Tag: vermont

Basic Folk: Lutalo

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In 2024, Vermont’s Lutalo released their debut album, The Academy. In this episode of Basic Folk, they share the profound influence of their father, whose deep love for artistry and creativity laid the foundation for Lutalo’s musical path. We dive into the broad variety of their influences, from underground hip-hop to African drumming classes, each shaping their unique sound and approach to music. Lutalo’s candid reflections on their experiences in a private prep school reveal the complexities of navigating expectations and identity as a scholarship student, offering insights into the pressures and opportunities that come with such an environment. We also get a glimpse into their life in Vermont, where they find peace and grounding in a tiny house on a mountain, learning carpentry, and building a future studio.

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Lutalo’s music speaks for itself. It feels like there’s a new generation of folk artists coming out, with creators like Lutalo who are dedicated to crafting new a type of folk – even if their music is genre-agnostic. Lutalo is making really cool songs, they’re making waves, and could be compared to so many legendary artists and bands. You can’t quite put your finger on what their sound is, but they are a heavy-hitting songwriter and we think they’re going to be huge.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist.

WATCH: Moira Smiley, “Now Is The Cool Of The Day”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Moira Smiley
Hometown: New Haven, Vermont
Song: “Now Is The Cool Of The Day”
Album: The Rhizome Project
Release Date: September 6, 2024

In Their Words: “August 6th is Farmworker Appreciation Day, and I didn’t know that until this year. I am writing this as I sit on a hill above the rolling Vermont farmland where I grew up being a young farmworker and musician. In honor of this day, I’m releasing one of my favorite songs of all time – and the best one I know for reminding us to slow down and remember our roles as carers and tenders of this beautiful planet and the people around us. This week, I’m showering appreciation on the people that grow and tend food in my area; buying from small farmers, donating to the Open Door clinic that serves the medical needs of immigrant agricultural laborers. This gentle video hopes to slow your pace, and bring you along with me in acknowledging that farmworkers make our nourishment possible. Let us thank them.

“Ever since I learned Jean Ritchie’s song, ‘Now Is The Cool Of The Day,’ as an 11 year-old, it has played in my head while traveling through fields and pastures, working in my own garden, or worrying about the climate crisis. The words throughout her beautifully crafted song form and melody call on us to steward the earth (and take care of each other). Although she had that call coming from ‘my lord,’ I always felt that call coming straight from the earth itself. I love that these words urgently and gently remind us that we are tenders, not just extractors, consumers, and producers.

“American icons Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association in the early 1960s and it became the powerful United Farm Workers union, UFW. Huerta coined the phrase, ‘Si, se puede’ (‘Yes, we can’) and has been a lifelong advocate for labor rights, women’s rights, and civil rights with her efforts resulting in legislative victories for farm workers. Chavez’s leadership brought national attention to the plight of farm workers and helped secure better wages and working conditions through strikes, boycotts and other measures.

“The official Farmworker Appreciation Day got moved to August 6th by Bill Clinton’s administration, and I’m glad that we get to percolate and act on our appreciation while in this most fruitful of seasons, August. I hope you’ll join me by giving extra love to the farmers and farmworkers whose work nourishes you!” – Moira Smiley

Photo Credit: Fiona Small
Video Credit: Fiona Small

LISTEN: Lillian Leadbetter, “Doesn’t Hurt”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Lillian Leadbetter
Hometown: Lincoln, Vermont
Song: “Doesn’t Hurt”
Album: State of Romance
Release Date: September 22, 2023 (single); October 13, 2023 (album)

In Their Words: “‘Doesn’t Hurt’ exists in a world of suspended disbelief. Snowed into my childhood home in early February with just myself and a teething puppy, I lay in bed, reminiscing. As my brain drifted from my cold bed in the hills of snowy Vermont, I recalled warmer days, warmer arms, love that had slipped through my fingers, love I knew wouldn’t last. Those vignettes kept me warm, moments and people who told white lies to preserve a state of romance. ‘Doesn’t Hurt’ is an internal song, sung to honor all the moments I bit my tongue instead of admitting the end, choosing instead to revel in the impermanence of love one last time.” – Lillian Leadbetter

