Hello Alela, thanks for this interesting read and listen I just found in my mailbox. It took me back to early 2023, when my mother passed away. Just a couple of days before her departure I saw you live in Nijmegen. The Camellia in my mother's garden and in mine were already blooming (Always one of the first colours that appear at the end of winter) That plant and your song will always be a memory to my mother. Thanks! I'm enjoying the wonderful weather we have here at the moment in NL, and wish you all the best. Gr Thijs
I had always assumed the vocals on Age Old Blue were your dad's until I learned of Michael Hurley. I'd be curious to hear an interpretation of AOB with your dad. Happy spring!
Am delighted to get this Alela - your latest news. Listening to your new song is reminiscent of listening to the simple hushed sound of Forest Parade some time ago. Quite recently I heard on the BBC a record by Ola Belle Reed!! Your music, your sound, is a sound with echoes in it, of those well-aged trad forms, country & folk, but not tied to them or arising studiously out of them. How you do this is not known . . . and it would be counterproductive to make you too self-consciously aware of it!! It's all about age, yes, to take up the main theme of your May message. It is not just your family relatives. The famous figures who I have been following since the Sixties are still going, still working - both Van Morrison and Eric Clapton are 80 this year, Dylan is 84 in a few days time, and Paul McCartney is 82 (?), but how long they will be doing this is not clear. David Attenborough the naturalist has a new series on BBC this year at nearly 100 years old. The last time I attended an Alela gig was 12 June 2019 at King's Place, which I made an effort to get to from Scotland because you were a duo with your dad, and that seemed special and not likely to be repeated. It was a suitably acoustic twangy gig. Since then the pandemic and a railway union strike that went on for YEARS have interposed themselves. So it's good to hear that you are still working with him as part of your creative process. (Any song from TBS would be good to hear from you both together). It was also good to see that lovely photo of your mother in the previous ET message. You talk about the "end of an era" but I have been living in a music listening template forged in the Sixties that I have never needed to replace. You are the leading voice since 2009 in that perpetual template (joined increasingly these days by Olivia Chaney, your support act in 2018). You say that "music has been devalued and is available for free". I read in an piece of journalism recently that digital technology has "turned music into a utility". This is a dreadful statement. You mention bandcamp and "other platform" to "stream music". I am not a part of this. I have no idea what bandcamp is. If you put out a record I will go and buy it at a shop or a gig by you. I will pay money for it. I do not listen to music as a utility. I focus on it as a conscious agent with a listening relationship to the artist producing it. In 2022, after listening to Eric Clapton playing a monumental solo on River Of Tears (in 2001), I was led to write a good poem about my friend of over 30 years Jeff who died of cancer in 2020 - which finally overcame the fact that the pandemic blocked any way of dealing with the loss at the time. This is what music artists can do!!! It's not a tap to absent mindedly turn on as background music. In 2010 I began listening to To Be Still alot because of an experience I was having at the time with poetry and voice and a young woman at my place of work (a charity shop). Ever since, the prospect of receiving further work from you has always been a very welcome one. To hear that you are "on the case" recently and currently is therefore news I want to hear. So this Endless Thread is a joy. It would also be a joy to pay for it, but as previously said more than once, the technology declines my perfectly valid and functioning debit card, so I can't. One final note. I am bemused that when you speak of Europe you implicitly exclude the UK!! So apparently we do not belong to any continent at all. This is what the grim farce of Brexit is all about. Yet historians will always speak of "western European countries" as including, of course, Britain. How or why would they not?? Oh well. I look forward to your new work, and your next ET. orrabest, Jerry
Im sorry for the loss of your friend Michael. What a treasure to have his voice message. As I prepare in my heart to honor my Dad who passed a year ago on May 24 - your song has brought all the tears - I just love it - My Dad sang in a Barbershop Quartet - the most beautiful bass. Fly on Daddy. Thank you Alela. xo
Your letters are so pure, Candide, deep and meaningful that I want to hug you, your grandpa and Michael. I'll go to hug whoever is close and be grateful for having this feeling.
