The evening of 19 June 2014, do you have any recall of what you were up to? I do. Not because I possess a photographic memory – if anyone’s a sieve head its me – but the news I received that evening made such an impact I will never forget the grey skies then blanketing London.
Shangri La Tattoo Studio sat on the Dalston end of Kingsland Road and, that evening, I was inside, not getting inked but at a party Leslie Chan – SL’s proprietor – was hosting. It was a lively, raucous event, more old school Hackney than new, bumping into several Kiwis I knew and plenty of other people I didn’t. Then my phone rang. Today I still feel affection for that elemental Nokia and, to some degree, wish I’d stayed true to it rather than shifting to smart phones. Anyway, my Nokia rang and I saw it was John Williams, a writer friend in Cardiff, calling.
That John was calling wasn’t a big surprise as I’d emailed him a week or so previously enquiring as to whether he had any B&Bs to recommend – my plans were to be in Cardiff on August 10 for Charlotte Grieg’s 60th birthday celebration. Charlotte was John’s wife. She was also a writer and a folk musician. And a close friend. “Hi John,” I said (or, likely, shouted). John obviously heard the surrounding cacophony of music and voices and said, “can we speak somewhere quieter?” I’m sure I said something like “just a minute” and forced my way through the throng and out onto the Kingsland Road.
With only the sound of vehicles passing us to contend with I asked “what’s up?” Thinking that B&B info’ was surely forthcoming. “Have you heard the news?” John asked. Odd question, I thought. “No,” I replied. “What news?”
“Charlotte’s dead,” he replied.
Time stopped and any noise – from the road or the party – vanished.
“She can’t be,” I shouted. “She was just up in London while I was in New Orleans.”
I realise this sounds like a ridiculous thing to say but Charlotte had recently finished treatment for breast cancer and, it appeared, made a full recovery. I knew she’d been in London a few weeks ago and I’d missed her as I was in the Crescent City. So how could the cancer have returned so rapidly and aggressively? I was desperately trying to make sense of this.
“She killed herself,” said John.
I think I screamed. Or howled. Or made some awful guttural noises. I doubt I said much that was coherent, beyond telling John how sorry I was for him. And for me. I loved Charlotte. She was one of those unique friends that illuminated a room, made me smile whenever I caught sight of her.. Anyway, the call soon ended – John obviously had other people to share this grim news with – and I sat on the steps to a scruffy church and felt my world implode. A sudden death can do that to you. Just the awfulness of it all. How someone warm and so alive is now absent, scratched out. The overwhelming sense of loss.
Here’s Charlotte from her final album Dr Freud’s Cabaret.
Where the early evening prior to John’s call had been lit up with merriment and enthusiasm, I now had the taste of ashes in my mouth. I reentered the party, made my excuses and left. I next called my then girlfriend Sophie, who lived in Finchley and was expecting me post-party. I told her briefly about Charlotte and that I thought it better if I head home. She chastised me, obviously feeling stood up.
Why didn’t I go and take comfort in Sophie’s arms? Essentially, I knew her well enough to reason she wouldn’t be particularly sympathetic - being a doctor and dealing with patients day after day gave her an abrasive edge. Also, Sophie was a practising Muslim, thus saw suicide as a sin. I really, really, really did not want to tread towards a theological argument on a blustery June evening. So I got on the bus and headed South, thinking about Charlotte, how much I liked and admired her, what a loss her passing was for John (and her sons) and me (and her friends) and all those who enjoyed her music and books.
I did approach a couple of broadsheets as to the possibility of writing an obituary but they politely said she wasn’t well known enough. Which, I guess, was correct – Charlotte was admired by many but her books and music didn’t command a wide audience. Instead, I paid tribute on Charlie Gillett’s Sound Of The World website forum. Several other contributors here, it turned out, were aware of Charlotte – either fans of her book Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow (on girl groups) or her music. In that sense, I honoured her amongst those who appreciated her work.
At a memorial for Charlotte I read from this book - she wrote so well on the Shangri Las and other great girl groups.
