18 episodes
The Thunder Mutters Becky Dellow/Adam Horovitz
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- Arts
The Thunder Mutters is a podcast in love with music, and with the music of words. Presented fortnightly by poet Adam Horovitz and fiddle player Becky Dellow, it takes its name from the poem by John Clare.
We will be exploring the connections between music and poetry, concentrating for the first year of the podcast on Clare’s 'The Shepherd’s Calendar' and on the tunes Clare gathered. Every month, we will bring you the appropriate section of the Calendar interspersed with relevant tunes that Clare himself collected and likely played. We will be discussing the provenance of the tunes and leavening the academic with a healthy dose of poetry and music in performance.
In the weeks in between, we will present shorter shows exploring the works of the Romantic poets and others from the 18th and 19th centuries, again always interweaving tunes that the poets themselves might have heard or played amongst the poems and conversation.
Having said that we will be presenting poets and tunes from the 18th and 19th centuries, it is very much our intention to also invite living poets and musicians to respond to the work of the poems and tunes we present. We believe that music and poetry are perhaps the best ways of holding an on-going conversation with our ancestors and our descendants, and are keen to find ways of furthering that conversation through The Thunder Mutters.
We hope that you enjoy this podcast. If you do, we hope you might be inspired to subscribe and contribute to our Patreon in some small way, to help mitigate the costs of producing the show, (https://patreon.com/thethundermutters) and that you will consider following us on Facebook (fb.me/thethundermutters) and/or Twitter (https://twitter.com/ThunderMutters) If you enjoy the shows, we’d love to hear from you.
Becky Dellow is an experienced and versatile fiddle player who fuses fiddle traditions from around the British Isles. “The tradition of fiddle playing in my family goes back at least five generations,” says Becky, “to my great great grandfather Thomas Hampton, a fiddle player from Hereford. It was his hand-written tune manuscript book that inspired my PhD research under the supervision of trad singer and academic, Dr Fay Hield.”
Since completing her PhD, Dr. Dellow has continued to carry out tune research, contributing to academic journals and conferences, and uses the research to develop her performance as a folk musician.
Adam Horovitz is a poet, editor and performer. His first collection of poetry, Turning, was published in 2011 and his most recent book, The Soil Never Sleeps, explores the farmlands of Britain 200 years on from Clare, who was a strong influence on the book. He has collaborated numerous times with musicians, and has presented two shows with Becky. The first was for the Laurie Lee centenary.
“I asked Becky because Laurie was a fiddle player as well as a poet,” he says, “not knowing at the time that her grandfather, Charles Hampton played in a band with Laurie in the late 1920s. It was perfect synchronicity, and that surprise has led to The Thunder Mutters.”
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Episode Eighteen - Valentine Special
Welcome to the eighteenth episode of The Thunder Mutters, our Valentine special, giving you a taster of projects we have been involved in since the last podcast series.
This episode features extracts of poetry from 'Love & Other Fairy Tales', written and performed by Adam Horovitz, and traditional tunes from Becky's album, 'Take Her Out and Air Her' arranged and performed by Becky Dellow on fiddles and piano, with accompaniment by Lukas Drinkwater and vocals Milly Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
Becky's album can be bought from this link: https://beckydellow.bandcamp.com
and for Adam's book, follow this link: http://adamhorovitz.co.uk/blog/shop/love-other-fairy-tales/
The order of play is listed below:
Tune: Garden of Butterflies
Poem: Some Kind of Fairy Tale
Poem: There's a Music
Tune: Rolling Wave
Poem: Seed & Stone
Poem: A Rose By Any Other Name
Song: False, False
Poem: The Marriage of Consonant and Vowel
Poem: Fragment of a Fairy Tale
Tune: My Mind Will Never Be Easy
Poem: Love Poem Disguised
Poem: Stopping with a bicycle on a hill above Stroud
Ruskin Mill
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate -
Episode Seventeen - The Shepherd's Calendar - March - John Clare
Welcome to the seventeenth episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring 'March' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar’, performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
This is our final episode featuring Clare’s ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ and we will be having a month off in April, ready to return in May with a new project.
