Tag: american roots music

Root 66: Reckless Kelly’s Roadside Favorites

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Name: Reckless Kelly
Hometown: Austin, TX
Latest Project: Sunset Motel

Tacos: Living in Austin, Texas, is like living in taco heaven. There’s a taco on every corner and you really can’t go wrong. We are currently involved in a breakfast taco war with San Antonio, which I believe we’re winning. They have some good tacos, too, but for my money, I’d have to say that Maudie’s has the best tacos in town, and if we’re gonna get specific, Pete's tantalizing breakfast tacos are the bomb. Flour tortillas filled with eggs, potatoes, cheese, sausage, and serrano peppers. They are already hotter than the fiery bowels of hell, but I like to put a little of their fantastic salsa on there, too … really ties the room together. 

Burger: One of the greatest little greasy spoons in the world is a little dive called Brown’s Diner in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s a little café with about an eight- or 10-stool bar that’s usually filled with songwriters eating their world famous cheeseburgers and fries while washing it down with a Budweiser for $1.10. We’ve been known to log in some serious sessions there … the kind where you order a second cheeseburger a few hours later because you’re still there and smelling those burgers will get you every time. I’m pretty sure they’ve never cleaned the grill, which may be the secret to the success of the cheeseburger. The also have a world class jukebox, filled with classic country.

Record store: Bop Street, in Seattle, Washington. It used to be right next door to the Tractor Tavern where we almost always play. They’ve moved a few blocks away, but as far as I know, are still alive and well, which says a lot in this day and age. I was in there once looking for a British copy of Revolver and the owner asked me what I was looking for. I told him I didn't see one, and he took me down to the basement where he had what he estimated to be 750,000 albums and three full shelves of Beatles. He had about 20 copies of Revolver, and I picked one out. I bet he had several hundred Beatles albums, an instant stamp of approval in my book.

Book store: Kevin and Dustin Welch always told me about City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It was on my list for quite a while before I finally made it in and, since then, I don’t miss an opportunity to stop in when we’re in town. I was on a big Steinbeck kick a few years back and was having a hard time finding some of his lesser known works. City Lights had them all. I think I spent a couple hundred bucks on Steinbeck alone and then had to haul a huge bag of books all over town for the rest of the day, but it was worth it. I still don’t think I’ve read them all yet.

Backstage hang: Speaking of San Francisco, there is a festival there called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass that is our favorite backstage hang. The festival is put on by the Helman family and they treat the artists and fans like royalty. It’s free to the public and there are no corporate sponsors, so basically, it’s all about the music. The back stages are all set up with comfy couches, chairs, and everything you might want backstage. The staff is second to none and they aim to please. They also have artist-only pathways between stages so you can easily get from stage to stage to watch other bands or get someplace fast, if you need to jump up and jam with someone. 

Gear shop: It’s called Austin Vintage Guitars. They have a huge collection of great old guitars and amps. They also have the best amp service in town and, for my money, the world. It’s the kind of place where, if you’re not in the market to buy anything, you better not go in, because there’s always a guitar or amp calling your name and making you re-evaluate your current financial situation: “Well, I guess I could sell the car, and do the kids really need new shoes?”

Listening room: There are some great listening rooms out there … but when someone says “listening room,” I immediately think of the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia. We played there with Robert Earl Keen a few times when Robert used to take us out on the East Coast with him when we were just getting our feet wet. They have a strict "no talking over the band" policy, and it was one of the first places I’ve ever seen people really listen like there was gonna be a test at the end of the show. It’s a beautiful room. I’ve heard a few people say things like, “I don’t like the Birchmere because they won’t even let you talk …” I’m always thinking, "Exactly."

