Winnipeg, the current wellspring of some of Canada’s brightest new folk, roots and indie-rock acts, has yielded another winner in the Wailin’ Jennys. Cara Luft, Nicky Mehta and Ruth Moody had been working the folk-roots circuit (Moody as lead singer with the now-defunct Celtic band Scruj MacDuhk) when they met up at the 2001 Winnipeg Folk Festival. Already aware of each other through Winnipeg’s tightly knit music community, they promised to try out a group-sing at some point. Six months later they did.
Two years and multiple club and festival gigs later, they’ve released their debut full-length album. Against all odds, the first single, “Beautiful Dawn”, an upbeat piece with tasty dobro and easygoing percussion fleshing out the acoustic guitars, has been getting rotation on some Canadian mainstream country stations. “Beautiful Dawn”, like all the tunes on 40 Days, is smartly written, tautly arranged and gorgeously harmonized.
Indeed, three-part harmony is what the trio is about, whether performing one of their own tunes, Neil Young’s “Old Man”, or traditional numbers like “The Parting Glass”, the trio’s customary show-stopping concert-ender.