We're back again with our annual guide to the hugely humongous Northwest Folklife Festival, this Memorial Day Weekend, May 24-27, 2013. This is the largest community music festival in the nation, with (last I checked) 800+ bands, 25+ stages, and so much music and dance that it's physically impossible to see even a small fraction of the things you'd like to see. Now, some people like to wander around the festival, a shawarma and a cold lemonade in their hands, but I'm the kind of type that goes looking for something or someone new and amazing to discover. So I went through the schedule looking for cool things you might otherwise miss. Here's the:



HEARTH MUSIC GUIDE TO THE NORTHWEST FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL 2013

 
FOLKLIFE SCHEDULE:
All of these picks and more are selected on the Hearth Music Folklife Schedule. Feel free to check it out and copy our itinerary!
 

COOL SHOWS

American Standard Time. Sponsored by No Depression + BECU
Monday, May 27, 3:30-6:30
Fountain Lawn Stage.

This is definitely the coolest show at Folklife this year, so put this sucker on your calendars folks!! Greg Vandy is the host of The Roadhouse on KEXP and he also runs the blog American Standard Time. That's where he premieres his beautifully shot mini-docs on roots artists like Frank Fairfield, Jerron 'Blind Boy' Paxton, Alela Diane, John Cohen and the upcoming one he's doing on The Crow Quill Night Owls. Vandy does amazing work, bringing top-flight roots bands to Seattle via KEXP and his blog and his showcase at Folklife will be star studded.
 

The Crow Quill Night Owls. 3:30pm.
The Sumner Brothers. 4:00pm
The Slide Brothers. 5:00pm
The Sojourners. 5:40pm

In addition to mad-genius jugband The Crow Quill Night Owls and Canadian barn-rockers The Sumner Brothers (both of whom we've worked with and written about before), Greg's bringing out two groups to represent African American traditions that don't often get covered at Folklife: gospel quartets and sacred steel. The sacred steel group is The Slide Brothers, key players in the recent movement to take Southern sacred steel guitar playing out of the churches and on to concert stages. It's a huge coup to get them at Folklife and a chance to catch a little heard tradition of American music dead-center in the festival. The second group, The Sojourners, are a trio of men living in Vancouver BC that Greg saw at Folk Alliance. Here's some more info on The Sojourners and their new album:

The Sojournersare a traditional African-American gospel trio that bring powerful instrumentation to their rich harmony singing. They were founded in Vancouver BC after a meeting between Canadian roots country singer Jim Byrnes and Vancouver gospel singer Marcus Mosley. Byrnes asked Mosley to pull together some friends and Mosley brought Will Sanders and Ron Small together. All involved loved the sound of this new trio, and Byrnes dubbed them The Sojourners. On their latest album on Black Hen Records (Byrnes' label too), The Sojourners dive deep into the repertoire of African-American sacred song, supplementing their powerhouse vocals with roots blues from Black Hen label founder and Canadian folk icon Steve Dawson and some lush soul influences as well. It's a compelling sound that works because of the faith and authenticity in the vocals; all three singers were established church singers before joining up, though they each hail from different parts of the US (Chicago, Louisiana, Texas) originally. On their new self-titled album, some of the highlights include a moving cover of Rev. Gary Davis' classic "Death Don't Have No Mercy," a great version of Los Lobos' "The Neighborhood,"and a hard-rolling cover of the popular spiritual "Brother Moses Smote the Water." This is classic gospel music done very very right. They're gonna be great onstage at Folklife!

The Sojourners: Brother Moses Smote the Water

 

Rogue Folk.
Friday, May 24, 7:30-10:00pm
Vera Project.

The crusties and folk punk kids have been a big part of Folklife for about the past decade, I'd say. There are some killer musicians in their ranks, and some remarkably creative ideas on how to bend folk traditions to a new generation focused on digital grassroots resistance like the Occupy movement. Rogue Folk is a showcase of the best of these groups, some traveling up from California to participate (and to spend time street performing!). Blackbird Raum is the king daddy of the scene and a totally compelling group to watch live. They're all hardcore trad music fans as well, and contra dancers too. I'm looking forward especially to Matador. This darkfolk trio out of Santa Cruz has a mesmerizing sound, half clashing-strings and ominous fiddle lines from Dorota and half eerie spacial vocals from Dorota and guitarist Matthew. Their music would fit well with the unsettling writing of Polish author Jerzy Kosinski. Their last album, The Taking, sounds like a cross between an acoustic black metal band and a street performing folk singer. Great combo and they'll surely be very interesting on stage!

Matador: The Dispossessed


Rogue Folk:
Strangeweather. 7:30pm
The Gembrokers. 8:10pm
Matador. 8:50pm
Blackbird Raum. 9:30pm
 

Maple Folk Showcase. MC'd by Devon Léger of Hearth Music.
Saturday, May 25, 11:30am-3:00pm
Northwest Court Stage.

Yours truly will be MCing this fun showcase of Northwest bands with strong Canadian roots. Here at Hearth Music, we love any kind of Canadian roots music so this is a special treat for me.

