Some of you may already know of Scots singer Amy Leach and Highland guitarist Alasdair Paul through The Flyting in which they perform alongside Shona Mooney (The Shee, Monster Ceilidh Band) and Belfast-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and composer Sean O’Kane, best known for his button accordion playing (and a member of McPeake).
As a duo, it’s their shared love of traditional songs, particularly ballads, that brings them together. However, as you can hear in their rendition of the traditional folk ballad The Twa Brothers below. They present those ballads and folk songs beautifully and simply, allowing them to speak for themselves. Their intimate performance of The Twa Brothers is also our Song of the Day.
In their own words – The arrangements…are minimalist and deceptively simple, allowing the song and lyrics to dictate the pace of the music and showcasing the instinctive connection between singer and accompanist.
They shared the following on their beautiful rendition of The Twa Brothers (Child 49):
This version of The Twa Brothers (Child 49) is taken from Hamish Henderson’s remarkable recordings of Pat Bowley, which we found in the School of Scottish Studies’ archive on Tobar an Dualchais. In the first recording, Pat is only around 8 years old but still carries this heartbreaking story so well. Pat apparently learnt this when Hamish Henderson was teaching the song to her mother, singer Ella Ward. Where he got this tune from – we’d love to know, as we can’t find any other variants that use this tune. Unlike many versions of this ballad, his brother is not blamed for his death, and he has no bitter parting words, which casts the whole song in a different light to other versions.
We recorded this with the wonderful Jamie Cook in the main hall of the John Marley Centre, a stunning Art Deco building in Scotswood in the West End of Newcastle. Originally built as a secondary school, the John Marley Centre now plays host to Breeze Creatives, who run it as a series of studio spaces for artists, musicians and other creative practitioners, including Cupola Studios, a collective of musicians and producers to which Jamie belongs. Jamie is a pillar of the Newcastle music community, both as a musician and producer and for his audio-visual work, and it was a pleasure to work alongside him and Saya Rose, who did such an incredible job of capturing our performance.
Connect with Amy Leach and Alasdair Paul:
www.instagram.com/amyandalasdairmusic
www.facebook.com/amyandalasdair