Search - Discovery String Band :: "Most Perfect Harmony" Lewis and Clark: A Musical Journey

This album includes 70 minutes of period, traditional and original music interpreting the epic journey of Lewis and Clark and is packaged with a 28 page booklet containing extensive notes on each of the 17 songs and tunes plus an introduction by James Denny, a historian with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources who has been involved with many of the projects associated with the celebration of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. The Discovery String Band is made up of Cathy Barton and Dave Para (folk performers who tour nationally and internationally and between them play a variety of folk and traditional instruments including guitar, mandolin, hammered dulcimer, banjo, jaw harp, bones, spoons and mouth bow); Paul and Win Grace (who have toured nationally performing American roots and contemporary folk music, known for their close harmonies and their skilled intrumental work on the accordion, fiddle, mandolin, harmonica and feet!); and Bob Dyer (sometimes known as the Bard of the Boonslick Country who combines his talents as a poet, musician, historian, and folklorist to write original folk-style ballads that he performs as a "Songteller"). These five musicians have known each other for more than 25 years and have often performed in various combinations producing more than a dozen CDs between them. This is their first album as a group. James Denny, who wrote the introduction to their CD, says that this "group of highly talented musicians, song writers and folklorists...have been engaged in a conspiracy to produce beautiful tradtional music together for a long time," and adds that "this eloquent tribute to and evocation of the Lewis and Clark expedition...captures the spirit of...their epic journey." Denny has also said that he has listened to most if not all of the recordings made to commemorate the Lewis and Clark Expedition and that this one is "the best of them all." The album was released November 15, 2003.