For fans of Loudon Wainwright's Charlie Poole Project, this is an album by Last Forever, the band of Dick Connette, LWIII's chief collaborator on that album.
Nonesuch Wrote:
Last Forever's 2000 Nonesuch release, Trainfare Home, follows their 1997 eponymous debut, which earned high marks from major critics, and found its home on the airwaves in both the NPR and Americana formats. A unique combination of instruments, talents, influences and aspirations, Last Forever takes a new musical approach to the simplicity, clarity and eccentric beauty of American music traditions in authentic folk tunes, as well as original material inspired by earlier styles.
On Trainfare Home, a varied collection of new and old songs, the ensemble includes guitars, strings, harmonium, dulcimer, simple percussion and occasional woodwinds and horns, creating a graceful roots sound from a decidedly urban viewpoint. In an era that has seen success for projects like “Appalachia Waltz,” and artists like Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Last Forever can claim a bloodline to the material at hand: Sonya Cohen’s confident grasp of the storytelling tradition can be traced to father John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, and uncle Pete Seeger, the legendary father of folk.
Last Forever’s Dick Connette refers to Trainfare Home as “new and old songs out of the American tradition, and I mean ‘out’ not ‘in’—they’re extensions and responses to the great mix of music that have flourished in the United States. I don’t really distinguish between folk and popular—in fact, I find most efforts at drawing that distinction to be decidedly unedifying.” Connette adds, “In recent years, much has been made of the Harry Smith Anthology as the resource of a continuing folk revival, but all the songs on that anthology were originally commercial recordings, and the Carter Family and Blind Lemon Jefferson were extremely popular musicians in their time. So yes, Trainfare Home draws on lullabies and ballads and fiddle tunes that probably still find a home on the front porch, but there’s also funk and doo-wop, maybe coming from the radio just inside.”
Loudon Wainwright III Wrote:
You know you love an album when you keep buying copies of it to give to your friends, when you find yourself braving the gangsta bag check at Tower Records, or tolerating yet again the bored teller contempt at the Virgin Megastore till. One night a few years ago, Hannibal Records boss and all around music maven Joe Boyd was playing some of us his favorite new and upcoming releases. Among the CDs he spun for our listening pleasure was one about to come out on the Nonesuch label. I recall Joe saying something like, "Here's the best of them all. Just listen to this." It was Last Forever. After that I became the middle-aged man with the funny hat you've seen slipping in and out of HMV.
