Charlotte Yates "Then the Stars start singing" 2017

 During the next decade Yates devised and oversaw similar projects around the work of poet Hone Tuwhare and novelist Witi Ihimaera. Featured performers included Don McGlashan, Goldenhorse, Whirimako Black, Graham Brazier and Te Kupu.
Working with Māori authors required an extra set of considerations. “As you can imagine, a Pākehā person producing an album of New Zealand’s first published Māori poet and first published Māori novelist, I received some challenges, and had lots of discussions about that.”
A source of support during these projects was Mahinarangi Tocker, who Yates had first encountered at a women’s music festival in the 80s. (“She did a bitchin’ version of ‘Roxanne’,” Yates recalls of the singer, who died in 2008.)...

...“I’d take her advice and sometimes I’d sit on my hands and let the iwi deal with it. I hugely appreciated her advice and support. She could argue with me as well, which is a gift to be able to do because I can be pretty strong-minded. But you korero till you sort it out in a respectful way. We all have to live together in a small couple of islands so how are we going to do this?”
The projects have had long lives, especially Tuwhare, which was revisited in 2016 to mark its 10th anniversary.
Yates is sure that working with such a range of artists has informed and influenced her own work. “I got to see how they did things and what they’d come up with. And it was completely fascinating from a behind-the-scenes point of view.”
Her own albums have continued to appear at roughly five-yearly intervals; Plainsong in 2003, Beggar’s Choice in 2008, Archipelago in 2013, and the forthcoming Then the Stars Start Singing.
Yates has continued to forge further strong working relationships, notably with bass player, keyboardist, tenor horn player and recording engineer Gil Eva Craig, who has worked on all of Yates’ albums since Beggar’s Choice.
The new songs inevitably reflect the current phase of Yates’ life, living in Wellington with her civil union partner and stepchildren. “I write middle-aged music now,” she says, laughing. “As one of the kids said to me, ‘Well you’ve got the girl now haven’t you?’ You can’t keep writing about getting the girl. I remember Pete Townshend saying in an interview, ‘Well no one wants to hear me write songs about how much I love my wife.’
“But we do! What do you do when you’re years into a relationship and one of the kids is leaving home? Or you’ve got no time because they’re everywhere? Or you’re not what you were once but it’s better? Or what happens when you have a massive fight but no one’s leaving because we’re kind of over that? The nuances of the life cycle are different. What happens when one of your parents dies?”
The passion for writing burns as brightly ever, though Yates also regards it as a discipline. “Look,” she says, opening her appointment diary of the past year and flicking through a series of pages. “Buy toothbrush … finish lyrics! Song, song. And here, song! I knew I had to have four under my belt by the end of last year, because Gil was going away so I had to have the songs done. And because some of them might not work.”
Yates has also remained conscious of the need, as a music professional, to keep upskilling. “I have a very strong scientific background and way of processing the world, and that married up with the technological revolutions that happened around the time I was starting out. So I was very comfortable with changes from analogue to digital, and becoming your own recording engineer.
“I’m not a purist. I like new stuff. Some stuff just sounds cool. As you learn more on the guitar, or finally learn the difference between a major 7th and a dominant 7th, to me that’s no different from upgrading Pro Tools yet again. But I’m only using it in so far as: does it make what I’ve got to say more fun? Is there more ear candy?”
Every decade or so she has taken some sort of course, “either a tech thing or a guitar thing. I’m just interested.” In the 1990s she studied music technology in Melbourne. Recently she took a three-month online course in songwriting through Berklee College. Though she has released close to 80 original songs, there’s always more you can learn, she says. In particular, studying songwriting has made her a better editor of her own work.
“That’s my definition of success. Do I like what I’m doing, and does it allow me to live with my family, and get better?” - audioculture

trax:
1. Hold Your Horses 2. Hung The Moon 3. Caroline 4. Back For More 5. The Awakening River 6. Then The Stars Start Singing 7. Stowaway 8. Jennifer 9. January 10. Headwinds 11. Where Have You Gone 12. The Light is Unreliable
…served by Gaius…