Quick, name me a women folk duo. What did you come up with, The Indigo Girls; no one else? Well let me add another name to that very short list - Wishing Chair. What you've never heard of them? Well guess what, until I'd heard their latest CD Underdog neither had I. And if this disc is anything to go by, they've been doing just fine without us and we've been missing out on something great.
Who and what are Wishing Chair? Well in the simplest terms they are a folk-roots partnership made up of Miriam Davidson and Kiya Heartwood based out of Kentucky but seemingly touring all the time. Since 1995 they have produced six CD's including Underdog which was released in 2005.
It's easy to fall into the trap of seeing the names of two women in a folk band and steeling yourself for oh so serious songs, the type young intellectual university women will sit around listening to deep into the night and discuss seriously. It's perfectly possible this could happen to Wishing Chair, but the rest of us can also enjoy their music and their songs.
It's not that I'm dissing the Indigo Girls here, it’s just sometimes you feel like you have to belong to some sort of club or society before you're allowed to "really understand" them. It's like they've been claimed as the exclusive preserve of one group of people while the rest of us are too insensitive to get the message.
No one is going to claim Wishing Chair as their own because this music is far too independent and free spirited to allow it to be tied down that way. Sure Miriam and Kiya sing about political issues and pour emotions into their material, but it feels like underneath it there is a huge amount of laughter waiting to escape.
Unlike so many issue-oriented groups you never get the impression the Miriam and Kiya have an axe to grind or are making any claims to moral superiority because of their opinions. They sing about the things they believe in and what they care about - true enough - but what makes Country and Folk music interesting is when the performers can put their hearts into the song and music.
On "One Real Song" they sing about what keeps them going on the road, in the studio, and in music. Anybody who has ever tried to create something that makes it all worthwhile can identify with the songs they sing. It's about the search for the perfect written word or the perfect picture as much as it is the search for the perfect song.
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