the hum / By Bob Doran

Clear, Clean and Strong

(June 28, 2007)  Lila Nelson was asking for requests on her KHUM radio show “Meet Me in the Morning.” Mine was for anything from the new album she’d been talking about earlier, Good Night Darling , by Huckleberry Flint. She picked the opening track on the disc, “Carpenter,” a mellow number about building a home penned by guitarist Dustin Taylor that sounds quite different from the Huck Flint you might be familiar with. Aside from some subdued banjo picking woven in with guitar, a touch of fiddle and a couple of Dobro licks, it’s more a singer/songwriter number than the gospel-tinged bluegrass you’ve heard in the past. Don’t worry, that harmonious old-timey sound resurfaces on the album’s second track, “Ballad of Sweet Annabelle,” a lovely song by Dobro player Kevin Porter about fiddler Marybeth Taylor ’s 2-year-old daughter.

Just to clear something up, Marybeth (who also has a six-week-old boy, Isaac) is not married to Dustin, as some might assume. She’s his sister-in-law. Her husband, Dustin’s brother Garrett, did the artwork for the album. He’s currently studying art in San Francisco, which explains why the band hasn’t been playing as many local shows of late.

Huckleberry Flint

GALLERY >

The album as a whole is a fine piece of work, shot through with clean picking and clear strong vocals. There’s one cover: a version of Bob Dylan’s “Wagon Wheels” borrowed from Old Crow Medicine Show (which I’m told is one of their most requested tunes), a couple more songs written by Dustin, a lullaby by Marybeth and a half dozen traditionals, including the band’s version of the old minstrel show number, “Dixie.” All good, all clear, clean and strong as a mountain stream. Pick up your copy at the Huckleberry Flint CD release party at Muddy’s Hot Cup Friday night, or maybe at the Jambalaya Saturday, where Huck Flint opens for The Be Good Tanyas.

Wait a minute. The Be Good Tanyas are playing at the Jam? Well, if this is the first you’ve heard about it, you’re out of luck. It’s way sold out. If you must see the Tanyas, you could catch them down at the Kate Wolf Memorial Folk Festival at Black Oak Ranch on Sunday (just before Dave Alvin ). Also playing Kate Wolf (Friday and Saturday) and at the Jambalaya (Sunday), that raw old-timey trio from Santa Cruz, The Devil Makes Three . Fair warning: This is another that’ll sell out.

It’s a long twangy weekend at the Jam with a Friday show featuring Portland alt. county from The Clampitt Family (with members of Clampitt, Gaddis and Buck and The Shiftless Rounders) plus Power of County , who are about to hit the road with Hank Williams III . Things keep rolling at the Jam through Monday when there’s another monthly Humboldt Blues Assoc. blues jam, which this time out also serves as a going away party for guitar slinger Clint Warner — moving to Seattle.

More twang? The annual fundraiser for Heart of the Redwoods Community Hospice Saturday at SoHum Community Park in Garberville has Old Dog , Way Out West and Rooster McClintock .

Rooster McC. is also part of the multi-band lineup for the all day Full Moon Hoedown Saturday at Six Rivers with Martin Murry, Moses Lincoln Johnson , Kemo Sabe , The Groovy Rednecks and those masters of the murder ballad, The Pine Box Boys .

Friday night at Six Rivers catch local jammers Papa Bear with special guest Ruben Diaz on guitar.

1 2 NEXT PAGE >SHARE