Tag: Americana

Kim Richey Travels the World in Search of ‘Every New Beginning’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a voice that shimmers like sunlight on a rippling lake and songs that step deftly through ever-shifting emotional terrain, Kim Richey is the queen of understated finesse. On her latest album, Every New Beginning, she carefully tempers the ache of loss with moments of humor and even optimism. Produced by Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt) and containing collaborations with Don Henry, Mando Saenz, Jay Knowles, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Brian Wright, among others, it provides yet another elegantly nuanced reminder of why other singer-songwriters revere her talents.

Dozens of country and Americana artists have invited her to sing on their albums and/or recorded her songs or ones they co-wrote, including Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill, Martina McBride, Patty Loveless, Will Kimbrough, Chuck Prophet, the Chicks, and Brooks & Dunn. Radney Foster had a No. 2 hit with their co-write, “Nobody Wins;” Richey earned a Grammy nomination for co-writing Trisha Yearwood’s No. 1 song, “Believe Me Baby (I Lied).”

In October, she’ll open the final show of Jason Isbell’s annual Ryman Auditorium residency; last year, she helped celebrate the 10th anniversary of his career-making Southeastern album by reprising her vocal contributions. During Brandi Carlile’s solo-set debut at the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival, she spotted Richey and declared, “Kim Richey has been my hero since I was 16!” Citing the Ohio-born East Nashville resident as a major influence, Carlile beckoned Richey onstage to sing “A Place Called Home.” Turns out that wasn’t the first time — and, as Richey notes in this interview, conducted during her recent U.K. tour, it wouldn’t be the last.

Listening to these songs, one could assume this is a breakup album. But you’ve mentioned that songs like “Take the Cake” aren’t necessarily about a specific person. Are there breakups reflected within these songs?

Kim Richey: People always assume they’re breakup songs. [The “Feel This Way” line], “It hurts like it’s always gonna feel this way” — my mom passed away in November. It can be the loss of a friend, the loss of a family member, or it’s just a lot of looking back. COVID really had an effect on me that way, and maybe a lot of people as well, where I had old friends getting in touch out of the blue, and people taking stock, and that’s stuck with me.

You could hear “Feel This Way” as a song about grief or even generalized depression, which certainly doesn’t have to be precipitated by an event.

Or [the song] “A Way Around,” it’s like, “Oh, man, things are not going my way.” It can be general. That’s a great thing about songs; people can have their own interpretation of them and it can connect with them and help them. Maybe it’s something that they’re going through, which was not necessarily my intention when I wrote it, if that makes any sense. If I’m going through a hard time, it’s just nice to hear a song and think, “They know exactly how I feel.” You don’t feel alone.

I think that’s one of the major functions of songs — giving us something to connect to, even if it’s just to pull the tears out. Sometimes that’s all you have when you’re feeling like that. But let’s talk about something that must have been a really happy time: Brandi’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend in Mexico. Was that the first time you got invited, or the first time it worked out to go?

I actually did get invited a couple of years ago, but I’d already promised my parents I was going somewhere with them. But this was getting organized while my mom was in the hospital and everything, so I went down [in January] not really having any idea what to expect. When I got there, they asked if I could come to the rehearsal for Ladies of the ’80s, so I go to the rehearsal, and there’s Annie Lennox. And that was just the start of me crying the entire weekend.

Then I got to meet Wendy & Lisa, and Wendy was so sweet. And when the four of us — Brandy Clark, Brandi Carlile, Mary Chapin [Carpenter] and myself — were onstage playing songs, the crowd was so overwhelmingly amazing that Chapin and I just sat up there and cried in-between songs. It was absolutely one of the most intense and beautiful musical experiences, really, ever, for me. It’s hard to explain the vibe of it. The feel of the festival is so inclusive, and so kind and fun. I’ve never been to anything like that before.

Brandi’s always been really great to me. Like that year of the Pilgrimage Festival, that’s right outside of Nashville, got rained out [2018], her people called City Winery and said “Hey, can we come there and play?” and they packed it out. I had just gotten home from a tour and she texted and said, “Hey, you want to come and play with me tonight?” and I’m thinking, “Absolutely not. I don’t know who you are. I’m in a bathrobe, and I’m gonna watch TV and do absolutely nothing.” I texted back and said, “Who is this?” And it was Brandi and it’s like, “OK, I’ll be right over!”

I love seeing your Instagram traveling pictures. It seems like you seek out interesting places wherever you go. Is that something you’ve always done?

I always want to explore the places where I go, whether it’s a big famous place or some town nobody’s ever heard of. I don’t want to sit in a hotel. I like to find the local great food or coffee or something. One of my most favorite parts about doing music and playing shows is the touring and getting to go and see all these different places. It doesn’t have to be some really exotic place, because one of the things I love about touring in the states is you get to see some of these smaller towns and out-of-the-way places that you would never go to on purpose, because you don’t even know they’re there. I’ve found some fantastic restaurants and sites and hiking places; there’s all kinds of fantastic places in the states. Like, I love Michigan, the Great Lakes; that’s beautiful.

That brings me to the song about your home state, “Goodbye Ohio,” which you describe as “a leaving song.” Do you still have ties there?

Well my mom’s gone, but my stepdad still lives in Ohio and I’ve got my cousins and auntie. I still have a lot of people in Ohio. I go back up there pretty regularly.

So it’s not bittersweet to go home.

Oh, no, no, no. I got all the time in the world for Ohio. I like the people there. It’s very Midwest, and I like that. It’s interesting, too, because the different parts of Ohio are really different, like Southeastern Ohio has more in common probably with West Virginia. And then when you get further up toward Cleveland and Akron, that’s more Northeast-y vibes. It’s great; it’s got a lot going on.

What are some other destinations you would recommend?

I love Glasgow, that’s always been one of my most favorite places. Mostly these days, I’m not in a [tour] bus, I’m in a car or a van. You actually can see all these places you’re driving through, and then you have the ability to go, “Hey, what’s that weird shop there? Let’s pull in and see what that is.” When you’re on a bus, you’re just [taking] the quickest and easiest way to get from one point to the other. So I’ve really enjoyed that part of traveling in a car.

I’ll tell you someplace I just went that was absolutely amazing. My friend Dean Tidey was playing guitar with me and we had a couple days off on the West Coast, so we went to Sequoia National Park and stayed for a couple days in this Airbnb that was right on this beautiful mountain stream. And since it was still early springtime, there weren’t a lot of people there. There was still snow on the ground. I love doing stuff like that. The more I travel, the more I want to see. And the more I travel, the more I know there’s just so much stuff out there to experience and see.

Gosh, I’ve been all over the place. I love London; I lived here for five years. I love Belfast. I got to go to Croatia last year on a boat trip with the Accidentals, and that was amazing.

I love that band! Tell me how you wound up on a boat trip with them.

