Sheffield-based musician Rosie Hood presents The Rosie Hood Band and their new album A Seed Of Gold (released 3rd November 2023). For her first album since 2017’s critically acclaimed The Beautiful & The Actual, Rosie Hood (vocals, tenor guitar, baritone ukulele) is joined by fellow Sheffield-based musicians, Nicola Beazley (fiddle, five-string fiddle, vocals), Rosie Butler-Hall (fiddle, five-string fiddle, vocals), and Robyn Wallace (melodeon, percussion, vocals) to form the four-piece Rosie Hood Band.
“I feel privileged to be working with Nicola, Rosie and Robyn to bring this material to life. Their playing creates a wonderful chamber sound and I feel like it adds a real depth to my songs. Since we started rehearsing together early last year, I’ve been so much more inspired to write, and a lot of that is down to being able to imagine how it will sound played by the band”, Rosie said of the new line-up.
Featuring both traditional and newly written material, A Seed Of Gold draws inspiration from Rosie’s native Wiltshire for opener ‘The Swallow’, taken from Wiltshire Tales (John Yonge Akerman, 1853), the story of Lyddie Shears, a shape-shifting Wiltshire witch, and ‘Tyger Fierce’, a song with tragic consequences about a taunted 18th Century tiger in Malmesbury. Themes of nature and human struggle run through the album and intertwine in ‘Ethel’, a song named for national park pioneer Ethel Haythornthwaite who found solace from depression in the countryside, and ‘Marrow Seeds’, a re-writing of the traditional song ‘The Seeds Of Love’ following the modern-day migration of people and plants from Syria.
“To me, the story is always the most important thing, that’s the ‘seed of gold’ within a song. It’s what gives me empathy towards a character, and how I can inhabit the subject of a traditional song, a historical character, or write from the perspective of a tiger! Each of these songs tells a story that I care about, and I hope that makes them resonate with other people”.
A Seed Of Gold is released on Rosie Hood’s own label, Little Red Recordings. It was recorded by Rosie’s long-term producer Tom A Wright at Keystone Studio in Sheffield.
A former BBC Performing Arts Fellow and Horizon Folk Award nominee, Rosie Hood was born in Wiltshire but has now called Sheffield home for ten years, from where she has toured extensively both solo and in many collaborations. Known for her powerful and clear vocals, Rosie’s captivating performances combine her poetic writing with dynamic and honest interpretations of traditional songs. The Rosie Hood Band formed in 2022 to develop the sound and writing that Rosie had begun to explore in her 2017 release The Beautiful & The Actual. Along with long-term collaborator and skilled arranger Rochdale-born Nicola Beazley (Alex Cumming & Nicola Beazley), Rosie turned to the folk scene of her adopted hometown. Melodeon-player and percussionist Robyn Wallace (Bellamira), also originally from Rochdale, and fellow Wiltshire native fiddle-player Rosie Butler-Hall (The English Fiddle Ensemble) completed the line-up. With experience playing for ceilidhs, dancing and in brass bands, the instrumentalists bring a great dynamic lift and drive, continuing Rosie’s vision of re-working traditional English songs, as well as writing and arranging original material, touching on nature, human struggle, women’s voices and unheard stories. With outstanding musicianship and a deep understanding of tradition, Nicola, Rosie and Robyn’s sensitive playing combines perfectly with Rosie’s voice, skilfully and empathetically lifting each song. The Rosie Hood Band’s dynamic and emotive performances create an inimitable sound that whilst rooted in tradition, has contemporary appeal. The Rosie Hood band will be touring from October:
Artist’s website: https://www.rosiehood.co.uk/
‘Lyddie Shears’ – official video:
Tour Dates
21 October Manchester Folk Festival
22 October Newcastle The Cumberland Arms
25 October London Cecil Sharp House
25 October Online Live To Your Living Room
26 October Baston The Barn
27 October Barrow upon Soar Holy Trinity Church
28 October Otley Courthouse
31 October Dartford Folk Club
2 November Bretforton The Fleece
3 November Corsham Pound Arts Centre
4 November Wiveliscombe Community Centre
9 November Bristol The New Room
10 November Norwich Folk Club
12 November Sheffield Yellow Arch Studios
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