The Trio hit the road on October 13, starting in Austin at the sixth annual Austin Stringband Festival.  We played a raging set and square dance until the wee hours.  We also played a honky tonk/ cajun dance with another band we play with, Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy and the Cajun Country Revival  (CCR!).  Woohoo!  It is by far one of the most beautiful locations for a festival we’ve ever seen.   Hopefully some year we’ll get to stay all weekend!

Sammy and Joel shredding!

Caleb and Paul by a Louisiana Flag!

From Austin we headed east to Lafayette, LA to play the famous Festivals Acadiens et Creoles.  It was truly an honor to get to play along side so many of our music heroes!   And thanks to all the dancers!  Another highlight was getting to play a Saturday night show at a great bar called Artmosphere, packed with folks filled to the brim with the Festivals’ spirit!  A special thanks goes out to the “Alaska Embassy” representing big time down there.  You know who you are…

Cajun Country Beauty

After a much needed few days off in Eunice we did a short tour over to Alabama and back, just in time to teach at the Blackpot Festival camp up near Eunice at the Lakeview RV Park.  It was an amazing week full of classes raging from cajun singing to cajun cooking, with a whole lot of old time and swing in the middle, complete with night time dances to boot!   We’re pretty sure we played the first square dance ever at Lakeview!   It was the perfect lead up to the Blackpot Festival itself where Reeb joined up with all of us.   (Yeah Reeb!)  Thanks to the Red Stick Ramblers for putting on such a fine festival and for having us back again.

Happy Birthday Accordion Man aka Jesse Legé our hero!

Jamming at the Black Pot Camp!

Red Stick Ramblers at Laveview Park

After another few days to relax we were headed over Alabama to back up Caleb, playing in his country band at a festival called Angel Ride and parted ways from there until New Years Eve.   What a fun month it was.   Caleb and Reeb headed to Georgia for some chill time and will soon do a tour on the East Coast with Caleb’s Country Band.  Nadine and Sammy headed north to Quebec to visit friends and family do a tour of the Maritimes on a house concert circuit called Home Routes.

In other exciting news, Sammy will be involved in an exciting new project from time to time with some amazing musicians we’ve met over the years, April Verch, Riley Baugus and André Brunet.   Fans of  North American traditional fiddle music will not want to miss this!  It will be called April Verch’s Heartland Expedition.  Check out the details on April’s website and on facebook.  Check ‘em out somewhere in the coming year!!

All the best and keep a look out for upcoming Foghorn Stringband shows and a new album in the new year. Yeehoo!

Foghorn just returned from a wonderful tour of the Southeastern United States. We have always felt so welcome there, and are always pumped full of inspiration from the history, landscape, and mostly, from our good buddies down there who we are lucky enough to share good times and music with. It’s still true that you can learn the most from a musician hero of yours by staring down a campfire with him or her than trying to capture some tune on tape and lose the whole context.

We started our trip in Nashville after a red-eye flight from Portland. Talk about jumping right in! We played at our friend Brian Christianson’s fiddle shop, called the Fiddle House . His shop is in the front and the listening room/ gallery of violins is in back. It’s a nice and intimate setting to see a show in for sure, and if you ever need a fiddle, that’s the place to find one in Nashville. After the show we ended up around the corner at the 5 Spot, which was like a mini festival in a bar! Welcome to Nashville! Thanks to Todd Grebe and Angela Oudean from Bearfoot for letting us stay with them. It’s always good to hang out with Alaskan friends, and man, Grebe can write a song!!

From there we were off to Whitesburg, KY and met up with Brett Ratliff who played with us all night on banjo at the Summit City Lounge. Thanks again, Brett, for letting us use that killer banjo for the rest of the trip. The next day we headed up to the Mockingbird in Staunton, VA, then Bristol TN and VA, and then to Knoxville to play on WDVX’s Blueplate Special and later, for a contra dance at the Laurel Theater, with the righteous “Mayor of Knoxville”, Matt Morelock on banjo. Thanks to Leah, Matt, and Hollis! Y’all rock!

