“And then there were none.” Three days ago we dropped our youngest off at the train station in Penzance for his return to the University of Essex — which makes us empty nesters once again, said child’s older brother having headed back up to the University of Durham a week earlier. It’s been lovely having them both home over the Christmas holidays, and I’m so grateful that they’ve been able to grow up in this beautiful part of the world; they were 2 and 4 years old, respectively, when we moved to Cornwall, and they’re 18 and 20 now. Here are a few of my favourite photos from the walks we’ve taken together over the past few weeks — see my Instagram page for lots more:
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I’d had a solo train journey of my own at the start of this new year, travelling up to North Cornwall to do some recording with my wonderful manager and sound engineer Martin Stansbury and the equally wonderful Roger Luxton (who played drums and percussion on my album If We Dig Any Deeper It Could Get Dangerous) of Goatboy Studio.
Martin is mixing and mastering a forthcoming new album by the every bit as wonderful Ohio-based singer-songwriter Steve Madewell, whom I’d met way back in 2010 when he was my support act at a gig in Pittsburgh on one of my first US tours – since then we’ve become great friends; he and his wife Mary Jo (yeah, you guessed it, she’s wonderful too!) have hosted myself and Martin many times at their beautiful home, and I was delighted to get the chance to reciprocate when they visited me in Cornwall a few years ago.
Anyway, as I was about to say before I got sidetracked, Martin had asked both me and Roger to add a few finishing touches to Steve’s album, so I took advantage of the occasion to get Roger to have a little jam with me on one of two live tracks I recorded for Tom Brosseau’s The Great American Folk Show on Prairie Public Radio — so nice to be invited back to guest on the show for the second time! The two tracks, plus a bit of nattering from me, will be broadcast this coming Saturday at 5pm Central time — click here to listen live or here to catch up on the podcast afterwards.
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In other news, I’m deeply honoured to be part of 80 Plays For Bert, Volume 1, a fantastic compilation album released on December 20th and now available to purchase for download via Bandcamp, curated by Sam Grassie for the Bert Jansch FoundationAround The World in 80 Plays project. Huge thanks to Sam and to the Foundation’s Geraldine Auerbach for all their kindness and support, as well as to the aforementioned Martin who recorded my contribution (“When A Man’s In Love”) live in St Buryan Church. Other artists featured on the album include Sam, Dariush Kanani, Charlie McKeon, Robin Adams, John Chandler, Avocet, Ben Walker, Campbell Baum, Naima Bock, Avice Caro, Johnson Hogg and Mike Walker. Check it out here:
https://bertjanschfoundation1.bandcamp.com/album/80-plays-for-bert-volume-1
And here’s a screenshot of (and link to) my page on the project website, where you can watch the original video Martin and I made for it:
Meanwhile I’m rehearsing like crazy for a short run of UK gigs starting this Friday with a hometown show at the Acorn here in Penzance! I’m also still in the process of booking gigs for the rest of this year in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and USA as well as UK — if you’d like to get notifications about shows near you, the best way to do that is to follow me on Bandsintown. Also please do let me know if there are any venues, community halls, churches or house concert presenters that you’d recommend I contact.
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Hope to see you down the road! Thank you so much for your support.
All the best,
Sarah