#4392, Roots Music, Old and New
Hear music with roots in traditional folk material, and contemporary extensions of it, as in new music by Irish-based songwriter Amelia Baker, who records as Cinder Well. Her work is informed by traditional forms and tunes of County Clare, even as she adds haunting and meditative soundscapes to an original, called “Our Lady's.” This “doom folk” tune has a most unusual perspective as well, as it’s written from the perspective of a deserted asylum. Then, there’s music by Tiny Leaves, aka composer and multi-instrumentalist Joel Pike, from an album inspired by the Welsh word, Cynefin – which in translation “carries the sense of being rooted and belonging, spiritually, culturally or geographically.” (Bandcamp)
Listen to musical partners Bruce Greene and Kore Loy McWhirter perform mostly dark and mostly quiet traditional songs from the southern Appalachians. Their unaccompanied, mostly Southern, songs and ballads contain hair-raising close vocal harmonies and a sense of communion. There’s also music from Rachel and her sister Becky, who are now at the core of the Unthanks, formerly Rachel Unthank & The Winterset.
Hear an old folk tune from trio Bonny Light Horseman (Anais Mitchell, Eric D Johnson, who leads the band Fruit Bats; and Josh Kaufman, who’s played with The National, Craig Finn, and many others.) Also, from the late Bert Jansch, listen to the same folk tune, “Blackwaterside.”
Program #4392, Roots Music, Old and New (First aired 7/23/2020)
ARTIST: Cinder Well
WORK: Our Lady's [1:00]
RECORDING: No Summer
SOURCE: Free Dirt Records
INFO: cinderwell.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Bonny Light Horseman
WORK: Blackwaterside [3:26]
RECORDING: Bonny Light Horseman
SOURCE: 37d03d Records
INFO: 37d03d.com
ARTIST: Bruce Greene & Kore Loy McWhirter
WORK: Come Near My Love [2:32]
RECORDING: Come Near My Love
SOURCE/INFO: brucegreene.net
ARTIST: Rachel Unthank & The Winterset
WORK: I Wish [6:22]
RECORDING: The Bairns
SOURCE: Real World #1158
INFO: realworldrecords.com
ARTIST: Cinder Well
WORK: Our Lady's [9:16]
RECORDING: No Summer
SOURCE: Free Dirt Records
INFO: cinderwell.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Tiny Leaves
WORK: Broad Places [11:17]
RECORDING: Notes On Belonging
SOURCE/INFO: tinyleaves.bandcamp.com
ARTIST: Andrew Cronshaw (ft. June Tabor)
WORK: The Ship in Distress [7:52]
RECORDING: The Great Dark Water
SOURCE: LP, Waterfront WF 009 (1982), and on cassette Waterfront WF 009c (1991)
INFO: Re-released on CD in 2010 by Acrobat Music Ltd as Trapeze TRACD6502 discovery-records.com
ARTIST: Bert Jansch
WORK: Blackwaterside [4:24]
RECORDING: Live, on Soundcheck, 2011
SOURCE: This performance not commercially available.
INFO: A version appears on the best of compilation, The Gardener: Essential Bert Jansch 1965-71
