Evento

Reed Turchi w/ Upstate Rubdown at Crescendo Espresso Bar + Music Cafe

After seven years and as many albums, Tallahatchie finds Reed Turchi returning to the music that lead him to play guitar. Stripped of studio tricks, these songs are presented simply: a slide, a voice, an acoustic guitar, a wooden chair on a wooden floor. Tallahatchie is named after the river running through North Mississippi, homeland of Hill Country Blues, and is an homage to that genre and its patriarchs (RL Burnside, Fred McDowell, Otha Turner). Not just a collection of covers, Tallahatchie transcends, as Turchis intimate singing, unmistakable slide, and hypnotic rhythms are clearly his own, refreshingly direct and deeply personal.

"Turchi proves to be an old soul...we feel like we are sitting right there in some lonely cabin deep amongst the pines and the kudzu sipping whiskey and listening to him play his heart out." -- Neil Ferguson, Glide Magazine

(Tallahatchie) strips it bare to an honest bone - just man and guitar. You know the songs, and the meditative simplicity is just what we need to grasp something we think we know; a familiar reality in this time of cultural and political uncertainty. Greg Vandy, KEXP

Tallahatchie certainly has that inward-looking contemplative mood about it. The record has a "Robert Johnson in a boarding-house with a guitar, a mic and a recording machine" ambiance." -- Bill Kopp, Asheville Mountain XPress

"Turchi returns to his roots, and effects a brilliant strategy. DeStijl in design, the album is a work of minimalism...Turchis great talent for absorbing, interpreting, and continuing the talents of Sonny Boy Williamson, and Mississippi Fred McDowell (Write Me A Few Lines), and even Charley Patton (Mississippi Boll Weevil) make this album a relaxing, raw, cathartic respite, free from the conformity of a full band." -- Sean Jewell, American Standard Time

"...delivered by Turchi's voice and his slide guitar with the class and the charisma of a perfect Blues Troubadour. Tallahatchie is an album that goes beyond the pure and simple love for the traditions of the Hill Country Blues. It's the most sincere labour of love possible of a musician that has never forgotten where his musical heart belongs to and always will." - Gio Pilato, Bluebird Reviews

"Here are dark, plunging canyons of natural reverb, resounding and haunting rail-sounds, sky-punching stops, vocals rattling like winter trees. On each song of Tallahatchie Reed Turchi plays and sings in full command and in fullness of humility among the blues storytellers whose music he has absorbed down to his marrow: Fred McDowell, North Mississippi Allstars, Furry Lewis, Elmore James, Mississippi John Hurt. His guitar and voice are saturated with that kerosene. He has made new fire. May it spread wide and far." - Kevin McIlvoy

"Tallahatchie is a brilliant new selection of recordings by Reed Turchi. Inspired by his mentors, North Mississippi performers RL Burnside, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Otha Turner, Turchi creates an intimate homage to their music. His clean, sweet sounds of acoustic blues resonate with the heart and introduce an exciting new chapter in his impressive musical career." - William Ferris

"Reed Turchi has delivered an original, unvarnished interpretation of a long musical tradition. Tallahatchie taps the sacred and profane roots behind it to make those mysterious, conflicted energies vital all over again. Such renewal keeps the art alive, and this record is as alive as a whippoorwill singing from a midnight hillside." - Maurice Manning

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Upstate Rubdown is an acoustic septet drawing inspiration from every corner (and decade) of America's musical heritage. Based in New York's Hudson Valley region, the band has spent years cultivating its sound, and continues to grow by the tune. The instrumentation includes Harry D'Agostino on upright bass, Ryan Chappell on mandolin, Dean Mahoney on cajón, and Christian Joao on flute and alto/baritone saxophone. The dynamic rhythm section supports a three part vocal harmony powerhouse of founding members Mary Kenney and Melanie Glenn with recent Nashville-transplant Allison Olender.

Over its five year history, the band has played in more than twenty states, from intimate house concerts to prominent festival stages, including Mountain Jam, Frendly Gathering, and Green River Festival. The band has opened for Cory Henry, Phox, The Felice Brothers, and many others.

Otis Mountain Get Down captures the heart of the matter:

"Pulling from the greatest corners of American music, this group has the power to get feet moving with or without amplification. Like fresh-farmed vegetables, their music is as organic as it is good for you. From foot-stomping bass, highlighted by the slap of a cajon, to the familiar strums of the mandolin over a wailing saxophone theres so much going on instrumentally that when the harmonious lead vocalists chime in, the result is nothing short of a homegrown hurricane of sound."