Luna, Rob McNurlin, Wiley Dew celebrate CD releases at Paramount Joe's

By Dave Lavender
The Herald-Dispatch

ASHLAND -- There truly is "Something in the Water" in Eastern Kentucky where talent for singing and picking country, gospel and bluegrass music seems to seep up out of the ground.

Tonight, hold on tight to the forked branch, it's water witching down on a rich spring of new music in the old-time way.
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Three of the Tri-State's funkiest Americana artists and mighty fine songwriters drop three new, and widely varying CDs, on the same night.

Good friends and kindred musical spirits, Rob McNurlin and The Beatnik Cowboys, Luna and Wiley Dew have teamed up for the "Triple CD Release Party Bash" at 7 tonight at the Paramount Arts Center, 1300 Winchester Ave.

Cover is $5.

To borrow a Jesse Stuart phrase, the thread that runs so true through these new sweet releases is the touch of family, the presence of porch-aged homemade music, and a true air of Appalachian ingenuity and originality.

Fresh back from The Far Out West tour that had Luna (Teresa Prince) and McNurlin playing such hallowed and downhome venues as the famous Threadgill's in Austin, the three artists thought it would be good to team up and celebrate the release of McNurlin's "Sacred Numbers," a harmonica-swept, cowboy boot heeled-journey through some of the best parchment of the Southern gospel canon; Luna's self-titled CD, a poetry-filled clothesline of hill-soaked songs dressed with her husband Dave's jangling electric guitar, and Wiley Dew's "Climb Up Mountain," whose 15 nearly-all-original Celtic-hewn songs are equally as good as the CD's cliff-hanging album art taken at Raven Rock, outside of Portsmouth, in 1917.

Luna, a Fallsburg, Ky., resident who toured in Europe in 2004 with McNurlin and her husband Dave, said after kicking up dust in 15 states out West with McNurlin, the CD party makes a great homecoming and gathering for the three artists who are all featured in the original musical, "Something in the Water," that was written by Mickey Fisher and Ritch Collins.

"We will surely fill the place up if the people show up who say they're coming," Luna said. "My family alone, if they show up, there won't be room for anybody else."

If you do show up, Luna is bringing cake and all three CDs, which are getting airplay in the region, will be for sale.

"We all had CDs coming out at the same time and we were like let's just have a big bash because we all love each other," said Yates, whose song "Swimming Upstream," was written with Wiley Dew mandolin player, Steve Byington, is getting airplay on WMKY-FM, Morehead State University's public radio station.

All of the CDs are touched by the deft musical hands of McNurlin, who is one of the prominently featured artists in Roger Sherman's upcoming national documentary, "The Rhythm of My Soul: Kentucky Roots Music" as well as a new DVD from the Woody Guthrie Festival.

Yates recorded her CD at McNurlin's Buffalo Skinner Studios, McNurlin and Luna's CDs are on his label and McNurlin plays bass and harmonium on Luna's CD and the harmonium, harmonica and the uh, Celtic electric sitar on Wiley's record.

"He was actually going to buy a sitar because he thought it would sound really good on the record," Yates said. "We got down to Dave Barrick's studio and there was a sitar on the wall. He was so thrilled about that because it just sounds so cool."

All three of the CDs were mixed and mastered at Barrick's studio in the western Kentucky town of Glasgow where Barrick uses some recording equipment from the famous Abbey Road Studios to capture the warm tones and good vibes.

Barrick, who cut the Kentucky Headhunters' great CD with Johnny Johnson, is currently working with such acts as Black Stone Cherry, one of this year's X-Fest headliners.

Not only is Barrick's hand on the recordings, but Luna felt the spirit and included a cool photo of a paint-peeling church pew in his backyard on the inside of her CD jacket.

Luna, who artistically is like Lucinda Williams' little twisted sister, also included some yard art from her own place including a skeleton on the piano and the CD cover of an old doll that is in a tree in her yard.

"I love stuff like that," Luna said. "You know Hillbilly Hotdogs, the outside of my house is pretty much like that."

McNurlin, who has always blended lots of gospel into his sets of folk and original songs from the road, lets the Beatnik Cowboy roam on "Sacred Numbers" putting their own twist and his old-time Ernest Tubb-approved twang on such gems as "The Old Account," "Workin' On a Building," "The Great Speckled Bird," and "Hold to God's Unchanging Hand."

Yates said a lot of her lyrics come filtered through the many stories of her grandma who will be 102 in October, spiced, of course, with Yates' self-described "overactive imagination.

An album favorite is "Don't Give Up," a sweetly-sung gospel, killing song about a woman pleading to Jesus for redemption after killing her abusive husband after he had a night of mean drinking.

"She always tells these stories about grandpa coming in drunk and her throwing poker irons at him," Yates said. "I just added a lady wrapping a rope around his head."