WATCH: Jr Williams, “Railroad Town Without a Train”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jr Williams
Hometown: Irvine, Kentucky
Song: “Railroad Town Without a Train”
Album: Railroad Town
Label: Mountain Fever Records

In Their Words: “When Mark Hodges and I talked about me recording a solo project, he mentioned some writers that would have material I could look through. One of the first songs was by Tim Stafford and Thomm Jutz, called ‘Railroad Town Without a Train.’ Listening to it twice, I knew I had to record it. It reminds me so much of my hometown, and the railroad yards left pretty much abandoned by a drop in the coal industry. I also realized there were many towns like this in Eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and I’m sure the Carolinas. I knew that it would resonate with a lot of people in this region. I’ve had tremendous feedback from it and appreciate the guys for such an incredible tune.” – Jr Williams

Photo Credit: Stuart Rose

LISTEN: The Whitmore Sisters, “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Whitmore Sisters
Hometown: residing in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California; from Denton, Texas
Song: “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter”
Album: Ghost Stories
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “Several of the songs on Ghost Stories were inspired from the loss of friends. I penned this tune with Bonnie Montgomery via The House of Songs and it was inspired by the love and close friendship of Chris Porter, a singer-songwriter who died tragically on tour in 2016. Porter was many things to a lot of people, but his humor and his ability to spin a yarn was pretty remarkable. Even when you were present in the events of the story, Porter had a way of telling it that always seemed more interesting than what my mind could recall. The tall tales of Porter live on in the song that is dressed in Cajun fiddle from my sister Eleanor and accordion from Dirk Powell.” – Bonnie Whitmore

Photo Credit: Vanessa Dingwell

10 Old Sweet Songs That Keep Ray Charles on Our Mind

Posted on by Editor

The musical and cultural impact of Ray Charles is extraordinary and spans the pantheon of American popular music. He was an outstanding multi-instrumentalist (though best known for piano and alto sax), vocalist, bandleader, songwriter and composer in the non-lyrical sense. His innovations include helping craft and popularize the secularization of gospel music, now otherwise known as soul, and bringing new attention and expanded audiences to country music, which was the earliest idiom he loved and played before blues, jazz, R&B, or soul.

Though his earliest material was heavily influenced by Charles Brown and Nat “King” Cole, Charles (full name Ray Charles Robinson) quickly developed a highly stylized, immediately recognizable singing and playing approach. He became an expressive, evocative vocalist, one of the finest interpretative singers of all time, and a skilled improviser as an instrumentalist, able to deliver intense and memorable melodic statements or energetic solos while heading either small combos or large bands.

Charles is remembered as a trailblazer on the music business side as well, signing a contract in the early ’60s that gave him creative control over his sessions, something that allowed him to record in genres that many felt Black artists should avoid. The extensive list of Ray Charles’ achievements include 18 Grammy Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors, the National Medal of Arts and the Polar Music Prize, as well as a Lifetime Grammy Achievement Award and 10 recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Among the 2021 inductees into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Ray Charles is finally earning his place in the Veterans Era category.

The Ray Charles Foundation released the new box set, True Genius – The Ultimate Ray Charles Collection (Tangerine), in September, roughly two weeks before what would be Charles’ 91st birthday. The six-disc, 90-song collection is unquestionably the most comprehensive sampler available of his music from 1960 until his passing in 2004. It combines vintage, familiar hits with many previously unissued gems, most notably a 1972 Stockholm concert that’s not available other than through purchase of the set. There’s also a wonderful coffee table book with rare photos and comprehensive liner notes from Ray Charles Foundation President Valerie Ervin and music journalist A. Scott Galloway. A special message from Quincy Jones concludes what’s obviously an essential collection for any serious music fan.

Here are our 10 choices for selections from the set, although if we chose these tomorrow we might easily pick another 10. Ironically, none are Charles compositions, though that wasn’t the intention, and we could certainly go back through and do a separate listing of Charles’ pieces. However I would argue none of those, even some that I’ve loved my entire life, top these 10 renditions of other songwriters’ works.

