A little while ago, I got the chance to interview one of my heroes of Appalachian old-time music, Riley Baugus. Riley's the real deal. He grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and learned as a kid from all the greats, especially Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham. He's not nearly as well known as he deserves, especially considering that he truly understands the heart of the music. He grew up not just with old-time dance music, but also with the deep religious singing of the South. That kind of knowledge of religious song traditions means that his voice and his singing are as true-blue Southern old-time as you can possibly experience.

Riley works a lot with T-Bone Burnett, and seems to be Burnett's banjo-picker of choice. Riley appears on the new-ish Willie Nelson album (Country Music) picking out "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down," and he appears on the famed Alison Krauss/Robert Plant album, playing a plaintive banjo on the beautiful last track "Your Last Journey." Of course, you likely know him from his singing in the Hollywood movie Cold Mountain (also a T Bone Burnett project). Not only did Riley contribute some key vocals, along with Tim O'Brien, Dirk Powell, and Tim Eriksen, but he also made all the banjos that appeared in the movie. If you haven't seen this movie, close this article right now and go to your Netflix account to rent it. It's pretty amazing, and hard to believe that they got Nicole Kidman singing Appalachian shape-note music!!

Since Riley's a star artist, along with Kirk Sutphin, at the upcoming Seattle Folk Festival that we're presenting, I got the chance to interview him. He sure had a lot of interesting things to say!

Hearth Music Interview with Riley Baugus
 

Hearth Music: Where did you grow up? What town?

Riley Baugus: I grew up in Walkertown, NC, near Winston-Salem.

HM: How did you meet Tommy Jarrell and what was your earliest memory of him?

RB: I met Tommy Jarrell at his house. Kirk and I went there to visit and play music in 1982 with Terri McMurray, who is now married to Paul Brown of NPR fame. My earliest memory of Tommy is of him sitting on his green, Naugahyde couch in his living room, playing the fiddle. I don't know what tune he was playing, but I do remember him sitting there playing the fiddle and singing every once and a while during the tune.

HM: Did Tommy Jarrell mentor you?

RB: To say "Mentor " is not really accurate. That's not how it worked. You didn't really go to Tommy's to get lessons, you would go there as an interested musician and he would play and you'd pay attention. If you wanted to learn things from him, he would show you, but it wasn't really a one-on-one teacher/student relationship as we think of it nowadays in a music lesson situation. He would play the tune, break down its parts, but at full speed, and that's how you learned. You could ask specific questions and he'd answer them the best he could. That is how the tradition has been passed since the first musicians in the area began playing.



HM: What did you learn from him?

RB: Wow! That question is like asking someone who does Karate, "What did you learn from the Sensei?" Tommy had a lifetime's worth of knowledge about all sorts of things. Life in general, tunes, how to play them in the archaic style that he learned as a boy, hundreds of stories about things that happened to him in his life, stories about his family, the community, other musicians that he played with over the years, where he first learned the tunes that he played, stories relating to particular tunes, how to attack a tune..... and the list goes on and on. When you went there you didn't just go to learn one thing. You might go with the idea that you would learn, "Sally Ann," but come away with three versions of the tune from different time periods, but the stories of why it was changed at certain times and what the song lyrics in the tune meant. I learned and still learn from him things about tunes on the banjo and fiddle and guitar and mandolin and singing that are from the 1800s that he learned from his father and his uncles and his neighbors. To learn from Tommy Jarrell was like having a time machine at your disposal. He was in his 80s, learned most of his music as a teenager at about 15 or 16 years old, from men and women who were in their 80s and 90s at the time he was learning, so the information you were getting was one person removed from the mid 1800s, and to people removed from and even earlier time, likely the late 1700s. Great experience.

HM: Who were some other Round Peak players that you learned from at an early age?

RB: I was learning from a variety of places and methods at the time, from recordings to people that you'd run into at festivals or people that we'd go visit, or just folks that showed up at Tommy's. I learned a lot from folks like Verlin Clifton, Frank Bode, Dix Freeman, Benton Flippen, Paul Brown and Ernest Creed to name a few, but I was also playing with Greg Hooven back in those days too, so there was a lot of learning going on. He was a powerhouse fiddler and singer, who was a little younger than Kirk and myself, but about the same age. He was learning things from Albert Hash and Thornton Spencer, and Tom Norman as well as Tommy and the whole Round Peak community. We did spend a fair bit of time over at Chester McMillian's house learning from him and his father-in-law, Dix Freeman, who was a wonderful fretless, Round Peak banjo player. He too has his share of stories and information about the old days. He was more the generation of Kyle Creed and Fred Cockerham, who were several years younger than Tommy, but had learned a lot of their music from Charlie Lowe. We went to visit musicians like Boyd and Cindy McKinney, Robert Sykes, Jake Norman and others. We spent time learning from all of them.

Tommy Jarrell w/Chester MacMillian, Frank Bodie, and Ray Chatfield

HM: Was Kirk Sutphin there with you when you were learning?

RB: Yes. Kirk and I started going up together back in '82. We had been playing music together for several years at that point. We met on the school bus back around '76 and became friends. We discovered that our families were from that same sort of part of the state, up around Surry and Alleghany counties, in the Blue Ridge, and we both like old music and old people. We have taken slightly different paths with our focus, but we still have the same love of the music and people. We used to drive around everywhere together. I was a bit older and got my license first, so I got to do the driving. Before that, our parents would drive us to visit musicians or to fiddler's conventions or we'd get a lift with some of the folks that we met in the old time community.

HM: When and how did you meet Dirk Powell?

RB: Dirk and I met at The Galax Fiddler's Convention around 1984 or 1985. We were both very young and in those days there weren't a lot of really young musicians around, like now. We started hanging out in jam sessions together with lots of our mutual friends and became friends ourselves. We like each other's vibe and music.

HM: Did you guys go through the countryside looking for players? Or was it more organic, like there were just people all around to learn from?

RB: Well, we did do that, but not together. We didn't really just go out looking for people who played music. Dirk's family is from Eastern Kentucky and mine is from the Blue Ridge Mountains of NC. Being part of those communities, we and our family knew, or knew of, all the people around that played music. You just had to get to meet them, or get taken there by someone who knew them. Many times it was easier if the person you were going to visit knew your family, but hadn't met you. It was an easier in that way.

HM: Tell me a story about you and Dirk and tunes. I bet he was a pretty crazy guy back in the day (he still is!).