It was time to leave TN for a few days and head to NC and spend a couple of days off in Canton, NC with the Stuart Brothers and up to Mt. Airy with Chester and Nick McMillan and Kelley Breiding. They all play in a band together called Backstep. Check out Kelly singing in her band, Kelley and the Cowboys!. Chester brought enough beans, cornbread and chowchow to feed all of Round Peak and we played all night!! The next day we got to play 4 or 5 songs on WPAQ, a dream come true for us. Pretty much all of our music heros have played in that studio and/or over those airwaves. Thanks to Nick and Kelly for setting that up.

Later on that night we played a great outdoor square dance, called by Anna Roberts-Gevalt, in Roanoke, VA that was put on by the public library. They provided BBQ for all, catered by a local BBQ joint and everyone danced until after dark. Then we headed back to Johnson City,TN where we played the Down Home with our old pal Adam Tanner’s band, Twilite Broadcasters. Check ‘em out! The next day we spent all day being tourists in downtown Asheville, NC with help from Michael and later tore it up all night at the Jack of the Wood, with special guests the Stuart Brothers on fiddle and banjo and Emolyn Liden clogging away. It was an amazing scene! As you could imagine, we were licking our wounds a bit the next day but headed over to Chattanooga to play the at the Barking Legs Theater. Thanks to Bryan Hamilton the great folks who came out on a Sunday night and hooted and hollered and had some laughs along with us. Next time we’ll have to make it to the music school there called the Folk School of Chattanooga. Then it was off to Nashville….

IBMA IN NASHVILLE

The Foghorn Stringband was chosen to play an official showcase this year at the IBMA World of Bluegrass Week in Nashville, TN. It was the perfect time to introduce our new guitar player and singer, Reeb Wilms, from Bellingham, WA. She has been a friend for years and we are super excited to have her on board with Foghorn. We have some good times ahead! We’ll all be doing a bunch of dates together starting in January. A new recording, perhaps?

We were there at IBMA along with the other bands on Quicksilver Productions‘ roster, including our oldest buddies in Portland, Jackstraw. We’re super proud to be working with Martha and Rob from Quicksilver Productions. Along with our official showcase in the Convention Center, a highlight was the Martin Guitar Showcase at Robert’s Western World right on Broadway in Nashville, sharing the bill with Michael Cleveland and the Del McCoury Band! We were supposed to play for half an hour, but got to play for a full hour thanks to such an enthusiastic response from the audience. Thanks to Larry and George from Martin and to all those rowdy folks in the crowd! The showcase for Quicksilver Productions was a hoot as well. Caleb also works with Quicksilver Productions and got to feature his country stuff with Reeb, Nadine, Sammy, Frank Solivan and Jason Norris from Bearfoot backing him up. Another highlight was a fiddle panel Sammy got to be a part of, hosted by Matt Combs, with other fiddlers, the legendary Buddy Spicher and the powerful April Verch. We had an all around great time at IBMA! Thanks to all who encouraged us and to the new people we met while we were there. Special thanks to super bass player and equally nice guy Mike Bub for hooking Nadine up with a beautiful Kay!

Foghorn Stringband at IBMA

Just A Little

Sud de la Louisiane

Shortenin’ Bread

BACK HOME AND BACK OUT AGAIN

Sammy, Caleb and Nadine will be off again soon to Austin and Lousiana, playing a bunch of gigs in the following bands: the Foghorn Trio, Caleb Klauder Country Band, Jesse Lege, Joel Savoy and the Cajun Country Revival. Check the schedule and see you soon!

We are now gearing up for a Southern tour in TN, KY, VA and NC in mid-September leading up to an official showcase at IBMA.

September 14: Fiddle House, Nashville, TN
September 15: Summit City Lounge, Whitesburg, KY
September 16: Mockingbird, Staunton, VA
September 19: WDVX Blue Plate Special and Square Dance in Knoxville, TN
September 22: Square Dance at Main Library, Roanoke, VA
September 23: Down Home, Johnson City, TN
September 24: Jack of the Wood, Asheville, NC
September 25: Barking Legs Theater, Chattanooga, TN
September 26-29: IBMA

Check out the schedule page for more details. Hope to see you there!

Summer is in full swing and I hope you’re having a great one full of good times and tons of music! For us, summer has always been about about getting away from the city and camping out, spending time with buddies and playing tunes! What else ya gonna do?

