The Mouthcast

ELIZA CARTHY

*THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN TWO PARTS, AND IS COMPILED HERE FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE*

WAYWARD DAUGHTER – HER RECENT RETROSPECTIVE COLLECTION – IS A HANDY COMPENDIUM OF REMINDERS THAT THOUGH ELIZA CARTHY MAY HAVE KEPT ONE FOOT IN THE FOLK MUSIC CAMP DURING THE LAST TWENTY YEARS, SHE’S AT HER BEST WHEN USING THE OTHER TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT TERRITORIES.

EC sq2008 album DREAMS OF BREATHING UNDERWATER and follow-up NEPTUNE (2011) fuse strands of blues, jazz, music hall, latino, ska, barber’s shop, string quartet and dance to elements of her roots (she was raised within the English folk tradition being, of course, daughter of influential ‘folk royalty’ Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson).
Eliza’s penchant for stretching the form reaches back to her earliest solo records – HEAT, LIGHT & SOUND; THE KINGS OF CALICUTT; RED RICE – and is similarly evident in her collaborative work with multi-cultural melting-pot collective The Imagined Village. Eliza has also guested on releases by Paul Weller, Billy Bragg and Roger McGuinn, amongst others.

In the first of a two part edition of The Mouthcast recorded earlier this week, Eliza explains her attachment to the Yorkshire coast (she lives in Robin Hood’s Bay), and why it is that organisations such as the EDL have it wrong about England. She also discusses her unhappy time on a major label and how the experience not only knocked her confidence but had a debilitating – frightening – effect on her voice…

 

EC sqIN THE SECOND OF A TWO-PART EDITION OF THE MOUTHCAST, ELIZA CARTHY EXPLAINS WHY THE ENGLISH FOLK TRADITION IS “A FABULOUS, BEAUTIFUL, UNIQUE THING – NOT A NERDY KID IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM”.
Eliza discusses her childhood in North Yorkshire and how, as the daughter of folk pioneers Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson, teenage rebellion would actually have meant “becoming an accountant”. She also reveals what it felt like to be the subject of WAYWARD DAUGHTER, the biography by Sophie Parkes, and how the experience of being written about ultimately helped her to “reconnect the dots”…


Eliza Carthy plays the Durham Streets Summer Festival on Wednesday 21st August, with her Wayward big band (tickets are available here and here, or by telephone on 03000 262626). She and the band also play Cheltenham’s Greenbelt Festival on Friday 23rd August (tickets available here), and FolkEast in Little Glemham, Surrey, on Saturday 24th August (tickets here). She plays with Saul Rose at Fruit as part of Hull Folk Festival on Saturday 31st August (tickets available here). WAYWARD DAUGHTER, Eliza’s recently released two-CD twenty-year retrospective, was reviewed here – and an exclusive extract from Sophie Parkes’ biography (also titled WAYWARD DAUGHTER) was featured here.