Artist Category: Folk | Page 23

Sparrow Blue

Acoustic roots songwriting duo Sparrow Blue from Massachusetts released their first full length album Rabbit in the Moon in 2018, featuring fiddle, guitars, mandolin, banjo, harmonica and vocal harmony throughout. Rabbit in the Moon blends folk, country, bluegrass and old-time influences together with crafted songwriting to paint a musical picture of times gone by, hope, hard times, and new beginnings.

Rabbit in the Moon, which was self-produced and independently released, culminates two years of songwriting and represents the duo’s strongest work to date. Rabbit in the Moon reached #1 on the Roots Music Report (RMR) and #8 on the Folk DJ Album Charts in 2018.

Sparrow Blue (Katy Boc and Todd Nickerson) met in 2014 and began writing songs together after discovering a mutual love for American roots music. Since then, they released an EP in 2015 – Mabel, which was called “lilting, dark, and spellbindingly catchy”, released Rabbit in the Moon in 2018, got hitched in the backyard, parented as many kids as you have fingers on your right hand, and featured at folk venues, concert halls, listening rooms, and house concerts throughout New England and beyond.

When not performing, making a living, or spending time with their family, they volunteer at the South Shore Folk Music Club, with the mission of keeping folk music alive and well on the south shore of Massachusetts.

Damn Tall Buildings

In their early days, Damn Tall Buildings didn’t rehearse – they busked. Now, whether live or on record, the band still radiates the energy of a ragtag crew of music students playing bluegrass on the street. But anchoring that energy is their instrumental chops, their strong songwriting, and their varied influences that stretch beyond bluegrass, even beyond American roots music altogether.

Whether sharing lead vocals and instrumental solos or blending their voices into loose, joyous harmony, the four members of Damn Tall Buildings (guitarist/lead vocalist Max Capistran, bassist/lead vocalist Sasha Dubyk, fiddler/vocalist Avery Ballotta and banjoist/vocalist Jordan Alleman) blend elements of bluegrass, blues, roots-rock and vintage swing to create a captivating, high-energy sound. Since their busking days, they’ve made three albums: 2014’s Cure-All, 2015’s self-titled, and their forthcoming third album, Don’t Look Down.

The band has also relocated to Brooklyn, NY and toured widely, sharing stages with Sierra Hull and the California Honeydrops and appearing at festivals like Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, and Freshgrass Festival, where they took second place in the 2016 band competition. Their lyrics find beauty and glory in the mundane, workaday struggle of everyday life: time keeps passing, you don’t like your job, you drink too much, you laugh with your friends, you search for a home, and you dream about what else might be out there. You carry on. This is what Damn Tall Buildings sings about, what they seek to share with their audience

Fernando Brandão Quartet

Flutist, composer, author and educator Fernando Brandão has performed extensively as a bandleader, sideman, chamber musician and as a soloist with several ensembles and prominent orchestras both in his native Brazil and the US.

Using concert, alto, bass flutes and pífanos, Fernando performs across an eclectic repertoire of traditional and contemporary choros, sambas, bossas, frevos, ijexás, baiões, maracatus and other styles, allying jazz improvisations to an authentic Brazilian sound. He leads his own ensemble with formations that varies from Trio to Nonet, the bands Alma (contemporary South American music) and Bohemia Carioca (gafieira), and he is an active member of the groups Pablo Ablanedo Octet and Trio Choro Brasil.

He has produced and co-produced 5 CDs, and his latest, Sem Tradução (Without Translation) features nine original songs with lyrics by carioca poet Pedro Lago, by Fernando Brandão, Rosangela Santiago and Robson Santiago, both from Bahia. It also features Marcella Camargo as the lead singer and 14 prominent musicians from the Boston area. His vocal and instrumental compositions are centered mostly around Brazilian styles, and feature traditional and contemporary language and arrangements. His compositions have been recorded by Choro das Três, guitarist Almir Cortes and New World Guitar Trio.

