The Weed Tree

"Black Is the Colour", properly "Black Is the Color (of My True Love's Hair)" (Roud 3103) is a traditional ballad folk song known in the US as associated with colonial and later music in the Appalachian Mountains. It is believed to have originated in Scotland, as it refers to the River Clyde in the lyrics. American musicologist Alan Lomax supported the thesis of Scottish origin, saying that the song was an American "re-make of British materials". Versions of the song have been recorded by many artists. Read more on Last.fm.

Espers was an American psychedelic folk band from Philadelphia, PA, United States. After going on hiatus after their fourth album, III, was released in 2009, the band reunited for a trio of performances in 2018 and considered writing new material but decided against it. The band formed in 2002 as a trio of singer-songwriter Greg Weeks, Meg Baird and Brooke Sietinsons but later expanded to a sextet including Otto Hauser, Helena Espvall and Chris Smith. Their music was reminiscent of late-sixties British folk such as that of Fairport Convention, Pentangle and The Incredible String Band as well as many contemporary folk acts such as Six Organs of Admittance, Marissa Nadler and Nick Castro and as such their work is often lumped in with the so-called New Weird America movement or naturalismo as Devendra Banhart preferred to coin it in 2006. Most of the band's members have also featured on recordings by a number of other folk artists, old and new, such as Nick Castro and Vashti Bunyan and as a result have become an important part of the psych-folk revival. The band released their self-titled debut, Espers, in 2004 to much acclaim and followed that with an album of cover songs, The Weed Tree, in 2005. This release featured the band's versions of songs by artists as diverse as Nico, The Durutti Column and Blue Oyster Cult. In 2006 the band released their third full-length Espers II on Drag City Records. Their fourth album, Espers III, was released on October 20, 2009. Their first two albums were reissued by Drag City in 2020. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.