Indie children’s recording artist Suzi Shelton is a multi-award winning singer/songwriter and family performer based in Brooklyn, NY who has been bringing joy and musical fun to families for over two decades. She has five solo albums under her belt, multiple singles and videos, and produces a popular show for young children on YouTube called Sing with Suzi. Suzi leads music and movement classes and workshops in various elementary schools and preschools throughout NYC and most recently spearheaded the in-school folk music program “Community Through Music,” along with musician Hilary Hawke, where under-resourced schools can experience live music including violin, banjo, guitar, ukulele, bass and drums. CTM aims to reinforce respect and kindness towards each other, as well as encourage inclusion and group participation. This unique program exposes young children to American Folk and World Music while allowing them to gain knowledge and appreciation for these different musical styles, cultures, and sounds.

The Strugglers, however, have always played with a fire and a feeling wholly their own— with intensity, grace, and a simmering sense of mischief. Old Juniper, their first record in seven years, is further evidence (were it needed) that the band operates in a world of their devising, richly fed by the wellsprings of American traditional music but not hemmed in by them. It’s also their first record featuring original compositions. While the lyric songs borrow familiar elements from early country-music songsters—Riley Puckett’s “I’m Gettin’ Ready to Go”; Dave McCarn’s “Poor Man, Rich Man”—all the tunes are the band’s, and it’s astonishing to hear the echoes of some of the greatest recorded string-bands of the 1920s and ‘30s in creative conversation with the Strugglers’ own compositional acumen. The raggy “Pillow Stone” evokes the peerless Grinnell Giggers of the Missouri bootheel; “Grayling Waltz” would have fit neatly into a waltz set by Taylor-Griggs Louisiana Music Makers or Tennessee’s Weems String Band.

A particular strength of the band is the markedly individual musical sensibility each of its members brings to the table: mix these up, smooth out some edges (or don’t), and that’s the Struggler sound. But despite their considerable talents, together and apart, the Down Hill Strugglers’ greatest asset may not be their chops but their exquisite sensitivity to this seam where collective tradition and individual artistry meet. For over 15 years they’ve been deftly reconciling them, making music that sounds simultaneously old and new, timeless and right on time. It just keeps getting better.

–Nathan Salsburg