The Cactus Blossoms’ Modern-Classic Sound Blooms on New Album

With a sound that’s like rain in the desert for fans of early rock and country, the Cactus Blossoms let their modern-classic vibe bloom on their latest album, Every Time I Think About You. But with pair of big shows to help celebrate the launch, this band is living very much in the present tense.

Made up of Minneapolis-based brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum, the duo’s new project arrives August 30 and once again captures the full, timeless magic of spacious melodies, tasteful twang, and tightly-wound harmony. That night, they’ll mark the release with a long-overdue debut at the Grand Ole Opry – where they ought to find a few like-minded fans of keeping music’s traditional cool factors alive – and then head home for a milestone gig in St. Paul.

After a trio of well-received albums and more than 10 years of riveting shows, it’s the perfect setup for a duo who seem totally at ease blurring the American roots timeline – and who promise they couldn’t fake it if they weren’t.

“I don’t think we’re very good at striving,” Torrey says, speaking from the verdant midsummer shores of Lake Superior on a much-needed break from the road. “I do think [this record] has a comfort level, especially since we’ve been able to start touring again, and really hit it. It’s been feeling like we’re a unit and we can kind of read each other’s minds a little bit.”

Speaking with BGS ahead of the release of Every Time I Think About You, Torrey and Burkum filled us in on what that telepathic bond helped create, and where it’s coming from.

A lot of Every Time I Think About You features the “modern-classic” sound you have both made a calling card – like it would sound fresh a few decades ago and today as well. But is that dangerous territory for a band? You don’t want to be pigeonholed as a throwback, right? So how do you walk the tightrope?

Jack Torrey: I think there’s an interesting aspect of that from our perspective. I got super into Bob Dylan and Hank Williams and I was singing songs by both of those guys way back, 18 years ago or whatever. Page was into Jimmie Rodgers and those other super old country things. We start singing together and it’s like if you harmonize on a Hank Williams song, it kind of starts to sound like an Everly Brothers song. You’re kind of accidentally falling into that and getting into territory that people went into 60 years ago – but it’s new for us and I think that has kind of kept happening. We’re not recreating or trying to do anything like listening to records and imitating it. It’s almost like we’re carving our own mini canyon, that resembles some of the other ones from the past.

Page Burkum: I was kind of thinking about this as a way of summing up our style and influences: The Band, The Traveling Wilburys. Those are like my four main food groups or something. I love where all those guys are coming from – a little Roy Orbison, a little Bob Dylan. They balance each other nicely. And I was thinking, when that’s your diet, you’re going to make something that comes out [like Every Time I Think About You]. … But we love other totally different kinds of music outside of that realm too, and I hope a little bit of that gets in there, too.

Where is the title track, “Every Time I Think About You,” coming from? It’s got that lovely, warm-and-fuzzy feel of a mid-century romance ballad to it, but maybe something more, too …

JT: That one is kind of a love song to losing a friend – it’s kind of a heartwarming grief, where you’re almost being consoled by the memory of someone. And that’s where that song came from. The way we wrote it, I just had a couple lines, and then Page jumped in and started singing the beginning of the chorus, and then I sang back the next line, “Every time I think about you …”

PB: Sometimes Jack and I have made fun of biopic movie scenes like in Walk the Line, where it’s like Johnny and June or whoever sit down with a guitar and they’re just writing a song in real time. Like, they sing one line and then pause dramatically, and then sing another line and then it cuts to them playing it for a thousand people or something. But in a funny way, that was kind of the closest to that. [Laughs]

JT: I was like, “I didn’t ask you to jump in and work on my song … but that’s pretty good idea. Let’s do it.”

The album kicks off with “Something’s Got a Hold On Me” – which almost has a Southern rock swagger to it. Where does that come from? Is that your Tom Petty influence showing?

PB: When I first had the idea for that one, the very original idea that set it off was actually a weird little piece of a Jimmie Rodgers song. So, I stole that line and that melody, which is about two notes or something, but it kind of inspired the whole song in a weird way. To me there’s some blend of Lead Belly and The Beatles or something in my mind, but then it ends up just sounding like a country-rock two step. That’s just what happens. It’s fun to roll with stuff. … I threw in another Jimmie Rodgers line, that “T for Texas, T for Tennessee,” to kind of keep that tribute going.

Oh that’s right, I should have known. Why did you end up finishing on “Out of My Mind (On Sunday)”? Is there a reason that seemed to wrap things up?

JT: It wasn’t a big dramatic decision, but it seemed like a nice bookend from “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” to end with being a bit of a crazy person. [Laughs]

PB: To me it actually kind of leaves the door wide open. I don’t know if you want to cap things off with the sweetest, most-concise thing you have, you know? There’s something about it that’s a little bit out there to me.

You’ll make your Grand Ole Opry debut the night this album drops. Then you’re having a big hometown party with show at Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul [on September 13]. What does that mean to you?

PB: We’ve got one of our favorite local bands, Humbird, joining us for that [St. Paul] show, so that’ll be really cool. We’re trying to get some of our collaborators to be involved too, if we can spice it up with an extra ensemble beyond our regular band. So we’re trying to get a piano on stage or something. I mean, it’s a theater show, so it’s a little different. And it’s our first time playing our own show at this theater. It’s a really beautiful building and I never thought I’d play there when I was a kid.

