Watkins Family Hour
Reviewed by: Geno Thackara
We all have our familiar staples that serve as musical comfort food. If you grew up hearing Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion radio show on Saturdays like I did, you’ll understand how down-home folk and Americana can become like a favorite meat-and-potatoes dish all your life. (Don’t worry about dating yourself if so. That could apply to anyone born in the last 45 years.) Among the old-timey skits it’s always offered a range of musical acts, from classic names to newer groups like Nickel Creek. That band’s Chris Thile and Sara Watkins have both guest-hosted the show in recent years, and apparently Thile is even preparing to step into Keillor’s bright red MC-ing shoes (I hope literally) in 2016.
Yes, there’s a point to this: Sara and her brother Sean (the other Nickel Creeker) enjoy this kind of thing enough that they’ve been running their own monthly-ish variety show out in Los Angeles since last year. It’s an informal folksy jam that basically throws a rotating cast of musicians together onstage to see how it goes. Now they’ve decided it would be fun to take some of the recurring regulars into the studio and on the road. Who doesn’t enjoy a cozy evening with friends? I didn’t recognize any of these other names apart from Fiona Apple (and you might as well forget whatever you think of her based on her own hits), but they’ve all got skill and generosity to spare. This group has an easy camaraderie and loves to share, making sure everyone gets space to play and a turn at the microphone. They choose eleven well-loved covers and breeze through them with the familiarity of hanging out in someone’s living room.
If there’s a downside to Watkins Family Hour, I’d say that it’s just a bit too breezy. A few numbers are basic country or blues that get performed as straightforwardly as they come. Pleasant as that is, it can leave them feeling like background for the more dynamic moments. Fortunately that’s where the group seriously comes to life – the siblings’ singing harmonies and Sara’s sweet violin really shine in Lindsey Buckingham’s “Steal Your Heart Away” or the bluegrass romp of “Hop High,” for instance, and of course it’s hard to go wrong with the Grateful Dead’s “Brokedown Palace” since it’s one of the greatest songs ever written. I’m glad to hear the album for those high points alone, so hopefully there’ll be a live release down the road which keeps more of that spirit from start to finish.
“Listenable” doesn’t always sound like a great rating, but I mean it in a good way. I like an easy late-night chat as much as a lively dinner out, and here we get to enjoy roughly half an album of each.
Rating: Listenable