“Georgia On My Mind”

The official anthem of the Peach State, it was co-written by Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, and was Charles’ first post-Atlantic hit for ABC-Paramount in 1960. It also marked his first collaboration with Sid Feller, who not only produced and arranged, but conducted the recording. Besides being a huge hit, it earned Charles plenty of recognition outside R&B and soul circles while garnering four Grammy Awards.

“Hit The Road Jack”

Percy Mayfield had many immortal R&B hits, but not that many folks are aware he wrote “Hit The Road Jack.” Mayfield even sent it to Art Rupe as an a cappella demo, but Charles transformed it in much the same way Aretha Franklin did Otis Redding’s “Respect.” The song is spiced by the interaction of and exchanges with Margie Hendrix, and it soared to the top of the Billboard pop and R&B charts in 1961, though it had more staying power on the R&B side. It topped that chart for five weeks, and ultimately won a Grammy for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording.

“I Can’t Stop Loving You”

Don Gibson’s original recording from 1957 is tremendous, but Charles’ 1962 rendition introduced a host of listeners who weren’t regular country fans to the song’s lyrical and musical potency, It was also the tune that turned Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music into a powerhouse anthem. The song remained atop the Billboard pop charts for five weeks. When John Belushi did a straight-up masterful imitation of Charles’ singing that tune on Saturday Night Live years later, it cemented how much it resonated in the lives of ’60s music fans.

“You Don’t Know Me”

While Eddy Arnold did a wonderful version of Cindy Walker’s “You Don’t Know Me” in 1955, Charles enjoyed another huge crossover hit off the Modern Sounds LP in 1962. That one didn’t make it to the top as it peaked at No. 2. It also didn’t enjoy as much acclaim or praise, but it’s every bit as magnificent in terms of performance.

“Busted”

Harlan Howard saw his 1962 gem become a hit in two different, yet related styles. Johnny Cash had a country hit, then Ray Charles did a fabulous soul version that earned him the 1963 Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording. Interestingly, the Cash and Charles versions vocally aren’t that far apart, though the arrangements and overall performances reflect the different production approaches.

“Crying Time”

Buck Owens’ original was the B-side of his bigger single, “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail,” in 1964. The Ray Charles version two years later proved a much bigger hit, though not a pop chart smash in the manner of some past Charles country covers. It did earn a pair of Grammy awards, plus enjoyed Top 10 pop and R&B success. It was even a number one hit on, of all things, the Easy Listening chart. Charles would later join Barbra Streisand in a duet rendition on a 1973 TV special that wasn’t quite as memorable as the ’66 single.

“Let’s Go Get Stoned”

This song was recorded first by the Coasters in 1965, and later by Ronnie Milsap as the B-side to the single “Never Had It So Good” that same year. But the Charles version, powered by his dynamic lead vocals, soared to number one in 1966. The song actually had an ironic feel for Charles, who recorded it shortly after getting out of rehab, where he kicked a 16-year heroin addiction. This was among the earliest hits for the famed husband/wife songwriting and performing duo Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson, joined on it by Josephine Armstead.

“Living for the City”

The very first album a young, fledgling artist named Stevie Wonder recorded was A Tribute to Uncle Ray in 1962. Some 13 years later, Charles would repay the honor with this glittering cover of Wonder’s valiant hit from the Innervisions album. Charles would eventually win another Grammy for his rendition, though this wasn’t as big a hit on the contemporary R&B side.

“Seven Spanish Angels”

This tune co-written by Troy Seals and Eddie Setser proved a big duet hit for Charles and longtime friend and chess partner Willie Nelson. The song featured Charles doing the first verse, first and second choruses, with Nelson singing the second verse and joining Charles on the outro. Interestingly, this became the biggest country hit Charles ever enjoyed in terms of chart position, as it spent one week at number one and remained on the charts for 12 weeks. It was initially released on Charles’ 1984 LP Friendship, and then again on Nelson’s 1985 compilation release, Half Nelson.

