12th annual Folk ‘N Bluegrass to include The Last Revel and Western Centuries

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By Crista Munro

Special to The PREVIEW

Festival season is just around the corner, and that means it’s time to get your tickets for Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass or sign up to volunteer and earn free three-day admission.

The 12th annual festival takes place June 9-11 on Reservoir Hill in downtown Pagosa Springs.

It takes more than 300 volunteers to help run the event — from set up to clean up and everything in between. Volunteering at a FolkWest event is great fun and it’s a fantastic way to meet people from Pagosa Springs and beyond. More info can be found at www.folkwest.com/pfb-volunteer.

This year brings another fantastic musical lineup with Grammy-winning headliners The O’Connor Band (2017 — Best Bluegrass Album) and Loudon Wainwright III (2010 — Best Traditional Folk Album) and a highly talented array of supporting bands including Ten Strings and A Goat Skin, The Lil’ Smokies, Molly Tuttle, The Dustbowl Revival, Phoebe Hunt and the Gatherers, The Luke Bulla Trio, The Barefoot Movement, The Stash! Band, Moors and McCumber, The Heartstring Hunters and this week’s featured bands: The Last Revel and Western Centuries.

Photo courtesy FolkWest
The Last Revel will make their first appearances atop Reservoir Hill at June’s Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass, including on the main stage at 7 p.m. on June 9 and again on the late-night stage at 11 p.m.[/caption]

The Last Revel

From the budding music scene of the Upper Midwest comes the cutting-edge front porch Americana soundscapes of The Last Revel. This powerfully talented trio of multi-instrumentalists from Minneapolis, Minn., so naturally blends the genres of folk, rockabilly, old-time string band and rock to create a sound that is equally as original as it is timeless.

The Last Revel trio utilizes its multi-instrumental abilities to bring the acoustic guitar, upright bass, fiddle, five-string banjo, harmonica, kick drum and three-part vocal harmonies together to consistently deliver energetic and moving live performances, as well as delicate and haunting folk ballads.

Having released their third album, “Hazard and Fate,” in April of 2017, The Last Revel further demonstrates their ability to create rich and delicately textured recorded material with a modern “tip of the hat” to the storied history of American folk music.

The Last Revel will make their first Reservoir Hill appearance on June 9 at 7 p.m. and again on the late-night stage at 11 p.m.

Photo courtesy FolkWest
Western Centuries will take to the main stage of the 12th annual Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass festival at 1 p.m. on June 10.[/caption]

Western Centuries

Round up a country band and an early R&B group with three lead vocalists, weave in a hefty amount of vocal harmony and witty turns of phrase, and let ‘em rock out like The Band. The sound of roots music mavericks Western Centuries sits at these crossroads, and their debut album “Weight of the World” introduces a band as skillful in their musicianship as they are innovative in their writing.

With upbeat, barroom dance numbers; lilting, introspective tunes of heartbreak; and everything in between, the album strikes an oft strived for but rarely achieved balance between genre-busting experimentation and thoughtful continuity.

Comprised of Seattle-based country musician Cahalen Morrison, jam band veteran Jim Miller (co-founder of Donna the Buffalo), R&B and bluegrass-by-way-of-punk rock songwriter Ethan Lawton, pedal steel player Rusty Blake, and bassist Dan Lowinger, Western Centuries are clearly a diverse bunch. The band is collaborative in nature, but they are — albeit subtly — helmed by Morrison.

After years of performing in prominent roots duo Cahalen Morrison and Eli West (whose music made fans of Tim O’Brien, Jim Lauderdale, Dirk Powell and BBC Radio’s Bob Harris along the way), Morrison formed and led the band Country Hammer, made up of members who have mostly crossed over into Western Centuries.

Produced by Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses) and recorded in his Nashville studio, “Weight of the World” features three different songwriters and lead vocalists (Morrison, Miller and Lawton); the result is a sound that deftly defies neat categorization. Yet the album doesn’t come off as scattered. Instead, it feels like the natural confluence of the band’s wide-ranging influences, laced together by the interconnected histories of the musical styles at its foundation, and by its writers’ commitments to imaginative songwriting.

The progressive, almost psychedelic nature of the album’s lyrics infuses the 12-track record with a distinctly modern sensibility. Sure, there’s ample pedal steel and plenty of country telecaster twang, but Western Centuries elevates these neo-traditional two-stepping tunes into transcendental, rootsy rock ‘n’ roll-doused think-pieces.

Upon first listen, “Weight of the World” provides all the familiar satisfaction of traditional country lyricism — rife with simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking one-liners, tales of hitting the bottle and scraping bottom, and so on — but these songs yield new and deeper meaning with every listen. Each songwriter brings his own flair to “Weight of the World,” but there is a deeply literary approach to the songwriting woven throughout. The metaphors cleverly extend on, sometimes for an entire song as with Lawton’s “Off the Shelf” — a love song written for a bottle of booze.

While its lyrics are impressively layered with meaning, “Weight of the World” will appeal to just about any fan of roots music; the album certainly showcases the band’s great range and ability to blend influences ranging from early rhythm and blues all the way to straight up country. But it’s also marked with a profound ingenuity — the type that feels instinctual rather than intentionally labored for, the kind that continues to flourish and snake into new realms as time wears on.

This is just the beginning for Western Centuries, and it’s not likely their creative well is going to dry up any time soon.

Western Centuries will play the Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass stage on June 10 at 1 p.m.

More information

Pagosa Folk ‘N Bluegrass is supported in part with funding from Colorado Creative Industries. Tickets and information about the festival can be found online at www.folkwest.com or by calling (877) 472-4672.