On July 7th, award-winning traditional artist Nuala Kennedy releases her new album Shorelines (Under the Arch Records), on which she is joined by a number of top musicians and singers – Tara Breen (Chieftains) on fiddle, Tony Byrne (Danú) on guitar, Moira Smiley (Solas) & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh on backing vocals, Todd Sickafoose (Anais Mitchell) on bass, and Caoimhín Vallely (Buille) on piano.
The album is described as a beautiful and engaging meditation on a solitary struggle through love, life and woman’s ultimate triumph over adversity. It draws from the traditional song canon with an eye to the dynamism and resilience of central female characters and combines the songs with instrumental compositions inspired by the coast of Clare, where Kennedy moved in 2019. Below, you can watch her new video for her album single Sally Sits Weeping (out now on streaming services).
While the song may be familiar to many, the arrangements on this demonstrate how subtle details combine to transform and deepen the mood of a piece (it was co-produced by Todd Sickafoose and Nuala). Sickafoose’s bass and Byrne’s guitar provide a dreamy and timeless backdrop for Kennedy’s warm vocals, accentuated by the backing vocals of Moira Smiley & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, while Kennedy’s flute playing emphasises the melancholic longing of the song, also captured in the coastal visuals of the video below. It’s a deep and engaging listen.
Nuala Kennedy on Sally Sits Weeping
Also known as Once I Had a Sweetheart, this song has been collected in America, England and in Australia. It still amazes me how folk songs can catch on, and travel the world, taking on a life of their own. In England, Cecil Sharp collected it from children who sang it as part of a game. I love that connection – one of my reasons for making this recording was that I became a mother myself, and wanted to explore the representation of women in our traditional song canon; excavating songs where she is a dynamic, proactive personality A ‘sally’ tree in Ireland is a weeping willow from the Irish ‘An Saileog’. I first heard this song from Niamh Parsons, but this version is put together from a variety of sources, omitting the dream sequence.
Singer, flute player, producer and composer Nuala Kennedy grew up in Dundalk in Co. Louth and has carved out an impressive global career to date. She has toured extensively in Europe, Australia and the U.S., working with Nashville’s Compass Records, Domino Records (USA), Borealis Records (CAD) and more before founding her own independent label ‘Under the Arch’ in 2014. Kennedy is an international collaborator, having worked with Janis Ian, Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy, Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) Mike Scott (Waterboys) amongst others.
Initially commissioned as a concept piece by Glór Theatre, Ennis, Shorelines features a carefully curated collection of traditional songs alongside freshly composed instrumental pieces. Speaking about the album Kennedy says:
“This work is inspired by the imagined journeys, both external and internal, of the songs’ central female protagonists, side by side with the evocative coast of County Clare where I now live. The powerful physicality of the shoreline helped me interpret these songs for today – and so the sea – itself the mother of all life – is a constant presence throughout the album; cradling the songs and setting the scene from the opening lines….”
Shorelines Kennedy’s fifth solo album will be released on Friday, July 7th, 2023.
it is available to order on Bandcamp here: https://nualakennedy.bandcamp.com/
To see Nuala perform live, check out her touring schedule here: https://www.nualakennedy.com/tour/