Music Festival: I may be biased, but my favorite festival is one that my parents have been putting on since I can remember. The Braun Brothers' Reunion started in Stanley, Idaho, about 30 years ago and was held there on a flatbed stage at the scenic city park. We moved the fest to Challis, Idaho, about 15 years ago, and have built a permanent stage on the driving range at the local golf course. The driving range is a perfect natural amphitheater where fans spread their blankets, set up chairs and awnings. Kids will be rolling down the hill and tossing frisbees around while the music plays in the background. The views are incredible and the little town grows from about 800 to about 3,400 over the three-day weekend. Almost everyone camps out in RVs or tents since there are only a couple hundred rooms available, so there are all these little makeshift villages of people who return every year and reconnect with other music fans they’ve met there over the years. What started as a couple local bands playing to a couple hundred people from the back of a flatbed trailer has turned into a three-day event with acts like Chris Hillman, Alejandro Escovedo, Robert Earl Keen, and the Randy Rogers band. The list goes on and on … It’s a unique festival and we’re really proud of it!

Driving album: My favorite driving music lately is live Bruce Springsteen bootlegs. I have a place up in Idaho that’s exactly a four-hour drive from the airport to the front door, and my friend Dale is a big Boss fan so he always sends me Bruce bootlegs. Since he varies his set list so much and plays for almost four hours a night, one show will pretty much get me home, and another will get me back to the airport. It’s a great way to pass the time on a drive that I’d otherwise be getting pretty sick of.

 

Not a bad view from tonight's show at #LazyGators in Lake Ozark, MO!

A photo posted by Reckless Kelly (@recklesskelly96) on

Car game: Our favorite car game as kids was “Name That Tune.” The rules were simple: We’d crank up the radio and the first person to yell out the artist and song got a point for each, and a bonus point for getting both. If you guessed wrong, you lost a point. We also had what we called a lightning round, which was when dad would hit the scan button and it would stop on every station for about five or 10 seconds. You could really rack up the points during a lightning round. If dad was falling behind, he’d always stop on the oldies station for a few songs and kick our asses.

Dive bar: There are so many great dive bars out there that it’s hard to narrow it down to one favorite. I have my favorite one here in Austin, but I don’t want it overrun with hipsters, so I’ll tell you about another one … Mary’s Club in Portland, Oregon, is one of the best dives ever. It’s a little hole in the wall with cheap drinks, classic drunks, and great bartenders. It’s also the oldest topless bar in Oregon, but you’d hardly know it was a strip club except for the topless dancers who pick their own songs on the jukebox that’s on stage, and sometimes they have to borrow a buck from someone to get started. We’re not really big strip club guys, but in a world of great dives, this one is right up there … and there just happens to be a topless dancer in the corner.

Highway stretch: Of all the cool stretches of highway in America, I’d have to say the coolest and most breathtaking one is Route 1, or the Pacific Coast Highway, out in California. You’ve got the ocean on one side and hillsides on the other. You pass through Big Sur and a bunch of cool little overlooks along the way. It’s hard to keep your eyes on the road! I’ve written a lot of songs about the road and that stretch of highway has inspired a few of them. I camped out on a cliff overlooking the ocean for a few days one time and wrote songs. When I left, a guy pulled in with his camper and asked if he could take the spot when I left and that he had always tried to get that particular site for years and couldn't believe his luck. Since I was flying out, I gave him a few leftover bottles of good wine a friend in Carmel had given me. I thought he was going to cry. Pay it forward! 

LISTEN: Andrew Leahey & the Homestead, ‘Little in Love’

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Andrew Leahey & the Homestead
Hometown: Nashville, TN (but born and raised in Richmond, VA)
Song: "Little in Love"
Album: Skyline in Central Time
Release Date: August 5
Label: Thirty Tigers / Skyline Music

Exclusive Quote from Artist: "I wrote Skyline in Central Time on either side of a brain operation that left me in recovery for months, so most of these songs deal with heavy stuff. But 'Little in Love' is different. It's a heartland rock 'n' roll love song about a former flame, written in the shotgun seat while my band was driving back to Nashville from a long weekend at SXSW. We shot the video inside a miniature toy shop. Have you ever been to a miniature toy shop? It's intense." — Andrew Leahey

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Son Little and the Truth of Absolutes

Posted on by Editor

Son Little (aka Aaron Earl Livingston) is one of those artists who transcend time, place, and genre. That makes his music hard to define, though not hard to appreciate … much like the artist who makes it. Livingston was born in Los Angeles, but grew up on the East Coast — somewhere between New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania – eventually calling Philadelphia home. In Philly, he found artistic camaraderie with RJD2 and the Roots, eventually taking up the Son Little moniker for his own work.

