LISTEN: Ava Earl, “New Light”

Artist: Ava Earl
Hometown: Girdwood, Alaska
Song: “New Light”
Album: The Roses
Release Date: July 23, 2021

In Their Words: “‘New Light’ was one of the first love songs I wrote. It’s about the early time in a relationship where you keep finding little things that change the way you see a person (hopefully good things)! This song is also a little existential — it deals with the wonder and mystery of the universe as well as that of love. When you meet someone that you feel so deeply connected to, it feels like there must be a reason you were brought together, and yet rationally, I don’t believe that there is. I’m not sure I’ll ever know exactly if there’s a greater meaning to life, but for me this song is about being okay with that, and always finding a new way to look at beautiful things.” — Ava Earl


Photo credit: Shannon Earl

LISTEN: Pat Byrne, “I Woulda Done It for You”

Artist: Pat Byrne
Hometown: Borris, County Carlow, Ireland
Song: “I Woulda Done It for You”
Album: Into the Light
Release Date: July 9, 2021

In Their Words: “‘I Woulda Done It for You’ is fun, quirky and upbeat, belying the tragic lyrics. The central character is dealing with the immediate aftermath of a breakup, listing all the crazy things he would have done for his recently estranged partner — and a final plea for one more chance. This song is a co-write with Miles Zuniga of the band Fastball. We met shortly after I moved to Austin and immediately hit it off. Like most songwriters, I was guarded about my work and tended to think none of it was good enough. I had written like ten or eleven verses, too many. After having the song in my notebook for years, it took Miles five minutes to hone the verses and gift me with a chorus. I learned a lot from the experience and am so lucky to have mentors like Miles.” — Pat Byrne


Photo credit: Samantha Della Fave

LISTEN: Hush Kids, “Weatherman”

Artist: Hush Kids (Jill Andrews & Peter Groenwald)
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Weatherman”
Album: Weatherman EP
Release Date: September 24, 2021

In Their Words: “During the spring of 2020, when we were in lockdown, it rained, poured really, for days, maybe even weeks. My husband Jerred has lived most of his adult life in dry arid places and he wasn’t used to it. He would look outside almost every day, saddened by the dark sky and soggy earth. He would say, ‘This place just never stops. It’s like a rain forest.’ I always like to put a silver lining on things so my response was usually something like, ‘I guess that’s why it’s so green and beautiful here.’ But the sunless days can take their toll on the best of us, and I could tell that he was feeling down as the rainy days and tumultuous weather wore on.

“All of this was on my mind that day last spring when I got together with Ian [Fitchuk, the duo’s producer] and Peter to write for the next Hush Kids record. We sat on Ian’s back porch and caught up for a long time, enjoying being in each other’s presence so much because it had been a while since we’d last seen each other. This one came easily to us and I think we all cried a little when we were writing it. I’m so happy that we can share it with you guys today! I hope that your days are sunny even when the rain is pouring down.” — Jill Andrews

“This was the first song I had written in person for maybe eight months. We were on a porch, it felt kind of weird, but we trusted each other. Jill said she had an idea, and I believe she sang what is now the first line of the song. I tend to have a look on my face when I think something is amazing, and it actually looks like I’m disgusted… food, art, music… it’s more of a look of disbelief that something can be that good. That’s how I looked when Jill shared this idea with us.” — Peter Groenwald


Photo credit: Nathan Zucker

LISTEN: Beta Radio, “I Need My Prayers”

Artist: Beta Radio
Hometown: Wilmington, North Carolina
Song: “I Need My Prayers”
Album: Year of Love
Release Date: June 11, 2021
Label: Nettwerk Music Group

In Their Words: “It usually takes us long stretches of time to write songs, we normally feel great if we can write and record a whole record in a year, so ‘I Need My Prayers’ was a real surprise when it came about. When writing, Brent and I will usually share audio files back and forth, so he sent me a lyric-less guitar demo… I listened to it once, and then played it again while recording on my phone, and then the song lyrics just came out. I think it was all done within 15 minutes maybe. I was in a mental and spiritual place of needing something to hold onto, I felt like I had lost all my footing in the world and didn’t know where to turn. And a lot of personal things felt like they were falling apart. So… I guess I just needed my prayers.” — Benjamin Mabry, Beta Radio


Photo credit: Amanda Holloman

WATCH: Lea Thomas, “Hummingbird”

Artist: Lea Thomas
Hometown: Born in Hawaii, based in Brooklyn
Song: “Hummingbird”
Release Date: May 26, 2021
Label: Spirit House Records

In Their Words: “‘Hummingbird’ was inspired by a dream I had in which I shape-shifted into a white wolf and ran like the wind across a mountainside, overwhelmed with the beauty and the interconnectedness of all life. I knew from the start that I wanted the song and the video to feel similarly ecstatic, like a celebration of life and a reminder of how psychedelic and magical everyday life can be. I’m especially in love with the way the horn and slide guitar duets turned out for that reason. This is the first record I’ve arranged for horns and that instrumental section still gets me so excited every time I hear it!” — Lea Thomas


