The Downtown Tucsonan<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />....
December 2008....
By Jamie Manser....
http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/downtowntucsonan/200812/
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Exquisite a capella vocalists, Caroline Isaacs, Gabrielle Pietrangelo, and Laura Kepner-Adney, deliver the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />....Americana.... goods on the group’s 15-track debut album.
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Ethereal, confident, and with gorgeous tones, the trio’s harmonies enrapture and belie the dark lyrical themes.
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Gifted singers covering old traditional folk songs will do that.
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The disk opens with “Railroad Boy,” and unrequited love, suicide song. The next few songs follow similar suit of human angst.
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It’s not all dark though; there are melodically upbeat tunes, such as covers of “Chicken,” “Jinny Get Around,” “Single Girl,” and “Hang My Guitar.”
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Beside playing guitar (Pietrangelo and Kepner-Adney) and the spoons (Isaacs), the ladies are accompanied by local luminaries Jimmy Carr, Dante and Marco Rosano, Sean Rogers, Rudy Cortese, and Stuart Oliver. Oliver also recorded and mixed the record, along with designing the art work.
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....Tucson.... Weekly ....
12/11/08
Soundbites, by Stephen Seigel
“TWO CDS RELEASED, ONE GREAT SHOW”
A pair of new, local discs out this week will be feted at a combo CD-release party.
Having picked up the Up-and-Coming Artist of the Year honor at the 2008 TAMMIES, the Dusty Buskers will release their debut album, The Life and Times Of ... , on Old Bisbee Records. The group, which started as the duo of Uncle Fiddlin' Phoenix (aka Phoenix Michael) on lead vocals and violin, and Dusty Squirrelfisher (aka Stuart Oliver) on guitar, mandolin, harmonica and vocals, has expanded its ranks in recent months, which is reflected here by the inclusion of contributions from Cousin Dylan Charles on mandolin and The Mighty Joel Ford on washboard, as well as Gary Mackender playing the squeezebox on a pair of songs.
For those who have seen the Buskers perform live, you'll get exactly what you'd expect on The Life and Times Of ... . For those who haven't: The group performs traditional (mostly) Irish folk tunes with unbridled energy and a trace of ..Appalachia... It's not quite the Irish-punk intersection where the Pogues reside, but it ain't exactly the Clancy Brothers, either. Highlights on the nine-song CD (the ninth is a bonus track) include the accordion-abetted "New York Girls," in which the boys take liberties with the traditional lyrics to make mention of Congress Street and "Tucson girls"; a spirited take on the always-fun "Whiskey in a Jar"; and the chicks-on-a-bender tale "Three Drunken Maidens." In fact, pretty much all of these songs involve some combination of three subjects: traveling ("The Irish Rover," "Wild Rover"), women ("I Once Loved a Lass") and drinking ("All for Me Grog"), and, as you might guess, this leads to a certain sameness that runs throughout.
Meanwhile, ..Caroline Isaacs.., Gabrielle Pietrangelo and Laura Kepner-Adney constitute the Silver Thread Trio, whose self-titled debut album was produced by Stuart Oliver and will also be released on Old Bisbee Records, which he owns. (Additionally, Oliver and the Trio are collaborators in another band, Family of Light.)
The CD contains 15 songs of, again, mostly traditional (and often somewhat obscure) folk songs, performed with the help of a who's-who of local musicians and arranged to highlight the vocal harmonies of the three singers. If there's a complaint to be had about the disc, it's this: Harmonies often draw their strength from the juxtaposition between a single voice and several combined in harmony. But the Silver Thread Trio sometimes overplays its hand, using harmonies in places where a single voice that leads into a harmony might be the better way to go. That said, the harmonies and arrangements here are undeniably lovely, and the ladies show proper restraint on their takes of songs such as "Careless Love" and the a cappella "Two Sisters," while the harmony arrangement and vocal performances of "Moon River," probably the most recent song tackled on the album, are stunning.
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