KATE RUSBY’S ANNUAL CHRISTMAS TOUR HAS BECOME AS MUCH OF A TRADITION AS THE SOUTH YORKSHIRE CAROL SINGING WHICH INSPIRED IT. 

For several years the Barnsley-based folk artist has hit the road during December, temporarily putting the usual set-list to one side and instead performing seasonal songs from her wintry albums (SWEET BELLS, WHILE MORTALS SLEEP and the newly released THE FROST IS ALL OVER) alongside other festive favourites. At its heart, her Christmas work represents Kate’s contribution to a constantly evolving oral tradition, with songs passed down from generation to generation; the roots of some dating back over two hundred years. The festive albums feature local variations and interpretations of familiar carols and songs she learned during her childhood, most of which were unknown or unheard outside the South Yorkshire area. In this new interview with The Mouth Magazine Kate begins by discussing Christmas Day…

 

YOU’RE ABOUT TO GO OUT ON YOUR ANNUAL CHRISTMAS TOUR, AND YOU RELEASE A CHRISTMAS ALBUM EVERY COUPLE OF YEARS – BOTH OF WHICH ARE LOVELY TRADITIONS… HOW IMPORTANT IS CHRISTMAS IN THE O’KANE / RUSBY HOUSEHOLD? WHAT’S CHRISTMAS DAY LIKE?
We’ll be having Christmas at home. It’ll have been a long tour… Full of fun and merriment, but by then we’ll all be ready for some chilling and family time. My immediate family all live here in the same village so we usually have starters at one house, then a couple of hours and a trip to the pub… Later we’ll have the main course at someone else’s house, then a few hours and sherries… After that we have pudding at someone else’s house… It’s really lovely, as one person doesn’t have to host the whole day and you get to have a walk and a socialise in between courses…

IT SOUNDS PERFECT!
I love it, ho ho ho! And one of the best times to go for a walk with Doris, my lovely little Staffie, is on Christmas Day. It always seems to be the calmest of days and so, so quiet. Not many people are out in the fields, but anyone who is is in such a great happy, smiley mood that it makes the world such a bright and colourful place. Even the birds have a kind of reverential quietness – as if they know it’s Christmas! It really is magical. This is where the title track from the new Christmas album THE FROST IS ALL OVER stems from – following the route I walk with Doris and noticing the seasons change…

HAS YOU AND DAMIEN HAVING CHILDREN CHANGED YOUR APPROACH TO WHAT YOU DO – BOTH PRACTICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY? I’M SURE BECOMING PARENTS HAS CHANGED YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON IT?
Becoming parents has changed most things, to be honest! Luckily, because we have control over when I work, we’ve been able to juggle family life – with the help of my family of course. One major thing that changed for me was finding the time to write songs! If I wasn’t on tour I was being a Mum, so I had to actually plan child-care so that I could sit and play and create. It felt too indulgent at first – but I had to make my peace with that or I just wouldn’t find the time…

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE MEMORIES OF SEEING YOU IN CONCERT WAS AT THE SHEFFIELD SHOW ON YOUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR. YOU BROUGHT YOUR DAUGHTER DAISY OUT ONTO THE STAGE FOR A BIT OF A SING-SONG… I’M GUESSING THAT YOUR HOUSE MUST BE FILLED WITH MUSIC? OR MAYBE IT’S FULL OF TOYS…
Full of both actually! Daisy recently requested, and received, a tiny banjo for her seventh birthday. So she’s having banjo lessons from Daddy. Both Daisy and Phoebe were, and still are, so musical – bopping about to music sat in the pram, not yet able to walk. It was so funny. They both have great singing voices too – in fact Daisy has some solo singing to do in her school Christmas play. We’re going to miss it – aaaaawwww – as we have a gig down south that day. But my Dad is going to film it for us. Phoebe is a fantastic singer, too, and she’s still only four… She picks out tunes on the piano. It’s really lovely to see the music in them – but who knows what they’ll end up doing in life?

WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD YOURSELF, YOUR FIRST EXPERIENCES OF MUSIC CAME FROM YOUR PARENTS SO THERE WAS A VERY STRONG GROUNDING IN FOLK… YOU’LL HAVE HEARD A LOT OF FOLK MUSIC, BUT ALSO GONE TO MANY FOLK NIGHTS AND FOLK FESTIVALS. WHAT WERE THE SONGS AND EXPERIENCES THAT MOST CAPTURED YOUR YOUNG IMAGINATION?
There are so many stories in the folk world, and most of them amazing. I saw songs like mini films. I still do. We had songs for bedtime stories, so the imagery was amazing hearing the songs from such a young age. I remember hearing THE ANNAN WATERS sung by Nic Jones. It’s a song about a man trying to cross the river Annan on his horse. He tries in desperation to get across the river to see his lover and the imagery it creates is incredible. You can almost feel the horse’s breath as it’s struggling to carry this man over. Totally amazing. Nic Jones remains my all-time musical hero. He was the best at that – communicating a story. Just flawless and mesmerising.

