Tag: alice in wonderland

Basic Folk – Molly Tuttle Returns to the Podcast

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Basic Folk is thrilled to interview The Bluegrass Situation’s July 2023 Artist of the Month: Molly Tuttle! Quickly becoming the Bluegrass American Idol, Molly Tuttle’s new album City of Gold is hot off the heels of her Grammy-award winning 2022 record, Crooked Tree, which also got her a nomination in one of the coveted “Big Four” categories: Best New Artist. Aaaaand we know that WE ALL have had eyes on Molly for years, BUT since she’s fully embraced the bluegrass genre on these last new albums, Best New Artist makes a lot of sense. Bluegrass was the music she grew up with in Palo Alto, California, with her guitar-teacher father helping her soak in the vibrant scene. She’s also learning how to take control of the bluegrass narrative by telling her story and sharing her perspective through her new songs.

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That rings so true with the new record, City of Gold, co-produced by Tuttle and Dobro-master Jerry Douglas (of Alison Krauss & Union Station fame), mostly co-written with her partner Ketch Secor (of Old Crow Medicine Show) and featuring her crack backing band, Golden Highway. She’s writing bluegrass songs that are fun and insightful at the same time. We get a bluegrass version of Alice In Wonderland, the story of a woman fighting for her bodily autonomy and not to mention that time she married Dave Matthews on a road trip (LOL J/K, but that is a real new song with the real Dave). She digs into her new album as well as finding her own way in the patriarchal world of bluegrass and leveling up about her alopecia, an autoimmune skin disease, causing hair loss. Molly Tuttle is a great hang, an inspiration for us all and has made a fabulous new album, City of Gold. LYLAS, Molly!

Photo Credit: Chelsea Rochelle

WATCH: Martha Spencer, “Wonderland”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Martha Spencer
Hometown: Whitetop Mountain, Virginia
Song: “Wonderland”
Album: Wonderland
Release Date: September 2, 2022

In Their Words: “‘Wonderland’ is the title track, and I hoped it would be a good kickoff journey into the album. I thought of the album as a bit of a storybook of songs, from home and from afar, and wanted the tracks to have an atmosphere of sounds to take you somewhere. My full name is Martha Alice Spencer, and I had a show on Radio Bristol called the Hillbilly Wonderland show, so I thought it would be a good tie-in, too.

“But I wrote the song itself thinking about the things or people you meet sometimes that help you see and feel the magic and beauty in life, and that feeling of falling into love with someone or something you’re passionate about. Some of the lyrics of ‘here I go falling down a rabbit hole’ could be the things you just can’t help but fall into like the passionate side of yourself, embracing and having fun with your own and others’ eccentricities. I see Wonderland as a place to be able to do your own thing and shine — glitter, rhinestones and all.” — Martha Spencer

Photo Credit: Jill Beaton

BGS 5+5: Noel Paul Stookey

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Noel Paul Stookey
Hometown: Blue Hill, Maine
Latest album: Just Causes
Personal nicknames: Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Standing at the Lincoln Memorial with Peter Yarrow, Mary Travers, and 250,000 others listening to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech at the 1963 March on Washington. As Mary said that day, “…we are watching history.”

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

Was there ever a “first moment?” Music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember though I never seriously thought I would earn a living as a “professional.” I was attracted to the medium as a form of expression and never as commerce.

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

Now THAT’s an interesting question! I always try to have beer and coffee backstage at a performance, because (borrowing a page from Alice in Wonderland‘s toadstool discipline), I will have a sip of beer if I’m jittery or wound too tight from all the coffee I’ve consumed during soundcheck OR a cup of coffee if the beer I’ve sipped has caused me to relax so much that I’ve lost focus. I suppose it’s a self-medication of sorts.

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

Songwriters deal in metaphors. I don’t “hide” behind a character as much as employ characters to present different perspectives in what is often an invented situation — witness “The Connection,” a song that uses four scenes to reveal a relationship between drug use in the USA and the funding of the Taliban terrorist group, or “Jean Claude,” a story song questioning the meaning of freedom for an 83-year-old French man who, as a teenager, had his best friend taken away to a Nazi concentration camp.

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

I’m a folkie. All it takes is a circumstance; a piece of life revealed in real time to become inspiration for a song. We write for the betterment of the human condition. And, if that occasionally is termed “art,” then so be it.

Photo credit: Kevin Mazur

3×3: Juanita Stein on Suckers, Scents, and Strong Wrists

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Juanita Stein
Hometown: Melbourne, AU
Latest Album: America 
Personal Nicknames: n/a

Who is the most surprising artist in current rotation in your iTunes/Spotify?

I’m a sucker for melodic hip hop — A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Digable Planets. I’m also loving the new Kendrick Lamar record.

If you were a candle, what scent would you be?

Tobacco and Sandalwood.

What literary character or story do you most relate to?

Alice in Wonderland

What’s your favorite word?

Illustrious

What’s your best physical attribute?

My wrists. They’re surprisingly strong and control my hands, which do everything.

Banjo, mando, or dobro?

Dobro. It can slide and rock ‘n’ roll and looks hardcore.

 

Thanks @joeypagecomedy for having us on the show! You can listen back if ya missed it @fubarradio @bigmouthpublicity

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Are you more a thinking or feeling type?

I would say the two are unequivocally linked.

If you were an instrument, which one would you be?

A bamboo flute. A little husky, a little delicate, and quite mysterious.

Urban or rural?

Urban.