FEATURE:
Spotlight
the Birmingham-based singer-songwriter, Katherine Priddy, as her debut album, The Eternal Rocks Beneath, is one of the most beautiful and impressive of the year. Drawing comparisons to Nick Drake and John Martyn, her music has this warmth and intoxicating spirit that lodges in the heart and lingers in the mind. As I do in these features, I am going to bring a couple of interviews in. I will finish with a great review of Priddy’s fantastic debut album, The Eternal Rock Beneath (one which beautifully spin on the mythological). In an interview with Belles & Gals, we find out more about Katherine Priddy’s musical tastes growing up, in addition to what life in lockdown was like earlier in the pandemic:
“When did you first become interested in music, and who were your musical influences growing up?
I have always enjoyed listening to music and grew up in a household where music was often on the stereo, though it took me a long time to realise I could actually make it myself and even longer to realise I could become an actual musician. My parents listened to a really eclectic mix of music, from Irish folk music like Planxty and Christy Moore, through to English folk artists such as Nick Drake and John Martyn, then a whole heap of strange progressive rock and metal to boot. I think the common thread throughout the music I enjoyed most as a child was the storytelling aspect – I have always focused in on the lyrics when I listen to songs. I think its important to listen to a wide variety of music in order to really feed your creativity.
Could you tell us a bit about your journey as a musician so far?
As I said, I’ve always enjoyed listening to music and was in the school choir and school orchestra as a child, but it was in my pre-teens that I began teaching myself guitar and first started trying to write my own songs. My school encouraged me to enter The Next Brit Thing competition, despite the horror I felt at singing in front of people, and I ended up getting to the finals in the 02 arena – that was my first gig outside of my village. After that, I started supporting artists such as Vashti Bunyan, Scott Matthews and John Smith, before heading off to University to focus on studying English. It wasn’t until I finished my studies that I began to take my music really seriously and headed into the studio for the first time to release my debut EP ‘Wolf.’ The release went so much better than I could have hoped for, and things have been growing since then really in terms of gigs and festival performances. I am now very excited to be releasing my debut album, after 2 years of recording and waiting, and feel very ready to take on this next chapter.
What has life been like in lockdown? What opportunities and challenges have you faced as a musician in particular?
It has definitely been difficult, though there have been some really positive and hopeful moments that have shone through for me. I was actually hoping to release this record last year, but I chose not to put it out at the start of the pandemic as that wasn’t how I wanted to remember my debut album release and I wanted to feel like I had given it the best chance possible.
The waiting was hard, and losing a year’s worth of gig bookings and carefully laid plans was heartbreaking, but I made the decision to focus on building my online audience through a series of live streams, online festival performances and collaborations with other musicians. Despite shielding my Dad and being in total lockdown, I was able to perform as part of Philadelphia Folk Festival Online, which is not something that would have come about otherwise, and my Nick Drake collaboration with Jon Wilks, Lukas Drinkwater and Jon Nice was played on BBC Radio 2. I was also totally blown away by the outpouring of support from those who follow my music – it made a huge difference to my morale. It doesn’t look as though we’re quite out of the woods yet, but I’m really hoping for the return of some live music this summer. Live performance is my favourite part of this job and it seems there’s still an appetite for it!
Finally, if you could pick one female Folk/Americana/Country music artist to write a song with, who would it be and why?
Ahhhh you’ve saved the hardest question ‘til last! I think if I had to chose, it would be Joan Baez. I grew up listening to her music and her lyrics and songwriting are just beautiful. It would be a dream come true to write and sing a duet with a voice that has been such a constant in my life”.
I have been listening to Katherine Priddy’s music for a little while now, and it always sends me somewhere otherworldly. It has been played on stations like BBC Radio 6 Music. She has such a gorgeous voice and lyrics that are transformative and almost spiritual. Folk Radio chatted with Priddy in the summer. She discussed her songwriting process:
“Have you forgotten what we were like then / when we were still first rate / and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth” whispers Katherine Priddy over the opening crossfire of Eurydice. Deliberate like Joan Shelley, yet with the fluid weave of Brigid Mae Powers; the only thing more haunting than the Birmingham based songwriter’s crystalline voice is her lyrics. However, in this instance we find Katherine quoting Animals by Frank O’Hara. It would seem the New York poet’s allusions to heady yesterdays are not too far removed from Priddy’s own meditations on time and love though. Her stunning debut The Eternal Rocks Beneath (reviewed here) is a haze of nostalgia, cast in the shifting light of passing seasons. As the world around us continues to change at an alarming rate, we caught up with the rising talent to discuss the finer details of her songcraft, how she’s withstood the recent highs and lows, and why she should never be left alone with your mum’s finest china.
