Ten minute tea with Afternoon Tea. Spend ten minutes with Afternoon Tea. In the time it takes to boil one kettle, and let one cup of tea steep, we will have your daily art + music fix covered. Take your afternoon tea break with our Afternoon Tea curators.
Today’s tea + soundtrack + visuals curated by Andrea England.
Every decade or so, award-winning songwriter-singer Andrea England, founder of the popular songwriter circle concert series Four Chords and the Truth, becomes singer-songwriter Andrea England. The Toronto-based musician, whose songs have been recorded by everyone from Meghan Patrick and Don Amero to ex-Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger, has released her long-awaited ambient Americana EP, Evidence of Love, produced by JUNO Award winner Hill Kourkoutis (Aysanabee, Digging Roots). Andrea is the primary songwriter with co-write credits to Tenille Townes on “Stone” and Liz Rodrigues (Celine, Eminem) and James Bryan (Drake, Nelly Furtado) on “Cover to Cover.”
Award-winning Nova Scotia artist Carleton Stone can be heard in the ambivalent first single “Halifax” about the conflicted emotions that come from living away from home. “I started my life and artist career in Halifax, and my time there influenced a big part of who I am as a woman and songwriter,” Andrea explains. “It’s a nostalgic song about a lost love forever connected to a place and a time – and to write it, I drew upon my first real heartbreak – one that literally led me to leave a city I loved.”
Stream + share Evidence of Love featuring “Halifax” now:
As a whole, Evidence of Love is love in all its many complicated forms. It’s a lifetime of love. “I don’t regret any of the hurt I’ve gone through because I’ve loved too much,” says Andrea. “If I was on my deathbed, would I have any regrets? Maybe a few, but I wouldn’t regret loving.”
Andrea‘s last body of work, 2012’s Hope and Other Sins, produced by Grammy winner Colin Linden, spent several weeks on Cashbox Canada’s Top 50 folk chart and hit No. 1 on Galaxy’s Folk Roots radio channel. Her 2004 album, Lemonade, won a John Lennon Songwriting Contest, and her debut EP, 1999’s Heart Wide Open, included the very first song she wrote, “Eyes Wide Shut,” which hit No. 1 on the nationally syndicated East Coast Countdown.
My strongest memory of tea growing came from my grandmother who lived across the road from me growing up in Sand Point, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. She would brew Morse’s Orange Pekoe tea until it was rich and dark – you could almost stand on it – she served it with Carnation canned milk and sugar. Once in a while, I’ll make it to remind myself of home….but my current favourite – because I love to drink tea at night but don’t want it to keep me up all night – is Stash’s Decaf Vanilla Nut Creme: it contains my favourite spice/nut combo: Vanilla & Hazelnut and it just feels like a warm, comforting hug.
I’m going to suggest the music of Nova Scotion, Adam Baldwin, a singer-songwriter whose music I recently discovered in Halifax for the ECMAs (East Coast Music Awards & Conference) in Halifax. Adam paints pictures and stories of life in rural Nova Scotia. My Dad crossed the Causeway every day for work, and I crossed it thousands of times myself I’m sure, growing up, so that’s the song I’m going to suggest:
CAUSEWAY ROAD
They call me Danny Fingers
and how I got that name
is the source of some contention
so let me set it all straight
I set out for vindication
for my brother’s lost soul
after a dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway RoadI started fishing with my Daddy
back in ‘73
We made enough from the quota
we could start a little fleet
Heard Ronny’s got an old Cape Island
that he’ll sell for a steal
Thirty foot with a Detroit diesel
and a hell of a keelSo we bought a boat for my brother
and his own tag too
Built the traps with my Daddy
like my Daddy used to do and
God damn on the first day of fishing
not a mile from his home
my brother took an ungodly load of water
every seam on the hull let go
It was a dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
A dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway RoadWell my Mamma’s still cryin’
my Daddy took to the drink
Me I just got angry
with all the time to think
Ronny’s gonna have to meet his own maker
I’m gonna go it alone
How’s my brother supposed to get himself to heaven
when we never did find his bonesI got some old booze bottles
loaded with kerosine
Stuffed rags down the necks of ‘em
and grabbed some TNT
Then I drank up the courage
grabbed my navy cut smokes
to avenge the dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
that dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway RoadUntied my boat from her mooring
lit up a cigarette
Came on the gas a little heavy
and I slipped on the deck
Well as God as my witness
I never will forget that smell
My cigarette caught a bottle
brought all the fury of HellFloated through Three Fathom Harbour
‘round The Reserve and The Wedge
The tide spit me out in the morning
on the other side of Rudy’s Head
How long I was out for
Buddy it’s hard to know
I’ll tell ya one thing for certain
I blew off my fingers and my toes
It was a dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
A dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway RoadWell her keel is still sitting
Adam Baldwin, CAUSEWAY ROAD
in the seaside sands
I had to give up fishing
on account of my hands
Well if you’re looking for a lesson
when it comes to revenge
You better leave it to the ocean
She’s gonna win in the end
with a dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
A dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
Beware of a dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
Just another dark and dirty betrayal on the Causeway Road
In terms of a visual, I’m going to suggest Nova Scotia folk artist, Maud Lewis, who through her colourful, nostalgic depiction of the local outdoors brought it to life again on canvas. She had a particular interest in painting cats, which, as shepherd of two myself – Sophie and Mittens – I find it delightful how she seems to capture the personalities of the animals she paints, much in way way we songwriters try to capture and create the characters in our stories.
Tea + Me 