Tag: addiction

Tommy Emmanuel’s Fiery Guitar Picking Is Not Just for Musicians, It’s for Everyone

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Tommy Emmanuel is in his happy place: spending a Thursday afternoon at Nashville’s Gruhn Guitars in anticipation of recording a new solo album. “I’m here getting a new pickup system featured in one of my guitars, buying strings, hanging out with the guys, and getting a little Gruhn mojo from the shop,” he says. “The weekend, I’ll spend stringing up and playing my guitars, making decisions about which guitar I’ll use for what song, and stuff like that.”

For the next hour, however, he’s upstairs in the store’s amp room, settled in to discuss his two new albums – the just-released Live at the Sydney Opera House, recorded over the course of two performances in May 2023, and a solo album in the works – along with many other topics. Highlights from that conversation follow.

I was trying to find a starting point for this interview, which is challenging because there are so many. I listened to your January interview with Rick Beato and had a “stopped me in my tracks moment” when you said you spent three days listening to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department. I thought, “Tommy Emmanuel is a Swiftie! We’ll start there.”

Tommy Emmanuel: Taylor, as a writer, is definitely a big influence on me. Someone who achieves what she achieves is doing something beyond the norm. Even beyond talent, it’s a spiritual experience, it’s big, and it’s deep, and I like to observe, listen, and learn from people who achieve like that.

You described her songwriting as “crying from the heart.” That stood out because that’s really what music is – it comes from the heart. We always hear that tone is in the hands, but is the heart not at the core of that?

Exactly. I was [writing a new song] and trying to find something that could give me the right melody to say with the chorus what I wanted to say without words, making the melody this cry from the heart. It’s– [sings melody], the chords change underneath, and so there’s movement, but there’s this cry from the heart right in the middle of everything.

Can you tell us more about this new solo album?

Normally, I record here, fly to LA, mix and master it with my friend Marc DeSisto, and I’m the producer. With this album, I’m working here in Nashville with Vance Powell, the busiest guy on the planet. We start on Monday and we’ve got to get it all done in four days.

I have eight new songs, including this piece we’ve been talking about, “A Drowning Heart.” There’s “Black and White to Color,” “Young Travelers” – I’ve got some interesting titles. The songs are different to what I’ve written in the past. There’s a couple of typical fingerpicking tunes that I really like. They’re a little more folk-influenced. The other ones I’ve been talking about are much more ’80s rock and roll style. I have a song called “Scarlett’s World.” The introduction and ending sound a bit like Dire Straits. I did that on purpose, because it’s such a cool sound. That song is inspired by the movie Lucy with Scarlett Johansson. I love that movie. I love her work. My granddaughter is like Scarlett and she is a force of nature. I got the idea to call the song “Scarlett’s World” when I was with her.

I’m enjoying this phase of my life. Whatever page I’ve turned to get to this stage has been worth it, because some songs have come to me in this last six months that I really love playing in my shows. Playing new songs live gets rid of anything that doesn’t need to be there, because sometimes you can write a song, you’re trying to be clever, you’re trying to be creative, you’ve got all these good ideas going, and then you play it for somebody and you realize, “Oh, this part here is not necessary.” You throw it out and get to the meat and potatoes. Forget all the other stuff. Just tell me the story. Take me somewhere. That’s why I like to perform my songs to an audience before I record them. Your instincts are on a hundred. When you walk on stage, your physical and spiritual instincts have risen up and they’re ready to serve you.

Of course, you’ve also just released your live album. You’re known for working without a set list. With such a rich repertoire, how do you sequence your shows, and sequence them so that the performance speaks both to musicians and non-musicians?

That’s so important to me. My music is not for musicians; it’s for everybody. I’m trying to be an all-around artist, entertainer, writer, player, performer. I’m trying to give people a bit of everything. [The show] has to be a journey, a story, entertaining, and when it’s over, I want people to think, “I’ve got to see that again.” There’s a passage in the first Indiana Jones movie that I never forgot. One of the characters says, “What are you going to do now, Indy?” Harrison Ford says, “I don’t know. I’m just making this up as I go along.” That’s me. That’s how I live my life.

Your history with Maton Guitars goes back to your days playing electric guitar. The common trajectory is the player begins on acoustic, and then goes on to electric. True to originality, you did the opposite.

I started on electric. When I was starting to be a songwriter and making my own records, I was mostly writing on electric, 60 to 70 percent, and the rest was acoustic. I started doing solo shows on acoustic and all of a sudden I realized, “Holy smoke, this really works well.” So I started writing more songs to play as a solo acoustic player. It was more pop and rock and roll music, funky, all that sort of stuff.

The record company wanted me to do something we could get on radio, so I made some jazz-oriented records. I got a lot of airplay on jazz stations and that kind of forced me into that direction for a while. It was good, because I learned to write and perform that way. When I moved to Nashville, I wanted to be on the Opry and play the Ryman, so I focused on being more country- and bluegrass-based, which is my roots. My biggest influences when I was a kid, before Chet Atkins, were Jimmie Rogers and Hank Williams. They were my first two loves of music.

What are the biggest challenges of doing what you do the way you do it?

Everything comes down to commitment. How committed am I to be a better player? I often tell people who want to talk about my technique, “I don’t talk about my technique. It’s invisible.” The music is what counts, not how I do it. My abilities fluctuate because I’m a human being. I’m not a robot; I’m not going to be exactly the same every time.