After his breakthrough EP, Things I Forgot, dropped last year, the soul-blues innovator was tapped to produce Mavis Staples' four-song Your Good Fortune EP that came out earlier this year. Now, he's back with a full-length, self-titled effort that continues to muddy the waters that flow between the roots of American music.

Are you a guy who feels like it all goes back to the blues?

It probably goes back beyond the blues, but I think our music here in America informs the whole world. If it's the family tree, the blues is definitely in the roots.

And do you feel like contemporary R&B has strayed from those origins, for the most part?

I think that's true, to a certain extent. I don't know if it's mincing words to start talking about pop music, but that line is maybe blurred a little bit — between R&B and pop. I think sometimes genres have become a sort of wallpaper. The blues is something that indicates rural living, country. And, when you want to portray modernity or you want to convey a metropolitanism, you would avoid the blues. So I think maybe, in that sense, contemporary R&B is affiliated with a feeling of sophistication or urban-ness that you can't signify by using the blues.

Nu-soul, neo-blues, modern blues, “soulful new Americana,” “soul music for the hip-hop generation" … How do YOU describe your music? Or how would you like it described? And have there been tags applied that are uncomfortable?

You can't really control what people call it, so I don't worry about that too much. But there have been some descriptions that I really like. There's a guy here in Philly I was talking to a few weeks ago. He told me that he had listened to the record and it was like Sam Cooke in outer space. [Laughs] I really like that.

We did a show in Woodstock, NY, and this guy came up after and said something like Howlin' Wolf meets Fugazi, or something like that. I like that. I think there are a lot of ways to describe it. There are a lot of ways to describe anything. And they can all be right … or all be equally wrong.

While there's nothing retro about what you're doing, it is still more authentic and informed by the past, but it's completely of the here and now. I feel like Alabama Shakes are doing something comparable. And Fink is in the neighborhood, too, but not as complex in the craftsmanship.

I love the Alabama Shakes record. You can hear the development from the last one. They are becoming more unique, in a way — their voice, collectively. And Brittany, of course individually, is becoming more specific.

I do feel like there's a similar approach. They probably get lumped into being retro but, especially with this record, it's clear that's not what it is. For some people, maybe it is retro for people to write songs with a guitar and go play their shows with guitar and bass and drums. That's maybe a retro idea and maybe we're at a point where, just doing that alone, is seemingly retro. But despite the fact that there's nothing new under the sun, I think everyone's different and we can all find our own way of doing that very thing that's so familiar. Despite everything, a singer is who they are and sounds how they sound. If you're willing to be your own thing, you can find that.

What Leon Bridges is doing, that's retro. Or Nathaniel Rateliff's new record.

People are definitely doing that.

… but this ain't that.

Right. At the same time, it's 2015. It's not 1960 no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try to make something sound like a time that's passed. The time has passed. You're still making something new or unique. With a lot of that stuff — Iike with the Alabama Shakes — I'm interested to see what develops from the point that Leon Bridges is starting at. I'm excited to see what he does next. Where do you go with that?


So that's style. Now let's get into substance. When Ferguson was the topic of the day, there was some criticism that artists weren't doing their part, weren't showing solidarity. You address your experience of that and Eric Garner in “Oh Mother.” Do you feel any sort of imperative to take that stuff on … Black Lives Matter or whatever speaks to you?

No. I don't actually. I understand people's criticism of artists, in that respect, because I think people have come to depend on artists to make statements and speak for us as a whole. But, like anything else, I think it's a little lazy to just expect that someone else is going to do something. For people who make that criticism, if what you want said isn't being said, then say it yourself. If it really means that much … if it's imperative that it be said and it's not being said, then you need to say it.

But, that said, no matter how I feel about an issue, I also have rules about the way I make music and express myself. The main rule is that I don't force myself to do anything. If I'm compelled to speak about something, then I will speak. I'm not going to speak because other people think I should.

You are just Aaron, when it comes down to it.

Yeah, that's the thing … I wrote those things because I felt compelled, as a person, to express myself about them. And it's great if those things resonate with people, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't feel the need, internally, to do that.

