Cackalack

Last updated
Cackalack
Cackalack.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 2010
RecordedNovember 23, 2009
Genre folk, Americana, bluegrass, singer-songwriter
Label Waterbug Records
Producer Jonathan Byrd
Jonathan Byrd chronology
The Law and the Lonesome
(2008)
Cackalack
(2010)

Cackalack is a 2010 studio album by Americana singer-songwriter Jonathan Byrd. The title is a variation of the word "Cackalacky", a popular (though at times derogatory) nickname for the Carolinas and the songs all connect to the culture and music of Byrd's home state of North Carolina. The album was recorded in a single day with a group of musicians, including members of Creaking Tree String Quartet.

Jonathan Byrd (musician) American singer-songwriter

Jonathan Byrd is an American singer-songwriter based in Carrboro, North Carolina. He is best known for his narrative tales of love, life, and death in America. In 2003, he was among the winners of the New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. He set a record for CD sales at the festival that year, making more sales than the main stage acts. His song, "The Ballad of Larry" has been listed a "Top Rated Song" by Americana-UK. He primarily performs solo and accompanies himself in a variety of traditional acoustic guitar styles. His recordings have featured a variety of instrumental ensembles and typically include one or more instrumental tracks that feature Byrd’s skillful flatpicking technique. Occasionally he also appears with the Athens, Georgia based world music duo, Dromedary.

North Carolina U.S. state in the United States

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. North Carolina is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the 50 United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with an estimated population of 2,569,213 in 2018, is the most populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 23rd-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. North Carolina's second largest populated area is the Research Triangle Region, with an estimated population of 2,238,315 in 2018, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park, centrally located in the "Triangle" formed by Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh.

The Creaking Tree String Quartet is a Canadian progressive all-instrumental bluegrass and acoustic roots band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Contents

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Folk Alley (favorable) [1]
Public Radio East (favorable) [2]
The Folk Show(favorable) [3]
Scattered Black and Whites(favorable) [4]

The recording was well received by DJs playing folk and Americana music formats. It reached #22 on the Americana Music Association radio chart during the week of February 7, 2011. [5] The album was also ranked #3 for the month of January 2011 on the Folk DJ-L radio chart. The most played tracks included "Cakalack!" and "I Was An Oak Tree". [6] The album also reached #1 on the Roots Music Report "Top 50 Folk" chart. [7]

Americana Music Association organization

The Americana Music Association (AMA) is a professional not-for-profit trade organization whose mission is to advocate for the authentic voice of American Roots Music around the world. Toward these ends the organization works with Americana artists, radio stations, record labels, publishers, and others to create networking opportunities and to develop an infrastructure that will assure visibility and economic viability. Additionally, the organization works to increase brand recognition of Americana music and its artists. The Association produces events throughout the year including the annual Americana Music Festival and Conference and the Americana Music Honors & Awards typically held together in the fall. The AMA also manages and publishes radio airplay charts. It publishes newsletters, conducts market research, and disseminates information about important events in the Americana community.

In a review, Folk Alley's Jim Blum described the album as "much more rootsy than his previous releases, and sometimes quite bluegrassy. [1]

Jim Blum is a folk music DJ on WKSU in Kent, Ohio, where he has produced shows for over 25 years in addition to producing shows for Internet radio Folk Alley since its inception in 2003. Blum is also heavily involved with the Kent State Folk Festival.

Track listing

All songs written by Jonathan Byrd unless indicated otherwise

  1. "Chicken Wire" (Jonathan Byrd & Tom Gould) – 3:39
  2. "Wild Ponies" – 4:41
  3. "I Was an Oak Tree" – 2:44
  4. "Reckon I Did" – 3:48
  5. "New Moon Rise" – 3:53
  6. "Dungarees Overalls" – 2:10
  7. "Father's Day" – 4:01
  8. "White Oak Wood" – 3:24
  9. "Scuppernong" – 3:11
  10. "Cackalack!" (Jonathan Byrd & Leonard Podolak) – 2:18

"Livers & Gizzards" (Hidden tracks/outtakes available as WAV files on the CD release)

Waveform Audio File Format is an audio file format standard, developed by Microsoft and IBM, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF) bitstream format method for storing data in "chunks", and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF format used on Amiga and Macintosh computers, respectively. It is the main format used on Microsoft Windows systems for raw and typically uncompressed audio. The usual bitstream encoding is the linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) format.

  1. "38 Baby" – 2:49
  2. "Amelia My Dream" – 5:15
  3. "Arkansas Traveler's Check" (traditional) – 3:01
  4. "Blackberry Blossom" (traditional) – 2:21
  5. "Dream Life" – 3:20
  6. "Maureen" – 3:01

Credits

Musicians:

Steel-string acoustic guitar

The steel-string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar that descends from the nylon-strung classical guitar, but is strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. Like the classical guitar, it is often referred to simply as an acoustic guitar.

Fiddle String instrument

A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres including classical music. Although violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the style of the music played may determine specific construction differences between fiddles and classical violins. For example, fiddles may optionally be set up with a bridge with a flatter arch to reduce the range of bow-arm motion needed for techniques such as the double shuffle, a form of bariolage involving rapid alternation between pairs of adjacent strings. To produce a "brighter" tone, compared to the deeper tones of gut or synthetic core strings, fiddlers often use steel strings. The fiddle is part of many traditional (folk) styles, which are typically aural traditions—taught 'by ear' rather than via written music.

Mandolin musical instrument in the lute family (plucked, or strummed)

A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum. It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are typically tuned in a succession of perfect fifths, with the same tuning as a violin. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

Production:

Toronto Provincial capital city in Ontario, Canada

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada, with a population of 2,731,571 in 2016. Current to 2016, the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA), of which the majority is within the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), held a population of 5,928,040, making it Canada's most populous CMA. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration of 9,245,438 people surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Ontario Province of Canada

Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada. Located in Central Canada, it is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.

Hillsborough, North Carolina Town in North Carolina, United States

The town of Hillsborough is the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina and is located along the Eno River. The population was 6,087 in 2010.

Notes and sources

  1. 1 2 Jim Blum, Review: Jonathan Byrd ~ Cackalack, Folk Alley Blog, January 18, 2011
  2. George Olsen, Arts & Culture: Cackalack - Jonathan Byrd, Public Radio East, February 4, 2011
  3. Mel DeYoung (Folk Show Coordinator), New CD: Jonathan Byrd Archived 2010-12-04 at the Wayback Machine , The Folk Show Forum, WPSU, November 29, 2010
  4. Jason Bloom, Jonathan Byrd Archived 2011-06-11 at the Wayback Machine , Scattered Black and Whites (scatterbaw.com), January 27, 2011
  5. Radio chart at americanaradio.org for the Americana Music Association. (accessed February 21, 2011; chart shows Cackalack at #24 w/ 138 spins for the week of February 14, 2011, #22 w/ 141 spins for previous week, #23 w/ 135 spins for two weeks prior)
  6. Richard Gillmann, Top Folk Albums, Songs, Artists and Labels of January 2011 (with DJ list) Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine , at folkradio.org. See also Top Folk Albums, Songs, Artists and Labels of December 2010 (with DJ list) Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
  7. Top 50 Folk at rootsmusicreport.com, this chart is also linked by Cashbox Magazine. (accessed February 4, 2011--showing rank at #2 for current & previous week; was ranked #1 as of January 14, 2011)

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