Apple Season

We're really looking forward to our show on December 5 at the historic Laurel Theater in Knoxville, TN. Those of you who listen to WDVX regularly will be familiar with the Mountain Jubilee and Live at Laurel shows on Sunday, which feature music by artists performing at the Laurel. Keep an ear out for Kindling Stone in the coming months.

Also, we'll be performing Friday evening and Saturday day sets at the 9th Annual Bristol Rhythm & Roots festival on September 18 and 19. Hope to see you there!

I've been busy working on  a bunch of new tunes, which we've been starting to add to the repertoire. Getting close to recording time again before too long I think. Also, just learned a cool new Shaker tune from Dan Patterson's book The Shaker Spiritual - it's from Pleasant Hill, KY attributed to Lovina Price, dated March 13, 1844. Like so many of these early songs, the melody is a secret window into the world of secular balladry of the day. Here are the words to the first verse:

O what is pomp and splendor
What is earth's golden wealth
With all her richest treasures
Pertaining to the earth
For like a fallen lilley
Or as a blighted rose
All earthly things will fail your
Your days on earth will close.



One of the songs I just finished is called Orchard and its spirit is certainly at home in this season of apples. Especially following our lovely trip to Pratt's Orchard in Lebanon, TN this morning. Here are the lyrics:

Orchard

Here in the orchard
We'll find a way
We will find, we will find our true reflection

On a lost ship I sailed into the bay
Pulled an oar up the tidal riverway
Heard a bell in the forest call my name
And I knew things would never be the same

Climbed a hill through a sleeping giant's dream
Speckled peak, sugar maple, mountain stream
Spinning leaves fell in crimson and in gold
I could feel a deeper story being told

At the clearing like some paradise revealed
Brilliant apple trees adorned a sloping field
Rubies hung between the shoulders of the sky
Baldwin, Rome, Blue Pearmain, and Northern Spy

Here in the orchard we'll find a way
We will find
We will find our true reflection

As I made my way around a twisting limb
I began to sing an ancient, wordless hymn
Every molecule then joined the vocal band
And our melody could see the promised land


c.2009 Chris Moore, ASCAP