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Woody’s The Dude, Eh? |
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With Woody Pines all set to make their UK debut, interest in the band is growing daily from radio plays and reviews of the new album, Counting Alligators.
The latest praise comes from Maverick magazine which says of the release:
“‘Born in the mountain, raised in the bluff, we came to shake our feet and strut our stuff.’
"...As biographies and manifestos go that’s about as good as it gets and both Woody Pines (the man) and Woody Pines (the band) do their not inconsiderable and largely successful best to live up to it on their third album.
“Having landed in New Orleans when he came down from the mountain, Pines brings a good slug of that city’s jazz and rhythms to his old-timey acoustic country blues and the result is the beginning of what sets him apart from the crowd. Being a musical magpie helps – ‘I pick and choose the best sounding stuff’ he says – and the results are a seething cauldron of anything and everything from Mississippi to Nashville.
“What seals the deal is the superlative and simpatico playing of Pines and his band, who create a sprightly acoustic jam that has the toes tapping and the head nodding. Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and Gill Landry (with whom Pines used to play) show up to help things along, and Aurora Nealand adds subtle accordion from time to time.
“Half the album is traditional and the remaining Pines originals slot in seamlessly between such classics as Casey Jones and Harlem, while Billy Briggs’ Chew Tobacco Rag is two minutes of irresistibility. It’s all incredibly throwback but that of course is its charm, and Pines is a respecter of the tradition as well as an expander of it. Stick on your pork pie hat, grab a slug of moonshine and cut yourself a rug.” |
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“Now, It’s His Turn”. . . |
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It’s been Gurf Morlix’s year and nobody can deny it.
. . .As 2009 drew to a close there were some terrific announcements which fairly underlined the point.
Firstly, his outstanding album, Last Exit To Happyland was sitting pretty at Number 40 when the Americana Music Association's Top 100 Albums of The Year were announced, then in the Americana UK Writers’ Best of 2009 selection, the same album figured in the Top Ten Albums list, with contributor Phil Edwards saying of our hero: “Legendary producer proves he's as good as the rest of the them. No in fact, he's better.”
Staff writer Maurice Hope said: “After years making others sound good now it’s his turn.”
Congratulations, Gurf – and here’s to even bigger things in 2010. |
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Great Review For Woody Pines |
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Woody Pines picked up a great four-out-of-five-star rating for the new album, Counting Alligators, from The Scotsman in a review that called the collection “a rollicking, engagingly idiosyncratic amalgam of old-time blues and jug band sensibilities”.
The songs of Cajun queens, dusty highways and speakeasies are “informed not only by squalling harmonica and whumping bass but a conviction that makes them sound about six decades older than they really are,” it stated.
It continued: “As well as Pines' nasal holler, Zack Pozebanchuk on bass and Rennie Elliot and Andy Tubb sharing credits on drums, there are tasty contributions from guest artists including producer Gill Landry on slide guitar.
“Stand-out tracks include the harmonica and fiddle-driven Chew Tobacco Rag and a compelling rendition of Harlem, a vintage joint-jumper swinging to sax and cornet.
“It's not all up-tempo stomp, and Pines' Walking Down the Road has overtones of early Dylan in its guitar finger-picking and wistful drawl.” |
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Nice Way To Start The Year |
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B-K acts continue to enjoy exposure on radio and in newspapers and music mags as Glasgow’s mammoth extravaganza, Celtic Connections gets underway.
The Wiyos are chosen to represent the powerful Americana contingent on the programme when the Sunday Herald compiles a ‘Best Of The Festival’ 16-track selection to be given away free to its readers, writer Allan Morrison describing the band and their Broken Land Bell album as “old-school meets street-style”.
BBC Radio 2 presenter Mark Lamarr is the latest to pick up on Furnace Mountain’s much-admired Fields of Fescue CD, playing tracks from the album on two consecutive weeks and telling listeners it was “a pretty great album all the way through”.
Writing in R2 (Rock ‘n’ Reel), Oz Hardwick awards the Black Crown Stringband a four-out-of-five-star rating for their new release, describing the band as “something special” and saying their playing is “magnificently intuitive”. |
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Furnace Mountain Storm Euro Americana Chart |
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Everyone's talking about them as the hottest new act on the rootsy Americana scene and ever since UK radio started playing tracks from the sensational new album, Fields of Fescue in December, and Americana UK awarded the CD an 8-out-of-10 rating, describing the release as "blisteringly good", the word has spread like an out-of-control bushfire right across Europe too.
As a result, the album soared to the Number 11 slot on the Euro Americana Chart after so many contributors - mostly music journalists and radio presenters who send in returns - included it as one of their latest fave raves.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s most highly-respected music writer, Rob Adams, writing in The Herald, has described the band as “a treasure” while reviewing the album for The Herald. Awarding Fields of Fescue and 4-out-of-5 rating, he said:
“The American roots music motherlode just keeps producing treasure, none more winsome and exciting than this quartet who take their name from one of Virginia's most prominent peaks and their repertoire largely from the old-time, bluegrass and folk ballad traditions.
“Combining unadorned, honest singing with fiddle tunes that evoke both keening bagpipes and lonesome train whistles, interlaced with brilliantly audacious mandolin breaks, Furnace Mountain sound like a marriage between Be-Good Tanyas and the best bits of Nickel Creek - except with true Appalachian soil caked onto their boots"
The band will arrive in the UK for their first ever tour here in September and most of the dates (Scotland, England and Wales) have already been snapped up due to the "must book 'em" demand. |
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