Live Music: Hardworker with Mama Molasses

Hardworker is a three-piece rock band from Durham, North Carolina. The band took its present shape in 2015 when Sus Long and Mike Conner traded in their acoustic folk duo for something a bit louder with guitarist Danny Nowell. Their 2017 release Go Alone was produced by Alex Bingham and engineered by Mitch Easter at the Fidelitorium in Kernersville, NC. At its most intimate moments, the album achieves the immediacy of Sus and Mike’s back-porch partnership, but at its biggest moments, the record is nothing less than four friends making the biggest ruckus they know how.

Momma Molasses‘s music interlaces; Americana, Alt-Country, Appalachian Folk, Piedmont Blues, Soul, Swing, Bluegrass, and Old-Time which blend into a uniquely timeless sound. Harnessing her rolling contralto voice which scales over a homespun finger-picked guitar, her sound is warm, rich, and passionate, with songs that embrace, and captivate listeners, soothing well warn hearts with vulnerable lyricism. Momma Molasses is the musical project of singer-songwriter Ellen “Ella” Patrick. Originally from a small town in the “Pines” or “Sandhills” of NC. Patrick grew up with a deep love of music and began playing stringed instruments at an early age while singing gospel music in church, learning old country songs from her Uncle John, and obsessively listening to folk ballads from her parents dusty late 60’s record collection. She spent most of her childhood summers in a Swamp south of her home in Moore County, where she began playing for friends around the campfire, or sneaking out in canoes after dark to sing by herself to the moon. While in college at Warren Wilson, just outside of Asheville, Patrick became greatly influenced by Appalachian folk music and studied old-time, murder ballad singing, and bluegrass music.