Photo Credit: Katyayani Krishnan

LISTEN: Low Lily, “Where We Belong”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Low Lily
Hometown: Brattleboro, Vermont
Song: “Where We Belong”
Album: Angels in the Wreckage
Release Date: April 21, 2023

In Their Words: “This is a love song — I wrote the lyrics for Flynn [Cohen] and he wrote the music to it. It’s as close as we’ll ever get to being a sappy folk couple. It was great when we pulled Natalie [Padilla] in on the fiddle and harmony vocals — it gave the song the energy we were looking for. The ‘we’re still here’ line can also be interpreted as a post-pandemic declaration as musicians, as in: ‘We haven’t gone anywhere and somehow we’re still doing this, for better or for worse!’ And it’s true — as hard as it has been through the pandemic to do what we do, we are back with the longest album of music we’ve ever released, and we feel like it is our most personal work yet.” — Liz Simmons, Low Lily

Photo Credit: Zinnia Siegel

Basic Folk – Lissa Schneckenburger

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Known as one of the foremost fiddlers of her generation, Lissa Schneckenburger‘s latest release is a huge left turn for the Vermont resident. Thunder In My Arms is unique because Lissa is not only singing her own compositions, but the subject matter is hugely personal. The album chronicles her experiences adopting her son. Through the fostering and adoption process, she came across resources, workshops and books, but no music that specifically was about this experience. Since she processes hard things through music, she decided to step up and create this album for her family and for those in the adoption and fostering communities. Lissa thrives and lives in community through music, so creating and reaching out to this new community came as second nature.

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Born and raised in rural Maine, Lissa grew up around music and started on the fiddle at five years old. She competed in fiddle competitions, went to Maine Fiddle Camp and the much revered Valley of the Moon Camp in Northern California. Arriving in Boston for school at New England Conservatory of Music, she found herself among a familiar group of musicians that she’d grown up with at the camps. She teamed up with Laura Cortese, Hanneke Cassel and Flynn Cohen to form the seminal Boston fiddle group Halali, which inspired so many young players and ignited a fiddle renaissance in town. Since then, she has released solo albums and been a part of groups like Low Lily. She now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont with her son and her husband, in-demand upright bassist Corey DiMario (Crooked Still). Lissa has a new fiddle album on the way in 2023, which you can pre-order right from the lady herself. Enjoy Lissa!

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Lissa Schneckenburger

LISTEN: Fern Maddie, “Green Grass Growing”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Fern Maddie
Hometown: Worcester, Vermont
Song: “Green Grass Growing”
Album: Ghost Story
Release Date: June 1, 2022

In Their Words: “‘Green Grass Growing’ is a spooky, minor banjo tune I wrote in the dark time of the year in 2021. I recorded it live with the help of my friend Ari Erlbaum, who plays the bones. The title is inspired by a common motif in tragic ballads, in which the singer describes their present or future grave, with the ‘green grass growing’ over their feet. I’ve always found this a calming image: the knowledge of our inevitable return to the earth and our presence in the quiet beauty of a graveyard. I used this motif in another track on the album — the original grief ballad ‘You Left This’ — in which I sing about the ‘green grass growing’ where my loved one once stood. In his review for Tradfolk.co, Jon Wilks described the song as sounding ‘like a skeleton tap-dancing on a gravestone.’ I think that sums it up nicely.” — Fern Maddie

Photo Credit: Eli Jager

LISTEN: Kris Gruen, “Pictures Of”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Kris Gruen
Hometown: Worcester, Vermont
Song: “Pictures Of”
Album: Welcome Farewell
Release Date: September 24, 2021
Label: Mother West