Well, they asked me to come along. It was a fan trip, and we played and slept on the boat and went to these different harbors. We docked in a different place every night – it was just a cool trip. There were bike rides; there was a lot of swimmin’. We went to Dubrovnik and toured different cities; we were all over the place. And I had no idea. I didn’t think of that as being a Mediterranean country. The food is fantastic. The people were super, super nice. I really loved being there.

You have such a great body of work, and younger artists who appreciate that, and appreciate you, they’re hooking into you and having you play. It seems so important for that kind of give-and-take to happen, in both directions.

It’s great for me, because I get excited about stuff. I love writing with Aaron Lee. He used to live just across the alley from me, so that’s how I got to know him. He’s definitely one of my favorites and one of the most talented musicians and songwriters. He’s great with lyrics and music, the whole deal, and a brilliant player. So it’s fun for me, too, to find somebody new that I really love writing with. It’s one of my favorite things, to write with other people.

Is there anything else you want to talk about?

Well, I would like to like thank the guys who played on the record, especially Doug Lancio, who did so much great work. He played most every string thing aside from when Aaron Lee played on a couple songs. And we had [bassist/mandolinist] Lex Price, who I’ve been wanting to work with for a long time. And Dan Mitchell and Neilson Hubbard; I’ve been playing with those guys for years. And the Accidentals came and put strings on a couple songs. So I just really want to give a shout out to the musicians, and my songwriting friends.

One song, “The World Is Flat” is an old one that I wrote with Peter Vetesse. He lives in Bristol, [England], and we played and he came and we got to play the song that we wrote together. I just never recorded it because it was so sad. I have a lot of sad songs, but there’s always a little kernel of something [positive]; “The World Is Flat” was like, you’ve just kind of given up. But the demo that he made was so beautiful, I just thought if I never make another record, I want people to hear that song.

You just said, “If I never make another record” – obviously, we hope that’s not true. Do you feel like you’re at a point now where you think in those terms?

A little bit. I do enjoy playing, but [touring is] tough physically. But I love to travel and I have super-close friends over here, in New York, in Washington state. Playing and touring allows me to go and spend time with those people. I do love playing for people and writing songs and making records, so we’ll see. I don’t know how much longer I’ll do it. This could be my last record, but you don’t want to say it is, because you never know.

Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

BGS 5+5: Kiely Connell

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kiely Connell
Hometown: Hammond, Indiana
Latest Album: My Own Company

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

When I got to play The Chicago Theater. I grew up in the region my whole life and things like that feel so far out of reach. The last show I saw at Chicago Theater before I played on that stage was Iggy Pop! If you would’ve told me back then that 5 years later I’d be standing on that stage I would not have believed you.

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

Reading is always a huge help for me. I’m a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and Anne Sexton, and sometimes just being still and reading something they wrote can help inspire me to write something different. I feel the same way about film. A month ago I was watching that new movie, The Iron Claw, and I was taken aback by all of the memories and feelings that came flooding in. That film is way heavier than I anticipated.

I’m also a lover of visual art and one of my favorite artists is a man they call “The Master of Macabre,” Ivan Albright. I first saw his work at the Art Institute of Chicago and I was just awestruck. I’m not sure I’ve ever been drawn to a painting as much as I was drawn to his painting titled “Into the World There Came a Soul Called Ida.”

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

I started writing songs at the end of high school, but it wasn’t until college in my dorm room when I realized this was what I was meant to do. The support I got from my peers was unbelievable. Any time I played an open mic the entire theater department would show up just to hear me play three songs. I learned that I could take everything I love about theater and apply it to my music.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I love doom metal AKA “stoner rock.” I’ve seen the band Pentagram multiple times and I even have a photo with the lead singer Bobby Liebling. I talk about the band on my phone fairly often to the point where my phone started auto-correcting the word “like” to “Liebling.”

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

I’d want to have a greasy spoon diner breakfast with Tom Waits. Ideally there would be plenty of classic retro diner décor and bottomless cups of coffee, so he’d have all the fuel necessary to indulge me with a detailed history of his greatest endeavors. The 2003 film, Coffee and Cigarettes, gave us a taste, but I’d still like to experience it one on one in person.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Out Now: Melissa Carper

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Melissa Carper’s new album, Borned In Ya, was released today. The album travels through stories and experiences that explore journeys of self-actualization. The songs gather many proficient and accomplished musicians – Dennis Crouch, Chris Scruggs, Jeff Taylor, Billy Contreras, Rory Hoffman, Sierra Ferrell, and more – to create a collection of sounds that are carefully shaped into a captivating work of art.

Carper stitches innovation with tradition, creating something that is new and exciting while also feeling familiar and warm. Her storytelling and authentic style shine, making her music both personal and relatable. In this interview, we dive into her new album, why she creates music, and her release and touring plans for the next year. We’re so excited to highlight this incredible artist and her new album, Borned In Ya.

What excites you most about this new album?

Melissa Carper: This is my favorite album I have made so far; the material is fresh and demonstrates an evolution in my writing and singing. I feel more confident and relaxed and many of these songs allow me to “croon.” I am excited for people to hear it and to see how they respond and how they like it. I can’t wait to take these new songs out on the road and play them for people.

How do you cultivate a balance between traditional and innovative sounds?

The traditional is easy for me, because I’ve mostly listened to older music, so those are my influences. I don’t “try” to be innovative, but I feel like having a really good grasp on roots music these days is almost innovative, in a sense. A lot of people have lost touch with that music. My goal is to bring the roots back, but perhaps with some new lyrical ideas, a unique and personal expression of pain and growth (that I hope is relatable), and combining styles that I love together. Together with the producers and musicians that I have been working with on my albums, I think we’ve taken innovative approaches to the songs as well as maintained traditional feels and sounds.

What was your experience collaborating with such an incredible team of highly skilled and accomplished musicians?

I feel so lucky to get to work with everyone you mentioned. They bring my songs to life in a way I could have never imagined. Chris [Scruggs] plays straight or console steel, rather than pedal. The straight steel is the older instrument and is perfect for most of the songs I write. Chris also played guitar, rhythm and lead, on my albums. Rory Hoffman played guitar on about half of the songs on Borned In Ya. They both did such an incredible job. I’m really in awe of all of these musicians.

Dennis Crouch is the best I’ve heard on upright bass and as an upright player, I listen to his bass parts and try to learn them. In the process of doing that I realize what a genius he is. Jeff Taylor, on piano, often sets the tone of a song and always has brilliant ideas. Billy Contreras blows my mind (and everyone else’s) with the fiddle parts and layers he comes up with. On “Lucky Five,” he really outdid himself on the fiddle solo section. Also, I had Doug Corcoran on horns for this album. He played trumpet and saxophone on five songs. Having horns on my songs is new for me, and I think that sets this album apart from the previous ones.

