In the press release for their 2024 album Anniversary, Adeem the Artist, the non-binary, self-described “cast iron pansexual” singer-songwriter, mentions that the album is queer country – as a genre, not simply as music made by queer people, but as a whole new thing. They also mention recording and creating with their child, their partner, and their tour manager, in a week off from touring in semi-rural Texas. The album is a deeply moving, hauntingly specific, and profoundly sophisticated look at the interweavings of family and a (literally) hostile landscape.
This is queer country – queer as a sexuality and gender and musical identity, but also as an indication of being a little askew, not really fitting plumb, as a political and personal identity. Here, a genre, Adeem notes, is a way of working against expectations or histories:
“Country music is important to me, because it’s so much tied into the dirt of where I grew up. It feels like a place I can comfortably speak from, in the authority of my testimony as a Southerner and a child of Confederates. That’s my responsibility, my calling. That’s why I’m making country records right now. It’s where I need to be, to be processing the things I’m processing.”
One of the ways of keeping safe in this landscape, while acknowledging and trying to make amends, is to move inwards, to lean on the “cast iron” of “cast iron pansexual.” This album moves from the outside – a world that is toxic and violent – toward one that is domestic. In the coruscating rock breakdown of “Plot of Land,” with its minute-long, Tom Petty quoting coda, Adeem sings:
And the politicians cast their lies like street craps, And they sweep up every time So baby I’m gonna find us a plot of land With a little home to put a family in …
The plot of land is a long term plan, but there are moments in this record where you can see possibilities – of a loving home, of a rock and roll life, of a genderqueer Southern utopia, of the perfect dive bar meetup – falling out of an ambitious set of recordings. The too muchness of the album can be understood given it was made in a week, in a hostile place.
Adeem talks about how they made “Nightmare” in Texas, incorporating all the elements in their surroundings including “Isley’s laughter [their daughter], Kyle’s gentle presence [their tour manager], Hannah’s bouncing energy [their wife] as she pitche[d] hymns we could reference irreverently. That week away from the internet and the news cycle was a little insulation bubble that gave us so much room to breathe and feel safe. I don’t think this song could’ve been delivered with a different midwife.”
The midwife analogy is especially relevant to understanding some of these songs, particularly “Carry You Down,” where Adeem writes gorgeously about having and raising babies. The song is so gentle, so respectful of the autonomy of the child, but also filled with the details of domestic life that have become rare in country lately. In an album about adult pleasures and pains, it is a rest song, about carrying a child down the stairs when they ask to be carried, even if that interrupts “chorin’,” doing dishes or work in the garden.
If “Carry You Down” is a waltz, then “The Socialite Blues” is a romp about “staying up to the break of dawn/ making out of tune songs with you” – another kind of domestic, with “out of tune” its own kind of queerness. These songs have a sweetness, a refuge from harm, a way to escape not outside, but within.
The invocation of “out of tune songs” is a euphemism, but there are spaces on the album where Adeem is explicit about desire, as explicit as a country song has ever been, like in “Nancy,” which expresses exactly how difficult it is to fuck while on pharmaceuticals; or “One Night Stand,” about relationships that happen between last call and sunrise, but whose memory might, out of mercy and grace, stay on for “a lifetime of nights with him;” or “Part and Parcel,” where they sing, in gentle but urgent tones:
Take it all apart, it’s part & parcel I came here with a strange and honest feeling Chase all of these contradicting versions Childhood perversions, & dreams that never steered Let them drive a little while so that I can disappear
Those “contradicting versions” include being a child from the South, so the history here is not only personal, but social and political. There is a cluster of artists working out the history of the South right now – Justin Hiltner’s “1992,” Miko Marks’ Race Records,Willi Carlisle’s recitations of the failures of Appalachian and rural drug work, the entire career of Jake Xerxes Fussell, all of the ancestor work in Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. It might seem like Adeem’s work is personal, but all of this historical work flows from the personal to the corporate, an understanding of history that includes both last week and last century, trauma and joy twisting into a complex homecoming.
Homecoming for Adeem also includes the history of Knoxville, Tennessee; on the album’s last song “White Mule, Black Man,” they begin by asking if it’s too much to do one more, but after the end of the track, it’s clear that nothing could be more proper. Here, Adeem telling stories of the South, from Confederation onward, means taking racial politics seriously.
In almost exactly three minutes, they tell the story of a white mob rioting after a foiled lynching, the eventual coverup of that lynching, and the layers of myth-making and storytelling to prevent the truth from being revealed. Moving from talking to singing, somewhere between Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” and Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” the story in this final song laments, “But if the Tennessee River runs red with blood/ ‘Til the city runs white again/ Well, a white mule’s curse means more round here/ Than the last words muttered by murdered Black men.”
Adeem has been blunt like this before, tearing down the charnel houses of violent American racism and its myths, and this song is a deepening and extending of that practice. By ending the album on this note of violence, not as a lecture but as a moral accounting, that history work is ensuring that everyone is seen and known, their family is known, and the origins of their family’s prosperity is known.
Such knowledge is the necessary, sometimes haunting, sometimes delightful, attraction of Adeem as a person and “the Artist” – earning that sobriquet.
Born out of humble beginnings in 1983, Mountain Stage has blossomed to become not just one of Appalachia’s most sought after musical platforms, but one of all of Americana and roots music’s most cherished stages. Broadcasting bi-monthly to nearly 300 NPR stations nationwide, the program has welcomed everyone from John Prine to Wilco, Wynonna Judd, and even Widespread Panic during its historic 40-year run. To celebrate the achievement, Mountain Stage and Oh Boy Records have partnered to release the 21-song Live On Mountain Stage: Outlaws and Outliers (released April 19).
