Hours after Barack Obama took his oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, Carrboro, N.C., burrito joint Armadillo Grill hosted an old-time music jam. That night, Andrew Marlin, a self-taught guitarist, found a complement and foil in Emily Frantz, a well-studied fiddler. The collaboration that started then quickly adopted the name Mandolin Orange, and the duo’s debut, Quiet Little Room, arrived in 2010. Third album, the magnificent This Side Of Jordan (Yep Roc), Mandolin Orange surges with a full band’s depth without sacrificing any of the front-porch closeness or weary sincerity of previous efforts. Mandolin Orange will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on the duo.
Emily: We recently watched the HBO miniseries John Adams and were completely enthralled by it. We got inspired enough to pick up two of their biographies. I’m reading David McCullough’s John Adams and Andrew is reading Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art Of Power. It makes for great day-to-day conversation and debate over details and their respective theories, each of us getting a somewhat biased view. I’m confident that in the end John Adams will take the moral cake …
Video after the jump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7cgwFXDa_w