I'm sending you lot of love and be sure that I'll be anywhere you are in Europe
This demo 💚💚💚💚💚
Hello Alela, thanks for this interesting read and listen I just found in my mailbox. It took me back to early 2023, when my mother passed away. Just a couple of days before her departure I saw you live in Nijmegen. The Camellia in my mother's garden and in mine were already blooming (Always one of the first colours that appear at the end of winter) That plant and your song will always be a memory to my mother. Thanks! I'm enjoying the wonderful weather we have here at the moment in NL, and wish you all the best. Gr Thijs
I had always assumed the vocals on Age Old Blue were your dad's until I learned of Michael Hurley. I'd be curious to hear an interpretation of AOB with your dad. Happy spring!
This is a sweet idea! I’ll see if I can get my dad to howl :)
Am delighted to get this Alela - your latest news. Listening to your new song is reminiscent of listening to the simple hushed sound of Forest Parade some time ago. Quite recently I heard on the BBC a record by Ola Belle Reed!! Your music, your sound, is a sound with echoes in it, of those well-aged trad forms, country & folk, but not tied to them or arising studiously out of them. How you do this is not known . . . and it would be counterproductive to make you too self-consciously aware of it!! It's all about age, yes, to take up the main theme of your May message. It is not just your family relatives. The famous figures who I have been following since the Sixties are still going, still working - both Van Morrison and Eric Clapton are 80 this year, Dylan is 84 in a few days time, and Paul McCartney is 82 (?), but how long they will be doing this is not clear. David Attenborough the naturalist has a new series on BBC this year at nearly 100 years old. The last time I attended an Alela gig was 12 June 2019 at King's Place, which I made an effort to get to from Scotland because you were a duo with your dad, and that seemed special and not likely to be repeated. It was a suitably acoustic twangy gig. Since then the pandemic and a railway union strike that went on for YEARS have interposed themselves. So it's good to hear that you are still working with him as part of your creative process. (Any song from TBS would be good to hear from you both together). It was also good to see that lovely photo of your mother in the previous ET message. You talk about the "end of an era" but I have been living in a music listening template forged in the Sixties that I have never needed to replace. You are the leading voice since 2009 in that perpetual template (joined increasingly these days by Olivia Chaney, your support act in 2018). You say that "music has been devalued and is available for free". I read in an piece of journalism recently that digital technology has "turned music into a utility". This is a dreadful statement. You mention bandcamp and "other platform" to "stream music". I am not a part of this. I have no idea what bandcamp is. If you put out a record I will go and buy it at a shop or a gig by you. I will pay money for it. I do not listen to music as a utility. I focus on it as a conscious agent with a listening relationship to the artist producing it. In 2022, after listening to Eric Clapton playing a monumental solo on River Of Tears (in 2001), I was led to write a good poem about my friend of over 30 years Jeff who died of cancer in 2020 - which finally overcame the fact that the pandemic blocked any way of dealing with the loss at the time. This is what music artists can do!!! It's not a tap to absent mindedly turn on as background music. In 2010 I began listening to To Be Still alot because of an experience I was having at the time with poetry and voice and a young woman at my place of work (a charity shop). Ever since, the prospect of receiving further work from you has always been a very welcome one. To hear that you are "on the case" recently and currently is therefore news I want to hear. So this Endless Thread is a joy. It would also be a joy to pay for it, but as previously said more than once, the technology declines my perfectly valid and functioning debit card, so I can't. One final note. I am bemused that when you speak of Europe you implicitly exclude the UK!! So apparently we do not belong to any continent at all. This is what the grim farce of Brexit is all about. Yet historians will always speak of "western European countries" as including, of course, Britain. How or why would they not?? Oh well. I look forward to your new work, and your next ET. orrabest, Jerry
Im sorry for the loss of your friend Michael. What a treasure to have his voice message. As I prepare in my heart to honor my Dad who passed a year ago on May 24 - your song has brought all the tears - I just love it - My Dad sang in a Barbershop Quartet - the most beautiful bass. Fly on Daddy. Thank you Alela. xo
Love the demo! The first verses reminded me a lot of another demo, an old one by british musician Mika called You made me.
https://youtu.be/-1LDBJILPOk?si=hyt3us3aOX8omuEV
Oh dear Alela!
Your letters are so pure, Candide, deep and meaningful that I want to hug you, your grandpa and Michael. I'll go to hug whoever is close and be grateful for having this feeling.
I'm sending you lot of love and be sure that I'll be anywhere you are in Europe
Arol