Tag: Americana

Joe Pug: From Family Roots to ‘The Flood in Color’

Posted on by Editor

Joe Pug rises to the occasion on The Flood in Color, his first new album in four years. Recorded in Nashville with lightly textured production from Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids, the quiet collection conveys a man willing to look back on his life. Meanwhile, Pug relocated from Austin, Texas, back to his home turf in Maryland, and started a family. The Flood in Color is not filled with songs about domesticity, however. Instead, there’s a folk flair – and occasionally a topical perspective – that Pug’s longtime fans will immediately embrace. So will listeners of his podcast, “The Working Songwriter.”

Corresponding by email, Joe Pug answered these questions for The Bluegrass Situation.

BGS: This album feels like a body of work that’s intended to be taken as a whole. Do you see it that way as well?

Pug: Yes. There’s been a decade of talk about how the album is dead, about how everyone is going to switch to putting out singles willy-nilly, about how the format for an album was just a consequence of a vinyl record’s physical limitations. And fair enough. Maybe when my kids come of age and Spotify is the only thing they’ve ever known, that will be the case.

But for the time being, you have a whole generation of artists who grew up with that format and who still conceive their creative works within its boundaries. More importantly, you have a generation of listeners who are expecting and desiring to hear songs in that format. So I did intend for these songs to be heard together, and heard in the order that they’ve been sequenced.

In the song “Exit,” there’s a reference to a highway west of Davenport and Kansas – that’s an interesting choice for a lyric. What sort of imagery does that line bring to you?

There was a period of time in my early 20s when I was living in Chicago and working 9 to 5 during the week as a carpenter. At night, I would play open mics in the city. And on the weekend, I would self-book these mini tours across the Midwest. They’d go through Sioux Falls, Des Moines, Eau Claire, and Maumee, Illinois. The imagery in this song comes from that time when I was young, on the road in America, completely alone, close to broke.

It was a completely insane idea. It was like going over the entirety of our huge country with a magnifying glass. In fact, when I’d get pulled over by cops for speeding and they’d ask why I was in their small town at 2 in the morning, they would never believe that I had left Chicago to play some hole-in-the-wall in their town. To their credit, they were right, it made no sense.

Why did The Flood in Color fit well as an album title for this particular project?

Very rarely, an idea will come to me in my sleep. Or to put it more specifically, in the very last moment before I drift off to sleep. It’s a cruel joke. I will have been working on some damned terrible song for hours one day and going to bed empty-handed. And then some completely unrelated idea — a phrase, a lyric, a melody — will suddenly appear in my head as I’m lying prone and waiting for sleep. I have to drag myself out from under the covers and write it down.

“The Flood in Color,” that phrase came to me one night like that. And I knew it was the album title. Right before we went into the studio, I took a swing at writing it as a song. It came out to our liking, so it became the title and the title track.

This record feels intimate and meaningful, especially with the spare production. When you had the final mixes back, who was the first person you played them for? What was the reaction?

I played them for my father. And he really liked them. I know that because I’ve always played him my rough mixes early on, for every album. He never gives me in-depth critiques, but if he doesn’t like something he just keeps his mouth shut. These were the first songs in quite a while where he didn’t keep his mouth shut. I could tell it really moved him.

What is that experience like for you to bring a complete, new song into the world?

My process takes a really long time. From the initial writing, to the editing, to the recording, mixing, mastering, and finally the release. So some of these songs are two years old. I’ve spent countless hours with all of these. So by the time they come out, I feel a strange distance from them. They feel like someone else’s songs to me. And I can finally appreciate them or critique them on their own merits rather than songs I have an intimate connection to.

I understand that you are living in Maryland now. Why is that?

My wife and I started a family three years ago. We’re both from Prince George’s County, Maryland, which is a very special place right outside of DC. We wanted to be around family. Plus if I had spent another two years living outside of Maryland, then I would have spent more years of my life living elsewhere. There was always an internal clock in my head that was ticking towards moving back home. I wanted to go out and see the world, I wanted to do my own small version of Campbell’s hero’s journey. But I also wanted to end up around my family and I wanted my kids to grow up around family.

To me, “The Stranger I’ve Been” feels like a lost treasure of country music. Who are some of the country artists who have shaped your work?

Oh, a ton, but not necessarily anything obscure or surprising: George Jones, Harlan Howard, Gillian Welch, Tom T. Hall, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, The Louvin Brothers.

Are you a vinyl collector? If so, what kind of records do you always keep an eye out for?

I am not. Only a vinyl seller. Haha.

On another topic, what are some of the most impactful books you’ve read lately?

Oh man, I’ve got two kids under 3 years old, I’ve taken a pause from my reading regimen. I’ve been using podcasts and audiobooks to fill the gap. Because I can listen to them with what you might call “found time”… driving the car, doing the dishes, mowing the grass, exercising. My favorite podcasts to spend time with are “Hardcore History with Dan Carlin,” “Duncan Trussell Family Hour,” “Henry and Heidi” (with Henry Rollins), and “The Lowe Post” (for basketball).

