Tag: 5+5

BGS 5+5: Leah Blevins

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Artist: Leah Blevins
Hometown: Sandy Hook, Kentucky
Latest Album: First Time Feeling

Which artist has influenced you most & how?

The first time hearing Stevie Nicks was at the ripe age of 11. The inflection and mystery of her essence molded me from the moment I heard her voice. That furthered when I saw how she wore clothes. The record was Trouble in Shangri-La and it still hits me on a deep emotional level.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My favorite memories that come to mind are the moments that I’m singing with my family. We’ve sung from stages to living rooms, to share the spirit. There’s nothing more special than family harmony.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

My daily mission in life is to spread love. “Be kind to yourself, be kind to others.”

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

The pairing of musician a meal would be soup beans, wieners, kraut and cornbread with my momma singing and playing the piano. Comfort food in every sense of the expression.

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

When I heard Martina McBride on GAC, singing “A Broken Wing.” I’d pull out my dads video camera and perform that song with my best efforts. When you grow up around a family of singers and players — it’s a natural pull to want to do the same. I’m not sure if my 7-year-old brain had an epiphany or I just desperately wanted to mimic her voice.

Photo credit: Robby Klein

BGS 5+5: Lee DeWyze

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Artist: Lee DeWyze
Hometown: Mount Prospect, Illinois
Latest Album: Ghost Stories

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I would have to say two artists: Paul Simon and Cat Stevens. I always believed everything Paul Simon was saying in his songs, which to me always spoke to the honesty in music — I find that very important for me in my writing. And the emotionality and vulnerability that Cat Stevens put in not only his live performances, but his recordings as well. I was so hooked on them from a young age it was quite literally what inspired me to start writing and playing.

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

I was about 10 years old and I was reading along the back cover of the Tea for the Tillerman as my dad played it (we always had records playing). I can remember being amazed that these stories were being told through music and I was so moved — it was almost a calling for me. It was like a mental picture book.

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

I would say I do like to have the listener feel like they’re part of the story. I would like to think over the years I’ve become more open to being vulnerable in my writing. I do like to write from my point of view — that said I’m not always writing from my experience. Sometimes it’s just understanding someone else’s experience and trying to convey that from my perspective.

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

I would say probably during this past year, plus there was a stretch of about eight months that I just could not find the inspiration to write. Which seems ironic considering all the time I had. It was definitely a test for myself, but after a while the writing kind of swept me up and it was like the flood gates were open, allowing me to finish my new record, Ghost Stories.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I would definitely say that film/visual media has found its way into my music. I’ve had quite a few songs in TV and movies and I suppose I’ve always loved that marriage. Whether it be a song of mine that finds its way in, or I’m brought on to write specifically for something. From Harold and Maude to the Disney classics, I always loved the music and movies from a young age. I remember seeing Fantasia for the first time and it blew my mind.

Photo credit: JDubs Photography

BGS 5+5: Carrie Newcomer

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Artist: Carrie Newcomer
Hometown: Bloomington, Indiana
Latest Album: Until Now (September 10, 2021)
Personal Nicknames/Rejected Band Names: My husband calls me “bunky” sometimes. 🙂 My bands have always been just The Carrie Newcomer Band. My first band was called Stone Soup.

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

I don’t think it happened for me in one moment. It was a slow turning, a claiming and reclaiming, a deepening. My favorite game as a little girl was called “Makin’ Somethin’.” I was always making songs, stories, and pictures; painting, sewing, and hammering together boards; cooking or putting on plays in the backyard. I was drawn to creating just about anything, and all these years later, I’m still inordinately happy when I’m makin’ somethin’. But it took me a while to truly claim calling myself a songwriter and poet. I went to school for visual art, then later got a teacher’s license. Both are honorable vocations, but I believe I chose them because it felt too risky to follow what I loved the most: music.

During that time, I was writing songs and playing music everywhere. When I finished school, music was calling. So I followed, not really knowing where it would lead me. But even as I stepped fully into a life in music, things continued to unfold. Something good happened to my writing when I gave myself permission to sound like a “Hoosier,” to claim my own authentic Midwestern voice. Something also shifted when I stopped following music business and started following what my songs were about — asking good questions, sensing a spiritual thread, our shared human condition, finding something extraordinary in an ordinary day. My life as a musician also shifted when I stopped believing that I had to be the best singer-songwriter and knew that all I needed to do and be was the truest Carrie Newcomer.

