Tag: acoustic

LISTEN: Carsie Blanton, “Mercy”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Carsie Blanton
Hometown: Philly (via New Orleans and Virginia!)
Song: “Mercy”
Album: LOVE & RAGE
Release Date: April 30, 2021
Label: So Ferocious Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Mercy’ for my husband Jon, who I’ve been with for thirteen years. My early experiences of love were a mixed bag; what seemed like love was often more about control. Through Jon, I found out that love can be a gentle force that allows us to become more ourselves. Once I discovered that, I was able to envision a whole world of love; a world that’s less about control and more about compassion.” — Carsie Blanton

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

LISTEN: Beth Whitney, “I Go”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Beth Whitney
Hometown: Leavenworth, Washington
Song: “I Go”
Album: Into The Ground
Release Date: May 28, 2021
Label: Tone Tree Music

In Their Words: “In the 1960s, my grandparents started a tradition in our family called ‘the 9-day Backpack’ that continues in different forms to this day. I’ve joined about five of these and to tell the truth, I do not backpack gracefully. Mosquito and horse fly bites turn into big welts. I’m blistered from boots and bright pink from the sun… but as the wilderness takes me in, it starts to heal me somehow and I come into focus.

“I wrote this one with Gina Belliveau and Brittany Alvis at a songwriting retreat some friends and I hosted in the mountains. The assignment was to write a song inspired by one of our favorite poems, ‘The Peace of the Wild Things,’ by Wendell Berry. These two were a joy to write with and are both featured in the recording.” — Beth Whitney

Photo credit: Eratosthenes Fackenthall

The Show on the Road – Ani DiFranco

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we bring you a truly inspiring talk with the activist, author, and free-spirited feminist folk icon Ani DiFranco, who just released her lushly orchestrated twenty-second album: Revolutionary Love.

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Many things have been said about the music Ani DiFranco has created for the last thirty years since she burst on the scene with her fiery self-titled LP in 1990. With her shaved head on the cover, fearlessly bisexual love songs, dexterous guitar work and hold-no-prisoners lyrics sparing no one from her poetic magnifying glass, DiFranco’s persona became almost synonymous with a rejuvenated women’s movement that blossomed in the late-1990’s Lilith Fair moment. And yet she was always a bit more committed to the cause than some of her more pop-leaning contemporaries, who faded away as soon as their hits subsided.

Framing herself somewhere between the rebellious folk-singing teacher Pete Seeger and the gender-fluid show-stopping rock spirit in Prince, (who she recorded with after he became a fan,) DiFranco was always just as passionate about raising awareness for abortion rights, ensuring safety for gay and trans youth and bringing music to prisons, as she was promoting her latest musical experiment. She began playing publicly around age ten, and as a nineteen-year-old runaway from Buffalo, NY, she started her own label, Righteous Babe Records, that allowed her to operate free of corporate (and overwhelmingly male) oversight. Indeed, despite gaining a wide international fanbase she has released every album herself since the beginning — as well as championing genre-defying songwriters like Andrew Bird, Anaïs Mitchell, Utah Philips, and others. It was DiFranco’s encouragement that helped Mitchell’s opus Hadestown become a Tony-winning Broadway smash. DiFranco may have been deemed a bit too left-of-center for pop radio, but her beloved 1997 live record Living In Clip went gold.

Let’s get something out of the way real quick: was this male podcast host initially a bit intimidated to dive into her encyclopedic album collection after admiring her work from afar and believing the songs were not meant for his ears? Indeed. I grew up with girlfriends and fellow musicians who rocked Ani’s Righteous Babe pins and patches on their jean jackets like they were religious ornaments. What I found during this mind-bending conversation, and after listening to her polished and mystical newest record especially, was that DiFranco has never tried to push away people that don’t look or talk like her — or tried to mock or belittle conservative movements she doesn’t agree with or understand. There is a deep kindness and empathy in her songwriting that I never expected and in her 2019 autobiography, No Walls And The Recurring Dream, she acknowledges how lonely and exhausting it can be trying to fight against a societal tide that doesn’t want to stop and give you space to be who you are.