RB: Dirk and I have played tunes for a long time, but one of the best times was a few years ago at Tonderfest, in Tonder, Denmark. You are literally playing for 10s of thousands of people at any performance at that festival, and usually on a huge stage with really big time professional sound systems. He and I sort of went over into a little shed that was provided back stage at the festival, away from the sound of the stage and the other performers and the spectators and the whole big scene. We just played a Round Peak tune together. It was the most magnificent feeling to be there at that moment, just the two of us, right in the midst of that huge environment, playing with total abandon and pure emotion, feeling each other's music and soul and talking with each other using the instruments as our voices. It was incredible. We knew we loved playing with each other and being with each other, but that moment was really special. I have a memory of Dirk at another festival when we were young. We were in Somerset, Pennsylvania playing at a music and dance festival. I remember leaving Dirk sitting in a chair around 2 or 3 am, playing the banjo. I went to bed, got up several hours later and found Dirk, still sitting in the chair, playing the banjo by himself, just as I'd left him. He loves music and he loves playing and there was still music to be made. We couldn't get enough back in those days. We had to play almost all the time we were awake. It's still that way to some degree.

HM: What does old-time music mean to you? On the one hand, it's a career, but on the other hand, it must be a powerful way to connect with family and friends. How do you reconcile the down-home family nature of the music with an international touring and recording career? Can the music be both humble and famous at the same time?

RB: Old time music, as I see it is one of the forms of traditional folk music of this country. Traditional Southern Appalachian music is the melding of several musics to create what we now call Old Time. The European fiddle tunes and pipe tunes came over to the Appalachians. Once here the players were faced with living in the same areas as people the Canadians refer to as people of The First Nations. They had their musical styles. They were also living with and around black slaves, forced here from several African nations, and these people had their own music. The rhythms and melodies all melded to form what we now know as Old Time. It is old music, but new music. It is usually music that is deeply heartfelt and meaningful. Speaking for myself, the performances of the music that I give today are not merely recreations nor an attempt at preservation, but a living, breathing example of music and tradition that still lives in the mountains near my home, where my family has been living since the 1700s. In these mountain communities you can still go to several dances every weekend, jam sessions within the community, and to performances of old time music all over this area. It is not an art form that is dead and simply being recreated by people as a spectacle, but the music and culture of people from the Southern Appalachians. Of course, I am only referring to the Southern Appalachian region, because that is what I am most familiar with. There are Old Time musical traditions all over the nation. The Southern Appalachians, the Ozarks, the Midwest, the North East. The Appalachian chain runs from Alabama all the way up into Canada and there is Old Time music all the the way through them.

I do feel that the music can remain humble and become famous at the same time. Tunes like, "Man of Constant Sorrow", first recorded in the 1920s by Emry Arthur, and "Keep On The Sunny Side," from The Carter Family are great examples. Two very humble songs, which through the vehicles of film, TV and radio, became very famous after O Brother Where Art Thou hit the theaters. The fact that I, and other musicians, perform and record this music as our careers in no way detracts from the humble nature of the music. In fact, I feel that the fact that the music comes from such a background is part of what people enjoy about it. In this day and age where people rely on the stores and corporations to tell them what they need, how they should look, what to eat, what to wear, what to listen to and so on, I think that many people are looking for something that is real and connected to the culture of a simpler place and time, and traditional music is one of those things. I feel that this is the very reason that I can have a career playing the traditional music of the United States, because it is real, and honest and connected to the Earth and the soul and the spirit of people and with times past, long ago. Music that is recorded and performed and written now that is called Old Time music is just as authentic and real as the music that was being played in the 1800s. All those tunes that people collected from players from years and years ago were made up or written by someone. They didn't just spring into existence. The music that we make in the studio now for films and CDs and call it Old Time is still, "Old Time." It is about the spirit and style of the music. Music cannot live in a vacuum. It must be allowed to breath and evolve and live or over time it will die out, just as anything deprived of space to grow or air to breath would.



HM: Tell me about working on Cold Mountain.

RB: Working on Cold Mountain was a great experience for me. I didn't really have to change who I was to be part of the project. I just had to go to the studio everyday and be Riley Baugus and sing songs the way that I would any other day and play the banjo just the same way. It was great working with T-Bone and Anthony Minghella and all the other musicians and the actors. We were all trying to do the best music that we could do for the project. It was a story that we all loved and wanted it to be as great as possible, as so much of the story was about the music. I learned a tremendous amount about working on a really big project and about sound and making things be the way you want them to be and sound the way you want them to sound. We really did have fun with it. A lot of work, but fun nonetheless.

HM: Was Jack White pretty down-to-earth, did he learn from you, or was he more distant?

RB: Jack White was great. I can't say that Jack learned anything directly from me, but I can say that Jack is a marvelous musician. He really "listens" to music, not just hearing it, but listening for the deeper parts that make music special. I think we all learned from each other during that experience. I know that I came away with more knowledge than I could wrap my head around at the time. It takes time to absorb so much information.
Jack was truly down to earth. He was right there with us, doing what we were all doing....making music. We all jammed a great deal and talked about music and listened to music and played and sang songs. He was great to work with. We did have fun. I didn't find him to be distant at all. We sat around and chatted between takes and when we weren't needed in the recording area. He's very interesting and a good guy to hangout with.

HM: What did you think of the final product of Cold Mountain? Was it pretty fair to old-time mountain life, or was it more of a Hollywood fantasy?

RB: When I finally got to see the whole thing together, I was deeply moved, and the way the music worked with the action was stunning. Due to time limitations there wasn't as much music in the film as we recorded, but there was still a huge amount of music in the film. I thought the screenplay was great and the final film was excellent. We all worked very hard to have it be great and I do think it was. It was the most realistic view of the Civil War that we've seen portrayed in film. The Crater scene at Petersburg was astonishingly realistic. I think it was a fair portrayal of mountain life for the time. There are always little things that one might see and say, "Oh, that's not how it was," but every detail was painstakingly seen to. Even the tin cups and plates were period correct. They were made by a Civil War expert, who is a tinsmith that lives close to me here near Winston-Salem, NC. I think that especially for Hollywood, they got this one as close as possible and it was great.

HM: What did you do on the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant album? Was that a fun project?

