The Backstory

This song, the title track of the album, began as part of 40x40, a personal project to visit forty Ohio wetlands before my fortieth birthday.

The idea for this epic micro-adventure project came to me in 2021, on the heels of the Covid shutdowns, during the Great Recession, and preparing to let go of a business I’d built from the ground up. I was also in the weeds of parenting a toddler – and unknowingly expecting a second child.

I was exhausted from the many pivots we’d had to make due to life during the shutdowns plus adjusting to roles as parents and business owners. Grieving the loss of the lighthearted, spontaneous and adventurous lifestyle my husband and I had enjoyed prior to having children, the responsibilities and realities of our 30’s weighed heavy.

40x40 got me back in motion in all the right ways. The exploration and adventuring worked wonders on my burnt out and pregnant-then-post-partum brain. Little did I know, but I was also tending fertile ground for song writing in months soon to come.

The well of wisdom I found in those forty wetlands was deep.

Metaphorically, these wetlands reflected externally where I was at personally: on the edge. On the edge of motherhood a second time. On the edge of middle age. On the edge of a(nother) career change.

Edge zones are murky places. Uncomfortable for us humans. But, as nature reveals, they are places of breathtaking biodiversity. They are the places where life happens richly.

And I began to write. 

The tune and the poem for the song Crooked Step, Open Gate came from one of these 40x40 wetland visits.

The Song

“Crooked Step, Open Gate” is about what happens when you settle in and take a backseat rather than rush forward in high gear. It is about what doors open when you go slow. Very slow. So slow you stop moving and chasing the clock. It is what happens when time comes to you.

Here is the poem, spoken during the track:

I walk into the wetland

and sit on the crooked step

to serenade cicadas

They hum the beat

pulsating, slow, deep

while crickets chorus 

in slow-mo stereo

green frog twangs along

and cattails rustle

dancing with the wind

Tomorrow

I’ll open my throat

and let songs pour out like water

Today

I just play along,

let crickets take the lead

butterflies, the dance

and Spider, suspended,

our audience

She pays no mind to rhythm or rhyme--

in time, her beat will land

Band Highlight

The song begins with a gentle, sensitive bass solo by Scott Williams. Scott appears on the project entirely on electric bass, but he has an overflowing toolbox of musical skills including keys, guitar, and being an excellent vocalist.

Coming from a jam-band background, he’s performed prolifically around the state with Phish and Grateful Dead cover bands like Phinger Guns, Wed ZepWeen, Dead Roses, and The Powerful Pills.

Bringing Scott into our folk roots fold has been a rewarding experiment. He adds color, depth, and even melodic sparkle to our more experimental tunes.

“Crooked Step, Open Gate” is the song that allows him to shine. His 6-string bass paints a dream - perfectly setting the stage for the watery wetland poem meandering through the middle of the song.

Final Album Notes

And this completes the Crooked Step, Open Gate album. You have all the stories!

This project is an invitation to living with courageous love. To slow down and tune into the people, animals, and earth we share our everyday moments with. We listen to their stories and let them in, even when it’s uncomfortable. We stay. We linger a little longer, we notice, and we allow the noticing to become growth.

As the spider in the poem, we invite you to build strong webs of connection to your place and community, holding steadfast and anchored even while the wind blows strong.

Will you go through the gate? We hope you dare.

"Crooked Step, Open Gate" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album on Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer and fall. "Crooked Step, Open Gate" will begin streaming October 10, 2025.

Background

It was several years ago that I found myself driving south to meet up with some friends in Atlanta, Georgia. On this particular trip, I had left with enough time to make a stop in Berea, Kentucky. For those that are familiar with Berea and the college there, you’ll know that it is something of a hotbed for Appalachian roots music.

However, my pilgrimage had little to do with music and everything to do with Tim Weckman and his wonderful Berea Bonsai Studio. I had taken an interest in the hobby a few years earlier and was hoping to meet up with Tim to pick up some pointers.

