Just A Quickie with country-blues singer-songwriter Angie Palmer, English Americana’s answer to Lucinda Williams.


You record your albums at Alan Gregson’s studios in Preston but you and your partner, Paul Mason, live in France. How come?

“We realised when we were coming to France on holiday that we found it incredibly inspiring. We’d come about six or seven times, dumping everything in the car and just wandering around.

“It seemed a natural move to move here. I’d first come to Paris when I was 16 and busked around Europe, but where we’ve ended up living we chose by accident. I was having a coffee in a café one morning and bumped into a guy who said, ‘Are you musicians? Would you like to play at my bar?’ and that’s how the move all started!

“We now live on the edge of a forest in mid-France, not very touristy, three hours from Paris, two and a half from La Rochelle.”


No doubt this remote location has influenced your latest album, even the title, Meanwhile, As Night Falls...?

“You can get spooked by the wildlife. We keep saying, ‘There’s a lot of wildlife here’: deer, wild boar – luckily we were in the car at the time! – and there’s a large owl in the barn. We haven’t seen it yet but his pellets suggest he’s large!”


More specifically, which factors fed your imagination for your songs of fairytales, Russian folk stories, biblical parables, enchanted forests and fiery lakes that you have written in collaboration with Paul?

“Whatever we were watching or reading at the time; it made the song-writing dark and ‘fairytale-ish’.

“Living here, you become much more in touch with the idea that you’re walking where people have walked for centuries. The inspiration comes a little easier; Paul writes the lyrics and I write the music, and I think it helps to write somewhere quiet as there’s not much to distract you.

“Actually, Paul will write on holiday and I’ll write at home, and that seems to work for us.”


Will you continue to live in France, even though your band, The Revelators, are based in Manchester and Preston?

“I am by nature a bit of a wanderer, but I think living in France is as permanent as it can be at the moment... though I’ve never lived anywhere for more than a while before.”

Angie Palmer and The Revelators play The Duchess, York, on Thursday, supported by The Jen Low Band and Suzy Bradley And The Morning After; tickets, £8 in advance on 0844 477 1000 or £10 on the door.

Angie’s album, Meanwhile, As Midnight Falls... is available on Akrasia Records.