It’s a Sassafras Stomp

With one foot planted in western Montana and the other planted firmly in New England, Sassafras Stomp weaves together diverse fiddle traditions and evocative songwriting. And this Sunday, Nov. 16, the high-energy folk music duo stomp right into West Ashley for a special performance at Hungry Monk Music on Belgrade Avenue.
With a strong rhythmic sensibility, fiddler Johanna Davis and guitarist Adam Nordell build a rich, dynamic roots sound marked by driving foot percussion and sweet harmony vocals.
Davis and Nordell’s collaboration began during a month-long musical residency in Basin, MT., a tiny silver mining town a stone’s throw away from the Continental Divide. After a debut performance at Seattle’s Northwest Folklife Festival, the duo established themselves as a regular contradance band at dances across Montana.
In 2010, they relocated to Davis’ home state of Maine to start Songbird Farm, a certified organic, mixed vegetable farm on the bank of the Sandy River in western-central Maine. Along with a variety of other crops, they grow sweet potatoes, watermelons, dry beans and an heirloom New England flint corn whose ancestry may just trace back to the Abenaki Indian farmers who historically cultivated the Sandy River bottom-land.
In addition to their farming, Davis and Nordell also became actively involved in the region’s contradance community and have since performed for a widening circle of dances, concerts and festivals across the country, from North Carolina to California.
Davis, who sings and plays fiddle and sometimes banjo, started playing the fiddle in the 4th grade at Waldorf School. She grew up in Maine in a thriving community of dancers and contradance musicians. She admits that she was one of those little kids with a sleeping bag at the dance hall.
Nordell plays guitar, sings, stamps his feet in syncopated patterns and also sometimes plays the banjo. He grew up in the hills south of Helena, MT. At age 13 he received a bass guitar instead of a Bar Mitzvah and the musical seed was planted.
Sassafras Stomp play Sunday, Nov. 16, at 3 p.m. at Hungry Monk Music, located at 1948 Belgrade Ave. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for students. For more information, call 571-3857 or visit www.hungrymonkmusic.com.