Proving that two Los Angelenos in their early 20s can embrace a love for the Carter Family and a DIY punk ethos, and encapsulate an old timey era with decidedly forward looking and somehow timeless songs, The Driftwood Singers announce a string of summer tour dates.
Weaving worn guitars, Autoharp, banjo, fiddle, mandolin and two hauntingly powerful voices, Pearl Charles and Kris Hutson create tales of strength and heartbreak on their releases, including last year’s Look! EP and a 7″ released earlier this year on Trailer Fire Records.
For a glimpse into the power of The Driftwood Singers, give a listen to “If I Take That Notion” from the Trailer Fire release.
Tour dates and more on The Driftwood Singers below.
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The Driftwood Singers Tour Dates
July 12 – Pappy & Harriet’s – Pioneertown, CA
w/ The Far West
July 14 – Groovacious – Cedar City, UT
July 15 – Groovefest Crew Party – Cedar City, UT
July 18 – Steve’s Guitars – Carbondale, CO
July 19 – The Dude Ranch – Evergreen, CO
July 14 – Groovacious – Cedar City, UT
July 15 – Groovefest Crew Party – Cedar City, UT
July 18 – Steve’s Guitars – Carbondale, CO
July 19 – The Dude Ranch – Evergreen, CO
w/ Thrift Store Cowboys
July 20 – Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub – Denver, CO
July 20 – Gary Lee’s Motor Club & Grub – Denver, CO
Underground Music Scene Fest
July 21- Triple Nickle Tavern – Colorado Springs, CO
July 21- Triple Nickle Tavern – Colorado Springs, CO
July 23 – Frank – Austin, TX
July 25 – Low Spirits – Albuquerque, NM
July 25 – Low Spirits – Albuquerque, NM
Aug 22 – The Satellite – Los Angeles, CA
w/ Dana Falconberry
More dates to be announced soon!
Press Praise for The Driftwood Singers
LA’s young The Driftwood Singers folk tinged harmonies are channeling another time and place.
Huffington Post
Listening to the Driftwood Singers makes you feel like you’re ambling down a dusty country road toward something that might not exist anymore.
San Francisco Bay Guardian
The LA duo known as The Driftwood Singers have a sound that harks back to the halcyon days of the American folk revival. Heck, their name even sounds like the moniker of an obscure folk band. Their sound is generated by Autoharp, banjo, mandolin and fiddle and two unadorned voices – Pearl Charles sings with the honeyed tones of a front porch diva, while Kris Hutson has a raw, cracked quality that sounds like it¹s coming off of a Edison cylinder. Their timeless songs sound as much like old time music as modern folk, not a bad place for a young band to be.
East Bay Express
The sound of the Driftwood Singers is a simplified, nostalgic one. While they come from the west coast of California, it’s the good ol’ Southern music that they’ve successfully emulated on their 5 song EP titled Look! They pen originals, but upon listening, one might think it’s music that originated in Nashville in the ’30s.
Sticky Magazine
There’s something magical about the Driftwood Singers…they sound as if Alan Lomax just happened upon them playing to each other in a dilapidated barn. They always look like they’ve escaped church to make-out somewhere in Sunday clothes from 1933, and sing sinful songs about sinful deeds, sinful music, sinful love and occasional murder. Pearl Charles’ voice is warm and innocent as milk, and Kris Hutson’s is high and strange, and stirred with a sharp knife.
L.A. Record
A confluence of sublime talent.
San Francisco Chronicle
The Driftwood Singers embrace traditional folk music with tender loving care, crafting dark but uplifting tales with little more than voice, guitar and autoharp…Hutson and Charles, their voices so perfectly braided they act as one rope, pull the listener through their mini-novellas with exceptional grace and lyrical aplomb. From start to finish, The Driftwood Singers serves as an argument that vintage Americana remains the most emotionally direct form, cinema that almost predates cinema.
Buzz Bands LA
If you’re looking to take a day trip into the past, or at least a one hour sojourn that way, go ahead and spin the Driftwood Singers’ debut album. Recorded in David Mayfield’s home studio, The Driftwood Singers, draws you in with it’s mix of Carter Family-inspired songs about love, loss and time
Loud Locker
Beautiful and sinful old-timey country/folk songs about sinful deeds and love. Warm, innocent vocals with banjo, fiddle, pedal steel.
WRUV
More on The Driftwood Singers
The Driftwood Singers are a surprising contrast to what one might expect from two kids born and raised in the heart of Los Angeles. A duo on Autoharp, banjo, mandolin and fiddle, they perform songs seemingly written from another era –yet vibrant and alive with the DIY ethos of punk. In their early 20s, Pearl Charles and Kris Hutson have been constantly on the road since beginning two years ago – first releasing an EP, and now a self-titled debut album on Trailer Fire Records June 12, with an accompanying national tour.
The songs they choose and write have certain circumstances – sometimes grisly – brimming with hope, murder, love, cruelty and all points in between. “We’re big fans of the really, really old songs, with tragic stories, love lost and disasters. We’re influenced by music that moves you, gives you the chills, and it can draw from the Carter Family era, to Stax era soul songs and others that might draw from 40’s honky-tonk music,” shares Hutson. More than two singers that trade off vocals, the Driftwood Singers harmonize throughout. But those two simple voices, rising and falling together, sound as if there are hidden layers beneath the surface.
Their debut, 5-song EP, Look!, beautifully exemplifies their determination. After experimenting with some big studios and becoming frustrated with the intervals of multi-tracking and the stale output of Protools, they decided one night to pare everything down to its stark essence and begin recording it on a Sony Walkman on their living room table. What’s captured is the immediacy of their performances and what they call “the transparency of sound.” Driftwood Singers sent Look! to Grammy-nominated producer, and artist David Mayfield – ultimately spending 5 days in his Nashville home studio making The Driftwood Singers.
“The songs were so exceptional. The whole thing was like finding a great worn-in jacket in a thrift store, and you snatch it up and you can’t believe your luck that you found this thing…” Mayfield says of making the record. “It fit perfectly!” From “Come Across The Tracks” which is told from the perspective of the virtuous Maybelline who loses her way and is seduced by the wickedness of juke joint rock-n-roll, to the contemplative ballad “Is There Enough Time” which laments the pace of contemporary life, The Driftwood Singers sound timeless.
And so The Driftwood Singers story, like the songs they sing, starts out humbly enough, somewhere in the hills and hollers of Pocahontas, West Virginia, roaming in and out of the shadows of Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, eventually slipping beneath the wide open splendor of the starlit skies of Joshua Tree, California. Only to rest for awhile before they travel again.