The Essential Musical Vitamins

Welcome to the end of the year My Gentle Readers and My Gentle Listeners. Even though I’m hardly writing I should write my Essential Albums of 2023 blog. Why Essential Albums, not Best or Top Albums? To emphasize that these are the albums that are essential to me. It’s a personal collection. It’s more than that, it emphasizes albums that are not fungible. There are many great albums that are similar to other great albums. To lose one is not a disaster. We can get by with things that are close. Others are complete originals; they might be no better without them there’s a void in our artistic heart. That is essential. One more thing, though I have to publicly say that these are my subjective opinions, that’s just out of societal expectations. My favorites are objectively the best. I’m not putting these in order of how essential they are. Some years one or two stand out and I say so, not this year. I am not going to elevate a first amongst equals. Here they are in the order I played them on December 28 then the four I didn’t have time for and will play on January 4. The breaks between sets are indicated graphically.

• Rhiannon Giddens     –        You’re the One:How great is Rhiannon Giddens? All of her albums have been essential. I felt like I hadn’t given this album it’s due on Gord’s Gold so I checked my records. I’ve played four of the twelve songs, one of them twice. I only have an hour a week. Most albums get two songs played. I’m listening to You’re the One as I write this and you know what? I haven’t given it, it’s due. If any of these songs were released as a single by a different artist, I’d play it. Rhiannon hits all the marks, great songs, expressive singing, beautiful voice, gorgeous arrangements, and virtuoso musicianship.
• Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway –        City of Gold: I didn’t notice it until after I aired the shows but Molly Tuttle made my list two years in a row. I need to see her more often, hell I just need to see her. They are the platonic idea of a vocalist driven Americana band. Part of that is that the instrumentalists would be a great band on their own. Molly’s singing is better described as exciting than beautiful. The album gets my heart pumping and my feet tapping.
• Allison Russell  –        The Returner: Allison had to go in the same set as her Our Native Daughter bandmate Rhiannon Giddens. I fell in love with Birds of Chicago on first hearing and my love for Allison has never ebbed. Her voice does not have the sweetness of chocolate syrup but flows like the finest maple syrup. It lingers in my ears.

• Freelance Nun & Chivalrous Crickets   –        Blood, Booze & Betrayal: Whenever I play Freelance Nun on Gord’s Gold I call them “My current obsession. The only band remotely like Freelance Nun is the Chivalrous Crickets, members of which join them on this album. I cannot describe them better than they describe themselves; “Freelance Nun is an amorphous and adventurous duo-led collective that has no allegiance to time or genre. Gifted with a wild freedom from the confines of history, Freelance nun and its extraordinary collaborators create unique soundscapes that revel in the experience of the distant past and future simultaneously and with a reckless abandon.” They are the antithesis of nice people playing nice songs nicely. They show more creativity in one song than some well-known folk artists do in their entire oeuvre. I listen to this album and I’m taken to a new world.
• Charming Disaster      –        Super Natural History: They are nothing like Freelance Nun but I can say so many of the same things. They are similar in that they bring something unique to the table. It’s goth folk written by doing research for middle school reports and putting them to music. It’s Charles Addams meets Isaac Asimov. If you take “weird” as a compliment, as all right-thinking people do, you’ll love this album. It has Manta rays! Do you need to know more?
• Enion Pelta-Tiller Quartets  –        Dedicated Dig – I know Enion from TAARKA, her band with her husband now joined by their son. On this album she is one quarter of a string quartet with various personnel Enion plays fiddler. This is Chamber Folk with a heavy dose of Gypsy Swing. When the first track is Djangology that’s not a surprise. It’s music that moves your soul while fully engaging your mind. I need more of this in my life.

• Natalie & Brittany Haas       –        HAAS: Brittany Haas is another favorite fiddler of mine. She made last year’s list with her band Hawktail. Natalie is her sister and a cellist. You don’t get greater musicianship than you do from these two. It’s all instrumentals. I love instrumentals but sometimes shy away from playing them as I’m not confident that other folk fans do. It’s great music so I’m starting to play it more and hope that those that shy from music without singing learn what they are missing.

• Jess Klein  –        When We Rise: Nobody sings with more passion and commitment than Jess. She brings a sense of importance to her songs without ever coming across as melodramatic. It’s rare to combine such authenticity with such strong emotions. There is no pretense in anything she does. This is not performative passion but the real thing. She combines the emotions with intelligent lyrics and a sense of humor. That was My Family tells the eternal plot of the refuges how come to America in search of freedom and finding those that find them a threat. She never says it explicitly, but as the descendent of Jewish refugees she feels for those crossing over our southern border now. Perhaps I’m projecting as that’s how I see it. There’s no need for projection in Athena where she longs for the divine power of Athena in herself fighting sexism.
• Sonia disappear fear   –        Album 23: When people think of SONiA their minds go to songs of social justice and yes, she has many such songs, I Can’t Breathe is a moving and thoughtful riff on This Land that puts focus on the victims of police violence. But there’s so much more, her music has swing. The title track, Twenty Three is an expression of youthful exuberance. I won’t discuss her age but I’ve known her for 33 years so it’s safe to say that she’s older than the 23 she feels like. How many folkies would cover I Wanna Be Sedated? So much of the album exudes joy.
• Eilen Jewell        –        Get Behind the Wheel:  What do you call this? Folk/Country/Surf/Rock? I justcall it great.Over the course of the year, I’ve played five of the 11 songs, and I could have played more. Alive leaves you with the feeling of a mythic beast coming to life. The appeal is primal. It’s not that her music is unlike anyone else’s it’s that she does it so well. She’s an expressive singer but she always gives her musicians room to express themselves.

