When the final totting up is done towards the end of the year, it’s a fairly safe bet to expect The Spyglass & The Herringbone, the latest album from Jackie Oates to appear in the annual ‘best of’ lists. It’s a characteristically strong showing from Jackie, an artist who now surely ranks amongst the best of her generation. Such is the quality of her work that you’d be forgiven for believing she was following some sort of pre-ordained course simply built on a natural talent. She seemed to emerge, fully formed, with the almost simultaneous debut with Rachel Unthank And The Winterset and her own first, eponymous studio album, both released in early 2005. It’s unquestionable that Jackie is exceptionally talented, but has she simply been following a clearly signposted path to success. The release of the new album gave us the opportunity to catch up with Jackie and she kindly took the time to tell her own story of the remarkable ascent through the folk scene’s ranks.
The simple view is that Jackie’s story is similar to many of the younger generation of today’s folk stars and also the up-and-coming who have yet to make their mark. It’s one of musically engaged parents, who are already part of the folk scene themselves, offering an introduction to their world, but also following through with the necessary encouragement to ensure that the seeds planted take root and prosper. Given that Jackie has a very talented brother in Jim Moray, there’s obviously a strong element of nurture in this particular branch of the family tree. In Jackie’s case there’s also an element of timing as she explains, “My teenage years were dominated largely by Eliza Carthy, Kate Rusby and The Chipolata 5. English folk music was really coming to the fore and it was a really pivotal time for me, as I realized how much beauty and scope it had. I particularly remember seeing Kate Rusby and Kathryn Roberts for the first time, when I was 10.”
Jackie continues with the familiar storyline, affirming, “I was brought up listening to folk music and going to festivals every summer, in particular, Sidmouth Folk Festival. Every summer I spent what money I had on cassettes, and then CDs and my Mum and I would go for drives after the school in the evenings, across Cannock Chase listening to them, during the long months in between the festival seasons.”
She grew up in Staffordshire, but it wasn’t until Jackie left home for university, however, that she really started to get involved in music on her own terms. Perhaps it was the lure of Sidmouth and environs that led her to read English at Exeter, where her chosen subject proved another important building block. She surprises me in confessing, “I was very shy when I was younger, and so wouldn’t have dreamed of singing in public. But when I got to university in Exeter, I began going to sing-arounds in little, remote villages – and the urge to join in became so strong that I started to learn some songs and sing every week. It took me a very long time to sing without dissolving. I think I was able to cross the nerves barrier, because the love of the words and storylines became more important to me.”
Those tentative first steps set her on a path with plenty of places to explore and it wasn’t long before Jackie started to settle into the area. As she admits, “I moved to the southwest in 2001 to go to university, but I ended up staying for a very long time!” It was while she was still studying, however that two really significant developments took place. The first helps explain why Jackie put down roots where she was, while the second demanded putting some serious mileage in. It was meeting local folk legend Phil Beer that cemented her connections to Devon as she recalls, “I used to sing at Topsham Folk Club with some friends, and I think someone must have mentioned me to Phil. Completely out of the blue one day in 2004, he rang to ask if I’d like to spend a day at his studio. Phil very kindly turned my 3 track recordings into an entire album, which I released with Hands on Music about a year later. Show of Hands were and continue to be incredibly supportive of me and other young musicians.”
Meanwhile there was a call from the other end of the country that couldn’t be ignored and Jackie explains, “I joined the Winterset in 2004 when I was doing my finals at Exeter University. I’d known Rachel and Becky for many years from going to festivals. They were interested in gathering some musicians together to record an album (Cruel Sister) and so I spent much of the summer after graduating, travelling up to Barnsley to record with them. During the months after that, I started guesting with them and Belinda O’Hooley at gigs, and this fairly quickly turned into regular trips from Exeter to the North East for tours.”
Both of these event quickly established Jackie as an important new talent on the folk scene, setting her professional career in motion. Her strong clear voice is almost impossible to square with someone too shy to sing, while her fiddle playing has also developed to the point where she looks comfortable trading licks with Eliza, one of her original inspirations, as part of the Imagined Village. It seems she’s never looked back.
Jackie has also moved on from the southwest and I ask whether she’s putting down important new roots and she confirms, “Yes – about two years after we moved to Oxford, we ended up moving again, to a little town called Wallingford about 14 miles away. I love it here and have lots of musical friends whose children I teach and there’s lots of festivals and music things going on, and even red kites flying overhead.” I ask Jackie whether the local musical scene is significantly different and she vouches, “I’ve certainly noticed a difference having lived in the Midlands and then the Devon and Oxfordshire. I love the sense of community and togetherness that comes with local folk scenes.” She also considers things are very different to her younger days telling me, “I think happily, I see the folk world now as greatly expanded from how it appeared then – there seem to be lots more quality acts around and busy touring – especially younger people.”
