Gail Ceasar - guitar Woman Blues (Music Maker Foundation)

What Your Ears Say & The Cover Looks Like

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What We Say

In music as in life, I don't bother much with the rear view mirror, but this unrepentantly old country blues LP from rural Virginia's Gail Ceasar, is as raw and uncompromising a look back to the roots of America's (& the world's) music as one could want, made all the more poignant by the fact she lost everything she owned, instruments included, in a house fire last year.

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Background INfo

Gail has been playing her Piedmont-style blend of bluegrass and the blues, learned from her uncle Joe, since she was ten years old, living in Pittsville, in southern Virginia, since she was eight. “It’s songs that I’ve been playing over the years, old country blues I like to sit around the house and play. I had cousins that played, and uncles that played it. I hope people like it, I like it, I hope people can listen to it and enjoy it as much as I do,” she says.Floating somewhere between bluegrass and the blues, the music of Gail Ceasar has roots that run deep into the Virginia soil. Gail plays her tunes with an exquisite tone—always deep and rich, no matter the song she’s playing.

From a young age Gail was enchanted by bluegrass, and sat in on Saturday morning porch sessions at Poky’s Music in Gretna, VA to hone her skills. Unlike most musicians, Gail has little desire to go out on tour. She’s happy to stay at home in Virginia where her family’s roots run very deep. “Gail and her extended family live within a longstanding oral tradition that’s reflected in the stories they tell and in the music they play,” says Tim Duffy. Music Maker met and began working with her while doing extensive fieldwork, meeting Gail’s uncle Pete Witcher, who taught her to play.

On one visit, Gail and Pete took Tim to see the old plantation where their enslaved ancestors worked. They showed him an immense stone wall carved into the mountains that had once been a part of the plantation house. She and her uncle told us how their forefathers, talented stonemasons, had built that wall.

If you need more deep roots listening then head over to the Slow Folk Playlist