As good as it gets

When did our collective fascination with all things futuristic (mod boots, The Jetsons, hovercraft) grow stale, and nostalgia for a distant, golden past kick in?

We’ve barely embraced Bluetooth technology—meanwhile, a hipper generation of hipsters is scouring eBay for rotary-dial telephones and the portable record players once found in junior-high language labs.

“I think we all have a real affinity for the past, which I don’t personally think of as the past,” says Sam Parton, one third of all-girl folk trio The Be Good Tanyas, who perform at Lake Eden Arts Festival this weekend. She’s speaking for her band, of course—not for our speed-of-light, media-soaked, wired-to-the-hilt collective society. But still, there’s something refreshing about three women in vintage dresses playing hundred-year-old acoustic instruments and singing songs that come off universal instead of anachronistic.

Folk music keeps coming around. Just look at the Guthrie family (see sidebar), whose patriarch Woody practically invented the modern folk genre with his government-subsidized songs about highways, byways and construction initiatives. While the Grand Coulee Dam may be old news, the plight of Everyman and Everywoman never wearies as ballad fodder. And so up-and-coming generations of Guthries continue to write and rewrite the folk tradition.

The Be Good Tanyas, though armed with less pedigree, are similarly tied to a past that informs their future. “We all really love things that are well-worn and well-made,” Parton says, echoing some universal grandmother: “Quality, quality, quality! Things have changed.”

And they won’t quit changing. Now three albums into their career, the Tanyas find themselves in a different place: Enter a baby, a departure from studio recording, less time on the tour bus and a new-for-them, not-so-old-timey sound. Like the vintage dresses they love, will the band survive these evolutions?

Wanderlust and the babies it can bring

Predictably, the Tanyas never set out to be a hit machine. “I think it’s important that we play music [because] we love to play it, not because it’s going to sell albums,” multi-instrumentalist Klein said on a promotional video for the group’s 2001 debut, Blue Horse (Nettwerk).

Ironically, that first album—containing the near-iconic song “The Littlest Birds”—sealed BGT’s reputation as a band to watch. The Tanyas jumpstarted the career of now-solo folkie Jolie Holland. They count Emmylou Harris, Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and Sixpence None the Richer’s Leigh Nash among their fans.

“We weren’t ever thinking about the future in the beginning,” Parton laughs. “It never crossed our minds.”

But the future caught up with them recently when, while on a break from performing, lead singer Frazey Ford became a mother. “It was a surprise,” admits Parton, a self-professed rover. And as much as she likes travel (Parton has received a Vancouver Arts Award for her work recording the stories of those she’s met on her journeys), the songwriter points out that change came at a good time.

“We were getting burned out,” she says. Parton concedes that motherhood shifts priorities—but that doesn’t ease the sting of the music world’s double standard. Few women, after having children, continue careers on the road, while many male rockers choose to spend weeks and months away from their families. “Emmylou Harris has kids,” Parton mentions. “Her parents basically raised her first daughter because she had to have her career. That’s what she was born to do.”

However, it can happen. Current musical acts rearing children on the road include The Waifs (a 15-year career, three kids and still going), Canadian band Nathan (both female members have preschoolers), the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (daughter Rachel plays drums), and The Dixie Chicks (whose combined brood numbers seven).

But part of what makes it possible for the Dixie Chicks to keep their kids with them is, simply, money. Meaning they’re not couch-surfing and living out of a van. The Tanyas are also recognizing a career upgrade—and so less touring is feasible. “We’re at a level where we get paid more to do a show, and that’s really lucky,” Parton says. Klein, meanwhile, is using the extra time to devote to her side project, the PoGirls. At press time, her concert schedule sets her in Ireland. Likewise, Parton is pursuing the rambling ways that originally led her to the Tanyas.

The anti-pop diva as pop diva

Almost anyone can throw on a thrift-shop dress, knock out a couple banjo riffs and call it neo-folk. Gillian Welch, for example, built on her punk foundation with battered cowgirl boots and traditional dirges to craft a formidable career. Madeleine Peyroux stepped into the spotlight rocking smoky Billie Holiday vocals, Emmet Ray guitar and Oliver Twist tweed caps. Newcomer Devon Sproule (another Canadian to watch) is known for her crocheted hats and granny shoes as much as for her swingy old-time interpretations.

It’s an understandable urge, to be more than another Kelly Clarkson (even Brit-pop starlet Lily Allen sports her trendy “trainers”—sneakers—with second-hand apparel). To be able to create something authentic rather than canned, classic without being predictable, and—perhaps in the wake of early-folk heroines Emma Goldman, Boxcar Bertha and Bonnie Parker—to be a bit of a rebel.

In fact, the Tanyas are more genuinely in line with such outlaw ladies of yore than most vintage-dress fans. Not because they’ve robbed banks or wielded pistols, but because they’ve hit the road and had exploits almost unheard of in this adventure-proof age of global positioning systems. “I’m very restless. I love being on the road and wandering around,” Parton confirms. A week before LEAF, she plans to visit Kentucky and interview old-time banjo player Lee Sexton. “My main gig is vagabonding around and music is a great way of being able to do that. My priority is the traveling more than the music,” she jokes. The musician first met fellow Tanyas Klein and Ford while planting trees in British Columbia. Later, they reunited in Vancouver, bonding over shared meals and jam sessions in Klein’s Chinatown apartment. Their combined influences (blues from Parton, folk and roots from Ford and soul from Klein) melded into a catchy, rootless vibe bolstered by sweet harmonies. They played wherever they could: cafés, galleries, front porches, house parties and, yes, thrift shops.