You have a podcast dedicated to songwriters. What has surprised you the most about that project?

How often songwriters, especially very successful songwriters, think that they’re finished, that they’ll never work again, that they’ll never find another inspiring tune. It’s inspiring on one hand to think that these people I admire have to go through the same tribulations. It’s frightening on the other hand to learn conclusively that there is no final creative plateau that you can reach and just build your house on. You can’t ever stop moving forward because you’ll turn to stone. You have to keep moving forward creatively or time will pass you by. And that is a positively exhausting lesson to learn.

Has there been a common thread among your guests so far?

The show began as only people who were in my phonebook, people that I could get a hold of directly. Now as the show has grown and we’ve had a history of good guests, we’re starting to branch out and pitch the show to bigger artists that I don’t have a personal relationship with.

This is your first album in four years – and it’s a record to be proud of. What are you now looking forward to the most?

For people to hear this damned thing! I don’t know if people will like it or not, but this took everything I had creatively for three years. So I’m at peace with however they feel about it. I happen to really like it, so at this point I’m looking at everything else as gravy.

Photo credit: Dave Creaney

WATCH: The Highwomen, “Redesigning Women”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The day has come, The Highwomen are here! The superstar assemblage of some of this moment’s most prominent and influential voices in country and Americana includes 2019’s breakout star, Brandi Carlile, Nashville’s Americana sweetheart Amanda Shires, singer and hit songwriter Natalie Hemby, and one of mainstream country’s current powerhouses — and a one of very few women to break into the upper echelons of country’s radio charts these days — Maren Morris.

The Highwomen and their contemporaries — unapologetic, unabashed women who proudly stand on their own agency and vision, artistic and otherwise — have defined the last handful of years of American roots music with releases such as “Redesigning Women.” These songs simultaneously acknowledge the uphill climb women face today, especially in roots genres, but not without a heavy dose of the same mettle, the outstanding courage, that has allowed them to already supersede their barriers to entry.

With a moniker that directly references and re-appropriates the iconic all-male supergroup of the 80s and 90s (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson) it might appear that these four have gargantuan shoes to fill. However, any of even the most casual country fans of the past half decade would know the Highwomen are more than up for the task.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

The Small Glories Share Canadian Stories in Song

Posted on by Editor

When it’s mentioned that the word “ambassador” comes to mind when listening to the Small Glories’ new album, Cara Luft starts to cheer. Along with her singing partner JD Edwards, the Small Glories see themselves as Canadian storytellers, like troubadours going from town to town singing about the world around them.

Truly, the Manitoba-based folk duo’s latest, Assiniboine & The Red, gives special insight into their unique worldview with songs like “Alberta,” “Winnipeg,” and “Don’t Back Down.” Chatting by phone, Luft shared a few more stories with the Bluegrass Situation.

BGS: It’s been a few year since you’ve made a record. What was the vibe in the studio when you were making this one?

CL: It was interesting in that we got everybody back together again. The only thing that changed was our engineer — and he’s a friend of ours. We had the same producer (Neil Osborne) and the same rhythm section, which was great. We actually recorded it in Winnipeg, and it was nice to be in our hometown. You know what was so funny? It was April but it was freezing cold. It was one of those moments like, “Oh my God, we live in Canada.” It’s April 15 and it’s minus 15 degrees, which is ridiculous! It was freezing! So, I remember being very cold!

This is for the Bluegrass Situation, so we have to talk about the banjo.

We do! [Laughs]

Tell me what attracted you to the banjo in the first place.

I grew up in a folk-singing family. My parents were a professional folk duo and played music when they were younger, too. My dad is a wonderful clawhammer banjo player. He’s been playing for close to sixty years now. So I grew up listening to the banjo, never thinking that I’d actually want to play it, but I did love the sound of it. I think it was kind of inevitable that I would pick it up. And of course it’s not the three-finger bluegrass style, even though I love that style. I don’t really play that but I do love the sound of the banjo.

And I love writing with it. It’s such a different instrument than the guitar. I really was guitar-focused for most of my career. I picked up the banjo nine years ago and I found it really fascinating to change the way my right hand worked, because it’s a different movement than if you’re doing fingerstyle guitar. And just having that drone string, I find that it’s like no other instrument that I’ve ever attempted playing. It’s this beautiful string that just rings out. I found it a very interesting way to write. I write differently on the banjo than I do on the guitar, so it’s brought me into a wider perspective of songs to write, I would say.

How are the songs different that you’re writing on banjo?

I would say I’m writing more tune-based songs on the banjo. As a guitar play, I am a really strong rhythm player and I would do the odd lick here and there, you know, coming up with something, but I wasn’t really a lead player on guitar. I would do some fingerstyle stuff, in more of the realm of those folkie fingerstyle guys like Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, but not really tune-based. The banjo is definitely much more tune-based for me. I write melodies on the banjo, where I never really wrote melodies on guitar before. I would sing a melody but I wouldn’t necessarily play a melody, so it’s been really beautiful to explore this melodic writing on a banjo.

