Bestie Lizzie No has just released their career-defining new record, Halfsies, and we are 100% here for it on our 250th episode! Lizzie, who co-hosts Basic Folk, put her entire being, identity, and creativity into this project. There’s a lot going on with their main character, the avatar Miss Freedomland, and we’re getting to the bottom of it in our conversation.
Our hero’s journey begins even before the main character is born. Her inception grew out of disdain for childhood beauty pageants – which Lizzie’s mother actually won back in the early ’60s at a now defunct amusement park called Freedomland. And, there are photos of Little Catherine Quinlan with a look of disgust on her five-year-old face. Lizzie grew up with this story and as she got older, she began to think hard about societal expectations and the stock put into women and children’s emotional expression through their faces. Lizzie also grew up hearing and saying the word “No,” hence the stage name.
Enter Miss Freedomland! (Also the name of Lizzie’s new record label.) She has been tasked with a journey to become free, which will require inner healing, exploration of self-identity, and giving up performance of gender that just feels wrong. The album starts with our main character trying to level up (because, yes, this is a video game) with her own self-expression, revisiting past traumas and shedding the baggage and hot garbage that got her trapped in the first place.
In our conversation, we go track by track through this showstopper of a record and even get some solo live performances. I hope you enjoy exploring Lizzie’s world as much as I did. These songs are brilliant and the concept executed remarkably. Thanks to Studio 9 in North Adams, Massachusetts for the use of their beautiful studio!
Missy Raines is one of the winningest musicians in the 30+ year history of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s annual awards. She’s a 10-time recipient of the Bass Player of the Year trophy and has taken home a couple of Collaborative Recording of the Year and Instrumental Recording of the Year awards, too. She’s been an omnipresent creative in bluegrass, in Nashville, and in American roots music as a whole for the majority of her life. Even so, many are heralding her new album, Highlander, made with her new band, Allegheny, as a “return to bluegrass.” The thing is, Raines never left.
It’s true that she spent more than a handful of years touring with an experimental, new acoustic-inflected string band, The New Hip, intentionally devoting more than a decade to highlighting her songwriting, her role as front person, and her smoky, patina-ed alto. Throughout that time, no matter how far afield the music may have explored beyond the stone walls and steel bars of bluegrass, Raines always had both feet firmly planted in the genre. While fronting and touring the New Hip, she remained a mainstay at bluegrass and acoustic camps across the country, founded and performed with several bluegrass and old-time supergroups, and “moonlit” as a bassist-for-hire for a laundry list of notable bluegrass, country, and Nashville stars.
So, however exciting it may be – and, it is truly, very exciting – that Raines and Allegheny have intentionally guided her sound back to traditional, straight ahead, mash-tastic bluegrass for her new album, Highlander, it’s important to remind Raines’ audience, the new initiates and diehards alike, that whatever music may emanate from the strings of her upright bass or from her tender and expressive voice, she has always been and will always be bluegrass. And effortlessly so. Highlander isn’t so much a return to the genre as it is a reminder that Missy Raines’ goal in music, first and foremost, is to make great bluegrass music for great bluegrass folks – her kind of folks.
This is your first album with the new band and I wanted to talk about how your creative process and how your collaboration process looks nowadays. I sense a lot of changes in how you’ve approached making music as an ensemble, but I wonder how it has felt to you, on the inside of the sonic and lineup shift from the last album to this new lineup, with Missy Raines & Allegheny?
Missy Raines: The collaboration process we have within this band, Allegheny, and for this album is the collaboration process that I’ve always dreamed of and wanted to have in a band setting. You know, I wanted to have my own band for years and years and then, after I waited a really long time, when I finally did do it in like 2009, I had in my mind that it would be like this, that it would be this collaborative thing and I’d have people who were invested. The short story is that I have that now, and that’s the beauty of it.
In the past, I did have elements of that, for sure. There were definitely folks who came into the different configurations that I had who were invested and collaborative. [That] was definitely there, but I will say, to have a moment in time when you have actually like five people sitting in the room and they’re all equally invested – that is pretty magical.
So yeah, the process for this record was very different than for Royal Traveller, because on Royal Traveller I didn’t really have a band when I started that recording. I was sort of ending the New Hip and I knew that that record wasn’t going to have the sound that the New Hip had, it was going to be very mixed, in terms of styles. There were all these different guests on every single song and there was no one solid backing band, because I actually wasn’t touring at the time. All of the main decisions and stuff were basically made by me and [producer] Alison Brown.
I think part of why this album feels so strongly like a band album is not just because of the Missy Raines & Allegheny rebrand, but also because you’ve been playing with this lineup – Ben Garnett, Eli Gilbert, Ellie Hakanson, and Tristan Scroggins – now for several years. This project feels like it was made by a band. And I think part of that feeling comes from you having worked together for as long as you did before you made the album.
I think it does. I don’t know if it also has anything to do with the fact that me, just by default– yes I’m the leader, but I’m also a bass player and my tendency and my way of thinking about any band is I come into it as a support player, because that’s what I’ve done all my life. This came up the other day online, because we’re getting lots of really great reviews from the record. Like one reviewer called my “backing” band “magnificent.” They are magnificent, but I don’t think of them as a backing band. I told them that and of course, Tristan said, “Well, that’s what we are.” And I was like, “No!” I still don’t think of [the band] that way. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m maybe still a little uncomfortable being out front, or it’s a combination of things.
It’s also just been this bass player mentality that – not that bass players can’t be out front, it’s just like, “No, we’re making this stuff together. We’re making this together.” And so I don’t see it as me standing up there doing something and they’re backing me up. I feel that if I’m not playing with them and they’re not playing with me, then we have nothing.
What was the process like as you sat down with this sequence of songs and were imagining who you wanted to have guest on the album? How did you navigate that with your producer, Alison Brown? This is a stout lineup of special guests appearing with you and Allegheny.
The only thing I knew in the very beginning, before I even talked to Alison about making the record, was that I wanted to do “These Ole Blues” with Danny Paisley. [Laughs] That was already in my head. I had this vision, I heard Loretta Lynn’s version of it and then I also knew that I wanted to change it a bit to make it more bluegrass. And it came out exactly the way I was hoping. I wanted to sing it with Danny Paisley. That was an easy one. Well, all of them were easy, because when we sat down we just listened, thought about the song, and thought who would be the right singer. And, who would also represent what it was that I was trying to say with this record.
Like, Dudley Connell on “Ghost Of A Love.” Of course, he’s playing with the Seldom Scene these days – he’s just so good that he can do anything. And no one loves the Seldom Scene more than me, but what I was looking for was Johnson Mountain Boys Dudley. [The Seldom Scene] was one of the big inspirations to this band, but so were the Johnson Mountain Boys and nobody captures that better than Dudley.
And I did want to say something about Laurie Lewis, too.
I wanted to ask you about “I Would Be a Blackbird,” the track that features Laurie, so yes, please, let’s definitely get into that!
So, Nathan Bell, he’s a friend, a great songwriter, and he wrote “American Crow” [from 2013’s New Frontier]. He wrote “I Would Be a Blackbird.” He’s written several songs with bird themes, but this song, he actually sent to me literally years ago and I loved it, but I couldn’t make it happen before, because it just didn’t fit whatever I was doing at the time. But it found its way to this band and it felt right.
Then again, when we thought about who I should sing with it, I thought of Laurie Lewis and it was perfect. I also really wanted Laurie to be part of this record because she was so much a part of Royal Traveller, she wrote “Swept Away” and it was like the star of that album. Laurie said to me, “You need to record ‘Swept Away,’ you should do that! It would be a great song for you.” So that felt extra special, that she thought of me for that.
When I was just starting out to play, when I was a teenager and stuff, I didn’t really know much about her music, because at that time I was such an east coaster and she was such a west coaster. I didn’t really know much about what was going on out there. But then soon after that, when I started hearing more of her music, got to meet her, and heard Love Chooses You, that was one of the first moments that I had in my mind that made me go, “Oh, you know… I would like to do something like this on my own someday.”
And then she became a really dear friend! Anyway, it was just really important to have her on this record.
