Monday evening’s Institute of Musical Traditions show at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church had the feeling of a “living room concert” as founder and emcee David Eisner put it. The Claire Lynch Band – in what has become an annual tradition – put on a  musically adventurous yet still familiar and engaging show for a full house of family and appreciative fans.

The 2 1/2 hour concert had all the elements of a Claire Lynch show:  great singing by Claire and the band, sick guitar work from Matt Wingate, jazzy fiddle from Bryan McDowell, and lots of fantastic bass from the incomparable Mark Schatz. There were a number of swing tunes, which fit Claire’s voice to a T, tossed in with the bluegrass and folk.  While performing songs from her most recent CD, the first-rate Dear Sister, Claire also reached back into her catalog, especially including tunes from the Watcha Gonna Do CD from 2009.  The Mockingbird’s Voice and Barbed Wire Boys were two standouts among many.

There’s so much to like in Claire’s work these days…but I’ve written about her music here, here, and here in the past couple of years…and it is getting late.  Thanks for the fantastic show – a great way to kick off the week!

I’ll end with a video of White Train, another song performed this evening by The Claire Lynch Band.

Enjoy!

More to come…

DJB

Image: Claire Lynch with DJB at IMT (credit: Candice Brown)