Blackberry Bushes: Jakob, Jes, Kendl & Joe (photo by Annaliese Moyer)
by Tucker Petertil
The Blackberry Bushes have been touring like crazy these past few months, no doubt honing their live show to a perfection that we will be able to view when they play this Friday at the South Sound Manor.
Their banjo player Kendl Winter has a new record out, her second for K Records, entitled “The Mechanics of Hovering Flight”.
The record has a more sophisticated sound than last year’s release, “Apple Core” and its moodier. While “Apple Core” seemed more Olympian with its sparse and simple arrangements and intimate local details, “Mechanics” with its richer production seems to address the world.
This time the band is strong but loose and the guest musicians include: Calvin Johnsonwho recorded it and sang on a couple songs, Austin Cooper and Kevin Rainsberry on drums, Joe Capoccia bass, Grey on piano, Pam Margon violin, Guire McGuire synth and Derek Johnson on cello. Kendl’s distinct voice with its Arkansas twang is reedier than Lucinda Williams and sweeter too, and her picking is spot on.
It’s a record that begins with her song, “Summertime” which despite it’s lyrical ode to picking chanterelles, contains the somber refrains of, “We were falling apart” and “picking up the pieces”. This dark tone continues with the Oly winter feel of longing and sadness on the dreamy “Shades of Green” which is about as pop as her music gets.
Because at heart she’s a country girl and this record might be as country as Olympia’s music gets.
With the next song, “Faded” things pick up, country roots begin to show, fiddles appear in the background and the many shades of American country music wash their way through the record.
I asked Kendl what her upbeat song “All the Birds” was about.
(That)“was inspired by the long ribbons of black birds I saw while on tour with the Blackberry Bushes through the Midwest in the fall, coming out of the dead cornfields…..so beautiful…like someone had one of those miniature snow shaker things and it was black birds falling out of it….and abundances of things in places…like billboards in south dakota, or crystals in the ground in Arkansas and about chasing dreams all over the highways….”
Blackberry Bushes at last summer's LOL Fest
The disc ends as it began with the introspective and slow “Crows in the Snow” and a mournful cello part. But maybe sadness is in the ear of the beholder and this song is just a reflection of things to come. Kendl tells me the song is about “waiting through the winter….back to summertime”
The Blackberry Bushes, Mission Mountain and Black River Bluegrass play the Olympia Community Bluegrass Show this Friday (Jan 13) at the South Sound Manor, 455 North St. Tumwater, next to the Masonic Cemetery not far from Oly High School 6:30 to 9 pm, $5 kids free. Jam session after 9. A Safeplace/Bread & Roses benefit.