The Violet Hour

Jackie Oates

For me personally, traditional folk music means a connection with the rhythms of nature, with the hopes, fears and beliefs of the past, and with the ordinary men and women who lived and breathed that clear air. Often music can be a by the numbers repetition that would be more suited to a museum, but sometimes along comes an album that inhabits those rhythms, lives and loves so perfectly that it stops you in your tracks.

Already 2008 is shaping up as a year where things just seem to get better and better, we've had Karine Polwarts 'This Earthly Spell' which is a sublime album, and then comes along 'The Violet Hour' by Jackie Oates. Her second album is witness to her promise coming into flower. As the year slowly turns from winter into spring and the quiet mornings become filled with birdsong you suddenly start to notice the snowdrops and crocus, the forget-me-not's and buds forming on the branch. We know it will happen every year yet there is a sense of wonder at this evidence of fertile life around. That is the feeling I got when I first heard The Violet Hour, fresh, new yet as familiar and comforting as the first warm sunshine of Spring.

This is Jackie's second album, and grows from the solid roots of the first. Although Jackie has come relatively late to singing compared to her fiddle playing, and she still says that she is still learning, she is naturally blessed with a very pure voice that easily encompasses the spirit and emotion of her material. Jackie herself says 'I think I've matured a bit in terms of my material, and the reasons I choose it. I think I had a tendency when I was younger to choose very morbid songs just for the sake of it, and I think it finally dawned on me what I was actually singing about and that it actually bore a lot of truth and relevance to real events. So any song that's of that tendency now is chosen for a particular reason because it really means something... I'm not just being deliberately dark....but the album is still fairly despairing!'

Jackie is equally blessed with a very talented circle of good friends; 'I've got Nick Wright and Becky Driscoll, who are fiddle players from Okehampton, I've got my housemates Jim Causley and Matt Norman, my brother (Jim Moray) is on it, he's produced a track, then I've got Phil Beer, and Tim VanEyken and Belinda O'Hooley, it's really lovely to play with her again. Also, a guitarist called James Dumbelton, Andy Clarke and Steve Turner, and Sean O'Shea is doing some backing vocals as well!' The sum of all this talent is, as James Dumbelton said 'more tunes!'

Lark In The Morning sets the tone for the album, layers of viola and violin from Jackie along with Belinda O'Hooley's piano. Belinda's wonderful abilities underpinned the recent Rachel Unthank album the Bairns, real depth and passion with never an unnecessary note. Now she has embarked on a solo career expect to hear much more of her. The Bonny Labouring Boy has a male voice choir (made up of wandering rogues and minstrels), that is a deep and satisfying counterpoint to Jackie's vocals. So by track 3, Billy Reilley, it comes as a surprise to hear Jackie unaccompanied; her voice glows, sweet yet possessing a melancholic edge. Each track brings fresh arrangements and delights.

The Violet Hour is a superb album, comprising great talent, delicious melodies and great tunes. Jackie's promise has matured into a distinctive and significant talent, she is also part of a talented community of artists that have a collaborative and creative spirit. Credit must also be paid to Phil Beer, he has been supporting and nurturing Jackie from the beginning as a producer and fellow musician. Another great release for Chudleigh Roots.

Iain Hazlewood