Today, I have released 19 albums. Music still continues to be a choice. A life in the arts means you must be willing to step right up to your next growing edge and lean in. So every day — even in this time of great disruption and uncertainty, when hope feels a bit frayed at the edges, I still choose to live like an artist, approach my life as an artist, and stay true, lean in and always keep “makin’ somethin’.”

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I have always been a passionate reader. Of course, music has always moved me, but I am even more drawn to the way music and lyrics entwine to create something uniquely powerful. Many of my songs are inspired by literature (non-fiction and fiction) and particularly poetry. Songwriters have many ways they go about writing a song — if you ask 11 songwriters to describe their process, you’ll get 15 different ways they approach songwriting. My process often begins with writing essays, poetry, short stories and character studies. I have three books of poetry and essays: A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays & Lyrics and my newest collection Until Now: New Poems that will published as a companion piece with my new album Until Now, on September 10, 2021. I’m also a visual artist (mixed media and small sculpture) and visual imagery is always present in my songwriting. Oh, and I’m a passionate knitter.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I try to find a place to get quiet. I meditate, I find my inner center so that I feel more grounded when I step on stage. I’m not a natural performer. In fact, I’m pretty private by nature, which is not uncommon for performers. But I love people, and I love music, and I love what happens when we connect through music. There is nothing like it. Music, when it’s really flowing, comes up from something deep and centered and true. It reaches into the heart of the listener where the listener is deep and true. I imagine those of you reading might know what I’m talking about.

During COVID, we all had to learn how to do this heart-reaching in new ways. I turned to online streaming, as my husband Robert Meitus is (lucky for me) one of the co-founders of Mandolin, a high-quality concert streaming service that streamed the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and RockyGrass this year. Streaming was an incredibly different performance experience. If a live in-person show is an apple and recording a performance is an orange, streaming is kind of like a kiwi. It has many similar elements, but it’s also entirely different. The exciting thing I learned was that the spirit of music really can reach further and wider than I ever expected.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

If I had a mission statement for my career it would be, “be true.” My work in the world is to express what it means to be authentically human with all its ache and awe, sense and senselessness. It’s to hold fast to the power of simple kindness, to acknowledge its messiness, and to be honest about where I most need to grow. My job is to lean into unabashed delight and to be with uncontainable grief. Music reminds me that working toward a better, kinder world is not a destination as much as an orientation. My job is to put into music and language the things we feel that have no words, to do my own inner work so that I can bring what I find there to my outer calling. My job as an artist is to pay attention and ask good questions — and, as much as possible — to be kind.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Natural imagery is almost always present in my poetry and songwriting. It is where I catch glimpses of something extraordinary (even sacred) in the most ordinary of days. I live out in the wooded hills of southern Indiana where years ago, the glaciers stopped their earth-smoothing slide south, leaving deep ravines and beautiful hills. I have walked these hills for years; these forests, creeks and small lakes have become old friends. On my wide, old-fashioned front porch, I love to sit and watch a big storm come in, to feel the drop in the barometric pressure, a rush of cool air, and then waves of summer rain. I love the quiet of the snowy hills, particularly the ones that are lined with elegant smooth beech trees. In senseless times, I take comfort in what never stops making sense, like trees and songbirds, like how the light changes in autumn and the world quiets in the winter. There is a song on the new album called “I Give Myself To This.” It is a love song about what I choose to release and what I fully embrace out in the natural world.

Photo credit: Elle Hodge

BGS 5+5: Ric Robertson

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Artist: Ric Robertson
Hometown: Greensboro, North Carolina
Latest album: Carolina Child

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I attended second grade at Garden Ridge Elementary in Flower Mound, Texas. The twenty or so of us in my class put on a play about popcorn, some of us dressed as corn that had been popped, others of us were merely kernels. I was a kernel. My one line happened before the big final musical number, encouraging the other kernels, “WE CAN DO IT!” Then the song…

“Weeee can do it (POP! POP!) weeee can do it (POP! POP!) weeee can do it, if we try, try, try.”

What a thrill. Still waiting to pop.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Ideally I spend the four days before a show without any sleep, alternating every hour between practicing didgeridoo circular breathwork techniques in the sauna and soaking in a bathtub filled with lukewarm matzah ball soup. Then I try to always miss soundcheck and arrive at the gig exactly 13 minutes before it starts. Finally, I look for all the emergency exit doors and fire alarms in the venue, and make sure to set them all off immediately before I walk on stage to create some excitement for the audience.

