The Haden Triplets

They were born in New York City on 11 October 1971 and raised in Los Angeles by their mother, Ellen David, with regular visits from their father, the jazz bassist Charlie Haden. He had grown up singing with his own family, the Haden Family, a country and folk harmony group heard on stations such as KWTO in Springfield, Missouri, where as a small child he was featured as yodeling “Cowboy” Charlie. He played those old recordings for his daughters, and on childhood visits to their grandparents in Missouri they heard the family music at first hand. The sisters sang in harmony from an early age; Petra took up the violin, Tanya the cello and Rachel bass and keyboards.

Each went on to a career of her own in rock, jazz and experimental music, with credits including that dog., the Rentals, Weezer, Beck, Foo Fighters, Green Day and Bill Frisell. They sang together on their father’s country-roots album Rambling Boy (2008), and a couple of years later they were the Fates on Anaïs Mitchell’s folk-opera album Hadestown, for which they also wrote three arrangements.

Their partnership with Cooder came through his son, the drummer Joachim Cooder, a longtime friend whom they had asked to play a benefit for the Los Angeles radio station KPFK; he brought his father, who urged them to make a record. The album, arranged by Cooder and the sisters and released by Third Man early in 2014, had Ry Cooder on guitar and mandolin, Joachim Cooder on drums, Rene Camacho on bass and Ricky Skaggs on mandolin on three tracks, with Petra adding violin and Tanya cello. Its songs include “A Voice from on High,” “Memories of Mother and Dad,” “Tiny Broken Heart,” “Will You Miss Me” and “Single Girl.” Charlie Haden died in July 2014, and in January 2015 the sisters and their brother Josh sang “Shenandoah” at his memorial concert at Town Hall in New York.

The Family Songbook, released on 24 January 2020 and produced by Woody Jackson, includes four songs written in the 1930s by their grandfather Carl E. Haden, among them “Ozark Moon” and “Memories of Will Rogers,” which had come to them through their uncle Carl Haden Jr. Alongside them are “Wayfaring Stranger,” “I’ll Fly Away” and “Wildwood Flower,” a song by their brother Josh, who plays bass on it, and Kanye West’s “Say You Will.” Bill Frisell and Greg Leisz play on three tracks.