Rebecca Patek wrote an absolutely gorgeous string arrangement for my song, “There’ll Be Another One.” It is my favorite part of the album, when the strings come in on this song. Jenn Miori Hodges, an old bandmate of mine from The Carper Family, sings stellar harmony on several songs. It felt great to have her on this album, we have such a long history of playing together and she plays with me now quite a bit, whenever she is available. And Sierra Ferrell sings an amazing harmony on my cover of a jazz tune from the ’30s called “That’s My Desire.” Sierra actually recorded that harmony back when we were recording the Ramblin’ Soul album. I had too many songs to fit on that album, so I saved it for Borned In Ya. It is really a dream to work with all these folks and I hope I get to continue to do so. I feel like I lucked into a good thing, a formula that really works for me.

The title track, “Borned in Ya,” focuses on being shaped by life experiences. What are your thoughts on how nature (genes) versus nurture (environment) shape musical ability?

I believe, in most cases, it’s probably a lot of hard work and obsession with something you love that makes someone good at something. I definitely have musical genes in my family, but I had the advantage of my parents having me sing and play from an early age. I had a great bass teacher in junior high and high school and got to study music in college with great teachers, then I kept on learning from each band I was in. I was obsessed with old-time music – country, blues, jazz. I listened in an obsessive way until it became a part of me. I feel my learning process has been a steady, slow one, but the great thing is, I continue to grow.

This album is a compilation of stories and experiences written in song. What was it like to craft one collective album that travels through desire, love, heartbreak, life on the road, and growth?

I had a lot of fun writing the songs on this album. Three of them are co-writes with Brennen Leigh, and we always have a good time writing together. I think I’m having more fun than ever with writing and I hope people can feel that in the songs. I love having a combination of heartbreak and also some fresh romance in this album. Not everything is autobiographical of course, and I’m getting better with that – writing from imagination, pulling from some old experiences and emotions to make it real, or imagining someone else’s situation.

I would call a couple of these songs “spirituals” that go a little deeper with life philosophy. It feels good to write about something besides romantic love and to speak of spiritual growth. Hopefully people who listen find the album inspiring. I feel like Borned In Ya is an expression of some of my past and some of the present, but with a wiser and more experienced soul – more has been “borned in me.”

What’s your ideal vision for your future?

I’d love to have a great balance between performing/touring and getting to spend time at home and in nature. To me, that would be the ultimate, to feel like I’m successful enough financially so that touring doesn’t turn into a grind. I don’t mind touring, but when I’m away from home too much it makes me feel disconnected from life in general, being exhausted, not getting enough alone time to be still and to be in nature. I am in a phase currently where I need to take the opportunities offered to me, even if at times it feels like I have too much on my plate. I’d also love more time to focus on creating a nonprofit to help those who are experiencing homelessness and struggling with mental illness. I dream of creating a center with a working organic farm, providing homes and a healing atmosphere.

Why do you create music?

I get melodic and lyrical ideas in my head and they just start developing, it’s one of the most fun and rewarding things that I do in my life. Once I know I’m onto something good, I’m quite obsessive about finishing it – usually within the day if the flow is there. If it is a song that I am forcing a little, or maybe the song has something good and promising in it but isn’t ready to be fully realized yet, I’m pretty good at coming back to it, sometimes even a few years later, and finishing it when the time is right. The process is the most fun, but I also love getting to present the song to an audience. It’s rewarding in a completely different way. Being able to record the song with great musicians and producers to see what it can sound like in its ultimate form, is an especially rewarding part of the process.

What is your greatest fear?

Even the idea of holding onto fear is fearful; my goal is to keep growing and confronting any fears I have that keep me from being the best possible version of myself. I guess that would be my biggest fear, that I allow myself to be too distracted to actually work on myself and confront any fears that I have.

Why do you think LGBTQ+ representation and community are important – in roots music and beyond?

When I came out, there were very few ‘out’ people in our culture. Seeing k.d. lang and Ellen DeGeneres coming out for me was just an affirmation that there were lesbians that existed in the world besides myself. It was really helpful for me to move to a community where it was normal and acceptable, which was the small and diverse town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. If you are feeling uncomfortable with yourself, being in a community of folks that are accepting of who you are is a great thing. What I loved about Eureka Springs is that there were a couple of gay bars, but the gay people just hung out in all the bars and it didn’t feel like an isolated thing. It just felt normal and accepted to be part of the LGBTQ+ community there for the most part – except for maybe at the Walmart. [Laughs]

What are your release and touring plans for the next year?

Borned In Ya is out July 19th, 2024! I am doing a whole lot of touring around it – Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Oregon, Washington, then venturing into Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and lots of Texas before making my way to Nashville for AmericanaFest. And, I just got back from performing in Europe! It’s a busy year, birthing Borned In Ya!

Photo Credit: Aisha Golliher

Kayla Jane on Only Vans with Bri Bagwell

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

(Editor’s Note: Only Vans with Bri Bagwell is the latest addition to the BGS Podcast Network! Read more about the podcast coming on board here. Find our episode archive here.)

Kayla Jane is unapologetically herself, as evidenced in her new track, “Queen of Bad Decisions.” Before the episode taping, she texted Bri that nothing is off limits; this raw, unfiltered conversation is personal, honest, and fun! The pair get into topics such as being a female singer and how that can affect relationships when it’s not the right partner.

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Thanks to our sponsors for this episode, The MusicFest at Steamboat, Lakeside Tax & CH Lonestar Promo!

The Many Folk Art Threads of Jake Xerxes Fussell’s ‘When I’m Called’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Two weeks before the release of his new folk album, When I’m Called (available today via Fat Possum), Jake Xerxes Fussell’s sister, Coulter, who is a quilter, had a show of her work in Oxford, Mississippi. In this show, Coulter patchworked 24 small quilts with fabric sourced from her friends and fellow quilters. There was one quilt for every hour of the day.

Though Fussell has said that he and his sister do not talk about her work very much, there are some profound resonances between her quilts and his music – the idea of updating tradition by the use of unusual materials and freer forms, for example, or the idea of using old material to make new texts, but also something deeper. The songs and the quilts mark time, but not in conventional ways. Instead, they track time in a looping, stuttering fashion. Time is both abstracted and made concrete, as a quilt can appear like midnight and a song can be both a work song and a travel song; but also how a quilt or a song can be a mark of a 19th century technique using 21st century material.

The sources for these records and quilts are a network of people. They include those as close as their parents or close family friends, but also as wide as academic song catchers from the 1950s and 1960s, the folk revival of the same era, the careful annotaters of 1990s web forums, or 2020s Instagram accounts. In the time I spent talking to Fussell, he was careful to note these networks, where and who he learned from, the songs he picked up, but also the methods.

These methods were not only adapted from family and friends, but also professional contacts and music legends who pursue a similar ambition to extend what “folk” means. They include Blake Mills, who has been a session musician for everyone from Bob Dylan to the Avett Brothers; or Robin Holcomb, the avant garde vocalist and multi-instrumentalist whose estranging 1992 album, Rockabye, provides a conduit from artists like Bill Frissell and John Fahey to contemporaries like Blake Mills or Daniel Bachman.

