Listen to the Be Good Tanyas and you'll have a vision of three feisty angels who rely on faith to negotiate a world that breaks their hearts. Though they aren't quite British Columbia's answer to Courtney Love - the subtle bluegrass-gospel-folk hybrid they make puts paid to any screeching - theirs is a very confident, modern approach to a very traditional sound.
But tonight, Frazey Ford, Samantha Parton and Trish Klein are nervous. "Holy crap, there's lot of you here," says Ford, her soft features fixed by fear. Parton peers through her long fringe and sighs deeply into the microphone, apparently worn out before she's begun. The outbreak of jitters could be down to the length of time it's taken the band to follow their last album, Chinatown. Ford tells us their first new material for three years will appear in October. "It should have been out a long time ago, but we're lazy," she says. "Great procrastinators. Especially me." Still, she's unrepentant. "I believe you have to live life to write about life." It's the life - and searing honesty - in their songs that has taken the Be Good Tanyas from tree planting in the Kootenay Mountains to the vanguard of the new bluegrass movement. They sing about dead dogs, junkies and death with gothic sparseness, and turn traditional country songs into tales of contemporary urban despair.
Though the band is very much a three-headed hydra - backed by Mark Beaty on double bass and John Raham on drums - the personalities behind the rich harmonies are distinct. Klein is a gifted musician, but so painfully shy it almost feels wrong to watch as she plays bluesy harmonica and ekes out haunting chords from her electric guitar. Ford is the earth mother with the luminous voice, struggling with her wrongs in In Spite of All I've Done and bunching her dress at the hip as she tears through a lively version of Neil Young's For the Turnstiles.
Parton is the Robbie Williams of the band. She dances like no one is watching and is quick with an anecdote. "I've got sweaty legs," she says, reaching for a towel. "That's what I used to tell my mom when I wet the bed. 'Mom, my legs are sweaty!'" But when Parton sings Don't Fall, her fear of relationships is palpable. A new song about addiction has her swallowing back her tears. The Little Birds, from the Be Good Tanyas' classic debut, The Blue Horse, cheers her up, though she makes a mess of the lyrics. "We were walking through the lobby today," says Ford, bursting into giggles, "and we said, 'People pay money to see us?'" Intimate, chilling but always entertaining, they are the only ones who wonder why. From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jul/19/popandrock
