CONNECTING TO HER ROOTS ELLIE DELVES INTO WARWICKSHIRE HISTORY
They say you should write what you know, an adage that's proven to be excellent advice for young singer songwriter Ellie Gowers whose debut album is entitled Dwelling By The Weir.
"Dwelling By The Weir is what Warwick was called in the old Saxon language. That was the first snippet of information that started the whole project," explains the singer-songwriter who is Warwick born and bred. "That came about first and everything else, the songs, came from that."
With every song inspired by stories from the county, the 11-track collection - which is released this month - has been three years in the making.
"I actually began thinking about it in 2019, around the time I graduated," she says - referring to her time studying at Bristol. "I wanted something to look forward to and decided a project, so I started looking into local history. Then lockdown happened, which gave me time to sink my teeth into it.
"It was a complete blank slate. It was nice to remove myself from the songs - for myself not to be the object of the songs. So I read local history books, went to archives, spoke to local historians."
Among her favourite stories are how residents of Kenilworth welcomed displaced Coventry residents during the Coventry Blitz only to have themselves bombed out (a story she recounts in Brightest Moon), and The Last Warwickshire Miner, a cover of Nuneaton folk singer Pete Grassby's study of the 2013 Daw Mill Colliery fire - the county's last coal mine.
"But the title track is one of my favourites and it looks at the whole of Warwickshire," explains Ellie. "There’s a theme of nostalgia, of home, belonging. One of the main reasons I made the album was to connect - not so much with my ancestors personally, as my parents only moved here just before they had me - but with those who lived in Warwickshire thousands of years before.
"The old Watch Oak, in Milverton, was there until the 1950s and was thought to have been thousands of years old," she continues, referring to a dramatic fenced tree in the hamlet, north-east of Warwick. "Can you imagine what it had seen? All the people who had walked under it and the people it had seen? What I wanted to do with the album was to capture that idea."
Despite the challenges of lockdown and the pandemic, Ellie - who cites John Martyn, Pentangle and Jade Bird among her musical influences - relished delving into her surroundings.
"I did daily walks over lockdown, along paths I’d never been before, and went swimming in the River Avon for the first time, and I thought I’m only just discovering these paths and places, but so many others have walked down them, past them – those connections turned Warwick into the place it is today."
One of her favourite spots was Warwick's Saxon Mill.
"It’s home to a beautiful old mill and is situated on the River Avon which carves out the land beneath Guys Cliffe; a very spooky but gorgeous place to swim."
Ellie began playing and writing as a young teen. After a series of independent releases, 2021's four-track Parting Breath EP was particularly well-received. She's now part of the Fancourt Music roster, which includes Jim Moray, Granny's Attic, India Electric Co., Lucy Ward, and Kitty Macfarlane, and recently enjoyed her first UK tour, opening for Blair Dunlop.
"The Blair Dunlop tour feels about two years ago in some ways, but also feels like yesterday. That was March to April [2022], and we started in Glasgow.
"I learnt a lot from it, like about not getting too stressed about being on tour," laughs the singer/guitarist, who is also a member of Birmingham-based Filkins Drift Folk Ensemble. "It was really fun and we had an easy time together. I did some songs with him too.
"That was the first proper touring experience for me. It was tiring, but fun. Most of the places we went to I’d never been to before – Newcastle, Sheffield, York ... [and] places up north which I’d never played."
With the album released last month, Ellie also headed to nearby Birmingham for her first appearance at Moseley Folk and Arts Festival, with plans for a headline UK tour in the autumn. "It's very album focused this year, so that will be taking up all my energy."
For more information, see
elliegowersmusic.com
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ENTERTAINMENT E L L I E GOWERS
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