by Paul T. Mueller
Rising singer-songwriters Phoebe Hunt and Ali Holder visited Houston’s Cactus Music Oct. 25 to give fans a preview of their show scheduled that evening at a nearby club. Hunt and Holder, playing fiddle and guitar respectively, performed three songs each, accompanying each other instrumentally and vocally.
For Hunt, a veteran of Austin-based groups The Hudsons and The Belleville Outfit, the selections included “Good Blood” and “Sugar,” both featured on her current CD, Live at the Cactus Café, and a third song that might have been titled “Just for Tonight.” All featured her fine fiddle playing and slightly offbeat vocals. Holder’s music typically has a folky sound, but her songs at this event – “The Only Thing,” “Drinking Double” and Hunt’s “Mourning Dove” – were more like traditional country. All three can be found on Holder’s new CD, In Preparation for Saturn’s Return.
Phoebe Hunt and Ali Holder at Cactus Music
Hunt and Holder were backed by Connor Forsyth, doing excellent work on banjo although he’s better known as a keyboardist, and guitarist/singer-songwriter Daniel Thomas Phipps, filling in on bass.If the event had been a competition, the judges might have given the edge to Hunt for stage presence and to Holder for vocal purity. But rather than a contest, it was a happy collaboration. Either of these artists is worth seeing on her own; getting to see them together is a bonus.
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