Tag: Allman Brothers

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Darren Nicholson, Maya de Vitry, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

To welcome you to the end of the week, we’ve got a slate of superlative premieres from across the roots music landscape.

Below, find new tracks from singer-songwriters – Maya de Vitry, who sings a song from her upcoming co-written with Caitlin Canty, as well as Lucy Isabel bringing “A Hero’s Welcome.” We’ve also got a few Western North Carolinians in our round-up, including bluegrass mandolinist Darren Nicholson playing a song about a true mountain man, John Colter, and Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters offering “Big Year.”

Plus, guitarist Jacob Johnson is joined by Willie Nelson & Family harmonica player Mickey Raphael on an acoustic Allman Brothers cover and Tommy Emmanuel pays tribute to Chet Atkins’ 100th birthday with a video BGS premiered earlier this week.

It’s all right here on BGS – and You Gotta Hear This!

Maya de Vitry, “Odds of Getting Even”

Artist: Maya de Vitry
Hometown: Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Song: “Odds of Getting Even”
Album: The Only Moment
Release Date: July 12th, 2024
Label: Mad Maker Studio

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Odds of Getting Even’ with my dear friend Caitlin Canty at a kitchen table in Nashville, several years ago. I was borrowing a friend’s snare drum at the time and having so much fun just grooving on that drum and singing. We were really moved by an article laying on my table, it was about the late Sharon Jones. Her story is powerful – her devotion to music in spite of so many years of rejection and really outright dismissal by the music industry – and then her battle with cancer, and performing in the midst of treatment… Against so many odds, she persisted in making her music. And singing was the only thing that could take her pain away.

“The band Della Mae made the first recording of this song on their 2020 Headlight album. It’s a real honor and thrill to hear another band bring your song to life. Then, Caitlin recorded her own version on Quiet Flame, which came out last summer. One of the things I love most about making records is making a collection of songs that feel like they magnetically want to live alongside each other, like companion plants or something – and this one just absolutely belongs in the song garden of The Only Moment. And to hear Phoebe Hunt on harmony vocals… well I just think Phoebe is an absolute legend. I’m so lucky to get to sing with her.” – Maya de Vitry

Track Credits:
Maya de Vitry – Vocals, acoustic guitar, synth
Phoebe Hunt – Harmony vocals
Anthony da Costa – Electric guitar
Ethan Jodziewicz – Bowed upright bass
Dominic Billett – Drums

Lucy Isabel, “A Hero’s Welcome”

Artist: Lucy Isabel
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “A Hero’s Welcome”
Album: All The Light
Release Date: June 28, 2024 (single); October 11, 2024 (album)

In Their Words: “‘A Hero’s Welcome’ is the only song on the album that wasn’t written specifically for the album. I taught myself to play guitar in college and started writing music pretty much right away. ‘A Hero’s Welcome’ was the first song that I ever felt proud of writing; I felt like I had found my voice. While I was in the process of writing the bulk of this album, I hung out with a college friend who reminded me of ‘A Hero’s Welcome.’ I suddenly realized that it was a perfect fit for All The Light and I added it to the track list. It’s been really fun to revisit this song that I wrote as a 21-year-old and hear how it’s transformed through the production process.” – Lucy Isabel

Track Credits: Written by Lucy Isabel Fortune-Cabrera.
Produced/mixed by Jared Anderson.
Mastered by Preston Cochran.
Lucy Isabel – Vocals, BGVs
Jared Anderson – Guitar, bass, pianos, percussion
Andy Ellison – Pedal Steel

Jacob Johnson, “Jessica” featuring Mickey Raphael

Artist: Jacob Johnson
Hometown: Greenville, SC
Song: “Jessica” feat. Mickey Raphael
Release Date: June 21, 2024

In Their Words: “It’s an unwritten rule for musicians that if your darlin’ (that’s how we say “significant other” or “partner” in the South) is named after a famous song, you must learn the song and you must use it to serenade them. Unfortunately, my wife was named after a 7-minute Allman Brothers jam. Eventually, I got serious and put together a solo/acoustic version of ‘Jessica’ that I later played as she danced with her dad at our wedding reception on May 31, 2019. It’s been knocking around in my head since then and earlier this year I decided it was time to flesh out the arrangement with some collaborators.

“Jack Ryan and Stephen Campbell from the dangerously hot Marcus King Band laid down a groovy, breathing foundation on drums and bass respectively, and Aaron Bowen supplied tasty keyboard lines throughout. In addition to the main melody, I played the second solo on my trusty Takamine acoustic guitar, but I knew I wanted to feature another special guest for the first solo section. I was completely blown away when my first choice, Mickey Raphael, legendary harmonica player for Willie Nelson and Family, agreed to participate. Mickey has played on some of my favorite albums of all time, and his lyrical, melodic style was just what the track was asking for. Having part of his magic on one of my tracks has been on my musical bucket list for many years.

“Of course, this entire project was created with lots of love and respect for its composer, the great Dickey Betts, who we lost not long after production was completed. If you know Southern music, you know he was one of the greats. Though I never had the opportunity to meet the man, I hope that my arrangement and attention to the details of this composition can honor his legacy in some small way.” – Jacob Johnson

Track Credits:
Jacob Johnson – Guitars
Mickey Raphael – Harmonica
Jack Ryan – Drums
Stephen Campbell – Bass
Aaron Bowen – Keyboards
Produced by Jacob Johnson.
Recorded by Shane Nelson at Asaph Studios & Mike McCarthy in Jack Ryan’s Garage.
Mixed by Shane Nelson at Asaph Studios, Greenville, South Carolina.
Mastered by Anna Frick at Ally Sound.

Darren Nicholson, “Big Sky”

Artist: Darren Nicholson
Hometown: Canton, North Carolina
Song: “Big Sky”
Release Date: June 21, 2024
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “This is one of my favorite cuts of my entire recording career. I feel there’s a special spirit in the song and the way it turned out. It’s based on the true story of early American explorer, John Colter. He was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and became the first known person of European descent to enter the region which became Yellowstone National Park. There’s several fascinating periods of his life and career. I became aware of him through a fabulous book about his survival and harrowing adventures called Colter’s Run. He was one of the first true mountain men. This was the inspiration for the song when Charles Humphrey and myself set out to write it. I also think it would make a great film. I feel the musicians knocked it out of the park in regard to capturing the mood and old-time essence. Hope you enjoy!” – Darren Nicholson

Track Credits:
Darren Nicholson – Mandolin, octave mandolin, lead vocal, harmony vocal
Tony Creasman – Drums
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo
Zach Smith – Upright bass;
Colby Laney – Acoustic guitar
Deanie Richardson – Fiddle
David Johnson – Dobro
Kevin Sluder – Harmony vocal
Jennifer Nicholson – Harmony vocal

Amanda Anne Platt & the Honeycutters, “Big Year”

Artist: Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “Big Year”
Album: The Ones That Stay
Release Date: August 9, 2024
Label: Mule Kick Records

In Their Words:“I wrote the first line of this song in 2018, after what felt like a really big year. I would revisit it from time to time, trying to find the rest of the words. And while I was doing that, the years just kept getting bigger and bigger. Good stuff, bad stuff, life just gets overwhelming at times. And of course there was a global pandemic. I’m still waiting on a smaller year, but maybe I’m also learning how to ride the wave a little better.” – Amanda Anne Platt

Track Credits:
Amanda Anne Platt – Acoustic guitar, lead vocal
Matt Smith – Dobro
Rick Cooper – Electric guitar, vocal harmony
Kevin Williams – Piano, vocal harmony
Evan Martin – Bass, drums, percussion, vocal harmony

Produced by Scott McMicken and Greg Cartwright, FrogHouse Productions, and Amanda Anne Platt.