Kierah. 11:40am.
Blackthorn. 12:20pm
Samanthan & Tom Braman. 1pm
La Famille Léger. 1:40pm.
Podorythmie. 2:20pm

Canadian Celtic stalwarts Blackthorn will be back this year for a popular show, as they've long been a fixture at Folklife. My own band, La Famille Léger (made up of all the folks who run Hearth Music), will be playing French-Canadian music from all over Québec and Eastern Canada. Lovely father/daughter duo Tom and Samantha Braman (guitar/fiddle respectively) will be playing fiddle tunes inspired by the Cape Breton repertoire (see our review of the new album from Sami Braman's teen trio The Onlies HERE). New French-Canadian ensemble Podorythmie will close out the show, maybe with some crankies!  But for now I'd love to talk about the young woman opening the show: British Columbian Celtic fiddler Kierah.


Kierah.
Saturday, May 25, 11:30am
Northwest Court Stage.

Growing up the youngest of seven children in British Columbian stonemason family with strong Irish historical roots, Kierah must have felt a real need to stand out, and stand out she does with her newly released album. It's not just her technical prowess as a traditional fiddler that makes her new album, Stonemason's Daughter, note-worthy, it's her touch with the old tunes and her taste for composing new ones. On the set "That Dang Paddy Ryan," Kierah reins in the speedy fiddling and tucks into two great Irish tunes, reveling in the back beat that so rarely gets drawn out of that music. Her sets of Scottish Cape Breton tunes are wonderful as well, which is worth noting; Cape Breton fiddling is just about the trickiest tradition of Celtic fiddling to pull off. Her original tunes are great as well, not sounding totally derivative of traditional tunes, but sounding grounded enough in the tradition to be fun to play for most other fiddlers. The album was produced by Adrian Dolan, the fiddler/multi-instrumentalist from The Bills (who's also touring with Ruth Moody) and he brings a subtle hand to the album, giving Kierah's fiddling a powerful backing that really completes this package. On the set of original tunes "Granville Island Espresso" he whips himself and guitarist Adam Dobres (also from Ruth Moody's band) into such a frenzy that the track becomes pretty epic. It's not usual to hear acoustic traditional music kicking this much butt. Stonemason's Daughter appears to be Kierah's third album, since she's been fiddling and recording since she was just a kid. With this new album she's matured into one of the best young Celtic fiddlers in Western Canada and a name to watch.

Kierah: That Dang Paddy Ryan

Fisher Poets on the Road
Saturday, May 25, 6:30pm
SIFF Cinema Narrative Stage

The Northwest's tradition of fisher poetry is sadly underreported, though it's a rich and vibrant living tradition that anyone can experience at the annual Fisher Poet's Gathering in Astoria, OR. Fishermen (both men and women) gather during this festival both on stage and in impromptu pub sessions to tell stories of their lives of commercial fishing and to recite beautiful, hard-bitten poetry from the Northwest seas. Fisher poetry is one of the American occupational poetry traditions, along with cowboy poetry, logging poets, trucker poets, and probably others. Any profession that requires long periods of time spent in silence is perfect for creatig poetry, and this is the story I heard about the formation of Northwest fisher poetry is that the long journey from Washington and Oregon ports to the Alaskan fishing grounds is the root cause. As fishermen trundled along burning diesel to get North, they wrote poems and read poems over the CBs. Of course, today's fisher's poets aren't just constrained to writing about the sea; Oregon poet Clem Starck writes poems about chainsaws and carpentry, even laying concrete. But what he shares with other fisher poets (and occupational poets) is a gift for transforming the hard machinery and cold work into something beautiful.

At Folklife, fisher poet Pat Dixon has organized a panel on Commercial Fishing Work as part of Folklife's 2013 cultural focus on labor and labor traditions. He's bringing Clem Starck, maritime singer Mary Garvey, and the wonderful fisher poet Sierra Golden, an Alaska fisherwoman. Golden's a deft and powerful poet and I really hope she gets a chance to tell some of her poems. Check out a few samples HERE.

Check out Pat Dixon's excellent site that features the best fisher poets with sound and video samples:
In the Tote

 

Giddy Up: Country Roots (sponsored by BECU)
Sunday, May 26, 6-9pm.
Fountain Lawn Stage.

There's quite the movement today in Seattle of what's being called "Ballard Ave Country Music." This means young, sometimes hipster-ish bands that play traditional and roots country or indie music inspired by country roots and perform along the bars of Seattle's heavily gentrified Ballard neighborhood. Places like The Tractor Tavern, Conor Byrnes Pub, and even The Sunset can be hopping over the weekends, full of folks with PBRs and a need for a serious dose of twang. And there's some pretty great music coming out of this scene, of course. Top of the heap, in my eyes, is the Annie Ford Band. We've written about Annie before, and I definitely think she's one of the best roots musicians in Seattle. New to us were The Ganges River Band and Country Lips.

