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songs, and the people she learned them from. It’s just family stories, but it gives a beautiful window into her music life grow- ing up in Kentucky. And the songs she has written! Oh boy!”
“I love Roscoe Holcomb, a lot. He has an incredibly specific sound, unlike any- thing else. Betsy Rutherford, from Galax, VA, isn’t well-known… she only came out with one record, in the ‘70s… but she’s a fascinating singer, with a rich low voice and a heartfelt delivery. Rain And Snow, the title track from my first album, is from her record. As a teenager, I really wanted to sound like her.”
I note that on her recent Birds’ Advice CD, her net is cast wide in terms of the songs chosen, including several taken from the Maud Karpeles’ Collections from her 1950s trips to the Appalachian mountains.
“The CD is titled after The Birds’ Courting Song, from that collection. It was a discovery I made before we started to work on Birds’ Advice. At that time I only had the North Carolina volume. Everybody should be glad that I’m not just making song-for-song covers of the Virginia vol- ume!! Those two CDs are so good. I don’t think they’re especially widely available in the States, which is such a pity. I love that material, partly because it includes so many songs that I usually only hear English or Scottish versions of, like Two Old Crows (Twa Corbies) and Locks And Bolts.”
She waxes lyrical about the poetic appeal of the latter: “‘Her yellow hair’s like glittering gold, Come a-jingling down her pillow, She’s the little one I love so well, She’s like a weeping willow.’ I mean, who wrote that? I just think it’s so beautiful and unexpected. Especially this implication – in
the middle of a sort of courtly song where our hero has to steal his girl from her fami- ly – that he’s seen her, at some point, lying in bed, with her hair on the pillow. That fact is almost an afterthought in the lyrical praise of her beauty.”
“I
I wonder how she narrows down her song choices, given her enthusiasm, in order to make the CDs, which are more than generously proportioned in terms of numbers of tracks. As it turns out, it’s not that easy.
think we all get excited to record something that’s not too ‘done’. If there’s a bal- lad I don’t hear other peo- ple sing much or if there’s
an arrangement of a tune that’s a little unusual, we like that. Sometimes it seems like there’s a song that just needs to be heard. It’s not that it’s our special thing, but man, more people should be listen- ing to it. Faded Coat Of Blue is one of those. Sweet Rosie-Anne is another. My dad is a great ideas man when it comes to songs like that. We always end up recording about 20 songs, promising our- selves we’ll cut it down, and then not being able to bear throwing out our hard work! It was a struggle to get it down to 16 tracks, and we cheated at that by adding a ‘bonus track’. We just didn’t want to admit we had 17 tracks! I really admire carefully crafted ten-track albums… maybe one day. At least I feel people are getting their money’s worth inside that pricey jewel case.”
As with many traditional singers, the universal truths of the ballads appeal greatly to Elizabeth, as well as the ripping yarns. “When I heard recordings of old
people singing ballads, man, those songs sounded archaic and I wanted to sing them that way. I’ve never felt the urge to ‘update’ old music. It seems perfectly rele- vant to me, as far as the ‘human condition’ goes. Heartbreak, crimes of passion… and if there’s a castle, I don’t think, ‘aha, that should be a high-rise, because the emo- tions in this song transcend time’. I think, ‘Cool! A castle!’”
“When I sing I’m trying to share something true. For me, the act of singing or listening to ballads is totally trans- portive. I get to live in the world of the story. Almeda Riddle – an Ozark ballad- singer of fame – said that her goal was to ‘get behind’ the song. If she were singing Mary Hamilton, she didn’t want her listen- ers to hear Almeda’s voice, she wanted them to hear Mary’s. I’ve been kind of a theatre nerd since I was a kid, and this rang so true for me.”
She is as struck by the tunes as much as the stories told, and “how they inform each other to make them greater than the sum of their parts.” She explains further. “Some songs will beguile me with their tune even if I don’t love the words right off. Two Sisters really creeps me out but the melodies for that song are just so sprightly and pretty! My mother was singing one in the car one time, and try as I might to resist, I had to give up and sing along.”
Family and friends are deeply involved in the music-making process for Elizabeth. She regularly plays with family members Jon Newlin (fiddle) and Amy Davis (banjo), her mum Sandy (singing) and multi-talent- ed neighbour Jim Lloyd (guitarist, banjo player “and a barber to boot!”)
Continued on PAGE 49
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