The rollicking country swing of the Sweetback Sisters is as infectious as it is heartbreaking. Their charis­matic charm harkens back to the golden era of both the silver screen cowgirl and the ersatz cowboy stars of local UHF TV kiddie shows. That whimsical exterior is wrapped around a core of deeply felt love for traditional country music styles and a palpable joy in playing and singing together. Gifted singer-songwriter Bethel Steele will open the show.

While Zara Bode and Emily Miller stand out front with their matching dresses and seamless harmonies, the Sweetback Sisters are a band, made all the richer by the contributions of drummer Stefan Amidon, Ross “Rolling Thunder” Bellenoit on Telecaster and vocals, guitarist and fiddler Jesse Milnes, and Peter Bitenc on bass.

Much of the spark that ignites the Sweetback Sisters’ flame comes from Bode and Miller’s distinct (and distinctly different) upbringings. “I’m very new to traditional country music,” Bode observes. “But where I do not have the familiarity with those traditions that Emily does, our varying approaches are what make the pairing unique. She brings the roots, and I bring the retro.” The child of journalists, Miller hails originally from Lawrence, Kansas, but grew up around the world, spending most of her early childhood in Hong Kong, along with stints in Toronto and Chicago. “My earliest performing experience came in Hong Kong,” she recalls, “with the Miller Family Band: Dad on banjo, my brother on guitar, Mom on fiddle, me on fiddlesticks, and everyone singing. We kind of had a corner on the wholesome American singing family market in the area, so we ended up playing a lot of TV programs, shopping malls, and little festivals. Growing up in San Francisco, Bode had nearly the opposite experience. “I hate to admit this,” she says, embarrassed, “but I was one of those kids that said ‘I listen to everything . . . except country!’ ”

The two surrogate sisters met in the fall of 2005 on tour with a world music choir in Europe. The repertoire included everything from Bulgarian and South African music to selections from the republic of Georgia, to a mass by Pierre de la Rue. “At some point during this world music blitz,” Miller recalls, “Zara and I discovered a mutual love for Hank Williams songs, and sang a few together at concert after-parties. “I had sung with many people before,” Bode continues, “but never did it feel like this.”

Both women moved to Brooklyn, quickly landed a gig and recruited a handful of talented friends to play it with them. The newly-formed band’s first EP, Bang!, was originally recorded as a demo for booking more gigs in the city, but it opened bigger doors along the way. In April 2007, those tracks earned them a spot on A Prairie Home Companion’s People in Their Twenties talent contest. Following that appearance, the band members drifted on to other pursuits. Yet the pull of the Sweetback Sisters — the good times, good music, and laid-back vibe that comes with playing with old friends — kept tugging them back together. With a renewed commitment to perform together more extensively, they began recording Chicken Ain’t Chicken with Boston-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Eric Merrill. Miller says, “I think on Chicken Ain’t Chicken we managed to move beyond ‘fun’ to something with a touch of gravitas, but still with some absurdity at the core.”

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Show opener Bethel Steele has been writing music since the age of 14, continuing through high school, college and a short post-collegiate career in the sciences. When Steele moved to a small town outside of Poughkeepsie, New York the music that had been written and played behind closed doors finally showed its face to a listening audience. After a few months of playing in the area, Bethel recorded an 8-song EP, Beautiful Woman. “It was literally the result of an ultimatum,” says Bethel about the 2006 release. “One of the bartenders where I played most often told me that he wouldn’t let me perform again if I didn’t have something to sell. So I recorded Beautiful Woman, burnt some copies of it, used a picture of a sunset that I had taken a few weeks earlier and ‘released’ the CD the next time I played at that bar.”

Steele has recently released a full-length studio album, Come Home. This effort is the result of more than a year of being in and out of the studio, bringing a range of musicians and different sounds to the soulful lyrics and driving rhythmic guitar that has become a trademark of Bethel’s music. The album has tastes of a country upbringing, dashes of pop and rock, but is nailed in the folk genre. Come Home is a reflection on my moving to Boston,” Steele reveals, “I was torn between wanting to be out in the country with the open fields and wanting to have a community to be a part of, both musically and otherwise.”

Photo of Bethel Steel by Liz Linder

• . . . infectious tracks that feel instantly familiar . . . Those who enjoyed the vintage stylings of Gillian Welch, Eilen Jewell et al, will find the Sweetback Sisters a natural, if more upbeat and irreverent, match to these artists. An excellent album, and great fun! Fish Records, June 2009
• . . . they all appear to be musical geniuses. Their brand new debut album, Chicken Ain’t Chicken, is brilliantly fun and straddles eras as well as any piece of modern Americana can. The Sweetback Sisters mines songs from long ago eras of country music but escapes ending up as a dusty, nostalgic throwback by applying real energy and modern creativity to the vintage material. The perfect blend of temporal perspectives make the record a complete delight. Highly recommended. Napster.com, July 2009
• . . .
• Bethel Steele writes simple and direct poetry, and sets it to beautiful music. She writes in the first person, and I get the sense that she has lived these songs, even if they did not all happen to her as described in the lyric. She sings in a smoky alto, and she never raises her voice. But the emotions come through loud and clear. At the festival, she appeared solo, with just her guitar for accompaniment, and her songs worked that way. But, on the album, she is backed by a small band, and she makes particularly good use of cello and fiddle. She proves to be a very talented arranger, and her songs shine as a result. The singer-songwriter movement started in the early 1970s. By now, it can be called a tradition, and with Bethel Steele, it is in good hands. Oliver di Place Review