Pine Hill Haints FREE at Ajax Tonight: “Alabama Ghost Music”

TLV News March 8, 2012

The Pine Hill Haints

are a traditional bluegrass/folk/honky tonk/country band from Alabama, though the band members themselves describe their unique southern roots music as “Alabama Ghost Music.”

The Haints are composed of Jamie Barrier on guitar and vocals, wife Katie “Kat” Barrier on washboard and mandolin, Matt Bakula on washtub bass and tenor banjo, and Ben Rhyne on snare drum.

The Pine Hill Haints name is derived from the Pine Hill Cemetery in Lauderdale County, Alabama, where Jamie Barrier sometimes practiced singing to himself as a kid.

The Pine Hill Haints perform music they consider to be “dead” in the modern world, hence their self-proclaimed “Ghost Music.” Some examples of the genres they perform include (but are not limited to) gospel, rockabilly, rock and roll, celtic music, blues music, and bluegrass. While their catalog of songs comprises mainly original material, the band has also been known to cover traditional gospel (Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies, Where The Roses Never Fade), cowboy (I Ride An Old Paint, Back In The Saddle Again), and folk (Goodnight Irene, Oh! Suzanna/Camptown Races) songs.

In addition to their live instruments, the band also utilizes a number of traditional American folk music instruments (such as a fiddle, harmonica, tenor banjo, mandolin, saw, and accordion) on their recordings. Occasionally, members of the Haints will swap instruments or abandon his or her primary instrument altogether, instead performing on one of the aforementioned instruments for a song or two. The band has several former members, and depending on how many happen to be present at a performance, surprise guest performers may accompany the Haints onstage. Such impromptu reunion performances are not completely unexpected at their shows.