The Petersens - Home Concerts 4, Branson, MO, 6-25-2021 to 12-15-2021

I've posted a lot of albums by the acoustic duo Reina del Cid and Toni Lindgren. I consider the Petersens to be similar to that duo. Like them, they post a lot of videos on YouTube of acoustic covers they've performed of classic songs. They have a more traditional, "square" image, and occasionally do religious songs that I'm not fond of (and thus done include in these compilations). But they're similarly very talented, and mostly feature female lead vocals, which I particularly like. So if you've enjoyed the Reina del Cid and Toni Lindgren albums I've posted, I strongly suspect you'll like these.

They have what you might call a bluegrass sound, but you don't have to be a bluegrass fan to like this. I'm not a fan of the genre, and I do like this anyway. They do some traditional bluegrass numbers, but they also do songs by the likes of Coldplay and the Cranberries here. As I mentioned above, I'm normally not a fan of overtly religious songs, but occasionally I like one on musical terms enough to include, and that's the case with "Go Tell John" here.

Here's a list of the original artists for the songs they've covered: 

01 Steel Rails - Alison Krauss
02 The Star-Spangled Banner - John Stafford Smith & Francis Scott Key
03 The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson
04 Viva La Vida - Coldplay
05 Back Home Again - John Denver
06 Go Tell John - Tammy Griffin
07 Tulsa Time - Don Williams / Eric Clapton
08 Dreams - Cranberries
09 I'm Gonna Miss Her - Brad Paisley
10 Rocky Top - Osborne Brothers
11 The Thanksgiving Song - Ben Rector
12 Wayfaring Stranger - traditional
13 If We Make It through December- Merle Haggard

Here's the usual song list:

01 Steel Rails (Petersens)
02 The Star-Spangled Banner (Petersens)
03 The Way I Am (Petersens)
04 Viva La Vida (Petersens)
05 Back Home Again (Petersens)
06 Go Tell John (Petersens)
07 Tulsa Time (Petersens)
08 Dreams (Petersens)
09 I'm Gonna Miss Her (Petersens)
10 Rocky Top (Petersens)
11 The Thanksgiving Song (Petersens)
12 Wayfaring Stranger (Petersens)
13 If We Make It through December (Petersens)

This album is 45 minutes long.

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271441/TPetersns_2021_HmeConcrts4BransnMO__6-25-2021_to_12-15-2021_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from one of their 2021 videos. It's hard to find a shot of all the band members close in, so I'm glad I finally have one for this cover.

The Petersens - Home Concerts 3, Branson, MO, 9-15-2019 to 4-14-2021

Happy holidays! Technically, this isn't a Christmas album. There isn't a single Christmas song on it. But, in my opinion, it has the sort of vibe. The Petersens are an American, Christian, wholesome, acoustic family band. They play the sort of music you might want to play on family gatherings on holidays. So here's another album from them.

I previously posted two full concerts they did, which they had originally posted on YouTube. This, by contrast, is a collection of individual songs that they also originally posted on YouTube. Don't mind the fact that even though this is "Home Concerts 3," the first songs here come before the dates of those two concerts. Close enough for horseshoes! ;)

The Petersens have done some nice originals, but their main forte is cover songs. These are all covers. They also have a special talent for taking songs from all sorts of genres and turning them into acoustic folk tunes. You'll see plenty of that here, with songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen and "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys getting a radical makeover. To some, it might seem gimmicky, but I think it just shows that some songs are just really good songs, so they work well in very different styles if played by talented people.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 High Sierra (Petersens)
02 Cloudy Days (Petersens)
03 If I Needed You (Petersens)
04 La Vie en Rose (Petersens)
05 Wade in the Water (Petersens)
06 You're Still the One (Petersens)
07 Bohemian Rhapsody (Petersens)
08 I Want It That Way (Petersens)
09 The Scientist (Petersens)
10 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Petersens)
11 Mamma Mia (Petersens)
12 Top of the World (Petersens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271437/TPetersns_2020-2021_HmeConcrts3BransnMO__9-15-2019_to_4-14-2021_atse.zip.html

There are six people in the Petersens band, five of them members of the Petersen family. However, for this album cover, I'm only showing the three sisters, 'cos I thought it's a nice image of the three of them singing into the same microphone. I could be wrong, but I believe this is a screenshot of their video for "Mamma Mia."

The Petersens - Christmas Songs - Home Concerts, Branson, MO, 2019-2020

As I write this, it's Christmas Eve, and here is a very Christmas-y album. It's a little late for the season, but hopefully still in time for the Christmas. 

