For her 10th album, former fiddle prodigy April Verch presents a generous collection of music from across the spectrum of fiddle tunes, hillbilly songs, and folk music from all over North America and beyond. The native of Canada’s Ottawa Valley is a triple threat with her versatile fiddling, her light and airy vocals and her snappy stepdancing footwork, and her work is wonderfully enhanced by the contributions of her steady bandmates, Cody Walters on bass and clawhammer banjo, and Hayes Griffin on guitar and mandolin.
Where Verch’s previous release Bright Like Gold featured several stellar guests including Bruce Molsky and Mac Wiseman, The Newpart is more sparse and focused with just the trio plus producer Casey Driessen sitting in on one track. The vibe is down-home and old-time with the parlor ballads “If You Hadn’t Gone Away” and “Montana Call,” the latter by Texas crooner and jazz pianist Seger Ellis, here given a lightly jazzy Western arrangement; and a couple of hillbilly songs, “It Don’t Do Nothing But Rain” by Alabaman Lew Childre (a Grand Ole Opry vet) and “I Heard The Bluebirds Sing,” by Alberta cowboy Hod Pharis, the latter a lovely duet with Walters. She also nails the John Hartford acid-grass gem “Bring Your Clothes Back Home” and, at the other end of the Americana spectrum, Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s hillbilly gospel song “Dry Bones.” That one features three-part harmonies, some fine guitar picking from Griffin and a bit of softshoe by Verch.
For a good look at some more of Griffin’s guitar work as well as Verch fiddling and hoofing at the same time, check out the video of “Belle Election,” the opening track.
I love the subtlety of their arrangement of the traditional “Cruel Willie,” a pensive, light and tender take on this beautiful melody. Walters starts it with solo banjo with Verch’s fiddle droning underneath, then is joined on the melody by Griffin on guitar and finally by Verch’s fiddle.
I like what she has to say about it in the album’s publicity one-sheet:
“When we were learning and arranging it together, I realized we could play all three parts of the tune simultaneously on our various instruments, and it worked,” Verch says. “So that’s what we did the final time through. We also mix up the parts of the tune throughout just like our source did. Not knowing what part is going to come next adds a certain flavor to the tune you can’t accomplish any other way and was one of the things that drew us to the tune in the first place.
The title track “The Newpart” — a reference to the room in her family’s home that she still uses for composing and practicing — is a contemporary tune by Verch in a lively old-time style with a ragged rhythm that’s typical of both Celtic and certain types of Canadian roots music. It has yet another beautiful bass line from Walters, and more footwork from Verch, too. Don’t miss the Swedish polska and the instrumental suite that combines a traditional tune with one by the late Métis fiddler Andy DeJarlis, which has a fiddle line that’s like a blend of Quebecois and Cape Breton styles. And for the first time on one of her album’s there’s a solo stepdance piece, which she calls “Gilchrist,” recorded very nicely by Driessen.
(Slab Town, 2015)
