Young shows talent on Room to Grow

Published: Saturday, June 9, 2007
By Brent Hallenbeck
 
Adrienne Young grew up in Florida, is now based in Nashville, Tenn., and recorded her latest album, "Room to Grow," in Virginia and New York. The young musician who specializes in old-time music also put a distinct Vermont stamp on her new CD.

The state's best-known musical Gordons, former Phish bass player Mike Gordon and banjo and pedal-steel-guitar player Gordon Stone, made guest appearances on "Room to Grow." The CD even sounds Vermont-y when you consider the agricultural title and the theme of sustainable farming that wends its way subtly through the songs. Young is an ardent champion for the idea of taking agriculture out of the hands of big business and putting it back in the control of communities and families.

Young, performing Tuesday at Higher Ground, formed her Vermont connections after meeting Mike Gordon at a rain-drenched Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in New York state. She and Gordon walked around the soggy grounds and sat down for jam sessions. Gordon didn't play the bass he's known for, or the banjo he sometimes favors; he played guitar.

"I just thought, 'He's just such an awesome musician,'" Young said in a recent phone conversation.

Last spring she came to Burlington to jam some more with Gordon, and with Stone, at Gordon's home studio and later at "Honky Tonk Tuesday" at the Radio Bean coffeehouse.

"That's when I was really blown away with her voice," Gordon said. "She seemed to have this purity; it just comes out of her."

They connected when singing together on the old Dusty Owens song "Once More." "It was just effortless, and we both knew it," according to Young. Gordon said he kept dropping hints along the lines of "if you ever want to do something like that" for a recording until Young asked him to help with the song for her new CD. He recorded his harmonies and bass lines in his home studio and enlisted the drumming of former Burlington musician Neil Cleary, who's now based in Boston and is on tour opening for Gordon's ex-Phish band mate, Page McConnell. Gordon also plays bass on Young's cover of Joni Mitchell's "Free Man In Paris."

Stone became part of "Room to Grow" while Young and her band were recording in Levon Helm's studio in Woodstock, N.Y. Her guitar player, Hans Holzen, is friends with Stone, and when the group decided they needed pedal-steel guitar on the album they thought of Stone.

He was thrilled at the chance to meet Helm, the legendary drummer and vocalist for The Band, and enjoyed playing with Young. "It was mostly just, 'Do what you feel, and we'll let you know if it works for us or not,'" Stone said.

It worked, according to Young. "He came in and sat down and blew us away on the first take -- just a really instinctual and supportive style musically," she said of Stone, who appears on four of the disc's songs. "Afterwards we're like, 'Wow, that song could never be without what Gordon just did on it.'"

Along with the music evoking rural Americana, "Room to Grow" includes lyrics that reference living off the land ("Leaves were blowing on the pumpkins/Fattening in the field"). Young's interest in agriculture stems from her teenage years when the seventh-generation Floridian lived on a family farm near Gainesville.

"The understanding and connection with food in its most natural state was for me the equivalent of salvation, not to sound overly dramatic," she said. "It was stimulating to be aware of the energy in the hearts and in the minds and in the eyes of the people that had been raised on this pure, unadulterated food. Eating this food that had been tended by loving hands and loved soil was a spiritual act."

Young has joined forces with the Food Routes Network and the American Community Garden Association. Proceeds from sales of her CD will help support local-farming efforts. Three Vermont organizations -- Montpelier-based Food Works at Two Rivers Center; the Burlington-area chapter of Eat Local Vermont; and Salvation Farms of Wolcott -- will have display tables at Tuesday's performance.

Stone will also have a presence at Tuesday's performance; he expects to sit in for a few songs. Young hasn't specifically asked Mike Gordon to do the same. "If he wants to come out, that would be great," she said.

Gordon plans to attend the show but doesn't know if he'll play. The odds, though, are in favor of that happening. Gordon, who has joined performers at Higher Ground ranging from McConnell to Brett Dennen to Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, said Higher Ground at its end-of-the-year party last year give him a light-hearted award for the most sit-in performances at the club.
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenb@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com

If you go WHAT: Adrienne Young
WHEN: 9 p.m. Tuesday
WHERE: Higher Ground Showcase Lounge, South Burlington
TICKETS: $7 in advance, $10 day of show
INFORMATION: 652-0777, www.highergroundmusic.com