Lee Hunter & The Gatherers - The Ground Beneath My Feet (2025)

Lee Hunter & the Gatherers have a new album of sweetly sung folk songs: The Ground Beneath My Feet. It’s twelve songs: four traditionals including “Shenandoah,” “The Water Is Wide,” “Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,” and “Lover’s Ghost,” a Richard Thompson song “Farewell, Farewell,” a co-write with Peter Rowan ; a murder ballad “High Above the Hills of Sligo” written by Del Suggs; four Lee Hunter originals, and “The Bonnie Banks O’Dee” written by Paul Anderson and Shona Donaldson. That’s an impressive lineup by any standard.

But there’s more. The core trio of Lee Hunter and the Gatherers is Lee, Joey Kerr, and Walter Mingledorff, plus a slew of special guests contribute to the album: Lis Williamson, Lon Williamson, John Mailander, Joe Craven, Verlon Thompson, Del Suggs, Dave Murphy, Peter Rowan, Tommy Bledsoe, Gabe Valla, Byron House and Jim Lauderdale.

On aspect that runs throughout the songs is Lee’s lovely and comforting vocals, which accentuate the timelessness of the timeless songs on the album. Opening with languid violin, “The Water is Wide” is an easy, thoughtful performance. Next on “Lover’s Ghost” there are touches of foreboding and intrigue swirling for a good long intro before the instant classic tale is shared.

Lee launches the tale of a beggar and his daughter Betsy in “Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green,” with fiddle and touches of flute.

Later in the album “Charleston 1862,” co-written by Lee Hunter and Peter Rowan, the story of Robert Smalls unfolds with an ominous rhythm, low hums, low fiddle, and a tale of a slave searching for freedom on the seas.

“The Colors of Our Lives” is more of a love song, with lightly played rhythms and accordion in the mix, and “it feels so right….” Later, Jim Lauderdale sings in duet with Lee on “Shenandoah,” a powerful piano version, with Lee’s honeyed vocals playing off Jim’s gritty twang in a lovely way.

Lee Hunter is a folk musician, one half of the duo Tammerlin, and she has opened for Emmylou Harris and has shared the stage with luminaries like the Band and Doc Watson. On this album, she shares timeless folk musical ideas, bringing traditionals and new songs together lightly around a common core of human experience.