including Renegade Stringband, and Allie Kral (Yonder Mountain

If cities
have personalities, then Portland, Oregon
has it in spades. And while popular culture
in recent years has relegated Portland to a refrigerator magnet
poem of hipster adjectives, go for a walk in any neighborhood
and you’re bound to find at least one bungalow porch occupied
by a few musicians plucking away the evening. In Portland,
these vibrant community musical gatherings can become the
start of a promising career – just ask Portland roots quartet CROW
AND THE CANYON . After playing their first show in June of 2014,
the band quickly gained momentum and attention at pubs and
venues across the city and the Pacific Northwest. Fast forward
one year, countless shows, and a summer jam-packed with
festival appearances, they’ve just released their debut full-length
album, LEAVING SOON , a master class in contemporary American
roots music, with the indie-folk relevance of The Head and The
Heart and the stomping, rural-folk authenticity of John Hartford .
“I’ve found the independent music scene here to be extremely
supportive – full of creative people, a very nurturing environment,”
says vocalist Leigh Jones . “People are generous with their time and
their talent, willing and excited to collaborate.” That collaborative
spirit of friendship shines through on Leaving Soon . Although the
band has only been playing together for a few years, Crow and the
Canyon sound like a band of age-old collaborators and friends.
The album’s heartfelt yet cerebral lyrics, delicate vocals, and choral harmonies are endlessly listenable, while also
remaining inventive and interesting. It’s a refreshingly contemplative take on high-spirited Americana songwriting
which rewards repeated listening, garnering them a beloved reputation that keeps music lovers returning time
and time again to partake in their charismatic, heartfelt, and engaging
performances. Weaving back and forth between precise bluegrass,
heartland acoustic folk-rock, and bluesy country, the result is series of
songs that sound just as natural on a front porch in the heat of summer
as by the furnace of a dimly-lit basement pub in the dead of winter.
A large part of who Crow and the Canyon are as a band comes from the
diverse backgrounds of the members. Ben Larsen , principal songwriter,
vocalist, and guitar-and-mandolinist, originally from Connecticut,
came to Portland’s Lewis and Clark College. There, he began studying
jazz guitar, eventually shifting focus to classical mandolin, playing with several formidable acts after college,
including Renegade Stringband , and Allie Kral (Yonder Mountain String Band) . “My last band, The Giraffe Dodgers , broke up just
before everyone else moved to town in January, 2014,” say Larsen. “I started playing with Austin as a duo, then
Miles, and then finally Leigh, when she joined us for our first show as Crow and the Canyon in June of that year.” “I feel
like our story is a very ‘Portland’ story,” says vocalist Leigh Jones , a North Carolina native who studied at NYU before
moving to Portland. “None of us knew each other beforehand, but Austin, Miles, and I all independently moved
here within a month of each other with the intention of finding people to play music with. It didn’t take long to find
each other.” Originally from Savannah, GA, banjo player
Austin Quattlebaum was raised on Led Zeppelin and
Jimi Hendrix records before delving into bluegrass
while living in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North
Carolina. Bassist Miles Berry is a Northern Californianative whose blues-musician father introduced him
to jazz and West African highlife music. “Portland is a
melting pot for creative people,” says Quattlebaum.
Throughout the songs on Leaving Soon , a common theme
emerges – that of being on the brink of entering into
a new phase of life, love, and creativity. “You’re often
left a bit trepidatious about leaping into the unknown
and losing what you’ll inevitably have to leave behind,”
says Jones. And that’s certainly something the members
of Crow and the Canyon know well, each having left behind
their homes to take a gamble on finding artists to make a
life with. So far, however, that gamble has paid off, with
Leaving Soon marking the beginning of what promises to be
a fruitful and rewarding journey, for not
only Crow and the Canyon , but contemporary
American roots music as well.