Album Notes

Needlecase, the debut album of the Gourdvine String Band, features Old-Time, Celtic, and original music from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

Band members: Ellen Snyder Nagase (fiddle, guitar, vocals), EJ Burke (banjo, mandolin, guitar), Manabu Nagase (guitar, fiddle, bass), Lyt Wood (hammered dulcimer, banjo), Rannie Winn (whistles, vocals).

We especially love to play for dances, and Needlecase includes many great dance tunes and sets. The title track combines four great tunes into a dance set that builds energy from start to finish and leaves you with your toes tapping.

There is some variety to this album – from a zippy rendition of “Quince Dillon’s High D” to the slow and gorgeous “Crested Hens”. Ellen Snyder Nagase’s vocal talents are featured on the lovely “Fair Flower of Northumberland” and the amazing “Paddy’s Lamentation” – an Irish-American-Civil War-Protest song. Two original tunes composed by Lyt Wood add their own special quality to this CD.

If you like your music lively and straightforward with a twinkle in the eye (like its Celtic-Appalachian originators), you will love Needlecase.