I read an interview about how you loved the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken as a kid. I was curious how that might have impacted your music.

Yeah! For me, growing up in a folk-singing family, there was music all the time in the house, whether it was listening to vinyl or listening to my parents rehearse, or listening to people play house concerts, or musicians who were traveling through town and rehearsing in our living room. So I was steeped in acoustic music from a very, very young age, whether it was live or recorded.

I remember listening to Will the Circle Be Unbroken, with the Carter Family and all these phenomenal people. There’s a track on there, “Soldier’s Joy,” with two banjo players, and one is playing clawhammer and one is playing three-finger, and to this day it’s still one of my favorite songs to listen to. I think it’s just the beauty of acoustic music and the history of acoustic music, whether it’s bluegrass or folk – and to me, the lines are a little blurred there. But that album in particular, I remember listening to it all through high school and even into my early 20s.

When I listen to “Don’t Back Down,” I can hear a sense of strength in there. What was on your mind when you wrote that song?

I wrote that with Bruce Guthro, who’s a great singer-songwriter, but he’s also lead singer of a group called Runrig, a great Scottish band, even though he’s from Canada. We wrote that as part of a collaboration where we were given the theme of writing around “home,” or what we would consider calling “home.” Bruce is from Cape Breton Island, which is in Nova Scotia, way out in the Maritime Provinces. It’s known for its musical history, but it’s also known for communities that are dying because either mining has stopped or fishing has stopped. So these people would be moving away from their communities, trying to find homes and work in other locations.

I was talking to him about being from the Canadian prairies, where there are quite a few areas in Saskatchewan that are full of ghost towns, where people have uprooted and moved to cities like Calgary or Edmonton, or Fort McMurray where the oil sands are. We were comparing notes about these communities that are dying, and what is it like for those who decide to stay? They don’t want to give up on all the things that hit them, right? They stick around during the dust bowl or when the fires come, when work has dried up and people are trying to find a way to make a living. So we thought, “Let’s write a song to honor those people who have decided to make it work in their home communities.”

Speaking of home, your song “Winnipeg” is such a love letter to your hometown. I noticed as that song progresses, there is another voice that comes in. Can you tell me more about that?

Yes, we have two guest vocalists on that track. Winnipeg has a huge indigenous population and a huge Métis population, which is a combination of people who have come from both an indigenous and a French background, and we also have a large French population, and then the English, and then everything else under the sun is in there, too.

We felt that in order to really honor our adopted hometown of Winnipeg, we needed to involve the French and the First Nations people in the song. We have a wonderful singer and songwriter who is Métis and she ended up writing a French portion to the song and doing a call-and-response with us on the track. And we invited a First Nations chanter and drummer to come and sing at the end of the song. We felt it wrapped up this beautiful multicultural community that we have in Winnipeg.

To me, “Sing” captures the spirit of this record. It lets people know about you and what you stand for. Is that important for you to share your own experiences with an audience?

Yes, I think it is. I think we’ve been more aware of bringing stories from other places that we’ve been, too, so it’s a combination of our experiences and also other people’s experiences. And with this record being released on an American label, we feel very privileged to be able to share about Canada with our American neighbors. It’s a very Canadian-focused album, with a strong sense of location. We want to bring stories about the people in Canada, and what things are like for us, and share that with the States, and Europe, and Australia, and the markets we get to go to.

It’s so great when people hear a song like “Winnipeg,” like, the people who come up to us in England and say, “Wow, I never thought I’d want to go to Winnipeg!” It cracks us up. We’re happy that we live in Winnipeg and we’re lucky that we live in Canada. We feel very privileged to live in Canada and we want to share some of the love, and some of the stories, of who we are and where we’re from.

Photo credit: Stefanie Atkinson

Jamestown Revival Find Their Sound on ‘San Isabel’

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There are more trees than people in San Isabel, Colorado, where the Wet Mountains poke the sky and Jamestown Revival’s Zach Chance and Jonathan Clay set up a makeshift recording studio in a cabin. The Texas natives emerged with San Isabel, a gorgeous new album that marks both a return to Jamestown Revival’s acoustic roots and a bold step forward into more topical lyricism.

While addressing the unease now shaping the country’s collective mindset is a first for the pair, the record maintains Zach and Jonathan’s anchors of empathy and hope – along with their now-signature Southern folk harmonies that are woven together with that unexplainable richness usually reserved for families.

With a day off from touring, Jamestown Revival called in for a conversation with the Bluegrass Situation.

BGS: Location seems important to you guys. Take your album titles, for example. Utah was your first, and now, with San Isabel, you’ve returned to an album title that documents where you recorded. You’re not from or living in Utah or Colorado, but you sought them out. Why?

Jonathan Clay: Colorado is a place we’ve always loved. Long story short, we had access to a summer cabin in Colorado, and we thought, Gosh, we should take advantage of this.

