Joseph Decosimo - Beehive Cathedral - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

In April 2021, Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson, and Cleek Schrey-three of the most compelling interpreters in the American traditional music scene-gathered at a cabin in Tennessee to explore their collective repertoire of Old-time fiddle and banjo tunes, gleaned from visits with older players, field recordings, and vintage 78s. In between roaming the surrounding limestone bluffs, hunting morels, and foraging ramps, they nestled into their music and recorded themselves in the cabin-turned-studio. Working with fiddle, hardanger d'amore (a fiddle with sympathetic strings), banjos, and a 19th-century pump organ, the trio captured both the sonic details of their instruments and a generous musical interplay rooted in a dozen years of collaboration. Their debut album, Beehive Cathedral, presents resonant, thoughtful, and expansive explorations of Appalachian and American music. The results showcase deep study and enveloping, exhilarating performances. A rich vein of stories and relationships to people and places underpin Beehive Cathedral. Much of the album draws on Decosimo's experiences learning the music of Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau, where he grew up and worked as a folklorist. A key source of inspiration was fiddler Clyde Davenport (1921-2020), InchClyde was a social and musical trickster who knew hundreds of old tunes and had an uncanny ability to recall each piece in exquisite detail,Inch says Decosimo. InchDuring my visits, he'd play breathtaking local pieces from his father Will, who was born in 1868. His father had learned some of them from a neighbor who was born in 1829.Inch These brushes with deep time and place inspire the trio's flowing renditions of Davenport's InchBetty Baker' and InchDrunken HiccupsInch, as well as his driving InchLost GirlInch (wherein a fierce storm can be heard in background). The whistling of Davenport's neighbor Evelyn Sharp gave