Folked-Up Friday: Concert Review - Still Crooked

Our "Folked-Up Friday" column, written by A. McKell who currently resides in Nashville, TN, features a new folk/country artist each week. Every Friday, he will update you on what's happening in the folk/country scene with CD reviews, live show reviews and hot NashVegas gossip. Be sure to check back every Friday for this awesome column.

Last Sunday night the Basement, in Nashville, was open for quite a cool event; the CD release tour of Crooked Still's new record, Still Crooked. There have been some personnel changes in the band in recent months, but one would never have guessed as their sound was still uniquely defined. Former cellist Rushad Eggleston left the band in November 2007, and the quartet quickly turned into a quintet adding a fiddle player (should have done that a long time ago) and a new cellist, Triston Clarridge. (He's won the Grand National Fiddle competition three times!)

But all that said, that's not what made the night so special for me. Living in Nashville, bluegrass music is abundant and the "who's who of fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and guitar" are gigging regularly. Listening to Dr. Greg Liszt play the banjo, however, was magical. I had never seen anything like it. At one point in the show Liszt mentioned his lofty goal of designing a computer that he could plug directly into his head so that the audience members would be able to "hear" the banjo that was actually happening in his head. (Maybe that's why he got his Doctorate degree?) He played triplets up and down the neck of the banjo with ease and if that weren't enough he was jumping up and down the entire show. Lead vocalist, Aoife O'Donovan, sang the old classic folk tunes with a haunting beautiful voice. Her voice could calm the sea. So pure; so beautiful. Their newest single, "Undone in Sorrow" was a definite highlight of the night. I was nervous that their sound might have changed with the new line-up but I was very pleased to hear that Crooked Still was definitely "still crooked".