Every month, Wellington City Libraries acquires new CD’s for its large, broad, eclectic collection, and Wellington music is no exception. We regularly inspect local music websites, trawl music vendors latest releases and check out independent labels like Flying Nun, Arch Hill, Rattle and Lil’ Chief for the latest in Wellington and New Zealand music. So, with this influx of mint music in mind, every two months we’ll provide the latest titles and artists added to our Wellington music collection…
Crossing the dirty river.
Wellington based Country-Rock-Blues singer Carol Bean has a deep personal musical history to draw on for her music, as detailed in this recent Herald piece. Born in London, but raised In California, she gravitated towards American Roots music and, influenced by the blues music scene in LA, she signed up for guitar lessons from Ry Cooder at McCabes Music Store. Ry taught her how to Travis pick and play Ma Rainy songs, which was just the beginning of her musical journey. These days Carol fronts Blue Highways and Mt Misery, duos with Ray Ahipene-Mercer and/or her partner and harp player Lester Mundell, and plays dirt music with her Dirty River Band. Carol judged the Rotorua BluesFest Rockshop Guitar Competition and is project manager for the Caritas/Aotearoa SINGout4JUSTICE song writing competition.
On ‘Crossing the dirty River’ Bean fuses her West Coast musical style with an introspective storytelling and some bluesy rockers. Reminiscent at times of Mary Chapin Carpenter but with a harder rock edge.
Her album ‘Crossing the dirty river’ is available through CD Baby or Marbecks. Check out a review from Graham Reid’s Elsewhere blog here.
Also, check out her the first album we have of hers:
Read the road signs.
‘Crossing the dirty River’ cover sourced from CD Baby.