Humming House Party! (Live) - My Love
The spotlight on Nashville, with its musical values and timeless traditions, is currently bright. And no band embodies whats right about 21st century Nashville more completely than the quintet known as Humming House.
Its the way they weave together threads of Music Citys folk, soul, and bluegrass legacies. Its in the inspirational and revealing songwriting. Its in their acoustic instrumentation, presenting mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar and bass in fresh roles. Its in the pleasant tension between rousing energy and nuanced arrangements. And its in the voices, with two complimentary stylists up front and backed by the full bands rapturous harmonies.
Revelries , due out March 24, 2015 on Nashville label Rock Ridge Music, is the third recording bearing the Humming House name, yet its something of a debut. Version one of the band came together in 2011 when songwriter Justin Wade Tam called on some friends from a local Celtic music jam to flesh out recordings of songs hed written. The sessions, assisted by Tams star producer colleagues Mitch Dane and Vance Powell, mixed strains of bluegrass and Irish braided with vintage swing and open-throated early 60s hootenanny folk music. Humming House earned some quick attention for videos of its infectious songs Cold Chicago and Gypsy Django. They landed performance slots with tastemakers such as Lightning 100, Daytrotter and the Americana Music Association festival. They had chops, respect, and trajectory.
After that, two personnel additions galvanized the band. Leslie Rodriguez brought a lustrous female vocal to mesh with Tams hearty singing. And fiddler Bobby Chase brought classical training and down-home fire. That rounded out a band of highly skilled instrumentalists, including Josh Wolak on mandolin and Ben Jones on acoustic bass. Between the five of them, theres scarcely a genre or period that somebody in the band hasnt spent time learning or embracing, from Leslies early love of show tunes to Joshs time playing bluegrass to Bobbys occasional beat boxing. Theyre the picture of East Nashvilles melting pot musical culture, and Revelries is the first album these musicians have written, arranged and recorded together.
As complete as they are in the studio and on record, Humming House is fundamentally and emphatically a live band. With scarcely a tubes worth of amplification or electricity and adrum kits worth of percussion distributed among the band members, they emit force on stageand demand attention. Theyve rocked rooms of all sizes and played Forecastle Festival, Bristols Rhythm & Roots Festival, and the Cayamo Cruise with the elite of Americana. They opened the new Music City Roots hall in The Factory in 2014, sharing the bill with Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell.
Vocals are the emotional core and lure of Humming House. They are five voices deep, with a galvanizing male/female twin attack over the top. Tam and Rodriguez sing as soloists or a duet, depending on the song. Humming House works out careful hand-offs and big harmonies, including frequent passages that are just vocalizing, chanting beautiful music on top of their robust instrumental attack.
The title of Revelries comes from a lyric in the tenth track on the album, Carry On, a feisty and ambitious song in which delicate charango plays counterpoint to a muted guitar. The rhythm is jagged and intoxicating. By the time we get there weve heard the striding opener Run With Me, the quick-stepping waltz Fly On and Leslies showcase song, the smoldering and bluesy Nuts, Bolts and Screws. The albums first single, Great Divide, is a fervent ode to travel, motion, and new frontiersa recurring theme thats also touched on in the fiddle and accordion-driven Hitch Hike and the rapturously romantic Freight Train. A classic jazz ribbon of smoke drifts through the magic Im A Bird. And then, after Carry On, Revelries concludes on the drifting Atlantica throwback folk song that evokes old sea shanties.
If the new Nashville means anything, its about musicianship and authenticity. Quite often that results in sounds that are fascinating and appealing to critics and fellow musicians. Occasionally, artistry emerges thats both profound and widely appealing. And when it does, as with Humming House, its cause for revelry.
~ Bio by Craig Havighurst, Music City Roots
Awesome!
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Goosebumps!
Humming House - Fly On (Forever Is Better With You)
Glad you enjoyed it Hal!
Bluegrass is my first love; and ,is seeing quite a menagerie of influences weaved throughout. Bluegrass, progression, soul, jazz, ... alittle of everything is being expressed. The popular and somewhat descriptive term is Newgrass. The one defining characteristics besides the acoustic instrumentation that takes center stage, is the excellent quality of writing and musicianship evident.
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Some day you're going to have to come down here to KY, and enjoy our International Bluegrass Music Festival... It's a lot of fun!