![]() ![]() “The blend of Gillian’s guitar and my guitar is an arrangement in itself. ![]() ![]() The jig “Candy,” for one, grabs the sweet promise of life in a rural town just after World War II-a time when bluegrass was born from the melting pot of British and Appalachian folk music, blues, jazz, and chiming string bands. If “Bodysnatchers” isn’t the perfect Southern Gothic creeper, it’s close.īut as fixated on sadness, loss, damnation, and missed opportunities as many of the Grammy-nominated duo’s compositions are, you’ll also find joy in these refracted tales from America’s past. A moaning violin cuts the stillness between verses like a night bird crossing the moon, and the lyrics-filled with breath by the couple’s trademark close harmonies-spin a web of voodoo, soul-selling, and murder. The spare pace of the guitars evokes the quiet of the plantation-era Delta at midnight. The spirits of the past have never been more present than they are in Nashville Obsolete’s “Bodysnatchers,” where Rawlings channels the Devil-obsessed Mississippi blues pioneer Skip James in his keening tenor singing. Through all their subsequent albums-five under Welch’s name and a pair, including the new Nashville Obsolete, under Rawlings’ solo nom de plume David Rawlings Machine-two things have remained constant: their twined voices and guitars, and those ghosts. And it’s been that way since 1996, when the duo made the transition from respected Nashville songwriters to revered roots-music performers with Welch’s debut Revival. Ghosts glide and whisper everywhere in the music of David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. ![]()
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