Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters bring their Roots Country style to Christmas
Asheville-based Americana music storytellers Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters have released Christmas on a Greyhound Bus, an EP for the holidays.
Known for critically acclaimed songwriting that is at once incisive, insightful and witty, Platt includes 5 selections — originals and covers alike — that are pleasantly outside the norm for a holiday release, packaged in a quintessentially New Traditional Country Music style.
Original songs from Platt include the old school country title track and a nostalgic “One for the Ages.” Both are filled with the interwoven imagery that has brought Platt national praise, married to arrangements that amplify the lyrics’ emotional effects. On a lighter note, Platt and her band dish up a playful “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy,” borrowed from country legend Buck Owens.
The EP is bookended with a powerful choice of cover songs. Opening with a cover of Willie Nelson’s forlorn “Pretty Paper,” about a forgotten soul on Christmas, it concludes with the optimism of Nick Lowe’s classic, “(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding” — the pair underlining, between the very sad and the very hopeful, Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters’ dramatic musical range.
Backed by her touring band that includes Matt Smith on guitar and pedal steel, Rick Cooper on bass, acoustic guitar and vocals, and Evan Martin on drums, piano, organ and vocals, Platt and The Honeycutters bring a Roots Country sound to the season.