According to Larry Groce — Mountain Stage host from 1983 to 2021 and one of the compilation’s curators — distilling 40 years of music into one album was quite the task. Deliberations began with a list of over 150 songs before landing on the 21 that made the album.
“At first we just looked at the artist named and began to narrow it down from there,” Groce describes the process to BGS. “After several narrowings we began listening to some of them, getting the list down to about 30 before cutting it further down to the 21 that made the album.”
Sticking close to the country, folk, and bluegrass sounds of the show’s West Virginia home, the album includes performances from Appalachia’s own – like current Mountain Stage host Kathy Mattea, Tyler Childers, Sierra Ferrell, and Tim O’Brien alongside A-listers like Prine, Eric Church, Alison Krauss, and Jason Isbell. Helping to attract and keep such a diverse array of talent returning has been the program’s artist-first approach, which caters to the performers and platforms great songs over all else.
“We’re not trying to be trendsetters and we aren’t trying to be hip,” asserts Groce, who broke onto the scene as a singer-songwriter with his song “Junk Food Junkie” in 1976. “We try to look at things in the long run by booking talent we think will last. Our goal has always been to put the artist at the center of the show rather than myself, the program, or anyone else. There’s people that would argue that we should always be pushing the brand, but that’s not the way we — or anyone else — operates in West Virginia.”
One of the many artists appreciative of that approach is Molly Tuttle, who last appeared on Mountain Stage in 2023 to support her album City Of Gold, which has since earned her a second Grammy win for Best Bluegrass Album. Born in California, Tuttle didn’t become aware of the show until moving to Nashville in 2015. She’s gone on to play the show three times, the first being a visit in 2018 that provided the performance of “You Didn’t Call My Name” that made the compilation.
Of the show, Tuttle says what she’s cherished most about her time on it is the chance to collaborate and catch up with her colleagues.
“It’s one of the few places where you get to meet, converse and collaborate with other musicians, which typically only happens for us on the road at music festivals,” explains Tuttle. “That really speaks to the trust Larry Groce and the entire Mountain Stage team have in giving the artists freedom to do what they want. What results is a well curated show that’s become one of the most important showcases around for this kind of music.”
In agreement with Tuttle is Tim O’Brien, a native West Virginian who made his Mountain Stage debut in the late ’80s with Hot Rize, an occasion he credits to his mother that has sparked too many follow-up visits to count.
“She called my sister and I — who were living in Colorado at the time — to tell us about it after hearing about it on the local radio back home,” recalls O’Brien, whose song “Cup Of Sugar” from a 2021 appearance is featured on the record. “She immediately thought we’d be a good fit for it, so she wrote them a postcard one day asking when they were going to get Hot Rize on. It was a good fit the first time, and always has been.”
“I remember writing her back saying ‘Your son’s band is much more famous than we are,” Groce jokes as he looks back on the moment. “The question is, does he want to go on the show, not whether we’ll have him or not. And sure enough, we booked Hot Rize shortly thereafter.”
The Indigo Girls perform on Mountain Stage. Photo by Brian Blauser.
It’s that attitude of never feeling above anyone or anything that has helped Mountain Stage to excel and have the lasting legacy that it does. It captures its home region of West Virginia and Appalachia better than most any other music-related program does, both in sound and in sentiment. It’s the latter that’s arguably been the biggest asset in attracting bigger names as the show taps into the majestic mountains around them.
“There’s many different kinds of people that live in Appalachia, but one thing that’s really bedrock is supporting one another, and that shows with Mountain Stage and how they put the program on,” reflects O’Brien. “It’s intimate and friendly, just like the state.”
Photo Credit: Tim O’Brien Band performing on Mountain Stage by Chris Morris; Molly Tuttle performs on Mountain Stage by Josh Saul.
Acclaimed bluegrass musician Missy Raines is also a very cool and funny lady, originally from West Virginia – not far from the Maryland border and the city of Cumberland. First of all, I had questions for her about why people from West Virginia are so into their state. She gets into that and also explores the influence of the vast and varied bluegrass music scene she found there, as well as the scene in nearby Washington, D.C..
Raines has made a significant impact on the genre, earning 14 International Bluegrass Music Association awards, including 10 for Bass Player of the Year. Her latest album, Highlander, showcases Raines’ mastery of the bass alongside an ensemble of top-tier musicians from Nashville – her home base for the last 34 years – and plenty of special guests, too, blending traditional bluegrass with innovative twists.
Throughout our conversation, Raines reflects on her deep connection to Appalachian culture and the Appalachian Mountains, which have profoundly influenced her music. We explore her experiences performing live at music festivals and the evolution of bluegrass music as a genre and community. We recount the passion her family felt for music, touching on the story of her mom and aunt crying their eyes out over John Duffey leaving their favorite bluegrass band, The Country Gentlemen.
Raines also talks about taking care of her late brother Rick, who died of HIV-AIDS in 1994 at the age of 39. Through that experience, she was empowered to help others whose loved ones were also dying and suffering from HIV and AIDS. With her unique blend of banjo and fiddle music, and her activism in a normally conservative genre, Raines continues to push the boundaries of the genre while staying true to its roots, making her a trailblazer in the world of Americana and folk music. Our conversation was in depth, fun and enlightening – I had high hopes for this one and I was not disappointed!
