Description
Sylvia Herold & Euphonia
THE OLD JAWBONE
Tuxedo Records TUXCD0928, © 2009 Euphonia
Come bouncing along folk music’s backroads with Euphonia, a café-style acoustic combo featuring soaring harmony vocals and sophisticated musicianship. This group brings together the compelling voices, restless minds and nimble fingers of four remarkable Northern California musicians:
Singer-guitarist Sylvia Herold (Wake the Dead, Cats & Jammers, Hot Club of San Francisco) delivers assertive guitar work and shoulders most of the storytelling with her clear, captivating voice.
Mandolinist Paul Kotapish (Wake the Dead, Kevin Burke’s Open House, Hillbillies from Mars) dispenses rhythmic drive and weaves tunes like vibrant musical threads through the songs’ fabric while adding his own rich harmony and lead vocals.
Accordionist Charlie Hancock (Swing Farm, Crepes Musette) draws on his deep reservoir of dance-music performance to provide bounce and passion.
Bassist Chuck Ervin (The DialTones, Crepes Musette) supplies a jazz-inflected pulse and contributes harmony and lead vocals.
In its newest recording, The Old Jawbone, Euphonia offers American old-time songs amid fresh renditions of proven winners from John Hartford, Gillian Welch and the Sons of the Pioneers. Fiddle tunes from America and Europe are woven throughout. Guest percussionist Brian Rice adds jumping beans (in a can) along with a jawbone—of course—and a variety of homemade rhythm instruments, giving these folk songs an unexpected and compelling groove.
TRACKS:
- Cotton-Eyed Joe
- Crying in the Rain
- The Old Man at the Mill (Polly Put the Kettle On)
- Let the Bullgine Run (The Peacock’s Feather
- La Mangave
- Boatman’s Dance (Chinquapin Hunting)
- Tear My Stillhouse Down [audio:Stillhouse.mp3]
- In Tall Buildings
- Angeline the Baker’s Gone
- F Tunes (Le Rêve de Quêteux Tremblay/Byggnan)
- Chant of the Wanderer
- 12. I Crept Into the Crypt and Cried
- 13. I’m Going Away
Click here for more about Sylvia Herold’s extracurricular activities