If you want it to be good, to flow, and to be wonderful to watch, then there’s a lot of work ahead. You’re going to have to work so hard to make it that way. I never stop working on my abilities, because it’s so important. My role model, Chet Atkins, worked harder than anybody I’ve ever seen at practicing and making sure that every little detail was so smooth. I will follow that with adding that my age is challenging me as well. There are things I could do twenty years ago that I can’t do today and I have to be okay about that. I have to find new things to replace some of the things that I physically can’t do.

I’ve just come off a five-week tour, which was grueling, long, lots of travel, not a lot of chance to do some serious practice. Every day was like, get to the venue, get my guitar out, start playing, work on some songs that maybe I didn’t play the night before or the night before that, remember some of my other songs that I haven’t been playing, put them in the show, and constantly find ways of making it different and interesting from the night before.

I’ve got to be in good shape physically, mentally, and spiritually to get up there and play my heart out for nearly two hours and throw my whole life into it. I’ve got to eat well, rest well, and have enthusiasm for what I’m doing. I can’t remember a time where I was standing on the side of the stage and thought, “Not this again.” That never has entered my mind. I’m like, “I can’t wait to get out there. I can’t wait to play. I can’t wait to see how this night is going to go and what I’m going to do that’s going to surprise me.”

You’ve told us a bit about your introduction to bluegrass, coming to acoustic guitar from electric, and your passion for jazz. Can you draw a through line between all those genres? How do they shape what you do?

It’s about musical abilities and musical ideas. When I play with Ricky Skaggs, or Molly Tuttle, or anybody, it’s about me fitting into what they do and serving the music as best I can. There’s a bit of bluegrass in everything I play. There’s a bit of blues in everything I play. I don’t feel like I need to be in a box or have a style stapled to me. It’s all music to me.

When I play with Billy Strings, I can hear Doc Watson and Tony Rice, of course, but I can also hear little bits of Stevie Ray Vaughan, B.B. King, George Harrison. You know, we’ve all got it in us. It’s all styles of music together. Bluegrass is such an open-ended thing to me. If I’m playing “Highway 40 Blues” and I take a solo, I don’t necessarily think, “Oh, I’d better tap into Tony Rice.” I just play what I feel at that moment.

A number of musicians have told me that they sometimes get sick of their own playing. Does this ever happen to you, and if so, how do you climb out of that rut?

I get tired of myself sometimes and usually something comes along that lifts my faith in my gift. Right when I think I’ve had enough of me, I need a break, something happens and somebody needs me to play for them, and they remind me, “Don’t forget – you’re here for a reason. You’re here to serve others. When you play, people feel something. They feel happy. So get out of your own head and do it for someone else.”

There are times when you definitely need a break. I just had a week after the tour I finished in Zurich a week ago. I flew into England to be with my grandchildren and my daughters and I didn’t play much. I played a little bit after the girls had gone to bed. I made my dinner, played a little bit, and then watched Netflix and chilled out. It was good. I needed that break.

When your colleagues talk about you, they always describe you as a good guy, a nice guy, a mentor. How much of that comes from the kindness and mentoring you received from Chet Atkins?

I’m just trying to hand on what was handed to me. When you’ve been loved on by a guy like Chet Atkins, you know you’ve been loved. When you’ve been loved on by someone like my mother, who led by example her whole life … what a great soul, a great spirit.

When I moved to the big city when I was young, I was so used to people being almost aggressive towards me, because they thought I was showing off or thinking I was much smarter than them. And it never entered my mind. But they were full of jealousy or fear or whatever, I don’t know. So when I got to the big city and I saw musicians who did things I couldn’t do, when I got to know them, they were so encouraging to me. They were so honest with me. They treated me with a dignity that other people didn’t. And so I just want people to feel good when we play together, because it’s a very honest experience.

Who is your dream artist to work with?

Marty Stuart. What a talent! He’s a free spirit and the kind of guy I like being around. I would love to work with Marty.

You’ve spoken openly about your long battle with addiction. You are in recovery and you’ve also done the work through therapy. What part has guitar played in your recovery journey?

The guitar has always been my go-to thing to help me get through stuff. When I went through my first divorce, we’d been married for 15 years and I thought we were doing great. Everything was wonderful, I’ve got two little daughters, then my wife wanted to separate and then she was with someone else. I had to let her go and I went through a painful divorce.

I was broken beyond measure and my world went upside down. It was during that period that I wrote some of the best music I’ve ever written. It came to help me and gave me something good to focus on. Next thing I know, people are loving the music I’ve written, and I’m out, I’m starting again, I’m off on a new road.

The thing I love [about sobriety] is being clear. I’m present. My love of music and playing in general has grown so much since I’m not ruled by drugs or alcohol. I’m [five years] free and I’m so grateful. What I do now is better, it’s more honest, it’s more real. I don’t feel self-obsessed, self-absorbed, or feel sorry for myself for all the bad things that nearly destroyed me.

I know what addiction is now. I know how to deal with it. It’s finding what the problem is, being willing to talk about it, put the work in, follow the steps, and keep doing the work that has made my life so beautiful and so much better. Sometimes I think, “How the hell did I ever survive that?” I’m guessing that my maker was with me all the way. I’m totally free today, but I don’t take it lightly. It’s living one day at a time, and it’s beautiful.

And finally, what is the difference between playing guitar and being a guitarist?

