For JohnnyC1959

'BLUE'

Johnny C, a fine photographer and fellow muso and blogger posted some shots of a few of his walks recently ( here  ) and they inspired his reflections on the colour blue and some references at the end of his post caused me to reflect myself on the colour . . . . . .so this is for him!

Johnny noted :
Other blues are available… 🙂

(i) Blue: (ii) Blue Remembered Hills: (iii) IKB 79: (iv) Kind Of Blue: (v) Sky Blue (something about football!)

Teasels… [Image © John Callaway 2020]

Go visit Johnny's wordpress page here Ideas & images from Portsmouth and beyond

so I thought I'd post a couple of blues of my own -

I met Derek Jarman at the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and he and his team filmed us upon his arrival to see and meet with the Deputy Director there, the wonderful Marco Livingstone, so it possible the archive of his films contains footage of yours truly! He was remarkable and super talented of course but I don't recall his visit resulting in a show but Marco would know better what happened there . . . . . . I watched Jarman's broadcast of a single still shot of the colour 'Blue' with his voice over and it seemed revolutionary to us all at the time. He is missed and the artworld is the poorer for his dying too early

I mentioned that Blue Remembered Hills as per Housman's famous lines from his 'A Shropshire Lad' drew me to think about the Dennis Potter play of that same name and a personal favourite with Helen Mirren, Janine Duvitski, Colin Welland and Michael Elphick with Colin Jeavons, John Bird and Robin Ellis cast as children and it evoked memories of my own childhood climbing trees and watching the world go by . . . . . . . my dad had moved his family down from Merseyside to the meadows of Oxfordshire in the early sixties when I was but a few years old and the countryside overwhelmed me with lots fascinating flora and fauna and spent an idyllic childhood playing in the meadow of Northern Oxford

Next . . . . . . 
Emily Barker (and her husband to be Lukas Drinkwater - here on bass) recorded this album 'Sweet Kind of Blue' dedicated to Sister Rosetta Tharpe and this is a great live version of a fine song . . . . .




one of my favourite Blues songs here by the master but written by JJ Cale (of course)


speaking of masters . . . . . . . . . Keb Mo




Can't have too many versions of this song . . . . . . . 


Bobby tells us about the blues . . . . . . 

it's all a bit random . . . . . . but enjoy . . . . . . 

. . . . .Blue Remembered Hills

UPDATE: and oddly by sheer coincidence Johnny posted this afternoon a set of pictures and notes on our shared connection to Oxford City as he and his other half came to do some genealogical research. 
Check his latest entry here:

More Emily Barker news . . . . . .

EMILY BARKER RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘RETURN ME’

by FRUK Staff 9 June, 2020

It was in 2017 that Emily Barker last graced us with a solo album. 'Sweet Kind Of Blue' had a defined Memphis sound, shaped by both Emily’s own great musical tastes and her choice of support: Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis, Grammy-award winning producer Matt Ross-Spang (Margo Price, Jason Isbell) alongside various members of Memphis ‘music royalty’ as her backing band. While she may not have been looking for any sort of affirmation, it most certainly came when she won UK Artist of the Year at the 2018 UK Americana Awards held at Hackney Empire in London.
Last week the news that she had signed to Thirty Tigers was accompanied by a new single ‘Return Me’, the first from a new album which we hope to have more details on soon. It’s a sweet number on which her band’s sensitive light touch adds to the acoustic warmth of the song adding shades of light to a stripped-back personal number. It has that laid-back country-soul feel which calls to mind long days of summer and here finds her yearning for home.
In recent times Emily has found herself gravitating back to themes that have haunted her lyrics since she first started writing songs. The climate crisis that dominated last year’s news brought burning questions back to the fore, and ‘Return Me’ marks her response – the yearning tug of home and family.
“I started to ask myself whether or not the path I am on is still the right one in light of the sombre and overwhelming revelation that our earth is very sick,” Emily said of the track. “Whether the journey is leading me where I want to go…whether it is time at last to return to my first home – a question that seems to have no answer, despite the number of songs I have dedicated to it.”

The accompanying artwork is by Ange Mullen-Bryan and features a detail of a larger painting that Ange made after listening to her new songs and making a painting in response to them.

 #art #oil painting #emilybarker #albumartwork#newrelease #details ##countrymusic#returnme #artistslife #commisionart#painting #nature #artistsonig #artists#albumcover #singlerelease

While it’s been a while, since her last album, Emily has hardly been static, only last year she released an album with Marry Waterson – ‘A Window to Other Ways’. They got together after meeting on a songwriting workshop by the hugely talented Kathryn Williams…you can read our interview with Marry Waterson about that collaboration here.

