Georgia Shackleton is a familiar name to these pages, being a member of The Shackleton Trio, founded several years ago and featuring Georgia on fiddle and vocals, Nic Zuppardi on mandolin and Aaren Bennett on guitar. The Trio’s albums have been inspired by local interest or the regional folklore of their native Norfolk – their last album, Mousehold, was named after Mousehold Heath, part of north Norfolk’s Heathland Heritage Project.
Georgia will release her solo debut ‘Harry’s Seagull’ in November. The album is named after the only self-penned song featured, dedicated to one of the most important English traditional folk singers, Harry Cox, a Norfolk farmworker…who also kept a seagull as a pet. Like the Trio’s previous work, this album is also inspired by East Anglia, and the traditional songs and tunes featured paint a picture of the landscape and the communities that Georgia has grown to love and celebrate through her music as part of the Trio and now in this solo debut.
Recorded by Trio member Aaren who also co-produced the album with Georgia, Harry’s Seagull is a more stripped-back affair when compared to the Trio’s previous offerings. While backed by just fiddle and harmonium, Georgia’s playing still lends an inventive edge to the songs. You can hear this to full effect on the album’s first single, Windy Old Weather, which borrows from both Harry Cox and Sam Larner’s versions of this traditional song. Accompanied by just plucked violin, it manages to conjure the past while remaining playfully contemporary.
The song also appears on some broadsides as ‘The Fishes’, ‘Lamentation’ and other titles including “HappisburghLight Song’ and ‘Up Jumped the Herring’. Georgia says that the song is popular within the East Anglian fishing community but isn’t so widely found elsewhere.
In the video notes, Georgia highlights the current threat to the coastal village of Happisburgh (pronounced “Haze-bruh”). Such themes have surfaced before in the Shackleton Trio’s past work, including Fen, Farm and Deadly Water (2018), in which our reviewer, Richard Hollingham, notes that 300 years after the draining of the Fens, Fred Rooke’s Fenland Song offers a reminder that despite being drained, the fens as ‘dry land’ are never totally secure, being held in the ‘power of the captive power of the water’ which could get free. Not idle thought either, as we are told that large tracts of East Anglia will be under water again before this century is out.
Georgia says that Windy Old Weather will forever immortalise Happisburgh and its iconic lighthouse, which owing to non-existent support for sea defences, make the future of this rapidly eroding coastal village very uncertain. Watch the accompanying video below. Windy Old Weather is also our Song of the Day.
Harry’s Seagull Tour commences in September (see below). The first shows are in Denmark, Belgium and England, before heading to France and then Switzerland in October before winding back to the UK for dates from November to January.
Harry’s Seagull is released in November. There will be an album launch party in Norwich on November 30th at the Octagon Chapel.
The album is available to pre-order from September 1st.
Harry’s Seagull Tour Dates
31/8 BRUGES, BE INFO
2/9 SJÆLLENDS ODDE, DK TICKETS
3/9 WINTERCOAT BREWERY, DK TICKETS
5/9 HELSINGOR, DK TICKETS
8/9 DE VRIJHEID, BE INFO
9/9 LANDMART, KORTRIJK, BE INFO
12/9 THE HOY FOLK CLUB TICKETS
18/9 THE BRIDGE FOLK CLUB TICKETS
19/9 THE LIGHTSHIP BLYTH TICKETS
20/9 REDBOURN FOLK TICKETS
21/9 LOUGHTON FOLK TICKETS
22/9 DEEPDALE FESTIVAL TICKETS
24/10 MARTA CAFE, BERN, CH INFO
27/10 CAHORS FOLK CLUB, FR TICKETS
29/10 LORD RAGLAN, LAUZUN, FR INFO
3/11 HADLEIGH FOLK, SUFFOLK TICKETS
6/11 ISLE OF WIGHT TICKETS
30/11 OCTAGON CHAPEL, NORWICH TICKETS
3/12 FOLKLORE ROOMS, BRIGHTON TICKETS
4/12 CROYDON FOLK CLUB TICKETS
5/12 GREEN NOTE, LONDON TICKETS
19/01 NORFOLK WILDLIFE TRUST TICKETS
21/01 FLEECE INN, BRETHERTON TICKETS
https://georgiashackleton.co.uk/