Tag: Amy Speace

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Julian Taylor, the Grascals, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We’ve got a fine collection of new tracks, videos, and performances for you this week in our premiere round-up, You Gotta Hear This!

Don’t miss some stellar bluegrass from genre staples – and labelmates – the Grascals, who are celebrating their 20-year anniversary, and Chris Jones & the Night Drivers. The former celebrate their heroes, the Osborne Brothers, with a cover of “Georgia Pineywoods” while the latter get topical while poking fun at doomsday rhetoric on “What If You’re Wrong.”

Jazzy roots duo Winterlark bring us a charming number with a somewhat unlikely subject– emojis. Well, and love gone not-so-right, too. Felled Oak, AKA Brian Carroll, also debuts “Taplines,” a track written while he worked the maple syrup season in Vermont. Singer-songwriter Amy Speace considers the construction of “The American Dream” with a brand new, summery music video and Spooky Mansion performs the title track from his upcoming album, What About You?, live outdoors on the ranch.

Don’t miss Julian Taylor’s debut of a brand new music video for “Pathways,” a song released earlier this week about family, connection, and inter-generational perspective that features the one and only Allison Russell.

To cap it all off, we’ve got an exclusive Yamaha Session from flatpicker Trey Hensley that posted to BGS earlier this week, too. It’s all right here and, we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, but You Gotta Hear This!

Felled Oak, “Taplines”

Artist: Felled Oak
Hometown: Corinth, Vermont
Song: “Taplines”
Album: Smoke on the Hillside
Release Date: September 30, 2024

In Their Words: “All of the tunes on this project were birthed from time tapping trees in the sugarbush this past January here in Vermont. In the dead silence of winter, alone in a cluster of skeletal maples hiking uphill, I found myself humming and whistling melodies to keep myself (and the winter birds) company. Some of those melodies stuck and I’d pull out my phone, make a quick voice recording then when I got home transcribe them on the mandolin and octave mandolin.

“‘Taplines’ was a melody that fell beneath my own fingers effortlessly and when I brought it to good friend and musical partner, Mark Burds, a smile crept across his face as we played it together for the first time. All of these tunes were recorded in luthier workshops and small, personal spaces around central Vermont and featuring my closest musical friends. It’s music to be shared and played together, to connect. Intimate, organic, and honest.” – Brian Carroll, Felled Oak

“‘Taplines’ was really fun to put clawhammer on, because it’s one of those simple yet beautiful melodies that falls so nicely on banjo and it’s so satisfying to groove on.” – Mark Burds, banjo

Track Credits:
Brian Carroll – Octave mandolin, mandolin, upright bass, acoustic guitar
Mark Burds – Banjo

The Grascals, “Georgia Pineywoods”

Artist: The Grascals
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Georgia Pineywoods”
Album: 20
Release Date: August 23, 2024
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “I don’t believe The Grascals would be in existence without The Osborne Brothers. Their heavy impact and influence on us is one of the main reasons we all love bluegrass music so much. ‘Georgia Pineywoods’ is a classic Boudleaux and Felice Bryant song originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers and it just felt very fitting for us to include it on this album celebrating our 20th band anniversary. We will always salute The Osborne Brothers’ music and their continued inspiration to The Grascals!” – Jamie Johnson

Track Credits:
Kristin Scott Benson – Banjo
Danny Roberts – Mandolin
Jamie Johnson – Guitar, lead vocals
Terry Smith – Bass, baritone vocals
John Bryan – Guitar, tenor vocals
Jamie Harper – Fiddle, vocals

Chris Jones & the Night Drivers, “What If You’re Wrong”

Artist: Chris Jones & The Night Drivers
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “What If You’re Wrong”
Release Date: August 23, 2024
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “Jon Weisberger and I co-wrote the song as a conversation with a conspiracy theorist. It’s meant to be a light-hearted look at the subject – I’m pretty sure it’s the first bluegrass song to mention chem trails! – but it does ask a serious question: When something earth-shaking is predicted, whether it’s the end of the world, a change of government, or just the results of a major ballgame, what do you do when it doesn’t happen? Do you question your sources or double down? We have so much of this in the era of social media and different realities we live with, it seemed pretty timely, and we had fun with it.” – Chris Jones

