Long-time friends Brandon Foote and Laura Bates started playing music together at Haslett High School in 1997. They have spent much of the last eight years as active members of the Lansing, Michigan folk music scene, most notably during their three year stint fronting the bluegrass band Hot-Toe-Mitty. After releasing one album in the spring of 2002 (Hollow Near the Spring, Crème De Menthe Records) and performing at many local venues and Michigan music festivals, the band went its separate ways. Bates and Foote therefore stepped out to play as a duo soon after. With their unique blend of bluegrass, old-time, folk, and country, Laura and Brandon have graced coffee shops, bookstores, pubs, and festivals with traditional favorites and original songs. Booking their act as Guitar, Mandolin, and Two Voices, their sound is refreshingly simple and strives for authenticity, with nods to the Carter Family, the Monroe Brothers, and Tim and Mollie OBrien.
When not playing with Brandon, Laura teams up with Lansing singer-songwriter Jen Sygit in an old-time duo called Calamity Jane. Meanwhile, Brandon has been known to play mercenary mandolin for Grand Rapids based folk trio the Blue Water Ramblers. The Big Two-Hearted String Band, is a new project Brandon and Laura are involved in ~ old-time music with fiddle, mandolin, banjo, bass, flute, guitar, and accordion. In addition to completing his Bachelors degree at Central Michigan University in Outdoor Recreation and Environmental Education, Brandon studied mandolin at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, under bluegrass legends, Alan Munde and Joe Carr. Laura studied voice at Great Lakes Christian College and received her Bachelors of Religious Education with a major in Music.
From the minute Laura Bates' beautiful soprano voice follows the opening cords of the first song of this recently released CD, my senses were served notice that this was not music to be ignored. This is not background music, this music artistically rendered and beautifully mastered. This CD is filled with wonderful instrumental performances by some of Michigan's finest young artists. For all their youth, they play with ability and restraint that should be far beyond their years.
Quite frankly this is not just one of the best CDs from a Michigan artist I've heard this year, it's one of the best CD's I've heard this year period. Wonderfully written, wonderfully performed by both Brandon Foote and Laura Bates and the host of musicians accompanying them from their Earthwork Music Record label. This record features 9 songs written by Brandon and Laura and one classic song that is beautifully performed here, "Hard Times Come Again, No More" by Stephen Foster.
I have several favorites including their rendition of the Foster tune, but one song particularly grabbed me with it's wonderfully wrought combination of music and lyrics, "All Will be Well".
"Time to lift the backdrop baby, time to drop the show,
And face the fruit of consequences of deeds we did not sow,
Time to tell the truth about things we haven't changed
And the fragile thread in each of us, that fear is going to break."
That's great writing, but you're not really going to appreciate until you hear for yourself.
