The Stray Birds
The Stray Birds
Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline
Rob Adams
It somehow comes as no surprise to learn, and indeed it seems only right, that the Stray Birds' imminent second album will be available on vinyl.
Quite apart from the title track, Best Medicine, celebrating what now might be perceived as the old days of record shops run by people who believe that they're selling the best medicine available, the Pennsylvanian trio's music has a certain ring of scratchy shellac recordings and King Biscuit-sponsored radio broadcasts while, at the same time, sounding as relevant to today as the next news report.
These are children of the soil, brought up among farmlands, and they sing and play with a wholeheartedness, not to mention considerable multi-instrumental aplomb and versatility, that goes hand-in-hand with doing an honest day's toil for an honest day's wage.
They're writing new songs that chime with current or recent events - Harlem, with its city that has trouble sleeping, felt very appropriate and empathic on the eve of 9/11's anniversary - and they cover old ones with an understanding of their content that goes and feels very deep.
Fiddler and guitarist Maya de Vitry's singing of Down In Willow Garden captured all that ballad's darkness and heartache.
Townes van Zandt's Loretta was despatched with fantastic zest, and the country spirit of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, the graininess of ragtime, and the zing and fluidity of bluegrass all imbued their two sets as they picked, bowed, scraped, slap-bassed and hollered with richly harmonised church-choir fervour or sang with quiet soulfulness.
They're in Langholm tonight and Peebles tomorrow - if you're in the area, you'd be mad to miss them.
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