Geoff Muldaur, left, and Jim Kweskin
Jim Kweskin and Geoff Muldaur’s greatest musical legacy might be injecting fun and unexpected surprises into multiple forms of traditional American music.
For their latest album, Jim and Geoff turn to the music that inspired them when the folk music world opened to them in the 1950s. The field recordings of Alan Lomax and the songs featured on Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music sit at the center of this universe.
The end result is the delightful Penny’s Farm, which finds the former Jugband cohorts joyfully swapping tunes with a core of crack backing musicians who make it sound all too easy.
Penny’s Farm works as a highly accessible introduction to old time music, but it is also a vessel that carries listeners to a deep trove of American folk music populated by more complicated themes.
Thanks to the album’s generous liner notes, we know which versions of the songs on Penny’s Farm influenced Jim and Geoff. Songs made famous by artists well known to old time folk and blues fans such as Mississippi John Hurt and Clarence Ashley are well represented here. Songs by lesser known artists such as Big Charlie Butler, Vera Ward Hall and the Bently Boys shine just as bright.
We’ve compiled* the original tracks as named in the liner notes on this Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure as a companion piece to Penny’s Farm.
Be sure to check out the album, and don’t forget to see Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur on The Penny’s Farm Tour in Daniels Hall on Sunday, October 23.
All the tracks mentioned in the Penny’s Farm liner notes are on Spotify, except for Milton Brown’s version of “My Mary,” which you can listen to below.
Article by Swallow Hill Marketing Manager Barry Osborne.