described the everyday common experiences and struggles of ordinary people, of working life. Songs like Robert Emmet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Joe Hill, which had been sung to me oſten as a child, not only sent shivers down my spine but also introduced me to parts of history routinely neglected by the textbooks. Te words of the folk singer and collector Frank Harte have always resonated with me: “Tose in power write the history and those who suffer write the songs, and given our history we have an awful lot of songs.”
I began to perform folk music regularly in my local folk club in Leeds, Te Grove. As well as soaking up what others sang I tried songs of my own and songs I had learnt and began to enjoy it more and more. From there I also began to perform at other venues increasingly, playing some of the festivals in the summer too. Initially I just saw it as an interest and any payment I got for performing (oſten beer) was a bonus, but gradually it became a part-time job and then as of a year or so ago it seemed possible to jump into it full-time. Since I made that decision it’s been going great, better than I could have hoped really, and I’ve been very privileged to be able to spend the time I’d want to on my music on a regular basis. My debut album was released last summer with Fellside Records and I’ve been bowled over, if a little surprised, by the reception of it since. It was really a showcase of some of the material I’ve been playing over the last few years and that I’m performing now, which is a mixture of traditional folk music as well as my own songs that tend to deal with contemporary issues.
At the end of last year I was really pleased to have had my album, ‘Rags & Robes’, feature in the MOJO ‘Top Ten Folk Albums of 2010’. I’ve been lucky to have a fantasic start to this year so far aſter being awarded the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award’s Horizon Award, to my surprise but great excitement.
At the moment I’m being kept very busy with performing across the length of the country, which I’m really enjoying. In terms of my plans for this year and beyond, I more or less plan to continue as I’ve been doing collecting, arranging, and working on fresh traditional material and particularly continuing to write more songs myself. Hopefully another album could even be in the offing sometime early next year. I’m very excited about the new material I have and what I’m currently working on, so I can’t wait both to begin to perform that to audiences and to launch into the next recording project.
www.ewanmclennan.co.uk
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