Barry & Holly Tashian – Harmony

It makes you green. On the sunny yellow and sky blue CD cover, they gaze at each other like they’re still in high school and they just met. Barry & Holly Tashian’s new record is called Harmony, and they seem to know what that’s about. They share it freely with the rest of us on this gentle record, the fifth product of 20 years performing as a team.

Barry Tashian gained notoriety when his band the Remains performed with the Beatles on their last U.S. tour. His 1996 book Ticket To Ride documents their adventures. Barry went on to play with Gram Parsons and later Emmylou Harris in her Hot Band; meanwhile, the Tashians began performing together with a country backing band in the 1970s.

The liner notes to Harmony say the Tashians turned each other on to music in their younger days. He taught her Bo Diddley and Fats Domino; she taught him Johnny Dodds and Kid Ory. Together they learned Bill Monroe. Their own music recalls the simple themes and melodies of the most enduring folk music. It’s hard to peg but easy to learn.

The timelessness of “I’ll Take My Time” and “Don’t Kneel at My Graveside” illustrates the point. The first suggests that slowing down may stall the inevitable, or at least improve the getting there. The message’s classic appeal and the chorus’s indelibility are made transcendent by Emmylou’s guest harmony. The “Graveside” reminder, “I am not here; I did not die,” might comfort anyone in grief. The lost one lives in “the silence when you wake,” “the diamonds in the snow,” “the cool wind before the summer rain.”

Flatt & Scruggs’ “Lonesome and Blue” fits seamlessly with Tashian originals and gleams with Ronnie McCoury’s mandolin. O.W. Mayo’s “Blues for Dixie” is a perfect middle track, an old-timey break with Holly singing lead. Harmony here is tight and complex; you can imagine the Andrews Sisters picking other parts.

If you’re among those good people inclined to cart your guitar everywhere, learning these songs will give your friends and family plenty to enjoy, harmonize and reminisce about for a long, long time.