Country Lips. 6:15pm
Annie Ford Band. 7:00pm
The Ganges River Band. 7:45pm
Ole Tinder. 8:30pm

The Ganges River Band sure kicks off their new single, "I Am Your Man," right. They pour on the buckets of pedal steel twang, and lay back into a classic country kind of song about holding on to fleeting love. They don't seem retro for the point of being retro, just honestly enamored by the sound and feel of old-school country music. Their Bandcamp page labels them "a rowdy Texas country band currently living in Seattle," but it looks like the band is the brainchild of Ballard resident A.P. Dugas, who's been turning out intriguing alt-country songs in Seattle for a little while now. The Ganges River Band have just released their first self-titled album, and with songs like "I Am Your Man" and the absolutely excellent "Six Bottles of Wine" leading it off (Stuck out here in Houston/day dreamin' about leaving/But I'm doing fine.../On six bottles of wine)  this is a great signifier of the deep county roots along Ballard Ave these days.




Country Lips are the perfect kind of band to see at Folklife. I didn't immediately gel with their Bandcamp music, but I totally fell in step when I saw their live KEXP videos. They're a raucous crew, a seeming pastiche of Ballard Ave types tied together with a lot of alcohol and a love for hardcore twang. The vocals are engaging, the instruments are picked hard, and the band seems to be having a load of fun. It's gonna be a helluva great time hanging out with these bands on the Fountain Lawn. You should try your hand at a country two-step!
 
 

Northwest Stringband Throwdown.
Sunday, May 26, 6-9pm.
Fisher Green Stage.

Just across teh way from the Country Roots show, the humble little Fisher Green Stage will be throwing down with four up-and-coming Northwest stringbands. Led by the hard-driving Seattle alt-grass band The Warren G. Hardings (who put on a killer live show), these bands come from as far afield as Portland and feature a variety of styles from bluegrass to jamgrass to alt-country to hardcore old-time. I'm especially excited about The Porterbelly Stringband. I was sad when the excellent NW alt-time band Nettle Honey broke up, but it turns out two members of that band have made it into Porterbelly with the addition of young fiddler Noah Frank. I don't know too much about them, but looks like they've been playing the underground square dance scene in Seattle, which means that they can play hard. Audio tracks on their Facebook page are damn promising, including a nice romp through the classic "Billy in the Lowground" and a nice old-time tune I hadn't heard before: "Old Buzzard." Banjo player Johnny Fitzpatrick, one of the Nettle Honey guys, sounds hot on these tracks, blazing through some three-finger picking that matches Billy in the Lowground's fiddling note for note. This band's gonna be hot on stage. I can just tell!
 

Wide Open Spaces, sponsored by BECU.
Monday, May 27
Fisher Green Stage, 1-3:30pm

I have no idea what this show is supposed to be about or why the name, but sometimes these are the best shows at Folklife. And as I ran down my list of awesome Hidden Gems and New Discoveries at Folklife, I realized three bands on that list were in this show. So dang, this is the place to be Monday afternoon before you head to the American Standard Time show!

Pepper Proud. 1:00pm.
Tara Stonecipher. 1:40pm.
Br'er Rabbit. 2:20pm.
Blvd Park. 3:00pm.

NEW DISCOVERIES & HIDDEN GEMS


Pepper Proud.
part of the Wide Open Spaces show.
Monday, May 27, 1pm
Fisher Green Stage.

Folk singer Pepper Proud has been indeed making Seattle proud recently, mainly off the force of her powerful acoustic performances and her gorgeous debut album, Riddles and Rhymes. And I do mean gorgeous. Pepper's voice has the gentlest bit of twang, a remnant of her West Virginia homeland, and the subtlest sense of fragility. It's a voice that pulls you in instantly. The kind of voice that makes you lean in a little closer to catch every word, to enjoy every moment. She's a great songwriter too, which is no small feat. "Fishing Blues" was the first song I heard from her via the beautiful YouTube Ballard Sessions of Seattle filmmaker Eratosthenes Fackenthall. It's a beautiful folk song, indebted perhaps to the old fishing blues songs, or maybe just connected to that old sepia-tinged country image in my head. It's a song about fishing for treasure in everyday life, a song whose first verse could almost be taken from an innocent children's book, but there's also a twinge of the sadness of growing up in the song. It's part of her larger tropes in this album that blend the sweet and whimsical with the sad and slightly bitter. There's a hard edge riding just underneath Proud's music and that's what makes it so interesting. Everything sounds like fragile gossamer, driven by Proud's crystalline voice, but it's like washing your best wine glass by hand. It's a beautiful object to be sure, but there's an underlying level of fear in knowing that one wrong move can cause it to shatter, cutting open your hand. That tension between beauty and danger is the core of Pepper Proud's music and one reason she's so compelling.


 

Tara Stonecipher & The Tall Grass.
part of the Wide Open Spaces show.
Monday, May 27, 1:40pm
Fisher Green Stage.

Eugene songwriter Tara Stonecipher rides that perfect line between singer-songwriter lyricism and country twang. It's always a sweet combination, since it balances out the weaknesses in both genres. If you get tired of the freer-form melodies of singer-songwriting, the delicious country harmonies pull you back. And if the snare-driven backbeat and thump-a-thump bass of country begins to wear, the more expressive lyrics will bring you around. Stonecipher sounds remarkably mature and confident for releasing a debut EP with her band The Tall Grass (as in Tara Stonecipher and The Tall Grass), and that's part of what makes her worthy of attention. Really it seems like she's beginning to master two different worlds, a pretty mighty task. Her song "Dogs" is a perfect example. She's got the cresting vocal break that defines country singing, but the song as a whole is an affectingly emotional journey through a break up. Not sure how the dogs factor in, but I'd definitely like to listen to it a few times more just to find out. That's the sign of a good song and a good songwriter. You get a little lost in their songs.

