An ambitious Appalachian-infused song cycle album, South Carolina singer-songwriter Easterling based Songs From The Knoxville Project around the experiences of her father’s maternal ancestors who lived in Henderson County, North Carolina, during the Civil War, drawing on the handwritten Memoir of the Civil War, 1890, written by Mary Middleon Orr, the adult daughter of Narcissus Beck Middleton, Easterling’s great-great-great grandmother, recounting how, in August 1864, their husbands’ Union sympathisers who deserted the Confederacy, they were forced to flee, along with Narcissus’s nine other children, two just babes in arms, and Mary’s own infant son, to walk to Knoxville, Tennessee, a two-and-a-half week trek without provisions, in search of a safe haven.
Largely stripping away electric guitars in favour of acoustic, mandolin and fiddle with Sam Kruer on bass, Matt Purinton on mandolin, Robert Gowan on fiddle and Brandon Turner playing multiple guitars, banjo and dobro and contributions from vocalist Fayssoux McLean, Will Kimbrough, Admiral Radio and Audrey Neel and Molly Johnson of bluegrass trio The Wilder Flower, plus cameos from her three sons, it’s a celebration of hope in times of hopelessness.
It opens with ‘The Story’ arranged for mandolin, fiddle, banjo and acoustic guitar as she sings “Deep down, we’re desperate to believe/If only ourselves to deceive/And into evil good we weave/A civil refrain” noting “the story shapes us like the water shaped the land” with the lines “Polluted by the lies we tell until the fact depends upon the view…Does this still ring true? Does it mean anything to you?” carrying a very contemporary resonance.
Adding mandolin to fiddle., the rhythmically chugging jazzgrass ‘Trouble’ finds the devil going to, if not Georgia, then at least North Carolina as she sings “I just wanna live my life/I just wanna do things right/I just want to be left alone/Go to work and raise my kid/Not be burdened by all this/History with the end yet unknown”. Again with mandolin and fiddle, ‘Stand’ recounts being ostracised by those who were once friends (“Faces turn from me, fellow friend and neighbor fair/Once we shared in all life’s labors, now they leave my table bare”, and how there’s “No comfort in their bitter silence”.
Citing the Bible story of Rahab, Kimbrough duets and plays mandolin on the spooked ‘Look For Red’, the title referring to the scarlet threads by which a secret network of Union loyalists would indicate their support. One such is a house occupied by an old schoolfriend as, McLean on harmonies, the strummed. slow swaying folksy ’The Myth Of Narcissus’ clearly lays out conflicting sympathies (“We are at war/I know I’m right and I know you’re wrong/And there’s no pretending/Words don’t matter anymore/When men are dying over lines that they have drawn”) and how the war tested friendships (“It’s unfair to take my anger out on you/You’re not my nemesis, you’re just trying to get through/But you are listening to my voice for an echo/Tokens to bring comfort to your ears/And I am listening to your voice for an echo/But you won’t tell me what I want to hear”).
Turner on upright bass and a duetting Elizabeth McCorvey on banjo and fiddle, ‘Nolichucky River’, the title providing the scratchy handclappy percussive refrain, refers to the black, swirling waters known to the Cherokee as the River of Death and The Devil’s Looking Glass, the site of numerous drownings and supposedly haunted by the ghost of bride who died on her wedding night, as, meeting a woman with a canoe, Narcissus contemplates having to cross it to get to safety (“You wanna see all these babies get drowned?/You best stop right here and turn it around,/Ain’t no way you can cross right now…I just got me this one canoe/It’s fine for me, but I can’t carry all of you”).
Joined by Admiral Radio on vocals, banjo and acoustic guitar, Carter Family influences can be heard on the jauntier ‘Rejoicing As I Go’ picks the story up on the other side (“I’ve made it o’er that river/Though I was turned and tossed./My passage gained by a faithful hand/In mercy, borne across”) giving thanks to the Almighty (“Though danger lay round every turn/And my worries would not cease/Thou has hid me from all harm/And calmed my fears with peace”).
A duet with Darby Wilcox, ‘Count All The Stars’ has her seeking the strength to keep going (“Get up girl, time to move along/My back is weary, but my will is strong”), believing in the Lord but knowing that alone won’t bring them safe (“Hard times are plenty in this land/Everywhere I can see/Waiting on a savior won’t get me where I long to be”).
A lively tempo changing bluegrass picking blues ‘Lady So Fine’ has Turner trading verses in a song about her going into town to get bread and meeting a Confederate soldier look to take advantage (“Come away with me to the woods for a while/See what kind of comfort you can provide”), he threatening to alert the guards and she defiantly answering “Go ahead do what you must, sir!/I’d rather be in jail than in your trust, sir!”, he leaving her with a threat (“Don’t forget, I’ve got a gun/These hills get awful dark after the sun”).
Featuring Molly Johnson and Audrey Neel on plucked banjo and fiddle, joining Easterling on vocals as Narcissus, Mary and her teenage sister Ellen , the old timey backwoods folk of ‘Can We Go Home’ is about exactly what it says, reflecting on a world turned upside down and men “/Who really don’t know nothin’ ‘bout our lives/So they up and go to war and tell you who you’re fighting for/And those you’re raised to love are now the devils at your door/All dug in and knowing that their way is right/And you’re a stranger now on the other side”). Wishing things could go back to the way they were, their mother picking it up with “sometimes I get so down at heart and lonesome/I wish I was still on our little farm/Will I ever meet a soul again who knows me/Like the people in the hills where I come from?/The choices that I made were mine alone and/Only time will tell if I chose true/I tried to right myself within the turmoil/But leaving was the best that I could do”.
It heads to a close with the more energetic, Dolly-tinted ‘In The Wilds’ sung in the voice of Mary’s sister Susannah trying to cheer them all up (“Mama, don’t you worry about me/I was chained to expectation, mama, now I’m feeling free/Yes, you and daddy taught me to stand up for what I believe/Sometimes the price of being comfortable is a jailer’s key/We’re all out here surviving the impossible/Living on conviction, not on lies/Proving ourselves to those who thought we’d fall …finding our true nature in the wilds”).
It ends with the longest track, the five-minute ‘My Dream Is You’, Narcissus reflecting on husband leaving his family behind to fight for the Union and the differences between men and women (“Men fight in wars, conquer the seas/Cut down forests, build great cities/Women give life, clean up the mess/Mend the broken, have pity…Men chase ideas, abstract ideals/What they want, they go after/Women are grounded in the weight of need/Our children cry, and we answer”), directly addressing Mary and the generations ahead with “look here you are/With your own child, safe in your arms/May the road we both walk, hold more light for you, girl/I’ll make you my pilot into the future/My dream is you”.
Easterling wrote some 30 songs for the project and, at some point, would like to turn it into something bigger, perhaps a stage musical, but for now she can feel satisfaction in having made one of the year’s best traditional Americana albums.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.angelaeasterling.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-knoxville-project
‘Rejoicing As I Go’ – official video:
Thanks for stopping by. Please help us continue and support us by tipping/donating to folking.com via
You must be logged in to post a comment.