“When I listen to music, I hear the words first and foremost, before the melody,” Priddy begins. Perhaps we should expect as much from an English Literature graduate, but still, it’s compelling to hear how her creative process hangs on this love of language. She offers one of the most valuable insights into her thoughts around songwriting when discussing O’Hara’s book Lunch Poems: “I like the way he uses names, places and moments, and never explains them. So, you feel like you’re either looking at him through a window or walking behind him down the street for five minutes, capturing fragments of conversation. There’s something about that almost voyeuristic style that I really like. I think that’s what songs should be like, just a brief little insight into something. It doesn’t all have to be explained.”
Although she has a trad repertoire, Priddy’s been wholly embraced by the folk scene on the grounds of the remarkable strength of her originals. “I don’t necessarily sing traditional folk, but what I really like is how it’s often used to tell stories. It became a voice for either passing on a tale or a moral teaching and I think that has influenced the way I write” she says. Adopting this time-honoured form of storytelling, Priddy then applies some of the introspection songwriters like Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell are famed for. “[Drake] was a very important artist for me when I was younger. His lyrics are so heartfelt. I saw something the other day about how his songs are seen as very autobiographical, but I think he was often the observer, the shy man in the corner. His songs tell other people’s stories, just as much as they tell his own.” Of the latter, she says, “Joni paints incredible characters and moments that I find totally captivating. Cactus Tree (from Song to a Seagull) is one of my favourite songs. I just want to know the woman that the song’s about.”
Pressing Katherine further about writers that may have informed her debut, she reveals lines from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer are penned in her lyrics notebook. When I ask whether these novels might in some way be tied in with the transient elements of childhood she mentioned in her Indigo blog, she responds, “Possibly. A lot of the songs on the album have little images and moments that will mean something to me, but might be lost on someone else, but that’s the joy of writing music. For me, it’s always for myself, as well as for the audience. The blackbird for example, that starts and finishes the album, is the most evocative sound of childhood for me as it was always the last thing I’d hear before I went to bed in the summer and the first thing I’d hear when I woke up. Whenever I hear blackbirds on warm evenings, I am immediately transported back to my childhood bedroom (and my Hedwig pyjamas).”
It then comes as something of a surprise to learn Ring O’Roses, the record’s moodiest moment, is one of Priddy’s earliest songs; “It’s perhaps the oldest song on the album. Again, perhaps it ties into my love of mythology, fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There’s a real dark history to a lot of the stories and rhymes you learn as a child, even though you’re often not made aware of it at the time. Anyway, I just wanted to use something ever so slightly familiar and comfortable and take it out of context to make it a bit unsettling. Melody wise, I learnt guitar on my Dad’s guitar and one day I picked it up and he had it tuned down to DADGAD, so I started messing about and the Ring O’Roses melody came out.”
Priddy started performing in her late teens, playing support slots and the odd headline show, before moving to Brighton for university. “Again, I did quite a few gigs whilst I was there,” she recounts, “I supported Martin Carthy & Dave Swabrick, that was a really lovely gig. In fact, I actually choked onstage, mid-song and had to stop; you know when it’s not just a tickle, it’s a full-on choke. Then when Carthy & Swabrick went up, Dave did this really big dramatic fake cough and said ‘I think there must be something in the air up here tonight’ and gave me a little wink. So, that was very sweet of him.” There have been plenty of brushes with folk’s finest since, having opened for the likes of Vashti Bunyan, John Smith, The Chieftains and Richard Thompson, her time on tour with the latter being a real standout.
“The entire experience was amazing but one of the main things that stood out to me was how supportive the Irish audiences were. I mean I see music as a valid career, but you’re not always made to feel as though it is. But gigs in Galway and Cork, the audiences out there, they’re just so into live music. I’ve never fed off a crowd as I did on that tour.
