A love letter to the enduring nature of folk music.
For Erie native Roger Harvey, punk was his introduction to making music – he loved its ethos and lyrical honesty. As he says “A lot of punk rock music is very political. And so as a young person that was really uplifting to me because I would rally around with a bunch of people. We’d all coalesce around these ideas. At some point through punk rock I started to hear about different folk singers who sang about a lot of the same things, but in a very different way.”
So after two critically acclaimed roots albums, he began to really connect with some of the great folk musicians of the past and he found so much he could bond with – especially Woody Guthrie. “Woody Guthrie was the first (folk) person that I connected to and I just thought it was so cool that people could talk about the range of things in life which included, of course, politics,” he says.
He also met, serendipitously, fellow folk musician Simon Flory and found they both shared a natural love of traditional folk and country music. Flory brought in a superb collection of local musicians to bring alive their ambition of making an album of classic folk songs of struggle, protest and joy, written by and for ordinary people. These are songs that bring social justice, inequality, struggle, hardship and moral choices to the fore. Harvey continues, “The whole record was recorded live with no overdubs, corrections, or any editing that modern digital audio workstations have to offer. What is left is pure, unbridled creativity between collaborators. They’re joined by Abel Casillas on accordion; Andy Rogers on three-finger banjo, dobro; Beau Brauer on drums; Dan Patrevito on piano; Gary Grammer on harmonica; Jesse Thompson on upright bass; Morris Holdahl on lead guitar and vocals; Sharla Franklin on fiddle; and Summer Dean on vocals. And it sounds glorious.
The covers include music by Woody Guthrie, Joe Hill, The Carter Family, Jimmie Rogers and others. Highlights include opener ‘I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister’ – a joyous, uplifting version of The Almanac Sisters fiddle classic; ‘Keep On The Sunny Side’, originally written in 1899 by Ada Blenkhord. It combines a celebration of looking on the brighter side of life but also acknowledging the hardships ordinary people face. It’s got a stirring gospel feel enhanced by a lovely shout of ‘yee ha’ at the end.
‘Rolling In My Sweet Baby’s Arms’ is a rollicking version of the traditional folk song and it sounds as fresh as ever played by this accomplished outfit; Guthrie’s ‘I Ain’t Got No Home In This World Anymore’ gets a beautiful and moving rendition and its modern relevance is somewhat disconcerting; ‘Going Down This Road Feeling Bad’, another traditional folk song, gets a vibrant rendition with harmonica, fiddle, guitar and drums really bringing the tune alive.
You can tell that everyone on this album simply adores these songs and they all gel together magnificently, to bring alive the spirit of the importance that these songs still have for a modern audience. Deep respect to the writers of these songs and these musicians for paying such heartfelt reverence to everything these songs mean now and historically.
