On my drive to work last night I was listening to a local radio show, Freedom Rock, on Cities 97. The show was airing past recordings of instudio performances and interviews of artists that will be on this years volume of their annual live performances cd, the City Sampler. This song stopped me dead in my tracks (seriously, someone had to honk at me to signal a stop light had turned green). The group is the Civil Wars (visit their website here), and it's composed of Joy Williams and John Paul White. They produce hauntingly beautiful melodies accompanied by unimposing acoustic instruments. Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks their work is stunning, they've been selling out shows everywhere. Which makes me think, for goodness sake where have I been!?
Their down to earth personalities in the interview made me love them even more. John Paul has a knack for self-deprecating humor and Joy Williams seems sweet as pie. These guys fall in the same folksy genre as some of my other favorites such as Mumford & Sons and the Avett Brothers, and when talking about the wide audience for such acts John Paul made a comment that I think sums up the growing audience for such music: "When times are hard, people tend to gravitate towards reality based music...people want to devolve a little bit, and simplify their lives...we just need to get some of the clutter out of our lives. We do that when we listen to music, and we do that when we create music. We're all in the same headspace..."I've said before how I've been gravitating towards stripped down music, and I believe that's one of the reasons this band hit the right note for me.
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