In Their Words: “My firstborn has started a list of her first choices for college. I’m gonna look past how stereotypical I sound and just say it… Feels like yesterday that I was swinging her to sleep in her detachable car seat and spinning her favorite episodic bedtime story, Stanley the Friendly Whale. I’ve written her songs, and into songs, in the past. One of them was about a deep nostalgia for her younger years, but ‘Pictures Of’ is a tribute to her maturation and readiness for the world. It’s a Woody Guthrie-esque declaration of belief in her courage and her right to be in love with the world, recognizing that we, her elders, spend hours every day filling her ears with reasons to fear it. ‘Pictures Of’ says, ‘Yes, be excited for and in love with the world! Regardless of our collective fear in the unknown, I can tell you want to be! And you’re right to be! And I’m glad you are!'” — Kris Gruen

Photo credit: Jeff Forney

LISTEN: Jay Nash, “Shine”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jay Nash
Hometown: Vermont, USA
Song: “Shine”
Album: Night Songs EP
Release Date: August 20, 2021
Label: Bluff Island Music / Copperline Music

In Their Words: “The first two songs (‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’) from this little project came into the world just moments after my first child, my daughter Mackenzie, arrived. After the cacophony of activity of doctors, midwives and nurses had resolved and my wife Rebecca had settled into a restorative, post-natal slumber, my newborn daughter and I sat quietly together in the dark. I held her, then the size of a tightly-swaddled football, in my arms and she lay there with eyes wide open yet serenely quiet, staring up at me. I told her then, ‘You and I are going to have some fun together.’ I swear, she seemed to truly hear me and understand me in that moment. She was so calm in that moment and her facial expression suggested profound wisdom.

“After some time, I’m not sure how much exactly, Mackenzie drifted off to sleep. I was still wide awake so I picked up the nylon string guitar that I had brought along to the hospital. In those first few blissful silent moments of being a father, the melodies, chords and themes of ‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’ came to be. I recorded both raw song ideas into my iPhone before finally drifting off and joining my wife and new daughter in a deep slumber. It took me nearly ten years to return to those ideas, partly because, as all parents know, what followed those calm and quiet moments of parenthood was an all-out sprint…a crash course into the massive sea change of lifestyle that comes with becoming a parent.” – Jay Nash

Photo Credit: Laura Crosta

LISTEN: The Faux Paws, “Fourth Decade”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Faux Paws
Hometown: Brattleboro, Vermont
Song: “Fourth Decade”
Album: The Faux Paws
Release Date: August 27, 2021
Label: Great Bear Records

In Their Words: “‘Fourth Decade’ was written by Noah to celebrate a friend’s milestone birthday. We workshopped this tune for a while before finally settling on the instrumentation: fiddle with double clawhammer banjos! And before you ask, these are cooperative banjos, not the violently competitive variety. The three of us have played a lot of dance music over the years — contra, square, cajun, swing, etc. — and we tried to capture that energy and connection on this track.” — Andrew VanNorstrand, The Faux Paws

The Faux Paws · 01 Fourth Decade

Photo credit: Louise Bichan

LISTEN: Tall Heights, “The Mountain”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Tall Heights
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “The Mountain”
Release Date: June 15, 2021

In Their Words: “We never met the man whose photo inspired ‘The Mountain,’ but we felt his loss all the same. The image was of an old man, a friend’s grandfather, looking out at the Green Mountains of Vermont from his deathbed with the glow of the sunset on his face. It was a singular moment of imminent departure. And I think the song plays equally well at a wedding, and a funeral, as an agnostic promise for people in love even after death do them part. Verse one sums it up: ‘You always loved that mountain, so honey that’s where you’ll go. Not trying to be morbid, but at the end of your road, if you go somewhere else before I do, I’ll be looking at the mountain, honey, I’ll be making eyes at you.’ Even as we attempt some semblance of our old lives, there’s an elephant in the room of everything the pandemic has stolen from us, among them the ability to gather and collectively mourn those losses. It’s time to heal together.” — Tim Harrington and Paul Wright, Tall Heights

Photo credit: Mitchell Wojcik