The Welcome Wagon

The Welcome Wagon

The Welcome Wagon is a folk duo from the United States made up of Monique Aiuto and Vito Aiuto. The group begins as a husband-and-wife project, with the two singing together at home before expanding into small live performances in bars, parties and seminaries around New York City, often with friends adding upright bass, drums, piano and banjo. Their music is rooted in gospel and hymn traditions, and is described as modest, melodic and plain in style.

Origins and members

Vito Aiuto, who is also known as the Reverend Thomas Vito Aiuto, is born in Tecumseh, Michigan. He studies at Western Michigan University, where he develops an interest in poetry, and publishes a first book of poems, Self-Portrait as Jerry Quarry, through New Issues Press in 2002. After a spiritual conversion at the age of 20, he enrols at Princeton Theological Seminary to study theology and prepare for ordained ministry. He later becomes the senior pastor of Resurrection Presbyterian Church, which he plants in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2005.

Monique Aiuto is raised on a farm in the same small town as Vito, with a father described as a gentleman farmer and a mother who teaches choir. After high school, she moves to New York City and studies art at Cooper Union, where she earns a BFA, and then at Columbia University, where she earns an MFA. She works as a pre-school teacher, a craftmaker for Martha Stewart, and as a mother, and also serves as the duo’s resident visual artist.

Recording and releases

The Welcome Wagon’s debut album, Welcome to the Welcome Wagon, presents their home-sung hymns with production and arrangements by Sufjan Stevens. Their second album, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, is an alt-folk release with a looser, janglier sound, produced by Alexander Foote. Foote also plays guitars, organ, autoharp, percussion and some piano on the record. Stevens contributes banjo, piano and choir vocals on several tracks.

Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices is recorded over five days in the library of an old rectory in Brooklyn, while the first album is recorded over the course of eight years in various venues.

Style

The group’s songs draw on sacred song traditions and retain the private, informal character of their origin as home performances. Their music is described as gospel, folk and alt-folk, with arrangements that can include brass, guitar riffs, piano codas, harmonica and choral parts, but with the core remaining a pastor and his wife singing together.