Mississippi-born, in 2011 Kelly McRae teamed up with fellow musician Matt Castelein, trading their Brooklyn apartment for a camper van and life on the road. Fortunately, they’ve found time to pull into a studio and record three albums, and now this six track EP Easy On My Mind, along the way.
It’s a simple, uncluttered backwoods folk affair, involving little more than acoustic guitar and her crystal vocals, beguiling from the off with the effortlessly relaxed Fair Weather, a song about sharing the paths you journey, a theme that continues through the friskier shuffle of Stay Close to Me. Listening to Full Cup, you might hear shades of the young Baez in her inflections as she sings about drinking deep of what life offers, a sentiment that also informs So Fine as, a couple…
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…celebrate their 50th anniversary over a spring night and a bottle of wine, without any need of sharing their story with magazines or TV news, content with what life has brought them.
The all too brief (around 22 mins) collection’s completed with the slow waltzing Easy On My Mind, finding shelter from troubles back in her lover’s arms, and the closing, submissive At the Feet of Love, a realisation about being blind to what you have until you’ve burned it down. McRae and Castelein have been regularly compared to Welch and Rawlings, the latter should take that as a real compliment.