White Swan

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  1. Mill Worker Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 4:12
  2. Little Rabbit Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 2:53
  3. Evangeline Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 4:01
  4. Me and the Eagle Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 3:50
  5. Fair Ellender Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 5:44
  6. Harlan County Boys Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 3:37
  7. Rockin' In Your Granddaddy's Chair Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 3:08
  8. April Fools Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 4:04
  9. The Dark Eileen Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 4:54
  10. White Swan Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 5:21
  11. The Soldier Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band 2:18

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White Swan (2013)
“Exceptional musicianship… stunning, timeless ballads… like a clear mountain stream is the pure, clear voice of Susie Glaze…this is one gorgeous album – a ‘must discover.’” Folkworks

“If Susie Glaze were a newscaster, this crazy world would be a lot easier to take.  On grisly murder ballads and carefree romps alike, the Tennessee native sings smooth and sweet, her voice like buttermilk pie.  Having appeared on Broadway, Glaze has a knack for theatrics, and that serves her well on “Fair Ellender”, “Evangeline” and “The Dark Eileen”, the three of this album’s darker narrative tunes.  Relief comes in the form of “April Fools”, a bubbly Appalachian bossa nova love song with giddiness to spare.  Wherever Glaze goes, her band is right there with her, providing impeccable acoustic instrumentation and sometimes handling lead vocals.  The presentation is as seamless as the songs are engaging.”  M Magazine for Musicians www.mmusicmag.com

“White Swan”, Susie Glaze’s fifth release, is truly her most eclectic and collaborative album in over ten years of her critically-acclaimed career as a bluegrass/folk recording artist. With this CD her Hilonesome Band has veered into the realms of new Celtic-inspired folk songs that harken back to the ballad form from the pen of lead guitarist Rob Carlson, as well as re-interpreted classic cover songs from such diverse sources as James Taylor, Steve Earle and Jean Ritchie. Also featured are two songs from Los Angeles singer-songwriter and Kerrville New Folk Winner Ernest Troost. Arrangements and new interpretations of songs you think you knew are here for re-discovery from this gifted acoustic quintet in a lush and orchestral folk setting.

Susie states about this album: “This is the most truly collaborative work I’ve ever released. The fine players of the Hilonesome Band and I have created these tracks together and on this album you hear their voices alongside my own. We’ve come a long way from the early years of our band’s inception. We reached for the sounds of bluegrass because it was the music we loved ~ we were drawn to the stories, the romance, the warnings, the humor and the tragedies. Now we have found our sound branching out with a natural evolution ~ it came with exploring the older stories and longing for more complex music. Rob has been inspired to capture the darkness and mysteriously tragic elements of balladry from Ireland, England and Scotland. With the integration of real historical elements along with new and deeper complexity in music, our sound has made a most interestingly subtle shift: we’ve cast a wider net to discover a sound unlike anything we’ve done before. What is here is a true melting pot of influences that move us, from bluegrass to country to Celtic to Appalachia, and we’ve found our true home in this, our new, unique sound.”

The eclectic range takes the listener from bluegrass (“Little Rabbit”) to pensive country (“Evangeline”) to Bossa Nova (“April Fools”) to Celtic-inspired torch song (“Dark Eileen”). The album begins with a newly-interpreted “Mill Worker,” James Taylor’s classic, introduced by Mark Indictor’s beautiful fiddle on the traditional “Si Bheag, Si Mhor.” Indictor’s fiddle is featured again on Carlson’s new take on the old “Polly Vonn” story, this time as the title track “White Swan.” Jean Ritchie’s little-known but powerful “The Soldier” sends a message about the costs of war on the soul.

The innovation of this formerly-bluegrass band is taking them to a distinctly folk-driven American music that contains the sounds that came to America with the first immigrants: Appalachia, old-English balladry, Irish barn-burner fiddle music (the outro of “White Swan” was penned in the studio) and tender stories of family and legacy (“Harlan County Boys”).

One great bonus is the inclusion of a previously-recorded live onstage sound track of the classic Childe ballad “Fair Ellender,” arranged by Jean Ritchie, with Susie accompanied by Ritchie sons Peter and Jon Pickow and famed East coast fiddler, Kenny Kosek.

