Concert Review:  Auckland Folk Festival, Kumeu Showgrounds 29 January to 1 February 2021 Part 2

The 48^th Auckland Folk Festival went ahead this year despite some last-minute threats of a lockdown. It was a stunning success due to the quality and vast breadth of styles and genres that we all enjoyed over three days.

The Harmonic Resonators

The Harmonic Resonators are a Nashville-style Country music ensemble who came together at the Morrinsville Country Music club. Waikato is not Gore as a Country music centre.

When they hit the Main Marquee on Saturday night, they are a revelation. Leader and acoustic guitarist Jeremy Hantler brings as much manic energy and presence on stage as the Easterns Adam McGrath.

They write lyrics predominantly in te reo Maori. The style of music is down-home Country and Folk. As would have been played in the heartland. Singalong music in rugby clubrooms, town hall dances, barbecues and picnics. The opposite of social distancing. This energy resonates off the stage they come close to stealing this weekend.

That is because they have some serious jaw-dropping musical chops. Handley’s family must be long time Country music performers. Father Renny Hantler plays acoustic guitar licks. Mother comes on to sing an astonishingly accomplished version of Tennessee Waltz.

Ryan Monaghan on electric guitar doles out brief but on-the-money solos. Rockabilly, twangy guitar and Surf.

Their version of the Temptations My Girl is a highlight. Start with that signature bass intro, from Sharon McIntyre who is the groups Carol Kaye. Jeremy shows what a fine voice he has. A well-controlled operatic tenor who sustains effortlessly on the high tones. In the middle passage they break into some Fife and Drum style theatrics way down low before coming back to close it out. A novelty but a great performance.

Yodel Your Blues Away is Western Swing with the lead guitar laying out some fast Rockabilly breaks. That operatic tenor can really go to town on the yodelling.

Take On Me from A-ha is translated into Maori and blasts off with great rhythm and swing.

Lots of cheering and a standing ovation when they leave.

Jenny Mitchell

Jenny Mitchell is from Southland and sings Country Americana and touches on Folk, Pop and a little Jazz. Has played in festivals around Australia including the major Tamworth Country Music Festival. Has been a support act for the Southern Fork Americana shows in the last few years.

A recent album Wildfire won the Tui award for Best Country Album in 2019. Also, the first New Zealand album to be nominated for Alt-Country Album of the Year in Australia.

An impressive reputation and with the opening song on Sunday afternoon, we hear why.

Paul Simon’s Love Me Like a Rock. A full rich tone and an expansive range. This weekend she is playing as a trio with her younger sisters Nicola Mitchell and Maegan Mitchell. Beautiful harmonies typical of sibling performers in Country music.

One Day has a slight Jamaican Folk beat of the type that Paul Simon used to do in the early Seventies. With great harmony vocals they work this up to a nice propulsive rhythm.

Ends of the Earth is a standout from that Wildfire album. Moving from Folk to Country. About roving far and wide but coming back to find a deep connection to home country. A soulful voice and the harmony voices blend with perfect timing.

A couple of standout covers of iconic songs. Jeannie C Riley’s Harper Valley PTA is given some Rockabilly energy and on reflection was an early Alt- Country tune.

Big Yellow Taxi from Joni Mitchell despite being so well-known sounds fresh and sassy.

In her earlier set, she does a mash-up of all her many influences which is a superb showcase for the considerable depth and range of her musical style. I hear Topp Twins, The Judds, Silver and Gold, Stanley Brothers, Doc Watson, Goin’ Up the Country.  Laced through with those beautiful harmony vocals.

Certainly, we will be hearing more from Jenny Mitchell.

Polytropos

Polytropos are a great way to approach the history of Folk music. They reach back over centuries and come up with vibrant, energetic and fresh perspectives. They are Oscar West and Rennie Pearson and they have been playing and developing their take on traditional Celtic music for ten years.

Late Saturday night and they start with a Celtic air on fiddle and flute. A march at first and then they swing and dance. Good reminder how much historically comes from military music.

The Price of a Pig is called the original Trance music. Fiddle and guitar this time and a slow waltz that gains rhythmic speed and builds into more frenzied music.

They look to the East. Ragupati is a well-known Indian Bhajan. The flute leads, a mandolin plays tabla tones. It morphs into old Irish tune The Old Man’s Daughter.

An old American Shape-Note song from the late nineteenth century. Bound for Caanan’s Land.

A medley of French tunes shows us how this is intertwined with Celtic influence. And vice-versa.  Starts like chamber music on violin and mandolin. Then they speed up and it becomes a reel.

On a smaller stage we get a history lesson on the Scottish small pipes. It sounds like a high-toned recorder. On an extended piece we hear rolling and tumbling riffs. Piping trance and drone music for a village square. Velvet Undergound in the 17^th century.

