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She’s a Rainbow (The Rolling Stones cover) by Molly Tuttle from the album ...but i'd rather be with you

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Guy Clark's 'Dublin Blues' Reissued

Guy Clark ‘Dublin Blues’ Album Reissued Guy Clark Seminal ‘Dublin Blues’ Thirtieth Anniversary Reissue Plus Bonus Track Continue reading Guy Clark’s ‘Dublin Blues’ Reissued

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Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley Are Living In A Song

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The Whitmore Sisters Are Seeing Ghosts

BY JORDAN MAINZER

If it sounds like there’s a lifetime of stories behind The Whitmore Sisters’ debut album Ghost Stories (Red House Records), that’s because there actually is. Bonnie and Eleanor Whitmore are anything but musical newcomers, the former an accomplished solo artist and the latter a member of The Mastersons, but they had never recorded an album together. During COVID, when Bonnie came to stay with Eleanor, the latter’s husband Chris Masterson offered up the house on the condition that the sisters would finally record an album together. Reflecting on love, loss, and loves lost, they’ve brought us one of the first essential releases of the year.

Ghost Stories is by no means “an album about death made during the pandemic.” Far from all of the songs are about deceased people, and even the ones that are have a cautiously celebratory tone. The record starts with “Learn To Fly”, a tribute of sorts to their father, a Navy pilot who did in fact teach the sisters how to fly planes. Tyler Chester’s uneasy Mellotron seemingly mirrors the unease you’d feel at that first launch, while the sisters’ calming harmonies and Eleanor’s melody float until the song soars. “Hurtin’ For A Letdown” and “By Design” are about the sisters being addicted to heartbreak, classic country tunes and ideas, the latter bolstered by Jon Graboff’s pedal steel. Similar in spirit is a take on Aaron Lee Tasjan’s “Big Heart, Sick Mind”, new wave synths giving way to a handclap stomp. And you could almost hear the likes of Harry Nilsson singing the sadsack, blue-eyed pop of “Superficial World of Love”.

Even the songs that are likely about death could simply be about folks no longer in the sisters’ lives; that they’re not autobiographical and rather focus on the stories of the subjects make the songs all the more effective. “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter” is a story of two folks in love, an undeniable strut that still has room for realism: “With a wish and hope like a charm against the pain / Just like a storm, when it’s blowing in / It’s over just as fast as it began / Every now and then Sissy thinks about Porter and the sound of the pouring rain.” Eleanor’s fiddle and especially Dirk Powell’s accordion provide fitting tonal accompaniment to the ups and downs of the story. “Ricky” sounds like an upbeat, banjo-laden drinking song but is really about an alcoholic who claims that “Too much fun never hurt no one,” who “made your mark all over this town / gone so crazy that your name is on the marquee.” Looking at Ricky in present tense, the sisters declare, “It’s about to do you in,” giving their subject some agency and a chance to change that he may or may not have had in real life. Closer “Greek Tragedy” also gives life to those gone, loved ones living in our memories and dreams, Hattie Webb’s arpeggiated harp, cinematic string arrangements and drum build ups giving the album a sense of finality.

At their record release show at Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles on Monday, and streamed via Mandolin, The Whitmore Sisters performed Ghost Stories front to back, with Masterson and drummer Jamie Douglass (who also played on the record) by their side. Sonically, the four carried a lot of ground, Eleanor able to switch between Mellotron and fiddle, and the sisters’ vibrato harmonies front-and-center elevating “Learn To Fly”, “Hurtin’ for a Letdown”, “Superficial World of Love”, and Paul McCartney/Everly Brothers cover “On The Wings of a Nightingale”. Of course, the two most powerful performances were the emotional centerpieces of the record itself: the title track and “Friends We Leave Behind”. For so many, COVID is inseparable from the much-needed protests against systemic racism spawned by the murder of George Floyd and too many others, and the title track is inspired by the murder of violinist Elijah McClain at the hands of the Aurora, Colorado police. On the eve of Black History Month, the sisters shared that they “want to move forward and do better” and proclaimed the song not about McClain but about the bigger story. Eleanor, fittingly playing violin, beautifully contrasted Masterson’s dark, soulful riffing; as the sisters sang, “I will say their names,” the song chugged upbeat, underscoring basic but purportedly radical ideas of imagining new ways of living and seeing “love in everyone”. And then there’s “Friends We Leave Behind”, a blueprint for grief. Eleanor’s acoustic guitar made the song a lot more stark than the downtrodden piano and synthesizers of the album version, but the goal remained. “It’s the grace / By which we carry, carry on,” they sang, a call to the rest of us to do the same.

Ghost Stories by The Whitmore Sisters

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