Melissa Etheridge: Rock and Roll and Resilience

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Few people have experienced the highs and lows of the music business to the degree that Melissa Etheridge has. Since releasing her self-titled debut in 1988, she has won two GRAMMYs (and been nominated for many others); been hailed as the second coming of Janis Joplin; won the Gibson Award for Best Female Rock Guitarist; become a mom several times over; been a social activist both for the LGBTQ+ community and for people addicted to opioids; written a memoir; and performed a one woman show on Broadway. Not bad for a kid from Leavenworth, Kansas.

That said, Etheridge has also suffered more than her share of setbacks. She has weathered a couple of high-profile divorces, battled breast cancer – who can forget her duet with Joss Stone at the 2005 GRAMMYs when she took the stage bald after undergoing chemotherapy – and, in 2020, lost her son Beckett to addiction.

The one constant throughout all these ups and downs has been her music, a brand of heartland rock that manages to be personal and universal at the same time. Etheridge is nearly as popular with blue-collar men as she is with lesbians, owing to her raspy vocals, formidable guitar chops, and unpretentious persona. And she’s racked up an impressive list of hits over the years including “Come To My Window,” “If I Wanted To,” “Ain’t It Heavy,” “Similar Features,” “I Want To Come Over,” “Bring Me Some Water,” and “I’m the Only One.”

2026 is shaping up to be a big year for Etheridge. She returned on March 27 with Rise, her first studio album in five years. On the eve of its release, she and her band kicked off a six-week tour in Detroit. And for the first time, Etheridge was nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year.

Rise was recorded in Los Angeles with co-producer Shooter Jennings and includes 11 songs. While they’re diverse musically, the album as a whole feels like a complete statement. It’s a testimony to resilience, to sticking with life through all its ups and downs.

The title track and “Bein’ Alive” (which opens the disc) are both life-affirming rockers. “The Other Side of Blue” is a contemplative duet with Chris Stapleton. The playful “If You Ever Leave Me” puts an Americana spin on Mental As Anything’s ‘80s hit, “If You Leave Me (Can I Come Too).”

The shuffling, midtempo “Matches” was inspired by Johnny Cash’s 1970 concert at the U.S. penitentiary in Etheridge’s hometown. But the two final songs on Rise are also its most personal and poignant. “Call You” is a moving tribute to her son Beckett, while “More Love” was written for her daughter Bailey when she got engaged.

BGS recently had the pleasure of catching up with Melissa Etheridge for a Cover Story interview.

Let’s start with Rise. This is your first new album in five years, which is a significant amount of time. But you’ve been very busy in the last five years; I read your book and saw your show on Broadway. So it’s not like you’ve been sitting around! What do you get out of recording an album that you might not get from doing theater or writing a book?

Melissa Etheridge: Even though I haven’t had an album out in five years, the [last] album I put out, One Way Out, was a previous recording that I’d done seven years before that. So it’s really nine years since I’ve written. And I’ve lived so much of life – from loss to the pandemic to just growth. That’s the part about making a record. I knew that I could create a collection of songs that would make an album.

I love the art form of an album. You know, 45 minutes to be with the listener and take them through an emotional journey. That’s my favorite part; the real crafting of it was the writing. And it was about a year’s worth of pulling things together and then writing [in] December of ’24 and January and February. Then going in the studio [last] March. Going in, it’s so much fun with the road band that I have. It’s like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. Then getting Shooter Jennings to produce it! His studio, Sunset Sound, is so amazing. So it was a pleasure recording there.

It really does flow as an album, but it touches on a lot of different moods. Listening to it as one piece, I felt a sense of renewal and also resilience.

Yeah, that’s something I wanted to get across. There’s so much I experienced through the loss of my son five years ago. That’s about the most devastating thing you can go through. Having gone through that loss, [I] decided that I wasn’t going to drown myself in guilt and shame, I wasn’t going to die – that I was going to experience this, heal with my family, keep loving ourselves, knowing that everyone makes their own choices. I could not save him, he had to make the choices for that. And then making art from that – you know, loving yourself enough to be able to say, “God, I love being alive.”

Writing those songs – especially in this day and age when I find such negativity – if you start believing that, then that’s what you’re gonna see. So I wanted to put [out] positivity without being patronizing or [using] platitudes. You know, lifting people up. Going, “Yeah, you’re gonna fall sometimes. You’re gonna taste the dirt. You’re gonna rise.”

[“Rise”] came after the LA fires. That was something I went through with my family. We had to evacuate. It came right up to our neighborhood. I gotta tell you, LA firefighters are heroes. Every single one of ‘em. They were able to keep it from our neighborhood. But there was a moment, when we were watching the fire reports, where it was like, “Okay. There’s a good possibility that we might lose everything.” I was in a hotel with people who were losing everything. To experience that and then say, “They’re just things. We’ve got our health, our family, our pets.” You know, you’re gonna still rise. There are gonna be these things that knock you down, but man! You’re gonna be stronger and better for it. It’s hard to hear but it’s so true.

I was gonna ask you why “Rise” was the title track but you kind of just told me!

The second to last song on the album is “Call You,” which is really moving and I know you wrote about your son. I don’t have children, but two months ago I lost two of my best friends, one to suicide and one to early onset Alzheimer’s. So I’ve been struggling the last couple of months with a lot of existential stuff and wanting to call my friend Mark – and I can’t. So that song really resonated with me. I guess I wanted to share that with you.

Yeah. Life is full of loss. It really is. You’re not living if you don’t have some loss. And the older you get, the more you’re gonna see it. That’s when the existential stuff [comes in]. I am more than just my body, I am a separate soul here experiencing it. The greater part of me is that non-physical place that I’m connected to – that source that everyone is [connected to].

In “Call You,” I tried to simplify that. Because to me, the times when I miss him the most are the times when it’s like, “I wanna call you!” Even my father who died 30 years ago, you know? When I was nominated for the Rock Hall, I was like “Oh, I just wanna call my dad!”

[“Call You”] was actually the first song I wrote for the album. I knew I had to get that emotional experience down. I had to write that song first.

I also wanted to ask you about “Matches.” When I spoke to you last, you told me about Johnny Cash playing in Kansas when you were just a kid and how one of your thoughts was, “Prisons must be the place where you find entertainers.”

[Melissa laughs]

Tell me more about that and maybe your thoughts about The Man in Black.

Well, growing up in a small town, Leavenworth, we have no places for big artists. Kansas City is 45 minutes away. But our town, in the ‘60s, that just wasn’t a thing. All of a sudden, in 1969, he came to the prison. He came to our town! “Oh my god!” Someone who I’d only seen on his television show or [heard] on the radio and was such a cultural icon – he’s in the same space as me! That really kind of said to me, “Whoa. Maybe I could do that.” It felt close to me. [Cash] always made a big impression on me. I always loved his music, his individuality.

“Matches” was supposed to be a scratch pad song for me. I had just come from the I’m Not Broken [docuseries]. I did a concert in 2023 at the Kansas Women’s Penitentiary. So I was still sort of playing off of that and singing. Scratch songs for me are songs [where] I’m writing for fun and it starts the juices flowing. I kept writing these verses and I played a little bit for my wife, [Linda]. And she said, “You have to put that on! What do you mean that’s a scratch song?”