In an interview I read, you talked about being able to see more than one side to things. Absolutes and firm truths don't really exist, do they? It's all subjective perception.

If you're realistic about it, it's pretty hard to come to any other conclusion. [Laughs] If I have an absolute belief in something and there's no proof, so to speak — it's my conviction and faith that I'm holding on to — you may have the exact opposite feeling and who am I to tell you you're wrong? And who are you to tell me I'm wrong? I think, in a lot of cases, that's how we end up killing each other and confusing ourselves and forgetting what's important.

I'm curious about something … As you travel around the country, hitting truck stops and diners on highways in the Heartland, do you feel eyes on you?

Yeah, sometimes, because I don't look like them. I try to be an easy person to talk to and I'm interested in people who are different than me. So I think, sometimes, maybe part of it is people who grow up, say in the Northeast, we're the most neurotic part of the country. [Laughs] We're all in our heads and we care and wonder and try to predict what other people think of us probably too much. So, sometimes, with things like that, I wonder how much is just all in my head. If someone's looking at you, they're curious — maybe more than anything else.

For a long time, I was never south of Virginia, so I had a made up version of what the South is or what the Midwest is. We think of everyone in a sort of monochromatic way: “People in the South are this. People in the Midwest are this.” But we're not allowing people in those places to be all the different things that people in those places are. That's actually been one of my favorite aspects of my career. I've now been to a lot of those places, not just big cities. I've been to Milwaukee. And I've been to Iowa. And I've been to North Carolina and places like that and really got to experience what it's really like there.

All photos by the supremely talented Laura E. Partain. You can find her on Instagram and Tumblr.

Squared Roots: Brandi Carlile Makes the Case for Elton John

Posted on by Editor

The classically trained Sir Elton John wasn’t always just so. In his early days, Reginald Dwight was so hooked on the American sounds of Elvis Presley, Ray Charles, Jim Reeves, Bill Haley, and Jerry Lee Lewis that the band he formed in 1962 was called Bluesology. Then, in 1967, John met lyricist Bernie Taupin and music history would soon be made. The pair continues writing together today, after more than 57 Top 40 hits (in the U.S.) on 30+ albums … and nearly as many awards.

“Border Song,” “Tiny Dancer,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Philadelphia Freedom,” and myriad other John/Taupin collaborations fill the soundtracks of so many lives … singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile‘s among them. She grew up idolizing the two British music men and, after combining their influence with a dash of Johnny Cash and a pinch of Patsy Cline, found her own rootsy sound evolving and emanating from that somewhat surprising foundation.

To connect the dots between Sir Elton and American roots music, you have to go back to his days as Reggie Dwight. Draw that line for us.

I feel like sometimes an artist’s separation from their influences by proximity and culture almost intensify and exaggerate the effect that a certain genre has on them. Examples of this that come to mind are Paul McCartney’s passion for Buddy Holly and American rock ‘n’ roll; Old Crow Medicine Show cutting their teeth in Ithaca, NY, only to become incredible live Appalachian bluegrass on steroids — complete with Ketch Secor’s almost savant encyclopedia of knowledge on the genre and his preoccupation with southern culture; British, bluegrass-influenced arena band Mumford and Sons and Colorado-based Lumineers are also good examples of this … not to mention my personal obsession with country music and the South as a northerner or, as an American, my obsession with Brit Pop — Freddie Mercury, the Beatles … but, above all these, Elton John. Admiration from a distance is the strongest kind.

While Elton, by definition, is decidedly British, he has pushed the envelope on genre so far that it’s completely inapplicable to him. He was deeply influenced by American rock ‘n’ roll and roots music. Being so far away from Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley only seems to have fueled the obsession with the culture of early American rock ‘n’ roll roots music for him.

Elton once said that Elvis looked like an alien to him. My great uncle Sunny, a guitar player and singer, told me that he was too busy (along with his friends) being jealous of Elvis Presley to be influenced by him at the time. The space between an artist and the music that inspires them becomes purer as it grows, erasing lines of competition, jealousy, even racism and politics. Elton John is a lover of early American rock ‘n’ roll roots music, pure as the driven snow. He could probably teach you and me a thing or two about it!

