Use your highest register to recite The Low Anthem

My dad has met, been roommates, and generally fraternized with renowned musicians for the better part of his life. He took up residence in LA in his youth and hob-knobbed with the California musical elite. While, not a musician himself, he consistently surrounded himself with pretty quality artistic spirits. His small stories that time have swirled in my mind like a kaleidoscope. The ideal social context: music all about, musicians in and out.

The reason I mention this, is that my father became decidedly star-struck upon meeting Jesse Winchester a few years back. Giddy, actually.

Winchester is the quintessential heart-tugging, ex-patriot songwriter. A little-known Canadian perfectly elucidating the even lesser-known Tennessee Waltz that so many tortured souls have tried to put to song: "Oh my, but you have a pretty face/You favor I girl that I knew/I imagine that she's back in Tennessee/And by God, I should be there too/I've a sadness too sad to be true."

I mean Jesse Winchester is pretty amazing- see for yourself. But I should admit that I was quite embarrassed to see my father gushing so plainly over an artist. I mean, this was supposed to be Gene Landis, the bee's knees, the radio station hip cat, my personal rock critic, too cool for school. Time passed, and I pushed my cool judgment of this moment deep into the back of my brain.

Then, this year, I saw The Low Anthem at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia. I mean, I dug the recordings that I had heard from them almost a year before. But seeing them that night, going from the raunchy stomp of "Don't Let Nobody Turn You Around," to the hush of "This Damn House," and the final string strum of their Cohen cover "Bird On a Wire," I was taken.

After the show I was chatting about folk music and the Philadelphia Folk Festival with TLA's singer and English-hornsman Ben Knox Miller. I held in my preschoolish adoration for their set, we hit it off, and exchanged cell phone numbers to try and connect later. Safe from embarrassment- I had kept myself together. Or so I thought.

After we had booked TLA for the Folk Fest, and some normal small talk texts back and forth, and I had listened to their EP way too many times on repeat, I had a little too much wine one night and got the perfect idea to text Ben and let him know "I think you are in my favorite band right now..." and so on and so forth. I have worked in the music industry in many forms over the last decade, and you'd think that I know better than to blurt these kinds of things, to become, essentially, my father's son.

But it's true. The Low Anthem is a poignant, scream to whisper folk band. I accept my father's cloak of unabashed, unrelenting admiration for the truest music I can find. Turn off the lights and listen to "Oh My God, Charlie Darwin," and I think you'll join me in writing the next epic Cameron Crowe flick.

I can't wait to see them at the Philly Folk Fest on August 16. I may try to apologize for my shameful text. But I might also paint "I love the Low Anthem" or "Ben Know Miller for president" on my chest.

I still haven't decided.