Can you tell me some wonderful things about Linda?

[Laughs] Yes, I can! That’s easy. For 12 years we’ve been married. We were together four years before that. And before that, we were best friends for 10 years! I married my best friend.

She is… everything I needed or wanted or dreamt about. The only way you really get someone like that in your life is to understand your needs and wants. And to have the love for yourself that you are looking for in other people. The minute I really got in contact with myself and understood what I wanted and loved, I was able to see the best kind of love for me. And she was it.

There’s just a constant partnership that is astounding – a love and desire that never goes away. And it’s because I’m not looking for her to fix me or make everything great. I’m looking for her to be by my side as we both make our choices and walk through this world together.

Tell me a little about “The Other Side of Blue” and what it was like duetting with Chris Stapleton.

Ah! Chris Stapleton is just a national treasure. His soul and his talent and his mind and his heart are so beautiful and so rare. He’s such a unique talent and an incredible man.

I really didn’t know him at all, I just was a big fan. And I didn’t really want to do a duet on this album. But I remember telling my manager, “If I ever did do a duet, I would love it to be with Chris Stapleton. Maybe ask him if he wants to write a song together.” So my manager sent out the request. He said yeah, and that made me so happy. I went down and we wrote the song.

We were writing in RCA Studio A in Nashville, which is where Chet Atkins [recorded]. A massive, huge, historic studio! I just walked in and, “Hello, hello.” We sat down and had guitars in hand. We were just talking and five minutes go by and he asked me about my kids. I said, “Well, I had four but I lost one.” He said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” And I said, “No, no. He was my greatest teacher.” He looked at me and he goes, “You talk in song.”

That was the first line: “Sometimes, I listen when she talks in song.” We were writing within 15 minutes of showing up. It just appeared – every line. It took us maybe an hour and a half to write that song.

You mentioned being nominated for the Rock Hall. Tell me how that feels after all this time.

Well, I was eligible for about 12 years. [Laughs] I was like, “Don’t think about it! It’s not a comment on your music.” I didn’t make my music so that I would be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, that’s not what it’s about. It is lovely and feels really good to be recognized by your peers – by a group of people in the music business who say, “Your contribution to rock and roll has meant something.”

I’ve been on the voting body for exactly 10 years now. Obviously, certain things are subjective, but I thought this year there were a lot of good nominees. More diverse than last year’s group.

Yeah, I love Sade. I love Pink. Lauryn Hill I think is a good one. And then Iron Maiden, come on! It’s time, guys!

I always like to ask you about one older song. My favorite, which I’ve already asked you about, is “Ain’t It Heavy.” Is it okay to ask you about one of the really popular ones? I try not to ask the same things everyone asks. But I am curious about “Bring Me Some Water.”

Oh, that’s good! At least it wasn’t “Come To My Window.” No, “Bring Me Some Water” – that’s fun, that’s an older song.

I’d been playing women’s bars in Los Angeles for five years and a lot of record companies came and turned me down. But Chris Blackwell [finally] comes in and signs me right on the spot, for Island Records. Bam! I’d never made a record and I had no idea [what to do]. So my manager gets this producer, Jim Gaines, from San Francisco. This is 1986. It’s the middle of the ‘80s sound – that sort of Steve Miller, Journey [thing]. We made this record and I play it for Chris Blackwell and he hates it! Because it doesn’t sound like the girl he saw at the bar. It sounds overblown – lots and lots of keyboards and my voice way at the top. He hates it and I’m like, “Oh my God, he hates my album.”

I convinced him to give me four days to try it again in the studio. But in between the time that I finished the first album and went into record again – which became the debut – I wrote “Bring Me Some Water” about this relationship I had with a lovely woman named Kathleen. We lived together and we had this open relationship – which is just a mindfuck! [Laughs] I wouldn’t advise anyone to do that.

This is her being gone and me sitting at home in the middle of September, in Los Angeles. I’m living on Melrose and it’s hot. It’s so hot! So I sit down and I’m like, “Okay. I gotta get back to traditional blues stuff.” I’m just playing [the riff], it’s old Muddy Waters but it’s speeded up. I’m singing about, you know, the foul air. I’m just hot and uncomfortable and I’m mad. So, I wrote this song and Chris Blackwell loved it.

Photo Credit: Candice Lawler

Kronos Quartet Wants You To Know Mahalia Jackson’s Impact

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

“If Mahalia Jackson were singing right now, I would have figured out a way that we would be able to perform with her,” says David Harrington, co-founder and violinist of Kronos Quartet, an ensemble that in its more than 50 years has consistently set new standards for what a string quartet can be.

He laughs as he leans into the camera on a Zoom from his San Francisco home, his white hair sticking straight up.

“You can count on that.”

Of course, that’s impossible. Mahalia Jackson, the New Orleans-born gospel singer, voice of the Civil Rights Movement, mentor to Aretha Franklin, confidant of and advisor to Martin Luther King Jr., died in 1972 at age 60. But Harrington got close. A little while back he commissioned composer Stacy Garrop to craft musical settings for excerpts from a 1963 interview conversation Jackson did with Chicago radio host Studs Terkel, a longtime friend of hers, and from performances broadcast in 1957.

The result is Glorious Mahalia, a five-part suite and the title piece of a new Kronos Quartet album featuring the ensemble’s recent lineup of Harrington, John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola) and Sunny Yang (cellos). It’s insightful and bold, the music echoing and enhancing the conversations, at times cordial, but also at times testy between these two friends as Jackson tells Terkel that he can never understand the experience of Black people in America.

And in one segment, Harrington gets right up next to his wish, as Kronos performs to a recording of Jackson singing “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.” It is, indeed, glorious.

Mahalia Jackson photo by Lacey Crawford (courtesy of the National Museum of African American History & Culture.)

This is complemented by another suite, “Peace Be Till,” commissioned by Kronos from composer Zachary Watkins, incorporating reminiscences by King lawyer and speechwriter Clarence Jones as recorded by Harrington about the friendship between King and Jackson. At its core is the moment in a 1963 rally as he watched Jackson interrupt the written speech King was giving, shouting to him, “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” spurring one of the most impactful orations of modern times, the extemporaneous “I Have a Dream.”

An instrumental arrangement by composer Jacob Garchik of Antonio Haskell’s hymn “God Shall Wipe All Tears Away,” based on a 1937 Jackson recording, serves as a perfect interlude between the suites. Kronos has performed the song for years, including a stunning version with Mali’s Trio Da Kali on the 2017 album Ladilikan.

Kronos has long used spoken oral histories in its vast, wildly eclectic career. There is 1988’s landmark Different Trains, composed for the quartet by Steve Reich, juxtaposing audio accounts from a former Pullman porter and survivors of Holocaust transports, and last year’s Witness, by composer Mary Kouyoumdjian, with audio from survivors of the Lebanese civil war and the Armenian genocide. Glorious Mahalia’s themes of social justice also connect to, among many others, 2020’s Long Time Passing, a celebration of Pete Seeger, and 2022’s My Lai, the Jonathan Berger/Scott Chessman opera about the 1968 U.S. Army massacre of a Vietnam village. The new album follows those latter two as the third Kronos release from Smithsonian Folkways.

