Fascinating yarns and vibrant tunes – The Shackleton Trio prepare to celebrate their 10th anniversary in style.
Release Date: 6th September 2024
Label: Self Release
Formats: CD / Vinyl / Digital
Hailing from the vast, open tracts of East Anglia, The Shackleton Trio are: Georgia Shackleton (fiddle and vocals), Aaren Bennett (guitar) and Nic Zuppardi (mandolin and banjo). The trio have a string of live and studio albums to their name, a sequence that started in 2016 with their debut, The Dog Who Would Not Be Washed and featured, most recently, their acclaimed 2022 offering, Mousehold. Next year, The Shackleton Trio celebrates its 10th Anniversary and, to kick off the celebrations that will mark that momentous milestone, the trio have released a self-titled album that includes a bunch of re-recordings of their finest moments, together with a sneak-preview of material that they’re intending to include on their next full-length album, planned for release in 2025.
TUNES AND STORIES
The Shackleton Trio peddle a good line in storytelling. Their back catalogue is peppered with songs that tell fascinating, often poignant, tales in a charming, engaging way that, over the years, has become their trademark, and the three band members are each possessed of an imagination that enables them to add the most vibrant, vivid musical colours to their stories. They also specialize in knocking out irresistible sets of tunes that take traditional influences and wind them into something that is original, masterful and breathtaking. This celebratory album is a heady mix of all of that.
Opening track, The Shackleton Trio’s version Bows Of London, first featured as part of Karl Sinfield’s Sing Yonder project in 2023. It’s a well-known traditional song that’s been covered by everyone from Martin Carthy onwards. The song tells the sinister story of a woman who murders her sister, in order to make a violin from her body parts, only for the fiddle to speak up and reveal her as the murderer. The drone and the discretely plucked strings that provide the main accompaniment to The Shackletons’ version are sufficiently discrete to allow the listener to concentrate on Georgia’s storytelling, whilst the short bursts of the band in full-flow hint at the pleasures to come.
DOGS AND WONDERDOGS
Georgia’s storytelling talent is showcased by Two Hundred Days, the first of the tracks to preview next year’s forthcoming album. The song tells the story of Bobbie the Wonderdog who, in 1924, crossed the USA from Indiana to Oregon to rejoin his owners after he’d been lost. The 3,000-mile journey took Bobbie six months. Georgia and the boys celebrate Bobbie’s successful homecoming in a jaunty, country-flavoured song in which guitar and banjo blend nicely and Georgia accompanies her easy-going vocal with some soothing fiddle fills. “I’ll lose my way and I’ll walk 200 days,” sings Bobbie the dog as he wends his weary way across country, in a delightful song that is one of the album’s real highlights.
Sticking with a canine theme, The Dog Who Would Not Be Washed is a rework of the title track of the trio’s 2016 debut album. It hasn’t aged in the slightest and the pair of tunes gallop along, with fiddle, guitar and mandolin all so tightly entwined that it would be impossible to unravel them, even if you had a mind to do so.
BEWARE OF THE WATER
The Black Sluice, another song that featured on that debut album tells a story that will resonate and send shivers down the spines of anyone who has ever driven along the drainside roads of the fens. The song certainly caused me to shudder as I recalled the memories of my own foolishly-fast journeys along Forty Foot Bank in Huntingdonshire, as the road dipped unpredictably and the Forty Foot Drain shimmered ominously alongside the road. I emerged from those journeys in one piece, but The Black Sluice relates the fate of a man and dog who weren’t quite so lucky. The band’s plucked instruments provide the dramatic setting as Georgia warns: “Water and the road, they work hand-in-hand, their one-and-only aim: to take the life of man.” And the final score? Road and drain 2, man and dog 0.
During the period that spanned the early 17th century and the early 19th century, frost fairs were a frequent sight on the ice of the frozen Thames between Blackfriars and London Bridge. In another of the album’s newer songs, Geogia relates the activities that would take place upon the ice during the fairs, including fires that would be lit to provide warmth to the fair’s attendees and even the passage of an elephant across the ice, something that actually happened in 1817. The backing is subdued; the focus of this song is Georgia’s fluent, storytelling vocal.
The trio’s ability to write and perform music that sounds, for all the world, like it’s been around for ever and ever is demonstrated wonderfully with Cabin Fever Set – a pair of tunes that Georgia came up with during lockdown. Aaren kicks things off with some nice, choppy guitar, before Georgia chimes in with a soaring melody and Nic follows proceedings on his mandolin, on a track that declares with absolute certainty: All is well in Shackletonland!
HEROIC ANIMALS
A long-time staple of the Shackletons’ live set, this is the first occasion that the sad, poignant, Lonesome George has been committed to vinyl. Until his death in 2012, George was the last remaining Pinta Island tortoise, after his species had been devastated by over-exploitation by whalers and seal hunters during the 1880s. He’s now a Galapagos conservation icon. Nic and Aaren provide a sparky backing as, with lyrics like: “I am the only lonely tortoise that I know,” “Am I REALLY the only one? I stop, and think and ponder” and, particularly, “I am, I am, the only lonely tortoise; I’ll have no sons or daughters. I am so lonely-o,” Georgia places herself in George’s shell to emphasise the enduring capacity of humans to b*gger things up.
This charming, adventure-packed album is brought to its close with one more engaging story. War Pigeon, another song resurrected from that 2016 debut album, relates the story of Cher Ami, a pigeon sent up by the US 77th Division during the Battle of the Somme to convey the message that the battalion was trapped by friendly fire. Despite being shot down, loosing her sight and almost loosing a leg, Cher Ami delivered the message and almost 200 lives were saved. It’s a wonderful story and The Shackleton Trio tell it in their uniquely characteristic way. If there’s such a thing as Norfolk bluegrass, then this is a prime example; the band come in gradually to complement Nic’s quickfire mandolin and Georgia delivers another of her breakneck vocals as she finds a way to squeeze Cher Ami’s event-filled tale into a brief, 3-minute, window.
AND MORE…
This is an album that grows in charm as it goes on. Georgia Shackleton has a unique talent for fitting a story to music and the three band members are experts at bringing a yarn to life. But, before I sign off, there’s a couple more things worthy of a mention: firstly, the album’s cover artwork features a linocut illustration by Nic that depicts the characters from the album’s songs and tunes. It’s a picture that you can lose yourself in, particularly if you’re studying the cover to the limited-edition, signed vinyl version of the album.
And, secondly, the Shackleton Trio are celebrating the release of the album with a short tour of south-east England. The tour dates are given below – why not pop along and experience these stories, songs and tunes for yourself?
TOUR DATES
4th Sept – King George’s Hall, GLOUCESTERSHIRE
5th Sept – Octagon Chapel, NORWICH
8th Sept – Bungay Folk Festival, SUFFOLK
11th Sept – Hambledon Folk Club, HAMPSHIRE
12th Sept – Medina Book Shop, ISLE OF WIGHT
13th Sept – The Stables, MILTON KEYNES
15th Sept – Twickfolk, LONDON
28th Sept – Deepdale Festival, NORFOLK
Watch the official video to Two Hundred Days, a track from the album and the lead single, here:
The Shackleton Trio online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / X (formerly Twitter) / YouTube / Bandcamp
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