For Fussell, the creation of a drawing, painting, quilting, or song-making can come from the same geographical site, the same kinship network, or the same historical records. His parents were academics who painted, sang, wrote, and quilted, but he also had friends like Art Rosenbaum, who painted, gathered songs, taught them in and outside of the University of Georgia, and won the 2008 Historical Recordings Grammy.

Rosenbaum died in 2022 and the songs on this album are in his memory, absorbing captured Scottish songs from the 1970s. The track “Feeling Day” is both bright and mournful, moving in the body of Rosenbaum from Georgia to Scotland and back, where it was taught to Fussell and then captured here. The intermingling of technology, memory, curiosity, professional competence, and ancestor work all made contemporary by skill and memory. (Like the quilts.)

Fussell talks about reclaiming and re-interpreting these songs, versions of versions, updated for contemporary listeners. The album includes the work of Rosenbaum, but it can also be seen on the very first track, about the Mexican painter Maestro Garry Gaxiola, whose decades-long (and most likely one-sided) feud with Andy Warhol centered on questions of what populist art is and what folk art is.

It can also be seen in how Fussell sings “When I’m Called,” a song partially composed from a found paper scrap (again, the quilting) containing a child’s to-do list. It reminds me of the folk anthologist Harry Smith, who spent a long time cataloging paper airplanes he found on the street. It can especially be seen on Fussell’s version of “Gone to Hilo.”

Depending on who you ask, the song’s original title is either “Johnny’s Gone to Hilo” or “Tommy’s Gone to Hilo.” For most versions, those who sing “Tommy” think that the song is about Ilo, Peru and those who sing “Johnny” think it is about Hilo, Hawaii. Fussell sings “Johnny.”

The song is not really a sea shanty, because they require a stronger beat to function as a work song; but it was intended as a song for sailors, a kind of lament, and the gap between forms here has deepened as it has moved further from the sea. The work quality dropped, and the lament quality ratcheted up. It has been sung by dozens of people, one of those tracks that criss-crosses the Atlantic with the folk – Peggy Seeger sang it when she was in England with Ewan McColl, for example.

Perhaps the saddest version of the song is by Paul Clayton. I think maybe three people in the world care about Paul Clayton, and Fussell is one of them. Clayton grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and collected songs about that town’s whaling history since before he was 20. He went to UVA and studied under the legendary song collector Arthur Kyle Davis, traipsing through Appalchia finding songs and then moving to the East Village, integrating himself with Van Ronk and especially Dylan. Fussell claims that his version of “Hilo” is directly in the tradition of Clayton – that how he weaves a song is how Fussell weaves a song.

Between 1954 and his too early death in 1967, Clayton made almost a dozen records of revolutionary war songs, sea shanties, timber shanties, songs of marital discord, songs which Dylan ripped off, and songs which are only remembered by enthusiasts. Fussell is an enthusiast, his version is the lament that Clayton created from the work song and the interweaving of the lament and the work song – the doubling down on the historical memory, the absorbing of a technique renewed in the knowledge of history – is key to the whole enterprise.

Listen to how Clayton emphasizes certain words – for example, “bully boy” – but also listen to how it’s just Clayton; a clarion voice, and a melancholy one. Listening to Fussell’s, with Robyn Holcolmb singing harmony, the sadness is still there, but the tradition is too. The tightness of the version traps tradition, that it is in the middle of the album, that it’s a single, marks a network of relation, an aesthetic about public choices, and a wrestling with tradition.

Folk music asks again and again, “Why are we making these choices?” and, “Whose choices are we making?” Fussell, at his best, makes choices that are smart, open, generous, and mark a time and place – be it Georgia or Hilo or Oxford, Mississippi or a room where Clayton and he can have a conversation with all those 19th century sailors.

Thinking again of Coulter’s quilts, they both mark time in an abstract sense – the idea of what noon or midnight looks like – but they also mark the time it takes to create a work. There is this idea that time is linear, that it marches forward relentlessly. The quilts mark the history of their creation, the actual moments that Coulter made them, but they also weave together the stories of those who gave her their scraps, the interlacing of decades of commercial and domestic enterprises intended to make an object which shows its sources/seams.

Everytime someone sings a traditional song, this kind of citational practice renews the song, the text, the material. Like a quilt, when Jake sings, time bends and loops, inviting other people’s time, other people’s lives. In a worst-case world, this could be greedy, or wolfish, consuming without respect; in Jake’s work, a much better world, this is a kind of kinship network, sharing and consuming mutually.

Photo Credit: Kate Medley

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Josh Shilling, Talia Rose, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After a quiet holiday week last week for new music releases, we’re back with quite a few excellent song and video premieres on this fine Friday. Fiddler-songwriter Chris Murphy brings us the title track for his new EP, The Red Road, and folk legends Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer team up with Chinese hammered dulcimer player Chao Tian for another single from their From China to Appalachia project.

Don’t miss a new video and radio single from Wilson Banjo Co. called “Memphis Anymore,” plus, indie-folk singer-songwriter Talia Rose brings us a video for a surprisingly holiday-inspired track, “In August.” To round us out, multi-instrumentalist and hit bluegrass songwriter Josh Shilling performs “Main Street” by Bob Seger for a new Bob Seger bluegrass tribute album, Silver Bullet Bluegrass, that you’re sure to love. And, you’ll want to catch our latest DelFest Session with East Nash Grass, which we premiered on the site earlier this week.

It’s another collection of incredible premieres on BGS – and You Gotta Hear This!

Chris Murphy, “The Red Road”

Artist: Chris Murphy
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “The Red Road”
Album: The Red Road
Release Date: July 5, 2024
Label: Teahouse Records

In Their Words: “I went to Hawaii for the month of January 2024, ostensibly on vacation. I discovered there was a recording studio next door to where I was staying, so I spent twelve of my vacation days in a 14′ x 16′ room with no windows making a new EP. ‘The Red Road’ is a song about the joy and magic of life, a red-headed girl, and the great riddle of what it means to be yourself, in the best of times & the worst of times. I send this out to all of us still brave enough to keep searching for the light on ‘The Red Road.'” – Chris Murphy

From China to Appalachia, “Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention”

Artist: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer with Chao Tian
Hometown: Silver Spring, Maryland
Song: “Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points for Attention”
Album: From China to Appalcahia
Release Date: July 9, 2024 (single)
Label: Community Music

In Their Words: “‘Three Rules of Discipline and Eight Points of Attention’ comes from both Chinese traditions and Pete Seeger. Chao grew up with this melody, but brought it to the trio when she heard a Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie recording from 1975 performing this song and getting the whole audience whistling along. We did many concerts with Pete and needless to say, he was an early practitioner of Cultural Diplomacy, plus a banjo hero, friend, and mentor. Our live audiences were recorded in Piedmont, Virginia during three concerts with schools and community members. We hope you’ll sing along, too.” – Cathy Fink

Read our interview feature on From China to Appalachia here.