Tommy Emmanuel, “Mr. Guitar (Live)” 

Artist: Tommy Emmanuel
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Mr. Guitar (Live)”
Album: Endless Road: 20th Anniversary Edition
Release Date: May 28, 2024
Label: CGP Sounds

In Their Words: “The one and only Chet Atkins would be celebrating his 100th year if he were still here in body. We miss him. We love his playing, we remember all the great lessons and wisdom he handed out freely to us.  We always use his example as the one written in stone. My fellow CGPs, John Knowles and Steve Wariner, have their own experiences and memories to share, and they have lived a different life to me. Yet, because of our love for Chet’s music, we are forever joined, like family…” – Tommy Emmanuel

More here.

Photo Credit: Maya de Vitry by Kaitlyn Raitz; Darren Nicholson by Jeff Smith.

Brent Cobb Follows the Inspiration of His ‘Southern Star’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Over his entire Grammy-nominated career, Brent Cobb has made no secret of being guided by a “Southern Star” – a rootsy creative beacon shining high above and seeming to point straight down on his South Georgia home.

A native of the Peach state, Cobb has staked a claim on the organic side of country, with acclaimed projects like Shine On a Rainy Day, Providence Canyon, and even the 2022 gospel set, And Now, Let’s Turn to Page…. Each one paints a loving portrait of Southern life, looking far beyond the cliches for inspiration. But with his new album Southern Star, those pictures are more vivid (and more Southern) than ever.

Finding easy-going wisdom and big-picture beauty in the simple minutiae of everyday life, Southern Star is engrossed in all things Georgia. Ten tender tracks were recorded in Macon, using Georgian musicians and embracing the sonic history of the region. That means a warm, humid mix of back-porch country and rural R&B, with funky (but feather soft) bass lines and a casual vocal drawl, as Cobb invites listeners in to his personal world – a world full of unexpected contrasts, and undeniable human wonder.

Speaking with BGS from that South Georgia home on a sunny fall day – perhaps the last one of the lawn-mowing season, he says – the humble and homegrown singer-songwriter explains what makes his Southern Star shine so bright.

Every artist or songwriter goes through phases of how they think about their role. What’s important to you these days?

Brent Cobb: It really hasn’t changed a whole lot. I know that doesn’t sound good, but I always try to still focus on my roots of where I’m from, and I try to still be universally personal, personally universal. … I think there’s something so poetic about specifically the American South and rural life, but also something that if you do it right, anybody anywhere can relate to it. So that’s really what I try to do. I try to make music that my kids can enjoy and that my grandma could enjoy, and everybody in between.

Tell me a little bit about Southern Star, the imagery of that title, specifically. I mean, is this kind of a play on the idea of a North Star guiding you?

Partly, yeah. You always learn growing up, if you get lost out there, you look for the Northern Star, it’ll guide you and give you direction. But I’m from South Georgia, so I look for the Southern Star. [Laughs]  … So partly that. Then there was also my buddy ‘Rowdy’ Jason Cope, who was the founding member of The Steel Woods and played electric guitar for Jamey Johnson from 2008 until 2014 or so. He’s no longer with us [Cope passed away at age 42 in 2021, after suffering “severe complications from diabetes”]. But during those days he lived about 45 minutes outside Nashville, and I’d go down there to his place and we’d go to this little bar and it was a pretty seedy little spot where we’d hang out, it was called the Southern Star.

Plus, I often thought about my buddy as someone who sort of behind the scenes had a lot of influence on a lot of people, but they may not even be aware of it. He never got to be a superstar, but if nothing else he was a Southern star. And I feel that same way about myself sometimes. So there are a couple different meanings behind it. … I miss him every day.

The other part of this album is what seems like a love letter to Georgia – and maybe just the whole region. It can be easy to misunderstand the Southern people and the area, and you’ve called it kind of a melting pot, right? What’s so inspiring to you about Georgia?

I think it’s because, well, first of all the American South as a whole, there would be no music as we know it if not for the American South. And that comes with its blessings and the curses, and it wouldn’t be the same place without those things also. Specifically Macon is the home of Otis Redding and Little Richard, and then you have Ray Charles from right down the road, and then right up the road you got James Brown, and then of course the Allman Brothers. There’s so many endless artists that have influenced the whole world.

But then even just as day-to-day life, where I’m from, every school I went to, we’re all mixed in together down here. We’re living and praying and learning and working all together. It’s easy to be on the outside and look in, and go, ‘Man, the South, what a terrible place.’ And there are some terrible things that still happen to this day, and historically that are terrible, but for the most part we’re all living and working and eating and breathing together. You don’t hear about that side of the South so much. But I think that’s why the music from here is so influencing and so profound – it isn’t just one way. And you got people that obviously have had to struggle and people who still struggle to this day, but that’s where the good shit comes from. That’s where the great art comes from, for better or worse.

I read that this was your first self-produced record. Did it have a different vibe working that way, or did the sound come out any different?

Luckily I was able to use a couple of my friends as guinea pigs, so I got a little comfortable in the producer’s seat [on previous projects]. But more than anything I believe first of all, to make a great album, you need great songs, and then you can record them any way you want to record them. If it’s a great song, it’s a great song no matter what.

… I think the second most important part of making a great album is the drums and percussion. Once you have those two things, you can really leave it at that and it’s going to be great. Folks can sing along and might want to dance a little bit. You’re going to be fine.

Then you need a little funky bass part. And, being from that area of the music I heard my whole life – soul music and gospel music, it all has keys. So I knew I had to have some keys and organ on there. I don’t know that it was much different [from other records], except for this time I had nearly 20 years of experience.

“It’s a Start” is such an interesting track. On the surface, it’s just about simple things. But it seems to kind of point at a bigger truth, right? Where’d that come from?

Well, I appreciate you noticing that, because it’s with intent. I try to do that with most all of my songs – like I said earlier, to make something personal, make it universal. What is the core of that emotion or that experience? And vice versa, universally personal. That song particularly, I wanted to throw everybody off and not give that song a double meaning.

Really, why’s that?

I feel like sometimes I’m stuck in between two worlds. Sometimes I feel like people only think ‘Oh, there’s Brent writing another album about Georgia.’ And then I feel like some people go, ‘What is the deeper meaning here?’ Most of the time there is one for me, but that song is really about nothing and intentionally, it’s about exactly what it says.

