We were both involved in other projects that took most of our time, but continued to work together on and off for a few years.  Then around 2006, all the members of the Martha Bassett Band either moved away for work or went back to school.   Pat Lawrence had been my bass sub, and he and I began working as a duo.  While scheming about how to rebuild the band, I said I wanted to work with the best guitar player I knew.  Lucky for me, Sam joined us.  He brought with him many songs that we’ve added to our sets.  He’s co-written more songs with me.  He’s helped me immeasurably with guitar.

For the past year Sam has been working on a new self-titled record.  Some of the songs are from his older catalogue and some are new.  The disc was recorded by Britt “Snuzz” Uzzell, whose pop sensibilities blend so well with Sam’s compositional style.  He used members of our band and The Numbers as his backing band, as well as guitarist Scott Manring and keyboardist David McCracken.  The stylistic scope of “Sam Frazier” (the disc) blew my mind when I first popped it into my player, and made me more than a little teary as I heard some of his older songs reimagined and beautifully rendered.  When you hear it, you’ll recognize a couple of songs that we’ve been doing in our shows, and you’ll find new favorites.  Please do yourself a favor and order Sam’s new disc.  I know you’ll love it.

When I play shows in Greensboro, I’m happily aware that a large part of the audience is there to see Sam.  When playing farther from home, I’ve overheard people saying, “Who IS that amazing guitar player?”  It’s time people knew.  Please help me in spreading the word about Sam’s CD Release Party on June 15 at 8pm at Mack and Mack, downtown Greensboro.  See you there!

It takes about a year to make a record…for me at least.  The actual recording is not very time consuming, but the editing, mixing, and mastering take quite a long time; and then the designing of the product, not to mention the release plan.  It takes a lot of people to make a record.  I can make a cheese all by myself.

But speaking of cheese and record-making, nobody I know loves cheese any more than Sam Frazier.  Sam has been very busy over the past year making a new record of his own.  It’s finished but hasn’t been released yet.  My next blog will tell you how you can get your hands on it, and when and where to go for the release party.  I’ve heard the record and it brought a big cheesy smile to my face.  You’re going to LOVE it!

Freshly made kimchi

Life is a slippery slope.  You may have followed my adventures in making bread, cheese, and lard, but in 2012 I’ve gone a step further. Last fall I found a book at Ben’s house called “Wild Fermentation.” My only prior experience was the memory of the big crocks of sauerkraut in my grandparents’ cellar.  Fermentation is the action of bacteria on food, which basically predigests it, preserves it, and makes it more nutritious than it would have been raw.  The rising of bread is fermentation.  The process of cheese making and aging is fermentation.  But let me tell you, chopping vegetables and letting them sit in a crock for a few weeks is a whole new ball game.  I started with sauerkraut in early January, followed by kimchi (sort of a Korean version of sauerkraut).  My pantry smells slightly funky when I open the door but, oh my, the beautiful pink kraut!  Yesterday I ate it on a reuben.  Tonight on porkchops over mashed potatoes (Pat’s mom’s recipe).  The kimchi is even better.  So tonight I made up a new recipe consisting of turnips, carrots, shallots, garlic, Jerusalem artichokes, ginger, and horseradish.  I call it sauerruben kimchi, since it’s sort of a combination between the German turnip ferment and the Korean kimchi.  In about a month it’ll be ripe.

Also in early January, Sam and I started fermenting a whole new batch of songs (sorry….cheesy, I know).  Some of these songs will make it onto a new disc that we’ll be recording this summer. The longer they sit, the funkier they get!

I hope for each of you peace and prosperity.  May your lives be filled with joy and love, and your hearts with music.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Painting by Keith Buckner, photographed by Tim Barkley

It all started with a conversation in early August when Pat and I were driving from VA to NC.  Me: Let’s make a Christmas record.  Pat: This year?  There’s not time.  Me: There’s never a good time.  Pat: What do you want to sing?