“I Can See Clearly Now”

This is famous more for when it was performed than the fact it was one of the few reggae tunes Ray Charles ever covered. The Johnny Nash original was the first reggae song to top the American charts in 1972, but Charles gave it new fame when he performed it as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1977.

Photo Credit: Norman Seef

North Carolina’s Balsam Range Travel Through Life With ‘Moxie and Mettle’

Posted on by Editor

For nearly 15 years, Balsam Range have distinguished themselves in the bluegrass community as powerful performers and musicians, even winning an IBMA Award for Entertainer of the Year in 2018. While it is notable for a bluegrass band to have maintained its original members for so long, it is perhaps more remarkable that its five members all grew up within the same region of Western North Carolina.

With a diverse array of influences held together by the common thread of their geography and formative musical years, Buddy Melton (fiddle), Darren Nicholson (mandolin), Dr. Marc Pruett (banjo), Caleb Smith (guitar) and Tim Surrett (bass, dobro) create music that is rooted in the traditions of their youth but not confined to typical genre norms. Their newest album, Moxie and Mettle, explores themes of uncertainty and a sense of powerlessness that will likely resonate with listeners’ own experiences during the pandemic. Similarly, the theme of trying to feel content with one’s life can be felt on tracks such as “Richest Man,” named the 2021 IBMA Song of the Year.

The Bluegrass Situation spoke with Buddy Melton and Tim Surrett over Zoom.

BGS: What was the timeline of making this record around the pandemic? Was it something you were working on and then had to slow down, or were you working on while things were shut down?

Melton: We were in that stage where we needed to move forward with a new project, but we had been so busy it was getting difficult to find time to work up new material and get in the studio. We took advantage of the shutdown. It gave us something to focus on and keep the positive efforts and creative side of us together. We’d worked up a lot of the songs prior to that, but that time off allowed us to get busy and find the remaining songs and round out a good record.

I’ve heard lots of artists say the same thing. The shutdown gave them more time than usual to listen to and refine the recordings they made during it.

Surrett: Yeah, we just did it a little bit at a time. We’d get together and work up two or three songs and go record them. Then a couple of months later, we’d do the same thing again. It’s always a fun process for us to get together and just listen to songs and then tear into them.

Melton: Sometimes we work better with a deadline. So, it was bad for us to have that time in a way, because we didn’t push it too hard. It was fun and relaxing. I will say it was a different dynamic, not feeling rushed, and we just decided when we’ve got enough completed, we’ll worry about the record, but let’s use this as an opportunity to stay together and be creative as we can together.

What’s important to you when you’re picking songs? Is there something that speaks to you? Are there themes that you usually gravitate towards when choosing material?

Surrett: Well, for years, we kept getting the train songs. We had some good ones like “Trains I Missed” and what not. But no, I don’t think we look for a certain theme. The first thing I look for is if something is interesting musically. And then a song that tells the story is a great thing. And we’re blessed with songwriters like Milan Miller and Adam Wright who can write a little three-minute movie in a song, and it’s got interesting chords, or something that we feel like we can arrange. That gets us fired up.

Melton: I don’t know why it is, but by the time the albums are over with, for some reason, they sometimes have a common theme. I don’t know if subconsciously we are connecting with that message. And this particular one, Moxie and Mettle, has a lot of “traveling through life” sort of vibes about the songs with “Richest Man,” and “Grit and Grace,” and “Rivers, Rains and Runaway Trains,” and “Traveling Blues.” I don’t know if we’re missing that element in our lives and that’s why migrated to that. We also like to incorporate original artwork if we can. All of our album covers have been paintings for the most part. As we got to the end of it and start looking at the graphics and start talking about the pictures, we ended up using this Adam Wright painting of an old car sitting at an intersection. You’re wondering which way is it going to go but it’s just traveling, trying to get through life, and it seemed to fit the vibe of this record to me.

