This Week's Program: Wednesday, January 22, 2020

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ANNE KEALA KELLY sits in for Host Tiokasin Ghosthorse as Guest Host. Keala talks with LULA WILES, a trio of young women who write and perform songs in the American folk tradition. Eleanor Buckland and Mali Obomsawin (Abenaki Nation) join Keala (band member Isa Burke was unable to be on the show but we hear her voice throughout the hour in the musical selections). Anchoring the band's sharp, provocative songcraft is a mastery of folk music, and a willingness to subvert its hallowed conventions. They infuse their songs with distinctly modern sounds: pop hooks, distorted electric guitars, and dissonant multi-layered vocals, all employed in the service of songs that reclaim folk music in their own voice. The musicians take turns in different roles - Burke and Buckland on guitar and fiddle, Obomsawin on bass, all three singing and writing - but no matter who's playing what, they operate in close tandem.  All three members grew up in small-town Maine, and the band came of age in Boston's lively roots scene. Since then, they have toured internationally, winning fans at the Newport Folk Festival and the Philadelphia Folk Festival, garnering acclaim from NPR Music and two Boston Music Awards nominations, and sharing stages with the likes of Aoife O'Donovan, the Wood Brothers, and Tim OBrien. Lula Wiles exists in the tense space where tradition and revolution meet, from which their harmonies rise into the air to create new American music. Tune in for a full hour of music, culture and the politics of being American and being female in this century. For more information about Lula Wiles, visit http://www.lulawiles.com/.