Artist description Angel Band was a group of expatriate artists and musicians living in Florence, Italy, who were personal friends and played for their own enjoyment traditional and old-timey music from upbeat Irish jigs to populist ditties and mournful ballads. Though primarily of folk origin their music spans diverse genres and includes a number of originals from technical string inventions to plaintive and haunting compositions inspired by poetic verse from the likes of Thomas Hardy and e.e. cummings. Everyone who has listened to this album likes it.

Music Style Bluegrass, Fiddle Tunes, Country Rags, Irish Reels

Musical Influences Folk music from Appalachia, British Isles

Similar Artists The Carter Family, Charlie Poole, Doc Watson

Artist History The band was formed in Italy during the mid 1970's while its members were living abroad and met each other informally. Everyone had "day jobs" whether composing music on a Fullbright, teaching graphic arts, obtaining a graduate degree or attending master classes, but they played together evenings, and after performing at venues in and around Florence, a recital for the American Consulate in the Republic of San Marino and a headline concert for the American Bicentennial Celebration at the Medici Palace in Florence in 1976, they made a record which attracted a small cult following. They then returned to America and settled down in different parts of the country, and still keep in contact with each other.

Group Members Buzz Brusletten, Karin Brusletten, Peter Contuzzi, Dennis Olsen, Robert Saunders

Instruments Fiddle, vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin, recorder, harmonica, autoharp, spoons

Albums All the Good Times - Cardinale Records CDLP 1601, Italy

Press Reviews Notwithstanding the enormous influence of it upon pop music today, recordings that give a true sense of the authentic folk music of white America are still hard to find in Italy. It is about so-called bluegrass, which we hear so much in western films, tunes imported to the states from Ireland during the the years of the great rush West, or yet other things (on this album we also hear rags, which originated in Missouri). This recording offers some samples of those vintage forms in the accomplishments of a fine American ensemble, Angel Band. The music is thus about modern interpretations, not samples collected in the field by ethnomusicologists, but there is nothing contrived about it. ARRIGO_POLILLO,PANORAMA 11/26/79, p. 33 Here's a folk album that poses no questions (is it a re-evaluation? A survey? Revival? Reinterpretation?); it's folk and such was it born. In particular it is folk from the American tradition--and therefore very rich: on the first side, bluegrass, love songs, country rag and Irish reels: on the second, spiritual, ragtime, recent mountain songs--but interpreted with intellegent good taste and capable despite the limited choice of selections, of presenting a whole picture. A problem or two in the mix, and a beautiful voice: Karin Brusletten. ALBERTO_BERTINI,PAESE SERA 11/4/79, p.11

Location Brookline, MA - USA

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