The gorgeous Summer Rain is the latest single from folk duo Jo Bartlett and Neil Haydock. There is the perfect confluence of three elements: wistful, yearning music; sensitive, narrative lyrics; and a visual, which is steeped in the same sense of longing and nostalgia, created from old family photographs. Those evocative images, taken in the 1960s and 1970s by Bartlett’s father on family holidays to his childhood home on the Isle of Barra in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, stir up our own feelings about memory, our past lives and the passage of time. This is a song of remembering and snapshot memories and thought-provoking, transporting words that leave you in a contemplative mood: “It’s been winter here too long // I see it’s been winter far too long and I have lost my way // But I know a place that’s close to you // Where days don’t turn to wasted years // The sun is always overhead, winter coats are never kept // Mountains crying, ocean calling // Shadows never ever fall… That’s where I’m going.”
Bartlett says of the song and video: “Summer Rain is about a fictional place we all want to go to. It’s that feeling you have when you have just finished a wonderful book or gone on a great walk. When you talk about your plans and dreams for the future. The photos were taken by my Dad, Dr Calum Bartlett, in the late 1960s up to the late 1970s, on the Isle of Barra in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides. My Dad grew up there; his father was the island doctor. We went on large family holidays to Barra every summer when I was a kid (I’m the blonde one in the pictures). Dad used a Voigtlander SLR camera and 35mm film. My siblings, cousins, aunties and uncles, along with my parents. Boats, the sea and white sandy beaches. Bursts of sunshine, gales and rain. Musically, I started off by sending Neil the basic acoustic guitar track and my guide vocals, and between us, we built the song from there, sending each other files we had recorded in our home studios. Finally, the mixing was down to me. ‘If that’s it all, I want it all.'”
Bartlett and Haydock connected many years ago. They first met when Bartlett was working as press officer for Haydock’s band, Submarine, in the early 1990s. Later, Haydock played in Bartlett’s band, It’s Jo & Danny, at Glastonbury in 2000. Recently, they performed a gig together in June 2025, which led to them writing a well-received four-track EP, The River Or The Road. They have continued writing collaboratively, working in their home studios and sending each other music back and forth, building tracks for a new full-length album. Summer Rain is the first single release from the anticipated full album.
The pair have announced a series of shows (see below), with more dates to be confirmed soon. Catch Bartlett and Haydock performing together if you like beautiful, reflective music. In the meantime, be absorbed by the sweet nostalgia of Summer Rain.
4 July – The Cabin, Camberley
26 July – West End Centre Stage at the Picnic and Pop Festival, Aldershot
29 August – The Wake Festival, West Sussex
26 September – The Hive, Crowthorne
27 September – The Cabin, Camberley
