Last summer, the videographers from I Know We Should were on hand for Rootsy Summer Fest ’23 in Falkenberg, Sweden, shooting a series of Rootsy Summer Sessions featuring artists from both sides of the Atlantic. At golden hour one evening during the festival, as the waning sun gleamed over the North Sea and Skrea Strand, Colorado singer-songwriter Emily Scott Robinson performed “Old Gods” with Nashville-based North Carolinian duo Violet Bell.
Robinson’s open-tuned guitar is accompanied by Omar Ruiz-Lopez’s resonant five-string fiddle, warm shimmering tones to match the gorgeous setting. On her 2022 EP, Built on Bones, Robinson was also joined by Violet Bell – as well as Alisa Amador – on the studio version of the track. Here, the song shines in a stripped down setting, offered more as a folk song than the album’s theatrical arrangement. Robinson and Lizzy Ross harmonize, singing, “Carry my prayers on the ocean / Carry my prayers on the sea /” as if offering their own little prayer to the waters of the North Sea.
For their second performance, the trio perform a cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” a hugely popular song even before the Chicks solidified it as part of the bluegrass/string band canon with their 2002 version. Robinson and Ross are intensely tuned into each other as they sing in duet, gentle fingerpicking underscoring the familiar lyric.
The beach, on the North Sea, at sunset, in beautiful Sweden is just the perfect setting for these two lovely songs by Emily Scott Robinson and Violet Bell at Rootsy Summer Fest ’23. Watch for more Rootsy Summer Sessions coming to BGS soon.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should
Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