The most defining influences from early to current Elton John are his deep love for Leon Russell and Buffy Sainte-Marie. It took an eccentric British man in his 60s to teach me about these two absolute pillars in American folk/roots and to see something fundamental that was right in front of my nose whole time.

Once he teamed up with Bernie Taupin, things shifted. What threads of honky tonk, gospel, and other roots do you hear in their early work?

When Elton John started writing with Bernie Taupin, it was like rock ‘n’ roll met roots — Captain Fantastic meets the Brown Dirt Cowboy — and now you don’t only have early American overtones, musically, but they’re touching lyrically on early American themes. The entire Tumbleweed Connection record is Civil War fantasy meets early American Western. Good guys and bad guys, riverboats, Yankees and the Union, sons of their fathers, New Orleans, and “good old country comfort in my bones.”

Early American gospel makes its way onto Elton John many times, most notably in “Border Song” complete with a nod to ending racism. These themes are a constant throughout their career and continue to be. “Texan Love Song,” to Roy Rogers, all the way to the T Bone Burnett records of today, The Union and The Diving Board.

Bernie Taupin, to me, is the best lyricist there is and certainly the most fantastical and unselfish in his work. He is deeply interpretative and, honestly, self-revealing while also introducing us to fantasy and objectivity unchanged for 40 years.


Elton John with Bernie Taupin (left) in 1971. Photo credit: Public domain.

You have a thing for big personalities in your musical heroes … Elton, Elvis, Freddie Mercury, Johnny Cash. So you clearly don’t think Elton’s flamboyant, costumed persona took anything away from his respectability as an artist. Correct?

No! No way! Elton John’s eccentricity is authentic. Picture Elton John in the hipster attire of his time — skinny jeans and a beard, all browns and fedoras with a tiny tie. Who’s going to believe anything a guy has to say about “Bennie and the Jets” in that? He proved that he could make you cry dressed like Donald Duck. That means everything. Little Jimmy Dickens and Minnie Pearl probably loved him.

There aren’t many artists who could do a duets album that included Tammy Wynette, Leonard Cohen, and RuPaul. So what is it about Elton and his music that create such a wide berth?

The thing about Elton John that creates a wide berth is that he is a truly authentic person who thrives on enthusiasm and loving people! In fact, he loves so many different kinds of people that he regularly offends someone over his acceptance of someone else. Dolly Parton also has this rare gift. Elton tends to embrace the unacceptable — from collaborating with Eminem when he was in such hot water, to playing at Rush Limbaugh’s birthday party, to insinuating that Jesus might be gay, to now getting on the phone with Vladimir Putin on behalf of LGBT Russian citizens. As a result, when Elton john speaks out against something, everyone listens … I certainly do.

Elton is wildly diverse in his efforts to become a bridge builder. He’s very intriguing and his musical collaborations have been very reflective of that. I used to listen to Duets, his collaborative duets record from the ’90s, and I never got tired of it because even if I was over [Don] Henley that day, I could hear him sing with Tammy.

Which album can we point to as the one where he moved completely away from his early influences? Or is there an argument to be made that they are still there, even in “Circle of Life”?

The beauty of Elton and Bernie is that there are no absolutes that can be applied to any one of their albums. They are a wild ride of genre twists and turns, career long. Say what you will about musical consistency, none of these records are background music. You don’t want to have them playing while you’re hosting a dinner party.

If I had to point to a departure from roots music — although never completely — I’d say maybe some of the mid-80s to early-90s stuff. From Leather Jackets, Breaking Hearts, maybe Too Low For Zero, or The Big Picture. However, having said that, those records made a huge impact on me and, last time I checked, I’m still a roots artist. Elton’s Americana leanings are firmly in tact. His last two records with T Bone Burnett are truly some of the best of his career. The Union with Leon Russell is a favorite of mine and The Diving Board is a return to form in a way that feels to me like hearing Johnny Cash sing alone on American Recordings.

Elton and Bernie have deeply influenced me as an American roots artist from 5,000 miles away! Thanks for giving me the chance to say so.

Brandi Carlile photo courtesy of Brandi Carlile. Elton John photo credit: Heinrich Klaffs / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA.