Something truly special for this Wednesday afternoon AUKIBS (that’s the Americana UK Instrumental Bonanza Slot in case you were wondering). The duo of Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman have an EP, of which this is the title track, coming on July 28th. An EP that we can boldly state right now has only one fault – it’s an EP. Four tracks of this kind of playing is simply not enough. We do have to cut Nora and Stephanie some slack as they are touring the world now – with a Spring tour of Japan (which is also part of the world) recently completed.
‘Lady of the Lake‘ was learnt by Stephanie Coleman from a performance by Eric Merrill at the fiddle competition in West Virginia’s Appalachian String Band Music Festival, aka “Clifftop.” The song originated with Galax, VA fiddler Parley Parsons via the great fiddle and banjo player Paul Brown. Fiddles, banjos, put them together and you have a heck of a sound.
But don’t just take our word for it – Peter K. Siegal, who produced, recorded, and mixed the EP, says “I was a big fan of both Nora and Steph when they were performing separately. Their new collaboration is more than the sum of its parts. They make their virtuosity so much fun to listen to. Their music is deeply rooted in American tradition, but the excitement of their performances is all theirs.” And he should know something, we suppose, as he played with John Sebastian; produced Neil Young, Joseph Spence, and Doc Watson; recorded concerts that were later released by Mississippi John Hurt, Roscoe Holcomb, Booker White, and Dock Boggs; taped an iconic Bob Dylan bootleg in the basement of Gerde’s Folk City; and has made vital field recordings on musicians from Indonesia, India, China, and Sweden.
