FolksTogether Boldly Covers Procol Harum and Free on New CD

FolksTogether, a very rootsy group based in Providence, is completing a new CD. Rick Bellaire does a lot of singing, writing and producing for the group (that's him in action over there).

Rick and the rest of the group are old friends and musical partners of your blogger, and I always look for an opportunity to give their wonderful music the spotlight.

So if you're unfamiliar with their work, the interview below might be a good introduction. By the way, they're playing the Narrows in September.

Steve the Emcee: I know you're still working on the CD, but have you chosen a name?

Rick: After three years of work, we have, in fact, finished the album. It’s all mixed and we’re getting ready to send it off to have it mastered. It’s called “Pilgrims.”

Steve the Emcee: FolksTogether's music has strong roots in '60s folk, rock and country. Will the new CD continue this tradition?

Rick: For certain. We’re always looking for those connections. As a “folk” group, we’re limited only by the presentation of the music, but never by the choice of material. New England folk artists have a longstanding tradition of finding material in unusual places. Joan Baez used to sing show tunes at Club 47 and Tom Rush was known for his Bo Diddley covers. Then of course, the legendary Joe Val and the Charles River Valley Boys cut an entire album of Beatles songs back in the 1960s, opening up the folk world to a whole new source for the repertoire. We try to continue in this tradition and hope we’re worthy of being included in the line.

Steve the Emcee: FolksTogether, besides writing great songs, often covers sometimes obscure songs by others, such as Gram Parsons. Any such covers on the new record?

Rick: Of course! We’ve got songs on there by Procol Harum and Free, believe it or not. They fit right in. Speaking of covers, we started out this project with over thirty songs. We just kept recording and writing and looking for a thread or theme to tie it all up. Once we’d found one, we were left with a entire album of covers which we’ll probably use as our next release - something like “FolksTogether Sing The Great Folk Hits”; sort of “A Mighty Wind” without the tongues too far in the cheeks.

Steve the Emcee: Who did the artwork for the new CD?

Rick: Like everything to do with this project, it’s been a group effort. (Group member) Vincent (Pasternak) and his wife Elizabeth Pasternak are the photographers. We’re shooting the group at locations chosen by them and by me and my wife, Carleen Machado, who is one of our co-writers. (Group member) Jeff (Olson) will handle the graphics. I organized the liner notes.

Steve the Emcee: You folks are multi-instrumentalists. What do you all play on the new CD?

Rick:We set some ground rules for this project before we began. As you know, Steve, FolksTogether started almost eight years ago as a revue featuring three separate acts: Wire & Wood, Bellaire & Dunn, and Vincent Pasternak, with each act performing their own material backed by the others. They said it would never last! Over the years, it’s grown into a true band. But this will be the first actual “FolksTogether” album. We’ve been writing in different combinations than the original components--for instance, Vincent wrote a song for Donna to sing and Jeff and I wrote a song for Vincent to sing. So when we gathered up all the material, we agreed to workshop the album to let it grow at its own rate without the time and financial constraints of entering a recording studio on a schedule with a set budget. We set up a rehearsal/recording space and just let it happen. And to push ourselves further (And finally get around to answering your question!), we agreed that should we need to broaden our palette, we’d have to find a way to do it ourselves--to keep it all in the family, so to speak. No studio musicians. So we’ve got some new sounds happening. I played a lot of percussion, some harmonica, some accordian; John played the drums and he picked up the cello in order to create string sections with Vinny’s violin and viola. Because we wanted to keep a "live" feel to the album without too much overdubbing, we began each song with a basic track consisting of no less than three of us playing together. Sometimes there were four and sometimes all five of us playing live in the studio. This led to a couple of interesting instances when we switched off on our usual instruments to cover parts on a basic. It was a lot of work, but it sure was a lot of fun.

Steve the Emcee:Last question: what CDs by other artists have you been listening to lately. Who are you recommending to others?

Rick: Speaking only for myself, I tend not to listen to too much music when I’m working on a project, especially music which is similar in nature to what I’m doing at the time. So over the last couple of years, I’ve been listening to a lot of mainstream jazz from the 1950s; I listened to the nine Beethoven symphones; I organized my Rolling Stones rarities into a ten CD set which just fascinates me--man, they need to do a box set. As for recent stuff, I really got stuck on the last couple of Eric Andersen albums, “Beat Planet” with the long track and the first volume of folk “oldies” he’s released, “The Street Was Always There.” I couldn’t get the first Nickel Creek album out of my CD player for a year and they're poised to move on to true greatness. I’m really into a guy named Doug Wamble. He’s got two albums out on Branford Marsalis’s Rounder imprint. He’s a singer and guitarist, but that’s as far as I can go in describing him. He plays jazz guitar with a butter knife and sings like a ‘60s soul man who started off in a gospel choir. It’s not jazz or blues or country or gospel...it’s just music! He’s unbelievable. These are all great artists whose work could slip between the cracks without enough grassroots support. I highly recommend these albums.I’m really interested in songwriters who are not necessarily considered artists performing their own material. They paint such different pictures. In the last couple of years, I’ve listened a lot to albums by Barry Mann (“You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”), Casey Kelly (“Soon”), Angela Kaset (“Something In Red”), and a bunch of others: James Dean Hicks, Bruce Roberts, Jason Blume, Rivers Rutherford. It’s really great stuff-- sometimes much more moving than the “hit” versions. Gee, I guess that sounds like a lot of music, but really, it’s not, at least for me. Anyone who’s seen my record collection knows that if I’m not writing or recording music, there are records playing 24/7 at my house.