A Journal of An Untraditional Nature 
Sleeping Hedgehog (4-25-2011) 

Review 

Eddie and Frank Thomas: Maggie's House 

By David Kidney 

“Maggie’s House is a real place in an imaginary sort of way…” That’s what the one sheet tells us.  And listening to the album (which starts off with the title song) it’s easy to believe there’s a real place like this.  Actually, there are probably real places like this all over the world.  Listen to the description, “Follow the sound of that stride piano / to Maggie’s house over in Alabama / Drag up a chair, everybody is staying / hard to go home with the jug band playing…”  I think I’ve been there, and I’ve never been to Alabama. 

Eddie & Frank Thomas manage to bring you in to their gently rocking world, all acoustic guitar punctuated by a harmonica and the kind of harmonies that only come from siblings.  Eddie is the singer/songwriter while brother Frank is engineer and producer.   The songs take you back to another world.  First you’re transported to the South, and then to another decade.  An earlier time, before facebook and Twitter, when you would go “Dancing With Bonnie on the Saturday TV show,” or possibly sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories (as in “In Perfumed Air”).  It was a slower, kinder time, and this is slower, kinder music.  Quiet guitars, and warm vocals singing melodic songs of this otherworld. 

If you remember that world, you’ll be immediately drawn in, and if you don’t recall it yourself…this is a great introduction.  Stop by Maggie’s House for a visit.  You won’t regret it. 

-David Kidney

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