I waited until this last minute to post this because this year and last year the Petersens have posted some Christmas songs in the weeks leading up to the holiday, and last year they actually posted a song on Christmas Day. if there are one or more late arrivals this year, I'll update this album accordingly.

I've posted a couple of albums by the Petersens already. They're a family band that does a wide variety of songs with an acoustic bluegrass feel. Normally, I wouldn't be into this type of music, but they've come out of nowhere to have songs with millions of hits on YouTube, and for good reason. They have a pleasing style, and you don't have to be a serious bluegrass fan to enjoy their music.

This is a very uncharacteristic album for me to post. These are Christmas songs, many with a overt Christian theme, done in a bluegrass style, yet I'm normally not into bluegrass, Christmas music, or Christian music. But, like I said, they have a pleasing style, and I definitely do enjoy the acoustic focus. If I'm going to put on a Christmas album, I'd rather be this "down home" kind than the usual and overproduced slick type with drums and strings.

Note that, this year, the Petersens have released a Christmas album called "Christmas with the Petersens." It has many of the same songs, but a few here aren't on that, and vice versa. So if you really like this, I suggest you pick that up. All the performances here are from the band's YouTube videos, which are different performances than the ones on their album.

By the way, I don't think the song "I Am the Man, Thomas" is a Christmas song, per se. But it is a song about Jesus, so I figured it was close enough for horseshoes. As I said above, normally I'm not into Christian themed music, but I liked that song enough to want to include it here.

01 What Child Is This (Petersens)
02 O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - Come Thou Long Expected Jesus (Petersens)
03 Silent Night (Petersens)
04 I Am the Man, Thomas (Petersens)
05 Christmas Time's A-Comin' (Petersens)
06 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (Petersens)
07 Santa Train - Sleigh Ride (Petersens)
08 I'll Be Home for Christmas (Petersens)
09 Mele Kalikimaka (Petersens)
10 Joy to the World (Petersens)
11 I Heard the Bells (Petersens)
12 Go Tell It on the Mountain (Petersens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271274/TPetersns_2019-2020_ChrstmsSongsHmeConcrtsBransnMO__2019-2020_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, once again I relied on the help of PJ of his "Albums I Wish Existed" blog while I continue to resolve my computer problems. I took a screenshot of the band in Christmas sweaters from one of their YouTube videos. Then I asked PJ to make a cover as Christmas-y as possible. He came through with exactly the sort of cover I was looking for, so a big thanks to PJ. :)

Note that while the four Petersen siblings are shown, a couple of the band members are not. Both the bass player and lead guitarist didn't play on this particular song, so they weren't included in the video. But I picked this image because it was the most overtly Christmas-y one I found.

The Petersens - Home Concerts 2, Branson, MO, 4-24-2020 to 5-15-2020

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a collection of home concerts from the Petersens. You should read that post for more information about them. Basically, they're a family band that I like simply because they're very talented. Technically you could say the play "bluegrass," but I see it more as acoustic roots music, since they do all sorts of genres.

That other album I posted mainly consisted of one home concert, with a bunch of other songs performed here and there to flesh it out. This one gathers up the rest of the home concert material I've found that they've done during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown so far. It's about evenly split between two home concerts.

I've included all the songs they played during those two concerts. However, I've edited out some of the banter between songs if I felt it didn't have much replay value. Most of the stuff I cut was promotional in nature. I also edited some things to help make it sound like one long concert instead of two short ones.

The band is an overtly Christian one. They perform a fair number of religious songs as part of their repertoire. That has a limited appeal, and it doesn't appeal to me very much. For this album, they do three Christian songs: "Beaulah Land," "Prodigal Son," and "Father Along." However, they chose well, because those are really good songs that just happen to have religious themes to them. (By the way, the Byrds also did a very nice version of "Father Along.")

The Petersens do some original songs of their own. However, for home concerts like these, they've been very sparing with those. I believe only the first two songs here are originals. In my opinion, they hold their own with the classic covers they do.

This band certainly isn't "cutting edge" in any sense. They just play great "Americana" songs really well. If you've never heard them, and you probably haven't, I suggest you take a chance and give them a listen.