White Swan (Reviews)
March 16, 2013White Swan“If Susie Glaze were a newscaster, this crazy world would be a lot easier to take.  On grisly murder ballads and carefree romps alike, the Tennessee native sings smooth and sweet, her voice like buttermilk pie.  Having appeared on Broadway, Glaze has a knack for theatrics, and that serves her well on “Fair Ellender”, “Evangeline” and “The Dark Eileen”, the three of this album’s darker narrative tunes.  Relief comes in the form of “April Fools”, a bubbly Appalachian bossa nova love song with giddiness to spare.  Wherever Glaze goes, her band is right there with her, providing impeccable acoustic instrumentation and sometimes handling lead vocals.  The presentation is as seamless as the songs are engaging.”  M Magazine for Musicians  (www.mmusicmag.com) [...]
March 5, 2013White SwanSusie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band – White Swan Posted on March 5, 2013 by Dan Harr by Janet Goodman “The net has been cast wide,” says Susie Glaze of Susie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band, referring to the range of influences on their latest collaboration, “White Swan.” The West Coast quintet’s eleven-track project reflects a love for bluegrass, folk and Celtic music, with five originals written by various configurations of the band, plus well-picked covers by the likes of masters, such as Steve Earle (“Me And The Eagle”) and James Taylor (“Mill Worker”). These artists have a performance chemistry that works, with tight arrangements of fiddle, mandolin, guitar and upright bass, and Glaze’s authentic Appalachian voice – by way of Southern California – is icing on their musical confection. The Ernest Troost song, “Evangeline,” allows her an opportunity to show more ache and tenderness in her confident holler style, and she sings in downright shades of Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention, Fotheringay) on the dulcimer-and-fiddle traditional English/Irish folk ballad “Fair Ellender.” Glaze has a hand in penning “The Dark Eileen,” with its flowery recitation start, and her softer-side delivery glides over the Emerald Isle-inspired hills and valleys of its melody. The title track is where the band lives up to its high-lonesome moniker, and Jean Ritchie’s “The Soldier” closes out the set with a haunting Irish drone. SGTHB give listeners a fresh take on tradition. [...]
February 5, 2013White SwanVolume 37/Number 74, January 14, 2013, MIDWEST RECORD, Lake Zurich, IL. CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher Copyright 2013 Midwest Record SUSIE GLAZE & THE HILONESOME BAND/White Swan: Glaze and company have done a wonderful job of charming us in the past but now it seems like her recent vintage live set was to clear the palette before the next stage was set. A bluegrass crew that could easily stand toe to toe with Union Station, this crew has elected to widen the lens and take newgrass into the wide open mixing in Celtic, folk, roots, Americana and a full range of indigenous sounds that blend into a wonderful down home, home grown stew. Boldly powering their way down their own new cut road, if you haven’t had the chance to enjoy the Glaze sound yet, this is the place to jump in to be totally blown away. This is the perfect record for anyone that’s ever wondered what the big deal about roots/Americana is to find out what‘s what. Killer stuff.   [...]
February 5, 2013White Swan"White Swan" – Susie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band – inspiration of tradition and charisma of contemporary (January 23, 2013)  www.folkwords.com Reviewer: Tim Carroll I’ve said it before, ‘new is easy different is hard’ – many artists achieve the former, some the latter, few manage both. Well here’s one that falls into the ‘achieved both’ category. Susie Glaze & The Hilonesome Band have with ‘White Swan’ blended unadulterated Americana folk from a mix of influences – poetic narrative, a soupcon of bluegrass, a touch of mountain-muse and pure invention to create a folk-fusion of that’s both steeped in tradition and fresh as the sunrise. In the process they’ve enhanced songs from James Taylor, Ernest Troost, Steve Earle and Jean Ritchie and a well-travelled 16th century ballad, plus fashioned five Hilonesome Band originals. As well as some outstanding musicianship there’s Susie’s crystal clear voice, plus some charismatic harmony vocals – from an inspired version of James Taylor’s heart-rending ‘Mill Worker’ augmented with a precisely-placed fiddle intro of Turlough O'Carolan’s ‘Si Bheag, Si Mhor’, through Susie’s painfully emotive vocal on Ernest Troost’s dark narrative ‘Evangeline’ to a stunningly haunting version of ‘Me And The Eagle’ with Steve Rankin’s voice hitting the theme to perfection. There’s a fine slice of interpreted tradition represented by ‘Fair Ellender’ – severally known as ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Ellender’, ‘The Brown Girl’ and ‘Fair Eleanor’ among other titles, through England, Ireland, Scotland and the USA. ‘White Swan’ blends the inspiration of tradition with the charisma of contemporary – and does it faultlessly. The original songs primarily penned by Rob Carlson with some co-writing from other band members, include ‘White Swan’ a virtuoso take on the time-honoured tragedy of mistaken identity, ‘The Dark Eileen’ a profoundly moving lament, made all the more poignant by Susie speaking the opening lines. And for pure, touching reminesence there’s Fred Sanders’ ‘Rocking in Your Granddaddy’s Chair’ – perfectly embellished by Mark Indictor’s fiddle cuts. Without running down the entire track list, in addition to those listed above, other standout tracks for me are ‘Harlan County Boys’ and  Jean Ritchie’s ‘The Soldier’. Joining Susie (acoustic guitar, mountain dulcimer, lead and harmony vocals) are Steve Rankin (mandolin, bouzouki, acoustic guitar, harmony vocals) Rob Carlson (acoustic lead guitar, resonator guitar, harmony vocals) Mark Indictor (fiddle, harmony vocals) and Fred Sanders (bass, harmony vocals). If you love your folk from these ‘island shores’ or the other side of ‘the pond’ this album will become one of your favourites. The album release concert for 'White Swan' is at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica on Sunday, 3 March at 7 pm … and were I in that part of the world I would be there. [...]
January 24, 2013White SwanTim Carrol's Review of "White Swan" on FolkWords.com came out today! http://www.folkwords.com/latestreviews_84043.html [...]