Spencer Lewis and The Thrufters Description and BioInstrumental folk grooves from Vermont’s nationally known recording artist
Known
for ‘never doing a song the same way once’, Spencer Lewis and The
Thrufters have established their own unique sound by redefining the
music from Lewis’ popular 14 CD catalog of music in styles ranging from
full tilt old-time fiddling, instrumental folk grooves with passionate
threads of improvisation, and simple, uplifting songs. Their own CD
Song of Stone is slated for a May 1, 2003 release and captures their
energy live in the studio with 6 new songs and the re-inventions of two
earlier Lewis compositions.Lewis’ own brand of cross-flat-picking has remnants
of an old time sound while remaining distinctly contemporary.
Influenced by the Carter Family’s “church-lick”, Mississippi John
Hurt’s fluid finger picking and Jack Elliott’s interpretive feel, he
creates a kind of back porch instrumental music that seems to draw from
a place deep within with melodies and emotions that wrap around the
soul like a blanket. As a singer-songwriter he offers ballads with
subtle, unpretentious statements about rural life, the road, and
personnel change, all with his own brand of reverence for the human
spirit. He often ends many of his shows with Guthrie’s “This Land” or
Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.”
His most recent CD Open Road includes
his song Seeds of Positivity, an anthem of optimistic vision that has
been enthusiastically performed by grade school students in residencies
and concerts. Lewis also offers music from In My Arms, an interpretive
journey of children’s music that is both rollicking, gentle, and pure
fun. The Thrufters feature Montpelier’s Dan Haley, whose mandolin riffs
offer an endless supply of texture and rhythm along with his
imaginative and sometimes driving acoustic guitar work. This
versatility allows Lewis to soar on the fiddle or violin and yield the
gems that reside in his prolific instrumental catalog. Scott Paulson
plays electric and acoustic bass and generates his own path in the mix
with melody, counterpoint, and harmony lines. He is soulful, powerfully
direct, and never shy about crashing and burning when the moment
arises. Scott also runs the Vermont Independent School of Musical Arts
in Sharon Vermont where he teaches band instruments and steel-drums.
Spencer sings in a relaxed tenor with Dan handling most of the
harmonies and Scott adding his chorus to a handful of others.
The Thrufters travel
on a journey of folk improvisation as they go down many roads from slow
rolling soulful contemporary folk to the old-time sounds mirroring
Guthrie and the Carter Family and finally to Spencer’s homemade fiddle
tunes written with southern and Celtic influences.
Lewis’ ’91 release
The New Generation of Old Vermonter’s won him a Fellowship Finalist
award from the Vermont Council on the Arts while recently his CD A
Sense of Place was mentioned in the best-selling novel The Smoke Jumper
written by Nicholas Evan’s, author of The Horse Whisperer. |
