Artist:Laura Rabell Hometowns: Pensacola, FL & Charlotte, NC; now in Nashville Song: “This Stone” Album:Immortal Release Date: July 31, 2020
In Their Words: “‘This Stone’ turned out to be prophetic. It foreshadowed some important emotional truths I ended up having to face. And I’ll be damned if the Pfaltzgraff wedding china I inherited from my grandmother didn’t literally start cracking and falling apart! Be careful what you write, I guess… ‘This Stone’ is about really trying to make something work, but coming to the realization that it never will. That you can keep on being miserable or make a change. It’s a song about walking away. After all was said and done and the recording was finished, my husband and I had survived an incredibly stressful and tumultuous year thanks to my cancer diagnosis, which inevitably spilled over into our marriage. But this song gave me a precious gift — it was an outlet for all those feelings that were deep beneath the surface.” — Laura Rabell
Just beyond the fuzzy boundaries of roots and Americana music, we find Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Becca Stevens – at least, we hope you have found her. With a complex musical language drawn from folk, jazz, classical, and pop, her output is searching, challenging, and ever-evolving.
A graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and the New School in New York, Stevens leaps from American public radio to European tours to collaborations with the likes of Jacob Collier, Snarky Puppy, and recently folk icon David Crosby. She is among host Craig Havighurt’s favorite artists working today, so he sought out an interview and was excited and loaded with questions when she said yes. Her newest album is the shiny and electric Wonderbloom.
An instrument as agèd, storied, and established as the violin — henceforth in this piece obstinately referred to as “fiddle” — carries with it vestiges and artifacts of its own history into any/all of its new musical forays. It’s one of the most charming qualities of the instrument, that whether a rosin-laden bow grinds and saws against the strings or whether it floats, gently ringing an intransigent harmonic, a fiddle is still a fiddle. It is the sum of its disparate parts.
Many virtuosos, hobbyists, and career musicians have staked their entire artistic worldviews on the paradoxes contained within the instrument. We in roots music quite often enjoy the musical aftereffects, songs and compositions that gleefully train magnifying glasses on paradigms such as classical versus jazz, old-time tunes versus minuets and cadenzas, or perhaps a chamber orchestra versus a square dance band. Ross Holmes, a session player, composer, and fiddler (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Mumford & Sons), counts himself among the violinist vanguard tinkering with the existential building blocks of the violin fiddle – a tradition and subculture he grew up with. “Overture,” an original, grandiloquent composition from Holmes, is something of a manifesto on the concept. (Listen below.)
The nearly fifteen-minute-long piece is performed entirely solo, beginning with a meditative, droning theme that Holmes describes as a “secular prayer.” As he carefully, intricately unspools each melodic turn, infusions from across the map — geographical and genre — are delivered directly from Holmes’ brain-as-musical-sponge to the listener’s ear. Each fluttering bow stroke, aggressive shuffle, and stunning double-stop speaks to the contributions of the fiddle in nearly every culture on earth. Throughout “Overture,” these global influences reflect the United States’ “melting pot” status — the greater piece for which this is the overture, after all, is titled: American Fiddle Suite. (Its remaining movements are a work-in-progress.)
Fiddling, by its nature, will be an outgrowth of all of the history, culture, and art that has flowed through it over the course of its centuries-long existence. What distinguishes Holmes and “Overture,” however, is the intention with which he connects all of these widespread dots. It makes sense, it’s tangible, and at its essence, it’s beautiful. It’s all the more impressive then, that though “Overture” is an entirely composed, ostensibly “classical” piece, not a note is yet written down. Holmes plays it all by memory — his memory, and the fiddle’s, too.
Artist:Sarah Jarosz Hometown: Wimberley, Texas; now living in New York City Song: “Johnny” Album:World on the Ground Release Date: June 5, 2020 Label: Rounder Records
In Their Words: “The song ‘Johnny’ was one of the first ones I wrote for my new record, and it was the first single I released back in March. I had plans to make a video for it the week that everything went into lockdown, so obviously that didn’t happen! But I was able to head over to a filming studio here in Nashville last month and do a socially distanced shoot, and I’m so happy it’s finally coming out, albeit many months after originally planned.
“Grant Claire put the concept for the video together, which we had to tweak a little bit due to filming limitations. I wound up shooting the whole thing in front of a green screen. But I really loved his vision for it being this colorful, collage-heavy, kind of trippy video for this song. I always have a lot of commentary when working on the visuals that go with my songs, and I really enjoyed working with Grant on this.” — Sarah Jarosz
Artist:Bill Kirchen Hometown: Austin, Texas Latest album:The Proper Years (July 24, 2020) Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): First band name, 1965: The Who Knows Pickers, an acoustic jug band. One gig only, we shared stage with The Iguanas, Jim “Iggy” Osterberg on drums.
Which artist has influenced you the most… and how?
