First published in  Lonely Goat Print Magazine Volume II - #10

Timeless Troubadours
by J.D. Edwards (November, 1999)

Singers come and go; bands break up over petty squabbles; instrumentalist's chops are merely on loan, and voices turn to coal in the throat. Even multi-platinum and gold lose their luster like all awards. But great songs live on eternally in the soul. They are passed down through countless generations, safeguarded by haunting unforgettable melodies and universal lyrics, revealing something new and personal to each uninitiated listener.

As long as new singers are born, there will always be traditional songs to fill their lungs, rhyme-tested and cover-approved. Two modern songwriters, destined for such immortality by creating harmonies and words that are already embraced by many contemporaries, came to Carrboro to articulate the immense power of their respective skills.

A Wednesday night downpour didn't hinder droves of fans from coming to see the latest and most authentic purveyors of Americana roots music. By half past eight the special intimate seating at Cat's Cradle was overflowing with an atypical club cross-section of young and old, student and professor, mother and child, hick and hippie. They were all united around one main objective though, and that was to hear Gillian Welch and David Rawlings perform their personal hybrid of old-time, acoustic, folk, country and bluegrass.

Actually their sound defies accurate categorization: straight from the heart and hearkening back to a time when all that mattered was properly expressing a song's sentiment. They achieve a beauty that is dark and mysterious yet equally uplifting; part of that beauty stems from their ability to subject the human soul to hardship and watch it emerge quite scathed but nevertheless resilient and all the more determined. Their whimsically suggestive imagery touches upon many facets of Southern country living: nature, death, gospel, history, family, bootlegging, graveyards, Jesus and the Devil.

On stage the duo has a shy humble genuineness that in the hands of the alt-country crowd might seem less than sincere. They harmonize so beautifully and so closely that it almost appears as if one multi-layered dichotomous voice belted out the backwoods folklore; and these are vocals mined deep from the leafy hollows of Appalachia, expressing the simultaneous pain and joy of rugged mountain life. Primary lead vocalist Gillian comes across with occasional suggestions of Loretta Lynn country though smoother and not as twangy. And musically she strums serious rhythm guitar and banjo chords to David's delicately placed, complimentary lead guitar fills.

But most importantly their songs distinguish this duo with a knack for subtly macabre storytelling about everyday events and people. Content ranges from murder to loneliness to spiritual desperation to revenge to addiction, but their two-part harmonies are so ebullient that they never seem somber or bitter. They also supplement their fractured outlook with many great nuggets from songsters of the past, proving the process is truly cyclical; Gram Parson's "Hickory Wind," Townes Van Zandt's "White Freightliner Blues," Tim O'Brien's "Wichita" as well as Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley all complement their diverse and reflective take on life.

Together these anachronistic oracles drew mainly from thier two releases for two sets worth of front porch yarns that left the spellbound throngs rapturous for more, even after four encores. They offered a glimpse to what traveling troubadours in the dustbowl of twenties and thirties heartland America must have looked like. In the end they left this listener with a head full of unshakable melodies and images hummed straight from the bottomless soul of mankind and likely to be passed down for centuries as modern oral tradition.