FIRST RATE AMERICANA came to Auckland's Tuning Fork venue last night in the form of the Alt-Country, Indie-Folk roots band Hurray For The Riff Raff. Led by Alynda Lee Segarra, the 27-year-old Peurto Rican singer-songwriter out of New Orleans via New York City and innumerable freight-train journeys across the broad back of the USA.
In an inspired set, Segarra and her band, Yosi Pearlstein (fiddle) Casey McAllister (keyboard) Chris Davis (drums) and Caley Millington (bass) rollicked their way through the material of the band's latest album, Small Town Blues (ATO Records)
Described by some as a female, twenty-first century reincarnation of Woody Guthrie, Segarra has a superbly tuned ear for the rhythms and rhymes of the American folk tradition. Her songs are infused with all the raunch and wrench of the deep South: rocking road-houses, back-road car-crashes, gruesome Gothic murder ballads - all liberally spiced with Cajun joie de vivre.
Hurray For The Riff Raff's thick/rich serving of sound fills you up with Segarra's bitter-woman, sweet-girl riff on the eccentricities of American culture. Score one more for the mystery, magic and mayhem that is the USA - and let's hope she keeps her promise to come back soon.
Video courtesy of YouTube
This posting is exclusive to the Bowalley Road blogsite.
Good god, you will be turning the tash into a hipster beard and grooming a quiff next.
ReplyDeleteHooray are genuinely cool. Properly hip.
Actually bloody good.
As someone who has seen your record collection, Chris, to see you post this is amazing
Hmmmm. I'm a little doubtful of that claim Anonymous@08:58.
ReplyDeleteSo, let's test it.
Name the three strangest/most surprising albums in my record collection.
Go on - dare ya!
Well, the ghost of tom joad (and other late works by Springsteen)
ReplyDeleteTransformer (vicious being a popular track in occasion), and some folkie guff that all sounds like Joan baez
Hmmmm. Springsteen was all on cassette - but that's just a quibble. Transformer is, indeed, one of my favourite albums (and I do like "Vicious"). No Baez to speak of, but I suppose Buffy Sainte-Marie does look (and sound?) a little bit like Dylan's Madonna.
ReplyDeleteSoooo, the question is - if I may borrow a line from Lenny Cohen: "Who shall I say is calling?"
Oh my, the flowers are wilting
ReplyDeleteBilly Bragg - The internationale
ReplyDeletePete Segar - the internatinale
Red Army Choir - The Internationale
Am I right?
Nope. I can't abide Billy Bragg's appalling version of The Internationale.
ReplyDeleteNope again. Don't think Pete Seeger ever recorded The Internationale.
Nyet. Although nobody's ever sung The Internationale better than the Red Army Choir!