Tara Stonecipher & The Tall Grass: Dogs

 

Br'er Rabbit.
part of the Wide Open Spaces show.
Monday, May 27, 2:20pm.
Fisher Green Stage.

Br'er Rabbit bill themselves as "Folk-Stomp Americana" and that's just about right. 30 seconds into the first song, "Roller," on their new EP, and I defy you to keep from stomping along. There's an infectious joy to their music, certainly helped by the liberal use of ukulele and tambourine, but also by the sunny vocals of singer Miranda Zickler. These are just the kind of sunny vocals we need in the midst of a rainy Northwestern summer. Formed by brothers Nathan and Zach Hamer, Br'er Rabbit has a definite Lumineers vibe going on musically, which I like a lot, but seem to have a stronger folk foundation than the Lumineers. They've also got the taste for a singalong, a fine key point in any roots band, and the songs on their EP are all delightfully singable. Nathan, Zach, and Miranda are all excellent singers, and there's nothing better really than finding such a  fun folk band amongst folks so young. There's an underpinning of traditional music, but I love the fact that they're clearly in this to have a great time. This kind of abandon is at the heart of true folk music and it's at the heart of Br'er Rabbit's music as well.

Br'er Rabbit: Roller

The Onlies.
Friday, May 24, 7:20pm.
Northwest Court Stage.

Three of the best and brightest young folk and Celtic musicians in Seattle teamed up to make The Onlies. I know these kids well and they've got that wonderful, boundless enthusiasm of youth, and it shows on their second album, Setting Out To Sea. They've matured considerably since their 2011 album (which was great too), and they've expanded the sound of the group to feature multiple fiddle arrangements (all three are excellent fiddlers), some original songs and tunes, and a growing confidence in what was before just a way to have fun with friends. They've been learning this month from acclaimed songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello as part of the innovative youth music project More Music at the Moore, and it's clear that they're taking their musicianship and craft more seriously than ever. They've been getting great press too and may even have a West Coast tour getting put together. Each of The Onlies, Riley Calcagno, Samantha Braman, and Leo Shannon, are still in high school, so it's hard to believe that they sound this polished at such a young age. I had a Celtic band when I was in high school, and though we had an absolute blast playing music, I can assure that we didn't sound anywhere near as good as these kids. The tunes on Setting Out To Sea range across the Celtic traditions, from renditions of Irish tunes like Rakish Paddy and Lord Gordon's Reel, to old-time, Cape Breton, and French-Canadian tunes. Original tunes, like Sami Braman's "December March," rub shoulders with traditional tunes and rollicking fiddle tunes are slipped into songs and run through with obvious glee. A beautiful new Scandinavian tune by Ola Bäckström, "I'm Not Fed Up With the Pacific Ocean," benefits from winding harmony lines in the fiddles, and Liz Carroll's twisty tune "Half Day Road" gets a great treatment. Jeez, if they're whipping off Liz Carroll tunes at this age... Sigh. Kids these days!

The Onlies: Grey Owl

 

Hank Bradley & Cathie Whitesides.
Friday, May 24. 8:20pm.
Alki Court Stage.

Hank Bradley is one of the best old-time fiddlers on the West Coast, and probably in the US, though he doesn't get the recognition he really deserves. He was a seminal figure in the early folk revival old-time boom, and his bootlegged cassette mixtapes of old 78s influenced a lot of people as they were handed around from friend to friend. He's also a powerful tune composer. I've been in classes with him teaching tunes he's written and I can say he does things with traditional old-time fiddle tunes that I've never heard or conceived of before. For years, Hank and his partner Cathie Whitesides have also been performing traditional Greek and Balkan music. They'll probably do mostly this at Folklife, and it's a trip to hear how they can mash the odd and intense rhythms of Balkan music with the drones of old-time fiddling. Hank's his own master class in traditional fiddling, so step up and get some wisdom from a true master!

The Family Carr.
part of the Global Contra Dance.
Saturday, May 25, 12:00pm.
Warren's Roadhouse.

Kevin Carr's one of my favorite fiddlers and an all around great guy. For years, he's been teaching fiddle at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, and he's always quick to help anyone starting out on this difficult and demanding instrument. As fiddler, his style draws from many different traditions–and he's one of the few fiddlers I know who's proficient and respected in each of these traditions–but always manages to sound like his own. There's a lilt to his playing, a lift, and there's also a joyful quality to his ornamentation. His playing is beguiling to me, and I've sat with him at about a hundred sessions over the past decade or so, always enjoying myself immensely. Throughout the time I've known him, he's always played music with his wife, Josie Mendelsohn. Josie's a wonderful piano player (guitar, spoons and fiddle too!) and a great soul as well, so they make a great team. In fact, Josie was a member of the Good Old Persons back in the day with Laurie Lewis! Kevin and Josie tour the Northwest playing contra dances and concerts and Kevin's a wonderful storyteller and bagpiper too. For such a talented duo, it's a true joy to see that their love and passion for music has been passed on to their kids. It hasn't always been an easy road of course–it never is growing up with a lot of expectations from parents and friends that you'd become a musician as well–but the spark was lit in both kids, Molly and Daniel Carr and they've joined with Kevin and Josie to make The Family Carr (great band name btw!).