Talia Rose, “In August”

Artist: Talia Rose
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “In August”
Album: Carry it Closely
Release Date: July 16, 2024 (single); August 20, 2024 (album)

In Their Words: “This song was written on request – I was doing a string of holiday shows with Naomi Westwater, who asked if I had any winter-y songs to add to the setlist. I didn’t, but I got to work, and came up with a song called ‘In August’ – oops. I ate up the challenge of trying to find rhymes for all those months; I love syntax challenges like that. As I started performing the song, I added that breakdown section in the middle, originally to play by myself during solo gigs to give my voice a break. Arranging that part with a rhythm section was fantastic, Chris and Gen picked it up right away. The version on the record’s got some really funky organ sounds from Jack Broza, who co-produced the album, and luxurious stacks of harmonies from Heather Scott. Bringing other people into the development of a song is such a gift.” – Talia Rose

Track Credits:
Talia Rose – Lyrics, composition, arrangement, guitar, voice
Heather Scott – Guitar, voice
Chris Sartori – Bass
Gen Yoshimura – Drums

Video Credits:
Micah Nicol – video
Dan Cardinal – audio, mixing

Josh Shilling, “Main Street”

Artist: Josh Shilling
Hometown: Martinsville, Virginia
Song: “Main Street”
Album: Silver Bullet Bluegrass 
Release Date: July 12, 2024
Label: Lonesome Day Records

In Their Words: “I’ve toured with bluegrass bands like Mountain Heart for years and recorded with Del McCoury, Rhonda Vincent, Tony Rice, and everyone between, but I cut my teeth on Bob Seger and similar artists. I’ve always covered classic rock songs live and I’m sure that’s why Randall [Deaton] thought of me.

“I mainly remember listening to my vocal repeatedly and worrying that it wasn’t good enough. Seger’s original performance is ridiculously good with so much character, tone, soul, and cool phrasing. I was terrified of not doing the song justice somehow. I hope he’d be proud of how this one ended up!

“Bob Seger is one of the artists that my parents love. I grew up with his albums. Silver Bullet Band, Live Bullet, Beautiful Loser, Greatest Hits, and so on… I had all his records and I knew all of the songs vocally and on piano and guitar. I could have sung every song on this project without a lyric sheet! I sang Bob’s songs in every honky-tonk between Martinsville, VA and Nashville growing up. His voice doesn’t even sound human to me at times. There’s a magical soulful growl that he pulls from that only he can. You would have definitely heard the music of Paul Rogers, Ray Charles, Gregg Allman, Bob Seger, as well as Tony Rice, Blue Highway, and many others blasting from my bedroom growing up. Bob is definitely a major influence of mine.

“This song is such a classic. Everyone recognizes the song within the first two seconds of it coming on. That beautiful guitar melody right out of the gate, the storyline, and that magical scene change when the chord progression goes to the bridge. It’s a masterpiece that’s as good today as the day it came out. I could sing any song by Bob Seger. I love them all including the deep cuts. That said, I must have performed ‘Main Street’ a thousand times in clubs growing up, so that song was an obvious choice. I’m pretty sure I was the first person to record a vocal for this project, and this song was where we quickly landed.” – Josh Shilling

Track Credits:
Shawn Brock and Gary Nichols – Guitar
Shawn Brock – Mandolin
Mike Bub – Bass
Megan Lynch Chowning – Fiddle
Wayne Bridge – Dobro

Producer: Randall Deaton
Engineers: Randall Deaton and Jimmy Nutt
Tracking Studios: Lonesome Day Recording Studio, Booneville, KY and The NuttHouse Recording Studio, Muscle Shoals, AL
Mixing Studio: The NuttHouse Recording Studio, Muscle Shoals, AL

Wilson Banjo Co., “Memphis Anymore”

Artist: Wilson Banjo Co.
Hometown: Westminster, South Carolina
Song: “Memphis Anymore”
Album: Memory Lane
Release Date: July 12, 2024 (radio single); March 22, 2024 (album)
Label: Pinecastle Records

In Their Words: “We are very excited to release ‘Memphis Anymore’ as a single to radio and had so much fun making this video. This is easily one of our favorites on the record and the writers, Jessica Lynne Witty and Karli Chayne have our deepest gratitude for such a great song. There’s a lightness and joy in this otherwise ‘breakup’ song, it’s just a fun listen and just as enjoyable to play with the band.” – Steve Wilson

Video Credit: Bonfire Recording Studio

DelFest Sessions: East Nash Grass

Our DelFest Sessions continue this week with East Nash Grass, as we relive the iconic Memorial Day weekend festival and return to the banks of the Potomac River for another stellar live performance. In the shade on the river’s banks, BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should captured a high-quality handful of sessions with artists and bands from the DelFest lineup.

This time, we’re featuring an multiple IBMA Award-nominated band known for their long-running East Nashville residencies and their critically-acclaimed 2023 album, Last Chance to Win – from which they pulled their first selection, “Papa’s on the Housetop.” It’s a slinky and bluesy track that demonstrates just a few of the many styles synthesized and metamorphosed into bluegrass by these cracking players.

Watch the entire DelFest Session and read more here.

Photo Credit: Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, and Chao Tian by Jeff Fasano; Josh Shilling by Thomas Crabtree.

Folk Singer Sam Lee Instills Hope and Inspires Action With ‘Songdreaming’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Sam Lee’s musical career grew out of his environmental activism, from the Mercury-winning album, Old Wow, to his ongoing conservation project Singing with Nightingales. The British folk star’s fourth album, songdreaming, released earlier this year, is his most creative venture yet. It’s a manifesto for reconnection with nature constructed from luscious, haunting reinterpretation of the songs of the UK’s Traveller communities.

Its title comes from the summer retreats Lee leads that bring people together to connect to their land and ancestry through song: “Singing to the land happens across the world in Indigenous communities that still have their relationship to nature very much intact,” says Lee. “It’s ceremony, it’s devotional work, it’s prayer.”

We spoke to Lee about songdreaming, how he sources material, queerness, connection to nature, and much more.

Sam, your music is usually based on traditional folk song, but these songs go far further from the source material than you’ve ever taken them before.

I had done a little bit of original writing on Old Wow, but this is an album where almost everything is written by me, some to the point where there’s no semblance of the primary folk song left. And that was a big risk, because I’m quite shy when it comes to thinking of myself as a songwriter. It’s not like I’m a seasoned Johnny Flynn or Anaïs Mitchell. It’s not my training, and I’m a very reluctant writer, because I failed English at school. I’ve always had a great sense of inadequacy.

What prompted you to step out of your comfort zone?

