The Weary Ramblers Driftwood
The Weary Ramblers are an Iowa-based folk music duo Kathryn Severing Fox and Chad Elliott, who together craft old timey sweet folk songs that are rich with close, simple and delightful harmonies. Their new album Driftwood is twelve songs to showcase their talents. Kathryn is a virtuoso fiddle player who has played and toured for years, and has worked with folks as diverse as Kenny Loggins, Seth Walker and Gloria Estefan. Chad has written over 2000 songs, released 26 albums and has worked with folks like Tom Paxton, RL Burnside and many more. Together they create complex songs and make them sound effortless and light. On the album, the duo is joined by full band and guests that include Sam Bush and Eric Heywood.
The album opens with “Oh My Stars” within a spacious setting that indeed sounds like starlight with the way the fiddle and mandolin and delicate pedal steel gently wind around one another and go upward. It’s like the spinning universe itself, and is a really lovely way to start the album.
Sam Bush contributes mandolin on “Kentucky Never Seemed So Blue,” which also features achingly lovely vocals and haunting guitar. This is clearly a song about missing someone that anyone could feel from hearing just a few snippets, and so as you might imagine, the full experience is powerful. Sam reappears once more, later in the album on “Memphis, You & Me.” This is a love song about wanting to sit in the shade, counting clouds going by. It’s a simple wish to be with the one you love, even when the buses and planes are destined to take them apart, for now anyway. It’s pretty and the piano takes a welcomed turn in the spotlight on this one, trading off with shining mandolin.
“Roll On Rose” features fiddle solos and flat picking guitar, with gritty vocals harmonizing together in a way that’ll give you the good chills. The title track “Driftwood” veers more into folk song territory in a song about the repetitious challenges we face in life, which, sometimes we drag the folks who are closest to along with us: “I keep getting lost in the bramble and the brush, and I carry you through it too, because I thought I’d be lost without you.” Brilliant writing.
The album ultimately closes with what almost seemed like it might be an instrumental because the intro is highly evolved, “Hang On.” Here the fiddle almost sounds like a hushed vocal at times, and then the vocals offer loving expressions of holding out a hand to someone who needs it. It’s spiritual. The expansive techniques the duo used in the album opener come back around full circle here to provide album closure.
One notable characteristic that stands out on this album perhaps above all is the ease with which everything comes together with shiny layers, and the uncomplicated way the vocals are delivered. It’s never overcharged and everything feels natural.
You poke around and find more information here on their website: https://www.wearyramblers.com/
Musicians on Driftwood are The Weary Ramblers: Kathryn Servering Fox on violin, viola, mandolin, piano and vocals; Chad Elliott on acoustic guitar and vocals. Additional musicians on the album are Sam Bush on mandolin and vocal harmonies; and Bryan Vanderpool on drums, percussion and auxiliary harmonies; Stephy Graham on upright bass; Tanner Taylor on B3 organ and piano; Eric Heywood (Jeffrey Foucault, The Pretenders) on pedal steel; and Seth Hedquist on slide guitar and flat picking guitar.