For Molly, it all clicked into place during a trip to Galicia. Kevin had been going to Galicia for years and learning the music, and Molly found the same comradery there that kept drawing Kevin back. She stayed for a while, and formed a killer young band called As Faiscas. On the new album, Molly sings some beautiful songs, including the Galician song "Canto de Monzos," which includes a beautiful tune on the Galician bagpipes (gaitas) as played by Kevin. Daniel Carr weighs in as well with a charming cover of "Sail Away Ladies," and Josie and Molly's haunting version of the French-Canadian song "Je Sais Bien," is another highlight (this song appears in Josie's indispensable book of French-Canadian songs published by Mel Bay). Kevin sings as well, leading up a fun version of the great old-time song "Wild Hog In the Woods." As mentioned, the album wanders across incredibly diverse ground, as Appalachian old-time tunes rub shoulders with French-Canadian dance tunes learned from old masters and wild Galician tunes join hands with Irish trad session pieces. It's all a lot of fun and a great window in the kind of diverse world of folk music that my generation enjoys today thanks to the hard work of the first folk revival. It's also a great window into the joy of making music as a family.

The Family Carr: Wild Hog in the Woods/Elzic's Farewell

 

Bradford Loomis.
part of the Team Up for Nonprofits Show
Saturday, May 25, 1:00pm.
Fountain Lawn Stage.

Bradford Loomis came as a surprise for me. I thought I knew the Seattle roots music scene pretty well. And it's not like he's unknown here; in fact, he's quite well known from his many performances at Seattle roots shows. It was, again, the video from Eratosthenes Fackenthall's Ballard Sessions that converted me to his dark Americana music. This was the video:



It starts off nice and simple, with a beautiful, heartfelt folk song, but by the end he's practically wailing! I got ahold of his new album, Into the Great Unknown, and it's in a similar vein to this video but with a full backing band and some gorgeous harmony singing. This is what Americana should sound like today, and too often does not. These are expertly crafted songs that owe a huge debt to the historic roots of American music but refuse to be bound by any stuffy idea of tradition. They can flip over into a killer mainstream country sound that would put plenty of wannabes in Nashville to shame, but they can also flip back to an old-school tent revival shout. And best of all, these songs are singable and hummable and just plain fun to listen to. Pay attention folks, this guy's going places!

Bradford Loomis: See You On the Other Side

 
FOLKLIFE HOT TIPS

Folklife's an insane event, but these hot tips will guarantee you have the best possible time.

-Volunteer for a shift. Folklife runs on about a thousand volunteers, so they need help. Go to the second floor of the Center House to sign up. Usually you get cool jobs. But the real thing you get is a participant button. Which leads me to:

-The Participant's Lounge is the best part of Folklife. Located just next to the new skatepark, the participant's lounge is where all the performers go to hang out all weekend and jam up a storm. It's a magical place with free drinks, cheap beer, good conversations and fascinating musical encounters. It's everything that's great about Folklife and you can only get in with a participant button.

-Get Inside if it's hot and you're tired. Folklife's exhausting on hot days and the crowds are insane. Get inside for an indoor theater show and you can sit down and feel a million times better. I recommend Center House Theater. It's the best listening space at Folklife and when I worked there we'd always throw the coolest and strangest bands in there. Also try the Folklife Cafe.

-Get your beer at the Northwest Court. The crowds are mellower up there and you can singalong to sea chanties.

-Give Folklife your damn money. Folklife runs off a few hardy, overworked souls and it doesn't charge at the gate. That means anyone in Seattle can experience not only some great music and dance, but the cultures of the folks who live around them. That's an amazing mission that deserves some of your bucks.

-Enjoy the street performers. This is actually like a second festival wrapped up in the first one. Street performers range from crusty jugbands to little kids with violins to dudes who staple dollar bills to their chest. It's awesome.

 

Kickstarter videos can be a difficult thing to produce. It's hard to ask your friends, fans and colleagues for money, so invariably they seem a bit a forced. But as Kickstarter's become the main way not only to support recordings and touring, but also to interact with fans, the Kickstarter video has become a central statement for an artist.

So with that in mind, I hope you'll check out the charming and intriguing video from Portland songwriter Leo J (of Leo J. and the Mêlées). His Kickstarter utterly won my over. He's looking for funds to support a cross-country bicycle trip to sing his own folk songs, which are pretty excellent, but also to gather folk songs and stories as he traveled to make into podcasts under the name Common Place: new world folk tales. He labels this project: Folklore Podcast - Folk Music Tour - Bicycle Pilgrimage. Check it out:

 

I was intrigued by the stories he mentions here in the video and by what exactly he's looking for while he bicycles around American communities. So I reached out and he had a very nice response:

"Basically, what I'm looking for, Devon, are stories of folklore, modern and traditional. Stories that give identity to a place and its people. Stories that are hard to believe and difficult to prove, but have gained a sort of mythical weight. Stories that you can't find on Google. Stories that are so embedded in a place that they can only really be told there. Stories of change and culture that comes directly from a relationship of a people to the place they live and not from some outside force with its own motivations.

