ALBUM RELEASE TODAY

and happy Spring!!!

I am beyond happy to say this is out today on one of my favourite days - The Spring Equinox 🐣🎉🥳

It has been a long time coming and, in true ‘Julie’ style, it was all very last minute. I left it until it was far too painful to leave it any longer! Well, you know family commitments always take a precedent but it gets to the point when if I didn’t just get this out then I’d have not only let myself down, but also all those generous people who supported me last year.

A BIG THANKS to those of you who paid in advance towards recording costs back in May. It was like an unofficial crowd-funder and helped loads!!

I must also say thanks to local folkie, Barrie, who encouraged me to get going and who started the ball rolling with the recording studio and deciding what songs to sing. Snug Recording Co have been ace too!! Highly recommend them for anyone in Notts.

I also REALLY had to get this out before any mention of snow would be completely unseasonal.

I guessed that since we still sometimes get snow in March here in England then this would be just the right time. Mind you we have had some utterly glorious unseasonal sunny warm days lately (basking in the sunshine as I write this now)🌞🌞🌞

Oh goodness I am just looking at some leaflets I got made to go with the CD’s and they could not be more un-spring-like! Oh well.

If you think of the lyrics from “The Snow It Melts The Soonest”, the snow does “melt the soonest when the winds begin to sing”. We do get those March winds going into spring.

Needing a bit of colour now instead…. I am so glad the spring is here.

While I was deep in thought and contemplating how good I have done to schedule all these emails, get the files uploaded, artwork created, ideas percolated, stories written, mps uploaded blah, blah, blah ..I thought to myself “oh what a load of bollocks actually”.

It's all so fake and pointless really and not real life (well it's modern real life, but it's not REAL life). It's not the trees, the earth and the sun, it's not the wind, the birds, the sound of the seas, it's not the sand, animals, nature or the breeze. It's ALL fake. None of it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

The world will still keep turning, the sun will still rise and fall regardless of whether one of my emails goes out at the right time or my music gets released on the day I want it to go out.

But it DOES matter to me, when things happen. I revolve everything around the seasons, always. I think we all do on a subconscious level. Our ancestors would be more in tune with this of course and that’s why we have all these wonderful songs. We are all storytelling in everything we do. And all these folk songs are stories of some kind, some more obvious than others.

You will have to forgive my being so slow - it is the technology that completely floors me to be honest. This comes from someone who normally doesn’t even use Spotify, Bandcamp or anything. I’d rather just sing. (YouTube is the OG though!). By the way, did you know I have an Odysee channel too -YouTube alternative).

If you are a fan of Anne Briggs you may have noticed that all these songs are ones that she has done. Please note the album is not in any way endorsed by her. (all these songs are traditional and in the public domain, also my arrangements differ somewhat).

I actually did not really enjoy the recording bit to be honest. Almost all of these songs were recorded in one take. You find that if you have two takes the first one is more often than not the best one anyway.

Anyway, enough blathering on.. it is all up there now:

On streaming platforms

Bandcamp

CD’s too are in stock and waiting to go out from my front room. All those beautiful folks who supported me last year will already have their copies!

You can get those on Bandcamp too but if you can order directly from me I would appreciate it as it looks like I lose out quite a bit on fees unfortunately.

If you did want to pay by PayPal it wont’t cost you any more and the prices are as follows (I will also send you the digital files by email as well as the CD)

CDs are £9 plus £3 p&p in the UK.(total £12)

Or

£14 (total) to elsewhere in the world

The paypal link is here

My YouTube playlist with all the songs performed outside

Full album (honestly, what is even the point buying music anymore?)

You will see I have my beautiful dog Lucius on the back-cover - he is in so many of my song videos. I really don’t know how I would have got through the past seven years without him. Angel dog ❤️😇

He’s no longer with us 💔

Going for a rest now about until May when I have another load of songs to get out there!!

Going to have a short break from Substack now too. If you want to keep up to date with my other stuff (like FREE online bread baking social every Saturday night) there is also my newsletter where I send a folk song every single Friday among other things.

Any queries about anything else my email address is thebreadwitch@gmail.com