On 28th October, Joseph Shipp releases his debut album Free, for a While, co-produced with Grammy-nominated Andrew Sovine (Ashley McBryde). Despite being 40 years of age, Shipp has been surrounded by creativity most of his life, and his debut is a vibrant offering that’s both reflective of his own personal journey and equally inventive on a musical level.
The accompanying album press describes him as a Renaissance man of sorts, being adept at an array of creative fields: a musician; an award-winning graphic designer; an accidental archivist; and a photographer who grew up around his parents’ photography business. After spending six formative years in the Bay Area working in brand design and design strategy, he and his wife—and their dog Sadie—decided to move back east to start a family.
The album is a catharsis that wrestles with his feelings of coming home, becoming a dad and the isolation and fear that followed.
His latest single is the old folk ballad Green Grows the Laurel. In his comments below he references “Folksongs of Britain and Ireland”,a great reference folk song book which was edited by Peter Kennedy. I have the book, and while this song is in the section titled ‘Songs of False Love and True’, Kennedy notes that the Irish colour green appears with significance in many of the songs which include All Round my Hat, Deep in Love, Green Bushes, Green Grass it Grows Bonny and more. As mentioned by Joseph below, Kennedy adds that the colour may also be the ‘significance of Ireland’, as well as young and false love.
Joseph’s musical influences were shaped early on by a heavy dose of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, a capella hymnals and Kurt Cobain. While living in San Francisco, he and his wife, also a musician and designer, became immersed in Old Time and Bluegrass music endemic to where he grew up, eventually picking up the fiddle, his wife choosing the banjo, and performing traditional folk music as the duo The Family Shipp.
One thing is sure, Joseph puts his own refreshing mark on this old folk standard; it’s quite unlike any version I’ve heard. Fans of Fruitbats and the Bonny Light Horseman will love it.
Joseph Shipp on Green Grows the Laurel
Given my background in traditional old-time folk music, my producer, Andrew Sovine, encouraged me to find a public domain folk song to record for the album.
It was a fun challenge because I didn’t just want to do another straight-up trad version of something—I wanted to make it mine somehow. “Green Grows the Laurel” is an old British folk song I discovered in the book “Folksongs of Britain and Ireland.” I know now that it’s a pretty popular folk song, but it was completely new to me at the time, which helped me to reimagine it. I was immediately drawn to the lyrics, which I changed from a female’s perspective to a male’s. And I had this melody and refrain lying around, “I lied to you / about how I feel,” but I didn’t know what to do with it. Once I added that into the song as more of a chorus, it shifted the whole song. It made it feel more modern, which I feel is important in keeping these lovely little songs alive.
An interesting side note: It’s widely thought that green laurel in the folk tradition has stood for young love and fickleness, but also faithfulness. But, interestingly, it’s also been associated with Irish political loyalty. So, a lot of these folk songs had double meanings. On the surface, “Green Grows the Laurel” is just a song of false love, but when studied further, there’s this political comment being made.
Reflecting on the release of his debut album, Shipp ponders a few thoughts: “I hope I can provide a voice that can potentially bridge the worlds between rural and urban, old and new. You can’t have one without the other, and each provides value. And sometimes, the way forward is through looking back.”