Harrington discusses all of this in a generous, wide-ranging chat for BGS, edited for length and clarity.

What were your first experiences with Mahalia Jackson’s music?

David Harrington: I think I heard her on television as a kid. But it was Hank Dutt, our longtime violist, who gave me an LP of hers in the late ‘70s. It just blew me away. Have you seen Summer of Soul, that film [Questlove’s 2021 documentary about the 1969 Harlem Music Festival]? Then you’ve seen Mahalia on that. Our family watched it, my daughter, son-in-law, grandkids, wife, and I watched together. And wow, when Mahalia got on, I said to everyone, “I have never seen a singer with a full-body vibrato before!” [Laughs] That was one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen in my life.

Glorious Mahalia springs from the conversations between Mahalia and Studs Terkel, and then it feels like Stacy Garrop joins the conversations with her music, and then Kronos join in too, all of you in a four-way exchange.

That’s a beautiful expression of it. I’ve never thought of it that way. What I wanted to do was hear all the interviews [Terkel] ever did with Mahalia. And that’s where my conversation started with Stacy Garrop. I think she knew a lot about his work, so it started there, really. We wanted a piece that celebrates their friendship and relationship, and what they brought to our society and our country.

It’s not always an easy conversation between Terkel and Jackson. She pushes back on him, even snaps at him that he can never know what it’s like to be her, to be Black in America. Was that part of your process with this, to consider, culturally and experientially what your place is in terms of presenting her views and experiences?

It gets back to wanting to perform with Mahalia Jackson. [Laughs] It’s like, every once in a while I hear a musician – I’m lucky as an explorer of music – I’ll hear something that is just so amazingly powerful. I want to find a way of bringing it into my own experience and that of the other members of Kronos and of our audience. And so I think I’ve been really consistent about that through the years.

The question is, what gives me the right to do that? I guess I’ve never really asked that question too often, because this is what musicians do. I’m absolutely convinced that if Beethoven would have heard some of the amazing musicians in India or various places around the world in his time, he would have wanted to bring elements of that music into his work in some way or another. Beethoven did a lot of transcriptions of Scottish music!

The first thing we hear on the album is Jackson’s voice, alone, singing the words “hold on.” It’s gripping and powerful, and must be even more so in a darkened theater for both you and the audience, hearing that before you even start playing.

Yeah, it’s about as good as it gets!

And then, from there, your task is to enhance and echo and illustrate the tone of her voice.

We’re also commenting, and our role takes on different kinds of complexities, being there as a platform for [Jackson’s and Jones’s] thoughts and voices to exist.

You have a history of projects that let others tell their cultural stories and experiences, from the oral histories of Different Trains and Witness to working with composers and musicians from many different places and traditions around the globe. This one is more centered on one person, though.

It goes back a long way, and thinking how to present this on a Kronos album – not only the voice, but the personality, the force, just the being of Mahalia Jackson. [That] was what I felt would be a good thing to do. That really came into focus when right around the 50th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech, Clarence Jones was on television and he recounted how the speech became the speech as we know it.

When he described that moment of hearing Mahalia Jackson, someone King relied on in moments of need, Clarence spoke of when she would sing to him on the phone. I mean, when you think of anybody in the universe, a leader like Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights leader, a spiritual leader, and he’s getting sustenance from a musician!

So then the speech is happening and, from what I can gather, she wasn’t quite hearing what she needed to hear from her friend. And so she called out to him: “Tell them about the dream.” When I heard that story I thought, “Okay, I get it. Mahalia Jackson has defined to me the role of musicians, the musical community in our world.” It was so clear. And what we get to do as musicians is listen. We listen to our inner selves, we listen to our families and our friends and our society.

In this case, Mahalia Jackson used her musical ability and listened to Martin Luther King and then gave him feedback. “Come on. I’ve heard you do better.” Now, am I imagining this? I don’t know if I am. I don’t even care, because it kind of defined something for me about my own role and the role of Kronos and musicians. So at that moment I thought, “I need to get in touch with Clarence Jones.”

This project started a few years back, but it’s coming out as the U.S. celebrates its 250th birthday. How does that timing feel, especially with the current political and cultural climate?

We’re doing a triptych, “Three Bones,” that’s premiering at Carnegie Hall [on April 25]. Part one will [draw on] Indigenous cultures. Part two will be African American, particularly Gullah Geechee [of the Southeastern U.S.]. Part three will be Chinese and Chinese American.

I’d like to make an experience that brings these three essential elements of American society to the stage at Carnegie Hall as our contribution to the 250 years. It’s about listening. It is just growing from listening. That kind of gets back to Mahalia.

Back to the idea of a conversation, it seems like it’s not just with Jackson and Terkel, but with the nation, with the cultures and the experiences, and not a static situation from 60 years ago. Does it feel like your relationship with Mahalia, her music, and her mission is something living and evolving?

I am very happy when Kronos gets to play this music on a college campus and for audiences that maybe never heard Mahalia Jackson, never heard about her, [or heard] that an artist can have very powerful ideas about life and our society. [About] what’s good and what’s right, and can express them as beautifully as Mahalia Jackson and Studs Terkel and Clarence Jones. You put these leaders together and it’s very impressive. And I don’t think there’s an expiration date there.

Photo Credit: Lead image of Kronos Quartet by Lenny Gonzalez. Inset image of Mahalia Jackson by Lacey Crawford courtesy of the National Museum of African American History & Culture.

The Band of Heathens Leave Nothing on the Table

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Don’t be fooled by their name, as the Band of Heathens actually give us something to believe in.

Coinciding with their 20th anniversary as a band, their new project Country Sides is equally feel-good and philosophical. The band’s co-founders and songwriters Gordy Quist and Ed Jurdi called in to Good Country from their homes in Austin and Asheville, respectively, to talk through their inspirations for the album, their writing (and rewriting) process, and how banjo fits into their house of music.

Just a few weeks after our visit, Country Sides and the single “Take the Cake” topped the Americana Music Association’s album and singles airplay charts simultaneously, a new feat for the well-established group.

“We have been really fortunate as an independent band,” Quist says. “We’ve never been on a label or been a part of the machine, and we just have a lot of gratitude for the 20 years we’ve had together as a band.

“This record is like a message of gratitude for all that we do have. And as much as we love making records, the live show is certainly my favorite part of this career. That’s what’s special about this band. When we get on stage, I feel lucky to be a part of this thing that really is fun live, so I would encourage people to check out a live show if you haven’t done it.”

As I was listening to the album, I was picking up a lot of messages of encouragement. It feels like a positive record to me. Is that a fair statement, do you think?

Ed Jurdi: Yeah, I think so. It’s like the musical retrospective of the band, in a way, sort of our history as an entity. Maybe in the background, with the realization that we’re making it 20 years at this point, there’s a little bit of a celebratory nature. I don’t know about Gordy, but in my writing process, I tend to almost have the opposite reaction to everything going on around me, outside in the world. If everything’s really negative, and the messaging is really negative, and there’s a lack of hope – maybe it’s a form of escapism for me, but I tend to lean into that [opposite reaction] a little bit more in my messaging.

And insofar as sharing music with people, it’s almost like the internal pep talk that I’m having with myself turns itself into the art and into the lyrics and something to share as a message with other people. We’ve never really been ones for beating people over the head with the message, but things are pretty wild and wooly – and not in a good way out there, in a lot of ways. So, I think some messages of community and togetherness and rallying around a common good – we could certainly use more of that.

