This spring, longtime friends and musicians Tania Lewis and Christopher Behnke released their first album “Live at the Outpost.” During the Alaska Folk Fest, the banjo-guitar duo recorded a Red Carpet Concert at the Alaskan Hotel. Here’s their performance of Lewis’s song “The Swell.”
This video was made in collaboration between with Justin Smith of Rusty Recordings in Gustavus. Watch other Red Carpet Concerts with The Hannah Yoter Band of Anchorage, The Quaintrelles and Goldwing.
Rusty Recordings producer Justin Smith discussed the album with the artists. Lewis and Behnke worked as researchers together for six years aboard a boat that Smith captained in Glacier Bay. Here are some highlights from the conversation:
- Tania Lewis says a lot of the songs were inspired by Glacier Bay, Icy Strait and other parts of the region. She says the ocean’s waves scare her, but that she tries to embrace them.
- Christopher Behnke says the recording was one of the first songs he’d played with Lewis after returning to Gustavus from Fairbanks, and that to him, the record is representative of the community.
- Justin Smith says one inspiration for the record was a photo he saw of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings looking at each other across a little table with “beautiful vintage microphones.”
Hear a mix of the interview here:
