April Verch, from Canada’s Ottawa Valley, is a champion fiddler and step-dancer, versed in the vocal, instrumental and terpsichorean traditions of Canada and Appalachia. Here she heads the April Verch band, rounded out by Cody Walters on clawhammer banjo and upright bass, and Hayes Griffin on guitar.
Bright Like Gold is a generous release of 20 tracks, comprising songs, tunes and suites of traditional and contemporary provenance. I knew that Verch fiddled and danced, but I was a little surprised to hear her singing. Her mountain-style soprano, reminiscent of Dolly Partin’s but a little huskier, is perfect for the material including two she wrote; the opening track “Broken” and “Sorry” which is smack in the middle of the impressive setlist. The former blends Canadian fiddling with an Appalachian-style banjo and a classic-country melody; the latter is contemporary folk, and both pack a lot of poignant emotion into a couple of minutes.
She also wrote the country courting song “The Only One,” which she sings in duet with bluegrass great Mac Wiseman. (Wiseman also sings lead on “My Home In The Sky.”) The similarly sweet “No Other Would Do” was written by Verch’s father. Her cover of Ola Belle Reed’s Appalachian gospel song “Six Feet Of Earth Makes Us All Of One Size” is hauntingly sparse, accompanied only by herself on fiddle. And she shows suitable sass on Loretta Lynn’s ’60s feminist classic “Don’t Come Home A-Drinkin’ ” accompanied by a full honky-tonk band including electric guitar and pedal steel.
But it’s on the instrumentals that Verch and band truly shine. She does some nice dual fiddling with guest Bruce Molsky on “Evening Star Waltz,” and the trio is joined by bluegrass banjo picker Sammy Shelor on the tune set of “Davy Davy” and “Folding Down The Sheets.” Verch shows off her step-dancing on the banjo tune “Sandy River Belle” and her fiddling on the Canadian medley “Dusty Miller,” “Fiddle Fingers” and “Grizzly Bear” and the Appalachian medley “Edward in the Treetop,” “Yellow Jacket” and “Quit That Tickling Me.” Verch and Griffin show off their chops with some fast-stepping unison playing on the traditional “Big Eared Mule.” Here’s a live excerpt of “Big Eared Mule” with Verch step-dancing and fiddling.
I especially like the moody chamber-folk instrumental “Raven In The Hemlock,” in which her fiddle starts off way in the distance and slowly moves to the fore. It helped that I first heard this one while in the misty spruce and hemlock forests of the Pacific Northwest coastal mountains. But April Verch’s Bright Like Gold is a treat anytime, any place.
(Slab Town, 2013)
