Of All Places to Hear It. . .

I was skipping through the stations on the car radio this morning when I happened to catch a song by a Newfoundland group called the Masterless Men. The announcer said, "Newfoundland," (a word you hear regrettably little on the music stations) and I woke up a bit, expecting something vaguely maritime. When they started in with the banjo, it was unexpected, but who's going to complain about a nice, laid-back sounding bluegrass band? To add to the confusion, I came home and looked them up, and their recordings really are in the Newfoundland/Irish folk genre, not bluegrass; they had just picked the double whammy of a bluegrass-style tune and some nice banjo work for that particular piece. All in all, something far above what a cynic like me normally expects to find on the radio.

Anyway, here is the Masterless Men's version of "The Bramble and the Rose" which was what I heard this morning. It was written by one Barbara Keith, and has evidently been recorded several times in the past, though it was new to me. Though the recording quality here isn't all it could be. . .here it is.