Maggie Longmire & Free Soil Farm

Granddaughters: An American Opera

Veteran Knoxville, Tenn., singer/songwriter Maggie Longmire clearly reached deep into her own regional legacy for Granddaughters, an ambitious concept album whose story spans 50 tumultuous years in the life of an Appalachian coal mining family. You don’t have to follow the story in order to enjoy the gentle sway and flair for intimate lyrical detail in these songs, penned mostly by Maggie and brother John Longmire, but the narrative flow does help Granddaughters to end up feeling like considerably more than the sum of its parts.

• May 5, 2008
• by Chris Neal

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