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Boston's Joy Kills Sorrow, are a wildly popular group at the forefront of the Boston acoustic music scene. Along with Vancouver Island's own award winning vocalist Emma Beaton (Canadian Folk Music Awards 2009 Young Performer of the Year), the band is sweeping the continent and causing a buzz following the February release of their national debut "Darkness Sure Becomes This City". FolkWest was lucky enough to catch these stars as they rise to the top, for a special show at Fairfield Church on Saturday, May 22nd, to celebrate the diversity of folk music in our fair land and continue to raise awareness for the upcoming 2011 FolkWest fest!
Joy Kills Sorrow...
"It's a rare thing that a live performance is a strong representation of what you hear on a recording, and Joy Kills Sorrow reveals a fresh, hip take on traditional music." ~ CMT.com
Formed under the banner "a modern American string band", Joy Kills Sorrow first came out of Boston's thriving folk music scene in 2005. After a few line-up changes Joy Kills Sorrow has emerged with a bold new brand of acoustic music, pushing through the envelope and out the other side. They bring a decidedly modern sensibility to an old-world sound, channeling the talents of individual members with elegant arrangements and well-crafted songs. While the group pays homage to its bluegrass roots; its name is taken from WJKS, a radio station that broadcasted the Monroe brothers' show in the 1930s, the band truly excels in treatment of more contemporary material. Boasting a full arsenal of original songs, Joy Kills Sorrow plumbs the entire spectrum of its instrumentation, merging influences as diverse as folk, rock, pop, and jazz. The music that emerges is dark and often funny, ruminating on modern life and love with eloquence and wit. A radical new strain of folk music is born, one that bravely breaks with tradition as it salutes the past.
Along with Qualicum Beach's Emma Beaton, who currently attends Berklee College of Music on scholarship studying cello, Joy Kills Sorrow is comprised of Guitarist and founder Matt Arcara, who is not only a fantastic player, but also a luthier in Portland, ME and a winner of the Winfield National Flatpicking Championship. Wesley Corbett takes up the banjo and provides harmony vocals as well as a sense of inventiveness to the group, and mandolin virtuoso Jacob Jolliff is the first-ever full-scholarship mandolin student at Berklee, having shared the stage with the likes of David Grisman and Mike Marshall in his life thus far. Bass player and brilliant songwriter Bridget Kearney contributes not just the bottom end to this quintet but many of the songs on the new album. She's a past winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and holds a large responsibility to the overall sound of the group. Together, Joy Kills Sorrow are a powerhouse of modern Americana music and an act that shows no signs of losing steam! Catch them now while you can still see them in an intimate venue!
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