Did you have a certain sound in mind as you made this record?

Gordy Quist: I think we talked about trying to make a country soul record. We were listening to some of the early Dobie Gray records and thought, “OK, what if we took a mix of soul music and country music melodies and textured it…” We put more pedal steel on this record than we probably ever have on any record. And that was intentional. From the beginning we knew we wanted to do that. I guess it was intentional to try to make a country soul record. Whether we did that or not, I’m not sure. But that’s how we arrived at whatever we did.

I like the spirit of fellowship in the song “High on Our Own Supply” and there’s a lyric in there about hearing the banjo playing soft and slow, like a stereo. This being the Bluegrass Situation (and Good Country), I’m curious, do you often reach for the banjo?

EJ: I do. I’m a terrible banjo player. You know, my buddy Graham Sharp in Steep Canyon Rangers is an amazing banjo player. So if I need a banjo on a record, I’d probably call him.

I think writing “High on Our Own Supply,” it was almost like we’re building a house of music. You know, if you were to go into any room in that house, there might be this different scene going on. You open the door and there’s someone in there playing the banjo, and it’s so good, it sounds like it’s just coming out of the stereo.

The song “Pleasing People” reminded me of soul music from the ‘70s and I wondered about that soul influence. How does that show up in your music?

GQ: I guess there’s two elements. I think the rhythm section is the foundation of soul music and the groove. That was something on this record we really tried to dig into. The band right now – Clint Simmons on the drums and Nick Jay on bass – are a deep and heavy rhythm section, so that lends itself to a style of American roots music that leans into soul music. But also, simplicity. Lyrics that sound conversational and simple but have some depth to them. It’s hard to do that well. That’s part of what makes soul music great – that it’s simple but it’s good.

It takes skill to make it look easy or sound simple. What’s your editing process and your rewriting process like for you?

EJ: It never really ends. Even after we record these songs, I definitely change lyrics to songs as we play them live. The cool thing about these songs, especially making a recording, it’s a snapshot in time. But songs, I think of all the artistic mediums, they kind of move with you through time in a really special way. What a song means to you at 16 can mean something completely different to you at 40. You’ve piled up life experiences and you view the world in a little bit of a different way. So that’s always fun, but editing is constant.

I would say Gordy and I both are doing a lot of lyrical editing and we’re doing a lot of musical editing, too. When we get together and make records, it looks something like Tuesday morning, 10 o’clock: “Hey, Gordy, what do you got?” You know, Gordy grabs an acoustic guitar, sits in the middle of the room… And I’ve [already] heard these songs we’ve worked on, the two of us, but that’s the first time that Trevor Nealon (our keyboard player) and Nick and Clint have heard the songs.

So it’s like, “Hey, OK, first impressions? Go!” and then we start filling the canvas up, taking stuff away, adding stuff, changing colors, all these different things, until we’re at a point where we feel like we’ve edited something down to a nice, presentable format. So, it’s a work in progress, always. To your point, the more you can tolerate the editing, the better things become. It certainly is the most challenging part of the job, but it can also be the most rewarding.

“Take the Cake” has a great vibe. I’m sort of a workaholic, so it’s a nice message to hear, to hit pause and go do something fun. What were you hoping to convey in that song?

GQ: I think I was playing with the idea of giving versus taking, in life. I’ve been working on that song and editing that song for a couple of years actually. I’ve had it for a while. You know, there’s a weird juxtaposition of giving and taking. If you are always taking, in theory you should have lots of things because you’re receiving them. But in reality, you usually end up empty, whether it be friendships or whatever.

The opposite is true also. If you’re always giving and generosity leads, in theory the fear side of you thinks you’re going to run out of stuff. But the opposite actually is true. And that’s kind of what I was playing with, just the idea of letting go of that consumerism or just the [mentality of] “I need to keep what’s mine.” And being cool with letting go of that and letting generosity be the leading force.

As you mentioned earlier, this album is like a 20th anniversary celebration of the band. Are you enjoying this period of your life? You still have a lot of years ahead, but you’ve got 20 years of experience behind you too.

EJ: Yeah, I think it’s a good vantage point. I’ve heard Gordy describe it as standing at almost the peak of a hill. We’re all dads, so we can look down and look at our kids and remember being their age. Looking the other way on the hill, we see our parents, and we remember our grandparents being that age. So, it’s kind of a trip to be in this middle age of life. We still have the energy of young people. I think the fire is still there. There’s no lack of commitment or of energy or passion to what we’re doing. But we’ve assimilated a little bit more wisdom, and we have a few more tricks up our sleeve, a few more shortcuts. It’s fun exploring those things and trying to share them with people.

GQ: Talking about this phase of life that we’re in, I have this feeling like, when we were young, making our first records, we would put everything into it and the goal always was, “I hope this is good enough that we get to keep making records and make another record.” At the end of every record we’ve made I felt like, “Man, that’s the best thing we’ve ever done and I don’t know how we’re ever going to top that.” Whether it is truly the best thing we’ve ever done or not each time, that’s not for us to decide, but it feels that way to us.

EJ: We’ve always left nothing on the table when we’ve made a record. Now we’re just a little bit more conscious of our surroundings and what our intentions are. Again, I don’t think there’s ever been a lack of effort, but now there’s maybe a realization like, “Hey, every time we get on stage, every time we sing, every time we make a record, it might be the last time we do, so let’s make sure we’re doing it with everything we got. Let’s leave it all out there, because at the end of the day, that’s all you got.” You can feel good about that in the rearview mirror.

Photos courtesy of the artist.

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Jarrod Walker, Dailey & Vincent, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Welcome to another edition of our weekly round-up of new roots music! You Gotta Hear This…

To get us started this week, Dailey & Vincent continue to tease tracks from their upcoming album, A Beautiful Life, which will arrive on June 12. In the meantime, they’re sharing a music video for “Moon Shines on the Still,” another delightfully bluegrassy number for the country-and-gospel-and-bluegrass powerhouse duo. The fresh single’s breakneck tempo doesn’t stymie any of the fine pickers who shred throughout the feisty song about moonshine running and that good ol’ mountain dew. For another bluegrass duo, check out fiddlers Deanie Richardson & Kimber Ludiker launching their new track, “Rutland’s Reel.” It’s an acrobatic and challenging tune by Howdy Forrester with several complicated parts, but these two turned it into a stellar twin fiddle number anyway. What, like it’s hard?

From Asheville, North Carolina, Appalachian string band TANASI infuse their songs and tunes with influences from around the world. “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” is their timely rendition of a George Harrison song, on which Dobroist and multi-instrumentalist Billy Cardine plays a chaturangui, a slide instrument that draws from Indian classical music traditions. Watch a performance video for their cover below. Singer-songwriter Maisy Owen has shared a new music video today, too. “Dark On A Sunny Day” is lush indie folk wrapped in a sonic dreamscape, with a slightly dark and gritty tinge to pair perfecdtly with her evocative lyrics. The beat pulses forward, pushing and pulling the track ahead.

