I was instantly transported back a decade or more to a sunny meadow in summertime Colorado. Norman and Nancy Blake were performing an afternoon set at Rockygrass. It was surprising how sweet and lighthearted sounding their songs were, yet be so full of melancholy and sorrow. That’s the same experience I had with These Old Roots, the latest from The Honey Dewdrops. It wasn’t just the songs themselves, but the performance: each song was chosen in its entirety from one of several takes. No fancy editing here, they just hit record.
The album opens with Amaranth, a song equating unfulfilled love with the colorful plant. It’s a really good example of the live sound captured in the studio. You can’t necessarily point to anything that identifies it as live–there’s no audience–but you just know it is. The last two cuts on the album, Way Back When and That Good Old Way, also have that feel. That Good Old Way in particular has an old-timey air to it that would get lost in any normal studio processing.
I can’t wrap up a review of this recording without talking about the thematic bent of a couple of songs. Nobody In This World is about turning to the bottle when life’s love leaves. It tells the tale of growing mean and losing all one’s friends. And yet the natural harmonizing of Laura and Kagey, the husband and wife duo that are The Honey Dewdrops, along with some fine mandolin playing somehow lend an uplifting feel to what most groups would record in a funeral dirge style. Even more disconcerting (in a good way) is the application of that same style to Goodbye and Farewell, a song about killing your lover so no one else can have her even though you have no intention of being faithful. It’s creepy and charismatic all at once. You really have to experience it to believe it.
The Honey Dewdrops are torch bearers for a somewhat lost style of recording. In these days of Autotune and overdubs, they stand around a mic with their instruments and play for you. If you’re a fan of acoustic music performed the way it was for decades, you’ll love The Honey Dewdrops and These Old Roots.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.