Our celebration of the festival season continues with the excellent Michele Stodart, who is performing at the Maverick Festival this year. Maverick is a delightful event, taking place from 5th to 7th July 2024. It’s been a consistent showcase of Americana and country since the first festival in 2008, bringing a huge number of our favourite artists to the Suffolk countryside over the years. Get your tickets here.
Michele Stodart is one of the UK’s finest songwriters, recognised at the AMAUK Awards 2024 as Artist of the Year and for delivering the Album of the Year – 2023’s superb ‘Invitation’. Stodart says of the album: “‘Invitation’ is an intimate, personal record, with songs that touch on themes of motherhood, relationships, mental health, transformation, endings and new beginnings. It comes from a place of inviting in the darkness, the hard times, the sadness, anger, loss, love and grief… all of the unknown feelings that get woken up inside you. To practise staying with them, no matter how uncomfortable. To understand that they are there to guide you. I believe that it’s in the learning and listening that we can transform, grow, stay conscious and wholeheartedly true, open, honest with ourselves and others. Words are a powerful resource and we can choose to use them to connect deeply with one another. Song-writing has always been my way of trying to do just that, and I hope this album ‘invites’ us to reach out together.”
‘Tell Me’ is the album’s opening track, featuring a stunning vocal performance from Stodart, whose distinctive voice travels a gorgeous and often unexpected melodic path. It’s an emotionally raw song that explores cheating and heartbreak from the point of view of one person in a relationship. Stodart explains: “I wanted to write a song set in the heat of a moment. A brave, one-sided conversation between the truth and lies in a relationship. This is a song about a love affair in denial, hiding behind a sense of control and composure.” Thoughtful songwriting from a gifted singer. Check it out.