Plus, mandolinist Jarrod Walker – who you may know from Billy Strings’ band – just this week announced an upcoming solo album, Nighthawk, his first release as an artist in his own right. Prior to the album announcement Wednesday, Walker unveiled an upcoming tour in May. Now the lead single/title track from his debut LP is available everywhere, and we’re sharing the lyric video visualizer for the remarkably straight-ahead bluegrass number below. Nighthawk arrives in full on May 8.

Bluegrass, folk, and indie; mandolins, fiddles, and banjos; moonshine, darkness, and emotions – there’s something for everyone to enjoy. You Gotta Hear This:

Dailey & Vincent, “Moon Shines on the Still”

Artist: Dailey & Vincent
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Moon Shines on the Still”
Album: A Beautiful Life
Release Date: April 10, 2026 (single); June 12, 2026 (album)
Label: Pillar Stone Records

In Their Words: “‘Moon Shines on the Still’ is a fun, up-tempo song with a lot of personality. It’s the kind of record that makes you want to roll the windows down and enjoy the ride.” – Jamie Dailey

“We had a blast recording this one. ‘Moon Shines on the Still’ has energy, heart, and a sound that feels both fresh and true to who we are.” – Darrin Vincent

Maisy Owen, “Dark On A Sunny Day”

Artist: Maisy Owen
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Dark On A Sunny Day”
Album: Dark On A Sunny Day
Release Date: April 10, 2026 (single); May 1, 2026 (album)
Label: Tompkins Square

In Their Words: “There was a period of time two years ago in the summer when I was writing almost every night. ‘Dark On A Sunny Day’ was one of the first songs I kept. There’s a kind of honesty that comes with someone’s early work, something I always look for when I deep dive into a new musical obsession. Something early is something pure. This is the only song on the album with a full band arrangement. The instrumentation is dark and unceasing. There is no metaphor or veil regarding the lyrics, they are candid.” – Maisy Owen

Deanie Richardson & Kimber Ludiker, “Rutland’s Reel”

Artist: Deanie Richardson & Kimber Ludiker
Song: “Rutland’s Reel”
Release Date: April 10, 2026
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘Rutland’s Reel’ was written by one of my ultimate fiddle heroes, Howdy Forrester. In typical Howdy fashion, it’s got several parts and is challenging to play. It was a lot to take this one on as a twin fiddle piece and Kimber took on the challenge of learning the harmony part. She nailed it! I’m so proud to have this tune on our record honoring the great Howdy Forrester.” – Deanie Richardson

Track Credits:
Deanie Richardson – Fiddle
Kimber Ludiker – Fiddle
Cody Kilby – Acoustic guitar
Hasee Ciaccio – Upright bass
Tristan Scroggins – Mandolin
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo

TANASI, “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)”

Artist: TANASI
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)”
Album: TANASI
Release Date: April 9, 2026 (single); May 8, 2026 (album)

In Their Words: “This song by George Harrison feels especially relevant right now – we need as many songs about peace and love as possible in difficult times. It echoes both backward and forward, carrying layers of meaning that resonate personally and globally. In addition to honoring the song itself, we wanted to pay tribute to Harrison’s influence – particularly his role in bringing classical Indian instruments like the sitar into popular music. Alongside his signature Dobro, Billy Cardine plays the chaturangui, a slide instrument developed by his teacher in India, Debashish Bhattacharya. With its 22 strings, it creates a rich, shimmering tone reminiscent of the textures heard in many of Harrison’s recordings. Mary Lucey and Anya Hinkle share the lead throughout, trading lines and weaving their voices together in sister-like harmony.” – TANASI

Track Credits:
Billy Cardine – Dobro, chaturangui
Mary Lucey – Bass, vocals
Anya Hinkle – Guitar, vocals

Jarrod Walker, “Nighthawk”

Artist: Jarrod Walker
Hometown: Lithia, Florida
Song: Nighthawk
Album: Nighthawk
Release Date: April 8, 2026 (single); May 8, 2026 (album)

In Their Words: “A few years back, I stumbled upon the word ‘Nighthawk’ in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of definitions for newly invented words that describe unnamed emotions, feelings, and experiences. Initially, ‘Nighthawk’ began as a moody, vibey track, but Christian Ward and I soon realized it worked better as a straight up bluegrass song. Once we committed to that approach we were able to lock down a couple verses, a chorus, and everything started to take shape. One of the trickest parts of songwriting is revisiting an unfinished song, returning to that headspace to add final touches Eventually we added a third verse which tied it all together with a big ribbon and bow. Now I couldn’t imagine it without it. I find that with trad bluegrass it’s best to keep things close to home or else you risk losing the essence of the song. I say that now, but ask me how I feel next year. The band knocked this one out in a few takes and later Billy [Strings] added a killer tenor harmony. Ultimately, ‘Nighthawk’ wound up being by far one of the grassiest tracks on the record.” – Jarrod Walker

Track Credits:
Jarrod Walker – Vocals, mandolin
Cory Walker – Banjo
Jamie Dick – Drums
Christian Ward – Fiddle
Jake Stargel – Guitar
Royal Masat – Upright bass
Billy Strings – Background vocals

Photo Credit: Jarrod Walker by Jesse Faatz; Dailey & Vincent by Gregg Roth.

Sweet Petunia Grew Into Their Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Little did Mairead Guy and Maddy Simpson know upon enrolling in Greg Liszt’s 21st Century String Band ensemble at Berklee College of Music that the course of their musical careers were about to be forever altered. Upon being paired up for a rehearsal by chance, Mairead and Maddy unearthed their musical synastry quickly. The two wove a vocal blend of sibling-like precision and their musical instincts coalesced with ease. After several jam sessions, the inevitable was clear – Mairead and Maddy were meant to make music together. With banjos in hand, the two joined forces to establish the cherished Boston alt-folk duo, Sweet Petunia.

2026 sees Sweet Petunia unfurling its petals even further – on March 13, the duo released their inaugural LP, Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown via Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records, their first release since their 2021 EP, Lovingly. Laden with ripe lyrics and expansive sonic landscapes, Sweet Petunia harvests new growth with 12 tracks navigating dynamic emotional thresholds and lyrics that cover themes from gender identity to toxic relationships to heartbreak and beyond.

BGS was elated to sit back down with Sweet Petunia and discuss all things Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown.

We last got to chat in 2024 for One to Watch. What has the shape of the last two years looked like for y’all?

Maddy Simpson: Lowkey pretty crazy! We started working with a booking agent and got hooked up with our label, Righteous Babe. We’re also in talks with a manager, so we’ve kind of legitimized in that way. I think the last time we spoke we didn’t have any of that.

So exciting! How has that changed the scope of your project?

Mairead Guy: They’ve been doing this so much longer and the range of people that they can connect us with is so vast compared to what we’ve been able to build so far, which is really cool.

MS: Yeah, it’s interesting to have other perspectives to bounce off of, too. The team is very thoughtful in many ways and they think of things that we would have never thought of. It does feel like this has legitimized the record and the band in a big way. Not that we weren’t legit before, but now we’re thinking about things on a much wider scale.

Speaking of which, congratulations on the new record! What about this moment in time do you feel like influenced the birth of Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown?

MS: Truly, once we started working with the label, we just wanted to get it out as quickly as possible. March just worked best for them to slot it in, so we went with it!