Within a week we had a list of songs, a demo, a recording schedule, and a list of musicians we wanted to engage.  Next we talked with Chris Salerno, a good friend of Pat’s from his school days, who is now in Lynchburg to help arrange the songs we’d picked.  Since we had already released a record this year (The Goodbye Party), the budget was small, so we made our first bonafide homemade record.  Sessions were mostly recorded in our keyboard player, Ben Singer’s, closet and foyer with the best mics that we had among us.  Some sessions were recorded in the musicians’ homes if their instruments weren’t particularly portable (i.e. harp), as Ben’s apartment is on the third floor.   Over the weeks I heard the songs take shape.  Pat went without sleep for 3 1/2 months (I’m not kidding) while recording, editing, and mixing.  The discs are finally in our hands and have been mailed to our friends who’ve ordered them.  On the cover of the disc is a beautiful painting by Keith Buckner of my grandpa’s farm in WV where I grew up.  When you open the cover there’s a long list of musicians, 17 people, counting the choir.   I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about these folks.

As usual, we started with Sam Frazier.  Sam’s the guitarist (and sometimes pianist) in my band.  Sam and I have played music together for over 10 years now and his playing and writing has become central to the sound of my music.  He set the tone for the tracks upon which everything else was built.  Another longtime guitarist friend, Scott Manring, came in and layered his parts over Sam’s.  Scott brought a beautiful tone and spontaneity, and his solo on In the Bleak Midwinter brought me to tears when I first heard it.  Pat, of course, played bass in his signature “felt not heard” way.  Ben Singer, while giving us the use of his Greensboro apartment, managed to play banjo and handle the design and layout of the disc while touring the country with a traveling show.

Josh Weesner arranged the beautiful string and horn parts on The Goodbye Party, and we didn’t miss the opportunity to work with him again.   Also from TGP, a return performance from violist Louise Campbell, who added such rich depth to O Come, O Come Emanuel.  Flutist Lissie Okopny displayed such delicate and deliberate phrasing that I patterned many of my lead vocals after her lines.   In fact, on the carol ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime, she and trumpeter Ken Wilmot had a flute/trumpet battle that makes it one of the best arrangements of the record in my opinion.  I’ve worked with Ken for many years in both classical and jazz settings, and knowing his talent and taste, I was still blown away by his performance.  Speaking of trumpeters, The Angel Gabriel has always been one of my favorite carols, and oboist John Hammarback stole the show.  Although from a distinquished Winston-Salem musical family, John is a new-comer to the Winston-Salem Symphony, and I would add that they’re lucky to have him.  Greensboro French Horn player Dave Doyle is featured with Louise on Emanuel providing beautiful counterpoint against my lead vocal.  When I first heard harpist Frank Voltz’s solo recording I was struck by his great feel and inventive improvisation.  Frank is prominently featured throughout the disc, and as previously mentioned, Pat recorded Frank in his home on two very beautiful instruments.  On I Wonder as I Wander Frank plays a celtic harp with a warm tone that blends wonderfully with the alto flute giving the arrangement a dark, solemn quality.  The one and only John C. B. Wilson rounded out the record with great drum and percussion tracks.  John owns the studio (Spot on the Sonic Landscape) where we made The Goodbye Party, and with studio partner Chris Peck they recorded (as John said) a truckload of intriguing, exotic percussion instruments.  John also recorded some fun sound effects that are featured on The Friendly Beasts.  Jim Robertson is a multi-instrumentalist from Amherst VA.  Pat and I have had the pleasure of playing with him many times.  He’s one of those guys that can fit in and sound just right whether he knows your music or not.  We turned him loose with several instruments on The Friendly Beasts.  He and John Wilson made the song.

Now the chorus.  Let’s start with Lyn Koonce.  She and I go all the way back to UNC-G where we started school at the same time with the same teacher.  We later sang together in the Bel Canto Company.  She’s my only classical music friend who also hopped the fence to non-classical music.  We’ve sung together countless times over the years but this was our first time recording together; hopefully not the last.  I have two sons, both of whom added their voices to this project.  First, I want to thank Nicholas (AKA Black Ginger) for being brave enough to risk his rapper reputation by singing on his mom’s Christmas record.  I’d never even heard him sing until recently and his sweet voice broke my heart.  Max was forced into choral music at an early age and has one of the most mellow and pitch-perfect bass voices I’ve ever worked with.  I wish I could sing with him every day.  It was incredibly meaningful for me to sing with both of my boys on the same project.  Pat and I filled out the other choral parts, both of us on alto and tenor!  By the way, we couldn’t figure out a good way to credit the individual parts on The Friendly Beasts, so here’s the who:  Max (the donkey) Bassett, Pat (the cow) Lawrence, Nick (the sheep) Bassett, and Sam (the dove) Frazier.  I wrote the final song of the disc, Magnificat, about a year ago.  It’s a setting of the scripture from St. Luke in which Mary expresses joy to her cousin Elizabeth when she learns she’ll be the mother of the Messiah.

