One of my favorite songs from our third CD is our cover of the old raggy blues tune Pick Poor Robin Clean. Luke Jordan and Geeshie Wiley each recorded fantastic versions of it, Jordan in 1927 for Victor, Wiley in 1931 for Paramount.

The song’s lyrics were long a puzzle to me. I had long assumed that it was a song about desperate poverty. The first verse seemed to suggest a person driven to desperate measures:

You Gotta pick poor robin clean
Pick poor robin clean
I picked the head, I picked the feet
I woulda picked the body but it wasn’t fit to eat
You gotta pick poor robin clean
Pick poor robin clean
I’ll be satisfied, having your family

I’ve recently been reading Stephen Calt’s interesting Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary, and he has a different interpretation: the song is about robbing the destitute:

[Poor robin is,] most likely, a ragged person, from the 19-century colloquialism ragged robin. In the above song, the subject is left penniless by a crooked gambler, clean signifying completely without funds in criminal slang, and to clean, to rob one of everything of value.

Here’s our version, and you can see if you agree with Calt’s interpretation.

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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.