Show Review: Watchhouse / Yasmin Williams – Durham Performing Arts Center (November 20, 2021) Featured Concert Music Features Reviews by Ken Templeton - November 23, 20210 What a special evening at DPAC last night. I am not sure I have ever seen an opening act hold such a large audience in her hands the way Yasmin Williams did. Her playing is mesmerizing and soulful. And her engagement with the audience between songs--explaining her approach to percussive guitar, the instruments she uses, how she’s developed as a guitarist--is quite simply endearing. I got to chat with Yasmin for our podcast last summer, and her stage demeanor is as easy as talking to her on the phone. I loved hearing “Juvenescence,” and “Through the Woods,” live, and Yasmin’s cover of “Sunflower,” was really fun. From the first song, “Wondrous Love,” Watchhouse performed with their signature understated brilliance. Andrew
Adia Victoria: Deep Water Blues Interviews Music Features Podcast by Ken Templeton - October 28, 20210 Listening to Adia Victoria’s latest record, A Southern Gothic, is mesmerizing. It is my favorite album of the year. It is poetic and gritty, ethereal and earthy all at once. Of course, if one thinks deeply about the blues, as Adia does, you know that paradox is all around. Joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, life and death, are all cousins. It is the tension in these spaces where art, beauty, and freedom thrive. The first couple of times I got to chat with Adia (for her albums Baby Blues and Silences), I still lived in the north. But now I live in Durham, NC, and I hear the songs differently. I’m still sorting that out and one of the
Oliver Wood: Always Smilin’ (podcast) Interviews Music Features by Ken Templeton - October 14, 2021October 21, 20210 My first concert of 2021 was in June, seeing The Wood Brothers and Ryan Montbleau at an outdoor show at Shakori Hills. Right after that, I got to chat with Oliver Wood about his wonderful solo record, Always Smilin’. I love this record because it captures what I love most about Oliver’s musicianship: his generous, collaborative spirit. When you see Oliver in concert, he often comments on the role of the audience in creating a space for music to happen: the energy, the attentiveness, the response to musicians all contribute to the music itself. It was fun to talk with Oliver about how he opened up to more collaboration and connection during the pandemic, when many of us experienced isolation.
Charlie Parr: Last of the Better Days (podcast) Music Features Podcast by Ken Templeton - August 27, 2021August 27, 20210 It is truly amazing when an artist can use the same tools for decades and continue to create vibrant, urgent, singular work. If there’s any musician that I know who fits this description, it’s Charlie Parr. He gets miles out of a few different guitars and his voice. On his new album, Last of the The Better Days Ahead, he took a new approach to songwriting, focusing on the lyrics before he picked up a guitar. The result is a record that really slows you down, helps you listen, and brings the worlds and stories that Charlie creates into focus. It was such a pleasure to talk with Charlie for the podcast. Please forgive some of the background noise on my
Folk On! 2021 Festivals Music Features Reviews by Ken Templeton - August 19, 20210 Remember in March of 2020 when we thought we might have to adjust our lives significantly for two whole weeks? And then those two weeks became a month, and two months, and on and on. Seeing the announcements of artists for the 2020 Newport Folk Festival, and imagining the joyful noise from the Fort, was a relatively small loss, compared to the lives and livelihoods claimed by this pandemic. But when plans for a version of the Festival, called “Folk On!” emerged over the winter, I started to feel some hope. The usual three-day event was stretched to six days. In what is now becoming an industry standard, Folk On! Required proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test. I
Yasmin Williams: Chasing Sounds (Podcast) Music Features Podcast by Ken Templeton - July 21, 20210 Hearing Yasmin Williams’s compositions is immediately transfixing--and then you see her play, and it’s like you’re seeing someone invent how to play guitar. Yasmin’s most recent record, Urban Driftwood, is a masterpiece. It evokes a wide range of emotions and mirrors experiences that are somber, joyful, angry, and hopeful. We had the great pleasure of chatting with Yasmin for the RLR podcast. In this reflective conversation, Yasmin takes stock of where she is now, after a year in which she put out Urban Driftwood and is now bringing it out in the world. She talks about processing protests for racial justice through her music and how she moves from unconscious playing to conscious crafting. We hope you enjoy this podcast
Ben Cosgrove: Space by Design (podcast) Interviews Music Features by Ken Templeton - June 30, 20210 You ever hear that David Foster Wallace graduation speech, “This is Water?” It follows from that joke where two fish are swimming along and one says something like, “The water’s great today,” and the other swims a little further and then halts and says, “Wait. What the hell is water?” And then Foster Wallce implores the graduates to be attentive to the metaphorical water they swim in. This is water, he repeats to himself, reminding himself that standing in line at the grocery store is, in fact, life. We can all take for granted the things around us, but if there is anyone I have ever met who embodies this idea of attentiveness and curiosity, it is Ben Cosgrove. On
Concert Review: Wood Brothers / Ryan Montbleau June 4, 2021 Concert Reviews Music Features by Ken Templeton - June 9, 20210 Shakori Grassroots Live June 4, 2021 “It’s such a blessing to be here,” Ryan Montbleau said about halfway through his opening set on Friday night. Were truer words ever spoken? After fifteen months of livestreams and lamentations, live music is back. It is, indeed, a blessing. This was my first time going to Shakori and it was a perfect evening. You drive out to Pittsboro on mostly back roads. When our GPS said we’d arrived, it wasn’t immediately clear that we had--on both sides of the road were vast fields. A minute later, we saw the dirt road entrance to Shakori and saw the cars parking in one of those fields. We pulled in behind a couple of guys--maybe a father and son--drinking
Allison Russell: Can’t Steal My Joy (podcast) Interviews Music Features Podcast by Ken Templeton - May 21, 20210 Allison Russell has written a beautiful album. “Outside Child,” was largely written while on tour with Native Daughters--Allison’s collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah--and it is a record at once about the abuse that Russell experienced at the hands of her adopted father and about the resilience and fortitude to name trauma, to face truth, and to reclaim oneself. In this podcast episode, Allison explores her role in stopping intergenerational trauma, both personally and as a musician. She reflects on the power of community and the importance of both accountability and empathy. We feel so lucky to have had this conversation and hope you will share it and listen to Allison’s record. It is out everywhere May 21. Photo Credit:
Cary Morin: There’s Always a Way (Podcast) Interviews Music Features by Ken Templeton - March 3, 20210 The last concert I saw out in the world before this pandemic closed venues was Cary Morin at North Star Church of the Arts. I had a prior commitment, so I was running a bit late and I slid into the back pew. Cary was playing an entrancing instrumental melody, with a wide-brimmed hat pulled down low, shadows over his face. It was what music is supposed to do: after a harried day, I was taken out of my world, and given the gift of sounds and silence, of rhythm and solace, and I could take a good, deep breath. It was so enjoyable to get to talk with Cary about his latest record, Dockside Saints. The record is amazing: some