Traveling, drugs, gambling, Jesus, New Orleans, birth, death, lost-love and the perils of city-life. The Be Good Tanyas' 2003 release wanders through a maze of moods, themes and emotions. Melting harmonies and raw soul singing, mandolins and banjos interweave with with swooning slide guitars and haunting harmonicas.
Enjoy special guest appearances by Ezmerelda the Ukelele, Olu Dara on cornet, Jolie Holland, Ketch on fiddle, Doug Thordarson on viola, Martin Green on the accordian, Aaron Chapman on the saw, Andrew Burton and Roey Shemesh laying down the bass grooves, Ike Eidsness and Paul Clifford holding it all together on the drums, and Frazey's mom Diane on vocal harmonies.
Chinatown is the second album by The Be Good Tanyas, released in 2003.
This text has been derived from Chinatown (The Be Good Tanyas album) on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0Artist/Band Information
The Be Good Tanyas are a Canadian traditional music group, whose influences included folk, country, and bluegrass. The style of music they performed can be referred to as alt-country or Americana.
Career
Formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, The Be Good Tanyas (Frazey Ford, Trish Klein, and Sam Parton) first played together at tree planting camps in the Kootenays region of British Columbia. They eventually played their first concerts in Vancouver in the late 1990s.
In 2000 they embarked on a North American tour that ran from Vancouver to New Orleans, before returning to British Columbia to record their first album Blue Horse with producer Garth Futcher. The record, which combines old-time music standards such as "Oh! Susanna", "The Cuckoo" and "The Lakes of Pontchartrain" with self-penned songs like "The Littlest Birds", was well received in the folk-roots movement and highly praised for the quality of the harmony vocals and the mixture of the new and the traditional in the instrumentation. Helped by the popularity of Americana at the time of its release, it achieved a modest amount of crossover success in college radio, and was featured in a television commercial for Zellers department stores.
The second album, Chinatown, followed in 2003. Their third album, Hello Love, was released on October 10, 2006.
The Tanyas gained some U.S. exposure when the Showtime series The L Word selected one of their songs, "In Spite of All the Damage", for inclusion in the series' soundtrack. A live version of "In My Time of Dying" was also included in the third episode of the third season, in which Frazey Ford featured as a nun and played the song in the opening sequence. The band's music has also been included in the Showtime series Weeds and the CTV series The Eleventh Hour in a similar role, and in the feature film Because of Winn-Dixie. Their cover of Townes Van Zandt's "Waiting Around to Die" was also used in an episode of AMC's Breaking Bad.
After the release of the first two Be Good Tanyas albums, Trish Klein collaborated with Alison Russell under the band name Po' Girl, a project that as of April 2007 has resulted in three albums: Po'girl, Vagabond Lullabies, and Home to You.
2007 saw all members of the band pursuing their own projects.
As of 2008, the band was on hiatus - to unwind from the stresses of touring. Ford released her debut solo album, Obadiah, in 2010. This was eventually confirmed to be a permanent split. However, they are scheduled to play the 2011 Winnipeg Folk Festival.
Members
* Frazey Ford (guitar, vocals)
* Samantha Parton (guitar, mandolin, banjo, vocals)
* Trish Klein (guitar, banjo, vocals)
Former members
* Jolie Holland
Discography
Albums
Singles
Other contributions
*Live at the World Café: Vol. 15 - Handcrafted (2002, World Café) - "The Littlest Birds"
*107.1 KGSR Radio Austin - Broadcasts Vol. 10 (2002) - "Light Enough to Travel"
*Northern Songs: Canada's Best and Brightest (2008, Hear Music) - "Ootischenia"
References
This text has been derived from The Be Good Tanyas on Wikipedia and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0