It actually came about in an unusual way – the songs were originally commissioned for a movie, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. It was an adaptation of a much-loved book about a man who walks the entire length of the UK, a portrait of our connection to the land and the healing power of passage-making. I was already a great fan of its director, Hettie Macdonald – her first movie, Beautiful Thing, was seminal for me when it came out in 1996 – so I was really excited to be involved.

We arranged and wrote lots of songs to capture the mood of the film and some were used, but there were all these, dare I say, leftovers? Being the resourceful, waste-not-want-not type, I said, “Well, these all have something in them that is powerful.”

What was your writing process?

I don’t have one particular method, but the way I work is a bit like the way I interact with nature. I’m a forager for sonic and lyrical opportunity, seeing relationships within words in the way that I see relationships within the ecosystem. You start to find what Simon Armitage, Britain’s beloved poet laureate, will call the “neon” moments, things that suddenly shine.

Can you give an example?

Absolutely. “McCrimmon,” the third song on the album, is a ballad I learned from my late mentor Stanley Robertson, who was a Scottish Traveller. There’s a lyric in the original which is, “no more, no more,” but I heard it as “in awe, in awe.” Suddenly a whole song about the state of awe appeared.

There’s another track which is a love song between a fair maid and a plowboy – I recalibrated and reframed it, so it’s a more complicated relationship between species that are in a state of separation. The folk songs say everything already. I’m like someone taking a Shakespeare play, resetting it, maybe adapting some of the language, like West Side Story from Romeo and Juliet.

Which of the songs came easiest?

“Green Mossy Banks,” which is actually about pilgrimage, was so easy to write. It was like, “Oh my god, I’ve been wanting to write this song forever.” And they didn’t even use it in the film!

What is it in that song that you had been longing to express?

The story of the film paints this wonderful portrait of free passage – there’s never a moment where it deals with trespass or permissions or this idea of private land. No barbed wire fences, or angry landowners going, “What do you think you’re doing here?” One could walk from Devon to the borders of Scotland and never have any issue.

But there is no person in England who goes on a country walk and isn’t affected by our punitive, archaic, and utterly unequal private ownership laws. That’s why I was a founder member of the Right to Roam movement. For all its avoidance of politics, “Green Mossy Banks” is a deeply political song. Social and ecological injustice is at the roots of so much of our international crisis.

Is the UK not quite a good place to walk compared to, say the US? The English have ancient rights of way that allow them to walk across private land, whereas try it in the US and you might get shot…

Absolutely. But where does the US get their notion of land rights from? They were inherited as an enhanced version of British law at a time when, in England, if you were caught poaching a hare or something, that’s it, you had your hands cut off, or you were hanged, or sent to Australia.

On the music video for “Green Mossy Banks” we see you surrounded by various mesmerising English landscapes.

It’s a combination of many of the pilgrimages that I’ve made with Chris Park, a druid, and Charlotte Pulver, an apothecary. At cardinal points of the year – the solstices, the equinoxes – we lead communal pilgrimages to places like Stonehenge, or the South Downs.

Are there any songs on the album that were inspired by specific places?

“Meeting is a Pleasant Place” is very much about the Dartmoor landscape, down to the very tor that we filmed the video on. The exact location shall remain nameless, because it’s one of the few tors that exist in a forest, as opposed to Dartmoor’s sheep-wrecked landscape of denuded grassland. It’s deep in beech and oak forests, which makes it especially stunning.

And the song itself came out of a Devon Gypsy folk tune.

Yes, and it contains this rather mystical language that had become something of a mantra to me. “Meeting is a Pleasant Place/ Between my love and I/ I’ll go down to Yonder’s Valley, it’s there I’ll sit and sing…” It’s bad English, but at the same time so powerful in its ambiguity. It could be a love song between two people, but in that Gypsy corruption of the words, suddenly it speaks about something so much bigger. So then I wrote my three verses as a love song to the land.

The appearance of the Trans Voices choir on the chorus turns it into something epic and anthemic…

It’s English folk gospel, as I call it. ILĀ, who runs Trans Voices, is an old friend and when the choir was set up I said I’ve got loads of songs that I’d like to speak to the queerness of land. Folk song often tends towards the heteronormative, and I want to break that down.

In the liner notes you also talk about the queerness of nature, what do you mean by that?

When you look at relationships within the natural world, sexual or otherwise, what you see is massive diversity in roles and identities. In the fungi world, for instance, there are hundreds and hundreds of genders, working collaboratively in community. Humans, too, need to start to recalibrate the way we behave in nature. So much of our subjugation and exploitation of nature has come through a male-dominated worldview and it’s not working.

One of the species you have a great connection with is the nightingale – as well as singing with them in secret woodland gigs every year, you recently wrote a book about their threatened extinction.

Yes, and when I’m with them, for seven weeks each spring, I get this sense of what is it like to be in a relationship that’s falling apart. That heartbreak, saying farewell, and knowing that it has a time limit to it. That’s what inspired the opening track, “Bushes and Briars.” It was the first folk song Ralph Vaughan Williams ever collected, and it’s a lament of a man and a woman who are separating. As somebody who spends a lot of time in bushes and briars trying to keep a relationship with a bird going extinct happening, that’s a space that is very familiar to me.

Coming from a background of singing acoustically, outdoors, how do you work up the big, dense sounds that populate your albums?

I do my writing with James Keay, who plays piano in the band. We both want a richness of sound, so that what are often very repetitive lines and melodies can take the listener on journeys through different emotional states. It’s about trying to paint as big a painting as possible.

As well as strings and horns and pipes, you’ve added a more pan-global feel with a Syrian Qanun, and a Swedish Nykelharpa.

We wanted to create textures that gave a sense of both the ancient and the unusual. I’d never used a Qanun in an arrangement before, though I have used dulcimers before on almost every album, which are part of the same family.

Maya Youssef, Britain’s best-known Qanun player, features on the one folk song that you haven’t changed, “Black Dog and Sheep Crook,” about a shepherd being thrown over by his lover because he’s “just” a shepherd.

I’ve kept its truth and entirety – it just felt so wonderful bringing the tragedy and the melancholy of the Qanun into that song.

So often in this album you’re grieving our detachment from and devaluing of the natural world. But the spirit and purpose of the music, as you describe it, is also to re-establish those connections. What are your current priorities for climate activism?

At the moment, there’s a big campaign to get young people voting, and voting for nature, in the UK. Hope for me is always about having a plan. And there are many brilliant plans out there. It’s about overcoming apathy and resistance and reawakening people to what we have to lose.

I can’t speak to what I think the outcomes will be, I think that’s a dangerous thing to do. But I hope that the album has as many opportunities to instill hope and beauty as there are moments of doom and tragedy.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Alisa Amador’s New Album Contains ‘Multitudes’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After getting a preview of Alisa Amador’s new album, Multitudes, I was excited to catch up with her and hear more about it. The production and strings on songs like “Nudo de raíces” and “Extraño” reminded me of the work of Brazilian artist Tim Bernades, someone I have recently been addicted to. When I brought that up in our interview, Alisa got very excited and showed me a playlist she had made on which Bernardes was the first featured artist – as it happens, she is also a huge fan!

