Frank Fairfield - Frank Fairfield

From the black and white album cover to the tinny, hollow recording process, everything on Frank Fairfield debut screams authentic. Or mimicry. For eleven songs, you can't find fault with the pure talent Fairfield shows. His voice creaks and tremors like the venerable Appalachian country music he admires. With a blazing hand, he works the banjo, guitar and fiddle as you'd picture the sun-dried fingers of Dock Boggs or Elizabeth Cotten doing, and his song selection is just as scholarly. From the mid-19th century post-civil war minstrel "To The Sweet Sunny South" or his quick playing opening arrangement of the John Henry's steel driving song "Nine Pound Hammer", Fairfield has steeped long and hard on a tradition he is respectfully keeping alive. But unlike the equally studied hand of Gillian Welch, Fairfield replicates instead of innovates, which boxes his album as an excellent academic survey. But what a terrific foreshadowing of possible future greatness.