Tag Archives: Joe Crookston

Folk Alliance International 2016: The Video Sneak Peek

1952tvWedged between two holidays that celebrate heart and history, this year’s Folk Alliance International conference will be convening in Kansas City with over 2,500 attendees that include those who make the music, those who write about it, those who bring it to you either onstage or through your speakers, and those who simply are fans.

The roots of this organization began 27 years ago in Malibu, when Clark and Elaine Weissman from the California Traditional Music Society hosted 125 people to see if they could unify other regional groups with common interests in music and dance. In attendance were representatives from the Philadelphia Folksong Society, Sing Out!, the Vancouver Folk Festival, Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, Charlotte’s Fiddle and Bow Society, International Bluegrass Music Association, Augusta Heritage Center, Woods Music and Dance Camp, and more. A year later, the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance was officially born, and in 2008 the name was changed to Folk Alliance International.

While I’ve never made it to any of the annual gatherings, I watch with much interest every year from afar. Through the eyes and ears of friends who attend, as well as both traditional and social media, I’ve come to learn it’s a great week to discover new music and artists. And for the musicians who perform at the private and public showcases, its an opportunity to break out and create a buzz literally around the world.

Looking through this year’s official program, I can tell you that the talent traveling to Kansas City is staggering. As I’ve done in the past, below are a handful of videos I put together of musicians I think you’ll likely be hearing a lot more about in the coming year. If you’re going to KC, catch ’em if you can.

Caitlin Canty
This past year, Canty has been touring almost nonstop in support of her Reckless Skyline album. You may have seen her open for the album’s producer Jeffrey Foucault either as solo, with his band, or as a duo with pedal steel wizard Eric Heywood. Here’s the song that has earned her an FAI Song of the Year nomination, and I chose this intimate version where she collaborates with Jefferson Hamer, one of my favorite guitarists.

Darlingside
The Massachusetts-based Darlingside are longtime college friends of Canty, and they’ve all toured and played together for years. Their new album Birds Say really showcases superb four-part harmony and interesting instrumentation, and the production quality expands their acoustic roots to a new level.

Joe Crookston

Crookston is this year’s Artist in Residence. He’s been making music and touring extensively in the US, Canada, and Ireland since 2004. Born in Ohio and based in Ithaca, New York, Crookston’s official bio offers this description of his work: “Songwriter, singer, guitarist, painter, fiddler, banjo player, eco-village member and believer in all things possible.”

Applewood Road

This is a band of three songwriters with their own solo careers who met a year and a half ago at a cafe in East Nashville and the next day recorded one song that got a lot of attention. Emily Barker, Amber Rubarth, and Amy Speace have now finished and released a complete album and it’s a special collaboration. (Note: Amy had trouble with her voice at FAI and their showcase was postponed, along with solo dates she had planned soon after.)

The Small Glories

Out of Canada comes this new project from Wailin’ Jennys co-founder Cara Luft and singer-songwriter JD Edwards, who has fronted his own band for ten years. Each are certified road warriors who bring two very distinctive vibes that somehow mesh together like tea and honey.

Dori Freeman

It seems that everybody has been talkin’ about Dori Freeman’s new self-titled album and how it came about. This 24-year-old woman from Galax, Virginia, sent a message to Teddy Thompson via social media and it led to him signing up as producer and a release on Free Dirt Records. Her Facebook page features a whole bunch of covers from artists as different as Selena Gomez and the Police, which are a blast to watch.

Lowell “Banana” Levinger

Levinger played guitar and keyboards with the Youngbloods, one of the finest “early Americana” bands to come out of the 1960s. His musical career spans both performing and songwriting, and he’s a vintage musical instrument collector. This past year, he released an album of new arrangements of Youngbloods’ tunes that reunited him with Jesse Colin Young and also featured the late Dan Hicks, Ry Cooder, Maria Muldaur, David Grisman, Darol Anger, Peter Stampfel, Duke Robillard, and Nina Gerber.

This video isn’t from that album. In true folk tradition, I’ve decided to share his arrangement of Richard Thompson’s “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” instead, because it simply knocks me out.

Image credit: Photo from the John Atherton Collection. CC2.0

This was originally published at No Depression dot com, as an Easy Ed’s Broadside column.

