Friday night, I went to see Harpeth Rising at The Buttonwood Tree in Middletown, CT. I first learned of Harpeth Rising from their Sonicbids submission to Orient Lodge. It was a wonderful show, and my regard for Harpeth Rising increased greatly. They identified themselves as Americana in their submission, which is as good a category as any for them.

Of the sixty-seven submissions to this round of reviews, twelve identified themselves as Americana. I’ve listened to nine of them, and I want to highlight a couple.

The first group I want to highlight is Harvey Branch String Band. Maybe I just have a thing for Americana bands named after rivers and featuring female banjo players. I also like it that the instrumentation lists a kazoo as one of the instruments. The Harvey Branch String Band is just plain fun. I also like it that they played at the Special Olympics Winter Fest in Indiana on Sunday.

The second group I want to highlight is the Twangtown Paramours. They actually submitted their music in the last round, and I really liked them. I almost selected them that time, but there were several other good groups and I just couldn’t work it into my schedule. So, this time, I’m glad to highlight them. They are polished and have great lyrics. Perhaps some of this is because “Mike T. Lewis has played guitar for a million and a half years, and bass for about half that long.” He also “had a #1 pop hit in South Korea on Yang Pa’s first album called ‘A Heartbeat Away’. It sold over 800,000 units”. I should try to find a recording of that some day.

Mostly, they are playing around Tennessee, with trips into Virginia and West Virginia. They seem like a band that would be fun to go hear at a coffee shop some day.

They don’t have much of a presence on Twitter, but they are listed as musicians contributing to the Acoustic for Autism project. Gotta like em for that.

They do have some videos up on YouTube, and so perhaps the best way to illustrate who they are is to feature this video:

Happy Music Monday, everyone.