Levon, you will be missed.

• Simone Felice performs “Radio Song”
• Lisa Hannigan, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
• Drive-By Truckers with Megafaun, “The Weight”
• The Black Keys with John Fogerty, “The Weight”
• The Punch Brothers, Jesca Hoop, Aoife O’Donovan, “The Weight”
• Frank Turner, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”
• Warren Haynes Band, “It Makes No Difference”/”The Weight”
• Bon Iver, “Ophelia”
• Megafaun, “I Shall Be Released”
• The Band of Heathens, “One More Song”
• Mavis Staples with Glen Hansard, “The Weight”
• Bruce Springsteen, “The Weight”

I’ve been fortunate enough to have attended quite a number of multi-day music festivals over the years, from the Veiled Prophet Fair to the Monterey Jazz Festival and Telluride to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.  For my money, though, it’s really hard to beat the Old Settler’s Music Festival.  Held 20 miles or so outside of Austin in mid-April, it has an unparalleled selection of music, a reasonable size crowd, and a solid enough vibe to keep everything together even if the weather turns bad.  This year was no exception, and here are a few of my favorite moments from the 25th annual celebration.

The Blue Hit

 Eating From the Palm Of His Hand Award.  The last few years Old Settler’s has branched out some from its historic focus on Americana, and organizer Jean Spivey has been brilliant at bringing in indie acts that keep things fresh without leaving you scratching your head on the line up.  Local up-and-comers The Blue Hit and Lissie are examples, but better still Saturday night main stage closer Iron and Wine.  But for the sheer number of “I Love You Amos” shouts, the Philadelphia native was no doubt an honorary Texan for at least one Friday night.

Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets

 Back To My Roots.  There’s always a healthy dose of roots rock at OSMF, and this year was no exception.  James McMurtry blistered the stage Friday night.  Ozark dwellers Ha Ha Tonka did a cover of the Leadbelly song made famous in the 70’s by Ram Jam, Black Betty.  Three hours later walking back to my car people were still singing it.  For outright magnetism, though, the prize has to go to The Bottle Rockets, who did a pied piper number on anyone in the common area about dinnertime Saturday night.

 Audience Participation Award.  You have to give kudos to the Steep Canyon Rangers for their campground set on Thursday night.  What had been an engaged, but slightly sedate, audience for the earlier acts was stirred into a frenzy with the traditional bluegrass and awesome picking of the North Carolina quintet.  And their rendition of The Weight, the night after Levon’s passing, was clearly the best of the many covers honoring the man done over the weekend.  However, for the second year in a row this award has to go to Gaelic Storm.  They don’t just get people singing and dancing, they have people waving their arms, trying to outdo each other shouting, and, last year, riding a donkey (you had to be there).

Kimberly Zielnicki

 Youth Talent.  One of the things that sets OSMF apart from many larger events is the youth talent competition on Saturday morning.  This being Austin, the bar is pretty high, and past winners have gone on to their own recordings and performing with national acts in short order.  This year’s winner was fiddle player and singer Kimberly Zielnicki, who got a cheer from the crowd with her comment before the last song of an encore set, “you can never have enough fiddle songs”.  Tradition is that Miss Zielnicki will get a slot on the main stage next year, and I’ll look forward to seeing her with another year’s experience and some notoriety under her belt.

Sarah Jarosz with Darrell Anger

 Best Festival Moment.  This was sort of the year for NPR darling Sarah Jarosz, what with her main stage return playing to a clearly partisan crowd, and her mandolin workshop with Joe Walsh (not that one, the other one) that drew hundreds of people, most of whom have never even picked up the instrument.  For the real feel of the event, though, my vote goes to the kind of impromptu moment that’s the heart of a festival, yet witnessed by very few.  Woody Platt and a couple of his Steep Canyon Ranger mates were jamming with mandolin virtuoso Frank Solivan (who turned in a really, really sold set with his band Dirty Kitchen earlier in the evening) behind the bandstand long after the lights were off and most people had gone to their campsite.  The minstrels decided they needed a banjo and so walked over to the car where Frank’s banjo player, Mike Munford, was asleep.  They lit into a tune and before they were halfway through, Mike had his instrument out and had joined the fun.  You couldn’t help but grin as wide as the band was.

 As you keep listening, though, the backing instrumentation starts to pick up other flavors; indie folk on Television, a slighly ominous bass in Family Tree, and a nice slide guitar blues accent on Beware My Love, for example.  I came to realize that well-known Swedish producer Lasse Marten was touching up the palette of Hanft songs with his own brush strokes and colors.  So the cumulative effort is an impressionist interpretation of a scene that everyone sees a little differently.  This really hit home for me when I started checking out Hanft’s web site and came across the “social songwriting” blog he does with musical partner Samantha Yonack.  They take whatever topic strikes them and write a song about it, or sometimes it’s a cover that presumably crossed their path recently.  My favorite was one they did where they put a camera on the dashboard of their car and while driving one evening sang a song made up of tweets from a friend.

