2/28/2007

Kyle M. Palarino

Mary Flower is one of the softest, most precise fingerpickers today. She plays an excellent style of fingerpicking that at times sounds so familiar and at other times so new and fresh. Flower is not an artist you can classify by any time period; she transcends classification. She uses some ragtime, some Piedmont, some down-home, some boogie, and some barrelhouse in her music.

This album brings the instrumental tracks from each of her four previous albums and adds two previously unreleased tracks to form a great compilation. Flower has many helpers on the album who add the special magic that comes out on this disc. Tony Furtado adds some banjo; Jesse Wither and Kerry Lewis thump out the string bass; Chaz Leary scrubs the washboard; Matt Perrine blows some sousaphone; Amasa Miller squeezes the accordion; Dr. Michael White rags on the clarinet; and to add a second guitar at times are Ross Martin, Scott Bennett, Woody Mann, and Pat Donohue. Most of the songs have at most three musicians at a time, so take all of the players, mix 'em around and spread 'em out over twenty tracks and you have the make up of this album.

What that mixture creates are songs that sound like they came out of Chicago in the 1920s and '30s at a time when guys like Big Bill Broonzy and Tampa Red were tramping around town. There are the great ragtime pieces like "Hobo's Hop," "Black Dog Rag," "Hudson River Rag," and "Ragtime Gal." There are eerie mood pieces that bring the creepin', late-night Blues out in "Arkansas Ramble," "Raise the Devil," "Crooked," and "Good News Waltz." Breakdowns come out on the Memphis Minnie song "Black Rat Swing" and "Jesse's Jump." The Hawaiians come over to the East Coast to dance to the Piedmont styling on "Hula Hoedown." And you can't come on this ride without taking a seat on the "Monon Blues." Sit in the boxcar and let Mary Flower take you down the tracks with this piece that fits its title perfectly. The album closes with "Song for Samantha," a quiet lullaby with Pat Donohue on guitar and John Magnie on accordion while Flower plays the lap slide.

Mary Flower is an amazing talent that can bring an image to the mind with her playing. She lives around the Portland, Oregon, and should have plenty of opportunities for shows in the area. Take advantage and go see her there or on the festival circuit this summer. She has life in them fingers and breathes it into her strings.