RB: I played banjo on that recording. I was there for several days working with Norman Blake on some of the tunes that were to be on the album. We played and recorded several things with Robert and Alison. The cut that ended up on the album is a song by Rosa Lee Watson, "Your Long Journey." We played it and Robert and Alison sang it. We set up around the sofa in the studio and just cut it. It was great.

HM: Tell me more about Willie Nelson and working with him. How did he gel with your music? 

RB: Working with Willie was great. He is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He's a great musician and a wonderful soul. He loved the banjo and I was asked by him on several cuts to kick off the tune. It was as if we'd all been playing together forever. The band was great and Willie was great. T-Bone knew just the right people to put together for the project and what material to bring to the table for us to record. I ended up on 12 or the 15 tracks I think.

We did do a short bit of touring, just to promote the new record. We played at The Ryman, on Soundstage in Chicago, on David Letterman's show, on The View and a concert at The Grand Ballroom in Manhattan. It was really, really fun and a great experience all the way around.

Willie Nelson with Riley Baugus


HM: Tell me more about T-Bone Burnett. It sounds like he's getting more and more connected to your old-time Southern music roots. Like Appalachian music. How has it been collaborating with him?

RB: Working with T-Bone is great. He is connected with Southern Music totally. Old time, Cajun, Country, Rockabilly, Rock and Roll. He is a big fan of the Appalachian sound and really seems to like it on his records and soundtracks. He is from Texas and has heard all sorts of music as well as written in lots of styles. He loves Bluegrass and Old Time. It is very cool getting to work with him and try to pull off what he's looking for in the studio. Always a pleasure.

HM: Where do you think old-time music is today? With a whole new generation embracing the music (I live close to Portland, OR, so I know a bunch of hot young stringbands), is the music being reborn in new ways? Is the core of the music: community, family, friends, still the same, or has it been changed by its brush with fame?

RB: That's a hard one to answer accurately. You need a control in the test group. I am always around music and musicians and quite a few of them are Old Time musicians, but I would say, seeing that there is still a strong community in these mountains, of people that are interested in Old Time music, that it is still strong. The sense of community, family and friends is still very strong. There are now even programs in the public school systems in some counties that encourage school age kids to get involved and learn Old Time music from players in the community who run the program. The program is known as JAM (Junior Appalachian Musicians). They get together after school about 3 days a week for jamming and lessons. It's a great way for kids to get involved without too much pressure. It's just about fun, and music and culture and community.

Surely the music is being reborn in new ways. As I said earlier, it can't survive in a vacuum. I think what's happening is that folks are picking up tunes from different geographic regions and styles, taking them back to their community and playing them in the style that they play where they live. That is exactly what was going on at the turn of the century, around 1900 and later when people would go to labor camps, like puncheon camps or coal camps to work. There they would encounter people from all over, some of which were musicians who would bring their tunes with them. Many of the tunes in Round Peak arrived there that very way. Someone would go off to work somewhere, and come back with a new tune or two. Of course the tune would be then adapted to the Round Peak style rather than being played in the style of the region where it came from. Looks to me like things are just as they have been in terms of Old Time music, except that people now have more access, more ability to travel and the resources to make it easier to learn, such as Computer slow-downers and cds that can be played over and over and over, instead of having to learn a tune in real time at full speed after only getting to hear it once or twice at a dance or from an individual you might pass on the road as you were walking to or from somewhere. There are teaching camps all over too that offer tuition in specific instruments for extended periods of time, like Augusta or Swannanoa, or Banjo Camp North, the classes offered in Brasstown, NC at the John C. Campbell Folkschool, or a similar tuition offered in Galax, Virginia at the Chestnut Creek School for the Arts. People can go there and get 15, 24, or even 40 hours of instruction from an expert teacher and player with every question answered. Old Time music is more available than ever and it seems to be becoming more so. The internet is a great place to find music, do research, and get all the information you can imagine. The resources are endless.

HM: Is the true old-time Southern music dying out?

RB: I don't really think so. It is changing and has always changed, but it is by no means dying out. As I say, more resources and activities are available than ever. The Mt. Airy Fiddler's Convention has around 10,000 people in attendance every year, and the majority of them are there for the Old Time competition and parking lot and campground music. There is a Bluegrass contingent, but it's not as prevalent as the Old Time followers.

HM: Are people still singing the old way in Baptist churches and passing on ballads, or is it alive and changing? What's your take?

RB: Ballad singing isn't really done in Church. Ballad singing is still done in the mountains in the Southern Appalachians, and is alive and well. There are lots of young folks learning the old ballads, or "love songs," as they are called, even if they're murder ballads. Donna Ray Norton, and Elizabeth Laprelle [ed note: appearing with Riley at the Seattle Folk Festival] are two good examples of young folks learning and carrying on the old ballads. There are folks of my generation too that are still doing the old ballads, like Rick Ward from Beech Mountain, Watauga County, NC, and Tim Eriksen. Ballads are still songs of story that were once used as a means of conveying news from one place to another about an occurrence, or as cautionary tales to people to say sort of, "Don't do as the person in this song did," but now and for a long time they have been passed from one generation to the next as examples of old songs with a good story. They are now a way of relaying history, which is still a very important function. Many of the old fiddle tunes perform that function as well.



The singing that is done in the Baptist churches takes many different forms in the mountains. The style that is done by the Old Regular Baptists in Eastern Kentucky and the Mountain Primitive Baptist styles are similar. They sing old songs in a lined-out fashion. That is to say that a song leader "Chants" the first line of a verse and the congregation repeats the line to the melody. This continues for each line of each verse. That way no one except the song leader has to have a book or know the words to a song. This method is also still used in the churches in the Hebrides, on the Isles of Scotland, except they sing the songs in Gaelic. It is called Psalm singing there and the melodies are very similar to the ones used in the Southern Appalachians for many of the old songs. The Regular and Union Baptists vary their method of singing. This is the case for the Freewill Baptists in the mountains as well. They still mostly sing the old songs, but not necessarily with the lining out. Some do, some don't. Just depends on the particular church. For the most part, all the churches that I have mentioned still sing unaccompanied. No musical instruments are allowed in the church. They believe that the New Testament doesn't say that they are to praise God with music in any other way than with their voices, so this tradition continues very strongly today. The documentation of the Lined-Out Hymnody of The Old Regular Baptists of Eastern Kentucky, I think has done a lot to bring people back to that style of singing. I think church attendance is up in those areas.

