Still Crooked, by Crooked Still

Still Crooked

by Crooked Still

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Shawn the Bemused Crooked Still is my new favorite band. Take the song Pharaoh for example, with its bowed bass and cello churning out a wicked driving pulse. A plucked banjo adds tasty percussive spice while the violin drops emotive comments under, over and through the foundation. Finally, O'Donovan's vocal drifts over the strings with her dreamy, relaxed delivery. Pharaoh is moody, lucid and captivating all at the same time. It is an aural speedball. Great work!

Aisha Oron My favorite album of 2022 (when I first discovered this amazing music). My favorite is this rendition of the old hymn Florence. It is so touching. Thank you for the music. Favorite track: Florence.

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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

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Full Digital Discography

11

releases

Get all 11 Crooked Still releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Shaken By A Low Sound (Deluxe), Little Sadie, Ecstasy, Ain't No Grave, Live At Grey Fox, July 16, 2006, Friends of Fall, Some Strange Country, Crooked Still Live, and 3 more. , and , .

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1.	Undone In Sorrow 03:05	buy track
2.	The Absentee 02:27	buy track
3.	Captain, Captain 02:42	buy track
4.	Tell Her to Come Back Home 02:57	buy track
5.	Low Down and Dirty 04:07	buy track
6.	Oh, Agememnon 04:04	buy track
7.	Pharaoh 04:42	buy track
8.	Florence 03:28	buy track
9.	Did You Sleep Well? 04:07	buy track
10.	Poor Ellen Smith 02:44	buy track
11.	Theme From "The Absentee" 00:24	buy track
12.	Wading Deep Waters 04:12	buy track
13.	Baby, What's Wrong With You? 05:10	buy track

about

The new five-member version of Crooked Still converged to mingle their creative processes at Allaire Studios in upstate New York, with producer Eric Merrill for Still Crooked. The album balances unknown traditional material with three new tunes from the band, along with "Did You Sleep Well?" by fellow old time musician Nathan Taylor, and a Mississippi John Hurt standard. The entire album was recorded "live" in one big room, with everyone playing together. Merrill captured most songs in one or two takes. "I was outside in the hallway, because my voice is so quiet," O'Donovan says. "Recording live, you don't have an option to overdub; that always makes a better album."

With Haas and Clarridge, the band has proven themselves to be even more adventurous, breathing their cosmic fire into old songs. "When Rushad left, we wanted to move in new directions," O'Donovan says. "Brittney adds another female presence to the band; I can hear my voice in her fiddling. Tristan has a refined cello tone, with a powerful, restrained energy. They bring a fresh outlook to the arrangements that keeps the music exciting."

"We rehearsed for a few days before we recorded," Clarridge says. "We'd listen to a source recording, strip the songs to the bone and build an arrangement incorporating everyone's ideas. It's fun to see how many directions you can take a song." Everyone brought material for consideration. "As we worked on the songs, we realized there was a lot of loss and mortality in the lyrics," banjo player Greg Liszt adds. "You can't make a folk album without delving into what's happening now and we were surprised at how current the songs sounded. On 'Captain, Captain' a woman asks what happened to her lover and the Captain replies 'he dropped down dead in the gulf.' It's a 400-year-old line, but it gives you chills."

Still Crooked is an ensemble effort of inspired music making that moves the bands' impossible- to-pigeonhole style in new directions while honoring their folk roots. "It's hard to pin down our music," bass player Corey DiMario says. "We play improvised old time music, bluegrass, folk and our own songs within the broad context of a string band. Like a lot of today's bands, we have modern and traditional influences that confuse the boundaries. We want to keep blurring those lines to make something all our own."

credits

released January 1, 2008

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about

Crooked Still Boston, Massachusetts

Crooked Still is equal parts ambassador and innovators. The musical prowess of this defiantly non-traditional bluegrass quintet formed in 2001 in Boston, Massachusetts and are known for their high energy, technical skill, unusual instrumentation, and innovative acoustic style. ... more

shows

Aug 15

Hunter Park

Manchester, VT

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