Salut! Live

Andrew Curry writes: An email from the English Folk Dance and Song Society reminds me that Daphne’s Flight’s current tour will be their last. They’re touring without their founder member Melanie Harrold, who has developed a serious health problem, and have therefore decided to call it a day at the end of the tour.

Daphne’s Flight formed in the mid-1990s as a project with an impressive all-woman line-up involving Harrold, Chris While, Julie Matthews, Helen Watson, and Christine Collister. They did a tour and an album, and then went off to continue their own musical careers, before re-forming to mark their 20th anniversary.

(Photo: courtesy of Daphne’s Flight)

In 2021, Miranda Sykes, best known for her work with Show of Hands, joined the band after Christine Collister left. Over the years the band has made five well-regarded studio albums and one live record.

As of today they are three dates in to a pretty demanding tour of England (23 gigs in 25 days) which ends on 25th May. The line-up is Chris While, Miranda Sykes, Helen Watson and Julie Matthews.

I was going to put their fine song Be Amelia in here and observe that there’s probably a pretty handy playlist of songs about Amelia Earhart out there waiting to be made, if not already somewhere on Spotify.

But while I was writing this piece I noticed that the Scottish government had pulled its proposed anti-misogyny bill, for complicated and contested reasons involving the recent British Supreme Court decision on the legal definition of women, so instead I’m going to share their song I’m Sick of This Shit.

And we wish Melanie Harrold the best for her treatment and recovery.

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