The Creative Freedom Behind Leyla McCalla’s ‘Sun Without the Heat’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Sun Without the Heat is Leyla McCalla’s fifth solo album, but it is different from past efforts and she brings the listener through the transformative process with her. Produced by Maryam Qudus at Dockside Studio in Louisiana, McCalla dug into her personal history, primary sources from Amistad Research Center at Tulane University’s archives, world musical influences, and her creative trust in her long time bandmates to bring forth a bright, kinetic, and meditative project.

The studio, nestled along the Vermilion Bayou, offered an insular, bucolic setting for the nine days McCalla and band were recording; a place where friends and children could visit and local fishermen provided fresh catch for dinner. Qudus’ direction provided McCalla with space and vision to piece together her research and personal edification, while her relationship with her band allowed a deeply creative process to unfold. McCalla spoke wistfully about the experience, “It was very luxurious to have that kind of space. And it’s just really a very nurturing environment.”

Traditionally a cellist, on this project, McCalla explores her relationship with the guitar. She delves into West African and Brazilian polyrhythms flowing underneath lyrics that, at times, feel like a repetitive prayer or mantra. She balances the seemingly unanswerable aspects of life with the sometimes illusive, but simple notion that many contradictory feelings can be true at once.

BGS spoke with McCalla via Zoom from her home in New Orleans earlier this month. McCalla discussed the experience of researching, writing, and recording, her relationship with fans and supporters, creative freedom, and trusting the process.

I’ve been listening to all your music the past couple of days and I’ve noticed that the sonic palette of this album is somewhat of a shift for you. It seems like there’s a transformation theme running through it, both lyrically and musically, and it seems like even in the process of recording it. So I wanna talk about that on multiple levels, but can we start with the process for this? It sounds like you went into the woodshed and didn’t come out until the record was done.

Leyla McCalla: This is an album that was mostly finished in the studio. I had a pre-production session with Maryam Qudus, who produced the record. It was also just this really crazy time in my life. I was on tour a lot and coordinating with kids’ schedules. We really only had 36 hours of workshopping songs. Maryam was really amazing at being like, “Okay, let’s play with this idea, and come up with a verse and a chorus.” So I think we came out of that pre-production session with about 7 different demos that were just these rough sketches and we sent them all around to the band. When we went into the studio, everyone contributed what they were hearing to the songs. I’ve been working with my band now for about six years. I think that we have developed fluidity in our process of coming up with parts and talking about music. And so I knew that I had these sort of vague notions of delving into psychedelia and Afrofuturism and mining, this incredible music from Africa, ultimately. I think that that’s been a consistent through line in all my work is connecting my music through the ancestral lines of the sounds themselves.

I played a lot more guitar on this record than any other record. For me, it was really about delving into the songwriting and figuring out what I wanted to say. I’d been doing a lot of reading of Black feminist thinkers, and contemporary thinkers like Adrienne Maree Brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Octavia Butler. I think this record for me was really about, “How am I going to survive life? What does it mean to be resilient? What does it mean to transform and change? And give myself the space to grieve and also to hope and to dream.” There are a lot of things that I was meditating on when I wrote these songs.

I remember feeling very vulnerable, because I was really going back into this more beginner’s mind. I’ve never gone into the studio and been like, “I don’t know what it’s gonna sound like on the other side.” I’ve always had the band pretty well rehearsed and gone in. This time it was like, “These are the things that are emerging in real-time.”

Did you feel nervous about it? It seems like you have a lot of trust with your band, which is a great starting point. And you had the 36 hours of workshopping and all the ideas that you came up with. But were there nerves about it walking in to record?

Oh, yeah. It was not nerves about, “Can I trust my bandmates to be awesome?” It was more nerves of, “Do I suck?” Which is classic imposter syndrome that artists have as part of the process of writing. You get an idea. It’s a good idea. You question whether it’s a good idea.

I’m trying to do a new thing. I’m trying to break new ground in my creative life and in my sonic expression. Within that, I think that there’s a lot of room for self-doubt. That’s why for this album it was critical to have the support of my bandmates and of Maryam, who didn’t have that kind of attachment to any of the songs. They were just there to help execute what I wanted.
I think this album really has strengthened my trust in my songwriting and in my creative process. And just knowing that you don’t always have to know what’s gonna happen to know that it’ll be good.

Absolutely. I was just going to say when you said it was a sort of meditative for you, I think that really comes across, lyrically and sonically. There are these phrases that you repeat that are meditative and it seems like you’re asking questions, you’re answering the ones you can, and you’re submitting to the ones that you can’t. What you are saying you wanted to happen comes across.

Yeah, I think so. I think that there is, on a spiritual level, deep healing for me in writing these songs. I was calling that in. I was navigating single motherhood, divorce, breakups, and big deaths in my family. It was like, “How do I call myself back to myself, what is gonna guide me through that?” I think for me, doing a lot of sort of ancestral healing work and meditating on the the gifts and the things that I’ve inherited from my ancestors, those made their way into the songs.

Speaking of process, you mentioned in your liner notes that you are grateful for creative freedom on this project. And I’d love to know what creative freedom looks like for you and how it impacts your work. And maybe what a lack of creative freedom has felt like in the past for you.

I think creative freedom, for me, was kind of twofold. I have a label that is mostly doing stuff outside of the commercial realm. Obviously, we’re part of the music industry, but I never felt like I needed to make a particular album. I felt like the question from the label was, “What kind of album do you want to make? What is coming through right now for you? What do you want to say?” Being able to come from that place is very different than, “Try to take over this part of the market,” or something. It’s a lot more empowering experience. Also, not being afraid to go in different directions. Not being afraid to use weird pedals on my guitars, experiment with synths, have a freaking psychedelic freak out, or have piano on the songs or organ. It was just sort of intuitive, “Yes, this belongs.” And not feeling like anyone was going to disapprove of that.

I never felt that there was a particular agenda outside of the agenda that I wanted to fulfill. That has been a really empowering experience for me, coming off of my previous record where it was like, “Okay, these are these ancient rhythms that are Haitian and African, and this is a mapping of where Haitian people come from.” I felt empowered by that, but in a very different way, almost like I wanted to serve this music. For this record it felt like, “Okay, how can this process really serve me and serve my creative genesis?” Returning back to like a more beginner’s mind, “What are the things that really I love about music? What are the things that make me wanna write songs?”

I didn’t have as much of a mind for that with Breaking the Thermometer, because it had been such a longstanding collaboration that I had been working on for five years with a crew of theater makers and different musicians and then going into the studio.

I always felt like that project was like a garden of weeds that are growing out of control. It could be a book. It could be a theater project. It could be a dance piece. I explored the intersection of all those things together. Whereas this was like, “Okay, I’m just returning back to this one format. We’re making an album.”

It meant connecting with some of my earliest influences. That’s why I went back to listening to a lot of artists from the tropicalismo movement in Brazil, in the ’60s and ’70s. There was all this experimentation with traditional music forms and rock and roll and psychedelia. I love that music. There’s something about it that just really speaks deeply to me. And I think that it’s also because of my generation, who I am, and where I am. I’m drawn to things that are out of the box. And I’m also drawn to really solid groove and feel and deep emotional content. I never had an agenda other than to figure out what I want to sound like and being able to have that space. A lot of these songs were about like, “How do I get out of my own way?”

When you started thinking about making this record did you know that you’d be playing more guitar than cello? Did you write on guitar? What was the relationship with that instrument like?

I was writing a lot on guitar. I wasn’t like, “I’m gonna play guitar and not cello.” I didn’t have an agenda in that way. I really wanted to explore different shapes in my fingers and try different rhythmic structures. Guitar is exciting for me in that way.
I’ve done a lot of finger-picking in my work and there’s plenty of that on this record. But I’m like, “What about this inflection? What about this texture? And what about this feel? What does that conjure?” That was really fun for me.

Fun was also really central to the process. I was like, “I want to heal, I want to be creative, I want to expand my sonic palette, and I also want to have fun.” I do this work to have fun. I don’t do this work to be the “king of the capitalists” or something. I want to have a good experience with it and find it enriching. I feel like the guitar is the ultimate symbol of liberation and freedom. It has a different meaning to me than the cello. With cello, I know the notes. I am thinking about technique and I have to think about how I’m holding my body. Guitar is just like, “This is who I am.”

For sure. Partly because the guitar is so mobile. You can walk off into the woods with it.

Yeah, totally. You should see me walk through an airport. I’m carrying my guitar, my banjo, and my cello, and I’m always like, ”Man, life would be so much easier without this cello.” But it’s such a powerful thing. When I’m playing cello, it feels totally like, “Wow, this is also home.”

Cello moves so much air. It can completely change the vibration of a room.

Totally. I always tell my bandmates, “Oh, we gotta be careful with that cello. It’s like melting a dark piece of chocolate on stage.”

I think a lot about sense of place and how a place can affect the creative process. Since you were sort of in a “lock-in” at Dockside Studio, I want to know if that studio and that place had an effect on this record.

Oh, yeah. Dockside is an incredible place. There’s a house with a pool and then a whole other house with a studio. The grounds are beautiful and well-kept. You’re right by the river.

There was a sense of deep relaxation for me there, because it is kind of separate. If it were in the middle of a city, there would be so much more distraction. But because there isn’t, I felt like it really helped me to focus and to tune in. We burnt candles there every day. We were calling in a lot of spirits and support. I did a lot of just sitting by the river and writing and reading in order to write.

And Maryam is amazing. If it had just been me producing the record, it would have been way more disorganized. Maryam was amazing at being like, “Okay, Leyla, we don’t need you in the studio right now. What we really need from you is to go and write.” I feel like I do best in those sorts of relationships, when someone is gently nudging me in the direction of what’s gonna be most productive for me. I was really able to get to a place of being productive and feeling quiet enough to actually hear whatever was coming through. If we had made the record anywhere else, it would have probably sounded completely different. We are all pretty well versed in the different styles of Louisianan music, so we kept thinking, “What is this sound that we’re coming up with?” And we were like, “This is Louisiana tropicalia.” It’s a fun construct.

Tell me a bit about what your relationship is like with fans and supporters of your music and the impact that they might have on your creations or your career.

For my first record, I did a Kickstarter campaign and I asked for $5,000, because I didn’t know how expensive it is to make albums. I ended up making over $20k. That whole process of doing the Kickstarter was such a boon to my career. At that point, I had been touring with the Carolina Chocolate Drops. No one really knew who I was, but I realized that there was support and space for me to be doing these projects that combine research and intellectual pursuits with making music. That’s the line that I have been toeing this whole time. And it is incredible, over the years, the number of connections that I have made from pursuing two things at once and growing this academic life within my body of work as a recording artist.

People have brought me, over the years, limited edition Langston Hughes, Haitian Creole poetry from the 1800s, translations of Zora Neale Hurston books that are in French or German. Those are the kinds of connections that feel so sustaining creatively for me and really enriching. The music industry is so inundated with artists, and everyone’s trying to stand out. That kind of symbiosis, I think, is really critical not only to me as an artist but to me seeking support.

That’s wonderful. There’s something sort of clinical about the traditional record label rollout of material in the past, but now it feels like, because of social media, because of things like Kickstarter and house shows, a wall has broken down.

Totally. And I feel people really connect to that, even sometimes more than the actual songs. Which may be problematic in one way. Everything is kind of about more of this “cult of personality” thing. Not that I’m super invested in developing that, but I do feel like the fan base is invested in me as a person, and wants to want to support the music as a result of that.

Can you talk a little bit about the collaboration with the Rivers Institute and the Amistad Research Center at Tulane, and how that might have informed this project, or what you’re working on in general?

I was invited by the Rivers Institute to be their first music fellow. They have this incredible artist-in-residence program that is in concert with the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, which is an incredible archive of stuff from all over the South, particularly Louisiana Black culture. There are so many oral history interviews. I discovered writers that I didn’t know about, particularly a guy named Tom Dent, who feels like he’s kind of like the Langston Hughes of Louisiana.

I’ve always known how important archives and libraries are, but it’s just so much information. There’s a woman named Jade Flint who works there who helped me. She was like, “What are you interested in?” I’m like, “I like poetry. I like organizers. I like movement work.” I found myself down this path of discovering letters that Fannie Lou Hamer had written to her best friend. She was from the Delta in Mississippi and in the ’60s was really active in registering Black voters at the height of Jim Crow. She was attacked. She was beaten really badly for that. She just kept on fighting her whole life for Black people to have the right to vote and for political participation for Black people at a time where that came at a great cost to her mental, emotional, and physical health.

There’s an organization called Core New Orleans, which actually did a lot of COVID testing during the pandemic, but they were also working on voter registrations. I was reading their pamphlets that were like, “This is how you deal with potentially violent situations. This is how you approach people about trying to get them to vote.” I was doing that and concurrently reading things about emergent strategy and pleasure activism and comparing notes like, “These are the activists of yesteryear and the organizing principles.”

And then I was reading Adrienne Maree Brown’s books. She’s like, “You’re gonna need to masturbate before reading this chapter, because otherwise you won’t be connected with your pleasure center. That is essential to this activist work.” You could see this sea change in the attitude about what is actually going to aid our collective liberation the most.

During this time, my grandfather passed away and he [had] started a Socialist Haitian newspaper called Haiti Progress. Both of my parents are activists. I’ve been immersed in a lot organizing and activist stuff my whole life like going to protests throughout my childhood, especially regarding Haitian immigrants and human rights issues in the United States.

All of these things just really filled me with this feeling of, “Wow! It’s taken so much bravery to be able to fight the good fight and keep these conversations moving forward.” I think we still have a long way to go. I did a lot of reflecting on that. And that song, “I Want to Believe,” was written during that residency. It’s a simple song, but I wanted to write something that was almost a song that could be sung at a protest, something that was not quite gospel and not quite protest music, somewhere in the middle.

I love a library, I love an archivist, and I love being in that space and finding things that feel like a secret. How you process that as a person in the present, feeling the history in the present, and how it comes across – that is reflected in your lyrics. We have access to so much information today, but that information is very much filtered by these multinational corporations. There’s search engine optimization and all that, and we can’t really dig down until you go into a place like that where those regional details exist, like in an archive or library.

It just is incredible to me, because there’s so much to keep track of. And you know, even the different categories like oral histories or audio interviews or drafts of books or poems. There are unpublished pieces that may only be read by five people every year.
Those five people then know about this thing and can share it with their community, and make work from it, or include it in their research papers. There’s there’s endless ways to see the world and then filter this information.

I feel like my job as a musician is looking for those bits of information that feel like the diamond in the rough, like the thing that I’ve been looking for my whole life. That’s really the chase. It really keeps me in the archives.

Can you talk specifically about the title track, “Sun Without the Heat?” In your liner notes, you dedicate the song to Susan Raffo and Frederick Douglass. I’d love to know more about that.

Susan Rafo released a book called Liberated to the Bone: Histories. Bodies. Futures. I went down this rabbit hole of progressive thought. Her book is written for healers, people working within the medical industrial complex, and anyone who’s engaged in healing work, whether that be on a community level or on a one-on-one basis. I read that book, and it was really fortifying for me.

She has this theory of the original wounds of our society, which are the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African people through the transatlantic slave trade. It’s about our inability to grapple with the harm that has been perpetuated and is being perpetuated from those original wounds. It is holding us back from larger systemic change. There’s a chapter where she references a speech that Frederick Douglass gave in 1857 to a room full of white abolitionists. He said, “You want the crops without the plow. You want the rain without the thunder. You want the ocean without the roar of its waters.” I was immediately like, “Those are song lyrics.” I just heard it immediately. Those were just such beautiful words and and phrases and concepts, and I kept on singing that.

It occurred to me, “You can’t have the sun without the heat.” I was like, “There are only three phrases, and I need that one other thing.” I was also thinking about how so many of these songs to me are about transformation, and are about what change really requires of us. And it felt like those phrases spoke so well to that theme.

I read a book called Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Ghums. It’s a Black feminist study of marine mammals off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia and the things that we can learn from them about survival, resiliency, living on this planet, and our inherent connection to nature — you know, how to thrive on this seemingly unsustainable planet. It is also about our connections to each other and community.

For a long time, I think in my own personal life I was like, “I just can’t help but feel like I’m drowning.” But I didn’t want to just make a record about that feeling. I wanted to make a record about getting through that feeling: about breaking through the overwhelm.

Photo Credit: Chris Scheurich

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From John McEuen, Tom Paxton, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This week, banjoist and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founding member John McEuen kicks off our You Gotta Hear This round up with a track from his brand new album, The Newsman: A Man of Record. Check out his adaptation of a Robert Service poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee” below.

Plus, we’ve got track premieres from gritty country outfit Tylor & the Train Robbers, from Claire Lynch singing Tom Paxton for an upcoming album, Bluegrass Sings Paxton, from the Stetson Family contemplating mortality, and from the Onlies a rendering of a classic old-time ballad.

Don’t miss our video premiere from Max McNown, too, which posted to BGS just yesterday. It’s all right here and, if we do say so ourselves, You Gotta Hear This!

John McEuen, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”

Artist: John McEuen
Hometown: Oakland, California
Song: “The Cremation of Sam McGee”
Album: The Newsman: A Man of Record
Release Date: April 12, 2024
Label: Compass Records

In Their Words: “Using sound effects, music I composed, and some ‘recording tricks’ with instruments, I concocted the back up for one of my favorite poems, ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee.’ My (late) older sister would sometimes tell her 8-10 year old brother, me, this favorite Robert Service poem from 1906, captivating me with the story of a place unknown. I later found it in my high school English book and fell in love with it again. It takes me away to that strange time in these miners’ lives, and while starting kind of morose, manages (in my opinion, anyway) to reach a ‘happy ending’ with Sam finally getting warm! Trying to make the ‘definitive’ version of this classic was a challenge. It is one of my best ‘works.’ I am hoping each time a listeners hears it they will hear something different show up in the mix, as I planned it to be ‘with surprises’ like that.” – John McEuen