People can get real meta about certain songwriters, but I just think that’s a mark of a really good artist.

Yeah I’m not ever complaining as long as anybody’s listening for any reason. I do think it’s funny though. Sometimes I feel like other songwriters may get the benefit of the doubt, like it’ll be a really on-the-nose double meaning, just real obvious that, “Oh, okay, you meant to give it this undercurrent.” Then other songwriters, sometimes I feel like including myself, they do not get that benefit. They only get the doubt. [Laughs]

Call me a simple man – I am. There should always be a little something extra in there if someone’s looking for it. But I also think a songwriter should do their best to craft it so that it can be enjoyed at face value.

“Shade Tree” seems like a fitting way to end things, then. It wraps the record up with a peaceful, soothing scene. Where did that come from?

Well, my sister and I had started that song two years probably before I even knew that I was going to make an album. My sister is such a wonderful singer and she’s got a lot of soul in her voice, but like me, she has a kid. It’s hard to just sit down and write a song together. Well, then I get studio time booked and I wanted to finish that song because I thought it really defined Southern Star as a way of life in the South – there was a pecan tree in my grandma’s backyard, so after church and after Sunday dinner, the whole family would hang out under it in the shade tree. A lot of things happened [under that tree] …

The day before going in the studio, I went over to my sister’s house and I had dropped my kids off at school, and we drank some coffee on her back porch amongst some pine trees. Then my wife, she threw in some lines and it became a family affair. And yeah, it seemed fitting.

The whole thing seems like it has so much personal meaning. What do you hope people take away from this one?

More than anything I always hope, like I’ve said, that it’s universally personal. I hope that anybody will be able to take away from it whatever they feel. And if nothing else, I hope they can just enjoy it in the background.

Photo Credit: Jace Kartye

MIXTAPE: Steve Dawson’s Crash Course in Slide Guitar and Steel Guitar

Posted on by Editor

Slide guitar has been a lifelong fascination for me. I got into it when my uncle gave me a slide for my birthday when I was about 13. I had no idea how to use it, but eventually figured it out by copying Mick Taylor on Sticky Fingers, and I went from there. I’ve gone pretty deep, and find the roots of slide to be very fascinating. I’d like to share this playlist with you to show you some of the music that has inspired me in my journey. It definitely favors the early generations of players from the ’20s to the ’70s, but this playlist is meant to show you where it all comes from and what inspired me.

There wasn’t much slide going on in the ’80s that I was interested in as a kid, but there certainly are a lot of great players around now in the post-Derek Trucks era. In showing you where my influences are, this is a pretty good list. It covers blues, Hawaiian, jazz, rock, experimental, the whole nine yards. I even get into pedal steel a little bit, as there are a few important ones for me, but I won’t go too far into that world. I like how this playlist works totally out of chronological order, I hope you do, too. Enjoy! — Steve Dawson

King Bennie Nawahi – “Hawaiian Capers”

King Bennie is my favorite of all the pre-war Hawaiian players. He was very creative and inspired, and played in lots of different bands. He was basically a vaudeville/street performer who also recorded. I wrote a song, loosely based on his life on my new album, but this is one of his great performances.

Tampa Red – “Reckless Man Blues”

Tampa Red was probably the most sophisticated player of the pre-war slide players. He had sort of a jazz sensibility but could also get down in the greasy stuff. I like both of those aspects of his playing.

Kevin Breit – “Uncle John’s Third Wife”

Kevin is a brilliant musician from Toronto who I got to know and play with a number of times. He is incredible to watch and can shred with the best of them, but his compositions are often haunting and beautiful like this one. He put out a resonator/slide record some years ago called “empty” that remains one of my favorite albums to this day.

Jim and Bob – “The Song of the Range”

This duo was so creative and impressive. Their arrangements were top-notch and the playing is phenomenal. So fast, clean and sophisticated. They were obviously hip to a lot of the jazz horn players of the day.

Tedeschi Trucks Band – “Made Up Mind”

To me, slide players fall into the pre and post-Derek Trucks camp. There are things that he does as a player that no one did before and pretty much anyone that learned to play since he’s been around has been influenced by him, and you can tell. There’s tons of great Derek Trucks stuff out there, but I always dug this melodic, yet ripping solo.

Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys – “Steel Guitar Rag”

Bob wasn’t the steel player — Leon McAuliffe was. This is basically the bible of electric steel guitar playing. It’s not the most complex, or the flashiest, but most modern steel and slide playing can eventually be traced back to this ripping little number. Dig Bob doing the cat calls throughout!

Sonny Landreth – “Yokamama”

Sonny came out of the Louisiana Zydeco scene and played with John Hiatt on tour and on some great records. This is a very cool instrumental that was a big influence on me when it first came out. He really sent slide guitar in some new directions with innovative techniques.

Elmore James – “The Sky Is Crying”

Elmore basically electrified the slide and popularized the riff that anyone with an open-tuned guitar first learns to play. It’s kind of ruined electric slide guitar if you go and see a blues band at your local bar, but when you hear the guy that invented it do it this well with such tone, it’s a whole different ball of wax!

Ry Cooder – “How Can You Keep on Moving?”

For me, this has everything I like about slide playing rolled up into one song and one solo. It’s probably my favorite piece of recorded electric slide guitar ever made. Sort of simple, but incredibly difficult to play this well. It’s got all the great playing of the early era Ry and the tone is unreal. It’s cool that the solo is acoustic and the rest of the song is electric. And the rhythm playing is insanely cool throughout.

Ben Harper – “Manhattan”

I saw Ben Harper in Vancouver in about ’93 before his first album came out. He was opening for Tommy Emmanuel. There were about 10 people there. Ben played totally acoustic and it blew my mind. I’ve never forgotten that show. For me, and what I like about his playing, which is raw simplicity and soul, his recent album (all instrumental) Wintertime Is For Lovers is the best thing he’s ever done and it brings me back to that concert.

Roy Smeck – “12th Street Rag”

Smeck was a vaudeville guy and also quite widely recorded. He’s a phenomenal slide player and also just as great on regular guitar and ukulele. He had one of the earliest signature model guitars — the Gibson Roy Smeck.

Sol Hoopii – “Patches”

Sol was one of the greatest Hawaiian players and was actually very famous at the time. He came to the mainland in the mid-’20s and kicked off a nationwide Hawaiian craze that influenced music and pop culture. It was said that Sol would get hired to come to movie sets and play songs like this one to make the stars all weepy before their crying scenes. Sol was magnificent.

Muddy Waters – “Long Distance Call”

Muddy was the link between Robert Johnson and Chicago blues — he electrified it and made it commercial and exciting. Not the technical expert that Johnson was, Muddy had tone and feel for days.

David Lindley – “Your Old Lady”

I love Lindley’s electric steel playing, but in the ’90s he devoted himself to more acoustic music, although his instruments are always plugged in and sound massive. He had a few duos with percussionists like Hani Nasser and Wally Ingram that are phenomenal. The Weissenborn playing of this period of his career was hugely influential to me, but none of it is available in the digital realm, so here’s a great one from the ’80s.

