Nora Brown – Cinnamon Tree
Jalopy Records – Out Now
In Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus, the 2003 documentary starring Jim White, you may recall that ex-coal miner who played the banjo, sitting in a derelict mining office. That was Lee Sexton, now 90 years old and still playing. There is a recent short video clip on YouTube featuring Lee, laying back on his sofa, banjo resting as easy and it ever was across his body, showing a younger player how to play Cumberland Gap. The student watches his every finger move and translates that movement without looking to her own instrument. This is learning folk music the real way, songs and tunes passed on from generation to generation. Nothing particularly different here then. Except that the student was at the time a twelve-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, and not from the wooded heartlands of Kentucky or Appalachia.
Nora Brown started playing quite young – the ukulele at six years – and now, not 10 years later has her first album, Cinnamon Tree, available on Jalopy Records. I have to say that I found all this a tad unbelievable when I first heard the record. The first track, Buck Creek Girls, is a good old-time square dance tune, played with precision and pace, and then the voice with the simple repetitive verse fits so well with the old-time feel. I could be listening to a high-quality recording from perhaps the 1930s, one of those mobile record cutting machines setting up in a large country town and inviting the musicians from the area to come and be recorded for posterity and possible fame and fortune.
But no. This is 2019 and here is a recording of a teenager who somehow manages to play like the masters and sing like the cares of the world have been with her for multiple decades. Nora Brown carries all this seemingly with great ease. Her playing is confident and clear, her voice controlled and emotive. The first chance to hear Nora in full song mode is Hills of Mexico, a story that I am sure has been severely curtailed over the years, no doubt bowing to the restrictions of three minutes of recording time. Stretched to over four in this version, there is plenty of space for the banjo, together with the accompanying violin of Stephanie Coleman, to enjoy the moments between the verses. The tune opens up with the effect that there is a different balance across the whole song than one might expect.
Other songs on the album are Darling Cora, a song with many variants of lyrics; Jay Gould’s Daughter, a tale of hobos and railroads and the inevitable end of life, gently told and played; and East Virginia, (learned from Clifton Hicks) a song with deep roots and various versions that is thought to have come to wider acknowledgement through Cecil Sharp collecting it during his tour of the Appalachian Mountains.
Amongst all this special music, John Brown’s Dream stands out. This old dance tune is invariably played on the fiddle or in an old time band with fiddle taking the lead dragging the guitar and banjo along behind it. This version though is different. It slows down but this is to its advantage. The tune is important, it is to be heard and not just to provide an accompaniment to a regular rhythm for dancing. Not that there is anything wrong with the dance versions, but this is a showcase for Nora’s playing. It displays her skill and her ability to make the instrument speak. This fretless version of the banjo, more in tune with its African ancestry, allows a seamless glissando, a spirited game of snakes and ladders, doggedly climbing and then slipping easily back to the start.
Cinnamon Tree is an album that took me by surprise. I love the tunes and makes great listening but even more importantly it shows that even the old tunes are still capable of being passed on. It also shows us what a talent for playing and interpretation Nora Brown has. I can’t wait to hear more. Excellent.
Order Cinnamon Tree via Bandcamp
Stream/Download: http://smarturl.it/cinnamontree
Performing Hares on the Mountain live (editor’s note: not on the album but wanted to share this as it’s such a great performance):