Cahalen Morrison & Eli West Febrary 22, 2013 at 7 PM

Cahalen Morrison and Eli West

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22 @ 7:00 P.M.

Black Forest Community Center
12530 Black Forest Rd. Black Forest, Colorado (map)
In roots music, Cahalen Morrison & Eli West are either the oldest young men or the youngest old men. Whether a song is three months or 100 years old, they play it with the freshness and creativity of youth and the unhurried ease and open spaces of players fifty years further down the musical road.
They play songs that could have been around for 100 years. Some have; some others were written by Cahalen. Their music, rooted in bluegrass and old-time, stays honestly within those boundaries, but is infused with their own style, their own thinking musician’s sensibilities. With two voices, guitar, mandolin, bouzouki and banjo, they play and sing with an ease and truth that comes from a love of the music and a vast reserve of technique that’s rarely used.
According to one writer, “Cahalen Morrison writes songs that sound like a Cormac McCarthy novel: simple, beautifully crafted, and seemingly formed from raw natural elements. Eli West brings jagged, angular arrangements based in bluegrass and oldtime, but refracted through a 21st century lens. Like Ansel Adams’ photography, their music is instantly accessible and built from the simplest materials, but at the same time seems to transcend its base fundamentals. Together, Cahalen and Eli tap the root of the old country and bluegrass duets. As the sparse landscapes of Cahalen’s vocals reflect the warm glow of Eli’s voice, it’s clear that this duo was made to sing together.”
They’ve captured the attention of musicians at the very top of the roots music dogpile, including Tim O’Brien, Dirk Powell and Aoife O’Donovan. Tim, who wrote the liner notes to their latest album “Our Lady of the Tall Trees,” said “Cahalan and Eli are making music that the world needs.”
But the best summary comes from Paul Constant of Seattle’s The Stranger, who said “The easy critical impulse is to point out that Cahalen Morrison & Eli West sound like they’ve stepped out of a crackly record or wax cylinder from the 1920s. And it’s easy for a reason: They’ve got the kind of classic voices that beautifully complement roots music and, sure, they stick to the old-timey instruments. But any schmuck can chew on a corncob pipe and call it a nostalgia act. Morrison & West can write gorgeous, solid songs with harmonies that’ll wake you up in the middle of the night when your subconscious remembers how fine they are. That kind of songwriting isn’t nostalgic. It lasts, is all.”
They held us spellbound two years ago; join us on February 22 for music that the world needs.