“I think by that point the BBC had got quite dependent on people recording from home. But I said, no, I don’t want to do that, because I was really, really tired of being a home recording engineer, and really, really tired of performing on my own, and anyway, I simply thought Margaret Atwood was worth better than me in my spare room! So, I got back to them, quite brazenly, and said I would be totally honoured to offer a version of ‘The Parting Glass’, but would they have the budget to hire, for example, Dave Milligan on the piano, and have it recorded properly in a studio. So, she wanted to have a version of that song in the programme. “‘The Parting Glass’ was one of her husband’s favourite songs, I think it may have been played at his funeral, and he died just at the tail end of the year before. So, Radio 4 got in touch to ask would I fancy recording a version of that in my house for them? She was curating an edition of the Radio 4 Today programme between Christmas and New Year last year, and she had asked specifically for a new version of ‘The Parting Glass’. Then just shortly after that, Radio 4 got in touch. “One of them was ‘Travel These Ways’, which is on the album, so we ended up in the studio recording together for that. Dave was the musical director or project arranger for that project, and I was asked to write two new pieces of music. They were putting together a dementia singing pack for their dementia singing network where the whole idea was to create resources for people so they could sing at home or for singing in care home settings. “Well, in the autumn of last year,” opens Karine, “we were both involved in a project for Illuminate, which is the creative ageing organisation.
First of all, though, we talked about how the collaboration came about. Shortly before the record’s release, Folk Radio UK sat down with the duo to chat about their new release, babysitting each other’s children and the hunt for patrons with pianos. Still As Your Sleeping is the stunning new album from singer Karine Polwart and pianist Dave Milligan ( read our album review here) the pair are neighbours in the Midlothian village of Pathhead, a location brimming with musical talent.
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