We’re all up in Port Townsend, Washington at the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes, an amazing week full of performances, instruction, and dancing of all kinds of traditions, not only American. We’ve been coming up here since 2003 and keep coming back. Fiddle Tunes is a week to not only expand your own musicality but also your knowledge of other musical traditions and the ingredients that make good music. It has very little to do with what kind of strings you use or the thickness of your pick… It’s an amazing week that fills your year with stories and inspiration! See you here next summer!

Last week, Caleb organized a benefit show to help our favorite Portland bar that has a dance floor, the Spare Room, improve their sound system. Wow, what a night!! Five local bands tore it up, bringing in friends and fans, Nadine and I made gumbo for everybody, and damn, was there dancing!! It’s so great to see so many folks coming out and shakin’ it on the dance floor and supporting a cool bar and venue. The bands were the Pickups, the Mighty Ghosts, the Pete Krebs Band, the Portland Country Underground, and of course, the Caleb Klauder Country Band! Next time Foghorn plays there we’re going get at least four squares raging on that dance floor…

The Foghorn Trio (along with Caleb’s son Elijah) kicked off the summer by teaching a camp in Grass Valley, California that was put on by the California Bluegrass Association. It’s a camp that happens the week leading up to their festival that happens there over Father’s Day weekend. Besides meeting all the nice students and enjoying amazing meal after meal, highlights were Caleb and Mike Compton tearing it up on double mandolins, playing fiddles and hanging with Matt Combs and hearing Alice Gerrard and Nadine singing and playing together. Wow!

From California we headed to the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca, Nevada to play a show put on by an organization called the Great Basin Arts and Entertainment. The Reverend P.T. Grover Jr. even made the treck on his motorcycle all the way from Portland to hang out! We’ve been playing there about once a year since 2002 and always look forward to it. Thanks to Bill and everyone else there for always having us back and supporting our music. The food is amazing, traditional Basque food served family style followed by their famous cocktail, the “Picon”. But, as we’ve warned you in the past, remember, “one, two, three, FLOOR!!”

From there we headed North to Weiser, Idaho for the the National Old Time Fiddler’s Contest. We go every year and camp out in Stickerville and play non-stop for about a week. Sound fun? My good buddy growing up, Andy Rick came down from Bellingham, P.T. continued on up and Brian “Snakes” Bagdonas came out from Portland too. We got to camp with Laurel Bliss, Reeb Wilms and the rest of the Bellingham crew and had a blast. You never knew what you were gonna hear or play!! I had a blast playing a bunch too with Riley from Seattle and  Elijah, Caleb’s son. Those guys rock!

Coming up this month we’ll be playing at the first annual Farmer Social, put on by Reeb Wilms of Bellingham, Washington. It will be July 15-17 in her hometown of Farmer, Washington. We’re all so pumped for this this! Reeb will also be playing guitar with Foghorn for two festivals in August, the Sioux River Folk Festival in Canton, South Dakota and The MBOTMA Festival in Richmond, Minnesota. The last two weekends of July the Foghorn Trio will be playing with our buddy Dirk Powell as the “Dirk Powell Band” at the Mission Folk Festival in Mission, British Columbia and at the Floyd Festival in Floyd, Virginia.

We hope to cross paths with you and share a tune sometime soon!!

Sammy

Their website tells us that they play “ass kickin’ redneck stringband music” and that’s a pretty good description of the music this trio play. It’s accomplished, lively and lived-in. A mix of original and songs from The Carter Family, Kitty Wells and Doc Watson amongst others all sung with a passion that takes it beyond the notion of mere pastiche. It draws from a deep well but comes out fresh due to the fact that the trio of Caleb Kaulder, Stephen Lind and Nadine Landry have an obvious love for and skill in playing this essential raw and stripped down music. There are a mix of instrumentals and songs that feature the vocals of all three, who between them play some 8 instruments. The title cut has an obvious cajun swing feel with Landry taking the lead on the fiddle let song sung in French. Kitty Wells’ I Don’t Claim To Be An Angel comes through a time tunnel that could have seen it recorded decades ago, again Landry takes the lead vocal on this tale of loving the right/wrong man. Kaulder’s two originals fit beside the outside material easily. His mandolin instrumental Puttin’ Up The Wood is fast and shows the bands playing skills. There may be nothing here that those with a strong affinity with stringband music haven’t heard before but equally there’s little to complain about with such a sense of commitment on display. These songs speak down the ages and address issues that are as timeless as the music even if outside of specialist venues or radio programmes you unlikely to come across The Foghorn Trio unless your seeking it. If authentic sounding stringband music, likely filtered trough a punk rock background at some point, is something you enjoy then you can check them out at foghornstringband.com and listen yourselves.     –-Lonesome Highway, April 17, 2011

