When writing for Folk Radio about her last album, Age of Apathy, Richard Hollingham said Aoife O’Donovan‘s songs are delivered in a way that “makes you want to give them time, give them attention”. The album went on to receive a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album.
If Age of Apathy was a ‘moving self-portrait’ (NPR), then O’Donovan’s upcoming solo album, ‘All My Friends‘ is an outward-looking super-wide vista taking in the past, present and future; inspired by the passing of the 19th amendment, and the evolving landscape of women’s rights in America over the past century.
Released through Yep Roc Records on March 22, ‘All My Friends’ will be O’Donovan’s first self-produced album, and draws on speeches and letters by the suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt, O’Donovan writing new, original songs infused with a modern perspective and her own experiences as a woman and mother. Comprised of 9 songs and featuring brass, orchestra, and an all-female choir, it “wrestles with questions of what has – and hasn’t – changed for American women in the 100 years since gaining the right to vote.”
Today’s announcement coincides with what would be Chapman Catt’s 165th birthday. The shared title track features The Westerlies, The Knights, and San Francisco Girls Chorus and memorialises the Tennessee summer of 1920 when voices for and against suffragism battled bitterly over the final state signatory needed to ratify the amendment. The lyric video was created by filmmakers Steph Jenkins and Brian Lee using found footage.
“The seeds of this song predate the entire project as a whole,” says O’Donovan of the lead single. “This song is about camaraderie, companionship, people united in common struggle against oppression. I imagine the women literally marching in Tennessee as the dawn lifted over the fields. I imagine the struggle of needing just one more state to ratify, and just how much weight that final vote held. I imagine the collective longing for the country of our birth to open her arms. The opening, featuring my voice in harmony with The Westerlies, sets the tone for the record. Slowly, the strings enter, enveloping the chorale in rich tones, and then when the band kicks in after that first verse, we hear the gorgeous aching sound of the San Francisco Girls Chorus.”
O’Donovan has also confirmed details of a headline show at London’s Barbican for June 18.
All My Friends Tracklisting
- All My Friends
- Crisis
- War Measure
- Someone to Follow
- The Right Time
- Daughters
- America, Come
- Over the Finish Line (feat. Anaïs Mitchell)
- The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
Among the tracks is a notable Bob Dylan cover: The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll, a song Dylan wrote soon after the terrible killing of the 51-year-old black barmaid, Hattie Carroll, in 1963. O’Donovan writes in her track-by-track commentary: This is a cover of the famous Bob Dylan ballad, based on the true story of a Black barmaid named Hattie Carroll, in Baltimore, MD, 1963. I think of this song as sort of a coda to the album, an epilogue of sorts. The stunning orchestration is by my friend Gabriel Kahane, and the arrangement was created for a performance I did with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2017, some months after Trump took office. I decided to include it in this collection of songs because I felt there was a tie in- there’s a parallel story there, injustice then, injustice now, and how we react to it. The starkness in the folk melody haunts me, and though the final phrase is ominous, it reminds me that there is an urgency we can’t ignore.
While the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, for African Americans, the full right to vote was much later, a battle that began much earlier alongside the women’s suffrage movement. I recently came across this video, presented by KD Hall, that looks at the history of Black Women in the Suffrage Movement – more information can be found here: https://women.ca.gov/women-of-color-and-the-fight-for-womens-suffrage/
Aoife O’Donovan 2024 Tour Dates
January 25, 2024 – Copenhagen, DK – Bremen Theatre *
January 26, 2024 – Glasgow, UK – Glasgow Royal Concert Hall ^
January 27, 2024 – Dublin, IE – National Stadium
February 10, 2024 – West Palm Beach – Kravis Center
March 24, 2024 – Knoxville, TN – Big Ears !
March 27, 2024 – Grand Ole Opry – Nashville, TN
March 30, 2024 – Denver, CO – Gates Concert Hall %
May 17, 2024 – Bentonville, AR – FreshGrass Bentonville
May 25, 2024 – Grass Valley, CA – Strawberry Music Festival %
June 18, 2024 – London, UK – Barbican Hall ~
* performing with the Danish String Quartet
^ performing with Scottish Chamber Orchestra
! performing with the Knoxville Chamber Orchestra
% performing with Hawktail
~ performing with Guildhall Session Orchestra and Music Centre London Session Choir
All My Friends is available for pre-order starting today (https://ffm.to/allmyfriendsalbum) on CD and multiple LP versions. The standard LP, available everywhere on March 22, is pressed on Violet color vinyl. The indie/D2C only version has alternate cover art and is pressed on Ochre color vinyl with an autographed insert. In addition, Magnolia Record Club has an exclusive version with standard cover art pressed on Green vinyl with an autographed insert.