Now We Are Five • Greatest Hits #10 — Anaïs Mitchell

I first met Anaïs Mitchell back in the summer of 2005 when she played a tiny show at Green Note, a vegetarian café-cum-gig venue in Camden Town co-owned by Anaïs’s former college roommate who also happened to go to university with a friend of mine.

Playing mostly songs from her then-current album Hymns For The Exiled, she charmed a standing ovation out of the small gathered crowd (which included legendary radio presenter ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, apparently a big fan). Already she was talking about the work she was doing on the “folk-opera” Hadestown, which finally found its way into our eager hands earlier this year – she even played an early version of ‘How Long?’ (aka ‘Hades & Persephone’) – but it wasn’t until late 2007 that I finally got to sit down with her and have a proper chat about it. In the very same café, no less.

Now, with Hadestown having raked in glowing reviews across the board and Anaïs finally getting recognition as a songwriter of formidable talent and emotional clarity, it seems only right to point you in the direction of that chat – one of the first interviews (if not the first) where she reveals the exciting developments that led to the version of Hadestown we know and love today.

Read the full interview here.

Look out for a brand new interview with Anaïs, coming very soon!

Tagged anais mitchell, hadestown