Tonight, rising singer and banjo player Nora Brown and fiddler Stephanie Coleman will bring their take on traditional Appalachian-style and old-time music to folk music haven Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs.
Brown, who at the age of 18 has just completed her first semester of college, is an accomplished musician who has toured the country, performed at NPR’s Tiny Desk, and in July released with Coleman the “Lady of the Lake” EP.
WAMC’s Lucas Willard caught up with Nora Brown, who called in from her native Brooklyn, about her music and return to Saratoga Springs.
It's a really special place. I feel very honored to be able to frequently come up there. I mean, every time I come is a really sweet time. I think I remember the first time I ever came to Saratoga Springs, and it was just like so cold, I just, I remember how cold it was so vividly. And I must have been like, around the same time that are coming now. I think maybe in February or something. But it was it was very warm in Caffè Lena.
So, let's talk about your most recent release, which is the Lady of the Lake EP with Stephanie Coleman, who you'll be performing with at Caffè Lena. I think it's just a wonderful little EP. How did you meet Stephanie? And when did you decide to start collaborating?
Yeah. Well, I met Steph, six or maybe seven years ago now. There's this bar in Red Hook, Brooklyn called Sunny's and they host an old-time jam that I was at and Steph was also at. And our mutual friend introduced us. We kind of clicked pretty quickly. And then we just started getting together to play some tunes.
There's this music series at this place well Jalopy in Brooklyn. The Jalopy theatre. It’s called Roots and Ruckus every Wednesday, and it's a fun night where like, four or five artists will play starting like around 8 p.m. And me and Steph started doing that series a few times. We just kind of kept playing and hanging out and it's been really fun. Yeah.
I think you're playing and her playing both complement themselves very well. Steph’s playing, it's almost like…at least on the Lady of the Lake EP. She's using the violin almost as a drone. There's a constant sort of tone and then your fingerpicking comes through. And it's both two different textures. How did you fall into that kind of composing? And is that something that you aim for when you wanted to put together this release?
Yeah, totally. We're both really inspired by lots of like droning music. Sometimes we play music with Steph’s boyfriend, James Shipp, who plays pump organ with us and we love like messing around creating those droney background noises. It's a big part of old-time music. It's a big part of a lot of traditional music that we really admire. So yeah, that was kind of that's always kind of in our minds when we're working together. But yeah, I mean, the main goal of our collaboration is to just like, you know, listen to each other and create a blend of sounds that resonates with us, you know?
Tell me about the cheese caves.
OK, yeah. My parents used to run a business called Crown Finish Cheese. And there's these caves beneath where we live in Brooklyn, that were old lagering tunnels and they were, my parents transform them into spaces where they could age that cheese. And yeah, well, it relates to music stuff because there's one tunnel that was unfinished. And we once ran a concert series in that space for a while until COVID. But want to get that started up again. But, also, I recorded an album down there. Yeah, and it's a funky space.
Do you feel a sense of responsibility in preserving a kind of music?
I mean, if you mean like…if that's a reason for why I play I mean, I think not so much. It's really a super strong component there. I mean, like, totally, it’s something I think about but I strive to play the old music not…the driving force isn't really to preserve it, but just really because I enjoy it so much. All the history is very important to me, but first and foremost is like just really loving the music and if preserving it happens through that love then that's great, and that's how it should be done.
Maybe my favorite track on the latest release, the Lady of the Lake EP, is the cover of Copper Kettle, which is a song that I first heard…I know Joan Baez has a version of it. And Bob Dylan covered it on the Self Portrait album, which is kind of loved or hated, depending on the person and the the decade…Why did you choose to cover that song?
I first heard my friend Jefferson Hamer play the song a while back at this camp called miles of music and they have this the campus in Lake Winnipesaukee, it's like a kind of a songwriting camp, but they have like a strong old-time crowd there, too. It's been a special place for me learning to play music and anyways…I came back a couple years ago in 2022 and they have this bonfire at the end of the week and people sing music around the fire. And Jefferson sang that song. And I heard it before, but I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so good.’ It really resonated with me and I went home, I learned it, kind of worked it out on guitar, and then yeah, I was playing it solo and I showed it to Steph and then we kind of began to work it up. It just became one of our favorites, yeah.
For more information visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nora-brown-and-stephanie-coleman-tickets-732788288497?aff=oddtdtcreator
