’, which I’d still like to attempt some day).

In recording South of Delia, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?

No, I would not have done this if I didn’t think that my songs can take care of themselves, bless their little hearts. Besides, I think most of my fans were horrified by the idea of a record of covers!

In hindsight, what you think you achieved with South of Delia?

If I have done justice to a collection of wonderful songs, if I succeeded in making a case for them being included together on one disc, then I think I have achieved something worthwhile.

Do you have any plans to release another album of songs written by other people?

It’s not out of the question. But if I do it will not be for a while. I don’t want to confuse the audience – or in the parlance of modern capitalism, “dilute the brand”.

Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?

I’m ashamed to say that my collection is organized alphabetically. With children in the house, I’m afraid there’s no other way to maintain order. As for compilation tapes (or “playlists” as they’re called now), many a night I’ve gone way deep into the wee hours trying to get that order just right, trying to find the perfect segue, the unexpected segue, the hilarious segue, the segue that will dispel all doubt, if there ever was any, that this is true love.

What’s been happening in your world in recent times?

Well, I just took a break in order to help my daughter learn how to play ‘Desperado’ on the piano. That pretty much sums up my world in recent times.

And what are your plans for the remainder of 2009?

Lots of touring. I have a new record out (Not Far Now, mostly originals) which I’ll be touring in support of. Tomorrow I’m off to Florida. Later in May I go to the Netherlands, France, Italy, and the UK. Then more touring in the US. I’m also working on the next batch of songs. It never ends.

Cyndi Boste is an Australian singer-songwriter, who grew up in the foothills of Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges (with bush, cows, paddocks, bikes and Tarzan swings). Cyndi’s CD, Scrambled Eggs (2004), consists of songs written by Australian songwriters, including Cyndi (three tracks), Dave Steel (‘Oh My Country’), Barb Waters (‘My Brother’s First Girlfriend’), Tonchi McIntosh (‘Bridges’) and Vikki Simpson (‘Company’). The recording includes support from Mia Dyson (Lap steel/electric guitar/vocals), Jodi Moore (electric violin/vocals), Kerryn Tolhurst (dobro) and Tiffany Eckhardt, Kerri Simpson and Linda and Vika Bull (vocals).

When and how did you begin writing songs?

I started writing songs when I picked up the guitar at 12 or 13 years of age. I’m self taught on guitar – and it was easier for me to make up my own songs than sit by the record player and try to work out what James Taylor was doing. They were pretty awful songs!

When and how did you begin performing your own songs?

For years and years and years, I worked as a full-time covers singer. I always dreamt about being a songwriter – but I didn’t think I was very good at it. I would throw the occasional original song in, but it wasn’t really a big part of my life until the 1990s when I joined my brother Rory’s band, Steve Boyd and the Preachers (and they were doing nothing but original music). Then I discovered that I could write songs and that they were pretty good too. Maybe I just had to wait long enough to grow up inside or something. When I sat down to write my first album, Home Truths, those songs just came.

Do the things that are going on in your life, or more broadly in the world, feed into your songwriting?

Yes – although things usually take some time to be processed before coming out in a song. With my songwriting, I think that everything is connected, nothing is in isolation. It’s all connected to some sort of experience.

I’ve just moved from Melbourne [to country Victoria] and I have no idea how the Victorian bushfires [February 2009] will impact on my songs down the road. It was certainly a terrifying experience – living on that sort of alert for weeks, then having to run, very quickly.

What do you think your music means to other people?

My songs seem to mean different things to different people and I think that songs can mean whatever someone needs them to mean. The various interpretations kind of blow me away. People’s questioning about my songs can be intrusive and one person even challenged me over what a song was about!

If people ask for a particular song, that’s the biggest payoff, the best thing in the world for me. It means that someone knows my work, knows it by name and has a connection to it.

For someone to say, “I buried my father the other day and we played ‘Holy Waters’ because it was his favorite song”, that’s really significant. That lasts forever.

Why did you decide to record an album of songs mainly written by other people and how did it come to be a collection of songs written by Australian songwriters?

At the time, I didn’t have enough new material for an original album, but I wanted to keep producing. I was always raving about the depth of songwriting talent in Melbourne, so I thought I’d promote my mates’ songs. It took off as a concept. I also decided to mix and match the musicians – experimental, really.

How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?

The only way it works for me is if there is immediately something in the song that I relate to (either the tune or the lyrics). I listen to a song once (to get the lyrics), then I don’t listen to it again. I just make up my own version of the song. I’ve always done that. I’ve done that with all the covers I’ve ever done. Sometimes I later hear the original and realise that I really did change it.

As a performer, it’s much easier to tell someone else’s story – you’re not so personally attached to it. My emotional vulnerability is far less when I’m singing someone else’s song than when I’m singing one of my own songs – for sure, FOR sure. It doesn’t mean than someone else’s song can’t move me, but it’s not coming FROM me, I’m just sort of passing it on.

With songs, it can be a bit “use it or lose it” at times. Although with one of my own songs, as long as I’m feeling really comfortable and I’ve gone into my zone, it’s all there, regardless of how long it is since I’ve performed it.

How did you come to select the songs on Scrambled Eggs?

I dug out my CDs of the people who I thought I might record, then went through them track by track until something jumped out at me. I was very lucky with Scrambled Eggs – I just happened to pick the right songs – they seemed to work very well for me. They could have been my songs.

How did you come up with the album title, Scrambled Eggs?

We were recording in the kitchen. So it was a kitchen thing, really. So many artists contributed – it was a bit scrambled. So a bunch of scrambled eggs. And I eat scrambled eggs. Any kind of eggs.

In recording Scrambled Eggs, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?

Not really – but it was a bit strange as a songwriter not to be recording my own songs.

Do you have any plans to release another album of songs written by other people?

Not at the moment – although I do like concepts.

I’m actually hoping to put out a new album of my own songs early next year (2010). I also want to do a live DVD and, at some stage, an acoustic album. I’d also like to write some songs for other performers.

In hindsight, what you think you achieved with Scrambled Eggs?

I think it showed versatility and that I’m not too precious about other people’s songs. It was a very nice way to cement my place in our community too. I think it showed some respect. And I think it worked really well for all of us.

Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?

My music collection is not very well organised – it’s all over the house! I don’t LISTEN to a lot of music – but it’s in my head all the time. I find it gets too busy if I listen all the time. And whenever I’m in writing mode, I don’t listen to anything – I don’t want to be contaminated or influenced in any way. I just want whatever is trying to get out of me to come out in its own way.

When I listen to music, it’s usually old stuff – Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen. I like the familiarity of music. Lucinda Williams is probably the most modern artist that I’ve let into my world.

Every now and again, I’ll put on my old recordings in the car to have a listen. And I still hear things I haven’t heard before – a line, a note. I quite enjoy listening to my old stuff. One of the local pubs seems to play my music all the time. Sometimes when I go in for a drink or for dinner, I realise, after half an hour or so, that it’s me they are playing!
SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She owns an autographed copy of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and tries to keep her record collection arranged alphabetically. Whenever Sue listens to the Ronnie Gilbert/June Taber/Totally Gourdgeous tape, she remembers seeing those song sung by their writers – Judy Small (‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’), Alistair Hulett (‘He Fades Away’) and Kath Tait (‘Strangers and Foreigners’).

© 2009

Songs of Ice, Snow and Rain

By Sue Barrett

A few days ago, someone mentioned that a mutual friend is currently in New York, probably freezing!

And, on checking the weather reports, it does seem a bit cold in North America at the moment.

Aussies on Tour – North America (Fall 2008)

 By Sue Barrett

Over the coming days, weeks and months, people in North America have the opportunity to see a range of Australian performers, including:

Penelope Swales “Full of earthy sensuality, poetic musings” (Rhythms)

Fred Smith “The crux [...]]]> Administrator’s Note – Once again, we present the work of our correspondent Down Under, Sue Barrett.

Aussies on Tour – North America (Fall 2008)

 By Sue Barrett

Over the coming days, weeks and months, people in North America have the opportunity to see a range of Australian performers, including:

Penelope Swales
“Full of earthy sensuality, poetic musings” (Rhythms)

Fred Smith
“The crux of his craft is a wonderful sense of melody, wrapped in some of the most accomplished songwiting you will hear” (Revolver)

Martine Locke
“She can be tender, she can be refined – but she can also cut loose with an amazing wall of sound that will blow you away.” (Desert Weekly Post)

Wendy Rule
“Wendy Rule creates dark, sensual sonic theatre” (Rolling Stone)

So without regard to such pressing matters as still-damp clothes, overweight luggage, instrument insurance and misplaced passports, FolkBlog interrupted the pre-tour preparations to find out more…

PENELOPE SWALES

www.penelopeswales.com
http://profile.myspace.com/TotallyGourdgeous

“Full of earthy sensuality, poetic musings” (Rhythms)

Tell us about your music (including with the band, Totally Gourdgeous) and the types of people who attend your concerts.

As a soloist, I work as a singer/songwriter/storyteller playing mostly original songs that range from love through social commentary and into left-leaning politics. Key themes are social justice, environment, democracy and Aboriginal issues. I find the Aboriginal issues particularly resonate with North American audiences as we share a similar post-colonial legacy.

I also write a lot of songs about people I’ve met in my travels. I’m particularly inspired by the courage ordinary people show in the face of adversity. A lot of these songs are about women, just because I’ve found a lot of women inspiring, but there’s songs about men and children, too. There’s a whole subset of my material that deals with love and sexuality. Whether I bring that stuff out depends on the crowd, and what I think they’ll enjoy or feel comfortable with.

Instrumentation-wise, I’m a guitarist (currently travelling with a guitar I made myself) and a flute/whistle player, and I also use a loop recorder in some songs. Not too many, because looping can be a little overpowering, but I find that if used sparingly and tastefully, looping can add a whole extra dimension to a folk concert, and allows me to play wind or percussion, add backing vocals, put the guitar down and walk around with the microphone, and generally free up where a performance can go.

I find myself playing in front of a great cross-section of people, from traditional-minded folkies to anything-goes folkies, to computer geeks to queer audiences to young rebellious types. And I love ‘em all. Playing before people from different walks of life keeps you sharp.

Totally Gourdgeous is a completely different style of act. It’s a comedy band, in which all the instruments (guitar, bass, drum, fiddle, mandolin) are made of gourds. I’m the maker of the instruments. I was trained by Jack Spira, who has made guitars for artists such as Sting and Deborah Conway. We wear bright costumes and play up-beat, funny songs with witty lyrics. We play a lot of festivals, and have just completed a two-month tour of Europe. We’re good for kids because we’re bright and colorful, good for young people because we’re dancy and good for older people because the lyrics are entertaining.

In what ways, if any, has your music been influenced by North American music?