Amy Speace, “The American Dream”

Artist: Amy Speace
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “The American Dream”
Album: The American Dream
Release Date: October 18, 2024
Label: Wind Bone Records

In Their Words: “I’ve worked with Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt (their production company is Neighborhoods Apart) on a bunch of videos, so I trusted them to get the vibe of the song. Also, Neilson produced the record and Josh played on it, so I knew they got it. We all wanted to capture that feeling of the freedom of the end of summer. I grew up mostly in a small town with rural countryside all around it and we’d take long drives through the cornfields as the sun set. We shot this on a country drive and an abandoned cabin (also used in the album art) near Franklin, Tennessee. The appearance of the tractor and the train are coincidences.” – Amy Speace

Video Credit: Neighborhoods Apart, Neilson Hubbard and Joshua Britt

Spooky Mansion, “What About You?”

Artist: Spooky Mansion
Hometown: San Francisco, California / Bay Area
Song: “What About You?”
Album: What About You?
Release Date: August 22, 2024 (song); October 31, 2024 (album)

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘What About You?’ with the intention of painting a picture of my life through different stories. The places I’ve been and the people I come from have all made me who I am. In those early days of a relationship, when you’re getting to know someone, there are certain memories that you retell to explain who you are.

“The verses are meant to be quiet, subdued, and more introspective as I try to describe myself. The chorus is bigger and joyful as I turn the attention to the person I’m talking to. In all my experiences, ‘I didn’t even know that I was looking for you.’ It culminates in a repeated anthem at the end as a reminder that despite what you’ve already lived through, there is more in life that will keep changing you and continuously creating you into the person you are. In this case, it was a beautiful woman I’d recently met who is now my wife and love of my life.” – Grayson Converse, Spooky Mansion

Video Credit: Directed by Jacob Butler.

Julian Taylor, “Pathways” (Featuring Allison Russell)

Artist: Julian Taylor
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Song: “Pathways”
Album: Pathways
Release Date: August 21, 2024 (song); September 27, 2024 (album)
Label: Howling Turtle Inc.

In Their Words: “I remember sitting in my living room when the melody and chord patterns just came to me. Often, when I sit down to write music, it’s the first thing that I start playing that sticks, because it’s raw and honest. I worked the progression in several different ways. First on the acoustic guitar and then on the piano. I still have probably upwards of seven or eight takes of it somewhere on my voice notes. Some were quite punk sounding, while others were quite folk sounding. Ultimately, the sound of the melody and progression in 6/8 time seemed to have the most impact on me.

“This song became a lyrical collaboration between two friends of mine that are also neighbors. I was invited to hang out and write with my pals Robert Priest and Rosanne Baker Thornley, who has a studio down the road from me. When I arrived, I showed them what I had been working on and they loved it. We ultimately wanted to write a hopeful song that spoke to our next of kin, and since we all have children who are the most important people in the world to us, we followed that inspiration. I performed with my friend Allison Russell at the Juno Awards this year and asked her if should be interested in collaborating on the song seeing as she is a mother as well and I am so honored that she said yes and brought yet another magical spark to our creation.” – Julian Taylor

Track Credits:
Julian Taylor – Vocal, guitar
Allison Russell – Duet vocal
Colin Linden – Electric Dobro, mandotar, bass, harmony vocal
Gary Craig – Drums, percussion
Jim Hoke – Saxophones
Janice Powers – B3 organ

Winterlark, “Ending With Heart Heart Heart”

Artist: Winterlark
Hometown: Santa Cruz, California
Song: “Ending With Heart Heart Heart”
Album: Sing To Me About Tomorrow (EP)
Release Date: August 23, 2024 (song); September 20, 2024 (EP)
Label: Squink Records

