Take Yo Time

Take Yo Time is the first duo album from Ben Hunter (fiddle, vocals) and Joe Seamons (banjo, guitar, vocals) produced under the auspices of the Rhapsody Project, a community-based arts development and educational centre in Seattle, Washington, which Hunter founded a few years ago. As educators and performers, both men are steeped in early American folk music, and share an affinity for jug bands, ragtime, novelty tunes, jazz and the blues. An endearingly ramshackle vibe tempered by a scholarly grasp of the material runs through all 14 selections on Take Yo Time. The duo's spare, broken-down arrangements rely on minimal instrumentation.

This less-is-more strategy brings out the finer grains even in the most familiar songs, such as Blind Willie McTell's hustler's lament ‘Broke Down Engine Blues’; the Appalachian folk song ‘Tom Dooley’ and the venerable Scottish ballad ‘House Carpenter.’ An interpretation of Duke Ellington's ‘Jungle Nights in Harlem’ on fiddle, banjo and kazoo, no less, makes bluegrass swing like swing really means something. The album's finale breaks things down to the germinal via hambone percussion on ‘Some of these Days’, thereby turning Sophie Tucker's signature vamp from the 1920s into a funky porch-rocker. Take Yo Time is worthy of every minute you can give it.