Standout Track: No. 4, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.” When Suzanne Turner imagines singing this classic, she pictures herself in a slinky red dress, backed by a band of handsome men in tuxes. In reality, her bandmates in the The Distillers {American Roots} are wearing jeans and flannel shirts. The Distillers (who employ the “American Roots” parenthetical to distinguish themselves from the L.A.-based punk band) are a Northern Virginia folk quartet out to prove that Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s torch song sounds better on the banjo.

Musical Motivation: YouTube. That’s how The Distillers discovered that George Harrison plays the ukulele on his recording of this tune, released posthumously on Brainwashed. Harrison’s popular rendition proved the standard could handle alternative instrumentation.

The Roasting Chestnuts: Turner is best known locally as the lead singer of Divine Nation, a driving rock band she fronted from 2008 to 2011. After a 2009 gig, Bob Freeman approached her and asked, “Can you sing Irish music?” She went to his house and gave it a shot. “I didn’t know it was a pseudo-audition,” she said. Turner sang with Freeman and a few friends at a solstice concert. They called themselves The Roasting Chestnuts, but soon figured out they had something good going, and it wasn’t the name. “If you would have told me four years ago I’d be singing in a band with a banjo, I would have giggled, but I never would have believed you,” Turner says.