Norwich singer, songwriter and fiddler of note, Georgia Shackleton, celebrates the music and musicians of East Anglia on Harry’s Seagull – her debut solo album.

Release Date:  30^th November 2023

Label: Self Release

Formats: CD, Vinyl, Digital

If you happen to be one of those fortunate souls able to satisfy your musical appetite in the thriving East Anglian folk scene, then Georgia Shackleton will, without doubt, be a familiar name to you.  A highly accomplished fiddler (she also plays tenor guitar and drones), with a singing voice as fresh as an autumn breeze, she’s been performing for a number of years now, either as a solo act or as part of The Shackleton Trio, alongside guitarist Aaren Bennett and mandolinist/ banjoist Nic Zuppardi.

Norwich-based Georgia has already released a string of albums with the trio – most recently the acclaimed Mousehold (2022) – and now, at long last, she’s gotten around to recording her debut solo album.  She’s called it Harry’s Seagull (I’ll tell you why shortly) – and it’s a cracker.

Georgia is a songwriter of no mean ability, but, for the purpose of Harry’s Seagull, she’s put that talent (almost) to one side in order to celebrate the East Anglian collectors and singers who unearthed much of the music that has influenced over the years.  Collectors and singers like Harry Cox, Phoebe Smith and Walter Pardon.  Indeed, via its title, the album is dedicated particularly to the great Harry Cox, the fisherman’s son from Barton Turf, near Great Yarmouth, who became one of the greatest figures of the English folk revival.  Cox once rescued a wounded seagull and adopted it as a pet; Georgia’s composed a tune in recognition of that act of kindness; it’s included here and it gives this endearing album a wholly appropriate name.

Georgia is a very busy lady, by the way.  Alongside her solo and trio performing and recording activities, she’s also undertaking a spot of compositional work for The Arts Council of England, working as Composer and Musical Director for the Aldeburgh-based High Tide Theatre, touring with our friends Christina Alden and Alex Patterson as part of Kiteway and, in what little spare time she has left, providing 1:1 violin and voice tuition at various school and festival workshops.  It’s no wonder that we’ve had to wait so long for Harry’s Seagull!

But it’s here now, and the wait has certainly been worthwhile.

Harry’s Seagull is co-produced by Georgia and her trio bandmate Aaren Bennett and they’ve wisely opted for a low-key sound.  Georgia accompanies herself on her range of instruments without outside enhancement or interference, and the result is a sound that can easily believed to be taken from a live folk club performance, and it’s as warm and welcoming as that setting suggests.

The album kicks off with Twenty Eighteen, a song that many listeners will remember from their schooldays.  The song (a tale of rejection) was collected by the folklorist Lucy Broadwood and Georgia came across this particular version in Attleborough, Norfolk.  It’s a bright, crisp album opener, which Georgia sings with a bright, crisp voice.  Georgia learned the traditional Come, Little Leaves from a 1983 Walter Pardon recording and, with her fiddle/ harmonium arrangement, she’s made it her own.  Her fiddling is light and flighty, her voice is fresh and clear, and she’s produced the perfect song for a bright November day.

The benefits of the album’s pared-back production are particularly evident on Rambling Robin, a broadsheet ballad set to music in this form by Peter Bellamy.  It’s a jig, and Georgia manages to convey that message very strongly purely by her vocal delivery, whilst keeping the rhythm with some impressively quick fingerplucking on her violin. 

Next, it’s back to Harry Cox.  The song, What Will Become of England, was collected by Alan Lomax in 1953 and recorded by Cox in 1965, yet the song’s opening lines: “What will become of England if things go on this way?  There’s many a-thousand working men is starving day-by-day” could, very conceivably (and very sadly) have been written yesterday.  Plus ça change…  By this stage, we’ve got used to Georgia’s crystal-clear vocal delivery, and she follows that with some glorious fiddling for Yarmouth Hornpipe and her own composition, the album-naming Harry’s Seagull.  This is music that I could listen to all day long!

The status of Harry’s Seagull as a bona-fide classic folk album is cemented by the inclusion of an obligatory Jilted lady left holding the baby song and, from the singing of Jasper Smith (Phoebe’s brother), Small Birds Whistle fits that bill admirably.  The harmonium accompaniment is, I suppose, suitably sombre, but there’s a joy to Georgia’s vocal delivery that thoroughly belies the song’s tragic ending.  And, sticking with the subject of jilted lovers, Georgia’s interpretation of the well-known, The Blacksmith, is awesome.  She learned this particular version from Phoebe Smith and she’s dressed the familiar tune in all the fiddle and drone it needs.  Shirley Collins (no less..) once hailed The Blacksmith as “…one of the greatest love songs in the English tradition.”  It certainly is, and here, Georgia gives it a whole new dimension; I can easily picture her spellbinding a folk club audience with THIS one!

The East Anglian step-dances, Watson’s Hornpipe/ Swanton Abbot Hornpipe give Georgia all the opportunity and excuses she needs to show us what she can do with a pair of fiddles – and it’s divine – before we return, once more, to the singing of Harry Cox.  As a child, Harry would accompany his father – much in demand as a singer and dancer – around the local pubs, where his father would entertain the customers with his vast repertoire of traditional songs.  It’s said that Harry learned well over 200 songs from his father on these trips, and Yarmouth Fisherman’s Song is just one of those.  Georgia’s strummed guitar evokes the choppy seascape, whilst her voice adds the requisite drama to this story of a fishing expedition that could quite easily have, but didn’t quite, come to grief – it’s a fitting last tribute to Harry Cox, whose spirit pervades this album, from near-beginning to almost-end.

And, to sign off, Georgia has chosen East Anglian fishing song, Windy Old Weather.  Otherwise known as Up Jumped the Herring or Happisburgh Light Song, it’s a song that’s popular with the local fishing community and, once again, Georgia steps right up to the mark.  The lyrics tell of how various fish – herrings, sprats – even crabs – leap from the sea to taunt the frustrated trawler skipper who is unable to catch them and, as is the case throughout Harry’s Seagull, Georgia’s delivery is enchanting.

Harry’s Seagull:  Images of East Anglia, some wonderful songs, lots of brevity.  All packaged up in a bright, breezy manner, with lots of fantastic fiddling and one of the most endearing voices around: What’s not to like??

Watch the official video to Windy Old Weather – the album’s closing track – here:

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