The whole experience did not disappoint. The studio was wonderful, the trees were inspirational, and Tim was patient and welcoming. While showing me how he approached pruning an old juniper, he noted that it was very important to, “always leave room for the birds to fly in.” That evocative advice has hung around.

Process

With many songs that I’ve written, I can place or remember where I was during the process of creating the song. For whatever reason, with Dove, I can’t. I know that the chords and the melody came from somewhere and had to have been set down at some point over a certain amount of time. I can’t tell you if that was immediate (like Bridge) or prolonged (like Stranger). All I can recall about this particular process is standing in my backyard one early spring day, looking at my Cortland apple tree, and then the song is there. Strange, but so it goes.

I can tell you that the chord progression, melody, and lyrical approach to the song certainly give a nod to mournful minor-key traditional mountain tunes like Shady Grove. Perhaps that was floating around in the back of my mind. At any rate, I could visualize this bird sitting in my apple tree, sad and lonesome, wishing that I had pruned the thing when I was supposed to so that it could move about a bit more freely.

That was the lyrical start. The end product became much more metaphorical and personally meaningful than I had intended, but I won’t project that meaning for anyone else. The dove coos in the chorus to answer the questions the verses ask. What is the answer? Is there an answer? Much like a modern abstract painting, that decision is up to the listener.

Listening Notes

Scott’s bass sets the mood with a great dive. He then used a bow on his electric bass to create a low drone since my hands were at the guitar and I couldn’t add a synth layer live. Aubrey’s banjo and vocals pull at that mournful high mountain sound. Kevin’s drumming with brushes then provide wonderful texture and Joe’s fiddle solo takes the song where it was wanting to go.

Despite our musicianship, this recording almost didn’t make the cut. As you’ll recall, this eight song project was all done in one evening at Akron Recording Company with only two takes per song. Because of the format, splicing and overdubbing and the like was virtually impossible. We knew that going in. What we got is what we got.

And when we first listened to the two takes of Dove, something(s) just felt off. It was probably the roughest listen of the whole project and we initially felt pretty deflated. Should we just cut the song off and put seven on the project? It was considered. But something about that felt disingenuous. The ethos of the Crooked Step live recording project was to present a snapshot of where we were at as a band at that point in time. Music without makeup. To throw Dove out seemed to be pretending that we weren’t human and weren’t going to make mistakes. So we kept it, lumps, bumps and all.

Special thanks to Bernie Nau at Peachfork Studios in Athens, Ohio who did masterful work in the mixing stage to help this track shine on the record. We've heard from several listeners that this song has become their favorite.

In spite of (or perhaps because of?) the human flaws, we hope you find this tune compelling.

"Little White Dove" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album on Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer and fall. "Little White Dove" will begin streaming September 26, 2025.

“Chicago’s Finest Boat Launch,” as the place was named on Google Maps when Aubrey first visited, is a place full of sunlight. Though surrounded by chain link fencing and in the shadow of a towering electricity transformer, the site of Ton family’s old barn and farmhouse, long since torn down, now boasts a green lawn with freshly painted white picnic tables.

Beside the old farm site is a dilapidated boat house and marina with peeling paint and boarded up windows. A plaque at the end of the gravel driveway reads “Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad / Ton Farm Site” with several paragraphs of history. The path to the water is behind a locked gate.

It is a place of mystery and contrast. It feels like sacred ground.

BAND HIGHLIGHT

In 2019, Craig attended the Wayne County Fair fiddle competition and met Joe Lautzenheiser. Besides sweeping the competition, it turned out that Joe had been named Ohio’s grand champion fiddler in 2011 and 2014, won Indiana’s state championship, and was runner-up in Kentucky. He also placed 10th nationally in the National Oldtime Fiddlers Contest in Weiser, Idaho. In short, he was pretty solid on the instrument.

Off and on since 2019, Craig stayed in touch trying to cajole Joe into playing locally, but Joe and his wife Jen had just started an organic farm operation in nearby North Lawrence and now had a young family of their own and time was understandably always at a premium.