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

I never wanted to be a musician, I just happen to be one. It’s working out alright, though I’m not sure I’d recommend it. The list of things I want to be grows bigger everyday, the last few additions being:

· kitesurfer
· card-carrying member of the Bohemian Grove
· cat

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Break even.

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

Seven cheesy Gordita crunches from Taco Bell while watching a Justin Bieber livestream in bed. With napkins, of course. And a bowl of Fiona Apple Jacks for dessert.

Photo credit: Gina Leslie

BGS 5+5: Jesse Daniel

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Artist: Jesse Daniel
Hometown: Ben Lomond, California
Latest Album: Beyond These Walls
Personal nicknames: Jessup

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

When I was really young, probably around 6 or 7, my mom took us down to see my dad’s band play at a place called the Fernwood Lodge. We were camping down the road from the music venue and because my brother and I were a few years shy of the legal drinking age, we had to stay back at the tent while the older folks went and played music, partied, etc. There was an older woman who was watching us, so I waited until she fell asleep and I followed the sound of the music up to the bar where my dad was playing. I remember walking onto the front porch and watching my dad on stage from the window outside. Somebody told my mother that I was there and she came outside to get me. I thought she’d make me go back, but she let me stay and I hung out with them. We danced and listened to my dad’s band play with the bikers, hippies and rednecks. I remember knowing that I would be on that stage when I was old enough. It made a huge impact on me.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I was doing a show with Colter Wall, opening up solo at a place called The Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff, Arizona. I was slightly unsure of how the crowd would take a solo opener, because there were thousands of people there — it was sold out on a Tuesday night! The crowd was extremely receptive and I’ll always remember their excitement. As I got to the end of the set, I played “Soft Spot (For the Hard Stuff)”, which is one of my more known songs. The crowd sang the words of the chorus back to me at the top of their lungs and it gave me chills. Still does. There’s no feeling like it.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

As far as a mission statement goes, I’ve told people for a long time that my goal is to make good country music and live a good life. I want to lift others up with my music, help them through life’s hardships and make them happy. Country music is life music and I want to tell stories that are true. I’m in competition with no one and never will be. I’ll keep running my own race and doing what I love.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I love being outdoors. As a kid, I grew up next to a mountain creek and we’d spend whole days catching crawdads, swimming and playing in that creek. If I ever get stressed or overwhelmed by life, going swimming or fishing is a guaranteed way to clear my mind and get back in touch with the here and now. On my new record Beyond These Walls, I’ve got a song about fishing and another about the beauty and simplicity of nature. Nature is as much a part of me as the music is.

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

I do a mixture of both, partly truth and partly fiction. I love telling stories from others perspectives. A lot of my songs are about my own life experiences, but I’ll attribute them to the character of the song. Many are stories from real people I’ve met in rehabilitation facilities, jails, on the street or on the road. When you look for it, the inspiration is endless. Stories are everywhere and they are waiting to be told.

Photo credit: Kayla Lilli

BGS 5+5: Anya Hinkle

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Artist: Anya Hinkle
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Latest album: Eden and Her Borderland
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Anyabird

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I guess far and away I have to answer — Gillian Welch. I grew up in the New River Valley of Virginia listening to Tony Rice, Norman Blake, Taj Mahal, Hot Tuna, Muddy Waters, Grateful Dead, and Old and in the Way, loved bluegrass and blues, but also female folk singers like Joan Baez and Judy Collins, pop stars like Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, and songwriters like Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, and Suzanne Vega. It just took Gillian to come around with her Revival album and put all that together for me, that you could incorporate all those great roots sounds into something completely modern and original. I was living in California at the time I heard her first album. I grabbed my fiddle and headed straight down to 5th String Music in Berkeley and started going to every bluegrass jam I could find. I thank her for giving me the idea that I could do it too — because of her genius, I could begin to imagine myself singing and playing guitar and writing songs too. It’s important to have someone you can look up to and that you can relate to so you can even have the idea in the first place.

