What a great way to start a Monday with the first live session from Ewan McLennan from his new album ‘Stories Still Untold’ which is released later this month on 29th September 2014. We have two performances each are accompanied with some words from Ewan about each song:
Aye Waukin O’ (Robert Burnes)
Robert Burns has written some of the most beautiful love songs I’ve ever heard. I came across this one more recently than most of his and knew right away I had to sing it. The stark imagery used here, the joys of summertime against the pain of unrequited love, are typical of his style and the haunting power of his writing.
But it’s likely that Burns, here as with others, took fragments from a song that he found in Herd’s ‘Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs’ and reshaped it into his own.
The Shearing (Trad.)
There are many versions of this traditional Scottish song. This one, as with so many folk songs, seems to be an amalgamation of several songs’ verses – ‘The Shearing’s No For You’, ‘Kelvin Grove’ and ‘The Shearing’. In this version there are verses from the commonly known ‘The Shearing’s No For You’, but it bares closer resemblance to the first, and slightly less dramatic, collected version of this song found in ‘The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection’.
The shearing here refers to the cutting of wheat and corn and the story taps into the common folk tale of a young woman being abandoned by a soldier.
Tour Dates
11/09/14 Loughton Folk Club, Essex
12/09/14 Watford Folk Club
13/09/14 Small Is Festival, Bristol
03/10/14 The Foundling Museum, London
05/10/14 Folk House, Bristol
17/10/14 The Music Institute, Guildford
18/10/14 Miss Peapod’s, Penryn
25/10/14 Glossop Labour Club
07/11/14 Korks, Otley, West Yorkshire
19/11/14 The Red Lion, Birmingham
20/11/14 Topic Folk Club, Bradford
21/11/14 Roots Music Club, Doncaster
22/11/14 Davy Lamp Folk Club, Washington
23/11/14 The Glad Cafe, Glasgow
24/11/14 Glenfarg Village Folk Club, Glenfarg
Stories Still Untold released 29th September 2014
Pre-Order via: Amazon
http://www.ewanmclennan.co.uk/