I’d met Charlotte in the mid-1990s on the London alt.country music scene – at The Borderline, a basement venue just off Charing Cross Road – around the same time I’d met John separately (in a used book shop). We shared similar enthusiasms for music and travel and writers (I hesitate to say ‘literature’ as none of us liked Martin Amis/Ian McEwan and what was then promoted as Brit lit’). When Charlotte and John and their boys Owen and Henry decamped to Cardiff (where John’s from), so to replace a tiny London apartment with a spacious house, it gave me an excuse to visit them, which I did every summer. Cardiff’s a small, relaxed city and I really enjoyed getting a feel for it and the surrounding coast and hills.
Charlotte initially found the shift challenging – moving from her London milieu to Cardiff, as the mother of a small boy, involved adapting to a different group of mums. That said, as a musician she flourished in a city where more attention was given to middle aged folk musicians than in London’s hubris. And she appreciated the Welsh mothers’ humour – I recall her regaling me with stories of the hilarious women she encountered at mum’s meetings. Actually, Cardiff and the sense of isolation she initially felt there inspired the songs on her second album Down In The Valley.
I’d heard Charlotte’s 1998 debut album Night Visiting Songs not too long after I first met her. Its a remarkable album. Such a quiet, graceful record, very much in the British folk vein but unique in its sound and approach - Charlotte sang original songs and adaptions of traditional folk tunes, accompanying herself on a harmonium while backed with an elemental drum machine: imagine Nico crossed with Anne Briggs, then given a wistful, gently formal, very middle class English twist.
I recall saying to her PR, “tell Charlotte I like her album.” This was before the age when we were all in email or phone contact. I listened closely to the following five albums Charlotte would release over the next sixteen years, each similar but offering unique pearls. I’m listening to 2003’s Winter Woods as I write and its lovely to have Charlotte serenading me on this, one of the first real ‘summer’ days of 2024.
Here’s a track off Winter Woods – I love this song. So slow and graceful, it glides like a gentle caress.
As a musician, Charlotte did everything – played and produced and wrote most of the songs. Although I should note that on Winter Woods she is joined by multi-instrumentalist Julian Hayman – I often saw Charlotte and Julian playing together and they made beautiful music, she employing a harmonium to create elemental drones, over which she would sing her mournful songs. On Winter Woods Charlotte sings not only Shallow Brown – a sea shanty that’s thought to have originally been sung by a slave in the West Indies – but Sonic Youth’s Cotton Crown. I’ve never liked Sonic Youth but Charlotte’s son Owen was a fan, and this led her to deciding Cotton Crown was an interesting song to reinterpret as a folk song. She kept things simple, recorded on a 4-track recorder in a shed at the bottom of their garden, focusing on ensuring each song conveyed its essence. She was lo-fi singer-songwriter before the genre existed, a d.i.y folkie (as they once all were).
Charlotte also wrote books – she made little money from her music, which she self-released – and appeared insouciant about her lack of success, at least when we spoke (renewed interest in a 45 John had released during punk’s heyday was attracting more interest, she once told me, than her latest album). I interviewed Charlotte in 2001 for fRoots magazine when she released her third album, At Llangennith, and I’ll reproduce the feature below for anyone interested. I always believed she deserved a wider audience - not stadium-filling but surely some of the listeners who enjoyed Kate Rusby and Eliza Carthy and Kathryn Williams would have found Grieg’s gently haunted folk songs appealing? Well, I thought so.
I know Charlotte also thought this as we often discussed both music and the music industry - she was extremely passionate about whatever she was listening to (I recall her being enthralled by Memphis Minnie - who isn’t? - while finding Lucinda Williams’ latest bout of self-pity a bit rich). In some ways Charlotte was a predecessor for a lot of the lo-fi female singer songwriters who have evolved in the past decade. Not that the likes of Vagabon and Courtney Barnett were aware of Charlotte – beyond my fRoots piece she got little coverage in the traditional music press (a few favourable album reviews in the rock monthlies + some Radio 3 airplay).
Charlotte had been involved in making music since the 1980s when she had - and this still strikes me as almost unbelievable - been part of a female rap group (she once rapped for me to prove she could - and she could!). She’d released a couple of offbeat indie rock 45s (one produced by noted improviser Steve Beresford) and been part of Folk City Sisters. But it was as a solitary, solo folk singer that Charlotte truly found her voice. And its a lovely voice, warm and reflective and melancholy, one I often listen to late at night. Hearing her sing reminds me of the twinkle in her eye, the thoughtfulness she possessed, the gentle yet firm manner in which she approached the world.
