Contemporary folk-rock from the Catskills, blending family life with social commentary.
In April 2023, our Live Reviews carried an account of a show in Lincolnshire that our reviewer defined as an “I was there” moment. The artists in question were Mike and Ruthy, a husband-and-wife duo from the Hudson Valley in upstate New York, who delivered a show featuring their voices, guitars, banjo, and, notably, the fiddle of Ruth (Ruthy) Ungar. As the daughter of singer Lyn Hardy and of Jay Ungar, the virtuoso fiddler whose haunting composition ‘Ashokan Farewell’ is the theme tune for the Ken Burns documentary series on the American Civil War, Ruth spent her early years travelling the world with her family. After her father remarried, this came to include fiddle and guitar player Molly Mason, while Ruth’s husband, Mike Merenda, is a songwriter, singer, guitarist, and banjo player of renown.
Though the couple tour as Mike and Ruthy, for the past twenty-five years they have formed the nucleus of The Mammals, a genre-breaking collective that blends folk, blues, rock and soul into a potent mix. Renowned for their politically charged lyrics and deep commitment to their community, The Mammals have spent the past four years recording what has turned out to be a double album release consisting of “Touch Grass, Vol. 1” and “Touch Grass, Vol. 2”.
Self-producing and with the benefit of having their own studio at home in the Catskills, they were able to take their time in following up the 2020 release, “Nonet”, meantime releasing several singles along the way. First came Ruth Ungar’s ‘Families’ in 2023, which now appears on “Touch Grass Vol. 1”. It’s a touching lament with a childlike simplicity that contains the chorus –
“Families get scrambly, and families get weird
Sharing last names, sharing fears
Under one roof or across state lines
Think your family’s strange, take a look at mine”.
Though the traditional folk instruments are in evidence throughout the seventeen songs, there’s some beautiful piano playing from Will Bryant and a great rhythm section in brothers Brandon and Tim Morrison on bass and drums, respectively.
‘Unpopular Ideas’ opens the first album and was released as a single earlier this year. Composed and sung by Mike Merenda, it attacks corporate America and government corruption. It sets the tone for Volume 1 with songs like ‘Free State Of Mind’, ‘Not My World’ and ‘Rolling Stone Refugee’, whose titles and lyrics point to the turbulence of the past few years. Interspersed with these Mike Merenda songs are more personal offerings from Ruth Ungar, ‘The Doldrums’, containing beautiful harmonies and ‘One Good Friend’ being a reflection on adolescent friendship.
All but two songs are original compositions, Merenda and Ungar each writing separately, and with the track running order alternating between the two. This produces a pleasing variation of vocal duties, the exception being the traditional instrumental ‘Washington’s March’ with a fabulous arrangement that begs a square dance with anyone who happens to be within reach.
In Volume 2, the pace shifts and a reflective mood is established. Ungar’s ‘Mama Don’t Feel Good’ is a melancholic take on ageing that will resonate with lovers of John Prine’s ‘Hello In There’ –
“Mama don’t feel good
But some days she feels okay
I hear her pick up her guitar
And gently start to play”.
Sung as a duet, ‘Old Friend’ is a song that will surely be performed by the couple on a darkened stage, its poignancy likely to engender the sort of silence when the proverbial pin may be heard to drop. ‘I’ll Tell You’ blends piano and fiddle behind a delicate Merenda vocal before Ungar delivers the lyrical ‘When You Love Let Go’. The final track is a cover of Utah Phillips’s ‘Going Away’ from 1973, taking things down with a whistled solo, neatly picked banjo and lush pedal steel from Charlie Rose. The song rolls along like a wagon train crossing the prairie and closes this beautiful double album.