Being a guitarist is being a gun for hire. Being a guitar player is a way of life. A guitar player is someone who loves to play for people and who loves his instrument deeply.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Basic Folk: Lilly Hiatt

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt has an interesting way of working melodies and a down-to-earth way of telling stories about her life and about how she sees the world. All of her albums have cool, crunchy guitar parts that take folk songwriting to a rockin’ level. On her new album, Forever, her diverse influences are woven into songs that touch on everything from relationships to anxiety and mental health to good old-fashioned rock and roll.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

In our Basic Folk conversation, we talked about the lessons that Lilly learned growing up the daughter of legendary songwriter John Hiatt and what it meant to her to see her dad go through the ups and downs of the music business while having the humility and self-belief to keep going. She also talks about how she thinks about herself as a performer – and how that’s changed since the pandemic. Before the pandemic Hiatt had a couple of really big records (Trinity Lane, 2017 and Walking Proof, 2020) that gained a lot of hype and attention. Once coronavirus hit, she had to sit in the house and ask the big questions like a lot of us did. She sat with the loneliness, alienation, and uncertainty.

You can hear in our interview just how much mutual respect and admiration we have for each other and how much belief we have in one another, not only as songwriters, but as women and as people who are in recovery. Very LYLAS vibes, lots of laughs.

Photo Credit: Jody Domingue

BGS 5+5: Kasey Anderson

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kasey Anderson
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: To the Places We Lived
Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): For a brief while in my early 30s I was convincing people to call me “T-Bone,” but it died out pretty quick.

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I’m extremely fortunate in that the artists who influence me most are, by and large, my friends. I’ve been doing this a long time and had the opportunity to meet a lot of people, many of whom were heroes to me before I met them and remain so. Others have become heroes to me over time, through their work and friendship and their orientation to the world.

Hanif Abdurraqib, Kaveh Akbar, Melissa Febos, Brandon Shimoda, Lizzie No, Adeem the Artist… those are all friends whose creative work inspires and influences me – and whose orientation to the world, to their communities, and to their places within the world/their communities inspires and influences me.

One of my dearest friends, Ellen, runs a harm reduction program here in Portland and her approach to community and care has been an enormous influence on how I experience the world, and in turn, I see that influence in what I write. My family informs and influences me every day, in ways I sometimes don’t even realize until I hear them come back to me in my songs. I think when I was younger it would have been easier to say, “Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Joan Armatrading,” whatever – Mike Watt, who I just spoke to last week. The list is long, you get the point – and of course that’s still true; there’s a long list of artists whose work influenced mine but, again, I’ve been doing this a while. The people who have a significant impact on my life, the people I love, they find their way into the work as much as anyone or anything else.

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

Eric Ambel taught me about the importance of lunch during a recording session. I’m not really a lunch eater – I never have been – but getting that break, that time to just be together, is important. My inclination is always to work from the second mics are set up until the second they come down. I’m glad I’ve been surrounded by people smarter than me who know when to take a break. It doesn’t matter as much when lunch happens, just that it happens. Just that people get a chance to extract themselves from the process for an hour or so.

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

I didn’t realize this until much later on, but I hid behind most of the characters I wrote on Heart of a Dog and Let the Bloody Moon Rise. At the time, and for years after, I talked about those songs as if they were all works of fiction – or at least about people other than myself – but once I had some distance from those records and had been in recovery for a while, I recognized myself in all those songs. I had been writing to myself, about myself.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I think what might surprise people more than anything I do listen to is the fact that I don’t really listen to Americana or country music much. I listen to my friends’ records, if something comes out that a lot of folks are talking about or someone recommends I’ll check that out, but I don’t really listen to the kinds of songs I write, at least not much anymore.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

Well, I am currently the Deputy Executive Director at a nonprofit in Portland, so I’m not sure how much more of a “second job” I could possibly have.

Want more Kasey Anderson? Check out his recent podcast episode of Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Matthew Leonetti

Watch Willi Carlisle’s Brand New Video for “When the Pills Wear Off”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On an auspicious Leap Day and the final day of February we want to bid adieu to our Artist of the Month, Willi Carlisle – and as it happens, he’s dropped a brand new music video as if to celebrate the occasion. Shot by Mike Vanata of the hugely popular series Western AF, the performance is tender and haunted, finding redemption – as his entire new album, Critterland, does – in the dark shadows under which so many marginalized and oppressed people and their stories are willfully hidden by our society. He sings:

“Oh I lost friends to heroin
Plenty more to loving them
Strung out on the highway like we couldn’t read the signs
Now that I am older 
And burn a little colder
I know how to read between the lines…”

Carlisle doesn’t just know how to read between the lines, he knows how to locate and place entire universes in their gray, amorphous no-man’s-lands – territories all too familiar to the kind of folks who have faced the social and political issues he sings about. Critterland is a gorgeous, cattywampus, hodge-podge of songs, subjects, and stories, pinned together with whimsy and Carlisle’s poetic way of viewing the world. As BGS contributor Steacy Easton put it in their Artist of the Month feature on Carlisle and Critterland, “Carlisle is at his best when limning complex networks of historical figures, news, what is called ‘traditional music,’ contemporary poetics, and the natural world. He is a lyric poet, in the most classical sense.”

On “When the Pills Where Off,” those skills are on full display. Carlisle takes a well-worn country music trope – the genre’s everlasting relationship to substances and their abuse and misuse – and grounds it not only in reality, but in the working class, in the very real, embodied human beings whom he references throughout the song’s lyrics. This is not a song venerating or valorizing drugs as a signifier of authenticity, of “outlaw” country, of legitimacy, whether artifice or genuine. It decries the titular pills, but more than that, it decries the society and culture that requires them.