I bet in the next few years, an expert taxonomist will come by and tell us exactly what country music is – and that this definition will create endless arguments. In the last few months, this argument about what exactly country music is has been growing louder. Jason Isbell has been fucking around with Nashville for decades, playing the field between rock, country, southern rock, country rock, and classic country. (He has recently said that he considers himself a rock singer). Adeem the Artist, the infamous cast iron pansexual, says that they are a folk singer. Willi Carlisle, a folk up-and-comer, has released Critterland, a certainly country album. On the other hand, Maren Morris released two singles last fall which were about burning Nashville to the ground, yet they’re perhaps the most country songs of her career – in terms of how she tells stories, how the bridges work, her vocal tones, and even some of the instrumentation. It seems lately, country is both everything and nothing.
Amanda Fields’ 2023 project deepens this ongoing problem. The album, What, When and Without, is a complex artifact of her own wrestling with genre, history, and biography. It slides into that complex sorting of genre and feeling that is key to Nashville right now. Fields calls this a country album – lushly produced, thick with strings, and dense with vocals, reminding one of an updated countrypolitan record – but sorting out what that means comes with a history of playing and listening.
Fields has a reputation on the bluegrass circuit, often an insular genre with an insistence on a certain kind of purity. She recognized how those questions of purity often don’t pay the bills, and her first major recordings were on a series of bluegrass cover records, called Pickin’ On – recorded by prominent bluegrass studio musicians, there are dozens of them, the artists covered include the expected (Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash), the unusual (Blink 182), to the fully flummoxing (Modest Mouse). Though Fields did not play on all of these records, she talks about them as an integral understanding of herself as part of a musical team: “When I look back on my experience within the ‘genres’ I’ve taken part in, I think about the groups of people I worked with… When I worked on Pickin’ On, I got that gig because of who I was hanging out with and playing music with at the time. I sang ‘gospel’ when I was growing up, because that was the community within my proximity.”
Proximity is a complex question for Fields. She has close ties to the bluegrass community, and there is something intriguing about the idea that genre is a social category – one about who one is near, or what the audience and the performer agrees to participate in. Yet there is a kind of roving that occurs here too; for Fields, roving is both a history of moving around geographically and, as she says here, moving from music that she considers bluegrass or gospel or country.
Fields moved around a lot as a child. Though she was born in Appalachia and currently lives in suburban Nashville (right next to Loretta Lynn’s old house), the line between these two legendary destinations was not direct.
Asking Fields about these roots – expecting a standard line in response – she honestly describes the complexity of her raising: “I’m originally from the mountains and it was my anchor growing up, but my dad moved us around a lot. He was one of those people who felt there was more to life than what was available to us living in that area, so he took job opportunities that carried us away from the mountains. I didn’t like that, because I was always longing to be ‘home’ with the rest of our family. I lived for summers and holidays when I got to be in Virginia and East Tennessee. Playing and listening to country and bluegrass music was my way to experience home when I couldn’t be there physically.”
This moving and returning is a common note for country musicians. Listening to her talk about the juxtaposition of moving, returning, being forced to leave, and finally finding home in an idea more than a place, I am reminded of Tanya Tucker or Merle Haggard. Tucker’s early childhood had a father who moved her from Arizona to Las Vegas to finally Nashville, chasing an acting and singing career. She broke out as a singer who fused a desire for rock and for country. It is similar to Haggard’s talk of moving – to California with his family as a consequence of economic disenfranchisement – and spending the rest of his career chasing economic stability. That idea was perhaps best written about in his tragic ballad “Kern River,” with its opening line, “I grew up in an oil town, but my gusher never came in.” (A Fields original from well before What, When and Without, “Brandywine,” strikes a similar note.)
This connection to Tucker, Haggard, and other classic country singers suggests that Fields landed not necessarily in a place, but as she says, in a music which has tight connections to place. What, When and Without, a classic country album, is infused with this kind of nostalgic listening.
Asked about her relationship to figures like Loretta Lynn or Haggard, she answers carefully: “Most of the music that really stirs my soul is older. I listen to all my friends’ new music and I’m always hunting something fresh to connect with, but on a day-to-day basis, I’m usually listening to the same stuff I’ve always loved. I’m talking Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty just about everyday. Classic country is what excites me (especially when I discover something I haven’t heard) and those familiar sounds and voices help me regulate my body’s nervous system.”
The album, rooted in those sounds, contains a deep knowledge of genre. Its ability to move between old school country, bluegrass chops, and deep, modern desire is one of its strengths. Figuring out how to sound both modern and historical is something Fields achieves with some skill. If her commitment to genre has a loose, rootless quality – or at least one which floats and lands depending on aesthetic or social need – then how she considers time has a similar quality.
Maybe her early commitment to bluegrass, a genre who remembers more than it forgets, and faces backwards as much as it faces forwards, and which was complicated by how hungry those covers were, suggests one way of bridging eras. But, her recent work, crafting contemporary studio craft with the careful polish of Studio A aesthetics is another. Asking her about memory and nostalgia, she again answers carefully: “One thing that was very intentional with the album was the pace. I think that going slowly is nostalgic in a way, because society and industry move so fast nowadays. I usually walk slowly and I talk slowly compared to most of my peers. My body responds to tempo and dynamics and I wanted to invite the album’s listeners to slow down with me.”
