Welcome to New Hoyle

New Hoyle is a figment of Brad Fielder’s musical imagination. Inspired by a tiny, no-longer-extant town in north-west Oklahoma where the singer and multi-instrumentalist’s grandparents once resided, New Hoyle is the mythical backdrop for a cavalcade of zany all-American characters, adventures and corn pone wisdom. With a nod to the songsters of the early 20th century, Fielder conjures original and traditional material drawn from old-time, country blues, ragtime, vaudeville, bluegrass and novelty tunes.

Fielder’s distinctly affected vocal style, though wearing at times, well suits the music’s disposition. Supporting Fielder’s acoustic guitar, resonator guitar, banjo, harmonica, kazoo and mouth harp, the jauntily robust oompah-pah of Charley Reeves’ sousaphone substitutes for the acoustic bass. Julie Bates (fiddle, vocals) and Andrew Morris (banjo, mandolin, guitar, vocal) provide additional empathetic accompaniment. Self-deprecation, satire, parody and pastiche permeate Welcome to New Hoyle’s dozen tracks, which revel in the foibles of the fervent (‘Forgetter’s Prayer’), jousting with man’s best friend (‘Old Brown Dog’), the contents of ‘Some Old Fart’s Toolbox’ and the hygienic inclination of ‘Skinny & Stinky Old Henry’.