I wanted to ask you about “Who Needs A Mine?” Not only because of Kathy Mattea joining you on that track, but also because of your ties to West Virginia and the very ideas behind Highlander. When I first heard you play that song probably a year and a half ago now, I think my jaw hit the floor. It’s such a perfect song and it’s so clearly in this tradition of women songwriters from West Virginia, from Central Appalachia, and the Mid-Atlantic who use folk songs and folk lyrics as a vehicle to speak truth to power. For me, it’s the focal point of the record. I think it’s one of the best socially aware and politically aware bluegrass songs that’s ever been written, in my humble opinion.
Wow. Well, your humble opinion means a lot over here. So, thank you.
I definitely thought of Kathy immediately, because of the West Virginia part, but also because she has championed this drug crisis for a long time. Her own life has been affected by it, personally, with family members. She speaks openly about that and has done a lot of really great things. That resonated with me.
One of the really extra special things that happened the day that Alison brought us together in the studio, I walked in and [Kathy] was there and she looked at me and she said, “I really, really love this song.”
I felt the sincerity in her voice. Like she said, it is really, really meaningful and powerful. I was just overwhelmed with that. Then she also said, “And it’s really nice to hear another alto singer!” [Laughs] I thought, “Well, that’s cool that you would even put me in the same breath as you.” I’ve always been drawn to singers like her, with the range of her voice and stuff. It seemed like a very natural fit for the song.
And as for me wanting to write it, I’ve been thinking about this song for probably the last five, six years or maybe a little bit more. I tried to write this song on my own, right from the beginning, but I realized that I was just way too close to it and I needed to have some perspective. I still wanted to have a bit of control over it, because I knew what I wanted from it. But I realized I also needed somebody to give me some perspective. So, I thought of who I knew that I would like to write with and who would get it and come from that same place, and I very wisely chose Randy Barrett. He was absolutely perfect to help me write that.
Of course, you know I cited Hazel, because she’s such a hero and my ties to West Virginia will be forever. I honestly don’t ever see myself living back there ever again, but on the other hand, I will always cherish all the things precious from my early life there. This issue is just so incredibly important to me and the reasons it happened – that people can Google, as to why this is such a horrific and atrocious thing. And it wasn’t just by accident, [opioid marketing] was actually targeted.
I’m glad you bring up Hazel. I think she is such an important touch point for this song. And I also think of Jean Ritchie, but there’s also this current moment happening where songwriters and roots musicians from rural places are taking up similar issues in their music. I’m thinking of Dori Freeman’s “Soup Beans Milk and Bread,” of Willi Carlisle’s “When the Pills Wear Off.” I think that there’s this really important moment of songwriters telling stories about these regions that are critical and that are seeking justice and a better future, but are also approaching it from love.
There’s something really interesting about “Who Needs A Mine?” because it feels like there’s some sarcasm and sass in it, but I still sense that the song is very, very loving – even in the way that there’s bitterness and anger in it. Do you see that too?
I love that you bring that up, because I was just sitting here thinking that I grew up listening to Hazel and hearing her songs, mostly about poverty and about mining and black lung and all of the travesties that came with the mining industry. While I knew that was part of my state’s history, it really wasn’t part of my own story, because my family weren’t miners. They were farmers and they were railroad men, but they weren’t actually miners.
The part of West Virginia where I grew up had more strip mining than it did deep coal mining. And so there was some level of understanding for me, but at the same time, I was fascinated. When I was a teenager, I used to read all the stories about the mines and unionization – and Mother Jones. I was really into that. And again, one of the reasons that I loved Hazel is because she championed all of that so much. At the same time, it wasn’t my story. When I started becoming emotionally involved with what was happening in the world today, seeing the West Virginia that I knew and the devastation when I go back home to see my family. I hear the stories about the drug infestation and all that. I see the poverty and see the children and all those things. Then I started getting angry and started getting upset about it. I realized this is my story. This is my time. This is what’s happening now. We all thought that the mines were going to be the worst thing that ever happened to us, but we at least kind of lived through that. And in many ways, we triumphed through that. But now, this is more powerful – a pill that makes you feel like nothing, a pill that takes you out of reality is way more powerful than anything else.
I love the joke going around regarding this lineup of your band being “Mashy Raines.” I think it’s hilarious.
[Laughs] Thank you.
I think it’s interesting, because it seems like people use that joke to note how trad this band sounds, because you’ve spent a lot of time dabbling on the fringes of bluegrass. So it’s notable that you’re making bluegrass straight down the middle with this lineup. I think part of why it works so well is because you’re using this really trad aesthetic with such emotionally intelligent songs.
That is exactly what I was trying to go for, to have this hopefully artistically and intellectually interesting subject matter on top of really traditional sounds and aesthetic. That’s the most fun in the world to do, and hopefully you get some messages across without folks even knowing it.
I understand why some people might think this is new for me or something, the mashing thing, but we, of course, know that it’s not. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but it’s just that a lot of the mashy stuff or the real traditional stuff I started out with. I was doing it back then, you know, when not everything that anyone ever did was recorded and put online. There’s so much of that in my history that only the people who were there will remember. When I finally did start to make records and stuff, either on my own or with other people, yeah, it tended to be a lot more explorative, for sure. I had already played a lifetime of traditional bluegrass before I even made my first album.
The New Hip was bluegrass, but I never tried to make it be bluegrass. I just knew that I was bluegrass and I was a bluegrass bass player and I was playing this other kind of music. The entire time, I was thinking of all of it as a bluegrass bass player. In my mind, I never left bluegrass, but I do understand how it was perceived that way by some.
When Highlander started coming out, I started seeing the stuff being written and they were using this “return to bluegrass” thing. I fought it a little bit, at first. But now I’m like, “It’s okay, because you’re right.” This is unique. This band and this sound, it is unique. In that regard, it is a definite return to something that I haven’t done for a long time – with a specific sound that we have now. It’s exactly what I was looking for, but because of the people involved, it’s better than I ever imagined it could be.
I consider myself to be amongst the luckiest of music lovers. Growing up, I saw some of the most incredible roots artists from backstage while holding my Jack Russell terrier and playing with my cousins. When I was 8 years old, my grandfather Warren started a free bluegrass festival in San Francisco called Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. These artists shaped me since they were the first ones I watched perform, but the connection went on to become even deeper. When my grandfather passed away in 2011 I started performing music, and the larger community of Hardly Strictly was where I found my encouragers and mentors.
This is a compilation of the artists who I heard from and listened to as a child, and those whose songs I learned when I first became a musician. –ISMAY (AKA Avery Hellman)
“Dark Turn of Mind” – Gillian Welch
Just after high school I spent time working on some small homesteads with a farm labor trade for room and board. This was the same time that The Harrow & the Harvest by Gillian Welch came out – a literary masterpiece. Every time I listen to this record it reminds me of those homesteads and my borrowed car with a faulty battery. It brings me back to the day I arrived late to a new farm in West Virginia while my roommate was still sleeping and how odd it felt to be in a house with a stranger. I got up in the morning to make sourdough toast with an egg wondering what that person who was asleep in the loft of that ’80s wood cabin would think of me.
“Concrete And Barbed Wire” – Lucinda Williams
In the ’90s I was fortunate that my mom had great music taste. She took us around in a magenta suburban car and played Lucinda Williams. She said us kids used to sing along with silly accents to the words “concrete and barbed wire.” It took me another 20 years to fully appreciate Lucinda Williams and the masterful lyricist she is. Over the last four years, I’ve been working on a documentary about her, and it’s been so rewarding, because Lucinda’s music is the kind that gets better the more you know it.
“Dallas” – The Flatlanders
My grandfather was not a professional musician for most of his life, but in the final years he played in a bluegrass band with his friend Jimmie Dale Gilmore. What a kind man Jimmie is, with a voice that reminds me of a dove fluttering away. Because of this relationship he had with my grandfather, I heard about this record Jimmie made with his band The Flatlanders that was lost for 40 years. It was raw and made me feel like I was under a tin roof in Texas. It’s said that this tape helped mark the birth of alt-country.
