FOURTOLD

Fourtold is a concept, a recording and performing project, and a band of exceptional equals who have played and recorded together in various combinations but never before as a quartet. Drawing from original, contemporary and traditional folk music, well-respected songwriting troubadours Steve Gillette, Anne Hills, Cindy Mangsen and Michael Smith pooled their abundant talents for a CD and subsequent 2003 tour that celebrates four-part harmonies and timeless "story songs."

This configuration of long-time friends and mix-and-match collaborators came together as a mutual admiration society with a mission: "The material we chose had to be story songs that lent themselves to four-part harmony," says Anne Hills. So the members of Fourtold set out to make what could be described as an old-fashioned folk record – evocative songs about events and adventures, rather than innermost feelings, conveyed by an ever-shifting tapestry of glorious voices and warm, quietly virtuosic instrumentation.

Despite diverse origins, the songs on FOURTOLD seem as old as the family bible, as new as the morning newspaper. There are tales, real or imagined, of Western badmen (Ian Tyson’s "Four Rode By"), epic horse races ("Molly and Tenbrooks"), witches and imps ("Pendle Hill," "The Nine Little Goblins"), doomed miners ("Ballad of Springhill"), assassination theories ("Two Men in the Building"), maidens besting murderous suitors ("Aramalee"), nautical disasters ("Run, Come, See Jerusalem"), and a new version of Steve Gillette’s "Darcy Farrow," previously recorded by more than 300 singers and often mistaken for a traditional ballad.

With four world-class voices weaving rich, varied leads and harmonies on a sumptuous loom of acoustic guitars, banjo, accordion, concertina and bass (the latter played by producer/performer Scott Petito), listening to FOURTOLD is like reading a well-chosen anthology of short stories. This is folk music by inspired experts, reveling in each other’s skills on an instantly classic CD.