KXUA 88.3, University of Arkansas Radio

Darned if this isn't a fun and charming collection of traditional songs performed mostly on banjo and it's various kith and kin and both with taste and restraint.  The vocal harmonies are spot on and in some places quite lovely.  And not the least virtue of this collection is the recording and production.  There's a distance and separation in the sound that imparts a certain objectivity and even authenticity.  The version of "Roustabout" is particularly to be praised.

Bob Everhart, National Traditional Country Music Association, The voice of tradional acoustic music in America

It just about absolutely amazes me that there is such an incredible talent in America doing our country's old time rural music.  The frailing banjo is the featured instrument with this delightful trio with Paul McGowen at the helm.  I used to listen to Uncle Dave Macon play his banjo in this style, and believe it or not, Paul McGowen's style is much like Uncle Dave's.  This band is a really neat mountain style hillbilly dance troupe.  You can hardly keep from dancing when you hear them, let alone stop your feet from tappin'.  Impossible! 

Paul's wife, Skye, is the one that flatfoot clogs when they do their shows.  The other member is of the group is Pete Howard, a great midwest dance fiddler.  I believe I remember Pete.  He played upright bass in The Skirtlifters.  Aaaah yes, I remember them well, what incredible fun they were.  Pete adds his remarkable musical abilities to this new old timey group, and aaaah yes,  my my do they sound good.  I can rest assured this group will be in the nominations for the Rural Roots Music Comission "Album of the Year".  The amazing rhythm set by Paul on the frailing banjo maintains throughout the CD.  The mix is very good, the sound itself sounds like you might be sitting on the edge of the front porch listening.  Some of the songs take me right back to Riley Puckett and Clayton McMichen, and here it is just as alive, just as good, just as much fun as ever.  I wonder if the sweet potatoe bug still lands on the watermelon vine.  No doubt if it does, Shout Lulu will find it.  Much congratulations on an especially done CD full of memories and incredibly good talent.

Frank Gutch Jr., Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange

This is one of the best 1930's recordings of true old-timey music available.  The thing is, it wasn't recorded in the 30's.  It was recorded in 2007.  In what one can only describe as an admirable feat, Paul McGowen left the cozy confines of Seattle, where he honed his skills in traditional old-timey music with Northwest favorites The Tallboys and on the streets, for the "backwaters" of Arkansas and the roots of the music he obviously loves.  He settled in and with Skye McGowen and fiddler Pete Howard formed Shout Lulu, a throwback to the days of barn dances andborder radio.

In March, the trio headed into the studios of Curly Miller and Carole Anne Rose, The Old 78s Recording Studio, to record a plethera of old-timey tunes, all steeped in the music of old.  The stadards are here--Bowling Green, Darling Cora, Old Paint and a handful of others--and there are others not-so-standard--Half Shaved, Hogeye, Puncheon Camps--all sounding authentic and dated, but without the scratchy noise and pops incumbent on the original transcriptions.  The assumption here is that all involved in this project are traditional music anthropologists to a degree.  Each song seems to have been well researched (a source or sources are given for each track) and studied before being commited to recording.  Miller and Rose add their bits (Rose plays a custom built banjo guitar, which is a guitar tuned a whole step lower than a guitar and has a banjo twanger string--how cool is that?) and Skye even breaks out her "shuffleboard" on the odd track, pounding out rhythms with her feet (complete with wooden taps).  If these guys were teachers, they'd have students clogging from class to class.  It's plain fun.

It comes to mind that a few record labels have made it a point to make some of the old recordings available by the likes of Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers and J.E. Mainer's Mountaineers: Rounder and County to name only a couple.  Well, sometimes it's about the music and sometimes it's about the money and sometimes, like this time, it goes way beyond that.  It may be just what it is, but damn, man, what it is!