The team behind BGS and Good Country are thrilled to announce a brand new variety show, The Good Country Goodtime. Showcasing an expertly-curated monthly lineup of country and roots music, songwriting, comedy, and a rotating cast of star hosts grounded by an all-star house band, the premiere event will be held at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles on September 29 at 7:30pm. Tickets are on sale now.
The inaugural edition of the new west coast home for the modern country scene will be lead by our very first guest host, the legendary Robbie Fulks, and will feature performances by “garage country” rocker Aubrie Sellers and honky-tonkin’ LA singer-songwriter Victoria Bailey. Performances and special collaborations by all of our Goodtime artists will be punctuated by dancing and fun, comedy and hijinx – including top secret surprise appearances from Hollywood’s hottest comedians and actors. Meanwhile, The Coral Reefers’ Mick Utley will helm the show’s all-star backing band.
“Everyone’s welcome at the Good Country Goodtime,” says Greg Hess, comedy writer and BGS contributor who authors the hit satirical column, The Resonator. Hess is one of the creatives behind the show’s concept, alongside BGS/GC executive director and co-founder, Amy Reitnouer Jacobs. “Celebrating the long-established intersection of comedy and country music,” Hess continued, “The Goodtime nods to the Grand Ole Opry and Hee Haw – plus a dash of Muppet Show mischief. This one-of-a-kind showcase brings together top-notch performers for a night of pure entertainment and Good Country.”
Dynasty Typewriter, which opened in 2018, is a perfect home for the variety show. Billed as “LA’s comedy clubhouse,” the venue is one of LA’s premier destinations for highly-curated entertainment, including comedy, music, live podcasts, screenings, and immersive experiences.
The Good Country Goodtime will continue with one additional 2024 show (date TBA), before kicking off regular monthly shows in 2025. Attendees will enjoy songs, stories, sketches, and so many surprises in store. Buy your tickets now for the debut of the Good Country Goodtime. 7:30pm, September 29, 2024 at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles, California.
We’ve got an excellent collection of song and video premieres for you to kick off September!
Below, you’ll find a few country-tinged roots rock selections, from Blake Brown & the American Dust Choir, Kylie Fox, and Madeline Hawthorne. Stepping further into the country realm, check out tracks from Black Opry alumnus Crys Matthews – “The Difference Between” also features Chris Housman and Melody Walker – and from Steve Forbert, who sings “The Blues.”
New Jersey-based bluegrass group Magnolia Street String Band brought us a lovely video for their original, “By the Light of the Moon,” as well, and folk duo Rakish, who are experts in Irish, Scottish, and American folk, debut their Jamie Oshima-produced tune, “765.”
To cap it all off, don’t miss the latest edition of our Yamaha Sessions, featuring Vince Gill guitarist, singer-songwriter and producer Jack Schneider.
It’s all right here on BGS, and You Gotta Hear This!
Blake Brown & The American Dust Choir, “North Star”
Artist:Blake Brown & The American Dust Choir Hometown: Austin, Texas Song: “North Star” Album:Show Me The Light Release Date: October 4, 2024 Label: We Believers Music
In Their Words: “Simply put, this song is a dedication to my wife and daughter. When I sit down with a guitar and don’t try to write, usually a lyric rolls out, which is when I know I’m on to something; a crumb, a nugget, a clue, a hint to a song… something there that leads me to chase and complete a thought.
“In this case it was the line, ‘Your eyes will always be my guiding light, North Star in the darkest night,’ and I just built the song around that notion. I think it’s the most literal, direct song I’ve ever written. We’ve been through a lot together and when I drill down, or even think of my day-to-day life… it’s them. It’s all them. They guide me. We’ve been out here building this life together and they keep me grounded. When I stray and when I’m out in that deep, deep ocean (figuratively), I look for the stars; their eyes. They reel me back in. They are my ‘North Star.'” – Blake Brown
Track Credits: Written by Blake Brown. Blake Brown – Vocals, guitar Tiffany Brown – Vocals Jordan Espinoza – Drums Jason Legler – Bass Chris “Frenchie” Smith – Guitars
Steve Forbert, “The Blues”
Artist:Steve Forbert Hometown: Meridian, Mississippi Song: “The Blues” Album:Daylight Savings Time Release Date: September 20, 2024 Label: Blue Rose Music
In Their Words: “Will blues music fans give this song a listen because of the title – or will country music fans hesitate because of the title? As you can hear right away, it’s not a blues song. In fact, it’s a happy sounding country kind of song. But it’s literally about that old feeling called ‘the blues.’
“Robert Johnson sang, ‘The blues is a lowdown, shaky deal. If you ain’t never had ‘em, I hope you never will.’ My sentiments exactly.” – Steve Forbert
Track Credits: Steve Forbert – Vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica Rob Clores – Keyboards Gurf Morlix – Electric guitar Aaron Comess – Drums Byron House – Bass Layonne Holmes – Backing vocals
Video Credit: Tom Parr
Kylie Fox, “Sequoia”
Artist:Kylie Fox Hometown: Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada Song: Sequoia Album:Sequoia Release Date: September 13, 2024
In Their Words:“I was listening to CBC Radio in the car one day. There was a story about how firefighters stayed up throughout the night to save a sequoia tree that was in a forest fire in California. I was struck by how we so often take beautiful, old things for granted – like our environment, like our grandmothers – until we are faced with an experience where they are compromised. Verse one speaks of the tree, verse two speaks of my grass-is-always-greener relationship to the small town of Fredericton, where I live. I brood over wishing I lived in a more exciting city, forgetting that all my favorite people are here. The last verse I speak of my love, Ryan, who I can take for granted sometimes when I get caught up in things revolving around myself.” – Kylie Fox
Track Credits: Written by Kylie Fox. Kylie Fox – Vocals, acoustic guitar Kelly Waterhouse – Piano, flute, saxophone Sean Hutchins – Electric guitar Camilo Villamizar – Bass guitar Ryan Barrie – Drums
Video Credit: Directed and edited by Jillian Acreman.
Madeline Hawthorne, “Howl at the Moon”
Artist:Madeline Hawthorne Hometown: Bozeman, Montana Song: “Howl at the Moon” Release Date: September 13, 2024 Label: Madeline Hawthorne Music
In Their Words: “This is a song about what we want for our loved ones when we pass on. I don’t want them to just keep living, I want them to thrive. I want them to find love and happiness. I think my band and I captured the spirit and the essence of this tune so well at The Blasting Room. It has such a positive and fun energy to it. We are excited to play this one live on our upcoming tour with Goodnight Texas. I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for listening, XOXO.” – Madeline Hawthorne
Track Credits: Written by Madeline Hawthorne. Madeline Hawthorne – Vocals Ace Engfer – Bass Bill McKay – Piano, organ Taylor Sims – Guitar Taylor Tesler – Guitar Sean Macaulay – Drums, percussion
Magnolia Street String Band, “By the Light of the Moon”
Artist:Magnolia Street String Band Hometown: Highland Park, New Jersey Song: “By the Light of the Moon” Album:By the Light of the Moon Release Date: October 4, 2024
In Their Words: “I wrote this song years ago walking my dog in the pines along the Delaware River. The moon was so brilliant that night. The light painted such a spectacular scene with shadows of the magnificent pine trees against the deep blue sky. This unforgettable visual inspired this song.