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

For more than a dozen years now, I’ve been hanging around the Cumberlands with my buddy “Hippie” Jack Stoddart, someone who, in his rough and audacious way, brings people together to make a lot of magic. Hippie said to me one day, “I want to introduce you to Zona.” He’d been doing a lot of outreach work out of an old school bus bringing groceries and coats and toys and stuff to people living in former mining towns in Middle Tennessee. So he brought me up the mountain to meet the hardened sweetness that is Zona Abston. We sat around her kitchen table and she told me her life story, a miner’s daughter, growing up with little education and no money, not much luck or hope. When we collapsed back in the truck, Hippie said to me, “You better write this shit down!” And so I did. I wrote every detail: the cancer, the hunger, the cheating, the shining, the debt, the babies, the heartbreak. I came back with a mess of notes and thought, “How do I make a song out of this?” So I sat down and tried to pull out the most specific and moving details of everything she told me and created a ballad for her. I was super nervous to play it for her because, well it was HER life. SHE had to live it. But when I sang it for her the tears rolled down her beautiful face. She said, yup it’s all true, every word of it.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I actually thought about this a lot earlier this year, during the pandemic when I was trying to understand what my purpose was in music when it seemed like the industry was going to hell. I decided to focus on three things, and wrote them on a yellow sticky note that is taped in front of my desk for quick reference. The first is authenticity, and a commitment to truth and honesty to who I am as an artist. It’s a challenge to believe that it’s all already inside. I don’t need to grasp at something outside of myself. I just need to continue to learn to trust myself and be myself. The second thing is connection — connection with other artists and musicians, connections with my fans and supporters, and connections with anyone along the path. Those beautiful relationships are the foundation for anything I can possibly hope to accomplish in this lifetime. Saying “yes” and valuing the people that show up for me is oxygen. The third thing is creativity — growth and discovery. Allowing myself to surrender to the journey, giving up thinking I have to have everything figured out and under control. I need to just submit to curiosity, openness, and faith.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Before I was a musician I was trained as an ethnobotanist. I traveled half the world studying plants and their uses and connections to culture. I love referring specifically to plant species in my songs because they can be so symbolic in our physical world. For example, in the the title track for my new record, Eden and Her Borderlands, I use a couple of plants that carry a deeper meaning. The cedar is fragrant and twisted, it’s green the year round, its oils are used to protect against decay and disease, it is sacred and ancient in its symbolism. I also use the sycamore. It is stately and grand, always grows near sweet water. It is often a boundary and its presence on the landscape signals a threshold that we approach and then cross over. Adding these botanical details to the song is like adding spices to a recipe, it gives more depth, even for those that might not know anything about botany. And who knows, maybe it will inspire people to love plants like I do!

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

I love this question because initially there can be so much fear in exposing your true self. Absolutely mortifying to lay bare the thoughts and emotions of a real human, the one behind the Facebook posts and the stage persona and the person you think you are or wish you were. The real one with all the real flaws, that is the person that is actually interesting. But the songs really push yourself (myself!!!) to look in the mirror and substitute the “you” with “me,” to get personal. Well, it’s a journey of acceptance and insight. Getting personal is the thing that connects us to the rest of humanity and, honestly, the thing that makes a good song, the thing that makes a song relatable.

I recently took a songwriting course with Mary Gauthier. In the song I shared, I kept referring to myself as “babe.” She said, who is babe? She focuses a lot on pronouns, you know, who are we talking about here? Because in our heads, it’s always about us. It can’t NOT be. We are trying to figure out what the hell we are doing here and if we are at all worthy of anything we are pretending to do. It takes a lot of working through fear to write songs. It’s good work.

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

BGS 5+5: Phöenix Lazare

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Artist name: Phöenix Lazare
Hometown: Salt Spring Island, BC
Latest Album: Gold
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Fawkes, Bean, Peanuts, Peanuts & Popcorn, Pheen

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I’m from a small island off the coast of British Columbia, so I’ve always spent the most time with the Pacific Ocean. From a young age, whenever I needed space I would bring myself to the beach and let the sounds of crashing waves calm me down. Often I’ll bring a journal to do some free writing or even a guitar to explore song ideas, but I find that even the silence inspires me to go home and create. I’ve even used voice memos I took of birds and natural sounds to open songs before, including the album’s first single, “Against All Odds.” I took this particular voice memo recording at my grandmother’s house right after COVID hit, when the transition of winter to spring felt bittersweet.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Joni Mitchell has undoubtedly influenced me the most as an artist, songwriter and human. When I started taking music more seriously in adolescence, my parents bought me one of her biographies and I thought to myself, “Who is this crazy lady?” It took me a few years to finally pick up that book, but once I did I never looked back. I started listening through her discography and learning about her journey as a songwriter and performer. I was instantly captivated by her character; I admired her authenticity and radical unwillingness to conform to standards that the music industry pushes artists. The diversity in her music between albums is a beautiful reminder to create what feels good and not look back.

