Folk singer and multi-instrumentalist Jack Rutter will release his second solo album Gold of Scar & Shale from 4th October 2019 through Proper Distribution.
Produced by Joe Rusby, the album was recorded as live and it continues the stripped-back approach of Rutter’s debut solo album Hills. The first track released from the record is I Was Once a Young Ploughboy, which you can hear below:
All of the songs on the album are unearthed gems from the folk canon, almost all of them rare and many previously unrecorded. Rutter delivers each song in a fresh and current way and he contributes guitar, bouzouki, duet concertina and harmonium, as well as his vocals.
The album also features guest musicians Sam Sweeney on fiddle, Alice Robinson on Northumbrian pipes and Sam Fisher on flugelhorn. Over half of the songs have a connection to Yorkshire, where Rutter is from, with the title of the record coming from The Hills of Longdendale with words written by ‘The Moorland Poet’ Ammon Wrigley (1861-1946).
Rutter says “To me Ammon Wrigley is describing the rough and bleak parts of the moorland with this line, the scar and the shale that is always nevertheless gold to him. I love this line and realised that for me it’s also a great metaphor for traditional songs; rough, stark and honest things that contain such riches. I found then that I’d stumbled upon the perfect title for this album, or at least one that I really loved anyhow.”
The album can be pre-order now at www.jackruttermusic.com/shop.
You can see Jack Rutter on tour at the following dates:
6/07 Folk at the Hall, North Wales
19/07 Downend Folk Club, Bristol
27/07 Folk on the Tyne, Sage Gateshead
31/07 Dorking Folk Club
02/08 Cambridge Folk Festival
11/10 Frodsham Folk Club, Cheshire
12/10 Gwaenysgor Village Hall, North Wales
13/10 North Wales Music House Concert, Anglesey
14/10 Stockton Folk Club, Stockton-on-Tees
16/10 Faversham Folk Club, Kent
21/10 Ashby Parva Village Hall, Leicestershire
22/10 Hen and Chicken, Bristol
23/10 Painswick Centre, Stroud
24/10 Stafford Folk Club, Staffordshire
25/10 Doncaster Roots Music Club, South Yorkshire
26/10 Folk at the House Carlisle, Cumbria
1/11 Second Time Around Folk Club, Nottinghamshire
2/11 Sheffield Album Launch Show, Shakespeares, South Yorkshire
8/11 Guildford Folk Club, Surrey
12/11 London Album Launch Show, Green Note, Camden
Tickets are available now from www.jackruttermusic.com/gigs.