When the idea of throwing together a live band for the Crooked Step recording project came up, Craig sent a message to Joe on a whim, hoping to add a fiddle to the songs and, as luck would have it, the winter recording sessions worked with Joe’s schedule!

We can’t emphasize enough how lucky and grateful we are to have gotten the chance to rehearse and record with Joe. He brought an incredible amount of technical musicianship to the project, arranged the fiddle voicings with sensitivity and panache, and importantly was also a great human to hang around.

To emphasize again how miraculous it is that this project came together, it bears mentioning that Joe only got scratch recordings of the songs a month prior (without fiddle lines, mind you), had one rehearsal evening with us in Craig’s basement, then one four-hour live recording session to get it all right in two takes per song. And the guy just didn’t miss. Incredible! Thanks Joe!

If you have a moment, check out his farm and what they have to offer over at Glenview Acres.

"Chicago's Finest Boat Launch" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album on Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer and fall. "Chicago's Finest Boat Launch" will begin streaming September 12, 2025.

The best way I can describe the process of creating the song is to borrow from the mnemonic technique known as a “memory palace”. The speaker or storyteller creates a mental map of a place and then walks the listener through the scene, making the speaking points (or lyrics in this case) easier to remember. 

I pictured being on the sandbar on the eastern bank just north of the Bridge of Dreams - which is a real place in Brinkhaven, Ohio on the Mohican River. It’s a beautiful spot with a 370-foot covered bridge that was converted for rail trail use and now forms part of the Ohio to Erie Trail. The song begins by asking why the bridge is there at all and what purpose it serves, juxtaposed to the often quiet and meandering river below.

Listeners may notice that, like solid public speaking, each verse holds three points or themes around which the section is organized. For the first verse, it’s the railroad, then today’s modern users, then the song’s protagonist getting ready to launch off on a canoe trip.

Onto the second verse, and the memory markers are the perilous cliches of past, present, and future. Set in the context of the metaphor of canoeing though, I hope they work to evoke not only the reality of being on the water, but the larger life lessons one can learn by being out in nature.

The third verse is a result of me gazing under the bridge in my mind, looking south and seeing the river bend to the west. Where is it going? What will the paddler see when she makes that turn? What may always remain out of sight?

And finally the chorus. There’s a chance that the “why’s” of life, whether small and literal (i.e. how the Bridge of Dreams got its name) or large and figurative, will elude us. But we can choose to live in and enjoy the moment. The current’s going to keep drifting along regardless, after all.

Noteworthy Moments

I love how the instrumental solo is passed from the banjo to the fiddle. Two voices calling to each other over the water.

Aubrey’s banjo harmony and Scott’s bass ornaments on the riff interludes are a fun surprise every time.

"Bridge of Dreams" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album on Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer. "Bridge of Dreams" will begin streaming August 29.

Just weeks after their encounter, she learned he had passed suddenly. He deserves to be remembered with a smile. 

The original tune for “Cotton Candy Man” was composed over a decade ago, sitting on the back porch alone, watching the stillness of a clear night sky, smelling pines and settling into a place of quiet presence where one can feel the earth and sky touch.

Noteworthy Moments

First, a mini theory lesson. Fiddle tunes, like this one, traditionally have an A part that repeats and a B part that repeats. And then you do the whole thing over again, AABB, AABB, etc, until you’ve had enough.

Listen closely and you’ll hear the melody line jump down abruptly at the end of the B part. You’ll hear it in the banjo, where it ends the phrase on the lowest note. This is symbolic of the unexpected end of our friend the Cotton Candy Man, a vibrant life cut short.

But the song doesn’t end there. Embedded in the cyclical nature of this tune is a symbol: for so many things that we grieve, there is an end of the thing but not an end to the impact. The song repeats. The memories linger. The story gets told again and again.

For a song about endings, it’s also noteworthy to mention how much we love the way the very end of this song came together. Aubrey originally wrote the song with an unresolved final note (in other words, it doesn’t end on the home tone, so you’re left hanging).

However, for the album arrangement, we agreed that after a short pause, Scott and Joe would play the resolution on bass and fiddle.

