Description

Under American Skies is the first full-length recorded collaboration between Tom Paxton and Anne Hills, two of the best songwriters and folk singers in the world, after more than 20 years of musical friendship, sharing stages, studios and even co-membership in the same band. Their new CD on Appleseed Recordings was created with the dual intention of reviving some of the finest topical but timeless songs of the last four decades and capturing two great artists reveling in each other’s voices, words and music.

The recording was inspired by a conversation between Anne and Appleseed Recordings president Jim Musselman at an outdoor folk festival a few years ago. Both were lamenting the fading status of meaningful songs written in the 1960s and ’70s – while fine new songs are continually being created, some of the earlier classics were receding from performance and memory.

Who better to enlist in a musical reclamation of ever-relevant and moving original folk songs from the genre’s heyday than Tom Paxton, who had authored so many of them and already had a history of working with Anne? Of the 14 songs on Under American Skies, four were written by Paxton alone, two by Hills, and most of the others drawn from the “folk movement” songbooks, including Richard Fariña’s “Birmingham Sunday,” about the 1963 racially motivated church bombing that killed four little girls; Malvina Reynolds’ gently metaphorical “God Bless the Grass”; the anthemic “Carry It On” by Gil Turner, and more recent compositions by Tom Russell (“Manzanar,” about the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II) and the late Kate Wolf (her previously unrecorded “Links in the Chain”). The title song, a brand new Paxton/Hills composition, decries the American judicial system and the plight of its victims. The album closes with an archival recording from Anne & Tom’s short-lived, unrecorded trio (with Bob Gibson), Best of Friends on a Paxton/Gibson co-write.

Regardless of authorship, Paxton and Hills split or share vocal honors unselfishly – he sings some of her songs, she sings some of his, and their voices frequently alternate and unite in heartfelt counterpoint and harmony. Strong, sensitive acoustic accompaniment is provided by a group of musicians that includes guitarist Al Pettaway, pianist Jon Carroll (from Mary Chapin Carpenter’s band), and Anne herself on banjo and harmonica.

Under American Skies embodies all the best impulses and achievements of modern day folk music – it is conscious of history, heart and humanity, and incorporates personal, social and political concerns without preachiness or overt sentimentality.

tracklist

1. There Goes the Mountain (Paxton)
2. Under American Skies (Paxton/Hills)
3. Follow That Road (Hills)
4. Clarrissa Jones (Paxton)
5. Birmingham Sunday (Fariña)
6. Carry It On (Turner)
7. God Bless the Grass (Reynolds)
8. Manzanar (Russell)
9. Getting’ Up Early (Paxton)
10. Well, Well, Well (Gibson)
11. Pandora’s Box (Paxton)
12. Shadow Crossing the Land (Hills)
13. Links in the Chain (Wolf)
14. And Lovin’ You (Gibson/Paxton)