
On one hand, you have to doff your bowler hat to Kris Hutson and Pearl Charles, who as the Driftwood Singers embrace traditional folk music with tender loving care, crafting dark but uplifting tales with little more than voice, guitar and autoharp. On the other, you wonder what motivates southern California-bred art-schoolers to look and sound like they just rolled in from the Dust Bowl with one change of clothes, their instruments and a Victrola. As aesthetics go, it beats face paint and glowsticks, I guess. But the answers really rest in the tomes on the duo's self-titled [...]