I was wondering about that, because after I listened to the record a couple of times, I had my own interpretation of the theme, and I was wondering if you went in with a theme, or came out on the back end with one.

Melton: We didn’t intend to have anything. But again, I think a lot of those songs have some similar storylines and meanings to them.

There are a lot of references to taking stock of life and trying to figure out what’s important, which everybody had to do, even if they weren’t consciously thinking about that kind of thing.

Melton: You could probably pull that out of just about every song on that record. It’s about being content with where you are in life, etc. So, they all have some similar thoughts, I think.

I know you guys are very involved in the Western North Carolina music scene. Could you tell me a little bit about the work you guys do in that community?

Surrett: We all grew up in this area. Haywood County is where we all live now but Buddy and Darren are from Jackson County. Music was so much a part of life growing up here in the mountains. Square dancing, clogging, mountain dancing, and old-time music were a huge thing, and you get indoctrinated with it. And there are so many great musicians that still come out of this region. We joke with people all the time that we’re not even sure we’re the best band in Haywood County. There are so many great players that come from this region, and you cannot help being exposed to it, especially growing up when most of us did. It was an enormous part of life here in the mountains. And it’s fun to see that go on as some of us have become elder statesmen of that scene now.

You seem like you are stewards of music in that region, and you run a festival, don’t you?

Melton: Yeah, The Art of Music Festival. It’s coming up in the first week of December. We took that on as a project for our area. We chose the lowest-occupancy weekend of the entire year to see if we could stimulate the economy in our county, just to try to help out. Most people will pick early fall or spring to have an event, so we chose a terrible weekend to try to put on a bluegrass festival. And it’s a really great thing. A lot of work and effort went into it, but it’s not just a bluegrass festival. Our primary desire was to bring some of our favorite artists and music to Haywood County to help to expose the local folks to music they wouldn’t necessarily hear otherwise. We have an orchestra that comes in, we bring some of our favorite studio musicians, we have full-scale bands with piano, drum, steel guitars, the whole bit, but then we’ll have bluegrass bands like Blue Highway and The Cleverlys. It’s been fun to create something. The opportunity to have a music festival that is open to anything we want to do with it. I think that’s important. It helps our music grow and it exposes people to our music that come for other reasons.

You draw from a wide range of influences and bring it into your sound. Is that something you actively try to do, or does it come naturally because you all listen to a lot of different music?

Surrett: All of us come from different musical backgrounds. Darren loves country music. Caleb and myself both come from a gospel music background with a giant love for jazz music. And for me, personally, I like the rock ‘n’ roll that I grew up on. So we’ve got a Beatles tune, we’ve got Allman Brothers. Marc, of course, thinks there’s two kinds of music: Flatt & Scruggs music and not Flatt & Scruggs music. Buddy’s got the gift of finding great songs and listening to songwriters. That’s where the majority of our songs come from. But nothing has ever really been off-limits. Everybody’s got a voice and if they bring it in we’ll give it a whirl. By the time we play it and sing it, it’s going to sound like us. We’ll give anything a try. But we haven’t tried Pink Floyd or anything like that yet.

Sounds like that’s what’s next.

Surrett: It’s not off the table.

Melton: We all grew up around this area where we were influenced by this common thread of Southern Appalachian culture and music. We all understand those timings and those concepts. We’ve all been around it our whole life. So, you go away and you learn different things, and when you come back, that history is the glue that puts it all together. Just like all our accents are the same. We don’t have family harmony. We got country harmony. That’s part of it. We don’t put t’s in “mountains.” It definitely helps to have some similar dialogue and accents and phrasing and stuff like that.

Surrett: It’s a rare thing for, as you well know, a bluegrass band to have five guys from the same ten-mile radius. It’s not a family relations-type thing, as far as we know. But it definitely brings a thread of commonness.

Melton: January will be 15 years, basically. That’s a long time for a bluegrass band of the same five guys to stay around.