We’re looking forward to hearing the next chapter.

 Folk Radio

www.emilybarker.com

Photo Credit: Emilie Sandy

EMILY BARKER

New Single!

LIVE BROADCAST

Emily teased us earlier on Facebook about today not least saying she was going to do a broadcast from home produced by  PMT House of Rock and Thirty Tigers but that there was another mystery to be announced which turned out to be a new single which frankly is stupendous! It's called 'Return Me' Extraordinary after only two listenings it is haunting me. 





She performed this new single solo from home plus a few more (4) songs and a question and answer mini session at the end which yours truly only got two mentions in one of my reflecting on her album Sweet Kind of Blue being inspired by the legendary Sister Rosetta Tharpe where I recounted one of my favourite YouTube clips was the Manchester Gospel & Blues TV show from Chorley Railway station in 1964 where she played 'Didn't It Rain' so no excuse not to play it again (see below) and then another proper question where I had been thinking about one of her songs 'Over My Shoulder' and had wondered whether it was autobiographical at all, so I asked her and she answered straight back in the Q&A almost first! 



For anyone who doesn't know . . . . . where've ya bin!? I have been singing her praises since the theme to Wallander . . . . . . . .!
Facebook say

This Friday (June 5th) at 7PM, PMT are excited to host the incredible Emily Barker live right here on Facebook!
Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the BBC's hugely successful crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae and Applewood Road (with whom she released a remarkable album of original songs recorded live around a single microphone, dubbed “flawless” by The Sunday Times) and has written for film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.
As a performer, Barker is captivating and accomplished, with an adept understanding of audiences that finds her equally at home touring with punk troubadour Frank Turner as she is with American multi-Grammy-winning musician Mary Chapin Carpenter.
Emily Barker’s 2017 album Sweet Kind of Blue was recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis with Grammy winning producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and an all-star cast of Memphis session players. The success of the album, with its seamless mix of soul, blues, country and folk influences, and the globe-trotting tours to support it helped land Emily the accolade of UK Artist of the Year at the recent UK Americana Awards held at Hackney Empire in London.
Website: https://www.emilybarker.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmilyBarkerHalo/Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/25uHIpsCWoj8wEHFOEhbuV?si=mD5T6ni5QOaq6KEqEOvZgA

Inspiration: Sister songs two tracks here and favourites of course, classics too 'Didn't It Rain' and 'Trouble In Mind' 

EMILY BARKER 

Emily Barker

19 May at 19:30 · 

Hello everyone, 

This Saturday 23rd May at 8pm BST, I'm going to premiere a very special concert that happened at Levitt Shell in Memphis in 2017 with all the incredible musicians who were a part of the making of 'Sweet Kind of Blue'.

I'll be watching with you to chat live and answer any questions. 

Hope you can make it!
Emily 
❤️

TODAY AT 20:00

Emily Barker at Levitt Shell, Memphis TN - livestream full show

Online event

You like Emily Barker

Please join me for this livestream of my 2017 show at Levitt Shell in Memphis. TN

                                                                      Copyright © 2020 Emily Barker, All rights reserved.

This is one show I’ll always remember. Memphis, Tennessee – October 15, 2017. I had been invited to play one of Levitt Shell’s annual Orion series of shows and had jumped at the opportunity to perform the whole of Sweet Kind of Blue with the amazing musicians who recorded the album with me at Sam Phillips Recording Service. I’d asked them if they might be free that night and the answer from all was a resounding yes!

I arrived in Memphis on a warm, sunny October morning, ready for two days of rehearsals. Matt (Ross-Spang, producer of the album) had arranged for us to rehearse at the studio – it felt so good to be back in that room with a group of musicians who had become close friends over the course of two weeks the previous summer.

On the Saturday of the show the weather turned. The temperature dropped dramatically and there was a persistent fine drizzle that settled in and continued for the whole day. The crowd, understandably, was smaller than it might have been on a warmer evening, but nothing could dampen our spirits as the eighty minute set seemed to race by.

I’m so glad we had decided to have the show filmed – a permanent reminder of a very special chapter in my musical life. Memphis, I miss you – and I hope to be able to visit you again soon!

Emily x

Livestream

Well that was superb what a fantastic live stream and to be joined by Emily alongside with chats was a rare added bonus. Great band. If you missed it and still want to catch up you can now watch here on YouTube

Emily Barker Live Concert Levitt Shell Memphis USA 2017

Emily Barker here