The High and Wides - Blood: Family Harmony Classics (2022)

Charlie Louvin told a great story of how he and his brother, Ira, as kids were too embarrassed to perform in front of family friends, so they sang from under their bed. You can imagine countless other sibling hideaways where the great duo vocal style that this album celebrates developed. From the rough, sometimes awkward harmonies of the Carter Family, to the polished counterpoint of the Louvins, the mysterious blood ties hammered out and refined to a pure, eerie sound was a driving force in early country music. And, yes, we know that the founding members of the Carter Family weren’t blood-related. The sound was as much in the audience’s mind as it was in the singing. You don’t get far on any playlist of early country music without running into the “--- Brothers” or “--- Family” because the idea of relations singing together spoke to the emotions that country music once evoked.

At first glance, two- and three-part harmony looks like a mere matter of numbers, but the breadth of styles on this record should convince you otherwise. Three-part, for all its chordal glory, tends to lock the vocals together; the singers can’t stray too far from their lanes without mucking things up. Two-part, on the other hand, can almost be too much space. You get that feeling on Carter Family tunes where Maybelle and Sarah can have nearly an octave between them and then switch so seamlessly between the high and low parts that it’s difficult to tell between them. It could be saccharine, strident, and everything in-between.

The two-part singing that was an inspiration for us traces its way from creaky, pre-World War II folk songs played on wind-up Victrola’s to the tape echo pop of the Everly Brothers. Its evolution is accompanied by a rhythmic drive that works best, in our opinion, without drums, more of a pulse that the vocals can match and overwhelm at times: the perfect string band sound.

Lest our enthusiasm for this music cloud your judgment, it’s our duty to tell you that none of us grew up in the 30’s and 40’s, we’re not blood-related, and our harmonizing is a far cry from the vocals that the album celebrates. The arrangements are also nowhere close to an authentic rendering. In place of stylistic authenticity, we share the spark that made these songs alive to us and hope the glimmer translates.