Saturday March 2, 2024

Rainshadow Concerts: Joachim Cooder with Rayna Gellert Saturday, March 2, 7:30pm The Palindrome at Eaglemount Cidery 1893 S. Jacob Miller Rd. Port Townsend, WA 98368 Tickets: $25 each online at https://www.ticketstorm.com/e/29361/t/ or $30 cash or check at the door. Rainshadow Recording welcomes singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joachim Cooder, with fiddler and singer-songwriter Rayna Gellert, Saturday March 2 at 7:30pm at The Palindrome at Eaglemount Cidery, 1893 S. Jacob Miller Rd.  Series sponsors are Corvus Crafts Printing and Robin’s Nest. Media sponsor for this series is KPTZ-FM radio. On his Nonesuch debut, Over That Road I’m Bound, Joachim Cooder uses the plain-spoken songs of country-music progenitor Uncle Dave Macon as the jumping-off point for an album that feels more like a compellingly soulful reverie than a scholarly excavation. Family is at the heart of the project—as an impetus and as a theme. Cooder enlists family members to join him as he explores and expands upon tunes that his father, Ry [Cooder], had played for him and that Cooder now sings to his young children. Culling material from a vast catalog, Cooder locates a gentleness and a plaintive quality in these songs; the novel arrangements he fashions often owe more to ambient or world music than to country. It’s an unexpected —and utterly original—take on the music Macon had performed. The soft-spoken artist has been a sought-after percussionist for two decades now. He performed on the now-legendary sessions in Havana that produced Buena Vista Social Club and has worked with many of its players on their subsequent solo discs. He’s recorded with a wide range of other performers, including Mavis Staples, Jon Hassell, Dr. John, and Ali Farka Touré, who further fueled his passion for the mbira. On his own, he’s released two albums, Love on a Real Train (2015) and Fuchsia Machu Picchu (2018), and an EP of haunting instrumentals, We Can Talk from Different Waters (2020). After honing her fiddle skills playing at jam sessions and square dances, Rayna Gellert fell into a life of traveling and performing. Her fiddle albums are widely celebrated in the old-time music community, and she has recorded with a host of musicians in a variety of styles – including Robyn Hitchcock, Tyler Ramsey, Sara Watkins, Loudon Wainwright III, John Paul Jones, and Joachim Cooder. Rayna was a member of the acclaimed stringband Uncle Earl, with whom she released two albums on Rounder Records and toured like mad. She has also toured extensively with songwriter Scott Miller, as well as her Uncle Earl bandmate Abigail Washburn. In recent years, Rayna’s focus has turned toward songwriting and singing, releasing two solo albums (Old Light: Songs from my Childhood & Other Gone Worlds and Workin's Too Hard) on StorySound Records. Since 2016, she has been writing, recording, and performing as a duo with Kieran Kane. They have now released three albums on Dead Reckoning Records — most recently The Flowers That Bloom in Spring. Tickets: $25 each online at https://www.ticketstorm.com/e/29361/t/ or $30 cash or check at the door. More information: Matt Miner 503-484-8196