This week on Double Americana, we’re taking a pass at "Buffalo Gals," which you probably know from school or from “It’s A Wonderful Life.” In Scott’s case, it was decidedly not school and definitely “It’s A Wonderful Life,” which he watched over and over again when he was 7, home sick with the chicken pox. It took him years to appreciate the movie and not to itch whenever he heard the song. Mallory thinks she learned the song from a cartoon frog who is always a little bit dru

This week on Double Americana, we’re performing a song that most American kids know before they know anything. “Oh! Susanna” is one of the most widely performed and well known folk songs in the western cannon and for good reason. It was written by Stephen Foster in 1846 in Cincinnati, OH, when he worked as a bookkeeper in his brother’s steamship company. It was first performed on September 11th, 1847 at Andrew’s Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, PA by a local quintet, whi

“I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard travelling. I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing son

We are sitting in a hotel room-- pretty much the fanciest hotel we get all year-- in Wichita. This is our third year playing at the city's beautiful botanical gardens. And every year since our first one, we've been trying to convince our pal from Nashville to meet us here to see it all-- the gardens, the hotel, how kind everyone is, and Joe. Joe is the bartender at the event. Our first year, he asked us our drink, we asked for Jack Daniels on rocks, and then we spent the

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me —and there was no one left to speak for me." ----Martin Niemöller, 1946 It's been a difficult week in America. Not that we've had a shortage of difficult weeks in America lately, but

This week on Double Americana, we learned the old-timey tune, "Keep My Skillet Good and Greasy," which is about a cast iron skillet and nothing else (wink, wink). It's a great old tune that we hadn't known existed before we needed to find a food song to pair with the hot stuff we were cooking up in our camper. You know, Beer-Battered Jalepeno Poppers, (eyebrow wiggle, wiggle). As the old saying goes, "If this camper's a-rockin', there's probably just a folk duo inside workin

For as popular as this song is, we are a little surprised that we hadn't heard it in all our lives! This, friends, is why we need friends. This week on Double Americana, we are joined by our pals, Brian and Sheralyn Barnes, who live in a cool apartment in St. Paul and give us keys to said apartment to shower while we park in their street for a couple weeks. And when we asked them what song they would like to do with us, "Bury Me Beneath the Willow" was their reply. From Al

We got a little carried away. What with all this Wednesdays at noon livecast Double Americana nonsense, and all this Rumbly Tummy food blog every first Wednesday silliness. We forgot, with all these self imposed deadlines and goals and new projects and release dates and what's nexts, to stop, look around, see where we are, and say "Hello." Hello! We are in the middle of it all. A little past the middle of the year, sitting in the middle of Wisconsin in the middle of the co

What makes a good Americana song a good Americana song, you ask? Heartache. Longing. Homesickness for a place you can't return to. The road that took the one you love away and won't bring them back. Loss; the person, place and thing. Also, a memorable melody. This week on Double Americana we'll cover the traditional tune, "Red River Valley," a song that even if you don't know it, you know it. It goes by other names including "Cowboy Love Song", "Bright Sherman Valley", "Brigh

On this week's, Double Americana, we're performing a poignant, protest song. "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live," by Blind Alfred Reed was first recorded in 1929, a protest song about the Great Depression, prohibition and the circle of poverty. Blind Alfred Reed was, in fact, born blind as was another sibling. Picking up the fiddle at an early age, he took to it and performed all throughout Virginia and West Virginia, often playing his compositions on street corner

Not every week is public domain, we guess. Because sometimes, there are songs that stick in our brains like they used to stick in Mallory's Pap-Pap's cassette player in his blue Chevy pick-up. Songs like "The Battle of New Orleans" performed by Johnny Horton. As we've been tracing our music history steps, we've been also tracing our personal history steps, and in this case coinciding with our American history steps. While Mallory has an affinity for this song as noted by

We've spent our last month on or near the Atlantic, which while that isn't quite Ireland, our time in Maine felt dang close. Well, at least for two people who have never been to Ireland. Thanks to a request from some friends who actually have been to Ireland (and who also happen to own a giant book of folk songs-- thanks, Megan and Ryan!), we can pretend a little bit more. "Cockles and Mussels" is considered the unofficial anthem of Dublin, and features an ill-fated fishmon

Our second week, and we are still going strong as ever! We took our pal, Paula, up on her request (as it was the first request we got!) and decided to learn and play "The Water is Wide." Mallory knew it from her choir days. Scott knew it from his mother's obsession with James Taylor. But even with its pervasiveness, Mallory still managed to confuse it halfway through each time with "Danny Boy" and then "Shenandoah." That's to say, we still have a bit of work to do with ou

Our very first Double Americana! We decided to ease in slow, playing you a song that we've been playing around a bit in the last couple of months. We started working this one up in the car somewhere in the middle of South Dakota last year, after Mallory kept insisting to Scott that it was a real song. She sang in once in a choir... or something? The banjulele was employed, and by the time they landed at their gig in the middle of the state, The R&T had themselves a potenti

In case you've missed all the hub-ub on our Facebook page recently, we're starting a new project. It's called "Double Americana," and will be a weekly FB Live session airing each Wednesday at noon EST where we can talk Americana and play you a folk song we've learned that week. Most of the time these will be traditional songs, but if one of our own tunes slips in there, well, that's just the way folk songs get passed around. We've had this idea in the works for a while, from