The queues for merch afterwards and the people who wanted to tell you who’s Aunty lives here, and where you can stay if you ever play a gig here. I was given money to go and get Fish & Chips after a gig! I absolutely loved touring Ireland and the fact that I was with Richard Thompson made it a hundred times more exciting.”
I’m sure much like many artists out there, Priddy’s keen to move the narrative away from the pandemic and these past fifteen months. However, distressing as it was, it did seem to reinforce the importance of artistic expression and community.
“When it all kind of went wrong and the diary was emptied it was obviously pretty devastating. I did a lot of head-in-hands, banana bread baking and gardening, all those things that people were doing. With the collaborations though it was a really unique opportunity where we were all suddenly sat at home, because normally artists have projects constantly on the go or they’re touring. You only see each other once or twice a year at festivals. So, it was really nice to see the music community pulling together and people working with each other in a way that we might not have been able to do otherwise”.
Go and follow the magnificent Katherine Priddy. She is a sensational and hugely talented artist that we all need to know more about. The Eternal Rocks Beneath is one of this year’s best albums. The Arts Desk provided their take on Priddy’s unforgettable debut album:
“The folk world is slowly coming out of its long pandemic slumber, with Sidmouth’s month-long festival starting in the midst of Storm Evert’s high-summer arrival, and tours from the likes of fiddler extraordinaire Sam Sweeney, Eliza Carthy, and acclaimed newcomer, singer, songwriter and finger-picking guitarist Katherine Priddy, whose debut album is one of the most striking in British folk for some time.
The folk genre remains in good health, despite crippling lockdowns and the touring impact of Brexit on artists whose incomes tend to rely as much on gigging among our European neighbours as around the UK. Some of Priddy’s perfectly turned, articulate and emotive songs first appeared in 2018, on her Wolf EP, which came garlanded with fulsome praise from one Richard Thompson. She’s since played the stages of Cambridge, Towersey, Shambala and Underneath the Stars, released a Valentine’s single, and supported Thompson himself on a tour of Ireland. After her debut at Cambridge, she won the Christian Raphael Award for developing artists, granting her financial support and advice for the next 12 months.
She’s obviously used that advice and support to its maximum advantage, because The Eternal Rocks Beneath ("rocks" here is a verb) is a striking, and strikingly beautiful set of powerful and vivid songs, performed with an assurance and maturity that is all the more remarkable given that some of them, such as opener “Indigo”, were written when the 25-year-old was still a teenager. It’s an unshadowed childhood pastoral, her fine, clear and resonant voice and adept musical setting steering it into a lush lyricism that reduces the distances between childhood and adulthood so that they are not so wide as to be insurmountable.
Two songs from the Wolf EP are also included here, the title song’s probing lyric addressing the figure of the wolf’s dark allure, at once repellent and compelling. It’s vivid, concise and revealing. You can see why Thompson admired this song so much. "Ring A Roses", with its ominous, drone-like opening, is one of the darker highlights, the deadly old nursery rhyme exhaled in layered vocals, as Priddy expands on the terror of the Black Death to create a taste of lingering folk horror. When it was first recorded, COVID-19 wasn’t even a glint in the microscopic eye of the coming storm.
Elsewhere, with “The Spring Never Came”, emotional leave-takings and the metaphors of the turning seasons coalesce into reflections on separation and heartbreak, studded with images that don’t fade: “Your whispers come creeping, from my dreams they drip down my spine” – while musically it moves from spare fingerpicking to string section to a sort of chanson, fuelled by flares of accordion and driven by brush drums.
"Letters from a Travelling Man", the album’s single, is a brilliant character song, complete with great pop hooks and a lean Americana setting, while at the heart of the record there are imagistic songs about the Greek myth of Icarus, that eternal over-reacher, and Eurydice, each rising from intimate, breathy vocals to big choruses and an epic, big-ballad reach as Priddy reaches, finds and brings out – here and across the album – the compelling stories within”.
One of this country’s most noteworthy and fine singer-songwriters, I wonder what comes next in 2022. If you get to see Katherine Priddy perform live, then make sure that you do (check out her website for details). This wonderful songwriter is…
A name to watch closely.
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