Authenticity is the watchword in Americana circles. As any number of promising European-based contenders have found out the hard way, you’ve got a head start if you’re from Nashville rather than Nuneaton if you’re trying to keep afloat within this genre and its’ tributaries.

Sometimes, though, a band can sound so utterly authentic that it’s hard to believe they could possibly have come from anywhere other than the part of the world suggested by the music they are so obviously in tune with.

Such is the case with THE FOGHORN TRIO. Based around founding members of The Foghorn Stringband, Stephen ‘Sammy’ Lind and Caleb Klauder plus Quebec-born Nadine Landry, the sound they make on ‘Sud de la Louisiane’ taps into a world of Kentucky bluegrass, Louisiana Cajun and Appalachian folk. It’s an ancient world where Elvis Presley (never mind Lady Gaga) is merely a glint in the eye of the future and terms like ‘credit crunch’ are wholly alien to the lexicon.

Consequently, it’s a bit of a reality check to look a bit closer and discover the band are based in urban Portland, Oregon although they did make the trek south to record the album in Eunice, Louisiana with Joel Savoy. A picture of the studio (formerly Savoy’s grandpa’s cook shack) graces the jacket of the CD and it’s a pretty fair visual representation of the album’s desire to literally get back to the country.

If you’re on the trail of a bona fide old time Americana experience, you’ve certainly picked the right barn dance. ‘Sud de la Louisiane’ is live, intimate and passionate, based around all-acoustic instrumentation such as mandolins, acoustic guitars, fiddles and stand-up bass. Indeed, on celebratory tracks like ‘Liza Jane’ and the instrumental hoe-down ‘Nuts & Bolts’ you can almost hear the timbers creaking as boots stamp on the floor to batter out an accompanying rhythm.

The majority of the tunes are covers, although much thought has gone into the cherry-picking, ensuring that lonely, God-fearing Country/Folk numbers like the Carter Family-penned ‘Hello Central’ flow seamlessly into the Cajun stylings of the title track and a spirited bluegrass chase like Noah Beavers’ ‘None of Your Business.’ There are a couple of originals penned by Caleb Klauder, but his mandolin-imbued lament ‘Just a Little’ and effervescent instrumental ‘Puttin’ up the Wood’ are constructed so skilfully they feel like vintage trips down memory lane anyway.

By the time the closing ‘A Bottle of Wine and Ginger Cake’ winds down, you’ve long since blown your inhibitions away and joined in the most celebratory party you’ll be invited to all year. With ‘Sud de la Louisiane’, The Foghorn Trio take your hand and lead you back to a simpler, more inclusive world which puts people and life first. Hearing them really does do you the world of good.

Reporting live from Portland Oregon.  Follow the events as they unfold in Juneau over the following weekend.  (maybe)

Cheers,

Y’all

Now this is a seriously polite and downright reverential album. The Foghorn Trio – a cut down version of the Foghorn String Band, it would seem – take fourteen songs, both self penned and a substantial number of traditional favourites and make with the kind of immaculately played fiddle driven old timey country music that will bring joy to the hearts of urban countryphiles everywhere.

The Foghorn Trio are made up of Caleb Klauder, Stephen Lind and Nadine (now there’s a country name…) Landry and they laconically two step their way through well kent songs like “I Don’t Claim To Be An Angel” and the splendidly heart tugging  “Hello Central” with surefootedness and commendable musical skill. As I fought back the urge to wear dungarees and a check shirt, it came to me that this was the kind of music that I used to listen to on those Mamou Cajun Radio LPs way back in the days when music was round and black.

