Jump Ups & Jollities

‘Junkerdash is a term we applied to our peculiar take on traditional acoustic mountain music, which is filtered through a half-century of folk, country and rock’n’roll, and fed by our affinity for medicine show culture and Depression-era string-band blues. However… feel free to use current music-journalism parlance and call it indie folk.’ So says Idaho-born, guitarist, banjoist, Jew’s harpist and folk singer Travis Ward, who also fronts the band Hillbilly Noir. Indie folk is certainly one way of describing what Ward and his Hillbilly Noir bandmates are doing. On Jump Ups & Jollities the ‘junkerdashing’ is whittled down to just Ward and his wife, Alison, on banjo, washboard and washtub.

This is a satisfying and largely familiar – this is the heyday of Americana, after all – blend of dark and moody Appalachian balladeering, such as ‘Travelin’ Roadside’, obscure hoedown hits (‘Social Dance’), and neo-Dylanesque poetry (‘Pete the Hobo’ or ‘Pages from a Folk Singer’s Diary’). The best news is Ward has the chops and commitment to be what he claims to be: a bona fide folk singer.