Fresh off a thunderous set at Newport Folk Fest, New Dangerfield shows no signs of slowing down. The bluegrass supergroup (Kaia Kater, Jake Blount, Nelson Williams, and Tray Wellington) continue to push the genre’s envelope with the haunting “Put No Walls Around Your Garden.”
“Put No Walls Around Your Garden” was co-written by Kater and songwriter Billy Keane. The song listens like a timeless folk song, with modern Americana touches and old-time underpinning. Challenging wealth inequality, resource hoarding, and touching on contemporary economic realities – like inflation, food insecurity, and profiteering – “Put No Walls Around Your Garden” draws from a rich tradition of working class Black string band anthems.
“I wrote ‘Put No Walls Around Your Garden’ with Billy Keane, a wonderful songwriter from the Berkshires, during a 2023 retreat at The House of Songs in the Ozark Mountains,” Kater explains. “We used the allegory of a farmer and their seasonal crop yield as a commentary on resource hoarding and climate change. I brought the song to the band and we arranged it for a stringband context, while also inserting a bridge/breakdown meant to illustrate the urgency of the message. Playing and singing the twin banjo and vocal melody makes this song so fitting for stringband music in a new context, and I find it’s a bit of an earworm!”
The group is hitting all the summer folk festivals, so check them out on social media to catch them at their next date.