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

My song “The Other Side” took years and a lot of growth to complete. It’s a very vulnerable song that reflects on my first love, looking back with gratitude rather than regret. I was hesitant to record and put it on the album because it’s so personal, but I decided I want to be an example for songwriters that it means more when a song comes from a place of true authenticity. I’ve had a few audience members come up after shows and tell me how deeply they connected to it after a breakup, so I’m glad I set aside my doubts to write and share it.

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

This is a very interesting question… as someone who is an enthusiast of both music and food, there are so many answers I could say. But for some reason, as a nod to my English roots, the one that sticks out in my mind is pairing Will Champion (drummer for Coldplay) with a classic Indian curry dish — my favourite is aloo gobi. I would love to share an order of garlic naan with Will and listen to his thoughts about his journey as a collaborative band member in the music industry. Coldplay has influenced my music and my life so heavily and their music would pair well with a spicy meal.

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

Although it might not be the very first moment, it’s the most memorable — years ago back in 2014 I brought together family, friends and community members to host a farewell concert at my hometown’s local theatre. It was a fundraiser to support the transition to my first year attending Berklee College of Music in Boston and the house was packed. Even though I was young and was still finding my sound, I performed alongside my dad, brother, and so many other talented friends. It meant the world to feel so supported in the pursuit of my dreams and in that moment I knew that music was what I was meant to do.

Photo credit: Stasia Garraway

BGS 5+5: Anna Tivel

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Artist: Anna Tivel
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: Blue World

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

Literature and poetry really get in my bloodstream and make me want to write, all those vivid words and ways of telling a thing. I get the itch to write the most from reading things that unravel like a song but are in much longer form. Right now I’m digging deep through the novels and short stories of Annie Proulx and finding so much inspiration. The way she spins a story, unadorned and brutally human, feels honest in this way I’m forever working toward with songs. Andre Dubus sparks a similar feeling, this gut-punch of everyday struggle told in a way that feels just like reality, but more stunningly laid out in bite-sized, brilliantly observed and relatable moments. I dream of writing songs that make people feel that way.

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

Music has always been the place I felt most at home in my mind, where I could just be, work things out and communicate in a slower, more intentional way. I first found that freedom playing violin as a kid, backing people up later, learning that kind of conversation without speaking that feels so powerful. I started writing songs when I was about 23 and it was a completely magnetic force of expression that I must have been really hurting for because it took hold of me immediately and forcefully. I don’t remember consciously thinking, “This is what I want to do with my life,” just couldn’t seem to think about anything else. I’m forever grateful to be able to move through the world this way. It constantly pushes me out of my box, allows me to bump up against the world, try to see it more clearly and with more curiosity all the time, try to reflect something true.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Seems like touring is always shaping the way nature plays out in my writing. You’re on these long expansive drives through empty country, red canyon cliffs, vultures, sun bleached sagebrush, and heat waves on the blacktop that stretch out farther than you can see. And then two days later you’re in a dense forest, lush and wet and forty shades of green darkness. And then you’re suddenly in a giant metropolis. Watching it all change for hours and hours out the window feels like a recipe of sorts, like gathering all the images that hold an emotion to draw on later when a song is forming. I love to set a scene for the emotion of a story to play out in, and this constant observing of the natural (and man-made) world through car and plane windows seems to help tie human struggle and beauty to place and landscape in a way that feels necessary.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I want so badly to have pre-show and studio rituals, like vocal warmups or a three-piece show suit or something, anything. Mostly I let shows eat me alive in good and bad ways and I’m trying to work on being more intentional about that stuff. When I have time and space, I like to read something beautiful or listen to something that moves me before a show, sit somewhere all alone and take in some words and music that make me feel free and vast and inspired. It feels really good to get up on stage and get the chance to play my heart out after that. I’m going to do it more, just decided. OK I have a ritual starting now.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Write and write. And play songs for people. And try to be 90 years old someday and still loving these two things with wild abandon.

Photo credit: Matt Kennelly

BGS 5+5: Aaron Burdett

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Artist: Aaron Burdett
Hometown: Saluda, North Carolina
Latest Album: Dream Rich, Dirt Poor

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

There have been many and they have all influenced me in different aspects of my music. From the control of Broadway and operatic singers to the technique of multiple guitarists to the artistic approach and craft of various songwriters, it’s not just one or two sources. And honestly I’m not sure that a lesson I learned from an artist 20 years ago would strike me as at all meaningful today if presented with it, but that lesson at that time is what got me to the next stage and is why I am where I am today.

