The Carter Family Project

“Mid the Green Fields of Virginia”

Recorded Sunday, November 13, 2011.

So one of our goals in doing this project—besides the sheer bragging rights of saying we’d recorded 15,000 waltzes in D—was to get disparate members of the country and bluegrass community together and to showcase the talents of our pals here in Brooklyn. This weekend’s happy accident was discovering that Jen Larson and Nancy Hunt—two of the absolute best country singers on their own—sound terrific together. It was like some kind of chemical or spiritual reaction. We were blown away. 

Andy and Nancy came over early in the day while Fran was doing his stretches on the yoga mat; we swapped some stories of herniated discs and pinched nerves and whatnot, and then Andy borrowed the heating pad for a little pre-jam shoulder warm-up. We all felt a little decrepit. Fortunately there was some beer in the fridge.

Jen popped in around Noon, fresh from singing duets with Michael Daves at the Dutch Reformed Church in Park Slope.  It was a beautiful, sunny Sunday.

Jen, Nancy, and Andy got down to the task: recording all four of the Carters’ tracks originally recorded in Atlanta on February 12, 1932.  The Carters had not been in the studio in eight months.  The 1932 Atlanta sessions lasted two days and produced eight of their most beautiful songs, although they remain some of the most obscure tracks in their catalog. 

Nancy—who I often refer to as the female Hank Williams—has a completely natural way of phrasing, and has that elusive “weep” in her voice that every pretend country singer (included half of the ones in Nashville) would kill to have.  She sings from the heart, and it’s all genuine.  

Jen, meanwhile, has a voice exactly suited to hardcore bluegrass, with both power and impeccable timing.  Like Nancy, she has a warmth in her voice that is rare, and knows all about phrasing.  She often puts a flurry of seventh notes in a line, which is a haunting effect. I first heard Jen sing way back, maybe ten years ago, at the now-deceased Baggot Inn (a dark, dingy basement that had a permanent aroma of spilled beer, old wood, and Lysol) in Greenwich Village.  She got up to sing with Greg Garing that particular night and from the first couplet I was hooked.  

Nancy and Jen are experts at swooping into a line. It’s like someone gliding into a room.  It’s incredibly elegant.  

But for some reason they had never tried singing together. When they lit into “Green Fields of Virginia” (kind of a pro-bluegrass song), and their swoops joined, it was like… can’t describe it.  Just listen.

Credits:

Duet vocals: Nancy Hunt and Jen Larson
Guitar: Andrew Hunt