ONLINE LINK HERE

KATE BURKE & RUTH HAZLETON - Declaration
Private Label KR005

The musical distance between Britain and Australia is greater than it should be, despite the efforts of Martyn Wyndham-Read, James Fagan, Andy Irvine and plenty others. Declaration is the fifth album from Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton, an Aussie duo who have built a fine reputation there since they began playing together in 1998, but I hadn’t come across them before. I’m glad I have now. 


Their expressive, well-matched voices, singing solo or in harmony, bring out the light and shade of the material. The spare musical accompaniment of guitar (Kate) and banjo (Ruth) gives the songs room to breathe. The producer Luke Plumb (ex-Shooglenifty) adds well-considered bouzouki and mandolin. 


The 11 traditional and contemporary songs roam from Australia to Britain and America. Love, or the lack of it, is much in the air. The Declaration (words by Aussie poet John Shaw Neilson, tune by the aforementioned Martyn) is a declaration of faithful love. Kate’s The Freeze deals with love cherished amid intolerance. Martha Scanlon’s Little Bird Of Heaven is a symbol of hope and shared love. These contrast with the defiant restlessness of Katy Cruel, the sorrow of Queen Of Hearts (not a song I’ve ever liked), the false charge of infidelity in Waly Waly (from the singing of June Tabor) and the troubled marriage in Bleezin’ Blind Drunk (from Sheila Stewart and Linda Thompson). We also get Father Adieu (a “white spiritual” collected by Alan Lomax in Virginia), Ruth’s politically righteous Hearts Of Sorrow, the excellently arranged Dean Younk A Gernow (a song of emigration in Cornish and English) and Dylan’s Lay Down Your Weary Tune.

​The album is well thought out and beautifully delivered. Their website gives some useful context. After a significant gap for child-raising, they see this as the start of a new era with a more deeply considered approach.

www.kateandruth.com

Tony Hendry


​

ONLINE LINK HERE


Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton

DECLARATION

★★★½

This ultimately beguiling album begins with a song that might have appeared on Laura Jean's last record: slow, intimately sung, sad without labouring the point, small horizons but very Australian. Don't be fooled though, as soon enough they're in older folk territory with the lamentable tale of Katy Cruel and the quasi-medieval feel of Queen of Hearts (dreamier than the version most recently done by the Unthanks). We quickly settle into areas more traditional than Laura Jean. That said, while British and American folk traditionals dominate this album from Australians Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton – they contribute one original each, and three more contemporary songs appear including a Dylan cover – there's a freshness to their often measured interpretations. That's partly due to the way their voices entwine easily, old and modern at once, and also because there is always air around the banjo and acoustic guitar, which do the bulk of the work. Declaration is not trying to be new but succeeds at being renewed.

BERNARD ZUEL

KATE BURKE & RUTH HAZLETON

Declaration

Own label KR005

ONLINE HERE

Kate and Ruth, two of Australia’s most respected folk musicians, have been performing as a duo since 1998 – and yet they’re something of a best-kept secret. They now emerge from an eight-year family-raising sabbatical following their last CD (Summer’s Lonesome Tale), with this excellent new offering. Still intact are the duo’s trademark spinetingling vocal harmonies and a level of consummate musicianship that delivers a subtle and intricately woven accompaniment with minimal resources, where every stroke, note and nuance counts. Additionally, Kate and Ruth continue to favour material that’s often challeng ing in its subject matter. Also like its predecessor, Declaration closes with a Dylan cover – this time the tradition-inflected Lay Down Your Weary Tune, which receives a matchless, fluid contemporary interpretation here.

Repertoire-wise, Declaration is a more rounded collection than its predecessor, with just six of its eleven cuts being traditional in origin. The remainder comprise three covers (the aforementioned Dylan, plus Martha Scanlan’s Little Bird Of Heaven and Martyn Wyndham-Read’s setting of Australian lyrical poet John Shaw Neilson, a contemporary of Henry Lawson), plus two notable original compositions which showcase Ruth and Kate’s increased songwriting prowess. Kate’s contribution, The Freeze, inspired by an EAnnie Proulx short story, is a tender description
of intense but unmanageable love, whereas Ruth’s Hearts Of Sorrow is a lament cum-call-to-arms for our times.