Well, the singer/songwriter genre pretty much came out of American folk and blues, so I’d say there’s a fundamental influence there. I listened to a lot of North American artists as I was growing up – Joan Baez, Paul Simon, Dan Fogelberg, Ellen McIlwaine, Joni Mitchell, etc. I’ve never been consciously aware of their influence, but it must be there. More recently, some of my guitar playing has been influenced by Chris Smither. I just love his finger style.

When and where does your 2008 North American tour begin?

BC (Canada) in September, then heading down the West Coast of the US from Seattle to San Diego in October.

What can people expect from your performances on the tour?

The BC tour will be focused on my general repertoire of love, courage, human rights, environment etc. with some storytelling and looping thrown in.

The West Coast US tour is something of an experiment. I recently released an album of songs celebrating love and sexuality, and am playing a series of gigs to the queer/polyamourous/sex-positive community organisations that flourish in that part of the world. I contacted a few groups to see if they’d be interested and the response has been overwhelming. I have no idea what it’s going to be like, but they seem pretty switched on and interesting people and I’m looking forward to seeing the West Coast. People have been telling me for years that my music would go down well there.

Are there phrases/concepts in your songs that you might need to translate?

Oh, yes. The big one is “spunk” – which in Australia means a highly attractive person…I have a song that refers to someone as a “spunk” and I had quite a few shocked faces before I learned to put in a disclaimer.

I also learnt the hard way that the word “busking” is ambiguous for some. In Australia, a busker is a street musician. But a couple of people have thought it means prostitution.

Can you tell us the story behind your song, ‘Safe Home’?

I flew out of the US on American Airlines on the morning of September 11 2001, about two hours before the World Trade Center attack. Of course, we weren’t told of it while we were in the air, but when we landed at Sydney, Australia, they wouldn’t let us off the plane. After a long wait in which people were starting to get grumpy, an announcement came over the PA that said they were preparing a briefing for us. The minute I heard those words, I thought “someone’s started a war”.

They explained events to us, but it was quite garbled and I don’t think anyone really understood. But when we came out into the main foyer of the airport there were big screens up, pumping that footage of the planes flying into the buildings again and again, and Qantas [Airways] staff with mobile phones saying – “does anyone need to ring their family?”. It was like we’d been in a time capsule. Everyone else had been dealing with it since the previous morning, but we had no idea. When we got on the plane, everything was normal – then we emerged into a totally different world. I wrote the song over the next two days.

For me, ‘Safe Home’ was about two things – a deep dismay at the horror and scale of the tragedy, and a deep cynicism about the media hype and festival of political opportunism that would (and did) inevitably follow. I felt, and still feel, that it was a craven thing to exploit those deaths and the wound to one of the most fascinating, progressive and vibrant cities in the world to further political agendas that were already long in place. I also knew, even then, that a lot more innocent people were going to die as a result, and I was pretty unhappy and angry about it.

At the time, some people found the song very confronting, and I felt the need to be sensitive about when and where to play it, because it is critical of America as a political entity, and people were so bewildered and hurt by what had happened. But as time has passed, a lot of people seem to have come to agree with it, or at least acknowledge the validity of the points it raises. That means a lot to me, because to step forward and write about such an event as a non-citizen is not something to be done lightly. I think many people in the US grappled bravely with the sort of soul-searching 9/11 provoked, and there’s something to be proud of in that.

What have you been doing since you last toured North America?

I had to go off the road for a few years because my mother’s health was poor and she needed my support. In that time, I have been studying Law, Anthropology and Politics at Monash University. I’m about halfway through a double degree in Arts/Laws. It’s been really hard work, but fascinating.

Are there things that you’re particularly looking forward to on the tour?

Just being out on the road, and meeting people who love folk music. Seeing the world, having adventures. I’m going to Peru for six week to work as a volunteer English teacher in the Andes before I go home – that’s going to be amazing, I think.

How is your instrument-making going?

I haven’t had much time for it recently. I’m hoping to find a bit of time for it next year, as I have a long list of people on my waiting list.

What are your other plans for the next year?

I’m hoping to be given a place in the Aurora Project, which provides interns to lawyers and anthropologists working with Aboriginal people on Native Title claims. More study, and Totally Gourdgeous has planned a major assault on the Australian folk scene, as we have a new live CD/DVD.

FRED SMITH

www.fredsmith.com.au
www.fredsmith.com.au/pages/fshome.html

“The crux of his craft is a wonderful sense of melody, wrapped in some of the most accomplished songwiting you will hear” (Revolver)

Tell us about your music (including the Frencham Smith duo) and the types of people who attend your concerts.

I write songs with stories and melodies. I present them either solo, in a duo with Liz Frencham, or with a more testosterone based band called the Fred Smith Band.

My last two solo albums have focused specifically on places I have lived when I wrote them: Bougainville and the United States. The two Frencham Smith albums I have done with Liz are about more personal/emotional/relational terrain.

The people who come to my concerts are generally grown ups who like a bit of protein in their music – thought, feeling, experience, narrative, humour, perspective.

In what ways, if any, has your music been influenced by North American music?

Profoundly I would say, as most contemporary singer/songwriters would. The palette I paint with, the idioms – country, blues, rock, pop – are all North American. Fingerpicking blues player Mississippi John Hurt is a big influence for me as a guitar player and my playing feeds my writing. The darker textures of Leonard Cohen, the whimsy/comedy of Paul Simon, Neil Young’s chord structures – all of these informed my vocabulary. I also listened a lot to Paul Kelly and the Beatles but maybe they too were making their own out of something that originated in North America. My most recent album, Texas, is all songs I wrote in and about the USA. I guess with this album I have used American forms to parody their country of origin, and to celebrate it where such is due.

When and where does your 2008 North American tour begin?

It begins in late September in Leavenworth, Washington State – in the Cascades. It’s a small town that has saved itself from economic obscurity by turning itself into a Bavarian theme park and hosting Octoberfests every month. Blokes get around in leather shorts carrying tubas and all the buildings have quaint triangular wooden eves, even the McDonald’s!

What can people expect from your performances on the tour?

I spent 2005-2007 touring the US but only in the last year there did I begin to see past my own preconceptions of the place clearly enough to start writing decent songs about it. The legacy of American cultural domination is that we all carry such a deep seated set of impressions of what America is that it takes some real immersion to see the place with one’s own eyes, as I did in Bougainville about which I knew nothing before I hit the tarmac. But towards the end of my stay there I did start to see it and feel it with my own equipment and I hemorrhaged and wound up with an album full of songs. And in those last few gigs in the US, I found the more I sang about Americans the more interested they became. Even if the image I portrayed was unflattering they loved it, which in part reflects that many Americans are feeling dismay about the way their country is going, or may suggest they didn’t get my jokes.

Are there phrases/concepts in your songs that you might need to translate?

Some. For example the Dennis Lillee [cricket] reference in my ‘Blue Guitar’ goes from “I hit a six off Dennis Lillee and I clean bowled Gavaskar” to “I scored 36 points against Kareem Adbul Jabbar”. Also I have to tell ‘em where Papua New Guinea is.

Will you be performing songs from your new solo CD, Texas?

I plan to play lots of tunes from Texas. As I said, Americans really respond to songs about their own place, and at last I feel I have something to offer them rather than the songs from a place faraway. I prefer to relate to people on their own terms. That’s what communication is about but it also demands comprehension – “See that you may paint, paint that you may see” in the words of Degas. In PNG and the Solomons, I sang in Pidgin and only played reggae.

Are you expecting to catch up with any musician friends on the tour?

I made lots of friends amongst musicians around the US and Canada. I have a three piece band in Washington DC and am looking forward to a couple of outings with them. I’ll also be doing a few shows with a touring buddy and songwriter by the name of Joe Jencks (www.joejencks.com) in Kansas and Colorado.

What have you been doing since you were living in North America?

I got back to Australia in November last year [2007]. I had Texas finished by Christmas and since then I have been touring very solidly with Liz Frencham or solo to promote that CD. Texas has been very warmly reviewed and radio has shown interest which has been gratifying. It has also been a great opportunity to reconnect with Australian audiences and to process my three years in America in a public kind of way.

Are there things that you’re particularly looking forward to on the tour?

I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends and to playing my American songs to Americans, particularly in such a politically charged time!

What are your plans for the next year?

I’m working on an album called Urban Sea Shanties in collaboration with the Spooky Men’s Chorale – thinking man’s drinking songs. But I also have a bunch of new more reflective and personal songs accumulating – so I have to finish writing those and find a vessel for them.

MARTINE LOCKE

www.martinelocke.com

www.myspace.com/martinelocke

www.velvetjanes.com

“She can be tender, she can be refined – but she can also cut loose with an amazing wall of sound that will blow you away.” (Desert Weekly Post)

Tell us about your music (including The Velvet Janes duo) and the types of people who attend your concerts.

My solo style sits in the rock category, with a dash of folk and I would say The Velvet Janes music sits in the rock with a dash of pop and a little folk thrown in for good measure. In both instances, it’s about telling a story. I work predominantly doing house concerts, folk clubs and music festivals and so therefore the audiences that come to see my performance are mostly people who like to listen to music and come to do just that. More listening type of audiences.

In what ways, if any, has your music been influenced by North American music?
Hmm…I don’t fully think it has, although it’s tough to say that because the music scene for so long has been dominated by American artists. The music I listened to growing up, and even grown up, tends to be mostly American artists. So there has to be some influence seeping in there. Also I do check out what musicians from the US are doing with equipment and styles of playing.

When and where are you touring for the remainder of 2008?

I’ll be doing venue shows and house concerts and a West Coast tour. People are welcome to attend house concerts and can email me at info@martinelocke.com for more information on how to attend…and how to host your own!!

Are there things that you’re particularly looking forward to?

I always enjoy catching up with mates, including on the West Coast. In fact, I will be relocating to Los Angeles by December to start developing that area more. I am keen to learn about film and TV music placement and will be actively pursuing that.

What can people expect at your performances?

Stories of the road and of life, hopefully catchy tunes that will get their toes tapping and laughter. I aim for all emotions to be expressed during the course of a performance.

As an Australian performer, are there phrases/concepts in your songs that you need to translate for American audiences?

Sometimes there are certain words or sayings that I have to explain. I usually start a show in a new area by saying something about knowing what the blank look on their faces means and that I will do my best to interpret for them along the way, but to put up their hands if they don’t know what the hell I am talking about. Sometimes though, I find myself just not using some of the words for certain things to save the explanation (i.e. “trunk” instead of “boot” of the car).

In what ways is touring the US tour different, now that you’re based in America?

Well, it can be overwhelming to work out where to go next. There are SOOOOOOOO many cities to play in and defining and focusing on my market is always the trick. I try to introduce one to two new cities or states a year and at least give it a go to see if it could become a valuable market for me in the future. Sometimes I have worked out pretty quickly that it wouldn’t be, other times I have gone into it thinking it wouldn’t be and been completely surprised by the outcome. Also, just being this much closer helps in the “out of sight, out of mind” kinda way.

What have you been doing over the past year?