HM: Tell me about your town.

RB: Walkertown is a small town just outside the city limits of Winston-Salem, NC. I live actually out in the more rural area, out in the county, but our mailing address is Walkertown. Kirk Sutphin and I live here. We are as far as I know, the only Old Time musicians in Walkertown. It isn't really a music town. We gravitate more toward the Northwest of Surry County or over to the Northeast toward Rockingham County where Charlie Poole was from. These are the areas where Kirk and I learned most of our music from NC.

HM: Do you play a lot at home, like with Kirk and others?

RB: Kirk and I do play together when we get the chance. We live on the same street and have done forever, with the exception of just a couple of years when I lived in Stokes County and then on the South side of town. We still live on the road where we grew up, just a half mile apart.

HM: Do people come from all over to visit for tunes? Is there maybe even a tourism industry for the music in your town?

RB: People do travel down here from time to time to play with Kirk and myself. We get folks from Japan, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Holland, France. They come from all over. Mt. Airy, NC has more of the tourism vibe going on. That is the town closest to where Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham and Benton Flippen lived. The Surry Arts council does have functions based around and including the music of Surry County, and people come from far away for those functions.

HM: Tell me about your album with Kirk. That looks great! What kind of tunes and songs are on it? Was it fun to make?

RB: The new album is called Kirk Sutphin and Riley Baugus, Long Time Piedmont Pals. We were approached by Charlie Faurot of Old Blue Records to make the album. He is the collector that recorded Tommy Jarrell, Fred Cockerham and Oscar Jenkins back in the 60s. Those recordings sort of got the ball rolling for the "revival" of Round Peak music, which really means that it spread outside the Surry County area and was discovered by loads of people who fell in love with the sound and the idea of the living tradition. It is a collection of tunes that we have known since childhood as well as some we learned just for the recording. We included some tunes that we learned from recording of a great musician named Matt Simmons from Stokes County, NC. It is the county just to the North of us here and is often overlooked musically. "Drunkard's Dream" and part of our version of "Wild Bill Jones" comes from Matt Simmons. It also includes a version of "Paddy On The Turnpike," which we learned from H.O. Jenkins, the grandson of Frank Jenkins who played with Tommy Jarrell's dad, Ben Jarrell in DaCosta Woltz' Southern Broadcasters, in the late 1920s. We did a couple of tunes that we learned from field recordings of Fields Ward from Galax, VA and some tunes from Wade Ward, and tunes we learned from Tommy Jarrell, and others that we learned along the way from several different players.

It was huge fun to make. We recorded it all live. No overdubs, or punching in. We played the tunes and recorded them. Charlie set up in Kirk's living room in true field recorder fashion, and we did the record. We like to think of it as our field recording. It's cool to do a record that way without all the bells and whistles that you have at your disposal in a studio. Just the instruments and the voice and the room sound and whatever editing gets done. One of my favorite ways to record.

I played Banjo and Guitar on most of the recording while Kirk played Fiddle and Banjo on most of it, but we did switch around a bit too. I played Fiddle on a couple and he played Guitar and Old Time Fingerstyle Banjo on a couple. Most people tend to think that Clawhammer is "THE" old time way of playing 5 string Banjo, but Fingerstyles were just about as common in the Southern Appalachian region.

Kirk's brother Darren built a log cabin out behind his house, so Kirk and I went out there and my wife Rosalind took our photos for the cover. It was very appropriate to take those photos at the cabin. Ros is a great photographer and really caught the feeling and us in our element. As kids we always loved the things that were old, seemed old or stood for the old ways. It was like getting to be kids again to do this record. We played tunes that we actually had to learn, and we spent several days together playing tunes and telling stories and just having fun, just like when we were kids.

I am a very fortunate man to be able to do something that is so fun and interesting for my work and have people enjoy what I do and hopefully be moved in some positive way by the music I make and the stories I tell.

HAVE A LISTEN

Riley Baugus: What Are They Doing in Heaven


Riley Baugus: Cumberland Gap


Riley Baugus & Kirk Sutphin: Wild Bill Jones

 

PURCHASE RILEY'S MUSIC

Riley Baugus & Kirk Sutphin: Long-Time Piedmont Pals

Riley Baugus: Long Steel Rail
Riley's Recent Solo Album from Rounder Records --HIGHLY recommended

 

Riley Baugus: Life of Riley
(Riley's First Solo Album)

Riley Baugus & Kirk Sutphin are headlining the 2011 Seattle Folk Festival, December 9-11. You can catch them at the gala Appalachian Winter Concert on Sat December 10 at Columbia City Theater, and they'll both be teaching workshops (old-time fiddle and Blue Ridge Mountain singing) during the day on Saturday, on Friday they'll be playing our benefit square dance for Bike Works, and on Sunday they'll be playing our Sunday Family Jam at Town Hall Seattle. Weekend Passes are only $40 and get you in to everything!

www.seattlefolkfestival.com
 

The 'nets have been buzzing about Seattle's own Bryan John Appleby ever since his newest album, Fire on the Vine, dropped this year. After finally sitting down to explore this album, I was floored to hear one of the best voices in indie roots music today. And it's not just the singing and the beautiful, complex instrumental arrangements on the albums; really the meat of what makes Bryan's music so appetizing is the lyrics. At turns heart-wrenching and transcendent, the album moves between our fragile lives and our endless capacity for faith. It's not religious per se, but it does tap into old epics and Biblical characters.

Driven by my own curiosity, I asked Bryan John Appleby for more information about how faith works into the lyrics. "To be specific, the album relates to the faith that I knew in my formative years, up until the last few years, and the irreconcilable aspects of that former faith and my current position," he said. "It should be clear through the lyrics that I've made a departure. It is more ambiguous than it may seem though."



