The gloriously talented VanWyck has a new single out, and it is her very first duet. The Amsterdam-based singer-songwriter has recorded a new version of ‘To June This Morning’, which is based on a poem by Johnny Cash, published in his collected writings ‘Forever Words’. It was a remarkable book that was accompanied, a couple of years later, by an equally remarkable album, featuring interpretations of his lyrics into song by a host of high-profile artists, including the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Chris Cornell, Alison Krauss and Union Station, I’m With Her, The Jayhawks, Rosanne Cash and Elvis Costello.
Cash’s words are full of the everyday love he had for June Carter: “And I made the morning coffee // Then your feet on the stairs // You said good morning to me // Then I sat beside you there.” In its simplicity and directness and specific, narrative language, his poem becomes a universal celebration of daily connection and partnership. For the ‘Forever Words’ album, this was transformed into a beautiful song by Ruston Kelly and Kacey Musgraves.
Now AUK-favourite VanWyck, herself an outstanding lyricist and observer of life’s details, has recorded her own version of ‘To June This Morning’. The original is a melodic beauty of a song. On this version, the gentle keys play around VanWyck’s subtle guitar while sublime, swaying pedal steel swells and flows in the background. VanWyck says of the song: “We always play this song in the encore – after I found out that my pianist has an amazing voice – and got so many requests for it, we decided to release it. We recorded it in one take in a small cabin studio in the north of the Netherlands with bandmates Henk Hulzebosch on vocals and piano and Stefan Wolfs on pedal steel.” Gorgeous stuff and an absorbing follow-up to last year’s 10/10 album “Dust Chaser”.
