Self Released

Poignant, warm and sincere.  Jackie Conn’s reflections of family history and working-class life will resonate deeply with all who care to listen.  Her debut album, Baking Day, is a heartwarming triumph.

A LONG INCUBATION

Jackie Conn has had a fascination for music for just about her entire life.  She grew up in a musical household in Horden, Co. Durham and that environment – her brother’s rock & roll fixations, her mother’s love of musical theatre, operetta and Nat King Cole – lit a fuse that continues to sparkle.  Inspired by writers such as Paul Simon, Ralph McTell and – particularly – Sandy Denny, Jackie made her tentative entry into the world of folk music whilst still at school, but public performance was never her thing…

…That is, until the pandemic came along; that was Jackie’s cue to engage, online, with the international folk and songwriting communities.  That engagement was the spur that encouraged Jackie to perform her songs, via online streams initially and, ultimately, live-in-front-of-people.

A MUSICAL FAMILY PHOTO ALBUM

It turned out that both Dan Whitehouse – producer of this album – and the legendary Boo Hewerdine were both mightily impressed by the emotive power of Jackie’s family-inspired storytelling and a collaboration with the latter resulted in Baking Day, the album’s title track.

Baking Day (the album) has been described as Jackie’s “musical family photo album,” and that’s an apt tag.  The ten songs on the album encapsulate several lifetimes in Jackie’s family history.  Jackie herself grew up in the 1960s, but the stories she tells begin much earlier – with the story of her great-grandfather, Richard, born in 1832 and made to head down the local pit aged just nine years old.

A POTENT ANTIDOTE TO MADNESS AND HYSTERIA

For the album, Jackie is joined by award-winning fingerstyle guitarist Chris Cleverley, plus a host of further guests, each of whom add their own special brand of sweetness to Jackie’s songs.  But, make no mistake, the star of this particular show is Jackie Conn and her powerful, bittersweet lyrics.  These songs are warm enough and sincere enough to bring tears to the eyes of a granite statue.  They’re also a potent antidote to the madness and hysteria that pervades British (and, particularly Northern) life in 2025.

Jackie’s voice and guitar is complemented delightfully by Marion Fleetwood’s string arrangement for opening track, A Robin Calls, a stunningly beautiful tale of loss and parting.  Setting the tone for the album, Jackie’s voice is comforting and engaging and, like with every other song to come, her lyrics will attract instant empathy from every listener.

A COMFORTING DOMESTIC RITUAL

Baking Day, the album’s title track is, of course, the one that got this whole juggernaut rolling in the first place.  Featuring Chris Cleverley’s guitar and some lovely sprinkles of pedal steel from Gustaf Ljunggren, it’s a charming song with homely, comforting lyrics – Jackie’s recollections of Sundays spent baking in the family kitchen with her mother – that will strike a nostalgic chord with anyone who has enjoyed that same domestic ritual.

Jackie relives memories of spending time on the coal-strewn Durham shore with a fondly-remembered uncle for Uncle Arthur’s Skylark.  It’s another heartwarming song that recalls the pleasure that her pit-confined relative was able to derive from nature, despite the long hours he had to spend underground.

BITTERSWEET TWIST

Gustaf returns to add more pedal steel magic to Jackie’s and Chris’s guitars for Another Wedding Day, a song in which Jackie speculates upon the joy being experienced by her departed parents as they look down, from heaven, as their granddaughter takes her marriage vows. 

It’s the early experiences of her grandfather, who served as a mounted policeman during WW1 after working as a groom at Fetteresso Castle in Scotland, that provide Jackie’s inspiration for the wonderful Gamekeeper’s Lad.  It’s a song with a bittersweet twist, as the young horseman’s pastoral environment is replaced by the horrors of the trenches and I particular love the observations that Jackie makes for the song’s chorus: “The gamekeeper’s lad… – they said he could speak fluent horse; The gamekeeper’s lad… Trained them with love, not with force.”

IT’S MONDAY – LET’S DANCE!

Monday night dances were a tradition in Horden during Jackie’s formative years and her family’s womenfolk were keen participants in those events.  “All the women in my family – my mam, aunties, cousins – loved to dance,” says Jackie.  “This song is especially inspired by one cousin who never missed a Monday night.  It was her escape, her only outlet for fun.”   And Jackie captures the sheer joy of those eagerly-awaited Monday nights with Make Believe Mondays, a wonderful, light, bright Viennese waltz, propelled along by David O’Brien’s piano.

Another guest, Graham Davey steps in to add a stereotypical northern atmosphere with his euphonium, as Jackie re-imagines the emotions felt by great-grandfather Richard as he approached the pithead for his first shift, in Richard’s song.  He was only nine years old remember – and Jackie’s calm, yet oh-so-powerful lyrics and delivery capture every doubt and regret that Richard will have been experiencing on that fateful morning as he descended into “sixty years of endless night.”

AN OFFER OF CHRISTMAS SOLACE

Other aspects of northern working class life – death in hazardous working conditions, being sent away to work in service and the psychological impact of war – feature in the haunting Emily Cried.  Most of our parents – or grandparents – or great-grandparents (depends upon your age…) will have suffered the emotion-hardening experiences that Jackie relates in her story of the tragic Emily.  It sometimes pays dividends to reflect upon that.

Jackie lost her father during one December when she was still very young and the emotions of that experience return to haunt her each Christmas.  She relives those emotions for Ghosts of Christmas Past, a true album highlight, and, in doing so, perhaps offers solace to  the many amongst us who find the festive season equally emotionally complex.  There’s a melancholy jazzy feel to the song that perfectly matches Jackie’s subject matter, and I was particularly moved by the lines: “One Christmastime the angels took you away/ I thought if I’d been good, then they’d have let you stay…”

CONGRATULATIONS – JACKIE CONN

And, to close, Jackie looks to the future, rather than back into the past, for Let Your Light Shine, a hopeful prayer for peace in uncertain times, directed at her goddaughter’s young children.  It’s another excellent song, packed with optimism, wise observations and advice like: “Don’t listen to the words of those who want to fill you full of fear.  Keep on searching for the truth they don’t want you to hear.”  Like everything else on the album, it’s a simple song, with lyrics that are right on the money.

Congratulations Jackie Conn.  These ten songs will speak to so many.  Baking Day is a resounding triumph.

Listen to The Ghosts Of Christmas Past – an album highlight – below:

Jackie Conn online: Bandcamp

At The Barrier: Facebook / Instagram