Press Release 15th Jan 2008

Worth It After All by Su Hart March Hare Music (MAHA CD27)

Su Hart, singer with internationally acclaimed World Music outfit Baka Beyond, is releasing her début solo album, Worth It After All. The collection of eleven songs is drawn from different stages of Su's musical career, from teenage years singing in folk clubs and in church in her native North East, to busking favourites which kept her nourished through her student days studying art in Oxford. Her travels since then have taken her to many far-flung places, including Columbia and Bhutan, as well as many trips to Africa, and these have further embellished her repertoire.

Su wrote the title track to celebrate the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990. It was recorded in the heart of the Cameroon rainforest with the Baka Forest People, with whom Su and her husband Martin Cradick have developed a special musical friendship, the result of numerous visits over fifteen years. The rest of the disc marks a departure for Su from the Baka Beyond material, as it features her favourite English-language songs, from the passionate Lament of the fisherman's wife, to quirky, personalised versions of British Calypso classics of the 50's, one of Su's performance specialities.

Worth It after All was recorded and produced by Su's husband Martin Cradick who also appears on some tracks playing guitar and mandolin. Their house and studio in the West Country has been a meeting-place for many musicians over the years, and this is reflected in the personnel. Fine Bath-based talent such as five-string banjo maestro Leon Hunt and Stevie Holder on double bass mingle with musicians famous in the British folk world such as Ed Boyd and Brian Finnegan of Flook on guitar and flute, Tim Eady on accordion and Ayodele Scott from Sierra Leone on percussion.

The album is a personal collection of Su's favourite songs. The earliest (The Singer) was learned from her Geordie singing teacher Mrs Hilda Brown, already well into her seventies when Su began singing as a teenager. "We had such a laugh together that the spark of singing and performing was lit for life," said Su.

For more details contact su@baka.co.uk
Hear tracks on Su's Myspace page