Lindsay Haisley – String Loaded

Artist Bio

Lindsay Haisley has been playing for audiences in Texas and around the United States since 1974 and is known nationally as one of the world’s top autoharpists. A dynamic and exciting player and performer, Lindsay’s repertoire and style have pushed the instrument into new musical territory embracing jazz, ragtime, and modern and traditional popular standards. For his innovation on the chromatic autoharp, and for his support of the larger community of autoharp players and enthusiasts, Lindsay was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame in 2004. Lindsay lives near Austin, Texas, and many of his recordings were made with the help of his friends in the fertile Austin music scene, as will as with the vocal accompaniment of his wife, Cheryl Dehut.

CD review by Chris Spencer

Haisley is based in Texas, USA, and plays the chromatic autoharp, an instrument that is held in the arms against the chest and is strummed with the fingers. All the songs on this cd include the autoharp, but Haisley also plays trombone (on “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out”), bass (on “In My Eyes) and guitar.

In the liner notes, Lindsay relates that this album is a collection of some of his favourite songs – 12 in all. Only two, “The Rifl e on the Wall” and “The Islesboro March” were written by Haisley himself.

His voice is similar to that of someone like Willie Nelson. The album is more country orientated than folk, although Haisley plays folk festivals around the USA.

Because of the songs that Haisley chose to record, I enjoyed this album. As well as the covers of standards such as “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out”, “Georgia on my Mind” and “It Ain’t over till it’s Over”, I also enjoyed “Out to Catch a Cowboy”, the instrumental. “The Wolf at Night” featuring fiddle player Eric Hokkanen, “What You Do With What You Got” and “A Place in the Choir” which features a children’s choir – It’s almost a bluegrass number, and instead of sounding cheesy with the choir, the arrangement provides an ideal counterpoint to the other songs on the album.

However it is one of Haisley’s own songs, “The Rifle on the Wall” that is probably the cornerstone of the album. It’s an anti gun song, although it’s written in a way that the message is subtle, rather than in your face. On this track Lindsay’s voice reminds me of Jerry Jeff Walker or Danny O’Keefe.

One of those albums that one could keep coming back to time and time again.