Joe enters a half moment before Scott, which gives a sweet woven texture: first the banjo/guitar fade out on the unresolved note, then the fiddle sneaks in with the home tone, followed by the electric bass finishing the song (and the album) with a final grounding chord and Kevin's gentle percussion. Satisfying.

"Cotton Candy Man" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album on Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer. "Cotton Candy Man" will begin streaming August 15.

Depression is a heavy burden to live with. Whether you’re the one hauling, or you’re walking alongside a friend, family member or otherwise, it’s a load often invisible to the naked eye. That’s what the stigma around mental health in our society does, it encourages people to bury their pain.

The lyrics of the chorus come from a poem given to me by a friend when I (Aubrey) asked what offers her comfort when the darkness descends. Here is an excerpt, by Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other”   

doesn’t make any sense…

The title was also a gift, twice gifted. One morning, I found an email in my inbox from Rosemary Wahtola Trommer, one of my favorite modern poets, in which she shared a poem she wrote following the prompt “Medicine of Surrender is…” This prompt had been given to her by yet another writer, Mirabai Starr. Though the prompt came to me after I had already begun writing the song, “Medicine of Surrender” clicked immediately as the perfect title. 

With the tune and lyrics intact, I took the idea to Craig and he made a masterful arrangement including a full drum set, rhythm guitar, electric bass and synth. Performing this with Scott, Kevin, and Joe’s singing fiddle addition was in itself an experience close to the stars.

It serves as a reminder of our capacity to inspire and co-create, even in our bleakest moments. I marvel at our capacity to feel many things at once.

listening notes

Opening as a stark and simple folk song, it doesn’t take long for this one to break into a touch of Nirvana. The rawness is its glory. Close your eyes as you listen. Let the music flow into, over and around you. Let the fire burn. Where does it go? To that field, full of stars? We hope to meet you there…

And if this finds you walking with depression personally or alongside another, seek and find the support you need. Don’t hold it in. Reach out.

"Medicine of Surrender" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album at Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer. "Medicine of Surrender" will begin streaming on July 11.

In the story, a grandfather goes walking in the woods with his grandchild. The child loves these walks, in which they discover all kinds of cool forest stuff together. Mushrooms, birds, creeks, trees.

At times, the grandpa would stop to simply stand still, asking: “Listen. Do you hear the trees? They’re praying.” The grandkid could never hear.

Years later, after the old man passed, the now adult would go walking in the woods and feel the prayers of the trees along with the memory of the grandpa’s presence.

Heart Beat tunes us into these rhythms of Place. The sparse lyric content of the hook gives space for what goes beyond words as we know them: the language of the trees, the rocks, the water, the wind. It is an invitation to quiet oneself and feel the heartbeat that connects us all in the song of Life.

Noteworthy Moments

• This was one of the first songs written as a true collaboration, where Craig sent Aubrey a chord progression before leaving on vacation. Aubrey filled in a banjo melody and some lyrics and sent them back via text message. Craig listened to the rough version of the freshly minted song sitting at the Gulf coast, literally watching the waves roll in. Better than Christmas? Maybe!

• Recording a song live can present some fun arranging challenges. You can hear an example of this around the 50 second mark, when the synthesizer pad transitions to the electric bass. We knew we wanted the synth to open the song to establish a warm presence, but then Craig needed to free up his hands to play guitar for the second verse. The solution was to have the bass take over on the chorus, being that first heartbeat. We think it works.

• After the hail storm stops at 3:26, Joe’s fiddle kicks the song back in with a riff that was added very late in the process (the night of recording!) and is a credit to Aubrey’s vision and Joe’s ability to create wonder on the spot.

As you listen, we hope you find yourself in a place where your spirit can be still.

"Heart Beat" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

You can purchase the full album at Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025. All songs will follow on the streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc), trickling out through the summer.

With a name like that, when Aubrey learned of this place, she knew she had to see it for herself. Expecting a park, she was taken by surprise when her GPS directions took her past rows and rows of Section 8 housing, down a gravel drive towards nothing but more chain link fencing. Nearby stood a boarded-up boat house under the shadow of towering high-voltage power lines. No other soul was in sight save a lanky elderly man sitting on the porch of a humble abode at the corner awhile back. His bright red beanie punctuated the early March bluebird sky.

