Tag: arkansas

PHOTOS: Trampled by Turtles and the Unique Appeal of FreshGrass Bentonville

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On my way from the Northwest Arkansas International Airport to the apparently booming town of Bentonville, Ron, the man driving the van, pointed at an old farmhouse that was now sticking out like a sore thumb among its newer, beige-r neighbors. “I remember when that house was way out in the country,” he told me. The town is growing rapidly, and the surrounding countryside is disappearing at the same rate. Bentonville is probably best known as the birthplace and headquarters of mega-retailer Walmart. However, it is also now home to a couple high-quality art museums, miles and miles of mountain biking trails (the city’s Chamber of Commerce website dubs Bentonville “The Mountain Biking Capital of the World”), and a very cool festival, FreshGrass. I’m here to play that festival with my band, Trampled by Turtles.

Trampled by Turtles perform under the lights at FreshGrass Bentonville. Photo by Cooper Baumgartner.

We have played FreshGrass a couple times before, but those shows were at its other and original location way up in Massachusetts. This being our first foray into the burgeoning Arkansas version, I was curious to see how it would compare. As with its Massachusetts sibling, FreshGrass Bentonville is set up on the grounds of a multi-use art space. The Momentary, as it’s called, is a decommissioned cheese factory that is now a hub of artistic activity in the region. There are indoor and outdoor installations, several performing arts venues, a variety of food experiences, and for our purposes here, a large outdoor concert area. I mean, what a cool place to play a show! I love the venues this festival chooses. We have played all manner of these things and though it probably goes without saying, the setting has so much to do with the experience of the ticketholders and the performers alike. There is something about a concert being surrounded by an atmosphere of artistic creativity that gives the FreshGrass festivals their unique flavor. Don’t get me wrong, we have had great times at festivals set up in nameless fields, but given the choice, I would choose this. I enjoy playing a show at a place that I would go anyway.

Fans react to Trampled by Turtles. Photo by Cooper Baumgartner.

We had a lovely experience here. The crowd seemed very happy to be there and all the music I heard was great. I want to give a little shoutout to whoever set up the main stage concert bowl as well. Often at outdoor venues with both seated and standing areas, the seats are up against the stage and the standing lawn is way in the back. At The Momentary they’ve made a bit of a hybrid setup. There are small standing room areas right up in front, a large section of seating, and then a wide lawn in the back.  Everyone can enjoy the show in the way they choose, whether that’s dancing like demons in the front row, having a comfortable chair in the middle, or spreading out on a blanket with the family in the back. Having standing room up against the stage is such a boon for the band that’s up there, as well. There is an energy partnership with those wilder, bouncing audience members and it can feel weird to have them way behind the seated crowd. I don’t know if that was the reason for this layout, but we enjoyed its effect at our set last night.

Trampled by Turtles and a “full house” at FreshGrass Bentonville. Photo by Cooper Baumgartner.

I am not surprised to be impressed with the younger FreshGrass. This festival has consistently proven its desire to provide a unique and art-forward experience for both band and crowd alike. They invest in interesting lineups and create visually exciting venues in which to show them off. They’ve made us feel very welcome over the years and I hope we get to play these festivals forever.  – Dave Simonett, Trampled by Turtles

Make plans to attend FreshGrass Bentonville next year May 16 – 17, 2025 at the Momentary.

Dave Simonett is the lead singer, guitarist, and a songwriter for fan-favorite bluegrass group Trampled by Turtles. Subscribe to his Substack, Good Record, here.

Photo Credit: All photo credits as marked. Lead image and Trampled by Turtles photos by Cooper Baumgartner. All other photos courtesy of the Momentary.

BGS 5+5: Kendl Winter

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Kendl Winter
Hometown: Olympia, Washington
Latest Album: Banjo Mantras
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “Lower half of The Lowest Pair”

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

I like this question, because I think everything you do, witness, consume, walk by, dance with, or touch informs your (my) music. Most books I’m reading make their way into my lyrics directly or indirectly. I know I’ve quoted or misquoted from E.E. Cummings, Richard Brautigan, Hafiz, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Rumi, Rebecca Solnit, Thich Nhat Hanh, and probably so many others. All the authors and poets and spiritual leaders I’ve read or listened to and been moved by have woven their ponderings into mine and in turn the tumble of words that spill out onto my morning pages is often informed by those thoughts.

I watch a lot of film and I love movement. I go for long runs in the Northwest – or wherever I currently am – and the landscape informs my music, or the highway does, or the venue. I’m (we) are so porous and regularly trying to make sense of the cocktail of experience I’ve been sipping on. That said, this is an instrumental record, so for me it’s a new kind of transcription or interpretation of the collage of experiences in my head.