So that’s the story of how Magnificat came to be.  I’ve dreamt of making this record for years, and I have Pat and all these other talented folks to thank for bringing it to life.  It never fails to humble and amaze me when I see the artistry in our area.  Everyone on this record pushed me to sing up to their standards and I thank them.   Art is funny that way.  If it’s good, it puts you in your place while exalting you nonetheless.

Merry Christmas!

Starts out like this.

(wanna hear?)…and it just about sums up my recent adventure with lard.  Last week I read an old recipe that called for homemade lard.  As a DIY-er, I found this hard to resist.  After all, I’ve made my own butter and wouldn’t think of buying margarine.  Why would I put Crisco (whatever that is) into my biscuits and pie crusts if I could make my own lard?

After a bit of research on the world wide web, I discovered that the only ingredient for lard is fresh unsalted fatback.  Easy enough.  So I made my way to the local supermarket, found the butcher, and asked for it.  He said all the fatback was prepackaged and salted, and that I needed to see Duffey.  ”Who’s Duffey?” I asked.  ”He’s out on 360,” answered a lady who was walking past the meat counter.  After driving another 8 miles north on 360 I found a convenience store called Duffey’s, went inside, and perused the meat case.  No fatback.  So I asked the lady in the front if they had any that was unsalted.  She looked confused, so I added, “I’m making lard.”  She burst out laughing and said “Good Lord, girl!  What do you want to do that for?”  Then she shouted to the back for Durell to come and help this lady who’s making lard.  Durell poked his head through the door with wide eyes and said, “Lard?!  I’ve never heard of anybody making lard!”  He said he didn’t have any unsalted but if I’d come back tomorrow at the same time he’d have some for me.  I told him I’d like 3 lbs.

Cracklins and rinds after two days.

The next day I made my way back to Duffey’s.  The lady called for Durell again, and this time two more butchers peeked out to get a look at the lady who was making lard.  Durell came out with a big smile on his face carrying a very large piece of fatback, 7 lbs in fact.  I didn’t argue about the size, since I felt lucky to be getting it.  As I thanked him and started to check out, he said to wait a moment, that he had something else for me.  Durell went into the back and reappeared with large ice bag full of rolled up fat (10 lbs worth).  He said he wasn’t charging me for this and that it would give me a lot of cracklins.  I happily took my 17 lbs of fresh unsalted pig fat and made my way home.

After 2 hours of hard labor, I had cut all that fat into small squares and began cooking it down slowly in 2 large pots on the stovetop.  It took two full days to render over a gallon of lard, and about as much cracklin’ and pork rinds.  Was it worth it?  If you’d tasted my apple pie or my biscuits I think you’d agree that YES!  It was well worth the hard work and public humiliation.  Three pounds would’ve been sufficient though.

Day 3!!!

…comes from the Latin [my soul] magnifies and is traditionally known as the song of Mary.   Magnificat is also the title of my new Christmas disc, which will be released late this November 2011.  At the last several shows, people have been pre-ordering copies of Magnificat for themselves and as gifts for others with an order form that we’ve created.   Now we’ve made it possible for you to order Magnificat, as well as my other discs, on our new store page.

How is this different than the CDBaby link?  I’m glad you asked.  For one thing, you can only buy Magnificat on the store page.  Also, just for Christmas, all of my discs bought on this page will be autographed.  To order from the store page you pay with a credit card through PayPal, which is a reputable and secure online payment provider.  You do not have to sign up for a PayPal account to place an order.

As an alternate option, we’ve also added a Christmas Order Form that you can print and mail to me with a check for your order.  All discs will be mailed out by December 1st, unless of course you place your order after Dec 1st, in which case it will be mailed the day of the order.

Would you like your discs gift wrapped and sent to your best friend in Texas, or your mom in Ohio?   You can ship to anyone through PayPal or using the Christmas Order Form.  I’ll even add a Christmas card with a personal note along with the autographed discs.  Any questions?  Email me at martha@marthabassett.com.  I know it’s too early, but MERRY CHRISTMAS!

first shitake harvest

Last November, just after Thanksgiving, Pat and I started a small mushroom farm with the help of our friend, Larry Roth.  Since then we’ve been slaving away…plowing, weeding, hoeing…not really.  We’ve only been waiting, and they finally arrived yesterday.  Fresh shitakes!  Unless you’ve had them fresh, you can’t imagine the difference between these and the three-week-old mushrooms from Harris Teeter.  It was worth the wait.  Thanks Larry!

