For this Red Carpet concert, we present Irish-folk duo and 2017 Alaska Folk Festival guest artist the Murphy Beds of Brooklyn.
Guitarist Jefferson Hamer and bouzouki player Eamon O’Leary perform Hamer’s song “Ragged World.” It’s the latest video from our eight-part Red Carpet Concert series filmed at the Alaskan Hotel during this year’s folk festival.
This spring, longtime friends and musicians Tania Lewis and Christopher Behnke released their first album “Live at the Outpost.” During the Alaska Folk Fest, the banjo-guitar duo recorded a Red Carpet Concert at the Alaskan Hotel. Here’s their performance of Lewis’s song “The Swell.”
Rusty Recordings producer Justin Smith discussed the album with the artists. Lewis and Behnke worked as researchers together for six years aboard a boat that Smith captained in Glacier Bay. Here are some highlights from the conversation:
Tania Lewis says a lot of the songs were inspired by Glacier Bay, Icy Strait and other parts of the region. She says the ocean’s waves scare her, but that she tries to embrace them.
Christopher Behnke says the recording was one of the first songs he’d played with Lewis after returning to Gustavus from Fairbanks, and that to him, the record is representative of the community.
Justin Smith says one inspiration for the record was a photo he saw of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings looking at each other across a little table with “beautiful vintage microphones.”
For our fifth video, we present Anchorage songwriter Emma Hill with Kat Moore performing Hill’s original song “2 Seconds Flat.” Since their recording at The Alaskan Hotel during the 43rd Annual Alaska Folk Festival, Hill has toured Europe with her songwriting partner Bryan Daste and Moore has toured Colorado with her band The Super Saturated Sugar Strings.
For our next Red Carpet Concert from the 2017 Alaska Folk Festival, we present Goldwing. Performing their song “Buffalo Coat,” Juneau songwriter Dan Kirkwood is flanked by Ben Higdon on pedal steel and Dan DeSloover on bass. They usually play with drummer Clae Good, though the band became a trio to fit into the tiny hotel room.
For our third video, we present The Hannah Yoter Band, performing their song “Something Good.” It’s third video from our eight-part Red Carpet Concert series filmed at the Alaskan Hotel during the Alaska Folk Festival. The six-piece band is fronted by Anchorage songwriter Hannah Yoter. This spring she received an individual artist grant from the Rasmuson Foundation to work on the band’s next album.
For our next Red Carpet Concert from the 2017 Alaska Folk Fest, we present the Portland musicians Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms. Returning for their second Red Carpet Concert, we recorded the duo performing their song “Been on the Rocks” at the Alaskan Hotel. They are currently touring with Foghorn Stringband in the UK.
This video was made in collaboration between KTOO Public Media and Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus.
