The Cave Singers

Most folks familiar with "Darling Clementine" never get to the verse where Clem meets her watery demise. The Cave Singers explore that morbid side of the folk tradition, with a healthy fascination for snake-handling congregations. Well before the breakup of Seattle darlings Pretty Girls Make Graves, bassist Derek Fudesco was performing and recording creepy folk songs in earnest with his aptly named partner, Pete Quirk. Fudesco, who picked up the guitar for the project, affects a simple, repetitive and pleasantly sorrowful picking style. Quirk's grizzled warble is like that of a cabin-feverish hermit happened upon by an unwary Herman Jolly, from whom he appropriates his wafer-thin voicebox. Percussionist Marty Lund, culled from Cobra High, brushes the snare whitewash style when he's not scrubbing that old washboard. As Alfred Packer dined on his companions, so the Cave Singers cannibalize 16 Horsepower and Jerry Jeff Walker, making the morose irresistible.