Taj Mahal – “Statesboro Blues”

I love Duane Allman, and he’s on this list, of course, but if you can listen to this version of this song and tell me he didn’t get 90% of what he does from Jesse Ed Davis playing with Taj on this one, I’ll buy you a sandwich.

Allman Brothers – “Trouble No More”

Duane Allman at his finest. This one was huge for me.

Mick Taylor – “Sway”

I got into slide because of Sticky Fingers. I had no idea how to do it or what he was doing, or even who he was yet, but it was Mick Taylor who got me into it and especially considering he wasn’t 20 years old at this point, it’s pretty insane. The first solo on this one is Mick playing. And I’m pretty sure it’s Mick Jagger playing the other guitar part, not Keith.

Bill Frisell – “The Pioneers”

This is the song that got me into playing pedal steel. I’m not going to go down the pedal steel rabbit hole on this playlist, but this song and steel solo (by Greg Leisz) definitely changed my life, so I thought I’d include it.

Jerry Douglas – “The Hymn of Ordinary Motion”

Jerry has redefined the dobro as an instrument capable of playing in all genres, not just bluegrass. He came from a bluegrass background, but has gone on to be one of the great instrumentalists of our time. He is also very prolific and has tons of records to pick from, but this is an interesting one and shows his killer melodic playing that everyone who plays the dobro copies to one extent or another.

Blind Willie Johnson – “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground”

I mean, if one song shows the power of slide guitar at its moodiest, this is the one. Frightening, all these decades later.

Photo Credit: Laura Partain

The Show on the Road – The Allman Betts Band

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, it’s a rock ‘n’ roll family affair with a special conversation with Devon Allman and Duane Betts, two guitar-slinging sons of the iconic Allman Brothers Band who formed their own soulful supergroup: The Allman Betts Band.


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With their 2019 debut record Down To The River, Allman and Betts — who took turns playing alongside their revered dads Gregg and Dickey as teenagers — finally banded together to create a new collection of the soaring slide-guitar-centered, Gulf-coast rock and brawny, road-tested blues that both pays homage to their heady upbringings and forges their own way forward. Even their touring bassist has a familiar name to Allman diehards: Berry Oakley Jr., whose dad was one of the Allman Brothers’ founding members when they formed in 1969 out of Jacksonville, FL.

While many groups were stuck at home licking their wounds as the pandemic shut down most touring options, Devon and Duane’s crew tapped into the nascent drive-in circuit, bringing their spirited 2020 release, Bless Your Heart, to a whole new set of excited fans. Always sticking to their southern roots, they laid down both records at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios with producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price, Elvis Presley). While history is always dancing in the margins of the songs, it’s clear on this second offering that they wanted to create stories that didn’t only reflect their roaring live shows.

Standout songs like the soft piano ballad, “Doctor’s Daughter,” show the group roving in new, more nuanced directions — while “Autumn Breeze” is a pulsing slow-burn, but features the effortless twin guitar lines that made their dads’ work so instantly recognizable.

Of course playing in the family business wasn’t always a given for the guys — especially Devon, who only met his hard-touring father Gregg at sixteen. Devon first started hanging out with young Duane (then only twelve) in 1989 on the Allman Brothers’ 20th Anniversary tour. As he describes in the episode, Devon wasn’t sure he wanted to follow in his father’s hard-to-follow footsteps, but once he sat in on “Midnight Rider” and the crowd went crazy? It was off to the races.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Allman Brothers’ breakout record Live At The Fillmore East, which I grew up listening to on loop with my father. Though Duane Allman died tragically in a 1971 accident before his namesake was born, and Gregg passed away in 2017, their spirits live on in the Allman Betts Band’s epic live show, which is already gearing up for the tentative 2021 touring season.

Photo credit: Kaelan Barowsky

MIXTAPE: Music to Drive Your Kids Around (Without Driving Yourself Crazy)

Posted on by Editor

Among the many writer’s hats I wear is one of children’s music reviewer. When my daughter was in grade school, it was fun playing various kids CDs for her. She’s in college now, so those days are gone. I did keep her in mind, however, when putting together this playlist, thinking about songs that she would tolerate listening to now.

A lot of people associate children’s music merely with those simple, preschool music-time tunes about numbers, letters, and other lessons for toddlers. And there certainly a lot of those songs. But, as in any genre, there is a lot of interesting children’s music being made too.

This mixtape is a “mix” in a several ways. It mixes together songs by “adult” musicians who have ventured nicely into the family music world as well as children’s musicians with what some might call “crossover potential.” There are originals and covers. Fast songs and slow ones. And hopefully it’s a mix that Bluegrass Situation families can enjoy on an hour-long drive, whether it’s a fast drive or a slow one.

To create some parameters, I chose recordings released since 2000, only recordings made for children, and, yes, only recordings found on Spotify (I couldn’t find Jessie Baylin’s Strawberry Wind or I Love: Tom T. Hall’s Songs of Fox Hollow or else they might have been represented here). Also, I also stayed away from songs that seem to appear on every fourth children’s album (sorry, “Rainbow Connection”). — Michael Berick

The Okee Dokee Brothers – “Hope Machine”

These “brothers,” Joe Mailander and Justin Lansing, have put out a handful of excellent, old-school, folk-inspired albums that mix originals with traditional tunes. You can hear the Woody Guthrie influence in this cheery, gently philosophical original from their 2020 album, Songs for Singing. Here, as in all their music, there’s a wonderful, easy-going approach that doesn’t dumb down to kids.

Elizabeth Mitchell – “Blue Sky (Little Martha Intro)”

This Elizabeth Mitchell isn’t the actress from Lost, but the singer/guitarist from ’80s indie rockers Ida. Over the past 20 years, she has also made many terrific children’s albums, mainly for Smithsonian Folkways. Featuring nifty guitar playing from her husband and longtime collaborator Daniel Littlefield, Mitchell’s acoustic cover of this Allman Brothers classic hails from her Blue Clouds album, where she also reconceives Bowie, Hendrix, and Van Morrison songs.

Randy Kaplan – “In a Timeout Now”

On his album Mr. Diddie Wah Diddie, Randy Kaplan has great fun taking “poetic license” with old blues tunes and, in this case, the Jimmie Rodgers hit “In the Jailhouse Now.” Kids will love the comical lyrics and parents will appreciate Kaplan’s inventive, child-friendly renovations on roots music nuggets.

Laura Veirs – “Soldier’s Joy”

I read somewhere that “Soldier’s Joy” is one of the most played fiddle tunes of all time — and that it was a slang term for morphine during the Civil War. Veirs, who hails from the Northwest indie rock scene, keeps her version on the toe-tapping PG side. This duet with The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy comes from her highly recommendable, and only, children’s album, Tumble Bee.

Wee Hairy Beasties – “Animal Crackers”

This kooky side project by alt-country all-stars features Jon Langford (Waco Brothers/The Mekons), Sally Timms (The Mekons), Kelly Hogan, and Devil in the Woodpile. Pun lovers of all ages will revel in the wild wordplay running through the title track to this decidedly goofy 2006 album.