A little unsure of herself and her surroundings, she took heart when she finally saw the plaque, a small sign commemorating the historical site. Finally gratified that she had found the right place, she pulled out her banjo and played a few tunes in homage to all who had passed through. After taking in the spring sunshine and the mysterious quiet, she packed up and hopped in the car, preparing to finish the last five hours of her nine-hour journey home.

Just as she was rolling out, she noticed the man at the corner had begun sauntering her way. They met halfway down the gravel driveway, each eyeing the other a bit warily. But after brief and warm greetings were exchanged, Aubrey learned the old man’s name was Cleo, and he was really coming down in hopes of hearing some more music.

Of course, Aubrey did the natural thing. She turned around, got the banjo back out of the trunk and played some more. Cleo sang a tune, Aubrey played along, then Aubrey sang and Cleo danced. Human moments were shared between two strangers from vastly different histories and circumstances.

Then when it was really time to go, Aubrey got the courage to ask how one might get down to the water which was completely blocked from view by all the fencing.

“You have to have a key,” said Cleo.

“Well how do you get the key?”

“I have the key.”

And so this song was born.

Band Highlight

Cleo is driven along by the tom groove laid down by Kidron’s own Kevin Himes of Honeytown. For every song on our new album, Kevin studied the song notes and demos we provided him and then took the arrangement to the next level. This song in particular is one where his work shines and is just plain fun.

Kevin brought a boatload of positive energy to the project to accompany his meticulous preparation. We’re grateful to Honeytown for lending him to us. Check out Kevin’s drumming and accordion(!) work on their releases. We’re lucky that Kevin has some space to join us on a couple of shows this year, including the Central Ohio Folk Festival in Columbus last May and our debut at the Rialto Theater in Akron coming later this summer on August 21.

Listen here: "Cleo Holds the Keys" from Crooked Step, Open Gate

Throughout the summer, we’ll be releasing the tunes from our newest album Crooked Step, Open Gate to all the major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, etc). You can purchase the full album at Bandcamp starting June 6, 2025.

While wrapping up our debut EP as a duo in the fall of 2024, Craig and Aubrey began dreaming of playing and recording with a full band. But we were nearly out of band cash and definitely out of family time capital needed for the traditional recording process. We needed to get creative.

So in the darkness of December 2024 (while Aubrey was busy moving her family to an old farmhouse!), Craig assembled a dream team and started sending out google docs of song maps and demo recordings.

Joining us on this project was Scott Williams on electric bass, Kevin Himes on drums and percussion, and Ohio state fiddling champion Joe Lautzenheiser (who also happened to be Aubrey’s new neighbor). 

Because of life, none of us had a lot of time to practice together, so we made-do with a handful of piecemeal partial-band rehearsals before meeting up to rehearse all together once in the Akron studio before recording. As luck would have it, a heavy snowstorm and a last minute trip to Columbus thwarted Joe our fiddler from making the rehearsal!

Fortunately we were able to squeeze in a last minute practice with everyone crammed into Craig’s basement before the big day.

On January 28, 2025 we performed all eight songs live at Akron Recording Company with Ben Patrick at the control board. The old soap factory, converted into a recording studio, held a solid, grounding charm with a massive sandstone block foundation and giant exposed timbers. With set up time, sound checking, and tuning, we had enough time to run each song twice. A select few got a third pass.

A lot of credit goes out to Scott, Kevin, and Joe for their preparation. Each of them had a little under two months (during the busy holiday season to boot) to learn and practice their parts. The fact that five amateur musicians with plenty of other things going on in their lives were able to assemble and line up solid performances on the same takes is something akin to miraculous.

After selecting the best takes, we sent the files off to Bernie Nau at Peackfork Studios near Athens. Bernie is known for his work with old-time bands and has worked with a wide array of genres. He went above and beyond the traditional mixing / mastering tasks to help produce the tone and vibe we were going for, despite some of the challenges of live recording tracks (banjo coming through the guitar mic, etc.).

