Peter Viney's Blog

Spirit Family Reunion
with
Amber Rubarth

Levon Helm Studios
Woodstock New York

Friday 16th June 2023

Spirit Family Reunion

Nick Panken – guitar, lead vocal, harmonica
Stephen Weinheimer- washboard, tambourine, vocal
Maggie Carson – banjo, vocal
Ken Woodward – bass guitar, vocal
? – Drums
? – Keyboard

It started like this. We booked to visit my son’s family in Woodstock. I looked up Levon Helm Studio’s Ramble and it looked like we had hit the only blank weekend, missing the Amy Helm Band a couple of weeks earlier, Leo Kottke the week before and Richard Thompson in a few weeks, I kept checking the website. Then they announced Spirit Family Reunion would be on sale at 10 am EST. We huddled in a thunderstorm in a shop doorway in Stratford-upon-Avon at 3 pm BST to get tickets on my phone, and got the two middle seats in the front row. No, we’d never heard of them but I considered Levon Helm Studios a guarantee of quality.

It’s only a mile or so from my son’s house and we passed the entrance in Plochmann Lane several times in the days before. There is no sign, just a pink mailbox with 160, and a winding path descending into the woods. It’s private, only open for Rambles. My son dropped us off and we headed for the merch store first – two T-shirts, a trucker cap and Amy Helm’s last CD. All the staff are welcoming and friendly. You feel invited in. I wore my 1995 High on the Hog T-shirt, a kind gift sent me from the studios after I reviewed an album in the 90s and preserved unworn for the occasion.

The buzz of the room, the atmosphere is incredible. The stage was set with drums in Levon’s favoured location, stage left facing in. Three small Fender amps, a large bass amp, keyboards stage right rear, Banjo, Harmony Rocket guitar and Precision bass on stands. We were in immediate conversation with our neighbours. It’s been a while and I’d forgotten how friendly American audiences are.

The support was Amber Rubarth. She exuded confidence and charisma, beautifully dressed in a Western style frock and boots. She has her most reent album Wildflowers in The Graveyard from 2017. Looking on line, there’s much more to explore – I bought the current LP. She played acoustic guitar, though switched to keyboards for a song about her previous career as a sculptor, Rough Cut. She was then solo voice and brushed tambourine for a new song, Wild Bird which she said was just a week old. She reminded me of Simone Felice, Emmylou Harris and Michelle Shocked in different ways. The original material was powerful and memorable and yes, I bought the album. As wise support artists should she did a well known cover, Losing My Religion.

The interval was short, everything was set, and did the band explode into stage! I had to look them up later to get information. They had last played the Barn while Levon was alive, as a support in 2012 when they made their first album. They had toured heavily from 2016 to 2019, and like so much music, ran into the brick wall of Covid. They said they had only just got back together and rehearsed the show. As far as I can see online they originated with guitarist/vocalist Nick Panken and washboard player Stephen Weinheimer as a duo which rapidly became a trio. The core band was then with banjo / vocals Maggie Carson. Around that trio the band had a selection of other musicians on fiddle and mandolin, and drums, with bass guitarist/ vocalist Ken Woodward a long-time member. The current drums and keyboard are newer.

How do you place them? High energy Americana with a strong nod to traditional Appalachian gospel and spiritual. They dislike being described as bluegrass, and that’s just a lazy reviewer note because they use electric banjo. Previews mentioned Pete Seeger but that is again really, ‘Oh, they’ve got banjo.’ Pete never played with this kind of gusto and attack.  I thought more of Hayseed Dixie, who were novelty, or Chris Hillman and RUN C&W, though that band did soul songs in a country style as a novelty. Spirit Family Reunion are not novelty.

The percussive effect of washboard is startling, played with two forks, as is the visual effect of so much sheer energy. The drummer was superb, and sitting on a spot that is drummer heaven too. Three sing (Nick Panken, Maggie Carson plus Ken Woodward), though Steven, the washboard player also got a solo song.

They take no prisoners, and are the best stage band I’ve seen since last time I saw Simone Felice, though they have none of his darkness – Simone can do vigour too. The words that come to mind are exuberance, vigour. What we loved was the combination of tightness on rhythm and vocal blend, combined with a loose feel of working in the NOW. They’re all great instrumentally and the sound in that location with that equipment was articulated clearly and the volume level was just right.

The set list was lying on the stage, and the encores were as listed but a couple of songs into the show, they announced that as was their habit, they were going off set list. I don’t know if that was re-ordering or different songs.

From their 2012 debut album they did No Separation, I Am Following The Sound, Put The Backseat Down and the closer, I Want To Be Relieved. Then from the most recent 2019 album, we had One Way Ticket, Whoopie Ti Yi Yo, When I Get Home, Would You Would or Would You Won’t. I bought those two albums on CD after the show, and the cover designs are ultra basic, so I failed to realise the album they were selling on vinyl, Hands Together, was a different one. Nor that there is a live album, Harvest Festival. The albums have inserts with full lyrics, but not the names of the band, and the writing credits are to the whole band.

When My Name Is Spoken is a song they’ve been doing since 2011 – on the Knoxville video on YouTube you can see Nick, Stephen and Maggie plus a drummer. A different video from that era adds fiddle and gives an idea of how energetic the band are … YouTube link here. There’s a cover version by The Tillers on YouTube too. It’s listed on YouTube as an original, and it really captures an Appalachians church feel. It’s on their live album Harvest Festival, recorded in Brooklyn in 2015.

Whoopie Ti Yi Yo is the cowboy standard also known as Git Along Little Dogies, and performed in versions starting from 1893 and recorded by The Sons of The Pioneers, Cisco Houston and Marty Robbins to (ahem) Roy Rogers The Singing Cowboy (1940). I have to admit the Roy Rogers version is where I met it. It’s a lot of fun, and for me memories of Saturday Morning Matinees at the Modern Cinema, shooting cap guns at the screen while Roy Rogers and Trigger beat the baddies.

They were all ages present in the Barn, which is a welcome change for us. At concerts like The Zombies and The Searchers or even The Australian Pink Floyd, they’re all our age. On the packed balcony above the stage area, the girls were shimmying and finally dancing as they watched. 

American bands must feel cold in Europe. As I’ve noted in the past, North American audiences are so much more vocal and responsive. It added to a great and exciting evening.

PLEASE send corrections on the drummer and keyboard player’s names.