Zach Chance: It’s kind of twofold. It was access to those places and trying to record in a guerrilla fashion. We enjoy the adventure of it — going and setting up in these settings, being removed — it just makes for a really fun process for us.

JC: For us, the city is not really conducive to creativity. It’s just not where I feel compelled to create.

ZC: The city has its own flavor of inspiration. It does inspire us at times, but it’s not really where we like to record, so…

JC: We have a habit of getting out into the woods when we’re ready to make an album.

Why did you guys decide to return to a more acoustic sound this time around, compared to The Education of a Wandering Man?

ZC: We weren’t touring as much as we had been the past couple of years. We’d been writing for some other things, and we just really wanted to go back to two voices – to write songs that could work with one guitar and two voices, back to the roots of what we were doing. I don’t know if it was all the noise of the time we live in right now, but we wanted something more centered around traditional folk storytelling. We were listening to a lot of Bob Dylan, Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young – stuff like that. We felt compelled to live in that world.

Do you have favorite songs on the new record?

ZC: I don’t know. As soon as we start talking about them, I’ll tell you all the reasons I love them. Maybe I’m too diplomatic. I love “Harder Way” and “Who Hung the Moon.” That was a song we wrote in Colorado and recorded in a day. They’re like children. We love them all equally but differently. This might sound really dumb [Laughs], but there have been times playing “Crazy World” that I get kind of choked up. I start thinking about everything, and I get a little sad. The first few times we played it out, I got really emotional. We want to write stuff that ages like we’re aging — that matures a little bit.

JC: I think that’s a good point. We want our art to grow with us and mature with and without our listeners. I really like “Who Hung the Moon.” “Harder Way” is a pretty special song. I’m actually pulling my three-year-old boy on the scooter right now, humming melodies that I don’t know. It’s a special thing. When I sing the line about my boy, it’s coming from a real place. I have to hold back emotions sometimes because I think, I’ve got an audience to perform to. I can’t get choked up because that makes it hard to sing.

It seems like more and more artists feel obligated to address the uneasiness in the country right now. San Isabel does it – not necessarily explicitly, but it is still more topical than your previous work. Did you feel obligated to do that?

JC: I don’t think it was out of obligation more than it was just compulsion. We just felt compelled. It’s on everybody’s mind –everybody’s consciousness. As an artist, I think your consciousness manifests in your songs. That’s what happened with us.

First, you take a beat to acknowledge the despair a lot of folks are feeling in “Crazy World.”

JC: Zach and I have always been careful not to speak from some place of moral high ground. We don’t want to be just one more person preaching to somebody, as if we’ve got all the answers, because I think the problems plaguing our country are very complicated. If you oversimplify them and place blame, you’re falling victim to the very thing you’re proclaiming to rally against.

In a lot of our songs, we just point out what we see. It’s almost a lament rather than a judgment. We’re all in this together. All of our countrymen and women, we created this – we all played a hand in it. We’re trying to point out our observations and underscore the fact that we’re all on the same team, when you really get down to it. We all do care about each other. I feel like we’ve got more in common than we realize sometimes. It seems like sometimes the world is wrapped up in greed and malice and angst and vitriol rather than peace and — not to sound cheesy, but — harmonious things, the things that really give us happiness.

ZC: Yeah, it’s funny. “Crazy World (Judgment Day)” and “This Too Shall Pass” are back to back on the album. And those are like two sides of the same coin, you know? “Crazy World” is the day you wake up and think, I have zero hope for humanity. The idea was you’re sitting in a bar, and you’ve had a few to drink. Stuff is coming across the news, and you’re just discussing the state of affairs, like, “Yeah, man. It’s still a crazy world. Not much has changed.”

I love that you just brought up that it’s like those two songs are two sides of the same coin because it does feel like “This Too Shall Pass” offers some comfort.

ZC: Yeah, as dark as I can get, I recognize that I’m probably a glass is half full person. John, I think you are too.

JC: Oh, I’m a hopeless optimist.

ZC: [Laughs] So, that song speaks to that. No matter how dismal it is, we have to find a silver lining. Friendships and family are where the true joys in your life come from, more often than not.

What’s the best thing you’ve encountered or experienced back on the road this time?

ZC: Oh gosh, I have so many good ones. Eating dumplings in New York in this little shop in Chinatown. We crammed in with all our people, sat with strangers, and the beers were flowing. Those nights are fun. The camaraderie of being on tour again: You’re just living together, and you come home with a million new inside jokes and phrases.

JC: One thing that was really cool about this tour is we brought somebody out in our crew as a roadie who had never been out of Texas. We saw the world through his eyes. His parents brought him here from Mexico when he was six years old. He hasn’t had the opportunity to do much traveling. I met him and thought he seemed like a cool dude, so we gave him a job as a roadie.

ZC: We’re all a bit more advanced in age and have made a few more laps around the country, so in some ways, you can be jaded by that. But he’s 21, and experiencing all these things for the first time. It was really fun to relive some of this stuff through his eyes.