MG: And March 13th must be a cosmically good day to put out an album, because we have a couple friends putting out albums that same day – Anjimile and Grace Givertz.

How fortuitous! So what was it like putting this album together? How was it different from the process for your EP, Lovingly?

MS: We recorded Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown essentially four years ago at this point. It was our first try recording a full-length album and we did it in a kind of hybrid format – some in a couple different home studios, and then an actual recording studio. It was the first time we really brought in additional people to play on it, which was cool. We were much more thoughtful about the arrangements and the production and all that. It was the biggest thing we’ve ever done, and it was a lot, but it was incredible to see how it all turned out.

MG: We definitely learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t and what we want for next time. Even if all that was the only thing that came about from this process, it would have made it worth it.

Could you say more about what you learned?

MS: I think we both grew a lot. I learned a lot more about what I wanted and how I want things to sound. It was really awesome to work with some really close friends of ours; I learned more about collaborating, which was really cool. I also learned that it takes a really long time to put out a full-length record. Even once it’s finished, it takes quite a while, which I already knew in theory, but then to live it – it can take years sometimes, which is crazy.

MG: I feel similarly. It is cool to have the time to dedicate to thinking about the way that you want things to sound in their recorded form. That was great to learn about, especially differentiating between the ways in which that can be helpful and then also the ways in which you can get stuck in a loop of overthinking.

Now I have to ask, the title of the album is Foggy Mountain Mental Breakdown, and I’m curious if there’s anything you’d like to say about the influences behind that – Earl Scruggs, mental health, etc.?

MG: We thought it was funny! We were around a lot of bluegrass at the time – I think we came up with it at a bluegrass festival, and then a lot of our songs are pretty sad. There was sort of this trend where a lot of people were giving their projects jokey names that were plays on words, like Dolly Spartan or Chet Faker. Stuff like that was popular at the time.

MS: And it’s a little bit of an “if you know you know” vibe, because nobody knows “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” unless you play roots music and if you do, it’s the most old news bluegrass song. It’s like “Free Bird.” But then normal people have no idea what it means, which is kind of silly. It’s also a nod to our origins. Though we never really played bluegrass music, for the first three or so years that we were a band, we were almost exclusively around traditional roots music and a lot of those people were playing bluegrass. It is a huge part of our band, even though we’re more so old-time people, we love bluegrass.

The folks over at BGS definitely catch your drift!

So on FMMB, there’s a ton of lush instrumentation — what was that like? How did you find the additional musicians for all of these orchestrations?

MS: Most of the people that played on the album were people that we knew who were friends and musical collaborators of ours already. We know a lot of musicians, so it was pretty easy to put a lineup together. For example, we knew Lucy Nelligan – who plays all the fiddle on the album – from college and had played with her before. It was really a no-brainer to just have her come in and track a bunch of fiddle, just letting her go and do whatever she was gonna do. It’s cool to have that trust built with people where you know they’re going to produce quality tracks. We’re lucky that we are around so many amazing and talented musicians.

“Wilting” is the track with all the woodwinds and that was really cool because our producer, Leah Gutman, found a bunch of people to play on that session. All those people are now friends of ours, though at the time we didn’t really know any of them that well. It’s wonderful to see how our relationships have grown over time with the people that live in our community and play in our scene. For “Wilting,” our friend Christian Schmidt, who’s my roommate, played flute, but then our friend Brendan Wright from the band Tiberius was playing clarinet. And Miles Chandler from Clifford came in and played, our friend Nate Scaringi and our friend Maria – all these people that we’ve gotten to know over the years, but they were virtually strangers when they came in and tracked that song.

Do y’all have any dream collabs?

MS: Dolly Parton. Sabrina Carpenter got to do it, so…

Oh, and Willie Nelson! I’d really love to play Luck Reunion.

MG: Paul Simon. Or like, Simon & Garfunkel 30 years ago. When they reunited at Central Park we could’ve opened. Or Rhiannon Giddens would be cool.

MS: Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings would also be awesome.

What track on the album do you each feel a deepest kinship to? Or is that like asking a parent to choose their favorite child?

MS: Hmm. I really like how “In David’s Living Room” turned out. I really love all of the auxiliary stuff that happens. I remember when Leah and I were cooking on that, I was just very excited with the direction that track was going in, because it felt like our indie moment in a record that’s pretty traditional. Though there’s other moments like that too, I think that’s my standout right now.

MG: For me, it’s probably “Grub.” That’s just one of my favorite songs that we’ve ever worked on together. You know, there’s a lot of songs on the album that, because they’re so old, don’t necessarily feel as relevant to where I am now, but “Grub” is one that I feel very protective of. The flute that Christian put on it is just so beautiful. It was also really fun to record — we did it on a 4-track while sitting on Maddy’s washer-dryer. Plus my roommate, Riley Halliday, made a beautiful stop-motion puppet music video for it.

Oh, tell me more about the music video.

MG: Yeah, so my roommate Riley – they’re an incredible visual artist, and they are really good at making puppets. We came to them about three years ago, probably, and asked them if they’d be interested in making this video. They did a combination of stop-motion, claymation, hand-drawn animation, and puppets that they built completely themself. They handbuilt everything and made this perfect video that I feel just represents the song so well.

Talented friends seriously make the world go round! Was there anything outstandingly difficult about making this album?

MG: Well, I was living in Maine at the time, so I was commuting down every weekend. In terms of life, it was great for me to be down there every weekend, but it definitely made things take a little bit longer. And it was harder, for sure, because we couldn’t just pop in really quick and do something. Everything had to be planned out pretty far in advance.

MS: Yeah, that was tough. Also, it’s really expensive to put out a record. Often it’s something most people can’t do unless they crowdfund or save up hella money for. For us, it just took a lot of saving and being very smart with money – and lowkey we ran out of money in the process. So if anyone wants to buy some merch!

A hypothetical for you – if you each could wake up tomorrow having mastered any instrument, what would it be?

MS: I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately, because I kind of want to learn how to play the drums. Our friend Andre M is so crazy on the drums. He has this beautiful technique – it’s very beautiful to watch him play. Every time I see his band, I’ll have like one Miller High Life and then I’ll be like, “I’m gonna do that!” So yeah, I’d definitely love to learn how to play the drums better.

MG: I always thought that I maybe have the vibe of a bass player, so that could be fun. Maybe we’ll start our drum and bass era – we could be a drum and bass duo.

I’d so be here for that. How would you each sum up FMMB in five words?

MG: College angst and bad dreams.

MS: Lowkey sad, but it’s chill.

Okay, y’all killed that.

So what’s coming up for y’all? Where can the good people find you?

MS: We are going on an album release tour in April. We’ll be out for most of April and the beginning of May all over the place – the Northeast and the South. We’re so excited to be playing five dates supporting Ani DiFranco. Our full list of tour dates is out now. Come through!

Photo Credit: JJ Gonson

Another Glorious Voyage Aboard
Cayamo: A Journey Through Song

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Last month, the BGS team once again embarked on Cayamo: A Journey Through Song, the 18th edition of the beloved week-long floating roots music festival that crisscrossed the Caribbean aboard the Norwegian Pearl. With performances by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Dawes, Watchhouse, Patty Griffin, and many, many more, plus port visits in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Cayo Levantado, Dominican Republic, our team was more than ready to yet again partner with Cayamo and Sixthman to bring you special Basic Folk podcast live tapings on board and our fan favorite BGS Nightcap jam set, our fourth edition of the event.

