Workin’s Too Hard is a seven-track album by the fiddler and singer Rayna Gellert, released on 20 January 2017 by StorySound Records (161-019). Gellert grew up in Elkhart, Indiana, the daughter of the traditional fiddler and banjo player Dan Gellert. She trained as a classical violinist and took up old-time fiddle after moving to North Carolina in 1994 to attend Warren Wilson College. From 2003 to 2009 she played with the old-time band Uncle Earl. She met Kieran Kane, of the O’Kanes and Kane Welch Kaplin, at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, and after writing songs together for his album Unguarded Moments they co-produced this record.
The band is Gellert on vocals, fiddle and acoustic and electric guitar, Kane on vocals, octave mandolin and acoustic guitar, Kai Welch on vocals, electric guitar and keyboards, and Jamie Dick on drums. Charles Yingling engineered the sessions, which were recorded live in one room.
Gellert wrote the title song, “Perry” and “Strike the Bells,” and co-wrote “River Town” and “Grey Bird” with Kane. The other two tracks are her arrangements of traditional material: “Oh Lovin’ Babe” and “I’m Bound for the Promised Land,” which closes the album. Gellert and Kane went on to record as a duo, with The Ledges on Dead Reckoning Records in 2018 and When the Sun Goes Down in 2019.
Tracklist
- 1 Workin's Too Hard 3:36
- 2 River Town 4:02
- 3 Grey Bird 2:29
- 4 Oh Lovin’ Babe alt version 3:55
- 5 Perry 3:02
- 6 Strike the Bells 3:08
- 7 I'm Bound for the Promised Land 3:08
