Ironto Special

Old-time music stalwarts The Black Twig Pickers are a trio of Virginia musicians with an abiding passion for Appalachian musical traditions. Their albums are invariably spirited, rough-hewn affairs featuring sparkling musical interplay and a surprising, off-the-cuff atmosphere that sometimes finds solos punctuated by infectious yelps of enthusiasm. Each member is a multi-instrumentalist, and along with the expected guitar, fiddle, and banjo, the Pickers play a host of more outré creations, including washboards, neck bones, autoharps, homemade dobros, and mouth-harps. Ironto Special appeared in the wake of a pair of collaborative releases—one with the late guitarist Jack Rose and the other with Minnesotan singer/songwriter Charlie Parr—that found The Black Twig Pickers expanding their repertoire to include bottleneck blues and hardcore gospel. The group’s stylistic range is in evidence throughout Ironto Special, which finds the Pickers tackling everything from the traditional Appalachian fiddle tune “Bonaparte’s March Into Russia” to boisterous reels like “Don’t Drink Nothing but Corn."