Reviews
Artist:Jackie Oates Album: Gracious Wings
Label: Needle Pin
Tracks: 11
Website: https://www.jackieoates.co.uk
Hard to believe but this is Oates' eighth studio album, one that again underlines her skill at transforming traditional tunes as well as interpreting seemingly unlikely covers. Joined by Jon Wilks on guitar, double bassist John Parker, John Spiers on melodeons and multi-instrumentalist Mike Cosgrave, accompanied by Wilks, Richard Evans on mandolin and her own viola she kicks off with a lively 'When I Was A Fair Maid', a traditional variant on the female drummer narrative where a woman disguises herself as a man to serve in the army, winding up with a pension from both king and queen.
Self-penned and featuring Spiers, Parker and Evans with Megan Henwood on harmonies, 'Robin Tells Of Winter/Gracious Wings' is a delicate lockdown number about longing for the freeze to end inspired by Ruth Tongue's poem 'The Brown Broom Squire's Bird Song', the title coda a morris tune written for her partner to perform in a back garden one man morris Zoom event.
It's back to traditional territory for the jaunty accordion, bass and viola arranged 'Tammy Toddles', a Scottish children's song about the visitation of a faerie learnt from the singing of Lizzie Higgins, and then another original, a co-write and duet with Henwood on the waltzing 'La Llorona' which, in similar supernatural vein, is their telling of the vengeful cruel mother ghost in Mexican folklore, written for Amy Mason's one woman comedy show about first time pregnancy, here recast in strapped contemporary times and seeking sympathy for both protagonist and the murdered baby.
Again with Wilks on guitar, 'The Ship In Distress' is another familiar narrative, a traditional tune inspired by a 16th century Portuguese ballad and relating a ship caught drift with the crew resorting to cannibalism. Then comes the first of the covers, 'On And On' being a 1996 hit by the Longpigs, the Sheffield indie outfit founded by Crispin Hunt and Richard Hawley, here dramatically transformed into a slow, regret yearning, viola-laden traditional sounding ballad. And we're back in actual traditional pastures for 'Iruten Ari Nuzu', a Basque wool spinning song sung in the original as a duet with Spiers.
Fond memories of 70s children's TV are evoked with the sprightly and somewhat jazzy instrumental 'Roobarb and Custard', the first half being the theme of the show written by James O'Grady and the second written three decades later by Cosgrave to complement it. Another cover comes with an aching heart take on the Charlie Dore/Ricky Ross cowboy inspired co-write 'Looking For My Own Lone Ranger', giving way to the last traditional track, Spiers on melodeon and Anglo concertina for 'Lament To The Moon', another in the drowned lover tradition, possibly stemming from a 19th-century stage play and the version here collected in Gloucestershire by Alfred Williams with the music composed by J.W. Turner in 1847. And so it ends with another inspired cover, her five-minute reading of 'Time, Time, Time' from the classic Tom Waits album 'Rain Dogs', a song about various characters facing hardship, Oates having worked as a volunteer at an Oxford hospice where, as part of her Masters, she has been shadowing music psychotherapist Tom Crook (whose comment inspired the album title, taken from a harpy in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials who listens to the tales of the dead and depicted on the album covers) who also provides the backing vocals alongside Simon Emmerson of Imagined Village.
A sublime bittersweet collection, but ultimately suffused with hope and compassion and further evidence as to why Oates is regarded as among the greatest of our contemporary folk treasures. Mike Davies
Mike Davies
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The Fatea Showcase Sessions are a series of downloads featuring acts that we've really enjoyed and think that more people should get the chance to hear.
Pirate is the current session and features 16 fantastic artists check out the website to find out more about them and download your copy
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