Declaration is also a leap forward from Kate and Ruth’s previous albums in terms of its greater clarity of focus, matched by the extraordinary degree of light and shade brought out by Luke Plumb’s (Shooglenifty) magnificent production, which conveys the duo’s special qualities with remarkably little intervention (some bouzouki/mandolin and only very occasional studio effects).

Ruth and Kate’s uniquely fresh interpretations of traditional song remain a cornerstone, and they retain their ability to communicate a complex viewpoint which can make the listener jettison preconceptions. Katy Cruel and the Lomax-collected Father Adieu are especially vitally managed, as is the perennial allegory Queen Of Hearts, whose ominous inevitability is well caught in Ruth & Kate’s measured reading (hear it on this issue’s fRoots 55 compilation).

Throughout the disc, the duo’s acutely observed realisations and arrangements are a model of precision and intimate, intricate simplicity. Declaration is a real gem.

www.kateandruth.com

David Kidman

LINK HERE

Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton – Declaration by Mike Davies on 16 July, 2015

in Album Reviews

It’s eight years since the Australian folk duo Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton last released an album, during which time they’ve been busy raising families. However, they’ve finally found room in their domestic schedules to put together a collection of new material under the title of Declaration. Tracks were variously laid down at assorted Melbourne locations under the guiding hand of producer Luke Plumb, he of Shooglenifty fame, who also provides occasional accompaniment on mandolin and bouzouki.

Comprising two self-penned numbers (one each), six traditional tunes and three covers, it sets out to explore the contrasting themes of light and darkness with sparse (mostly just guitar and banjo) but often complex arrangements that highlight their harmonies as much as their instrumental virtuosity.

It opens with the traditional-coloured title track, the words, a testament to love through changing and challenging times. It was written by the late, little known Australian poet John Shaw Neilson with music originally by Martyn Wyndham-Read (from whose 1996 recording the pair learned it). Before proceeding to the first of the traditional numbers proper, there is a banjo led version of Katy Cruel, which, interpolating the chorus refrain from Irish ballad I Know Where I’m Going, dates from the American War of Independence and is sung in the voice of a fiercely independent woman who refuses to bow to social convention in choosing her lover. The duo’s version was inspired by recordings by both Karen Dalton and Linda Thompson, and it’s the latter who also fuelled their take on Breezin’ Blind Drunk, a woman’s account of turning to drink to escape from a life of domestic abuse that traces back to Scottish singer Sheila Stewart and features a new verse written by Thompson herself.

On a similarly downbeat note, dating back to around 1660, the seven minute Queen of Hearts is another song wherein women’s hearts are battered by the vagaries of men’s attitudes to love, Kate’s use of concertina retaining the 17th century flavour of the tune.

Elsewhere, the other traditional material encompasses Waly Waly, a Child Ballad about a supposedly adulterous wife, this sprightly, rather more defiant account learned from the singing of June Tabor; the Alan Lomax collected ‘white spiritual’ Father Adieu featuring Plumb accompanying the duo’s banjo and guitar; and Dean Younk A Gernow (Young Man of Cornwall), a song about Cornish emigration (many heading to Australia) sung from a woman’s perspective and learned from Cornish outfit Dalla, whose Hilary Coleman and Neil Davey instructed the pair in the pronunciation of the parts sung in Cornish.

The Freeze is Burke’s contribution to the set, a song about love in the face of intolerance inspired by an E. Annie Proulx short story with Plumb’s mandolin adding subtle shadings to the acoustic guitar and understated banjo. Hazleton’s offering is the more directly political with Hearts Of Sorrow, Burke playing concertina with Plumb on keyboards and programming for a protest lament about how corporate greed places profit above the welfare of the Earth and its indigenous people.

The remaining two cuts are both covers, banjo and mandolin driving Little Bird of Heaven, a welcome upbeat bluegrassy song of love and hope from Martha Scanlan from the Reeltime Travellers while the album closes with guitar, banjo and accordion backed version of Dylan’s Lay Down Your Weary Tune which, hewing to the original Celtic sounding intent, is closer to the versions by Andy Irvine and Leeds duo Farrago than the familiar jangling one by The Byrds.