Claire Lynch, “I Give You The Morning” (by Tom Paxton)

Artist: Claire Lynch from Bluegrass Sings Paxton
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Song: “I Give You The Morning”
Album: Bluegrass Sings Paxton
Release Date: April 12, 2024 (Single)
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “Claire Lynch has one of the most recognizable and expressive voices in bluegrass. We knew we wanted to have that voice on the album and her choice of ‘I Give You The Morning’ was a great call — it’s got an old-fashioned ballad construction, a deliciously unusual yet natural rhythm to the first lines in each verse, a captivating melodic rise in the refrain, and an evocative lyric. And, the band has just the right balance of strength and delicacy to complement those same qualities in her approach. It’s a performance that brings out so many aspects of what makes Tom Paxton’s songs so memorable, and I can’t think of a better way to introduce this project to listeners!” – Jon Weisberger, co-producer

“Since the early 1960s, when bluegrass and the emergent folk revival first crossed paths, arguably no songwriter from the latter world has seen more of their songs adopted by the former than Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Tom Paxton. From early covers of his epochal ‘The Last Thing On My Mind’ by Bluegrass Hall of Famers, The Dillards and the Kentucky Colonels, to regular performances of ‘Leaving London’ by IBMA Entertainer of the Year Billy Strings, to Ashby Frank’s version of ‘Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound,’ which landed a place among the 30 most-played tracks on bluegrass radio in 2023, Paxton’s creative visions have echoed in bluegrass studios, on bluegrass stages and in bluegrass jam sessions for generations.

“Now a broad-ranging group of artists in and around bluegrass are paying explicit tribute to this vital legacy in a new Mountain Home Music Company collection — Bluegrass Sings Paxton — that places these classic songs alongside less familiar, but no less finely crafted material from the Tom Paxton songbook, including new songs written especially for the project.” – Mountain Home Music Company

Track Credits:
Claire Lynch – Lead vocal
Darren Nicholson – Mandolin, octave mandolin
Deanie Richardson – Fiddle
Chris Jones – Acoustic guitar
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo
Nelson Williams – Upright bass

Tylor & the Train Robbers, “Workin Hands”

Artist: Tylor & the Train Robbers
Hometown: Boise, Idaho
Song: “Workin Hands”
Album: Hum of the Road
Release Date: April 12, 2024 (single); May 3, 2024 (album)

In Their Words: “I wrote this one around a guitar riff I had been playing with for a while. The riff is busy, but something about it stuck in my head and I decided to write a song to match it. I wanted to keep the intensity of that guitar part and extend to every instrument in the band, pushing us all musically. Everyone in the band worked to find the right parts that brought it all together. The vibe is inspired by bands like Barefoot Jerry and the Amazing Rhythm Aces, it’s unpredictable and keeps you on your toes. It’s definitely not a song I would ask someone to sit in with us on unless they came prepared, but it’s become a favorite for us to play live. I think it really showcases the musicianship of everyone in the band.” — Tylor Ketchum

Track Credits:

Tylor Ketchum – Lead Vocals and Rhythm Guitar
Jason Bushman – Bass Guitar and Harmony Vocals
Tommy Bushman – Drums and Harmony Vocals
Rider Soran – Lap Steal Guitar
Johnny Pisano – Electric Guitar
Cody Braun – Hand Claps and percussion
Katy Braun – Hand Claps
Jonathan Tyler – Hand Claps and percussion

Recorded at Yellow Dog Studios in Wimberley, Texas.
Producer – Cody Braun
Engineer – Adam Odor
Mixed by Jonathan Tyler.
Mastered by Adam Odor.

The Stetson Family, “Make Me Ashes”

Artist: The Stetson Family
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Make Me Ashes”
Album: The Stars, If You Look Closely
Release Date: April 19, 2024

In Their Words: “‘When it’s time to meet my maker, come the fire or the hole…’ – the words ‘fire or the hole’ come from a conversation I had with a woman who was the owner of a Vietnamese restaurant in Melbourne where my family and I went every Wednesday night for many years. When my mum passed away, Lisa, the lovely Vietnamese owner, asked me in broken English, ‘Does your mum have the fire or the hole?’ Meaning, ‘Will she be cremated or buried?’ I loved her humble way of asking, it was so heartfelt. It got me thinking about when it’s my time, will I have the fire or the hole? This song lets people know I’ve chosen the fire.” – Nadine Budge

Track Credits:
Nadine Budge – Writer, lead vocal, rhythm guitar, resonator guitar
John Bartholomeusz – guitar, harmonies
Colin Swan – banjo, harmonies
Greg Field – fiddle, mandolin, harmonies
Luke Richardson – double bass, harmonies

The Onlies, “Matty Groves”

Artist: The Onlies
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee; Durham, North Carolina; Whitesburg, Kentucky
Song: “Matty Groves”
Release Date: April 12, 2024

In Their Words: “A couple years ago, our friend Sonya Badigian sent a recording of Doc Watson playing this song and recommended we learn it as a band. Before going into the studio, Leo spent many weeks singing the long, epic poem which tells the story of Matty Groves stealing Lord Daniel’s wife and the dramatic duel that later ensues. This story dates back to 17th century Northern England, closely related to Child ballad #81, ‘Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard.’ When we got together to work up an arrangement, a driving fiddle melody emerged to accompany the lyrics. We recorded it late at night in a small studio in Eunice, Louisiana, with the help of incredible engineer Joel Savoy and the unmistakable bass groove of Nokosee Fields.” – Sami Braman

Track Credits:
Leo Shannon – lead vocal and guitar
Vivian Leva – harmony vocal and guitar
Sami Braman – fiddle
Riley Calcagno – banjo
Nokosee Fields – bass

Max McNown, “Worry ‘Bout My Wandering”

Artist: Max McNown
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Song: “Worry ‘Bout My Wandering”
Album: Wandering
Release Date: April 12, 2024
Label: Fugitive Recordings x The Orchard

In Their Words: “‘Worry ‘Bout My Wandering’ was probably the most difficult song for me to write as it’s so personal. It came from being far away from my family and thinking about my mom and wondering how she feels about my life and the direction it’s taken. Shooting the video in my beautiful home state of Oregon was very important to me… I just always want to make my family and hometown proud.” – Max McNown

More here.