What became increasingly clear during our conversation was that DiFranco wants to make music for everyone. She prides herself on her quirky, multi-generational fanbase — with grandparents and kids, dads and sons, daughters and aunties alike singing along to favorites like “Both Hands,” “Untouchable Face,” and covers like Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” at packed shows across three continents.

I had my own goosebumps-inducing moment singing with Ani that I’ll never forget. The oldest folk festival in America, The Ann Arbor Folk Fest, once put me on stage to sing harmony on “Angel From Montgomery” with DiFranco at the acoustically perfect Hill Auditorium. I attended the University Of Michigan years earlier and I saw John Prine sing that classic in that same room, and it felt like a full circle moment. Seeing how DiFranco transfixed the crowd that night, and how the women songwriters and musicians offstage especially watched her with such admiration made me want to see what her music — which I had never fully listened to — was all about.

If you have a chance, listen to Revolutionary Love start to finish, and stick around to the end of the episode to hear DiFranco read lyrics as poetry.

Photo credit: Daymon Gardner

WATCH: The Ladles, “Pages”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Ladles
Hometown: New York, New York
Song: “Pages”
Album: Springville Sessions
Release Date: April 16, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Pages’ talks about the experience of reading through an old journal and being confronted with your past self. In each entry, all your hopes and good intentions, your mistakes and your blind spots are laid bare in equal measure. It’s not a particularly comfortable experience, because you have the benefit of perspective and you know how it all works out. That confused and misguided relationship does fall apart. You did say the wrong thing and will have to apologize for it. However, I found that reading my own words from that time helped me to offer myself more compassion and understanding. It was a reminder that at any given moment, we only know what we know, and we’re all doing the best we can.” — Katie Martucci, The Ladles (guitar, vocals)

Photo credit: Liz Maney

LISTEN: Bridget Rian, “Trailer Park Cemetery”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Bridget Rian
Hometown: Long Island, New York; currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Trailer Park Cemetery”
Album: Talking to Ghosts (EP)
Release Date: July 9, 2021

In Their Words: “While driving through rural Florida on a road trip, I saw the trailer park cemetery that inspired this song. Something about how death was so close to the living was fascinating to me. At the time I was also reading a book that mentioned kids meeting in a cemetery to party and it reminded me of my reckless teenage years. ‘Trailer Park Cemetery’ is much more a commentary on life than it is death. It’s about how I want to be close to the living and don’t want to miss out on opportunities, even in death. I think I have this fear of being forgotten, of not making a difference with my life, and this song was a way to kind of express that.” — Bridget Rian

Photo credit: Libby Danforth

The Show on the Road – The Tallest Man on Earth

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we take The Show On The Road to the countryside of Sweden for an intimate talk with Kristian Matsson, a poet-songwriter and masterful acoustic multi-instrumentalist who has released five acclaimed albums and two EPs over the last decade and a half, performing as The Tallest Man on Earth.


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Growing up in the small hamlet of Leksand, a three hour trek from Stockholm, Mattson was in rowdier indie-rock outfits like Montezumas before breaking out with his own dreamier acoustic material and gaining international notice with his breakout solo offering Shallow Grave in 2008. Tours with Bon Iver across North America gained Matsson an adoring audience in the states, where he ended up setting up shop in Brooklyn.

Most often performing solo even on the biggest stages, Matsson is known to have seven or more intricate tunings for his guitars and banjos, and with his high, cutting voice and cryptic, nature-inspired lyrics, he has been compared to some of his heroes like Roscoe Holcomb, Bob Dylan, and Paul Simon, but with a Swedish-naturalist touch. Songs like “Love Is All” or “The Gardener,” while gaining tens of millions of steams on folky playlists, pack quite a punch, often detailing how the cold cruelty of the animal kingdom filters into human life with its many frailties.

In 2019, Matsson found his marriage to a fellow Swedish singer-songwriter ending and he holed up in his Brooklyn apartment to write, produce, and engineer his newest Tallest Man On Earth LP, I Love You. It’s A Fever Dream. Like Springsteen’s eerie and emotional Nebraska, Matsson’s collection is a clear-eyed view of our current state of interpersonal (and even societal) isolations. Standout songs like the warm guitar and echoey harmonica opener “Hotel Bar” — though written before he knew what would happen with our current pandemic — seem to capture the lost closeness and romance of our very recent past, where one could fall in love with a new stranger every night in a new town and think nothing of it.

