Back in the mid 2000s Alela Diane‘s Gospel Pirate album was ringing my bell and, apparently, it was ringing a lot of other people’s bells, too – especially Europeans. Her debut album, it went gold in France and she’s been able to maintain a pretty decent audience and career across the Atlantic ever since. Meanwhile, at home in the States – she’s based in Portland, Oregon – after 2013, she remained relatively unknown and undiscovered. That was just fine with her. She worked on her music, occasionally flew over to Europe to tour, played local gigs, and raised her two daughters with her husband in their 1892 Victorian mansion. While they were renovating their crazy old house, they also got their daughters a landline and a CD player each, along with their gifting them their old CD collections. Everything was pretty chill and great. Then her friend and mentor Michael Hurley, “the godfather of freak folk,” died last year at the age of 83.
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After playing a tribute show to Michael, she started connecting more with her Portland music community. She would go to shows, invite people like Anna Tivel over, and started collaborating with others in town. This all led to her new album, Who’s Keeping Time? This time around, she is going full bore on a huge tour, traveling roughly 40% of the time from May through December of this year. It feels like a huge return for the singer-songwriter who is feeling so inspired by creating, collaborating, and being in community again.
Photo Credit: Lead image by Caleb Gaskins. Alternate images by Camille Bruya, and Kelsey Gallagher.
