Category: Heritage

Thank you for all your interest, and considerable patience, while we’ve been putting the album together over the last 5 years. I hope you enjoy what we’ve created, and that you’ll see fit to share “Heritage” around your family and social circles, on and offline!

I’m increasingly drawn to a life offline: a life where humans talk to other humans in the same room. All of the songs on the album come from a time way before we all started to hide behind our screens. They tell the lives of ordinary people, how they lived their lives, and the privations and injustices they suffered along the way.

The album’s two original songs commemorate the life of my Great Uncle Frank Reed (1897-1964), who I met just the once in his Blackpool basement room. The lyrics to both parts of “Keeping of the Bridge” and their title come from the first half of a trenches’ parody of a 15-verse 19th century poem “The Dream of Gerontius” (John Henry Newman 1865) . The parody was included in Frank’s memoirs, from his experience in what he called his ‘Great Adventure’ as he picked up bodies for four years from September 1915 on the killing fields of northern Europe. It’s a sobering reminder of the chaos into which our world descends if good people don’t stand against dark forces.

Back in about 2017-18, Duncan and I had intended to create an EP based entirely on “The Keeping of the Bridge”, and at that time our idea was to involve Matt in the songwriting. He’s so much better at accents than either of us! We may yet revive that idea, but for now Matt has graced Duncan’s ‘Part 1’ with his violin and viola. In 2021, I posted a YouTube video performance of “She Moved Through The Fair”. Jo Beth gave it a ‘like’ and a comment, and it was that which gave me the idea of involving her in the song, and sparked the wider idea of an album of traditional folk songs. Thank you to both of them, and to Ali Karim our great friend and producer.

Our approach to “Heritage” was a relaxed one. If a song worked from just one of us, then the other stepped back. So “Van Diemen’s Land” is mainly me and “Wild Mountain Thyme” is mainly Duncan, the principle being ‘what works best works’. It was nice to close with a song where each of us took alternative verses, coming together in the final verse, with Jo Beth’s amazing vocal arrangements weaving through the whole song.

“Heritage” does have occasional bright lyrical moments amid the political and social gloom, and includes songs that we’ve known throughout our family life, with just one or two of them coming to us more recently. In that sense, the album is also a tribute to the power of folk song. I look back at some of my own songwriting and singing inspirations: Dick Gaughan, Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, Ann Briggs and their ilk. These inspirational, community-minded artists have kept our social history alive and together with archeology, landscape archeology and the science that supports them, they have enabled us to hold on to real truths at times when political leaders have tried to create their own myths.

These are all things that have underpinned our album over these last five years. We didn’t intend it to take such a long time, but somehow, it feels appropriate that family life got in the way! We hope you love our progressive folk versions of songs you will surely know, one or two that you may not, and that it will encourage you to look further at the stories behind each of the songs on “Heritage”. 

Heritage was released at 6pm (UK) on Saturday 12th September 2026 and was entirely self-funded. We hope you’ll pick up a digital copy or buy our CD!

www.johnduncanreed.bandcamp.com 

Peace.

John

History is being manipulated like never before, because it’s rarely been so essential for desperately needy, control-freak rich men in expensively tailored dark blue suits to manipulate what we read and therefore what we might believe. As soon as a regime starts to ban certain books while themselves preaching the importance of the freedom of speech, you know you’re in for a tough time.

At school, history largely bored the crap out of me. All those dull books full of apparently important dates for the accession and succession of kings and queens, the start and end dates of wars in which thousands lost their lives, and all in a Catholic school run by Christian Brothers, some of dubious sexual intent, who would rather you believed only what they wanted you to. I persevered with history because I was good at it, attained average A-level and S-level grades because I was too busy enjoying myself, and went on to study it further at University, where after the first year, I finally learned its purpose: to tell the tales of ordinary folk – people just like you and me, but from another time.