There’s no festival or live music event quite like Cayamo, where ardent roots music fans and the best and most buzzed-about artists and bands come together on a floating sanctuary to enjoy music, art, community, and togetherness – and a break from the wintry weather, too. Below, enjoy a couple of clips captured on board and a series of photos from Cayamo 2026 that clearly demonstrate the joy and fun of this one-of-a-kind event.

Great news, too! The 2027 lineup for Cayamo: A Journey Through Song has already been announced (see above). Tickets go on sale on April 16th at 2pm EDT, but you still have time to join the final presale. More info here.

Days 1 & 2

Sierra Hull and the Milk Carton Kids perform “Everybody’s Talking” at the Stardust Theater during Cayamo 2026, captured by BGS on board.

Days 3 & 4

During our favorite event of the voyage – ahem, the BGS Nightcap of course – Kathleen Edwards joined Della Mae to perform “Six O’Clock News.” Thanks to Della Mae for recording and sharing this clip.

Days 5 & 6

BGS Nightcap

The BGS highlight of the week! A Nightcap jam session is our favorite pastime, especially aboard Cayamo. What a lineup of artists and bands and special collaborations. And this year it happened to fall on St. Patrick’s Day itself – perfect for a roots music party.

Day 7

Photos courtesy of Sixthman, credits as listed in each watermark. Lead image: Will Byington.

Brit Taylor’s Roots Are Planted in the Land Of The Forgotten

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After writing with Dan Auerbach for her 2021 debut, Real Me, and with Sturgill Simpson on 2023’s Kentucky Blue, Brit Taylor instead looked in-house to bring her latest effort, Land Of The Forgotten, to life.

Cue up her husband, Adam Chaffins. Taylor not only co-wrote seven of the album’s 11 songs with Chaffins, but asked him to produce the record, as well – his second straight after doing the same for Kentucky Bluegrassed (2024) as well. Together the two homed in on tunes rich in working class and Appalachian themes that push back and occasionally lean into narratives about the region and its people.

From the hillbilly manifestations of “Broke No More” to throwing all your ex’s possessions out on the curb (“All For Sale”), to the resilience of mountain folk (“Land Of The Forgotten”) and infidelity with the bottle (“Warning You Whiskey”), Taylor shows that Appalachia is much more than just a footnote or only worth mentioning when things go sideways.

“It puts a lighthearted spin on some of the tougher things about life,” says Taylor. “Not to make light of difficult times, but to remind us two things can exist at one time. And, [remind us] not to forget to take a look at the bright side too, and to not take it all so seriously.

“There’s a lot of awful things happening in the world that we need to be aware of and need to do what we can to change, but dwelling on it and ignoring all the good things around us in the process doesn’t help anyone.”

On the eve of the album’s March 6 release, Taylor spoke with BGS about motherhood, outsider perceptions of Appalachia, black sheep, and more.

Leading up to Land Of The Forgotten’s release you mentioned achieving a sound with this project that you’ve been trying to attain since first moving to Nashville in 2007. What was it you captured and how were you able to do it?

Brit Taylor: Just that bluegrass influence on country, particularly the late ‘80s sound of The Judds, Ricky Skaggs, and Patty Loveless. When I go back and listen to those things I noticed they’re all very acoustic driven. At some point all of that became really unpopular – fiddle, steel, and mandolin all went out of style for a while. We had a lot of fiddle on the last record, but [we’re] incorporating those instruments more than ever before on this album, which gave it a very “back to my roots” feel.

Everything, down to how this record is mixed, turned out just the way I wanted it to. A lot of it’s because Adam grew up [just over an hour away] in Louisa, [Kentucky] – so we listened to the same radio stations and the same types of Appalachian country music. Us understanding each other so well musically is what made this all click.

I know that most of the album wasn’t written with bluegrass in mind, but I find it interesting that you say this album is more bluegrass-y than Kentucky Bluegrassed. Are there any key differences between the two?

Even those bluegrassed versions weren’t “actual” bluegrass songs, because they still had drums on them. We made that record to showcase bluegrass versions of those country songs. We weren’t really shooting for a country record with that one, but the goal with Land Of The Forgotten has very much been to make a country record, but one that’s heavily influenced by bluegrass instrumentation similar to anything from Patty Loveless to Lee Ann Womack when she sings “Does My Ring Burn Your Finger.” On those songs you could strip the drums out and they would feel right at home as bluegrass songs even though they all come from country-leaning records.

You just touched on Patty Loveless (Emory Gordy) and Lee Ann Womack (Frank Liddell), both of whom recorded frequently with their husbands as producers as well. Tell me about that connection, both with them and your husband Adam, and how each informed the project?

It started out with me just making a giant playlist of songs I love that were all over the map with no goal in mind. But as I started listening to it I began noticing a lot of similarities between the songs on it, whether they were from Willie Nelson, Ricky Skaggs, Dwight [Yoakam], Patty [Loveless], or Lee Ann Womack. Then I noticed that a lot of them were produced by Emory Gordy or Frank Liddell, whether it was Lee Ann Womack or the Pistol Annies.

From there, I went to Adam and told him, “These are the things that I love – I need you to be my Frank and Emory.” [Laughs] They’re two of my favorites, and just so happened to have worked with their wives, so it made so much sense for me to do the same. Adam knows me better than anybody else and hears me sing in a billion different places. He just knows me, just like [Emory and Frank] knew their wives and knew what they wanted and how to get it as well as pushing and encouraging them at the same time.

Another family tie to this record is that it’s released only a few months after the birth of your first child, Beulah. What was it like bringing this project to market while also going through that experience?

We cut the record last January, and at that point I was not pregnant yet. We’d been talking about wanting a kid for a really long time, and this record came out exactly the way I wanted it to. When we found out about the pregnancy I was like, “I need to be as fearless about the personal decisions in my life as I am about music, and stop letting the stigmas about what the industry thinks of women with kids dictate the way that I live my life.” Or else I’m going to run out of time to get the things done that I want. So we just decided to take a leap of faith and it’s all worked out, as it often does when you trust the universe, that it has your back, and that everything’s going to be okay.

It was so much fun starting out the year cutting that record and then going on tour with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Adam was with me. It was while in St. Augustine, Florida, doing that when we found out we were pregnant. I started back with them on another leg of the tour in July and showed up with a big belly, and it was so fun! I did that entire tour with no shoes. Jeff Hanna was always cracking up because I was just barefoot and pregnant on tour. [Laughs] It’s been really empowering to know that you can have it all, you just have to be brave and stop listening to the limitations that other people would like to put on you all the time.

Of all your albums so far, Land Of The Forgotten has some of my favorite wordplay. A prime example is “Warning You Whiskey,” a drinking song disguised as a ballad about an unfaithful lover. How did the idea for that one come about?

I love when songs have a twist or they’re not quite what you think they are. I also love a good story, so when my husband and I sat down with Adam Wright and he started telling us about this idea for a song called “Warning You Whiskey,” that sounds like you’re talking about a woman at first. I loved it from the beginning. We worked out the music and got that first verse and chorus written so fast that it wrote itself.