Yeah, that’s amazing for a band when you can anticipate other people’s next move.

Surrett: We have several points in our program that are not really scripted. They just kind of organically happen. We know where it’s going, and you can feed off that and let songs change and morph. And it’s a lot of fun like that.

Melton: We’re just grateful to still be together after 15 years and for the many great people we’ve met along the road that we’ve missed seeing over the last year and a half. We’re so happy to see the music scene coming back around. Hopefully, we can all do a part to keep that alive. Like many things when you don’t have it is when you realize you need it. And music is so important to people’s lives. As it’s building back, it almost seems like there’s even more excitement prior to the shutdown. So, we’re just grateful for that and excited to be a part of it.

Photo Credit: David Simchock

WATCH: Rakish, “New Shoe Maneuver”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Rakish (Maura Shawn Scanlin, fiddle & Conor Hearn, guitar)
Hometown: Boston-Based (Conor is from Washington D.C., Maura is from Boone, North Carolina)
Song: “New Shoe Maneuver”
Album: Counting Down the Hours
Release Date: February 4, 2022

In Their Words: “This tune formed during a phase in which I was exploring the possibilities of three-part tune writing. There’s something about adding a third section that opens a tune up to more melodic and harmonic variety that is so hard to beat. The tune stems from the language of the bagpipes; it draws on much of the compact and cyclical melodic ideas that are at the center of the piping style. The idea for the name came about when I went over to Conor’s place to play some music and discovered that we’d both bought pretty much identical new running shoes without talking to one another about it. The title is a reflection of that coincidence. We had a really special time getting to make the live video of this track, which is the first single off of our upcoming album, Counting Down the Hours. It was filmed at a great neighborhood gallery near us called Gallery 263 on one of the last hot days of the summer with Dan Jentzen filming and Peter Atkinson audio engineering.” — Maura Shawn Scanlin, Rakish

Photo credit: Dan Jentzen

LISTEN: Thomas Cassell, “New November”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Thomas Cassell
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “New November”

In Their Words: “When Tim Stafford showed me this song several years ago, I knew that I wanted to record it. Things didn’t line up then, but I was elated to release it as a single following. The writers (Stafford and Graham Sharp) penned an excellent modern bluegrass song about climate change. Particularly, it excites me to present this very modern and important topic through something as old and familiar as bluegrass music, and I hope that will communicate the issue to some folks that may not hear about or consider it otherwise. ‘New November’ is the second single from an upcoming release, TBA. Joining me on the track are Dale Ann Bradley and Dan Boner on vocals, Tim Stafford on guitar, Julian Pinelli on fiddle, Jacob Metz on dobro, and Vince Ilagan on bass.” — Thomas Cassell

Photo Credit: Ben Bateson

WATCH: Mile Twelve, “Romulus”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mile Twelve
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Romulus”

In Their Words: “Sometimes when you start writing a song you know exactly what it’s going to be about, and sometimes you have no idea. This was the latter. It was a total collage of phrases and images set to music, just bits of language that seemed to sing themselves over the melody. The line ‘wolves in the hills’ reminded me of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of the Roman Empire. The song started to make sense to me at that point. Here’s Romulus, this king who has accomplished so much, looking back on his life and wondering what the point of it all was, and maybe missing his one real friend in the world: His brother who he himself killed. We shot this video in the backyard of Brad Kolodner’s childhood home in Baltimore, Maryland. Brad’s been a great friend and supporter of the band since the start, and it was so great of him to lend this space to us for the day.” — Evan Murphy, Mile Twelve

Photo Credit: Dave Green Photography

LISTEN: Gov’t Mule, “Make It Rain” (Tom Waits Cover)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Gov’t Mule
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina.
Song: “Make It Rain” (Tom Waits cover)
Album: Heavy Load Blues
Release Date: November 12, 2021
Label: Fantasy Records