Thus, our conversation started off with a bang of enthusiasm for Bernardes’ Mil Cosas Invisíveis – while it turns out Amador’s Multitudes string parts had been recorded before she ever heard the Bernardes record – and we continued by talking about her life as the child of touring musicians, her guitar inspirations, and how she interacts with songwriting as a bilingual musician.

Multitudes is full of wide, spacious arrangements with lyrics that shoot straight to the point: “I love my life/ But I hate it sometimes,” she sings on “Love Hate Song.” On “Milonga Accidental” she sings, “Cuando miro el agua / Cuando miro el cielo / Cuando miro el agua otra vez…” Roughly translated, this means: “When I look at the water / When I look at the sky / When I look at the water, once again.”

Through our chat, I learned the reasoning behind these direct and simple lyrics – and how her reasoning differs depending on the language she’s working in. Amador is an artist that has found a rare confidence in the way she makes music. I couldn’t help but feel inspired by her calm demeanor and rooted presence. I soon learned that she had been on a long journey to reaching that place for herself.

I want to ask you about your time growing up playing with your parents, who are folk musicians in the band Sol y Canto – what did you take from those experiences and what did you want to do differently?

Alisa Amador: My parents are Latin folk musicians who are touring to this day. They are amazing, and I would not be the musician I am without that primary education. It’s interesting to think about what I’d want to do different, I am always wondering that without being conscious of it I think.

The big thing is just trying to take care of myself better. I think the culture of the music industry is that of completely running yourself into the ground and then some. It seems that being an artist and being a human are often at odds with each other…

I just witnessed my family work so hard, and not have a lot of breaks or self care or healing factored in, we were always [in] survival mode and worrying about money constantly. Although, at the time, that part didn’t traumatize me at all, I don’t know why.

As a kid we just had such a rich life; traveling everywhere, seeing live music, being around people who really care. Getting to experience that much art from such a young age, while really taking touring life in stride, it was a fantastic way to grow up. But I do look back and realize how exhausted and how stressed my parents were and I don’t want that for myself.

So is this something that you realized more recently? Given that as a kid you didn’t feel affected by it?

I think there was a moment – because what my bio says about winning NPR Tiny Desk contest, that just at the moment I was going to give up, that is really true. I was going through the logistics of leaving music, it was terrifying and really painful, but I was at a point in my career that I had done everything for everyone else and had no idea how to advocate for myself. It had ruined me; I was playing gigs where I didn’t feel safe and not being paid wages that were sustainable. … Consequently, I felt like a life in music was not feasible for me.

When I got that call that day from NPR, I almost told them to call someone else. Eventually I decided to say yes, but I had to treat that “yes” as a total reset, a complete reimagining, almost a starting over, and this time I had to take care of myself.

With this reset, did the actual music you were making change at all, or was it only your intentions with how it would be made?

I had been in a period of writers block for two years and I didn’t come out of that for another year after winning the Tiny Desk Contest. I felt like an imposter, I was like, “Little do these people know that I don’t write songs anymore…” But I chose to relearn how to write songs and to try to meet myself where I was, instead of trying to making something perfect or good.

I just had to remember, how did I start writing? I was 15 and struggling, I didn’t know how to coexist with painful things, and I started writing because it helped me get through it. I didn’t write because it needed to be good or I needed to sell it. At that time, I had all these other creative practices, [like] journaling and dancing around my room, and I had let go of all of them during that period, and I felt like I couldn’t make anything. I wasn’t ready to process what I had been through.

When I did starting writing again, it had to come from this place of childlike curiosity and wonder and I had to tell myself every time I wrote, “It will probably be bad.” And letting it be bad is what allowed me to write anything at all.

As a bilingual writer, you have access to another tool – choice of language – that many of us don’t have. How and why do you approach your songs in one language or the other, and how does it color them?

I heard Allison Russell talk about this in an interview. I’m paraphrasing, but I think she said something like, “Writing in different languages is like accessing different channels of the unconscious …” and similarly, I feel like I don’t make a conscious choice about what language I write in, but it could come from a different place.

I have noticed that writing in English, it tends to be more conversational. I just tell what I’m feeling, literally, and try to trust that the feelings will reach people, as long I’m being honest.

When I’m writing in Spanish, even though it’s my native language, I’ve always lived in the U.S., so I just have a limited vocabulary. There was a period of time where I was only speaking Spanish at home, it was the strict language at home, so I think it’s my childlike language, but it gets used in new and poetic ways. Whatever words can capture that feeling are the ones that I’m gonna stick to, because I don’t have that many to choose from! I don’t have trick phrases or literary devices, and maybe I have a little less judgement in Spanish as well. Limitation is really a gift in that way.

That’s really interesting! So with that in mind, how do you feel about language translation with songs? Is it helpful or harmful to the meaning?

I actually love translating and when the first album review came out from No Depression about Multitudes, the headline was “…Alisa Amador is Found in Translation.” I was so happy about that. Because really, my best language is Spanglish, switching in between is where I’m most comfortable, and that in-between-ness is where I’m always existing.

In my parent’s band, they would often give a translation of the song for an English speaking audience; my dad would play the progression of the song and my mom would stand there dramatically, looking fabulous, telling the lyrics in a beautiful way, always within the frame of the chord progression.

So I really enjoy giving a translation before singing the songs now as well, and so many people have come up to tell me they love it. The translation being in time with the song makes it possible for them to even follow along while I sing it in Spanish.

There’s something so metaphorically perfect about that, because when you’re living in between you feel like you’re always missing something, but there’s something gained from that, too, because it makes it possible to give grace when someone isn’t understanding, or bring them in when they aren’t feeling heard. And that is what I’m able to do when I give a translation.

Can you tell me about your guitar style? It’s really beautiful. Who or what influences the way you play? And how did you learn?

I started because I idolized my dad. He is a classical guitarist and he’s trained in flamenco. As a kid I studied flamenco dance, too, so I used to dance while he would play. He gave me one of his old foot stools and I played nylon-string guitar for a long time, that was my first instrument. I just studied folk songs like “Monster Mash” and “Blackbird” and “American Pie.” My dad was super technical, but I didn’t study with him, and I knew I wanted to become a better guitarist.

Then in college, I saw a musician just playing solo electric guitar and singing and I had no idea an electric could sound like that. I love electric – but nylon-string acoustic will always be the origin of my playing, so I approach the electric guitar that way. Resonance is really important to me and noticing how chords feel. A lot of my writing is just simple chords and adding and taking away notes. I’m very much still learning guitar, I’m in this stage of guitar learning where I get lost in self doubt, so I practice whatever I play live so much in order to feel confident performing.

I’m sure there’s a lot of Spanish language folk music that folks in the “Americana” scene are really missing out on, myself included. What are some other artists that sing in Spanish or in other languages, that you think folks should know about?