Little Mo’ McCoury – “The Fox”

Little Mo’ McCoury arguably stands as the most authentic bluegrass album for children, at least in the 21st century. Ronnie McCoury leads his family band through a set of old-timey tunes plus “You’ve Got A Friend” and “Man Gave Name to All the Animals.” While there are some overly familiar choices (“This Old Man,” “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad), “The Fox” provides a frisky workout of this bluegrass standard.

Meat Purveyors – “The Crawdad Song”

“The Crawdad Song,” along with “Froggie Went A-Courting/King Kong Kitchie Kitchie Ki-Me-O” must rank as the traditional tunes most frequently recorded for children. I included “Crawdad” here because it is the one ingrained more in my brain. And I picked this version because of the Meat Purveyors’ speedy bluegrass-y rendition. You’ll find it on Bloodshot Records’ irreverent kids’ compilation, The Bottle Let Me Down (although parents might want to listen to it before sharing with their little ones).

Red Yarn – “Rabbit in a Log”

Red Yarn (the nom de plume for Oregon-based musician Andy Furgeson) makes rootsy music that appeals to all ages. He frequently travels an early rock and roll route but he follows a more acoustic road on this hopped-up banjo-powered take of the old folk tune that appears on his Born in the Deep Woods album.

Johnette Downing – “J’ai Vu Le Loup, Le Renard Et La Belette”

Louisiana music is a popular Americana style in children’s music, probably because it so easily gets kids dancing. On her album Swamp Rock, the New Orleans musician Johnette Downing does a marvelous job presenting, and explaining, a variety of Louisiana-bred music and culture. This bilingual animal tale (“I Saw the Wolf, the Fox and the Weasel”) showcases two Cajun greats: fiddler Joel Savoy and accordionist Roddie Romero.

Kare Strong & Josh Goforth – “To The Country We Will Go”

Slowing down the tempo a bit, “To the Country We Will Go” offers a leisurely family trip. This song, as with most Kare Strong’s music, contains elements of English folk ballads. Providing the banjo, fiddle and other musical accompaniment is Josh Goforth, a bluegrass vet who has played with David Holt, Appalachian Trail, and Carolina Road.

Francis England – “Blue Canoe”

Sticking in the traveling mode, “Blue Canoe” is a charming little outing from Francis England, who makes consistently excellent music for families. This tune appears on her debut, Fascinating Creatures, an album where I would recommend “Charlie Parker” and “The Books I Like to Read” too.

Dan Zanes featuring Valerie June – “Take This Hammer”

While Zanes is right at the top of the best-known kids musicians today, I couldn’t resist including something by him. He has a whole bunch of fine tunes to choose from and I wound up landing on this one, which he sings with Valerie June, from his 2017 tribute album, Lead Belly, Baby!

Sarah Lee Guthrie – “Go Waggaloo”

I couldn’t exclude the name “Guthrie” from this mixtape. For this title track to her family music album, Sarah Lee (Woody’s granddaughter and Arlo’s daughter) wrote a song using unpublished lyrics her grandfather had written. Starting off like a silly sing along, the tune quickly goes deeper becoming a somewhat autobiographical look at Woody’s life.

Josh Lovelace with Spirit Family Reunion – “Going to Knoxville”

Lovelace took a break from his day job as keyboardist in rock band Needtobreathe to make a kids album. A standout track on Young Folks, “Going to Knoxville” is joy-filled, driving-in-a-car love song, with Spirit Family Reunion’s Nick Panken and Maggie Carson contributing some singing and banjo playing.

Beth Nielsen Chapman with Kid Pan Alley – “Little Drop of Water”

Kid Pan Alley, a Virginia-based nonprofit, sends songwriters into schools to collaborate with students. Chapman wrote this song with a third-grade class. Besides its strong message about water conservation, it’s pretty darn catchy too. My family still remembers it over a dozen years after the disc was last in our car’s CD player.

Justin Roberts – “Rolling Down the Hill”

One of the most skillful songwriters in the children’s music scene, Roberts usually operates in the pop/rock field, so this is a rare tune of his with a fiddle. Roberts injects just enough details into this playful ditty to make it resonate with both parents and kids — without slowing down the momentum.

Shovels & Rope with The Secret Sisters – “Mother Earth Father Time”

The just-released third volume in Shovels & Rope’s Busted Jukebox series is a set of family-oriented covers entitled Busted Juicebox. The husband-wife duo Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst partnered with The Secret Sisters for a sweetly sung rendition of this tune from the 1973 animated film version of Charlotte’s Web.

Sarah Sample and Edie Carey – “If I Needed You”

These two singer-songwriters teamed up back in 2014 to make ‘Til the Morning, a lullaby album that shouldn’t just be restricted to nap time. This Townes Van Zandt gem was a particularly inspired choice and their tender interpretation is quite moving.

Alastair Moock with Aoife O’Donovan – “Home When I Hold You”

Moock is a Massachusetts singer-songwriter whose family albums often tackle themes like inclusivity or social action. This track comes from Singing Our Way Through, an inspiring, powerful work he made for families dealing with pediatric cancer. His duet with Aoife O’Donovan conveys a simple yet poignant message of love from parents to a child.

Sara Watkins – “Pure Imagination”

Watkins’ first family album, Under the Pepper Tree, arrives on March 26, and its first single offers an appetizing hint of what’s to come. Watkins’ heavenly, soaring vocals highlight her gorgeous rendering of this Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tune. And celebrating the magic of creativity and the freedom of possibilities seems like a sweet note to leave families with.

 

With a Country and Soul Groove, Marcus King Drives ‘El Dorado’ to the Grammys

Posted on by Editor

Thanks to a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album, Marcus King is getting a second chance to make a first impression.

At the dawn of 2020, he’d been poised to become a breakout star in roots music, able to deliver an electrifying show with the soul chops to match. After three albums billed as The Marcus King Band, his solo debut record, El Dorado (produced by Dan Auerbach), received positive notices just about everywhere, including BGS. But as the year unraveled, so did his touring plans. In response, he turned his attention to songwriting, ended up booking some socially-distanced shows at drive-in movie theaters, and even landed a spot on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. And with attention from the Grammys, he’s back in the game — although he’s been surrounded by music from the time he was a kid.

“I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t entirely prominent in my life,” he tells BGS. “Just a focal point of every conversation or thought that I had.”

In the interview below, the 24-year-old performer talks about the family influence of his father and grandfather (who were both musicians), his earliest years on the stage, and the advice he’d give to teenagers with an equally burning desire to pursue a life in music.

BGS: There’s a lyric in “Wildflowers and Wine” that refers to an “old scratchy record.” I’m assuming you’re a vinyl collector. How did you go about building your collection?

King: It started when I was about 11 years old. I started with my mother’s collection and my dad’s collection, because in the early ‘90s that was dead technology, you know? They had tapes and CDs, so I inherited everybody’s collection. I inherited my Grandpa Pete’s big old stereo from the ‘50s when nobody wanted to carry it around anymore. The first record I bought on my own was Robin Trower, Bridge of Sighs. I just remember that smell of the record store and all those gatefolds and tools that went with it for cleaning your records. You know, the care that goes into it.