HAS THERE EVER BEEN A POINT WHERE YOU’VE SUDDENLY DISCOVERED (I DON’T KNOW) THE STONE ROSES OR RICK ASTLEY OR KRAFTWERK OR SOMETHING, AND GOT INTO A TOTALLY DIFFERENT KIND OF MUSIC? I THINK I’M ASKING WHETHER IT’S ONLY FOLK MUSIC THAT MOVES YOU, OR WHETHER GOOD MUSIC IS GOOD MUSIC REGARDLESS OF GENRE OR TECHNIQUE?
I think good music is good music regardless of what it is. I do listen to all sorts. The only thing I haven’t been able to get into is jazz. Perhaps I just don’t understand it, but I just can’t connect with it. Perhaps its like finding your perfect whiskey? I haven’t found a whiskey I like either! They must be linked somehow!

WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE GET OUT OF YOUR MUSIC?
Ooh, good question! I suppose I hope that they’d be moved. I hope they laugh at songs like BIG BRAVE BILL (a super-hero from Barnsley) and I hope they can find the safety in my music to have a little cry if they need to. But mostly I just hope they are moved. Music is that strange sense, something that’s ancient and in us all. Sometimes it’s the simplest line of a tune that can move us and open up emotion.

THE CURRENT RAFT OF YOUNG BRITISH FOLK MUSICIANS IS A REALLY ENCOURAGING THING… 
Yes, it’s a very exciting time for the folk scene in general. Festivals are incredibly popular and there’s a lot of young people playing too. I think that’s the thing that brought people back to folk music. Fifteen to twenty years ago there was the first influx of young people, who were children of the people around in the folk revival in the ’60s. I was one of them. We all reached an age where we could start gigging on our own and off we went. There was only a handful of us back then, but it caused a bit of a fuss in the media as, more than anything, they were intrigued why we’d be interested in this music. We made CDs (and tapes!) and set off round the folk clubs and toured and toured and toured… Along the way we saw an influx of younger people in the audiences, and on it went. It seemed to go that the younger people playing folk music brought in younger people (and the usual crowd) to come and listen to it. In turn that led to more and more young people playing it, and it just seemed to grow and grow…

… SO THE SCENE IS REALLY VIBRANT – AND EVEN SEEMS ‘COOL’ AT THE MOMENT. FOR THE CURRENT GENERATION OF LISTENERS THE GENRE HAS TOTALLY BROKEN AWAY FROM THE CLICHÉ OF ARRAN JUMPERS AND FINGERS IN THE EAR… THERE’S STILL A FAIR FEW BEARDS AROUND, MIND…
Yes. Folk music is kinda cool again, which is absolutely great. It is safe and will continue going forwards. It has to keep evolving as each generation make it their own or it will become stagnant and only fit for a museum. That’s why I love it when you get the crossover indie / folk and the like – it keeps the scene fresh and on its toes. The more the merrier, I think. It makes for a colourful and vibrant scene that we’re all lucky to have… And it’s all the blooming hipsters who have beards now anyway – not so much the folkies!

YOUR FAMILY ARE ALL HEAVILY INVOLVED IN YOUR WORK – PURE RECORDS IS A GENUINE ‘FAMILY BUSINESS’. THAT MUST MEAN THAT LIFE IS VERY SETTLED AND SECURE FOR YOU, AND THERE AREN’T BIG FLASH MUSIC BUSINESS AGENDAS AT PLAY…
The music scene is renowned for being cut throat and nasty, so I’ve been very lucky to have had people around me who I trust and who are “singing off the same hymn sheet”, as it were. We understand each other. We share the same love for music and we can trust each other. We set up our own record company – Pure Records (from the origin of the name Kate, which is Greek for Pure) – and then with the first money we made we built our own studio. So I’m immensely lucky to have that freedom – to record when I want to and not have people with their own agendas trying to make you play this or that… Not many musicians have that.

AS A YORKSHIRE LASS THAT WHOLE HOMEGROWN THING IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL TO YOUR CAREER, AND HOW YOU MIGHT FEEL ABOUT WHAT IT IS THAT YOU DO…
Yes. And what’s more, being Yorkshire folk we wouldn’t trust anyone else with our money anyway… ha!

WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF YORKSHIRE THAT ARE SO IMPORTANT TO YOU?
The people! They the kindest, warmest, most generous and naturally hilarious people on the planet. I was once touring in America and I’d been away from home for five weeks… I was stood in the queue to check in at the airport and in front of me were these two blokes from South Yorkshire. As soon as I heard them talking I burst into tears! Even the sound of Yorkshire folk is the sound of home. I wanted to go stand in between them and feel all safe and cosy!

YOUR HOME IS NEAR BARNSLEY – YOU NEVER DID THAT TRADITIONAL ‘MOVE TO LONDON TO MAKE IT BIG’ THING… I REMEMBER DURING A CONCERT YOU DESCRIBED DRIVING BACK HOME AFTER A GIG DOWN SOUTH, OR SOMETHING, AND FEELING INCREDIBLY EMOTIONAL AT SEEING THE NIGHT-LIGHTS OF YOUR TOWN…
That’s a funny thing, driving home up the M1 from the South. Whenever I see the first Barnsley sign (I think it’s ‘Barnsley 17 miles’) it always feels like Barnsley is my surname… So what’s it doing up on that sign?! The place is deeply embedded into my very core. Move to London? Not on your nelly!

Kate Rusby’s 2016 Christmas Tour dates and ticket links here
Order the Christmas albums SWEET BELLS, WHILE MORTALS SLEEP and THE FROST IS ALL OVER here
Order the LIVE AT CHRISTMAS DVD here

Order Kate Rusby’s new studio album LIFE IN A PAPER BOAT here