One of my big inspirations for the overall sonic work of Multitudes was the album Domus by Sílvia Pérez Cruz. I listened to it obsessively seven years ago without realizing it was the soundtrack of a film, Circa de Tu Casa, which is about the real housing crisis in Spain. [Pérez Cruz also stars in this film.]

Something I thought Cruz did so well on this record is that she is so feelings-oriented. What she feels is what dictates how she sings the song, which is a philosophy that I share. But she also has this riveting voice, so it’s all about telling a story. The production on the record completely holds what she’s singing, but it is also musically and technically beautiful. You want to have a record you can turn to again and again and notice new things to love.

Is there anything else you want readers to know before we end?

I guess I’d like to give a gentle reminder to human listeners, to the people listening and reading, that you really matter to independent artists. Every listener is the life force behind our careers. When someone comes to a show, and then comes back with a friend or presses play on a record they’ve not heard before, those things are what make my job possible, so thank you to the individuals of the world who press play and pay attention!

Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro

MIXTAPE: Blackwater Railroad’s Music From the Last Frontier

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Alaska is an incredible melting pot for artists. Despite our sparse population, we are filled with wonderful creative types and a bustling music scene. Lots of our music and tradition stems from bluegrass and string music, the roots of which can be seen in so many of our incredible acts. As a band, we seek to celebrate our state and our scene, both of which are thriving and yet largely ignored by the lower 48. – Blackwater Railroad

“Heirlooms” – Josh Fortenbery

Josh’s new album is so immediately captivating. His voice is incredible, the instrumentation divine, and his songwriting is top notch. You can lose yourself instantly in the images he paints in your mind. He’s also part of Muskeg Collective, a Juneau-Based supergroup of folk musicians.

“Call Me a Fool” – Erin Heist

Erin is also part of the Muskeg Collective and another great example of the high standard that Juneau musicians bring to the world. Her smooth voice and raw lyrics speak directly to our hearts. Be sure to listen for the wonderful mandolin work by her husband, Andrew Heist, on this track. Power couple much??

“Sundays” – Wiley Post

We’ve had the pleasure of sharing the stage with these folks a few times now. They have an eclectic indie vibe that is so characteristic of our scene. Enjoy soaring fiddle lines, tasteful piano, and angelic vocals on this one!

“Brand New Love” – Black Barrel & The Bad Men

One of the more recent additions to our Alaskan scene, BB&TBM have hit the ground running. Their debut EP is gold and their live performances are top-notch. They ooze passion in their vocal arrangements and instrumentation. Their songs get stuck in my head constantly. I would not doubt big things to be coming to these (really good) Bad Men.

“Sink or Swim” – Zen Trembles

Becky Kotter has one of the most unique approaches to guitar and music that I’ve ever seen. She uses multiple capos and open tunings, playing entirely by ear to create her special brand of folk. Her voice is so nuanced and creative and every song you hear is creative and fresh!

“The Cuckoo” – Annie Bartholomew

Annie B is an undeniable talent. Her songwriting and lyrics resonate so strongly for us, and her aesthetic in general is delightful. Every time I’ve had the pleasure to see her perform live was an enchanting experience. The world needs more Annies!

“Orbiting Things” – Fireweed Fiddle

Ok, ok, yes, Fireweed Fiddle does happen to be our very own fiddle player, Rachel DeTemple. When she’s not sitting in with us all across Alaska, she’s writing brilliant music of her own. Rachel’s new album showcases her wonderful skills as both a singer and a player, all while being wrapped in a perfect folky bow.

“Traveler’s Waltz” – Hope Social Club

This is one of the most iconic acts we have in our state. They have a rich history of incredible music and live performances. Enjoy their entire catalog, and if you’re lucky enough to see one of the few shows they play a year, you’re in for a treat!

“Pray for John” – Roland Roberts

Roland is such a good storyteller. Even without guitar in hand you can listen to him wax poetic about anything. This is a slower tune, brilliant in all respects, but be sure to check out his other tunes for some more upbeat and rocking pieces as well. Roland also helped write one of the tunes on our new album, “Road to Make Believe”!

“Not Over You” – Evan Phillips

This tune has a wonderful vibe. I got to enjoy this one for the first time on a long trip back home in the band van. The dreamlike production paired with nature’s majesty on the highway made for one of the most delightful moments I’ve had in a long time. For a moment, I forgot I was stuck crammed in a van with five other stinky dudes for eight hours. I mean, that’s gotta count for something, right?

“Lucky Tennessee” – Bethlehem Shalom

This is such a cool track by such a creative artist. I think within a few seconds her iconic flavor will pour out of your speakers. A great example of the creative sounds and experiences you can get out of living in our wild state.

“Rock and Roll Man” – Blackwater Railroad

Hey, it’s us! This is the most rock-oriented song on our new album. It also might be the one that was the most exciting to make. The build up at the end features Taylor Vidic on vocals. We turned out the lights in the studio and just asked her to ad-lib based on how the track felt to her. She delivered 1000% and made for what might be the most iconic moment on the album.

“Lonely House” – Steve Brown and the Bailers

This is an awesome tune on the road. Alaska is huge and spread out so we spend a lot of time on the highway. Tunes like this keep the wheels turning and the spirits high. This song gets more and more creative as it evolves, so be sure to keep listening to see what happens. Spoiler: it’s sick.

Photo Credit: David Juarez

Basic Folk: Chris Smither & Peter Mulvey

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Chris Smither has been Peter Mulvey’s mentor since back in 1993, when a young Mulvey opened for the already seasoned Smither. The blues and folk legend liked what he heard and enjoyed their similarities in creativity and quirks; he took that young man on the road with him. Their musical partnership has survived the digital age, the pandemic, parenthood, and the indictment of a former president. Along the way each has worked to influence their best habits and life lessons on the other. As far as mentor-mentee relationships go, this one is for the history books.

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In this rare joint interview on Basic Folk, we address the important questions: Why do they delight in calling each other by their last names? Smither shares that he was first called by his last name in Paris when he was in school. The two debate who has the better hometown, Milwaukee or New Orleans. Actually, it’s not so much a debate as a reflection on New Orleans music, since that is clearly the better spot to grow up as a musician.

Mulvey reflects on their musical differences, citing some of his main inspirations to be Kendrick Lamar and Ani DiFranco, versus Smither’s affinity for Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. There are nods to David “Goody” Goodrich, Jeffrey Foucault, Kris Delmhorst and the woman behind it all, Carol Young (AKA Smither’s long-time manager, AKA his wife). We break down how each feels about fatherhood and try to get Smither to spill his secret to longevity. Spoiler alert: It’s not from remaining still.

Smither’s 20th album, All About the Bones, is out now. Peter Mulvey’s latest is the acoustic retrospective, More Notes From Elsewhere.

Photo Credit: Chris Smither by Jo Chattman; Peter Mulvey by Paul Reitano.