Don’t Tell Darlings

“One hundred miles, its length and breadth, the four-square city stands.

Its gem-set walls of jasper shine, unmade by human hands.

And it won’t be long ’til I shall pass through yonder gate so fair.

Gonna have fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare.”

That’s from one of my favorite songs in the whole wide world, Fifty Miles of Elbow Room, by the Rev. F.W. McGee. So when I heard the Don’t Tell Darlings sing it at the Book Mill in Montague Friday, I knew I had found kindred spirits.

These Book Mill concerts on Friday nights are really great for people like me who don’t like concerts. In some stadium the seats are cramped and even if it’s someone I really like, I want to leave after the first hour or so. I’d pay twenty bucks to get out.

At the Book Mill the seats are all really comfortable and the concerts are about an hour and a half. There are about 20 other people there and you get a chance to meet with the musicians.

Listening to the The Don’t Tell Darlings, Millie Ammirati and Megan Rose Orwig, is like sipping peach juice. I snapped up their CD like a hungry trout. Millie is Earl Scruggs in high heels, and Megan has Lester Flatt beat by a mile.

Their vocals put me in mind of the Carter Family — Mother Maybelle and June Carter Cash and Deanna Carter and Carlene Carter — because of their great harmonies.

I can’t think of a higher compliment than that.