Union Jill – alias Helen Turner and Sharon Winfield – will be entertaining visitors to Bowes and Gilmonby Village Hall with tracks from their forthcoming new album Rum and Devotion.
The York-based duo were last in Teesdale as part of a show called Letting off Steam with poet Kate Fox, but this time, it’s just the two of them with the promise of music all the way.
They will arrive in Bowes on Friday, October 20, hotfoot from playing a number of small venues in Cheshire as part of a rural touring scheme similar to that organised by Highlights.
Ms Winfield said they enjoyed playing the smaller venues.
“We do a lot of audience participation and it’s really important to have that intimate venue where you can see the audience and talk to them.
“We do a lot of festivals, but you really can’t do that sort of thing at festivals so we do like the club and village hall venues,” she added.
Union Jill were formed purely by chance in 2006.
“We met at Beverley Folk festival and had both been doing a low key solo stuff,” added Ms Winfield.
They jammed together and decided after just ten minutes that there was something worth pursuing.
“Musically, it was an instant fit. The voices fit together really well,” said Ms Winfield.
Rum and Devotion will be the pair's fourth album and their first since 2013’s well received Respectable Rebellion.
It’s taken a while simply because finding the time to hit the studio was difficult.
“Often we have the songs and we are gigging the songs, but it's quite a process putting an album together,” she said.
“It’s been very, very busy but we made that bit of time a few months ago.
“It’s been recorded a while. We are now pedalling away getting all the other bits done and planning the launch in late February.
“We will play a mix. The new stuff is coming into the set thick and fast but there are also songs that we don’t want to get rid of.”
The duo combine their music with the “day job”.
Ms Winfield is studying for a PhD while Ms Turner works as an art lecturer.
Always keen to keep busy, they are keen to continue their collaboration with Kate Fox.
“Toying with an idea of putting a new show together,” is how Ms Winfield describes it. Watch this space.
Doors and bar for the Union Jill show at Bowes and Gilmonby Village Hall on October 20 open at 7pm, with the performance starting at 7.30pm.
Tickets are £10, £9 concessions and £5 for students. For more details contact Graham Henley on 01833 628357.
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