“These are mysterious songs – that’s what sets them apart from popular music,” says Grammy-nominated and IBMA Award-winning songwriter and guitarist Thomm Jutz. He’s speaking about his long-running obsession with Cecil Sharp’s 1916 and 1918 collection, ‘English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians,’ particularly those tunes from singers, Mary Sands and Jane Gentry. “A lot goes unexplained. Why certain characters find themselves in certain situations is not as important as how they deal with them,” says Jutz.

“The stories and messages in these songs are as important today as they were hundreds of years ago. The reason for this is that they deal with archetypes. And archetypes and the problems related to them transcend time and place.” Jutz’s journey through the English folk song collector’s work led him to these two particular women who might’ve unknowingly changed the course of folk music history – and to his trans-Atlantic collaborator, award-winning English songwriter/ guitarist, Martin Simpson.