“The Times They Are A-Changin'” – Odetta
A few years ago I was asked to perform at an event that compared and contrasted Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. I’m more of a Cohen person, so I had more trouble finding a Dylan song that felt like it would fit my feel. That was when I came upon this remarkable Odetta cover and I was inspired. She changed the whole feel of the song to make it her own. In 2008, she performed at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass just two months before she passed away, it was one of the final times she ever performed.
“St. James Hospital” – Doc Watson
I know that most people know Doc for his flatpicking, but I’ve always been much more drawn to the fingerpicking style of guitar in general. “St. James Hospital” feels like a fascinating departure from the more well known Doc Watson performances, and I love hearing him playing in a less linear fashion. This shows he can do it all. In the music that I’ve recorded I sometimes feel a bit out-of-the-norm and nowhere-to-belong, but this song feels similar to one I recorded called “A Song in Praise of Sonoma Mountain.” Hearing “St. James Hospital” makes me feel less out-on-a-limb in roots music.
“Permanent” – Kenneth Pattengale & Joey Ryan (The Milk Carton Kids)
As I started playing music I found this record by The Milk Carton Kids before they had that name, and played under Kenneth Pattengale & Joey Ryan. Listening to this song now, it is still unreal that it was all recorded live at a concert. It was deeply inspiring to see artists like Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings generating a new live sound that was somehow very modern and yet felt like a continuation of original folk music. As if the ’80s and ’90s had never happened! What a gift. Then, seeing The Milk Carton Kids take that torch and carry it on was so exciting for me as a 19 year old.
“Boulder to Birmingham” – Emmylou Harris
I listen to Emmylou every year on Sunday night at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Her silver hair and steadiness feel beyond time. I can’t believe she is still here, with that same strong presence since I was just 8 years old. As a performer she has a strong sense of worthiness to the audience, a sense of mutual respect for the relationship between listener and performer. I hope that I can hold just a bit of her steadiness within myself.
“Restless” – Alison Krauss & Union Station
I was in 6th grade and didn’t much enjoy recess out on the playground. I brought my CDs over to an empty classroom, and sat in the back listening to Alison Krauss & Union Station. Sometimes I’d show these CDs to my friends. This was before I figured out that it was cooler to be listening to rock music. But I loved that music, and the songs were amongst the first I tried to learn in singing lessons.
“The Silver Dagger” – Old Crow Medicine Show
Old Crow Medicine Show was playing at Hardly Strictly as they rose up in mainstream culture. I appreciate the edge that this recording preserves. There’s even a moment where it sounds like someone might have dropped something or hit their instrument on another (01:35). I wish more recordings kept imperfections preserved within them.
“Pretty Bird” – Hazel Dickens
Part of the reason that my grandfather started Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was because of his love of Hazel Dickens. They were from very different backgrounds, but they became friends and saw the common humanity in one another through music. She played every year until she died. This is my favorite song of hers. What is beautiful to me about Hazel’s take on bluegrass is the imperfections and raw emotion. She brought her whole self to the song.
“Harlem River Blues” – Justin Townes Earle
I can still picture Justin on the stage with his impeccably curated suits. Back around 2018, I opened a show for him in Santa Cruz, California. He drove up to the venue in a red convertible, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. Just a guy and his ride. He was very kind to me and I wish I had more chances to see him play again. May his music never fade away.
“Tiniest Lights” – Angel Olsen
When I was 20, I went into a record shop in Ohio. The guy there said they only really carry more obscure records. No problem, I thought, I was here for Captain Beefheart and PJ Harvey. But when I asked, he said those artists were too well known. He pointed me towards Angel Olsen and I heard something in songwriting I had never heard before. My world opened up, and I knew there was so much more that was possible after listening to “Tiniest Lights.” She performed at Hardly Strictly in 2015 and her voice was as real and penetrating as the recordings.
“If I Needed You” – Lyle Lovett
What’s better than Lyle Lovett playing a Townes Van Zandt song?? We listened to Lyle a bunch when I was a kid. No, I’m not from Texas, but I do love those Texas songwriters.
“Long Ride Home” – Patty Griffin
The first time I performed at Hardly Strictly (although somewhat tangentially) was at an artist after party. I chose this song, because it had a fun fancy guitar line I could play with my beginner fingers. Someone who was performing came up and said they thought I was talented. I think that might have changed my life right there. It was the first time anyone had come up to me and said I was good enough to do this as a job, not to mention amongst professional musicians.
“Are You Sure” – Willie Nelson
Willie played Hardly Strictly in 2003 and I remember that big black bus sitting behind the main stage. I can’t even imagine the thrill of the audience members, his fans are as dedicated as they come. I heard this song at a recently released film that is fantastic called To Leslie.
“Little Bird of Heaven” – Reeltime Travellers
This band was part of that wave of old-time style artists that came at the same time as Hardly Strictly. The vocals are so unexpected, but real and honest. One of their band members became a mentor of mine and helped me get my start in the music business and I am forever grateful.
“Essay Man” and “The Golden Palomino” – ISMAY
These are two songs from my latest release, Desert Pavement, that would never have happened if it weren’t for Hardly Strictly. I am trying to find my way with my own version of folk, and can’t help but be inspired at what a rich trove of artists I have to draw from.
Artist:The Lost Wayne (AKA Hunter Hoffman) Hometown: DMV (DC/Maryland/Virginia) Latest Album:Tangerine Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Hamster, Smooch
Which artist has influenced you the most and how?
There have been, and there continues to be, so many that it’s hard to narrow it down to just one. But the artist who has had the deepest impact on me has definitely been Noah Gundersen. My sister introduced me to his music in my early 20s and I have been a massive fan ever since. His honesty and vulnerability in his writing is something I’ve always admired and been drawn to. We’re both around the same age and I felt the experiences he was singing about were lining up exactly with my life. I’ve seen him play live many times, both solo and with a full band, and you can feel the crowd just completely magnetized to him and feeling every lyric and emotion of each song. One way I like to test if a song is well written is if it’s message and gravitas holds up with just the artist and their instrument. His music is equally impactful with the fullness of produced sound or a solo acoustic set. He’s inspired me in so many ways in finding the deep truths in my songwriting and how to translate that into performing live. I could go on and on, but I feel like it’s starting to sound creepy so I’m going to stop!
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I moved to New York to go to acting school at The Neighborhood Playhouse and in my college years I had played little open mic showcases on campus and had written a handful of songs. I had dreams of becoming a musician, but was primarily focused on acting. I set a goal for myself that I wanted to get a show playing a full set of original music, so I went to an open mic at the former coffee shop/concert venue Waltz-Astoria in Queens. Pedro Gonzalez and his wife Song were the owners, and after I played my two-song slot he asked if I wanted to perform a set that weekend, since another artist had dropped out at the last minute. All of a sudden my dream became a reality in the first few weeks of moving to the city. After I finished my set and felt the rush of baring my soul through my songs on stage, I knew this was no longer going to only be a therapeutic hobby. I’m grateful to say I’ve been able to juggle both acting and music in my adulthood and I take pride in saying I am an actor AND a musician. It’s been a wonderful ride so far.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
All of them. I just finished reading Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way Of Being, and it’s really opened me to finding inspiration everywhere. I’ve grown to appreciate how individual and subjective art is for everyone and that what I appreciate and connect to could be the complete opposite experience for someone else. So even if I don’t relate to something or “like” it, I try to keep my mind open and attempt to analyze why it doesn’t. Art helps us define who we are to ourselves, and as an artist I try to consume as much as I can, because you never know what’s going to hit you.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
Steal from other artists. And not in the copyright way, but in the inspiration. Sometimes if I’m caught in a writer’s block or a creative lull in my songwriting, I get so much from learning a new song from an artist I love. Or messing with it to sound a different way and make it cater to my voice. I’m also self-taught on guitar and have relatively zero knowledge of music theory, so when I learn and practice other people’s music, I discover new chord progressions or playing styles that can be so helpful to my own songwriting.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me?”