I refer to John Hiatt a lot as an influence; his music meant a lot to me at one time and conceptually means just as much to me today. He writes with heart and emotion and incredible depth, but also with a lightness and humor. He’s a serious songwriter who does not come across as taking himself too seriously. I’ve never met him but that’s the impression I get. He writes songs with personality and a unique voice. He uses phrases that don’t necessarily make literal sense. He’s his own person and does not sound quite like anyone else. I like that.

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

I don’t think songs work unless there’s some of the writer’s own truth in there. The emotional connection can’t happen if there’s not some of my own feeling included in the work. The flip side of that coin is that without adding in some observed or fabricated content there are only so many things you can write about from your own experience. I think that ratio is the secret sauce — enough of yourself that you can connect to the character, and enough diversity in the content that the listener stays interested in the narrative.

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

It’s been a long process for me and it’s still ongoing. I’m not sure if I’m a musician yet. I connected with music and singing in particular pretty early on, and I started playing guitar in my early teens. At first listening to music was inspiring, and a place to have new experiences, but then eventually performing and creating my own music became my focus. Then when the music industry questions get thrown into the mix, I’m still not sure what being a musician is all about. Is it being someone who creates music? Someone who performs music? Someone who makes a living performing? I ask myself these questions a lot.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Keep going and keep creating. Don’t get complacent and don’t stop. Keep reading and following the signs and don’t be too rigid in your vision for the future. Stuff happens and most of it is good. Adjust as necessary. Get good people to help you and utilize them, if it’s management or booking or your spiritual advisor or whatever. Do the next right thing, and then the next. Don’t let the big picture overwhelm you, keep breaking it down to the next step. Be an artist. Be in the world but not of it. Be kind to others and be kind to yourself. Trust the process. Be patient and persistent. Do not be discouraged.

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

I’d love to have a full Korean multi-course meal with all the trimmings, with Jerry Garcia and Doc Watson. I imagine that pairing would produce a few good anecdotes.

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

BGS 5+5: Gabe Dixon

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Artist: Gabe Dixon
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest Album: Lay It On Me

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

I think I was 11. I already loved music and had been taking piano lessons for a few years, but that summer, I went with my parents to see a music festival in downtown Nashville, and I watched a set by Béla Fleck & The Flecktones — the original group, with Béla, Victor Wooten, Future Man, and Howard Levy. Until then, I had no idea that people could be that good at playing their instruments. They were so virtuosic and fun, and the crowd loved it so much. Later that evening, I remember standing in the front yard of our house in Sylvan Park, looking up at the sky and thinking, “I want to be a musician when I grow up.”

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I’m not a very religious person, but before I go on stage, I always take a moment to be grateful and to ask God to work through me so that something bigger than me — love, joy, goodness, light — will shine through me and into the hearts and minds of the people I’m playing for. Sometimes I do that in the studio too. But the stakes feel higher in a live setting, so I’m looking for all the help I can get!

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

For a handful of years, I was a “staff writer” at a publishing company, and the most difficult songwriting sessions were the “blind date” country sessions they set up for me — you walk in the room, meet the other person, and your job is to write a song for “the country market.” Often you’re just hoping some big country star will cut it, and you’ll make some money, and they almost never do. Those sessions often became an exercise in putting limitations on what I wrote in hopes that it would be what some generic country singer would like. I often heard, “That line makes him sound like a wimp. Jason Aldean would never sing that.” Or, “We can’t put that chord in there, it’s too fancy-sounding.” Some people are really good at that kind of writing, but for me it was pretty soul-crushing. The only songs of mine that country artists ever ended up wanting to record were ones that I wrote for my own albums. So I mostly just write for myself now.

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

It happens more than I mean for it to. The classic writing advice is to “write what you know,” but, to a certain extent you can’t help it. Even when you are trying to write from someone else’s perspective. I did this with my song “All Will Be Well,” “All Will Be Well/even after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself” and also with “Flow Like Wine.” “Why the furrow upon your brow / I see beauty between the lines / oh love, don’t you worry about our love / Let love flow like wine” were written for my wife, but when I really examine it, I realize I was probably writing to myself too.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Bring forth compassion, love, and peace through music.

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez