Singer/songwriter Erin Rae has one of those languid, honey-soaked voices that feels much older than its years and wouldn't feel at all out of place among the ladies of Laurel Canyon, if she hadn't been born 40 years too late. In terms of contemporaries, Rae could be likened to Laura Marling and, on the male side, Andrew Combs. That's some pretty good company, right there.
Rae's upcoming album, Soon Enough, is due on September 4. To get us from now to then, Joshua Shoemaker filmed and recorded Rae performing “Clean Slate” at the Crying Wolf in Nashville, TN, along with her band — Molly Parden on vocals, Graham Bechler on drums, Kevin Whitset on bass, and Brett Resnick on pedal steel.
“'Clean Slate' is a song about coming of age, recognizing mistakes, and owning that I've blamed other people and circumstances for my own experience,” Rae says. “It's about no longer needing to shun the less-than-pretty parts of life from memory, and recognizing that each part of life — heartache, sadness, joy, and elation — plays its own valuable part in the whole thing. That it's okay to mess up, and you don't have to act like it never happened to move forward. The freedom comes in accepting and integrating it into my present and future actions and experience.”
Photo by Laura Partain