Rosemere Road

They say home is where the heart is, and for family band Rosemere Road that statement rings particularly true. Sisters Carson and Emmery Brakke grew up in suburban Rhode Island just down the road from their cousin Kara McKee, all singing folk songs in their parents’ living rooms from as early on as they can remember.

It wasn’t until 2016, however, when the girls found themselves once again down the road from each other, this time in Boston, that they had the idea to try their hand at making their own music together. Needless to say, it was a natural fit. With influences ranging from Tori Amos to Emmylou Harris to The Shirelles, Rosemere Road brings an edgy depth to their traditional folk sound. While their songs sometimes deviate from the traditional folk trio style, their message resonates with the genre: telling stories of lost love and hard times, with just the right combination of sorrow and optimism, and the knowledge that singing in three part harmony is a lot more fun when you do it with people you love.

Rachel Marie

Rachel Marie follows in a tradition of unapologetically forthright women folksingers, with songs that hearken to “overstuffed lines of Tori Amos, philosophical turn of Indigo Girls, and lilting vocals like Joni Mitchell.”

The social awareness of folk meets the introspection of the singer-songwriter tradition with a moderate dose of snark. An endearingly quirky stage presence as honest as her songs keeps audiences charmed. Boston-based and Pennsylvania-raised, Rachel has shared stages with Cheryl Wheeler, Antje Duvekot, Michelle Lewis, Grace Morrison, and the Kennedys. Her November 2018 single “Looking for Light” was featured on an officially curated Spotify playlist the week of its release.

Lindsey Sampson

Tom Russell

Tom Russell’s latest recording of original compositions, October in the Railroad Earth, is set for CD and vinyl release March 15, 2019, on Frontera Records in North America and Proper Records for the rest of the world. He describes the songs and sound as “Jack Kerouac meets Johnny Cash in Bakersfield.”

Bill Kirchen is featured on lead electric guitar, Eliza Gilkyson adds vocals, and the Grammy® Award-winning Texmaniacs appear on “Isadore Gonzalez,” about a Mexican cowboy who died in England during a performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. The record contains nine other originals, including the title song from the Irish film Small Engine Repair, and a cover of the traditional “Wreck of the Old 97.”

October in the Railroad Earth follows the acclaimed 2017 Frontera/Proper album Folk Hotel and Russell’s tribute to Ian & Sylvia on True North Records, Play One More, both receiving worldwide acclaim. Between major releases in 2018, Russell recorded the Bruce Springsteen track “Across The Border” for the three-disc Appleseed Records anniversary sampler, Roots and Branches, and issued a re-recording of early classics on Frontera, Old Songs Yet To Sing.

One of Russell’s previous albums of new original material was the 2015 “folk opera” that Thom Jurek of allmusic.com hailed as Tom’s masterpiece, The Rose of Roscrae. Named “The top folk album of 2015” by Mojo magazine, Roscrae was also lauded as “maybe the most important Americana record of all time” by UK Folk. The album was included in top ten lists of dozens of publications, including the Los Angeles Times.

Rakish

Rooted in tradition with an ear toward the future, contemporary folk duo Rakish embodies earnest musical exploration and demonstrates an infectious playfulness on stage. In their sound together, it is evident the two friends share an unbridled love for the traditional sounds of Celtic and American music, and the tight ensemble of a group with years of collaboration under their belt. Strings Magazine says: “Explorative and versatile, the duo draws evident inspiration from not just the deep and wide history of Scottish and Irish Celtic composition, but also the precision-focused structures of classical chamber music and a whole array of improvisational styles.”

Known for her toneful and award-winning fiddle playing in the Celtic music world, Maura Shawn Scanlin grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Maura is a 2-time U.S. National Scottish Fiddle Champion and a winner of the Glenfiddich Fiddle Competition in Scotland. Her clawhammer banjo playing and songwriting, also featured in the duo, hold the regional music of her homeland close. Maura finds her niche combining influences from a widespread musical journey with the sounds she grew up around.