Photo Credit: John McEuen by Henry Diltz; Max McNown by Benjamin Edwards.

Jontavious Willis Says Blues Music Is for The Kids

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Originally from Greenville, Georgia, Jontavious Willis is a blues music phenom. When we talk about the blues, the phrase “torchbearer” comes up a lot when it comes to young, new blues artists. I think of that word as a double-edged sword. When you think of a torchbearer, you think about someone who’s carrying on a flame that was lit long ago. It’s somebody who’s carrying on a tradition, but it also can come with restrictions. Such as oldheads telling you that you’re not doing it right or asking you, “Have you really paid your dues? Are you really faithful to the tradition?” And asking you questions about whether or not you belong.

Jontavious handles that double-edged sword with such alacrity. His writing is firmly contemporary at the same time that his playing is rooted in the tradition of country blues. He knows so much about the genre that he’s basically a walking encyclopedia of the blues. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but instead of the traditional Basic Folk lightning round, we played a pop-up game at the end of the interview. I put different styles of the blues (like Delta or Piedmont) in one cup and various 2024 topics, ripped from the headlines, in another. Then we just matched them up. He was so quick on his feet.

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Jontavious is a great example of a new spin on a genre that a lot of people think they know already. He is so adamant that the blues is a contemporary genre and always has been. He made the point during our interview that a lot of the blues legends we’ve encased in the amber of memory were young teens or 20-somethings when they wrote their iconic songs. It’s really a genre for free people, for young people, for people looking ahead. It’s not about the past. Another point he made while discussing his Southern roots: When we talk about country, often we’re talking about a musical genre with a certain difficult history. But for him, and I imagine for a lot of other artists, country is a way of life. It’s about being out in the wild. It’s about having a connection to nature. It’s about sitting with quiet. It’s about having time on your hands to experiment with songwriting, or being a singer. It’s about a genuine experience of being connected to a particular place in time.

This interview and live performance was recorded for the podcast live at the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival (FWAAMFest). When I was a kid, my dad’s family used to have these big reunions. They’re from a North and South Carolina Baptist family, and it would be a big barbecue at the state park or in a church hall. We would have t-shirts made, people of all ages milling around, catching up. Often there would be an elder getting up to say a long prayer or make an announcement. This sense of belonging and intergenerational connection is what FWAAMFest felt like. Brandi Waller-Pace, the festival founder, is such a visionary, and they bring together artists of so many different genres, all of which fit under the roots music umbrella. There’s this beautiful link between all of the music based on the African American Storytelling Tradition and the Artistic Tradition. In addition to being able to interview Jontavious live onstage, this was my first time headlining a festival, so it couldn’t have been more of a special day for me.

Photo credit: Ben Noey Jr.

WATCH: Max McNown, “Worry ‘Bout My Wandering”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Max McNown
Hometown: Bend, Oregon
Song: “Worry ‘Bout My Wandering”
Album: Wandering
Release Date: April 12, 2024
Label: Fugitive Recordings x The Orchard

In Their Words: “‘Worry ‘Bout My Wandering’ was probably the most difficult song for me to write as it’s so personal. It came from being far away from my family and thinking about my mom and wondering how she feels about my life and the direction it’s taken. Shooting the video in my beautiful home state of Oregon was very important to me… I just always want to make my family and hometown proud.” – Max McNown

Track Credits:
Produced by AJ Pruis.
Recorded by AJ Pruis at The Chambers, Thompson’s Station, TN.
Editing by AJ Pruis.
Programming & Arrangement by AJ Pruis.
Mixed by John Nathaniel.
Mastered by Sam Moses.

AJ Pruis – Bass
Drew Belk – Guitars, pedal steel, Dobro
Mike Walker – BGVs

Photo Credit: Benjamin Edwards

Video Credits: Directed by Benjamin Edwards
Produced by Hayden W. Larson
B Camera – Micah Reimer
Gaffer – Parker Edwards
Edit / Grade – Edwards Media Co 
Set – Neon Toast 
Guitar – Parker Edwards 
Percussion – Emmanuel Kahn 
Filmed on location in Oregon. 

Open Mic: For Misner & Smith, Gardening Helps Their Creativity Thrive

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Open Mic is a BGS series with a simple premise – to remove all the filters between artist and audience and give musicians and creatives an Open Mic. With each installment, we’ll hold space for musicians to say whatever they’d like on any topic they like in any format that moves them most. It’s about facilitating real conversations and genuine insight with our roots music community.)

It’s been seven years since roots duo Misner & Smith began work on what would become their new album, All Is Song (out April 12). In that time, much has changed about the world. Yet through the simple act of tending a garden, Sam Misner and Megan Smith found inspiration in things that endure.

Grounding themselves in the balance of the Northern California ecosystem, both musicians say the last few years have brought a perspective shift that impacts their lives deeply – and that includes their acclaimed music. Becoming more connected to the land and the natural rhythm of things has freed their minds for creative pursuits, and according to them, it shows up in All Is Song everywhere: lyrically, sonically, and even in philosophic scope.

The duo used their Open Mic to talk about the under-appreciated similarities between gardening and growing a music career. And as a Master Gardener student at UC Davis (who also teaches others the deeply human activity of helping things thrive on the side), Smith recommend The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to learn more about how easy it is to encourage your local habitat.

Sam Misner: For years now, the garden has been a way of being creative, but with no other motivation than observing and cultivating and watching things grow, and being attentive to all of it. There’s a certain kind of awareness and peace that comes from that, because it’s outside of your own self. You’re not trying to showcase anything you are doing. It’s your connection to plants. And Megan truly has been the kind of, I don’t know what you would call it–

Megan Smith: The crazy person?

Sam: [Laughs] Yeah, the crazy person. Her vision for our garden and just what she wants to do with plants has been centered a lot around benefiting pollinators and creating habitats.

