New York Music Daily Review

Published in New York Music Daily · April 5, 2015

A Great Oldtime Americana House Concert in Brooklyn Tonight

What’s the likelihood of one of the most exciting oldtime string bands around playing an early Sunday evening Eastover/Passter show? This is why we live here, folks. Tonight, April 5 at a little after 9 the Corn Potato String Band are playing a house concert at 169 Spencer St. (corner of Willoughby Ave.) in Bed-Stuy for a sawbuck at the door. Take the G to Myrtle-Willoughby, because it’s running this weekend. The allstar Jalopy trio of guitarist Ernie Vega, guitarist/banjo player Jackson Lynch (of the Down Hill Strugglers) and fiddler Chloe Swantner are opening the night at 8 PM.

As they describe themselves, the Corn Potatos specialize in double-banjo and double-fiddle songs. Everybody in the band plays a small army worth of instruments. All three members – Aaron Jonah Lewis, Lindsay McCaw and Ben Belcher – are accomplished fiddlers. Lewis also plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass and probably other things as well. McCaw, a champion fiddler, also flexes her chops on banjo, guitar, accordion and piano. Belcher also doubles on banjo and guitar. Their album, simply titled Sounds, is streaming at their webpage.

And it’s a party in a box. The band open with a brisk instrumental reel followed by Raleigh & Spencer, better known to some as There Ain’t No More Liquor in This Town, a boisterously surreal banjo-and-fiddle blues, like something from O Brother Where Art Thou. McCaw takes over lead vocals on the shuffling country gospel tune When I Can Read My Title Clear. From there the band bounce their way through an Appalachian dance and then Silver Lake Polka, which isn’t an oompah tune – it’s a Nordic style fiddle number that sounds like a prototype for the western swing standard Dancing with Tears in My Eyes.

With its lively, precisely doubled fiddle and banjo lines, Russian Rag could be a Django Reinhardt song, but with a casual groove instead of a staccato shuffle beat. Little Black Train, a cautionary tale, is as droll and cheery as it is morbid. The band follows that with a high-energy hoedown number, Lonesome John and then the elegantly ragtime-flavored Lime Rock, packed with nimble, rapidfire fiddle riffage.

Bacon & Eggs is a funny number told from an exasperated/bemused waitress’s point of view. The band takes a detour toward the Great White North with La Respingon, then comes back across the border for a sizzling, fiddle-fueled version of Cumberland Gap and the joyously circling banjo-and-fiddle tune Woodchuck in the Deadnin. The album winds up with the cynical Going Across the Sea and the rousingly catchy Big Scioty. Oh yeah, you can dance to all this. Times may have been harsh and desperate when this music was the default party soundtrack for much of the United States, but, damn, people must have had an awful lot of fun back then too!