On this album, it feels like you have found your sound, at least for now. Comparisons to Simon & Garfunkel are inevitable, but ultimately, you don’t sound like anyone else out there right now.

JC: Well that’s a huge compliment. I appreciate that.

ZC: We definitely look up to Simon & Garfunkel and the Everly Brothers and would gladly take a comparison, but humbly say those guys are masters. We’re trying to figure it out.

JC: Yeah, those guys are masters, but we want to be masters. Somebody’s got to carry the torch. I’m not saying that in a cocky way, but I would love to be somebody that attempts to carry the torch. It’s what we love to do, and it’s what we love to sing. Singing without harmony — I don’t enjoy it half as much. When I sing with Zach, my voice feels complete. So it’s almost like a musical necessity for us.

If it were just the harmonies, the comparisons to Simon & Garfunkel would still come, but it’s your writing too, which is so strong.

JC: A lot of people still ask, “Are y’all brothers? The way y’all harmonize, I feel like you have to have grown up with each other.” Well, we’re not brothers, but we have been singing together since we were 15 years old, so I guess that’s about as close as you can get without being blood-related. It’s like a vocal marriage.

As far as the writing goes, we try to be thoughtful and not say things in a way that’s been said before. We knew early on that we wanted to be the kind of writers who are not overly esoteric or hard to understand. We wanted to speak in a way that’s plain and understandable but at the same time, maybe put in a way that you haven’t quite heard it put before.

Photo credit: Paul Pryor

Kauai Folk Festival Will Celebrate Music of Hawaii and Beyond

Posted on by Editor

Even for knowledgeable fans of folk music, the lineup of the Kauai Folk Festival offers plenty of artists to discover from Hawaii and beyond. Along with headliners like Taj Mahal’s Hula Blues Band and Peter Rowan’s My Aloha Bluegrass Band, the two-day roster also features Hawaiian music from Puka Asing, Wally Rita y Los Kauaianos, and more representing the diversity of Hawaiian traditional music.

With five stages running continuously, the lineup also includes Jonny Fritz, Blaine Sprouse, Ed Poullard, Reeb Williams & Caleb Klauder, Mike Bub, and many others. Meanwhile, Kauai Folk Workshops will offer instruction on guitar, fiddle, banjo, ukulele and mandolin, in addition to dance instructors teaching hula, square dance, swing, and two-step, and voice instructors teaching harmony singing, ballads, and Hawaiian song.

Festival director Matt Morelock fielded a few questions by email about the festival, slated for September 28-29 at the historic Grove Farm Museum in Lihue, on the southeast coast of Kauai.

BGS: What inspired the idea to create a folk festival in Kauai?

Morelock: For decades, Hawaiian music has stood on the periphery of the ‘folk’ genre. Its undeniable and indelible influence on all forms of American music deserves to be celebrated. We created the Kauai Folk Festival for such a celebration and invited all of our favorite performers, both local and continental, to sing, pick, dance, and meet one another in this tropical paradise.

When you are selecting artists, do you have a certain audience in mind? In other words, is there a common thread that runs through your lineup and/or your ticket holders?

We’ve attempted to represent the broadest swath of ‘folk’ music and musicians that we could find. From bluegrass to blues – from Cajun to country – we chose the best performers in as many genres as possible to illustrate the diversity of American folk music. The common thread is diversity. Artists were chosen for their enthusiasm and skill.

What have you learned about the process of booking festivals that has really surprised you?

We’ve learned that a worthwhile festival is one with a purpose. Hawaiian music and musicians are fighting against the expense and logistical complication of geographical separation as well as the mass perception of their music and culture as ‘foreign,’ when in truth Hawaiian music and culture is both a product of and strong influence on what we consider ‘American’ culture and music. We’ve learned that a higher purpose can confound the typical challenges that festivals face in finding an identity and audience.

For someone who has never been to Kauai, how would you describe it to them?

In addition to being GORGEOUS BEYOND BELIEF, Kauai is rural and cosmopolitan at the same time. There are more wild pigs than human beings living on this island. The natural beauty and local hospitality are legendary. You can book a hotel and rent a car here just like you can anywhere else in the U.S. Flights aren’t as expensive as you think. Beer is cheap. Fresh food and clean air are abundant. There’s really no reason NOT to visit!

In addition to interest from the locals, you will be hoping to attract people from the mainland as well. What are some of the amenities or unique qualities that will make this festival a destination event?

We’ve opted to keep festival admission affordable rather than spending time and resources on lodging and flight packages. We trust that Kauai Folk Festival attendees from the mainland won’t have trouble booking a flight, renting a car, and finding a hotel room. Kauai itself is a uniquity. The festival and the astounding Grove Farm Museum are an amenity. There’ll be a broad selection of spectacular local cuisine (plenty of accommodations for vegan/vegetarian/gluten-free diets), and extremely creative beverage and local juice options. We’re also ‘on call’ via www.kauaifolk.com to assist with any travel questions or complications!

