The Ragpicker String Band

Mandolinist Rich DelGrosso, Guitarist Mary Flower and multi-instrumentalist Martin Grosswendt have earned steady streams of praise for their outstanding string skills. They strum and pick up a storm on their debut album together as the Ragpicker String Band — but it’s their tight trio harmonies that especially dazzle. The acoustic dream team summons the spirits of everyone from the Mississippi Sheiks to Kweskin and Crumb with their vibrant spin on prewar folk-blues.

1. Honey Babe
2. Minor Blues
3. Google Blues
4. Blue Monk
5. Clean Up At Home
6. Motel Towel
7. Baby Where You Been
8. Black Mattie
9. Lonely One In This Town
10. By Your Side
11. Milk Cow Blues
12. Trimmed and Burning
13. Street Doctor Blues
14. Bruno’s Dream

When My Bluebird Sings

Now available, Mary’s most recent all solo CD.

Mary Flower’s contralto voice and confident playing of guitars and dobros on this solo album square an abiding interest in folk tradition with empathy for the blues. using even-tempered resolve, this Portlander mixes lyricism and a soupcon of sensuality in captivating original music. “Can’t Take It With You” has her offering witty reflections on cutting the mortal cord, while “Delta Dream” finds her singing about rural life in Louisiana with an understanding well beyond that of any tourist.Several fascinating instrumentals sustain a balance between bluesy restlessness and playfulness–dig those lap-slide dobros. At all times Flower communicates the weight of her sense of conviction.
-Downbeat magazine

Released: August, 2014

1. So Far Doin’ Alright
2. Ragtag Rag
3. Delta Dream
4. Suspendimento
5. My Bluebird
6. Ruckus Rag
7. Millwood Waltz
8. Can’t Take It With You
9. Humbug Creek
10. Sashay My Way
11. Bicycle
12. Snail On A Rail
13. Atchafalaya

Misery Loves Company

An artist whose mastery has elevated her to the highest ranks of roots music, Mary Flower is celebrated for her instrumental skills and engaging vocal style. Her new Yellow Dog Records release, Misery Loves Company, finds Mary hosting eleven musicians who join her for a series of duets.

Along with Mary’s dazzling guitar and unmatched lap steel, the record features empathetic performances from some of blues and roots music’s most accomplished practitioners.

Mary’s fourth Yellow Dog release is a stripped-down collection of a dozen songs. Calling upon the talent pool in her home town of Portland OR, she sat down with ten instrumentalists — and one singer — to make her most intimate record to date. Misery Loves Company features a staggering variety of great players, from jazz pianist Dave Frishberg to multi-instrumentalist Colin Linden. It’s a testament to Mary’s ability to bring out the best in her collaborators.

Released: October 11, 2011

1. Hard Day Blues
2. Recession Rag
3. Death Letter Blues
4. Jitters
5. Way Down in the Bottom
6. Goin’ To Sit Down On The Banks Of The River
7. Boogie Woogie Dance
8. I’m Dreaming of Your Demise
9. Miss Delta
10. Devil’s Punchbowl
11. Shake Sugaree
12. Scrapper’s Blues

Bridges

In unearthing obscure gems from the songbooks of 1920s and ’30s America to complement her own rootsy compositions, Flower explores and illuminates the complex relationships between Piedmont blues, ragtime, jazz, and old-time gospel music. Unconventional instruments such as piano, tuba, accordion, clarinet, mandolin, and saxophone flesh out the arrangements on 14 tracks that, taken together, reveal Flower to be capable of remarkable nuance — as well as more stylistic diversity than just about any other artist currently recording under the “acoustic blues” banner.

Released: February 10, 2009

1. Rhythm of the Road
2. There Ain’t No Sweet Man That’s Worth the Salt of My Tears
3. Backwater Blues
4. When I Get Home I’m Gonna Be Satisfied
5. The Ghost of the St. Louis Blues
6. Slow Lane to Glory
7. On Revival Day / There’s Going To Be the Devil To Pay
8. Portland Town
9. Daughter of Contortion
10. Big Bill’s Blues
11. Temptation Rag
12. Up a Lazy River
13. Blue Waltz

Instrumental Breakdown

In response to frequent requests for recordings featuring her guitar playing, Instrumental Breakdown compiles the instrumental tracks from her critically acclaimed albums Honey From the Comb, Ladyfingers, Ragtime Gal, and Bywater Dance, along with a couple of newly-recorded tunes.

