This is nice and haunting so far:
Tom Carter & Christian Kiefer - From The Great American Songbook
"This second collaborative work from the pair is an expansive and ambitious recasting of American music now in the public domain. The influence of the songs
collected here is long and widespread for their style and lyricism, forging a rich tradition and ever evolving history. With their interpretations, Carter
and Kiefer have taken the songs that have seeped into their souls and extended upon them in such a way that brings something entirely new to their original
ideas. Itâ??s something thatâ??s entirely theirs in spite of such source material, and with that, From The Great American Songbook brilliantly reveals a true
hallmark of American music invention.
So, we have the infamous murder ballad Pretty Polly, the comic Camptown Races, the funeral Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the outlaw tale of Jesse James,
the depression piece Hard Times Killinâ?? Floor Blues, the ragtime of The Entertainer and the doomed love trysts of Railroad Boy and The Coo Coo Bird. Carter
and Kiefer have taken the spirit of these as a starting point for their spectral guitar improvisations, then fleshed them out with piano, percussion, bass
and drums. In this thrillingly vast sonic terrain are moments of foreboding, tenderness, melancholy and gut-wrenching rawness.
Two of Kieferâ??s longtime cohorts, Scott Leftridge and Chip Conrad played bass and drums respectively, while Califoneâ??s Ben Massarella handled percussion.
Also contributing to From The Great American Songbook is a host of American musicians â?? including Tony Conrad, James Jackson Toth, Glenn Jones, and Sharron
Krauss â?? with their reminiscences and insights into these songs with which they also found great personal resonance."
