Living on water makes for creative harmony
BOATER, singer, songwriter and musician Jennifer Ewan lives with her partner and fellow band member Kim Tebble on her boat Karenza at Causeway End on the Union Canal.
Karenza is a 40ft, wooden top narrowboat, lovingly restored by Kim and a rarity on the canals these days. Jen’s grandparents lived near the canal and her dream was always to live on a boat there. She’s lived on the water for seven years and loves it. She’s inspired by nature and finds boat life, and being close to the natural world, relaxing and soothing for the soul; conducive to creative inspiration, songwriting and music making.
The Jennifer Ewan Band play a fun mix of Cajun music, blues and good old rock and roll, all overlaid with Scottish influences. Jen and Kim played together in the Bluebell Cajun Dance Band, Jennifer on drums and Kim playing Cajun accordion and singing. Together they took jazz drum lessons, focusing on Cajun and Zydeco beats, which has left them with an instinctive understanding of the rhythms of their music.
Jen and Kim recorded their first EP in 2016, from which came the soundtrack for Jennifer’s song The Land I Always Dreamed About. This song was written years before Jen owned a boat and still dreamed about a different and better life on a boat. The music video, the band’s first, was shot while boating on the Union Canal by close friend, bass player and award-winning filmmaker Simon Fildes who sadly passed away in April this year.
Jen is dyslexic and another of her songs, Disappear, was also filmed by Simon. The song is about her feelings of humiliation because of her dyslexia at school. She is now an Ambassador for Dyslexia Scotland encouraging others that dyslexia can be a positive attribute. Disappear is from the band’s third CD, Bonnie Bayou.
Before lockdown the band was playing a lot of live sessions and had to quickly find an alternative income source. This came in the form of a Patreon site, which you can find at patreon.com/JenniferEwan, where the band post music videos and behind-the-scenes snippets of their musical and boat life.
This year the band, with drummer Paul Dennington, played live on BBC Radio Scotland and took part in the online Edinburgh Fringe with a show, Bonnie Bayou Blues, recorded outdoors at Narrowboat Farm on the Union Canal.
Immediate plans include maintenance work on Karenza in the Seagull Trust’s Ratho dry dock. And, in the future, they plan a new rehearsal and music space at Narrowboat Farm and, hopefully, a return to live gigs.
Community Moorings Scotland – a charity and an alternative mooring offering to the monopoly currently held by Scottish Canals – is due to go live in November and Narrowboat Farm, just east of Linlithgow, is to be the first site.
Spaces will initially be offered by ballot and Jen and Kim have every intention of putting their names in the hat in order to minimise their travel to ‘work’!