This latest single from the upcoming album Beam Cottage, out on 6th November via Transgressive Records, is a radically reworked cover of the Hank Williams song which puts rambling out there as an act of chaos as much as an embracing of the freedom of the solitary road. The album features a mixture of new songs alongside favourite cover versions from Johnny and Lillie’s childhood as well as reworkings of music from Johnny’s extensive catalogue that they have played live in different iterations over the years. The title reflects on their one truly shared childhood home. Beam Cottage had played host to almost 400 years of life and death under its thatched roof. The brother and sister went to primary school in the next village and at night they would look out from their bedroom window and see the moon reflecting off the River Test across the cornfields. “We rented the cottage – our parents weren’t wealthy, and they never owned a house together – but when we remember a childhood home, this is it,” they say.
It has clearly taken the form of something of an idyll to them – but it was not to last as ironically they were torn apart by music when Johnny’s music scholarship took him to boarding school and soon after, Lillie moved with their parents to Wales to run a B&B. Then, aged just 62, Johnny and Lillie’s father died and home took on another changed form.
They have other memories though, and they reflect that “There was always music and singing in the house and in the car – our parents both sang and played guitar and between them introduced us to a wide range of songs.” Their father Eric also wrote songs, and it is his lullaby, Sleepy Head, that closes out Beam Cottage.
There are three London gigs coming up at:
Saturday 21st November – London – Royal Festival Hall
Monday 14th December – London – Union Chapel – matinee show
Monday 14th December – London – Union Chapel – evening show
But…they are all three sold out.
