A new solo recording from Scott Michaud of the Montgomery Street Band features a range of traditional North American folk songs.
Matt Carter
Scott Michaud takes a trip down the Eastern Seaboard with his latest release, Tradish, a collection of North American traditional folk songs rooted in cultures from Nova Scotia down through the southern states. Canada’s east coast is ripe with traditional music recordings, or recordings inspired by Scottish, English, and Irish traditional music, but few feature the banjo in such a prominent role. In fact, there isn’t a fiddle to be heard across these tracks. This quality alone sets the album apart from almost any other traditional music collection released by an Atlantic Canadian artist in recent memory. Instead, Michaud carries this resonant collection forward using just a pair of banjos and his voice.
Recorded using two microphones and a portable field recorder free of fancy mic techniques and studio wizardry, Tradish, mixed and mastered by leading bluegrass proponent Al Jeffries, perfectly captures the raw and real feel of a Lomax field recording, allowing the natural balance of instrument and voice to centre this collection.
Michaud is a member of the Fredericton-based bluegrass ensemble The Montgomery Street Band and one of a handful of regional musicians helping lead a new generation of New Brunswick traditional music lovers into the future, guided by a great respect for the origins of this music and a thorough understanding of just why these songs and melodies continue to stand the test of time.
