Among the Oak and Ash
On Among The Oak & Ash, Pennsylvania-born New Yorker Josh Joplin and the Mississippi-bred, Nashville-based Garrison Starr lend their distinctive voices to a dozen folk songs (two of the twelve Joseph Hillstrom and High, Low & Wide were composed by Joplin and Starr, and the rest are traditional) drawn from rural Appalachian and Anglo-American musical idioms. Although much of the material is centuries old, the songs’ eloquently simple melodies, and their universal themes of love, loss, longing, cruelty and death, give them a timeless resonance into which Joplin and Starr tap effortlessly. With the duo’s evocative harmonies complemented by spare, stripped-down arrangements, Among The Oak & Ash is a powerful testament to Joplin and Starr’s interpretive abilities, and to the ageless appeal of these ancient tunes.