You can hear this ambiguity in a song like The Words of the Revelator. Bryan said he wasn't specifically referencing John the Revelator, but it's hard not to hear the connection in the lyrics. "You turn away/I am left alone/Then came the sign/Then came the revelation," is a great lyric that touches on the ambiguity of signs, while "You will find what you did not seek/A road less narrow/A way not steep," sure sounds to me like the sigh of relief that comes from moving out from under the weight of religion. Talking further with my friend April at the blog Common Folk Music, Bryan said "In the song 'Words of the Revelator,' I created a conversation between an old craggy hermit scholar type and a young man. This relationship is analogous to the inner struggle that a thinking, reasoning person encounters when she or he is confronted by irreconcilable ways of thinking." [read that Q&A here]

Bryan John Appleby: The Words of the Revelator

"Glory" is another powerful song from Bryan's new album. At turns it's a soaring ode to the human emotions of glory and accomplishment, an uplifting song, but there's a biting edge underneath, a feeling of something lost. As if the glory he's singing about, the kind of glory you'd get from growing up with epic Biblical stories, has slipped away as he's passed into a later phase of his life. I asked Bryan about this song in particular: "Glory is the one song that sounds like its about God but really it means something different than that. No, not sex. It's a salve for me. The album is sad most of the time so the song Glory is a nod to the beauty in our existence. It is subtle and wonderful." I love the thought of this song as a salve, a healing intended to move us along on a new path.

Bryan John Appleby: Glory

 

Moving on from religion, I really wanted to ask Bryan more about how his music fits into the Pacific Northwest. It certainly seems so connected to our dark, rainy environment; it's the kind of album that can only come out of an endless Seattle winter. I asked him what places in the Northwest inspired him. "My bedroom in the Beacon Hill house [note: check out this great video of Appleby composing at home]. My underground apartment after that," he said. "It was all pretty spectacular when I first got up here. The Puget Sound and the islands. I've only been out there a few times but it's a pretty overwhelming place. Georgetown has always felt good to be down in. Specific spaces, Acme Rubber Stamp Co, used to be in Ballard. The hand painted signage in the I.D..." Bryan's been putting together some amazing videos recently, featuring different landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. And the venerable Doe Bay Fest just release an exceptional video of him out on the Puget Sound's Orcas Island, so you can see him performing in the environment that first inspired his music out in the NW.

Bryan John Appleby: The Doe Bay Sessions

The 2011 Doe Bay Sessions - Bryan John Appleby from Sound on the Sound on Vimeo.

Bryan John Appleby w/Mychal of Campfire OK 

Cliffs Along The Sea from Christian Sorensen Hansen on Vimeo.

BUY THE ALBUM (it's only out on Bandcamp)

Bryan John Appleby is performing at the 2011 Seattle Folk Festival. You can check out the full lineup at www.seattlefolkfestival.com. Bryan's performing as part of the Columbia City Celebration, all-day Saturday, December 10, along with Sons of Warren Oates, Youth Rescue Mission, Brother Bear, Kevin Murphy of the Moondoggies, Pharis & Jason Romero, and more!

Seattle Folk Festival Website
Seattle Folk Fest on Facebook

Saturday Columbia City Celebration

I've been impatiently awaiting a new album from Canadian roots music artist Michael Jerome Browne for quite a while now. The last album of his that I have, Michael Jerome Browne & The Twin Rivers String Band, is one of my favorite roots albums, with gorgeous picking and singing with powerful cuts of old-time, blues, honky-tonk and Cajun songs. Having just received his new album, The Road is Dark (out now on Borealis Records), and having listened to it now twice in a row without stopping, this was definitely worth the wait! 

Browne may not be too well known in the States–though he was born in Indiana, Montreal is his adopted home–but he should be. He's one of those rare musicians who have the artistry to transform traditional material that would sound old and tired in another's hands into something so refreshing that it feels like you're hearing the song for the first time. Browne nails this right out the gate with a surprising cover of the 1949 Flatt & Scruggs Mercury Records classic "Doin' My Time." This song was always one of the funkiest, blusiest bluegrass numbers around, so it makes perfect sense when Browne takes it into a deep Delta blues setting. It's a bold move to cast a classic of the bluegrass canon as country blues, but it's a sign of Browne's familiarity and comfort with American roots music. He's done this before on previous albums, effortlessly blending country blues, Appalachian old-time and even some killer Cajun music, and though The Road is Dark is primarily blues-based, the reason the album sounds so rich and effortless is because he's got so much knowledge and appreciation of the roots of the music he plays. On "Death Don't Have No Mercy," Browne takes a Rev. Gary Davis song into darker, eerier territory by channeling the influences of Skip James and Lightnin' Hopkins.

What's even more impressive than these re-imaginings of country blues, are Browne's original songs, which are sprinkled throughout the album. He writes so well and so cleanly, that it's pretty much impossible to tell the original songs from the traditional ones. Though some of the original veer away from the universality of blues lyrics towards more topical matters, this is an asset to the album. His "G20 Rag" is a welcome addition to any political songbook:

"caught the midnight train to Hogton
I went to have my say
'bout the way the rich keep gettin' richer
and the way the poor folks pay

up above the barricade
inside the penthouse suite
twenty future CEOs
raised a glass to the elite

and when the streets were empty
when we're all in jail
our leaders smiled and said 'you see?
democracy can't fail!' "

One of the strongest moments in the album comes right after the "G20 Rag" with Browne's spare and hair-raising song "Sing Low." Accompanied by Rwandan guitarist Mighty Popo and a finger-plucked gourd banjo, Browne's song is ostensibly an homage to Afghan women, drawing a comparison to African-American slaves, who used song to communicate with less fear of reprisal. On any other artist, a heavy-handed blues homage to the cultural complexities of the Afghan nation would be unbearable, but Browne's song is so deftly written and his rendition so subtle and rich, that he manages to convey the intended power to the song.

This is a great album, not only a delight to connoisseurs of American roots music for the way that Michael Jerome Browne reinterprets and subverts old blues paradigms, but also a delight for those just looking for some great acoustic blues. It's eminently listenable from start to finish and will likely enjoy a long shelf-life on repeat in your collection.

Michael Jerome Browne: G20 Rag



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Kíla's the kind of band that's lived on the edge of musical scenes their whole lives. They're Irish and they can play the hell out of Irish trad music, but their albums have spun off into Afro-pop explorations, or Chinese literature inspirations, or world-beat ministrations, or compositional meditations. To call their music experimental might be going a bit far, though some of their more eclectic compositions push far enough beyond the boundaries of what we'd come to expect from the band that they could be termed experiments. Really, it seems that Kíla simply has a roving mind. Their minds rove as they travel and as they experience and are influenced by sounds and ideas from around the globe. They're a truly global Irish band, at once rooted in their traditions, composing in Gaelic and involving traditional instruments like the uilleann pipes, but looking forward to collaborations with other global musicians of like minds.