Tui Mamaki

Tui Mamaki is a very interesting artist. She is of French and Kiwi origins. Has spent considerable time in Bulgaria from where she learnt the distinctive female choir singing that you hear with the Mystere de Voix Bulgare.

The first tune she does is old traditional French taken from grandmother. An Indian drone makes it haunting and ancient. There are Celtic tones. Playful Gypsy tones as it moves Mediterranean perhaps. Then morphs into Bulgarian high keening vocals. Stunning and very compelling.

Once she starts it is compulsive listening. She has a nice deeper voice register.

A folk tale about a young girl bitten by a snake. It is a drone lament but the singing is also tender and majestic.

Indian drones feature on a number of songs. One called Tuka Reema (approximately) sounds like Nusrat Khan’s Qawwali music blended with the crying vocals of a Bulgarian choir. The Bulgarian Roses women’s dance group join in on this.

Wonderful stuff and a unique sound at the Festival.

Following her is Craig Denham and Friends. This band give us a real gumbo mix of music.

New Orleans Swamp Funk and Blues, about Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen.

Wayfaring Stranger, which was code music referring to the Underground Railway of America in the 1800’s. The legend of how Blacks escaped their slave-owners.

A little of the history of Cuban and Brazilian Beats.

They play the Paragon’s The Tide Is High. But with a Reggae beat which they morph into a Cha-Cha. Much different to the Pop version from Blondie.

Ethno New Zealand

Ethno New Zealand are this country’s version of a global movement called Ethno. Young musicians between the ages of 18 to 30. They come together for a 10-day music camp to immerse themselves in diverse World music styles. They blend and mix and produce music out of this melting pot. The real East-West. There is the humanitarian philosophy underpinning the aims of the camp as well.

They have at least 20 players on stage. I have a feeling there are more but they can’t fit them all on. Guitars, saxophones, acoustic bass, lots of strings and woodwind. There is one tabla player.

A very big group so a lot of tune a rhythmic and dance-oriented.

A quieter one which caught my ear is a song dedicated to saving the kauri forests. Sung in Maori as soft Soul-Pop. A muted trumpet solo.

John Sutherland

John Sutherland has long been part of the Folk music scene in New Zealand. Originally a Skiffle artist playing drums. Emigrating here in the Sixties he took up the acoustic guitar and developed a distinctive percussive picked style.

Played at the legendary Poles Apart Folk club and helped set up the Devonport Bunker, which is still going strong.

Sings traditional Scottish Folk tunes. Nice rhythmic roll to his guitar picking. There are also Jazz and Blues tones in his playing. Like his version of Frankie and Johnny.

Green Grow the Rushes Ho has a great Scots voice and ringing guitar.

The Cuckoo is an ancient air with dark tones beneath the narrative. The Jack of Diamonds appears.

We get to hear story songs like Baltic to Byzantium. Full of alcohol, North Sea and Scandinavia.

The Recorded Music New Zealand finalists for the Folk Album of the Year are presented at the Folk Festival.  This year it is two out of three performing. Tattle Tale Saints are in Nashville and not able to cross our borders.

Darren Watson

Darren Watson is a contemporary Blues artist who first came to attention with Chicago Smoke Shop. His album Getting Sober for the End of the World got some deserving attention from Blues fans.

The title track is played with some passion and fire. Has a Piano Blues feel.

Alison Jane is a highlight of that album and he gets to do a bit of Otis Redding soulful emoting, along with the spare blues backing.

Too Many Millionaires written by Bill Lake. A Shuffle Blues and a great workout with echoes of Son House.

You, Me, Everybody

New group You, Me, Everybody are a contemporary Country Bluegrass outfit who have come together from numerous other projects. They are virtuoso players and combine original tunes in Folk and Americana styles. They could well be New Zealand’s very own answer to the Band.

A great female Country singer in Kim Bonnington. A soft melodic Folk voice and guitar picker in Laurence Frangos-Rhodes. They are the song-writers.

Brother Sam Frangos-Rhodes on mandolin and vocals, Nat Torkington an ace banjo-picker and James Geluk acoustic bass.

 On stage they take their carefully intertwined music and give it some Rock’n’Roll energy.

The title track to their just-released album Southern Sky brings it all together. A fast Bluegrass clip. Jazzy touches. Light on its feet and very danceable.

The winners of the Tui award were the Tattle Tale Saints.

 A superb weekend of music from start to finish. Cannot mention them all. Always a number of festivals around the country over summer but this is one of the best. And the restriction to local artists did not drop the quality one iota.

If anything, it has highlighted emphatically that we are bursting at the seams with musicians and acts of international quality. The fact that we can see them live and with lots of others does make New Zealand special place. Of course, music will awaken again in the rest of the world. But the seeds of an exciting new scene here are sprouting.

Rev Orange Peel                                                

Click any thumbnail to view a gallery of performances on Day 2.

For Day 1 review and photos, go HERE.