The Be Good Tanyas

with Special Guests Lucy Wainwright Roche

This trio  Sam (Samantha) Parton, Frazey Ford, and Trish Klein  got their name from a song by music pioneer Obo Martin (“Be Good Tanya”) and now have three albums to their credit along with having a song or two in movies such as Because of Winn Dixie. There was, actually, an earlier Be Good Tanya  folk artist Jolie Holland, part songwriter, musician, and existentialist with a fiddle. But rambling blues bit her and bit her hard and she moved on to obtain solo status although she is featured with buddy Sam in the Tanya’s newest album Hello Love on a Mississippi John Hurt tune, “Nobody Cares for Me.”

Some have called these three anachronistic  they dress in outfits that hearken back to the Roaring Twenties; their Chinatown cover is decorated with Tetley Tea graphics from long ago. Perhaps they are neoclassicists; perhaps they are pacifistic postmodernists; perhaps they just love the old songs and love writing and singing new songs that just sound old. It is amazing that a group from Vancouver, British Columbia shows Americans what their own music sounds like. The Be Good Tanyas make modernly nostalgic music; one listen to any of their projects (especially the Stephen Foster song “Oh, Susanna” on Blue Horse) and one is hooked permanently.

If someone’s looking for traditional American sounds that return to the Jimmie Rodgers/Carter Family era, he or she can find those sounds in this trio. If a person longs for sparse instrumentation along with voices that do not bellow or boast, he or she can find musical peace with these three ladies. If a person wants to hear performers who embrace the folk, country, and blues roots of American music with a little touch of the contemporary, then The Be Good Tanyas are voices that come out of the wilderness and onto center stage, performing music that transcends their birthdates and transports their listeners from the past to the present and vice-versa. Sam, Frazey, and Trish are an open-ended musical time capsule in suspended animation  out of the wilderness and into CD speakers and human ears  awaiting a musical feast.

Doors: 7:00 pm
Show: 7:30 pm
Admission:$25
Tickets: Lyle’s Place, Ditch Records and www.ticketweb.ca