A Postcard from the Pennines (2024)
Available from my shop page.
An album of 8 songs inspired by the landscape and people of the high Pennine hills of northern England.
- Wild places. The rugged landscape and the feelings it evokes.
- Pennine Ways. A song of leaving and ultimately finding a way back home again.
- The north side of the dale. The story of a cottage and the generations that lived within.
- One in a hundred. A love song set within the ancient boundary of the Ellerton Hundred.
- The little white Bus. The volunteer run bus service that keeps together the communities of the upper dale.
- Too long a Winter. The trials of Hannah Hauxwell, unlikely TV star and farmer in a remote northern dale.
- Where everyone knows my name. Finding out where you belong.
- Winterfell. A celebration of winter on the high Pennine fells.
Now available on Spotify and other streaming platforms.
The Water Under the Bridge
Eric Sedge.
This album of ten songs was written and recorded by me, Eric Sedge, singing and performing on guitar, clarinet, keyboard and bass.
I am very grateful for musical contributions from some great friends
Richard Digance, guitar.
Tom leary, violin and mandolin.
Alex Goldsmith, melodeon.
Dave Hodgson, euphonium.
cover artwork Ian Sedge.
The last few years have been very difficult both musically and personally. I spent a decade performing in folk duo the Broadside Boys with my dear friend Matt Bayfield until we lost him in 2019 to cancer forcing me to reinvent myself as a solo performer till the Covid lockdowns of 2020 which caused me to rethink life, music and priorities. This Album is a metaphoric and musical line in the sand for me, an attempt to document a difficult period of my creative journey, to address the challenges of this time and to release the emotions of recent history to the “water under the bridge”.
Coastwise Lights
Based upon the poem by Rudyard Kipling a celebration of the lighthouses of England.
Pennine Ways
“Beautiful Swaledale from Richmond to Keld, I gave my heart to the field and the fell”. The time when we left Swaledale
before returning in 2021
Shoulder to Shoulder
The little known testimony of Arthur Webber who witnessed the fall of the lost Battalion, the Kings men in Gallipoli 1915.
A Practical Man
” I can’t express in words what I’ll show you with these hands, love is in the actions of a practical man”.
Home
We all have a need for somewhere to call home.
A Ploughman’s Prayer
A song for my Great, Great Grandfather Robert Norman, born 1857, an agricultural worker and travelling preacher.
Archangel.
The story of the Artic convoys of 1941-45 to the Russian ports of Murmansk and Archangel, described by Winston Churhill as “The worst journey in the world”.
One in a hundred
Growing up in an area of Suffolk called the Plomesgate Hundred, and the memories attached to the landscape.
I won’t fear the mountain… Anymore
inspired by the story of paratrooper and Para Olympian, athlete and adventurer Jaco Van Gass, a song about overcoming life’s challenges.
The Water under the Bridge.
learning to let go…and move on.
Album review in FATEA magazine 01/10/2023
Roger Williams, Blues and Roots radio
“This really is an excellent album….that’s been put together with an awful lot of love, care and attention to detail, a very impressive piece of work…I do like it .
Folk London review, February/March 2024
This accomplished 10-track album is rich with songs of substance delivered with
heartfelt and deep passion. Eric, along with his Suffolk schoolfriend and football teammate Mat Bayfield, formed the Broadside Boys back in 2010. Eric lost Mat to cancer in October 2019 and this album clearly reflects that loss.
Like his friend, who remained positive and raised money for the Brain Tumour Charity
over seven years, the album inspires hope with a powerful songwriting intellect.
The strong opening song, Coastwise Lights, is based on Rudyard Kipling’s poem
of the same name. The song is driven along with melodeon and guitar and one can easily
imagine a number of sea shanty crews taking it up with relish. Pennine Ways follows on, and its line “I could have stayed if Yorkshire raised” clearly predates Eric’s move up to Yorkshire. Love of the Pennine fells and dales is at the heart of the song, with some brass band atmospherics.
Shoulder To Shoulder, for me, just takes the top track award in a strong field with
lyrics and imagery recounting the mystery of the loss of the Sandringham King’s Men in
Gallipoli in 1915. Sure to become a folk club favourite.
A lighter note is struck on Practical Man for when love is not declared by poetry,
prose or a single red rose but by “love dressed up in labour” of the practical
man – from putting the bins out to moving bedroom spiders. (My wife puts the bins out
but I do the spiders!)
England’s landscapes and landmarks from Tamar to Tees are prominent in the
song Home, with a driving beat extolling whichever little part of the country you call
home.
A Ploughman’s Prayer has all the sounds of a church and while the lyrics refer to
Eric’s great-grandfather the sentiments of the song could have wider respectful adaptation in a religious setting.
Naval military history of the second world war features in Archangel, about the hardships
of the Arctic convoys supplying Russia with materiel. Intelligently written and composed,
and accurate.
Letting go of the past without regret is the theme of the final and title track, the fitting
The Water Under The Bridge.
A really enjoyable and engaging album and I can’t wait to hear these songs live.
Eric Sedge 