I released a new CD in May 2008 – Undone is the title. So I have been working hard at touring that…in fact, I think I have been touring it so hard that I have almost not had enough time to promote it in the way I should, so I am spending the next few months working harder at promoting it and touring a little less. I usually aim to do 10-12 shows a month, especially during the summer period and have been working a number of the festival circuits hard this year also.

What are your plans for the next year?

More of the same! I am already working on the first 6 months of 2009..scheduling what areas to be in when and booking dates. I will also be relocated to LA by then so will be working hard at developing contacts and opportunities to have my songs, and The Velvet Janes songs, placed into film and TV. That’s really my focus for 2009…learning and being successful in that new market!

WENDY RULE

www.wendyrule.com
www.myspace.com/wendyrule

“Wendy Rule creates dark, sensual sonic theatre” (Rolling Stone)

Tell us about your music and the types of people who attend your performances.

My music is so much a part of me that it is almost impossible to think of existing without it. It comes from a place deep, deep in my soul and my belly. It comes up from the Earth and through my feet. From as young as I can remember I would sing – mainly to myself – making up little tunes and chants that reflected different moods and emotions. I’ve always been very connected to Nature, and singing to the trees and the stars felt very normal, and still does in fact! So my intention with my music is just to keep this flow happening – to honour the journey of my heart and be as open and honest as I can in exploring my connection with the universe.

I’ve discovered that a wide range of people come to my gigs. People of all ages – from kids and late teens, through to elders – find something to connect with. I suppose the unifying element in my audiences is that in some way, everyone is on a spiritual journey. They are drawn to what I’m offering because it resonates on a soul level, not just as entertainment. In the US, I have a very strong following in the Pagan community.

In what ways, if any, has your music been influenced by North American music?

I don’t think my music has been influenced by North American music (other than, of course, the fact that American music has shaped the course of popular music for the last century), but I’ve certainly been influenced by the American land and its people. I feel very supported here, and there’s a broad, brave energy that encourages me to grow and explore.

When and where does your 2008 North American tour begin?

I’ve been touring the States every year since 2001, and lately have been making two trips a year. So my 2008 tour is split in 2 parts. I was in the US in May and June, and then returned home for a couple of months to catch my breath and spend time with my loved ones, before heading out again on September 11th. So I’m in the US now and had my first gig in Seattle on the 12th of September. The first couple of weeks of the tour are fast paced, with gigs in Oregon, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota and Ohio, before taking a little break in Mexico and then hitting the East Coast for a month or so.

What can people expect from your performances on the tour?

Every gig is different, from lavish affairs in lovely theaters, to cool little clubs, and also intimate house concerts. I often involve elements of ritual in my shows. I will invoke the energies of the four elements, and create a sense of sacred space. I try to create a feeling that the audience really goes on a journey with each show, and that some kind of transformation has taken place.

Are there phrases/concepts in your performances that you might need to translate?

I do a lot of story telling and chatting between songs, and often weave in anecdotes about my life in Australia, but really I think that the themes that I explore in my music are pretty universal.

Will you be catching up with any musician friends on the tour?

Yes, most definitely. I’m heading up to Vancouver in a few days to perform a show with Emaline Delapaix (www.emalinedelapaix.com), a great Melbourne songstress who now lives in Canada. I’ll also be doing a couple of shows with a band called The Dragon Ritual Drummers that I’ve connected with a few times over the past year. I also have a number of musical friends on the East Coast who make guest appearances at my gigs.

What have you been doing since you last toured North America?

As I mentioned earlier, I only had a couple of months home between tours this year, so it’s been a crazily busy time. I’ve put the finished touches on a new album – a collaborative project with my friend Craig Patterson that is an adaptation of a film soundtrack we released last year. The album is called Beneath the Below is a River, and will be out in a couple of weeks. I also began recording guide tracks for my next major album. And I have a third project on the go. It’s a theatrical work called Persephone and is a collaboration with a wonderful percussionist called Elissa Goodrich.

Are there things that you’re particularly looking forward to on the tour?

I love touring, and each day feels like an adventure. I’m looking forward to the East Coast, where I have a sweet gig in New York City, and also a big Halloween concert in Salem, Massachusetts.

What are your plans for the next year?

Once again I’ll be making two trips to the States – a quick visit in May 2009, and then back again for July and August 2009. I’ll be recording and releasing my next album, and also performing the first season of Persephone in November. I’m also working on the soundtrack to another short film, directed by Melbourne based filmmaker Nick Verso, called Boys in the Trees. And of course I’ll also squeeze in some interstate touring in Australia. So it will be a jam packed year once again. Exciting!

SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. As Sue won’t be able to see any of these Aussies perform in North America this fall, she is planning to console herself by catching some Northern Americans perform in Australia – perhaps Toni Childs, Toshi Reagon and Martha Wainwright!

© Sue Barrett 2008

By Sue Barrett

It all began as an idea to put the movement into music, a record produced and engineered, written and sung by women. –(Virgo Rising, liner notes)

For many people, the world today includes fashion challenges, bad hair days, an energy crisis, multiple music formats [...]]]> Making Music: Virgo Rising — The Once and Future Woman (1973)

By Sue Barrett

It all began as an idea to put the movement into music, a record produced and engineered, written and sung by women. –(Virgo Rising, liner notes)

For many people, the world today includes fashion challenges, bad hair days, an energy crisis, multiple music formats and performers named Hammond, Wainwright and Guthrie. And for many people, the world of 35 years ago contained the very same things!

Back in 1973, new album releases included Leonard Cohen’s Live Songs; Fanny’s Mothers Pride; Ramatam’s In April Came the Dawning of the Red Suns; Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Quiet Places; Hoyt Axton’s Less Than the Song; and the Carpenters’ Now & Then.

And among the number one songs on Billboard were ‘You’re So Vain’ (Carly Simon); ‘Bad, Bad Leroy Brown’ (Jim Croce); ‘Touch Me in the Morning’ (Diana Ross); ‘The Most Beautiful Girl’ (Charlie Rich); ‘The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia’ (Vicki Lawrence); and ‘Half-Breed’ (Cher).

Also in 1973:

• MOLLIE GREGORY owned and operated an independent media company;
• JOAN LOWE was a record producer/engineer;
• JANET SMITH was a songwriter and guitarist;
• NANCY RAVEN was a professional singer;
• KIT MILLER was a high school student;
• CHARLEY’S AUNTS was three song-writing sisters (Kate Butler, Rebecca Mills, Helen Tucker); and
• MALVINA REYNOLDS was an established singer/songwriter.

By the end of 1973, they had created Virgo Rising — The Once and Future Woman — one of the first albums produced, engineered and performed solely by women.

Virgo Rising was, according to its liner notes, “about the whole woman who has humor and depression, fear and strength; who gets mad, who comforts, who cares; for women who live so comfortably they can concentrate on their oppression, and for those who live poverty, concentrating on the commodity dinner or the squints of the welfare worker; for women who work at the office, for those who work unceasingly at home.”

Now Mollie Gregory, Joan Lowe, Janet Smith, Nancy Raven, Kit Miller, Kate Butler and Becky Mills look back on the making of Virgo Rising.

Joining them in telling the story are Nancy Schimmel (daughter of Malvina Reynolds); Karen Wilson (daughter of Helen Tucker); and Charley Adams (without whom Charley’s Aunts would have had a different name).

MOLLIE GREGORY (producer) : www.molliegregory.com

When and how did the idea for Virgo Rising come about?
I think the idea came up in conversation with Nancy Raven, Kate Butler, Kit Miller, and/or [Kit’s mother] Maya, who may have wished, one day, for “more music about women”. We were all crazy about Malvina’s songs, and the themes — the politics of women, rich and poor, and of the widening concerns about environment in 1970s — Black Power, Vietnam, Watergate, and the local political issues of haves and have nots, school integration, absorbed us. Kit sang and played guitar well, as did Kate. I got to know Kate in the late 1960s, early 1970s around League of Women Voters meetings, and all the political issues far beyond the League’s more conservative (yet radical) views and programs. Anyway, our united impulse became this: to put the women’s movement into music, and behind that, produce a record made, recorded, written and sung by women, songs to diaper babies by, make laws or run for office.

What were you doing at the time?
I believe I was living temporarily in Reno. I was writing and producing short films there, in California and Oregon. I had this notion that I could start a film production company and make a living doing it!

How did you put together the Virgo Rising team?
“The team” came together because we all knew each other, and each of us knew other women who would “sing a song” for the album.

What was the process for recording the songs?
Joan Lowe lived in Oregon — a good sound recordist. I used her to record sound on a couple of my documentaries, perhaps after Virgo Rising, maybe before. The album was not recorded in a studio, but on location in the west, no sophisticated facilities, no overdubbing; the singers had to be women, the songs written by women. And they ranged from professional to amateur, ages 17 [Kit Miller] to 72 [Malvina Reynolds]. There are no unreleased songs that I recall.

How did the title (Virgo Rising), sub-title (The Once and Future Woman) and spine sub-title (Songs of Sisterhood) come to be?
I think Kenneth Anger’s film, Scorpio Rising, was making the underground rounds. The title sounded “male” to me, but as a title it seemed striking. “Virgo” (the woman with the pitcher — zodiac sign) sounded female, and “rising” seemed strong. At the time, the tidal wave of the Women’s Movement had just hit. We were finding our individuality as women, our diversity, our strengths, and our ambitions…The original cover notes stated that the songs reflected our growing awareness of what is, and what can be…so we named the album Virgo Rising. You know, women on the move!

I have no memory of how we arrived at the “once and future woman” or “songs of sisterhood”. It sounds like something Catherine Finnegan, librarian at Foresta [Institute], and a good friend, would have contributed.

How much did it cost to produce Virgo Rising?
It was low budget. We certainly didn’t have major funding — but Maya [Miller], who may have come up with the idea, or expressed a wish for “more music”, must have contributed some starting funds. None of us knew what it cost to produce and distribute a record! Certainly I did not. We were doing it for the joy of it! The problem, as I found out later, was distribution; without company backing, the usual outlets were closed to us. I recall being furious that I could not interest stores to sell even a few copies; I could not get even small distributors to consider it.

What other memories do you have of making Virgo Rising?
The exhilaration of making it! Of collecting the songs, finding the singers, and the recording sessions — jubilant! Watching Kate, Helen, and Rebecca as they sang out ‘Sister!’ Or Nancy’s beautiful voice in ‘Welfare Blues’, Kit’s calm strength…Charley’s Aunts were exuberant together; we laughed a lot. I had no experience to make musical suggestions to anyone but I recall making a few during a recording session; can’t imagine what I could have said. However, I would have known at that early stage that for any creative work (a film, a script or book) the result must be enthusiastic. If the creators — the singers, musicians, in this case — bring enthusiasm to their work, listeners pay attention and join in. Virgo Rising vibrated with enthusiasm. And, the collection had a message worth hearing.