Our goal was to have an authentic, not over-produced album that reflects the humanity and grit of our process, while having enough of a polished sound that it communicates the vision of our stories.

We’re proud of what we’ve done, the team that helped get us here, and the friends we’ve made along the way.

Give it a listen on Bandcamp starting May 16, 2025, and let us know what you think! You can also purchase the album there!

If it moves you, share the album or a song with a friend. You can also earn Drifter patron saint status by supporting the project when you join our member-only area “Backstage” on Bandcamp. (Aside from feel-goods, Backstage membership also gets you perks like discounts on merch and bonus unreleased tracks).

And what does the next chapter hold for the Upstream Drifters? Through the gate we go…

A Noteworthy Moment

You can remember that humans made this if you can catch Craig knocking his pick against his mandolin towards the end of the song. The sound is similar to someone kicking a mic stand. AI generated music? Not here, baby!

"Stranger" from Carried Along

“Eclipse” follows the form of a traditional old time fiddle tune, the folk genre at the heart of the Upstream sound. Beginning with a simple melody played twice (the “A part”), the tune moves into a contrasting but complimentary melody (the “B part). The B part gets repeated too. And then you do the whole thing again until you’ve had enough.

“Eclipse” is a great example of how we love to tell stories through our music – even when there are no lyrics. Craig’s arrangement of the tune, with layers of percussion, synth and guitar, add to its mystical nature. Listen closely and you can hear the complete story of the day, from anticipation, to darkness, to gleeful celebration.

A Noteworthy Moment

Listen for the moment in the very middle of the tune in which the sun completely swallows the moon. Can you feel it?

“Eclipse” from Carried Along

If you’ve ever experienced a total solar eclipse, you can probably relate to feeling like you’ll never quite be the same again. Will that be the case after listening to this song? Likely not, though the delight we get from translating an unforgettable moment into a jammin’ tune that strangers all over the world love listening to is really something. Might we say… cosmic?

You get “Somewhere.”

Driving, fun and just a little desperate, this lively tune credits its inspiration from the style and spirit of the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ rendition of “Cornbread and Butterbeans” on their 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig.

Aubrey hatched the chorus after re-tuning her ukulele to sound infallibly harmonious as her toddler strummed along with her banjo practicing. In an attempt to kill cabin fever that chilly spring afternoon and feeling only slightly frustrated that the kids had mutinied on naptime (again), she finally set down the banjo, picked up the re-tuned ukulele, and pounded out a melody over some power drones. These words came through almost immediately:

Give me them corn and taters

Give me that butter and bread

Give me a happy baby

Somewhere to lay my head

Somewhere to lay my head

With the chorus effectively stuck in her head on repeat, she sent the idea to Craig. Craig, on his way to work the next day, had the novel idea to overlay the chorus with the story of a canoe misadventure he had with his brothers on the Scioto River in southern Ohio a few years back.

On their trip, the canoe really tipped, they discovered that a 24 pack of Pabst floats, and one of the brothers donated his phone and most of his clothing to the bottom of the river. Who is at fault for the collision is still a hot topic to this day.

Just as the tune “Cornbread and Butterbeans” pairs a chorus that celebrates love around the table with anecdotes from daily life’s frustrations, “Somewhere to Lay My Head” matches a chorus of yearning for creature comforts with the humorous tale of a canoe capsize. Somehow, it works.

A Noteworthy Moment

While recording the vocals on this song, Ron noted that “you guys just seem like you’re having so much fun.” Yep.

Listen Here: Somewhere to Lay My Head from Carried Along

We hope the energy and delight that we feel comes through the airwaves as we sing this song for you, reliving vivid memories of good times mixed with desperation. When struggle and joy meet, we sing! It doesn’t have to be pretty. That’s how we are all carried along.

