The Dead South - Black Lung
LCM Song Of The Day: ‘Black Lung’ - The Dead South
Our LCM featured song today is a live version of ‘Black Lung’ recorded at an ‘Our Vinyl’ session with Canadian folk and bluegrass band The Dead South. The track is taken from their latest album ‘Sugar and Joy’ released in October last year. The band are currently on a UK and European tour with their London date at the O2 Brixton on February 27th.
The Dead South, a gold rush vibing four-piece acoustic set from Saskatchewan, infuse the genre's traditional trappings with an air of frontier recklessness, whiskey breakfasts and grizzled tin-pan showmanship. Their sound, build on a taut configuration of cello, mandolin, banjo and guitar, speeds like a train past polite definitions of acoustic music into the grittier, rowdier spaces of the bluegrass world.
Currently one of the hottest tickets on both sides of the Atlantic, The Dead South have doubled their draw with each subsequent tour since 2018. 2019 will see the band make their debut at iconic venues and festivals in the USA and UK, Red Rocks and Glastonbury. The story behind their incredibly robust worldwide fanbase is both a modern music biz fairytale, a 130 million view video for a song released in 2014, and a timeless tale of a band that built their audience show by show, delivering a relentlessly great, high-energy frenzy that resulted in nearly 50,000 tickets sold in 2018. Through partnerships with ethical ticket resellers, The Dead South are helping fans fight back against shady secondary ticket markets, and have become, in their success, a model of fan-first artist citizenship.
The Dead South's original and current lineup includes the gnarled baritone of Nate Hilts, Scott Pringle on mandolin, whistling cellist Danny Kenyon and virtuosic banjo player Colton Crawford. The four-piece, string-driven approach puts the interplay of unique and versatile voices front and centre, with Hilts, Pringle and Kenyon all sharing lead vocal duties.
Since their last release, 2016’s JUNO Award winning Illusion & Doubt, The Dead South have maintained a formidable touring pace while also finding time to pop up in fitting and meaningful ways, from a contribution to the star-studded bluegrass and Americana Roger Miller tribute album to sweet duets with fellow prairie boy Colter Wall.