“My sister, Rita, and I used to play and sing together with friends at a full moon jam almost 15 years ago. Rita and I found a band through these gatherings and ‘By the Light of the Moon’ found its way into our repertoire. The original lyrics to the last verse were ‘We’ll make love by the light of the moon.’ Since I wanted to make a family friendly album, I changed the lyrics to, ‘We’ll dance ‘neath the light of the moon.’
“I’ve always hoped to record this song and had envisioned Alison Krauss on vocals. Nevertheless, I rallied my beloved band earlier this year to record this song as well as the other songs on our new album.” – Sheila Shukla, vocalist and songwriter
Track Credits: Sheila Shukla – Lead vocals Bobby Baxmeyer – Mandolin, banjo, Dobro, vocals Bob Harris – Guitar Gary Oleyar – Fiddle Ron Greenstein – Bass Nick Conte – Vocals
Video Credit: Rob Shotwell
Crys Matthews, “The Difference Between”
Artist:Crys Matthews Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “The Difference Between” (featuring Melody Walker & Chris Housman) Album:Reclamation Release Date: September 6, 2024 (single)
In Their Words: “When I heard Jason Aldean’s ‘Try That in a Small Town,’ I was so offended – not just as a Black woman, but as a proud Southerner. The audacity to think that there would be a South at all without my people is the kind of willful ignorance that keeps folks like me from feeling safe in country and Americana spaces. There are consequences to that kind of hateful rhetoric. That’s what the first verse line of this song is about, ‘So you can figure out it ain’t just your town that’s small,’ because being from a small town is no excuse for small-mindedness.
“I knew that’s what I wanted to say with this song and I knew exactly who I wanted to help me say it: my friends Melody Walker (co-writer of Molly Tuttle’s title track for her Grammy-winning record Crooked Tree) and Chris Housman. I’ve been such a fan of both of their voices and their writing for so long! Once I had the idea for this song, I asked them both to come over and the rest is history. Melody and I had just finished recording her song ‘Room‘ and so I knew our voices would sound so good together. And every time Chris sings he takes me to church. I knew that just getting the three of us together would lead to something good. It also meant a lot to have them featured on the actual track as well. Three LGBTQ+ artists, all of whom call Nashville home, showing that this is country too. It looks like you and it looks like me.” – Crys Matthews
Rakish, “765”
Artist:Rakish Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts Song: “765” Album:Now, O Now Release Date: September 12, 2024 (single); October 11, 2024 Label: Top Floor Records
In Their Words:“This track features two original reels, arranged by Conor and myself. We recorded these tunes at Spillway Sounds with Eli Crews engineering back in October 2023. Once we got back from the studio, we thought it might be fun to add some electronic production to this track, and asked our buddy Jamie Oshima to work some magic on these tunes. It was great to let him take the reins completely, and hear the track once he sent it back to us. His additions totally surpassed what we could have asked for. As acoustic musicians, Conor and I don’t often get to dip our toes into the world of electronic music, but this track enables us to experience a little bit of that sound world, which is really fun for us. We hope these tunes make you want to dance!” – Maura Shawn Scanlin, violin
Yamaha Sessions: Jack Schneider, “Gulf of Mexico”
Today, our Yamaha Sessions continue with a gorgeous and tender performance from guitarist, producer, and singer-songwriter Jack Schneider. Best known for his road gig with Country Music Hall of Famer Vince Gill, Schneider released his debut album, Best Be On My Way, to critical acclaim in 2022. The project features Gill, David Rawlings, Stuart Duncan, and more collaborating on Schneider’s vintage-tinged original songs, each dripping with the styles and sonics of ’60s and ’70s troubadours and Americana poets. His latest single, “When the Saints,” is a delicious, shuffling folk-rock ballad with deeply stacked vocal tracks and retro trappings that was released in late July.
For his Yamaha Sessions performance, Schneider chose “Gulf of Mexico,” another original – that is as yet unrecorded and unreleased – which showcases the warm, full, and deep sound of Schneider’s Yamaha FG9 R acoustic guitar. Resonant and rich, the drop D tuning accentuates the melancholy evident in the timelessly constructed song. A bright spruce top and sultry rosewood back and sides add up to a guitar that’s equally at home in folk and Americana as bluegrass and flatpicking. Schneider pulls excellent tone from the instrument, with impeccable intonation and confident touch whether picking or strumming.
Ally Westover is a Nashville-based artist known for a blend of lullaby-like sounds and groovy indie-folk tunes, stitched together with warmth, imagery, and honesty. Her new single, “Rotten Milk” (available September 6), is an exploration of queer identity. The lyrics circle relatable themes like love gone sour and compulsory heterosexuality – a term coined by Adrienne Rich to describe societal expectations queer women face around conforming to heterosexual norms. The concept resonates with many queer women who struggle to navigate their identities.
It’s exciting to feature an artist who is opening a discussion around these ideas. Ally’s EP, Changing Room, dives further into these themes and is to be released in January 2025. In our Out Now interview, she shares her current state of mind, what it means to her to be an LGBTQ+ artist, and how she balances the business and creative aspects of being an artist.
You are releasing an EP in 2025 titled Changing Room. What was the process of creating this project? And, what do you hope listeners will take away from this collection of songs?
I created this project with my friend and musical mentor, Oliver Hopkins. He is one of the people that inspires me most in this world and to make a record with him is an absolute dream come true. I came to him with a few songs that I loved and believed in, but wanted him to help me make them sound more focussed and sonically interesting.
We wrote “Rotten Milk” in his backyard in the height of the summer heat after I had just gotten out of a relationship with a man that felt like a stranger. The track that follows is “Waterbug,” which is my absolute favorite. It encompasses queer desire and yearning. The last song is called “Digital Body” and it’s all about decompressing and slowing things down. I hope that listeners enjoy the songs and feel maybe a little more understood in their own lives. More than anything I am just happy to have the songs in the world!
Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
Songwriting itself is pure magic. The energy present during the process is what propels me to dig for more songs. I create music because I have to! It is the way that I work through my emotions and thoughts and fears. It is the time capsule for my life. It is the way that I cope with being human.
Do you create music primarily for yourself or for others?
Initially, I create music for myself. And when it is done, I look forward to sharing the songs with other people so that they may feel less alone as I believe we all have similar struggles. It’s my hope that through sharing music, we all feel more connected to each other at a soul level.
Who are your favorite LGBTQ+ artists and bands?
Courtney Barnett, MUNA, Big Thief, Chappell Roan, Katy Kirby, Arlo Parks, Tash Sultana, Cassidy Maude, Ab Lag, Molly Martin, Erin Rae, Liv Greene, Purser, Jobi Riccio, and Saltwater Baby are some of my favorites. Wow! There are so many! I am so grateful for queer visibility!
For anyone reading this who might not be out of the closet, were there any specific people, musicians, or resources that helped you find yourself as a queer individual?
The band MUNA saved me! Chanting songs about being gay and worthy of love really helped me feel empowered. I have an incredible sister, friends, and therapist who have stood by me through the hardest moments. The queer community in Nashville is amazing. Shout out to Jonda, the owner of Lipstick Lounge, for creating a safe haven for queer people. It was only when I realized that it is not my job to make other people comfortable, was I set free.
What does it mean to you to be an LGBTQ+ musician?
I would not be openly making music as a queer person had it not been for the Black lesbians and trans people of color that fought back during Stonewall riots. Thank you to Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and Stormé DeLarverie for fighting for my right to exist and to love who I love. Being an LGBTQ+ musician means that “no one is free until everyone is free.” It means liberation, justice and resistance.
We’ve had a conversation before about how you left the music industry for a few years and decided you needed to return. What was that like for you? Could you share what drew you back and the importance of creating and sharing your music?
In the time that I was away from music, it was still plaguing my every thought. I tried to study fashion to explore a different creative outlet and that brought me to sustainability, as I learned about the horrors of the fast fashion industry. Because of this, I make all of my merch on thrifted clothes in hopes to be as eco-conscious as possible. Sustainability led me to an existential crisis so I switched majors to philosophy, which only dug me a deeper hole. It was during my philosophy class that I realized I must pursue my bliss – music! Coming back to music as my career focus felt like coming home.
What’s your ideal vision for your future?
When I think of “future me” I imagine myself traveling and playing shows with a small band, throwing killer dinner parties, and tending to a sprawling garden. The ideal vision of my future has much to do with “present me” leaning deeper into the things that I already do.
What is your greatest fear?
I have realized that I am the person who will ultimately affect the outcome of my life – so I would say that I am most afraid of the part of myself that harbors doubt.
What is your current state of mind?
My current state of mind is a collage of gratitude and helplessness; of joy and sorrow; of yearning and grieving. I grieve the genocide in Palestine amongst the many other humanitarian crises in the Congo, Sudan, and in the United States. I find it really challenging some days to be hopeful, but I try to find joy in the small moments and do everything I can to uplift marginalized voices.
I am hopeful about creating and sharing the project that I have been working on for over a year now. Entering into the fall season, I am looking forward to slowing down, going inward, and continuing to lean into my cozy home and my community.
How do you balance being on social media, promoting your music, playing shows, and looking after your mental health?
I tell myself that I want to do this for the rest of my life, so if it takes the rest of my life to do it then so be it. I remind myself that the long game is what matters and that slowly chipping away making good art is what counts. I lean on my community and try my best. I’ve also been trying to intentionally rest without guilt and to say yes to fun experiences that do not center around music. I have found that I create the best and most interesting art when I am living my life for myself. My partner is very organized and business focussed and they gave me some killer advice. They said, “Why don’t you focus strictly on music business for 2 hours a day, in the morning, so that you don’t have to spiral about it for the next 22 hours?” They created the term “Ally’s Office Hours” and it has helped tremendously.
What would a “perfect day” look like for you?
Soft sunlight and fresh air seep through my window. I indulge in light roast pour over coffee and fresh fruit for breakfast. I sit at the kitchen table with my journal and my mini Yamaha as ideas for songs flood my mind like a heavy summer rain. Once the rain has cleared, I walk to the grocery store and grab some fresh seafood, sharp cheeses, and Castelvetrano olives. The rest of the dinner setup will be a harvest from my garden. I pop by the local wine shop for a floral Spanish white wine and perhaps a juicy beaujolais. Friends will arrive at golden hour to a home full of fresh flowers and candle light. We eat and drink and enjoy rich conversation over a delicious meal. I fall asleep beside my lover as we count our blessings.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
“If it is urgent, then it is not God.” I can be so impulsive about my decision making, and when a friend told me this, it blew my mind. A sense of urgency is likely never a good sign that something is right.
What are your release and touring plans for the next year?
I am releasing my second EP, Changing Room, in January and could not be more excited. The first single, “Rotten Milk,” comes out today, September 6!
Changing Room encapsulates self exploration, and more specifically queer exploration. The project begins with “Rotten Milk.” It’s about the last man that I ever dated. We were together for a few short months in the summer and much like the milk at the restaurant, the love, too, had gone sour. It was as if I was playing dress up. I couldn’t get access to my true self until I freed myself of compulsory heterosexuality.
I am opening for Louisa Stancioff, Molly Parden, and Eliza Edens in Portland, Maine on October 4 and again in Washtington, D.C. on October 15. The plan is to go on a sweet little tour in early spring to share the songs on Changing Room and then get back to creating more tunes.
In our episode with Wisconsin-born, New England-based Jeffrey Foucault, we had a handful of questions for the singer-songwriter about his background: coffee, the Midwest, and Mark Twain wisdom. Then, we talked about Billy Conway for more than an hour. Conway was Foucault’s long-time partner in music, his drummer, and best friend who died from cancer in 2021. He was a roots rock and roll legend in Boston with his tenure in Morphine and Treat Her Right. Conway was like a holy man, known for his creative, curious, and infectious spirit where even people who met him only one time (myself included) were quite taken and inspired by his presence. His loss hit the music community hard. In 2023, a tribute album showcasing the songwriting of Conway recorded by some of his closest friends (including Chris Smither, Foucault, Kris Delmhorst, and Billy’s wife Laurie Sargent) was released. And now, with his latest album release, Jeff’s given us a working wake for his friend Billy, The Universal Fire.
Elsewhere in the episode, we talked about what was going on with Jeff when he met and started working with Billy in 2013. What state of mind made this spectacular friendship and collaboration completely click? Jeff has also been conscious about his reaction to Conway’s death and processing grief, when it comes to being an example for his teenage daughter (who is also getting into folk music and live performance, too – hi, Hazel!)
We also dig into the new album. Jeffrey paralleled the loss of Billy Conway with a different type of loss, the 2008 fire at the Universal Studios lot in California that destroyed master tapes of hugely influential American recordings. And finally, we check in on how Jeffrey’s human-ness is faring in the high-tech world in the year 2024.