Sequestered in a small house in the middle of Sweden since the world shifted last year, a new Tallest Man On Earth album is sure to be on its way. Admittedly Matsson is going a bit stir-crazy away from the road, but really he’s grateful to be able to have the time to explore and create new sounds without any distractions. A fall tour of the states is in the works (fingers crossed), including an opening slot at Red Rocks joining Mandolin Orange and Bonny Light Horseman.

Photo credit: Kaitlin Scott

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 202

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the Radio Hour has been our weekly recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the pages of BGS. This week we’ve got music by Charley Crockett, Danny Barnes, Rhiannon Giddens, and more! Remember to check back every week for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Charley Crockett – “Lesson in Depression”
After Charley Crockett’s 2020 release, Welcome to Hard Times, we didn’t expect another great record so soon – but here we are! Crockett’s latest, Lil’ G.L. Presents: 10 For Slim Charley Crockett Sings James Hand, is a tribute to his hero, Texas’ James “Slim” Hand, who passed away in 2020.

Reid Jenkins – “Strange Lover”

New York City’s Reid Jenkins brings us a new single from his upcoming project, A Beautiful Start, due in April on Nettwerk. “Strange Lover” explores the tension between avoiding the unknown and being drawn in by the thrill of beauty and discovery.

The Golden Roses – “When I’m Gone”

John Mutchler of the Golden Roses wrote this song after visiting his grandfather’s neglected grave – but it’s more like the song was sent to him. “When I’m Gone” asks the question (while we’re still alive) of whether or not anyone will come and visit us when we’re gone.

Valerie June – “Fallin'”

This west-Tennessee born and Brooklyn-based artist is our March Artist of the Month here at BGS!

Israel Nash – “Canyonheart”

From Dripping Springs, Texas, Israel Nash joins us on a 5+5 this week – that is 5 questions, 5 songs. We talked with “Izz” about everything from nature to songwriting to the larger purpose of his career: to be inspired, create, and inspire others to create.

Andy Leftwich – “Through the East Gate”

The bluegrass world hasn’t heard much from Andy Leftwich since he left Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder several years back. The fiddler (and overall multi-instrumentalist) just signed a deal with Mountain Home Music Company, and this first single is an excellent sign of what’s still to come from Leftwich!

Danny Barnes – “Awful Strange”

It’s been just over a week since the Grammy Awards, where so many deserving roots artists (and friends of BGS) were recognized for their work with multiple nominations. One who sticks out is Danny Barnes, formerly of the Bad Livers, whose 2020 album Man on Fire garnered a nomination for Best Bluegrass Album. BGS caught up with Barnes from his Northwestern home to talk about the record, his creative methods, and how he’s remained busy during the pandemic.

Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors – “I Need to Go Somewhere”

Drew Holcomb shares a sentiment that is familiar to us all – we need to go somewhere, just anywhere. As the world’s cabin fever continues to grow, the promises of warmer weather, vaccines, and brighter days are ahead. Continue to stay safe, until we can all join Holcomb on that journey.

Greg Loiacono and Jamie Drake – “Bound to Fall”

From Southern California, Loiacono and Drake bring us a song in the spirit of the old heartbreak numbers by artists like Patti Page and the Everly Brothers. Their first duet, “San Felipe,” provided a platform for the writing and recording of “Bound to Fall.” It definitely seems they’re natural collaborators, here’s hoping they keep at it!

Jackson Scribner – “County Rd 497”

Jackson Scribner wrote this song in the front of his grandparents’ house that sits on County Rd 497. It’s about the things we have in our young life that feel like they’ll never go away – but as we get older, life changes, people and places come and go, and there’s never certainty of what comes next.

Williamson Branch – “Which Train”

From their new album Heritage & Hope, family band Williamson Branch brings us a video this week for “Which Train,” a haunting tune about eternal decisions. The all-female harmonies drive that train feel, just like the lonesome whistle.

