'I finally got to listen to your beautiful CD. Blend intonation, material and harmonisation all super. Many congratulations' Helen Chadwick SEIZE THE MOMENT: THE SONGS We’ve been singing Curtis Mayfield’s PEOPLE GET READY since we started – a firm favourite. Yiddish folksong from Poland, TUMBA is about a girl sitting on the oven, spinning; her lover visits and at the end they both sit on the oven, but she no longer spins... AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE was arranged by Maggie and is positively great fun to sing. Pat Afrane-Kesey from Ghana sang TSA TSA KROMA to us. It’s a children’s song about orphan chickens and a marauding hawk. Helen Chadwick composed the delicate setting of R S Thomas’ poem THE BRIGHT FIELD, and The Proclaimers’ warm song SUNSHINE ON LEITH makes us smile. GOGO SHAVTVALA (Beautiful black-eyed girl) from Georgia in the Caucasus is one of the songs Michael Bloom introduced to us. EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAT from The Aristocats and arranged by Maggie goes down well with children of all ages. CHEMI CHEMI (The water of eternal life is within me, and it’s bubbling) came from Tanzanian footage that Angela was editing for The Salvation Army. Upbeat Yiddish love song, BAY MIR BISTU SHEN gives us the chance to add guitar, melodica and guiro to the mix. Angela’s brother Adrian sent us SO MANY WAYS by Glasgow band, Lies Damned Lies, who say the song is also dear to their hearts. BATONEBO is a pre-Christian healing song from Georgia, imploring the batonebi (= lords or spirits) to depart from a sick child and enjoy the flowers laid out for them. Charlie Beale taught Marvin Winans’ AIN’T NO NEED TO WORRY to St Anne’s Jazz Vespers choir one Sunday, and we quickly purloined it. We finish with two originals: Judith wrote gospel-style LET ME BE THERE for Eclectic Voices workshop in 1997, and Angela wrote PERFECT TIME in autumn 2003 while contemplating the passing of time and the importance of the moment. This CD, recorded ‘as live’ in two days, is a record of where we are at a transitional time in our story. Anam Cara’s debut was in 2000, and in November 2009 Maggie moves to France. Who knows what the future holds for us? Whatever happens, we have loved singing together, and have gained great inspiration from the people we’ve sung to and who have supported us. Thanks for being part of the journey. Angela Reith, Judith Silver, Maggie Newlands September 2009