The Butcher Shoppe EP (Rounder 1166100493) came out on March 1, 2019, the first recording from Della Mae after a hiatus that began in 2016. The band, which first came together in Boston in 2009, recorded it in the fall of 2018 at The Butcher Shoppe Recording Studio in Nashville, with everyone playing in the room at the same time. The members were Celia Woodsmith (vocals, guitar), Kimber Ludiker (fiddle), Jenni Lyn Gardner (mandolin, vocals) and Zoe Guigueno (bass, vocals), and they produced it themselves. Alison Brown played banjo and Molly Tuttle guitar and vocals as guests, joined by Avril Smith, a founding member of the band, on guitar.
The six tracks are “Bourbon Hound,” Ludiker’s fiddle instrumental “No-See-Um Stomp,” Lester Flatt’s “Sleep with One Eye Open,” Merle Travis’s “Sixteen Tons,” “Bluebird Blackbird” and the Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post.” Bluegrass Today described most of them as fan favorites redone for the record, with a couple of new tunes. NPR’s First Listen streamed the EP in full on February 21, 2019, and its reviewer, Jewly Hight, wrote about the band’s start as a joke among friends at a music camp in California.
Tracklist
- 1 Bourbon Hound 3:12
- 2 No-See-Um Stomp 2:58
- 3 Sleep With One Eye Open 3:31
- 4 Sixteen Tons Source Recording 4:15
- 5 Bluebird Blackbird 3:07
- 6 Whipping Post 4:16