Growing up in rural Georgia, Jontavious Willis discovered blues through a YouTube video of Muddy Waters and immediately immersed himself in the genre. At 14, he began playing acoustic guitar, he started gigging as a college student, and released his first album, Blues Metamorphosis, in 2016. Two years later, he opened on the TajMo tour with Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’. They co-produced his GRAMMY-nominated second album, Spectacular Class.
Offered the opportunity to record his new album, West Georgia Blues, in Nashville, Willis’s response was a resounding “No.” Tracking in his home state was non-negotiable, as that DNA was critical to his vision and sound. “Georgia was a big part of the story and I wasn’t going to fold on that,” he says. “I wasn’t going to let up.”
The singer-songwriter-guitarist and his musicians gathered for ten days at Capricorn Studios in Macon. Willis produced while engineer-guitarist John Atkinson mixed (and contributed guitar work on “A Lift Is All I Need”). They tracked some 200 songs, 80 of them usable, says Willis, and pared those down to the 15 that became his third album.
Willis’s fingerpicking style is rich in tradition and, as he’ll tell you, contemporary because it exists – now. With that, being featured alongside bluegrass and country music on a website such as this is a perfect fit, as he explained during his recent interview with BGS.
What were your goals going into this record?
Jontavious Willis: My goal was to show growth and stay away from carbon copies of other songs. I hear it all the time – you take a song and change a few words around, but it’s still B.B. King, it’s still Robert Johnson. I tried to make each song its own and if I did take from other folks, I did it my own way.
We get so wrapped up in saying, “Oh, I can play old music, so let’s stay there,” that we forget to create. I wanted to show my writing ability, my producing ability, and I wanted to show a difference. I’m glad I put space in between the albums to really show growth. Since the album’s complete, I’ve been getting great reception. But beyond that, I made an album I can listen to from beginning to end.
You didn’t feel that way with your other albums?
The first one, I knew I was green, but I had to put something out there. I’m always happy in the beginning. Then, when you listen to it long enough, you’re like, “I should have did this and this.” But I really can listen to this one. Truly, honestly, the first one, I wasn’t as good a player. The second one, I wasn’t playing at my full capacity or with blues players. I was playing with session musicians. This one, I played with people that knew the references to blues.
You’re a blues musician being interviewed by BGS, a bluegrass website, with a country music “sister” website, Good Country. That might seem like a big jump to some people, but the genres have common threads. Music historian that you are, could you address those connections?
Music was the most integrated pastime, prior to the big record labels coming in and separating them. One of the first integrated groups was actually in Georgia, called the Georgia Yellow Hammers. It featured a fiddle player named Andrew Baxter.
When some people think of country, they think of a particular sound. When I think of country, I think of rural. A lot of people say “simplistic,” because it sounds so peaceful and melodic, but it can be some of the hardest music ever. When I think of the intertwining of country music, I think about the early pioneers, like the first star of the Grand Ole Opry, DeFord Bailey, a Black fellow that played harmonica. Hank Williams learned from Tee Tot, [Rufus Payne]. Johnny Cash spent a lot of time with Gus Cannon and Furry Lewis and old blues folks like that. You can go on and on. A lot of the repertoire of blues artists isn’t just blues. Some of it could be classified as country.
Over time, with new talent, genres expand and change and self-proclaimed “purists” get ruffled. As an artist with deep roots in traditional and contemporary music, what are your thoughts?
I’m kind of with them and not with them. The reason I say this is because I feel like it is good to identify things sonically. When I listen to classical music, I think about what makes it classical. When I listen to jazz, I think about what makes it jazz. The same with blues, because what I’m seeing now is that blues have been overtaken by rock, and I don’t like that, because rock is not blues. It’s definitely a sub-genre or even a whole ’nother genre of blues, but it’s not interchangeable. A lot of the audience the rockers had kind of melted over into the blues, and a lot of people didn’t learn the blues from the front. A lot of ’em came through the back door, through these rockers and other big bands.
So I feel like it is good to identify what it is, but also understand that music changes. But call it what it is. If I’m playing blues-rock, I’m not playing natural blues. If I’m playing contemporary gospel, I’m not playing traditional gospel. The guys that made these beautiful songs that sold millions of copies — they didn’t get money for it. They didn’t get their due. It’s time for folks to stand by the genre of music they do and tell folks what it is.
Let’s talk about those sub-genres and what they mean, if anything.
It’s hard to really define the categories. With blues, they chop it in two main categories, at least for the GRAMMYs: contemporary and traditional. Contemporary means you’re keeping with the times. So by me living and writing music, that is being contemporary. Traditional means I’m a part of the tradition. So I can be traditional and contemporary at the same time. It is not one or the other. It’s a safe room for both.
Scholars made these terms up. Black folk wasn’t calling their music Delta blues or Piedmont blues until they heard so many folks saying it. Then they started saying it. But nowadays, those terms don’t mean nothing unless you’re from those places. I’m from Piedmont, so I’m a Piedmont player by default. I even went one step further to say I play West Georgia blues. What is West Georgia blues? I don’t know. I’m from West Georgia and I’m playing the blues in West Georgia. I can say that’s my style. A lot of people say Delta blues. Delta blues is a region, not necessarily a style. I can name three artists from the Delta that don’t sound alike. It varies from musician to musician.
It’s nicer for the listeners to think it’s categories, so you can navigate your way. But it also pigeonholes the artists and doesn’t really showcase the music and what it is. This is freeform music that people created. The record industry had a big hold on all of it, and that’s how they separated bluegrass from blues and country music. So I think you have to be a purist in a sense to maintain. If not, everything could spill over into everything, which is a good idea, but in essence, you want to identify the different sounds and nuances.
How does Georgia – its music, its history, and your history – inform your music?
Every state has salt-and-sugar history. I grew up in a predominantly Black town. Greenville, Georgia, is 70 or 80 percent Black. We’ve got a rich gospel history, and Georgia overall has Buddy Moss, Blind Willie McTell, on and on. So being in Georgia, always loving history, and always being around my family definitely shaped my music, the good and the bad. That’s what life is about, the good and the bad. Most of all, my hometown shaped me, more so than the famous people.
The blues people from Georgia definitely shaped my music. I was always aware of the other folks, like Little Richard, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding, but they didn’t shape me. I listened to the old blues players and it was a great awakening for me to realize that Georgia has blues, because if you listen to a lot of folks, you’ll only think that it’s in Illinois and Mississippi. But the first studio in the South was in Atlanta in 1923. Everybody had to come to Georgia to record.
I know the United States has got twisted history, and that’s part of the blues. The blues is free Black people speaking their mind and saying how they feel, not always being political but just being true to themselves. To me, Georgia is family, struggle, prosperity, farming, food, life. It’s everything. I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, in Europe, to 46 of the 50 states, and ain’t no place like home. I’m looking at it now – the contrast of this dark green and light blue and these hills. You can’t beat that, man. Georgia’s everything to me.
