In the afternoon of Saturday December 5th Judith McNeil of Grey Lynn, Auckland will be releasing her first music CD Accepting Apples at the Elevation Cafe. This body of work has been the journey of a life-time with songs spanning 25 years. From travelling the length of two rivers in Cold Against The Sky to the folk influenced looking for a Virgin Man these songs were written to warm the spirit and express hope, love and a little tongue in cheek in everyday relationships and the experience of one woman.
Shaelie Kreymborg, the flutist says: These are songs that no one else would write but many will secretly love.
Steve Terry says: Listening to Judith is like drinking a cup of mint tea.
James Crompton says: Judith sings like someone from a far away planet. Heaven?
Judith is glad she is not poison but occasionally gets sick of being described as nice but then it was her son Baz St John, a singer/songwriter and member of the band Troubadour who suggested she should put accepting in the CD title. No one liked the first rough mix of the songs that Judith secretly preferred. They wanted her to remain nice.
Judith is essentially an Auckland poet who spent 10 years of her life keeping the Auckland live poetry scene alive, putting it all on line and publishing 9 volumes of the anthology Tongue in Your Ear. In between she travelled to Folk Festivals, played mainly covers at open mics and blackboard concerts and managed to pen a song or two of her own.
Most of her songs are written for her daughter who kept moving further and further away until she ended up on the other side of the world although only one of them Girl, appears on the album.
Her Song for Jane Devine, inspired by the story of the Wellington songwriters life and death has been played on the radio.
The style of music ranges through genres of folk, country/blues, pop and rock with a mix of percussive guitar strumming and basic finger-picking enhanced with a little help from friends on keyboards, rain stick, drums, flute and various other instruments including a fish.
Some of her songs can be heard on her my space site: www.myspace.com/judithmcneil
