An atmospheric and inspiring album of traditional folk songs by Charlotte Smith and David Clifton, featuring beautiful new arrangements of well-known pieces plus a couple of unexpected covers.

 

Due to the theft of the original computer used for the project, the album had to be started again from scratch. A real labour of love, The Tree In The Wood was recorded in London, Knoxville and Nashville.

 

Limited edition CD.

 

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The journey towards completing this recording has been a long and winding one. David’s career in music began in folk clubs, playing traditional folk as well as his own music, Charlotte is a singer with experience across a wide variety of genres. 
They were both invited to perform some folk songs at an event way back in 2004, and this led to further opportunities to play, including a BBC TV appearance. Discovering a shared love of a timeless tune, they began working together in north London, gathering material and starting to record arrangements of songs, mostly folk, mostly English- some dating as far back as the 1500’s, though some as recent as the last century. One idea of David’s was a little unusual; He’d always liked the song Wouldn’t It Be Lovely from the musical My Fair Lady, considering it to be a song that would one day make its mark in traditional folk repertoire. 

 

However, this labour of love took rather longer to complete than expected! Life got in the way, with each of them moving to different continents at differing times over the following two decades. The final spanner in the works was the theft of the computer and drives used for the recordings, so the album took several years longer than expected to complete. 

 

David: ‘I had to start the sessions virtually from scratch once I’d moved to Knoxville Tennessee. The project was saved by the initial MP3 demo recordings of each song that I’d made with Charlotte. I uploaded these into Logic and built up the instrumentation for each song once more, part-by-part, around our live demo takes. No click-track, no automation or samples, all played live, re-establishing the feel of what had been lost. In the final stages Jon Kelly (producer of Beautiful South, Kate Bush, Richard Hawley) kindly agreed to re-record the lead vocal at his London studio whilst I was over from the USA. Her vocal performances are absolutely beautiful, bringing new inspiration and depth to these timeless songs. She’ll probably be cross with me for saying that, but it’s true!’. 

 

‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’m glad my computer was stolen, though taking the extra time to complete the project has really paid off, I feel. It really is a unique and beautiful folk recording, bringing new life to wonderful traditional songs. It’s received an overwhelmingly positive reaction from those who have heard it, and those assisting with the project, which is always great news! We’ve decided to release ‘Wouldn’t It Be Lovely’ as a Christmas single to promote the album because it’s such a beautiful rendition of a truly classic song. We are delighted with the interpretation and reimagining of these traditional folk songs, and hope listeners enjoy them too!’