It’s the end of the second week of High Fives and this time it’s the turn of Molly Rose who is one half of Underhill Rose, along with Eleanor Underhill. They’re good; they’re so good that when the power failed in Camden on a winter evening, they didn’t hesitate to play a candlelit, completely unplugged set at Green Note. Molly is sharing some of her favourite gigs of this year.
Katie Gallagher at McAuley Hall in Naas, Ireland – June 2017
This young woman is a wonderful singer/songwriter from Ireland. She has opened two shows for us there, and each time I was awed by her beautiful music.
Les Amis at 5 Walnut in Asheville, NC – Wednesday nights throughout 2017
This west-African fusion ensemble features a collection of musician friends (hence “Les Amis”) that get together on Wednesday nights at a small wine bar and jam. Adama Dembele is a 33rd generation master drummer from the Ivory Coast, and combined with uber-talented musicians on bass, guitar, drums and djun djun, you are transported to a happier state of being. There’s even a revolving cast of folks that sit-in on occasion, including my percussionist husband, Tyler Housholder. And even though I am biased, you too would feel the incredibly vital and heartfelt vibe to this crew.
Bonnie Bishop at The Altamont Theater, Asheville NC – May 2017
If you haven’t seen her live, you should. She is amazing!
Once on this Island at Circle in the Square Theater, New York City, NY – November 2017
The most incredible, soulful Broadway show I have ever seen. There is not a bad seat in the house, either.
Jeff Picker’s Birthday Show featuring Sarah Jarosz at Sunny’s Bar in Brooklyn, New York – November 2017
Sunny’s Bar, dubbed a “spiritual holdout in Red Hook” by the New York Times, is an old-school bar that is just around the corner from my friend’s place. His band, City Billies, has played there many times, and I have always wanted to see the space. When my husband and I visited last month, I mentioned that I wanted to stop in, so we stopped by after dinner. Little did I know that bassist Jeff Picker had gotten a group of friends together to play a birthday show. Little did I know that it included Sarah Jarosz. What a surprise! The highlight of the night was hearing Sarah sing lead on Bruce Hornsby’s “Mandolin Rain” to a packed room of 30-ish people.
Why do a live album? Well when you’re as good live as Eleanor Underhill, Molly Rose and Salley Williamson, the prospect of being recorded live holds no terrors. They can even play without any amplification if they have to. “Live”, recorded in Asheville, North Carolina, over two nights was an attempt to let a wider audience hear the songs in their live incarnations: three voices and four instruments (including Eleanor’s harmonica). And it’s a highly successful attempt; the quality of the performances is superb and with fifteen songs, no-one can complain about quantity.
The mix of songs is fairly representative of the live experience, featuring songs spanning their studio albums and a couple of interesting covers, “These Boots are Made for Walking” featuring Salley Williamson’s vocal and upright bass, and a deft stripping-down of the eighties classic “Bette Davis Eyes” that shows exactly how powerful the song is without the synthesised eighties percussion.
Throughout the album, the harmonies are perfect and the recording captures the warmth and intimacy that’s a huge part of any Underhill Rose show, highlighted in the celebration of community and friendship, “They Got My Back”. There’s no inconsistency; the performance is perfect throughout. If I had to pick standouts, I would go for the sultry “Whispering Pines Motel” or the combination of photographic imagery and reminiscence of the lovely “In Color”. If you haven’t seen Eleanor, Molly and Salley live yet, this is the next best thing. If you have seen them, it will bring those memories back.
Now let’s wait for Tony Visconti to tell us it was eighty percent overdubbed.
“Live” is released on Friday June 30.
“The Great Tomorrow” is Underhill Rose’s third album and it’s a lovely example of smooth and polished Americana with just an occasional hint of darkness to offer a little contrast. The three members, Molly Rose, Eleanor Underhill and Salley Williamson play guitar, banjo and bass respectively; they all sing and they divide the songwriting duties between them across the album (with the notable exception of one cover). Molly and Eleanor split the lead vocals almost equally but the true beauty of the gorgeous sound they make is in the blending of all three voices to create the beautiful harmonies that suffuse the album.
“The Great Tomorrow” won’t hit you like you a hammer blow; it’s a lot more subtle than that. Each soothing harmony, each plangent pedal steel fill, each yearning fiddle line is a shining thread in a rich, shimmering tapestry. You can appreciate the individual parts up close, but the true beauty only reveals itself when you see the whole picture. It may not be immediate, but it will stay with you for ever.
The settings for the songs on the album augment Molly, Eleanor and Salley’s guitar, banjo and bass with the traditional Appalachian fiddle and Dobro, and Nashville elements of pedal steel and Fender Rhodes to create a wonderful variety of arrangements from the classic banjo and fiddle combination of the haunting “Montana” to the unusual fiddle and Fender Rhodes combination on the lazy shuffle of “Whispering Pines Motel”. There’s a huge variety of lyrical moods on this collection, from the empty desolation of “My Friend” and the circle-of-life theme of “When I Die” to the backwoods outlaw tale of “Shine”. And there’s a joker in the pack as well; a cover of the Elliott Woolf song, “Straight Up”, made famous by Paula Abdul in the eighties. The first rule of covers club is ’make the song your own’ and that’s exactly what they’ve done, slowing down the tempo to a slow country rock feel and focussing the energy on a stomping pre-chorus; it’s exactly what a great cover should be.
A lovely album packed with deft and delicate touches and glorious harmonies throughout.
You can see Rose Underhill live in the UK in late April/early May at these venues:
April
Thursday 21st Half Moon, Putney (with Benjamin Folke Thomas)
Saturday 23rd Cranleigh Arts Centre, Cranleigh, Surrey
Wednesday 27th The Biddulph Arms, Biddulph, Staffordshire
Friday 29th Green Note, London
Saturday 30th Union Chapel, London (with Colin Hay)
May
Sunday 1st The Stables, Milton Keynes
Wednesday 4th The John Hewitt, Belfast (Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival)
Thursday 5th The Ivy, Naas, Co. Kildare
Friday 6th The Venue Theatre, Ratoath, Co. Meath
Saturday 7th The Bronte Centre, Rathfriland, N. Ireland
“The Great Tomorrow” is out on March 25th.