The Thing About Emily Mure

I realize that in this community of old hippies, post-punk latter-day newbie-parental types and the occasional bluegrass traditionalist who stumbles here by mistake because they think we all love to hear the “Orange Blossom Special” covered the same way six thousand times, that I sometimes stand alone. Well maybe not alone, but sort of to the left of the main event. The reason being is that I suck up new music and young(er) musicians like a Dyson on a shag carpet. And despite my posts in the last eleven months about Jules Shear and his wife Pal Shazar (four times), Lou Reed, the Smithereens (just once each) and Grateful Dead (twice)…much of what I listen to is from people in their twenties and thirties, and sometimes even their teens. This year at a Rosh Hashanah dinner I found myself defending Miley Cyrus as being as relevant as Beethoven…or maybe it was Woody or Pete. And Taylor Swift? Dig her. Sort of.

Let me tell you how I listen to new music, no matter who, new, young, old or how established the artist is. Fast. Yes, I admit that while skimming quickly on the iTunes player or Spotify is not very fair or friendly, and devalues the art and hard work that goes into it, its how I roll. If it catches my ear, it’s a keeper. If not, it gets the hook. Gong Show style. The ones I find interesting get placed in a one thousand song playlist and they stay with me for at least three weeks, and get listened to either in a shuffle mode or maybe end to end if I’m really enthralled.

Say hello to Emily Mure, and her latest album Odyssey.

I found her music last July, after reading about her on another website. It went into the aforementioned playlist and has stayed there ever since. And, to be utterly honest, it’s not because I fell in love with it straight off, but because it haunted and challenged me. There was/is something about her songs and voice that made me want to go off into a quiet place and to be sure I captured each and every note. She surprised me too. When I expected the melody to go up the scale, it went down. When you think it’s time for a minor chord transition, she shifts to a major key. And just when you’re pretty sure you’ve got your basic coffee house folky singer-songwriter, she slips into that chamber mojo mode where people like Marissa Nadler and Meg Baird live, and then out of nowhere…I mean like an Ali left jab…you get a pedal steel, oboe and a cello thrown at you. Bam.

She’s a New York City girl who attended a performing arts high school, studied classical music and played the oboe at Carnegie and Avery Fisher Halls while still in her teens. At college she studied Oboe Performance and Psychology…and for the life of me I can’t figure out if that’s one major or two. Some college kids get into dope, drink and sex…she succumbed to folk, bluegrass and the guitar. Falling in love with traditional Irish music, she took off across the Atlantic for a summer studying Celtic music at the University of Limerick. After she came back home to finish her studies at Ithaca College, she moved to Galway and busked in the streets for six months.

“I moved out to Ireland with my best friend from college. At the time I was in need of escape and after spending some time in Ireland a few years before for an Irish/trad summer program, I decided to go back to explore the country further.  I didn’t go with the intention of singing on the streets- I wanted to just travel. We got temporary work visas and I was having trouble finding a job. After one afternoon busking, I decided I would try to do this for income- and so I did (for a very modest but livable income) It was challenging which is why it was great. I learned so much about myself and it thickened my skin and gave me confidence.”

By 2009 she was back in New York and recording her first album, while performing on the vibrant folk circuit that we have in this part of the world, from Pennsylvania to Maine. In 2012 she started getting some airtime on television and began recording the current album…which is available at all the usual places like here and here and here and here.

Emily has been touring and doing shows to support the new album, and as all DIY artists do, she has her day job of teaching guitar to help pay the bills. Given her background, I asked her if she was involved in the classical world. “I still play the oboe but mainly for fun. I am thinking about getting back into ensemble playing but for now- it’s mostly just a hobby.  I’m enjoying writing for my oboist- Emily DiAngelo. I love the oboe but didn’t love the repertoire or the classical music atmosphere which is why I made the shift once I started playing guitar and writing songs. Felt like folk and songwriting was more me.”

February 5, 2017: As is the case with most of the musicians I’ve written about through the years, Emily and I had never met. We exchanged emails and stayed loosely connected via social media. I knew she had moved to Massachusetts, was playing on the club and coffee house circuit throughout the Northeast, and worked as a music teacher. Last night she did backup singing at folksinger-artist Joe Crookston’s Imagine Nation concert and we spoke at length before the show. She’s living back in Manhattan and working on a new album. Her website is updated, has playlists and videos, lists her tour dates, and contact information if you’re in need of singing, songwriting or guitar lessons. 

In the original article that was published, I also mentioned Emily’s grandfather, guitar player Billy Mure. Since then, through the magic window of Google, I’ve decided his story should be told on it’s own. When I write it, I’ll link it here.

In the meantime, here’s a video Emily posted recently and this song is stuck inside my head. Glad we finally met…this is a very special person.