Steeped in the Irish music communities of Washington D.C. and Baltimore, MD where he was raised, acclaimed guitarist Conor Hearn developed a keen interest in literary theory and poetry, a unique well of material from which he draws unending musical inspiration. His settings of modernist poems, like James Joyce’s Chamber Music, epitomize the duo’s approach: the dexterous alchemy of the old and the new into something wholly Rakish. A keenly sought-after collaborative guitarist, Conor performs with many of the most renowned names in Celtic music today. His guitar style combines bass and rhythm for a uniquely powerful and precise sound.

Rakish, embracing the unconventional connotation of their namesake, create and perform music with verve. Recent highlights of their travels include performances at the Library of Congress, Celtic Colours International Music Festival, Prince Edward Island’s Festival of Small Halls, the Corvallis Celtic Festival, and Official Showcases at Folk Alliance International. They have taught at esteemed fiddle camps across the country including Alasdair Fraser’s Sierra Fiddle Camp, Folk College, Katie McNally’s Boston States Fiddle Camp, and Hanneke Cassel’s Pure Dead Brilliant Fiddle Weekend.

On Now, O Now, the duo’s sophomore release (out October 11, 2024) it is clear Rakish cannot be pigeonholed into one genre and is most comfortable occupying the in-between. Together they journey through Celtic and Americana styles, deftly showcasing how to bring forth something new from the deep well of tradition. They are touring their new album across the country throughout the fall of 2024 and into 2025.

Josie Toney

Josie Toney has been a fixture of the folk music community since a young age, growing up in the contra dance community of Olympia, Washington. Starting violin lessons at the age of 5, she quickly gravitated towards the fiddle tunes her father began teaching her as soon as she could hold the fiddle off of the floor. At 15 she helped form The Retrospectacles, along with fiddler Andrew Foster, pianist Scotty Leach, and Bassist Ethan Jodzeiwicz, who went on to energize contra dance communities around the country.

Between 2013 and 2017 Josie resided in Denver, Colorado, where she formed the Josie Toney Fiddle Studio, teaching private lessons to over 25 students in the Denver area, and performed with various bands around the front range, including the Cowboy Dave Band, Swing Je-Taime, Turkeyfoot, Colin Hotz and Co, and the Lunch Ladies.

In Fall of 2017 Josie moved to Boston, MA to continue her studies at the Berklee School of Music.

Paul Rishell

Paul Rishell was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1950, descended from a long line of Methodist preachers and Norwegian painters. At the age of ten, he discovered that he could keep time on the drums, though his feet didn’t reach the pedals. He started a band a few years later, playing surf music and rock ‘n roll, until a friend turned him on to the country blues records of Son House, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. He immediately took up the guitar and in the early 70’s Paul moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts and had the chance to play with many of the first and second generation of blues masters — including Son House, Johnny Shines, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Howlin’ Wolf. Paul Rishell’s debut recording, BLUES ON A HOLIDAY (Tone-Cool) was released in 1990 to resounding critical acclaim. The album was half acoustic, half electric, and established Paul as a masterful, versatile blues player and as well as a deeply soulful singer and songwriter. He followed that with SWEAR TO TELL THE TRUTH in 1993, which featured heart-stopping solo performances as well as guest artists Ronnie Earl and the Broadcasters and “Little”Annie Raines. Paul’s original music has been used in plays, films, and countless television shows including Friends, Oprah, and A&E’s Biography. He has built up a stellar reputation over 40 years as a performer, teacher, and torchbearer of the country blues tradition. His former students include Susan Tedeschi and Michael Tarbox. Dirt Road Blues, Paul’s instructional video/CD-Rom for Truefire.com, was released in 2008 with detailed demonstrations and transcriptions of his original songs and songs by Scrapper Blackwell, Blind Boy Fuller, and many others. He has served for 11 years as a visiting artist at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“…Rishell is a master of country/blues styles, particularly slide played on a National steel guitar. Raines, a rare female ace blues harmonica blower, shows that she is as strong an acoustic country harp accompanist as she is a harder-edged, electrified Chicago-style lead player à la the great Little Walter…” -Billboard