Quick Q and A with Susie Burke and David Surette
 by Kathy S-B  ·  7 April 2007

This is probably considered ancient history by some, but I’m curious — how did you meet? Did you realize that you had such a dynamic musical rapport very early in your relationship?

Susie: We met when we were both kicking around the Portsmouth, NH music scene in the late 80’s. It was a truly exciting time for those of us into folk music, with lots of gigs at area clubs, and open mics 5 nights a week, in Portsmouth and surrounding towns. Lots of collaboration went on. Within a year’s time I would have played gigs with David, Cosy Sheridan, Harvey Reid, John Perrault and others. A lot of these folks are still in the area, still our buds. (I just have to get Coze to move back east and bring TR with her…)

Anyway, David showed up at a few of my gigs with his mandolin and sat in. Then the guitar. To answer your next question, it was pretty clear early on that it was going to work! There was an ease about playing together, a clear feeling that we were simpatico.

Early on it is a feeling, and, as in all things in life, those first feelings don’t always pan out. But we both got better as musicians, and learned more and more. It helped that we both were involved with other collaborations, that we had done that before. It makes it easier to find space in your playing and performing for someone else, easier than if you always work alone.

So it progressed from a few gigs here and there, to working more and more with each other, in more and more venues.

You’re currently recording a new CD. Can you tell us a little about it? Is it in the same vein as “Sometimes in the Evening”?

David: It will be in a similar vein, although one likes to think that the music progresses and improves a bit as you “mature” as an artist. There are a number of things that feature double guitar parts, which we have not done as much of in the past. I am also singing harmonies on a CD for the first time, which Susie is very happy about. There are a lot of love songs, which Susie does so well, as well as her first recorded song in French, a tip of the beret to all of our friends from the Memoire et Racines Festival in Joliette, Quebec.

Susie: We are about 8 songs in or so, and I sent a dub to my mom and she commented on how well the songs hang together, and that is a good thing—I was glad to hear that.

Do you have any favorite songs that you enjoy playing together or do they change all the time?

David: They do change a lot. I love Pierce Pettis’s song about friendship, “I Will Be Here,” which will be on the new CD. I also really like one we just started doing by English songwriter Chris Leslie, a song about immigration, entitled, “My Love is in America.”

Susie: We just performed that Chris Leslie song the other night for the first time, and it felt good, so far… (We also had our pal Sam Goodall playing her fabulous fiddle.) I say “so far” because it takes a while to settle into a song, and know if it is one that will work over the long haul.

As you know, I don’t write a lot of songs, I am more of a member of the Maura O’Connell school of “just a singer”, as a t-shirt I saw her wear says. We have been at this long enough that we have songs we may not have done quite a while.

I always love it when we go back to an older one, and it has been a while since singing it, and it feels so fresh, and the emotion is right there. Going back to a song brings me back to whatever first spoke to me when I chose the song. And of course, your relationship to songs changes. For example, “Angels”, the Chuck Hall song that we have done for so long, but is still often requested—that is a very different song for me now than it was before I had children, certainly. That kind of shift is true for all of us, as performers and as listeners.

I don’t know if I have specific favorites—it is more that I have favorite feelings; I love the ones that make me weep, the ones that lift my spirits, the ones that help me get clearer or stronger or even softer on things—because I hope that they do the same for others.

But, really, I just so love to sing—the other night we did a traditional tune, and old Broadway standard, some contemporary folk stuff, a couple of broken hearted love songs, and it is all a gift to be able to do