What do you hope that attendees will take away from the Kauai Folk Festival experience?

We hope that Kauai Folk Festival fans will leave the event with a deeper understanding of the historical interconnectedness between Hawaiian culture and ‘mainland’ culture. In the production process, we are finding similarities and cross-influences on a daily basis!

The Ever-Shifting Dance of Shovels & Rope

Posted on by Editor

On an unseasonably cool summer afternoon in Los Angeles, something very interesting happens as Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent chat with a third person at a cafe patio table, though it takes a few minutes to unfold.

The topic, at first, is how much real life is in the songs Hearst and Trent make as the sweetly rackety, Charleston, South Carolina-based duo Shovels & Rope. Does it reflect their decade’s worth of experiences as a married couple and, now, their experiences with two small kids? The material, after all, gets kind of dark at some turns.

“Yes and no,” Trent says. “I mean, we’ve always kind of been character writers. That’s just the type of writing that’s been interesting to us. And also, we’re, you know, generally happy people. We don’t need the suffering to…”

“I hate suffering,” Hearst interjects cheerfully.

“Some people feel they need to experience firsthand some kind of suffering to make art,” Trent continues. “And I’ve never really subscribed to that. We just make up the world and make up the character thing and write about it.”

Then, as it does, the subject turns to murder ballads. They’ve done a few in the course of their time together. There’s “Evil,” a song they wrote on the 2014 album Swimmin’ Time. And their new album By Blood features “Pretty Polly,” their reinterpretation of the staple of the British-Appalachian folk canon.

“We’ve got a song like ‘Evil,’ right?” Trent says. “So we didn’t have two kids at the time. And we’ve definitely never abused them. And Cary’s still alive. So that’s obviously just a made-up story.”

“And ‘Pretty Polly,’” Hearst notes. “We’ve never gotten anyone pregnant and killed her by the river.”

But then things take an intriguing turn. They get talking about the whole nature of murder ballads, the enduring place of them in music and culture. Hearst wonders about the clearly misogynistic violence of the form still having a place in our supposedly enlightened culture: “Why is it OK in this day and age that the murder ballad is this weird, sacred musical thing that we aren’t like, ‘Cancel! Hashtag cancel’?”

As they discuss this, though, they focus on each other. They lock eyes, talk only to each other, and it’s as if the rest of the world has gone away. He defends the form, noting the relationship to and appeal of crime drama and horror stories.

“You’re right,” she concedes. “I never thought of it that way. It just feels closer to home and personal because these are songs. Maybe it’s like, ‘What are you singing this song for? Did you do that? Is that what you think?’”

Trent shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Just occurred to me that you might have the answer,” Hearst says.

“Oh, like I’ve got some dark secrets?” Trent wonders.

And so it goes for a few minutes.

If you’ve seen them in concert, you’ve seen this. In a small L.A. club the night before this conversation, it seemed they spent the first several songs hardly looking at the audience at all, just staring into each other’s eyes as they performed before later turning things more outward.

They laugh at this notion. The truth is, they say, on stage that behavior tends to be more pragmatic than romantic.

“I think we were trying to figure out what this was,” Trent says. “We check in with each other a lot. This was a bit of a weird show in a weird place. And we also do a lot of musical communication on stage, just checking in with each other. A lot of people mistake that for us, like, lovingly looking at each other. And it’s really like, ‘Oh. I know you missed your cue…’”

“‘Are you going to miss it again?’” Hearst interjects.

Their 2008 debut, self-titled album, they say, preceded them becoming a real item in life and music. Since that time, they’ve figured out the ever-shifting dance of the personal vs. the professional, art vs. life. They’ve figured out how to put them together when necessary and keep them apart when demanded. After making 2016’s Little Seeds as new parents, they added a buffer between work and family space.

“After Little Seeds, when our first kid was born, we were like, ‘This is insane,’” Trent says. “We need a place that’s not in the house. So we just built a utilitarian building in the backyard. Now we have a place that we can separate the work by at least a few feet.”

“Being parents for the first time, everything was insane,” Hearst says. “We would have somebody come over to hold the baby while we went upstairs to record, and you can hear it, the baby’s screaming downstairs. It’s just so much better now. It’s saved everything. It felt like it was a smart move to make.”

And, touring now for the first time with two kids, they’re spending part of the summer as the opening act on fairly big shows with Tedeschi Trucks Band and Blackberry Smoke.

“First of three acts at big sheds,” Hearst says. “Great catering! On early, like around 7.”

“We’ll be able to put our kids to bed at night and then have our jammies on by 8:30,” Trent adds.

Still, they allow, there are some deeply personal things that, pardon the expression, bled through on By Blood. The opening song, “I’m Coming Out,” with its very specific birth references and their second child now having been born a mere five months ago? That’s just the start.

“There’s some pretty personal things on this record for sure,” Trent says. “Like ‘Carry Me Home.’ Is it a pretty confessional song? Yeah, that’s true, like leaning on the other person.”

