Classic Country, Gospel, and Honkytonk Sounds with Sacred Shakers and Zoe Muth Coming to Helsinki Hudson

Zoe Muth

Zoe Muth

(HUDSON, N.Y.) – A double-bill of classic country sounds with gospel-honkytonk outfit Sacred Shakers and high lonesome country singer Zoe Muth with her band, the Lost High Rollers, pull into Club Helsinki Hudson on Friday, December 5, 2014, at 9pm. Muth’s clear, honest vocals and classic approach have garnered her comparisons to Maybelle Carter, Loretta Lynn, John Prine, Emmylou Harris, Iris Dement, and Patty Griffin.

The Sacred Shakers play a blend of old-time, country and blues-influenced gospel music in the tradition of Hank Williams, the Carter Family, the Stanley Brothers, Son House, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Beginning in 2005, that music drew a small but ever-widening circle of some of Boston’s finest musicians and vocalists together at the Country Gospel Brunch concert series. In short order, the Boston Globe described the group as “a local Who’s Who of all-star roots musicians.” And last summer, after hearing a single live performance by the Sacred Shakers, indie Signature Sounds label owner Jim Olsen encouraged the group to record their repertoire. On their eponymous debut, The Sacred Shakers offer new life to the gospel genre by revisiting the stripped down country and bluesy gospel material that inspires them.

Sacred ShakersFirst making her name in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s been called “Seattle’s Emmylou,” and heralded as one of the best songwriters to come out of Washington State, Muth has spent the last four years touring across the U.S. and Europe. Playing bars and cafes as a young pre-school teacher, she saved up her minimum wage earnings and beer bucket tips to pay for her 2009 debut album, “Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers.” That album, along with her 2011 follow up, “Starlight Hotel,” went on to garner praise from the international press, and landed on No Depression’s “Top 50 Albums” list in their respective years. Muth’s most recent album is “World of Strangers.”

Muth’s organic vocals harken back to a more innocent era before pop music and reality TV shows turned country music into a slick, commercial product. Her musical arrangements have one foot in 1950s Nashville and the other in the early country-rock experiments of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers. While Muth’s own songs sit comfortably aside her country music forebears, she’s equally as comfortable delivering renditions by songwriters as diverse as Ronnie Lane, Anna McGarrigle, Dock Boggs and Jerry Ragovoy in her inimitable country style.

This program is part of Helsinki Hudson’s commitment to presenting emerging and rising artists.

For reservations in The Restaurant or in the club call 518.828.4800.

 

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