• Darrell Scott String Band     – Old Back Rocker:  The first song I checked was Banjo in the Haller. My reaction was not, “This is unlike anything I ever heard. I didn’t think it was going to change the folk music scene; it’s just a great song worth playing. I thought the same about every song on the album. Just pick a song at random and you won’t just love it, it will command your attention.

• Robinson & Rohe       –        Into the Night: Pick a song on the album, it will be great. Of the 11 songs I’ve played 6. I can pick a favorite, Where I’m Coming From. If I had a brain that could choose a favorite song of the year, that might be the one. It’s the story of the people in her hometown. The lovely people that she grew up with, the descendants of immigrants, who are no xenophobes. They seem oblivious to where they came from. I can’t put myself in their places but recognizing that cognitive dissonance exists is vital to understanding the world. None of this is told as a lecture. Jean and Liam aren’t talking to others. They are thinking aloud in the hope of getting others to think too.
• Lilli Lewis –        All is Forgiven – Lilli makes music that connects directly to me but for no obvious reason. She’s not weird in the way I so often love. She lives in New Orleans and her song Drink this Water Child has the slow inevitability as the Mississippi. She reaches into the deep magic and brings it to the surface. For the sake of transparency, I need to point out that though we’ve never met or talked in real time we have many of the same sensibilities. I listen to this album and feel seen.

• Fred Smith          –        Look: Fred is a songwriting original. If he was better known he’d be covered the same way John Prine and Joni Mitchell are. In Longtime Wilmington Joe captures the feeling of America on Election Day 2020. People here have forgotten but the song remembers. He can not just capture the feel of a nation but of himself. Long Long Way is a ditty that explains the life of a songwriter. It’s light and funny but lets us see the depth of his soul. It should be the folk singer national anthem. As a diplomat and peacekeeper, he has served his time in hell and can tell those stories. On Look we learn how he now sees the world.

• Mary Lee Kortes –        Will Anyone Know I’m Here: The Songs of Beulah Rowley. This is a concept album. She sings these songs not as herself but as the fictional Beaulah Rowley who died too young in a fire. The songs have the patina of antiques. She’s not the first to do it, what else is Sgt Pepper but was worth doing as putting on a false face gave her the freedom to be herself. I am particularly taken by Fingernail Moon. That’s a poetic term for the crescent moon. The entire song is a poetic term for life. It’s a song of deep emotions bookended by a music hall number.
• Muireann Bradley       –        I Kept These Old Blues. The album came out in December, late for an album to make a year end list, only an exceptional album can do that. If you want to be a cool kid that knew Muireann before she was famous you better jump on the bandwagon now. She’s a newly minted 17-year-old girl from County Donegal Ireland who became obsessed with fingerpicking guitar driven music of black American musicians of the 1920s-1950s. If you listened to nothing but the guitar, you’d swear it was a recording from then, but it is contrasted by the crystal clear singing of an Irish Colleen. She ands Freelance Nun are the vastly different vanguard of my 2023 discoveries.
• Rainbow Girls   – Welcome to Whatever: The Rainbow Girls are a west coast band that has 181K followers on Facebook but do not seem to be well known in my musical circles. This is unfair to you, the people in my circle, so it’s my mission to correct that. Are they today’s answer to the Andrews Sisters? They do not sing the same sorts of harmonies, but they share Patty, Maxine, and Laverne’s effortless perfection. The Andrews were sisters, the Rainbow Girls share a house. I don’t think that’s by chance. They are lighthearted and fun and use that in the service of satire in Compassion to the Nth Degree and Patriotism Killed the Cat. Maybe not you but I have to love a song that mentions Brett Kavanaugh and quotes Avengers End Game. I love this album to infinity.
• Mighty Poplar – Mighty Poplar:  We’ll end with the eponymous debut album of a bluegrass supergroup. Its members are Andrew Marlin from Watchhouse, Noam Pikelny and Chris Eldridge (punch brothers), Greg Garrison, and Alex Hargreaves. Do you know what happens when you bring together five super-talented musicians? You get a super-good album. It ends with the epic biblical tale, The Story of Isaac. This is treading the path of Leonard Cohen but from a totally different approach. It is well worth the 6:20 runtime.

That’s over 2,000 words. Next year I will winnow the list down even if it hurts. There’s only one album that’s nothing but a singer and a guitar, Muireann. Is that as atypical for folk lists as I think? Some of the greatest music ever made is one person and a guitar but that’s difficult to do in a way that holds my interest. There are only three bands that are led by men, the rest are female or mixed. I counted once and I do play more woman than men but not to this degree. I think that’s peculiar to this year. Surprising to me is that there are no Canadian based artists though Allison Russell is a Canadian expatriate. The group is more American that usual, Fred is from Australia and Muireann from Ireland. If I’m going to count Allison as American, I should count Rhiannon as Irish, that’s where she is living.

You can listen to the first 14 songs right here without even clicking on a link. You should do so. Now if I could only get myself back to blogging regularly.