Winston School
‘All My Days’ album launch at Winston School
I have been privileged over the years, as a photographer, with access to venues and parts of venues that the general public find difficult to reach. Some places leave unexpected memories, those unplanned, unscripted moments that create the great patchwork of life.
One such place is a modest building in the village of Winston in Suffolk. Nestled beside the 15th century St Andrew’s Church, hidden from the road by a hedgerow and easy to miss in passing. A former school room bult in 1863, now being run by locals as a modest community centre.
I have conducted two photoshoots in and around this building relatively recently, connected in a way that is only possible through friendships that transcend commercial activity and take place because you know you will have good fun doing it.
I returned to Winston School on Saturday by invitation of my friends Kelly and David. In the USA they would call this a ‘house concert’, an intimate evening of music by invitation only.
There is an enticing warmth about this old school room which adds an extra undefinable element to the music played within. The Victorian school children, some of whose photographs adorn the walls, would no doubt have thought it strange to find their school room transformed into a place of entertainment.
Nominally this event, on this sultry summer evening, was a launch for David Edward Booth’s new album of songs All My Days. As album launches go it was more of a teaser with David playing but a few of his wonderfully crafted tracks. There were other people here with songs to sing too.
Opening the evening was Drew Young, all the way from Hattiesburg, Louisiana. He has developed a deep affection for Suffolk, his being here – over 4,500 miles from home – no surprise at all. Drew is a storyteller who puts his stories to music, many of which are about very ordinary things that happen in his life, and because of this his lyrics resonate with many. Opening with, unusually for him, a solo number, for the rest of his set he was accompanied by his locally sourced band.
He sang of a woman who had dumped him in his youth and years later, out of the blue, sent him a friend request on Facebook. Sitting in the front row my wife and I smiled at each other and silently mouthed a name. I had been there too, in my case that former girlfriend and my wife and I are now good friends.
Drew finished his all too short set with ‘Home by The River’ a song which perfectly demonstrates the superpower of musicians the world over. Sitting there in that Suffolk schoolroom I sang along to the chorus, smelling the Jasmin, walking along the banks of the mighty Mississippi watching the ships go by as I made my way to a bar on my way home from work.
The intermission drew me back to reality, outside there was no gently meandering river, just the horses in the field on the other side of the lane curious as to what was going on, dismissing us when they realised it was only ‘people’.
Kelly and David then took to the stage, although technically it wasn’t a stage, more an area at one end of the room where their musical instruments were kept and a nice, low red table where musicians could place their plectra and capos so they didn’t go missing.
David is a prolific producer and collaborator with other musicians. A multi-instrumentalist, he is at home plucking a mandolin, blowing a flugelhorn or banging a drum kit in a rock band. It has been some time since he created a body of his own work and he freely admits that he did this because he wanted to, that the time was right, and even if nobody else liked his album it was right for him to make it. And just to be clear, he need not worry about others liking it, they will.
They opened with one of Kelly’s songs, “Harry from The Marshes” as it is now known, with David playing Flugelhorn and bringing to a song I know well, a whole new dimension. But there was more depth to come in the form of the string section as they introduced us to Sophie Sirota on Viola and Jonathan Evans on Cello.
Sitting in that room with four musicians totally absorbed in creating a musical experience for us from their own individually scripted parts, the penny dropped. This was Renaissance chamber music in the classical style. Surely, I hear you cry, it is Folk, it is Americana. No, for it transcends mere genre, it is a renewed interest in music played in a room.
I would have liked to hear more of David’s new songs played in that room but that would have meant missing out on Kelly’s songs. The impact of the cello and viola on Wave Machine made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
The inspiration for songs has long fascinated those of us who have never written one. David told us about a songwriting retreat in Scotland. Those taking part were shown a series of photographs and tasked with writing a song about what one of the photographs said to them. David chose the photograph of a man walking away, back to camera, along a railway track. ‘Just Following Tracks’ was the result, and I began to understand that other superpower of the songwriter. The power to turn two dimensional images into feelings.
I bought David’s album ‘All My Days’ from the ‘honesty merch table’ – you took what you wanted and placed your money in the jar. As I am writing this, David’s album is playing in the background. I am so glad he decided to record these songs and have no regrets about not hearing them all live in Winston. There will be other opportunities, none perhaps as magical as that sultry summer evening in Winston School, but you never know what the future holds.