How do you view Virgo Rising’s place in history?
For women, the songs truly represent a period in history that was vital and releasing, qualities the album, like a piece of amber, protects, preserves.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
I wrote and produced documentaries and experimental films until around 1979 when I wrote a book about my experiences of survival as a filmmaker — Making Films Your Business. It was more fun, more satisfying writing a book compared to producing films, standing in snow banks or under a blazing sun trying to get a shot. Remember, in the 1970s there were no real outlets for short films except in schools. PBS might show a short or documentary once in a while, but cable, video and DVD did not exist. It was hard uphill work to get a documentary seen by audiences. I kept on writing books, first novels, then non-fiction, such as Women Who Run the Show. I am currently working on another non-fiction book, and I consult with other writers on their work.

JOAN LOWE (production consultant/recordist)

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
I was freelancing as an engineer with a special interest in women’s music and production, but also doing other commercial assignments.

How did you become involved with Virgo Rising?
Mollie Gregory invited me to consider volunteering.

What was the process for recording the album?
Virgo Rising was a real trip! Old-style analog recording equipment hauled all over to record the many artists on the album. Most sites were definitely not optimum for recording and some were live. The great variety of musicians, performance and experience in recording created challenges. We recorded in all sorts of locations. We recorded Charley’s Aunts in their parents’ living room in San Rafael with the raccoons they fed nightly out on the deck looking in and probably wondering what this noise was all about.

Where was the album mastered?
I believe we mastered at Kendun in Burbank, California, but it’s possible that it was done elsewhere. I was using Kendun at the time for all mastering over which I had control.

What other memories do you have about making Virgo Rising?
My best memories are of the enthusiasm and enjoyment in being part of the project and the wonderful warmth and camaraderie among the group, no matter what their part was.

To what extent were all-female produced/recorded/performed albums available then?
I can’t be sure about how many other woman-produced albums were out there at that time, but none like this. Some independent women were learning they could self-produce and that they did not have to wait for some record company to sign them on. There certainly were not many out there then.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
I see the album as a definite marker in breaking through barriers to women and their ability to make music in the same way as had been traditional — being discovered by an A&R person for some label. Women learned they could manage the whole scene from studio to actual product. This had always been a mysterious and inaccessible world kept tightly bound by the industry moguls. It was also a unique gathering of a variety of women artists combining their music in a statement of their own. It opened doors of thought to others who were enlightened to think they could participate and have their own music heard.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
I continued to freelance for various clients of all sorts. I specialized in live and acoustic work with some film and commercial production. Pacific Cascade Records was established to promote individual work and then evolved to produce early childhood educational albums with instructions to assist teachers to expand simple learning achievements through music and activity.

I found that it was very rewarding to help open up new horizons for those making and/or writing music and those who are more production-oriented. The music business is hard, requiring dedication far beyond what one might expect. The person who thinks it’s just a lot fun to get out there and tour from gig to gig, don’t realize the extraordinary commitment it requires.

JANET SMITH – www.BellaRomaMusic.com

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
I was living in San Francisco, being a housewife and mother and working on writing a book about a mermaid named Ondine who lived in the NightSea. I also played guitar on commercials occasionally.

The Ondine project was a metaphorical story about a mermaid who lived in the NightSea and wanted to see what was on the land but had no way to get around out there. I conceived of a meeting with a Unicorn who came to the edge of the NightSea and offered to show her around.

Tell us about the songs that you perform on Virgo Rising?
This was the era of “women’s lib” and so, with ‘Freedom Ladies’ March’, I was poking a little fun at how we might have to change our habits and expectations a little. I think ‘Mama’s Peaches’ was related to that era as well.

At the time, I used to accompany Malvina Reynolds on guitar at local gigs. ‘Talking Want Ad’ is a talking blues I put together to handle the occasional announcement from her in the middle of a show, that “Janet Smith will now entertain you”. She would then walk off stage and leave me there alone, so I thought up this little ditty to sing on such occasions. Malvina told me that she really liked it and I know she laughed out loud when she first heard it. Eventually she started requesting it, probably as a comedy relief in her shows.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
Joan Lowe, who recorded much of Malvina’s work, invited me to record an album of children’s songs on her Pacific Cascade label, which turned out nicely. It’s called I’m a Delightful Child, named after one of the songs, and my five and a half year old son sang on it.

Since then I have developed my own music publishing company, Bella Roma Music and worked with Professor Anne Kilmer of UC Berkeley on the significance of her findings about music in ancient near eastern texts. On the Bella Roma Music website, I sell her album, Sounds from Silence, and my own CD Seven Modes for an Ancient Lyre, which originated as a demo tape for her lectures on the subject.

I also learned a lot about the music industry when helping a friend, Anne Bredon, recover her connection to the song, ‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You’, recorded first by Joan Baez and then by Led Zeppelin and others. An entire book of Anne’s other songs The Gate at the End of the World is available on the Bella Roma site as well. All of the songs are really just as timeless and simple as ‘Babe’. Her ‘Moon Daughter’ and ‘The World Has Too Many Mountains’ are my favorites.

Doc Watson recorded my song, ‘She’s Gone Away’, while ‘Talking Want Ad’ on Peggy Seeger’s Penelope Isn’t Waiting Anymore, came out on Rounder Records years ago. Rosalie Sorrels has done a beautiful job recording ‘A Little Muscle’, on her Red House CD. ‘A Little Muscle’ talks about driving Malvina home after a gig and hearing how her efforts seemed hopeless when she felt tired, but how the occasional connection with an inspired young person gave her some strength to go on.

I also handle the publishing for ‘Grandma Slid Sown the Mountain’, by Rich Wilbur, which was recorded originally by The New Riders of the Purple Sage. It appears in a Walt Disney Touchstone movie Big Business with Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin and has also been recorded twice by Cathy Fink in her collections of children’s music tapes and videos.

Before I recorded Virgo Rising, I had done a solo album on Takoma records, Janet Smith —Vol I — The Unicorn, with guitarist Bob Wilson playing on half of the tracks. It has since been bought by Fantasy records, then Concord, and the title song, ‘The Unicorn’ is now downloadable from eMusic. Women’s Guitar Workshop by Kicking Mule had some guitar tunes, and I’ve done a lot of music transcribing, manuscript and tablature, including the first four years of Acoustic Guitar magazine.

At the moment I’m working with the material of Steve Mann, who recorded three beautiful albums in the 1960s. My experience in the music industry has enabled me to put up a web site for him, www.SteveMannGtr.com, to gradually re-establish connections with his friends and fans, and help reissue his work slowly, this time paying him royalties. Now there is also the www.myspace.com/SteveMannEurope site that is really beautiful, run by Birgit Hoffman in Germany. We have just issued an earlier album, Steve Mann, Live at the Ash Grove, on CD.

NANCY RAVEN – www.lizardsrockmusic.com

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
I was teaching high school in North San Diego County and working at Washoe Pines Camp in the summer. I was living in Escondido, raising three kids as a single mom. The camp was great…’cause the kids could be there with me.

How did you become involved with Virgo Rising?
I think the woman who ran the camp was friends with Mollie, and had helped her produce some other works.

Tell us about the songs that you perform on Virgo Rising – your song ‘Welfare Blues’ and Ruthie Gorton’s song ‘Crazy Ruthie’?
Maya Miller, the camp owner, was a good friend of mine, and had done a lot of work with Welfare Rights early on. The stories she told about the work she had done inspired me to write ‘Welfare Blues’ [written in 1971 for the film, Welfare: Exploding the Myths]. Ruthie Gorton’s song had always been a favorite of mine, since I was the black sheep of my family. I sang it a lot, and I guess someone thought to put it on the album.

What was the process for recording those songs?
Boy…you’re talking ancient history here. Joan Lowe, my cousin, was hired to do the recording, since she had recorded a lot of albums for me when I started doing children’s music. I think she hauled all of her now ancient equipment down from Oregon to Nevada where we recorded (at the camp).

What other memories do you have about the making of Virgo Rising?
I can just remember having a lot of fun with it…working with Mollie was great, and having a then young Kit [Miller] singing the new words to an old folk song. Just the excitement of doing the music, and knowing all the other women who were going to be on it too.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
I guess I didn’t realize its importance until years later when I saw in Ms. magazine or some other publication that it was the first of its kind in women’s music. That made me feel really proud.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
I have done primarily children’s folk music. I continued to teach high school until my daughter became seriously ill, and I quit teaching to take care of her. This entailed a move to Berkeley where there were more possibilities for her lifestyle, It was then I really took on more recordings of folk music from around the world for children, hoping to teach kids about other countries through their music. After Jenny died, I toured extensively up and down the west coast singing in over 500 schools and libraries. I ended up with ten CDs. Now, at 79, I am still singing in libraries and schools, but not as often. I also drive Meals on Wheels, and do other volunteer work, and love living in Monterey.

KIT MILLER

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
When Virgo Rising was recorded I was 17. I grew up in Washoe Valley, Nevada, where my song was recorded. But I had just been away, traveling on a school bus and camping out with an alternative high school all year.

How did you become involved with Virgo Rising?
It was summer and we were all in Nevada where our summer camp was happening. Mollie Gregory had been in Northern Nevada, helping my mother Maya, and Nancy Gomes make anti-poverty films. There was a lot of new thinking about women’s rights questions, which dovetailed with poverty issues and also came out of the civil rights, environmental and anti-war movements. Maya and Mollie and some people had the idea to make a women’s album.

Tell us about the song that you perform on Virgo Rising — ‘There was a Young Woman Who Swallowed a Lie’?
I played guitar, so they asked me to do the song. It was a take-off on a well-known folk song, ‘There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly’. In the original the old lady croaks after swallowing a horse (“she’s dead of course”).

The ‘Young Woman’ is a laundry list of the bill of goods sold to women, ideas that were accepted as normal, but that formed the foundation of a sexist society. The song has a happy ending – She ran to her sister, it wasn’t too late/To be liberated, regurgitate/She threw up the Spock and she threw up the ring, etc.

I don’t know where we got ‘There was a Young Woman Who Swallowed a Lie’…I knew the original version, which I had probably learned as a kid from Nancy Raven. Someone showed me the new feminist words, I played it a few times, and we recorded it there at the Foresta Building in Washoe Valley. I don’t remember the equipment — some kind of reel to reel I think. I don’t think I ever sang that song again. It was kind of a (really long) novelty song. I didn’t like it that much, but it was a pretty good list of inequities.

What memories do you have about the making of Virgo Rising?
My role in Virgo Rising was minimal. I was the youngest singer on the album [17]. Malvina Reynolds was the oldest [72]. So we had this cross-generational idea. But we were never all together — we recorded in different places.

