TWENTY-ONE-year-old Hattie Briggs is set to perform at this year's Nailsworth Festival.

The Ebley based singer songwriter will play as part of a trio at Nailsworth Subcription Rooms on Sunday evening.

 

Hattie was nominated for the 2014 BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award, performing as part of the show at The Royal Albert Hall live on BBC Radio 2.  She has since had three consecutive singles in the iTunes charts, as well as 10,000 Spotify plays and over 50,000 Youtube views.

 

Hattie quit Oxford University in the second year of her Russian degree to start her music career in January 2014. Since then, her music has been played on TV on BBC 2, BBC Radio 1, 2 and 6Music as well as many regional BBC radio stations. Now just over a year later she is set to release her debut album Red & Gold in April, preceded by a single, A Beautiful Mind, via her own label Wise Dog Records.

 

The single A Beautiful Mind was written about legendary folk artist and political activist Pete Seeger.  Pete passed away shortly before the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2014, where his half-sister Peggy Seeger movingly spoke about him and performed at the Royal Albert Hall.  Hattie said “I was inspired by her words, especially when she mentioned something that Pete used to say, "he didn't write the songs, he only wrote them down".  I put these words in my song, which fittingly came together very easily in the space of just a couple of hours.”

 

Her album Red & Gold includes a cover of Eva Cassidy’s version of Fields Of Gold, produced by Eva's brother, Dan Cassidy, who also plays a violin solo on the record. Dan got in contact with Hattie a few months ago, saying he loved her cover of his sister’s song and eventually was persuaded to feature extensively on her debut album too.

 

Hattie’s journey through the folk and acoustic music scene began with her decision in January to drop out of her degree at Oxford University and return to her Gloucestershire home to focus on songwriting. Since then it’s been full steam ahead, with several releases starting with her EP My Shepherd’s Hut and subsequent singles, Pull Me Down (which reached number 19 in the iTunes singer songwriter chart) and her most recent Old Eyes, featuring jazz musician Alec Dankworth. Key live performances include the BBC Introducing stage at Wychwood Festival and supports with Seth Lakeman and Sam Brookes. She was also a featured artist in an emerging talent documentary by BBC Introducing In The West.

 

Hattie recorded her debut album at Monnow Valley Studios, produced by Peter Waterman (Joss Stone/Uriah Heep) and Dan Cassidy. Seven of Hattie’s songs have recently reached the semi-finals of the UK Songwriting Contest with two making the final. 

The Hattie Briggs Trio perform at Nailsworth Subscription Rooms on Sunday at 7.30pm.

For details visit nailsworthfestival.org.uk