Speaking of Yonack, easily my favorite song on the album is Lazy Love, where her vocals seamlessly slide from background to lead and back along with Hanft’s own singing.  The harmonies are just magical.  Yonak’s voice adds a rich texture to many of the songs on the record, but nowhere else is she featured.

At the end of the day, Weddings Or Funerals is as much about Hanft’s songwriting prowess as anything.  You’ll really enjoy the textures and complexities of the songs, but as you listen to the lyrics, and a somewhat fatalistic viewpoint to many of them, you realize you’ve just peeled off one layer and it will leaving you wanting more.

The Burgoo’s first album, Soul Bucket, had a heavy influence of jazz, with Melissa Wright’s steamy vocals complementing Rudy Bzdyk’s horn playing over the top of pure bluegrass that delivered a New Orleans meets Deep Gap, NC, style.  Their latest album, Word, brings the Appalachian sound of their origin in Round Hill, VA, more to the fore.  When they veer off course this time it leans more to roots and rockabilly.  Take, for instance, Here Kitty Kitty that’s a natural for busking with a skittle band at the farmers market.  Or ’66 Corvette, where Wright channels Wanda Jackson in her prime.

Primarily, though, this is a bluegrass and old-timey music collection.  The disc starts with Uncle Pen, a Bill Monroe number, then picks its way into a Burgoo arrangement of the traditional Ida Red.  After a quick roots break, they then cover Flatt & Scruggs with Some Old Day.  Further down the set list Wright does her take on the Patsy Cline classic, Walkin’ After Midnight.

Although the band certainly handles their instrumental choices with a tightness that belies the fact they’re going to different colleges and can’t possibly play together day in and day out, I found I missed the richness the horns added on their first album.  Thankfully, Rudy gives us a good blast of trumpet on WD-40 and a subtle bit on Frozen Winter Sound.

It feels a little like the band is still feeling its way through stylistic variations on their way to finding their core musical sound.  It would be a serious mistake, though, to wait for things to settle down.  Take the journey along with them and you’ll be rewarded with many a trip down delightful side roads.

Update: The Acoustic Burgoo are such fans of Twangville readers they’ve offered up a special deal.  Just go to their page on Bandcamp, enter shawnstwangers as the discount code and you can get the full album and artwork for just two bucks.  How sweet a deal is that!

 The record starts off with the title track, a sort of feminist viewpoint on being a female in California in the 1850′s.  ”Just shaking what God gave me, so feel free to stare” probably wasn’t the prevailing attitude of the times.  Next up is Family Band, a nice ditty about choosing who you hang with, or at least knowing what you prefer.  There’s also the closer, a cover of Blondie’s Dreaming, where the protagonist observes wistfully over a cup of tea that “dreaming is free”.  My favorite, though, is Do What You Love Blues.  It starts with a gospel-tinged chant that manages to quickly equate life in a cubicle to a modern day chain gang, where Walker later proclaims “life’s about freedom, and it ain’t cheap”.  Amen sister!

Musically, Gold Rush Goddess stretches across a number of genres.  The majority of tunes clearly fall into an indie-grass kind of feel with Melody’s vocals, guitars and keyboards matching well to partner Jacob Groopman’s harmonies and more-than-solid bass, mandolin and guitar accompaniment.  A couple of songs fall more towards a simple folk arrangement, but in yet another direction Gotta Write Love Songs has a pop sound and hook that could just as easily be Gaga or Adele as an unknown singer-songwriter from San Francisco.

No one can really predict what will catch the attention of an NPR producer or the hipster crowd.  But Melody Walker clearly has the chops to support indie/Americana singer-songwriter stardom.  You can’t go wrong checking out her debut album.

 The album starts out with Uncle John, a western swing number that if not for Glassman’s silky vocals, would be immediately pegged as an Asleep At the Wheel classic.  Then comes the title track, a jazzy number that would be perfectly at home in a sharp Vegas lounge in the 50′s.  Next up is Devil’s Plea that starts with a breathless vocal part that builds the suspense on what direction the song will take: will it be bluegrass, will it be jazz?  Ahh, who cares, it will be a good listen.

Earlier in her career Glassman won a bazillion awards for her fiddle prowess.  But like any good musician she used that to springboard into other genres and styles.  On the whole, I’d say Snapshot is more of a jazz project than anything, but that categorization is more about picking the biggest minority.  Personally I found myself drawn to several tunes with more of a bluesy tinge: Rain, Rain; Long White Dress; and a Billie Holiday-soaked 1000 Shades Of Blue.

I don’t really know how to wrap up this review, since Snapshot covers such a wide variety of music.  Somehow, though, it all flows together and fits nicely.  So whether you want a little twang in your jazz, or some sultry vocals in your bluegrass, Katie Glassman comes through on this disc.