Megan: Music and art and gardening, I think they can seem like extracurricular activities. We’re taught from a very young age like, “… and if you have some time, do a hobby like music or gardening.” But I firmly believe that what these things teach you more than anything is that everything you do matters. Every little thing you put into the world has incredible weight. And if you keep pushing towards something that will have a positive and lasting effect, even if it’s a small one, it matters in the grand scheme of things and it makes a difference. And I’m a firm believer of that.

We’ve been doing music for 20 years this month and it’s a hard thing to do. You don’t do that for that long without some degree of faith and understanding that however small an impact you’re making, it matters. And doing the garden the way we’ve done it, it’s a similar thing. We’ve been living in Davis for about 15 years now, and there was nothing here besides a weedy lawn. Over the years, bit by bit, we’ve transformed it into a wildlife garden. And the things that we’ve both seen arrive and make their home here, it’s fantastic. It’s so gratifying, and we feel so privileged and so lucky to have the space in order to be able to do that for our little corner of the world. I think the music is the same.

It’s like, “Hey, we planted milkweed and the monarchs showed up in our garden.” And “Hey, we wrote a song infused with hope and comfort, and people looking for hope and comfort are appreciating it.” That stuff really does have ripple effects out into the world. And I think it is a job, but it’s also something we really do deeply believe in. The garden is just an affirmation in that way.

Sam: There’s something cyclical about it, too. There’s a reminder that things are born, things have their lifespan and things die, but you also see how the things that die aid and help the continuation of the new life that comes. There’s a rejuvenation that happens that you’re kind of reminded of that you don’t always get that in the music business. Another thing about working outside is it gives a mind a chance to wander. It’s not thinking about all the things that we need to get done, and I’ve definitely had lyrics come to me – not fully formed in a song, but like, “Ooh, that’s a cool image,” and I’ll jot it down and it will maybe become part of a song down the road. It’s definitely a place of pausing in a way that gives the body some space. You can’t be in the garden and not be present.

Megan: I do some teaching about gardening here in Yolo County, and everybody asks, “What’s your main advice for somebody who’s a beginner gardener?” I say, “Just learn how to be an observer. Learn how to see things that aren’t obvious. Learn how to hear things that aren’t in your face.” I think our music is definitely influenced by that. We have a line in one of our older songs that’s like, “You may not hear the first time, you have to listen twice,” and it’s about layering different pieces on top of other pieces to make this thing that’s bigger than the sum of its parts. Each song is a story, but it’s also the layering of the arrangements, the harmonies, why we use the harmonies, where we use them. I think that’s very influenced by our experiences with the natural world.

When we first started doing the album, I had a long-time idea that I really wanted to introduce some natural sounds onto the album as sort of palette cleansers in between pieces. Because Sam’s our songwriter, and I am sort of an arranger – that’s my job with the duo. And my feeling was the songs themselves are so delightfully different. None of his songs sound the same, which I love. And so on the album, I wanted there to be few moments of peaceful procession between songs so that you could clear your head for a minute before you heard the next song. There are three interludes, one is a bird song recording of a Fox Sparrow my dad made, and then at the end of the album there’s also crickets, and if you listen in your headphones or earbuds or whatever, you can hear a distant siren. … It wasn’t that we set out to do it from the beginning, but the title of the album reflects on those natural sounds – even that siren. It’s all song. Everything we experience is, in a way, music.

Photo Credit: Giant Eye Photography

Into the Squishy Middle: Humbird Celebrates Being Wrong on ‘Right On’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

When I first heard Right On, the new album from Humbird, (the moniker for Minnesota-based singer-songwriter Siri Undlin), I thought immediately of Jason Molina and Magnolia Electric Co. There’s an emotional rawness in the production paired with a choral background vocal style on songs like “Fast Food” that reflects a Midwestern landscape to my ears. Imagine a million ears of corn singing to nobody in the blazing heat of summer, right beside a sprawling concrete strip mall.

“Quilted miles of iron and wheat / does it count, if it just repeats?” Undlin sings.

I had the privilege of talking to Undlin over the phone about her new album, while she was at home in Minnesota and I was in a parking lot outside of a Barnes & Noble somewhere in Maryland. The first thing I asked was if she was familiar with Molina’s work, and much to my surprise, she was not. So, I will have to assume that what I heard as historical reference is merely a shared landscape of influence and delicious, melancholy songwriting.

Throughout her new album Right On, Humbird explores the human desire to retreat into ease, safety, and ignorance, rather than put oneself at risk of being wrong. Undlin begins this exploration with the experience of heartbreak, but quickly zooms out to include topics of cultural conflict, destruction of natural ecosystems, societal priorities, and gun violence. All the while, these songs ask us not to know the answers, but to merely be willing to ask the questions.

On “Child of Violence,”she sings: “I could be a break in the chain / you could be a break in the chain / you could be a piece of the change / When you talk about it call it by it’s name…”

I have been a fan of Humbird ever since I saw her performance at the Mile of Music Festival in Appleton, Wisconsin, this past summer and I was thrilled to get to interview her about this album.

Central to this record is a kind of celebration of being wrong. Can you speak to the specific benefits of being wrong and what being wrong means to you?

Siri Undlin: I find that there is a carefulness and reservedness, a real fear of being wrong, that often gets in the way of important conversations, and prevents people from trying to learn and do better. The reality is that sometimes you’re wrong, but you still have a responsibility to show up and be a part of things.

Ah, that makes sense. So on the title track you sing, “You might be dead wrong… at least you’re trying…” This particular song seems to be about a romantic relationship, but in a broader sense, is this about avoiding apathy?

Yes, it’s a central message of the album, and honestly I need to hear it as much as anyone. There is a time for resting and rejuvenating, but I think it’s important to be really honest with yourself about whether you are in that process, or whether you are making excuses because it’s hard. You have to be able to get into the squishy middle of things and really dig in.

I’m from Minnesota and in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, which I have written about explicitly on other records, I’ve had to realize how slow change can be. You have that initial communal outrage, but then what happens a year later? What happens two years later?

Whether its a global event or personal event, I’ve done a lot of growing up and I can’t just ignore these things. It’s a kind of rugged realism that comes with this greater knowledge, which can be really beautiful, but there’s a reframing that just has to happen.