What was it about blues that spoke to you as a 12-year-old? What has or hasn’t changed?
When I was a kid, I was singing gospel music about going to heaven and wasn’t I thinking about dying! A lot of those blues guys started out young. They were teenagers. Helen Humes, Buddy Moss, Josh White … Robert Johnson was 27 when he died, so he had to be singing the blues when he was young.
I’ve loved the blues since I was 12 years old, two years before I started playing guitar. I was at the age where I could appreciate it. The blues makes you think. Technically, some of those sounds aren’t supposed to be happening. Some of the stuff don’t make musical sense because lot of these folks aren’t trained musicians. But the stuff they put out – I can listen to it because it’s relatable to me. They talk in the way I understand. They sing in the way I understand, and man, it can just do something good to me. I don’t know what it is, but Jesus, it’s so good!
Over the past decade, The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys have established themselves as a modern voice in traditional bluegrass. They are equal parts researchers, archivists, and artists, continually reframing what it means to be “traditional” – with a particular focus on the ways that bluegrass and roots music have always been progressive and boundary breaking.
For BGS, I spoke via video call to mandolinist CJ Lewandowski and fiddler Laura Orshaw around the release of their new album, Wanderers Like Me. We talked about their unique approach and mission for the group, we covered a lot of ground, and I left the conversation feeling inspired to put more thought behind my own mission in music making.
I see that you are coming up on 10 years as a band. Many years ago I had the pleasure of writing a bio for The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, and I’d love to know a bit about the way the band has developed and changed over the years?
CJ Lewandowski: I think we are all ten years older than when we started, for one, and that’s a lot. It started as four guys working at a distillery, you know, working a day job. … There was no traveling, no planning, no pushing to be something. And it naturally progressed. There were videos coming out and promoters started calling and asking us to come out and play.
A lot of people plan for stuff, and they push and push, and everything we’ve been involved with before this band was like that, plowing through clay. You push and you push and never get anywhere. Then this band just happened. We didn’t think we’d be traveling in a bus and going all over the world, but here we are!
Laura Orshaw: The coolest thing for me is seeing the material and the message of the band start to come together. Everybody is really interested in super regional groups from around where they grew up, or maybe just bands they got interested in, so the members have interesting and diverse listening palates.
For several years, the band was doing a lot of covers that people hadn’t heard before, drawing on that research. Then, for the past five years, we’ve been doing a majority of original material and I think that the conversations that it brings up within the band are new … like, “How did you come up with this?”
For example, a lot of the more recent songs are about traveling. … For me, I spin that from the women’s perspective, a lot of them are about mom or a woman waiting back home and I like to think about, “What if a woman sings this song?” I think a lot about those classic themes but making sure they’re relevant to the modern days.
You’re one of the few bands that has never changed their commitment to traditional bluegrass over the years. Tell me about that interest in maintaining your style and how to you resist the temptation to move in more commercial directions?
CL: We had a manager at one point and we were talking about different material we could cover, and I said, “I don’t know if that’s gonna fit us…” And he said, “Well whatever you play, you’re gonna play it the way you play, so it’s gonna sound like you.” I think about that a lot, because I think he’s right.
I try to stray from the word “traditional” and think more about “authentic.” It’s just the way we play, and the way we learned to play from the mentors in our home regions. Anything we do is going to sound like that. We just play and sing true to ourselves, it’s not a plan or an act, we kind of let it go with the flow
There has been pressure sometimes– maybe the band should push this way or that way, but all in all, it’s like, “Well, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it…” We are all just true to the way we play
LO: What CJ said, “whatever you do is gonna sound like you” – with the current album coming out, it’s the first time we’ve had a really heavily involved producer, Woody Platt (formerly of the Steep Canyon Rangers), working with us from pre- to post-production. I think five people are going to have their own opinion about every suggestion that comes up, but because of Woody we did try a lot of things that I don’t think we would have individually gone for. And after we all did them, we usually liked them.
CL: Woody had our sound in mind, and he said, “The main thing is, I want you guys to be you.” We spread our wings, we got a little more vulnerable. There’s a natural progression to all of this and this record is a great next step.
LO: It was just really refreshing to work with a producer and have that level of focus and excitement, having that external voice that studied and focused is huge.
Since the time I wrote your bio, Laura has formally joined the band, tell me about what she’s added to the group and how that came about? I think it’s such a magical fit, and really rounds out the sound of the band.
CL: Her first show with us was in December 2017 at the Station Inn and after that she did some sporadic shows with us and played on our next couple records. In January 2020, she joined full time and she has officially been with us for four/four and a half years now. We tried a lot of different fiddle players on the road and nothing fit quite like what she had on the table; the attitude, the drive, and the musicianship
I’m a huge fan of triple-stacked harmonies, like Jimmy Martin and Osborne Brothers, so she brought a completely different vocal opportunity to the group. There was us three guys, and we could do some three-part harmonies, but with her we could move to different keys and had a lot more flexibility. … And of course, her fiddle playing is sassy and full of energy.
A lot of people ask about the name, The Po’ Ramblin “Boys,” but there’s a tradition of that in bluegrass, with Bessie Lee playing with The Blue Grass Boys, and Gloria Belle with The Sunny Mountain Boys. I like playing into that. But it’s also the band saying, “Hey we aren’t limiting.” Like, whoever can cut the gig, we love you! We’re very open and try to be as inclusive as possible. There are a lot of demographics in the group and she just added another one. …
Bluegrass Unlimited dubbed us as being “progressively traditional,” and it’s true in that everything that is traditional now, once was progressive. I don’t try to stand on a soapbox, and it took me a long time to figure it out, but I’m a queer artist, and I didn’t have anyone to go to when I was figuring that out and I didn’t feel I had a place. So, a lot of the stuff we do today has an open mind to it. [I’m included in] an exhibit in American Currents at the Country Music Hall of Fame and I put a rainbow guitar strap in there just to say, “Hey we’re out here, and holler at me if you need something.” Because I didn’t have anyone to look up to in that way.
Can you tell me a little bit about the album art for this new record, Wanderers Like Me?
CL: The cover photo is a painting of a cowboy. It plays into the title and many of the songs on the record and goes back to the story of wandering all over the country. But that piece of art was painted by our bass player Jasper’s great-grandfather, who was a North Dakota scene painter born in 1900 who painted all the way until his passing. His artwork is in governors’ mansions, he was a very prominent artist and to include something like that for our album art is also another way of honoring tradition.
