Plain Jane Glory: Nothing plain about Muskegon duo’s striking, harmony-laden Americana

Michael Boxer and Laura Crosswait, once known as Fiddleface, have one album under their belts with another in the works. They play Rockford Brewing Thursday night. Check out the video of a new song.

 

There was a time growing up when Michael Boxer “felt like a dork” listening to the music he loved, from the iconic country of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams Sr. to the bluegrass magic of Bill Monroe.

But these days – paired up with violinist-singer Laura Crosswait in the emerging Americana duo Plain Jane Glory – Boxer feels right at home, smack dab in the middle of a folk and acoustic music revival that’s swept the globe, with young audiences reveling in the music of The Lumineers, Shovels & Rope and The Civil Wars.

“Now all of a sudden, this music is cool again,” says the acoustic guitarist and singer. “So it’s like awesome. Now, I can just be me.”

The Muskegon-based duo has capitalized on the folk fervor with sweet melodies, striking harmonies and a rare musical chemistry that produced an impressive debut collection, “Someday When Things are Good,” in late 2014, with a follow-up album set to be recorded later this year.

“It just speaks to people. There’s something primal about,” Boxer says of acoustic music. “I think it takes us back to like the Civil War era or something. It’s something that people long for in this day and age where everything’s digital. We live in this digital wasteland.”

The duo showed off that vintage acoustic charm in the studios of News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW) on Thursday, performing a new song, “Disbeliever,” during this week’s Local Spins Live segment. Listen to the podcast of the entire show here, with a video of the duo’s performance below.

Fans can catch the duo live when they perform at 8 tonight (Thursday) at Rockford Brewing in Rockford, 7 p.m. Friday at Dockers in Muskegon and 9 p.m. Saturday at Pub One Eleven in Whitehall. Plain Jane Glory also plays May 29 at Odd Side Ales in Grand Haven and will open for the Scott Pellegrom Trio’s CD-release show on June 13 at Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids.

CHANGING THEIR NAME TO SOMETHING MORE APROPOS

Crosswait first met Boxer when they participated in a play being organized for the American Red Cross. They quickly hit it off, continuing to rehearse songs together after the production was over.

But the moniker they first used for the band wasn’t exactly what they intended.

Boxer had nicknamed Crosswait “Fiddleface” when they first started playing together and somehow that stuck with fans at their shows.

“We never really liked the nickname,” he said, noting it first came up when he forgot Crosswait’s name. “It’s not necessarily a term of endearment. It’s not really indicative of what we do.”

“The fiddle is more an accent than the mainstay of what we do,” adds Crosswait.

Thus, Plain Jane Glory was born, a duo “in the vein of Americana music. We’re very rootsy, we’re very throwback,” says Boxer. “You might hear a song and think it’s kind of like an oldies sort of tune. We’re kind of bluegrassy. We’re a little bit of everything, we’re very eclectic.”

For Crosswait, the attraction to bluegrass also began at a young age while growing up in North Muskegon.

Classically trained on violin starting in second grade, she quickly became entranced by bluegrass thanks to her third- and fourth-grade teacher, Sue Kittredge-Reeths, who played fiddle in a bluegrass band with her husband. “She was kind of like my idol for a long time,” says Crosswait, who also considers renowned fiddler Mark O’Connor her musical hero.

The duo is excited about the songs for its sophomore album, with Boxer noting they continue to grow and move forward with their writing and arrangements. Boxer writes most of the songs, with Crosswait (“the producer”) adding harmonies and violin accents.

The couple is getting married in June, so plans to get back into the studio in late summer or fall to lay down tracks for the project. After that, the duo hopes to tour parts of the United States in support of the new album, to be titled, “Grace of Hours.”

And they’re thrilled to be part of a rootsy Michigan music scene that seems to be picking up steam and getting more attention across the country amid the current folk revival.

“This music kind of brings us back to where we come from and where we are. It’s accessible and it’s organic,” says Boxer. “You’ve just got to ride it, ride the wave while it’s going.”

Learn more about the band and get links to purchasing its music at plainjaneglory.com and on its Facebook page.

VIDEO: Plain Jane Glory, “Disbeliever”

Copyright 2015, Spins on Music LLC