I have to go all the way back to Pete Seeger. I learned my first string instrument, the 5-string banjo, from his instructional book and record, and had lots of his recordings from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. He was an ecstatic singer, very successful and influential songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Soft-spoken on stage, he was most definitely outspoken politically his entire career, always for racial equality, workers rights, and freedom of speech. In the early 1950s McCarthy era, he went up against the powerful but later utterly disgraced House Un-American Activity Committee. He earned himself a career-hijacking blacklist that lasted years by asserting his constitutional rights and refusing to name names and implicate others. He never backed down. His performing career spanned nearly 70 years. I saw him in the mid-’60s many times, then again in the ’90s.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I wanted to be a musician as soon as I figured I could sing a song. I have early memories of being a toddler lumbering around, singing along with my cardboard record (yep, they existed!) of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” At 8 I learned trombone, then played it in orchestras and bands until the mid-’60s folk scare lured me away. As for wanting to be a professional musician, I guess getting my first paying gig in ’64 or ’65 cemented that desire. I certainly never thought, “I’ll just do this for a bit then quit and get a job.”
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Not clear on the concept here, but it sounds interesting and I’ll give it a try. I certainly never had a mission statement, rather I just got in the canoe and now here I am and where I’ll be next, I don’t know. So here are my suggestions to the young me: Bill! You know you love listening to, singing, whistling music all the time. That’s super important, don’t let go. Learn to play an instrument as soon as they’ll let you, then learn some others. Play with folks, preferably better than you. Take any opportunity you can to go hear live music. Now don’t blow this one: you liked the 1963 Blues at Newport record and Mississippi John Hurt. Well, you are within hitchhiking distance of the ’64 Newport Folk Festival, he’s gonna be there, Dylan too, go do it. Sleep on the beach, whatever, it’ll all work out. Then do the same in ’65, trust me. Many of the extraordinary people you will see will be gone less than 10 years later. Then before the ’60s are over, move away from your Ann Arbor hometown. Try San Francisco. Travel everywhere and play as much you can. Pull up roots and move across country a couple more times, find more kindred spirits and play with them. Just get in the canoe. You’ll be surprised.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
The toughest time I always have writing is making myself sit down and do it. I love the process when I get rolling, but I don’t have a burning desire to bare my soul in verse and melody, then buttonhole folks and make ‘em listen. But I enjoy making up my own songs, lots of perspiration plus a little inspiration. Then again I wouldn’t mind just singing Haggard and Dylan songs all day. Couldn’t really ask people to pay for that, I know. As the great Roger Miller said writing a hit song is just like taking candy from a gorilla.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I hid behind characters a lot early on. Wrote a lot of truck-driving songs, though I’m not and don’t want to be a truck driver. It was a legitimate sub-genre when I discovered country music, and I do come by a love of the road and travel honestly. As for finger-pointing songs, I’m usually not a big fan. And you know what they say, when I point my finger there are three more pointing back at me. Oops.
I didn’t let myself write songs that were more personal and closer to the bone until I started making records under my own name in the ’90s. When I went to England to record my first record for Proper, Hammer of The Honky-Tonk Gods, it was with Nick Lowe and the band with which we’d recorded and toured the world several years before. Nick is one of my favorite songwriters and I remember thinking, dang, I can’t just show up with a bunch of I’m A Burly Truck Driver songs. I’ve got to get closer to the bone and try a little harder.
It’s rare for Billy Strings to play a show in Nashville. This month, he’s doing nine of them.
The reigning IBMA Guitar Player of the Year will be hopping from venue to venue as part of a livestream series that serves as a fundraiser for important organizations, as well as a reunion with his band. He’ll launch the series at Nashville’s newest venue, Brooklyn Bowl, for a pair of shows on July 16 and 17. The run concludes on July 26 at 3rd & Lindsley. (Get the details.)
“Those are my boys and I’m just lucky to play with them,” he says of mandolinist Jarrod Walker, banjo player Billy Failing, and bassist Royal Masat. “I haven’t been able to hang with them a bunch. We went from being around each other 24/7, for months and months and months on end, to never seeing each other, period. So I’m just excited to get back together with my band, and not only play music, but just to be with them, and hang out, and make jokes. I just love those guys, you know?”
With time off the road, Billy Strings says he’s been redirecting his attention to his other hobbies, including fishing and hot rods. Looking ahead, he’ll also compete for IBMA’s 2020 Entertainer of the Year – his first time nominated in that category. (He’s also the reigning champ in the New Artist category, as well as Guitar Player of the Year.) In between visits to the lake and the garage, he called in to BGS.
BGS: Do you think you’ll approach each of these nine shows differently?
