CityBeat - September 7, 2011

MidPoint Music Festival 11 Guide
by Mike Breen

Magnolia Mountain bandleader Mark Utley adds his distinctive voice and songwriting skills to a tangle of varying Roots music stylings, coming out the other end with an incredibly rich and stirring strain of Folk, Country Blues and a variety of Americana shapes and sizes, all gorgeously performed by a collection of some of the best young and established musicians in the Cincinnati area. The music of MM is written and arranged by Utley with heart-driven grace and an intuitive understanding of tradition, something that doesn't just stop with the sound. Utley and the band have been heavily involved in raising public awareness about the serious environmental and health issues many beiieve result from mountaintop removal coal mining. Utley's work on the benefit album Music for the Mountains, as well as a swell of other grassroots activities, actually had tangible results as the topic is now front-page news and opinion polls show most think the controversial methods should be stopped. Working together to right wrongs - just another part of Magnolia Mountain's call-back/look-forward take on Folk music tradition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ye16YHm3NM&feature=youtu.be

Birds of Chicago:

Whether touring as an acoustic duo or backed by the scintillating Chicago rock and soul outfit, the Clouds, JT Nero and Allison Russell, have emerged as two of the most compelling new voices in American roots music.

For several years Russell and Nero’s respective bands, Po' Girl ( Vancouver, BC) and JT and the Clouds ( Chicago, IL), have collaborated extensively, but in 2011’s Mountains/Forests, released under the JT Nero banner, they tapped into the true, bewitching power of their voices together on an entire record. After a much buzzed about performance at the Kate Wolf Memorial Fest in 2011, they decided to get folks more of the same, and quick. Their first proper duo record, Birds of Chicago is set for release in spring/summer 2012.

Nero’s fractured country-soul voice wrapped in Russell’s silver and gold tones is a fine thing. Not too perfect, not at all saccharine, you’ll hear echoes of mountain gospel, street corner doo-wop, classic soul. Accompanied by just a banjo and a guitar, it’s chilling. Fired by a full band, it’s a full tilt revival. 

There’s not much Allison Russell can’t sing. She’s got a bit of the speakeasy chanteuse in her, a bit of old R & B, but with a delicacy and clarity of phrasing that Ma Carter or Loretta Lynn would surely approve of. She plays banjo, ukelele, guitar, and clarinet. She’s also a top shelf whistler. She writes gorgeous, unpredictable songs, and makes other people's - often Nero’s - tunes her own with startling ease.

JT Nero is a strange and distinct new American songwriter - he lists Mark Twain and Sam Cooke among his biggest song writing influences. He is a poet of the everyday and the absurd, the lonely and the ever hopeful. When backed by the Clouds he's a rock n' roll preacher -- with Russell and on his own, he digs deeper into the nuances of his work. The Chicago Tribune recently tabbed him as an “artist on the verge of breaking big.” If "breaking big" allows him to broaden his collection of single batch American bourbons at his home bar in Chicago, he’s all for that happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcPkUjoL-wE&feature=player_embedded