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

Okay, so maybe we were a little too zealous about winter. Heading to Ohio for February, Michigan in March, Canada for April, and New England for May. Spring sprung back in Tennessee weeks ago and is well into summer. But we've been grateful for our cold rainy days in the north. Plus, the excitement of tender baby mescalin in Maine, fiddleheads in Vermont, and asparagus (known in western Massachusetts as Hadley grass) is much more exciting when the snow has barely melted.

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

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

Oh Canada. Now, we had heard of poutine before going to Canada. We’d even eaten poutine before going to Canada. We lived with our favorite, angry Irishman bass player, Mike Shannon, for a couple years, and every time Canada was mentioned in that house, his eyes lit up like Christmas morning and he told us about this magical dish: poutine! French fries covered in cheese curds, covered in gravy. To hear Mike speak of it, you’d almost think it was proof that the universe wasn’t

"From the desk of the self-appointed tiny folk band fan club president (Alabama chapter) I am listening to the new CD for the first time as I type this. Because you care, I thought I would share my thoughts... "Teeny Tiny Traveling Folk Band = my personal anthem of 2017. It will take some more listens to learn all the words. Liked it when you performed it at your gig back in November." --Larry Jelley, Self-Appointed Tiny Folk Band Fan Club President (Alabama Chapter) In The R

"From the desk of the self-appointed tiny folk band fan club president (Alabama chapter) I am listening to the new CD for the first time as I type this. Because you care, I thought I would share my thoughts... Love Bus. Just a hard drivin country sound to it." --Larry Jelley, Self-Appointed Tiny Folk Band Fan Club President (Alabama Chapter) Mallory was experimenting with her pink ukulele again. Amazingly, that's literal. Anyone who had the slightest brush with The Rough & T

"From the desk of the self-appointed tiny folk band fan club president (Alabama chapter) I am listening to the new CD for the first time as I type this. Because you care, I thought I would share my thoughts... "Love the new arrangement of Cicada. I like the up tempo. This is my 2nd favorite song that you guys do. Maybe partly because of the tragic story of the lost videotape. But out of dark pain comes great art and it was one of the events that made you the tiny folk band yo

We booked Michigan as we were sweating in Florida's heat a good year or so back. Mallory hates the heat. She really hates to sweat. "Michigan," she gritted her teeth. "We are spending next March in Michigan." And then, she furiously began sending booking emails. And then, she got responses. And that's how we found ourselves trudging through the cold and snow of Michigan in March. We haven't felt a drop of sweat for weeks, not even on our hikes. Mostly, we've been mass

"From the desk of the self-appointed tiny folk band fan club president (Alabama chapter) I am listening to the new CD for the first time as I type this. Because you care, I thought I would share my thoughts... "Not Polite might take some getting used to with the new guitar part, but it’s jazzy or bluesy. Is that a slide guitar or maybe an electric guitar being played with a glass slide?" --Larry Jelley, Self-Appointed Tiny Folk Band Fan Club President (Alabama Chapter) One of

"From the desk of the self-appointed tiny folk band fan club president (Alabama chapter) I am listening to the new CD for the first time as I type this. Because you care, I thought I would share my thoughts... "Vultures - ok this is just Mallory showing off her amazing voice (again). I like the rock sound in the chorus. Might be my favorite track on this disc (besides Cicada of course)." --Larry Jelley, Self-Appointed Tiny Folk Band Fan Club President (Alabama Chapter) You've

It will come as no surprise to almost anyone that we as a teeny tiny traveling folk band are the bleeding heart liberal type. It comes with the territory, really. What kind of folk singers would we be if we weren't? Now, that not-so-shocking confession should be followed with this: we don't talk politics much. Sure, we make hilarious current event jokes from the stage. Yeah, you give us a glass or two of bourbon and we can certainly find a soap box somewhere. But in gen

"So what are your favorite things to make on the road?" she asked. We met our pal John's mom in the Ingles parking lot the night before, and she was starting to write a blog about her time on the road-- and the people they met along the way. We were in Black Mountain, NC-- our old stomping grounds-- which means we were always running into people we knew or kinda knew. And John's mom kinda knows us. And we were the people on the road she met along the way. We've been camper

It's 90 degrees in St. Paul, MN, and the report says it feels like 98. And it's rising. And we live in a metal box, shining like an exploding star rushing toward Earth to crush us with fire. S'okay! We aren't going to die. We are charging our spare fan battery at a coffeeshop, now. And also, we have new friends. We are the street cats of Goodrich Avenue, these days. Here in this fine off-street of St. Paul you will find magical mysteries like tiny garden gnomes and Litt