New CD: Down My Garden Row
Butternut Creek and Friends, has produced its fifth recording called Down My Garden Row. This new offering has all of the ingredients listeners have come to expect from the Butternuts: strong voices, rich and intricate harmonies , winning original numbers, and a lively mix of tunes from various folk traditions in fresh arrangements.
The CD covers a wide range of styles. It includes traditional folk songs such as “Cruel War” and “Jim Crack Corn” as well as guitar blues numbers like “Freight Train” and “Railroad Bill.” The group shows off its instrumental skills in crackling versions of “Seneca Square Dance” and “Cock o’ the North” and includes three original tunes—“Flies in August,” “It’s Startin’ to Clear Up,” and “Down My Garden Row”—by John Simpson, the group’s songwriter, showing the wide range of his talents. Some songs, like “Prayer” and the haunting “Back Bay” are somber, with fluid, intuitive, and meditative harmonies that are the trademark of Butternut Creek and Friends. Others, such as “Sister Kate,” “Jenny,” “Friend for Life,” and their outrageous rendition of “Rusty Old American Dream” are lively and joyous, capturing for listeners of the CD the fun that this group generates in live performances.
