This release combines the talents of some of my favorite musical discoveries of the past couple of years, starting with Eli West. I first learned of the Seattle-based roots musician through his 2014 release with Cahalen Morrison, I’ll Swing My Hammer With Both My Hands, one of my favorites of that year. For this very personal project, West gathered a small handful of like-minded musicians to explore some American songs that have special meaning to him.
West wanted to illuminate the contrasting personalities and stories of the two men who were his grandfathers: one a devout Christian and conscientious objector during WWII, the other a farmer who was a pilot in that war and spent time as a prisoner of the Germans. That’s the “both” of the title. It also refers to the way each of the six songs he chose was recorded, once with vocals and again as an instrumental.
That brings us to the musicians he assembled, starting with the core trio of himself on guitars, Christian Sedelmyer on fiddle and Ethan Jodziewicz on upright bass. The guests include jazz and roots guitarist Bill Frissell, bluegrass mandolinist John Reischman, and singers Dori Freeman, Elizabeth LaPrelle and Anna Roberts Gevalt. Excuse the cliché, but if this crew played the phone book, I’d listen and enjoy it.
But they don’t, of course. On four of the six songs West pairs his sturdy mid-range voice with Freeman’s sweet Appalachian soprano, starting with “Give Me Your Love And I’ll Give You Mine,” a Carter Family song that’s a bluegrass standard; it has a hopeful, spring-like outro from West and Frissell on two electrics. Then it’s on to Waylon Jennings’s “You Asked Me To,” a classic country song that’s mostly acoustic except for West’s pedal steel. And there’s one penned by Freeman, “If I Could Make You My Own,” a sturdy country-folk song done as a duet with West. Best of all is Woody Guthrie’s church-house blues, “Lonesome Valley,” a simple arrangement with West singing and playing claw-hammer banjo, Freeman singing and ham-boning. The instrumental version of this one is just as riveting, with West on acoustic guitar, Frissell on electric, plus bass and fiddle:
The instrumental versions of the others already mentioned are varied. “Give Me Your Love” is spare and haunting with lovely lines from Frissell, the kind of haunting, contemplative Americana for which he’s well known. “You Asked Me To” gets a bluegrass treatment with a jazzy breakdown in the middle section. “If I Could Make You My Own” is very new-grass-style, almost a deconstruction of the tune by the core trio.
The remaining two songs are traditional American folk songs. West joins Anna & Elizabeth for lovely three-part harmonies on the somber “The Lone Pilgrim,” while its instrumental version is more upbeat bluegrass including lovely mandolin from Reischman. “Rainbow Midst Life’s Willows” is a dark, mythic folk song with a haunting arrangement, West’s vocals backed by LaPrell’s harmonies and Roberts Gevault adding color with fiddling that straddles Anglo-Celtic and Appalachian folk with some classical elements. The instrumental version has a very melancholy setting of the two electric guitars plus bass and fiddle.
The entire project has a reverential feel to it that might have been relieved a bit by different sequencing. Those last two somber songs end things on a rather down note. But that takes nothing away from the beauty of these performances. West is an artist overflowing with ideas and music. *The Both* is very obviously a labor of love that this listener feels honored to partake of. (Full disclosure, I tossed a few bucks West’s way via one of those crowd-funding services during the post-production period.)
(Eli West, 2016)
You can listen to the opening cut here:
Eli West has a website and is on Facebook.