Aware of how cynical even the independent music industry was, Charlotte determined to forge her own path and make exactly the music she desired so released her albums on her Harmonium label. She won great respect from her fellow musicians and the audiences who were fortunate enough to hear her - when Charlotte sang people sat up and listened. Still, it was never easy - as trying to make a living in the arts so often proves. She kept writing books - a literary coming-of-age novel (A Girl’s Guide To Modern European Philosophy) and a crime novel (The House On The Cliff) and several short plays (none of which I have seen). She also did hack-for-hire writing work (Evil Serial Killers and The World’s Worst Criminals), because raising a family is an expensive business.
Whether being marginalised as a musician wore heavily on her, I don’t know. I do know that an operation for breast cancer caused her great duress. The last time I stayed with John and Charlotte in Cardiff must have been March 2014 – while she had recovered fully from the operation and was officially “cancer free”, Charlotte was anything but happy. Instead, she incessantly spoke on how it was unfair that she had got cancer – “I don’t smoke!” she kept telling me - and, instead of being her usual languid, witty self, was uptight, nervous, aggrieved. I hoped it was just post-op’ trauma and tried to say comforting things. A fat lot of good that did.
Here’s Charlotte with Julien and Ed, two Cardiff musicians who often played with her. This recording, which I’m previously unaware of, has a slightly harsher edge that most Grieg. This could be the mix that has the guitar up high. That said, I like the woozy drone atmosphere here. Psyche folk? Something like that.
Last year John reissued Night Visiting Songs on vinyl (all of Charlotte’s albums had previously only been available only on CD). He did a superb job and, without hiring a PR, managed to get Charlotte’s music far more attention than it ever received while she was alive. Not that this is surprising – good music by dead ‘overlooked’ artists does excite the media (think Nick Drake, Karen Dalton, Skip Spence etc). Anyway, as its a decade on from when Charlotte departed our world, I’m enjoying listening to her and thinking about her.
Charlotte was warm and intelligent and very likeable. And she was a really good friend - I could open up to her about anything and she’d always listen and offer nuanced guidance. As I don’t have family in Europe my friends here become an extended family of sorts. Which, I guess, is why Charlotte’s sudden passing hit me so hard.
Today her music continues to cast a spell – I feel fortunate, when I listen to Grieg, to consider that we were friends, went walking and swimming together and (with John) we saw David Rawlings and Gillian Welch at Hammersmith Apollo (seemingly their last UK performance - they were stunning!). And I feel fortunate that I got to know someone who made such intimate, unconventional music.
Dwelling on Francoise Hardy last week while also thinking of Charlotte Grieg, I realised there was a certain similarity between the two singer songwriters. Of course, Hardy was hugely successful from her initial teenage outings and sold vast numbers of records, so there’s no comparison there. But in their fine-featured beauty and introspective music - fragile yet fierce songs that are elegant in their intensity - well, I think they were kindred spirits, sisters of song. And for the rest of my days I will, I’m sure, continue to listen to Charlotte and Francoise, happy that I got to meet and write on both (and even happier that Charlotte was my pal).
John recently discovered this recording of Charlotte singing Francoise – so my assumption was closer than I imagined.
Interested in hearing how Charlotte sounds? Listen and buy - https://charlottegreig.bandcamp.com/
The feature below appeared in fRoots magazine, issue 213, March 2001. fRoots was the world’s finest folk/roots music magazine and its absence – due to declining advertising – is keenly felt and in no way replaced by online forums. Support music mags that you love (or they’ll be gone for good). Thanks to fRoots editor Ian Anderson for retrieving this feature.
Maltese born, Somerset raised, now Cardiff based (a London sojourn during the ‘80s found her as queen of the capital’s then burgeoning hip-hop scene), the extraordinary journey of Charlotte Grieg is now making itself heard across a series of albums that are redefining the parameters of British folk music.