In my second year, I was one of several guinea-pigs for a new course in History & Landscape Archaeology run by one of life’s inspirations, Dr. Alan Carter. He made history relevant and tangible to a 19 year old, and alongside music it’s been my passion ever since. A lot of stuff we learned from him was the mundane stuff of life in another time: the pots and pans and utensils they used, the dwellings where they lived, and yes, the animals they reared, the crops they grew, and on what terms, the weapons they sometimes had to use to defend themselves, and their fealty to their baronial or ecclesiastical lords. Day to day life probably wasn’t as violent as it was portrayed, but of course there’s no written evidence other than that passed down by the ruling classes. Much of the rest is supposition from archeological finds beneath the ground, and the shape of the land above it (hence ‘landscape archeology’), but all of it gave a fairly accurate indication of how folk used to live their lives.

When you piece together those findings with the oral histories of passed-down stories, poems and songs, you achieve probably the most accurate history of the lives of those who ‘were just like us’. The discerning lover of folk songs will distinguish further between songs whose subjects were aristocrats having trouble with their love lives, and more real stories of love, life and loss to which we can all better relate. These songs contain their own fantasies, but when you look at their detail they contain as much credible evidence as an archeological dig:  

Once, our valleys were ringin’
With sounds of our children singin’
But now, sheep bleat ’til the evenin’
And shielings lied empty and broken

© Jim McLean 1963 from his song “Smile In Your Sleep”.

When I was courtin’ Mary Jane t’ old squire he says one day,

“I’ve got no room for wedded folk so will tha’ wed or stay?” 

The Dalesman’s Litany (Traditional)

Heard a siren from the docks,
Saw a train set the night on fire;
Smelt the spring on the smoky wind,
Dirty old town, dirty old town.

© Ewan MacColl 1949 from his song “Dirty Old Town”.

These three sets of lyrics are packed with descriptive evidence of our social, industrial and agrarian history, referencing things to which we can all in some way relate. In comparison, the finery, high art, and political machinations of the ruling classes feel about as far away as Nigel Fromage and the £5 million gift from a convicted fraudster who’s chosen to live in Thailand, or Donald Trump’s Qatari aeroplane gift and obsession with gold. While each has their place in historical notoriety, they hardly reflect the day to day lives of the people they purport to represent.

It’s my view that because of the manipulation of history by the ruling classes, contemporary and traditional folk music carries even more relevance than before, and can make a positive contribution to future generations’ understanding and perspective of history. That’s why it’s something to be cherished and protected. Some lyrics may have been changed to make the songs regionally relevant. Some will change the gender of the main character, but the historical evidence always remains in the detail.

It’s in that spirit that Duncan and I will release “Heritage” at 6pm on Saturday 12th September at https://johnduncanreed.bandcamp.com/ Prior to that, there will be a YouTube listening party @johnreed-music at 8pm (UK) on Saturday 5th September. “Heritage” is an album of folk songs: seven traditional, two still under copyright, and two original songs that reflect our love of, and connection with, the histories reflected in music created by people who ‘were just like us’, by our ancestors and families, and by those of communities who went before us. 

Peace.

John

I’ve had an interesting, inspiring, but volatile last couple of weeks! They’ve reminded me yet again how lucky we are to be here and in good health, and to have a modest talent for making music. This year, I’ve lost one friend, and two others have been diagnosed with cancer: yesterday, one of them was found to be in the clear. Today, the other messaged me to say his is terminal.

The only message to take from today’s news is that life is for living to the full. The hinderances, challenges and disappointments that accompany our daily lives are nothing compared to having our time limited, or stopped altogether. Events like this seem to have a habit of happening in groups, then not happening at all for a while. As I began to plough through the third and probably final tracking stage of “Heritage” with Duncan, the preamps in my recording interface failed, a machine head on my lap steel broke and the new one has jammed (I’ll sort that, but it isn’t a priority right now), the battery in my Fylde cittern failed shortly after I’d replaced the strings, and my Gretsch electric guitar developed a buzz!

