Welcome to the Summer edition of the Mother Earth Music newsletter.
Summer 2011
Music News
Subscriber
I have a new CD out this month – HALCYON – you can listen to a sample of each track from my Saffron’s Music page link on my website.
www.motherearthmusic.co.uk
It’s been a while since the last album, far too long actually.
My community arts projects for Tempo Arts kind of took over for a while,
but now I’m back doing what I really love – writing songs,recording and performing.
Living by the sea has given me so much inspiration for writing these new songs.
The Halcyon myth around the Kingfisher thought to have built a nest at sea just fascinated me. Halcyon is a noun as well as an adjective!
‘The Mary Stanford Lifeboat Disaster’ song was started three years ago when
I was Artist in Residence at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve.
I’m was so moved by the villagers’ memories of this tragic event of 1928,that I felt I really wanted to write a song that told the story without resorting to clichés and – heaven forbid – sound patronising.
Dungenness has always been one of my favourite ‘wild’ places. I’ve used bottle-neck guitar throughout the song to emphasise the ‘spare’ and other-wordly atmosphere that Dungenness evokes.
If you love exploring wild places in the UK and want to read fab book try ‘The Wild Places’ by Robert Macfarlane (Granta books). It’s so absorbing and descriptive. He has a tremendous feel for nature and wilderness. He spends time ‘feeling’ the land he visits.His writing has a poetic and romantic edge. Perhaps a latter day John Clare?
Talking of bottle-neck guitar always reminds me of the time I spent in deepest Mississippi in 1977. I was privileged to meet and play with some wonderful old guys in a small rural outpost near Greenville. We sat in a tin shack in the middle of a cotton field in the sweltering heat. They we’re absolutely gob-smacked that a small, white English girl could play bottle-neck guitar! They showed me some weird tunings,introduced me to moonshine ,which incidently, tasted vile, and doubled as fuel for the car if we ran out of gas. One of the guys asked me where I was from and when I answered England, he paused for a while before asking ‘Did you come on the bus?”
For me, the best part of this event was the bottle-neck they made for me by literally cutting the long neck off an empty wine bottle. I kept this as a momento for years until one day it fell off a stool on stage and smashed into several pieces. I was very upset about this. However, I still have a photo of me and one of the musicians – Eugene Powell – which is included with this newsletter. (Yes, I know, I look about fifteen years old!).
Miriam Backhouse UK tour…Mim starts her tour on september 14 and stays till mid december. see www.amandalynnemusic.com for more details.
My gigs in september are Stratford upon Avon Folk Festival on sunday 4th at 8.15 .Hastings Coastal Currents wednesday 14th september at Electric Palace Cinema at 8pm. Live music and a couple of digital shorts from myself as guest with Ed Boxall’s LoFi event.
I will also be visiting the Broadstairs festival in August and MARYMASS IN IRVINE Scotland
I’m still putting the final touches to my MARSH VOICES film.It started out as a Romney Marsh Community Arts project but has developed into a short,digital music story .I’m writing extra music and hopefully, it will be ready for touring in october 2011.
Extras…
Climate Change, what climate change… It’s the 4th of july and I have just picked ten very ripe,wild blackberries in my garden. This is at least two
weeks ahead of when they normally ripen. As I picked I could hear a small possé of SWIFTS swirling around the blue sky. I’ve no idea where they nest but they are here every year.This year they arrived about a week earlier than last year. Swallows are here too.There is a wonderful myth about SWALLOWS: it was thought they lived under the sea in winter because no-one saw them around then. Isn’t that just wonderful? There you are, I’m back where I started, discussing the sea.
Well, that’s about it for this newsletter.
I’d love to hear from you either on my blog page or just send me an email.
And, if I’m playing a gig near you, please come and say hello.
Enjoy your life, whatever season in whatever continent you live.
In peace.
Saffron
Saffron
playing with Eugene in Mississippi
sending...