A stray cat runs away and leaves behind her name in the aether, waiting to sing and play.

A pause in the routine. The shorter days of 2020’s Autumn call for

music to be played in a living room. Gather together writers, singers,

piano players, string strummers, a drummer.

Singer, arranger

and songwriter, Erin Dalton (arr. for Amythyst Kiah, Bill & The

Belles) with husband Andrew Gibbens, drummer (of previous band projects

this mountain, Amythyst Kiah, Listener), join in melodic and harmonic

rhythm with fellow singer-songwriters Isaac Ratliff (Sorrel, Florencia

& The Feeling) on electric piano with some smooth BGVs, and Phil

Ling (Tree Hollow) on bass and reverberating guitar. But then, like a

Charlie Maples cat, Phil moved to New England. In steps

multi-instrumentalist Taylor Green (also formerly of this mountain,

Amythyst Kiah, and currently Mind Modes) to hold it down on bass.

Charlie Maples mines the classic jazz catalogues, calls out with the

Rhythm and the Blues, and flirts with the wavelength of Michael

McDonald. The band’s members represent combined decades of musical

exploration, performance, touring, composing, and recording in genres

ranging from jazz, classical, folk, and hip-hop, to R&B, old time,

rock, and ambient.

Like the namesake feline, Charlie Maples was born in East Tennessee.