All the tunes in this episode have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky has used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983) as the basis for her arrangements.
The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance: St David’s Day, Way To Get Married, Kingsbridge Assembly, Capt Mackintosh, Coming Through The Rye, Archers Dance, Montrose Reel and The Irish Roodalum.
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate
References:
Deacon, George, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Frances Boutle Publishers, 2002)
Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) [Accessed 2nd January 2021] -
Episode Sixteen - The Shepherd's Calendar - February - John Clare
Welcome to the sixteenth episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring 'February ' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar’, performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
We will return next month with March, our final episode from Clare’s Shepherd’s Calendar so please come back then and take a listen.
All the tunes in this episode have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky has used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983) as the basis for her arrangements.
The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance: Lovly Nancy [sic], New Drops of Brandy, Female Drummer, The Muses, Irish Girl, Stringers Hornpipe, Charley over the water and Hornpipe.
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate
References:
Deacon, George, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Frances Boutle Publishers, 2002)
Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) [Accessed 2nd January 2021] -
Episode Fifteen - The Shepherd's Calendar - January - John Clare
Welcome to the fifteenth episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring 'January' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar’, performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
We will return next month with February, so please come back then and take a listen.
All the tunes in this episode have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky's used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983) as the basis for her arrangements.
The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance: Wounded Huzzar, Lincolnshire Rangers, Dorset shire March, The Storm, Top sail shivers, Lord Cathcart, Scarlet and Green, Stopford’s Reel, Wars Alarms.
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate
References:
Deacon, George, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Frances Boutle Publishers, 2002)
Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) [Accessed 2nd January 2021]
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Episode Fourteen - Wassail
Welcome to the fourteenth episode of The Thunder Mutters, a bonus December episode featuring readings by Adam Horovitz, two acapella settings of Clare's poems composed by Jess Nock and interspersed with tunes performed by Becky Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
We will return next year with January from Clare's poem 'The Shepherd's Calendar', so please come back then and take a listen.
Two of the tunes in this episode have been taken from Gwilym Davies and Roy Palmer's book 'Let Us Be Merry', a collection of carols from Gloucestershire. This and other sources used are listed below.
The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance: The Lament of Swordy Well, The Cock Fled Up In The Yew Tree, The Bitter Willow, The Gloucestershire Wassail, The Mores.
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate
References:
Davies, G and Palmer, R, Let Us Be Merry (Cirencester: Green Branch Press, 2016)
Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) [Accessed 2nd December 2020]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucestershire_Wassail -
Episode Thirteen - The Shepherd's Calendar - December - John Clare
Welcome to the thirteen episode of The Thunder Mutters, featuring 'December' from John Clare's 'The Shepherd's Calendar’, performed by Adam Horovitz, and interspersed with tunes from Clare’s tune manuscripts performed by Becky Dellow.
As usual, our Ko-fi page is open for donations to help keep the podcast up and running: www.ko-fi.com/thethundermutters. Any contributions much appreciated.
We will return next week for a bonus Christmas episode, so please come back then and take a listen.
All the tunes in this episode have been taken from John Clare's tune manuscript books, and Becky's used the transcriptions provided by Marion Ross in George Deacon's book John Clare and the Folk Tradition (Sinclair Browne Ltd., 1983) as the basis for her arrangements.
The tunes, whose histories are discussed in the show, are listed here for your convenience, in order of appearance: Roast Beef of Old England, Ashley’s Ride, Egg Hornpipe, Brighton Camp, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
The Thunder Mutters’ theme tune is The Gardengate
References:
Deacon, George, John Clare and the Folk Tradition (London: Frances Boutle Publishers, 2002)
Kuntz, Andrew, and Valerio Pelliccioni, Traditional Tune Archive (2017) [Accessed 29th October 2020]