Culture
Amanda Anne Platt II 2019 Gladden House Sessions
By: Emily Votaw
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Nelsonville Music Festival alumna Amanda Anne Platt provided a pensive, poignant performance fitting for the final afternoon of the 2019 Nelsonville Music Festival during her Sunday Gladden House Session.
Platt usually plays as Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters, a group that first performed at the Nelsonville Music Festival in 2009, directly after the release of the Honeycutters’ debut release, Irene (self -released). Festival director Tim Peacock had gotten his hands on some of the band’s demos, and urged them to perform at the festival, which was a considerable feat for the group, whose hometown is some six and half hours outside of Athens County in Asheville, NC.
Fast forward 10 years, and the band is critically lauded for their Americana sensibilities, and especially for Platt’s exquisite songwriting. They have five studio albums under their belt, the most recent being their 2017 self-titled Organic Records release, in addition to a live record, 2019’s Live at the Grey Eagle (Organic Records). They’ve played a slew of impressive folk festivals, including Merlefest, the Vancouver Folk festival, the Rochester International Jazz Festival, Folk Alliance International, and more.
Platt started her set with the yet-to-be-released “Just a Smile,” a song about the explosive 2019 five-second demolition of the 64-year-old Tappan Zee bridge near her hometown in New York state. Platt said the song was about the bridge, “but also you know, life.” She followed with “Witness,” which Platt originally wrote for Cowboy Judy, her cowgirl side project. The song was released in 2016 on Cowboy Judy’s self-released Whiskey Drunk on Puppy Love album. Platt ended her Gladden House session with “500 Pieces,” from the Honeycutters’ 2016 album On the Ropes (Organic Records). The song was inspired by hearing the story of an artist, “a traveler of time and space,” who only found poverty and drug addiction in the aftermath of the San Francisco counterculture scene of the ‘60s.