Ultimately though, I just want to tell engaging, touching tales and I imagine the criteria will shift as I see what I come across. I'm very interested in the shifting and churning that goes on in this country: locals vs outsiders, folk culture revivals, urban sprawl, immigration and what it means to the way we relate to each other and the land around us."

Check out his Kickstarter and kick him some bucks. He's got 48 hours left. Good luck, Leo, and be sure to hit us up when you start posting some of your story podcast! For now you can listen to his new album which we've been really enjoying:

 

  PS: Thanks to my buddy April at Common Folk Music for hipping me to this!

I first heard Washington State songwriter Nathaniel Talbot at a songwriter's showcase in the Triple Door's Musiquarium lounge. He was playing with Jeffrey Martin (who's already done an Inside the Songs HERE) and Anna Tivel (who's schedule for an upcoming Inside the Songs). What a great trio of songwriters right here in our own backyard! Nathaniel's songs were intimately rooted to the earth, tied to the cycles of nature, and somewhat mystifying. So when I approached him to do an Inside the Songs with Hearth Music, I wanted to hear about his connections to the natural environment. Turns out he's an organic farmer on nearby Whidbey Island and works his love of the land into his songwriting. Here he talks about his new release, Here In The Fields.

Inside the Songs with Nathaniel Talbot

Tell me more about your work farming in the Pacific Northwest and how this informs your music!

Nathaniel Talbot: Two years ago I uprooted myself from the Portland music scene to pursue a career in organic farming on Whidbey Island. An interest in growing food had been creeping inside me for several years. I grew up on a 8-acre, mostly-forested homestead tucked in foothills of the Cascades, so perhaps the move north stemmed from a deeper desire, not just to farm, but more generally to rediscover a land-based way of life, as an adult, on my own terms. This was in no way a music-based decision. In fact, I had already began to accept that a move to a small, rural community and a commitment to a career in agriculture would likely result in an end to my musical career as I knew it. But it hasn’t worked out that way. If anything, farming has only cranked the heat under my musical kettle, so to speak, opening up vaults of new lyrical themes and imagery. The basic acts of hoeing, harvesting, and evening driving a tractor allow space for my mind to arrange and rearrange new musical ideas, play with lyrics, and if nobody’s around, sing aloud to myself.



My songs have always been strong reflections of the landscape in which they were written, both natural and urban. It seems natural to now be weaving the images and stories of farmers, their fields and surrounding communities into the music. But more importantly, moving beyond the immediate subjects of the songs on this record, I think this album signifies a strong maturation in my general approach to storytelling... In “Here in the Fields” I think the stories, for the first time, played a dominant role in helping sculpt my songwriting. As I grow and evolve as a farmer, I’m inadvertently uncovering stories that are too rich to ignore. The interactions of humans with their land base, in my opinion, provides some of the most interesting, tragic and underrepresented, raw subject matter for songwriters to work with, especially in the folk tradition.

“Jamestown”


Jamestown was inspired by a very basic ecological observation. Why do crows and ravens, while exhibiting such strong physical similarities and genetic relatedness, occupy such different niches both in the natural environment as well as human folklore? Crows are the weeds of the city, thriving and multiplying from refuse of human civilization, while ravens are generally relegated to the wilderness, or at least areas where the natural world has been partially spared. This very simple relationship between wildlife and their preferred environments helped launch "Jamestown," essentially an accelerated narrative of the shaping of the American landscape via westward expansion. It serves as somewhat of an overview for the album, setting the tone by which some of the later songs get to further explore this theme in detail. There’s no agenda here, no attempt at delineating right from wrong, just a broad statement that what we have done as farmers, loggers, miners, engineers, etc. to forward our own basic condition has unequivocally left the natural world a profoundly changed place. As a side note, on the farm I often get to observe both ravens and crows interacting in concert in my own semi-natural farm landscape, but I think that’s fodder for another song.

“The Great Levee”


I guess when spoken aloud, the phrase “soil erosion” doesn’t sound like the most poignant topic for a folk song. But I think that if we allow ourselves to dig beneath the rather emotionless or cursory first impression, I think there’s a lot there to explore. In fact, the loss of topsoil has arguably affected human civilization more than war, disease, or any other like phenomena, combined (whoa). As a new organic farmer I’m learning that careful soil management is paramount to long-term growing success, and as I become more attuned to it, I see of the consequences of soil neglect around me more and more. “The Great Levee” is an attempt to shine a bit of light on this arena, while at the same time illustrating some of the social dynamics that have helped accelerate our global loss of soil. The song takes of the form of a somewhat playful parable, occurring in no specific time or place. “Bucket by bucket-full we will carry…the clay back to it’s home on the hill.” This has actually happened, and continues to happen, in farming regions all over the world where the erosion has reached extremes. At the risk of sounding too academic (I know we’re supposed to be talking about music here…) I’d encourage folks to check out the book Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, which helped shape some of the ideas in this tune.