Who are some of your country influences?

Man, my grandfather spoon-fed me on all the good things country when I was growing up. We lost him when I was 14. He was a big country music proponent his whole life. He played in the Officers Band when he was in the Air Force in the ‘60s and he and his band backed up Charley Pride when he came over and played Ramstein Air Force Base [in Germany]. He backed up a number of legends over there. They asked him on the base television that they had over there, what he had to say to all the troops, and he said, “Long live country music!” So, he started me young on Charley Pride, of course, and George Jones was our jam. That’s what we listened to the most. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings… The list goes on and on, you know how that is.

Who are your influences when it comes to showmanship?

As far as showmanship’s concerned, I mentioned that my grandfather was really into country music and I grew up listening to country music with him. And my father turned me on to the Allman Brothers and Southern rock and blues guitar players like Albert, B.B., and Freddie King. What I discovered on my own was soul music. And the first artist I remember really, really digging was James Brown. I just loved the way that he controlled the stage and the way he controlled his band.

You know, to speak about my grandfather, Bill King, again, his biggest advice to me was that you’ve got to dress for the show, never get on the stage without your boots on, and you just need to dress like you’re not there to see the show – but you’re there to put the show on. Showmanship was always instilled in, early on. Well after the importance of knowing how to play your damn instrument, but it was an important one.

I’d read that you started playing professionally at 11 years old. What kind of gigs were those?

It was a lot of Christian bookstores, a lot of coffeehouses. We just played anywhere that would take us. My father is a born again Christian and a blues guitar player, which was a really niche market at the time. So, he wanted to play Hendrix covers but he would rewrite the lyrics from like “red house” to “church house.” And that would be our foothold into the Christian community. He went through his fair share of hard times with that, trying to be accepted into a gospel music community. Because he had long hair and played “the devil’s music.” But that was the kind of venues I started playing.

Were you with your dad’s group, or playing with your own group?

I started playing with my dad’s band when I was about 8 years old. I was playing what I knew. He would let me come up and play. That’s where I cut my teeth. When I was 11, I got my first experience in the studio, playing with my dad’s group. That’s when I started going out with his group.

From there, I tried to be whatever he needed. If he needed a rhythm guitar player, I’d do that, or if his drummer couldn’t make it, I’d play drums. Or his bass player, same situation. I was just there for whatever needed to be done. I just liked to play. When I was 13, that’s when I took on the leadership role, or started the process.

At what point did you start driving? Did they put you behind the wheel when you had gigs?

I was real tenacious about that, man. I had a real roaming nature about me. I was a Bassett Hound. I’d put my nose to the ground, look up, and be lost as hell. I wouldn’t know where I was. So, I was just ready to go and didn’t care where. I got my learner’s permit when I was 14 in South Carolina. The only stipulation was that I could drive as much as I wanted in the daytime, but in the evening, if I needed a licensed driver in the car with me.

So, to me, that meant I needed to hire a band of adults who could act as chaperones for me in the bars, and that could be licensed drivers in the car. Then I could be the sober driver at the end of the night. I had a good situation for anybody who wanted to come play with me. I would drive them there. You could drink as much as you want because I’d drive us home. And I’d get you paid good because I kept us working, at least four or five nights a week. I’d book us under a fake name, through my email, so people would take us more seriously.

What was it like being 14 years old, up on a stage in a club? Did you like it?

Oh man, I loved it! I saw my future ahead of me when I got there. I had to deal with my first drunk audience member. Or I had to play louder than a drunk argument. Or I had to have my first encounter with a lousy club owner that didn’t want to pay us. I saw my first bar brawl. I loved it, I ate it up. You go in there and you’ve got to have an assertiveness about you, but then again, you don’t want to be a 15-year-old asshole that nobody wants to work with.

I’m glad that that didn’t happen. But you had to be assertive because, being 15 years old, there was a lot of opportunity. You know, I have a lot of faith in human beings but there is the opportunity that people will try to rip you off. There was a lot of navigating those waters and it worked out good. I had a lot of great experiences in those days.

Were you going to high school during this time?

I was. I was going to high school and playing four or five nights a week. But, you know, I wasn’t up to no good, so my dad didn’t really see much harm in it. He was supportive of my dreams, but he was torn, though, because I was having trouble in school. I was just not interested and I was hyper-focused on music, so that was difficult for him as a parent but also as a supporter of my dreams. But it worked out.

For teenagers now in that same situation, what message would you send out to a kid who’s frustrated at the moment, but knows they wants to have a career in music?

I’ve always said, you knock on every door, and if they don’t answer the door, knock ‘em down. It’s sometimes better to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission in this industry. You know, it’s a thin line you’ve got to walk. You’ve got to know your worth but you can’t have a big head. You should never be overly confident. Never be your biggest fan, but be your second-biggest fan.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

The String – Randall Bramblett plus Brennen Leigh

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Randall Bramblett is a powerhouse journeyman and veteran of southern roots and soul music, with a dense and deep resume working for others, from the Allman Brothers to Widespread Panic.


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But between his stints as a sax player, keyboardist, singer and songwriter he’s released more than ten albums as an artist, and his fans know them to be a blend of sharp writing, a sensuous voice and spicy beats and ambience. The newest is Pine Needle Fire on New West Records, Bramblett’s loyal home since 2001. Also in the hour, a visit with Nashville’s Brennen Leigh about her nostalgic thematic album Prairie Love Letter.

Canon Fodder: The Band, ‘The Band’

Posted on by Editor

For decades, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” the third song on the Band’s second album, has been among their most popular and beloved songs. It has appeared on every official live album and greatest hits compilation they’ve released — most notably on The Last Waltz with a horn chart by Allen Toussaint. It’s been covered countless times: Johnny Cash, John Denver, the Allman Brothers Band, the Black Crowes, the Zac Brown Band, Tanya Tucker, and even Roger Waters have recorded their own versions. The original was not a hit for the Band, but Joan Baez’s cover went to number five in 1971. More recently, it scored a pivotal scene in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Robbie Robertson, a Canadian, wrote the lyrics to “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” Every member of the Band contributed to the arrangement. Levon Helm, the only American in the group — and a Southerner, to boot — sang lead. Together, they all tell the story of Virgil Caine, a farmer in Virginia bearing witness to the cataclysmic end of the Civil War. Every element comments on his story: The wheeze of Garth Hudson’s organ evokes his spiritual fatigue, while the insistent tap of Helm’s snare drums jumps a beat when he sings the line about his dead brothers. And the four singers — Robertson and Helm joined by Rick Danko and Richard Manuel — harmonize beautifully, when Caine seems to have run out of words and can only express himself with a chorus of na na na nas.