In Their Words: “It seemed that the world was ready for a song about the insidiousness of emojis, so I tried to write a modern-day song about a poorly communicated break-up, like the one in Elvis Presley’s rock-n-roll classic ‘Return to Sender.’ One of the keys to the song is the pairing of the sad lyrics with the happy, infectious beat driven by Kristin and drummer Chris Haskett. They make everything swing.” – Sweeney Schragg

“When Sweeney shared the core idea of this song, I do believe I laughed – uncomfortably. Aren’t we all guilty of throwing emojis at people instead of real words? Sweeney left six spots open for bass fills, a better gift than a box of black licorice (my favorite).” – Kristin Olson

Track Credits:
Sweeney Schragg – Guitar, vocals
Kristin Olson – Upright bass, vocals
Chris Haskett – Drums

Yamaha Sessions: Trey Hensley, “Hold What You Got”

On a sunny Sunday afternoon just outside of Nashville, Tennessee earlier this summer, BGS linked up with award-winning guitarist, songwriter, and jaw-dropping flatpicker Trey Hensley to kick off a new series of Yamaha Sessions. Hensley, a GRAMMY nominee and the reigning IBMA Guitar Player of the year, pulled his custom Yamaha FG9 R out of its road case to shred through a cover of a classic Jimmy Martin number, “Hold What You Got.”

Hensley is a picture perfect modern demonstration of how bluegrass trailblazers, like Martin, blurred the lines between country, old-time, bluegrass, and beyond. His voice reminds of honeyed country singers like Randy Travis, while his blisteringly quick picking and remarkable articulation are built on Tony Rice and Clarence White building blocks – but simultaneously, those techniques are as forward-looking and contemporary as his peers, Billy Strings, Jake Workman, and others. Hensley pulls limitless tone and warmness from his Yamaha FG9 R, even while approaching the song with near-aggression, ripping through acrobatic triplet licks and leaning into ugly delicious chromaticism in every solo.

More here.

Photo Credit: Julian Taylor by Robert Georgeff; the Grascals by Laci Mack.

BGS 5+5: Amy Speace

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Amy Speace
Hometown: originally from Baltimore, Maryland. Currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Latest album: Me and the Ghost of Charlemagne

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

I remember from way back, because I started playing piano at age 3 (or so the story goes) and started formal lessons at 5, that I could disappear into my own world at the piano, inside the sound. I didn’t understand it but inside music was always this safe space for me.

So it’s hard to pinpoint when I wanted “to be” a musician because my earliest memories are that I was a musician. I just understood music from the start. Not that I didn’t have to work and practice, but it just made sense to me. So I’d chase that feeling back to being too short for my feet to hit the pedals practicing scales on my grandmother’s black upright piano.

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

Definitely all forms of storytelling. I didn’t write a song until I was about 28 but all through my childhood, I wrote poetry and stories and plays. I drew and painted. I read everything I could get my hands on. In college, I was a dual major in English and Theater and got obsessed with Shakespeare, Performance Art and Avant Garde Theater and Improv Comedy.

Then I went to NYC after college to study classical acting at The National Shakespeare Conservatory for two years and for the first time in my life started going to art museums and got lost in the big physical paintings of Pollock and Rothko. I lived in the Lower East Side and in Greenwich Village and really really loved living in that kind of Bohemia in my 20s.

I worked three jobs, one of which was as Lainie Kazan’s assistant on Broadway and in her cabaret shows, where I got the chance to meet so many legends of the theater. I hung out with dancers and clowns and actors and musicians and poets and we were all broke and idealistic and scrappy and I went to every show, every concert, every happening I could talk my way into.