I’ve written a few songs through a sort of character in mind, but inherently every song I write is a form of me. 95% of the songs I’ve written have started from me in a room with my guitar, sitting with whatever feelings or circumstances are making their way through my life, and doodling around ’til something sparks. Sometimes I’m in a sad place and out comes a corny love song, or I’m happy as a clam and I word vomit a full existential crisis, my world burning down around me. At the end of the day it’s all me, whether I’m inhabiting a character or not, I have to start with the truth of it for myself. I think it can be a great exercise to write from the perspective of a character, and I can attest it’s a lot of fun, but my favorite songs I’ve written are the ones that are uncomfortably me. My experiences and stories are the only things I can honestly share, and if I can write a song that impacts someone the way so many artists have impacted me, then hopefully I’ll find myself in the ballpark of making something meaningful.
This week, there were just too many exciting releases and new songs to feature, so buckle up for seven excellent premieres – cause You Gotta Hear This! From a John Hiatt cover by modernist banjo player Tray Wellington to a brand new music video from country neo-traditionalist Corb Lund, from Amelia White to the Roe Family Singers, there’s something for every taste and from every style of American roots music.
Tray Wellington, “Lift Up Every Stone”
Artist:Tray Wellington Hometown: Raleigh, North Carolina Song: “Lift Up Every Stone” Release Date: February 23, 2024 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “For me, ‘Lift Up Every Stone’ encompasses a sense of encouragement to fight through the hard times in life. When I first heard the John Hiatt version of this song, I loved the use of imagery to convey the lifting atmosphere. It was also a chance to try something new musically, which for anything I record, I want to be challenged more and more — and this was the perfect way to step outside of my comfort zone.” – Tray Wellington
Track Credits: Tray Wellington – Banjo, lead vocal Drew Matulich – Guitar, electric guitar Katelynn Bohn – Bass Josiah Nelson – Mandolin, fiddle DaShawn Hickman – Pedal steel guitar Wendy Hickman – Lead vocal, harmony vocal
Corb Lund, “El Viejo (For Ian)”
Artist:Corb Lund Hometown: Alberta, Canada Song: “El Viejo (For Ian)” Album: El Viejo Release Date: February 23, 2024 Label: New West Records
In Their Words: “We dedicated the record to our late friend, Ian Tyson, and the title track is a tribute to him. ‘El Viejo’ was our friendly nickname for him and it means ‘the old man.’ I’m pretty proud of the song, and the video, which uses a lot of cool old stock footage of him. Hope the record is as satisfying to listen to as it was for us to make. I left it all on the field for this one.” – Corb Lund
Video Credits: Noah Fallis – Director, Director of Photography Jamie Campbell – Producer Brendan Schmidt – Camera Operator, Editor Ethan Wournell – First A/C Blair Bourque – Key Grip Alyssa Howland – Gaffer Archival footage of Ian Tyson courtesy of Neil McGonagle
Amelia White, “Love I Swore”
Artist:Amelia White Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Love I Swore” Album:Love I Swore Release Date: February 23, 2024 Label: Thirty One Tigers
In Their Words: “The title track of Love I Swore is a dark and stormy love letter. I wrote it on the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh in deep summer on tour when the sky stayed light until midnight. The ghosts of what I wished a love was and how it seemed to be slipping away were talking, and I wondered if a bird that had left the cage would be happy coming back? Kim Richey (producer) called in Eamon McLoughlin to slay our hearts with violin as the track builds. This honestly is one of my favorite guitar lines that has ever come out of me, and I hope all you troubled lovers find some strange comfort here.“ – Amelia White
Stephanie Sammons, “Faithless”
Artist:Stephanie Sammons Hometown: Dallas, Texas Song: “Faithless” Album:Time and Evolution Release Date: May 3, 2024
In Their Words: “What inspired this song was an old friend from high school who died from suicide in 2022. I kept up with her on social media. She would post pictures of her dog and her kids. Her posts seemed joyful and even funny from time to time. How could I have known she was suffering so immensely? If only I would have known! It was heartbreaking. I felt so helpless.
“And then there are the painful feelings with regards to my younger sister, who has had a rough time just doing ‘life’ in general. Even though we’re only 14 months apart, I was absent and oblivious to what she was going through during her darkest days. I’ve wondered, why does she continue to battle demons and dark places and I don’t? And why did it take me so long to realize how her anger was pain turned inward? I have guilt about not being there for my sibling.
“Because of the pain I have seen others endure and I have felt, this song explores my deep questions about faith. I’m asking myself, what do I have faith in? ‘Faithless’ is reflecting on the indiscriminate nature of suffering, generational trauma, and what ultimately happens to our souls when we depart this world.” – Stephanie Sammons
Track Credits: Written and published by Stephanie Sammons
Stephanie Sammons – Vocals, acoustic guitar Mary Bragg (producer) – Background vocals Josh Kaler – Guitars and pedal steel Jordan Perlson – Drums, percussion Jon Estes– Bass, piano, organ
The Roe Family Singers, “Little Trouble”
Artist:The Roe Family Singers Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota Song: “Little Trouble” Album:Sisters And Brothers Release Date: February 2, 2024 Label: Bonfire Music Group
In Their Words: “I’ve long been interested in the folk process; specifically, the idea that newer folk songs borrow melodies and lyrics from earlier songs and repurpose them. ‘Little Trouble’ started life by borrowing part of the melody from the traditional song ‘Little Birdy,’ and reimagines some of the lyrics, too, updating them to deal with modern concerns like urban versus rural, social media, political scare-mongering and manufactured moral panics, and a culture held together through pharmacology.” – Quillan Roe
Wolf Jett, “Tavira”
Artist:Wolf Jett Hometown: Santa Cruz Mountains Song: “Tavira” Album:Time Will Finally Come Release Date: February 23, 2024
In Their Words: “Imagine leaving your cushy pharma job and rent-controlled apartment in SF to travel by bicycle and busk through southern Spain for a year. One day, you lose your wallet skinny-dipping near the Portuguese border and then you come upon the village of Tavira. Upon first glance, the cobblestone streets and whitewashed buildings seem unremarkable, until you cross the Roman bridge over the canal, break open your guitar case, and start playing. Next thing you know, a large crowd gathers around, dancing and cheering, and you make more tips than you’ve seen all month. A French expat offers for you to stay on his farm to help with the fig harvest, and next thing you know you’re closer to Eden than ever. This is a love song to Portugal and the wonderful times I spent there.” – Chris Jones, lead singer and songwriter
Pi Jacobs, “Coyote”
Artist:Pi Jacobs Hometown: Los Angeles, California Song: “Coyote” Album:Soldier On Release Date: April 26, 2024 Label: Blackbird Record Label
In Their Words: “The song began one day when a coyote stalked my dog on a walk, following us home, and even jumping our fence that night. It was a terrifying experience, but the metaphor it brought to mind was even more menacing. My best friend had been fighting cancer and every time we thought it was gone, it would spring back up, just like this dang coyote. The image was so powerful, that when I told the story to my co-writer, Ted Russell Kamp, the song just about wrote itself! But even with this bleak backstory, the song sounds ‘happy,’ and I’m happy to report that both my dog and my friend are alive and well. Take that coyote!” – Pi Jacobs
Track Credits: Written by Lisa Marie Jacobs and Ted Russell Kamp
Recorded in Los Angeles at Carriage House & Forty Below Records Eric Corne & Pi Jacobs – Producers Eric Corne – Engineer Mark Chalecki – Mastering engineer Pi Jacobs – Guitar, lead vocal, backing vocal Adam Hall – Dobro, banjo Zack Hall – Upright bass Butch Norton – Drums, percussion Philip Glen – Mandolin
Video Credit: Taylor Hungerford, Director / Silver Spark Printworks
Photo Credit: Tray Wellington by Heidi Holloway; Corb Lund by Noah Fallis.
Carmen Dianne is unlike any artist you’ve heard before. Her vocals are powerful, her lyrics and melodies are engaging, and her stage presence and unique instrumentation will leave you wondering if you’re witnessing just learned talent or also a little bit of magic. Carmen is one of an extremely small number of artists who accompany themselves on electric bass while they sing. This is especially challenging, because bass lines often vary greatly from the rhythms of a song’s melody. This coordination is a remarkable act of multitasking. Artists have to be incredibly proficient both as a vocalist and a bassist to pull this off. And Carmen, drawing inspiration from Esperanza Spalding – a well-known singer-songwriter who accompanies herself on upright and electric bass – does so with mastery.
