EP Showcases Della Mae’s Past, Present, and Potential
Bobby Moore
Posted On February 28, 2019
Della Mae’s The Butcher Shoppe isn’t a collection of the album holdovers and live-in-studio re-recordings associated with most EPs. Instead, it’s a six-song roundup featuring unreleased favorites from the band’s live set as well as cover songs spotlighting some of the most talented women in bluegrass.
Set list staples debuting as studio recordings include “Bourbon Hound,” presented here as old-time stringband music with some added pop swing. Guitarist Molly Tuttle, a bluegrass luminary on the verge of wider acclaim, guests on the song alongside former Della Mae guitarist Avril Smith. Another live standby, “Sleep with One Eye Open,” appears as a communal-style bluegrass performance featuring Tuttle and Grammy-winning banjo legend Alison Brown.
Instrumental track “No-See-Um Stomp” teams Della Mae’s Celia Woodsmith (guitar, vocals), Kimber Ludiker (fiddle, vocals), Jenni Lyn Gardner (mandolin, vocals), and Zoe Guigueno (upright bass, vocals) with Tuttle, Smith, and Brown for the take-home edition of a green room jam session.
The other Della Mae original, “Bluebird Blackbird,” serves as a vocal harmony showpiece, backed by Ludiker’s masterful fiddling and flavored by Gardiner’s mandolin licks. Smith pitches in on guitar, adding to this shining example of instrumental interplay between past and current bandmates.
A cover of “Sixteen Tons” puts Brown’s banjo-picking skills and her ear for jazz-infused folk music at the forefront as the group spiffs up the timeless work of “Tennessee” Ernie Ford.
A final Smith team-up tackles the Allman Brothers Band’s “Whipping Post.” The band and Smith make the cover their own without overshadowing the original song’s jazzy and bluesy vibes. What sounds and feels like a sprawling, meandering rendition is, oddly enough, the same length as the more pop-friendly take on “Sixteen Tons.”
To replicate the energy and spontaneity of hardcore bluegrass, the band recorded each track live at Nashville’s Butcher Shoppe Recording Studio — the birthplace of albums ranging from Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to Earth to recent releases by the Jerry Douglas Band and the Del McCoury Band. This decision, paired with the simultaneous tracking of all lead vocals, maintains the freeform feel of the band and its guests’ live sets. Despite this loose approach to recording, it remains obvious that there’s always as many as seven top-notch players joining forces to do these live favorites and cross-genre cover songs justice.