Robertson gets the details just right to evoke this dark iteration of America: He introduces himself by saying he “served on the Danville train,” referring to the Danville & Richmond Railroad that was a crucial transportation for the Confederate Army. And when he declares, “I don’t care if my money’s no good,” he’s referring to the Confederate dollar, called a “greyback,” which was worthless after the war. His literary and Biblical references — to Dante’s Divine Comedy, to the Book of Genesis — suggest that this is not the actual South, but a mythological one. Is Virgil Caine our guide through the Purgatory of Reconstruction? Is this a retelling of Cain and Abel on a national scale? (And, if so, why is the South Cain instead of Abel?)

As Ralph J. Gleason wrote in his Rolling Stone album review in 1969, “Nothing that I have read … has brought home to me the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does … It is a remarkable song. The rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon, and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Rick, and Richard Manuel in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn’t some oral tradition material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of ’65 to today. It has the ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.”

That could be said of every song on The Band. A self-schooled student of North American history, Robertson was writing about the past, setting the Band’s song deep in what Greil Marcus, writing about The Basement Tapes they recorded with Bob Dylan, called “the old, weird America.” This was not necessarily a new tack, as folk musicians had been not only reviving songs from previous centuries, but had occasionally written a few themselves. But the Band weren’t folk musicians — at least not strictly. They were a rock band. Rock in 1969 was still considered new: The Beatles and the Who proved it could be serious, heady high art; the San Francisco bands proved it could be political discourse; and the psych bands proved rock could serve as a narcotic/existential inquiry. The Band proved rock could be old, as well as new, the lens through which we view the past, either how it actually was or how we might want it to be.

Not every song is quite as specific in its historical setting as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” explores the hard life of subsistence farmers, who faced innumerable tribulations and catastrophes. The narrator might even be Virgil Caine himself, turning from the lamentations of the Civil War to the horrors of survival in rural America. Other songs are much more elusive, like the fleet “Look Out Cleveland” (about Texas, not Ohio) and the randy, country-funk number “Up on Cripple Creek.” The latter is one of several songs on here about sex. Perhaps it was a response to the sexual liberation of the 1960s (as opposed to the 1860s) or perhaps the Band were merely addressing rock ‘n’ roll’s favorite topic through the filter of history. “Jemima surrender, I’m gonna give it to you,” they sing on “Jemima Surrender.” “Ain’t no pretender, gonna ride in my canoe.”

In the half-century since the Band recorded their second album, the Americana scene has pushed forward not with their openness about sex, but with the historically based songwriting. It’s nearly impossible to gauge their impact on the contemporary country and roots scene, but it’s safe to say that, whenever you hear an artist sing about something that happened decades ago, you’re hearing the Band’s influence. Last year, Colter Wall ended his breakthrough album with “Bald Butte,” a lengthy gunslinger story-song that is somehow bloodier than “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” The year before that, Shovels & Rope recounted the Battle of Chattanooga on “Missionary Ridge,” imagining the ghosts of the Civil War dead still haunting those hills.

Almost every singer/songwriter resorts to historical re-enactment at some point. Steve Earle wrote “Ben McCulloch” about the disgraced Civil War brigadier general. Johnny Cash recorded a song called “God Bless Robert E. Lee” for his 1983 album Johnny 99, praising the general’s decision to surrender at Appomattox. There are many, many others, too bountiful to count, some dealing with the Civil War and even more dealing with other historical events. (A favorite: “Saskatchewan” by the Toronto band the Rheostatics, which describes a sailor’s death in a sinking ship.)

These songs all reflect shifting attitudes toward (North) American history, new ideas, and new opinions, but our thinking about history continues to change no matter how many times we play these songs. As a result, these historical songs become pieces of history themselves, reflecting outdated attitudes and concerns. In 2018, at a moment when the Confederate flag has become a lightning-rod controversy and Civil War monuments are being defaced or removed, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” takes on a very different meaning than it had in 1969. The melancholy of those na na nas has curdled into something ugly and regrettable — not something to be celebrated, but something to be commiserated.

In their 2014 book — The Long Reconstruction: The Post-Civil War South in History, Film, and Memory — Frank J. Wetta and Martin A. Novelli call “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” “the theme song of the Lost Cause ideology.” It is a song about the defeated, about the thwarted righteousness of the Southern cause. But it’s that righteousness that has become so disgusting in 2018, when the most spurious political groups have adopted the symbols and syntax of the Confederacy. Let’s not mince words: The Lost Cause excuses the enslavement of an entire race of people and rationalized it with misinterpreted Bible verses and twisted moral logic.

So, what do we do with a song like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”? It remains a compelling document of its time — 1969, not 1865 — and it is still a tremendous piece of music, inventive and innovative and finally, extremely influential. In that regard, it is exactly like every other song on The Band and on their 1968 debut, Music from Big Pink. Unlike a public monument, it cannot simply be removed from public space. Music doesn’t work that way. It is not stationary. It moves about, impossible to contain. We might strike it from future greatest hits albums, yet we would then have only a limited understanding of the Band’s story or their moment in time.

What do we do with disagreeable art? That’s one of the most important questions facing us in the final years of the 2010s. And here we come back to Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. That film has been accused of being racially tone deaf and, sure enough, Baez’s version of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” which does nothing to interrogate Virgil Caine’s sympathies, plays during a scene in which a character with a history of racially motivated violence redeems himself by trying to solve the rape and murder of a white girl. If it were ironic, it might be a powerful moment dissecting Southern masculinity, but I doubt director Martin McDonagh had as much in mind. It’s just a song, just a signifier of Southernness. And that’s definitely not how it should play in 2018.

Southern Culture on the Bid: A Conversation with Blackberry Smoke’s Charlie Starr

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Blackberry Smoke, the Southern rock band based in Atlanta, Georgia, has often said that they grew their following one fan at a time. To see them live, though, you have to figure they’re wrong: They’re making converts of country fans one show at a time, really. The five-piece has toured relentlessly, playing dive bars alongside opening gigs on mammoth tours, and their loud-as-hell live shows are a fitting intro to their more refined studio material, as evidenced on their latest full-length, Like an Arrow. Suffice it to say, frontman Charlie Starr knows a bit about navigating the country music industry without caving to expectations.

You worked with Gregg Allman on the record, and it really calls attention to the legacy of great Southern music coming out of Georgia. What has your home in Atlanta meant for the band and the music that you guys make?

Growing up in the Southeast, we absorbed all of this wonderful Southern culture. It's everywhere — from the food to the way people talk. I love to talk to the older people. My grandmother was a great source of inspiration when she was alive, with the stories and the music, too. She sang and played music. Obviously, we look to all the great bands after that — the Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd and Wet Willy and bands like that. They all have ties to Georgia, but then also looking to the Black Crowes and Drivin’ N Cryin’ and the Georgia Satellites. There's all sorts of culture to cull inspiration from.

And Atlanta has remained your home base, even as a lot of the Southeast has hightailed it to Nashville. Has that been a deliberate choice?

It's been very significant. We made one record in Nashville, our second album, and I think that the band just decided we don't want to work that way — the way that a lot of the music industry works in Nashville. There’s nothing wrong with the way people do things there, but we wanted to try and keep everything in-house. We had done that already for the first several years that we were together. I think we were already stubborn, and we wanted to do things our way, and it seems like it was a more comfortable fit to stay in Atlanta.

