A Feast of Music & Friendship
A Feast of Music & Friendship
Neither commercial intentions nor career aspirations drive this project.
We’re simply sharing the pleasure we taste whenever we gather to play, or enter the studio to explore new musical territory together.
What sort of music? A home-brew song-fest, first of all, with voices front and center. Yet we've also slipped in some instrumentals. Among the songs and tunes gathered here many are originals, composed by one of us or collected from a wider network of musical friends. A few are traditional and some are borrowed from artists more widely known. Where we’ve covered those, we do our best to craft an approach that’s fresh and original.
A host of influences interweave in our sessions; rhythms and sonic textures absorbed from many different places, cultures, peoples – from artists we’ve heard, traditions we’re aware, recordings we know, song writers we admire.
The instrumentation is primarily acoustic, but not entirely. When we’re out and about at our seasonal gatherings in the field, traditional string band combinations abound – guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass – sometimes with banjo and dobro. We also rely a good deal on accordion, and like how it rounds out our sound and energizes the exchange. Then too, harmonica can step in; and percussion, with a light, well-balanced travelling drum kit at its heart, laying a firm foundation and driving the pulse.
When stepping into the studio, we sometimes add keyboards – acoustic and/or electric, a more powerful suite of percussion, and electric guitar, horns, and flutes when called for.
Once you’ve listened a while, here’s hoping a moment will come when you’ll lean back, exhale slowly, and opine, as we sometime do: “Mighty Fine! Mighty Fine!”
A streaming collection of our latest projects. A work in progress, but still fun to share.
Volume Three returns us to a more typical studio collection from the Mighty Fine Sessions
Volume Two celebrates a musical rendezvous that has taken place in the heart of New England each October for more than twenty-five years.
Once the leaves begin to turn and the apples ripen, a diverse tribe of musicians spanning three generations gathers by invitation at a quiet location not far from the Quabbin reservoir in central Massachusetts.
They meet to celebrate The Big Squeeze, and apples are, indeed, pressed into cider there – fresh, tart, and sweet. But those who come, come mainly to quench their thirst for another elixir – spontaneous, home-grown music.
For three days and nights, in ever shifting combinations, regardless of the weather or time of day, they will feast and play together, circled round campfires or sheltered within large, stove warmed tents, gathering in a moment by moment harvest of songs, fiddle tunes and improvisations that fuse, as they lift skyward, into something very much more than the sum of its parts.
Volume One of The Mighty Fine Sessions centers on a collection of songs written by Howard Cutler, augmented by four gems from other songwriters. All in all, fourteen fine performances showcase the talents of our close-knit group of musical friends joined by a select crew of guest artists to add spice and savor to the mix.
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