Editor’s Note: On August 15, the New York City duo of Kyle Morgan and Tamar Korn – released their album Darkening Green via Brooklyn, New York record label Jalopy Records. The album also includes singer Wyndham Baird and features a wide-ranging collection of acoustic duets. There’s a pair of original songs from Morgan as well as a mix of covers/traditional songs from artists such as Leonard Cohen, The Carter Family, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Patsy Cline, Iris Dement, and The Platters.
Morgan and Korn traveled different but equally musical paths. Korn was born in southern California and spent much of her career playing jazz, roots music and Yiddish songs. Morgan grew up in an evangelical Christian church in central Pennsylvania.
The duo will be performing September 20 in Brooklyn, NY, at Jalopy Theatre with Baird.
Morgan penned an exclusive essay for SWT explaining why he wanted to collaborate with Korn as a duo and how they got connected with Jalopy Records.
I first approached Eli Smith of Jalopy Records back in 2021 while searching for a label to release my solo album, Younger at Most Everything. While that record, which featured more of a modern folk sensibility, proved not the best fit for the traditional label, Eli encouraged me to consider making a more roots-based album, perhaps with one or two other musicians. My mind immediately turned to Tamar Korn, with whom I had been singing traditional two-part country harmony for a few years.
Tamar and I met in 2018 when she saw me perform at the (then weekly) Roots n’ Ruckus variety show at Jalopy Theatre. We quickly discovered a mutual love for close harmony and started singing together regularly. We found that in addition to being able to sing powerful harmony together, we also shared the capacity to improvise on the spot. As a result, our style emerged out of a spirit of experimentation and risk-taking. Tamar would invite me to join her on various gigs around the city (Sunny’s, Barbes, Star Bar, etc.) and we quickly developed a shared repertoire of classic country and folk tunes, as well as arrangements of my own original songs.
When we decided to take Eli up on his offer to make an album, we invited our friend and fellow Jalopy Records artist, Wyndham Baird, to add his rich baritone to the mix. We started getting together regularly at Tamar’s house, trying out various tunes: everything from The Carter Family and Patsy Cline to Leonard Cohen and Iris DeMent. Soon we had an album’s worth of tunes arranged and ready to record. We asked Jared Engel to play bass and had Ryan Dieringer of Welterweight Sound Studios bring his portable recording rig to The Jalopy Theatre. We turned the wooden church pews on end as make-shift sound baffles, and tracked the tunes the old-fashioned way: live around a few choice vintage microphones.
The name, Darkening Green, comes from William Blake’s poem “The Ecchoing Green“, in which “darkening green” represents the end of the day, the fading of youthful joy, and the approach of night or old age. It contrasts with the earlier “ecchoing green,” which symbolizes the vibrancy and innocence of childhood, the springtime of life. There is a general autumnal feeling to this record, a sense of time passing, impermanence and the sad acceptance of the inevitability of loss which I thought was perfectly encapsulated in Blake’s phrase: darkening green.
You can follow and listen to Kyle Morgan and Tamar Korn at the following links:
- Bandcamp: Kylemorganandtamarkorn.bandcamp.com/
- Spotify: Kyle Morgan and Tamar Korn on Spotify
- Tamar Korn: Instagram | Facebook
- Jalopy Records: YouTube | Instagram | Facebook
Kyle Morgan
Contributor:
Morgan is a New York City based musician who grew up in an evangelical Christian church in central Pennsylvania. Bandcamp Daily said, “Morgan’s acoustic folk songs are universally appealing” while Under the Radar opined, “Morgan is grounded in the tradition of acoustic singer/songwriters, but shows a penchant for particularly strong writing.” Morgan’s previous album, 2022’s Younger at Most Everything album came out via Team Love Records.
