fifteen

The first time I moved to Washington it was because I wanted something new. I was in grad school and I absolutely didn't want to spend a summer in Tallahassee. I wanted to stretch out and work for a theatre company for the first time in almost a decade (and many years after that original theatre company went under). I took a room in a house on Newton St NE without knowing a soul anywhere in town. I learned a lot of things in those few months - how to live very cheaply, how to work multiple jobs seven days a week, how to be urban.

The second time I moved to Washington it was because I was chasing the high of the summer before. I wanted the excitement of new theatre, I wanted the wonderful exhaustion of working nights in the service industry, I wanted to go broke on living as hard as I could for one last year of grad school. I failed in this endeavor, of course, and that year nearly broke me in ways I hadn't imagined - I had the only panic attack I've ever had and it knocked me out for almost an entire weekend, I figured out that my master's program had become a cruel joke that would never actually help me further my career, and I learned that no matter how much a theatre company tells you they want you and your talents to stay with them, they will always betray you in the end.

I did learn useful things in DC. I learned about this little trio from Canada called The Wailin' Jennys. I also got to see them at the Birchmere in Alexandria where I learned it's extremely difficult to get a taxi after a concert. For the first time I was discovering - and enjoying - a type of folk bluegrass country that continues to this day. That same year I also discovered Mumford & Sons and The Weepies, to name a few.

But it was the wonderful harmonies on the album Firecracker that first drew me in to the Jennys, and I've been a big fan since. The three musicians that are the Jennys are Ruth Moody, Nicky Mehta, and Heather Masse. They're back after a six year break with an all covers album called Fifteen - which celebrates their fifteen years as a trio. The albums got tracks by Tom Petty, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Paul Simon, and Warren Zevon. It's a great set of nine tracks that they make very much their own.

To say simply that these ladies can sing is putting it mildly. Their three voices blend into harmonies better than any other group I can recall off hand; they are able to be angelic, bluesy, jazzy, and sultry all on the same album. They're also damn good instrumentalists, though on Fifteen they focus on their voices. They knock it out of the park, and though the album is relatively short at thirty-five minutes, every moment of those minutes has been finely crafted for your enjoyment, and I highly recommend you do just that. It's a perfect fall weekend album.

Recommended tracks: "Wildflowers," "Keep Me In Your Heart," "Light of a Clear Blue Morning," "Loves Me Like a Rock," "Old Churchyard"