The slowness of the album can be heard in how she starts many of the tracks. There is often an instrumental intro where one waits a significant time for the vocals to be introduced and on occasion there are gaps, where her vocals recede and the band takes over – though the band itself is also quiet. There is a quality, listening to the work, of a kind of courtly two-step, the band asking Fields to dance, and vice versa.
The very first song, “What A Fool,” begins with brushed drums, and has a quite lovely open-ended moment where the pedal steel becomes central. On “I Love You Today,” the old-fashioned cheating song, heartbreak is introduced via an elegant, western swing sound, not outside of Lovett at his best. The last song, “Without You,” plays drums as solid and regular as a heartbeat. It’s another heartbreak song.
The pedal steel is crafted by Russ Pahl, who has been playing for decades. He has been nominated by the Academy of Country Music for his work on the steel guitar three times and for specialty instrument once, between 2004 and 2021. Before that, aside from being an in-demand studio musician, he was part of legendary Great Plains, another band who was excellent at moving between genres, across time, and throughout modes.
Talking to Fields about Pahl, she noted how good he was at not only playing, but matching vibes in the studio: “He came across very quiet and contemplative in the studio and I think he ‘got’ the vibe right away. After a song or two, he said, ‘…this ain’t Zip A dee Doo Dah.’ And it wasn’t. It was an album created in the midst of global pandemic [and] a time of great suffering for society and for myself personally.”
What, When and Without sounds like Fields has had some rough times, even outside of the lockdowns (regardless of how dense the record sounds, there is a yearning in the vocals that have a certain lockdown edge); but there is also an irony in this loneliness. Megan McCormick, who co-wrote on and produced the record and plays in Fields’ band, shows great intimacy throughout the project – there is a reason for this, McCormick and Fields are personal as well as professional partners. They sound good together, and the track where McCormick sings backing vocals, “Moving Mountains,” is the highest energy, most open of the entire record. It’s a great love song – but it’s a love song which calls to Mother Maybelle Carter as an avatar of country music, as a figure outside of space and time, which can tell the narrator how to love after years of heartbreak.
When asked about McCormick, Fields is still a little coy, but her commitment to their lives and sounds is made clear: “She really has a special gift and believing in her as a producer, as well as trusting her intuitions and abilities, has allowed me to grow as an artist. She’s my toughest critic, because that’s what I’ve asked of her. She’s also my constant cheerleader. We thrive when we get to travel together and both enjoy that feeling of being untethered that you get when you’re on the road.”
One can hear some of the untethered quality in Fields’ work, the road as untethering as much as time or genre, but the closeness that she has with McCormick is another kind of tethering, be it a consensual one.
Throughout the album, there is a quality of choosing which traditions are valuable, which are worth keeping, and which ones might have outlived their usefulness. When she talks about her childhood as a Pentecostal, she says: “I am very spiritual, still, and that energy I saw in church growing up is no different than the energy I feel when I’m composing music or playing music with other people with whom I am ‘tuned in.’”
She is definitely tuned with McCormick, their close contribution seen in how they work together – the harmonies without necessarily the negative consequences of some of that church life. She continues: “Those are universal aspects of the human experience that transcend dogma, class, and denomination and that’s what I carry on and value from my experience in church.”
One can see the universal quality in Fields’ work, and it contains interesting juxtapositions. A rootlessness across genre or time, which lands on something contemporary sounding; or a heartbreak record which rests on multiple commitments to one person; or even a religious tradition which widens and deepens.
Maybe we don’t need that taxonomy. An audience knows what a country record is.
Artist:Colby T. Helms Hometown: Boones Mill, Virginia Song: “Mountain Brandy” Album:Tales of Misfortune Release Date: January 19, 2024 Label: Photo Finish Records
In Their Words: “I am delighted my original song ‘Mountain Brandy’ is being featured on BGS. This song has been a local fan favorite for years. I wrote the song when I was 16 as a response to seeing my way of life disappearing around me. As a Franklin County, Virginia native, moonshine history and culture have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Over the years, family and friends have passed on, leaving behind a legacy and culture that I plan to keep alive. I wrote this song in honor of the culture, tradition, and landscape that has inspired me to pursue my passions. I hope that the fans of BGS identify with this tune and cherish it the way I have.” – Colby T. Helms
Track Credits: Written by Colby T. Helms. Produced by Billy Hurt. Mixed by Jason Richmond. Mastered by Kim Rosen.
Photo Credit: Guadalupe Bustos Video Credit: Video Director – Mike Mazza Director of Photography – Christian Kline Video Producer – Mike Mazza Editor – Mike Mazza
In early 1993, David “Dawg” Grisman, Jerry Garcia, and Tony Rice gathered around a few microphones in Dawg’s Mill Valley, California recording studio. It was a casual, after-hours jam session during the recording of Tone Poems (Grisman and Rice), but engineer David Dennison kept the tapes rolling, capturing and preserving one of the most significant moments in American music history.
As a kid growing up in central Appalachia, bluegrass music was, at times, painfully familiar. In childhood memories, I’m being dragged to bluegrass concerts on the weekends by my parents, or even spotting Ralph Stanley dining at local restaurants. But these things weren’t special to a 14-year-old Gen Z, no matter the popularity of new, genre-adjacent bands like Mumford & Sons or the Lumineers.