But we have been slaving away at our Christmas record.  All the rhythm tracks are done.  Sam Frazier, Scott Manring, and Pat Lawrence laid a beautiful and solid foundation.  This week we begin tracking the other instruments:  flute, trumpet, harp, percussion, hammered dulcimer, etc.  And we’ve settled on the name Magnificat.  No, that’s not the name of a feline superhero, but Mary’s response to the Angel Gabriel upon learning that she would be the mother of the Messiah.  Last Christmas I wrote a song using that text (Luke 1:46-49), and it will be the final song of the record.

Shortly, we’ll have a new page up on this site which will allow you to order copies of Magnificat, as well as our other discs, have them signed, Christmas wrapped, and mailed to your friends!  We hope this will help ease your shopping chores for the season.

Speaking of chores, I can hear my green tomatoes hollering at me to make them into chutney.  Gotta run!

photo by Christine Rucker

I hope this post finds all of you enjoying your Labor Day with a lack of labor and an abundance of grilled food.  I find myself reflecting on an awesome summer of music.  You guys gave me such amazing support by showing up everywhere in large numbers…Stratford Village, Trade Street, Old Salem…it feels great to know that you’re listening. Muchas gracias!

I’ve been busy all summer making music, growing a garden, and making more cheese than is reasonable.  This week I pulled my first hard cheese (pictured in the May post) from the cave and it’s mighty tasty.  My garden has produced green beans, cukes, okra, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, and lots of greens.  I’ve got the seeds for my fall garden in the ground and anxiously await lettuce, collards, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and hopefully some sugar baby watermelons.  But that’s not my news.

For years you’ve been asking me for a Christmas record.  For years I’ve been promising one.  In December of 2011 I’ll make good on my promise.  Most of you know that I’m very partial to old European carols. This record will have many of the songs you have heard me sing at Lessons and Carols services over the past few years, including In The Bleak Midwinter, Coventry Carol, and The Angel Gabriel.  Also included is the French-Canadian carol, ‘Twas Moon of Wintertime, and the beautiful Appalachian carol I Wonder as I Wander. The album finishes with a song I wrote called Magnificat which takes it’s text from Luke 1:46-49.  The instrumentation will be varied and colorful including brass, strings, choir, harp, and many of the other beautiful sounds we associate with Christmas.

I’m also in the process of booking two tours in support of The Goodbye Party.  In November, I’ll head back to the Midwest (Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois) for a couple of weeks.  In January and February I’ll head south through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.  Music venues don’t operate every night of the week, so I’m trying to fill in the open spots with house concerts.  If you have family or friends who might be interested in hosting us along the route, please send them a link to my site and ask them to contact me.

I’ll post updates as things develop.  The rest of the day I’ll be canning tomatoes and salsa verde.  Mmmm!

Curd being pressed

real cheese fresh from the press

waxed for aging

At our recent show in Greensboro I told many of you that I’d share my latest obsession in the next blog.  It all started a couple of years ago when Ben Singer loaned me a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle which chronicles a year in her family’s life of homesteading in Virginia.  One chapter in particular brought me to tears.  It wasn’t the death of the family dog or a romantic heartbreak.  It was the miracle of watching curds separate from whey, and the realization that only a couple of generations ago this was commonplace in my own family.  I grew up on a farm where beef cattle was raised, but my mom, who grew up on the same farm, recalls my grandmother churning butter from our family’s dairy cattle.  She may have hated that chore, just as I hated hoeing potatoes and picking beans and dodging those pesky chickens that pecked at your feet.  I was jealous of my friends who ate food from cans and thought my family must be very poor since we didn’t buy our food from the grocery store.  But I regress.  I ordered Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll and have read it cover to cover at least twenty times.  In the past year I’ve made lots of butter, yogurt, and soft cheese, but I longed to try hard cheeses, the production of which requires specialized equipment, i.e. a cheese press.  For my recent birthday, Pat built me one and I’ve experienced the miracle that is stirred curd cheddar.  Later this week I’ll attempt traditional cheddar (more advanced), and will tackle romano next week.  I travel way too much to ever own a cow, but there are still farms out there that will sell you a little raw milk.  Now comes the test of my willpower…aging the cheese for a minimum of two months before tasting it.  That’s slow food!