Cold Springs Road

The music of Cold Springs Road won’t be hurried. It comes to you unambiguously and offers itself just as it is. Likewise, you accept it just as you are. And like good folk music the listener takes it and makes it his own.

The songwriting of guitarist/vocalist Brian Hurst suggests that he, and his wife Ranita, (vocals, mandolin, fiddle) have seen the grass on the other side and realize the need to, as Whitman said, “bequeath [themselves] to the dirt to grow from the grass [they] love.

Raised on playing bluegrass with his family, Brian’s knowledge of country & western and American roots music is evident from the twang of his voice to the great rhythm guitar and dobro he plays. Ranita, a classically trained violinist and self-taught mandolin player has a voice and style evoking another time and place, mystic and haunted moments in the American past. Her voice would sit well at any Old Regular Baptists’ meeting, while her violin would be at home on the cobblestone streets of Boston Harbor, ca. 1800, playing Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea.

The plaintive and poignant convergence of these American musical styles on their inaugural CD, On My Way Back Home, heals the sick at heart and welcomes the prodigal. Though biographical, its appeal is broad and its yoke is light.

The music of Cold Springs Road, whether a song written by Brian and Ranita or one of the few hand-picked covers they play, is good for you. Don’t let it slip by. If you do, listen for it once more. Again, thinking of Whitman and the music of Cold Springs Road…

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.