When you talk about rugged realism, it makes me think of your song “Cornfields and Road Kill,” which is one of my favorites on the album.

That is my favorite song to play live and has been for years. I just think it’s one of the more honest songs I’ve ever written. I was able to capture a lot of what I feel about the landscapes where I’m from and the complexities and subtle beauty of it.

There’s so many road songs, but there’s very few songs written about the landscapes of the Midwest; roadkill and monocrops, soy and corn, and animals that are dead is the reality of traveling and the landscape and the economy of the area. It’s this visual representation of the choices that we’ve made about culture and society.

I was just mad about that when I wrote that song. I wrote it as a connecting tool and a bridge rather than just rage… but it is also just fun to be loud and turn up the amps and be cathartic…

I feel like the Midwest is having a real artistic moment right now with Waxahatchee/Plains and Kevin Morby, how do you think the Midwest and specifically Minnesota influence your work?

It’s tricky, because it’s such a subtly nuanced place in a lot of ways. It’s home, first and foremost, which is an endless topic of analysis. But creatively, I do feel really inspired by the landscape of the prairie, because of its subtleties. It’s a landscape you really have to sit with and pay attention to in order to understand it. You have to really slow down. I also think there’s a lot of space for a creative community, which is really exciting when you take into account income inequalities and the densities of the larger cities. There’s space here to collaborate and there’s not really the infrastructure that super ambitious people are interested in, so they move away… I think it was Prince who said that “The cold keeps the shitty people away!” [Laughs]

I am blown away by the production on this record, you worked with Shane Leonard who is another artist heavily rooted in the Midwest. What was the process like working with him, and what did that collaboration bring to the project?

Shane is a dear pal who I have recorded with before, so we have an established workflow. I, along with two of my bandmates, had been playing these songs live for a couple years on tour by the time we went to record, so going into it we were aiming to capture the live feeling of these songs, very much trying for the sound of a band in a room.

In approaching the record, I thought, let’s just go and hang with Shane and record live to tape and try to capture that energy. Because we do tackle heavy and weighty topics, but at the end of the day we still have a blast playing together.

I loved recording to tape. Instead of going into it with infinite options it was like, “Here’s how we play it and just do your best.” That infused the whole process with some magic and adrenaline, and it was awesome.

Humbird is a pretty fluid project, there’s a cast and crew of folks who are always shifting based on people’s lives, but I made the record with Pete Quirsfeld (drums) and Pat Keen (bass) and the three of us have been playing together for six-ish years. So these are road worn and comfortable songs that were ready to be captured.

I read that you spent a year doing research as a Watson Fellow. I’m interested to hear about what you were studying and how that has influenced your own music?

Yeah, the Watson Fellowship is this insane opportunity you basically do research on a topic of your choosing for a year. In my case, I was comparing Celtic and Nordic traditions and their storytelling. Historically, so much happened via trade routes and conflict, particularly in the balladry tradition and saga tradition, you will find that similar motifs and melodies crop up across folklore traditions that are also so specific to certain places.

I spent a year shadowing storytellers and musicians, compiling this bank of folk tales and ballads. I was doing a lot of writing and researching and playing music already, but I didn’t actually know that making music could be a job. When I went and did this research and was shadowing all these folks who were essentially doing DIY touring, or playing or performing in community spaces, witnessing how they move through the world I realized, “Oh my god, you can do this?”

One person I spent a lot of time with is Brendan Begley, on the west coast of Ireland. The Begley family are these incredible musicians on the Dingle Peninsula. It was the first time I was exposed to a DIY arts culture… it was so mush part of the fabric of life there and when I came home I realized I want to make art this way, I don’t want to do it academically. I feel like often in the classroom you’re in the business of taking art apart and I wanted to actually create it.

Speaking of the ballad tradition, when I heard your song “Ghost on the Porch,” it sounded like a brilliant remake of an old ballad a la Sam Amidon, but in this case it is actually an original song. I find your songwriting to be more through-composed in a storytelling way than a typical commercial song might be. Do you draw on that ballad tradition in a conscious way or do you hear that influence?

That is actually a song that started as a short story, a fairy tale of sorts. I love to write fiction and non-fiction and it generally happens on a Humbird record that one or two songs per album are drawn from a short story or some other writing format. I’ll write out prose and then think, actually this could be a song.

Anytime you’re writing fiction your own life is in there, but I have not personally had the experience of a ghost of my own likeness standing on the porch telling me to run for my life, which would be terrifying.

Sometimes with writing, it’s almost like dreaming, where you don’t know where things come from!

Photo Credit: Juliet Farmer

Jody Stecher – Toy Heart: A Podcast About Bluegrass

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

For the latest episode of Toy Heart, we embark on a journey through the primordial musical ooze that birthed bluegrass, old-time, and country music with the incredible Jody Stecher. A multi-instrumentalist adept in many styles and traditions – he even plays sarod, a Hindustani instrument – Stecher’s entire career is a fascinating case study in the interconnectedness of American folk music styles.

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Host Tom Power begins their engaging and philosophical conversation by asking Stecher about his childhood in New York City. A grandchild of Eastern European immigrants, he “discovered” country and bluegrass like many in his generation, listening to the Wheeling Jamboree radio program on WWVA and hearing first generation pickers like the Osborne Brothers and Jimmy Martin & the Sunny Mountain Boys, including “Baby Crowe,” a young, just-hired banjo player who went by “J.D.” Soon after, Stecher replaced mandolinist (and one-day industry power player) Ralph Rinzler in bluegrass band The Greenbriar Boys, before joining another group, the New York Ramblers.

From those early years, cutting his teeth in local, regional, and eventually national outfits to iconic albums like Going Up On The Mountain and his current status as a venerated expert and acclaimed elder in American roots music, Jody Stecher utilizes music and his expertise to demonstrate how blurry the lines really are between these folk genres. Power and Stecher discuss teaching, David Grisman – and collaborating with Jerry Garcia! – meditation and music, early sounds and recordings by folks like Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers, being a member of Peter Rowan’s band, his duo with Kate Brislin, Utah Phillips, and so much more.

