Some of you will know that for many years I have been part of a singing group called the Kettle Girls. One third in fact, for we are a trio of ladies who sing three-part harmony a Capella. And yes, we have long felt that now being grown-up women the ‘Girls’ part of our name is perhaps stretching things a bit, but once you have had a name for a long time it becomes quite difficult to change.
We began many, many years ago, before we actually began. Let me explain. The Kettle Girls are me, my mum and my best friend but we began singing together in a very different way before this. Let’s scoot back an horrific amount of years to the early nineties when my mum ran a church youth singing group where she somehow herded a large group of children through songs to perform at various church events. As is often the case, we children grew up, turned into disinterested teenagers and the group eventually ebbed to a close.
If I’m honest, I can’t really recall the transition time but from one to the other mum, bestie and I found ourselves continuing to sing together, sat at mum’s kitchen table – but this time we went folk. It’s not surprising really seeing as I come from a lineage of folkies on both sides of the family and so had been steeped in shanties, finger-in-ear tuning and nylon string strumming my entire life. And so, we sang – pretty much mostly in the key of D to begin with.
As the years have gone on I have to say I am very proud of what we have done. We managed to break out of just folk to embrace a multitude of genres, we’ve performed at an amazing array of different events (including once having to do battle with an ever-encroaching bagpipe band) and have made three albums. I’m glad to say we also now span a much wider singing key, although as we’ve got older it is generally now Bb.
CUE BIG PLUG HERE
I can’t be backward about being forward here, yes, this piece is very much to let you know our latest album is ready to buy – but it is an album that very nearly never was.
I promised you a piece of writing that was not entirely about cancer, but, seeing as that is what my daily life contains I can’t give you a blog without any mention at all.
As I mentioned above, we have moved on from just folk to a wide variety of genres but I think we have perhaps become best known for our comedy songs when performing. Even though we always tried to curate sets that included a little bit of everything, knowing how well the more amusing pieces went down we perhaps erred on the side of a few more of them; they were certainly the most requested. But this meant that we increasingly had a collection of beautiful songs we have nurtured into being and loved that weren’t necessarily getting the attention they deserved. So we decided to put them on an album. (To the mild horror of our Long-Suffering sound engineer.)
Life though has a funny way of throwing a few spanners in the works and in this case it went full on for it with an extra crowbar and screwdriver too. First up: The songs we had amassed seemed to fall into two categories: lullabies and sea-based songs and it soon became evident that these genres often and largely are about death and dying. Now, that made for interesting practices when you have not long found out that your cancer is now considered incurable. I believe the amount of cognitive dissonance the three of us must have executed for months must be some kind of record. But, the songs are beautiful – we were determined.
Now the really hard part – finding a time that the three of us and Long-Suffering sound engineer could all be available to record. We began looking at the beginning of the year (2023) and eventually found a date in October. That was it. Our one chance. As the date neared events conspired against us once more so that by the weekend of recording I had not only cancer to deal with but had just begun chemotherapy again – and had Covid (although the tests hadn’t confirmed that at the time so I thought it was just a cold and I was just struggling with breathlessness because of everything else.) To cut a long story short we did record but goodness we gave L-S sound engineer the worst possible scenario to work with – a maximum of two takes per song, some not even that.
He is some kind of sound wizard with the patience of ten-thousand saints because – WE HAVE AN ALBUM! We are particularly proud that this album contains some of our own self-penned songs too.
We would normally take our CDs out with us to the places we perform but, and I promise not too much more of this, we are unable to do any gigs as I just do not have the stamina because of my cancer and treatment but also I have only half a voice now and no lung capacity. I have found in the past that for some reason chemotherapy did make me lose strength in my voice but over time I managed to mostly get it back. This time is a little different as I had radiotherapy to my neck area and this can and seems to have damaged my vocal chords. In short when I sing now I can no longer guarantee if anything will come out or what it will sound like if it does.
It is a strange thing to happen to someone who has been singing in one format or another for their entire life. I am determined to view it as temporary still and that with time I will get my voice back again. We still get together to sing each week and I am very much in favour of giggling at my cracked or missing notes rather than getting upset by them.
This leads me onto my final thoughts about the Kettle Girls. We say it often and it could not be more true; we are more than a singing group. We are family, we are a support group, we are friends and a whole thing bigger than three voices. If you heard our practices you’d probably wonder how we ever managed to learn any songs because quite frankly the laughing often outweighs the singing. And we share a lot of food and drink too – dreadful for singing, but wonderful for bonhomie.
I believe that life is filled with love stories. Not just romantic love – all of the loves, and finding something like being part of the Kettle Girls is one of the love stories of my life.
This album may be our last if my voice does not manage to recover (so you better get yourselves a copy – hey, hey, unsubtle nudge). Or it may not. If I get my vocal chords back in order one day I have a feeling the next album will be of our more amusing songs (I’m sorry (not sorry) L-S sound engineer.)
Until then our new album Drifting is available to buy (£10 plus p&p where applicable) by contacting a Kettle Girl.
And to entice you, you can have up to three free listens to one of our self-penned songs, ‘Softly Come Sleep’, just click here.
Drifting is a collection of sea songs and lullabies either written, or chosen and arranged by the Kettle Girls to create a beautiful album of gentle listening. Whether you close your eyes and drift away on the ocean, or softly let go and drift off to sleep, let the soothing sound of this album take you away.
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