Archive for the ‘Folk Uke’ Category

Folk Uke at the Saxon Pub (June 30 2023)

Monday, May 15th, 2023

See Folk Uke Tomorrow Night!

Monday, February 20th, 2023

See Folk Uke in Austin (10.21.22)

Wednesday, September 28th, 2022

Folk Uke in Buda, TX Oct 7

Tuesday, August 31st, 2021

Pete Seeger at Farm Aid 2013, “This Land is Your Land”

Monday, July 19th, 2021

Pete Seeger performs “This Land is Your Land” with Farm Aid board artists John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews and Neil Young live at the Farm Aid concert in Saratoga Springs, NY on September 21, 2013. Farm Aid was started by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985 to keep family farmers on the land and has worked since then to make sure everyone has access to good food from family farmers. Dave Matthews joined Farm Aid’s board of directors in 2001.

Amy Nelson, Cathy Guthrie, Folk Uke, “All I Want for Christmas”

Thursday, December 24th, 2020

Folk Uke – People are Talking about “Small One”

Monday, October 26th, 2020

www.
by:

The singing, songwriting and ukulele and guitar strumming duo of Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie, known as Folk Uke, boast a fascinating stylistic DNA with distinctive and winning twists to it.

With endearingly sweet and lovely vocals and melodies, they adeptly craft and deliver original songs that can be provocative, profane, and pointed as well as uproariously funny. Case in point is their new single, “Small One,” their well-aimed stab at pathological narcissism, bullying, and male braggadocio that’s ideally suited for the current state of the nation and election season.

Folk Uke explain that the objectionable behavior of a number of public figures fed into the song. Its words call to mind many men whose misogyny and abuse reflect an overcompensation for shortcomings in their masculinity: “With abuse of power, you’re man of the hour/Stopping to trample on each precious flower/Do you mind if I don’t have this dance?/Keep your VIP-ness in your pants.”

 A clever animated video for “Small One” was created by musician and visual artist Micah Nelson (Amy’s brother) and his wife Alex Dascalu Nelson. The couple, aka Particle Kid & Sister Lu, has made similar videos for Micah’s future-folk solo project Particle Kid and psych-punk orchestra Insects vs. Robots. He also plays with his brother Lukas in the group Promise of the Real, who have backed Neil Young on recordings and in concert. Folk Uke has also posted a lyrics video for the song on YouTube (links below).

“Small One” does have its application to today’s political mood. “We have to point out what is dividing us so that we can become united,” says Cathy. Amy adds, “it’s not black-brown versus white. It’s love versus hate. There are more of us who love,” 

“I think that life is just so heavy already that we make music to soothe ourselves and make ourselves laugh.” Cathy concludes. And in doing so they provide comfort and healing laughter to an ever-growing community of listeners. Amy and Cathy are backed by a blue-ribbon roster of players on “Small One.” The recordings began just before coronavirus lockdown with producer and fellow Austin, TX resident Jeff Klein (My Jerusalem).

Thanks to file sharing, the track is graced with remote contributions by Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters, Wallflowers) on keyboards, Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses) on bass, JT Bates (Bonny Light Horseman/Big Red Machine) on percussion, Matt Pynn (Dwight Yoakam, Miley Cyrus) on pedal steel, and Walker Lukens and McKenzie Griffin on backing vocals. 

Folk Uke hail from two of America’s foremost musical families. Cathy is the daughter of longtime folk music star Arlo Guthrie and granddaughter of American musical icon Woody Guthrie. Amy is the daughter of country music legend Willie Nelson. Both fathers have appeared on Folk Uke recordings.

Yet as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer observes, “They might have famous musical parents, but… Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie are deserving of recognition in their own right.” The two met and bonded in the late 1990sin San Diego when they both worked at Croce’s, a restaurant and bar run by Ingrid Croce, the widow of singer-songwriter Jim Croce. Soon after the first time they hung out, Amy took Cathy to buy her first ukulele.

