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The Folk Show Road Show: Hanneke Cassel and The Honey Dewdrops

FSRS20160216HR2V0.mp3
The Folk Show Road Show: The Honey Dewdrops (Laura Wortman and Kagey Parrish)

The Honey Dewdrops

  This month's Folk Show Road Show features two young, innovative bands: The Boston based trio of Hanneke Cassel, Mike Block, and Keith Murphy,  and the Baltimore based duo The Honey Dew Drops.  

Cassel has won praise from legendary Scottish fiddler Alastair Fraser, and he and others praise her exuberance and playfulness.   Cellist Mike Block is cut from the same cloth, and  was hailed by Yo Yo Ma as the "ideal musician of the 21st Century". Newfoundland native Keith Murphy absorbed the folksong, ballads and dance music of is homeland,  and provides a rhythmic foundation on guitar, and beautiful vocals.  We recorded them November 14 at the Center for Well-Being in Lemont as part of the Acoustic Brew Concert series. Their skills on instruments are what you'd expect from graduates of Juillard and Berklee,  but they'll surprise you with Will Ferrel impersonations,  and a somewhat strange tribute to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe!

 

Sing Out magazine praises the The Honey DewDrops'  "gorgeous harmonies and remarkably insightful, honest writing."  Laura Wortman and Kaigey Parrish were in fine form in a second Acoustic Brew concert in Lemont, recorded Dec 12,  where we captured not only their songs, but their banjo, guitar and harmonica.  They played many songs from their new album, Tangled Country.   In a review, Freddy Jenkins, for NPR Music's, Favorite Songs of 2015 compares them to Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and notes their "lilting banjo (and) gorgeous harmonies (and their) simple yet beautiful music."  

 

Both concerts were recorded by Greg E. Miller of State College.

Mel DeYoung hosts Morning Edition on WPSU and is in the broadcast booth before 5am each weekday. That means that if he's being sensible he goes to sleep way earlier than normal people do. The differences don't end there, but you'll have to chat with Mel sometime to understand the full depth of his abnormality.