Carlisle’s music is complicated, nuanced, and resplendent. It offers as deep an intellectual reckoning as its listeners are willing to engage in. Still, there’s an ease to Critterland and its songs. No matter how powerful or indelible these songs’ stories or messages are, they are each, first and foremost, excellent, singable, lovable songs. That they offer so much insight and so much heart, wrapped up in intelligence, subversiveness, and thoughtfulness is simply a bonus.

Photo Credit: Madison Hurley

This Music Festival’s Goal Is Healing Appalachia, From the Inside Out (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

This weekend, September 21, 22, and 23, at the West Virginia State Fairgrounds in Lewisburg, West Virginia, ascendant, down home country star Tyler Childers and his cohort will gather for an event begun in 2018 called Healing Appalachia. The benefit festival, put on by West Virginia based non-profit Hope in the Hills, will include performances by some of the biggest and buzziest names in American roots music: Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Trey Anastasio Band, Marcus King, Umphrey’s McGee, Amythyst Kiah and many more.

Healing Appalachia is just one of many such community-led, collective efforts born from within the region in recent years that is working towards effecting positive change while offering local, ground-up solutions to big, systemic problems. Their social media and website put it elegantly and succinctly: Their vision is a prosperous Appalachia, free from addiction. The opioid crisis has hit Appalachia, especially West Virginia and Childers’ home state of Kentucky, incredibly hard. When 26 people overdosed on one day in Huntington, West Virginia, in 2016, the mission for Hope in the Hills and Healing Appalachia was born.

At the time, Childers and his hardscrabble team were still climbing the music industry ladder, building connections and community that would eventually grow and blossom into the multi-day event Healing Appalachia has become today. Childers’ friend and manager, Ian Thornton – who founded WhizzbangBAM, the booking and management company that represents Childers – together with festival program director Charlie Hatcher, Hope in the Hills board president Dave Lavender, and others took that tragic day in Huntington and turned it into an accretion point, around which they gathered and took action. Now, the festival has a local, annual economic impact approaching $3 million while raising thousands of dollars to be distributed to local, on-the-ground organizations and non-profits that specialize in addiction programs, recovery, support, and healing for this long-oppressed region of the world.

We spoke to Ian Thornton and Dave Lavender for a two-part interview preview of Healing Appalachia, that dives into the work of Hope in the Hills and explores this grassroots music event’s community-first mission, that hopes to heal these music-steeped, underestimated communities in Appalachia from the inside out. Read our conversation with Dave Lavender below, read our conversation with Ian Thornton here.

Unable to attend the festival this weekend? You can donate to support the cause here.

Can you talk a bit about the impetus or inspirations for Healing Appalachia?

Dave Lavender: Hope in the Hills, our non-profit, was started in 2017, and then the first Healing Appalachia was held in 2018 as it took a minute for Ian Thornton, Keebie Gilkerson and Charlie Hatcher, and the other OG board members to get the all-volunteer non-profit going.

The birth of the group is rooted in the events of 2016 – two historic things happened that year. In June 2016, central West Virginia got record flooding that killed 23 people. Shortly thereafter, the Huntington music scene, which was really getting built-up in a mighty way with touring bands, came together and raised more money in one night at the V Club than some big corporate fundraisers had in a couple weeks. I think all of us there saw a ragtag bunch of musicians could really make a difference banding together. Interestingly, Tyler Childers and the Food Stamps’ first New York City trip was that August as well, for a West Virginia flood fundraiser organized by our friend, Michael Cerveris, the two-time Tony winner from Huntington.

As that was happening in August 2016, Huntington, West Virginia, hit the world’s headline news with 26 overdose calls within four hours. It might have been a shock to the world, but we were all living around it in West Virginia so Ian, Tyler and Charlie Hatcher, Healing’s co-founder and show producer, knew how bad it was, and knew it was time to project the “bat signal” in the air, and unite their super friends in music to gather again and put on a show to help out the boots-on-the-ground folks overwhelmed and trying to assist in this opioid crisis.

One thing that struck me about the organization and the event is how y’all are from the region and building support systems, resources and pathways for folks from within the region – can you talk about the importance of mutual aid and community to the org and also the event?

DL: Everyone in the world knows the West Virginia theme song is “Country Roads,” but I would say the West Virginia and Appalachian motto is a song from Slab Fork, West Virginia-native Bill Withers. He wrote “Lean on Me” about being raised in the coal camp where you rely on your neighbors. Being from Appalachia, we know help is not on the way and that we are also better and stronger together.

For Hope in the Hills as a granting organization, we try to stay acutely aware of the ever-changing recovery ecosystem and fill the gaps where we can. For instance, I think the general public thinks of the opioid crisis as, “That’s the guy with the backpack at the recovery house.” Yes, true. But, the opioid crisis has created deep and wide fall-out – from historic numbers of kids in foster care (addressed by Barbara Kingsolver in her latest Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Demon Copperhead), to an overloaded prison system with non-violent drug offenders to many governments not wanting to fund harm reduction – even though they know through countless studies that it saves lives. Without harm reduction, communities are likely to get horrific spikes in hepatitis and HIV.

We try to put what funds we have into the gaps to provide a little help, but to also let folks know through our socials about some of these amazing programs happening across the region with things like camps for kids in trauma, and innovative recovery-work programs.