01 talk (Petersens)
02 No Roots (Petersens)
03 talk (Petersens)
04 California (Petersens)
05 talk (Petersens)
06 Gentle on My Mind (Petersens)
07 talk (Petersens)
08 Beulah Land (Petersens)
09 talk (Petersens)
10 Jolene (Petersens)
11 Shenandoah (Petersens)
12 talk (Petersens)
13 Blue (Petersens)
14 talk (Petersens)
15 Fields of Gold (Petersens)
16 talk (Petersens)
17 Prodigal Son (Petersens)
18 talk (Petersens)
19 Farther Along (Petersens)
20 talk (Petersens)
21 Carolina in the Pines (Petersens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15328493/TPetersns_2020_HmeConcrts2BransnMO__4-24-2020_to_5-15-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot taken from one of their home concerts. The four people seen are all siblings. Their mother is behind them playing stand-up bass. (You can see the bass, but not much of her.) There's another band member playing lead guitar who isn't a part of the family, but he was standing too far for the side for me to be able to include him.

The Petersens - Home Concerts 1, Branson, MO, 4-7-2020 to 7-17-2020

I was looking for something on YouTube the other day and stumbled across the Petersens. I liked them enough to post this album. One way they came up was because they've performed with the Reina del Cid and Toni Lundgren duo. If you like that duo, this is very much in the same vein. Technically, the Petersens are considered bluegrass, but I generally am not a fan of bluegrass yet I'm a fan of this. It's more like they play roots music in the folk, country, singer-songwriter type genres, with some bluegrass touches, such as banjo, mandolin, and fiddle.

The Petersens are very much a family band. As far as I can tell, the band consists of a mother, son, three daughters, plus one non-family member. So you get a fuller sound than Reina del Cid and Toni Lundgren, though they generally play the same kind of songs. The Petersens are based in Branson, Missouri, which is kind of a country music entertainment mecca, and seem to spend most of their time playing concerts there. But they've put up some home concert videos during the coronavirus lockdown, with some of them getting millions of hits. I'm sure there are oodles of family bands playing music like this all over the US and beyond, but the Petersens stand out due to their talent.

As I write this, they've done three home concerts of 20 to 30 minutes each that have been posted on YouTube, plus various single songs posted there as well. This album gathers one of the home concerts and all of the stray single songs into an album that hopefully sounds like one coherent concert. I plan on posting another album by them that consists of the other two home concerts combined. I've arranged things so that both albums end up being between 45 and 50 minutes long.

I have to admit that I'm not a fan of most gospel music. The Petersens are a Christian band and play a fair number of gospel/religious songs. But because I'm not a fan of that kind of stuff, I left off a few songs of that type. None of the songs on this album are gospel songs. Here's what you get instead, by the original artists:

01 When You Say Nothing at All - Keith Whitley / Alison Krauss
02 If I Needed You - Townes Van Zandt / Emmylou Harris & Don Williams
03 You Can't Make Old Friends - Kenny Rogers
05 Southern Nights - Glen Campbell
07 Amarillo by Morning - George Strait
09 She's Got You - Patsy Cline
11 Swallowtail Jig [Instrumental] - Irish traditional
13 Moments - Petersens original
15 Take Me Home, Country Roads - John Denver
16 I Feel the Blues Moving In - Del McCoury
17 Carolina in My Mind - James Taylor
18 Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

As you can see, most of the songs are classic hits, especially country classics. The Petersens do occasionally write their own songs, but only one of them appears on this album. I have a couple more originals on the other album of theirs I plan on posting. I've found their originals generally hold up to the high standards of the covers they do.

Here's the usual song list:

01 When You Say Nothing at All (Petersens)
02 If I Needed You (Petersens)
03 You Can't Make Old Friends (Petersens)
04 talk (Petersens)
05 Southern Nights (Petersens)
06 talk (Petersens)
07 Amarillo by Morning (Petersens)
08 talk (Petersens)
09 She's Got You (Petersens)
10 talk (Petersens)
11 Swallowtail Jig [Instrumental] (Petersens)
12 talk (Petersens)
13 Moments (Petersens)
14 talk (Petersens)
15 Take Me Home, Country Roads (Petersens)
16 I Feel the Blues Moving In (Petersens)
17 Carolina in My Mind (Petersens)
18 Landslide (Petersens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15635016/TPetersns_2020_HmeConcrts1BransnMO__4-7-2020_to_7-17-2020_atse.zip.html

Although there the Petersens have six members in their band, the cover art photo only shows three of them, the three daughters. I watched their video of "Landslide," and I thought it looked really nice with the flowers in their hair and the river in the background, so I took a screenshot of that. For the cover art of the other album I plan on posting, I'll include the other band members as well.