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'Gallatin & Stillwaters are a delightful blend...'
By Jeffery Kurz,
Meriden Record-Journal staff
MERIDEN- Amy Gallatin & Stillwaters produce the kind of music that has a certain quality, even if it doesn't have a certain name.
"There really isn't a name for it," acknowledged Gallatin. She was on the phone from her home in Glastonbury, talking about the group's upcoming performance at Unitarian Universalist Church in a benefit concert Saturday.
The music, sometimes called "Americana," is distinguished by its folk roots and its lyrical orientation. The instruments come from bluegrass.
Though Gallatin was born in Alabama, her roots are in the west, where she worked as a musician and horseback riding instructor in Washington, Montana and Idaho. Much of her music is inspired by those western influences.
In 1991, while she was in Connecticut for the winter following a trip to Europe, Gallatin answered a notice for musicians posted by Meriden resident Matt Nozzolio, a Dobro player. The two formed Stillwaters and produced their first album, Northern Girl, in 1993. The album Sweet Gatherings followed in 1995.
"When I met Matt, he was into bluegrass and I was into folk," Gallatin recalls. "I wasn't tuned into the bluegrass thing at all, and there's so much really great music."
Gallatin recorded a solo album in Nashville, called The Long Way Home, early this spring. The band followed with a month-long tour of Europe, highlighted by a performance at the European World of Bluegrass Week in the Netherlands.
Stillwaters features Nozzolio on Dobro, Kevin Lynch on mandolin and guitar and Bob Shaw on upright bass. And, of course, Gallatin's vocals.
"A song has to move you personally," Gallatin said about the music she selects. "You have to connect with it emotionally or you can't sing it. You don't just sing any old song. It has to mean something to you. People are looking for the emotionally experience that you bring to a song."
-Record-Journal
Meriden, CT -- November 19,
1998 
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