Voices from the heartland

Contrary to how it may seem at times, not all the popular music that comes out of America is hard-edged rock 'n' roll and blistering jazz riffs. There's also a deep well of traditional music, poignant and contemplative, that speaks of the joys and struggles of earlier generations establishing a home and making their way in the New World.

The timeless appeal of this music continues to inform and influence contemporary musicians, two of whom will be making a special appearance in Prague this week. Matt Bauer and Mariee Sioux hail from different parts of the country - Appalachia and northern California, respectively - with distinctly different voices that share a powerful emotional impact.

Bauer, shown on the cover, is originally from Kentucky, where an unsolved murder mystery provided the inspiration for his latest album, The Island Moved in the Storm. In May, 1968, the body of a young woman was discovered in the woods near Lexington. She was wrapped in a tightly bundled green tarp and so badly decomposed that 30 years passed before the advent of DNA testing positively identified her as Barbara Ann Hackman-Taylor. During that time, she was known only as "Tent Girl," the object of endless fascination and speculation.

"Her story took place in the places where I grew up, so I could really see it - it was very real to me," Bauer says. "I had tried to write songs about her before, but I was only successful once I decided to come at her story in a more indirect way. I tried to imagine the time before and after her death, about the people left behind, about what she might have been thinking in her last hours."

The result is a haunting album, almost ghostly in its spareness, filled with compelling images conveyed with hypnotic intensity by Bauer's dark, even vocals and understated guitar, banjo and percussion work. A sampling of the lyrics: "As she came out of the water / Her hair a bed of eels / The creek held to her wrists / Saying Don't go tell our secret."

Bauer cites influences ranging from David Bowie to Bill Monroe to the "Shape Note" singing of American religious music, but the final product is uniquely his own. "I write about things and places that are very important to me," he says. "I can't sing anything that I don't really believe in strongly. If it feels untrue to me, it falls away pretty quickly."

Mariee Sioux's full name is Mariee Sioux Sobonya, and she's not a Native American; her father is of Central European ancestry, her mother a mix of Mexican, Spanish and American. But her music is steeped in Native American culture, especially her latest release, Faces in the Rocks, much of which is augmented by lilting, captivating flute lines played by a Native American musician named Gentle Thunder.

Her songs are delicate and spiritual, underpinned by a flowing, self-taught finger-picking guitar style. The music comes naturally. "I taught myself guitar mainly while I was in Patagonia," she says. "But I've always written since I was young, poems and weird stories. And my dad was in bluegrass bands while I was growing up, so I was surrounded by music."

Sioux's voice is reminiscent of early Joni Mitchell - one of the influences she mentions, along with Paul Simon and Bob Dylan - but her sound is completely fresh and original, as are her lyrics, which read like poems to the earth and her ancestors. In "Two Tongues," she asks, "Can you tell us the place where the elders chew the sky soft? ? And under the thundering roll of ghost buffalo / Can you hear the world's heart breaking?"

Neither Sioux nor Bauer has performed in Prague before, though both say they're looking forward to it. "I've had many friends go on long trips through all of Europe and say that Prague was their favorite place," Sioux says. "I'm very grateful and honored that Matt and I have been invited to play there."

"I was in Prague for just a couple days years and years ago, and I thought it was magical," Bauer says. "And I saw a lot of great music during my short visit. So I think it will be cool to be on the other side of that, and play my music in Prague."

Interestingly, it's the French Institute that is bringing Sioux and Bauer - another mark of the organization's impeccable good taste, and more significantly, the universal appeal of heartfelt roots music.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com