It is travel day today for so many people, to grandmother's house we go, ha ha! From an agrarian society traveling by sled back in the day; to the high tech, high speed world we live in now. It is hard to fathom the intensity of the change, and our ability to turn up anywhere in the world with the snap of the fingers. Not to say that it is all easy; some friends are traveling 28 hours to an island in Thailand. Yikes, and there is weather crossing the country, which can make for delays, and we always hate to hear the stories of people trapped for hours on the tarmac. Hope that won’t be me today, as I head to New Orleans for turkey and the fixins with a Cajun twist.
Craig Aspen and Cyd Frazzini, AKA The Believers returned to our cameras last month at Americana Fest in Nashville. It had been two years since we’d seen them, the first time being when Tara Nevins brought them along with her to the Music Fog bus. It was a fairly late night session, and as I recall, we were all a tad loopy. This time, I am sorry to have missed them, as I had run off across town to anchor the Folk Alley/NPR Music broadcast of the Americana Honors & Awards Show. By the way, I hope you caught ACL Presents: Americana Music Festival on PBS this last weekend! If you didn't, you'll be happy to know it's now available for viewing online.
Craig had been a vagabond songwriter, but didn't start a full time music career until became clean and sober at 35. Cynthia came out of the Seattle rock scene and was a personal chef for the likes of Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Their first song performed together was the Gram Parsons classic, "Hickory Wind," which spurred the pair on to record their first album, Row in 2002. Crashyertown came out next, which was when I got turned onto them. They performed a bunch of as yet unreleased tunes for us this time. Here is one of them “Let It Be What It Is.” Amen.
- Jessie Scott