Carmen is an artist I’ve been promoting for years. She took the stage at Queerfest 2022 and absolutely blew the audience away with her phenomenal performance. I’m excited to have Carmen at our show this Saturday, February 24, at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge in Nashville. In addition to Carmen’s set, this show features two other phenomenal LGBTQ+ identifying artists that we’ve also featured in Out Now, Brittany Ann Tranbaugh, and Liv Greene
What’s your ideal vision for your future?
Carmen Dianne: My ideal vision for the future is to make a living creating and singing fun, meaningful, and honest music for people like me. I have a hard time answering this question, because I don’t ever want to ask for too much or seem ungrateful since I feel like I’m living my dream already, but I’ve been trying to focus on dreaming bigger lately. But if I can share my biggest dreams without jinxing them, I want to write hit songs that make LGBT people feel at home, make Black people from Podunk, Wherever, USA feel seen, make a way for female musicians in male rooms, and make the kind of music that I hope Whitney Houston would have made had she been allowed to fully be who she was. And a Grammy — a Grammy would be nice too.
What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is never reaching my potential or wasting my time!
What is your current state of mind?
I’ve been seeing a lot of angel numbers lately and I’ve just been feeling a big shift coming, and now I feel like it’s finally here. Right now I’m dealing with a time of transition that’s making me focus on transforming into a better version of myself. And it’s really hard. I always feel tired, and it’s hard reminding myself that every little bit I do is enough for that day.
What would a “perfect day” look like for you?
A perfect day for me would look like waking up with the sun, putting on some tea and free writing and setting my intentions for the day, working on music admin stuff like promo and content strategy for a new song rollout while I play with my dog, go to lunch with friends, having a co-write with friends, maybe going to a yoga or pilates class, and going to a gig in the evening before going out to a bar with friends.
Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
The process of writing is more satisfying for me than the outcome, many times over. The process of writing helps me to process my emotions and helps me to find the truth in how I’m feeling. You can’t really ever get closure from another person, but you can always give yourself closure by writing the end to your own story.
Do you create music primarily for yourself or for others?
When I write music, I’m thinking about two things: One, how I feel, and two, how it’ll make others feel. I’m deliberate about making songs that feel like a warm hug for people like me who just aren’t welcomed in all spaces.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
The best advice I have ever gotten was not to give a fuck what anybody else thinks and to be yourself as recklessly and unapologetically as you can. I met SZA in an airport once (pre-Ctrl) and she told me that. The love yourself recklessly part is from a bellydancer I interviewed for a human-interest article named Portia Lange.
What has it been like for you to watch Nashville change and become more inclusive over the years?
With the changes Nashville has seen in the last few years, it’s just felt like a whole new world has opened up to me. This is not the same Nashville I grew up in where my 4th grade language arts short stories were handed back with no grade, because the teacher didn’t believe a Black child could have written them. This isn’t the Nashville that kicked me out of the gifted program, because a Black child couldn’t have made that presentation on nebulae. Nor is it the Nashville that has told me they love me but don’t approve of me, that I can sit in the church building, but I won’t ever belong. It’s a Nashville that recognizes nuance and recognizes the person inside. And I’m forever grateful for that.
You are one of few artists who play bass guitar while they sing, and do both incredibly well. How did you develop this style/set up?
I absolutely idolized Esperanza Spalding. So, I’ve always thought playing bass and singing and writing songs was the coolest thing somebody could do. How I actually got good at it is a different story. For me, learning to play and sing bass was a little different than learning to play and sing piano. Piano comes more naturally, because you’re playing the same rhythm that you’re singing, but with bass, the rhythm of the bass line often weaves in and out that of the melody. So you’ve got to learn how to split your brain in two. Fortunately for me, as someone with ADHD, splitting my attention is something I’m very skilled in. I often play bass and watch TV at the same time, and that strengthens my ability to multi-task.
You have a phenomenal, distinct voice and you have so much control over it. What has your journey been to become such a proficient vocalist?Do you still dedicate a lot of time to developing that practice?
Thank you, Sara!!! I think a huge part of my vocal control comes from growing up in a very traditional, some might say orthodox, denomination of Christianity called the Church of Christ. In addition to believing it is the only one and true church, the Church of Christ also does not believe in using instruments during worship. Although its emphasis on tradition and outright refusal of any modernity in instrumentation, decoration, and lifestyle of course comes with its caveats, what’s nice about it is that songs from the 1880s are preserved and performed exactly as they were back in the day. The Church of Christ shaped my voice, it shaped my worldview, and it also shaped my knowledge and understanding of music.
The Black Church of Christ, specifically, tends to sing many of the same songs and spirituals that we did during slavery. It was hard growing up in the Church of Christ for a number of reasons, but I will always be grateful for the understanding of American musical history that it gave me. Without it, I would not be able to meander my way around gospel, blues, country and R&B the way I do, because all of these genres comes back to a cappella voicings and progressions that were born right alongside our country and paint a sonic history of who we are.
And as far as becoming a proficient vocalist beyond that, I just sing every day and put my heart into it every day. I don’t carve out time for singing, because it comes out of me when it wants to and because I love it, that’s often. And that’s all. Now, I’m working more on my showmanship when getting out from behind the bass, and that involves a lot of singing with a hairbrush in the mirror the same way it did when I was a little girl. Nothing really changes too much, and that’s a good thing.
With 23 years behind them, Blackberry Smoke are still one of the best examples of Southern rock in the modern era – but what does that even mean, right?
Led by singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Charlie Starr, the band does indeed have roots pointing straight to hard-driving ‘70s icons like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Allman Brothers Band, and more. That’s true, but they also pull inspirations from farther back. And to Starr, Southern rock, at its core, is a continuation of the Appalachian tradition: “String band music and storytelling.”
With their latest album, Be Right Here, some of that old-time tradition shines through the cracks of a warm, distorted wall of sound, with heartfelt song craft and acoustic-guitar melodies front and center. Meanwhile, the band continue to prove crunchy, doubled guitar solos, thundering drums, and anthemic vocals never go out of style.
BGS spoke with Starr before Be Right Here was released, to see what has changed (and what will always stay the same) for one of the most dynamic Southern rock bands in history – a history they know all too well.
I thought I’d kind of start just seeing how you’re feeling at this point. You’ve been burning up the road for over two decades now, which seems crazy to me. How do you feel about where you’ve have been, and where you are now?
Charlie Starr: I mean, I’m tired. [Laughs] No, I feel good. We all do. It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long. It’s surreal to think it’s been 23 years. I don’t feel like I’m old enough to say that I’ve been doing anything for 23 years other than breathing, but I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. It feels good.
Blackberry Smoke is one of the best pieces of evidence that Southern rock is still alive and well. But I was just wondering, do you think there’s still more to say in that? Is the form still inspiring to you?
Totally. Just listen to any song from those amazing early Skynyrd records or Allman Brothers or Marshall Tucker Band records, Blackfoot – all those bands are so different, and it really was just geography that tied ‘em all together. They all had their own fingerprint. And I think that we do, too.
I was listening to Patty Loveless in an interview and she was talking about bluegrass – which I grew up playing and I dearly love also – and she was talking about how those first generation bluegrass bands, like Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers, they came from this rich musical heritage of the mountains where they grew up in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina. And what they were drawing from was acoustic string band music and storytelling.
Well, now, fast forward all this time, and modern bluegrass musicians not only have that, but they also have Led Zeppelin and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all this. There’s so much more. So I kind of look at it in a similar fashion with “Southern rock” bands, because those guys were listening to not only what I just mentioned, with the hillbilly country music and string band music, but also the British invasion and then traditional country and the Beach Boys. As time moves along, there’s just more and more that gets poured into the soup. So to answer your question in a very long-winded way, I think that it can go on forever.
So you’re kind of the third wave of popular Southern music, taking all that was done before and adding in the new influence, too.
Yeah, if we were a tribute band that just dressed up like some old ‘70s band and played their songs, then it would suck. But since we have the freedom to explore our own musicality, it can never end.
The new album is called Be Right Here. What was the spark that got this one going?
