Rootsy fiddle player Rachel Baiman joins in Sidecar online series

Thursday, Jan 28, 2021 3:42 PM

Local roots trio Stillhouse Junkies’ winter concert series has been a great catalyst for landing musicians right into your living room.

If there is one benefit to the virtual concert series, it’s that bills aren’t dictated by musician location or who is on tour together; those walls have been broken down as show lineups can feature bands or musicians from all over the country. The Sidecar Online Concert Series so far has had musicians on the same bill performing from Minnesota, North Carolina and Michigan along with right here in Durango. With a decent internet connection and a few cameras, a band or solo musician can tour or perform anywhere, without having to leave the comfy confines of their practice space.

The next Sidecar Online Concert Series will take place Saturday and will feature concert hosts and band Stillhouse Junkies performing from Durango; The Wooks playing from their home base in Lexington, Kentucky; and Rachel Baiman, who will be playing from outside Nashville, Tennessee. There’s a theme to this week’s show – all of the acts are part of the booking agency Blue Sun Entertainment.

Baiman is an indie-folk fiddler, a gal who started with violin lessons as a kid as a result of wanting to emulate an older sibling learning music, while backed by parents who dug the folk scene.

“My parents had an awareness of folk music, and they had been into contra dancing, so when I started playing fiddle tunes they encouraged that,” she said. “They knew what it was and thought it was really cool, so I think it was a combination and coincidence of having cool parents that were into folk music and understood it.”

Baiman has spent the last dozen years in Nashville, starting out playing in the experimental bluegrass duo 10 String Symphony. It was that duo, and the influence of Nashville, that started her down the path as a songwriter.

“Living in Nashville and being in this community of incredible songwriters in a place where the song is coveted; this town is all about the great song, so I really fell in love with songwriting and started focusing more on that,” she said. “I wrote some songs that were more folkie and less experimental bluegrass acoustic, which is what 10 String Symphony was doing.”

In 2017, she released her solo debut “Shame,” an album that reflects a deep appreciation of regional styles of folk and old-time music. She’s a true student of the genre, influenced by the Round Peak style of old-time from North Carolina, as well as more localized scenes in Georgia and Alabama, or as far away as Scotland, as well as musicians like Andy Leftwich and John Hartford. She’s also influenced by the Australian folk scene, in particular, the indie-folk and pop duo Oh Pep!

Down Under has been influential enough to pull her to that part of the world for a handful of tours, as well as to record her forthcoming release, which will drop later in 2021. Hers is a sound that’s overall hard to define while being warm and original, where old-time and bluegrass instrumentation serve as a home base while Baiman wanders off in different musical directions. The music that’s on her past and future studio releases, as well as in her live set, continues to push the boundaries of traditional folk music.

“Sometimes, I think something sounds so different, but in the end it’s still me,” she said. “So from the outsider’s perspective, I think it still sounds very folk-influenced, and there’s this aspect of where I come from and where I’m so rooted in folk and fiddle music that it really never leaves my sound, even when I don’t realize it.”

Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.