So on Friday, I checked every lead with every instrument to confirm I wasn’t being a dick and that the Focusrite interface was faulty. I also looked at Focusrite’s troubleshooting page and a couple of blogs, and these helped to reinforce my diagnosis. ‘Diagnosis’ – what a word to use in the current circumstances, but honestly, there’s a relevance to it because these minor technical problems were brought into proper perspective by the news from my friends.

The failure of the Focusrite also presented a new opportunity. Later in the year, I’ll be recording each of the 12 songs for The Untangled Knot, both in the studio, during rehearsal and live at Berwick Parish Church, where we’re hoping the final album will be created with you all either looking in or joining us at this wonderful venue. I could have cobbled together enough inputs to do the live recording, because I’ve done it before. However, the better option was to replace my current interface with one where ‘cobbling’ was rendered unnecessary. Astonishingly, it arrived this morning: two days over a Bank Holiday weekend with love from the ultra-reliable Anderton’s in Guildford all the way to me in Berwick.

So I’ve regained recording days I thought I’d lost, and can crack on and finish this really important family album. I feel lucky because I am lucky. I wish I could channel some of that luck to my friends in need.

Love and Peace to you all.

John

I bought a 2-terrabyte external hard drive this week so I can safely store and keep copies of all the work I’m about to do in 2026. To prepare for the new arrival, I spent a couple of days re-organising earlier hard drives, and clearing space on my laptop. I know. What a terminally tedious way to open a new article! You may already have stopped reading.

For the last few days, I’ve been revisiting the songs for “Heritage”, the collaborative album I’m creating with my son Duncan. It’s been long delayed as life and house moves got in the way, so before life once more gets in the way, we thought we’d try and nail the album in the next few months. We have half of the songs roughly recorded already, and those are the ones I’m starting work on first.

The songs for this album are folk songs we’ve known as a family: traditional songs, songs of the ‘60s and ‘70s, and later songs that really struck a chord as we drove to holiday locations in and around this country and into Europe. Songs create memories, and evoke the atmospheres, sights and sounds we enjoyed back then, whether to the Isle of Skye, Tain on the Moray Firth, Norfolk, Cornwall, or northern France, Belgium and Holland. It’s amazing the detail that comes back to me from those trips, from those songs.

I remember driving along the side of Loch Ness to a tape of Runrig’s “Play Gaelic” and Capercaillie’s “Sidewaulk” as we approached Culloden: appropriate music for our journeys through the Highlands and on to the Western Isles. You can’t buy those experiences, but you can still buy the music. Sadly, the monetary value of music and the value of art, unless it’s a form of high art, has diminished to the point where only a small minority of artists can make a living from their craft.

As creators and innovators, we are now challenged with finding different ways to promote our music, and this at a time when most economies are sluggish, our improving relationship with the EU following our insane exit still places hurdles of regulation and Customs Duty in our paths, and Trump’s excessive and arbitrary tariffs on small parcels going from here to there makes it impossible for most of us to sell physical products into the US. If he remains in power, he will undoubtedly impose a government tax on digital products.

I’m still in regular contact with most of my US supporters and remain firmly of the belief that this storm will eventually pass. With the renewed scrutiny of social media for UK citizen’s wanting to travel to the US, I expect there’s less than a zero chance that people with political beliefs like mine would be allowed in, so the option of playing ‘live’ would also be denied to many. With all of this crap going on, the appreciation and support I receive from my US followers feels extra special. It shows there’s a connection beyond the turmoil, and that folks over there are as anxious as we are for the restoration of ‘business as usual’ as soon as possible.

For the present, it’s back into Berevic this afternoon to bring “Heritage” back on track. Duncan now has a garden office/studio. In his day job, he’s a project manager for a company that supplies renewables to council properties in Scotland, with current projects centring on the Moray Firth just up the road from Culloden. So there’s also a cycle of life in play as we put together this important new work. 

We’re not going to put a release date on “Heritage” just yet, because every time we do that something happens to slip it forward in time. I have other projects pending for the Spring so it would be ideal if we can put at least the recording of the album to bed before then. Ali Karim is ready to add his production from his new hideout when we’re ready.

We all hope you’ll enjoy the ride!

Peace.

John