Photo credit: Hannah Rosa Lewis Lopes

WATCH: Dana Sipos, “Breathing Barrel”

Artist: Dana Sipos
Hometown: Hamilton, ON (currently residing in Victoria, BC)
Song: “Breathing Barrel”
Album: The Astral Plane
Release Date: June 25, 2021
Label: Roaring Girl Records

In Their Words: “‘Breathing Barrel’ is ultimately a meditation on being at peace with the present moment. Written immediately upon returning home to the city from a music residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, deep in the foothills of the Rockies, this song is an attempt to integrate a very powerful experience into the more mundane, everyday life. I was trying to trick or convince myself to ‘be July in the wintertime’ — ‘July’ being the Banff Centre in the middle of a bleak Toronto winter, trying to buoy myself and bring back that feeling of abundance and ripe possibility. So in visiting many landscapes, changing seasons, and fleeting moments while focusing on staying present, ‘Breathing Barrel’ turned into a bit of a dreamscape.

“The video was created by Victoria musician Trevor Lang, with dozens of high-resolution scans of vintage magazine cutouts, finely tuned to line up with the rhythm of the song. The pairing of vintage magazine cutouts with the text made to look as though it was coloured in by hand and was intended to mirror the warm and analog textural quality of the recording, the feeling of paper and pencil. The slightly unusual frame rate of this video (eight frames-per-second as opposed to the typical stop-motion animation of either six or 12 frames-per-second) was intended to give the video a familiar but unique rhythm akin to the drum machine featured throughout the song.” — Dana Sipos


Photo credit: Chris Dufour

LISTEN: Zach Person, “Wanna Fly”

Artist: Zach Person
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Wanna Fly”
Album: Zach Person
Release Date: April 2, 2021

In Their Words: “2020 was a crazy year for the entire world. All the political and social uproar in countries across the globe inspired me to write ‘Wanna Fly.’ I was listening to an episode of Broken Record (a podcast by Rick Rubin) where he was discussing protest songs, and I got to thinking about what a modern-day ‘Dylan-esque’ protest song would sound like. That thinking inspired much of the lyrics to the tune. I also wanted the song to have that big, open, and spacious feeling that you associate with sounds of the Wild West and open plains of early America. All of these elements blended together to make for a really unique but familiar experience for the listener.” — Zach Person


Photo credit: Christopher Durst

LISTEN: Maia Sharp, “Things to Fix”

Artist: Maia Sharp
Hometown: Nashville, TN (originally Los Angeles, CA)
Song: “Things to Fix”
Album: Mercy Rising
Release Date: May 7, 2021
Label: Crooked Crown

In Their Words: “When I moved into my place in Nashville in 2019 (from California where I had lived all my life) there was, of course, a list of things to fix or upgrade or just tailor to my taste. This was all while I was trying to process the end of my 21-year marriage. I knew there were things I said that I wish I hadn’t and things I should’ve said that I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how to fix that yet so instead I painted a room and then another room, I replaced locks and hinges and repurposed picture frames, you get the idea. I brought this situation as a song idea to my co-writer, Noah Guthrie (who has a great version of the song on his new album) and we saw it all the way through. Eventually I did get to say the better things to my ex and we are lifelong friends but in the meantime I had the cleanest house ever.” — Maia Sharp


Photo credit: Emily Kopp

Artist of the Month: Allison Russell

Allison Russell has already made an exceptional impression in roots music — first in the duo Birds of Chicago, then as a member of Our Native Daughters. Now with her new album Outside Child, she’s putting her own story front and center. Whether she’s singing in English or French, Russell’s voice feels like satin, comfortable and cool. Yet she weaves some of the most painful memories of her formative years in Montréal into the fabric of her Fantasy Recordings debut.

Special guests on the album include the McCrary Sisters, Ruth Moody, Erin Rae, and Yola. Upon revealing the project, Russell wrote, “This is my first solo album. It is acutely personal. It was hard for me to write, harder still to sing, play, and share. Also a relief. Like sucking the poison from a snake bite. Thanks to the supreme empathy, musicality, kindness, sensitivity, and humour of each artist who brought these songs to life with me, the recording process became — by some mystical alchemy –joyous and empowering…. Eased by loving communal laughter as much as shared tears.”

Specifically pulling from the childhood trauma she experienced at the hands of her stepfather, she adds, “This is my attempt at truth and reconciliation and forgiveness — a reckoning and a remembrance. This is my attempt to be the hero of my own history, despite the shame that has been my closest and constant companion all these years.”

We are proud to present Allison Russell as our BGS Artist of the Month for May. In the days ahead, look for a new performance video, an exclusive interview (read part one here)(read part two here), and a sleek style shoot with this singular artist, who now calls Nashville home alongside her partner JT Nero and their young daughter. Discover more of her musical journey with our BGS Essentials playlist.


Photo credit: Marc Baptiste

The Show on the Road – Ani DiFranco

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

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTSSPOTIFYSTITCHER

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

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

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

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

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

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


Photo credit: Daymon Gardner