July/August 2021 by Trevor Hodgett
English song stylist Sarah Moule’s Stormy Emotions compiles twelve previously unrecorded songs from a stash of more than 300 written over the years by her keyboard-playing husband Simon Wallace and lyricist Fran Landesman.
Landesman, who died in 2011 aged eighty-three, remains best known for her classic 1950s songs ‘The Ballad Of The Sad Young Men’ and ‘Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most’ and for her flamboyantly bohemian, tabloid-delighting lifestyle. ‘Fran had quite a dark way of looking at life sometimes but on this album I wanted to do something uplifting and bring together songs that are quite up’ explains Moule. ‘People are saying it makes them feel really good and we need that now.’
Landesman and Wallace met every week for eighteen years to write. ‘It was a proper collaboration,’ says Moule. ‘She didn’t send him lyrics in the post. They got together and worked and would argue about things they didn’t like until they were both satisfied.’ Moule has already recorded over thirty Landesman/Wallace songs on her previous four albums. She enthuses about the complexity of Landesman’s lyrics. ‘Fran wrote from about 1952 until she died and it was consistently good. She was a wordsmith and there are layers of meaning and you just have to told them all in your mind at the same time. Like ‘After The Fall’ refers to the Fall of Man, which is a truly epic theme, but it’s also very personal for me because when I was recording it I was thinking about a friend of mine who got himself into all kinds of trouble. So I was singing about more than one thing simultaneously.’
Wallace’s musical settings are crucial. ‘If the songs had different tunes they wouldn’t work,’ argues Moule. ‘They’re perfectly balanced – melodically, harmonically and lyrically and all three things are really important.’ The album features marvellously sympathetic musicianship from the likes of soprano saxophonist Mark Lockheart but the title track is performed as a duet with Wallace. ‘We recorded everything just before the first lockdown except that one, ‘ Moule explains. ‘But we wanted to put it on so we just did it ourselves, just piano and voice.’
Wallace’s playing on the album is beautifully sensitive. ‘Some musicians, even people playing standards, don’t necessarily like the songs – they might be looking at them as sort of source material,’ says Moule, ‘But he really loves songs and that’s important in an accompanist’. The recording was done quickly, in the couple’s home studio. ‘I try to do things in the first or second take because I can’t keep the emotional intensity going over more than a couple of takes, ‘ says Moule.
The vibe of the lyric matters more than anything else. ‘If you sing it perfectly but you’ve lost the vibe what’s the point? It doesn’t resonate with other people. I think I’m still growing as a singer, ‘ she continues; ‘I think I get inside a song better now and I like my singing more but there are still things I want to improve – which I’m not going to tell you!’
Streaming, of course, has had a devastating impact on artists’ sales. ‘I spend a lot of time asking people not to stream our music because I want them to buy it,’ says Moule. ‘Streaming is killing independent musicians and people have to take responsibility for the effect it’s having. They’ve got to start buying music like they always did.’ If not by sales, how then does Moule measure success? ‘You have to measure it yourself; if you’ve done a good piece of work, that’s success.’