In Their Words: “When recording the album, I had brought in this old Fender spring reverb unit that I wanted to use on my guitar sound. They can be pretty finicky. If the stage isn’t solid, or somebody’s jumping up and down, it reacts by making this crazy reverb vibration that comes through the amp. I had intentionally set it up on the studio floor to make it kind of shockproof, but what we didn’t allow for was some radio frequencies that randomly interfered and set it off. So, it started making these weird sounds that sounded like thunder. We were in the middle of what turned out to be the best take of ‘Make It Rain’ and it began doing that throughout the whole thing. As it turned out, it happened in these key spots in the song. When we were finished and listened to it with engineer and co-producer John Paterno, we decided to use it. It actually sounded like we planned it that way!” — Warren Haynes, Gov’t Mule

Photo Credit: Jay Sansone

The Show on the Road – The Felice Brothers

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we call into the Catskills of New York for a deep conversation with James Felice: accordionist, pianist, songwriter and co-founder of fun-house-mirror Americana group, The Felice Brothers.

Powered by RedCircle

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
 

James started the band with his brothers (poet lead singer Ian) and percussionist Simone in 2006 as a busking folk pop experiment with a literary rebel streak within the subways of New York City. They’ve joined roots-pop luminaries like Bright Eyes at venues as storied as Radio City Music Hall — but somehow the gritty, back-alley bar seems like their natural habitat. Ian, James and their longtime quartet (Will Lawrence and bassist Jesske Hume round out the band) returned after years of hibernation to release their daring party-through-the-apocalypse rollercoaster of a new LP From Dreams To Dust in 2021 on Yep Roc Records.

Some bands record at home, or maybe in tricked-out cabins or plush studios, but The Felice Brothers seem to make records that use their unique and often bizarre surroundings as an added character in the band. Their beloved self-titled record, which came out 2008, feels like a gin-soaked saloon party where Hemingway and Lou Reed and Sly Stone would join in on swaying sing-alongs besides a sweat-soaked piano. It was somehow recorded in a converted chicken coop, while their brassy, bizarro-rock romp Celebration, Florida (2011) was recorded in a booming high school gymnasium. “Honda Civic” is a musical-theater-esque favorite, with an explosion at the local Wonder Bread warehouse taking center stage in the narrative. Does any of it make sense? Does it matter?

Their newest work is a more emotional, sonically lush, storytelling-driven operation, having been recorded in a church in Harlemville, New York, with award-winning mixer Mike Mogis at the helm. Mortality takes the spotlight. Ian Felice is in rare form here, spitting more words and setting more strange scenes per song than most slam-poets or absurdist playwrights. The lead song, “Jazz on the Autobahn,” has become a staple on Americana radio, showcasing what TFB have always done best: taking their listeners on a white-knuckle ride that has no predicable end or resolve in sight.

WATCH: Maya de Vitry, “Dogs Run On”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Maya de Vitry
Hometown: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Song: “Dogs Run On”
Album: Violet Light
Release Date: January 28, 2022
Label: Mad Maker Studio

In Their Words: “I grew up with a black lab named Georgia who was like a fifth sibling in our family. A little while after Georgia passed away, my parents got another black lab named Sylvie (she’s the one in this video). A lot of my musician friends got to meet Sylvie over the years, snuggling with her for a little bit while passing through Pennsylvania on tours. When Sylvie got sick in 2020, I really thought I was going to get to see her again, and at first I wrote a completely different song — it was called ‘Hold On, Sylvie.’ I finally realized I just wasn’t going to get to see her again, and the song became ‘Dogs Run On.’ My parents cared for their sweet friend until the difficult end, and Sylvie passed away in the sunshine in my mom’s arms in November 2020. Many thanks to Chris ‘Critter’ Eldridge for embodying the playful spirit of dogs in his gorgeous lead guitar playing on this track. Critter, Kristin Andreassen, and Ethan Jodziewicz are all such dog lovers, and it was really meaningful to make this song with them. This song is for all the best dogs, running through our hearts forever.” — Maya de Vitry

Photo Credit: Laura Partain