Sometime though, in those early teenage years, I was digging through my dad’s CD collection (which in 2012, already being rendered obsolete, had been stored in a closet) when I found a copy of The Pizza Tapes. I was vaguely familiar with Jerry Garcia from his association with the Grateful Dead, and remembered seeing Tony Rice as a 7 or 8 year old kid, and despite my dad insisting how important he was, being bored out of my mind. But when I picked up the CD and turned over its pizza-themed cover (“It’s Hot!”), I recognized songs like “Man of Constant Sorrow,” “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” and “House of the Rising Sun.” This familiarity is what put the CD in my hands, but the mandolin never left them once I heard Dawg’s playing.
The Pizza Tapes, to summarize, was an accident gone right. While these recordings may have eventually been packaged into an album, that certainly wasn’t the case when the bootleg started making the rounds. The story surrounding the tapes was practically folklore, with various narratives centered around a pizza delivery worker getting them in some way from Jerry Garcia. After Grisman’s label, Acoustic Disc, formally released the recordings in 2000 (ultimately providing access to the recordings to even more listeners) their significance in acoustic music was further embedded.
David “Dawg” Grisman, while known primarily as a mandolinist, has a reputation for recording everything, and an equally important legacy as an instigator of collaboration. His friendship with Jerry Garcia, dating back as early as 1964 (when Garcia traveled to the east coast chasing the roots of bluegrass music), led to the bay area bluegrass supergroup Old & In the Way in the early 1970s. Meanwhile in Kentucky, Tony Rice was departing from J.D. Crowe & the New South, and moving to the bay area to play Dawg’s original music – starting the group that in 1977 became known as the David Grisman Quintet.
The Pizza Tapes are special for countless reasons, but the obvious attraction is the coming together of these two legendary guitarists, highlighting the distinctness of their two original playing styles, musically glued together by Dawg, their mutual friend and collaborator. Though the two guitarists already had a large portion of their careers behind them (Rice lost his voice in ‘94, and Garcia died in ‘95), it wasn’t until February 4 and 5 of 1993 that Dawg successfully sat them down together with guitars in hand. As is the dialogue on track 3, “Appetizer:”
DG: Trip seeing you guys together, man. TR: Shoulda happened a long time ago. JG: This is gonna be a hoot!
While both guitarists were of obvious importance to Dawg, their influence extended far beyond his Bay Area recording studio. By the ‘90s, Tony Rice was (and had been for some time) the very definition of bluegrass guitar, with the same being true for Jerry Garcia in the jamband world. For these two genres, which had already begun to cross pollinate, this laid-back jam session was something monumental, a bridge between the musical worlds of Tony Rice and Jerry Garcia.
In a world where recorded music is continually valued by its commercial success, albums like The Pizza Tapes are a breath of fresh air the listener can always return to. There was clearly no goal of marketability or profit in mind when these three sat down to jam – the recordings are intimately casual, made clear by Garcia’s words in the first 10 seconds of the album, when they fumble the kick-off to “Man of Constant Sorrow.”
There are so many lovable moments between and during these songs – Dawg’s slightly out of tune A-strings at the end of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” Tony’s fiery but loose guitar solo on “Rosalee McFall,” or most notably, the album’s fade-out with Jerry noodling on Tony Rice’s famed “Holy Grail,” the 1935 Martin D-28 (#58957) which had previously belonged to Clarence White, another friend and collaborator of Grisman’s.
JG: Tony gets a better tone actually than Clarence did. DG: Don’t say he’s got a better tone – he’s louder. JG: Louder is better David – on this planet, louder’s better. (from “House of the Rising Sun)
As I discovered the rest of Dawg’s discography, I gravitated toward the more intentional David Grisman Quintet (1977) and Home Is Where the Heart Is (1988) as a rubric for my mandolin schooling. But over a decade later, I still go back to The Pizza Tapes to be reminded of why I play the mandolin, and ultimately music. It’s not to make money or achieve popularity, but to be playful, conversational, and to above all else make good music with my friends – tenets that were all exemplified by Dawg, Tony, and Jerry on those winter nights in 1993.
One of the most stunning and enjoyable albums of 2023 was released in mid-November by Galax, Virginia-based singer-songwriter Dori Freeman. Entitled, Do You Recall, it’s a vibrant and energetic collection of eleven original songs that also feel cozy and down home, like a back porch jam or guitar pull – there’s a buzz in the air, but no overhanging urgency. It’s pure fun, but it’s also earnest and, at times, devastating.
That homey sense, pervasive and enveloping on Do You Recall, is thanks in no small part to Freeman and producer, her husband, drummer Nicholas Falk, having tracked the entire album in their backyard studio. But these tracks don’t feel antiquated or pastoral, and they certainly do not evoke a revisionist, white-washed, or sanitized rural ideal. There’s no preaching or authenticity signaling undergirding these songs, they’re simply genuine representations of Freeman and Falk intentionally following or guiding each song to its best, natural endpoint.
Freeman has decidedly re-centered her career and her music making away from so-called Music Cities – like Nashville and New York City – over the course of her five critically-acclaimed albums. She clearly feels no need to peacock or to raise a middle finger to the Music Industry, or play to “outlaw” narratives in country. Rather, she and her creative community have deliberately shifted the focal point of her songs and albums away from industry currencies and social or political structures bit by bit, click by click. As a result, her music truly shines – and certainly reaches audiences that see and appreciate that deliberation. Each of her prior albums are testaments to this growth and action, but Do You Recall may be Freeman’s best to date.
Our Cover Story conversation began discussing this shift away from music industry models and naturally and languidly, as the album, touched on agency, nuance and complication in Appalachia, solidarity and class consciousness, and so much more.