These tracks feature Mary’s intricate guitar – both solo as well as with backing from a who’s who of roots notables, including Jon Cleary, Tony Furtado, Fritz Richmond, Pat Donohue, Woody Mann, and Dr. Michael White. Mary’s distinctive and melodic songwriting is also on center stage, as nineteen of the twenty tracks are her original compositions.

Released: February 6, 2007

1. Black Rat Swing
2. Raise the Devil
3. Terminal Rag
4. Black Dog Rag
5. Hobo’s Hop
6. La Grippe
7. Good News Waltz
8. Hula Hoedown
9. Monon Blues
10. Three Sisters’ Waltz
11. Ladyfingers
12. Crooked
13. Hudson River Rag
14. Jesses’ Jump
15. Ragtime Gal
16. Arkansas Ramble
17. Slovak Stomp
18. Maplewood
19. Monkeys On A Binge
20. Song For Samantha

Bywater Dance

“Elegant” and “funky” aren’t words you’d expect to find in the same sentence, let alone used to describe the same album. But Mary Flower, one of America’s finest blues and roots performers, pulls off that feat with Bywater Dance. A singer with a springwater-clear voice and an accomplished fingerstyle guitarist who also plays flawless lap slide, she reaches to the deepest roots of American roots music for her Yellow Dog Records debut.

Bywater Dance brought Mary to a steamy district just downriver from the French Quarter, where her masterful guitar was joined by some of the Big Easy’s finest – Henry Butler, Jon Cleary and Dr. Michael White, among others. You’ll hear rolling rhum-boogie piano, moaning Creole clarinet, ragtime washboard and primally funky sousaphone, as Mary is joined by each partner in turn for a marvelous musical dance.

The result sometimes sounds like Memphis Minnie fronting the Hot Five – neither strictly traditional acoustic blues nor straight New Orleans jazz, but a bewitching blend of both that is something new and different. Funky and folky, bluesy and beautiful, Bywater Dance is one irresistible musical journey.

Released: September 13, 2005

1. Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives to Me
2. Raise the Devil
3. Crow Jane
4. New Orleans Hop Scop Blues
5. La Grippe
6. Last Kind Word Blues
7. Terminal Rag
8. Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
9. Papa’s On the Housetop
10. Hudson River Rag
11. Nobody’s Fault But Mine
12. Main Street Blues
13. Built Right On the Ground
14. Good News Waltz

Ragtime Gal

1. River Of Joy
2. Hobo’s Hop
3. Mood Indigo
4. Monon Blues
5. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning
6. Ragtime Gal
7. Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
8. Three Sisters’ Waltz
9. Monday Morning Blues
10. Maplewood
11. Arkansas Ramble
12. Dink’s Song

Ladyfingers

1. Virginia Bound
2. Ladyfingers
3. Some Cold Rainy Day
4. Baby Please Don’t Go/Green Onions
5. Bluesette
6. Going Down Slow
7. Run Sinner Run
8. Can’t Afford To Lose My Man
9. Monkeys On A Binge
10. I Almost Lost My Mind
11. Yes Sir That’s My Baby/I’ll See You In My Dreams/Darktown Strutters Ball
12. Song For Samantha

Rosewood and Steel

1. Your Baby Gave You Nuthin’ But the Blues
2. Midnite Blue – Mary Flower
3. Stomp Down Mama
4. Arrangement for Me Blues
5. Hannah’s Song
6. Mystery Train
7. Pony Blues
8. Cock-A-Doodle Blues
9. Two Days Straight
10. Cypress Grove Blues
11. Can’t Sleep for Dreaming
12. Roll on, Mississippi, Roll On
13. Old Guitar