Tree of Life
William Coulter and Barry Phillips
If you love Simple Gifts, you’ll be delighted with this companion album. Once more, Barry Phillips, William Coulter and company join forces to revive the Shakers’ stirring and joyful music.
Here again is an anthology to cherish: a perfectly choreographed sequence of lovely melodies, upbeat dance tunes and heartfelt hymns. Both albums offer informative liner notes on each song, essays on the Shaker movement, and suggest reading to provide listeners with background information and sources on this fascinating material.
Track listing:
1. I Will Walk With My Children / Welcome Gospel Kindred
2. The Rolling Deep / Faithful Soldiers Travel On
3. Mother Has Come With Her Beautiful Song / Love Oh Love
4. I Want To Gather Down / The Earthquake
5. Voyage To Canaan / Bow Down O Zion
6. Living Souls / Good Believer’s Life
7. Tree Of Life
8. Holy Order Tune / How Beautiful, O Zion / Shaker March
9. The Humble Heart / I’m On My Way To Zion
10. Pleasant Walk / F.M.’s March / Star Of Purity
11. Love Is Little
12. Welcome Gospel Kindred / I Will Walk With My Children (Reprise)
Gourd Music. 2001
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William Coulter and Barry Phillips have been recording with Gourd Music since their debut album Orison in 1988. Since then they have produced two other volumes of instrumental arrangements of Shaker music — Simple Gifts (1990), and Tree of Life (1993), as well as other recordings including William’s Celtic Crossing (1995) and Barry’s The World Turned Upside Down . (1992).
William’s current passion is traditional Celtic music and songs, and he is preparing a second recording of instrumental Celtic music for Gourd. As well as performing and recording traditional music William also plays classical guitar and teaches at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Freelance recording engineering and producing, and regular visits to the park with his two year old son keep him busy the rest of the time.
Barry has been ‘cellist and percussionist with Orison, Martin Simpson’s Band of Angels and The Anjali Quartet . He received his MM in composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1990. Moving back to Santa Cruz with his wife Shelley in 1991, he has been performing, recording and composing. Recently, he’s been preparing for an upcoming Gourd album of early American country dance tunes.