BGS: I wanted to start by asking you about how your priorities maybe have shifted in relation to the music industry? I sense that there’s this insulation between you and the capital M, capital I, “music industry,” whatever that means, right? It feels like you care less about what matters to the industry and more about what matters to you. And that feels so tangible in the music. Do you agree or disagree with that?
Dori Freeman: I do agree with that. I think I kind of always have written music from a perspective of not really caring – I never approach music through the lens of what would please a record label or what is going to be a song that people want to play on the radio or anything like that.
But I do think that perspective has only gotten stronger as I’ve gotten older. The longer I’ve written music, [the more] I write music that means something to me and that I hope will resonate with other people, because I find that the music that I’m drawn to is written in that same way. It’s music that is honest in the best way possible.
That honesty you’re talking about feels so homey, so grounded in your everyday. I think that’s part of what makes it feel like you’re not just giving a middle finger to the industry. It’s more that you’re re-centering what you do away from the industry record by record.
I would agree with that. It’s not that music isn’t a big part of my life – I mean, it obviously is, it’s the career that I’ve chosen – but as far as day to day goes, the majority of my life is spent living in a small town and raising a young daughter. That’s [why] I write a lot about both of those things. I don’t necessarily think those are really topics that record labels are begging to have more songs about, but that’s just what my life is and so those are the things that I write and sing about.
Can you talk a little bit about where you live? You live in Galax proper, yes?
Yeah, I live in Galax proper. I’m actually the last house on the street that I live on that’s technically still in Galax. The population in Galax is around 10,000, so it’s not very big. I’ve moved around a little bit in my life, but the majority of my life I’ve spent here in Southwest Virginia. And Galax in particular is a town that’s known for music. It’s like the self-proclaimed old-time music capital of the world, and we have a Fiddler’s Convention every year that’s one of the oldest. It’s known for music.
I mean, even the way that we – my husband and I – made this album [was] literally in our backyard. He built a timber-frame studio during the pandemic, so we recorded it here too, and at a much slower pace than I’ve ever had the privilege of making a record. In the past I’ve always had a strict timeframe, we have these four or five days and we have to have everything recorded in that amount of time. This time, it was just much more relaxed, and we could go out to the studio and work on one song for a couple days and then do another one the next week. It was just really refreshing to be able to approach it that way, compared to the way I’ve done it in the past. There are things that are really fun about recording in both of those ways. The pressure can be good, too, but it was nice to have a change of pace.
It may just be the time of year where all I want to do is cook something simmering on the stove all day long, but “Soup Beans Milk and Bread” — there’s so much in it that I, and I’m sure other listeners, can relate to. Especially the line, “You can’t lose something you don’t have.” That line bitch-slapped me, for real. In the best way. Can you talk about writing that one and where that line and that song came from for you?
I always find it a little difficult to articulate when I’m talking about Appalachia, just because I find it easier to write about it in song form, but I will do my best to try to talk about that.
It’s such a nuanced issue. I wrote that one – and then there’s another song on the record that’s also about growing up in Appalachia – and about the different layers of that and the different experiences you have here. The good and the more complicated.
In particular, the line, “You can’t lose something you don’t have.” I wouldn’t say I grew up poor, but I grew up not necessarily having a ton of stuff. But, in a lot of ways, I feel like I had a really happy childhood. Part of that line [is positive]. I mean, you can take it in a negative or more sad way, but it’s also, “Well, you can’t be unhappy about something that you didn’t ever have.”
If you grew up with less, a lot of times you just make the most of that and it ends up being better for you in a lot of ways. That line is definitely meant to be a double-edged sword. This area has been so taken advantage of by the government and by big business that it’s clear, yeah, you can’t lose something you never had, because we were never allowed to have it in the first place.
Another one that was my a favorite on the record is “Why Do I Do This to Myself.” I feel like I asked myself that question all the time!
It’s just such a universal feeling, I think. We all do these things to ourselves, certain things are good for you, certain thought patterns aren’t good for you – and you just can’t help it.
What you were hoping to accomplish musically and sonically with that one? Because it reminds me of classic Patty Loveless or like Terri Clark, very trad ‘80s or ‘90s country. Can you talk a little bit about what you were trying to get out of the production style on that?
Well, ‘90s country was definitely what we were going for with that one. I’m glad that came across with that track. I’ve got to give Nick a lot of credit for the production on a lot of these songs and for just picking out the musicians and for directing and deciding what the vibe would be for a lot of these songs. Our guitar player, Adam Agati, Nick hired him and they both came up with that real country lick, they kind of led the charge on that one.
You’re really playing with agency, I feel like it’s such a character in these songs – what are you choosing for yourself, what is being chosen for you, what’s being handed down to you, and how the speaker in your songs is kind of dancing around these things and talking about them.
I don’t know if I consciously approached it in that way, but I do think that it’s interesting – ‘cause you’re not the first person to bring that up. Someone else that I did an interview with said they felt the songs sort of felt like short stories that were part of the same book. After the fact, sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes you just write the batch of songs and then afterwards it becomes clear.
So I do see that in hindsight, but I don’t know necessarily if I was looking at it that way when I was writing songs, because I just write songs so individually. I’m not thinking of a theme when I approach writing songs for an album. It’s more just work on the songs individually and then hopefully they sort of come together in some sort of cohesive way.
Another thing, which I actually think has been a blessing in disguise, is that I’ve only had one album on an actual label. The subsequent four I’ve self-produced and put out on my own little label at home. I think that’s actually ended up being a good thing, because it has just left me without a lot of boundaries or feeling boxed in. I feel like I’ve had a lot more freedom to write about the things that I wanted to. It may be a smaller audience that I’m reaching and it may be a slower growth and a slower track, but actually, in the long run, I’m glad that I have done it the way that I have.
