Jane Mayne
It’s impossible to think of any of the Blundell clan without acknowledging the impact this musical family has had on the folk ‘movement’ in South Africa.
If you’re old enough to remember the test pattern on TV, then Keith Blundell’s memorable family TV series, Keith & Kin, will likely evoke sunny musical memories. Fast forward to today and Caroline Blundell is just one of this active family of musicians still spurred on to explore the muse.
She is now set to release her second album, Telling Tales, on Saturday, February 11 at the Nassau Theatre. With this Celtic/folk inspired music she hopes to “spark your imagination and feed your soul”.
Her new work tells tales inspired by her life from when she was a child (“using playful and sometimes dark fairy tales”), as well as more profound, emotive stories of a woman who has traveled a long road and come to her own beautiful, wise and poetic realisations. These original tracks are played by real musicians on real instruments… and she can’t wait to share the magic this creates with you.
WeekendSpecial checked her tuning:
What guitar do you use? Any guitar that’s most prized? What strings and gauge?
I have a jumbo Timothy steel string with a Fishman pickup, and a beautiful Maingard steel string which I use for open tunings. I always use Elixir light gauge .011 strings.
Do you use a thumb pick, plectrum, or what … why …
I use a thumb pick for picking, and I have false nail tips glued onto my 3 picking fingers. I tend to play quite hard, and I like a clean crisp sound. When I strum I usually play with a plectrum for strength and accuracy and to bring out variation in the tone of the strings.
Who has your dad Keith Blundell’s guitars?
His guitars are still in the family and various members have used them at different times. I’m actually not sure who has them at the moment – most of our children play.
You’ve been playing since you were 11, but wrote your first song at 40. Why wait so long to compose?
That’s a good question which I often ask myself! I was never encouraged to write, most people in those days just played covers. I didn’t aspire to it, and thought you had to have a special gift to do it. When I was 40 I had been through a therapeutic process doing Polarity training, and Fying Visits popped out.
Did the muse come gushing out, or is your own songwriting sporadic? I mean how many more albums can we expect – two aren’t enough!
Once I started writing, the songs came very slowly, mostly because I didn’t own the process properly. Once I completed recording my first album in 2012, the new songs started coming much faster. I was finding life quite difficult and needed to make some changes, which gave rise to the 11 songs on Telling Tales. In this last year I have written another 7 songs which is cool! I hope there will be a chance to record those as well.
Is Telling Tales an addendum to Flying Visits, or different in some way?
Telling Tales has a fairytale/cautionary tales theme. I have 2 grandchildren now, so there are 2 songs I wrote specially for them. I made a conscious effort to give each song a different flavour, because I don’t like things to all sound too much the same. The songs are definitely not just for children though!
My brother Jonny produced both albums, as well as doing the guitar parts (lucky me!) and my sister Julie did the harmonies and vocal parts, and my son James played drums/percussion on both. On Telling Tales Jonny chose to use Brydon Bolton on double bass, which gave the songs a very specific and lovely flavour. Terrence Scarr did the string arrangements and played violin on both albums. There is also a strong Celtic theme, because we used a brilliant guy called Massimo Giuntini on Irish whistle and Uilleann pipes. James Harvey played beautiful Celtic Harp as well as the piano accordion, and Jamie Jupiter did some gorgeous mouth harp (harmonica) to give a bluesy flavour to a couple of the tunes.
Popular 3 or 4 chord blues structures with a turnaround have been popularised, can you give us a heads-up on Celtic folk music – any typicalities?
I’m not an authority on Celtic music, but I love their use of 6/8 time, and key changes, which I used in the song The Red Shoes. Celtic songs usually tell a good strong dramatic story. Instruments used are mostly acoustic guitar, fiddle, accordion, double bass, whistle, pipes and frame drum.
You still perform with family members, brother Jonny and sister Julie, as the Barking Family Tree Band. What repertoire is that?
Yes we are so fortunate to have this musical connection! We call ourselves “Fintry” now, (which is the name of our Scottish ancestral home on my grandmother’s side) with Julie on bass guitar, Jonny on various guitars, me on acoustic guitar and a bit of banjo, and of course lots of vocals and harmonies. And Rayelle Goodman has recently joined us on violin.
We play at smaller listening venues like Cottage Club, Alma Café, Café Roux, the Barleycorn, house concerts, and folk festivals. We all write songs, and also do some covers for fun. We have yet to record our stuff and sadly we haven’t even got anything with Fintry on youtube!
Who do you listen to? Who inspires you generally, and as a guitarist – why?
I listen to a very wide range of music – from jazz to bluegrass, country music, world music, folk music, classical – I tend to prefer an acoustic base to what I listen to, and am generally not excited by screaming guitars and pounding bass. I like interesting lyrics, voices in harmony, singer/songwriters. Jazz/bluegrass fusion is great (Bela Fleck). Jerry Douglas rocks, I love Crooked Still, The Weepies, Bruce Hornsby, John Martyn, Joni Mitchell, The Incredible String Band, KT Tunstall, Mark Knopfler, James Taylor, Peter Gabriel, Annie Lennox, Sting, Ry Cooder, Sarah Jarosz, The Staves, Suzanne Vega, and the list will go on forever if I carry on!
One of my favourite local singer/songwriters is Simon van Gend. Also Nick Turner and Robin Auld. I find it hard to pin down a specific guitarist, there are so many! I love fingerstyle guitar.
Folk festivals and music clubs – you must have done loads! Any highlights, or weird disaster gigs?
Yes over the years I have performed in many folk festivals and music clubs, but not as often as I would like to these days. My weirdest moment was one night singing solo at the Barleycorn (at Constantia Nek) about 20 years ago. At the time I was struggling with panic attacks when performing, and I managed to get through my set, but I must have been behaving a bit oddly because when I finished my last song I left the stage and no one applauded!
You’re a super-fit barn dancer! Please elaborate on the aerobic value, what material is used to stir up the dust, what exactly are Square Dances, and how do you get “called” by a “caller”?
Ah, the barn dancing! Actually I am not super fit from doing that (I run for exercise), because being a caller means you stand on the stage and call the moves out to the crowd while they jump around. Good vocal exercise J. It is extremely aerobic and simple to do and lots of fun. My website has more info – www.barndance.co.za “Square dancing” refers to the format people sometimes stand in – four couples stand side by side facing the centre, with each couple forming one side of the square. You can also do circle dances, or dances in double lines known as reels.
Basically it’s folk dancing based on Scottish country dances, so we use fiddle tunes (my brother and sister recorded a bunch of these some years ago, with a great fiddle player called David Tarr), and I now use a lot of country rock material as well, because I am doing Texan line dances as well. I like to choreograph new dances to use. We used to have a full band, but these days I just take my assistant, my ipod and cordless mic. It’s great entertainment for people of any age.
What: Caroline Blundell CD launch
When: Sat, 11 Feb
Where: Nassau Theatre, 7.30pm
Tickets: Early-bird online tickets R85, Pensioners/child R65, Album plus entry R150. Or Door: R120, Pensioner/Child: R90, Albums: R100.
Listen to her debut CD: https://rootspring.bandcamp.com/album/flying-visits
Record label: Rootspring, 021 788 5997, http://rootspring.co.za/
WS
