Elizabeth Butters

"How came my blood to be on your shirt sleeve?"

By Colin Asher

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Elizabeth Butters doesn't feel like she fits in this time period. Her answer to this quandary is an aesthetic and aural leap backward—not to the '90s, or the '80s, but much, much farther. Butters says that she identifies most strongly with the 1930s, when Ford Model T's still rumbled and paved roads were at a premium.

Butters, only 22, has been collecting records from that era since she was 13, specializing in what she describes as "obscure, creepy, sad and strange" material. For the last two years, she has been performing that same material, in faithful rendition, while dressed in period clothes that she calls "dignified and authentic attire."

During a recent performance at Somerville's PA's Lounge, she played in a diaphanous blue, high-collared ankle-length dress. Her hair was held atop her head by a matching ribbon. David Goligorsky, her musical accompaniment, wore a buttoned coat, dress pants and shoes. Their nine-song set was composed almost entirely of pre-war murder ballads. Goligorsky played musical saw while Butters sang and played dulcimer and acoustic guitar. If you ignored the crowd and PA's brews on tap you could have convinced yourself Prohibition was still in effect.

Butters was nothing but demure. She and Goligorsky sat while they played, and between songs Butters fidgeted with her microphone and made disparaging comments about her performance. But despite their understated presence, they held the audience in rapture. There is something mesmerizingly incongruous about Butters' slim, prim countenance imploring her audience, "How came my blood to be on your shirt sleeve?"

She does not write new material, rework traditional songs or modernize their language; even her high falsetto voice sounds like it might have been borrowed from someone decades dead. She owns hundreds of vintage dresses and collects cigarette cases, holy water bottles, compacts and other antique memorabilia. Butters' fixation with the era is more macabre than romantic. When asked, she is quick to say that she doesn't think things were better in the '30s—race relations especially—but believes that, "if I lived in the '30's it wouldn't be my fault when I wasn't happy."

Butters' career goals are as modest as she is. She would like to go on a tour of nursing homes and prisons, and release a full length vinyl record. The prison tour might not happen, she admits, but the record will. In mid-February she is traveling to Kentucky to record the songs in her repertoire. She doesn't have a record deal for what she produces yet, but she is less concerned with that than excited by the prospect of recording on antiquated, analog equipment.

When she's finished with the recording she will return to Somerville, resuming her job as an archivist at Club Passim, her radio show on Wellesley's WZLY and a schedule of performances that will take her through the end of March. Able to perform regularly without soliciting for shows, Butters and Goligorsky could easily be stars of the new folk revival. The only problem with that prospect, for the traditionalist Butters, is that, "if there were a Folk scene now, everyone would be congregating around their computers."

ELIZABETH BUTTERS

TUE. 2.26

CLUB PASSIM

47 PALMER ST.

CAMBRIDGE

617.492.7679

7PM/$5

CLUBPASSIM.ORG

MYSPACE.COM/WINSLOWHEALTHANDHYGIENESERIES