A solid example of how less can be more, this is a both a very welcome return and an enticing introduction to the duo’s embarking upon new paths down a familiar route.

Review by: Mike Davies

Link to Web HERE


Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton
Album: Declaration
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.kateandruth.com/
Exceptional vocal harmonies coupled with sparse but complimentary accompaniments greet those who seek out "Declaration", the fifth release from Australian folkies Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton.

On this occasion they are aided and abetted, or more rather guided by Luke Plumb (ex of Shooglenifty) who collaborates as a musician, engineer, arranger and producer. Just don't expect Celtic fused dance rhythms here.

What you can expect is a soulful interpretation of traditional folk songs. Mournful laments; love enduring hardships coupled with songs of protest all in perfect pitch as the voices of Kate Burke and Ruth Hazelton intertwine and delight.

The tackling of "Queen Of Hearts" is a brave decision especially as the track appeared on last year's superb album by Martin & Eliza Carthy ("Moral Of The Elephants"). In Kate and Ruth's hand this 17th-century song is dark and slowed "To the Queen Of Hearts he's the Ace Of Sorrow, He's here today and gone tomorrow" you sense the loss and yearning. The concertina almost seems to want to stop in sympathy. It's a moving interpretation.

So much that the song that follows "Waly Waly" a tale of a woman who marriage was broken up by a scandalous false acquisition seems an almost positive statement of the power of female resolve and the ability of the family to overcome adversity and stand tall in the knowledge of truth.

"Bleezin Blind Drunk" normally associated with Linda Thompson, addresses domestic violence and its effects whilst suggesting that sometimes the way out is to blot out the pain and fight fire with fire. A train wreck of a relationship that still plays out continuously even in this day and age.

"The Freeze" written by Kate and inspired by a story from E. Annie Proulx describes the pleasure and depth of love in relationships that cannot be acknowledged. It's an uplifting and inspiring song.

Not to be outdone, "The Hearts Of Sorrow" from the pen of Ruth is described as ""Both a lament and call-to-arms in regard to the cruelty and sadness of the times we live in; our lack of respect toward our indigenous brothers and sisters, asylum seekers and the greed of multinational corporations which continue to prioritize profit above the welfare of the earth and its people." It's heartfelt and earnest.

Add in a traditional song sung partly in the Celtic Cornwall tongue and you're almost done. All that is left is a cover of Bob Dylan's "Lay Down Your Wary Tune" my favourite version of which was recorded by "Coulson, Dean, McGuiness Flint" back in the Seventies. Here it becomes a withdrawal, a resting, a changing of ways there's gentleness to this interpretation.

After almost two weeks of review, the purity of voice, the integrity of interpretation and the honesty of emotion shine through; that's my "Declaration". Will you find yours?

Ian Cripps

Declaration – Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton

The return of Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton to the studio with their fifth album was welcomed with open arms from everyone in the folk scene. I’ve said it many times before but Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton’s music in the early 2000’s is what solidified me as a life long fan of folk and traditional music and having them back in my earbuds with brand new music is simply wonderful. This album is everything you want from Kate & Ruth – beautiful harmonies, stunning renditions of traditional songs and some contemporary music added in for good measure.

Full Article HERE

Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton - Declaration by Frank Gutch Jr.
June 25, 2015

Web link HERE

I forget sometimes how close are the U.S., Canada, the UK and Australia. The opening strains of Declaration, the new album by Down Under's Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton, drive it home with lightly plucked acoustic guitar, sparse banjo and voices worthy of the early days of the UK's sixties and seventies folk resurgence a la Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention, Fotheringay), June Tabor, and Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span), the last two joining together to loosely form a duo/band they called Silly Sisters. It was a magical time in all four countries, the past recalled by a string of musical shamans, as it were--- musicians so invested in the past yet so tied to the then-present performing folktales and retelling histories long forgotten outside of the halls of learning.  

The truth is, Burke and Hazleton seem to have not only captured the magic of that era but have wrapped the music up in what should rightfully be Australian garb but in fact covers the four countries equally. You can hear the Modern Folk of the U.S. and Canada, the traditional folk of the UK and, of course, of Australia--- all channeled through two beautiful voices and simple instrumentation which supports but does not in any way interfere. It has been recorded so well, in fact, that I sent a message to Ruth Hazleton immediately upon hearing it to the effect that it is, indeed, a project of real worth. Ruth passed the note along to producer/sideman Luke Plumb, who sent this message:

“I agree with your sentiment that the material is important and constantly reminded the girls of that during the recording. It's nice to hear that someone else gets that about the relevance and almost moral imperative contained in the collection. I'm very happy to have been a part of it.”

