Countertenor Reginald Mobley’s Grammy-nominated (and Opus Klassik award-winning) album Because explored the roots of American music blending jazz, soul, blues, and classical genres. Collaborating with Chicago-based lutenist/guitarist Brandon Acker and double-bass and gamba player Doug Balliet, Mobley’s new album features English lute song by Purcell, Dowland, and Eccles, alongside song arrangements by Virginia-born guitar virtuoso, abolitionist, and composer Justin Holland (whom Mobley describes as ‘a spiritual successor to Dowland’). The centerpiece is a sequence of songs on texts by African American haiku poet Crystal Simone Smith which explore “the indomitable resilience contained in the tale of a runaway slave,” composed by Jonathan Woody and Douglas Balliett.