Jackie Oates should need no introduction to most of you. She was a member of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset (2003-2007) during which time she released her own self-titled solo debut in 2006 followed by Violet Hour in 2008. She is now six albums into a successful solo career, her last being The Spyglass & The Herringbone for which she was Artist of the Month on Folk Radio UK – we described the album as a sparkling jewel of a folk record (read the review here).
Despite a successful solo career, Jackie has never shied away from collaboration, her most well-known probably being a member of Imagined Village along with Martin and Eliza Carthy. More recently she has teamed up with Megan Henwood who was first introduced to the folk world when at 19 she won the BBC Young Folk Award in 2009. She has subsequently stepped slightly outside the traditional folk oeuvre and can be heard regularly on Radio 2. She is currently writing songs for her third album for release in Spring and is planning for her first national UK theatre tour (22 dates) this November/December supporting Show of Hands.
The two met at their ‘local’ Nettlebed Folk Club, where they discovered their voices and musicianship complemented each other and Jackie was soon playing and singing harmonies on Megan’s last album ‘Head Heart Hand‘. They decided to take matters a stage further and recorded some songs together, including a cover of Lau’s Ghosts and New Order’s Love Vigilantes, along with a couple of more traditional folk songs and a Megan original ‘Bettystown‘.
The Wings EP will be released August 26th. Megan & Jackie will be supporting the release with a handful of shows through August and September including the EP launch at London’s St Pancras Old Church on August 25. They made the video below to publicise the gig which includes special guest Kevin Pearce. You can buy tickets here.
Wings is released on 26th August via Dharma Records
More here: www.facebook.com/oatesandhenwood