Tangleweed's Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals

Our most recent CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, received a nice review in Sing Out!. Reviewer Tom Druckenmiller liked our take on traditional stringband music, as well as our approach to original material:

Tangleweed writes tunes about their lives in today’s world. This may turn off some traditional music purists, but if the classic bands sang songs about the life they were living “back in the day,” why doesn’t that apply today?

You can read the full review in the Summer, 2009 issue of Sing Out, or read it online.

Tangleweed's Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals

Tangleweed’s third CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, got a very nice write up in Record Department:

Chicago Americana quintet Tangleweed takes its influence from traditional fiddle tunes, bluegrass, blues, hymns, rags and rave-ups that grew out of the rural South. Tangleweed meticulously collected hidden gems, the lost, forgotten and/or obscure songs from Folkways reissues, 78s, box sets, traditional songbooks and the history of Americana music. This is especially evident in the title of their third album, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals taken from a little known 1920s classic. The album is rich, organic and authentic – Tangleweed carries on the tradition of old time music while expanding upon it with a few contemporary classics of their own.

Check it out at Record Department’s site: RecordDept.com

Tangleweed's Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals

Our latest CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, got a favorable write up in this month’s Bluegrass Unlimited:

This latest collection features traditional numbers “Sandy River Belle,” “Short Life Of Trouble,” and “Listen To The Mockingbird” blended with original material. Noted performances include “California,” “Mississippi Trashboat,” and a rendition of the bluegrass classic, “Pain In My Heart.” Tangleweed has created a vigorous collection of contemporary bluegrass capped with originality.

Read the full review at Bluegrass Unlimited’s site

The Rural Roots Music Commission has named Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals as its ‘Traditional Music CD of the Year’. Thanks!

According to Cool Noise, Tangleweed is a band that ‘reeks of authenticity’. They posted a very kind review of our newest CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals.

Tangleweed are an Americana five-piece from Chicago who have a recent album “Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals”. The fiddle and banjo give away that they play a good bit of Bluegrass. It is quality stuff that reeks of authenticity – this band really knows their musical history. But there is more than history here – songs like Trishanku’s Heaven and California are great additions to an American songbook.

On a few of the tracks, Tangleweed demonstrate some irish folk roots music. In particular they cover a traditional song (once performed by Ewan McColl, I believe) Join The British Army. Now, I’m not very keen on people going “Too ra loo ra loo ra loo”; okay as background in a crowded pub maybe but I have great prejudice against all of that ‘finger in the ear’ cliché of folk. However, after immensely enjoying this track I can now say: if you have to “Too ra loo ra loo ra loo” then this is the way to “Too ra loo ra loo ra loo”.

Read the review and hear a song clip at Cool Noise.

Tangleweed's Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals

Tangleweed’s most recent CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, is now available on eMusic for your downloading pleasure. If you’re an eMusic member, please consider taking a moment to review the record.

At long last, our third CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals, is available at iTunes.

The process was delayed several times. It was delivered to Apple in October, but an unspecified error prevented it from being added to the site. Some additional intervention from CDBaby led to the album being redelivered, and, in relatively short order this time, being added to the site. So go crazy. Download away.

Positive reviews continue to flow in for our newest CD, Most Folk Heroes Started Out As Criminals. The latest comes from Andy Riggs at Americana-UK.

Tangled Up In The Bluegrass Weed Of The Folk Criminals

Over the Xmas break I was given the film ‘The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford’ (a great film in my opinion and I can’t stand Brad Pitt usually). I mention this because Tangleweed have made a record that could have been a soundtrack for that film.

This is country music from a simpler time, with banjos and fiddles taking centre stage. The ‘Weed’ are a five piece band with Billy Oh taking vocals and fiddle, Kenneth Rainey (mandolin & vocals), Paul Wargaski (bass), T R Fisher (banjo, vocals) & Scott Judd (guitar, vocals). Taking traditional songs and their own songs written by the entire band, there is nothing to dislike on this record.

The song titles show that the lads are entrenched in their roots: ‘Logjam’, ‘Pick Poor Robin Clean’, ‘Join The British Army – The Dubliners’, and ‘Mississippi Trashboat’ – you can see what territory we are in here. Anyone with Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs in their collection will enjoy this record.

Visit Americana-UK to read the review, as well as their review of our previous CD.