Beautiful songs, gentle acoustic string sounds, informative
storytelling and an attentive audience are the desired attributes for any
singer-songwriter gig. If you can add a backdrop of the fertile creative
landscape of life in the Deep South, then you are well and truly on the way to
musical utopia. These are certainly demanding standards but Mississippi-born
artist Caroline Herring went a long way to fulfilling them on her return to a
town where she has developed a good recent rapport.
Fresh from a couple of outstanding sets at last year’s
Shrewsbury Folk Festival, the organisers arranged a follow up visit for
Caroline to the town and a near sell out Hive audience were immensely
enthralled by the sheer talent on display during the evening. Caroline’s depth
of understanding and passion for the issues she tackles is mesmerising and when
coupled with her vocals and sound that straddle the boundaries between folk,
country and a touch of home state blues, the talent oozes so freely from the
stage.
A collaboration that meant so much to Caroline’s heart was
her involvement in the Cecil Sharp Project where she had the opportunity to
explore and work with some of the UK’s premier folk artists. To highlight her
involvement, she has twinned the songs she was involved with and shortly into
the evening’s second set those fortunate enough to be present were served with
this offering. ‘Meadows of Dan’, a
co-write with Kathryn Roberts, was followed by ‘Black Mountain Lullaby’ a tale remembering a victim of an Appalachian
mountain top removal tragedy. This latter song was featured on Caroline’s most
recent album CAMILLA and unsurprisingly a majority of its tracks were performed
during the evening.
The highlights from this album included the title song which
opened the evening, an account of attending Obama’s first inauguration ‘Maiden Voyage’, the accapella delivered
‘Travelling Shoes’ and a tribute to
the Civil Rights Freedom Riders ‘White
Dress’. Such was the detailed introduction to these songs that you could almost
write an individual piece on each one. Also delivered from this album was a
song inspired by a plane journey ‘Joy
Never Ends’ that merges into Caroline’s desire to sample the Scottish
standard ‘Auld Lang Syne’ as well as the more rootsy 'Fireflies'.
Over the last decade, Caroline has recorded a wealth of fine
material and her set included delving back to a 2001 release Twilight and songs titled ‘Wise Woman’and 'Mississippi Snow'. 2009’s
GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN also contributed a handful of selections including the
melodic ‘See See Rider’, an ode to
American painter Walter Inglis Anderson ‘Tales
of the Islander’ and a personal tribute to her grandmother Eleanor ‘Abuelita’.
As well as being an outstanding songwriter, Caroline does
not shy away from celebrating the work of others. Two covers, previously recorded
on her albums, included in the set were the award winning eighties classic ‘True Colours’ and a cracking Kate Wolf
song that closed the evening ‘Here in
California’. However the overall highlight of the evening was the
pre-encore ‘Song for Fay’, a
beautiful track from the LANTANA album inspired by the experiences of Larry
Brown.
While Caroline spends so much time extolling the virtues of
genuine southern folklore, she is vastly developing into a literary treasure
herself. The tales, stage presence and interpretation of the rich history of
her roots are totally captivating. In fact you can sum up Caroline Herring in a
single short statement – one woman, one guitar and a million words. www.carolineherring.com