LO: The way I see bluegrass, it’s a truly American art form. just like painting scenes, it reflects the culture and the time that it was painted in. In a lot of traditional art forms, there’s a kind of preservationist stance, but I think as a band we don’t like to have that mindset as a way to hold up barriers, or to say we don’t like modern or progressive music. A lot of what is told about American and bluegrass history is through a very particular lens; it’s very easy to see a fuller picture when you start digging. We travel and meet a lot of people, we live in modern society, we all have a lot broader perspectives than the people creating music years ago. So, we just see this mindset as a way to make the music reach its full potential. Preserve and broaden it by being aware of what’s going on around us, thinking about language and thinking about American art forms.
CJ: “Being you” is it’s own art form as well… There’s a lot to just making sure that you’re being yourself.
The people that we learned from, it’s amazing to learn at the knee or the foot of these incredible people, but it’s not a boundary. It’s something that you take and grow from and learn from. Not everyone is perfect or mindful… I learned good and bad from some of these folks. You learn what to do and sometimes you learn what not to do. You take it from spades and grow from that. We want to honor people, but also make this a better realm for everyone. Just because you play traditional music doesn’t mean you have to have a traditional mindset.
I think the fact that this record is coming out on Smithsonian Folkways says a lot about the timeless nature of the music you are creating. What do you hope that folks will get from your music now and also in the future?
LO: I think that one of the most neat things is knowing [Smithsonian’s] mandate around preserving music, knowing that everything that they have and archive will be there for ever. It will always be available.
CL: there’s a lot of good material out there that’s been overlooked. I call listening through it “digging for gems.” As an artist, I hope that one day when we’re gone… someone might find our music like that. I don’t have any kids, so I really think about how my music might be left behind for the next generation. With Smithsonian, we could be dead and gone and someone’s great-grandniece could ask for a copy of our record from the label and even if it’s out of print, they will print one copy and send it to them.
You have a lot of songs about the hardships and joys of travel and touring, do you guys see yourself touring for another 10 years?
CL: There’s a lot of different factors, I think we’d all like to go as long as we can, but within this 10 years we have fiancés, marriages, children, people living in different states. In 2018, when we got Emerging Artist of the Year [award] at IBMA, I looked at everybody and I said, “OK, if you want out, get out now.” And we all put our hands in and said, “We got this.” We all got together about how if one of us going leave, then we’d all let it go.
We never really felt like there was a place for us for a long long time, so when we found success we felt like, “Wow, we did this together…” I think the future is bright, especially with this new album.
Gillian Welch & David Rawlings are ubiquitous in American roots music. The life and musical partners have spent nearly 30 years defining and redefining what it means to be prolific bluegrass, old-time, and Americana inhabiters and masters. Now, with the release of Woodland, their first studio album in four years, it seems they’re entering a new phase of their illustrious and storied careers – one where their pace and positioning have changed, somewhat. Or perhaps, solidified.
Since 2020’s All the Good Times, Welch & Rawlings have not exactly receded into hermitage. They appear regularly as track features on others’ recordings, they released dozens and dozens and dozens of demos on several Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs albums, they perform regularly and make appearances on all star lineups, at ceremonies, and on tribute shows in and outside of Nashville. Yet, as with many artists responding to a post-COVID world, their artistry seems to be taking an intentional shift toward slowing down, acting with renewed purpose, and focusing on storytelling, canon-crafting, and legacy-building. But certainly not for ambition’s sake alone.
It makes perfect sense, then, that Woodland chooses the pair’s East Nashville studio as its focal point, the fertile soil from which this verdant collection of songs has been cultivated and through which they’ve been channeled. It’s a thread easily traceable across all of their work together, and separately as solo artists: To ground their music in reality and in their own everyday. For a pair of musicians who have inspired countless emulators and acolytes, it’s remarkable to watch them both remain committed to truth and simplicity, and to authenticity not as social currency, but as demonstration of selfhood and agency.
Welch & Rawlings are legends, roots superstars. At this point in their careers, we are viewing their brand identity’s realtime shift toward longevity, striding confidently into their nascent roles as Americana elders. Who could possibly be better poised for this new era? Woodland, as nearly all of Welch & Rawlings’ outings over the past decade, seems to say these two global stars would really, truly be okay if the music industry shuttered once more or if they never stepped foot onto a stage in a 3,000-seat theatre again. These are creators in this business for themselves – though never self-serving. The tableaus and dioramas on Woodland, iconoclastic and archetypical Welch & Rawlings, are never small, but they are often minute. Nuanced. Detailed.
This is Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, after all. Surrounded throughout their long-running heyday by roots-infused, vest-wearing celebrities and bands like Mumford & Sons, Punch Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, and many more, they’ve time and time again refused to allow their own art to be enveloped or eclipsed by Americana-as-costume, or to devolve into millennial “shabby chic” as an aesthetic, or to revert to Pinterest-style, cottagecore performances of wholesome, American values to make a living. They even rose above the reflexive pigeon-holing following the massive success of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, using the soundtrack and tour’s enormous gravity for a slingshot assist into the stratosphere, rather than finding themselves in a limiting though profitable niche.
They started their careers as many folk, bluegrass, and old-time singers do – putting on “poverty drag” to signal their commitment to these songs and sounds, slumming it and road dogging while building their business bit by bit, paying their dues, worshipping at the feet of bluegrass and Americana forebears. Over time, Welch & Rawlings shifted from being simply performers of these aesthetics to being residents and artisans within these traditions. Apprentices become masters, pupils become professors. And, now, they themselves are the forebears building standards and models for new, oncoming generations just as Ralph Stanley, John Hartford, and so many more did for them.
Woodland isn’t exactly a turning point, but Gillian Welch & David Rawlings are certainly entering a new era. While so much of what we know and love about this duo remains remarkably consistent across their music and releases over time (even going all the way back to Revival in 1996), this project reveals that only now, 30-some years since they began their journey in music, could Welch & Rawlings actually become the authentic Americana stalwarts that they’ve always strived to be. They’ve been dressing for the job they want the whole time, gradually becoming one with the characters that first stepped on stage those decades ago. Their catalog is a gradient, a line graph of growing and becoming, rising above theater and performance to a place of intimate self expression and respectful, expert mastery. However forest-for-the-trees it feels to state, these are no longer just the traditions they love, these are their traditions.
Below, enjoy our Essential Gillian Welch & David Rawlings Playlist. And, if you want more, you can return to 2017, when Welch was our Artist of the Month at the time of her Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg release – and revisit our Essentials Playlist from that time. Later in September, we’ll have an exclusive AOTM interview feature with both Gillian and Dave, so stay tuned as we celebrate Woodland all month long.
