Sensible or Otherwise
Having been the publisher and editor of Flatpicking Guitar Magazine for twenty years, my ears always perk up when I hear about a new talent in the world of flatpicking guitar. A few months ago, one of my guitar students mentioned a female flatpicker from England, Charlotte Carrivick, and said that I should check out her YouTube videos. I took a look at a few of her videos and discovered that she was indeed a very talented flatpicker. She has great tone and groove, clean and fluid note expression, good use of dynamics and creative ideas—everything you want to hear in a flatpicking guitar player.
A short time after I started watching Charlotte’s videos I received an email from her asking if we might want to review her new solo CD Sensible or Otherwise. Having been impressed with her videos, I was happy to receive her recording. Before I started to listen to the tracks, I reached out to Bryan Sutton, who had hired Charlotte to teach at his flatpicking camp, and to Jake Workman, who was also a teacher at the camp. I wanted to get a feel for what a couple of today’s top flatpicking guitarist thought about Charlotte.
Regarding Charlotte’s guitar playing, Bryan Sutton said, “What I love is the fundamental quality of her tone and rhythm. She is an innovative fresh voice in flatpicking. She has spent years of practice and study embracing what can be beautiful in flatpicking and has found her own sound within this art.” When asked what led him to hire her as an instructor at his camp, Bryan said, “I am always looking for players who are as passionate and caring as instructors as they are players, and she checked all of those boxes.”
Jake Workman, who was a fellow instructor with Charlotte at Sutton’s camp said, “Charlotte has a beautiful touch on the guitar and gets such a sweet tone with so much depth to it. Her arranging is creative and always musical. I’m happy to call her a friend!”
Most flatpicking guitar players who decided to release an instrumental album will usually include a host of flatpicking standards and perhaps a few original tunes. Charlotte chose to do otherwise by releasing an album of 12 original instrumentals. One of the many things that I enjoyed about listening to this album is that if you didn’t know any better, all of the tunes that Charlotte has written for this album sound like they could easily be fiddle tune and flatpicking standards. You don’t get the impression that these are new tunes because they sound as if they have been around forever. There is also a very nice variety. Many of the tunes sound like traditional fiddle tunes—some are fast, some slower—a couple tunes have a swing feel, others lean a bit towards a progressive sound. There is something for everyone here.
Charlotte’s playing on this album (guitar, tenor guitar and mandolin) lives up to all of the accolades mentioned above by myself, Bryan and Jake. She also brings a group of talented musicians into the studio to help her out—Evan Davies (mandolin), Kieran Towers (fiddle), Eleanor Wilkie (bass), Laura Carrivick (Dobro and fiddle), John Breese (banjo).
There is much more I can say about this album and all would be tremendously positive. But, with a limited amount of space for this review, I’ll just say that you need to check out Charlotte Carrivick’s new album. You will not be disappointed.