As for the event, I think that “Lean on Me” spirit is really palpable everywhere you look at Healing Appalachia. We’ve modeled ourselves in the spirit of using music to create social change, after Farm Aid. Healing is shining a light on a crisis that many choose to ignore. We’re highlighting amazing people who help daily to deal with that crisis. We’re inspiring attendees through the music, testimonials from the stage, and the dozens of service providers there, to go forth and be the change when they get home from the concert, wherever home is. And that home is widespread – last year we had folks from 38 states and 3 countries.

The message I hope the casual music fan receives in their heart and acts upon from Healing Appalachia is that the opioid crisis is not “us and them,” it’s just us. Last year, we lost more than 109,000 in the United States to overdose. Music is a powerful vehicle for conveying with love that message of empathy. Even if you haven’t lost someone personally to overdose, we lost Prince, Tom Petty, Whitney Houston, and a long list of beloved musicians to opioid overdoses. So I hope that at the very least the casual music fan who comes just to see some amazing bands, goes back home with an improved empathy muscle that allows them to lay down the proverbial stones and jokes and judgment they were set to throw at someone suffering from Substance Use Disorder and in active addiction.

For the recovery service groups coming to Healing – and this year we will have more than 40 from 13 states – I want them to know, that as Mavis Staples sings, “You’re Not Alone.”

That they hopefully will meet folks from organizations like them who are in the trenches everyday, doing the hard, tedious and often-unsung work of helping someone along their journey, and that they may pick up some best practices, some group to ally with, and some friends from across Appalachia who know their struggles and can be an encourager.

Do you have a favorite anecdote or story about a partner organization or individual or program that was particularly impactful, or a perfect representation of why you do what you do?

DL: At Healing Appalachia last year, Kenney Matthews, the ONEBox coordinator for Drug Intervention Institute was one of our main speakers. I’m typically running around taking care of a lot of back-end stuff at the fest, but I was out there with him before he went out. He was really nervous, but I hugged him and told him he was going to crush it. He did, and threw down this beautiful line about “the opposite of addiction is connection.” It really was electric, so real and so true. I was talking with my wife, Toril, after Healing and Kenney – who spent 15 years in prison – told her about running into a prison guard who knew him on the inside at the festival. The guard tells Kenney he never did think he would change and that he was really proud of him, and they both had a moment of healing at Healing. We’ve had LOTS of moments in doing this work and the fest is full of them, but I loved hearing both sides of Kenney’s story and its impact to spread hope.

How do you – either individually or as a group – see music and the arts (especially arts with regional ties, like folk and country music and folk arts) as part of these regional solutions to regional problems?

DL: In Appalachia, storytelling and music are so grapevine-wrapped in who we are, how we think, what we do, so connecting and teaming up with those artists who are using their music with intent and purpose is what we want to do.

As a group, Hope in the Hills, we’ve been building out a Music Is Healing program that has active music therapy programs in East Tennessee with Cecilia Wright (who plays cello with Senora May and who has her own band), and in Eastern Kentucky at ARC and West Virginia with Huntington-based music therapist Margaret Moore (a multi-instrumentalist folk artist who also teaches the Wernick Method bluegrass jams). She also happens to be an expert in forward facing trauma.

The inspiring thing is we are bringing folks like Cecilia and Margaret – with that intersectionality of professional musicianship and therapy – to team up with other regional artists of all genres and do sessions not only at drop-in centers and recovery houses but also at regular music festivals to spread the fact that music is therapy and can be tapped into to get on a higher spiritual plateau.

At Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) Centers in Eastern Kentucky, Margaret gets to work with world-class bluegrass artists Don and John Rigsby, long-time nationally-touring bluegrass artists who are sharing their music to inspire folks on their recovery journey. Through ARC, Don’s built out a studio in Lawrence County, Kentucky, where he is teaching some of the ARC guys the recording industry. Along those career pathway lines, at Recovery Points in West Virginia, Hope in the Hills (Dave Johnson and Charlie Hatcher) have been working with folks there who have in years past helped build Healing’s stages and do stage-hand and festival security work, get paid for additional festival work as a career pathway build-out as an employment option.

Hope in the Hills is also helping fund the WVU School of Medicine’s music therapy program at the opioid unit. We’re also contributing to the inspiring Troublesome Creek Stringed Instruments program with Doug Naselrod in Eastern Kentucky, where Doug is doing music therapy while also carving out recovery-to-work opportunities for his world-class luthier shop making traditional music instruments.

Specifically for Healing, we’ve leveraged the fact that we have a large audience to help train them on using Naloxone. Last year (the first year back after two years off because of COVID), we teamed up with the WV Drug Intervention Institute to have a Naloxone training tent that really broke down the stigmas of Naloxone with a festival spirit. Our buddy Joe Murphy got Gibson Gives involved and we loaded up swag bags with Tyler CDs, water bottles from Healing, and then additional swag from other artists.

Are there particular bands/artists/acts on the lineup this year you’re especially excited about?

DL: Gotta give crazy props to Charlie Hatcher and Ian Thornton for pulling aces and connections to reel in an insanely good lineup that includes 24 national acts. This is only our fourth Healing Appalachia, so to have Marcus King, Umphrey’s McGee, and Warren Haynes and Gov’t Mule back-to-back-to-back – would be the envy of jam band festival in the world! Truly a guitar lover’s feast on Friday. And opening act Joslyn and the Sweet Compression is one of my favorite R&B bands out there.

I’m really knocked out that 49 Winchester (who’s up for Americana Group of the Year) are throwing down for two nights in a row hosting our Late Night Jam with some killer bands and songwriters on those bills.