The 3rd Annual Earl Scruggs Music Festival was a smash hit! Held over Labor Day weekend at the stunning, luxurious grounds of the Tryon International Equestrian Center in Mill Spring, North Carolina – a short drive from Scruggs’ hometown of Shelby and the small crossroads of Flint Hill, where he was born and raised – the event featured bluegrass, old-time, country, and Americana made at the highest levels on three stages. Featuring brick-and-mortar restaurants, a shaded grandstand, dozens of vendors and boutiques, a large campground, posh tiny home cabin stays, and so much more, this is not your standard flatbed-trailer-in-a-hay-field festival. It’s so much more.
BGS was on hand at this year’s event to once again co-present a special tribute set, renamed The Scruggs Sessions and paying tribute to Flatt & Scruggs’ iconic live album, At Carnegie Hall! Festival hosts Jerry Douglas and the Earls of Leicester helmed the special show on the Foggy Mountain Stage, a crowd favorite in years past that formerly highlighted the Earl Scruggs Revue. This year, artists and bands like Shadowgrass, Wyatt Ellis, Lindsay Lou, Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, Twisted Pine, the Faux Paws, Old Crow Medicine Show, and more played selections from Flatt & Scruggs’ legendary performance at Carnegie Hall in 1962. The ESMF crowd delighted in note-for-note replications alongside brand new reimaginations of the album’s essential songs and tunes – complete with a rendering of “Martha White” that elicited plenty of raucous singing along.
Horse jumping demonstrations were held nearby the Legend’s Workshop Stage, where artists from the lineup told stories, shared songwriting pointers, talked about banjo techniques, and so much more. Fine spirits and wines were available for sale at the Spirits of Bluegrass stands and the Earl Scruggs Center – a fantastic museum focused on Scruggs that calls the former courthouse in Shelby its home – sold their Scruggs-ian wares and passed out hand fans to festival goers throughout the weekend.
It was a perfect festival to mark the 100th year since Scruggs’ birth, with artists, bands, and musicians from across the musical spectrum demonstrating the wide scope of the innovative banjo picker’s impact and legacy. On the Flint Hill Stage, headliners like Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives – featuring Chris Scruggs, who received multiple standing ovations from the audience – Mighty Poplar, Yonder Mountain String Band, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Tanya Tucker illustrated that bluegrass is certainly not a monolith. And, that traditional-leaning festivals such as ESMF can be just as expansive and broad as their more Americana-geared or rootsy competitors.
Though Friday and Saturday were blisteringly hot and Sunday saw more than one weather delay while lightning storms rolled out of the Appalachians and over the foothills, the crowds were resilient and energized and the festival showed, yet again, that this event is being built for the long haul. Conveniently located a short drive from Greenville, SC, Asheville and Charlotte, NC and a mere five hour drive from Nashville, ESMF is a must-visit destination festival where everything you could ever need – from banjos to horse jumping to wood-fired pizza to glamorous camping to high-quality interviews and workshops to international superstars – are all combined in one convenient, luxurious location.
Below, check out select photos from the 2024 edition of the Earl Scruggs Music Festival – and make plans to join us next year over Labor Day weekend in 2025! Tickets are on sale now.
A Friday songwriting workshop featured Louisa Branscomb, Darrell Scott, and Jon Weisberger with moderator Tommy Goldsmith. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Campers jam during the day throughout the Earl Scruggs Music Festival campground. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Festival host Jerry Douglas kicks off The Scruggs Sessions tribute to 'Flatt & Scruggs At Carnegie Hall!' Photo by Jess Maples.
Wyatt Ellis and band pose backstage during the Scruggs Sessions. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Festival hosts Jerry Douglas and the Earls of Leicester helmed the Scruggs Sessions presented by BGS. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show wound up the crowd during the Scruggs Sessions. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Lindsay Lou joined by the Faux Paws for the Scruggs Sessions on the Foggy Mountain Stage. Photo by Jess Maples.
Old Crow Medicine Show brought down the house paying tribute to 'Flatt & Scruggs At Carnegie Hall!' Photo by Jess Maples.
Chris Jones & the Night Drivers also made an appearance for the Scruggs Sessions, presented by BGS. Photo by Jess Maples.
Shawn Camp, Jeff White, Charlie Cushman, and Johnny Warren of the Earls of Leicester perform at The Scruggs Sessions. Photo by Cora Wagoner
The Tryon International Equestrian Center has fabulous amenities, including tiny home "Getaway Cabins." Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Journalist and BGS Contributor Tommy Goldsmith moderated the Legend's Workshop Stage each day, including a session featuring Marty Stuart and JT Scruggs sharing stories about Earl. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
AJ Lee & Blue Summit perform on the Flint Hill Stage on Saturday at Earl Scruggs Music Festival. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Mighty Poplar, with special guest Caleb Klauder, were a Sunday afternoon main stage treat. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Horse jumping demonstrations were held each day during the festival. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives gave an incredible Flint Hill Stage performance on Saturday evening. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
The SteelDrivers brought their bluesy bluegrass – that they call "uneasy listening" – to ESMF. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Marty Stuart and Chris Scruggs sing in duet on the Flint Hill Stage. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Tanya Tucker brought out her bulldog, Stella, for a cameo at ESMF. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
The Silo Bar, home to the brand new Silo Sessions hosted by Craig Havighurst. Photo by Jess Maples.
Twisted Pine returned to ESMF for the second year in a row, performing several times. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Tanya Tucker and her band gave an excellent final performance on the Flint Hill Stage Sunday Night. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
Miko Marks delighted the crowd with her soulful and divine Americana. Photo by Jess Maples.
Peter Rowan joined the Sam Grisman Project for a main stage set that was sadly interrupted by weather. Photo by Jess Maples.
Tanya Tucker brought down the house with her Sunday night set on the Flint Hill Stage. Photo by Cora Wagoner.
The crowd packs in for Casey Driessen's Red Shoestring Jam, the festival's final performance. Photo by Jess Maples.
Tickets for Earl Scruggs Music Festival 2025 are on sale now.
All photos courtesy of Earl Scruggs Music Festival and shot by Cora Wagoner and Jess Maples, as marked. Lead Image: Tanya Tucker performs on the Flint Hill Stage, photo by Jess Maples.
Forget the information age, we live in the age of hyper-stimulation. There seems to be less space to think – or to feel – than at any other point in human history, and music is not immune to that more-of-everything-all-at-once trap. But Andrew Combs’ sixth album Dream Pictures is your chance to take a break.
An acclaimed singer-songwriter with over a decade of work bridging country, folk, and pop songcraft, Combs is all too familiar with life on the run. He spent years trading his health and sanity for the precarious life of a traveling musician, but lately he’s been on a different program.
Born from quiet evenings of creative refuge, secluded in his garage after the kids went to bed, Dream Pictures finds Combs getting off the artistic treadmill and focusing on a sustainable life – one that includes a family and creative outlets not tied to a marketing calendar.
