root salad Hillfolk Noir


Their lively, no frills mix of early country blues and old time inspired songs impresses Ian Anderson no end.


N


ot long after US trio Hillfolk Noir’s most recent album (“a raggedy, rollicking adrenalin-shot”, Ms Coxson in fR 362/363) had


breezed into the fRoots dungeon and livened us all up with its no-frills, rootsy go-for-it take on old-timey country blues with a clanky alt. rock sensibility, I spotted that they were playing a Sunday afternoon bar locally. So I took an early summer stroll to check them out.


Centred around solid National gui- tarist, singer and songwriter Travis Ward, with his trusty sidekicks, long-time partner Ali Ward on musical saw, banjo, wash- board and vocals, and Mike Waite on string bass, they steam along in a distinc- tive raw-edged bar-room style, barely pausing to introduce songs. Mixing Ward’s decent originals with well-picked selec- tions from the early blues and old-time country greats like Henry Thomas or Uncle Dave Macon, they startle and please by doing things like a segue from Charley Pat- ton’s Shake It, Break It, Hang It On The Wall to I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sis- ter Kate, pretty much like seasoned coun- try entertainers might have done 80 years ago. But the delight is that they mainly sound like themselves.


Surprisingly, they don’t come from either the deep south or one of the centres of the USA’s recent old-time music revival, but somewhere called Boise, Idaho. Where the hell is that?


“If you’re looking at the map,” says


Travis, “and you can find Yellowstone National Park and Portland, Oregon, right in between would be Boise, in the Pacific North West corner. Lots of big mountains, trees, small lakes and very few people.”


“My mum was a rock’n’roll drummer, she played in ’60s era rock’n’roll bands. So there were always lots of records to pick through, and my dad liked honky tonk music so there were lots of classic country records. I’d always loved music ever since I was a little kid but I didn’t really play it so much, though there were drums and gui- tars around the house. But then at some point I just decided that music was some- thing I wanted to explore, which took me down these paths of alternative music, punk rock, music that was really expres- sive. The pivotal moment for me was when I got a record from the library of Skip James – I couldn’t believe it, it was as heavy and dark as anything I’d heard before, and more beautiful too. It was way out there. So I went ‘Jesus, what else is out there?! There must be a bunch more,’ and I started finding all the greats like Son House, Robert Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt and then reaching up into


Appalachia. Henry Thomas is one of my favourites – when I discovered him it was ‘How did I miss this guy?!’”


At fRoots, we keep an ear to the


ground and it’s obvious there has been a big old-time music revival with lots of young string bands, but Hillfolk Noir don’t seem to be moving in those circles.


“It’s partially where we live. We’ve nurtured an old-time scene in Boise, play in a square dance band with monthly dances, and it’s growing. Obviously we’re not a bluegrass band and we’re not tradi- tionalists either so that pulls us out of the old-time scene a little because we’re not just trying to replicate an old sound.”


One of their distinctive elements is Ali- son’s musical saw. What inspired that?


“We have that old Robert Crumb record,” says Ali, ”but about 2005 we host- ed a band from Texas in our yard and there was a woman playing a saw. She had a contact pick-up on it going through a delay pedal – and I was sitting on the grass in my own yard, my kids on my lap, going ‘What is happening?!’ So then I joked about it for several years until finally about three and a half years ago we were getting ready for our third baby so I couldn’t tour with the band. Travis had just ordered his first National so were were going through a band shake- up and an instrumenta- tion shake-up, and I ordered a saw! It arrived the last day of my mater- nity leave, so I started sit- ting back in with the band playing wash- board, saw and banjo.


Travis calculates that between solo, duo and trio gigs he does about 300 a year.


“I can’t do all of


them,” says Ali. “Some- times they’ll go out with- out me and take a differ- ent percussionist, or as a duo, or Travis solo. I’m a schoolteacher so I can tour more than if I had different work. And you know the saying that it takes a village to raise a child? Well, it takes a giant village to raise three! We’re so fortu- nate that we know all these wonderful, warm, nurturing people – and


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it’s ridiculous, sometimes I wonder why we have chickens and a dog and a garden and three children but somehow it always works out.”


hey play everywhere – clubs, pubs, house concerts, even hitting the streets. How does that work? Ali again: “We just go to the busiest street in a town and set up. We try to use some good heads about where we’re going to put our stuff so we’re not in somebody’s bubble. Use busking etiquette. Usually it’s pleasant and a great way to practice the performing, which has been good for our shows I think. There’s no hanging back, no quiet little mousey harmony on a street corner!”


They’ve been taking the UK by stealth from the north since first brought over by Scottish agency Brookfield Knights. Their next planned visit is July and August 2014, just perfect for the festivals where they could be a huge hit.


Meanwhile, check out their three excellent albums, What’s That Hat For, Skinny Mammy’s Revenge and Hillfolk Noir Radio Hour, and get acquainted via their web site hillfolknoir.com


F Travis, Ali, Mike… 23 f


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