Happy, indeed. For those who think the pros just head into a studio with everything down pat, it is seldom so. No matter how much you prepare, there are always surprises and changes of direction--- sometimes good and sometimes bad. To my ears, the surprises were all good and spurred the project on to great heights because Declaration is downright overwhelming, front to back.

The CD booklet gives thumbnails regarding each song, from the haunting John Shaw Neilson/Martyn Wyndham-Read semi-collaboration “The Declaration” to Kate and Ruth's interpretation of Bob Dylan's “Lay Down Your Weary Tune,” a song which I until now related to more as a Byrds song than anything. Of the eleven songs, I have to admit to being prejudiced toward the two originals, partially because they hold truth relative to the present. Burke's “The Freeze,” inspired by a short story by E. Annie Proulx, is intensely beautiful without the story which is heartbreaking. “'The Freeze,'” it says in the liner notes, “describes intense, unmanageable but undeniable love in a time of intolerance. It is dedicated to those whose relationships remain officially unacknowledged, if not openly vilified, by societies around the world.” Think about it for a moment. Hazleton's “Hearts of Sorrow” takes its message to the heart, too. “Both a lament and call-to-arms in regard to the cruelty and sadness of the times we live in; our lack of respect toward our indigenous brothers and sisters, asylum seekers and the greed of multinational corporations which continue to prioritize profit above the welfare of the earth and its people.”

Burke and Hazleton have, maybe unknowingly, captured what folk music was when the folk-singer craze was going strong--- music with a message. They do it with their songs, yes, but they do it with their choice of songs as well. Six of the songs are traditional yet sound as fresh as if they were written and recorded today, the rest chosen to complete a weave very much a part of who Burke and Hazleton are as musicians.

The truth is that this album is worth more than just the music. This time it goes deeper. Way deeper. I will give you an example by quoting myself--- a message I attached to a repost of the video below on Facebook. To wit:

The saddest thing about this little snippet is that you get only the mere breath of the music on the album. The good thing is that should be all you need to realize that this is an album you should be listening to. This is folk in the tradition of very early Sandy Denny and Maddy Prior and in the tradition of the downtrodden everywhere. These are protest songs, mostly traditional, which tell stories from which we should be learning for if we don't, there will be hell to pay. Thus far, we aren't. Let us hope we wake up before the Monsantos and trade partnerships bury us all. The album is titled "Declaration" for a reason.

Declaration

Kate Burke & Ruth Hazleton

Web Link HERE

Independent

4 stars

While Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton are accomplished instrumentalists and songwriters, it’s their prowess as singers — solo and in stunning harmony — and as interpreters that’s primarily on display in Declaration.

Their intricate yet intrinsically spare guitar and banjo accompaniment allows optimum absorption of a well-chosen selection of traditional and contemporary songs, and two excellent self-penned numbers. Luke Plumb’s production sensitivity and expertise and his judicious backing contributions on mandolin and bouzouki guide the Australian duo’s exploration of lightness and darkness — mostly the latter — through the prism of folk song. Fidelity and infidelity are recurring themes throughout Burke & Hazleton’s fifth studio album and, by osmosis, the resilience of women. Their renditions of two trad ballads of Scottish origin, Bleezin’ Blind Drunk and Katy Cruel, offer sound alternatives to the cover versions by English songstress Linda Thompson that inspired their interpretations.

The ladies’ reading of Queen Of Hearts, a haunting 17th-century song that compares love to a game of cards, might not match Martin & Eliza Carthy’s extraordinary rendition on last year’s The Moral of the Elephant album, but it’s nonetheless riveting.

Although they’ve modified lyrics and melodies to suit their own purposes, they’ve done so with reverence to the source, overtly so in Dean Younk a Gernow — an 18th/19th-century emigration song that the pair partly deliver in the arcane language of Cornwall.

Tony Hillier