Initially formed in 2005 after meeting at the Black Banjo Gathering at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, the Drops have changed personnel but maintained that raw, old-timey flavor with multi-instrumentalists Don Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens and Hubby Jenkins playing a variety of banjos, fiddles, guitars, jugs and bones.  In performance, the presence of vocal percussionist Matta creates a deceptive aural cue - listening, one keeps expecting to see someone on stage with a drum set (I saw the Drops open for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones last year, which, with Futureman tapping his drumitar, creates a similarly deceptive sound vs. appearance).  

The musicians are all excellent, but it is Giddens that puts the attitude into the music.  On Genuine Negro Jig, their Grammy-award winning 2010 release, Giddens’ singing on “Hit ‘Em Up Style” was a highlight of that recording.  On Leaving Eden, she belts out lead vocals on “Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?,” ”Country Girl,” and “West End Blues” with the verve of a Janis Joplin.  But she is not a hoarse torch singer – the crisp, clear musical quality of her voice is steady throughout her excellent solos.  

 The Drops were formed as a traditional-style string band like something John or Alan Lomax might have stumbled upon during the Depression, but with the inspiration of their mentor Joe Thompson they have taken their music to a place all its own.  Leaving Eden, which was produced by Buddy Miller, is another special record by a special group of young people.

Audio Download: The Carolina Chocolate Drops, “Country Girl”

 The flag-bearer for that conflict is The Spirit of Death, a tribute to too-soon-gone fiddle goddess Amy Farris.  It speaks to the only thing inevitable beside taxes, and then finishes with a tap-your-foot, happy-go-lucky fiddle part by guest Gabe Witcher.  This was definitely one of my favorite tunes on the album.  In the same vein is Your Love Is Going To Kill Me, exploring the joy of marriage yet realizing the stress it adds can be, well, life-shortening.

Lest you think this is just music to slit your wrists by, the Hawks keep the dark lyrics fully in check with an intricate layering of guitars and harmonies that just listening to on the surface brings back many of the light-hearted sounds that attracted the world to the California country rock of the 70′s.  There’s also a touch a Norteno in Highland Park Serenade, and jam band syncopation in my favorite tune, I Fell In Love With the Grateful Dead.  Like some of the place and time stories of previous albums (Humboldt and Slash From Guns ‘n’ Roses come to mind), the Hawks blend personal experience and an eye for the soul of the tale that should leave a lot of Deadheads nodding in appreciation.  And Hunger Mountain Breakdown is a bluegrass anthem anyone from the hills of Kentucky would be proud of.

The Hawks sometimes say they live in the margins of the music business.  I’d counter that the notes in the margins say as much about a book as anything.  And I See Hawks In L.A. fills those white spaces admirably.

There aren’t many voices out there that are fair or worthy companions to the singular, sultry and smokey groan of Lucinda Williams. The California-dwelling Walter Rose released Cast Your Stone last month, and while it’s a solid album to be sure, it’s tough to deny the magic this song has. Want proof of said magic? As the hypnotic song nears its end, watch your finger veer ever closer to your repeat button, or to your mouse in order to click “play” again. It’s magic, don’t fight it. let it do what it does.

As great as the grit of Williams and the rasp of Rose’s vocals are together, the aforementioned hypnotic nature of the tune may be most attributed to the resplendent steel work of Eric Heywood, an accomplished vet in his own right.

OK, OK, enough chit-chat, I know. Let’s just get to it, right? well, get to clicking below and let the magic happen.

Craig Finn has always had a reputation as an accomplished lyricist. In fact, he is as much of a poet as he is a Rock and Roll musician. His lyrics invoke an emotional connection that is evident as the crowd sings along at Hold Steady gigs. After all, this is the man who weaved the suicide of John Berryman into “Stuck Between Stations”. Not surprisingly, Clear Heart Full Eyes brings Finn’s poetic distinction to the forefront.

To be sure, the front man for Hold Steady has not forgotten the importance of the music. For this project, it tends to be more mellow and introspective, but is powerful none the less. My friend David, who has a daughter that is a budding musician at 13, recently made the point that musicians are sometimes far too serious and afraid to make people laugh. In fact, humor is a quality he is trying to encourage in the music of his daughter (Katie Deter). Humor has certainly never eluded Finn, as shown by the song, “New Friend Jesus”. He also invokes religious imagery often on Clear Heart Full Eyes. Consider this verse from “No Future”:

“I’ve been reading about the Calvary. The crucifixion still gets to me. I guess Golgotham meets the mount of execution. The best advice I got comes from ‘ol John Rotten. He said ‘God save the queen’ no future for you , no future for me”.

Finn is a modern day creative genius, and, Clear Heart Full Eyes is the perfect conduit to display his prodigious creativity.