Whether you’re a lifelong fan of roots music or new to these scenes, Tom Power and Jody Stecher’s Toy Heart episode will inspire, highlighting stories, traditions, and techniques that make bluegrass, old-time, and country music exactly what they are today.

Photo Credit: Eric Thompson

Spotify Jams Its Way into Subprime Mortgage Market

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

STOCKHOLM, SE – In a bold move that has left the financial and music worlds scratching their heads, Spotify, the digital music streaming giant, has unveiled its latest venture: a subprime mortgage lending program for users with less-than-stellar credit and meager incomes.

“Let’s face it, what’s the point of enjoying your favorite tunes if you’re belting them out on the street corner?” quipped Spotify’s CEO, Daniel Eck, at the shareholder meeting. “With Spotify Premium Lending, you can now groove to Ariana Grande in the comfort of your very own budget-friendly, interest-forward sanctuary.”

As housing prices and interest rates skyrocket to unprecedented levels, the struggle to own a home has become a real-life dirge for many. Unsurprisingly, among the first to leap onto the Spotify mortgage bandwagon are the very artists whose songs populate the platform.

Texas-based folk singer Rivers Mulgrew, whose music streams for a paltry .0003 cents on Spotify, enthusiastically shared, “Owning a home was always a distant dream. But with my Spotify mortgage, I snagged a fixer upper in Austin. I can’t afford it now, but I’m hoping America will wake up to my banjo-forward murder ballads before my first payment is due.”

However, not everyone is singing praises for Spotify’s foray into real estate. Housing rights advocate and part-time wedding band singer Leslie Locker led a protest outside Spotify’s New York offices, declaring, “If I’m busting my vocal cords to buy a home, I’d rather my mortgage be from Bandcamp. At least they appreciate a good indie effort.”

Despite the backlash, Eck remained undeterred. “For those struggling to pay their Spotify mortgage, worry not. We offer loan assistance. Artists can use their entire musical catalog and future work as collateral. Depending on algorithmic performance, they might just keep the roof over their heads.”

Greg Hess is a comedy writer and performer in Los Angeles. His work has been featured in The American Bystander, The Onion, Shouts & Murmurs, Points in Case, and he cohosts the hit satirical podcast MEGA.

BGS 5+5: Matt Koziol

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Matt Koziol
Hometown: Linden, New Jersey
Latest Album: Last of the Old Dogs (out April 5, 2024)

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I was probably 4 years old and I saw Elivs on TV. It was like watching lightning in a bottle and I wanted to do it. No one in my family really listened to him, but I heard the sounds and the voice and knew that what he did, I loved. It introduced me to every kind of music that has been an influence for me. Rhythm and blues, country, gospel. It all played a part in the music that moves me. I think hearing Elvis for the first time turned a light switch on in my head. It made me realize music was what I wanted and something I would always be working towards.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

The toughest time isn’t just one moment. It happens often. Co-writing with people, my brain works fast. I had a great writing friend, Jason Nix, once say “dare to be wrong” and it changed my approach to writing in group settings. It made me fluent. When I’m writing alone is when the tough parts come, especially if it’s a subject I feel strongly about. It’s like painting, and you don’t want to use the wrong color you imagine in your mind. Sometimes you have happy accidents, but I’ll use a word or a phrase to describe something in a song and it just doesn’t always make me feel how I felt when that moment happened. The way I’ll work around it is to try and just say what happened out loud like I’m talking to a friend. Then I try to write it in simple language, but every once in a while I just get stuck. And, I mean STUCK. Not a single word comes to mind, or I’m playing the same chords that I’ve used in another song, or a melody that I’ve repeated. At that point, I just put everything down and walk away. I come back to it later, or the next day. The story will still be in my head, but if I can’t serve that feeling justice, then I’ll wait until I can.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

I was in high school, and I made a demo for the first time. I brought it to my middle school music teacher (Reggie Turner) and had him listen. He told me to come back a few days later to get his thoughts. What I didn’t know is that he would play it for 20 of his sixth grade students and have them write a short review on how they felt. Now, if you ever want brutal honesty, let a bunch of 10 year-olds review your songs. He then showed me the notes and it was ruthless. They said I sounded like I had a frog in my throat, that they couldn’t understand what I was saying. They said they liked the guitar, but it felt messy. I was trying, at that time, to emulate my heroes. I wanted to play like them and sing like them, but it wasn’t my voice. He then said something I’ll never forget:

“You have your own fingerprint. No one else has yours. If you sing like someone else, and try to be their fingerprint, you’ll always be number two. However, if you sing like yourself, you’ll always be number one. No one has your sound, and no one has your fingerprint.”

I take that with me everyday.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

This is such an awesome question, because I love both of these things so much! I grew up in an Italian household so for me, pasta and wine go with jazz or crooners. Something about good wine and an Italian-made meal feels like Tony Bennett. It feels like Frank Sinatra. When I’m having a good steak and bourbon, I tend to lean towards bluegrass. Something about a rustic meal with my favorite drink bleeds Appalachia. I usually follow up that meal with a fire and more bourbon and a cigar. All those smells and flavors are my favorite. It also depends on people’s tastes, but for me, those are my two ideal pairings for food and music.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me?”

I have very seldomly put a song out that’s a “character.” Songs like “Work All Day” or “You Better Run, Son” have been songs that are stories for me. Things that I’ve read or seen in movies that give me the feeling and I want to write it down. The only other time I’m writing like that is when I have a person in my life whose story I’m telling because they don’t know how. Everything else, however, is me. I’ve lived it. I don’t always love that I have, but I love that I made it through. One of the things said in writing rooms, especially in Nashville is, “How do we make this relatable?” My response to that is always, “Just write what happened. You’re not the first for it to happen to, and you won’t be the last. Someone else has been through this before, they may just need your words to get them through it.”

I think relating with a song comes from the honesty of the writing. I know that I didn’t have the exact same thing happen to me that caused John Mayer to write “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” but I sure as hell had something happen that made me relate to the lyrics. It was his story, and I had mine. I needed his words to find a way to understand how I felt. That’s the power of writing. If it’s honest for you, It will be honest for someone else.

Photo Credit: Kaiser Cunningham