Years and years ago, when we were teenagers, everybody wanted to move to L.A. That was the thing. "Let's form a rock band and move to Los Angeles." I'm glad we didn't do that either. It feels more like family here.

When you say you like keeping things in-house, what are the specific elements you’re most excited to bring to the record yourself?

We didn't want to go to Nashville and record a bunch of other people's songs. We didn't want to work with producers that pushed other people's songs on us. I was thinking, "Well, we made one record where we did record a few songs that other people wrote, and they're great songs, but we're not trying to record hit singles here." We're not playing the singles game, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

I thought, "Well, if my songs aren't good enough, then maybe we're not your band." We handle our own merchandise, as well, and then we have our own touring company. The fewer hands in the pot, the better, when you're trying to make a living and support a family. There are lots of ways to cut a pie up, and the goal is to try and cut it up as few times as possible.

You have some songs on the record that point to hard work. Tell me about “Working for a Working Man.”

That one is a snarling rock 'n' roll song. It deals with something that most people can understand. Most of being middle-class is very frustrating: As the years go by, you work and work and work, and you look around and you don't have anything. You work your whole life for very little return. It's a middle-class love song, basically.

You also have a bit more of a rebellious song on the album with “Waiting for the Thunder.”

That one is probably as close as I'll ever come to writing a protest song. It's really not in protest of anything, but it’s an observation of how scary the world is. It seems like it just gets scarier and scarier as I get older, thinking about my own children and what kind of world they're going to live in. I don't know. It's 50 percent observation and 50 percent warning, I guess. There's a little bit of Biblical reference thrown in there for good measure. Every song needs a little bit of Biblical reference.

Oh yeah?

I'm joking, but it's a Book of Revelations, impending Armageddon kind of song. We hear so often about horrible things, shootings, and kidnappings. We didn't hear about them as much before because the mainstream media wasn't as intent upon filling all of our lives up with that shit every day. Now it's just rampant. I read a meme the other day that said, “People have been mean, since the beginning of time; it's just easier to read about it now.”

I could definitely see how that relates to the song. Tell me about writing, for that song and others on the record. It seems like you're always changing up. How are you able to keep your identity and still change things up musically? Is there anything you do to challenge yourselves or to try to keep things from getting to be the same old thing?

We do exactly that, I think. When I'm writing songs for an album, I try and write a lot of different types of songs for the band to play, especially thinking about the different aspects of production. Whether it be a really big, nasty rock 'n' roll song or a laid-back acoustic song or a funky song or a very traditional country song, I try and infuse a lot of different elements into the way we play them. We know that we don't want to make the same record over and over and over again. It can be a calculated process.

You said that you haven’t really played the “singles” game, but you’re finding an audience and climbing mainstream country sales charts, all the same. What do you think is unique about the way you interact with your audience?

I think it's just been tenacity on our part and our fans' part. The fan base continues to grow, and they are intent on letting as many people know about it as possible. You can't put a price on that. We owe them so much and they continue to support us, year after year and album after album. We would love to be playing arenas, of course, and if the radio would play our music, that would be great, but we're not willing to go record a cheesy pop song or something that we don't believe in musically to get there.

MIXTAPE: Bruce Warren’s Americana Roots

Posted on by Editor

I was raised in the '70s — the greatest decade of music ever. Here’s a playlist of songs that I put together built on the new and the old, all tied to the music I grew up on — from the singers and the songwriters to the classic rockers, plus some new tunes from musicians carrying on the traditions I fell in love with as a high school kid. — Bruce Warren, Program Director for WXPN

Aaron Lee Tasjan — “Memphis Rain”

With repeated listens, Tasjan’s new album, Silver Tears, unfolds like a great book, with great stories and photographs that linger long after the song ends. This is one of them.

Little Feat — “Skin It Back”

I had no idea who Little Feat were when I bought their 1974 album Feats Don’t Fail Me Now as a high schooler based solely on the cover art by legendary illustrator Neon Park. But, man, did it change my life. This album is like the grandfather of Americana records, in the purest, broadest sense of the genre as roots music. It was R&B, soul, rock, and gritty and swampy, and this band could play like my nobody’s business. Lowell George on slide and funky guitar and that rhythm section pulsing out deep grooves … Mmm-mmm.

Yola Carter — “Fly Away”

One of this year’s outstanding showcases in Nashville at the Americana Festival was British singer/songwriter Yola Carter. She’s sung with Massive Attack, and cites Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris as major influences. She’s a star. Hold on.

The Dream Syndicate — “Tell Me When it’s Over”

Psychedelic, punk, and pre-Americana all coming together in one place at one time on one glorious record — The Days of Wine and Roses by Steve Wynn and his pals, in 1982.

The Allman Brothers — “Southbound”

You can make 100 mixtapes of music for driving and this is the song you’d want to put on every single wione of them. Shout out to Chuck Leavell on that piano, though.

Michael Kiwanuka — “Love & Hate”

British soul-folk singer Kiwanuka delivered one of the best albums this year on which he mined the spirit of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and the soul-folk work of Terry Callier.

Terry Callier — “900 Miles” and “It’s About Time”

Speaking of Callier, there are any number of musical places you can start with the Chicago folk/soul/jazz singer/songwriter whose music shared spiritual commonalities with Tim Buckley and his Chi-town kindred spirit Curtis Mayfield. Start with his 1968 The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier, an American music masterpiece not given its full due.

Norah Jones — “Don’t Be Denied”

Norah drops a very respectable cover of a Neil Young song that originally appeared on my second favorite Neil album, Time Fades Away. (My very favorite Neil record being On the Beach.)

Wilco — “Sunken Treasure”

Side three, track one, Being There. For me, the sonic and songwriting genius of Wilco records like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born can be traced back to this song. That final verse, however, is super inspiring, even though the song is an emotional sad sack.

“Music is my savior
I was maimed by rock and roll
I was maimed by rock and roll
I was tamed by rock and roll
I got my name from rock and roll”

John Moreland — “High on Tulsa Heat”

Prior to this year’s Americana Music Fest, singer/songwriter John Moreland was barely on my radar. But when Taylor Goldsmith raved about him on the stage of the Ryman during the awards, I went back to my hotel and bought a copy of High on Tulsa Heat. It’s been in heavy rotation on my personal stereo since. Moreland is an amazing storyteller and lyricist. Here’s hoping his music reaches more people.

Bonnie Raitt — “Give It Up or Let Me Go”

Still making music after all these years, Bonnie’s second album, released in 1972, is one of those records you can go back to time and time again, and it continues to sound great. Sure, she covered Jackson Browne, Barbara George, Chris Smither, and Eric Kaz and Libby Titus’s gorgeous “Love Has No Pride,” but it is her self-penned title song that sets the tone of this record.

Mekons — “Hard to Be Human Again”

Insurgent country starts here, with Mekons’ punk and country masterpiece 1985’s Fear And Whiskey.