Martha Spencer
Wonderland
Gingham Rose
2022
From the opening of Wonderland, multi-instrumentalist Blue Ridge Mountains-dwelling singer songwriter Martha Spencer is having a lot of fun, channelling music from the early part of the last century and more contemporary sounds. She draws on influences that range from Hazel Dickens to Lillie Mae for a mix of traditional, cover and original material centred around strong women. The album features contributions from the Richmond gospel group The Legendary Ingramettes and Alice Gerrard. She’s also joined by guitarist Cary Morin, Luke Bell, fiddlers Billy Hurt Jr and Joel Savoy, Jamie Collins, and Brett Morris, her fellow members in Appalachian trio The Blue Ridge Girls.
Featuring Abby Roach on spoons, the self-penned title-track opener is an old-school 20s throwback with hot club fiddle giving way to the lively banjo-backed Rags Over Riches, the Appalachian-folk waltzing lost love lament Banks of New River, a duet with Bell that’s reminiscent of The Stanley Brothers’ The Lonesome River, and the sprightly Come Home Virginia Rose with Hurt’s fiddle and Gerrard on harmonies.
The first cover has her joined by Kyle Dean Smith to provide the deep growling vocals for her banjo-arranged take on the old Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra classic Summer Wine with Leon Frost playing knocker. From here, it’s into traditional territory with the rousing gospel vocals of the Ingramettes as they go Walking In Jerusalem with banjo and handclaps for company; the two others from the public domain are the 20s swing Hesitation Blues, a duet with Bell featuring Matt Kinman on mandolin. This is followed directly by Wind and Rain, with Lucas Pasley on fiddle and Brett Morris on banjo. The song is otherwise known as The Two Sisters, the oft-told tale of sororicide and the fiddle made from the bones, the arrangement far perkier than the narrative would suggest.
The second cover, on which Spencer is vocally reminiscent of Iris DeMent, is the Appalachian folk-flavoured Virginia Creeper Line, written by Dale Roten from 80s outfit The Rock Bottom Bluegrass Band about the Abingdon Branch of the Norfolk & Western Railroad that ran from Virginia to Carolina. The other two covers are the ghost story Bringing Mary Home, written by John Duffey, Joe Kingston and Chaw Mank and originally recorded by The Country Gentlemen in 1966, and, continuing the spooky theme, specifically penned for her by local brothers Greg and Herb Yates, Creekfield Woman, which, accompanied by fiddle, banjo and mandolin, tells the story of a local ghost that frightened Spencer when she was a child and touches on the way songs keep people’s stories alive.
A fan of horror movies and Halloween, featuring octave fiddle and cello banjo creating a woodwind and brass Harlem jazz groove, the Spencer-penned Enchantress has her echoey vocal swooping and soaring, rolling like a prowling feline as she sings of a femme fatale’s spell (“In your ear, she purrs like a kitten/Her lips touch your neck and then you’re smitten and you’re bitten”).
The remaining five tracks are also all her own work, the swayalong backwoods folk of You’ve Rambled Too Long, the self-descriptively cowboy country farewell duet Yodelady with Jonathan Ferrell and featuring Abby Roach on thrumming saw, while the traditional American folk-shaded Young Rover, with just Collins’s harmonies behind Spencer and her guitar, evokes vintage Emmylou. The album ends with Spencer demonstrating her accomplished banjo chops and Smith’s guitar interplay with the instrumental Midsummer Serenade.
With a family history that embraces legendary bluegrass outfit the Whitetop Mountain Band, Spencer has a lot to live up to, but with this fabulous album, she more than does her heritage proud.