Since forming in the mid-1980s, Marley's Ghost has built a singular reputation among discerning roots music lovers for its instrumental virtuosity, ultra-tight four-part harmonies and animated live performances. This year the four band members, comprised of singer/multi-instrumentalists Dan Wheetman, Jon Wilcox, Mike Phelan, and Ed Littlefield, Jr., celebrate their 20th year. In addition, they're celebrating their eighth release, Spooked, which is their first to get a full-fledged national release. It's a musically sophisticated, thematically rich, frequently hilarious piece of work that serves as belated coming-out party for a group that richly deserves to be much more widely heard.

For this project, obviously the most ambitious they've yet undertaken, the band enlisted a pair of legendary figures, both with connections to the band, whose idiosyncratic skills beautifully match up with their own. One is the envelope-pushing cartoonist R. Crumb, who illustrated the entire package. The other is composer/arranger/player Van Dyke Parks, who jumped at the chance to produce these fellow aficionados of antique American music and oblong whimsy. AllMusic.com writes, "Fans of bluegrass, reggae, gospel, folk, and sea shanties will find at least one song on Spooked to love...At its heart, Marley's Ghost is as American as the pie of your choice, celebrating history, humor, ancestry, and rugged individualism..."

The driving principle of Spooked, Parks explains, "was to reverence the form in this music, and find its strength, and at the same time kind of skewer it." Throughout the 13 songs of Spooked, the various American and British traditional forms tackled by the group—including a number of newly written originals and a cover of Dylan’s "The Wicked Messenger"—sound as authentic as vintage field recordings (or hi-fi versions thereof), but there's always some unexpected ingredient—something tangy, piquant or chewy—being stirred into the stew.

About Swallow Hill Music Association
Helping people make and enjoy music since 1979, Swallow Hill Music Association is one of the largest nonprofit institutions of its kind in the United States as a source for folk, roots and acoustic music. With more than 2,300 members, Swallow Hill provides a place to celebrate music that is rarely heard elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain Region. Three concert venues house more than 200 performances a year, featuring some of the world's great artists as well as up-and-coming new talent. Swallow Hill’s Julie Davis School of Music offers classes for every interest, skill level and member of the family. Each year, a faculty of 60 instructors provides training to more than 4,000 students. A Tier II member of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), Swallow Hill has won both the Mayor's and Governor's Awards for Excellence in the Arts, countless "Best of Denver" awards, has been recognized by the the North American Folk Alliance, and is one of the most sought-after venues by folk and roots performers in the country.