The Down Hill Strugglers spent years honing their craft in the style and spirit of those indelible 78-rpm recordings made in the late 1920s and early ’30s of square dance tunes, sacred songs, and tear-jerkers of lost love and violent death. In that, they were firmly in the tradition of their forebears of the mid-century Folk Revival, particularly the New Lost City Ramblers, who were as skilled as listeners, researchers, and documentarians as they were musicians.
The Strugglers, however, have always played with a fire and a feeling wholly their own— with intensity, grace, and a simmering sense of mischief. Old Juniper, their first record in seven years, is further evidence (were it needed) that the band operates in a world of their devising, richly fed by the wellsprings of American traditional music but not hemmed in by them. It’s also their first record featuring original compositions. While the lyric songs borrow familiar elements from early country-music songsters—Riley Puckett’s “I’m Gettin’ Ready to Go;” Dave McCarn’s “Poor Man, Rich Man”—all the tunes are the band’s, and it’s astonishing to hear the echoes of some of the greatest recorded string-bands of the 1920s and ‘30s in creative conversation with the Strugglers’ own compositional acumen. The raggy “Pillow Stone” evokes the peerless Grinnell Giggers of the Missouri bootheel; “Grayling Waltz” would have fit neatly into a waltz set by Taylor-Griggs Louisiana Music Makers or Tennessee’s Weems String Band.
A particular strength of the band is the markedly individual musical sensibility each of its members brings to the table: mix these up, smooth out some edges (or don’t), and that’s the Struggler sound. But despite their considerable talents, together and apart, the Down Hill Strugglers’ greatest asset may not be their chops but their exquisite sensitivity to this seam where collective tradition and individual artistry meet. For over 15 years they’ve been deftly reconciling them, making music that sounds simultaneously old and new, timeless and right on time. It just keeps getting better.
Old Juniper (due out August 16th via Jalopy Records) is the first new album from the Down Hill Strugglers since 2017 and is its first album of original music. The band wrote songs that are true to the deep and diverse roots of the old time string band style where they feel most at home but that also reflect the experiences and feelings of the band members living modern lives.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the standout track “Whistle Won’t Blow,” which offers proof that the time spent out of the studio has hardly dulled this band’s chemistry and their ability to craft damn fine old-time string band music. Harmonizing like an Appalachian family band, these talented players raise a glass to those who blow the whistle and hold evil-doers accountable in this messed-up world. While that message surely resonated during the times where their style of folk music was actually popular, it seems to strike an even more resonant chord now when at least one presidential candidate is about as big of a liar and a crook as you could find. Musically, the song revels in simplicity with its string instruments taking you back to a bygone era.
Walker Shepard, who wrote and sings the song, describes the inspiration behind it:
This is a simple song with little detail and ambiguous subject matter. When we play live, we often send this song out to Reality Winner and all the world’s whistle-blowers. It is a nod to those who face unjust penalties for revealing the truth.
LISTEN:
