Kane and Gellert first met, fittingly, at San Francisco’s celebrated Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, which led to their co-writing songs for Kane’s solo album Unguarded Moments. They joined forces again for Gellert’s Workin’s Too Hard, which they also co-produced. Then in 2018, they released their first duo album, The Ledges, and followed up quickly with When the Sun Goes Down in 2019. Now, in 2022, this “unlikely musical couple” have released The Flowers That Bloom in Spring, which finds them digging deeper into their exploration of minimalist writing and recording.
Kieran Kane’s seminal work in The O’Kanes and Kane Welch Kaplin, as well as co-founding the independent label Dead Reckoning Records, laid the foundation for the contemporary world of Americana music. A successful solo artist, collaborator, and songwriter (with songs recorded by Alan Jackson, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, and many more), Kieran is a musician’s musician: his playing is always understated, always groove-oriented, and always serving the song. Rayna Gellert is a preternaturally gifted songwriter. She’s seen farther into the old songs than most. Growing up in a musical family, she turned to Appalachian old-time music at a young age, becoming a prodigious fiddler and leading a new revival of American stringband music through her work with the acclaimed roots band Uncle Earl. An in-demand collaborator, she has toured and recorded with artists such as Scott Miller, Abigail Washburn, Toubab Krewe, and Robyn Hitchcock. Fans of either artist will recognize the musical kindred-spiritedness in their restrained and roots-oriented approach to both songs and arrangements.
Folk Alley describes them this way: “...together the two have found an interesting common ground that’s one part Woody Guthrie-esque ruminations on the modern world and one part transcendent stringband roots … New songs, old songs, fiddle tunes, it’s all tossed together here in an overarching quest to find an authentic expression from two traditional masters brought together.” One fan proclaims: “Mind numbingly good. That harmony floored me from the start!”
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