Don’t You Marry No Railroad Man

With Don’t You Marry No Railroad Man Alabama-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter-guitarist and occasional banjo luthier Joshua Press (JP) Harris celebrates a deep affinity for the sub-genre known as old-time. Hitherto known for his distinctly raw, contemporary take on classic country music (think Merle Haggard), Harris possesses a distinctively dulcet, old-soul voice and a fretless banjo technique ideally suited to this side project operating under the moniker JP Harris’ Dreadful Wind & Rain. Joined by the superb fiddling and harmony vocalising of longtime collaborator Chance McCoy (formerly of Old Crow Medicine Show), the duo recorded Don’t You Marry No Railroad Man using state-of-the-art gear installed in a ramshackle shack on McCoy’s West Virginia mountain property.

The album’s ten tracks include fresh interpretations of familiar Appalachian ballads and shanties, such as ‘Barbry Ellen’, ‘Otto Wood’ and ‘Mole in the Ground’, along with material that touches an unusual autobiographical chord. When Harris renders ‘The Little Carpenter’ (first recorded in 1937 by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax in Harlan, Kentucky, sung by blind fiddler Jim Howard) and ‘House Carpenter’ (another Lomax field work find), his expertise as a restoration carpenter imbues the performances with a special self-referential resonance.