In my case, it’ll usually be a little explosion of songs. I’ll know that album time is coming, and so I’ll get to work on writing a batch of songs. It doesn’t always come quickly but it usually seems to work out, which I’m happy to say, because it kind of falls on me – which I don’t complain about that at all. I dearly love to write songs and I’m glad that it’s my job. There are worse jobs to have. Writing songs for Blackberry Smoke is much easier than working in a body shop, which I did for years.
At this point, 23 years on, are you still writing about the same stuff?
Well, I guess stories can all be new, stories of love and loss and frustration and women and men and drinking – or not – whatever. But if you look at popular music as a whole, there are new subjects that enter our culture, like cell phones and the internet and Facebook. I don’t know if I’ve ever used the word Facebook in a song. I probably won’t. But no matter what comes along technology wise, time stays the same. It’s still moving at 60 seconds per minute, and that’s not going to ever change. And human beings behave really the same way.
That said, the internet’s changed everything really. Not entirely, but it’s added a new accent to everything we do. I think John Mellencamp said it best, he goes, “I’m not sure if we’re supposed to hear this many voices at all at once.” That complicates life, really. It might push me back into my hermit hole a little more. As a songwriter even, it pushes me to the old ways more, melodically and musically. I don’t think anything really new can be said. We’re just trying to find an interesting slant on the way we say it.
You teamed up with Grammy-winning producer Dave Cobb for the second time, and he’s famous for live recording and loving first takes. Does that work well for a band like you guys, who are very live-show oriented?
It does. And in this case, it’s very interesting. We went back to RCA Studio A again, and he said, “This time I’m going to put the drums and amps and you guys all in the big room, so we’re all going to be in a little cluster.” And I was like, “Really?” As soon as we started playing together, it was like, “Oh man, okay, this is working. We don’t necessarily need all the separation.”
Some producers would be like, “Hell no. There’s no way I’d ever make a record like that.” It can be too sloppy. But Dave was like, “Well, we’re capturing this one sound. Let’s capture it all in the room, like a ‘60s record or even a ‘50s record.” So that’s what we did.
Tell me a little bit about “Dig a Hole.” It was the first track written, the first track on the album and the first one released, with a theme of choosing your own path – for better or worse. Is that kind of what you have done as a band?
We have. It’s been our only choice, really, because nobody’s ever come around with a different idea. [Laughs] It’s funny, I put together a [track list] and sent it to Dave, and I had “Hammer at the Nail” first. And Dave goes, “Are you insane? ‘Dig a Hole’ is first. Why would you think that ‘Hammer at the Nail’ should be first?” I said, “Because it’s faster.” And he said, “I don’t give a shit about fast. ‘Dig a Hole’ is like you guys are winding up to kick somebody’s ass!”
“Azalea” leans more into the folky aspect of what Blackberry Smoke does. It’s got that acoustic shimmer of a classic-rock ballad. Where does that come from for you?
Man, I just love that kind of acoustic music. Again, that kind of stuff was my upbringing, and I’ll never turn it loose. That song lyrically was about fatherhood, because here we are now, our children are all growing up. I’ve already seen one go to college, graduate, now get married, so it’s like, “Well you hold on tight, but you don’t want to smother ‘em.” They have their own path to forge, so all you can do is try to be there for ‘em.
I’ll leave you with the big picture. After 23 years, what you hope people take away from this particular record?
I just hope they dig it. I mean, I don’t know if I expect people to experience it in a different way than I do or not. I don’t know. But I do get a lot of enjoyment right now listening to it.
In a mere 10 days, Cayamo’s 16th edition will set sail from Miami for a week of Americana and roots music afloat on the beautiful Caribbean. Fans will spend the intimate week enjoying shows, collaborations, activities, and special events featuring the best musicians and artists in the roots music scene, all while porting in the Dominican Republic and Aruba. The voyage has been long sold out, but for the lucky folks who will be on board the Norwegian Pearl, BGS has a few tips, tricks, and event highlights you won’t want to miss from the jam packed Cayamo schedule.
If you aren’t a ticket holder for Cayamo 2024, join the waiting list – and it’s never too early to start planning next year! This one-of-a-kind roots music event is a truly special experience. Check out the list below for just a few reasons why Cayamo is such a hot ticket and why we’re so looking forward to being back on board with all of you in a few short days.
Buddy Miller’s Port Show Send-Off
Guitarist, producer, and Music City renaissance man Buddy Miller is no stranger to Cayamo, but this year he’s doing a very special port show to kick-off the entire voyage. Directly after the welcome toast on the pool deck on Friday, March 1, Miller will give the Norwegian Pearl a proper send off with the very first performance of the cruise. Catch his set from 3:45 to 5:00pm, with the all aboard call following at 5:30pm, then it’s bon voyage and goodbye to Miami!
As you can tell from this video shot from the audience on Cayamo 2019, you never know who is going to get up on stage with whom – we’re excited to see what special collaborations Miller puts on with other artists and pickers on the lineup.
The BGS Nightcap Hosted by Mipso
One of the reasons we love Cayamo is getting to hang with and reconnect with so many of our friends! On Tuesday, March 5, at 11:00pm in the ship’s Stardust Theater we’ll reprise our popular Nightcap super jam show from last year, this time with our old pals Mipso as hosts. Speaking of special collaborations, there are bound to be many, many such collaborations at our Nightcap, so don’t miss it if you’ll be on board.
Cayamo Wine Tasting
Let’s continue with “hangs with friends” for another moment, because a bit earlier in the week, before our BGS Nightcap, Jacob Sharp of Mipso and our own executive director, Amy Reitnouer Jacobs, will be hosting a casual and friendly Cayamo Wine Tasting on Monday, March 4 from 1:00pm to 2:00pm in the ship’s Summer Palace. Sharp moonlights as a wine connoisseur and distributor when not making/playing music and our own Reitnouer Jacobs is known to love a good bottle, too. So if you’d like to sip and “nerd out” a bit about wine, soil, grapes, and winemaking, don’t miss the Cayamo Wine Tasting! It’s a perfect example of the unique types of events available to attendees. As the event description puts it, “Amy and Jacob’s friendship is based around sharing food, wine, and music that they see as emotionally poignant – and they’re excited to share that connection with you.”
BGS / Black Opry Artist Karaoke
Everyone loves karaoke and the teams at BGS and Black Opry certainly agree on that point! We couldn’t imagine a more fun cruise ship activity than getting together a bunch of the amazing artists on the Cayamo lineup to sing karaoke songs with the Black Opry house band backing them up. It’s sure to be a wild, hilarious, and enormously fun time. Catch the action in the Atrium on deck 7 on Wednesday, March 6 at 11:30pm. You never know who might show up to holler your favorite karaoke track!
Coffee & Conversation
Join the hosts of BGS’s podcast Basic Folk, Lizzie No and Cindy Howes, for a live-taped podcast conversation over coffee on Monday, March 4, at 9:00am. Their discussion, entitled, “Community/Commodity: Supporting and Sustaining Artists, Orgs, and Fans in the 21st Century,” will explore how the music industry, its artists, musicians, fans, and listeners can be active participants in creating a world where art isn’t just about consumption – and where music isn’t just a commodity. Bring your morning coffee or tea and enjoy a stimulating conversation that asks how events and organizations like Cayamo can be a model for more community-supported and community-engaging music in the future.
In today’s day and age, it seems like one must choose between capitalism or community… or is that really the case? Is there a way that these two can live side by side in the music industry? We’ll discuss all that and more in this very special live recording of FOLK DEBATE CLUB AT SEA! by Basic Folk.
Shows, Shows, Shows!
Of course, let’s not lose the forest for the trees, here. The most tantalizing part of Cayamo is indeed the limitless live shows, special concerts, and on-stage collaborations that the cruise is known for the world over. Boasting over 100 scheduled shows, there’s music for all tastes and from across the American roots spectrum. Below we’ll collect a handful we’re especially excited to catch on the ship.
We can’t wait to set sail with all of you on Cayamo 2024!