Kíla: Leath Ina Dhiaidh A Hocht (from Gambler's Ballet)




Lead singer and Irish poet Rónán Ó Snodaigh may be responsible for much of Kíla's roving. He writes the band's songs, for the most part holding to his upbringing in the Irish language. His poetry is informed by his background as a renowned percussionist on the Irish bódhran, a much-maligned frame drum that has since spread to the US and across the world. His poetry is also informed by the inherent rhythms of Irish Gaelic, a language that rolls off the tongue and bubbles around the inside of your mouth like a broiling creek. It's a language with dance meter and cadences built right in, and coupled with the Irish penchant for verbal dexterity, it's clearly a language of poets. Ó Snodaigh's songs tumble along with the Irish instruments of the band and form the unmistakeable folk-rap that is Kíla's trademark sound. I wanted to ask Rónán the obvious question of whether the rhythms of hip-hop had also worked their way into his songwriting. Writing over email from his home in the picturesque Dingle Peninsula in Western Ireland, he replies "Yes I think we have all been influenced by hip hop at this stage of the worlds development, but I was also impressed by the early Jamaican dance hall ragga muffin kinda stuff and poets and Lynton crazy johnston. A lot of my musical life I have been surrounded by absolutely amazing singers with beautiful voices. I am not sure how beautiful my voice is for holding long notes, so i play to my strengths. I'm a good percussionist and as with most percussionists I know I can sing to the beats that I play." Ó Snodaigh also clearly doesn't hold much for the strict lines between musical genres, and has a broader conception of what Irish music is than you'd expect from a band that's made their name on the Irish language and its traditions. "It doesn't have to be obviously Irish music to be Irish music as well," he writes. "Like it is sometimes not obvious that Glen's [Hansard of the Swell Season] guitar playing is very Irish but that mightn't be noticed as that, or even U2's the Edge." U2 have paid their due respects to Kíla; Bono himself has called them 'extraordinary,' so perhaps the lines are blurring in today's world of Irish music.

Kila: Seo Mo Leaba (from Gambler's Ballet)

Ó Snodaigh, with his brothers and bandmates Colm and Rossa Ó Snodaigh, grew up in Dublin in an Irish speaking family. He started learning English when he was five, "something I am still at!" he writes. Having visited Ireland myself, I was surprised to hear that an urban Dublin family would speak Irish primarily. Usually I think of Irish as being speaken most organically in gaeltachts, isolated parts of Ireland set aside as language reservations. But Rónán says, "Its not that uncommon to find families raised in Irish in major urban centres, as we were. It's a growing phenomenon. It's a lovely sound to listen to; a household speaking Irish." Speaking Irish as a first language and growing up in an urban metropolis like Dublin exposed Ó Snodaigh both to his roots and to his influences. But he's clearly his own man, and since founding Kíla has embarked on a number of solo albums and solo tours. His latest album, Water Off A Duck's Back, shows off not only his English writing skills, but also his quirky sense of humor. Myles O Reilly, of Dublin folk-pop band Juno Falls, produced the album, and artist friends of Ó Snodaigh, like Liam Ó Maonlaí of the Hothouse Flowers guest as well. It's a fun album, though parts of it do hint at more serious Nick-Drake-sounds, something to be enjoyed rather than analyzed. When asked about the inspiration behind the album, Ó Snodaigh replies "Fun was an inspiration, and the total abyss under our feet and the absence of it." It's a typically enigmatic response from someone who delights in twisted wordplay.

Rónán Ó Snodaigh: Water Off a Duck's Back


Rónán Ó Snodaigh is a remarkably busy man these days. Aside from his solo album, Kíla has just released an all-instrumental album, Soisín, and was featured in the soundtrack of the Academy-Award nominated animated film The Secret of Kells. Invited by master French film composer Bruno Coulais to record in Sligo, Kíla contributed two tracks to the film's soundtrack. He's also been touring with his old friend Glen Hansard of The Swell Season. I asked Rónán to tell me more about that experience: "After winning the Oscar, the Swell Season were to do a big tour in America. Glen (who is an old friend) rang me and asked me to join them on tour hoping that I could help recreate some of the atmosphere we used to have when we were busking on Grafton Street, all those years ago. Where we learnt our chops all those years ago."

It seems that Ó Snodaigh takes on musical projects as they inspire him, throwing himself into the work with an infectious passion. Recently, he composed the music for two BBC nature documentaries. Having spoken out many times before on environmental causes, it was an easy connection for him to make. "I made a collection of music for the Wild Journey's program in which I built a track for each creature featured and I spent time researching the animals, observing their movements and tried to mimic some of those in each tune. For example when I wrote the butterfly piece i had my eyes closed and I imagined I was a butterfly the whole time. As I played I was flapping my imaginary wings, floating above gardens and feeling the breeze. Or when I did the shearwater I was floating across oceans and I could hear the sound I made in the wind around me. One of my favorites was the blue whale, I imagined I was a real cheeky Blue Whale swaggering into underwater town on a blues riff ready to eat any other fish that moved." This kind of almost spiritual connection to the natural world is an undercurrent in Ó Snodaigh's work. I've been watching this video over and over of him walking a puppet through his garden, accompanied by the beautiful track "When in Rome" from his 2001 solo album. It's so simple, but so heartfelt and powerful at the same time.
 

 
It's a look at Ó Snodaigh's softer side, and his keen eye for combining the small details of nature with the big details of human life. Ó Snodaigh's a published poet, both in English and in Irish, and his 2007 book of English poetry, Garden Wars, has some brilliant passages about natural life as a reflection of our own. And that's where we'll leave him for now, at home in his garden in the West of Ireland, humming a tune to himself as he cooks dinner. For a man whose mind roves constantly across the globe, he's remarkably down-to-earth.

The Garden Escapees

Out the gate
Down the road
Through the fence
Over the wall
And on
On bicycle wheels
On the backs of bees
In birds beaks
Or under our feet
Any which way they could and they would and they will and they did
And they do
They went with the wind
And soaked up the sun
Drank down the rain
And ate what they could from the mud
Ye have to fight hard for a foothold this side of the garden walls
And twice as hard to keep it
(It’s not easy but it’s freedom)
On the side of roads
In under the stones
Down in the ditches
They’ll find, build and make a home
And defend it on their own

No one to water their roots during the dry spell
No one to watch over them and keep them well
No one to preen and prune them and make their bed
No not these flowers They are free Not wild, but free
No one picking at their petals
Breaking off their blossoms
Or dictating the shape of their shoots
No thank you These are the garden escapees
And the difference is They know they are free

Copyright - Rónán Ó Snodaigh – Musician, Gardener & Poet

If you’ve been following the Irish trad music scene closely, you've likely heard about the infamous De Dannan split. One of the premier Irish trad ensembles, De Dannan is heir to over 35 years of performances, records, high-profile tours and amazing musicianship. They’ve gone through countless singers, many of whom went on to become quite famous, but the core of the band was always the amazingly explosive fiddling of Frankie Gavin (often referred to as the “God” of Irish fiddle) and the pulsing counter-harmonies of Alec Finn’s bouzouki playing.

