Laurelyn Dossett
listen now children a story I’ll tell …

Print by D e b b i e

And burning the midnight energy efficient bulbs. Meantime, hope to see you all here, or there.

Friday, July 24, 2009
Appalachian Summer Festival
staged readings of “Providence Gap”
latest collaboration with Preston Lane
Boone, NC

August 2 - 8
Laurelyn teaching songwriting
Augusta Heritage Center
Elkins, WV

I first heard Diana Jones at the Station Inn last fall and was immediately fascinated by her songs, her voice — and she put on a captivating show in a very calm and unassuming way. We were introduced by our mutual friend John Lilly and immediately found common ground in songwriting. She is a remarkable woman and such a talent, check out her story in the New York Times.

‘Better Times Will Come’ (Proper Records), her unvarnished new album, marks both the culmination of this process and the arrival of a fresh and distinctive voice. The music on the record is built around the familiar fiddles, mandolins and harmonies of rural Appalachia, and yet there’s no regionalism to speak of in Ms. Jones’s supple, loamy alto. She sings of the hard times, murderous urges and chilling loneliness that haunt the old Anglo-Celtic ballads but, with one exception, sets her plain-spoken narratives resolutely in the present. She approaches the mountain-ballad tradition not as a curiosity or antique but as a renewable vernacular that’s just as capable of speaking to the human condition now as it was 80 years ago.

It’s been a few years and a few records since Abigail Seymour took this picture for Polecat Creek. And this Sunday, Kari and I both have two new solo albums to sing about this year in addition to the new Polecat record, Ordinary Seasons.

Listen for tunes off Kari’s new record and a new compilation from me.

Hope to see you Sunday in park.

And, if you’re anywhere near a radio Friday night, listen to Kari on WUNC’s Back Porch Music.

Sunday May 31, 3:30 - 5:00
with Polecat Creek
Center City Park, Greensboro, NC