Jackie Oates – The Joy Of Living
ECC Records – 24 August 2018
A little over ten years ago Jackie Oates, then the viola player with Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, decided it was time to try something new. She left the band and embarked on the more unpredictable path of a solo artist. This was on the brink of the Winterset’s hugely popular breakthrough album The Bairns, so you may be forgiven for questioning her timing. But a glance at her achievements in the ensuing decade immediately allays any doubts about the wisdom of her choice: a clutch of awards (including two BBC Folk Awards including the coveted Horizon award) and a string of critically acclaimed solo albums has seen her emerge as one of her generation’s most gifted interpreters and performers of traditional song. Her albums have been graced by illustrious collaborators (including Alasdair Roberts and her brother Jim Moray) and she is an integral member of folk super-project The Imagined Village. She has come to embody much of what is good about the co-operative, democratic approach to making music that happily still dominates the British folk scene.
The Joy Of Living is her seventh album. It is the most personal yet, and perhaps the most emotionally charged. This is due in no small part to the circumstances leading up to its recording. Oates’ father died five days after the birth of her daughter, and the songs collected here are part of her attempt to come to terms with the conflicting emotions she experienced in the aftermath of those events. Each song was recorded in her own home, with a revolving door of illustrious collaborators dropping in to lend a hand. Sheffield guitarist and bouzouki player Jack Rutter has a prominent role, Bellowhead’s John Spiers adds his melodeon to the mix, and the production and engineering duties are overseen by Simon Richmond (another alumnus of The Imagined Village) who also provides percussion.
One of the most striking things about the album is the range of songs Oates has chosen. Traditional numbers rub shoulders with old favourites by Ewan MacColl and Lal Waterson, as well as more surprising picks, from William Byrd to John Lennon. Freedom Come-All-Ye, the opening track (which you can watch Jackie performing live below), was written by Scottish poet and folk revivalist Hamish Henderson and is full of his trademark mix of fierce political engagement and lyrical evocations of landscape. The song has personal importance to Oates, whose grandfather served in the 51st Highland Division in the World War II, and she sings it with a kind of soft awe that is perfectly suited to the spartan musical accompaniment.
Alongside the famous and less famous songs by other artists, there is also room for a composition of Oates’ own, the simple, short and incredibly moving Spring Is Coming Soon. It is a touching reflection of motherhood, and an example of how music can help to codify the raw emotion of daily life, to bind families closer together and to create memories. It is reprised as a coda to the following song, a cover of John Lennon’s heartbreaking Mother, on which Oates’ voice soars above a drone of harmonium before the shake and knock of percussion emerges to pull the song towards its conclusion.
The first of the traditional songs, Virginny, is a transportation song learned by Oates from her father’s version, which in turn was taken from Martin Carthy’s arrangement. This version manages to be both true to Carthy’s vision and completely new – a testament to the way Oates sings it and the space she gives to the words. On the old playground song Rosy Apple she is accompanied by Rutter’s acoustic guitar and by the gleeful giggles of her daughter, which turns something apparently frivolous into a moment of profound sweetness. My Shoes Are Made Of Spanish, which was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams and comes from the same children’s songbook as Rosy Apple, is augmented by Spiers’ brisk melodeon and some elastic double bass courtesy of John Parker.
The album’s title comes from a Ewan MacColl song. The subtlety and tenderness with which Oates sings The Joy Of Living hammers home just how good a songwriter MacColl was, and how he was able to take something personal – in this case, loss and grief – and make it universal. There is a strong sense in Oates’ singing of something like nostalgia, but more uncanny and more difficult to pin down. It is there in The Joy Of Living, and it comes to the boil in Unicorns, a strange, twinkling rendition of a song by Brit-folk stalwart Bill Caddick, which inhabits a constellation of plucked kantele strings and a backdrop of disorienting drone. Another of our great songwriters was Lal Waterson. Her early 70s song The Bird was never released in her lifetime, only seeing light of day on a compilation much later, but it deserves far more exposure and Oates’ haunting version more than does it justice.
Nay Ivy Nay is a far more interesting take on the ancient theme of The Holly And The Ivy, backed by Oates’ own beautiful, sad viola. Delicately plucked strings and double bass are the order of the day on Catch Me If You Can, a traditional song collected from Marina Russell, a Dorset singer from the early part of the twentieth century who deserves to be far better known than she is. Hey Ho, To The Greenwood is a round by renaissance composer William Byrd, and serves as an excellent example of how modern recording techniques can work alongside centuries-old music. In this case, the simple vocal melody is built on with counterpoint and repetition resulting in a brief but heady concoction of voices.
Of all the songs Oates chooses to cover, perhaps the most unexpected is Constellations, originally by New York indie band Darwin Deez. It captures a spontaneous moment in the recording sessions in which Oates was joined by a group of children whom she had been teaching to sing. In fact, that kind of spontaneity partly why this album works so well. Many of the songs feel like the result of a combination of years of loving practice and instants of inspired collaboration. Sweet Farewell’s piano part feels like it is being willed into existence as the song progresses; there is a wonderful, intimate immediacy to the whole process.
The last two tracks on The Joy Of Living – Davey Steele’s The Last Trip Home and John Tams’ Rolling Home – form the most heartfelt and fitting tribute to Oates’ father. The former is a kind of final call to arms, a song about coming to terms with your place and time on Earth. The latter is simply one of the most moving pieces of music I have ever heard – the only extant recording of Oates’ father’s singing, but joined by an overdub of Oates herself to create a musical dialogue that stretches time and transcends generations. As the original recording fades out and Oates’ unaccompanied voice alone remains, we are left tearful but somehow full of hope. As a conclusion to a compelling, spirited emotional rollercoaster of an album, it is quite perfect.
Track Preview
The Joy of Living is set for release on 24th August via ECC Records.
Details here: https://www.eccrecords.co.uk/product/the-joy-of-living-pre-order/
The Joy of Living Tour Dates 2018
30th June 2018: Folk On The Quay, Poole
7th July 2018: Kimpton Folk Festival
23rd July 2018: Chichester Folk Song Club
7th August 2018: Sidmouth Folk Week
12th August 2018: Dartmoor Folk Festival
25th August 2018: Oxford Storytelling Festival
15th November 2018: Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham
16th November 2018: Pound Arts Centre, Fordham
17th November 2018: Tuppenny Barn, Emsworth
21st November 2018: The Greystones, Sheffield
24th November 2018: Shelley Theatre, Bournemouth
2nd February 2019: The Arc, Stockton on Tees
8th February 2019: The Platform, Morecambe
9th February 2019: The Met, Bury
10th February 2019: Whitstable Sessions, Whitstable
12th February 2019: Water Rats, London
13th February 2019: West End Centre, Aldershot
15th February 2019: Starcross, Devon
20th February 2019: Aberystwyth Arts Centre
3rd April 2019: Willows Folk Club, Arundel