As far as really impactful musicians and people in that recovery space, we feel beyond blessed to have Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit on Thursday as the headliner and then Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB on Saturday headlining with festival co-founder Tyler Childers and The Food Stamps. Isbell, who was on a recovery panel at SXSW 2022 with our good friend Jan Rader, has put in the hard work to become increasingly more comfortable and sure-footed in that space and has Weather Vanes fresh out — the album to prove it. That’s been inspiring to watch.

We’re over the moon to have Trey (who is 15 years in recovery) with us and bringing Classic TAB, after a full summer of Phish shows, and with the great news that his 40-bed recovery center Divided Sky Foundation is on the way to opening in Ludlow, Vermont.

As a West Virginian, I’m super stoked to get Charles Wesley Godwin back on home turf to do something so real. I think he could grow into the biggest thing out of West Virginia since Brad Paisley. His new 19-song album, “Family Ties,” drops the day after he plays Healing on Thursday.

Margo Price performs at Healing Appalachia 2022.

What does a healed Appalachia look like to you?

DL: The problems are many, but the power of collective hope is growing and change is in the air all over Appalachia.

A healed Appalachia spends its riches and resources on mental health and particularly on children, making sure they are loved, nurtured, yet independent, and have all of the coping skills needed. We are now in an era of record kids in foster care and, as we know, childhood trauma is a thread that runs through folks who suffer with Substance Use Disorder. So first order for a healed Appalachia would be a widespread movement and budget shift to help kids in trauma now.

A healed Appalachia is one that has abundant opportunities within a clear line of sight for everyone in the community. A healed Appalachia gives everyone a seat at the table regardless of their past.

I’m a big fan of Brad Smith, who along with John Chambers and others, helping launch and rebrand West Virginia as the start-up state, where we create a really robust small business economy that allows folks here to dream big and launch those dreams here, like Ian, Tyler and the WhizzbangBAM team have done in Huntington, building out a business that builds spiderwebs of creative economy supporting regional musicians and artists.

A healed Appalachia has ample and good-paying sustainable green-energy jobs that pay a living wage and that brings wealth and health and that are not destructive to our beautiful Appalachian Mountains and to the workers.

A healed Appalachia is one with nature, gardening, exercise and healthy lifestyles that bind us to our beloved mountains and valleys.

A healed Appalachia talks less about politics and more about community and being a good neighbor – as the wonderful new Tim O’Brien song, “Cup of Sugar,” suggests we should do.

A healed Appalachia is full of true forgiveness, grace and second chances for folks, making forgiveness not just an often-trotted out word in a book but something real and necessary to heal our communities.

I think that’s probably enough healing or I’ll have to send you a doctor’s bill… [Laughs]

(Editor’s Note: Read part one, our conversation with Hope in the Hills board vice president and WhizzbangBAM founder Ian Thornton, here.)

Photos by Hunter Way / Impact Media

LISTEN: The Grascals, “I Go”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: The Grascals
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “I Go”
Release Date: July 28, 2023
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “I sat down at the dinner table with one of my best friends, Darren Nicholson, (I work at a recovery treatment center in Asheville, North Carolina, often and I stay with Darren and his wife while in town) back in February of this year with the intention of writing our first song together. ‘I Go’ is the result of that writing session. The song ‘I Go’ comes from a previous vantage point and paints a picture of a darker time in both of our lives. Since Darren and I are now both in recovery together, we bounced some ideas off of each other from our personal journeys… combined with a little fiction that was easy to create from our past intoxicated minds. I feel like the story we came up with is one of my favorite songs I’ve written to date and I’m really glad that it was with Darren.

“‘I Go’ is a catchy melodic, up-tempo tune with an edgy, dark, true-life subject that many choose to avoid. However, we decided to face it head on and The Grascals took it and made it their own – OUR own. I am so excited to be back in this band and creating music with my friends again, and I’m thankful that we are the ones telling this story.” – Jamie Johnson

Photo Credit: Larry Bunn

Billy Strings Draws a Line in the Sand with Sobriety, Not Bluegrass (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

From carving out a name for himself on the road as a teenager to winning a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album (2019’s standout Home), the prodigious 29-year-old guitar player Billy Strings has cultivated a devoted following and collected an impressive list of accomplishments along the way. His latest Rounder Records release, Renewal, capitalizes on the confidence and artistic growth those experiences have delivered, with experimental new instrumentation, contemplative lyricism, and trademark picking. Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Roger Waters, Father John Misty), the sixteen-track opus offers a glimpse at an artist who is continuously rediscovering himself.

“I’m going through a part in my life where I’m looking through the windshield instead of in the rearview,” he says. “I think of a new day, the morning light, a spider molting, or a snake shedding its skin: It’s a renewal.” In the first of our two part BGS Artist of the Month interview, we caught up with Billy Strings about those new beginnings — on the stage, in the studio, and in his day-to-day life.

BGS: Renewal is mostly acoustic, but it pulls from a lot of different sources of inspiration — and not all of those are necessarily bluegrass. Is there any particular moment on the record where you noticed the influence of a genre that may be unexpected to some listeners?

Billy Strings: “Hide and Seek” is a song that maybe draws more from my influence of playing in metal bands — trying to write a song that’s more like a metal song, but with acoustic instruments… using odd time signatures, diminished chords, and avoiding the major scale. I grew up listening to a lot of death metal, and a lot of that music is just not verse-chorus-bridge, verse-chorus-outro. The songs are like 10 different parts. They’re hyper-composed, and that stuff’s sort of neat.

