Janet Russell
New CD now available: HARCD 052 Love Songs and Fighting Talk
Happy New Year to you all, hope the floods and the viruses not getting to you. I’m enjoying planning some new projects this year, and had a great night last Saturday 19th January in The King’s Arms in Heaton (Bradford) doing a Robert Burns theme night (Karaoke for Scottish historians!). My pals Hilary Simpson and Ken Pickles were there to put the icing on the cake with a full set of Highland Bagpipes and singing to the small pipes, which was fab. So the guys at the King’s Arms invited me back on May 10th, because we all had a great time – see you there if you live round here.
I’m very excited about my trip to Belgium in a couple of weeks. See the tour schedule, I’ve got dates on the 9th and 10th of February, then on the 15th and 16th. My partner Jim Woodland is going to join me for the second weekend and do some of his stuff too, and we’re looking forward to meeting people over there. Then there’s a trip to Dublin on March 5th to celebrate International Women’s Day with Peta Webb at the Cle Club, and on April 4th and 5th gigs in Sheffield and London with Frances Watt, lovely flute player and singer. Frances and I are doing vocal dance music together – we have material from Sweden, France, and the UK, and Frances also puts beautiful flute accompaniments onto stuff I sing with guitar. She also plays willow flute, which is an amazing, ethereal sound. I’m hoping she’ll also be able to be with me on some of the gigs later in the year too.
Unfortunately the live performances of the McColl/Parker radio ballads which were being scheduled for the end of May have had to be postponed, but I believe they will still happen. Timing has to be right for all the performers and venues etc., so that everyone can do a few gigs after rehearsing the whole thing. It’ll be great when it happens!
In June I’m down in Devon and Cornwall, then the following weekend up in the North East with Seaton Singers doing a voice workshop weekend. The weekend after that I’m at the Four Fools Folk Festival in Lancashire, so hopefully wherever you live something will be within reasonable traveling distance!
I’ve just been invited to do the Folkworks adult summer school in Durham, August 11th to 16th, and following straight on from that I’ll be going to Whitby Folk Festival. Really looking forward to redeeming myself at the Folkworks summer school as I developed laryngitis when I was invited two years ago, and a voice tutor without a voice is like the proverbial chocolate teapot, so anybody thinking of going, you can be sure I will be wanting to give good value!
I’m just taking time to get the mixing and mastering of the solo album the way I want it, and we’re so nearly there now, I’m hoping I’ll have the album with me for the April gigs.
It was interesting to make the album, as I was trying to realize a lot of ideas I’d been having over several years, so I’ll be interested to hear what people think of it. Hmmm scary too! Anyway, hoping to see you around at some of the gigs – have a look at the tour schedule for the autumn stuff that’s booked, and I’ll try to keep updating as stuff comes in.

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