Despite the flashiest outward appearances of popular music, spinning into the future drenched in electronica, glitter, and maybe penned by robots, some artists still pride themselves on kicking the backroads for inspiration.
Discovering old tunes like fossils underfoot, drawn to their ancient longings, hard-won truths, and surprising turns and mysteries, these prospecting musicians dust them off, clean them up, and bring their own perspectives, finally presenting them to living, breathing audiences who otherwise might not have heard of them.
North Carolina’s Jake Xerxes Fussell is one of them, sitting unfussily on a chair at Union Stage in Washington, DC, last weekend, picking out old blues, gospel spirituals, and field hollers from a variety of sources. His opener, for example, “Jump for Joy,” was a cover from someone the nation should remember, if not those in the city of his birth, Duke Ellington. “He’s from down here, I believe,” Fussell commented before covering someone equally surprising, the UK’s Nick Lowe and “I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass” with a relaxed approach that made the jaunty new wave hit at first unrecognizable.
But mostly, he seemed to set his wayback machine to the early days of regional recordings in the South, when homegrown musicians came up with songs they might have heard from bluesmen busking on a downtown street, or from their own grandparents’ porch, or from church choirs trying out arcane practices like shape note singing. In those days, there was time to celebrate a “Jubilee,” to mention one song title, or take up the suggestion to go “Donkey Riding” (which may have referred to a 19th-century steam engine and not the mammal).
From the Sea Islands of his native Georgia came the traditional slave work song “Raggy Levy,” first captured by musicologist Alan Lomax 70 years ago. Like generations of folk musicians who took up songs that intrigued them and put their own stamp on them, Fussell brings his own style to these mysterious songs, adapting them in a way that speaks to him and, in turn, to his audience.
With an authoritative voice, he showed a knowing, fluid finger-picking style that, like the best of them, conjures up the sound of multiple musicians contributing the melody, bassline, and lead. The effect is not some reverent presentation of history but a celebration of simplicity that speaks to today with disarming immediacy. He puts some work into all of this, nodding to the sound man about vocal levels and guitar volume in the monitors to get it just right. It belied his casual look, in baseball cap and mismatched socks (one week into the tour).
His solo approach cast a spell in its intimacy, creating the unusual scene of a Saturday night bar completely quiet, rapt with attention. Things expanded a bit, though, when joined by his touring mate. Sam Amidon’s contributions on guitar, fiddle, and banjo brought the traditions of another American region, New England, to Fussell’s accompaniment for his final series of songs.
In his own disarming opening set, Amidon had a similar number of influences and a penchant for adapting unearthed old songs into his performances.
Born in a literal circus of folk music—his folk singing parents, Peter and Mary Alice Amidon, were part of the Bread and Puppet Thater HQ in Glover, VT—Sam was in a traveling contra band before he got a driver’s’license and later delved into free jazz, indie rock, and the same kind of weird old music found on Harry Smith anthologies that Fussell was finding in the South. He’s since recorded a half dozen albums, recorded with the Kronos Quartet, and married British folk rocker Beth Orton, with whom he now lives in London.
So Amidon’s own takes on traditional forms also dominated his set, from the shape note hymn “Cusseta” to a couple of different takes on “Little Maggie” on banjo. But he’d also take on unexpected covers ranging from Lou Reed’s “Big Sky” to Ornette Coleman’s “Friends and Neighbors.” And because he was steeped in his family’s folk traditions, he encouraged a couple of crowd sing-alongs (which they were happy to join).
Amidon got the headlining Fussell out early to join him on no less than five concluding numbers, with a sprightly interchange between the headliner’s guitar and his own playing on banjo, fiddle, or guitar. When Amidon returned the favor to help close Fussell’s set, he became more atmospheric, scratching his bow sorrowfully across his fiddle or just keeping up with the jamming by strumming it. It was a good pairing.