The result is a calming, relaxed fusion of roots pop and electronic folk, full of confessional character sketches and golden-hour contemplations that may require some slowing down to appreciate – but are well worth the effort. Basically, it’s the opposite of TikTok, and Combs spent one peaceful morning chatting with BGS about where it all came from.
It’s been about a dozen years since your debut album – how are you feeling about creativity as a job these days?
Andrew Combs: I feel more at ease and more creative and productive than I really ever have and I think that probably has a lot to do with just my schedule and having kids. I have no time to just sit around, so I don’t get caught in these periods of writer’s block or anything. I just don’t have time to do that.
Ok, that sounds pretty good!
Yeah, and I feel good. But I mean, the music industry is so fucked – especially for an artist at a lower level like myself. It’s just really hard. I’ve given up in a lot of ways trying to make a full money-making career out of it. I work a part-time job and I paint as well and I’ve decided that I want to do stuff that I want to do. That’s kept me going, and I’m actually happier than ever not being on the road all the time. I’m just doing things when they make sense and not looking at it as I have to go out on the road to make money.
That’s interesting. A lot of artists say that they do their best songwriting in periods of turmoil, but Dream Pictures feels very peaceful.
Yeah, I’d say the overall thesis statement about what the record is about is being content. And not to sound too “woo woo,” but just live in the moment and appreciate what is there around you. A year or two ago, I could easily fall into looking at Instagram and thinking “I should be doing that.” But for this record, I wrote all these songs in the evening after the kids went to bed in that sort of wind-down [stage]. … I kind of liken it to the golden hour of a summer night, just that quiet and calm time when my wife and I can interact as humans and adults and I can go to the garage and do my thing.
It is peaceful, but also patient. I was thinking like, “This is the opposite of TikTok,” and I mean that in a good way.
[Laughs] I actually chose this record to sign up on TikTok and try and put stuff on there and I’m just so lost. It’s so overwhelming when you open the thing, just like, “Bam!”
Likewise, back when you first started putting out records, Americana seemed like it was really exploding and growing, with a lot of new artists coming out. I’m just wondering, do you feel like the roots music scene has evolved in the last decade or so?
I don’t know if it’s evolved or de-volved. It seems like it’s just sort of an all-encompassing net for stuff that doesn’t work other places – which is great, and the cream of the crop is still amazing, but I do feel like there’s a lot of “genericana” going on. It’s just like I got a little bored with it and my origin into making music was electronic music, and then I drifted towards songwriting and Guy Clark, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and Townes Van Zandt, that kind of stuff. I still really think songs are important and words are important, but I’m also more interested in exploring different melodic things and the sonic quality of recording. I guess for a selfish reason, it’s just to keep me interested.
I can hear that mix of electronica and songwriting on Dream Pictures. You recorded everything with your friend Dom [Billett], what do you like most about how it came out?
We didn’t know we were starting a record. Dom – who has played with me live a lot and done a lot of recording with me, but never produced something with me – over COVID he built out his studio and got a tape machine, and he was like, “I’m just trying to figure this thing out. Do you have any songs that we can try?” The first song that I brought was “Your Eyes and Me,” and that ends up being one of my favorites. You can really hear the progression of him learning the tape machine … because by the end, it just sounds like a good recording. So I like that. I also feel like Dom’s friendship shows, at least to me. We also had our friend Spencer Cullum record some pedal steel, and it’s just us three. I like collaborating – but I really like collaborating when it’s a core group.
I read that “Eventide” was dedicated to your wife. Are you writing a lot of songs about family these days? What are you feeling inspired by?
Mostly right now, it’s about that contentment and mindfulness. I think it’s important for me to get out as well as I think it’s a worthwhile message to be spreading. There are also songs on the new record that another journalist I talked to – and he meant it in a really a nice way – he said they’re “low-stakes songwriting.” Songs that are about love, or heartbreak. Those kind of songs I’ve been writing for a long time. And I’m still able to harken back to my 20s and go through those feelings. I can still feel them like they were yesterday. But it probably helps to not be in despair and look back with a clear head.
Tell me a little bit about “Mary Gold.” It has a nice, delightful little bounce to it, and I love that lo-fi pop feel. What’s that one about?
That’s just a love song, kind of a “low-stakes songwriting” song. Just a feeling of this girl who doesn’t know how special she is, but in the eyes of the beholder is special. Lyrically, I think there’s some good stuff in there, but I was really focusing on that bounce you’re talking about. That ’70s pop feel, I felt like the record could use something like that. A lot of the songs are really subtle and soft and serious.
I dig the premise of “I’m Fine” – and the falsetto hook. Is that about trying to convince yourself you’re fine? Or is that more of that feeling when somebody asks “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
I mean, I think it’s the latter. That’s the only song I co-wrote on this record and I’ve had it for a long time. The guy I wrote it with, Burton Collins is his name, we wrote again around when I was making the record and that song was good, but it just didn’t quite fit. So I just went back through stuff we had done in the past and was like, “Let me fiddle around with that one for a bit.” It ended up being fun.
What do you like about Dream Pictures as a title? Is that a central theme for the record, or just a cool title?
Well, I originally wanted to call it Eventide, but there’s a guitar-pedal company called Eventide and all my friends were like, “Oh, the pedal?” And I was like, “No, the time of evening.” [Laughs] They were like, “I didn’t know that’s what that meant.” So then Dream Pictures stood out, and the idea of that golden hour, in-between time of chaos and peace, which can also be associated with sleep. I feel like a lot of my song ideas and painting ideas come from that time period of just falling asleep or just waking up.
Big picture, what do you hope folks take away from this one? What are you looking for in the next 10 years?
Well, I hope people find a bit of peace and quiet with the record, and I hope it’s enjoyable. It’s sort of selfish, but I’m just happy to put it out there and get a piece of me out there. I don’t know what the future holds. I could say I’m going to make a synth pop record right now, but it could turn out to be something totally different, so I really don’t know. I’m just going to keep writing and being creative and enjoying my time here on earth.
Artist:Evan Honer Hometown: Surprise, Arizona Latest Album:Fighting For
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
It’s hard to pick just one, but the artist that I bring up most consistently is Tyler Childers. He was the first person where I realized how much lyrics mean to people and how much they meant to me. His way with words and how often he pushes his sound to be sonically different with each new project.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
The best career advice I have received so far is to not compare yourself to any other artist and to realize that everyone is on their own timeline. No need to stress about the things you cannot control.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My favorite memory currently was the last show of my first headline tour. I was so sick during the show and felt so many different emotions, but I was mainly relieved that I had made it through my my first tour. Tour has so many highs and lows, so I was just grateful to get through it.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
Stroopwafels and Jim Croce
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I love Olivia Rodrigo, I think she is the greatest.
Photo Credit: Harrison Hargrave
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