With touring an impossibility during lockdown, Jeni brimmed with songs. "A Body is A Delicate House" is her studio album from the lockdown period – first released as a hand-pressed CD in fall of 2021. After a successful limited pressing, she had the album remastered by Martin Stansbury of Cacophony Cottage Studios and factory pressed in 2022.
In this release and in her other lockdown release "I Fell Into the Fire," she returns to Jewell Ridge for stories as well as finding inspiration in the life of her late music mentor, Norman Cross.
The physical CD comes with a 46-page booklet complete with essays, liner notes, lyrics, and collages made by Jeni by hand.
From the conclusion to Jeni's liner notes:
"Every little thing I’ve done in my terrestrial life has pointed me toward this calling – to watch and note, to report back, to listen for broadcasts from the spirit and from those who have crossed to the other side. My delicate house has an antenna which is always switched on for particular messages. This has always been my way. It’s just how I was made in the same way that I always woosh into a chair without calculating the risk, in the same way that I have one squinty eye like Dad, like Grandaddy, the newspaper men, the reporters.
These songs are my reading and translation of what I’ve heard in the recent worldwide news from the firmament and the spirit. Bless those who whisper these messages and the celestial currents that carry them.
There’ll be loaves, there’ll be fishes
– the answer in your hands.
And you’ll tell it all to me
when you reach the promise land.
Amen, Dad. Amen."
Includes unlimited streaming of A Body is a Delicate House
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
I wrote Silver Darling and Old Hat On in honor of my friend and music mentor, Norman Cross. Norman was an exceptional musician and instrument repairman who was born in and lived his whole life proudly in Hull. He died in May 2021. Norman lived with Parkinson’s and Dementia. His wife and my friend, Fiona, cared for him beautifully and gave him the dignity of living at home right up until the last few days of his life. Old Hat On refers to Norman’s straw hat which he loved to take on and off. He looked so striking wearing it and it sat atop his coffin at his memorial. When Norman could no longer tie his shoes, Fiona bought him shoes with hook and loop fastenings. When Norman wanted something for his hands to do, she made him a special coat and apron with extra zips and things that he could touch and enjoy. When Norman listened to music, his worry was all gone.
Silver Darling was inspired by the book This Golden Fleece: A Journey Through Britain’s Knitted History by Esther Rutter and particularly by Esther’s descriptions of the terrible knitters of Dent and the knitting of ganseys by the herring girls in Hull and along the eastern coasts of Scotland and England. Fiona took up knitting during the lockdown year, but she’d been knitting long before that – knitting Norman’s heart and health as much as she could every moment of every day. I will miss Norman’s quiet encouragement and face as he sat and watched dozens of my concerts. His faith in my ability to carry on the folk traditions he loved and protected so dearly will buoy me on the unknown seas of what we call the future. Thank you, Norman.
Knit him in salt, knit him in wind,
and I’ll keep watch ’til he live again.
lyrics
He fetched up from inky sea.
He did not stir, he did not breath.
All unravelled, strangled on sand,
swept to Hull from a foreign land.
A silver darling, but human-sized
with human hands and human eyes.
And I will knit him and knit him kind.
Think a herring girl with a man all mine.
Knit him in salt, knit him in wind.
And I’ll keep watch ’til he live again.
I’m going over, my heart’s not free.
My silver darling, will he love me?
I flashed my needles in knit and purl.
I spun him up neatly in wool.
I swerved and danced and clicked my pins.
I swarved and stitched for my fisherman.
Row and furrow, garden to keep,
hailstones, diamonds,
and fine cat’s teeth,
rope and ladder, hit and miss,
all knit to win this darling’s kiss.
And as he slept under my hap,
a weaving watch all night I kept.
Knit by knit, purl by purl,
I charmed my darling back to this world.
I gave him stockings and a gansey fine –
to the nearest ell, made to his size.
He donned this raiment well like a king.
Now, I’m his girl, he my silver darling.
credits
from A Body is a Delicate House,
released December 13, 2022
Words by Jeni Hankins, Lulu Wall Music, BMI. Music by Jeni Hankins and Alfred John Hickling.
Jeni Hankins – Vocals and Guitar
Alfred John Hickling – All instruments
except
Craig Eastman – Fiddle and Slide Guitar
Billy Hickling – Percussion
Alison Moynihan Eastman – Harmony Vocals
Jeni Hankins grew up in the coalfields of Appalachian in Southwest Virginia among a family of miners, moonshiners, and
journalists. Her writing pulls the grit, gumption, and keen sense of observation out of that heritage like drawing water from her grandmother’s well.
In every song, Jeni’s “true sense of place shines through – old as the hills, but brand new at the same time.”...more
For me, this is the best of folk music, what it's all meant to be. After years of listening to Rebecca & Ken, I still get shivers up my spine when I hear them together. Jeni Hankins
Edd Donovan's day job as a social worker brings a sense of empathy to his elegantly constructed political folk music. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 26, 2019
On “Meet Me By the River,” Dawn Landes’s self-described “Nashville record,” buoyant country melodies settle deep into lush instrumentation. Bandcamp New & Notable May 7, 2018