Was there anything that you did in the studio that took you out of your comfort zone?

I mean, I wouldn’t say it was uncomfortable, but it was different playing synthesizers and different instruments hands-on. I think I gained a little confidence when I won that Grammy — the next time I went into the studio, I was the one calling the shots: “Hey, do you have a triangle? Let’s all come together and do a singalong.” I was the one coming up with the creative ideas and feeling confident in myself to do that. On “Heartbeat of America,” I’m playing some old synthesizer, playing with the pitch wheel and stuff. That shit’s fun.

“Hellbender” stands out as a reasonably upbeat, fun song when you’re listening to it, but the lyrics are… kind of dark. What was going on in your head when you were writing that?

That song’s about a real bad headache and a real bad hangover — being lost in the demons of alcohol, not knowing where to stop, saying, “Fuck it, I’m going to drink until the night’s over.” I haven’t drank in over five years: I haven’t had a sip of alcohol because I had a real bad headache one day. So it’s not really about me, but I wouldn’t really call it a fictional song either. I have been there and done that: woken up like that. It’s about a guy who can’t freakin’ stop.

“Know It All” on the new album talks about learning from your mistakes. Has there been any kind of a difficult learning experience that you feel shaped you as an artist?

Well, maybe that headache I was talking about.

Oh yeah?

One day we had this awesome gig. A lot of people showed up, and we sold a bunch of merch, and I thought we were fucking rock stars. I had been up all night and drinking beer and liquor and a bunch of shit. We got to the bar after and I was all, “Old Fashioneds! Get one for everybody, on me!” I was raring and tearing. But the next day, we barely made it to our gig, because I was puking every 10 minutes. We made it there in time to set up our stuff and play — we had to set up our gear in front of the audience. This was at a time where my career was really starting to take off, and I saw that as an opportunity to draw a line in the sand.

How so?

I think it’s about being conscious of my surroundings, being aware of the vibe that people are giving, and also being aware of the vibe that I’m putting off. I don’t want to be a drunk asshole when some fan comes up to me and says, “Hey man I really enjoyed the show.” I want to be there. I want to be able to say, “Thank you, man. Thank you for coming. I fucking appreciate it.” I just came off four gigs back-to-back. We played Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Seattle; and then somewhere in Montana. And right now I’m on my way to Salt Lake City. I can’t do that if I’m drinking. It’s all I can do to take care of myself. There’s no time for that shit.

You won Breakthrough Artist of the Pandemic from Pollstar —probably the first time anybody was awarded something like that. What motivated you to try new things when you lost your outlet on stage? Was there anything that struck you as a special moment even remotely connecting with your fans?

I’ve been doing this since I was 19 and I went on my first tour across the country. It’s all I’ve really known, just keeping this going. I’ve been “striking while the iron’s hot” for 10 years. [Laughs] So when all of a sudden I don’t have anything to do, it’s like, “Well shit. We need to keep doing something to engage the fans. We can’t just stop.” We started doing little streams at my house, and then that moved to doing a streaming tour around venues and stuff, and then eventually the whole Capitol Theater run, which was six nights, including this whole experiment where we tried to interact with our fans through telekinesis. That was really special. Even though there wasn’t anybody there, it felt like we were really connected with the audience.

You are out there day in and day out, and I’ve also seen you talk candidly about having anxiety and nerves before going on stage. Is there anything in particular that you do to manage that?

I mean, it’s been a journey. I hit the road when I was 19, playing 200 gigs a year, and for a while there, I was invincible, untouchable. I thought I could drive the van, sell the merch, book the hotels, settle up at the end of the night, write the songs, perform the shows, do everything. It was all on my shoulders. But I hit a wall where all of a sudden, instead of being confident, strong, and untouchable, I was fragile and scared of the world. Anxiety really fucked me up. I started having these crippling panic attacks where my whole body would go into convulsions.

I’m not trying to be a tough guy. I’m trying to be an honest guy. It’s uncomfortable for me to pretend like I’m feeling any way that I’m not, so if I’m angry, sad, anxious, mad? You’re going to know it because I don’t want to hide that shit. I’ve been going to therapy ever since 2019 and it’s helped me a bunch. I had a lot of trauma from my childhood that I had to sort out so I could keep moving forward and stop looking back. That’s what Renewal is all about.

Editor’s Note: Read part two of our Artist of the Month interview here.

Photo credit: Jesse Faatz

WATCH: Natalie Jane Hill, “Plants and Flowers That Do Not Grow Here”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Natalie Jane Hill
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Plants and Flowers That Do Not Grow Here”
Album: Solely
Release Date: October 29, 2021
Label: Dear Life Records

In Their Words: “‘Plants and Flowers That Do Not Grow Here’ is one of my more personal songs on the album. It’s about trying to navigate through a time of addiction while in a disassociated state. I had spent some time trying to distinguish reality from illusion, and I wanted this song to capture the dreamlike quality I was lost in. This video was captured in places that are very familiar to me. It’s based around my neighborhood in San Marcos, Texas. And it ends in the town where I grew up, in Wimberley, Texas. I wanted there to be more of an urban feel to this video while still intertwining some natural aspects. The opening scene is actually footage from a house show I played. It’s meant to portray the idea of me continuing on into the night after the show. I do a lot of aimless walking when I need to clear my head and I felt like this song needed that to be the essence. I love how Jordan Moser captured the early light as dawn approached. There’s definitely a dreamlike quality to this song as these revelations sort of unveil with the morning sunrise. ” — Natalie Jane Hill

Photo credit: Julian Neel

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 203

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 from CeeLo Green to Loretta Lynn! Remember to check back every week for a new episode.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Loretta Lynn feat. Margo Price – “One’s On The Way”

Loretta Lynn’s original cut of this song made it to No. 1 on the charts in 1971. When Margo Price teamed up with Lynn to celebrate the latter’s 50th anniversary of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Price chose this song specifically, suggesting how legendary it was for Lynn to have sung about women’s rights and birth control in the country music of the ’70s. It’s still legendary today.

