Belle of The Fall in Concert at Dedham Square Coffeehouse Friday July 22nd 2016 8:30 - 10:30 PM. Free live music, beer, wine.

Belle of the Fall is Tracy Walton and Julia Autumn Ford; an indie folk duo with a chaser of bad ass.

TW: I imagine Joe Walsh didn’t know he would end up in the Eagles when he sat in with them for the first time. I’m sure Crosby Stills and Nash already thought their name was too long when Neil Young first sang with them. But sometimes things just work and you roll with it.

It started with me producing Julia’s debut at On Deck Sound Studio. We decided that I would play all of the instruments on the album so I told her it would be much easier if she learned how to drive the bus; and an intern was born. A year later and she is now starting to produce other artists here at the studio.

JAF: I finished my EP right after graduating high school, so I decided I wanted to go out on some sort of tour. My initial plan was to just go rogue; me, my guitar, my dog, and my car. However, Tracy and I started talking about touring and I figured I could use a bodyguard anyway. So, we embarked on a journey down the east coast starting in Torrington, our hometown. Fun fact: we saw the Mutt Cutts van from Dumb and Dumber in Knoxville, TN. I even pet it.

We returned to CT 10 days later and realized we didn’t hate each other. There is not much alone time on tour nor personal space (Tracy and I are huge fans of both) so the fact that we still wanted to work together seemed like a good sign; down the east coast we went again in Spring.

TW: The final push:

I love being on stage playing solo. There is a fun dynamic that happens when you are on stage alone with a listening audience in front of you. But I really dread the process of leaving the house. My guitars are already here, a recording studio, a stocked fridge, my cat Levon… Most days I am just as content playing and singing on my porch. Julia on the other hand is not a fan of playing solo and is content to sing for no one, just for the sake of singing. I also wanted to start playing more upright bass again. During the summer of 2015 we decided to start playing all of Julia’s shows as a duo with me on upright. The thought was we would try it for a while and see where it went. It was fairly immediate that there was some magic in the combo. We quickly started adding some of my originals into the set and singing more harmonies. A few weeks in we were no longer doing some duo shows, we became a duo.

JAF: It’s not that I don’t like playing solo, stages just weird me out in general. I’ve never been one to soak up the spotlight. Having Tracy there with me who is well practiced in spotlight soakingupage makes performing a hell of a lot more comfortable.

Moving forward, a badass duo needs a badass name correct? As Tracy said, we started off having him play on my gigs with me so at first we were contemplating the obvious: Julia Autumn Ford duo, Julia Autumn Ford and Tracy Walton duo, Juicy Word, etc. Then out of nowhere Belle of the Fall rose up and sucked us in and now here we are.

TW: Fun Fact II, Being quite independent, Julia did not like the idea of a body guard so she made me teach her some MMA. She now has a pretty serious arm bar and her Americana is no joke.