FROM ANDY BROWN & MARC WOODWARD
An Introduction to Grace Notes:
We’re very much looking forward to the publication of Grace Notes – our collection of poems themed around music, and thought we should write a few words here about its genesis. We first met at a poetry event in Devon, and quickly established we had similar tastes in writing, reading and music. We also shared a sense of humour (that most crucial factor in any friendship), and a love of the natural environment of Southwest England, where we’ve both lived for a long while. Inevitably we soon started playing music together, and writing new songs, which we performed around the pubs, clubs and festivals of our region. We also collaborated on a poetry collection about the ecology and history of the river on which we live – the Teign, in Devon – and this was published in 2020 as The Tin Lodes (Indigo Dreams Press). We’ve been active musicians all our lives: Marc primarily as a mandolinist and guitarist, Andy as a singer/songwriter, and we’ve both done a lot of performing and gigging, and have both recorded albums. Together we now play a mix of blues, country, jazz, and songs from classic singer-songwriters, as well as our own original material. Over pints in country pubs, or round the kitchen table on rainy evenings, we’d recount our various musical experiences – the good, the bad, the funny, the strange – and introduce each other to music we enjoyed from a wide variety of genres. It wasn’t long before poems about music and musicians started to emerge, along with poems about our musical experiences, as well as those general life events affecting all of us – beneath which music runs like the soundtrack of a film.This friendship and collaboration has now become Grace Notes, a collaboratively written collection of poems that opens a window into our musical lives, out of which you’ll hear strains of jazz, blues, country, punk, French cafe music, and reminders of some of the great musicians and composers. There’s a good deal of humour in the poetry, coupled with poignancy and reflection on wider issues such as environmental change and the Covid lockdowns. We very much hope you’ll enjoy reading our work – maybe you’ll be left humming a half-forgotten tune – an ‘ear-worm’ – or even recalling a few of our own ‘ear-words’? Andy & Marc