THE
WASHINGTON POST | may 28, 2004
SING OUT! MAGAZINE | summer 2004
NO DEPRESSION | may-june 2004
[exerpt from feature article]
AN
HONEST TUNE | 2004 | by: Chase Farmer, contributing editor
OFFBEAT MAGAZINE | april 2004
ALL MUSIC GUIDE | 2004 | by:
Rick Anderson
PLANET BLUEGRASS | 2005
COUNTRY
MUSIC TELEVISION [CMT] | 2004 | by: Edward Morris
THE WASHINGTON POST
may 28, 2004
"Powell's
Time Again is an extended family affair, a celebration of mountain
music made with family and friends. A veritable stringband
unto himself, Powell plays banjo, fretless banjo, fiddle, guitar,
mandolin, and bass here, surrounded by first-rate pickers including
guitarist Tim O'Brien and banjoist Riley Baugus. The music
covers a wide swath of sounds, by turns charming, reeling, sparing,
prayerful, and propulsive. Interspersed throughout are
musical snippets featuring Powell's grandfather, Kentucky banjoist
and guitarist James Clarence Hay - proof that the circle
remains unbroken."
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SING OUT! MAGAZINE
summer 2004
"...
with Time Again, we finally get to hear Dirk's inspiration.
His grandfather James Clarence Hay is featured on four
of the tracks, recorded on cassette in Ashland, Kentucky in
1990. What a revelation! No wonder Dirk is such
a fine and sensitive musician. His grandfather seems to
be a very kind and gentle man who truly loved to impart the
musical tradition to his grandson. What we have beyond
the archival material is a set of dynamic old-time music with
exciting results and lots of variety. Time Again is a
very special recording and perhaps a turning point in the career
of Dirk Powell. I can't wait for what's next."
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NO DEPRESSION
may-june 2004 [exerpt from feature article]
"Time Again is a celebration of the rebellious nature of
old-time music. The album brings together the dark and
the light, the fun and the misery, the lyricism and the all-about-the-music
picking that makes traditional music such "a living thing,"
as Powell repeatedly refers to it."No Depression.
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AN HONEST TUNE - THE JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN JAM
2004 | by: Chase Farmer, contributing editor
Time Again:
Number 2 on list of Best Releases of 2004.
"An old-time gem, complete with original material and Powell's
consummate virtuosity."
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OFFBEAT
MAGAZINE
april 2004
"Dirk's third solo effort revisits the dusty roads and
bucolic scenescapes representing more than nine generations
of Southern mountain stock. Frequently, the tunes possess
an eerie ambience that recalls the mountains' unforgiving hardscrabble
challenges. Whereas countless old-time records are waxed
annually, only a few are capable of whisking you back a century
or two. This is certainly one of them."
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ALL
MUSIC GUIDE
2004 | by: Rick Anderson
"There
is not really anyone else like Dirk Powell on the American folk
scene. An accomplished clawhammer banjo player, fiddler, and
guitarist with a command of about a dozen different Appalachian
traditions, he is also an heir (by marriage) to the rich Cajun
musical heritage of the Balfa family, and plays a very fine
accordion alongside his wife Christine Balfa in the band Balfa
Toujours. Time Again focuses on Appalachian material, though,
and is a warm and deeply affecting celebration of the music
handed down to him by his grandfather and other family members;
it includes one of the sweetest and loveliest renditions of
"Prettiest Little Girl in the County" ever committed
to tape (notice Powell's exquisitely tasteful banjo behind Jim
Miller's lead vocal) as well as a wonderful Powell original
titled "Waterbound" (no relation to the familiar traditional
tune of the same name) and a whole slew of joyful instrumental
dance numbers. The album ends with a hidden track that sounds
like a home recording of Powell and his grandfather playing
"Cripple Creek" together. Very highly recommended."
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PLANET BLUEGRASS
2005
"This
album more than lives up to the precedent set by Dirk's other
solo albums on Rounder. He consistently sets the bar for "modern"
old-time music--soulful, musical, and full of fresh ideas, yet
always very true to the genre. This is an example of the best
of what contemporary old-time music can be. Lovers of this style
of music will enjoy the new takes on old favorites, and listeners
who are new to the music will be entranced. Highly recommended."
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RAMBLES
june 5, 2004
"Powell
comes by his bluegrass roots honestly; one of his major influences
was his grandfather James Clarence Hay, a Kentucky musician.
Several tracks here feature the two together as they talk and
play. Powell's touching liner notes leave no doubt that he is
very conscious of the music's history and how he and his family
have carried it on. Even the old fiddle used on this recording
comes down from a cousin who fought in the Civil War.
Although there are a few originals here, the lion's share of
the material is traditional tunes. Powell describes his haunting
song "Waterbound" as a new song from an old place,
and that is a fitting description.
Powell is a multi-instrumentalist who plays banjo, fiddle, guitar,
mandolin and bass. He also sings and, on various cuts, is assisted
by other musicians such as Riley Baugus, Tom and Patrick Sauber,
Travis Stuart, Tim O'Brien, Darrell Scott, Jim Miller and the
Foghorn Stringband.
The program includes romping band numbers like "Texas Bells"
and intense moody songs like "Mother's Little Children."
Authenticity is a problematic concept when applied to traditional
music, but this music is authentic in the sense that the hairs
on the back of your neck stand up when you hear it. As I listen
to "Honey Babe," I can see the song's narrator hopping
a freight train in the dead of night in some Appalachian coal-mining
town. It's real in a way that music that uses bluegrass as a
trapping is not. Powell gets down to the emotional root of the
music, the joys and the sorrows of the people who created it.
Time Again is a fine disc of music by a modern practitioner
who knows his heritage. Dirk Powell's music is a treasure that
will be appreciated by any true lover of bluegrass."
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COUNTRY
MUSIC TELEVISION [CMT]
2004 | by: Edward Morris
"Time Again is steeped in the Appalachian themes, melodies
and cadences Powell learned from his grandfather. Indeed, he
weaves snippets of his grandfather's picking and conversations
throughout the album to create a stylistic continuum.
Powell, 34, spent his early years in the university town of
Oberlin, Ohio. Fascinated by music, he began studying piano
when he was 8. Two years later, he switched to the baroque harpsichord
to indulge his passion for Bach. "When I got to be about
12 or 13," he says, "my grandfather's music started
resonating with me a lot more. I kind of realized that the formal
world of classical music wasn't really for me. It felt like
it was focusing a lot on practicing and getting somewhere with
technique, but it didn't seem like you spent very much time
actually being there, actually playing the music."
With playing music foremost in his mind, Powell began spending
more time in eastern Kentucky, where his family came from and
where his grandfather, James Clarence Hay, still lived. "My
family did that whole thing of leaving eastern Kentucky and
going up to Ohio for the good life," says Powell, recounting
the region's generations-old migratory pattern. "That was
a wonderful thing. I was glad they could do that. But they also
left a lot behind that I really lacked in terms of family and
place. … I was able to go back down there [to Kentucky],
and it was great for me and great for my grandfather. He had
given [music] up when he was young. So it kind of gave me my
life and gave him back his life because music was the most important
thing to him. But he'd had to give it up to raise a family,
like a lot of people do." The excerpts Powell uses in Time
Again are from a recording he made during a 1990 visit with
his grandfather, who died the following year.
Powell calls Appalachian music his "first language"
and adds, "I have a wide range of interests in different
styles, but … within the Appalachian tradition, there's
a whole range of expression. There's all the real wild stuff,
but there's a lot of real tender and sparse stuff, too."
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