A distinctly northern variety of hard driving bluegrass and string band music featuring lots of lush harmonies, hot picking and good old fashioned foot stomping fun

17 MP3 Songs
COUNTRY: Bluegrass, COUNTRY: Old-Timey

Show all album songs: Fenceline Songs


Details:
The Whistlepigs String Band, based around Minnesota's Twin Cities, bring a combination of hot picking, soulful harmony vocals, bluegrass classics, old time string band oddities, and newly penned originals to our old fashioned single-mic stage show. We have been playing the upper midwest--and Canada--since 2003. We feature Chris Jones on guitar, Joel Olson on banjo, Ross Willits on skinny dawghouse, and Fred Keller on mandolin. We're pleased as punch to have finally released our second CD. Here's a snippet of the liner notes:

"Fenceline" may not be The Whistlepigs' first CD, but it feels like our true debut. We knocked out our first CD, "Unjugged," in just a couple of months back in the winter of 2004. We played our first gig together in December 2003, and had our CD produced by the following April. It turned out pretty well. The only problem was that by the time we were done with it, we had figured out who we were as a band and it wasn't the same as the band that recorded the CD.

We upgraded our instruments (some of us more than once, right Joel?).We dug up some old songs, wrote new ones, and wore out more than a few hats. We crossed borders and played for audiences across the upper Midwest. And by playing at festivals in Michigan, Wisconsin, South Dakota, the heart of the prairie in Saskatchewan, and all corners of Minnesota, we figured out what being The Whistlepigs was all about.

Part of what it's about is playing live with a cool microphone, a warm audience, and having a blast doing it. So when we got around to recording this CD (after two false starts), we set out to record the songs just like we play them on stage. Each song on the disc is a live single take with no overdubs, just like the oldtimers did it. We set up the studio at Kettle River Music (aka Fred's house), turned on the recorder, and played.

We drank a fair amount of beer, just the right amount of whiskey, and played some more. Ate more than our share of "chachos" and Missy's hashbrowns (or homefries??), and laughed 'til we ached. Then we played a little more. So the performances on this CD may not be "perfect," but they capture the true spirit of The Whistlepigs.

We also invited our biggest fan, Catie Jo Pidel, the "Littler Fiddler," to join us on a couple of tracks. Now 14, Catie Jo has been our special guest at our shows for three years and before long, if we're lucky, she'll invite us to be her special guests at her own shows (move over Alison Krauss & Union Station, here comes Catie Jo & The Whistlepigs!).

The day she came up to the studio,we'd been slogging through things for a bunch of hours,making some progress, but not necessarily at our best. Then Catie Jo joined us, and in one take, blew us all away with her performance and focus.We're so proud to have her contributions on this CD.