SistaStrings
You know them from their work with Peter Mulvey, Allison Russell, Brandi Carlile, Brandy Clark, and many more, but SistaStrings aren’t just a premier string duo working as side musicians with all your favs in Americana – they’re impeccable as a stand-alone group, too. We’ll be catching their set on Saturday, March 2, but we’ll also be keeping an eye out for them to pop up with many other performers on the lineup throughout the voyage.
Sunny War
Sunny War has long been a BGS favorite and she’s certainly one not-to-miss during Cayamo 2024. Her music is often touted for its combination of blues and punk, but even a fleeting exposure to her particular musical stylings reveals she is an artist all her own. There’s nobody out there who quite sounds like Sunny War.
Gabe Lee
If you’re looking for Good Country while on board Cayamo, look no further than Gabe Lee. A Nashville native, Lee offers a forward-looking, gritty, and real take on Music Row’s particular brand of country music. He’s an excellent songwriter and frontman who’s opened for most of your favorite roots artists and we can’t wait to see him shine on the ship.
Black Opry
OF COURSE we’re so excited Black Opry is on board Cayamo 2024. You won’t want to miss our karaoke event, but even more important is that you don’t miss their marquee event, the Black Opry Writer’s Round, which has been a tent pole of this collective’s work for the past several years. (That show is Monday, March 4, at 11:00am in the Stardust Theater.)
There’s a reason why Black Opry is showing up just about everywhere these days – and it’s not just Beyoncé going country. This collective centers the art and experiences of a group of folks who remain underserved and underrepresented in Nashville, on Music Row, and at events like these. And the artists they showcase are always of the highest quality.
In whatever iteration Black Opry will take during their many events on Cayamo, they will demonstrate yet again that these musicians, pickers, and singer-songwriters making American Roots music are joyfully carrying on an age-old tradition – while reminding all of us how none of these genres would exist without the vital contributions of Black folks and Black creators.
The members of American Patchwork Quartet present an array of diverse backgrounds – both musical and cultural. The group is made up of Clay Ross, multi-Grammy winning guitarist and founder of Gullah group Ranky Tanky; Grammy-winning Hindustani classical vocalist, Falguni “Falu” Shah; internationally acclaimed jazz bassist, Yasushi Nakamura; and Juno Award-winning drummer, Clarence Penn. However, even with the variety of identities and backgrounds they do represent, the ensemble makes it clear in their live performances and in every conversation they have that “APQ” is not a group made for the sake of some exaggerated or token sense of unity. Despite their most prominent accolades and individual backgrounds, this group isn’t a concept band or a supergroup made for shock value.
American Patchwork Quartet was born from a foundation of genuine friendship forged between four people connecting with one another, rather than four musicians immediately rushing to talk shop. It was from there that interest in the differences the way each of them interact with and understand music, inspired the idea to form “APQ.” The group would discover through their curiosity things both mutual and unique to their relationships with music – as well as things mutual and unique to their shared identities as Americans. It’s this aspect of APQ’s bond that made American folksongs the bedrock of their repertoire for performances and their newly released, self-titled debut, which includes longstanding American folk fare like “Shenandoah,” “Wayfaring Stranger,” “Gone for Soldier,” and “Beneath the Willow.”
Through an abundance of performances that have taken them to various regions of the U.S. – and now an album of painstakingly arranged and honed songs – APQ is prepared to show and tell how individuals such as themselves can be connected through contrast. They showcase how folk music can tell specific stories of people, places, and times and can stay true to its past while adopting a new present and future – just the way one does when immigrating to somewhere new.
After attending one of APQ’s performances, I connected with the group to share their story with the diverse community of BGS and beyond, speaking with guitarist-vocalist Clay Ross and vocalist Falu Shah. Our conversation, via Zoom, stretched between New York and Arizona, just days before the group embarked on a cross-country album release tour, which kicked off in Princeton, New Jersey on February 9.
What brought you all together to form a quartet, particularly one that’s driven by more than the aim to “make music for a living?”
Clay Ross: It really started with my relationship with Falu [Shah]. We were working at Carnegie Hall as teaching artists. At least twice a week we’d be together either writing songs or developing a curriculum to teach our students and we really enjoyed being together and we enjoyed becoming friends.
At that time, I was [also] getting Ranky Tanky started and doing a lot of research in the folk archives of Alan Lomax, Guy Carawan and other ethnomusicologists that collected songs from across the United States. One day, I asked Falu, “Tell me what you think of this song, ‘Pretty Saro.'” She listened to it, loved it, and she learned it. Then we learned how to sing it together. We just felt like “Wow, this is something really special!” And we liked the idea of collaborating.
Around the same time, I met Clarence Penn at the Monterey Jazz Festival. We ended up on this flight that got canceled on the way back to New York. So we were in this airport for 10 hours, talking and bonding over all these life things and not about music at all. We became friends first, which was a really great way to start a collaboration. I said, “We need to find a bassist,” and we both immediately thought of Yasushi Nakamura – one of the first musicians that I ever played with when I came to New York 20 years ago. Clarence was playing with him that whole time and they’re like brothers. Yasushi is a family man, he’s got two kids, and so we’re all really connected beyond the music. We connected as people and we can relate to one another as parents and as human beings.
I think between meeting Clarence and knowing that I wanted to deepen this collaboration with Falu somehow, that was where the idea [for APQ] was born. I felt like, we’re all American, you know? That’s the one thing that connects us, no matter how different we are and how radically different our pasts and our backgrounds may be. We are now all connected as Americans and so we all have some access and an entry point into these American folksongs. They can be a part of our story now, whether they were a part of our traditions up until now or not.
Falu, as both a U.S. immigrant and a vocalist primarily trained in Indian classical rather than Western music, how was your experience in becoming part of APQ?
Falu Shah: For me, American folk music was something my mother only played records of. I grew up in India, in Mumbai, and my mom was a big fan of Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris and growing up she played this music, which I found absolutely intriguing. We only had one one record store in the entire city of Bombay and it was called Rhythm House. My mom had to travel 45 minutes in a train to get to this record store, stay there, and stand in a line for four or five hours. She would bring Michael Jackson and I would think, “Oh, my goodness, why would you bring me all these [records]?” And she said, “Because I want you to have a broad vocabulary of music, not just Indian classical.”
The biggest difference I found in both music styles is harmony. Sometimes I feel Western music is very delighted to use chords. And harmony context was very different for me. Clay used to tell me to sing in a different key. And I’m like, “How do I sing like that?” It’s a different style of learning. So in Carnegie, when we were doing all the songs and all the writing, Clay used to always switch harmonies, and I thought, “I really like this concept.” That was the first thing that intrigued me: that Clay would never sing what I sang – he would always find another note and he would completely change the melody of that song, but it sounded so beautiful when layered together. I had to unlearn a lot of things to learn how to sing [American folk] music. So my journey has been always as a student. I still consider myself as a student and I’m always going to APQ concerts and rehearsals thinking, “What can I learn this time?”
How does APQ decide on repertoire to explore, interpret, and perform?
FS: Clay will send me a song and I will find a folk melody or an [Indian] classical raga that is close to it. And if it’s not, then I’ll tell Clay, “I don’t like this song.” …When I told Clay, “I love this, I don’t like this,” it’s based upon this [idea] of what can I as an immigrant and Indian person, what can I bring to this song that already doesn’t exist? There are so many people who have already sung it and they have sung it so beautifully. What am I adding? Something has to relate because our cultures are so different. For us to break the boundaries of continents and lines between us, we had to connect with the beautiful harmony of music.
CR: I’m looking for songs that are spiritual and not religious – and that celebrate man’s humanity to man. And that speak to the universal qualities of all people – be it love, nature, heartache and longing, loss, or joy.
How do you balance the idea of APQ’s music existing as “teaching tools” or “portals to history” with the idea that music can and should be entertaining?
CR: It’s an organic process of creation that I gravitate towards things that are both entertaining and fun. And [things that] also have a depth and that can guide you into a whole world – whether it’s history or emotional exploration. Because really, for me, I’m trying to live. I’m trying to live in those big questions of like, “Why are we here? Where are we headed? Where have we been? What does it all mean?”
How has the journey been working with one another toward the goal of inspiring enthusiasm and curiosity around multiculturalism through folk music?
