Music
You can’t have a Carolina barbecue without live music
Music has always been a key part of Southern culture, evolving initially from the Scotch-Irish music that arrived with the first settlers but then becoming immeasurably enriched by African American music. The combination of the two strands has given us everything from Bluegrass to Honky-Tonk, from Appalachian folk music to the Blues (see the bottom of the page for some background to this music). These genres owe much to the hardships experienced by Southerners: early settlers, African slaves, the deep poverty that followed the American Civil War, and the hard experience of segregation until the late 60s. As with Southern cuisine, poverty and hardship had some beautiful results.
In the days before television and the Internet, many Southern families would entertain themselves by gathering with the neighbours on their front porches in the summer to play and sing. That’s why so many of the old standards are about the hardships they faced or the ups and downs of romance. But because their music was about their real experiences, it came to characterize Southern regionalism as much as their diet and accents. Like almost all folk music, too, it kept alive local memories.
Last year, we enjoyed the performances of Hatful of Rain and Lighthouse Fire, who brought us a blend of original and well-known American folk music. This year, we’ll welcome the band FiddleBop and the singer songwriter Sarah Birch, who together will give us a mixture of Gypsy Jazz and Folk music.
FiddleBop has just reformed in a new Welsh version following the move of some of its members to Wales. The previous Oxfordshire-based incarnation of FiddleBop was a very successful hard-gigging gypsy jazz band. Gigs included:
- London’s Le QuecumBar (“The World’s Premier Django Reinhardt Gypsy Swing Venue”)
- Upton Jazz Festival
- For Oxford University
- Regular Oxford Jazz Kitchen gigs at The Rose and Crown, Oxford
- Sunday Jazz at The Nag’s Head On The Thames, Abingdon.
as well as many other live shows, of all kinds, and with the occasional guest musician. On stages large and small, on haywagons, in street markets, at festivals, in sunshine and (thankfully not often) in rain. In marquees and in gardens, at stately homes and universities, in pubs and in breweries and even in a distillery.
Sarah Birch is a singer songwriter residing in Swansea. Best known for writing and performing for festival favourites Lost Tuesday Society, Sarah has embarked on a solo project having just written and recorded her debut solo album “The Ballad of Peter and Jane”
Sarah’s record has been described as “well crafted, expertly played, the production atmospherically shimmering and the whole thing rather mesmerising”
Produced by Dave Milsom and released through Death Monkey Records “Sarah’s alt folk songwriting manages to combine enough contemporary nous with a respect for the more traditional folk forms.”
The album is available to download from all the usual places as well as cd and vinyl available from Derricks Records Swansea, Death Monkey Records and http://www.sarahbirch.co.uk
Weather permitting (and the one thing we can’t guarantee is Carolina weather in Wales!), we’ll be able to sit, stand or dance amidst the lovely grounds of the Cathedral Close at Brecon Cathedral and enjoy their performance.
So, come along and enjoy the day!
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Weekly Podcast
- Episode 14 - Inhabiting Paradoxes May 8, 2020In the final episode of Paradoxes in an Ancient Landscape, Mark considers what it means to inhabit paradoxes. Introducing the Welsh ideas of hiraeth (longing) and tangnefedd (peace), he identifies living within the paradoxes of our faith with the Sabbath rest where our hearts can settle and we discover our true home. --- Send in a voice message: https://podc […]
- Episode 13 - A Nuptial Faith May 6, 2020The paradoxes encountered on Cadair Idris offer a timely lesson about a central feature of the Christian faith: that God created seemingly opposing things--heaven and earth, sun and moon, land and water, man and woman--to share in a kind of nuptial unity. Paradoxes compel us to understanding difference in terms not of opposition but of marriage joined togeth […]
- Episode 12 - The Eucharist May 1, 2020As Mark returns home from Cadair Idris, he considers how all the wonders he had seen consisted of the most commonplace materials: water, earth, air, and fire. Natural wonders always consist of ordinary things and costs the earth nothing, unlike our own attempts a creating marvels. This episode concludes with a reflection on the Eucharist in which the wonder […]
- Episode 11 - The Commonplace April 29, 2020As Mark heads down Cadair Idris and back to civilization, he reflects on the ordinary and the commonplace. Despite our thirst for wonders and extraordinary experiences, it's actually in the everyday and commonplace that we grow and flourish. Christ's own life as an ordinary craftsman teaches us to be content with our commonplace lives and to embrac […]
- Episode 10 - Wonder April 24, 2020Mark finally makes it to the summit of Cadair Idris and takes in the amazing views all around them. Reflecting on the nature of wonder, he argues that our world needs to rediscover a "sense of wonder" in order to escape loneliness and our incessant need to tinker with creation. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ma […]
- Episode 9 - Baptism April 22, 2020Mark uses the Norman font at Brecon Cathedral to discuss how the paradox of silence and words are resolved in baptism and how they have been related to the Incarnation of Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 8 - Words April 17, 2020Cadair Idris is a mountain of myths and legends: the chair of the giant Idris Gawr and the hunting grounds of Gwyn ap Nudd's hounds. Mark considers how words inscribed into landscapes become explosive, shaping us in fundamental ways. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 7 – Silence April 15, 2020What’s more silent than a mountain on a still night? Mark ponders the silence he experienced as he sat by his tent in Cwm Cau on Cadair Idris and what it tells us about our own inner silence and the silence we know as God. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 6 - The Incarnation April 10, 2020Reflecting on the juxtaposition of thick-history situated within changeless landscapes, Mark discusses what the paradox of eternity and time tell us about Jesus Christ. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
- Episode 5 - History April 8, 2020Mark recounts his walk from the Dysynni Valley where the layers of history stretching back to the Bronze Age hold important lessons about place, thick-time, and our care for the earth. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mark-clavier/message
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