And there’s “The Wire,” which opens with the line, “I’ve been a disappointment at times.”

“‘The Wire’ is very much about how nobody is the perfect partner that you want to be,” Hearst says. “If you’re accountable, and they want accounts, good enough. This whole record is people who are jussssst good enough, but want to be a little bit better.”

Then there’s the title song, about the light and shadows of being in each other’s space all the time, of never having to be alone but never getting to be alone. Not only does the song close the album, but they put the lyrics of it in clear, can’t-miss type right on the front cover. That, and the whole album, per Hearst, serves as something of a marker in their lives and career.

“I think that we have many years of records in us,” she says. “But if this were to be the last stand, you know, of our creative output, there is a kind of timestamp with By Blood. We’re like this little baby that’s grown from making our first homemade record in the most rudimentary situation, and we got a little better at our instruments, a little better at record-making.”

But it goes deeper than that.

“I feel like we’ve become adults on records,” she continues. “Definitely we got adulted by Little Seeds. I mean, that time period after Swimmin’ Time and before Little Seeds was like, ‘Oh, you mean we’re growing older? We’re not gonna live forever? And our parents are getting old and babies are coming? Oh my God, we have to have life insurance and how come we can’t be just like, you know, freewheeling children for the rest of our lives?’ It kind of turned inward and now we’re kind of on the other side looking out and moving forward.”

Photo credit: Curtis Millard

The Show On The Road – Steve Earle

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week, Z. speaks with Steve Earle. The three-time Grammy Award-winning roots ‘n’ roll poet and revered performer has been releasing fearless, roguish records for nearly four decades, accidentally becoming one of the founding fathers of the thriving Americana movement along the way.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3


Growing up a baseball-crazy son of an air traffic controller in San Antonio, Steve Earle has never quite checked any cliché box or stayed in any lane on the way to his almost mainstream success.

Host Z. Lupetin caught up with Steve on his tour bus before hitting the stage at ROMP Fest in Kentucky this past June. Steve has been on the road in support of his recent release, GUY — a tribute to one of his songwriting colleagues and heroes, the late Guy Clark, out now on New West Records.

The String – Caroline Spence plus Lee Roy Parnell

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Caroline Spence moved to Nashville eight years ago fresh out of college with a “vague dream” of writing songs — probably, she thought, for other artists. But as her network and her confidence grew, it became clear she needed to be out front.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS

Spence has released two solo indie albums and a duo project with Robby Hecht. She also won a Kerville New Folk award, capturing attention with her coursing country melodies and incisive observations. Now she’s been signed to Rounder Records, who’ve released her latest, Mint Condition. Also in the hour, a catch-up with Texas-reared, Nashville-based country bluesman Lee Roy Parnell.

MIXTAPE: The Steel Wheels’ Music for Your Community Gathering

Posted on by Editor

Building community is part of what music, and all good art, does. It brings us together. Music is a common rhythm, a poetic notion, an underlying common language for us all. A good mixtape grabs hold of that commonality and builds on it, with a few surprises along the way. As a band, The Steel Wheels curate a music festival each year, and a mixtape, or playlist, is kind of the digital version of that venture. So, let’s stop talking about it, and start building community with a PERFECT mix. – Trent Wagler, The Steel Wheels

Fruit Bats* – “Humbug Mountain Song”

Let’s start with a groove anyone can get behind. It’s accessible for the pop music lovers who wandered into this gathering — they didn’t know they liked the banjo at all until the second half of this intro kicks in. But now they’re engaged. And why can’t the piano, banjo, and drums live together in harmony? Stop closing your mind.

Kristin Andreassen* – “Get Together”

A good mixtape needs to establish that everyone is included. Loading things up with all your favorite new and rare songs isn’t always inviting. A cover song is common language at the very best. A little freshening up of a classic song will get us all swaying together in time. And what better theme than coming together? Now we’ve got everyone in the room in tune and we can introduce more variance in the mix.

The Wood Brothers* – “Sing About It”

The foundation of community is the strength we have together. Nothing better exemplifies this than the tight grooves and sweet harmonies of the Wood Brothers. And their message here is spot on. No matter where we are in our journey of pain, loss, trouble, or fear, singing a song just might help it pass.

Kaia Kater* – “New Colossus”

Now that we’re all in this, let’s tie the knots tighter. This song is like a sweet honey that helps stick us tightly. The way the melody veers and twists through literary verses encourages your conversations to dig a little deeper.

Jerry Garcia & David Grisman – “Russian Lullaby”

I think it’s more than nostalgia that brings me back to these late Garcia recordings, when he teamed up with longtime friend and musical pioneer David Grisman. The loose nature of these recordings makes you want to sit crisscross applesauce and share most embarrassing moments with a new acquaintance. If the ice wasn’t broken earlier, Jerry will rockabye you, baby. Collaborations are community building at their core.

