Hat Fitz & Cara

This Australian-Irish country blues duo spin a fascinating yarn. Aussie bluesman Hat Fitz claims to be descended from Robert Fitzpatrick, who was deported from Belfast in 1822 leaving behind his “great love”, Ruby Mulholland, who just happens to be a forebear of Ms Cara Robinson. The modern- day couple reignited the romance upon meeting at the Castlebar Blues Festival in 2008, when they also opted to make common musical cause. This collection of rough-edged country blues, delivered with panache and gusto, follows on from their debut, which was steeped in the music of the Mississippi Delta. Wiley Ways features their own material, allowing Robinson to sneak in the odd Celtic twist, such as the lonely Rusty River, which showcases her sensitive voice. The sound they create is raw and rooted in country blues, though open to other influences. hatfitzcara.net
- Joe Breen

Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson
Wiley Ways (GLP Records GLP036)
Reviewed by Frank Chester
This year’s festival season has been blessed with doz- ens of appearances by a duo who are rapidly carving out a name for themselves as something completely new and refreshing on the folk music scene.
Beginning in June with the Gate to Southwell Folk Festival and ending just a few days ago at The Elec- tric Picnic, in Co. Laois, Ireland, Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson are bringing their own unique blend of folk, country blues and a whole lot of other influences to new and highly appreciative audiences.
They combine Hat’s weather-beaten Australian outback look and national steel guitar with Cara’s highly disciplined percussion, flute, vocals and forces’ sweetheart look in a totally original way.
The album – with all songs written by the pair bar
one – begins appropriately with Power, a song which sets the mood for the next eleven tracks. Their style is hard and driving, with vocals alternately harsh and gentle.
There isn’t much more to say really, except that their live performances are even better than the album, and with the right breaks they could easily become the next White Stripes.
One of the delights of being a reviewer nowadays is that readers don’t have to believe me, you can just go on your computer and find out for yourselves. Please do, but better still, buy the album, then go and see them live next year. - Frank Chester, American roots UK

Hat Fitz & Cara have recently finished recording their new album "Wiley Ways"which has had the distinction of being produced and engineered by the highly respected Jeff Lang.

This dynamic duo is a unique combination who have skilfully combined their music of hill style country blues with old time folk, the result being material that's original yet crosses the boundaries as if written from a time once forgotten.

The process of making this CD has been one of the most enjoyable experiences either of them have had in making an album, what with banging bed pans, packing Cigarette box Pedals into old leather glad bags for that sought after sound - such is their attention to detail.

Now they want to share this personal experience of their scrawls and ramblings they have created late into the many early hours from their shed in the bush and long dark nights on the road with the rest of the world. - Alan Levermore

Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson
Rhythms Magazine Oct 2012
Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson get together with Jeff Lang to craft their Celtic blues into wonderful new forms. By Martin Jones and Samuel J. Fell
A few years ago, Hat Fitz was ready to hang up his guitar and return to tiling for a living. He’d witnessed the type of pre-war blues playing he loves – and spent hours learning by slowing down worn out records – technically dissected and perfected by anyone with an internet connection
and the patience to sit through an instruction video. He’d seen heroes like his great friend Jeff Lang left in the dust by a new breed of more commercial, more conventional roots players. And with a family and a mortgage, roaming the world on a series of one night stands was no longer palatable.
Then he met Cara Robinson. The Irish singer and multi-instrumentalist happened to be playing the same festival as Fitz in County Mayo. Fitz was beguiled by Cara’s set and later asked her for a dance. Three months later Cara was on a plane to Australia. Must have been some dance!
The couple has been inseparable ever since, touring virtu- ally non-stop in Australia and Europe for three years, recording two albums together, and refining their striking amalgamation of Celtic folk and blues. They’ve also become perfect foils for each other on stage, the between song banter often as entertaining as the music.
Having just returned from another grueling stint overseas, Fitz and Cara are launching their latest Jeff Lang-produced album, Wiley Ways, with another run around Australian venues and festivals.
HIM
Hat Rick Fitzpatrick is an intimidating man to behold. Always in the same blue work shirt, bushranger beard, rarely wearing shoes, he’s the epitome of the tough Auss- ie larrikin. And he was certainly brought up that way; surfing, fishing and playing music and tiling under the instruction of his father. He learned to accompany his old man on banjo at a young age and was touring in a band by the age of 15. But his dad’s interests were primarily country and bluegrass music. Fitz discovered the blues for and by himself.
“Well, you know, my first concert was The Fabulous Thun- derbirds supporting Johnny Winter, I was about fifteen down at the Hordern Pavillion in Sydney,” Fitz recalls. “And I’d never even heard of blues. I went with a mate, my mate’s brother had tickets, and I went, ‘Holy fuck, what’s this?’ And then it sort of went from there and I started getting into the Albert Collinses and Albert Kings, more Freddie King than Albert, and then I think it was the mid-‘80s when I discovered Bo Carter, I think that was the first record I stumbled across.
“So I got into the old school blues, you know, a bit of Hill Country and a bit of Delta and ragtime and stuff, I sort
of learned slowing records down, that’s all you could do back then, and learned little bits that you could here and there. And then learning it the way I did, I obviously got it wrong most of the time and out of that I think you formed your own style a little bit. By doing it like that. And then when the instructional videos came out, it turned me off
the fact that you could learn it so easily and quickly and it became popular. And I was doing it when no one was doing it, you know. There was only a handful of us in the country doing it. And we had this really great relation- ship: ‘Wow, you listen to that too?’.”
It’s interesting to hear Fitz discovering a style of his own more through the things that he was doing wrong rather than the things he was doing right – by trying to replicate things originally played in open tuning in standard tun- ing; by slowing down the records manually and imagining how the ‘30s players played what they did. Fitz never deliberately set out to find his own style.
“Oh I just lucked right into it mate. I was just trying to play the old school stuff and I played a lot of banjo in a
jug band many years ago and the banjo crept into the style I’ve got with the finger-picking bit and then I started playing mandolin and it’s all crept into my guitar style. Just playing the basic sort of mandolin, Yank Rachell style, who used to play with Sleepy John Estes. And I find playing different instruments it leaks into your guitar playing.”
Hat Fitz played his first solo show supporting Charlie Musselwhite at the Woombye Pub in Queensland, and
this month the two will share billing at the Sydney Blues Festival. Fitz reckons it’s unlikely Musselwhite will remember him. He’s sure to this time around if he has the pleasure of catching Fitz and Cara on stage.
HER
Since Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson finished this new record of theirs, Wiley Ways, back around Bluesfest time, it’s been a staple on the stereo here in the Rhythms office. Its seamless blend of subtle Celtic lines with the bare-bones blues we’ve come to know from Fitz in par- ticular, make for as beguiling a record as you’ll hear all year, a true-blue Australian blues record that could fit in anywhere.
And the sounds which churn from this album, which is only officially being released in Australia this month, have come from far and wide, from times gone by and ones just gone, as both players here have had The Music in their bones since they could barely walk.
Robinson grew up in Ireland initially, in a hippie com- mune where she was exposed to “pagan music, believe it or not,” she tells with a laugh. “All the summer and har- vest songs we learned in school. But then at home, there was a different perspective, the psychedelic ‘60s – Carole King, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix.”
At six years old, Robinson and her mother travelled to Libya to be with her adoptive father, who was working over there as a teacher. After a year, with Robinson’s mother pregnant with Cara’s little sister, the small family returned to the Emerald Isle, by car, taking a very scenic route (indeed, Robinson’s father was offered a dozen cam- els for her sale at one point during the journey), where the stereo pumped out Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell – the art of storytelling through song would have been firmly imprinted upon her mind.
“Yeah, I was always interested in the words and lyrics of songwriters, from an early age,” she confirms. “It really seeps into your unconscious too, and I guess it comes out in your music [today], your influences, when you start writing yourself.” The vivid storytelling contained within - Rhythms Magazine Sam J Fell, Marty Jones...............

Held together with spit, baling twine and a general scruffy bonhomie, Wiley Ways is, with its boisterous blues grooves, its meandering folk lines, its subtle Celtic influence, a record for the ages which crosses continents with consummate ease, as at home in the outback of Australia as it would be in the Emerald Isle or the deep south of the US.

Produced by guitar guru Jeff Lang, there’s a certain, earthy feel running through the recording, easily identifiable in Hat Fitz’s blues picking, his trusty old guitar the foundation for the record, and a platform for Cara Robinson’s soaring, heart-aching, gut-wrenching vocals. With Wiley Ways, Fitz and Robinson have crafted as genuine a blues record as you can hope to find in this day and age - simple, powerful, full of the inherent realism we've come to expect from these two, a stellar effort.

Samuel J. Fell

http://www.hatfitz.net
- Sam J Fell

Hat Fitz and Cara Robinson

Wiley Ways Preview Tour – May 2012


Where: Lizotte’s, Dee Why - Northern Beaches

When: Thursday, Saturday 5th May

Tickets: $24

“Robinson has not tried to tame the savage beast. He still roars like a lion and is the perfect foil for her Bonnie Raitt – like vocal tones” – Al Hensley, Rhythms, Australia.

Musical gypsies Hat Fitz and Cara invite you to be part of what will be their final run of Australian shows for some time. As the last rays of autumn quietly fade, preparations continue in earnest for their annual European run across nine countries and many of the world's most prestigious festivals. These Australian shows promise to be quite memorable with the dynamic duo showcasing many of the tunes off the follow up to their critically acclaimed debut release "Beauty 'n the Beast".


Recently recorded and produced by the highly respected Jeff Lang, "Wiley Ways" confirms that, from a life on the road constantly performing their unique blend of hill country blues and old time folk, an album has evolved, laden with passion, emotion and sheer energy. Their material is original yet crosses boundaries as if written long ago and in a time now forgotten.
- Our Manly