INSIGHT

Jonatha Brooke. Scripturient Creativity sets the archive free

32 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL April-May 2021 Brooke’s work offers an example of how archived material can be brought to new and vibrant life ‘‘ when creative artists are let loose among the stacks.

HAT happens about the nurse in the hospital when you set a alongside lyrics of amazing insight and singer-songwriter clarity,” she explains. “At every stage loose in the of his life, on napkins and torn paper, W archives? Jonatha in journals and on legal pads, he was Brooke talks to Matt Finch about always this explorer.” the creation of her album The Brooke spent two full weeks working Works, based on material in the her way through decades of scribbles, Woody Guthrie archive. sketches, paintings, lyrics, and notes to self, from the fluent work of Guthrie’s Matt Finch (@drmattfinch) is a writer and consultant All you gotta do is touch me who specialises in strategy, foresight, and innovation prime to the hard-won scrawl forced All you gotta do is touch me work with institutions worldwide. See more at www. on him by Huntington’s chorea in later mechanicaldolphin.com All you gotta do is touch me years. She encountered a Guthrie who Touch me good was romantic as well as strident, a Finish later. Guthrie who could write: from refurbished folk melodies and Jonatha Brooke held a tattered I fully aim to get my soul known spirituals, Brooke never trained as a yellow slip. It wasn’t promising. These again musician. She writes songs “by ear scrawled, repetitive lines were the As the maniac, the saint, the sinner, and then by feel, the choreography of treasures of Woody Guthrie’s archive? the drinker, the thinker, the queer fingers on strings and keys”. She’d been invited to create new songs I am the works, the whole works After days going through archived from decades of unused material by And it’s not ’till you have called me papers with white gloves and spatula, the late folk legend, following in the all of these things she picked up her guitar and brought footsteps of artists like Billy Bragg That I feel satisfied. words written in Guthrie’s hand to life, and Wilco, who had brought Guthrie’s feeling a “physical kinship with Woody’s lyrics to life in the Grammy-nominated Fresh light energy” that went beyond language. Mermaid Avenue sessions. “This was a guy fully in his essence, Brooke’s work offers an example ravenous for experience, expressing of how archived material can be Freed from trespassing himself through paint on the page, brought to new and vibrant life when Guthrie’s daughter Nora had asked words on the page,” Brooke says. “I creative artists are let loose among for Brooke, an acclaimed pop singer- didn’t have any interest in the political the stacks. Her unique engagement songwriter with stronger affinities to songs. I guess I set out to find the lover with Guthrie’s legacy meant she came Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega than in this guy, and I ended up finding the to know the songwriter in a way few the man whose guitar was emblazoned lover in myself.” others could. with the slogan: “This machine kills In one of the pieces Brooke Reading across the eras of his life, fascists”. Now Nora offered these uncovered, Guthrie wrote, “let me she says: “You could see: he’s still simple scraps as a teasing challenge: come to you as close as I can with the same guy. He was still fighting his Can you make something from this? whatever poems or scattered pages battle even when he could barely get It turned out Brooke could. She you want me to bring”. By juxtaposing his pen to the page, and he was finding shared Nora’s cheeky sense of humour, such scattered pages from the archives ways to make his peace with this.” and her own pop background meant – combining the first, repetitive scraps One of the finds which Brooke prized she felt “freed from trespassing on the of “all you gotta do is touch me” with most was a couplet: territory of an American folk icon”. “the maniac, the saint, the sinner, I’ll never dread the day I die Exploring Guthrie’s collected papers, the drinker, the thinker, the queer” Cause my sunset is somebody’s she discovered more than just the – Brooke created new songs that morning sky legend who gave us This Land Is Your spanned years and decades, casting an Land. American icon in a fresh light. Could anyone express the power of “He could write dumb goofy songs Like Guthrie, who often built songs the archive better than that? IP

April-May 2021 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 33