Rebekah Findlay
Album: Improvising Around The Sun
Label: Ted
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.rebekahfindlay.co.uk

I don't believe in that idea that you have to come from an area to be able to do the folk songs of an area, good songs are good songs and they deserve to be heard no matter what. I do believe that geography is important when it comes to writing the songs. Case in point there's two songs on Rebekah Findlay's new album "Improvising Around The Sun" that can only come from someone that is imbued with the essence of an area.

Rebekah wasn't born when Gray's Shipyard in Hartlepool closed down, but in "Grays Lament" you can feel the impact it's had on her, not just because of the family connections, but because she's aware of how that event changed the town forever and that the ripples of which do extend into her life time.

Similarly with "Billy's Song" it captures the essence because there is a real connection. Other's could perform the song exceptionally well, but it's what goes into the song that gives it it's sense of geography and it's associations like that and the ability to turn them into songs that will become part of the canon of North East storytelling that helps set her writing apart. Well that and the ability to see and interpret something so many others may have missed in someone else's song.

I'm absolutely convinced that when John Farrar penned "You're The One That I Want" for the climatic ending of Grease, that he never imagined it being performed as a folk song. And whilst I can imagine the shocked look on his face when he discovers a sudden increase in royalties, I guess that's nothing to the look that will appear on his face if he gets to hear the beautiful reinterpretation of his song on "Improvising Around The Sun".

The album comes across with a sense of false simplicity, voice, fiddle, guitar, hand percussion, in the main, but it weaves a complex web of lives and feelings and places. Importantly thought Rebekah Findley is far more than a songwriter's songwriter, she has a real affiliation for the people that make her albums fit into their lives.

"Improvising Around The Sun" is an album that will keep on giving because there's so much you can ask of it and there's not a lot more required than that.

Neil King