When we got to the second verse, I remember sitting there looking at both of them saying, “Man, I really want to kick this whiskey bottle’s butt!” [Laughs] Then my husband blurted out, “I’ll grip my hand around your long, skinny neck” and I just lost it. I jumped out of my chair because I was laughing so hard. Then Adam Wright popped out a line, I did the next, and within five minutes we had the entire thing written.

It reminded me so much of something Loretta Lynn would write and makes me think of women in my family that I’ve observed growing up. My mamaw really fought hard in the beginning of her relationship with my papaw, with him drinking, and she stuck by his side. Sometimes all he needed was a butt whoopin’. She’d just stand by his side and helped him through everything.

In the past you also haven’t hesitated to write a catchy song about getting through the daily grind, like “Rich Little Girls.” This album has two: “Lately I’ve Been Thinkin’” and “Around and Around.” Is there anything beyond that ties the ones on this record together?

“Around and Around” is just about life in general. It’s funny because everybody expected us to tie a really pretty bow on it in the bridge, but we just didn’t, because sometimes that’s how life is – we just keep spinning and spinning. Sometimes we figure out how to get out of the rat race and sometimes we don’t. The song is an observation of this girl who is finally becoming self-aware enough of her circumstances to stand outside of them and decide if she wants to change them or not.

As for “Lately I’ve Been Thinkin’,” it’s definitely inspired by the music industry. We were actually writing a different song that’s going to be on Adam’s record, but in the middle of writing [we] began talking about one of the award shows taking place that week, how much we hated it and all of the butt-kissing that goes on at them. Then [my husband] said, “Lately I’ve been thinking, I don’t like much stuff” and Adam Wright started cracking up. It was so funny because it all just started from a conversation. By the end of it, we all were like, “Well, it’s really not that bad. We get to sit here and write songs. We actually have it pretty good.”

It seems like many of the songs on Land Of The Forgotten originated from spontaneous writing moments. Is that a regular occurrence for you?

Those are my favorite songs. When the three of us write, we never sit down and think we’re gonna write a song for a specific person today. We just write what’s in the room, what’s moving us, and what we’re feeling. That usually ends up being something out of conversation and is oftentimes funny, because the three of us have the same sense of humor and [same] kind of outlook on life. I know a lot of people can get a bad taste in their mouth about co-writing and how like “white-coat” it can be, but when you find your tribe and you find your people, it’s awesome. It’s so much fun.

Earlier you discussed how distinctly Appalachian this record is. In my opinion, one of the best embodiments of that is the title track, “Land Of The Forgotten.” Was there a specific moment or place that inspired it?

I don’t remember if I wrote the song around when the floods happened, but I remember writing the hook down when all the floods happened back in my native Knott County in 2022. I feel like that’s the only time that we’re remembered, when tragedy strikes, and then we’re just kind of forgotten again until somebody can make fun of us. A lot of people have negative perceptions of what they think Eastern Kentucky or what hillbilly is, but it’s nothing like what people think. It’s about resilience, and strength, and honor, and family, and beauty, and folklore. Appalachia is so beautiful and so misunderstood.

I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to write a song as good as Darrell Scott’s “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive.” I don’t know if I did that with this song by any means, but that’s always the goal when trying to write about home. I think that’s probably why I’ve never had a song about Appalachia. I’ve had a song about Kentucky in general, but it was more of a love story. I’ve tried to write it a million times, but I finally did one that I’m proud of, and that’s “Land Of The Forgotten.” When we put all these songs together, it quickly became a lot of stories about blue-collar life, surviving, and just how hard it is right now in this economy. Through that, “Land Of The Forgotten” became the theme of the record without even trying.

One of the album’s more lighthearted moments comes on “Crazy Leaf,” which sees you ruminating on that one black sheep we all have in our family. How did that one come to be?

When we sat down to write that – my husband, Jeremy Bussey and I – we started talking about all the crazy people we had in our families. It was Bussey who had the idea for the title, “Crazy Leaf,” which is a combination of these characters from our families into one song. But we didn’t want to pick on anybody too hard or put too much truth in there that you hurt somebody’s feelings.

My favorite thing was when I played it for my mom, and there’s that baptism line – “He got baptized for the fifth time, because the first four didn’t work” – where my mom said, “Your mammy used to say that if the water was too cold in the creek, the baptism wouldn’t take.” [Laughs] But in all honesty, it’s probably me – I’m the crazy leaf in my family.

From “Crazy Leaf” to motherhood and bringing this album to life with your husband as producer, Land Of The Forgotten has a whole lot to do with family. That won’t change anytime soon either with you and Adam going on a co-headlining tour together this spring. What are you most excited for about that?

I could not be more excited to be able to travel with Adam and for both of us to be able to do our own sets. We both work together a lot, but we’re still two individual artists as well, which I think confuses people sometimes. People will ask, “What’s your band name?” I’ll have to say, “No, I’m Brit Taylor and this is Adam Chaffins.” Maybe we’ll do a band thing eventually.

I’m also nervous because we’ll have the baby on the road for the first time, but that’ll also be really fun too. I can’t wait to show her pictures one day. I’ll be taking her on tour with me this summer out west with Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, too. She was in my belly through all those tours last year, so it’s gonna be so fun to have her on the road this time. My goal is to one day be touring bigger venues on a bus with my entire family there so we can travel the world together – that’s the dream.

What has the process of bringing Land Of The Forgotten to life taught you about yourself?

It’s a continuation of what everything keeps teaching me, which is that I just need to trust my gut and stop second-guessing things all the time. Adam has been a huge help with that. I feel like I can be hard on myself and always assume that somebody else knows better than me because they’ve got more experience. I don’t know if the creative process works that way. I think it only works when you’re true to yourself, and that’s something that isn’t always easy for me as a people pleaser and somebody that doubts herself a lot. So just learning to stand in my own truth and stand in my power and be confident in myself.

Photo Credit: Sammy Hearn

The Other 22 Hours: Suzy Bogguss

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

How does an artist outlast the industry machine to build a career entirely on her own terms? We sit down with GRAMMY-winner, 1989 ACM Top New Female Vocalist, and 1992 CMA Horizon Award recipient Suzy Bogguss to explore the evolution of her 40-year career, which includes platinum records and her 2026 induction as a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Our conversation is an invitation to reconsider what we all value, moving away from the noise of major label machines and toward a philosophy of quality over quantity, independence, and deep community.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

In This Episode:

– Suzy Bogguss
– Matraca Berg
– Jeff Hanna
– Ep 43 – Gretchen Peters
– Patty Loveless
– Ep 46 – Mary Chapin Carpenter
– Capitol Records
– CAA
– Kathy Mattea
– Folk Alliance
– Ep 16 – Rodney Crowell
– Chet Atkins

Go Deeper:

Watch: View this entire conversation on YouTube.
Explore: Find similar conversations in these themed playlists.
Connect: Join the conversation on Instagram.

The Other 22 Hours is hosted by Aaron Shafer-Haiss (producer, mixer, musician) and Michaela Anne (songwriter, artist, creative coach). More about Aaron’s work. More about Michaela Anne’s work.

Produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss. Original music written, performed and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.

Photo Credit: Doug Crider