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The Goose Is Getting Fat is all about acoustic duets, and Dakota Dave Hull and Kari Larson combine for a fabulous instrumental holiday offering. First of all, these artists are undeniably excellent; Hull is an exceptional guitarist of national renown, and Larson is a mandolin master. Second, Goose is not just another Christmas guitar album (there are quite a few fine ones around); instead, Hull & Larson astound with duets that present diverse acoustic voices from the ukulele to the mandocello, the flat-top to the piccolo guitar, and beyond. These musical conversations are just the ticket for a heartwarming evening of holiday revelrie with family and friends around your hearth.

Delivering 22 tracks over nearly an hour, Hull & Larson please with every piece, mixing moods throughout. I particularly loved the rich and melancholy Frost and Fire Medley and the sweetly straightforward All Through the Night. Many cuts present the sprightly side of the season, including the rollicking Jingle Bells (with its mild island vibe) and the high-spirited Joy to the World. Most surprisingly, these artists turn the sometimes irritating Chipmunk Song into a tenderly ingratiating holiday offering. Amazing!

Afficionados of acoustic guitar will swoon over Hull & Larson's The Goose Is Getting Fat. It's a gas!

--Carol Swanson
(Reviewed in 2007)

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From the liner notes:

Dakota Dave Hull (guitar, piccolo guitar, Weissenborn)
Kari Larson (guitar, tenor guitar, mandolin, mando-cello, ukulele)

Produced by Dakota Dave Hull and Kari Larson

We've been talking about doing a Christmas album for a couple of years now. We asked our friends, families and fellow musicians what they thought of the idea, and, as you can see, the "ayes" had it. Most of these tunes are familiar to all of us; we grew up with them and they're part of our consciousness. We threw in a couple of unusual ones just because we liked them.

We are repeatedly amazed to discover that the same sources inspired us long before we began playing together. One such example is the Watersons' Frost and Fire album which inspired one of our medleys on this album. In this spirit of far-flung and common influences, here is our answer to the Christmas album question.

From the Website:

Dakota Dave Hull and Kari Larson practically define the art of the guitar duet. And when they're not both playing guitar--when,for instance, Dave's on ukulele and Kari's on mandolin--they're creating and defining a whole other kind of sound. Whatever the stringed instruments they happen to be holding at any given moment, the music that flows out of them is of the kind only the hands of masters could have released. Or as Flatpicking Guitar Magazine puts it, "They enter each musical room, decorate it beautifully, and then they live in it, bringing the music to life from the inside."
Hull and Larson's musical mansion has many rooms, reflecting their encyclopedic knowledge--and command--of folk, pop, world, jazz, and classical musics. Here you'll find Appalachian tunes, ragtime, Irish airs, Western swing, Brazilian melodies, Tin Pan Alley, and original compositions drawing on these influences and more. All of this is played on a variety of vintage instruments, including acoustic arch-top guitars (of which they are among the few remaining practitioners). They also play National resophonic instruments and, of course, flat-top guitars.

Most of all, though, Hull and Larson--for all their amazing technical expertise--are believers in great melodies and in music that touches listeners, sometimes to make them smile, at other times to move them in the ways that art of beauty and power moves us. Their instruments play more than notes; they become voices. At the conclusion of one concert, a listener expressed her appreciation in these words: "Thanks for singing your guitars for us."

Hull & Larson

The Goose Is Getting Fat

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Track List