Do you know what a quiet storm sounds like? A gentle fury? A smiling punch to the face? It turns out that these things sound like Maddie Morris. The very last winner of the BBC Young Folk Award, a socially conscious songwriter, an interpreter of old songs and creator of new ones. She is a baseball bat wrapped in brightly coloured fun fur.
This is the last in the current series of St George’s Rising Folk gigs. The intention has been to showcase some of the most exciting new folk artists in the UK and they don’t come much more exciting than Morris. A self-confessed fan of Ani DiFranco and Anais Mitchell, she is a warm, friendly presence in the pre-gig chat. She is at pains to point out that she loves folk music because it’s such an inclusive scene where everyone’s story has equal importance. Her set is full of equality and the heartbreak of a world that lacks it.
Philomela, taken from her new EP Upstream, is, unashamedly, a feminist anthem. With a story taken from Greek myth – yet another of the abuse of male power and the consequences women suffer – it is astonishing. The story is told with impressive wordiness, it’s deeply thoughtful, powerfully important. She asks “what is a bird without her song?/what is a woman without her tongue?” and leaves us with little doubt how vital it is that we hear stories from a female perspective.
Also nodding toward Greek myth is Icarus. Here she considers what kids do with the gifts that they are given. The intricacies of her thoughts are, again, expressed in a tumble of words, a delicately strummed guitar and with a voice with impressive range and beautiful clarity. From spoken word to soaring through octaves, she demands attention, demands that you listen, really listen, to what she says.
It’s on the unaccompanied songs that you understand how great her voice truly is. Barbara Allen is as trad as you can get and Morris’ version of this Child Ballad was learnt from Appalachian legend Jean Ritchie. She gives it a soulful edge, the merest hint of Gospel, as she tells the tale of true love denied, heartbroken death and a woman’s right to choose. On The Housewife’s Lament she is wry and sardonic. The bitterness of the lyrics welded to a sing-along, jaunty melody – the fist in a velvet glove.
Morris declares that she is “90% folk, 10% house rabbits, 100% gay” and it is this absolute certainty as to who she is that is key to her songwriting. Skittles rails against the ridiculousness of corporate sponsored exploitation, a slowly bubbling anger beneath a great tune. If Pride month needs a folk-y anthem then this should be it. On Marsha P Johnson she wonders how she could be more of an activist, find more of her history. As the guitar cascades around this personal and witty song, she reaches out to all “people like, and unlike, me”.
Her ability to include, to give voice to the powerless and overlooked, to sweeten fury means that Morris is bound to make a difference to our Folk world.
Gavin McNamara
TallFolk 