We turn our attention to the new record The Spyglass & The Herringbone and Jackie reveals, “When I set out selecting material for the album, I wanted to focus on positive, uplifting songs, to create a light, summery album. I spent months trawling through all of the books that I had and recording lots of different snippets of songs. We then recorded them in a studio in Crouch End in June. However for various reasons, I ended up stalling the album in the summer and coming back to it later that year. The record felt as if it was missing little tinges of detail and contrast – so I subsequently recorded an extra few tracks to lace in between some of the earlier recordings.”
It is a very upbeat album and sounds like great fun is being had by all. Even the sadder songs have a positive message and the sense of hope about them and the playing throughout is superb. Jackie reveals, “Much of the new album features musicians who I haven’t worked with in the past; John Parker, Jack Rutter, Nick Hart and Calum Stewart.” There are one or two more familiar names as well and she continues, “It also features my older brother Jim Moray. Chris Sarjeant and Ben Walker.”
The hiatus in the recording sessions goes some way to explaining the different production credits, with much of the original material recorded by Ben Walker, but as Jackie points out, “Simon Emmerson co-runs my record label, ECC and it was very natural for him to be involved in the production team. I have been working with Simon very regularly for the past few years as part of the Imagined Village and more recently Handmade Sound.”
Jackie is also keen to put the album in context as she tells me, “I like to think that each album represents where my head is at, at that point in time. Saturnine was quite an epic record and I saw it as a sort of farewell to the south west – I played with lots of musicians and friends whom I met during my time there, and wanted the album to have a dreamy/other worldly feel to it. Lullabies was deliberately much sparser than Saturnine, and was recorded mostly in Reykjavik. I wanted it to feel a bit more unified and cohesive. The Spyglass & The Herringbone was mostly recorded with a group of musicians that I hadn’t really met before. It was a really exciting record to make as I had no idea how it would sound.”
Of course with the tour comes another major tour and Jackie is excited to tell me, “The album tour will mostly feature musicians who played on the album, as I wanted to recreate the sound and arrangements as precisely as I could. I’ll be joined by John Parker on Double Bass, Chris Sarjeant on Guitar and Vocals and Mike Cosgrave on Accordion and Piano. We’ll also have some special guests appearing at various points.” She continues, “I have some exciting festival dates lined up after the album tour; I’ll be at L’Eroica Festival in Bakewell, Sidmouth Folk Week and Lindisfarne Festival. I’m also planning to perform in Norway over the summer. During the autumn I’ll be joining Eliza Carthy, Lucy Farrell and Kate Young’s all girl, fiddle group.”
Some will already know that Jackie now has a cosmetic foundation based on her pale English-Rose complexion. Again it probably follows naturally on as she explains her relationship with the Lush chain telling me, “I’ve been working on material for Mark Constantine for quite a number of years now. Mark is the head of the cosmetics chain Lush, and members of the Imagined Village, headed by Simon Emmerson, have been creating music to be played in their spas. We’ve done a huge range of albums and performed around the world as a result! So far I’ve been to Lush events in Slough, Poole, Tokyo and Madrid.”
Whilst this has obviously been enjoyable, Jackie keeps the two things distinct as she explains, “I think the work with Lush doesn’t feed into my personal music so much, because I reserve my main passion – English traditional song – for my own albums.” As far as that goes, she’s pleased to conclude, “There are some exciting projects on the horizon – I am really looking forward to doing some more studio music over the next few months.” Whilst that sows a seed of expectation, more immediately there is the chance to catch Jackie on tour now, with a number of festivals over the summer. I expect to see her at the St.Pancras Old Church, but grab any chance you can, you’ll be in for a treat.
Interview by: Simon Holland
Jackie Introduces The Spyglass & The Herringbone
Tour Dates
20 May Winchester Discovery Centre, Hampshire
22 May St. Pancras Old Church, London
24 May Bude & Stratton Folk Festival
25 May Bude & Stratton Folk Festival
26 May Exeter Phoenix, Devon
29 May The Forge at The Anvil, Basingstoke
30 May Finstock Village Hall, Chipping Norton
01 June Nettlebed Village Club, Oxfordshire
04 June The Arts Centre, Ormskirk
05 June Selby Town Hall, North Yorkshire
10 June VAKA Folk Festival, Akureyri, Iceland
11 June VAKA Folk Festival, Akureyri, Iceland
12 June VAKA Folk Festival, Akureyri, Iceland
13 June VAKA Folk Festival, Akureyri, Iceland
20 June Eroica Britannia, Bakewell
The Spyglass & The Herringbone is out now via ECC
Order it here: http://eccrecords.co.uk/shop/the-spyglass-the-herringbone/