Tunes for a Tuesday Morning

Since yesterday was a holiday, our "Monday Tunes" are on Tuesday this week, and we're still roaming among the trees, led on this time by women's voices....

Above: "Stags Bellow," a wonderful woodland (and ocean) song by Martha Tilston, who lives not far from here on the Cornish coast. It's an autumnal piece, but it fits our theme, if not the season, and is too lovely to wait until autumn to share.  It comes from Tilston's 9th album, Machines of Love and Grace (2012).

I wish I could also play her Little Riding Hood song, "Red," this morning -- but there are no good videos for it, alas. (There's a poor quality one here, but it doesn't do the song justice.) "Red" is on Tilston's 2004 album Bimbling, and if you're a fairy tale fan, it's well worth seeking out the recorded version.

Next, two songs by the American folk singer and songwriter Alela Diane, who is based in Portland, Oregon.

Above: "Pieces of String," a lovely song from her debut album, The Pirate's Gospel, back in 2006.

Below: "The Alder Trees, " a gently magical arboreal song from her second album To Be Still, 2009.

Next:

"The Willow Tree," a sad but very beautiful song performed by the Celtic harp trio Triskela (Diane Stork, Portia Diwa, and Shawna Spiteri), from the Bay Area of California.

And for the last song, let's add some men's voices too:

Here's "Oak, Ash, and Thorn," sung by the English folk singer & folk scholar Fay Hield, backed up by The Hurricane Party: Rob Harbron, Sam Sweeney, Andy Cutting, and Hield's partner Jon Boden. This impromptu performance was filmed in the bar at Cecil Sharpe House (home of The English Folk Dance and Song Society) after Hield's gig there last autumn. The words are from a Rudyard Kipling poem, put to music by the great Peter Bellamy.