The Antigravity String Band, 1982

By the end of 1981, the band had undergone significant changes in personnel. Dee Wood had too much else going on, and left the group (although he continued to play brilliantly in the “jazz” incarnation of Antigravity, documented here), and Skip Parente got a lucrative and creatively fulfilling gig with a major Irish band. After some shuffling, we wound up with Karl Boyle (on flute, pennywhistle and occasional guitar) and a fine fiddler named Anna Teigen, along with me, Anne Goodwin, Stefan Senders and Michelle Kisliuk.

It was this configuration that endured for several years. This band was certainly the most popular one I ever played in; because of the “world music” orientation we had a very different repertoire from any other string band on the scene (even though we did some traditional Appalachian and Irish numbers, they were recontextualized by being heard alongside Tibetan, Lebanese and African pieces) — but because of our instrumentation we had entree to all the venues of Massachusetts’ lively folk circuit.

Lover’s Desire

untitled Turkish Melody

United Like A Mighty River

Shona Agbekor

I’ll post more in the days to come as I get the pieces digitized and uploaded.