The good songs on Virgo Rising were the originals by Nancy Raven, Charley’s Aunts, Janet Smith, Malvina Reynolds. These women had long careers as singers and songwriters. They were older than me and had gone through the sexism of the 1950s and 1960s. The songs reflected their experiences and the revelations women were having then about themselves and our society. Now some of the songs sound clichéd, but back then these were new ideas to most people, and they hadn’t been stated much in music.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
Virgo Rising was one of the first women’s albums — all produced and performed by women, and all the songs were about women’s rights. It was a great collaborative effort. It was part of a can-do spirit that had grabbed our communities — we could make our own record! (directed by Mollie.) It was an independent production. It had no commercial success. I don’t know how or if they marketed it. But the music industry was very closed then. It was the early 1970s. Women’s record companies like Olivia and Redwood didn’t really exist until a few years later.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
After Virgo Rising I went to college, worked as a fundraiser for women’s organizations and in the Central America peace movement. I was a news photographer, and I’ve worked in Brazil and other parts of Latin America. I have a husband and two daughters. I’ve lived in Nevada and California. Now I live in Palo Alto, California and teach English to foreign journalists and Mexican immigrant women. I still spend time in Washoe Valley, Nevada, where my mother Maya lived (she died in 2006), and I’m still good friends with Nancy Raven.

NANCY SCHIMMEL (daughter of Malvina Reynolds) – www.sisterschoice.com

What was Malvina doing when Virgo Rising was created?
She was living on Parker Street in Berkeley, California. That year she recorded her second children’s album, Funny Bugs, Giggleworms and Other Good Friends, with Nancy Raven. And I suppose she was watching Watergate, like everybody else.

In 1973, she also wrote the song, ‘Not the Shadow of a Man’, which was published in the May 1973 issue of San Francisco Women’s Newsletter.

To what extent did Malvina become involved in special projects like Virgo Rising?
The only other time she was on albums with other songwriters that I know about are recordings of performances at festivals.

How did Malvina view the songs that she wrote?
She wrote hundreds of songs, some personal, some political, some ephemeral, for a demonstration or campaign. She usually replied to people asking her to choose favorites by saying that was like asking a mother to name her favorite child. Or sometimes she said “The last one I wrote.” I know that feeling.

How did she feel about the process of recording her songs?
It was very tiring for her, and she worried about the expense.

Can you tell us about the songs that Malvina performs on Virgo Rising?
‘No Hole in My Head’ — She wrote this while I was in library school (1965) learning how to deal with censorship issues, but I don’t think there’s a connection.

‘No Room’ — I think this is her first song about abortion/population control, written in 1971 (another, ‘Rosie Jane’ was written in 1973). From the lyric site: The editors introduced this composition when Malvina published it in Sing Out! with the following words: “If you have not read Alice in Wonderland, some of the allusions in this song may escape you. ‘Alice’ is a good experience, so perhaps it’s worthwhile for you to read it if you haven’t, if only for the purpose of understanding ‘No Room.’ There may be some differences among singing people about the matter of population control, but, says Malvina, the right of a woman to control her own body, which is really the intent of this song, should not be questioned.”

‘We Don’t Need the Men’ — It was inspired, as the song says, by a 1956 article in Coronet magazine, and written that year. She changed “when we need to move the piano” to “when we’ve got a lot of dirty dishes” after she saw women moving pianos at women’s concerts in the seventies.

How are things going with the biography of Malvina (who died in 1978)?
Slowly. Interesting work, though.

Writing Malvina blog -http://web.mac.com/nancyschimmel

KATE BUTLER of Charley’s Aunts

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
I was living in Las Vegas and I believe, at that time, that I was working as a paid fund raiser and publicity director for the Girl Scouts of Frontier Council (local council). I was also active as a volunteer for various community organizations, particularly those that benefited women and the environment.

How did you become involved with Virgo Rising?
I became involved through my friendship with Mollie Gregory and Maya Miller, who funded the production of the record. She wanted a singing group for the record, and asked me if I thought my sisters [Becky and Helen] and I would be interested. And we were.

Was Charley’s Aunts created just for Virgo Rising?
Yes, Charley’s Aunts was created just for the record, but because of our association with the record, Charley’s Aunts also performed together for at least four, maybe more, occasions. We became “Charley’s Aunts” because of a play of the same name and because we had a nephew (our brother Doug’s son) named Charley.

What was the process for recording those songs?
I vaguely remember a gathering of some of the singers, Mollie and Maya at Maya’s ranch in Washoe Valley, Nevada. I think its purpose was to introduce ourselves to each other. Once Helen, Becky and I were involved, we spent many hours practicing separately in our own homes and together in the San Francisco Bay area. (I lived in Las Vegas at the time, and Becky and Helen, in Berkeley and San Rafael, respectively). We were recorded by Joan Lowe at my Mother’s (Kay Adams) home in San Rafael. I believe the recording took two or three days. Mollie oversaw these recording sessions. Later, at Mollie’s request, I wrote out and copyrighted the arrangements for ‘Housewives Lament’ and ‘Union Maid’; I believe that Helen and Becky did the same for their songs.

What other memories do you have about the making of Virgo Rising?
Those days were such fun for me. Being at Mom’s home and working on this project with my own sisters was special. The project brought the three of us together at a time when we were living apart with our own families and involved in different activities. We were close as children growing up, but Virgo Rising gave us a new, a more mature closeness as adults that we wouldn’t have had without the project. And Mom got involved too. It was like four sisters working together on something we all believed in and loved.

Working with Mollie and Maya was great. Both were leaders in their respective fields with creative minds and a wonderful sense of humor. Being with them was always enjoyable.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
I didn’t realize at the time of the recording that Virgo Rising had an impact on the women’s movement. Later, when I was part of a five-member women’s band (Ribbons and Straw) and we were performing at UNLV (the University of Nevada at Las Vegas), I met some other women who were also performing at the same concert. When I was identified as a singer on Virgo Rising, these women told me they considered Virgo Rising an important part of the beginning of the gay movement.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
Since Virgo Rising, I have been involved in women’s movement politics, primarily as the Nevada head of the effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA passed in the Nevada Legislature but failed in the Nevada Senate.

I have also been active musically with the all-women band, Ribbons and Straw. Our band published two records of our own — the first on tape only, and the second on both tape and CD format. I also published a CD entitled Lullabies for Lyndsey, which is the name of my second granddaughter. The singers and instrumentalists for the CD were both family and members of the Ribbons and Straw band. All volunteered their time and talents to the project. My mother, in her late 90s, sang a lullaby taught to her by her grandmother. It was the first time she had been recorded in a professional studio.

I have recently committed Virgo Rising to CD format. I did this for my sister Becky shortly after the deaths of both my mother and my sister Helen. More people asked for the CD, so with Mollie’s permission and Becky’s assistance in editing the first copy, we have made a few more Virgo Risings.

I was honored to be asked to participate in Virgo Rising and work alongside the other women artists. I believe that it has been important to the women’s movement, and especially, to my own life.

BECKY MILLS of Charley’s Aunts

What were you doing when Virgo Rising was created?
I was working as the President of Advocates for Women, a women’s economic development center, in the San Francisco Bay area. AFW worked mainly in the area of employment. We were the primary recruitment and training agency for women interested in management and blue collar positions. We played a major role in opening the building trades to women — ironworkers, carpenters, electricians, telephone installers and lineworkers, and the like. We also conducted workshops helping women re-consider their skills and talents and re-enter the workforce in all sorts of positions. I was living in Berkeley with my husband and small daughter.

How did you become involved with Virgo Rising?
My sister Kate told me about it. It was a very exciting idea. Kate, Helen, and I had sung at a couple of women’s conferences. Kate and I especially were involved in the women’s movement.

Can you tell us about the songs that Charley’s Aunts perform on Virgo Rising?
‘Housewives’ Lament’ — We (I think it was Kate) found ‘Housewives’ Lament’ in a folk song book.

‘Union Maid’ was an old favorite. I had been involved, along with my friend Fanchon Lewis, in a strike at the University of California by the building trades (the University was proposing to establish new positions which would not be building trades positions, in order to lower wage costs — although the persons in the positions would still be performing building trade work). The Administrative Workers’ Union members walked out in support. Fanchon and I wrote the new verses after a meeting of the employees on strike.

‘Cut and Dried’ was written by our sister Helen some years before, and we had enjoyed singing it.

‘Sister!’ was written by Fanchon some years earlier and I had written music for it and sung it for Fanchon’s fortieth birthday.

What was the process for recording those songs?
I remember recording over a two-day period at the home of my parents, with Joan Lowe. We probably rehearsed beforehand as well. My mother took care of my young daughter while we worked.

What other memories do you have about Virgo Rising?
We had a lot of fun. It was a special time for us as sisters, and we enjoyed very much working with Joan. In those years it was unusual for a sound engineer to be a woman and we were impressed. I remember hearing other cuts — by Janet Smith, Malvina Reynolds, and others — and being very impressed as well. I remember having to learn how to pronounce “p” without popping it — we had to re-record several times before we all got it.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
I remember visiting a friend in Chicago and going to a party at Susan Davis’ home (one of the women’s movement leaders at the time) and hearing Virgo Rising playing — she had of course put it on since I was coming, but still, it was the one and only women’s movement album that I knew of. As for its place in history, I really don’t know. It was a first.

What have you been doing since Virgo Rising?
I was with AFW ’til 1976. Then worked as a fundraiser/trainer consultant. I joined the National Park Service in 1978 as Western Regional Chief of Youth Employment Programs and then became Equal Opportunity Officer until 1995 when I moved to Great Basin National Park in Nevada as Superintendent. I retired in 2002, moved back to Berkeley and now volunteer with conservation organizations and as a grandmother.

I raised two wonderful daughters who are now 39 and 34. Together with their dad (we separated in 1976) and his new son’s Mom, (and later my new partner Dave) we lived close by each other and developed a “blended family”. I now have six grandchildren, including steps (ages 1 to 16).

I play and sing for fun occasionally — one of my daughters is a professional musician and music teacher.

Our sister Helen died in 2005 — we miss her. I see Kate as often as I can.

KAREN WILSON (daughter of Helen Tucker)

Can you tell us about Helen and what she was doing when Virgo Rising was created?
Mom was an activist through music and word, writing both music and poetry. I think she felt music and singing were certainly pleasurable, politic vehicles, and personal expression. She was a passionate, genuine person. She heartily supported and argued for equal rights for African Americans (we said “blacks” then) and women, even going door to door campaigning for the civil rights movement with my (then small) brother in tow. She was tough and fair and my favorite description of her that someone once said was she was “small but mighty”, which fits her perfectly.

When Virgo Rising was created, Mom was living in San Rafael, California, a single (divorced) mother of four, or more depending on which teenage friend of my brothers needed a place to stay or “crash” as they would say. She had graduated with her teaching credential from Sonoma State University a couple of years prior and was teaching at Davidson Middle School in San Rafael. Her oldest three children were in high school (whew!).

