Jubal's Kin

I expect that a lot of little boys shared my love of getting into the attic or in the old kitchen that was set off from my grandparent's house to make all manner of exciting discoveries. After finding such things (like a newspaper from World War II) I felt compelled to tell everyone what I had found. A good discovery would keep me pumped up for several days.

Life was exciting when I was five years old.

I am nearly fifty years older than that now but I am still the same person. The music on you tube is my attic and old kitchen today. When I find something amazing I get just as excited as I did when I was little. I just made such a discovery.

Jubal's Kin is a spectacular set of young people from Florida that I stumbled on. When I was thirteen years old I heard Emmylou Harris the first time. Listening to Gailanne Amundson gave me the same jolt when I first heard Emmylou Harris on the radio while I was riding in a station wagon just out side of the meat plant on highway 10 on a hot August afternoon. I expect that if I live fifty more years I won't forget the way I felt when I first heard Jubal's Kin doing "Clementine."

Completely aside from raw talent, skill and smooth presentation was the respect that the song is given in their version of what is all to often treated as a near nursery rhyme. Her voice transforms the song. There was a time that any meddling with how an ancient song was put together would set me off. I was a rigid preservationist of ancient music.

Now I have come believe that what made these songs so important was the life that is in each of them. I have come to realize that life can be injected back into these songs if they are transformed with the greatest degree of respect. That doesn't mean making an ancient song sound like commercial drivel from the radio. It means preserving the song's heart while perhaps putting a good shine on it's shoes and maybe even putting a new shiny leather belt on it.

Recently I have been giving a lot of thought to how different Woody Guthrie's music would have been had he been walking in the shadow of Steve Earle and Bob Dylan instead of the shadow of A.P. and Sarah and Maybelle Carter. His cutting lyrics in songs like "Pastures of Plenty" would likely have even cut deeper. I have worked up a version of "This Land Is Your Land" that maintains all of his lyrics while changing tempo and using minor chords here and there to emphasize the key lines that are often glazed over today. "As They Stood there hungry. I stood there wondering....."

That is what this group has succeeded in doing with "Clementine"---no condescension--no sappy, sing song silliness--just respect for the song. They interpret the song with the wisdom of the very old, yet these are very young performers.

And they are impressive--highly impressive.