Billy Strings: Yeah, we usually try to do that anyway with the set lists. Each show has its own set list and its own vibe. It depends on where we are and where we’re playing. When I write the set list, a lot of times I take into consideration geographic locations or famous people that may have lived around there. Anything like that I can throw into the set to make it relevant. So, yeah, for each show, we’re going to approach them just like we would in that way.
Also, we might cater to the specific venues. We’re playing the Station Inn and that’s a classic bluegrass place, so we might play a bunch of bluegrass that night. We’re playing Exit/In and City Winery and those are different vibes. City Winery can be our real classy, Frank Sinatra show, and at Exit/In we can get really psychedelic and rock out.
You’ll have an international audience tuning into these shows, so this is a chance for people who have never been to Nashville to see what it’s like. For those who may not understand the diversity of the music community here, how would you describe it to them?
It’s a big melting pot. Like you said, it’s very diverse. And there’s a lot of younger musicians that are on fire! Marcus King and Molly Tuttle and Sierra Hull… just so many people that are killing it. They all live around there. It’s a really great place to be as a musician. There are always people to make music with, and to pick with, and write music with. We’ll see if we can get a couple of guests to come down. Yeah, Nashville’s just crazy, man. You walk into the grocery store and you run into your favorite musician.
There’s money being raised through these concerts, and one of the beneficiaries is Backline, which supports mental health in the music industry. What is it about Backline that made you want to include them?
I, myself, personally have struggled with anxiety and panic attacks on tour, on the bus, on stage, and there’s a lot of people in the industry that suffer with the same shit. A lot of people may not speak out about it, or try to hide it, or don’t know who to look to for help. We just lost Jeff Austin and we just lost Neal Casal. There are a couple of other folks that are good friends of mine, that are traveling musicians that have been working so hard, and I think that has a huge deal to do with anxiety and depression.
I mean, when you’re in the limelight and you’re on stage and everybody wants to take your picture all the time, a lot of times it almost can be lonely. You never get any alone time and it can get weird. I know Jeff probably struggled with that. He told me about how he struggled being in the limelight and everybody critiquing his every move and everything he does is under scrutiny. That’s not a good place to be. …
The music industry can be really tough, believe it or not, for people who are on the stage and for people who are in the crews. There are plenty of organizations that help with that, whether it’s getting musicians health insurance or dental work or finding somebody a therapist. Backline is a huge, generalized hub where you can research and find all those different organizations and read about what is the right direction for you. You can even get with somebody on Backline and they’ll help you figure it out.
Well, because there’s a huge movement happening right now that I think is very important. Black people have been treated like shit, a lot, for a long time. And I just want to be on the side of history that is not an asshole. I got a lot of Black friends and my niece is Black. I’ve got family and friends and people that I love — and it shouldn’t even matter. …There’s a lot of miscommunication, a lot of divide, a lot of crazy shit going on in the country right now. I’m just all for love, man. I’m all for equality, I’m all for peace, so I wanted to donate a portion of the proceeds from these events to those organizations, just to help out.
Who are some Black musicians that influenced you?
Jimi Hendrix, definitely. Right off the bat. That’s the first guy I think of. He was amazing. Mississippi John Hurt, you know, he was a huge influence on Merle and Doc Watson. That’s who I grew up listening to, and I heard all that Mississippi John Hurt flavor in Merle Watson’s playing. That comes from the blues, the Delta blues. It goes on to Muddy Waters, B.B. King, all those cats. James Brown, come on!
I mean, without Black music, would there even be rock ‘n’ roll? I don’t even know if there would be bluegrass! Bill Monroe learned the blues from Arnold Schultz, a Black man who got him his first job. If you think about “bluegrass” – the word “blue” is in there from the blues. It’s got blues notes in it. A lot of bluegrass is just fast blues. And that’s Black music. Arnold Schultz taught Bill Monroe about that, and then he incorporated it into his music. All the music that we’re all inspired by has roots in Black music.
You mentioned Doc Watson, and of course he was loved by the folk community and the bluegrass community. Did folk music influence you, coming up?
Yeah, I think there was a point where I really got turned onto Bob Dylan and his lyrics. A lot of the old songs that I grew up playing is considered folk music. The Carter Family stuff and a lot of the Doc Watson stuff. …My friend Benji’s family used to have these gatherings, like family reunions, where they would all play bingo. I went to one of those and won a bingo, so I got to go up to the table and pick a prize. And I picked Blonde on Blonde. …I started really getting into those lyrics and all of those words.
That’s where I started realizing, OK, I like Doc Watson a bunch because he’s such a beautiful guitar player and singer, among many other reasons. Bob Dylan does what Doc Watson does on his guitar with his words. … And then I got into John Hartford really heavy, and if you listen to John Hartford’s early music, man, it is some of the most lyrically proficient stuff you’re ever going to hear! It’s amazing! There’s that old saying, “Three chords and the truth.” I really think there’s something to that. A lot of those old folk songs are so simple, but what they’re saying is so real that it cuts you.
