RACHEL EDDY, NOTHIN’ BUT CORN

RACHEL EDDY
NOTHIN’ BUT CORN

No Label
No Number

   Rachel Eddy’s musical journey is an interesting one and international in scope. She is a very talented musician from West Virginia who grew up in a musical family. Eddy’s dad expertly played the “don’t touch my fiddle” trick when she was a kid, hoping his daughter would do the opposite due to her mischievous curiosity, and it worked.

Many years later, Eddy was jamming at her home state’s Appalachian String Band Festival when she met Kristian Herner, a second generation banjo player from Denmark who now lives in Sweden. The two fell in love, got married  a couple of years later at the festival where they first locked eyes, and then Eddy moved to Sweden to be with her husband. But, Eddy and Herner return to the U.S. for a few months every year to jam, see family, and get their American string-band music juices renewed. A multi-instrumentalist, Eddy plays fiddle and clawhammer banjo on this recording, and her singing voice is earthy, unique, and sweet. Husband Kristian joins her on banjo, and Eddy is also backed up by a host of excellent roots music artists found in her adopted home of Sweden.

Highlights include rollicking versions of “Deep Ellum Blues,” “Don’t Drink Nothin’ But The Corn,” “Walk Along John To Kansas,” and “Give The Fiddler A Dram.” There’s also a three-part version of “Cumberland Gap” that is atmospheric and sweet, as well as a beautiful take on Si Kahn’s “Wild Rose Of The Mountain.” As Eddy says in the liner notes: “Although I’d never trade this journey I’ve had in Stockholm for anything, I often long for the mountains and simple beautiful life that exists there.” (www.racheleddymusic.com)DH