Janet Russell
New CD now available: HARCD 052 Love Songs and Fighting Talk

Happy New Year to all of you – it started a bit slow, due to the weather, but I’m just about into my stride now. Looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in the King’s Arms on the 30th of January, for a solo set followed by a communal session.

JigJaw are workshopping and performing in February – first date on Valentine’s Day, February 14th at Felledge Barn, a beautiful space let by a local doctor for dance and theatre projects – we’re doing a day workshop there from 10am to 4.30pm for singers and dancers. Then down to Islington Folk Club for Feb 18th and up to Derbyshire for the weekend 19th, 20th, 21st for Youlgreave weekend of French dance. Very much looking forward to this little festival , see tour dates list for booking details.

See solo folk club dates in Guisborough and Hartlepool in March, Glenfarg Folk Feast and The Everyman folk club in Suffolk in April, and also a festival slot in Wales which Les Barker is organising – into rhyming couplets, I assume! I’m not going to listen to him before I go on, he makes me laugh so much my throat gets hoarse....

I’m pleased to be at Whitby again this year, solo, and with JigJaw for dances and performances. Another couple of festivals are coming back to me with decisions on fees and things, so keeping fingers crossed.

Now we’ve got rid of the ice and snow (for now!) hope to see you all out and about somewhere.

All the best
Janet

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Janet Russell
Singer, vocal workshop leader, arranger.

Janet first made a name for herself on the folk circuit in the ‘80’s as a young singer songwriter writing with hard-edged humour about issues affecting women. Her “Secretary’s Song” was the most requested song on “Folk on 2” in 1987/8, and “Breastfeeding Baby in the Park” has been taken up by the pro-breastfeeding lobby nationally and internationally. Her work on Scottish traditional material with Scottish singer Christine Kydd has received huge critical acclaim, particularly in her native Scotland, and in the US.

Janet has now worked on the folk scene professionally for more than 20 years, starting in Edinburgh pubs, in 1980/81, and has experience of folk clubs, arts centres, concert halls, church halls and village halls of all sorts and sizes in the UK, Europe, and the USA. Throughout this time Janet has worked with other musicians, such as Sisters Unlimited colleagues Sandra Kerr, Rosie Davis and Peta Webb, and Scottish singing partner Christine Kydd, and also toured the show “Take These Chains from My Heart”, written by partner Jim Woodland with storyteller Taffy Thomas. Janet worked as musical director for Mikron Theatre for ten years, and is recognised as an accomplished vocal harmony workshop leader. She is a member of the Natural Voice Practitioners’ Network and a director of Yorkshire Dales Workshops, “promoting participation in folk arts”. At the end of 2001 Janet produced the first English performances of “The Christmas Truce” with Coope Boyes and Simpson. “Well done. Professional, moving, beautifully sung.... Best wishes - Roy” (from Roy Bailey) a show which received a standing ovation at the Sheffield Raise Your Banners Festival in November 2001. The show ran successfully again in November 2002. In March 2005 the same team put on two performances of “Hearts of Coal” celebrating the lives of miners and mining communities with the Roses and Thorns choir, a magnificent group of 80 voices from across northern England.

Janet leads three community choirs, in Silsden, Burnley, and Settle and continues to perform and to facilitate voice and harmony workshops whilst bringing up her two sons with partner Jim Woodland.

Discography:
Solo recordings include:
"Love Songs and Fighting Talk" - Harbourtown Records, HARCD 052
“Gathering the Fragments” – Harbourtown Records, HARC 003
“Bright Shining Morning?” – Harbourtown Records, HARCD 026

With other artists
“Janet Russell and Christine Kydd” – Greentrax CDTRAX 011
“Dancin’Chantin’” – Greentrax CDTRAX 077
“Take These Chains from my Heart” a narrative tape with songs about a performer’s fightback from a stroke. With Taffy Thomas, storyteller. TT Tapes 006
“The Stones of Callanish” (various artists) DOG 005/6
“No Limits” with Sisters Unlimited, – Harbourtown Records, HARCD 013
“No Bed of Roses” with Sisters Unlimited – Fellside FE104

“The most striking feature of Janet Russell’s arresting voice is a lower register whose distinctive power and edge make dramatic listening” Tony Rose, The Guardian

Recordings available from Harbourtown Records:

New CD now available:
HARCD 052 Love Songs and Fighting Talk
HARCD 003 Gathering The Fragments - Previously cassette and vinyl only - now re mastered for CD and re-released August 2005
HARCD 026 Bright Shining Morning?

and with Sisters Unlimited, (Peta Webb, Sandra Kerr, Rosie Davis, Janet Russell)
HARCD 013 No Limits

See details in the catalogue

Janet's Tour Schedule