Whilst not breaking any new ground, the affection that the Foghorn Trio clearly hold for this type of music stops them from falling in the always waiting traps of pastiche and parody. Traditionalists should lap this album right up.    —Bluesbunny, April 2011

Been a while since we’ve had any old time string band music to mention so here’s one that’s coming out in May and is an absolute delight from start to finish. The Foghorn Trio comprise of two members of the Foghorn Stringband, an outfit from Portland, Oregon, Caleb Klauder (fiddle, mandolin and guitar) and Stephen Lind (fiddle, banjo and guitar) who have teamed up with Quebec born Nadine Landry who plays bass and guitar with all three sharing vocal duties. The title is a bit of a misnomer as there is little in the way of Louisiana here other than the title track, a Cajun song delivered by Landry. That said the album was recorded in Eunice, Louisiana by producer Joel Savoy whose rural studio is featured on the album cover.

The meat of the album is in god fearin’ honest homilies delivered in the style of the likes of the Carter Family along with strong instrumentals that feature the band’s dexterity. The majority of the songs are covers and they are astonishingly good at capturing the earnestness, innocence and to be fair the slightly hokum quality that is a quintessential ingredient in the pleasure one gets from listening to pre war country music. Two songs illustrate this perfectly. The Carter Family’s Hello Central is an aching plea to the Almighty from a youngster trying to contact his deceased mother, while Benton Flippen and The Smokey Valley Boys’ Go Home is a tremendous temperance plea. Listening to the versions here one could be forgiven for thinking you had been transported to a black and white world where television had not yet been invented and the sounds you hear guide your moral compass with your primary release being the weekend dance where you can let loose to the joyful fiddle and guitar of A Bottle of Wine and Gingercake.

Two originals by Caleb Klauder, the instrumental Puttin’ Up The Wood and Just A Little, a song very much in the tradition fit right in to the overall feel of the album. So pull out your bible, put away that demon drink and thank God you’re alive and able to enjoy such a fine recreation of past, more innocent times served with such virtuosity and love.
The Foghorn Trio play some dates in the UK in May.

—Paul Kerr, April 4, 2011

The Foghorn Trio might be  “Sud de la Louisiane”  for this recording, they might have a logo that echos the rebel flag and they might advertise themselves as purveyors of  “ass-kickin’ redneck stringband music”, but for all that they hail from Portland, Oregon – not really a redneck state, I’d have thought. The Foghorn Trio are actually just one manifestation of an outfit known as The Foghorn Stringband which turns up as a three-, four- or five-piece band as opportunity and circumstances allow. Heaven only knows what sort of a sound they make as a five-piece, because this Trio is capable of raising a fair old storm of old-time dance music, playing with a fervour and a sense of purpose that characterises true dance bands.

In this manifestation of the band, we have Caleb Klauder on fiddle, mandolin and guitar; Stephen Lind on fiddle, banjo and guitar; and Nadine Landry on bass and guitar. They all take turns at the vocals supporting each other when the song calls for it. The songs and tunes are culled from all corners of the American traditional music scene and were recorded at Joel Savoy’s studio in southern Louisiana.  The title track, a cajun tune from more than fifty years ago, is really the only song here that tips its hat to the region where they made this recording; the rest of the time, they’re looking  further north for their inspiration with covers of songs by Kitty Wells, The Carter Family and Doc Watson appearing alongside some inspired choices of material from less well known artists. One particular highlight is a cover of Go Home by North Carolina’s fiddle maestro Benton Flippen.  Nearly half the tracks are instrumentals, driving dance tunes all,  and recorded with a verve that could hardly be bettered if the band were being fired up by a Saturday night dance hall crowd.

What is remarkable about this band is that I haven’t heard another contemporary act who come as close to recreating the sound of mountain music as it was first recorded back in the middle decades of the twentieth century; it’s as if these guys have even got the mindset of those pioneers, so close do they come in every respect. It’s there in the feverish vigour of the fiddle playing, it’s there in the pacing, it’s there in the tone of voice when they sing and, most of all, it’s there in those little cracks in the otherwise perfect sound, the cracks where the honesty of their intentions shines through. If old-timey fiddle music is your kind of thing, then you absolutely must give these guys a listen; you’ll be in square-dance heaven.

John Davy, March 28, 2011