By T-Claw Crawford
Guest Writer
Join us at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 26, in Festival Barn for a concert with Resonant Rogues. They wowed us this past winter with their full electric sound. Now we are bringing them back for a more intimate acoustic duo set.
Their namesake album speaks to laying down roots. “Finding peace in a small town is like watching a doe at sundown,” Keith Smith sings on “Slow Burn.” The song nods to country poets like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. This is a personal musing, its cozy folk texture is filled out with Sparrow Smith’s jaunty accordion. Keith and Sparrow Smith recently settled on a piece of land in the western North Carolina mountains acreage Sparrow says she hopes never to leave.
Touring still calls The Rogues to the road, as did a two-week stint in Nashville to record at the Bomb Shelter with producer Andrija Tokic. There they were able to discover the sonic thread that pulled an album together. It’s less all over the map than previous projects. There’s a distinct sense of place within string band music and a modern interpretation of the classic styles that inspire them. It’s still as folky as ever but with a confident embrace of rock energy.
As a recent mentee of our dear Riley Baugus, Sparrow shares, “I’m a musician, maker and mountain gal. John C. Campbell has tugged at my heart for most of my memory. Grandma attended weaving classes in the 1980s and told me about the magic. The Traditional Music and Dance Mentorship Program was the stuff of my wildest dreams and I’ll share the lessons I learned for the rest of my days.”
JCCFS features concerts of eclectic roots music with $5-10 per adult suggested. Lineup and schedule are subject to change.