Uncle Earl

Music:

Member Since: 5/27/2005
Band Website: uncleearl.net
Band Members:

There probably is a Waterloo, Tennessee. One of the members of Uncle Earl, who declines to be named here, swears that she saw a road sign for it while driving to the quiet countryside just beyond Nashville where the band recorded what eventually became their second full-length album. Something about the name spoke to them: the quasi-mythical collision between the emblematic battle that marks the end of Napoleon's reign, and Tennessee: the equally legendary hub of stringband and country music...it makes for a tidy yet elusive encapsulation of where this four-woman band (or "all-g'Earl," if you will) is taking the acoustic stringband tradition.

While their fiddle-led, banjo-flecked sound holds profound echoes of the rural Americana, the new album from Uncle Earl, Waterloo, Tennessee, is equally marked by a grandly elegant sense of loss; the breaths of something wistful escaping, bloodied but unbeaten, from the throes of a dying European empire. The music of Uncle Earl points toward the roots of stringband music (Scotch-Irish ballads, Celtic fiddle tunes, the blues), but by including original material and opening their sound to an array of influences past and present, they arrive at something haunting and timeless, yet instantly appealing and accessible.

The humor, empathy, and wit that characterized Uncle Earl's interaction with producer, John Paul Jones is apparent in the digital grooves of Waterloo, Tennessee's sixteen tracks, from the opening fiddle tune "Black-Eyed Susie" to Groves' eloquent, bittersweet closer "I May Never." In between, the band -- with special guests including Erin Youngberg on bass and Jones on an array of instruments (Piano, bass, Papoose guitar, and wobbleboard) -- take in an impressive range of styles and instrumental permutations. At times, Jones encouraged the band to peel away layers of their sound, resulting in the stunningly stripped-down readings of "The Birds Were Singing of You" and "Little Carpenter." He also pushed the band to deliver some of its most swaggering, full-tilt string band music yet, as evidenced by the loping "D&P Blues" and the raucous fiddle tune "Streak o' Lean, Streak o' Fat." "Streak o' Lean" features Jones hammering away on piano, while Washburn delivers emphatic spoken commentary -- in Chinese.

"Our time in the studio (Karian Studio, outside of Nashville, TN) was wrapped up in magic from start to finish," Gellert concludes. "One big magic moment. I remember thinking when it was all over that if a tiny fraction of the joy of making this album could come through on the recording, I'd be thrilled."

Kristin Andreassen (Guitar, Fiddle, Harmonica, Clogging and Vocals)

Rayna Gellert (Fiddle and Vocals)

KC Groves (Guitar, Mandolin, Bass and Vocals)

Abby Washburn (Banjo and Vocals)