Steamrolling live
Grarup Allstars
Keywords
Reviews (3)
Songlines
2022 August/September
By
By
Tim Cumming
2022 August/September
"Read is currently based in Brooklyn, immersing herself in American fiddle styles and performing with the likes of Sarah Jarosz and Jefferson Hamer, while Edinburgh-based Starkey is an old-time clawhammer banjo obsessive. Coming together on their new album, Cross the Rolling Water, they deliver gripping accounts of fiddle and banjo tunes steeped in the bourbon and woodsmoke of the Appalachians, following music from the back of beyond, until they touch upon the folk traditions of the old world. All in all, it's a foot-tappin' delight, music and playing that draws you in the way lungs draw in air, the tunesmithery interspersed with fine balladry - Read's vocal on Anaïs Mitchell's 'Shenandoah' is a heartbreaker ... Get yourself a lungful and earful of bracing old-time mountain air".
At the barrier
d. 3. June 2022
By
By
Seuras Og
d. 3. June 2022
"[They] are both Scots, but Read has been Brooklyn based for some time (...), she wanting her fiddle playing to step back from the swirling and swooping virtuosity of her homeland, seeking to find a more homespun earthiness. Starkey is a banjo player from Edinburgh with a similar aim, to cut all the excess back, to reveal the pure core of melody intrinsic to a tune ... Out of fashion, out of style, out of trend, this record shouldn't really succeed. But it does, on the back of the clear good-natured enjoyment of it all, good vibes indeed, of the performers and their stellar performances".
Folk radio UK
d. 1. June 2022
By
By
Billy Rough
d. 1. June 2022
"An atmospheric rendition of John Lusk's reel 'Apple Blossom' opens Cross The Rolling Water, a fine-sounding piece of Americana from Brooklyn based singer-songwriter and fiddler Hannah Read and Edinburgh based banjo player Michael Starkey ... Whilst 50% of the duo's cultural background remains in Scotland, the Appalachian mountains are their musical destination. However, Cross The Rolling Water is no pastiche; Read and Starkey have paid their dues and are fully emerged in the old-time tradition ... [It's] a gem of a recording; an infectious, dynamic, richly layered album with an old-time vibe that makes us yearn to grab a pew beside them and join right in. For the sheer joy of the sound of a fiddle and banjo together, Cross The Rolling Water is pretty hard to beat. It's a timeless, irresistible and thoroughly entertaining treat - it tops even the finest mountain moonshine".