REVIEW: Tina and Her Pony -- Marigolds
If you’re looking for some sweet tunes to swaddle yourself in as they carry you gently into spring, look no further than Tina and Her Pony’s latest record Marigolds. Spring is, traditionally, a season heralding life and renewal, but, for many people, it’s also a period of seasonal depression. Marigolds holds space for both springtime experiences. It’s an album about cyclical change and death and rebirth as initiation.
After last year’s singles, the retro R&B-folk venture of “Yellow Rose” and the classic country nostalgia of “Beautiful Mess,” Tina and the band deliver an LP with more songs that follow suit in expanding their indie Appalachian sound. With this new record, Tina and Her Pony incorporates soul influences on songs such as “Pull You Close” and adopts pop songwriting sensibilities as heard on the piano ballad “Flowers.”
My favorite track on the album may have to be “Fly Around.” This arrangement, which features a flailing banjo, funky drum groove, and fuzzed-out slide guitar accompaniment, manages to at once to do justice to this song’s Appalachian tradition while moving today’s cosmopolitan listener to dance. I also just love to hear Tina queering this traditional courtship tune, singing, “Fly around, my pretty little miss, / fly around my daisy.” I’d always wondered if there was a queer old-time song.
Long-time fans will be glad to know that, despite going through lineup changes, “Tina & Her Pony is alive and well!” as Tina wrote herself in an April 2022 Instagram post. As I listened to the album these last few weeks and took to heart what Tina was singing to me—”We are here today”—I was reminded that I too am alive and well.
Listen on Bandcamp or your favorite streaming service.
You can catch Tina on tour.
- Thurs April 27 Blue Moon Charlottesville, Virginia 7p
- Sat April 29 Greenfield Farmer’s Market Greenfield, MA
- Sun April 30 House Concert Buckland, MA (email for details)
- Tues May 2 Tuesday Market Northampton, MA 2p
- Sat May 13 Mal’s Marshall, NC 7p
- Sat June 10 Power & Light Press Silver City, NM
- Sun June 11 Goddess Fest at Unity Taos, NM
- Wed June 14 House Concert in Albuquerque, NM (email for details)
- Thurs June 15 Founding Fathers Prescott, AZ *w/ Stephy Leigh Griffin 6pm
- Fri June 16 The Hitching Post Bisbee, AZ 8p
- Sat June 17 The Quarry Bisbee, AZ 8p
- Sun June 25 Sierra Nevada Amphitheater Mills River, NC 2p
- Fri July 14 Blue Jay Listening Room Jacksonville Beach, FL
- Sat July 15 Story & Song Bookstore Fernandina Beach, FL 5p
You can listen to Tina and Her Pony on our spring check-in podcast!
