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Event
Martha Scanlan and Jon Neufeld
Martha Scanlan first gained national recognition for her songwriting at the prestigious Chris Austin songwriting contest at Merlefest in 2004,
where she won awards in two categories. With the Reeltime Travelers, she was featured on the soundtrack for the film Cold Mountain, produced
by Grammy Award winner T-Bone Burnett. Since then she has collaborated and shared the stage with a variety of roots musicians including
Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Ollabelle, Black Prairie, Ralph Stanley and Norman and Nancy Blake.
Her song "Little Bird ",Of Heaven was the centerpiece of celebrated American novelist Joyce Carol Oates' book by the same name.
The Shape Of Things Gone Missing, The Shape OF Things To Come is the result of a relative hiatus from the road; five years spent immersed in
working and living on a 120 year-old cattle ranch in a remote corner of Southeastern Montana.
"I thought I was stepping back from music and writing," says Scanlan, "but when these songs came together I realized that I have been writing them all along.
There's a beautiful congruence in music and working with cattle and horses- it's all about the flow, finding the current in things. I was curious about how that
would translate in the studio, how the landscape would come through."
She couldn't have found better company for such an endeavor; producer and long time musical collaborator Jon Neufeld brought fellow members of Black Prairie
and the Decemberists, Dolorean and Amy Helm together into the studio for four short days. The record was mixed and mastered within ten.
"We wanted it to be a live, improvisational and collaborative process, to really let the current of the songs be the guide." The result is stunning.
The gift of a great storyteller is the bringing of the listener into the story, and the story into the listener. It's not just the words of the songs that provide that rare
lasting transformative alchemy that has become so characteristic of Martha Scanlan's work, and earned her the small loyal cult following that seems to be steadily growing.
It's the space between the words, the current of things, the sound of the place itself.
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LocationThe Arcata Playhouse (View)
1251 9th Street
Arcata, CA 95521
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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