The Petersens

I thought I'd tell you about The Petersens, a piece of sunshine in music, always welcome, but especially so in these deeply dangerous times.

The Petersens are a family group, three sisters, their brother, their mother, and a friend, who do splendid covers of country, folk, and gleaming pop songs. Now family groups are nothing new, ranging from the Andrew Sisters to the Isley Brothers to the Cowsills. They have a natural advantage in vocal harmonies that seem linked together since birth, because they are. The rhythm of their instruments sound like they are all being played by the same person because, well, they almost are.

But The Petersens also have subtle and winning differences in their vocal timber, which makes it a special treat to hear one or the other, usually a sister, sing lead. Julianne, the youngest, plays mandolin and has a perfectly expressive voice sounding like an instrument itself. Here she is singing Fields of Gold. Ellen, the middle sister, plays an unerring banjo, and delivers a cover of Jolene almost as good as Dolly's and at least as good as Miley's. Katie is the oldest sister and the leader of the band. She plays a killer fiddle and has a straight-up beautiful country voice. Here she is singing Country Roads, up on YouTube at the end of May, already almost 6.5 million views, one of my all-time favorite songs.

Matt the brother plays guitar and puts in harmony like honey. Karen aka Mama plays an ever-bouncing stand-up bass. And Emmett Franz, the friend, plays dobro, sort of like a slide guitar, but much better picking. (Hey, here I am raving about this group, and I usually don't even listen that much to this kind of music.)

But one of the best things about watching and listening to The Petersens is not the music they play and the songs they sing, but how they so very much enjoy doing it. There's not a video of them on YouTube in which one or more of them is not smiling from ear to ear as one of their siblings sings lead or steps up to the microphone with a choice bluegrass part.

Highly recommended, because truly a pleasure. I'll leave you with The Petersens, Katie in the lead, singing James Taylor's "Carolina in My Mind".