Todd Snider – “Turn Me Loose (I’ll Never Be the Same)”

“Turn me loose, I’ll never be the same!” is a phrase that rodeo cowboys used to yell when they were ready – something Snider first heard from Jerry Jeff Walker, but fitting himself perfectly. He asked the cosmos to provide a rock to put is foot on, and so the story goes, the new album from Todd Snider: First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder. 

DL Rossi – “Tumbling”

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, DL Rossi brings us a song from his upcoming album, Lonesome Kind. It’s a kind of youthful innocence, warming up to the harsher realities of life. And while we can’t opt out of our hurtful experiences, as Rossi suggests, we can share them to encourage one another.

Aaron Burdett – “Arlo”

North Carolina-based singer and songwriter Aaron Burdett compiled this song by noting quotes that his friend Arlo would say, collecting them for over 10 years. Arlo isn’t necessarily the character in the song, Burdett says, but a character, someone who always has a bold thing to say.

CeeLo Green – “Slow Down”

CeeLo Green brings us a video for “Slow Down” from his latest album, CeeLo Green is… Thomas Calloway. From the writing of the song, to the recording and then making of the video, it was a completely expressive process for Green, who called it an “out of body experience.” Ironically titled, the song pulls the listener even closer into the climactic height of the record.

Natalie D-Napoleon – “Gasoline & Liquor”

Driving through the rural Mojave, D-Napoleon passed a sign that read “Gasoline and Liquor.” While she knew it would be a song, she thought it sounded like a man’s song, one written via passing lines back and forth with her husband. The video reflects the landscape of the “Wild Wests” of both the American desert and Western Australia, the places between which this artist splits her time.

Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass – “Date With an Angel”

Danny Paisley is the current reigning prince of Baltimore-D.C.-area bluegrass, a scene with rich history dating back to the 1950s. This week, Paisley and his band the Southern Grass bring us a song from their upcoming release, Bluegrass Troubadour. 

Aoife O’Donovan feat. Kris Drever – “Transatlantic”

Aoife O’Donovan is no stranger here at BGS, or anywhere in the roots community for that matter! Her work with artists like Crooked Still, I’m With Her, and the Goat Rodeo Sessions proves why that is. This week on BGS, she teams up with Scottish artist Kris Drever to bring us a message that we’ll all be together again.

Brigitte DeMeyer – “Salt of the Earth”

BGS caught up with Brigitte DeMeyer from San Francisco this week on a 5+5 – that is, 5 questions, 5 songs. We talked musical inspirations, songwriting techniques, and her mission statement: being herself.

Will Orchard – “Rita”

For Boston-based Will Orchard, this song is about trusting impulses, and the constant questioning of whether or not those feelings are valid. Written on tour in two parts separated by almost year, Orchard was able to combine them with the perspective of time, earning a place on his newly released album, I Reached My Hand Out. 

Helena Rose – “What’s Killing You is Killing Me”

Helena Rose wrote this song while struggling to tell a loved one how she felt about their addiction. Rose offers this song to others who have loved ones battling addiction, giving hope to the struggle, and showing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Valerie June – “Smile”

As March has slipped away and we welcome April, we bid farewell to our March Artist of the Month, Valerie June. This song comes from her latest album, The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers.

The Bones of J.R. Jones – “Bad Moves”

In celebration of his latest album, A Celebration, we caught up with the Bones of J.R. Jones for a 5+5, talking about performance memories, art forms, and songwriting techniques. Jones’ curated playlist brings us everything from Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen to the White Stripes.

John Smith – “Friends”

The pandemic was hard on us all, no doubt, but for Wales-based John Smith, it just kept bringing the punches. Trying to make sense of it all, Smith brings us The Fray, his latest album in a 15-year career, teaming up with artists and friends like Sarah Jarosz and Bill Frisell.

Photos: (L to R) Margo Price by Bobbi Rich; Aoife O’Donovan by Rich Gilligan; Todd Snider by Stacie Huckeba

LISTEN: Helena Rose, “What’s Killing You Is Killing Me”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Helena Rose
Hometown: Waynesville, North Carolina
Song: “What’s Killing You Is Killing Me”
Album: Girls Like Me EP
Release Date: March 26, 2021

In Their Words: “Several years ago, I desperately wanted to tell someone in my family how I felt about their addiction, but couldn’t find the right words to say to get my message across. So I wrote a song about it with Deanna Walker and Rick Beresford in Nashville. Not only did I hope it would help my own situation, but I was also hoping it would help others who have friends or family members struggling with addiction. It is a very truthful song about the self-destruction that can happen on both sides, but also has a hopeful tone to signify that there can be a light at the end of the tunnel. I want people to know that they aren’t alone in this struggle and give them the right words to say.” — Helena Rose

Photo credit: Nico Humby