“Edison”


The Pacific Northwest empire was built by the logging industry, an industry that over the course of a mere century voraciously gobbled up over 90% of our native forests while simultaneously stripping itself of it’s own future. By the early ‘80s, when I was born, many small logging town like Edison, WA were already reeling from a decline in our forest lands, and then came the ‘90s when the Spotted Owl controversy and Northwest Forest Plan finally put a halt to what little clear-cutting opportunities remained (at least on certain federal lands). A lot of these towns never really recovered from this bust, and you can still see the impact as you drive through the economically depressed foothills of the cascades where I grew up. But Edison had a more interesting fate, seizing on an opportunity for tourism development, blended with a dose of art, slow food, DIY hipster culture and organic farming. When I first stumbled into this little town I was completely charmed and fascinated by its revitalization, which from talking to some locals, seemed to emerge out of a very intentional effort to create a way of living independent from any corporate industry. I hope their dreams last longer than those of their predecessors, as it will take something stronger that a house of cards to survive whatever economic storms the future inevitably holds.

Nathaniel Talbot Website

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Ben Fisher is a wonderful songwriter, performer, and all -around great guy. But he's also a masterful street performer (or busker), and this is a very fine art as I've discovered. For a while there was a video going around of world-class violinist Joshua Bell failing as a busker on the NYC subway. Everyone said this was an example of how great music is mostly ignored by the unwashed masses. BULLSHIT! It's an example of how difficult it is to make any money if you don't know how to busk. No one, I repeat NO ONE , can stand on a street corner and watch the twenties roll in just by playing amazing music. Nope, you have to connect with your audience, and connect with an audience that's moving rapidly past you. You have to stake out the perfect corner, judge all the sightlines, and reconfigure your music, singing, and playing to break through the sounds of the busy street. You have to endure rainy/windy days, indifferent masses, and even thieves just to make some money for the day. But the best buskers can rake it in and have a great time in the process.

Ben Fisher is one of those buskers in Seattle, a town full of buskers. Sure, he plays at Pike Place, where busking is carefully controlled by a central agency and where there's a historic expectation to see great buskers. But he also plays on University Avenue, one of the grimier parts of Seattle and the home of the real buskers. He plays farmers markets and anywhere he thinks a crowd might gather. He knows how to busk and he respects the art.

In honor of his current Kickstarter campaign, we asked him to break down the Do's and Don'ts of great busking.

Ben Fisher's Busking Do's and Don't's.

DON'T

1) Don't ever let a dollar bill blow out of your case, down the street, never to be seen again. Yes, it's just a dollar, but you're going to feel crummy about it all day. Run your ass after it.

2) Don't assume that someone you often play in front of doesn't like your music because they don't tip you or talk to you. There's a guy that I've been playing in front of for years, that I'd recognize anywhere. I've never said a word to him, and I've never gotten a dime from him, but last week he came up, dropped a wad of ones in my case and asked if I knew any Ryan Adams songs. There's no rhyme or reason to much of busking.

3) Don't buy produce the day before you busk at a farmers market. If you're lucky, vendors will drop everything from beets to kale to apples to carrots to 'special' fudge in your case.

4) Don't leave your harmonica within arms' reach of a toddler. They will play it.

5) Don't play the same song more than once during the same busking outing. Learn some more songs.

6) Don't scoff at change. It adds up.



DO

1) Do bring strings. For the love of God, bring extra strings. When you're busking, you're playing loud, and it's inevitable that you're going to pop a string once in a while. My record is five strings in a two hour period. Bring extras.

2) Do get out there when it's overcast/raining. There won't be as much competition, and sometimes people are even more generous in nasty weather.

3) Do bring your CDs with you. Though there are some spots you can't sell them, like the bus tunnels, on a good day you can bring in as much money from selling CDs as you can from tips.

4) Do say 'thank you' when something drops into your case. If you've got a mouth full of words because you're in the middle of a song, give a little bow or a smile or something. So many people walk by you without giving a rip. Make the ones who appreciate you know that you appreciate them as well.
 

You can find out more about Ben and enjoy some more of his life musings via this Inside the Songs Feature we did with him a few months ago.

Ben's Kickstarting to raise funds for his new full-length album. It's kind of like digital busking! Drop some money in his bitmapped hat. The fund drive ends March 10, so help him out!

Ben Fisher Kickstarter

BUY Ben's previous albums on Bandcamp

 

Hannalee

Brassica

Brassica is the second of four EPs from Seattle indie roots trio Hannalee. This series of EPs is timed to release with the seasons, and Brassica is a sweet hymn to the cold embrace of winter. The previous EP, Cucurbita, was an ode to Fall, and Hannalee have two more EPs (Spring/Summer) planned for the rest of 2013. Inspired by winter nights spent in the family cabin in the Methow Valley, Brassica wanders through snowy trails, late-night conversations around the fire, sleighbells, and many other aspects of an American winter. The diverse array of songs range from the beautiful love song “Baby Come Home,” to the Beatles-inflected “Born Again Tonight” and the gospel-choir uplift of “Shine.” Rain-drenched harmonies, windswept acoustic guitar work and the intimate warmth of three loving friends making music together complete Hannalee’s vision for their Pacific Northwest winter EP. With Brassica, this roots trio continue their journey to a holistic view of music, where the emphasis is on making music sustainable and plumbing the creative depths of a group.