They began writing songs together but approached any music career quite informally, eventually debuting as performers at Woody Fest, the annual Oklahoma gathering that celebrates the legacy of Cathy’s grandfather. In 2005, Folk Uke released their self-titled first album on their own label. American Songwriter hailed it as  “likely to be the best folk record out today, and I’m not folking around.” Reincarnation followed in 2011; their most recent album, Starfucker, was issued in 2016.

They’ve charmed listeners with sometimes quite irreverent and NSFW songs deceptively delivered with their honeyed voices and harmonies like “Shit Makes the Flowers Grow,” “Motherfucker Got Fucked Up” (their No. 1 Spotify global hit that was heard on “Orange is the New Black” which Vanity Fair noted made a scene “even better when two voices begin to harmonize so sweetly it’ll take you a moment to realize exactly what they’re saying… you can’t help having this mellifluous, macabre tune stuck in your head.”) and “Knock Me Up.”

The duo’s distinctly yin-yang approach enables them to tackle tough topics with humorous leavening and irony. They also skewer aspects of the music business that they grew up around on “Starfucker” and “BJ to a DJ.”

The pair’s abundant charms have won them a burgeoning following of fans as well as enthusiastic musical peers, including Snoop Dogg, who notes how “They’re off the motherfucking chain…Dope as fuck.” With three albums to their credit, they’ve played international tours, had a song featured on the soundtrack to “Orange is the New Black” and tracks in such films as “Indie Jonesing,” “The Babymakers” “G7,” “Social Animals” and “Super Troopers 2.” Folk Uke have also opened shows for a variety of artists such as X, The Jayhawks, Tommy Stinson, Kinky Friedman, Shooter Jennings, Wye Oak, Dan Mangan and Dog Trumpet.
 

Friday, September 25th, 2020

Folk Uke Drive In Show (July 3rd, 2020) in Austin

Friday, June 19th, 2020

Small News from Folk Uke

Monday, June 15th, 2020

Small News! ??? Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie of Folk Uke have new song which premieres @Rolling Stone, plus Folk Uke’s got some small news—coming soon…

Folk Uke Stomp Out Toxic Masculinity on ‘Small One’
Their new single SMALL ONE
debuts today at RollingStone.com •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Great news! Folk Uke on Tour 2020

Thursday, January 2nd, 2020

Even more 20/20 dates— Arlo Guthrie with Folk Uke:
Apr. 16 Belly Up; Solana Beach, CA
Apr. 18 Soka Performing Arts Center; Aliso Viejo, CA
Apr. 21 Palace of Fine Arts Theatre; San Francisco, CA
Apr. 23 The Center for the Arts; Grass Valley, CA
Apr. 24 Bankhead Theater; Livermore, CA
Apr. 26 Mondavi Center; Davis, CA
May 6 Boulder Theater; Boulder, CO
May 8 Lensic Performing Arts Center; Santa Fe, NM

See Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie, Folk Uke, at Saxon Pub in Austin (Dec 21, 2019)

Tuesday, November 26th, 2019

Cathy Guthrie and Amy Nelson take over Deep Elm in Dallas (10/7/2019)

Wednesday, October 9th, 2019

Thank you, Janis from Texas.

Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie, Folk Uke to tour with Arlo Guthrie in 2020

Thursday, August 22nd, 2019

www.liveforlivemusic.com
by: Sam Berenson

Folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, son of iconic folk pioneer Woody Guthrie, has announced the 20/20 Tour, which will see Arlo go coast-to-coast in 2020. Guthrie will be joined throughout the tour in support by Folk Uke, featuring his daughter Cathy Guthrie.

See Tour Schedule here.

See Folk Uke at the Saxon Pub in Austin, with Amy Nelson and Cathy Guthrie (July 27, 2019)

Thursday, June 13th, 2019

Folk Uke is touring with the band EX at several cities around the Midwest and south, check out their tour schedule at www.FolkUke.com to see when they’re coming near you.

And don’t forget the group will be on the Outlaw Country Cruise out of Miami next January 2020.