I mean, there’s not really an art form out there that hasn’t moved me to tears and to want to create something of my own in response, from seeing Sondheim on Broadway to a poetry slam in the Lower East Side to my friend dancing burlesque. It all kind of informs whatever soup is all up there in my head, processing the pictures and the emotions and the memories. But when it gets down to pen on paper and crafting a song, I think that’s when film is really my guide: I think like a director/screenwriter/playwright. What’s the entry point in the story? What do you see out there? What’s the landscape like.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Easy. That will be the next one I write after I finish this one I’m working on. Because it’s always like starting over at the beginning and I go through all the fears that I’ll never write another good song again and I’ll just sink into the ocean of bad cliches and stolen melodies.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Probably the earliest, honestly. I was in 8th grade, Curtin Middle School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I was a very awkward, permed hair, 14-year-old. Bookworm, nerd, and not really that cool. I had joined chorus for the first time (I didn’t think I was a good singer) because my best friend Laura was a good singer and convinced me to join.

The end of the year the choir did a musical theater revue. I was kind of a class ham, very theatrical, did all the accents, and the choir director gave me a solo doing “Adelaide’s Lament” from Guys and Dolls because I could fake a good thick Bronx accent. I will honestly never forget how I felt when I stepped out onstage and the lights were on me and I disappeared into this character. It felt like the crowd roared and I got a standing ovation and the next day was like a freaking Christmas parade…

I went from being the new kid at school to everyone looking at me as if for the first time. The choir director took me aside and really encouraged me to study voice. She said, “I hear something in there…I think that you have a gift.” And literally, from that moment on, I knew I wanted to be onstage singing. I literally felt like I’d found myself that night.

I’ve had incredible stage moments, like being onstage at Town Hall in NYC opening for Nanci Griffith to a sold-out crowd — and you could hear a pin drop. To playing Gruene Hall with Guy Clark a few years before he died. To the first festival stage I was on at Glastonbury a few years back. Even to some incredible house concerts and small clubs. But that first time, it’s still so present to me, that I think that’s my favorite memory because it was when I first felt that I knew something true about myself.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”

Fascinating question. I don’t hide. I bring me into all the he’s and she’s and they’s and you’s in my song. If I don’t understand the characters’ passion, their desire, I can’t write it. So there’s got to be some autobiography in there, even if it’s masked by someone else’s story, even if it just creeps through two words in a bridge.

If I only wrote about my life and what was going on with me, literally, well, I’d have a short catalogue of songs because my life isn’t that interesting to sustain a career of writing about it. I don’t have time to hike the Himalayas or to be the captain of a ship. I’ve got a 16-month-old and an album coming out and I’ve got to get posters out and keep up with FaceTwittInstaHell. I’m tired. All the time.

Plus I have songs that need to get out and I have literally only the 30 minutes when my son may be napping to get a chorus idea down. So I have to find stories in newspapers or thieve parts of conversations I overhear or steal what you say that rhymes that you don’t even hear the rhyme. I’m always listening for ‘language of lyric’ to show up in my life and then, if I’m lucky and I can catch it, I keep it in a notebook for those naptime writing sessions.

So I may not let on that the “you” is actually “me” but it’s always a little bit of me.

Photo credit: Neilson Hubbard

The String – Amy Speace plus Marty Stuart

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Songwriter Amy Speace was entirely absorbed in theater, studying to be a Shakespearian actress in NYC. Then some fates and muses intervened and she began leaning into folk music.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS

Before long she was recruited and mentored by the great Judy Collins, cultivating a voice that stands out even in the crowded songwriter scene of today. Now in Nashville, her story took another turn recently when she had her first child, a son, at age 50. Her complex observations about the world and herself pour out of the speakers on her newest, Me And The Ghost of Charlemagne. Also, a short phoner with Marty Stuart teasing the new mega-documentary Country Music by Ken Burns.

STREAM: Applewood Road, ‘Applewood Road’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Applewood Road (Amy Speace, Emily Barker, Amber Rubarth)
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Album: Applewood Road
Release Date: February 12
Label: Gearbox Records

In Their Words: "Recording live-to-tape feels like going back in time. We knew as soon as we'd written our first song, "Applewood Road," that we'd record it this way: live-to-tape with no edits, instead just nailing one good take. We wanted to capture the spontaneity that had brought us together in the first place — the intimacy of harmony singing, the bumps and bruises of performing something so new — and to find beauty in simplicity and a very minimal production." — Emily Barker

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba