Megafaun Bring Sounds of the South to the MusicNOW Festival Next Week!
The trio reconvenes with collaborators Fight the Big Bull and featured vocalists Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten to resurrect Alan Lomax’s classic recordings for one night only on May 13.
ABOVE: Megafaun’s Brad Cook, Fight the Big Bull’s Reggie Pace, and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. Sounds of the South performance, Durham, NC, September 2010. Photo by Jeremy M. Lange.
The halls of the old church heard it coming. The horns humming. The banjo bending. The snare shimmering. The bass slow-booming. The harmonica like an oncoming train. Joe Westerlund and Brad and Phil Cook, the trio behind Megafaun, turned a commission from Duke University last Fall into a three-night, sold-out revelation. The guiding light: ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax’s 1961 release of field recordings from the American South. Hand-in-hand with collaborators/jazz collective Fight the Big Bull and featured vocalists/old friends Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten, Megafaun resurrected and reinterpreted Lomax’s Sounds of the South — in sound, structure, lyrics, and spirit.
Megafaun and Fight the Big Bull have been invited for perform an exclusive one-night engagement of their Sounds of the South program at MusicNOW, the Ohio festival begun by The National’s Bryce Dessner that has featured The Books, Glenn Kotche, Sufjan Stevens, Kronos Quartet, Bill Frissell, Grizzly Bear, Dirty Projectors, St. Vincent, Joanna Newsom and Robin Pecknold during its five year run. Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten will be completing the lineup for the performance of Sounds of the South on Friday May 13 at Cincinnati’s Memorial Hall.
Phil Cook of Megafaun & Sharon Van Etten. Sounds of the South performance, Durham, NC, September 2010.
Reggie Pace and Matt White of Fight the Big Bull, and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Sounds of the South performance, Durham, NC, September 2010.
Brad Cook, Phil Cook & Joe Westerlund of Megafaun. Sounds of the South rehearsal, Durham, NC, September 2010.
Sharon Van Etten, Justin Vernon, Brad Cook & Phil Cook. Sounds of the South rehearsal, Durham, NC, September 2010.
All photos by Jeremy M. Lange — thanks, Jeremy!