Grieg arrived quietly – every move Grieg makes is quiet – with 1998’s Night Visiting Songs (Harmonium), an album that found her decorating intense, meditative songs with harmonium, dulcimer and drum machine. 1999’s Down In The Valley (Harmonium) added guitar and bass while still retaining an eerie stillness. Again, the music’s near silent nature emphasised just how emotionally potent Grieg’s compositions were – both albums reward the listener best when played very late at night, adding a tangible atmosphere to the room, weaving an almost haiku form of folk poetry. To say these two albums are destined to be recognised as bedsit classics is not understating the case.
With album number three At Llaangennith (Harmonium), Grieg has both developed and opened out her sound. Her voice – which slips past as easily as fine Sauvignon Blanc – shows a lightness not formerly notable and even bears traces of joy. And while the sound remains rooted around her beautifully weary harmonium a subtle splash of synthesiser and samples helps colour the music’s rich atmosphere.
“Llaangennith is a big beach in the Gower Peninsula south of Swansea,” says Greig, “and it’s got these big, empty beaches and it’s still very wild there. When I first went there I got feelings of agoraphobia and this album is about looking back and looking forward... the walk on the beach experience… the feeling of getting out of the city and into the country.”
It is, emphasises Grieg, a much more spiritually positive album than her first two. Where Night Visiting Songs chronicled how London living can leave one exhausted, gasping for breath, and Down In The Valley’s sombre theme was the emotional isolation she found when first relocating to Cardiff, At Llaangennith revolves around a young woman’s move towards sexual and geographical freedom. Appropriately, Grieg sings as if being caressed. It’s a lovely listening experience.
“It’s a little mad,” laughs Grieg, “as I wanted to make an optimistic album and tried to write all these happy songs and, of course, I ended up editing out all the shade. I packed that in and wrote whatever I was dwelling on and the constant theme seemed to be myself between the age of 16 and 20, young, single, taking off to France and believing I was never coming back... the kind of thing Jean Rhyss wrote about in Good Morning Midnight… hanging around in Paris, doing nothing, no money.”
There are eight original and three traditional songs on the album. Grieg specifically chose folk standard Willie O’Winsbury to cover as she liked its theme of sexual joy being rewarded rather than punished (“a rare event in English traditional song”). She notes that two of her favourite singers – Dick Gaughan and Anne Briggs – have recorded the song and hopes her version stands well beside theirs.
Cardiff, though initially terrifying, has now linked her into a community of open-minded musicians. Guitarist Julian Hayman – long an associate of King Mekon Jon Langford – plays on Grieg’s albums and former Young Marble Giant Phil Moxham helped give Down In The Valley its beautifully fragile sound. What with these musicians, Grieg’s insistence on employing a drum machine and samples and the spooky, sepulchral sound that lingers across the albums’ its no surprise that Grieg has been labelled alt.folk.
“The point is, I’ve always listened to a lot of music,” says Grieg, “while a lot of the younger people currently making folk music in the UK are the children of folkies so folk is the only music they know. I don’t want to appear rude but when you hear someone like Eliza Carthy trying to use hip-hop beats you realise she doesn’t have much understanding of the music. Growing up in Somerset, folk music was still very prominent in the community. And then in London black music simply turned my head around (Grieg was a member of rap outfit Streetsounds; she later sang in Folk City Sisters). When Folk City Sisters split up and I knew I was going to leave London I was determined to make an album that reflected the songs I’d written and so I recorded everything on a four track, harmonium, dulcimer and drum machine being the accompaniment. Each album since has taken the music forward and I like to thing At Llaangennith could appeal to a lot of people. Well, I hope so!”
And the harmonium – what’s all that about? “I brought it in Southall for about seventy quid and I’ve always liked drone songs so it’s perfect. Obviously, a harmonium is more set up for Eastern music than Western but that’s fine for folk as a lot of old Western music had these funny scales you find in Eastern music. I think the harmonium may have entered Europe with the Gypsies so the connection to Asia is there. Also, it creates a wonderful sound for songs about dreaming, your inner-landscape, which is what most of my songs appear to be about.”
The cover at the top of this post was the original CD. The cover here is the one gracing the beautiful LP reissue.
Final note: Charlotte’s son Owen now leads The Tubs, a highly regarded young rock band (mama would be proud). John continues to write fascinating books - both fiction and nonfiction - and is currently overseeing an album where The Tubs, Angeline Morrison and other noted musicians record Charlotte’s songs.