Episode 19-43: The Lowest Pair, also featuring Blue Canvas Orchestra

About This Episode

Kendl Winter, born in Arkansas, moved to Olympia, Washington
after high school, drawn to the evergreen forests and the lively
and thriving music scene. She put three solo records out on
Olympia’s indie label, K Records, and performed in
nationally-touring northwest string bands before beginning The
Lowest Pair in 2013 with Palmer T. Lee. Palmer built his first
banjo when he was 19 from pieces he serendipitously inherited.
Shortly after deciding songwriting would be the most effective
and enjoyable medium for his musings, he began cutting his teeth
fronting Minneapolis string bands and touring the midwest
festival circuit, which is where he and Kendl first met, on the
banks of the Mississippi.


“Both of us studied roots music and traditional banjo techniques,
three finger and clawhammer. We started there and then from our
understanding of them have diverged, perhaps because of our own
limitations, and probably because we both tend to err on
creative. Even when we are attempting to recreate old sounds, we
can’t help but have our own twist on it. We approach our
instruments as vehicles to explore poetry, song, and melody and
have kind of been making up our own sounds in the places where we
couldn’t find ones that seemed to fit or make sense to us. We
recorded our first album (36cents) in Dave Simonett’s basement a
month after we began playing together, and our second (The Sacred
Heart Sessions) , a year later, in a beautiful old church in
Duluth, MN.” -Kendl


The Lowest Pair had been planning to release a new record in the
Spring of 2016. So in early 2015 Palmer convinced Kendl to spend
a winter in Minnesota, with the temptation of working with local
greats Dave Simonett and Erik Koskinen on the new material. The
duo then set off on what would be a successful season of touring
their second, critically acclaimed album, The Sacred Heart
Sessions (Spin: “solemn and humble;” The Bluegrass Situation:
“deeply felt”), and a new-old-time record, I Reckon I’m Fixin’ On
Kickin’ Round To Pick A Little, Vol. 1. In the fall, returning to
the midwest to finish up the recordings they had begun a few
months prior, Kendl and Palmer found themselves with a whole new
batch of songs ready to lay down. After much deliberation, they
ambitiously decided the two collections should be released
together in 2016.


The two records, Fern Girl and Ice Man, as well as Uncertain As
It Is Uneven, could be viewed as two windows into the growing and
changing world of The Lowest Pair. Uncertain stays the course of
their previous releases, being focused on stripped down, intimate
arrangements to support their timeless songwriting and haunting
vocals. Fern Girl is a more moody and adventurous exploration of
new sounds, new studio production directions, and what it might
sound like for The Lowest Pair to be supported by a full band,
while keeping one foot planted in the rootsy aesthetics which
drew them together from the beginning.


With little attention to tedious practicalities and with an eye
focused securely on delivering to their growing fan base a truly
special treat; a rootsy, bluegrassy, old-timish version of
meiosis has happened as one new album became two new albums.


For Kendl, making two albums was a natural reflection of the pace
they had set and the experiences they had accumulated. “It’s not
that the two records have to be next to and with each other, it’s
just that it’s all there, our current story, and the stories
we’re figuring out.”


Fans already know that the chemistry between Palmer’s Midwestern
charm, those long winters spent listening to a steady diet of
Townes Van Zandt and John Hartford, and Kendl’s poetic and
playful way with words, her unique approach to the banjo, and her
barefoot-in- the-cool-river-water mystique combine to make a
powerful sound, but what’s new in 2016 is both the inclusion of
those non-banjo sounds (harmonica, drum, bass, violin) and an
incredible expansion of their songbook. In a way, two records,
the playful and the hush, the dark and the rooted, the pillow and
the nightmare, the pin drop and the starry night; the
juxtaposition of the ups and downs that are experiences in a day,
in a year, in a minute, all this has demanded from the band more
than just “a new record.” Fern Girl and Ice Man and Uncertain As
It Is Uneven mark the arrival of America’s next great musical
duo, and it’s over the course of these two albums that that boast
becomes clearly rooted in truth.


This episode also contains a selection from the Blue Canvas
Orchestra's show Wild Woods and Water.
About Michael Perry

Michael Perry is a New York Times bestselling author, humorist
and radio show host from New Auburn, Wisconsin.


Perry's bestselling memoirs include Population 485, Truck: A Love
Story, Coop, and Visiting Tom, and his latest, Montaigne in Barn
Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy. His first book for
young readers, The Scavengers, was published in 2014 and first
novel for adult readers, The Jesus Cow, was published in May of
2015.


Raised on a small Midwestern dairy farm, Perry put himself
through nursing school while working on a ranch in Wyoming, then
wandered into writing. He lives with his wife and two daughters
in rural Wisconsin, where he serves on the local volunteer fire
and rescue service and is an intermittent pig farmer. He hosts
the nationally-syndicated "Tent Show Radio," performs widely as a
humorist, and tours with his band the Long Beds (currently
recording their third album for Amble Down Records). He has
recorded three live humor albums including Never Stand Behind A
Sneezing Cow and The Clodhopper Monologues.


Learn more about Michael and where to get his publications at
www.sneezingcow.com.


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