Embedded in the rustic and leafy Cotswolds, the Great Tew Estate will be again be hosting the annual Cornbury Music Festival (13-15th July). Due to other commitments, The House That Soul Built will sadly be unable to attend. However, it looks like awfully wholesome and twee fun. Moreover, the line-up is rather impressive and features a couple of legendary soul singers.
Mavis Staples
This woman has an ebullience which borders on contagious. Watch the Mavis! documentary film and you’ll understand what I mean. Born in Chicago in 1938, Staples performed with her siblings and father in The Staple Singers. A politically-conscious gospel group, The Staple Singers were eventually snapped up by Stax Records and soon crossed over into the mainstream. Mavis Staples, in command of one the finest voices ever to grace this earth, eventually fashioned a solo career as a recording artist and performer. She is still active to this day, having released an album last year in response to the divisive politics of Trump’s America.
Jimmy Cliff
Inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, Jimmy Cliff is a Jamaican national treasure. The ska, reggae, and soul artist has performed for almost sixty years now. He moved to the England in the mid-1960s where he wrote one of his defining songs, ‘Many Rivers To Cross’ – an expression of the transience and displacement he felt at the time.
And, while not a soul artist per se, she is nonetheless a stellar singer/songwriter…
Alanis Morissette
Of Canadian origin, Morissette stormed to fame at only nineteen years of age with her seminal multi-Grammy Award-winning album, Jagged Little Pill. Full of sardonic bite, anecdotal commentary, and twisting melodies, Jagged Little Pill was arguably the defining album of the 1990s. ‘You Oughta Know’, in particular, has fury bursting through its seams. It is the musical personification of the old adage that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’.
Full Line-Up: Alanis Morissette, Mavis Staples, Amy MacDonald, Nina Nesbitt, Pixie Lott, PP Arnold, Megan McKenna, Grainne Duffy, Southern Avenue, Kolars, The Adelaides, UB40, Squeeze, Caro Emerald, Deacon Blue, Zucchero, Jimmy Cliff, Stereo MC’s, Staks, Marc Cohn, Andy Fairweather Low, Police Dog Hogan, Catherine McGrath, Mari Wilson & the New Wilsations, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Danny & the Champions of the World, Ferris & Sylvester, Irit, The Tall Poppies, Riley Pearce and The Mighty John Street SKA Orchestra
You can buy tickets to the Cornbury Music Festival here.
(Image taken from Cornbury Music Festival website)
