Folk and disco share more than you might think and the Band of Love members are soon to prove it. They are Jim Causley, Greg Russell, Alice Jones, Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin. Guest musicians who appear on the album include Mike McGoldrick, Phil Beer, Steve Knightley, Patsy Reid & Rune Cygan Barslund. Their debut release FOLK FEVER drops on 7th September via Island Records. We get our first visual offering courtesy of Jim Causley with his cover of Gloria Gaynor’s I Am What I Am in which he transforms from rural folkie to disco diva.
One is a music of dance, of escape, of exultation, resistance, affirmation, celebration and sex; the other is a popular American black music genre of the late 1970s. But while British folk music and disco may seem more strangers in the night than kissin’ cousins, the recordings on Folk Fever show them to be joined at the hip, moving in step and ready for action.
Folk and disco share more than you might think. Both have been despised by the mainstream – remember the disgruntled rock fans putting a torch to disco singles in the White Sox baseball ground as disco hit its peak in 1979? Both are powerful forms of social music that can carry all kinds of weight without tipping over – The house spirits of the local folk club and Studio 54 are closer than we might think.
“There are huge parallels,” says producer Mark Tucker. “Once you get into the broader folk styles there’s loads of grooves & rhythm. There are also stories and lighter lyrics to party to. I mean, ‘disco songs have similar stories to pretty much any folk song you care to quote. Back To My Roots is pretty heavy stuff. “
Once the needle drops on George Benson’s Gimme the Night, the first of Folk Fever’s cracking 13 tracks of folk disco magnificence, it’s like your long-lost body double stepping out of the wilderness and pirouetting before you in a flash pair of two-tone leather-soled Oxfords and natty suit – and with one hand cupped over the ear. Suddenly, it all just makes perfect sense. BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner Greg Russell takes the vocals, while the brilliant Mancunian Irish duo of bodhran player John Joe Kelly and Michael McGoldrick on Uilleann pipes and whistle weave their acoustic disco magic.
As well as Causley, Russell, McGoldrick and Kelly, producer Mark Tucker brings together exciting new artists and respected veterans – Show of Hands’ Phil Beer and Steve Knightley, Scottish fiddler Patsy Reid, acclaimed duo Hannah Martin and Phillip Henry, double bassist Matt Downer, and Danish accordionist Rune Cygan Barslund among them.
As for the repertoire, we’re talking the crème de la crème of classic disco – Patrick Hernandez’
Born to be Alive, Donna Summer’s orgasmic I Feel Love, Gloria Gaynor’s battle cries of I Will Survive and I Am What I Am, plus Sister Sledge (We Are Family), The Bee Gees (Night Fever) and Hot Chocolate’s tender I’ll Put You Together Again.
“It has been a hugely fun project to be a part of,” says Jim Causley, who takes the majority of lead vocals and squeezes his accordion across many of these folked-up disco classics, “it was fascinating and educational, getting into mechanics of the songs as we deconstructed their elements –“
Recording at the Green Room Studios in Oxfordshire, the musicians found that some of the new settings for these tunes came naturally, others awaited that eureka moment when they finally hit upon a new angle to enter a song and transform it into something new. “One thing that initially concerned me was that the lyrical content of pop songs is not generally as meaty as trad folk songs,” says Causley, “But possibly the most fascinating thing about thing project is that by treating these songs in a more acoustic manner and having them sung by singers who are used to telling stories and conveying meaning and depth in their performances, we seem to have brought out even more depth and unexpected perspectives that you might not notice from listening to the originals.”
Causley points to Patrick Hernandez’ Born to be Alive and its lyrics featuring “a suitcase and an old guitar” that led him to experiment with a slowed-down arrangement on Appalachian dulcimer. “It’s a lot more melodic than the original and I think listeners could be forgiven for not recognising it at first,” he says. For Tucker, it was the touchstone that proved to him the project could work. “If you listen to the original, it sounds as far from folk as is possibly imaginable and is very cheesy. I thought to myself, ‘if I can make this song work, I’ll be OK’.”
Similarly, Greg Russell’s take on ‘I Will Survive’ makes that iconic ballad of self-determination as vivid and direct as any Broadside, while Hannah Martin’s duet with Causley on ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ is just beautiful. “It’s a deeply moving song,” says Causley, “but you can see how some of that can go over your head when the tempo is very upbeat. Almost a bit like those traditional English songs that make murder sound so casual and everyday by setting it to a jolly tune…”
As Folk Fever proves, disco and folk are not the oil and water of music, never to be mixed, but kissing cousins sharing the same family tree of struggle, assertion, joy, sorrow and celebration. One can be distilled through the other, and increased in strength.
Folk Fever will be released on Island Records – 07 September 2018.
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