Virginia-born guitarist, singer, and percussive dancer Sophie Wellington announces new album of reworked old-time folk
Sophie Wellington has confirmed details of a new album, Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, which will be released on 10 July via the artist-owned label Adhyâropa Records. She has also shared the opening track, “Scolding Wife”, as the record’s first single.
The album foregrounds Wellington’s jazz-informed reworkings of old-time folk material, using flat-picked guitar and body percussion to translate traditional tunes and ballads. “This album is the culmination of developing old time and ballad music for guitar and for a different harmonic space,” Wellington explains. “I grew up around old time fiddle and guitar music but I’ve always been passionate about jazz as well, and as I’m getting older those streams have started to cross. I’ve been exploring a lot of alternate tunings, and trying to apply that melodic approach to the old time music that’s been in my blood my whole life.”
“Scolding Wife”, a Marion Reece fiddle tune from the early 20th century, appears here as a solo guitar piece with overdubbed percussive dance. The traditional AEAC# tuning is retained, but Wellington transposes its signature left-hand pizzicato phrase to 12th-fret harmonics, displacing the melody in ways that echo a round. The track’s skeletal arrangement makes clear that movement is as central to her process as harmony.
Wellington grew up in Staunton, Virginia, steeped in contra and square dances, and later studied at Berklee College of Music with Bruce Molsky, Darol Anger, Paul Rishell and Annie Raines. The album’s material was developed through a harmonic vocabulary drawn equally from Appalachian drone strings and jazz reharmonisation. “Through different paths in my life I’ve developed a kind of harmonic intuition that’s always been behind these ballads,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll employ open or drone strings to simulate the legato of a bowed instrument and to open up new harmonic possibilities, especially in alternate tunings.”
The tracklist balances instrumentals with balladry. Pete Sutherland’s “Shacks and Chalets”, a commentary on income disparity, is set to a chord palette of add4 voicings, while the title track is a 19th-century parlour song that begins a cappella.
Recorded with co-producer Cathy Fink, the album draws a line between the communal dancefloor and the solitary possibilities of the guitar.
Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still artwork
Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still is released on 10 July via Adhyâropa Records
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