CR: I think any endeavor you embark upon with other people, and it doesn’t matter if they’re your own family and your own blood, it’s always a negotiation with oneself… and learning to appreciate the positive surprises that come out of it.
FS: [Clay, Clarence Penn, and Yasushi Nakamura] know rock and they know jazz and they know the [American] culture. I had to do research. I have to give [Clay] microtones that are proper to the mood of the song. Indian music is very balanced and very thought out. I had to have chemistry with Yasushi and Clarence. I kept telling Clay, “I need to understand more to play with them.” I’ve always tried to figure out my journey as a musician.
CR: I think that [Falu’s] persistence is what gave [APQ] life. She could have very easily had an attitude of “I don’t do this.” Falu has had to bend far more than we’ve had to bend to her. The frame of what we’re dealing with is American music. She’s adapted to that frame. I think that process in and of itself is what this band is about. We’ve definitely had to tap into our best human qualities to get to this music. I’m so proud of this music just for this reason, for what it represents, what we’ve had to live to arrive at this document, this album, that we have now.
Where do you think folk music can find its place in a world that often looks ahead, rather than stopping to contemplate who and what’s around us in a meaningful and lasting way?
CR: I think folk music will continue to exist in a place of meaning and quality. [Folksongs] may be ignored in the short term, but in the long term they will remain. We all just have to do our best to find our tribe of people who appreciate what we do… I feel this is an album that is a document that will last, because people can go back to it.
FS: I feel folk music is always going to be amazing, because it is by the people, for the people. And it’s inherited from generation to generation and something that’s worked for 400 years. There is no doubt about it. Our children’s children are going to listen to and learn and sing ‘Shenandoah’ – I guarantee it – because it the power of folk music is so unique and so important and strong that if it has worked for 400 years, I don’t know why it would not work for another 400 years or more.
The first time I saw Willi Carlisle was in Buffalo, New York, in the tiny basement of an old protestant church that Ani DiFranco bought. There couldn’t have been more than thirty or so people there – a queer couple or two holding hands, a mom and a dad plus their kid, a cluster of 20-year-olds too hip for their own good. I see twenty or so shows a year – neighborhood guitar pulls, little club gigs, shows in big theaters, and every so often an arena. Willi was world class, one of the best I’ve seen. He told stories in between the songs, tracing an anti-Vietnam song well into the 17th century, or talking about Mexican ballads and the power of the concertina, or about how a hometown story is both archetypal and plain, universal and contained to a very specific time and place.
As the Buffalo concert suggested, Carlisle is at his best when limning complex networks of historical figures, news, what is called “traditional music,” contemporary poetics, and the natural world. He is a lyric poet, in the most classical sense.
This fact could be seen especially in a track from his new album Critterland, “Two-Headed Lamb.” It’s an adaptation of a Laura Gilpin poem, which Carlisle translates and extends. I’ve always thought that the poem was a bit too glib, a bit too self-assured of its own moral ending.
Carlisle talks about the whole cycle of growth, how it is not a singular freak birth in a generic field, but how the freakish quality of a two-headed calf and the weirdness of that birth functions within a cycle: The farmer who finds it, persimmons growing out of season, a coyote picking at the corpse of a ewe, even “robins singing in an old growth tree.” As a creator, the song becomes an act of interpretation – a poem becomes a song, a song not quite a cover, a critique of a poem that might not work, but the working of the poem depends on an audience.
When asked about the poem, Carlisle responds:
As I explored Gilpin’s poem with friends and strangers, it’s been no surprise that “Two-Headed Calf” seems well-known in both rural and trans communities and their significant cross-section. And why not? It’s a poem about a creature too beautiful for this world, [whose] magisterial dimorphism and tragic death conjures real-world magic. Someone born feeling as if they have no gender, two genders, the wrong gender, might feel this magic themselves. So would someone who’s pulled an ailing calf from the womb of their beloved milk cow with a rope or their bare hands.
That’s a generous reading, a reading done in community – one that expands what an audience could mean, one that is as cyclical and as wide as open as could be. It’s generous to Gilpin, as well.
This whole act of semi-translation also explains the concept of Critterland, which Carlisle describes in our wide ranging conversation as a place where “…we have to dismantle the house, make something different. I think what we inherit (our bodies, songs, tools, houses) makes us the living proof of the suffering of our forebears. We’ve got their noses, their colonial holdings, their drinking problems.”
In a culture, we take and hold onto what is useful for us and the results of that taking we try to build more carefully.
In the list of animals that Willi names in the title track – “Yeah, the sparrow on the wing taught mе to find you/ And the opossum knows his own mind more than I do” – there is hope in being able to craft houses and buildings like the scuttling of everyday creatures. If the possum and the sparrow can (and may I add, the racoon, the crow, the squirrel, every city or country creature) then we can, too. Which is why the best of Carlisle’s songs are ones which mention small spaces – a mother singing “In the Sweet By and By” in the kitchen, or the devastating song “The Arrangements,” with its complex, sometimes compassionate, sometimes ruthless processing of a father who drank too much and loved too little, or in “The Great Depression,” a verse that limns Carlisle’s ancestors:
From the needle-prickin’ mothers who were never taught to read To the barefoot hungry soldiers that enlisted at 16 Oh in my dumb debasement, I still find great relief That on the lam and on the dole they counted themselves free…
Those are local examples, small, and there is some argument within them. Like some great folk singers, Carlisle’s sense of local spaces, his skill at deep readings of landscape, is a primary example of his excellence. I think of him as an Arkansas singer, but he has to earn a living – part of that possum life. Carlisle travels constantly, touring half the year or more to make enough money to be somewhere he feels home.
He explains it thusly: “One of the hard facts about touring so hard is that I haven’t really lived in Arkansas for more than a few months a year in six or seven years now. Hell, currently I’m living in southwest Missouri, just over the border. I don’t feel excluded from my life back home, usually, when I’m on tour. “
It’s another network, a cycle of creation, and intimacy. In a song called “Higher Lonesome,” is there something monastic there? Setting up lonely feelings to a higher power? Is he quoting the 1950s Texas technicolor film? Is it a song about drinking?
It’s all of those things and none of those things. He mentions his community and where they are in the world:
…By the time the ride is over, I’m sure I’ll ask to ride again See the snowfall in Wyoming, strung out on Johno’s coke Keep a mailbox in Nebraska, so I know the Lord knows She can write a letter once a year and say that we’re still close I can put my cents on Benjamin hear the songs he wrote…
The privacy of this song marks the depth and complexity of another, the last work on the record “The Money Grows On Trees.” It’s a 10-minute recitation, a story told in intense, Appalachian Gothic detail, about corruption and a young drug dealer gone wrong.
If any texts could be considered lonely, even in the midst of Carlisle’s careful noting of connections, these are. For example, when in another song, he sings to a “Jaybird” – another of those scuttering creatures, that eats off what is left. He says to the jaybird, that “he’s doing just fine, his head is a wreck and his chest is on fire.” This line, with neither denial nor irony, is a kind of Beckettian notice about continuing on despite the ongoing, struggling moments.
The whole album speaks of a (dis)regulation of feelings, slipping into the natural ebbs and flows of the titular Critterland so the work can continue. In the album, and in his live shows, a cobbling together happens as a kind of hope, but a hard-won kind.
Or, to give Carlisle the last word:
I don’t believe in despair – it would make me hate things, and I cannot bear to do that. So, alas, that means the only other option is the hard one: hope. Here in the first world we have unimaginable resources and power, so much more than we need. We could, realistically, reduce climate change, enshrine human dignity, end global poverty, and celebrate untold freedoms in our lifetimes. Why wouldn’t we? I’m naive, surely. Maybe I’m an idiot, and maybe I’m just obsessed with getting “what’s mine.” Music is a business, after all.
The work is the thing – to pay the mortgage, to tell stories that need to be told, to adapt stories that have been forgotten, to cry or laugh, to mourn, to change people’s minds politically, to seduce or to be seduced.
Carlisle’s practice, in an aching two-step, does this with tradition. There’s a reason why he’s a square dance caller, and there’s a reason why, for him, the dance goes on.
Photo Credit: Jackie Clarkson
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