Anna & Elizabeth
Album: Anna & Elizabeth
Label: Free Dirt
Tracks: 16
Website: http://www.annaelizabeth.com

The teaming of two wonderful female singers is invariably something worth celebrating, and here Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle together work a special kind of magic, giving me the kind of spine-tingling feeling that I used to experience listening to Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard. And by more than fortuitous coincidence here, Alice guests on this CD, the second to be issued by this pairing (for all that it misleadingly bears an eponymous title - the first was the enchanting, home-produced Sun To Sun).

So - a little more background: Elizabeth LaPrelle, from rural south-west Virginia, was one of my discoveries of 2012, when I belatedly came across her third solo CD Birds' Advice, finding it a deeply satisfying, totally honest slice of true old-time American folk music sung and played totally from the heart. Shortly after releasing that album, Elizabeth teamed up with fellow singer (and multi-instrumentalist) Anna, and the resultant CD, though recorded in a local Virginia studio, gave all the impression of being laid down in close quarters in the artists' kitchen, such was the beauteous intensity of the ladies' performances. Their new album is a logical and natural followup, and effortlessly retains that very quality, whereby the unaffected and pure (yet often raw and primitive) vocal delivery speaks interpretive volumes and expresses full-on, entirely without artifice or melodramatic emotionalism, the ladies' intimate personal connection with whatever they choose to sing. Informed by their frequent visits to elder musicians in Appalachia and their copious research into old-time music.

Anna & Elizabeth's material is sourced from everywhere and anywhere within tradition, by which is meant The Stanley Brothers (redemption song Voice From On High), Kilby Snow (the bracing Troubles), old gospel hymns (I Don't Want To Die In The Storm), Frank Profitt (the Civil War-themed Goin' Across The Mountain) or Child balladry (a spirited version of Orfeo featuring guest musician Joey Abarta on uilleann pipes in consort with Anna's doleful fiddle for the march-coda). The latter item is the exception to the rule as regards instrumental accompaniment, where elsewhere the mode of performance is sparse and unadorned, with arrangements for the most part kept simple (generally just guitar and/or banjo); but such is the variety of instrumental colours and stylings that boredom has no chance of even getting half a foot in the door! For each and every song comes across absolutely fresh-minted, with inventive little touches that provide an ingenious foil for those characteristic neck-prickling vocal harmonies. The ladies' individual voices are so uncannily complementary, with Anna's delicate, burnished tones softening Elizabeth's harder Appalachian edge - and the combined effect is priceless magic, no other term for it. Special favourites in this house are album opener Long Time Travelin', Soldier And The Lady, and best of all, the heart-stopping, tear-inducing tenderness of Won't You Come And Sing For Me? (the celebrated Hazel & Alice number). They turn in a chilling Poor Pilgrim Of Sorrow, an eerily poised Greenwood Sidey, and a charming little 50s novelty number from the pen of Connie Converse, Father Neptune.

But in truth, the whole album is absolutely irresistible. (And it's housed in a fulsome package whose 20-page booklet gives notes on the songs' sources alongside photos by the duo and Joe - altho' I feel that more of the lyrics could've been included perhaps.) Whatever, I can't in all honesty consider Anna & Elizabeth as anything other than authentic and natural heirs to the rich Appalachian tradition (and Hazel & Alice in particular). They amply justify Alice Gerrard's enthusiastic booklet endorsement: "These young women follow in the footsteps of many of our idols and mentors who've gone before… and they do them proud." Quite

David Kidman