After the Morning

Wyndham Baird’s music lives at the intersection of witting imitation, authentic reinterpretation and inspired creation. He sings like his (mostly) American folk heroes, primarily Bob Dylan, with a dash of Jimmie Rodgers and a pinch of Woody Guthrie. His debut album, After the Morning, offers up a banquet of 13 chestnuts from the classic folk repertoire by the likes of Rodgers (‘Waiting for a Train’), Eric Von Schmidt (‘Joshua Gone Barbados’) and The Carter Family (‘The Girl on the Greenbriar Shore’). Outlier numbers include Merle Haggard’s ‘If We Make It through December’ and Randy Newman’s ‘She Chose Me’, originally composed for, of all things, Cop Rock, a television series from 1990. Wyndham’s dexterous guitar picking and scratchy Dylanesque delivery are particularly effective on ‘The House Carpenter’, imbuing the timeless ballad about demonic meddling with an appropriately anxious, if not wholly creepy, hue. Joining Wyndham on harmony singing is Samoa Wilson on ‘Meet Me by the Moonlight, Alone’. Her old-timey style fits the material like a dovetail joint while folk musician and producer Eli Smith lends his considerable skills on banjo and autoharp.