The future is now

Vintage inclinations aside, the Tanyas insist they aren’t stuck in the past. “There’s no ‘This is what we did before and this is what we’re doing now,’” Ford expresses in a PR sheet for last year’s release, Hello Love (Nettwerk). Instead, she looks at the group’s progress as just that: moving forward.

“It’s almost like a journal entry,” she says. Love still maintains the acoustic instrumentation and folk sensibilities, but with more than a nod to the less-distant past. There’s a spine-tingling cover of Neil Young’s “For the Turnstiles,” the spooky traditional “Out of the Wilderness” accompanied only by scratchy slide guitar, and the unexpectedly delicious, stripped-down “When Doves Cry” that hurls Prince’s hit into the no-man’s-land between retro and futuristic.

“I think we pretty much try to ignore ideas of what people think we should sound like,” Parton says. “When I’ve tried to [to write a song], it rarely works, or it comes across as phony to me. The songs I keep come out of nowhere.”

This from the woman who penned “The Littlest Birds.”

“That was the first original song the Be Good Tanyas played as a band,” she says. “We didn’t know that people would connect with it.”

Parton doesn’t love Love as much as other BGT albums, noting that it’s more polished and that the three musical voices are more distinct in this project than on previous records.

“The beauty of our band is when it all comes together and flows out.” But (maybe ironically) she’s too busy looking to the future to ruminate about the past. “We try not to force anything. We were never a band that was like, ‘We’re going to be a band; we’re going to get discovered and be successful.’ We haven’t put that much pressure on ourselves to pump out albums.

“Life,” she says, “is one big creative project. I’ve never been able to separate my life from my work.” 

All in the family

While tradition dictates that children (especially sons) follow their fathers into the family business, that’s generally considered a rusty model. Back in the ‘60s, an influential portion of the American populace eschewed Father Knows Best values in favor of going on the road and joining folk-flavored bands. Check Janis Joplin and the Grateful Dead. And enter Arlo Guthrie, the quintessential hippie (Alice’s Restaurant, etc.) who did just that … only problem was his dad, one Woody Guthrie of “This Land is Your Land” fame, had spent the pre-Woodstock decades hopping box cars, rambling the country and making folk music.

So much for rebelling.

The story of Arlo and Woody’s bittersweet relationship is not really the stuff of sidebars, but suffice it to say that while the elder Guthrie’s simplistically iconic tunes are inspiring post-Dylan generations of box-car-jumping punk-folkies, the junior Guthrie has also come into his own, embracing the Alice’s Restaurant legacy, touring with Pete Seeger and ushering his own offspring into the music biz.

The Guthrie children—Abe, Cathy, Annie and Sarah Lee—are each involved with their own projects as well as touring with dear old dad. (Abe started rock band Xavier in the ‘80s, Sarah Lee plays Americana with husband Johnny Irion, and ukulele strummer Cathy is in duo Folk Uke and runs Rising Son Records with bass-playing sister Annie.) Plus, there’s the G-Babes, made up of the Guthrie kids with Abe’s son Krishna (fourth generation, if you’re counting).

“They’re not good, but they’re funny and that counts for something in this family,” Arlo quips. Likely, the Guthrie Family Legacy Tour (Arlo, Abe, Sarah Lee, Johnny Irion and multi-instrumentalist Gordon Titcomb) brings a bit of the same sensibility—only they’re sure to be skilled, as well. It’s just that Guthries have a way of being good without seeming like they’re trying too hard (Arlo’s “The Motorcycle Song” is a prime example). Which is why they’re so likable. And why no one’s trying to talk future generations out of signing on for the family business.

LEAF facts & acts

The Lake Eden Arts Festival, featuring roots and world music, contra dancing and healing-arts workshops, happens every May and October at Camp Rockmont, the former site of avant-garde Black Mountain College. Spring LEAF 2007 unfolds Friday, May 11 through Sunday, May 13. Weekend passes include camping, and are $114/adults, $89/youth. Tickets at the gate are $30/adults, $25/youth for Friday and Sunday, and $40/adults, $35/youth for Saturday. Children 10 and younger get in free. See theleaf.com for a full schedule, or call 68-MUSIC for more information.

Lakeside Main Stage headliners

Friday
• 4 p.m.: LEAF opens with Reid Center Teens & Michael Hayes
• 4:30-5:30 p.m.: Ménage (R&B and swing)
• 6-7 p.m.: Bonerama (New Orleans brass)
• 8-9:30 p.m.: Olu Dara (jazz and funk)
• 10:15 p.m.-12 a.m: The Afromotive (Afrobeat)

Saturday
• 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: Carolina Chocolate Drops (string band)
• 1-2 p.m.: Frigg (Nordic folk)
• 2:30-3:30 p.m.: Gokh-Bi System (Senegalese hip-hop)
• 4:10-5:10 p.m.: Chatham County Line (bluegrass)
• 5:50-6:50 p.m.: The Duhks (neo-folk)
• 7:10-7:45 p.m.: Jean Peal Samputu (Rwandan performer)
• 8 p.m.-9:30 p.m.: The Be Good Tanyas (folk)
• 10:15 p.m.-12 a.m.: Grupo Fantasma (Latin)

Sunday
• 10:30-11:30 a.m.: Billy Jonas (found rhythms)
• 12-1 p.m.: The Duhks (neo-folk)
• 1:30-2:45 p.m.: The Chairmen of the Board (beach music) • 3:30-5:30 p.m.: Arlo Guthrie & The Guthrie Family Legacy Tour (folk)
• 5:30-6 p.m.: Closing ceremony with Madison Elites Gospel Shout Band