She would play guitar and sing at every family gathering with Becky, Kate and nephew Charley, and various other family members — both songs she and my Aunts wrote and well-known family favorite folk songs. She would sometimes perform at local clubs or cafes in the bay area (more often in Marin County), always with other musician friends of hers in duets or larger bands. She sang or played guitar with folk groups, Latin, jazz and folk performers, other acoustic guitarists, a friend of my brother’s who played flute, Bola Sete in his earlier days, and other mixed-genre friends. Many times she had practice-sessions in our home if the group wasn’t too large. She also wrote and performed a beautiful folk song about Martin Luther King’s death called ‘I Have a Dream’ which she performed at Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco — this is one of my favorites. Much later in her life, she had a CD composed of her singing her songs and a few others, which she gave as a gift to many in her family. Most of the songs were recorded much earlier in her life as she developed emphysema and had difficulty singing after that.

Mom had a love of folk music in general. She shared this love with her children as the house was full of the music of Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary, the Limelighters, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, international folk singers, many others I can’t recall. It certainly spoke to her and she sang back. Music was as much a part of her being as was taking a breath. She celebrated, mourned, reflected, lamented, dreamed and loved through and with music.

Can you tell us about Helen’s song ‘Cut and Dried’?
‘Cut and Dried’ was probably written out of the end of her marriage. She married at 22 and had expectations of a partnership in love and family. She divorced in 1967, after 12 years of marriage, and this was not common at the time. In fact, she was considered a bit of a shady character and a black sheep by neighbors after this. She may have needed to reconcile her feelings, expectations, societal expectations whether right or wrong, and her sense of who she was.

Do you have any memories about the making of Virgo Rising?
My memories of Virgo Rising include the great enthusiasm shared by Mom and my aunts, and my grandparents, about the recording. Vaguely, I remember some recording sessions at my grandparent’s house in San Rafael. Microphone stands, chairs, cables and reel to reel recording equipment occupied the living room and behind them a spectacular view of the San Francisco Bay. We kids, having heard these songs many times before performed by Mom and our aunts, were less interested in the cause and more the unusual occurrence of the making of an album. Alas we were not always quiet or lost interest so went off to play, watch TV or swim (as children do). I remember hearing the names of the other artists but did not know the connection to the women’s movement at that time. Fortunately, growing up in my mother’s house, we just expected that women had equal rights.

Do know how Helen viewed Virgo Rising and its place in history?
She was enthusiastic and serious about it during the planning and recording. And she was very proud of participating and having been recorded when the finished product arrived. She did not share her hopes or its significance to her, with me. I now wish that I knew this. I do know that she was a strong advocate for equal rights for women and had to confront subtle inequality or blatant prejudice against her gender in her life and career from time to time, but I am not aware of how or if the creation of Virgo Rising impacted her response.

What did Helen do after Virgo Rising?
She continued to perform with bands locally off and on, she started casually recording songs at home and at friends’ homes, and recorded some of her performances at venues. I think the recording of Virgo Rising opened the door to her doing her own recording on a reel, then later, cassette tapes. These were mostly for personal use by her and her friends. I don’t think she was featured on any other albums after Virgo Rising. I have some of her tapes of her singing with friends that she had saved. She also sang in small clubs with a friend, John Spencer, in Seattle where he lived. They dreamed of having a little waterfront cafe with open mic for local folk singers and other musicians. It would have been called, Persephone’s.

Charley Adams (nephew of Kate Butler, Rebecca Mills, Helen Tucker)

How are you related to Kate, Becky and Helen?
Kate, Becky and Helen are my aunts on my Father’s side. We used to have the big family party at our house at Christmas and everyone would show up with their instruments and voices, and have a great time playing and singing. I have very fond memories of hearing the harmonies from my aunts at the Christmas parties.

How did Charley’s Aunts come to take your name?
They asked me one day if I would mind them using my name for their group. I was pretty young and didn’t really get the tie in with the play until my Dad explained it to me. I thought it was pretty cool that they wanted to use my name, and I felt a great deal of pride about it. I still brag to anyone who will listen that my aunts had a group and made a record, and that they named the group after me.

Do you have any memories about the making of Virgo Rising?
The only memories I have about the making of the album are Kate, Helen and Becky asking to use my name, and what they were planning to do. Then when the album was done I got a copy which I played pretty frequently, to the point that when I hear one of the songs on the radio like last night, I still remember the words and can sing along. Friends ask how I know the words to these songs they have never heard…I still have the original album in my collection.

How do you view Virgo Rising and its place in history?
I was pretty young when they put the album out and didn’t really grasp the whole idea of what it was about. I understood there was a women’s rights movement idea but didn’t really realize how much it mattered to everyone. I grew up in an environment where everyone got treated with respect and until I got older I just thought that was the way the world was and that everyone felt the same way. I listen now to the songs and realize they were really making a statement with the album and pushing for equality across the board which I believe really made a difference to a lot of people. My aunts aren’t the kind of people to sit back and complain, they get involved and work to make a difference for the better.

Have you had any music industry involvement since Virgo Rising?
The only music industry involvement since Virgo Rising for me is purchasing music and attending concerts. I play and sing with family and friends, (and of course in the shower where everyone can be a star!) but nothing close to the level of Virgo Rising. I play for my girls at bed time much like my father did for me and my brothers and sisters. They are now singing along with a lot of the old songs and that is what it’s all about !!!! ))

Kate sent me a CD of the Virgo Rising album awhile back. I played it and started tearing up when I heard Kate, Helen and Becky singing harmony again. Their voices worked together so well, and they all three had such talent. I am proud to be their nephew, and to have had a part in the name of their group. Growing up I always felt special because they had used my name for the group. As I grew up I used to enjoy teasing them about the women’s liberation movement (mostly chauvinistic jabs just to get a rise) but I also grew more proud of them when I realized the energy and efforts they made to create a better world.

And now back to Virgo Rising producer, MOLLIE GREGORY…

“It is wonderful to have a memory that shines like light and music. Making Virgo Rising was pure pleasure. I have always remembered the joyous sensation of experiencing music, our goals as women, and the politics of life, fused!”

Album info

Virgo Rising: The Once and Future Woman (Thunderbird Records, Reno, Nevada, USA, 1973)
Produced by: Mollie Gregory
Production consultant and recordist: Joan Lowe
Cover art: Josephine Cameron
Layout designer: Marie Simirenko
Photos: Barbara Renan, Eleanor M Lawrence, Katharine Mordock Adams

Side A
Freedom Ladies’ March
Words and music by Janet Smith
Played and sung by Janet Smith

No Hole in My Head
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds
Played and sung by Malvina Reynolds

Housewives’ Lament
Old American Folk Song
Played and sung by Charley’s Aunts

Talking Want Ad
Words and music by Janet Smith
Played and sung by Janet Smith

Crazy Ruthie
Words and music by Ruthie Gorton
Played and sung by Nancy Raven

New Country Rock
Themes composed by Janet Smith, based on Stefan Grossman’s ‘Old Country Rock’, originally by William Moore
Played by Janet Smith

Union Maid
Words by Woody Guthrie; tune: ‘Redwing’
Additional lyrics by Fanchon Lewis and Rebecca Mills
Played and sung by Charley’s Aunts

Side B
Mama’s Peaches
Words and music by Janet Smith
Played and sung by Janet Smith

No Room
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds
Sung by Malvina Reynolds

There was a Young Woman who Swallowed a Lie
Words by Meredith Tax, to the traditional tune of ‘There was an Old Woman who Swallowed a Fly’
Played and sung by Kit Miller

Cut and Dried
Words and music by Helen Tucker
Played and sung by Charley’s Aunts

We Don’t Need the Men
Words and music by Malvina Reynolds
Played and sung by Malvina Reynolds

Welfare Blues
Words and music by Nancy Raven
Played and sung by Nancy Raven

Sister!
Words by Fanchon Lewis; Music by Rebecca Mills
Played and sung by Charley’s Aunts

SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. Sue’s article celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Malvina Reynolds (‘Malvina Reynolds — Too Many Helpless Ones I Can’t Defend’) appeared in the October 2000 issue of Rhythms magazine. Her article, ‘Revelation in the Studio: Women Producers and Engineers’ (which features Joan Lowe and seven other female producers/engineers), can be found at www.femmusic.com/interviews%202001/theproducers.htm

© 2008

 

 By Sue Barrett

 

Record stores are interesting places — including for the conversations that take [...]]]> On occasion, FolkBlog is privileged to feature articles from our Australian correspondent, accomplished music journalist Sue Barrett.  

 

 By Sue Barrett

 

Record stores are interesting places — including for the conversations that take place in them. A few weeks ago, for example, the topic under discussion was the large number of new releases.

 

In 1976, when Ladyslipper Music (www.ladyslipper.org) released its first (four page!) resource guide, it was aiming to “create a comprehensive guide to all the recordings women had ever made” and expected the number to be in the hundreds. These days, Ladyslipper has more than 15,000 titles in its online catalog.

 

In 1981, Terry Hounsome’s New Rock Record (www.recordresearcher.com) included 30,000 albums. The most recent edition of Rock Record (RockRom 10) has details of in excess of 700,000 albums and singles.

In 1992, the first edition of the All Music Guide covered 23,000 or so recordings. Now the allmusic website (www.allmusic.com) includes more than 1.4 million albums.

 

Over the years, such things as perseverance, luck and a heap of international reply coupons have been key ingredients in collecting music — whether it be entire musical genres, sub-genres or sub-sub-genres.

In recent times, however, the sheer volume of available product (including re-releases on CD and DVD) has emerged as a new impediment for music collectors.

 

According to conservative guesstimates, tens of thousands of music CDs are released around the world each year, with hundreds of millions of CDs sold. In addition, recorded music is available in a seemingly ever expanding range of formats and products, including digital downloads and ring tones.

 

Given this situation, niche collecting may become increasingly attractive — perhaps orange vinyl (Ryan Adams) or red vinyl (Phranc); perhaps songs about AIDS (Toshi Reagon — ‘Foolish Attitudes’), baseball (Steve Goodman — ‘A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request’), teachers (Fred Small — ‘Annie’) or the war in Iraq (Alex Legg — ‘Were You There?’); perhaps gatefold albums, flexi discs or mispressings.

 

With a spot of niche collecting in mind, FolkBlog recently caught up with some singer/songwriters who have recorded more than one version of a song…

 

CATIE CURTIS — www.catiecurtis.com

Catie Curtis, the youngest of three girls, grew up in a small coastal town in Maine, USA. While in high school, she began performing in local bars, restaurants and coffee shops. After graduating from college, Catie supported her music career by working as a house painter, as a waitress and for a social services agency, before becoming a full-time performer in 1992. Catie is the subject of the documentary film Tangled Stories and her songs have appeared in the television shows Grey’s Anatomy, Dawson’s Creek, Felicity and Alias and in the films 500 Miles to Graceland and A Slipping Down Life. Currently, Catie is finalising her new record, Sweet Life (scheduled for release on 26 August 2008). Catie Curtis included her song ‘Kiss that Counted’ on My Shirt Looks Good on You (2001), before re-recording it late in 2002 for Acoustic Valentine.

