The High Hawks

The High Hawks, an all-star cast of musical friends from Leftover Salmon, Railroad Earth, Hard Working Americans, and Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, are following up their acclaimed eponymous debut with Mother Nature’s Show, out February 16 on LoHi Records.

Mother Nature’s Show was recorded during the dead of winter at historic Pachyderm Studios in the small town of Cannon Falls, Minnesota, just 20 miles west of the banks of the Mississippi and Highway 61. The sextet of roots music veterans arrived at Pachyderm on New Year’s Day 2023, a Sunday, and recorded the 12 tracks included on the record over the course of the first week of the year while a blizzard raged outside the studio. 

“There was a certain coziness to it,” says Keyboardist-vocalist Chad Staehly. “We were out in the woods, it was dumping snow, and it was just the work in front of us. It was like, ‘All right, this is a new chapter. It’s New Year’s Day and we’re gathering together to make a record.’”

Vince Herman is best known as one of the two frontmen for Leftover Salmon and many people know Staehly from the jam band supergroup Hard Working Americans, but it’s the group they co-founded — Great American Taxi — that connects all the members of The High Hawks in one way or another. Bassist Brian Adams and drummer Will Trask were both members of Taxi, while vocalist-fiddler-guitarist Tim Carbone, best known as a member of Railroad Earth, produced two of GAT’s albums. In addition, vocalist-guitarist Adam Greuel of Horseshoes & Hand Grenades was influenced by Taxi in his teenage years and even played a few gigs with the group.

With four singer-songwriters — Carbone, Greuel, Herman and Staehly — there was no shortage of material to choose from. The song sequence takes the listener down Highway 61, the oft-called “Blues Highway” immortalized by Bob Dylan, that follows the Mississippi River from Minnesota to New Orleans, passing through St. Louis, Memphis and the Mississippi delta. 

As fans have come to expect, there’s a variety of musical stylings represented — from Southern, country and psychedelic rock to honky-tonk and even a ballad and a waltz — with The High Hawks’ sonic cohesiveness claiming each style as their own. What you hear are six superb musicians in the Pachyderm tracking room reacting in real time to what is being played and capturing the kind of musical magic that eludes recording artists who build their records part by part. The band’s performances throughout the record are top-notch, and there’s very little overdubbing.

When asked about the authenticity of The High Hawks’ new album, Herman assures with a laugh, “AI had no part in the making of this record.”