River Whyless* – “All of My Friends”

Now that we’re all floating together in a musical high, don’t pull away. Leave the phones in your pocket. Let’s be here together fully. River Whyless is a band that simultaneously indicts and playfully dances with the information-overwhelmed age we live in.

Cedric Burnside* – “Hard To Stay Cool”

What is more true blue than these dyed in the wool Burnside family blues. Cedric Burnside’s whole album is full of these tasty grooves. It’s not hard for him to stay cool.

Tim O’Brien* & Darrell Scott – “With a Memory Like Mine”

Here’s another one of my favorite collaborations. The album Real Time by Tim and Darrell has had such a musical impact on me. To hear two great songwriters, who sing and play any instrument they pick up with such mastery, is humbling and inspiring.

Bahamas – “No Wrong”

I’m obsessed with Bahamas’ music right now. The guitar, the groove, and the vocals. The presence of this recording is also so immediate and direct. When you’re among your people, it feels like you can do no wrong.

The Steel Wheels* – “Road Never Ends”

I couldn’t help but include one from our new record. The love and joy of the road is bittersweet. This song puts words to the difficulties of transience while acknowledging the beauty of the strange kind of mobile community it creates.

Ana Egge – “Rock Me (Divine Mother)”

There are few songwriters who tap into deep spiritual depths without cliché like Ana Egge. She’s a treasure. And this song has slayed me every single time I’ve ever heard it.

Tinariwen – “Imidiwan Win Sahara” (feat. Tunde Adebimpe)

All music conjures up a sense of place. Tinariwen was introduced to me by our drummer, Kevin Garcia, and I’ve regularly wanted to go to where their sound takes me. As a songwriter and specifically a lyricist, it’s helpful to reset your listening ear and turn off the language centers of your brain by listening to music with lyrical content in a language you do not speak.

Dr. Dog – “Listening In”

A good mixtape has some curveballs. Dr. Dog has been a sonic companion for me since I first saw them live 10 years ago at Bristol Rhythm and Roots. The lyrical tapestry is so full and always connects through some kind of thought-lightning striking through your brain. I love the line, “I can hear the fear in me…talking.”

David Wax Museum – “Time Will Not Track Us Down”

We’re getting towards the end of our little mixtape. Like the Sunday afternoon lazy picnic, we are starting to wind it all down. David Wax is known for his high energy original Latin-inspired masterpieces, but this simple paired down guitar/vocal really calms my spirit and prepares us to part.

Robert Ellis & Courtney Hartman* – “Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie”

One more cover song for good measure. Let’s celebrate the most wacky and wonderful souls among us, and let’s boogie like John Hartford.

Josh Ritter – “Homecoming”

Remember that curating music for your gathering is a privilege. You are setting the sonic table for everyone in your presence. It’s also a responsibility. Everyone wants to feel at home at the end of the day. Everyone wants be at their best and be reminded that they are capable of their best. Music replenishes the various ways daily life drags us down. A mixtape is a good refuge and stand-in for when music festival season is slow.

Photo credit: Josh Saul

*2019 Red Wing performers. Red Wing Roots Music Festival takes place in Mt. Solon, Virginia, on July 12-14, and is hosted by The Steel Wheels

WATCH: Molly Tuttle, “Light Came In (Power Went Out)”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Can you feel it now…? Flatpicking phenomenon and Americana-by-way-of-bluegrass singer/songwriter Molly Tuttle has released her second music video from her debut full-length album When You’re Ready. “Light Came In (Power Went Out)” was co-written with her longtime friend and collaborator Maya de Vitry, as well as When You’re Ready producer Ryan Hewitt and award-winning songwriter Stephony Smith.

The video, directed by Jason Lee Denton, was shot in a plant shop and greenhouse in Nashville, carrying forward the verdant, tropical theme of the record’s cover art with added pops of light and electricity. “I thought that it would be nice to have the visuals almost be an extension of my album artwork, which also had foliage in the background and kind of a golden glow to it,” Tuttle explains. “That gave the video team the idea to look for a plant store or greenhouse that we could shoot in. Mackenzie [Moore] (art direction) and Aliegh [Shields] (producer) thought of crafting a glitter backdrop, and everyone just kind of worked together to make all the rest fall into place.”

After having spent the majority of her life as a performer, Tuttle finds it particularly gratifying to see her musical visions come to life on screen. “I am a very visual person so seeing how the glow of the lights and the lush backdrops add depth to the song is super rewarding. Getting to create in this way is why I love what I do – it was just a very fun evening spent filming in a cute plant store…”

And if you wondered – yes, Tuttle is a fan of the current houseplant craze that has struck many a millennial home and Instagram account. “I love having plants in my house so much!!!” She admits, “It lifts my mood to have greenery around. I just can’t keep any of them alive because I’m constantly away on tour… This video is what I wished the inside of my house looked like, basically, but in reality I just have a few unhappy succulents.”

Watch “Power Came In (Light Went Out)” right here, on BGS.

Photo courtesy Compass Records