 

“The first time I recorded ‘Kiss that Counted’ (for My Shirt Looks Good On You), I was determined to keep the same vibe that (electric) mandolinist Jimmy Ryan and I established at my shows. He played an intro hook on electric mandolin, and then a cool Jackson Five-ish part on the choruses. The track, recorded with bass, drums and electric mandolin, wound up sounding fun and quirky, and won Indie Song of the Year from the Boston Music Awards. But I always felt like the recording didn’t capture the warmth that it could, and so I re-recorded it for Acoustic Valentine with two acoustic guitars. Now when I play it at shows I loop one acoustic guitar part and play the second acoustic part, re-creating the Acoustic Valentine arrangement. When I perform with a band, we combine the two approaches, which sounds great, so perhaps I’ll have to capture that one day in a live recording!”

 

SHONA LAING — www.shonalaing.com

Shona Laing’s music career began in New Zealand as a teenager, before she moved to the UK, where she worked with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. In 1988, ‘(Glad I’m) Not a Kennedy’ reached #14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and ‘Soviet Snow’ reached #32 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. Shona has re-recorded ‘Kennedy’ and ‘Soviet Snow’ (as well as ‘Caught’) for her new acoustic album, Pass the Whisper (2007).

 

“Being confined to voice and guitar when playing live, (earning a crust), meant I had to re-work ‘Soviet Snow’, ‘Kennedy’ and ‘Caught’, all songs that were originally on the South album (1987) and really did use all the big orchestral sounds of the eighties, all the new samples…four keyboards all midied in a stack and then a helicopter or a dead president’s voice thrown in for some atmos’. Necessity became again the mother of invention, evolution.

 

“In more recent times I’ve had the opportunity to work with some fab people who were dedicated to the integrity of acoustic instruments. I guess I rediscovered my musical roots after journeying through so many ‘modern’ possibilities. I rediscovered the magic of playing music with people rather than machines.

“Playing solo, ‘Kennedy’ had been a lament for a while — very slow and melancholy — but with the addition of bass and bhodran I…started enjoying the song again. I’ve also been a bit gentle with myself as regards the keys of these renditions, lowering them all a full tone. As a ‘young’un’ I would probably not have admitted that as a matter of pride but I think it suits the aging voice and the different timbre of the world. All three songs (though ‘Caught’ may not be as known) have been refreshed by being revisited and I’m looking forward to applying similar treatments to other songs in the back catalogue the next time I’m in the studio which hopefully will be before too long.”

 

JOE DOLCE — www.joedolce.net

Joe Dolce (b. Ohio, USA) lived on a commune in California and in experimental communities in Hawaii, before moving to Australia in 1979. As well as working with Lin van Hek as the Difficult Women performance group (a literary-music show consisting of vignettes, songs and portraits of creative women writers and artists), Joe has maintained a solo career. Joe’s song ‘Shaddap You Face’ reached #1 on the Australian and UK music charts in 1981 and sold five million copies around the world. According to Joe Dolce, there are three instances where he has recorded two different studio versions of one of his songs.

 

“‘Return’ is a poem of C P Cavafy, which I set to music in 1970. I recorded an acoustic fingerpicking version and a band arrangement — both of which were different tracks on my first Australian album, Shaddap You Face (1981). I wanted an intimate version, but also a version which would explore the musicality inherent in the song. I plan to record at least one more version of ‘Return’ as it is one of 15 poems in a Cavafy songcycle I set to music called ‘When the Lips and the Skin Remember’.
 
“With ‘Jack of Diamonds’ (the words were written by playwright Phil Motherwell and the music by me), I recorded a guitar and vocal version for a cassette album, Steal Away Home in 1995. I came up with an arrangement idea for minor blues harp and string quartet, so I included this version on my album, Freelovedays (2002).
 
“And ‘Dragon Lady’ (words by Phil Motherwell) also appeared on Steal Away Home. Over the years, Lin and I began singing this together so I decided to record it again with her and included it on my latest album, The Wind Cries Mary (2007).
 
“I encourage singer/songwriters to re-record songs that they initially recorded prematurely. Wagner used to say that a well written piece of music is greater than any single performance of it and that also applies to recordings. Many songwriters are under pressure — or they have the resources — to record quite often — sometimes once a year. However, many songs need years to gestate — and many rewrites — to reach their true potential. There may be a more mature and stronger song down the track. I’ve been working on the Cavafy songcycle for 18 years and ‘Return’ for 38 years. A good song only gets better the longer you let it season.”

 

CONNIE KALDOR — www.conniekaldor.com

Connie Kaldor (b. Saskatchewan, Canada) began performing in the 1970s and released her first solo studio recording, One of These Days, in 1981. Since then, Connie has toured Canada, India, China, Europe and the USA; won three JUNO Awards; written a musical (Dust and Dreams), the sound track for several films (including Nature’s Heart) and the music for a play (The Destruction of Eve). Connie first recorded the songs ‘Spring on the Prairies’ and ‘Grandmother’s Song’ for the various artists album, Prairie Grass, Prairie Sky: Music from Saskatchewan (1975) and re-recorded them for her album, Wood River: Home Is Where the Heart Is… (1992).

 

“I think that songs are bound to change over time. First of all you record them for the most part when they are new, untried on the road and before a crowd and often the miles of touring and shows work their magic on a song and there will be a performance where you discover something different. As the writer, perhaps you feel as if you are allowed to do that. Writing is a process for some songs. Face it some songs are worked up before you have found your own place in them. I don’t record many songs over, other than if a song is used for a different purpose like in a film. It’s ironic because I have been feeling lately that I would like to go back and re-record songs that didn’t get done right the first time. Recording has developed so much over the years and an artist can afford more time. The recording process is different from performing live and that was a learning curve for me. I have always worked to get a recording to have the same magic that a live performance can do. What I do find interesting is seeing my songs done by others and seeing them take these songs for their own. I just saw a children’s choir sing an arrangement of ‘Wood River’ and I was quite moved. I think that you hope that your songs have enough in them that they can be sung by anyone.”

 

PAT HUMPHRIES — www.pathumphries.com

Pat Humphries was born in Ohio, USA where she began performing in the children’s chorus of the Cleveland Orchestra at age 12. Singing in several other choruses in the Cleveland area took Pat on tours of the USA and Romania. In 1977, Pat began performing independently which she continued through college. Pat wrote her first song ‘Never Turning Back’ in 1984, at a song writing workshop with Si Kahn. At that same workshop she collaborated with Australian performer Judy Small and wrote the song ‘Walls and Windows’. From there, Pat performed at concerts, conferences and demonstrations in the eastern United States with periodic tours to California and performances in Cuba and Nicaragua. She worked primarily as a solo artist from 1984-2000. In 2001, Pat and her life partner, Sandy Opatow began writing and performing together as emma’s revolution. They released their first duo recording One x a million = change in 2004. Together Pat and Sandy tour extensively in the USA and beyond, having already travelled to 37 states and six countries. In addition to their own touring, they frequently travel with Holly Near as her band. Pat Humphries has recorded more than one version of her songs ‘Swimming to the Other Side’ and ‘Never Turning Back/Keep on Moving Forward’.

 

“When I signed to Appleseed Recordings to do my second solo CD, Hands, I chose to re-record ‘Swimming to the Other Side’ from my first, self-released CD, Same Rain. Swimming got the most airplay on that first CD, so it made sense to re-record it to take advantage of Appleseed’s better distribution network. I also thought this would be an opportunity to record a different arrangement of the song. Partly as a result of the broader distribution, Swimming became the subject of a segment on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered in May 2002. The segment featured me and folk legend, Pete Seeger, who also sings the song. NPR had never gotten such a huge response to a music feature. They got emails and phone calls and Hands was number one in sales for three days on Amazon.com, outselling every pop and rock recording on the site. The story brought thousands more people to our website and to our concerts. Sandy and I subsequently re-recorded Swimming for our newest emma’s revolution release, Roots, Rock and Revolution (2007).

 

“I was singing ‘Never Turning Back’ at the memorial for Congresswoman Bella Abzug in the General Assembly chambers of the UN. The song had been sung at the 4th UN World Conference on Women in Beijing and had become the unofficial theme of the conference. They showed a video of Bella in Beijing where she said, ‘It’s not enough to never turn back, we have to keep on moving forward’. After seeing the video, I re-named the song — ‘Keep on Moving Forward’. For Roots, Rock and Revolution, Sandy and I re-recorded ‘Keep on Moving Forward’ in LA with members of the band formerly known as Sabia. Their Afro-Cuban flavored version of the song was always one of my favorites.”

 

RICHARD J FRANKLAND — www.goldenseahorse.com.au

Richard J. Frankland (b. Victoria, Australia) is a Gunditjmara man, who has worked as a soldier, fisherman and field officer for the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Richard is also a singer/songwriter, author, playwright, actor and film maker. As a musician, Richard has performed solo and in bands, including Djaambi (which supported Prince on his 1991 Australian tour) and The Charcoal Club. Richard Frankland recorded his song ‘Who Made Me Who I Am?’ for the various artists album, Making Tracks (1999) and re-recorded it for The Charcoal Club’s album, Cry Freedom (2005).

 

“Many songs for me, and perhaps for other singer/songwriters, evolve — that is, new elements come to the song as in content or it develops musically over the years. Additionally with the changing of line ups new arrangements come along, new feels and a new spirit or essence of the song comes along. These are some of the reasons that I re-record, for the new voice of the song, the new feel and not necessarily making it a better song, just a different interpretation.”

 

JODI MARTIN — www.jodimartin.com

Singer/songwriter Jodi Martin, with her roots-based music, captures strong images of urban and non-urban Australia. Jodi grew up in Ceduna, a small isolated coastal town in South Australia — surrounded by the sea and never ending flat land — before moving to Sydney. Jodi’s album Water and Wood (2001) includes two versions of her song ‘Sometimes I Wonder’, including a dub remix as a hidden track.

 

“I recorded ‘Sometimes I Wonder’ with Nicky Bomba…the song has a folk-reggae approach, and I had always wanted to experiment with a dub remix. It felt like a little piece of Jamaica in Melbourne as we added delays and remixed the tracks — FUN! I like it because it feels like an echo or a refrain having the song reappear at the end of the album.

 

“I did an even more extreme thing on my latest album, 15 Minutes Out to Sea, where ‘Screwed Up’ appears first as a pop-country track, and then at the end of the record again, dressed completely differently. It is darker and more alternative; richly layered with loping, dinky piano lines.

 

“I have been on a songwriting pilgrimage for almost a year now, in Montreal Canada, working with co-writers and learning more about my songwriting craft. I am so happy with the new songs, and I cannot wait to take them on the road. I am coming home to Australia in May and June 2008 to tour with Arlo Guthrie and road test the new material!”

 

HOLLY NEAR — www.hollynear.com

Holly Near (b. California, USA) has a long history in film, television and theatre and as well as an activist for peace, justice and human rights. In 1971, Holly was part of the Free the Army Tour (with Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland). And in 1972, she established Redwood Records. Holly’s autobiography, Fire In The Rain…Singer In The Storm, was published in 1990. Over the years, Holly has worked with many other performers, including Ronnie Gilbert, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. Holly Near’s fourth album, Imagine My Surprise! (1978), included ‘Mountain Song’, which Holly and Cris Williamson re-recorded for the album, Cris & Holly (2003).

 

“‘Mountain Song’ has been a backpack song for me, meaning I can take it with me anywhere. I have sung it with a Reggae band from Tennessee, with a Palestinian ’ud player, with a women’s chorus and a rock band. I can easily teach it to groups. If they don’t know the words I can teach them sounds to make that go along with the lyric. I can sing it alone and I have sung it as a duet with Cris Williamson. I have recorded it a cappella and I have recorded it with many vocal parts. Adrienne Torf does a great piano version of the tune, although that is not recorded.

 

“The song was inspired by an Appalachian woman who went up against the companies who strip mine in the eastern mountains of the US. She said, ‘If you are going to take my mountain, you will have to take me first!’ As the story goes, they did remove the woman and threw her in jail. But what I loved about the story, and what inspired the song, is that she did not step down. She knew where she stood and it became someone else’s job to remove her. Powerful thing to know exactly where one stands. Powerful thing.”

 

Sue Barrett is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She spends a lot of time in record stores — discovering new recordings, filling in gaps from past years and buying yet another version of songs that she already has!

© 2008

Enjoy – gwg

Festive Folk — More Than Just Jingle Bells!

By Sue Barrett

There are, one imagines, some rules of etiquette relating to the playing of festive music at this time of year.

And based on what one hears going about one’s everyday life, perhaps those rules [...]]]> Another great article from Sue Barrett, the Folk Blog Down Under Correspondent.

Enjoy – gwg

Festive Folk — More Than Just Jingle Bells!

By Sue Barrett

There are, one imagines, some rules of etiquette relating to the playing of festive music at this time of year.

And based on what one hears going about one’s everyday life, perhaps those rules dictate that festive music must be LOUD, CONTINUOUS, JOLLY and contribute to our HAPPY HOLIDAY MOOD!

At one time, it seemed that every popular artist released a live album, a “best of” album, a duets album and a Christmas/Holiday album.

There have been Christmas/Holiday recordings from Air Supply, Alabama, Joan Baez, Barenaked Ladies, The Beach Boys, Booker T and the MGs, Garth Brooks, Jimmy Buffett, Glen Campbell, The Carpenters, John Denver, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Garfunkel and Amy Grant, David Grisman, Merle Haggard, Tish Hinojosa, Billy Idol, The Jackson 5, Mahalia Jackson, Jethro Tull, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Aimee Mann, Sarah McLachlan, Joan Osborne, Elvis Presley, The Arrogant Worms, The Statler Brothers, Dwight Twilley, Twisted Sister, Jackie Wilson and more.

Some Christmas/Holiday records are joyous, some humorous, some profoundly religious. And some Christmas/Holiday recordings show that festive folk is more than just Jingle Bells…

DONALD SWANN — Sing Round the Year (1968)
Perhaps best known for his comedy work with Michael Flanders (‘The Gasman Cometh’, ‘Song of the Weather’, ‘All Gall’, ‘Misalliance’), Donald Swann also sang and wrote other music. This collection of “new” carols (sung with boys of the Westminster School, girls of Mayfield School, Putney and an accompaniment of organ, piano and percussion) includes Sydney Carter’s ‘Every Star Shall Sing a Carol’, ‘The Devil Wore a Crucifix’ and ‘Lord of the Dance’.

BIM (ROY FORBES) & CONNIE KALDOR — New Songs for an Old Celebration (1985)
Canadians Bim and Connie Kaldor present a collection of mainly new songs for Christmas (with liner notes that include recipes for egg nog and mincemeat tarts!).

CRIS WILLIAMSON — Snow Angel (1985)
Born in Deadwood, South Dakota, Cris Williamson grew up in Wyoming on the prairies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Her album, The Changer and the Changed (1975), is one of the all-time highest selling independent records. Snow Angel includes songs by Cris and others for the holiday season. (And with her brand new CD, Fringe — just out this week — Cris returns to the West she loves the best — “the prairies, the ranch people, the mountains, horses and dogs and little kids in cowboy boots…all of it under the biggest sky ever!”.)

ODETTA — Christmas Spirituals (1988)
According to Odetta, who was born in Birmingham, Alabama in December 1930, “These songs celebrate Christmas as a time of birth, of hope, of survival. They are songs of celebration, of reaffirmation and of how my forebears managed to get through, under, over, and around oppression.” Primarily traditional songs, set to accompaniment of acoustic guitar, acoustic string bass, percussion, snare and brushes. Includes ‘Mary Had a Baby, ‘Somebody Talking ’Bout Jesus’, ‘Go Tell it on the Mountain’, ‘O Jerusalem’.

PETER, PAUL & MARY — A Holiday Celebration (1988)
Superior arrangements of new and old holiday songs, including ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. Recorded live with The New York Choral Society.

SYDNEY PHILHARMONIA MOTET CHOIR — An Australian Christmas (1995)
A chamber choir, with a repertoire spanning eight centuries, the Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir presents the first three sets (there’s a rumour of a lost set!) of the Australian Christmas Carols by William G James/John Wheeler, plus music from other Australian composers including Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards and Andrew Ford.

VARIOUS — Winter Moon (1995)
A celebration of gay and lesbian singers and songwriters…and friends — including Lea DeLaria, Michael Callen, Arnold McCuller, The Flirtations, Holly Near and Tom McCormack.

MADDY PRIOR & THE CARNIVAL BAND — Carols at Christmas (1998)
Maddy Prior (of Steeleye Span fame) teams with The Carnival Band to play mainly very old carols and songs (with an instrumental accompaniment that includes recorder, medieval bagpipes, tin whistle, lute, taber, clarinet, fiddle, mandolin and acoustic guitar).

THE THERAPY SISTERS — Codependent Christmas (1998)
Lisa Rogers and Maurine McLean combine humor and insight, including ‘Abraham’s Lament’, ‘The Sweet Nutcracker’, ‘Listless Christmas’, ‘The Littlest Snowflake’, ‘Pachelbel’s Tantrum’ and ‘The War of the Lights’.

THEODORE BIKEL & HANKUS NETSKY — A Taste of Chanukah (1999)
Theodore Bikel is a folk singer, actor, radio host and co-founder of the Newport Folk Festival. Hankus Netsky is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, scholar and founder of the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Complementing the music, is a Latke cooking demonstration from Chasia Segal.

PRISCILLA HERDMAN, ANNE HILLS, CINDY MANGSEN — At the Turning of the Year (2000)
Three lovely voices; an accompaniment of guitar, fretless bass, banjo, violin, English concertina, accordion, clarinet, harmonica, oboe, piano, percussion and wooden spoons; and songs from Wendy Waldman, Beth Neilsen Chapman, Lou and Peter Berryman and others.

IVAN REBROFF — Christmas with Ivan Rebroff (2003)
Ivan Rebroff (with “the richest, darkest, lowest, highest, most remarkable voice in the world of music”) sings songs for Christmas in Russian, German and Latin. “A very special experience, which I will always remember, was the first Christmas after the end of World War II in 1945…Germany was in ruins, our combat was against hunger and it was bitterly cold. Even though, or perhaps because there was nothing left for us to buy as gifts for our beloved ones, this celebration had a special significance.”

DAVID HASSELHOFF — The Night Before Christmas (2004)
The star of the television series Knight Rider and Baywatch also sings! Since releasing his debut album in the mid 1980s, David Hasselhoff has had a string of platinum albums in Europe. And this pop/rock collection of “classic” Christmas songs includes ‘Joy to the World’, ‘Hark, the Herald Angels’, ‘Feliz Navidad’, ‘Stille Nacht’ (and cameo appearances from Hasselhoff’s children).

ADAM BRAND & FRIENDS — Christmas in Australia (2005)
Described as “Australia’s hottest young country artist”, Adam Brand presents Christmas fun down-under — with surfboards, utes, kangaroos, swaggies, dust, singlets, shorts and thongs, family snaps, togs, cracking of coldies, pig’s bum, pav, hedgehog, Christmas pudding, bits of chook, cricket, a new Hills Hoist, a brand new Esky and a codger with a big white beard. Plus eight bonus live tracks.

KATE AND ANNA MCGARRIGLE — The McGarrigle Christmas Hour (2005)
According to The Rolling Stone Record Guide (the “red” edition), Kate and Anna McGarrigle “make music that’s crisp, nonelectric and utterly magical”. The Christmas album, with vocal assistance from Beth Orton, Martha Wainwright, Emmylou Harris and Rufus Wainwright, is a mixture of traditional and contemporary songs (including Kate/Anna songs, Jackson Browne’s ‘Rebel Jesus’ and Martha’s ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’. And, as Anna said in an interview in December 2004, “it’s kinda a neat record”.

ROBIN & LINDA WILLIAMS — The First Christmas Gift (2005)
They met in 1971, released their first album in 1975 and featured in the film A Prairie Home Companion in 2006. In addition to songs written by Robin and Linda, there’s ‘Nothing But a Child’ (Steve Earle), ‘Old Toy Trains’ (Roger Miller) and ‘Silent Night All Day Long’ (John Prine/Bobby Whitlock).

As well as being part of dedicated albums, Christmas/Holiday songs are scattered across other recordings. The ultimate Christmas/Holiday mix tape (volume one!) might include ‘Christmas must be Tonight’ (Robbie Robertson); ‘How to Make Gravy’ (Paul Kelly); ‘The Crooked Christmas Star, ’73’ (Dory Previn); ‘The Christians and the Pagans’ (Dar Williams); ‘Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis’ (Tom Waits); ‘Cold December Day’ (Kathryn Warner); ‘No Christmas in Kentucky’ (Phil Ochs); If we make it through December’ (Merle Haggard); ‘Colorado Christmas’ (Steve Goodman); ‘Fairytale of New York’ (Shane MacGowan/Jem Finer); ‘Christmas in Prison’ (John Prine); ‘Oh Little Town in Michigan’ (Laura Love); ‘Christmas in my Soul’ (Laura Nyro); ‘25th of December’ (Bonnie Koloc); ‘Christmas Morning’ (Loudon Wainwright III); ‘Uncle Dave’s Grace’ (Lou & Peter Berryman); ‘The Christmas Song’ (The Arrogant Worms); ‘I Think it was December’ (Wendy Melvoin/Lisa Coleman); ‘Hey California’ (Catie Curtis); and ‘The Bethlehem Bell Ringer’ (Carl Cleves). A fitting conclusion to the mix tape could be the Sandy O/Pat Humphries song, ‘Peace, Salaam, Shalom’.

Sue Barrett is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. Her great uncle was the organist on the 1960s recording, Christmas at St Patrick’s (Choir of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, directed by the Rev Dr Percy Jones).

© Sue Barrett 2007