| Ballad
of America songs and stories of people who
made a country |
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| Be sure to watch the video to see what Matthew Sabatella and the Rambling String Band and Ballad of America are all about. |
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| what the media has to say: |
| "...Sabatella's
best asset is easily his voice, urgent but unforced, sweetly melancholy
in telling personal stories and powerfully evocative in rendering antiquated
songs intimate again. It's a great gift, and Sabatella wields it with
exceptional talent." “Led
by Sabatella's six-string guitar and his molasses baritone, the band's
big sound rolls from Luna's makeshift stage across a room filled with
tri-county patrons… Tonight's crowd is extra large, lining up
against the walls and squeezed three deep between cases of beer and
the cafe's ancient black refrigerator. Along with the band, almost everyone
is singing: ‘Heigh, ho, and away we go; Digging up the gold on
the Fran-cis-co!’” “Miraculously,
Hollywood-based folkie Matthew Sabatella has packaged a history lesson
in the guise of a strikingly good album and a nerdaliciously compelling
live show that tell the story of western expansion across the American
heartland through song… ‘It's the kind of thing that will
appeal to just about anybody,’ Sabatella says of the songs on
Ballad of America Volume 1, most of which date back to the
early 1800s. The crowd at the Bamboo Room reflected that sentiment,
as moms, grandmoms, longhairs, blue collars, and a gaggle of wine-sipping,
Virginia Slims-puffing ladies all clapped along and sang like ornery
lumberjacks to lines like ‘And we'll range the wild woods over,
and once more a-lumbering go!’” "This
particular afternoon, Sabatella and his close-knit combo — Lynn
Griffith on banjo and mandolin, Jack Stamates on fiddle, Sean Edelson
on mandolin, and Chris DeAngelis on stand-up bass, with Sabatella on
guitar and vocals — play to a tent filled nearly to capacity,
its 50 or so occupants clearly caught up in the familiar strains of
the music and, just possibly, a certain whiff of nostalgia." "...when
he bangs out chords on his chocolate-brown acoustic guitar and sings
deeply into the mike, his songs begin to soar." Check here for more media clips. |