So it’s a sad fact that Frankie and Alec, whose duet music is one of my most favorite examples of Irish trad music, had a falling out over the name of De Dannan and who should be allowed to use this name. For all the gory details, you can go to the Session.Org, which features surprisingly salacious discussions on a wide range of topics, but the gist of it is that there are now two De Dannans! So lucky us! One is called “Frankie Gavin & De Dannan” and features an entirely new cast of characters led by Frankie’s fiddling. Frankie promises a De Dannan for a new century, but I haven’t been able to get ahold of the album (most Irish musicians these days don’t even bother selling their CDs in the States, and Frankie refused our request for an interview) so I can’t vouch for this rather brash claim. From what I’ve heard online, the sound is much like De Dannan’s later work, very polished and drawing from pop sources almost as much as Irish trad. Have a listen for yourself.
 

But I’m here to review the other De Danann (note the slightly different spelling of the name), which is much closer to my heart as an old-school Irish trad fan. Simply titled “De Danann”, this band consists of two original members: the inimitable Alec Finn and bodhran player Johnny ‘Ringo’ McDonagh. To this percussive core, they’ve added a host of impressive virtuosos, most of whom I hadn’t heard of before (but I haven’t followed the Irish scene closely for years). Accordionist Derek Hickey is a great find, though he played in De Danann for about ten years before the band’s split in 2003, with a fluid style and an ability to match the other musicians note for note. In a nice article in Irish Music Magazine, Derek cites Frankie Gavin’s fiddling as a main inspiration for his box playing, and you can hear this influence in the powerful ornaments and jagged rhythms of Derek’s playing. Well-known Irish tenor banjo player Brian McGrath has also joined the band, and for old-school De Dannan fans who still remember the glory days of the truly great Charlie Piggott on banjo, this is a wonderful nod to the past. But Fiddler Mick Conneely is the great surprise here, with a ferocious fiddling style that sounds like a back-room brawl. He races through the tunes with hard-as-nails ornaments and plays at dizzying speed. His fiddling is just hardcore enough to keep De Dannan from sounding too polished, and in fact I’m very pleased to say that the band sounds like they've returned to their roots in the hell-for-leather pub sessions of Western Ireland.

I’m a huge fan of De Dannan’s 1989 album The Mist Covered Mountain and I can happily say that De Dannan’s new album, WonderWaltz nearly matches the pure passion and intensity of that now-classic album. At times the band sounds almost exactly the same, which is a pretty amazing testament to how tight this new band is, but also a testament to how much Alec Finn’s beautiful bouzouki playing defined De Dannan. Finn also defined the Irish bouzouki, developing a powerful technique that blended improvised counter-point harmony with rapid-fire tune picking. Together with Frankie Gavin, he created the sound of modern Irish trad music, as can be heard on their superlative album together, Masters Of Irish Music: Frankie Gavin & Alec Finn. In an infamous radio interview, Irish accordionist Tony MacMahon called Finn a “second-rate accompanist” and made the incredibly hypocritical claim that the bouzouki is not a native instrument to the tradition (and the accordion is??)! For my money, MacMahon’s completely off his rocker. The core of De Dannan has always been Alec Finn and always will be.

What sets the new De Danann apart and creates a new sound for the band is the singer, Eleanor Shanley. Her soaring, crystal-clear voice lends a lot of polish to what is actually a pretty rough-and-tumble band. I’m not totally behind this personally, but I have a pretty OCD vision of Irish trad and prefer the De Dannan that featured old hillbilly sean-nos singers rather than every other iteration of the band that featured quite polished and amazing female song starlets. So pay no attention to me, Eleanor Shanley is a huge talent and proves this on WonderWaltz. Rather than sticking with the rather standard idea that Irish trad singers should cover obscure traditional songs from old sources, Shanley gleefully taps into some of the great modern Celtic songwriters, offering "Hard Station" from Paul Brady, "How Will I Ever Be Simple Again" by Richard Thompson, and "My Beloved and I" from song collector Delia Murphy. In a rather surprising move, she also includes songs from American country stars Emmylou Harris ("My Baby Needs a Shepherd") and Ry Cooder ("Across the Borderline"). This makes sense, as country music is huge in Ireland, arguably more popular than the indigenous traditional music. In this way, De Danann's WonderWaltz presents a true vision of Irish music today as it barrels out of pub sessions, and taps into its equal love of American country and modern Celtic sounds. The band never loses sight of the traditions, but are clearly having so much fun that they couldn't be bothered to follow any stuffy rules and would rather just play the hell out of the music. You gotta respect artists like that. So here's to a brand-new century for Irish super-group De Dannan! Or as they say, the kings are dead, long live the kings!

De Danann: Patsy Touhey's/Fred Finn's

 

De Danann: Ireland

 

De Danann. WonderWaltz.

 
PS: I have to say that WonderWaltz is one of the best packaged CDs we've seen in a while. Great design, very colorful and makes you feel classy just to own a copy.

PPS: Special thanks to De Danann for permission to stream this music from their new album. And if you're looking to book them in the States, talk to Pat Garrett at Real Good Music. He's a great guy and De Danann deserve some great shows in the US.

Frankie Gavin & Alec Finn, back in the day. Amazing music!

The great 1989 album from the original De Danann.

The sea has been on my mind a lot lately. Watching the power of a tsunami descend on the Japanese coast has cast a pall over all our social networks and our minds this past week. It reminds us of the power of the sea, and how the waves can reach our homes even on shore. As a result, I've been listening a lot to the deeply powerful debut album of Newfoundland singer Matthew Byrne. For centuries, Newfoundland was the farthest point West in the wide Atlantic Ocean. The Vikings rolled onto its shores half frozen and terrorized by natives, settling an early, failed colony. And long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, Basque fisherman were fishing the Grand Banks and salting cod on shore. It's no overstatement to say that the sea is in the blood of Newfoundlanders, and their music is rich with tales of life and love on the rough seas.

