Lindsay Haisley – Petals on the River

Petals On the River

This is Lindsay’s most recent album, and has been hailed by reviewers as his best yet. This album presents a wide variety of genres, from rock and roll and jazz to traditional old-time, and Lindsay’s autoharp playing complements all of them. For autoharp players, this album is a fine demonstration of the versatility of this often underrated instrument. Five of the fourteen songs on this CD are Lindsay’s own compositions. All of them are played with the help of musical friends from the Austin, Texas musical community.

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 Graham Blackley

Lindsay Haisley, who was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame in 2004, is a Texan singer and multi-instrumentalist who is a deft practitioner of autoharp, guitar, bass and synthesizer.

Petals on the River, a wonderfully eclectic album that manages to embrace elements of blues, country, jazz and soulful rock, boasts a top-notch production job that imbues each track with plenty of atmosphere and warmth.

Haisley has a smooth and mellifluous vocal approach that fits perfectly with any genre that he turns his hand to and he is in fine voice on all fourteen songs.

With melancholy power, he conjures maximum emotion from a truly beautiful and decidedly poignant rendition of You Don’t Know Me which has previously been performed or recorded by a diverse range of artists including Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

For a blast of smile-inducing quirk and brainbending surrealism check out the playful and contagiously catchy Concrete Rhinoceros which is likely to set up residence in your memory banks for quite some time.

One of the many highlights of the album is Haisley’s lively version of Witchi Tai To which was written by the late Jim Pepper, a saxophonist and pioneer of fusion jazz who was of Native American ancestry.

Haisley, who played music with Pepper in 1972 in the intriguingly named Anonymous Artists of America, is backed on this rollicking track by Brad Johnston (piano & organ), Gordon Gunn (bass), Mark Baram (drums) and David Jones, Lia Haisley and Cheryl Dehut (vocals).

Rippling with excellent songs and skilled musicianship, Petals on the River will inspire repeated listens and is likely to instill in you a burning desire to dip further into Haisley’s back catalogue.