Rhiannon Giddens and Francisco Turrisi – “Waterbound”

This spring brings about a second collaborative record from Rhiannon Giddens and Francisco Turrisi! The second single, “Waterbound,” is originally from the 1920s, but its lyrics are especially true for Giddens in this day and age, who has spent the pandemic in Ireland, looking across the Atlantic toward her North Carolina home.

Samantha Crain – “Bloomsday”

An Indigenous singer-songwriter from Shawnee, OK, Samantha Crain brings us a song of her upcoming I Guess I Live Here Now EP. “That old traditional gospel song ‘This Little Light of Mine,’ it feels so childlike and so ancient and wise at the same time and it has such a calming effect on me,” Crain told BGS. “I wanted to incorporate that feeling of hope and lightness in with my lyrical explorations of mindfulness and fortitude in my own life.”

Abigail Dowd – “Beautiful Day”

To end this week’s BGS Radio Hour, Abigail Dowd brings us a new single, written while living at various friends’ homes after a flood, while waiting on the city to buy and demolish her own home. Though those days sound bleak, in Dowd’s memory they are gifts of time, as she gives us a reminder to enjoy the moment, and have faith that a brighter day is always coming. There’s a mantra for your Tuesday!

Photos: (L to R) Valerie June by Renata Raksha; Rhiannon Giddens by Ebru Yildiz; Charley Crockett by Ryan Vestil

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 201

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the Radio Hour has been a weekly recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on BGS. This week, we’ve got music from Ani DiFranco, Andrew Marlin, and a Whiskey Sour Happy Hour appearance from Chris Eldridge! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Ani DiFranco – “Simultaneously”

Longtime voice of social change and activism through her music, Ani DiFranco brings us a new album, Revolutionary Love, at a time where we so much need it — a time marked by social and political unrest, racial equity, and the COVID-19 pandemic. While DiFranco usually has a busy tour schedule, the past year has been an opportunity to spend time at home with family, write a children’s book, start a free radio station, and write a musical about restorative justice. All of that in ONE year.

Melissa Carper – “Makin’ Memories”

Coming March 19, this Texas-based artist brings us Daddy’s Country Gold. BGS caught up with Carper on a recent 5+5 to talk about influences, memories, nature, songwriting, and the first moment she knew she was going to be a musician.

Elise Davis – “Empty Rooms”

Although the pandemic has been hard on everyone, musicians have a unique experience – most were accustomed to singing in bars and halls every night, for different crowds, in different cities. Even the empty rooms are missed, suggests Elise Davis in this new single from her upcoming project, Anxious. Happy. Chill. 

Mando Saenz – “Shadow Boxing”

From Corpus Christi, TX, singer and songwriter Mando Saenz – AKA ‘Mando Calrissian’ – graces the show this week with with a song from his newest album, All My Shame. His mission statement? To create music true to his heart and inspirations. It doesn’t get much truer than that.

Andrew Marlin – “Oxcart Man”

In 2018, Andrew Marlin (of Mandolin Orange) released his first solo album – a collection of mandolin-based old-time instrumentals entitled Buried in a Cape. Now after nearly 3 years, Marlin returns to the medium with twin albums of a similar aesthetic – Fable & Fire, & Witching Hour. 

Six-String Soldiers & The SteelDrivers – “Long Way Down”

The United States Army Field Band teams up with bluegrass favorite The SteelDrivers for a new collaborative video of “Long Way Down.” From Alabama to their home in D.C., the Six-String Soldiers have been able to collaborate with the SteelDrivers a few times now.

Vivian Leva & Riley Calcagno – “Will You”

A couple of grown-up old-time festival kids, Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno bring us a mixtape of their “old-time deep cuts” this week. From Roscoe Holcomb to Foghorn Stringband to Hazel & Alice, the duet offers their playlist in celebration of a newly released self-titled album.

Valerie June – “Why the Bright Stars Glow”

Tennessee-born and Brooklyn-based Valerie June is our March Artist of the Month here at BGS! Stay tuned all month long for exclusive interviews and content regarding her new album, The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers.