On his debut album, Ballads, young traditional singer Matthew Byrne draws from a rich family repertoire of songs from his family's home in Placentia Bay. The songs can often be traced back to British roots, but Byrne learned them from family sources: his mother, father, uncle and great-uncle. As Byrne said to me in an interview, "My earliest musical memories would be from when I was a toddler, hearing my parents and their friends playing and singing. I come from a family of singers and music was pretty essential to the many gatherings that took place at home. Luckily, it was never the kind of situation where the children were rushed off to bed, so I was surrounded by it all from a very early age. I've often heard my mother say that my brother and I were humming melodies before we were able to talk. Needless to say, it made an impression on my right from the beginning." I have great respect for traditional musicians who learn their music from their families. It shows that the roots of the music remain strong, and it points to the sacred bond these old songs have with our heritage.

On Ballads, Matthew Byrne brings together the traditional sounds of today's Newfoundland folk music: guitar, accordion, bouzouki, fiddle, concertina. These instruments ride under his gently waving, soft voice and bring a poignancy to the songs that only adds to the power of their words. These are story songs, true ballads, that relate the terrors and tragedies of life on the sea. And where the maudlin nature of old British broadsides can sometimes threaten to overwhelm, the poetry of these old lyrics can also reach right to the heart. I've listened to "Three Score and Ten" about 50 times now and find myself fighting back tears nearly every time. The words to this ballad come from a poem by William Delf, a fisherman from Grimsby, England. Written in 1889, it tells the story of a community broken apart by the many lives lost at sea during a series of heavy gales off the coast. Ironically, Delf was himself lost at sea four years later. Have a listen:

Matthew Byrne: Three Score and Ten

 
Though born and raised in Placentia Bay, Byrne's parents left their home region to move to St. John's, the capital, during a period of government resettlement. This resettlement was intended to bring fishing communities in danger of financial collapse to the capital for modernization and central regulation. You can read more about this interesting history here. For Byrne's family, it meant that they had to work ever harder to preserve their cultural heritage in the city. "The cultural impact of resettlement was absolutely massive. I've always been thankful that both my parents were part of the earlier efforts to maintain musical traditions that were endangered by the rise of a more "modern" Newfoundland. When Mom moved to St. John's, she spent a great deal of time collecting and performing folk songs from older Placentia Bay singers. She has a wonderful collection of tape-recorded performances and hand-written lyrics and notes, which I regularly turn to when expanding my repertoire. Needless to say, she is an incredible source of ballads, many of which I've learned and performed. It's actually amazes me how many songs she knows. I still regularly hear her sing ones I've never, ever heard before."


I'd first heard of Placentia Bay via the accordionist Vince Collins, whose debut CD featured a rare and beautiful repertoire of tunes from this region of Newfoundland. Produced by Bob Hallett of Great Big Sea, Vince's CD is one of the best examples of the great Newfoundland accordion tradition available. Newfoundland accordion playing is rooted in the Irish tradition, but is much choppier and danceable than Irish trad music. Vince plays in the traditional manner, with ornaments and notes as rough as the high seas. The album is titled Lifting Out The Stove and refers to the community tradition of kitchen dances, where the stove was lifted out and placed in the backyard to make room for dancing. Reminds me of the Irish phrase "Round the House and Mind the Dresser", referring there to Irish house dancing.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get permission to stream a track from Vince's album. You can buy it here. In the meantime, here's a set of Newfoundland tunes from my family band, La Famille Leger. The first tune and the third tune come from Vince's repertoire and the middle tune was composed by the great Newfoundland Acadian fiddler Emile Benoit.

La Famille Leger: Joe Parson's Jig/Diane's Happiness/Aunt Maggie Gambin



But despite all this family and regional history, Byrne focuses mostly on the songs and their poetry. As he says, "I love the melodies, and the way they're written. For me, it's not as much the meaning of the lyrics. I'm more intrigued by the poetics. These ballads demonstrate a older style of writing that you just don't see anymore, and when paired with the right melody, the result is simply beautiful. This, quite simply, is what I've tried to convey with the songs on my album."

Here's an example of this poetry, the song "Donald Monroe," a haunting parable of immigration to the New World.

Matthew Byrne: Donald Monroe


Donald Monroe or The Ballad of Donald Monroe

A crowd of young men were inclined for to roam,
To search for employment, and pleasure find none.
Among the bold number, stood Donald Monroe.
It was into America he was forced for to go.

He left his two songs with their uncle to stay
For he was not able their passage to pay.
The price of their passage, you know it was dear.
So boys be content and stay home in good cheer.

Those boys being discontented, being troubled in mind.
To stay with their uncle, they were not inclined.
They shipped on a voyage to sail o'er the main.
In hopes for to see their dear father again.

They landed in America, took a boy for a guide.
To seek out that country where there dear father lie.
Together they rambled til they came to a grove
Where the green leaves and branches before them did move.

Those two highway robbers lay hid in the wood.
And pointed their pistols where the two brothers stood.
They planted their bullets in their lily-white breasts
And rushed on their victims like savage wild beasts.

"You hard-hearted monsters, you bloodthirsty hound.
You might not have shot us til the one we had found.
We're in search of our father, he's a man we love dear
And we haven't seen him in seven long years."

"Oh, who is your father? Tell me what is his name?
Who is your father, may I know the same?"
"He left us in Scotland, seven twelve-months ago
Perhaps you might know him, his name is Monroe."

The old man gazed on them with a tear in his eye.
The old man gazed on them with a sad, sad surprise
"Here's a curse to my pistol, for the deed I have done.
And cursed be my fortune if I've murdered my son."

"Now who is this young man likes dead by your side?
Who is this young one?" the old man he cried.
"He is my only brother and he's your youngest son.
Now cursed be your fortune for the deed you have done."

"Don't tell our dear mother that we're lying here.
It will only upset her and cause despair.
We're in hopes for to see her on a happier shore.
Where you won't be able to shoot us no more."

 
Notes: Matthew Byrne also sings and plays in the excellent Newfoundland band The Dardanelles with CBC broadcaster Tom Power. Special thanks to Matthew Byrne for permission to stream his music and post his responses to my interview.