Secret Eye
The Big Huge : Crown your head with flowers, crown your heart with joy (US,2004)*°°
After disbanding the Baltimore-based band Sonna (=kind of tapestry alternative music) Drew Nelson decided to fall back on his folk interests. With the help from Michael Lambright, Jim Redd and Chris Freeland he developed some ideas that led to this home-recorded album. The music has interpretations of traditionals combined with singer-songwriter playing, (a fine example is "Harbor to a Hill"), experienced and developed in a relaxed way, as developed over some experience in quiet American folk bar experiences.
“The Big Huge” might refer an interest in the Incredible Stringband album, but I found it first hard to tell why this reference could be meaningful. On “Autumn Hymn” Drew tries to sing with odd variations, which is possibly the influence from ISB, still in a slightly “Americanized” way. But also on “Dogwood and Sky” you can hear how Drew really tries seriously to make a similar effort as ISB to renew the British folk tradition with some slightly different vocal variations, even if it isn’t the same as ISB did, because here it sounds in a way more traditional. Also he doesn’t always succeed too well to sing this perfectly, it still is a clever direction. The album has a certain young sound, which is recorded with such a calm self-expression the result makes it surely worth hearing. Still I’m curious how the group will develop further.
The combination of arrangements also is nice. “A Lofty Hill a Shady Nook” is a beautiful instrumental with accordion and acoustic guitar.
Amongst all Drew Nelson songs are two traditionals, of which "Willie o' Winsbury" is my favourite.