Melody Duncan – “Over the Hill”

Aging is something that none of us escape. Melody Duncan relishes in the life lessons that we’re given from unavoidable challenges and growth opportunities, in exchange for more time here on Earth. Like a journal entry, “It’s a dedication for all of those willing to invest in a good today,” says Duncan, “even if our bones ache in the morning.”

Nathan Vincent – “Blue Ridge State”

It’s hard to end something, even when we know we have to. For Texas-based Nathan Vincent, the title is a physical place and an emotional one – and like the mountains, the relationship in the song rises and falls. Vincent and his crew journeyed to Asheville, NC to shoot the video, a “visual motif” that accompanies the sentiment and progression of the song.

Emily Moment – “Master of One”

From her upcoming The Party’s Over, London-based Emily moment brings us a song this week about our hurtful behaviors. We’re drawn to the things that hurt us so much, suggests Moment – like the Fugu fish in Japan, whose tastiest part is closest to its poison.

Chris Eldridge – “Angeles”

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since COVID changed all of our lives. We’re looking back at some of our virtual series from last year, highlighting the many performances which deserve to be seen more than once. This week, we’ve got Chris Eldridge (of the Punch Brothers) with a cover of Elliot Smith’s “Angeles” – a tribute to the city where BGS was born.

Ariel Posen – “Now I See”

Sometimes the smallest realizations can lead to the biggest breakthroughs, suggests Ariel Posen. From his new album Headway, this song is about self acceptance, and finding belonging among our imperfections.

Adam Douglas – “Joyous We’ll Be”

By taking a stand against the political and social challenges that we face, Adam Douglas offers this song for a brighter future. From watching his home country since 2016, seeing everything that was hidden rise to the top, Douglas was troubled by the viewpoints of so many. “It’s not an anti-45 song though,” he says. “It is an ‘anti-idiot’ song.”

Photos: (L to R) Andrew Marlin by Lindsey Rome; Chris Eldridge; Valerie June by Renata Raksha

WATCH: Reid Jenkins, “Strange Lover”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Reid Jenkins
Hometown: New York City
Song: “Strange Lover”
Album: A Beautiful Start
Release Date: April 23, 2021
Label: Nettwerk

In Their Words: “While most of my songs start while I have an instrument in my hand, ‘Strange Lover’ started as a title that I later put to music. I was struck by the ambiguity in the word ‘strange’ — how it means both unfamiliar and bizarre, and how those two senses of the word have different meanings, but often feel the same when you’re faced with new experiences, such as falling in love. I wanted to write a song that suspended itself in that ambiguity and explore the tension between avoiding the unknown while being drawn in by the thrill of beauty and discovery.

“The lyrics and melody of the verses evolved slowly over the course of a year or so. Sometimes the lines came to me during sessions of very intentional writing; I remember penning ‘Try as I might, I just can’t quite make you make sense’ while sitting in a very idyllic songwriter-y setting — on a bench overlooking the sea on the coast of Maine. Other lines kind of wafted their way out of my subconscious, such as ‘You’re a giant, yet you fit right on the palm of my hand,’ which came to me while walking with my friend at night in Riverside Park in New York. The chorus burst out of me in five minutes about a week before I got into the studio. The process of recording it was similarly organic. Unlike the other three songs on my upcoming EP, I showed up to the studio without much of an arrangement or an agenda for how I wanted it to sound. I let it evolve over the course of the recording process, and I think the final product reflects that process in its hazy and relaxed feeling.” — Reid Jenkins

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

LISTEN: Simon Flory, “Have Your Adventure”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Simon Flory
Hometown: Virgie, Indiana
Song: “Have Your Adventure”
Album: Haul These Blues Away
Release Date: February 26, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Have Your Adventure’ was a saying of my late Granny, Mariel Mae Summers Flory of Catlett, Virginia. It was a reminder to get out and see the world, make up my own mind about it, and also her way of saying I could always come home. It was the kind of knowledge gleaned from a life tethered to the seasons on our family farm for 91 years. I wrote this song as a mantra of sorts — we haven’t had a shortage of hardship in America lately, or opportunities for an adventure. My Granny would hope you’ve found your own.” — Simon Flory

Photo credit: Brooks Burris