Artist:Molly Tuttle Hometown: Palo Alto, California / Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Standing on the Moon” (Feat. Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes) Album:…but i’d rather be with you Release Date: August 28, 2020 Record Label: Compass Records
In Their Words: “I didn’t grow up listening to a lot of Grateful Dead music, but being raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Dead was part of the mythology of my family and the area I grew up in (kind of how I imagine people who grew up in Tennessee, where I live now, might feel about Dolly Parton). Our specific family lore was that Jerry Garcia had gone to my high school (Palo Alto High) and my mom’s older sister, my Aunt Titia, knew them and used to take guitar lessons from Bob Weir in Menlo Park. That’s a roundabout way of explaining that this song means so much to me, because it brings me back to my roots. Even though I love Nashville, sometimes I do feel like I’m standing on the moon wishing I were with my friends and family in San Francisco. The line, ‘A lovely view of heaven, but I’d rather be with you’ is my favorite and it’s why I named the album …but I’d rather be with you. Life is messy and imperfect but I’d rather be here in it with all of you!” — Molly Tuttle
“One of the greatest feats as a musician, in my opinion, is taking a Grateful Dead song and creating a version of it that goes beyond the stigmatized identity of a ‘Dead Cover.’ It’s hard to do and takes a lot of courage to make it happen. But Molly reached for that brass ring and then somehow even went beyond it. Her version has given the song new parameters, makes me feel new things, and surpasses any sort of referential quality and becomes Molly’s own song. I’m just happy I got to be one small part of bringing it to life.” — Taylor Goldsmith
Artist:Cary Morin Hometown: Lives in Fort Collins, Colorado; from Great Falls, Montana Song: “Valley of the Chiefs” Album:Dockside Saints Release Date: August 7, 2020
In Their Words: “A true story told by my great grandmother at my Crow naming ceremony when I was about four years old. It tells of when she was a teenager and was kidnapped by a neighboring tribe. When women were kidnapped back then, they were destined to a life of servitude. She and her friends escape the warriors and are able to steal their horses and ride back home. The moral of the story from my great-grandmother to me was that there is nothing in life that you cannot overcome. I believe she was giving me this story to teach me perseverance in the face of any obstacles in my life. The story is familiar to me for my whole life.
“I wrote it as a memory of my life and my culture. I’ve written songs about the Crow side of my family for years. Not many of them were ever published until recently in my career. Earlier in my life, I probably thought that sharing these stories and family history was too personal. It would be interesting to ask other Crow people what their specific naming ceremony stories are. There are many… Now, I feel it is important to share this history and continue the oral history of my people. I’ve always wanted to hear this song with a different presentation. I had previously recorded it as a solo tune. I wanted a presentation with sweeping melodic lines.” — Cary Morin
Soulful songbird Margo Price is making the most of her quarantine with an inventive music video for “Letting Me Down” from her latest album, That’s How Rumors Get Started. It’s the singer-songwriter’s debut project for Loma Vista Recordings and first collection of new music since 2017’s All American Made.
On “Letting Me Down,” Price harnesses her inner badass with the cutting hook, “You have a way of letting me down.” That’s How Rumors Get Started is an encapsulation of Price’s energetic live show, which is wrought with the same high-flying spirit and tenacity seen in this artfully-captured music video. Already respected as a country singer, this project from exudes rock ‘n’ roll and firmly places Price in a category with other country rockers.
The video’s director Kimberly Stuckwisch drove an RV from Los Angeles to Nashville to film in Margo’s home and an abandoned hospital. She recalls, “We bought a cheap ’80s travel trailer with a bathroom, kitchen, and a propane-powered refrigerator, so we wouldn’t have to go inside anywhere for food or bathrooms. We were able to abide by the six-feet social distance CDC recommendation as we set up a remote head for the camera that we operated from a closet outside of the room. We wore masks the entire time and Margo supplied us with multiple bottles of hand sanitizer and spiked seltzers. We parked our RV in her driveway and worked solely out of there and the room we were filming in. We wanted to speak to what was going on at that moment, to a world that was/is shut down, to the fear we all feel, and to the hope of breaking free.”
Artist:Gillian Welch and David Rawlings Song: “Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss” Album:All the Good Times Release Date: July 10, 2020 Record Label: Acony Records
In Their Words: “TO OUR FRIENDS AND FANS, for reasons better discussed in the history books, in the Spring of 2020 Gillian and I dusted off an old tape machine and did some home recording. Sometimes we bumped the microphone, sometimes the tape ran out, but in the end we captured performances of some songs we love. Five are first takes and five took a little more doing, but they all helped pass the time and held our interest in playback enough that we wanted to share them with you. We sincerely hope that you enjoy All the Good Times.” — Gillian Welch & David Rawlings
Photo of Gillian Welch by Gillian Welch
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