Listen to the vintage two-man harmonies of The Cactus Blossoms and it’s hard not to assume that brothers Page Burkum and Jack Torrey were raised in the traditions of classic Americana with a line directly to the Everly and Louvin brothers. But that notion would be all wrong. The brothers hail from Minneapolis, not Tennessee or Kentucky, and grew up on a diet of everything but the music they were destined to discover in a roundabout way.
The Cactus Blossoms With: Jack Klatt (Nov. 4), Big Sadie (Nov. 6) When 9 p.m. Nov. 4; 8 p.m. Nov. 6 Where: The Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia Tickets: $15 Info: hideoutchicago.com
As teens their musical tastes boomeranged from Radiohead, Bjork and the Beach Boys to Lauren Hill and the Beatles and Bob Dylan. There was no inherited knowledge of country music but as they began to play together they listened to old country and folk songs and got the urge to dig deeper into the history of these genres.
“There’s not always a clear line of how you get to what you’re playing,” says Torrey, who changed his last name when he started performing. “We’d listen to all sorts of music and hear a song and wonder where it came from. So we fell down this rabbit hole and began exploring folk, blues and country artists.”
At first, the brothers were taking separate musical routes (Torrey performed as a solo singer-songwriter, Burkum played drums in a blues band) and only started performing together in their twenties. A weekly residency at St. Paul’s Turf Club became their place to hunker down, really get into the music, build a repertoire of songs and casually grow into their sound.
“Finding all this music, we got obsessed with it,” says Burkum, 35. “I think the fact we picked up guitars and started singing was because this was simple music we could learn from. And people seemed to really enjoy it.”
At the Hideout shows, Burkum and Torrey will be joined by Joel Paterson (guitar), Andy Carroll (bass) and Chris Hepola (drums).
After two self-released recordings that upped their fan base in Minneapolis, The Cactus Blossoms recent disc “You’re Dreaming” (Red House Records) reached a wider audience and was named one of the most anticipated country albums of 2016 by Rolling Stone. The impressive debut was produced by Oklahoma rockabilly star JD McPherson who the brothers agree was “very supportive and gave us creative freedom.” (The album was recorded in Chicago with local musicians Joel Paterson on guitar, Alex Hall on drums and Beau Sample on bass.)
The album includes 10 original songs and one cover (No More Crying the Blues,” by Sun recording artists Alton and Jimmy). What The Cactus Blossoms have is an original sound — classic yet modern — wrapped around timeless lyrics.
McPherson helped Burkum and Torrey take a new look at some of their older songs like “Stoplight Kisses,” “Traveler’s Paradise,” “Adios Maria” and “Change Your Ways or Die.”
“We weren’t happy with the way these had been recorded in the past,” Torrey, 30, recalled. “We had never taken the time to work on the arrangements. We wanted to save them from the past and get the songs right.”
The Cactus Blossoms first real national exposure came on Garrison Keeler’s “Prairie Home Companion” about five years ago. It’s a funny story, says Torrey. The brothers were at the Minnesota State Fair backing up a friend when on the fly they decided to enter a duet competition and won. A “Prairie Home Companion” heard their performance and asked them to be on that night’s show, which according to Burkum was both “exciting and frightening.” They subsequently appeared several times including one of the host’s final shows last summer in St. Louis.
With their perfect harmonies and exacting choice of songs that easily move between heartbroken ballads and rousing honkytonk, the brothers have found their place in the blossoming country/Americana revival movement that is even making ripples in Nashville via artists like Jason Isbell, Margo Price and Chris Stapleton.
Sometimes people tell the brothers they were born in the wrong era but they disagree.
“We just got into some music from a different era and found a way to make it our own. It was kind of a wonderful surprise,” Torrey says adding with a laugh, “People may compare us to the Everly Brothers but we aren’t as good a singers and we’re certainly not as chipper. But we’re working on it.”
Mary Houlihan is a local freelance writer.