More about Hannalee and this project:
Following a lull in his popular indie-rock band Motopony’s touring, songwriter Michael Notter returned to his home in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood and turned his music inwards, looking for a way to form his creativity into something deeply sustainable and satisfying. He returned to his dreamy folk trio, Hannalee, that he had formed in 2010 with his wife Anna-Lisa and childhood friend Fidelia Rowe, and poured his energy into the group’s lush 3-part harmonies and original songs. The result ended up being 4 EPs of material that will be released with the turn of the seasons from Fall 2012 until Summer 2013. Each EP will be screen printed with original artwork, handmade by friends. The goal of the project is to make music of such quality that it lifts up the listener, and to surround that music with as much beauty as possible.

Sometimes when you look for the roots of your music, you go deep, and that’s clearly the case with Hannalee. Each song sounds like it’s been hand-woven from gossamer threads, and the voices weave together with the kind of beaming brightness that only the best singers can pull off. Michael’s not the first to find a kind of life-affirming energy in homemade folk music, but there’s something infectiously joyful about this album. It’s the feeling that it’s made with the love of friends and family and the purest love of music devoid of any of the usual worries and troubles of the music business. As Michael says, “I wanted to dwell in the experience of the music, rather than making a record and moving on.” Sometimes you gotta go back home to save yourself, and it sounds like Michael discovered this simple truth with Hannalee.

Hannalee: "Baby Come Home"

Hannalee: "It's Snowing"

Pharis & Jason Romero

Long Gone Out West Blues

We here at Hearth Music are especially excited to be working once again with the stunning duo Pharis & Jason Romero. Following on the heels of their first album A Passing Glimpse—which just won the Canadian Folk Music Award for "New/Emerging Artist of the Year"—their newest album continues to raise the bar on great folk music.

At this point, with the release of their stunning sophomore album, Long Gone Out West Blues, it’s inevitable that Canadian roots duo Pharis & Jason Romero will be compared to Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. This is because the Romeros write songs that are both dicult to tell from the traditional sources that inspired them AND sound impossibly fresh and new. Pharis & Jason’s songs contain the element of transcendence. It’s the effortless moment of flight when a bird takes wing, or the zen precision of a master archer placing an arrow, or the soft wooden curve of a chair turned by the hand of a true craftsman. It’s the mark of artists who’ve mastered their craft to such a degree that they’re able to move the traditions to a new state. That’s why you’ll recognize every song on Pharis & Jason Romero’s new album, even the songs they’ve written themselves or sourced from rare field recordings. Because you’ll recognize the hand of the master in their music.

Pharis & Jason Romero make their lives in the deep wilds of British Columbia, working from their homestead outside the town of Horsefly. They are professional instrument makers, and Jason’s banjos are some of the best in the world. They work together every day in their workshop, and retire to the house to make music in the evenings. It’s an idyllic lifestyle, and shows the closeness between this husband and wife duo that is echoed in their music. On Long Gone Out West Blues, their voices meld as eortlessly as their instruments, intertwining on an instinctual level. Their instruments intertwine as well, as both are masterful guitarists in the vein of Norman Blake. Instrumentally, Jason Romero presents some of his best work on this record, drawing deep beauty out of the wordless subtlety of his playing. His sublimely beautiful banjo leads o two instrumental sets, and his finger-picked guitar work, intended to sound more like flat picking, sparkles along the strings.

Spending so much time immersed in American folk traditions, both Pharis & Jason Romero have a wealth of knowledge to draw from in choosing the songs on their new album. The cold- blooded hymn “It Just Suits Me” is taken from a field recording of Georgia Sea Island singers, vintage country song “Truck Driver’s Blues” came from a radio broadcast from the 40s, and “Waiting for the Evening Mail” is from a 78 of old-time singer Riley Puckett. But the real focus of the album should be on their original songs, written by Pharis Romero. Pharis has always been a powerful songwriter, and she’s come into her own with this record. “Sad Old Song,” has lovely verses speaking to the life of traveling musicians struggling to make their voices heard, the heart-rending ballad “I Want to Be Lucky” is a weary hard-luck story, and “Come On Home” is a gentle, soothing balm of hope for those looking for home after a hard day. What’s remarkable about Pharis’ songs are how they’re able to sound like traditional songs while still communicating something new. It’s hard to tell “Lonely Home Blues” from an old 78rpm country blues song, and “The Little Things Are Hardest in the End” could easily be a vintage country hit.

You get the same feeling listening to Pharis & Jason Romero that you do looking at an old photograph. Their music touches something deeper than the music of our present day. It taps into something larger than ourselves. Their music reminds us of where we came from and points the way to where American folk music is going today.
 

Pharis & Jason Romero: "Sad Old Song"

Pharis & Jason Romero: "Truck Driver's Blues"