The Castellows

One Liner: Three sisters harmonizing a song about the dirt road where they grew up.

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but I'll say Country
Home: Nashville (via Georgetown, GA)

Saturday

Thoughts:  There is a great little town on the Llano River called Castell.  We took a family vacation out there many years ago, and it is that type of river frontage where it never gets terribly deep, but you get lots of little pockets of water to lounge in and cool off.  Lovely.  Also, lots of water moccasins, which was less lovely.  Oh, and there is a cool little general store there that serves dope barbeque.  Anyway, that is what I thought of when I saw this band name, I was hoping that they were from Castell.  However, from their picture, I expect that these are three sisters and that is their last name.

Yep.  Ellie, Powell, and Lily are sisters from Georgetown, Georgia (hey, and they're going to play in Georgetown, Texas!).  They grew up in the same house where their dad was raised, and they were homeschooled.  Ellie and Powell are two-thirds of a set of triplets, but the third member is a dude who is not part of the band.  Which, you know, seems kind of rude.  Poor guy.  Lily is the odd woman out, being 18 months younger than the rest of the clan.  They have one original song, which was released in October 2023, and shockingly over a million Instagram followers (I say that tongue in cheek, as they are beautiful young women).  They're moved to Nashville and are all in on the musical journey now.  Strange talent alert - one can speak and sign in Korean, one can fly planes, and one has her artificial insemination certificate (for cows).

Here is the track - "No. 7 Road" - with 219k streams.

Cute.  I like the banjo, and the down-home lyrics.  I'd love to hear more to see what else they have, because that one seems a little raw.  Like, what were the Chicks called before they became the Dixie Chicks?  Like that debut album that was a little simple and unpolished.  They also cover Levon Helm's "Hurricane" in a Spotify single.

I had a thought while in the shower the other day, and no, not like that, but that young artists like this are no longer putting information about themselves into writing the way that old people used to do.  Now, they are reaching their audience through video and socials.  Which is weird for me because I am old, but it made me search and I found this background video.  Which is totally weird to me, but I guess makes sense to the younger generation.

This video looks like they have been kidnapped and are being forced to sing a song by their captors or else face death or dismemberment.  

Funny thing.  The comments to that video, which look like comments on many of their videos, are things like:

• "You girls have a future in music. PLEASE don’t let it ruin you. Stay simple, stay country."
• "You guys are awsome. dont let the music industry corrupt your values."
• "I hope they will stick to wholesome, classy songs and not let the music industry turn them into sex starlets."
• "Beautiful sound. Dont loose it."
• "I wish you the best of luck and be careful of the dirtbag producers and vampires in the music industry."  

WTF, man.  What is the expectation there?  Just out of curiosity, I looks up a Zach Top video to see what the comments there were like.  See the difference:

• "Recently discovered Zach.  I think I may have a new favorite country singer!"
• "Zach is a real one. Hell of a singer, hell of a picker, and his live versions are no different than the record! Hoping to catch a concert soon!"
• "Love your voice and music your gonna save traditional country music"
• "This was awesome man keep doing what your doing"

Is this just a normal sexist thing?  I went way down in the Zach Top comments, and never down in there is there a comment about how he needs to be careful and not screw up his sound or his values.  So strange.

Hard to make any definitive pronouncements based upon one studio song, but it's promising?  I love some good banjo!  I JUST HOPE THEY DON'T SCREW IT UP BY HAVING SEXUAL RELATIONS OR SPEAKING THEIR MIND!!!