Tag: Abbie Gardner

WATCH: Abbie Gardner, “Born in the City”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Abbie Gardner
Hometown: Jersey City, New Jersey
Song: “Born in the City”
Album: DobroSinger
Release Date: May 13, 2022

In Their Words: “This song started with the lick — a slinky little chromatic pattern I’d been messing around with on Dobro. I brought it to Will Kimbrough and we built the song around it. He had just warmed up some rice & beans for lunch when I’d arrived. We got to talking about our mutual love of Ry Cooder and other influences. I told him how I grew up near NYC, in a community that celebrated cultural differences as something special. All of these things ended up in the song, happily! I like that this song brings together a back-porch vibe with some big-city chromatic slide guitar licks. The contrasting combination is kind of like me — playing this traditionally male bluegrass instrument, but doing it as a woman, in Jersey City within view of the Empire State Building.” — Abbie Gardner

Photo Credit: Neale Eckstein

WATCH: Abbie Gardner, “Don’t Be Afraid of Love”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Abbie Gardner
Hometown: Jersey City, New Jersey
Song: “Don’t Be Afraid of Love”
Album: Wishes on a Neon Sign

In Their Words: “This song was the result of challenge called Real Women Real Songs, where 14 women across the U.S. endeavored to write a song a week for a year. The prompt ‘fear’ came up about 30 weeks into the project. I was a bit tired of all my feelings by then, so I grabbed the ukulele and wrote this little bluesy tune. I snagged the bass line from the album version of the song and developed a solo Dobro arrangement.

While making the record, I became enamored with the big empty room full of light next to the recording studio (Big Orange Sheep in Brooklyn). I remember thinking that it would be the perfect place to film a simple video with a live recording of just me and the dobro. Videographer Michael Croce had me run the tune about four times, while the original engineer from the CD (Chris Benham) recorded through a single condenser mic… the cable fed right through a hole in the wall to his studio next door!” — Abbie Gardner

Photo credit: Jeff Fasano