Eden and John's East River String Band are white city folk - singer/ukulele player Eden Brower and singer/guitarist John Heneghan from New York's East Village - who cover black country blues from the 78-rpm era with crisp fervor on Some Cold Rainy Day. They don't strain for authenticity, but address songs such as Willie Brown's Future Blues and Skip James' Crow Jane with a natural flair that suggests loving study and a respect for the hard lives and fight for joy on the original records. --David Fricke - Rolling Stone, Nov. 13, 2008 Is 1065Like some of their contemporaries, for Eden Brower and John Heneghan of Eden & John's East River String Band that has meant going backwards in time and searching out old blues and popular songs from the early part of the twentieth century to perform. While there'salways the risk that when performers look to an earlier era for their material thatthey will become a type of museum piece or a curiosity, one only has to listen to their recently released CD, Some Cold Rainy Day, recorded on their own East River Records label and distributed by Forced Exposure, to realize that this duo won't be put in a display case any time soon. One of the hardest things for a musician to do these days is be able to hold an audience's attention when it's just you and your guitar up on stage or on record. Even a duo, like Eden and John, face a stiff challenge in both grabbing their audience's attention and then holding on to it once they begin performing. Even more difficult is doing what they have accomplished with their CD. I don't remember the last time that either a solo act or a duet has been able to hold my attention like these two. Right from the opening track, Mississippi John Hurt's Ain't No Tellin, Eden's voice reaches out and pulls you into the songs. You don't just sit and listen, as there is something about how she sings that drags you into the song so you experience what she's singing about. There's been plenty of people who have covered old blues and pop standards from these time periods, but very few of them have been able to bring them alive like John and Eden do. I've gone years without being able to take the ukulele seriously as an instrument, and now for the second time in as many weeks here's another person playing one with such flair and finesse that it makes you forget people like Tiny Tim. Eden plays a resonator ukulele, metal body with a cone built in to amplify the sound, that you think would make it sound tinier, but in actual fact gives the instrument more body. It makes a wonderful counterpoint to John's guitar playing as she fills in the spaces around his chords with her sound. Some of the songs on the disc are ones I'm familiar with from other sources, Nobody's Business If I Do by Tommy Bradely & James Cole for instance, but some of them, both songs and writers I've never heard of before. John and Eden have culled these tracks from old 78 records that they have dug up at used records stores, garage, and junk sales across the United States, and some of the song titles and writer's names are half the fun of this disc. On Our Turpentine Farm by Pigmeat Pete & Catjuice Charlie or I Had To Give Up Gin by the Hokum Boys are two of my favourites. What makes it even more fun is how good the songs sound. I think part of the reason the songs sound as good as they do is that both of Eden and John have been passionate about this music for a long time. They have pictures on their web site of them standing in front of shelves filled with old 78 records that they've collected over the years. They appear to spend a great deal of their time getting together with like minded musicians and playing this music just for the love of playing it. That love shines through in every song sung and every chord plucked and played. When you hear people that excited by what they are doing you can't help but get caught up in it. You can also tell this just isn't a fad for these two. They'd be playing this music even if there wasn't the renewed interest we've been seeing over the last few years for more traditional forms of music. When Eden and John play a song like Little Hat Jones Bye Bye Baby Blues the song sounds like it was written for them. They may not have the most polished of voices or be the slickest of players, but this music wasn't written by or performed by people who were either. --Richard Marcus BC Music