I saw Those Darlins way back in 2014 at WXPN's Non-COMM-vention. They were one of those groups that I had never heard of before, but were absolutely fabulous in concert. Really, it's one of the best things about Non-COMM. For some of us, we don't know many of the groups doing 30 minute sets over the three nights of the convention, but we walk away fans of a whole bunch of previously "unknown" groups and singer-songwriters.
Since I saw Those Darlins in 2014, I've added a few songs from Those Darlins to my iTunes collection, including a catchy tune called The Whole Damn Thing, and, as it turns out, I already had Those Darlins doing a cover of John Prine's Let's Talk Dirty in Hawaiian. Still, I haven't really followed Those Darlins since 2014. But in researching Those Darlins for this post, I found out some very sad news: The frontwoman of the Nashville group, Jessi Zazu, died in September of last year of cervical cancer. She was 28 years old.
The group had gone on hiatus in early 2016.
To give you an idea of how good this group was, here is a video of Those Darlins doing a version of Then He Kissed Me, a Phil Spector song originally done by the Crystals in 1963. And, as a bonus, here is the Crystals' version of Then He Kissed Me.