For those unaware, each of the dozen original songs on Hometown Tragedies by the Terry Family tells a story based on real events occurring in their families, their community, their country, and the world.

According to lead vocalist and songwriter Jim Terry, They relate experiences that represent our collective stories, things we don’t want to forget and things we shouldn’t forget.

The songs take the listener on a journey to hometowns in California, Nevada, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Washington D.C. and even Iraq, and in the end bring the listener back home to “lay your head and heart and rest your tired bones.”

Along the way, we, the listener, find sustenance and common ground in the shared journey.

That’s the role of folk music in our society, Terry continues. We tell the tale, share the story, think, learn and become more resilient and wiser in the process.

Graham Terry produced Hometown Tragedies for Terry Family, a father and sons band based in Napa, California. The music combines traditional folk and blues techniques with contemporary storytelling and songwriting presenting familiar yet fresh, portrayals of themes ranging from social justice to family to loss, hope and resilience in the face of difficult times.

Clark Terry plays mandolin and bouzouki, Graham is a multi-instrumentalist and former nationally touring musician with Grammy nominated Rushad Eggleston and Tornado Rider, and Rob Wright plays bass.

The group cut its teeth in the West Coast Songwriters organization and won the West Coast Songwriters’ 2019 Grand Finals songwriting competition at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, with the song “The Walls Stand On and On”, a powerful account of the story of Emmett Till. Jim credits Dar Williams and her Hudson Valley retreat “Writing a Song that Matters” as a primary influence.

1. Like A Painting by Chagall
2. My Birmingham Home
3. Making a Life
4. Fire in the Wind
5. Rose
6. Mercy in the Storm
7. Take Your Gun Away
8. The Pathway Home
9. Gone
10. The Walls Stand On and On
11. Common Ground
12. Come on Home

On an album with instrumentation resonating with cultivated old-English traditions throughout, in which lushly orchestrated tributaries bring forth a plethora of musical gossamer akin to bands such as Curved Air, The Watersons, and even Fairport Convention, they open with the artistic storytelling of Like A Painting by Chagall and the rhythmic ebb and flow of My Birmingham Home and then bring us the gentle, countrified twang of Making a Life, the troubadour-imbibed Fire in the Wind, the heartfelt ode within Rose, and then we get the poignant intensity of Mercy in the Storm.

Next up is the gently fervent Take Your Gun Away and the free-flowing melodic majesties of The Pathway Home, and they are in turn followed by the upbeat and joyously heralding Gone, before the Tallahatchie River then becomes a canvas where a violent racial tale unveils itself within the highly intense The Walls Stand On and On, the album rounding out on the heartwarmingly exuberant Common Ground, coming to a close on the laid-back, bluegrass hipsway of Come on Home.

The album cover is Debbie’s painting “Debbie Sue’s Garden,” a depiction of our family garden, Terry adds. Many of you knew Debbie. For those who did not, she was my wife and the mom of our amazing children. She died of ALS on November 3, 2012.

My Birmingham Home [Official Music Video]

The Walls Stand on and On [Official Music Video]

Take Your Gun Away [Official Music Video]

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