Singer-songwriter Dan Whitehouse was featured in a couple of recent end-of-year lists on Folk Radio; his Ten Steps collaboration with Max ZT was among my favourite Top 100 albums of the year, while his Reflections on the Glass Age (Acoustic) was featured in Mike Davies’ personal Top 10 Albums of the Year. Dan recently headed to Real World Studios as part of a live session to promote his 2024 touring A Night Of Glass, a night of song and storytelling, bringing together his glass-related albums plus some older favourites.
Taken from his 2022 album Voices From The Cones, watch him performing Picking Up Sticks, a fascinating song which you can read more about below.
Dan says: “As part of ‘Voices From The Cones’ John Edgar and I interviewed former glass workers in Stourbridge. The craft of glass making was a skill that took dedication and patience to acquire. When they were deemed ready, young apprentices were encouraged to go out to the canal bank and pick a stick – this would become their instrument for glass making – personal and unique to them –
‘Picking Up Sticks’ springs from the tradition of young apprentices being sent to the canal bank to pick a stick – much like in Harry Potter when a young wizard is sent to Olivanders, the wand shop, and it’s said the wand will choose its owner – elder glass makers would say: “you’ll know it when you see it”.
They’d keep this single stick for their whole career creating all kinds of beautiful engraved glass – they’d develop a relationship with it, and what started out as a stick over time would become something they would refer to only as their wand…”
‘A Night Of Glass’ is a live show bringing together Dan Whitehouse’s three recent glass-centred albums: Voices From The Cones, The Glass Age and Reflections On The Glass Age, alongside favourites from Dan’s back catalogue.
Accompanying himself on piano and guitar, Dan dives into songs and stories from Stourbridge’s glass-making industry alongside how the glass of the screens we use every day has changed our lives. Glass – such an artificial subject matter – is breathed sensationally into life via Dan’s sonorous Bowie-esque tenor, each tune interspersed with narrative leavened by his Black Country delivery.
More here: https://www.dan-whitehouse.com