There are a couple more songs I wanted to ask you about. One is “Movie Screen.” It’s the one that feels most bluegrassy to me in some ways, and it feels very “mountain music,” which is always a nebulous term to me. “Movie Screen” is a story song, and it feels very specific, but it also feels so general and zoomed out and aspirational. It kind of reminds me of Dolly [Parton] and the way that she’d write songs about wanting to be the girl in the movie or on the radio or on stage.
[Laughs] Thank you for the Dolly comparison. I mean, I will always take that.
Yes, that is a really specific song. I wrote that song after becoming really obsessed with, during the pandemic, watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix and just having such a crush on Cillian Murphy, the lead actor in that. It’s pretty funny, because I wrote the song and my husband is one of the first people, if not the first person, I always share songs with. I play him this song and he immediately was like, “Oh, okay– so this is about that guy from Peaky Blinders?” Which is just so funny, because, my husband has brown eyes and there’s a very distinct line in the song about blue diamond eyes. It didn’t take him long to put that together. He likes to give me a hard time over that song. But it’s also about entertainment and movies and TV shows and books, as like an escape from reality and anxiety and all those things.
The other song you mentioned as being about growing up in Appalachia, “They Do It’s True,” it reminds me of Charles Booker’s political action group in Kentucky, Hood to Holler. There’s a line: “If you’ve ever lived on a mountain side/ in a little shack or a double-wide/ Then there ain’t no seat at the table for you.” That line is so striking, especially because it then continues by naming solidarity with women and with Black and Brown folks. It mades me think of Hood to Holler and this idea that in the holler and in the hood, we are more similar than we are different. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that line in that song and where it came from for you?
That’s definitely what I was trying to write about in that song. I think one of the tactics that conservatives and people in higher positions in government love to use is to pit poor white people against poor Black people just to use that for their own gain. It’s another perspective that I think gets lost when people talk about the Appalachians. They think it’s just 100% white and people have this very specific idea of what it is, but there’s a large Black population. West Virginia has one of the most concentrated populations of transgender teens. There are Appalachian queer film festivals – there are a lot of things that get lost in that bigger message, because people [in power] don’t want us to have solidarity, because that would mean there would be actual change.
Another example of that is the way prisons often end up in poor and working class white communities, and then that’s how they pit Black and white people against each other again, because the white people are afraid of losing the work from the prison. So they want it to stay there, and it’s just a very vicious cycle. I think that it’s something that we should talk about more, because I think the wider audience doesn’t realize a lot of these things about Appalachia.
The class consciousness in the album and the way that you wove class into these songs feels so artfully done.
Appealing to the commercial side of things has never been something that I’ve felt the need to do. That goes back to what I was saying as far as having the freedom to write about what I want to and not being beholden to record labels or anything like that or agents. But it’s also because those are all just important things to me. I grew up in a really rural area and I’m bringing up my daughter in a rural area. I don’t ever want to romanticize the area in an unrealistic way, but I do think it’s important to have conversations as much about the negative things that we do need to improve as all the positive things.
I think that’s it’s really important for people from the area to continue to talk about all of this. In music and writing – and whatever other mediums. So that the rest of America can see that [Appalachia] is not just one stereotypical picture that they have in their heads.
Zach Day stands out as an artist who has developed his own sound. His writing is venerable and filled with emotion, his voice is professional and polished, and his lyrics are clever, descriptive, and carefully crafted.
I loved hearing Zach’s responses for Out Now. It’s such a treat to gain insights into his mind, music, and process. Zach opens up about his experience growing up as an LGBTQ+ kid in Kentucky and how bittersweet it was, on the one hand, to be immersed in deep homophobia, but on the other, to be built into a beautiful Appalachian environment with inspiring storytelling, homegrown food, and the gift to sing with friends and family.
What’s your ideal vision for your future?
I have this dream of being able to make music full time, never having to worry about money to support my friends and family, and traveling the world with my partner. Eventually I will settle down on a little farm with a family milk cow and some chickens, maybe a couple kids, a big vegetable garden, and a porch with a swing and a bunch of people I love singing songs in harmony while I make a giant dinner for us all every weekend.
What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is not being able to accomplish everything that I have dreamed for myself and being forced to live a life of “What-ifs.” I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself and sometimes that freaks me out, because I worry I may never be satisfied. I have to work actively every day to calm myself down [over] these expectations, because it’ll send me into anxiety! That and the whale from Pinocchio… scared of him.
Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
I create music because I think I have a story that needs to be told. Being a queer person that was raised in the heart of Appalachia is a special and unique perspective. I was raised around amazing singers and musicians, but also I always felt like an observer of my surroundings. I choose to reflect on the great things I took from my raising. I have a huge heart for Appalachia and the stories that come from there. I was raised by generations of coal miners and farmers, teachers and preachers, gardeners and homemakers. I love to reflect on those sentiments in my music and I think you can hear it in my voice and in my songs.
Who are your favorite LGBTQ+ artists and bands?
I can’t get enough of Ethel Cain right now, I really look up to her and her writing skills. She’s inspiring me so much with how she is choosing to tell her stories. Also Searows… can’t get enough.
What are your release and touring plans for the next year?
I have a handful of songs being mixed and mastered right now on their way to streaming platforms and I plan to continue playing all over the place. I have shows booked in LA, Nashville, and NYC all within the next few months. My goal is to open for a big artist like Ethel Cain. I believe it can happen very soon.
You grew up in Kentucky. What was that experience like for you as a queer person?
Growing up in Kentucky as a queer person wasn’t easy. I didn’t even know I was gay until I was a bit older, but I had grown adults saying I couldn’t come to church with them, because they didn’t want a fag in their car. That was before I even knew I was gay. So I had this aura around me my whole childhood that I was different and I think that shifted my perspective on my life. In the good moments though, I could connect with music and really draw on the storytelling and lyrics that I heard to find inspiration. Appalachia is full of amazing storytelling and the environment and nature are so beautiful. I loved eating the food we would grow, I loved singing with my family and friends, and I loved hearing stories from artists like Mitch Barrett and Zoe Speaks.
You stand out as an artist who has developed your own sound. Your voice is professional, polished, and filled with emotion. Your lyrics are clever and descriptive, and the craftsmanship of your songwriting is phenomenal. What was the process of developing your identity as an artist?
Thank you for those kind words, that means a lot to me. I’m still developing my sound and my brand every day. As far as developing what I have at this point, I think that I did my homework for many years… I studied the greats and their subtle nuances… If Karen Carpenter or Joni Mitchell sang something that sent a shiver down my spine I would rewind it and try to emulate that to the best of my ability. If I heard a Dolly Parton lyric that moved me, I would let it sink into my being and ponder it. I just wanted to be able to write iconic songs and sing my face off – and I worked really hard to try and capture that. These days, I feel as though I’ve been leaning more into my Appalachian roots. I spent a long time running from what made me unique, but now I embrace it.
You recently spent some time living in LA and moved back to Nashville. What drew you to live in LA for a while, and what was that experience like for you?
I grew up always wanting to live in LA and experience that lifestyle. I was working with some folks that told me I would “do better” in LA and had a better chance at getting my music heard. But I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I love it there and I love it in Nashville as well. I’ve built a community in both places and have been fortunate enough to work with amazing people in both locations. I have my pockets of support in both cities and for that I’m super lucky. I just realized that I miss being in the woods too much to live in LA right now. I missed nature and I missed being able to turn off my phone and go for a run on a trail, down the road. I love being in the city from time to time but at the end of the day, I’m a country boy and it’s in my roots.
Artist:Zach Russell Hometown: Caryville, Tennessee Latest Album:Where The Flowers Meet The Dew (out December 1)
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
I’ve always looked up to Willie Nelson. In my opinion, he is the top tier as far as “artists” go. He wrote many great songs, but wasn’t against recording others’ great songs. His work is of substance and quality, but catchy and with mass appeal. He ebbed and flowed with the styles of the times, but it never felt inauthentic. He had success in the pop realm, then went back to Texas and started the outlaw movement. He has released 100 studio albums. He is still touring at 90 years old. He has a massive marijuana company.
As he said at the very beginning of his Yesterday’s Wine album, “The voice of Imperfect Man must now be made manifest and I have been selected as the most likely candidate.” I mean, come on. That’s as cool as it gets.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
I am a big fan of literature, especially Appalachian authors like Lee Smith, Amy Greene, Silas House, and Wendell Berry, but my favorite being John Steinbeck, a California native. I believe reading good literature keeps my mind’s eye in good shape and subconsciously strengthens my sense for imagery.
A song can be seen like a book. Though, in a song you don’t get hundreds of pages to make your point. You get three and a half minutes, some 32ish lines, to get across a story or feeling. You can’t waste a single word. Each line needs to fracture out in a hundred different directions once it enters the listeners mind. I don’t think I ever would have gotten that had it not been for good literature.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Nothing against characters in songs, but I wouldn’t create one to hide behind. If I wanted to hide something I wouldn’t write a song about it. Art is largely about bravery.
If I cried and that is an important part of the story, I’ll say that I cried. Sometimes things aren’t meant to be taken literally, though. Sometimes they are meant to be seen mythically, meaning whether it’s true or not is not what is important. But no, never to hide.
What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?
Be kind and be a good hang. Being fun to be around and a nice person will get you gigs over more talented players. I didn’t understand that at first, but now that I hire musicians I get it. You spend a lot more time sharing space with people than you do playing together.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I spend a good amount of time thinking about my local world: All the local trees and wildlife, the Clinch River and the waterways that feed it, when things bloom, what eats what, and the general way things tend to go. I think if you pay enough attention to the natural world you could accidentally learn all kinds of secret stuff. I believe I have. I’m not really sure what, but things are different now. And I don’t believe it’s any coincidence that it was only after I moved back home to the mountains of East Tennessee that people started paying attention to what I was doing. Maybe it makes it easier to know where things wanna go, or what comes next.
Artist:Sully Bright Hometown: Forest City, North Carolina; currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee Song: “November” Album:Darling, Wake Up Release Date: October 13, 2023
In Their Words: “‘November’ is a song I wrote about being away from something you love. It’s about wishing for ‘November’ to come soon, whether that be the actual season of fall or someone. ‘Please come around this year, don’t make me wait any longer. I hope to see you soon, I hope to see you soon.’
“In the video we captured, I got the chance to sing the song on an old cabin porch in Roan Mountain, North Carolina. If you listen closely enough, you can hear a woodpecker. Be sure to check back in two weeks for the last video!” – Sully Bright
Photo Credit: Wonderfilmco Video Credit: Seth and Jenna Herlich, Wonderfilmco
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