Tag: Dinty Child

Basic Folk: Matt Smith (Club Passim)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Matt Smith is a living legend with his unbelievable 30-year run at Club Passim, the historic folk venue nestled in a Harvard Square basement. Currently in the role of Managing Director at Passim, Matt is the most passionate music lover I know. He has used his platform at the club to help establish artists like Lori McKenna, Anaïs Mitchell, Lake Street Dive, and so many more. I met Matt while working as a student at WERS 88.9FM, where he brought fantastic shows to a listening room filled with people who were clamoring for honest music in an intimate space. He’s been a very good friend and mentor to myself and thousands of musicians since he began his tenure at the club in 1995.

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In honor of Matt’s 30th anniversary at Passim, we brought two longtime friends on the pod to talk to him about his role in the Passim community – and beyond. Musicians Edie Carey and Dinty Child join us in conversation with Matt; he shares advice he would give his younger self, we chat about what a vacation without music would look like, and his incredible memory. That memory is tested in our lightning round where he answers Passim trivia (almost 100% correctly). There’s also a discussion about what Matt is most proud of in all his years at the club: the campfire. festival, which takes place every Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends featuring sets in-the-round of mostly unknown new acts. I would imagine if you’re listening to this episode of Basic Folk, you either know Matt or Club Passim. Hello to all our friends and I hope you enjoy this window into one of the best people we’ve ever known: Matt Smith!

Photo Credit: Barry Schneier

Basic Folk: Dinty Child

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Dinty Child, founding member of Session Americana, the beloved Boston roots music collective who’ve accidentally been a band for 20 years, has just released his second solo album, Letting the Lions In. The new songs feature co-writing on all tracks between Dinty and Boston area songwriters like Mark Erelli, Kris Delmhorst, and Dave Godowsky. A self-proclaimed slow-writer, the majority of these songs were written on the annual Sub Rosa songwriting retreat Dinty runs on Three Mile Island (no, not that Three Mile Island) on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, Dinty’s family has been working at the island for over 100 years. Dinty currently serves as the off-season manager, putting his musician and carpenter skills to good use hosting songwriter friends at said retreat – like Rose Cousins, Rose Polenzani, Rachael Price, Miss Tess and many more, as well as Miles of Music, a summer camp run by Dinty, Kristin Andreassen, and Laura Cortese.

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Letting the Lions In was co-produced by Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne) and recorded at Great North Sound in Parsonsfield, Maine over the course of three days in the spring of 2021. Dinty says, “I often trade construction work for studio time there.”

During our conversation, we dig into why these songs needed to be recorded. Our consensus is that legacy and spreading joy to his community are the top two reasons. Also, Dinty, who says an annoyingly large percentage of his songs start as dreams, talks about what kind of sleeper he is, what’s with the lion, and his thoughts on drinking – thanks to the handful of alcohol songs on the new album. Dinty is a dear friend to the podcast and an important part of the New England musical landscape, we’re thrilled to have him on the show!

Photo Credit: Sam Kassirer

LISTEN: Mark Erelli, ‘Look Up’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mark Erelli
Hometown: Boston, MA
Song: “Look Up"
Album: For a Song
Release Date: April 8

In Their Words: "'Look Up' explores the boundary we often erect between the spiritual and the mundane, and the notion that what we separate into categories might simply be different points along the same continuum. I wrote this song in one, eight-hour marathon with Session Americana’s Dinty Child on an island in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. The first verse is written from the perspective of a janitor working at the Sistine Chapel, the second verse uses Michaelangelo as the protagonist, and the third verse is written in the voice of God who, in turn, brings it all back to the janitor of the first verse.

The central premise was Dinty’s idea, and I can remember nearly every twist and turn we took while writing this — researching stuff on the Internet, walking the trail that loops around the island several times to jumpstart flagging inspiration — but somehow the song still manages to remain very mysterious to me. When it came time to record it, I asked my friend Paula Cole to come up with a harmony part that evoked the 'angels flying low enough to see' line in the chorus, and did she ever. Every time I perform this song in concert, there’s a silence that no one wants to break with applause as the last notes fade." — Mark Erelli

Photo credit: Paul Janovitz