This is the first song that we wrote as a true collaboration, sparking a flurry of songwriting through the spring of 2024. Though the tempo is laid back, there’s a driving energy that builds throughout. A simple banjo melody is repeated with layers of synth, bass and guitar added upon each repetition for texture and energy. The song builds toward an improvisatory bridge, then repeats the melody and bridge briefly before the close.

Joy Fell Up is like a door to another realm. It is an invitation to step into a world of wonder, where in the midst of struggle, contentment finds us.

A Noteworthy Moment

Listen closely to the sound of the seed rattle and the wind whistle at the bookends of this tune. Ron Flack suggested that Craig pan the instruments across two mics which resulted in a super cool effect. It's as if the wind and the rattling seeds blow across the room when you listen on stereo speakers or headphones.

Joy Fell Up

From wherever you are tuning in, we hope that this tune finds you with joy. And that it moves your toes to dance, your mind to dream, your day to delight.

Calibrating to the Studio

Recording our first album was a huge learning process, every step of the way. Our eyes were opened to how much effort, care, and decision-making goes into even preparing to record (ie song maps, demos, fixing up instruments, and learning to play to a click, eek!)

Once we got into the studio, the first step was to create scratch tracks, the bones of a song that we would listen to while recording but not actually a track that would be included in the final. As musicians who thrive on the energy of live performances, it was a huge shift for us to build our songs in the studio layer by layer, often playing alone while listening to the scratch track and a click.

Another challenge we faced was that the vision we had for our new songs included a full band, but at the time of recording, it was just the two of us and all the instruments we (mostly Craig) could play.

Things got especially entertaining when it was time to lay down the bass track. Craig had salvaged his bass from the trash and in refurbishing it apparently neglected to ground the electronics. This resulted in some considerable feedback in the studio. Obviously, a no-go. Turns out, the solution was simple: as long as someone was touching the metal bridge, the feedback would go away. Aubrey’s attention span was challenged but they prevailed. For the following recording session, Craig fashioned a neck strap made from some heavy gauge wire and the problem was again (albeit uncomfortably) resolved.

After the bass came banjo, guitar, and mandolin, followed by synth and auxiliary percussion. The vocals were the last to come.

Then came the process of selecting the best tracks and finalizing initial edits – including the removal of a daggone click that somehow plagued us to the bitter end. Finally, two months after starting the recording, it was time to send files off to John King for mixing and mastering.

With the final high-res files in hand, we turned our attention to learning the “game” of music distribution. Aubrey created and designed our album art, we picked a distribution platform, made a release plan, pitched to streaming service playlists, printed artwork, drop cards and CD’s, pitched to radio stations and reporters, and alerted all our bff’s on socials. And just like that, it was done!

Through the whole thing, the RealGrey team was such a help. Anya (van Rose) was instrumental in helping us wrap our heads around the distribution process. Ron Flack and Adam McCloskey were rock star sound engineers, and as already mentioned, John King did a fabulous job with the mixing and mastering.

Album successes

In the first month since its release, Carried Along had some great wins. “Eclipse” was selected by two editorial playlists on Spotify - NewGrass and Instrumental Bluegrass - and gained over 10,000 streams. Our monthly listener count reached over 6,000. We’ve gotten some media interviews and booked a full calendar, including some stages like the Rialto in Akron and our first festival, the Central Ohio Folk Festival in Columbus.

Sometimes we look at each other and wonder, how in the world is this happening? Amidst juggling full time parenting responsibilities, jobs, community work, etc, etc, etc, our lifetime goals of writing, recording and releasing our own music is becoming reality.

Around the bend

We are now wrapping up the mixing of our second album, an LP, to be released in late spring 2025.

the ARCHIVE

1. Album: Carried Along

2. Joy Fell Up

3. Somewhere to Lay My Head

4. Eclipse

5. Stranger

6. Album: Crooked Step, Open Gate

7. Cleo Holds the Keys

8. Heart Beat

9. Medicine of Surrender

10. Cotton Candy Man

11. Bridge of Dreams

12. Chicago's Finest Boat Launch

13. Little White Dove

14. Crooked Step, Open Gate