Aoife O’Donovan & Hawktail Play All My Friends Out Friday on Yep Roc Records
Acoustic Digital-Only EP Reimagines Six Songs from O’Donovan’s Acclaimed Album
Inspired by 19th Amendment
Listen/Share: “Middle/River that Runs Both Ways”
Summer/Fall Tour Dates Confirmed with Hawktail
Performance with the National Symphony Orchestra at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall October 22
Today, GRAMMY Award-winning artist Aoife O’Donovan unveils two new tracks, “War Measure” and “Middle/River that Runs Both Ways,” ahead of Friday’s (August 16) release of Aoife O’Donovan & Hawktail Play All My Friends, an acoustic EP that reimagines six songs from her self-produced critically acclaimed fourth solo album, All My Friends.
“When I decided to take All My Friends on the road,” says O’Donovan, “I knew I needed to have a small ensemble that would be able to get inside the heart and soul of the songs. Hawktail was a natural choice. Reuniting with my Crooked Still bandmate Brittany Haas, along with my comrades Paul Kowert on bass and Jordan Tice on guitar, has been sheer joy. Together, we took these songs apart and put them back together again with new life and different shades of meaning. The arrangements themselves took time to present themselves. We realized early on that it didn’t make sense to try and replicate the grand orchestration or choir parts from the album. As we found our way around the music, new sections and grooves emerged. We also resurrected an old song of mine from 2004, one that I had recorded in the Hudson Valley with my old band Sometymes Why. Brittany wrote a gorgeous fiddle tune to go with it, and it became “Middle/The River that Runs Both Ways”. It’s the perfect addition to the five songs from “All My Friends.”
Produced by Aoife O’Donovan and Darren Schneider, the EP was recorded and mixed by Darren Schneider at the Audio Temple at Full Sail in Winter Park, FL, mastered by Paul Blakemore, with additional recording by Gary Paczosa at Minutia in Nashville, TN. With Aoife O'Donovan on vocals and acoustic guitar, she was joined in the studio by Hawktail – Brittany Haas (fiddle, vocals), Jordan Tice (acoustic guitar, vocals), and Paul Kowert (double bass).
O’Donovan is currently on a summer and fall tour, which includes seven dates with Hawktail, as well as performances with the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra with Bonny LIght Horseman at The Kennedy Center Concert Hall, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. A complete list of dates is below, and tickets are now available here.
Inspired by the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote, the nine-song All My Friends artfully draws on speeches and letters by Carrie Chapman Catt, founder of the League of Women Voters, for “a remarkably personal record, not just in O’Donovan’s presentation of the material, but also in its personnel” (No Depression). Most of the songs on the album were written by O’Donovan for two commissions: one from the Orlando Philharmonic, where she now lives, for the centennial of the Amendment, and the second from the FreshGrass Festival in her native Massachusetts. Following performances with both organizations, O’Donovan continued to explore the themes that would become All My Friends and comes during a tumultuous election year. Listen to O’Donovan’s interviews with NPR 1A here and NPR World Cafe here.
Aoife O’Donovan Tour Dates
August 17 – Manchester, VT – Green Mountain Bluegrass Festival %
August 18 – Manchester, VT – Green Mountain Bluegrass Festival ^
September 17 – 3rd & Lindsley / AmericanaFest – Nashville, TN %
September 25 – Tractor Tavern – Seattle, WA ~
September 26 – Vashon Center for the Arts – Vashon, WA ~
September 27 – Aladdin Theater – Portland, OR ~
September 28, 2024 – Sisters, OR – Sisters Folk Festival %
September 30 – The State Room –- Salt Lake City, UT
October 1 – Musical Instrument Museum – Phoenix, AZ
October 2 – Wallis Center – Los Angeles, CA %
October 4 – Epstein Family Amphitheatre – La Jolla, CA!
October 12-13 – Dr. Phillips Center For The Performing Arts – Orlando, FL*
October 22 – The Kennedy Center Concert Hall – Washington, DC^
November 15 - Ferguson Center for the Arts – Newport News, VA#
% performing with Hawktail
^ performing with Crooked Still
~ performing with Hawktail + support from Väsen
! performing with the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus
* performing with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra
^performing with Bonny Light Horseman and the National Symphony Orchestra
#performing with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra
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