Pride of America  review

This review appeared in the December, 2009 - January, 2010 issue of The Old-Time Herald.

I'll get this out of the way right now. This is one of the most refreshing new CDs to come down the pike in quite some time. When I first got my copy of Pride of America, it stayed in the CD player for days, and it remained in constant rotation for several weeks. Even though the band, for the most part, uses the standard old-time string band line-up of fiddles, banjo, guitar, string bass, and occasional mandolin, they manage to create, within that format, a distinctive and original sound. Individually, all are accomplished musicians, but as an ensemble they come together like a well-oiled machine, with Garry and Genevieve Harrison's soaring fiddles propelled by the pulsing rhythm section comprised of Smith Koester's driving, yet melodic clawhammer banjo, Andy Gribble's insistent, powerful guitar, and Abby Ladin's spot-on string bass. Even taking into consideration the high level of musicianship on the CD, some might take the Mules to be just another old-time (hot) string band, if it wasn't for one thing - their repertoire.

They've managed to unearth a completely new vein of material, which includes both songs and tunes, which has never before been commercially recorded. The credit for this mainly goes to Garry Harrison, who spent a great deal of time in the 1970s and '80s conducting a sort of musical archaeology, searching out older fiddlers and other senior musicians throughout the central and southern part of Illinois and documenting their repertoires, most of which had been acquired in the early days of the twentieth century, before the widespread popularity of 78 records and hillbilly radio shows.

Along the way, he discovered the work of David McIntosh, a native of southern Illinois who taught music at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from the late 1920s through the mid 1960s. McIntosh began collecting traditional songs from his students and expanded his collecting to include older relatives and acquaintances of those students. Over the years, he amassed a substantial collection of traditional folksongs, which his son deposited at the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University after McIntosh died.

A few years ago, Garry, along with Jo Burgess, published a collection called Dear Old Illinois: Traditional Music of Downstate Illinois, which contains transcriptions of tunes that Garry and his Indian Creek Delta Boys cohorts had collected, alongside transcribed versions of folksongs from McIntosh's collection. The bulk of the material on Pride of America, with a few exceptions, comes from these two collections. The title tune, an instrumental fiddle tune, was taken from a nineteenth-century manuscript. "Jenny Get Your Hoecake Done" is a minstrel-era song/tune taken from sheet music. "Liza Jane" is a hybrid version learned from "numerous senior Illinois fiddlers," while "Yellow Jacket" is a Garry Harrison original.

While the instrumental pieces on the CD are interesting, unusual, and very well played, it is the songs and the way the band has revived and arranged them that really make this an outstanding CD. There may be some debate over whether or not there is room for creativity, invention, and growth in old-time music. As if to put these arguments to rest, Harrison has taken unaccompanied performances of obscure and esoteric folksongs, and given them the full string band treatment, often taking solo vocal lines and arranging them for multiple voices.

The songs themselves make for fascinating listening, both as pieces of music and as pieces of history. It is common for many contemporary old-time performers to draw the bulk of their material from '20s-'30s era 78s and similar sources. The topic of those songs, as one would expect, often reflect the places and events of the time period of those recordings. While some of the songs on this CD share some of the universal themes associated with old-time music (an orphan's lament, lost love, etc.), many of them, because they were collected from sources born a generation before the 78 era of the '20s and '30s, reflect earlier, preindustrial times, and deal with sometimes arcane and at times supernatural subject matter, using language (some nonsensical) that some may find rather archaic. In addition, to some folks who live in, or may once lived for a time in southern Illinois (myself included), it may be a pleasant surprise to hear versions of old folk songs that mention familiar or nearby places.

Of course, a song is only as good as its performance. The singing in the band is mighty good in general, but there are some standouts. Abby Ladin's plaintive singing on "Take Warning, Young Ladies" is quite lovely, while Garry's deep voice makes for just the right touch on the songs he tackles, especially "Walking Out One Morning" and "Shoe Cobbler." On the latter, I should mention that Garry also plays an instrument which he invented and calls the plains dulcimer. It looks like a cross between a mandolin and a dulcimer, and sounds like the latter. For my money though, Gena's vocals are what give this CD its edge. Her singing is wonderfully unaffected, and reminds me of 1940s female hillbilly singers like Mattie O'Neill, Cousin Emmy, or Molly O'Day, especially on "Orphan Left Alone" and "Across the Plains of Illinois." In fact, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch - if we were able to travel back 60 or so years - to envision this band performing some of these songs on radio stations in places like Tuscola, Harrisburg, West Frankfort, and Carbondale, where hillbilly singers and bands once held forth on live radio shows. Since that is not possible we can take comfort in knowing that the New Mules are around and active today, drawing on a wealth of old, forgotten songs and tunes, and bringing them to light and breathing new life into them once again.

-- Jim Nelson