JT: It’s where [A] Prairie Home Companion used to be back in the day. Page and I actually played there when we were first getting started, which was a special time. So it’s cool, and should be fun. Some people can come that don’t like to stand, since we play a lot of clubs. [Laughs]


Photo Credit: Aaron Rice

Chris Thile Accepts Garrison Keillor’s ‘Prairie Home’ Torch

In summer of 2015, Garrison Keillor announced plans to retire from his post as the longtime host of A Prairie Home Companion, the wildly popular radio show he created in 1976. With that announcement came another surprising piece of news: Keillor had chosen mandolin player and longtime BGS friend Chris Thile as his successor. Fans of the show — and critics, alike — were skeptical of the decision, The Atlantic going so far as to pose the question, "Can Chris Thile fill Garrison Keillor's shoes?" 

Flash forward a year-and-a-half and we're about to find out, as Thile's first day as full-time host is this Saturday, October 15. What began as a few guest slots on Keillor's incarnation of the show has since become something of a torch-passing, the radio veteran hand-selecting Thile — known throughout the roots community for his work with Nickel Creek, the Punch Brothers, and as a solo artist — and calling him personally to gauge the musician's interest in helping to write a new chapter for his beloved show.

"I listened to Garrison’s voice in my living room before I really could differentiate it from that of my father’s voice," Thile says. "It’s kind of all swirling around in the living room, and Prairie Home Companion was there with Where the Wild Things Are and my dad’s records and mom reading the Lord of the Rings to us. I might as well have been getting a call from Gandalf.  

"I let it go to voicemail. I was on tour and I figured, 'He probably wants me to play on the show next Saturday or something. I’ll just let it go to voicemail.' I checked it and he said, 'Uh, Chris, I have something I think might be of interest to you I’d love to talk about. Give me a call.' So I steeled myself and called him back and he started outlining the plan that we’re in the middle of implementing now and I was just uncharacteristically silent for a little while trying to process it. I talked to my wife and started daydreaming about the whole thing a bit, called him back the next morning and said, ‘Now did I understand you right?’"

Before he knew it, Thile was dipping his toes into the Prairie waters, hosting two shows in February of 2016 that featured guests like Ben Folds, Sarah Jarosz, and his band the Punch Brothers. During one of those shows, Thile and company debuted a new song, "Omahallelujah," in advance of that weekend's Super Bowl game between the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos. For his permanent tenure on the show, he plans to write and premiere a new song each week and keep a steady roster of guest musicians. His October 15 episode will feature Jack White and Lake Street Dive. 

Evidence points to Thile's take on Prairie Home to lean more heavily on music than Keillor's did, although he has made it clear that he and his team will remain reverent to the variety show format that sets the show apart from its talk-based counterparts. He also, especially given the timing of his first handful of broadcasts, will touch on current events, including the November 8 election, although he doesn't plan to be too forceful in his politics. "That’s something that’s kept me up at night on occasion," he laughs. "I won’t shy away from it, but maybe my mystification will be comforting to people."

His biggest goal, though, is to follow Keillor's most-repeated piece of advice: to be himself. "It’s so tempting, being in front of that microphone and that audience, to start adopting not only Garrison’s demeanor but his outlook, the cadence of his speech, all of those kinds of things. I think that’s an important piece of advice to hear again and again — to make sure that I’m not doing my best Garrison Keillor," he says, then adds with a laugh, "Because I’ll only ever be a pale shadow of the real Garrison Keillor."

While Thile has his own plans for the show, fans of Keillor's needn't worry: They are in good hands.

"Garrison’s given us this world that we can poke around in," he says. "It’s not high-stakes like our world, but it’s fleshed out like our world. It’s the illusion of reality, the illusion of depth and an order of things that suggests reality. We’ve had that space to escape to for 40-plus years. It’s my job to make sure that people continue to have that space. I think it would be a tragedy if we allowed that space to disappear after Garrison says goodnight. "

Chris Thile Makes ‘Prairie Home’ Host Debut

In mid-2015, it was announced that Chris Thile would take over A Prairie Home Companion, filling the shoes of longtime host Garrison Keillor, who is retiring. This weekend, listeners got their first taste of what a Thile-helmed Prairie Home would sound like, and, well, it sounds pretty good.

An all-star lineup of guests included Thile's Punch Brothers, Brandi Carlile, Sarah Jarosz, Ben Folds, and our own Ed Helms, who joined Thile for a conversation about crickets, among other things. A music-heavy evening, listeners and audience members were treated to tunes like "Magnet" from the Punch Brothers, "The Eye" from Carlile, and "Yes Man" from Folds, the last of which featured Thile and his bandmates. 

Thile also performed the never-before-heard tune "The Mississippi Is Frozen" with a little help from Jarosz. He plans to reveal a number of new songs over the course of his hosting gig.

While there have been questions about whether or not Thile can fill the giant shoes left by Keillor, this first broadcast should do much to ease those concerns. And, for you purists out there, Keillor will resume hosting A Prairie Home Companion on February 13 before completely retiring from the gig and passing the torch to Thile this Fall. Listen to this weekend's show and watch video clips here. Look for Paul Simon and Andrew Bird on next Saturday's broadcast.