Chelle Rose
Not since Nanci Griffith packed the combined abusive pasts of Rosalee Sorrels and Kate Wolf into “Ford Econoline” has a song kiss off to an ex held been as much fun as the Chelle Rose
tune “Alimony”. Chelle Rose takes aim and fires off a rock’n’roll salvo that hits its target and you can be sure it will leave a mark. The song finds a home on the Ray Wylie Hubbard produced Ghost of Browder Holler, Chelle’s second album effort. Ray and Chelle handpicked the gems on Ghost of Browder Holler from her song work-ups, selecting the tracks each morning with some serious brainstorming, “Every morning we’d sit at the kitchen table and pull one of my songs out of the hat. Then we’d work out an arrangement and either agree or disagree to cut it. It was a beautiful, intense process that resulted in a record I’m proud of”.
Spontaneity has helped Ghost of Browder Holler sparkle like the night sky above folk, roots, bluegrass, country and rock’n’roll sitting on the porch, knocking back some shine. “Browder Holler Boy” opens up the album, with producer Ray Wylie Hubbard chiming in to lend vocal work. The darkness of the music background casts a long shadow across the song. Chelle Rose strips down to just voice and guitar (“Wild Violets Party”), reels back and rocks (“I Need You”), rambles along a country blue road (“Leona Barnett”), shimmies and shutters (“Rattlesnake in the Road”) and floats along on gauzy Americana (“Caney Fork Tennessee”). Stepping gracefully between styles is an art that Chelle Rose has mastered.
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The Wood Brothers
The basic concept is simple. Two brothers form a band, let influences and a love for blues, folk and roots‐music sounds build songs and let nature take its course. For The Wood Brothers,
that path showcased sibling vocals with Oliver on guitars and Chris on bass. The duo added non-blood brother Tyler Greenwell on drums and percussion and brought in a bunch of friends to deliver the Jim Scott produced Smoke Ring Halo.
The Wood Brothers took fifteen years to get to a joint band from separate projects. Smoke Ring Halo has a sound that makes you think these guys have been recording together for a lot longer. “Rainbow” lets a slide guitar accent the lovers questions and requests that walk the story line, “Mary Anna” stutters with bass and acoustic guitar notes as the narrator asks his love interest to let a little more light into their time together, “When I Was Young” lets voices and instruments play tag across a fast paced island rhythm and “Made It Up the Mountain” talks temptation and shares the results over confessional organ swells and playful notes patterns. The Wood Brothers testify, shouting the message of the spirit throughout Smoke Ring Halo with the passion of the faithful.
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Matt Prater
Matt Prater sings the blue collar life, describing with honest emotion and a barely concealed
anger how the working man is fairing these days. You know the character Matt talks about in “Dirt”, he or she could be you. They are the folks who spend another long day building dreams for someone else, working ten hours a day, five or six a days a week, coming to the realization that they “watched the day go by and it hurt to think I spent my life doing someone else’s dirt”.
Matt Prater is the Small Town Son broadcast in his most recent albums title. His words and voice are a season winning team on Small Town Son. The stories are revealed with a directness that lets you feel the truth as much as hear it. Matt has a way of imbuing his characters with life, there is blood running through the veins of the farmer praying for summer rain in “Fertile Ground”, the soul describing the loss of life in “Ghost Town” and the lover who is “Ten Years Two Kids” into a good decision. Picking up a guitar and learning to play is the easy part of songwriting. Stitching stories with a straightforward frankness and making it look easy is the tough part. Matt Prater aced both.
Susie Fitzgerald
Susie Fitzgerald waltzes with her memories in “No Drinkin’ Alone”, reason spreading out and into her body and mind a little slower than the effects of the alcohol. On Plenty, Susie moves
beyond memory and makes demands on her life (“Bring in the Light”), seeks out a place to kick back and stop swimming in the deep dark waters of love for just a little while (“Safe Harbor”), dons the mantle of mother (“Lullaby for Baby”) and rocks for the need to let go of personal wars (“Peacetime Now”).
Music is a second time around romance for Susie. She began playing guitar at fourteen, soaking up her Folk influences in her native Colorado. She put the guitar aside and proved making a song you can be proud of only takes one good note and one bad man; “I stopped playing for about a decade. A few years ago, I experienced sort of a ‘perfect storm’ of loss. I had my heart badly broken, suffered some severe health issues and totally burned out on my career as a museum professional”. Susie Fitzgerald stacked the sound deck on Plenty with Nashville session aces.
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Jack Wilson
A change of clothes is always important when planning a move but what do you pack for a
change of address? Jack Wilson saved room in the boxes and labeled Folk/Seattle on the cardboard container that housed his sound. When he got to his new Austin, Texas digs, his furniture, clothing, knick knacks and sound all acclimated to their new surroundings, Jack seeing the process as “somewhere, in the blending, is the sound of the record. Whatever you might call it, my sound, well, it's that blend."
The self-titled Jack Wilson release is the mirror that plays back the sound of the two cities. “I’ll Do the Same” offers acoustic Austin guitar chord and high lonesome pedal steel with gently plucked cello and “The Truth” is an open letter to past teachers, the reading of the text shared in duet with Raina Rose as the air around them is freckled with banjo, mandolin and guitar notes. Jack Wilson delivers his words with an open heart whether his backing is stripped down to barely more than man and guitar (“Dogwood Days”, “Red Feather”), dressed for the country (“Paying for Misery (Thanks to You)”, “Black Hills Fiction”)or buckling in for a rock and soul assault (“The Cure”, “The Watcher”).
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The Cabin Dogs
Twin brothers Rich and Rob Kwait have called a few cabins home over the years. In 1998, they
set up an 8-track recorder, visiting mountain cabins from Vermont to Tennessee, listening to country blues and old murder ballads. The sound the brothers crafted was shaped by the environment of their journeys and travels. Following the passing of their four-legged traveling companions, Cornelius and Leonardo, Rich and Rob retreated to the mountains of upstate New York. The brothers and their band, The Cabin Dogs, met up with musician/producer Professor Louie, who sat in for a Newport Folk Festival gig with the band. The results of the meeting and playing produced The Cabin Dogs first album, Electric Cabin.
The Cabin Dogs latest release, Midnight Trail, follows in the steps of earlier work, though the setting has changed to a home studio. The opening banjo notes, soft chord shuffles and plaintive vocals of “Blue Train” set up the songs for Midnight Trail. The tracks share shelf space with like-minded groups and artists from Neil Young and The Band through to Wilco, The Avett Brothers and Bon Iver. “Bloom” opens out over a persistent rhythm, “Thinkin 'Bout You and Me” bubbles with organ bursts and playful riffs, “Out in the Country” starts out with a glimmer of dawn filling the air, rising with the story line and “Come A Day” revisits the past on a lazy guitar strum. The Cabin Dogs include their mountain retreats feel and form in their songs. Cornelius and Leonardo are wagging their tails.
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Blvd Park
Some like labels, some don’t. Saying “I sound like this” is limiting for artists yet they have to say something around the family holiday table when dear old Aunt Edna asks “well, what kind of
music is it?” When Sacramento homegrown Blvd. Park changed their base of operation to Seattle, the band took its sound and came up with a term to just about cover the audio that is the result of playing together. To family and friends, Blvd Park claim the banner of Americarnie Spaghetti Western Desert Browngrass Folk. All bases covered, Blvd Park tackled wrestling the sound into recordings. Their second album simplifies terms and nods to their new home with the title The Sound.
“Rover” slips in like fog off the bay, its tendrils snaking along under the group vocals, “Little Ditty” puts on a party dress and heads out for a Saturday love hunt, “Little Fish” swims through a seductive rhythm that encourages participation with one or both feet and “Whistle Song” spends a lot of time honoring its title and finger pointing to the love left behind with a lack of regret. Blvd Park have a community spirit that is infectious. The bands decision to saddle its sound with a name does little to inhibit the desire to join in the fun of whatever it is you are hearing.
The Andy Poxon Band
Andy Poxon has been performing around the Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Virginia
area since 2008. It’s a good thing the bluesman could enter with the band ‘cause in 2008 he had just reached his teens. There is a studied flash to Andy’s guitar playing. His intuitive talent for the Blues can be heard easily , what makes him a standout performer is the way he gives each not its due moment. His guitar work gives the songs a determination, which balances the hard luck life blue of his vocals. Red Roots features top drawer musicians, that take the Blues and roll with it (“C'mon Pretty Baby”), boogie on down (“Hottest Thing in Town”), swing way low (“Raining In”) and roar (“I’ll Sing the Blues”).
Opening slots and playing with local and nationally touring acts has raised the Andy Poxon cache and brought him under the microscope as an up and coming blues/jazz act. That attention put him in front of Eller Soul Records who were impressed. They have issued the statement: “The EllerSoul family is proud to announce a new recording agreement with guitarist, Andy Poxon! The 17 year old singer/songwriter has been busy writing and will enter a Rhode Island studio in July to record new songs with award-winning producer Duke Robillard and a team of blues music veterans”
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Piers Faccini
Piers Faccini has a folk fragility that passes through his music like wisps of smoke. There are hints of Africa in the rhythms (“Three Times Betrayed”, “And Still The Calling”), smoky film noir
folk jazz (“The Beggar and The Thief”), dense dark piano and cello duets (“The Branches Grow”), bluesy delta sways (“Tribe”), breathy folk (“Say But Don’t Say”) and gypsy folk (“Dreamer”). The style and form that Piers Faccini crafts on My Wilderness sticks close to folk in the rhythms and the sound delivery, his voice spending time between baring its soul and whispered urgency.
My Wilderness was self-recorded at Piers home in the foothills of Southern France. On his fourth album, Piers Faccini maps out his life journeys with time codes and carefully crafted sound stamps that move through the English moors, Saharan deserts and the Mississippi Delta.
DOWNLOAD PIERS FACCINI "MY WILDERNESS"
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