While Emily Portman can be frequently seen as part of the excellent Furrow Collective who recently toured the UK (see our recent live review – more dates to follow in September), she’s also a solo artist of great depth, known for her beguiling stage presence and song writing. Will Kemp catches up with her to find out more about her development as a musician and her current and recent projects…
Will Kemp: Listening to you most recent album Coracle, I was struck by your really distinctive sound and I thought we could just start there – tell us a bit about how you have developed that sound over the years…
Emily Portman: Well, I immersed myself in traditional music for many years – I actually went to the folk degree in Newcastle – founded by concertina player, Alistair Anderson (recently interviewed here) – and I was in the second year it ran. I went there as a new convert really as I only discovered folk music at the age of 17. Having written my own songs in my bedroom and tinkled away, I was very much self-taught until I went to university, I didn’t have any formal training, but I fell in love with folk music. In particular I got really excited about English folk music actually and discovered songs collected by Cecil Sharp who was collecting in Somerset where I grew up – so I took a folk degree for four years. I got very involved in singing traditional songs and then towards the end I returned to song writing again and I feel like all those traditional songs I’d absorbed very much influenced my own style of writing and I started writing in response to those old songs. I became interested in the stories within the songs and started to retell folk tales in a contemporary context and style, kind of relocating them from wherever they were into a contemporary voice. So yeah that’s what I’ve been doing for a while, working especially with Lucy Farrell and Rachel Newton, who have been long term collaborators. We developed our style together – I’ve always had a love of three-part harmony and I was in a band called The Devil’s Interval singing unaccompanied traditional songs in three part harmony, so it seemed natural to continue that with my song writing. So I think harmony is a big part of it and it’s been brilliant working with harp and viola while I play banjo and concertina – I like this unusual line up of instruments as well.
Well, it works really well – I love the sound of it. Something you mentioned there is this idea of making something new out of the traditional – how do you do that in a way which on the one hand honours the past but at the same time isn’t stuck in it?
Good question – I would say that it has a lot to do with both having a respect for the music and finding what you love in this music that has been out there for centuries. It’s about immersing yourself, being curious about the stories and holding on to those bits you really love but then not being afraid to run with it, to go and experiment and know that the material is still going to be there whatever you do with it – I mean, people may not like what you did with it mind you! I know when I started writing songs I was a little bit afraid – you know I’d been performing traditional songs for quite a few years – I was afraid of how my own songs would go down and whether people would think ‘what right has she got writing those songs when traditional songs say it better’. But I’ve never regretted doing that and was bowled over by how well the new songs were received. That’s why I see my songs as conversations with that traditional repertoire, because it’s by no means disregarding it but they are retellings – I’m reframing. I think it is important to question the songs that people used to sing and ask: does this song need updating? There are some songs that absolutely are timeless and have messages that I think will carry through the centuries, and there are some songs that don’t do that. They can highlight things that used to happen but no longer do; they’re kind of historical artefacts in that way.
Yeah, I see what you mean – like how attitudes towards men and women’s roles, for example, or race or class, have changed, and so some of these traditional songs can seem outdated…
Yeah – I think there’s always evidence that traditional songs, by and large, give the voices of people of the working class in Britain, and in that, they show resistance, and they’re really valuable little jewels that have a little insight into social history in a way that is really fascinating. And, yeah, within that there can be some attitudes that are no longer really relevant anymore and I think that’s where song writing comes in.
Picking up on another thing you said about conversation and how folk music is so much about playing and conversing with people you know and like, your friends – like the two collaborators you met earlier, did you meet them at university?
I did, yes, and that’s one of the most valuable things about studying music: not only the great teaching you can encounter but the friends and the musical partnerships that you can make. I certainly did meet Lucy and Rachel there and actually now our partnership has moved on. We are in the Furrow Collective together with Alasdair Roberts, a great Scottish singer, guitarist and song writer himself, and we sing traditional songs together. That’s something I just love. It is a huge part of it for me, the joy and satisfaction of being a musician is the collaboration; the playing together and the creating of arrangements. I love it.
Well, that leads perfectly on to a last question about the summer because I know you are also teaching, for example, heading down to Dartington for the Summer School this August, and I guess that spirit will come into your teaching as you lead the Folk Collective course for that week?
Definitely. I think what I have always felt is that the folk scene is full of generous people and has a very inclusive feel to it and certainly it will be great at Dartington, with Alistair Anderson there too. He is one of the key people who encouraged me and I’m really keen to encourage other people with an interest in folk songs and to be able to hopefully help that seed grow a little and to share some songs – I think it will be a great week!
Emily will be leading the Dartington International Summer School’s Folk collective course this August. She will also be performing in the Great Hall at Dartington on 4th August. To find out more about the summer school and to book, click here: www.dartington.org/summerschool
Photo Credit: Elly Lucas