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

My Hebrew school teacher back in Arkansas said he had a video of me as a 5 year-old singing to a stick of butter. In second grade, I wrote a song about landfills and saving the birds. My folks were both classically trained musicians, one a high school string teacher, and the other a low brass professor, so I had music and the example of disciplined musicians practicing around me all the time. As kids, my sister and I were often crawling through the orchestra pit in the Arkansas Symphony or falling asleep in the balcony.

I loved punk music and dabbled with guitar and drums though high school, although I don’t think I actually knew I wanted to be a musician until my early 20s, when I had just moved to Olympia. In the Little Rock area of Arkansas and in Olympia, Washington there was/is such a vibrant DIY scene for music. Some of my first attempts at performing were in Olympia and I had only written half-songs, so they were very short and with a lot of apologies.

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

I would say lately has been the toughest time for me, writing lyrics at least. Maybe that’s why I’ve been enjoying the spaciousness of instrumentals for a while with the Banjo Mantras. It’s felt less exacting to let my art be more ethereal and open to interpretation. Something about the last five years has made me feel less sure about what to share, in terms of my own verbal songwriting. I think I’m more self conscious or potentially private and maybe more aware of my voice in a way that makes me feel a bit uncertain of what more can be said from my vantage. Songwriting has always been such a huge piece of how I interpret life, though, and it’s an integral piece of my personal process. So I’m still writing, just having a more difficult time sharing it.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

If I had to write a mission statement for my career, I guess it would be to let curiosity and interest/passion lead me. My music has never been easy to put in a genre and my voice and songwriting has changed over the years. It’s been great to work in the Lowest Pair, because my bandmate Palmer T. Lee is similar in that his sound is difficult to box in, and that both of us have roots and interest in traditional sounds, but are always curious about expanding upon the subject matter and textures in our duo. The Banjo Mantras are just an expansion of that I think. I love the sound of a solo banjo and wanted to share some of the meanderings I found in various tunings and grooves. But yeah, I think my mission statement would involve personal growth, following curiosity and passion, a focus on heart-centric themes, and a goal for connection.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I spend at least an hour most days going outside for a run or walk. I live in one of the most beautiful places, the PNW, so a short jaunt from my house and I’m next to the Puget Sound inlet full of kingfishers, seagulls, blue herons, and mergansers depending on the season. Low tides and high tides, I see and hear eagles swooping about and on a rare sunny horizon I can see the Olympic Mountains. The other day, I came home with a sticky pocket full of cottonwood buds for my housemate to make a salve with. The nettles have just begun showing this spring. I go for regular wanderings and collect pictures and sounds and try to make a regular practice of noticing things. Less like a practice, and more like just the way my days are, but I recognize it as an integral part of my centering practice.

Photo Credit: Molley Gillispie

Willi Carlisle Is a Lyric Poet In the Most Classical Sense

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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

Artist of the Month: Willi Carlisle

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s not hard to imagine Willi Carlisle’s latest album, Critterland, as a decrepit-but-lovable roadside attraction, but here, the side show has decidedly taken center stage. Carlisle, a folksy, pastoral poet and songsmith, has invited all of us inside the big tent he pitched with his last record, Peculiar, Missouri, and to celebrate all of the beautiful ugliness we find in the spotlight. Produced by Darrell Scott, Critterland finds redemption in proudly – and holistically – owning and just as often subverting expectations around rurality, authenticity, community, and belonging. It’s a deft and artful confluence of schtick and performance, vulnerability and obscurity, artifice and genuineness, that could only be accomplished by a creative like Carlisle.

In Ryan Lee Cartwright’s book, Peculiar Places: A Queer Crip History of White Rural Nonconformity, the author and academic makes an astonishing case for the American societal and imperial construction of the “rural idyll,” and thereby, the co-construction of its antonym: the rural “anti-idyll.” The rural idyll is our general understanding of how rurality and the American dream intersect; of goodness and work ethic and respectability, of insiders and good ol’ boys and our kinda folks. The anti-idyll is the amorphous, intangible opposite of those white supremacist and capitalistic constructs.

Critterland is a joyous and liberated inhabitation of the latter concept, reveling in queerness, counter culture, other-hood, and so many kinds of rural, agrarian, and American anti-idylls. What are queer folks, poor folks, Black folks, brown folks, disabled folks in the country – and in country music – besides, first and foremost, antithetical representations of the American dream? The overlooked, enshadowed folks who inhabit the American anti-idyll… who is singing music for them? Who is inviting those very folks to step into the spotlight?

Willi Carlisle is certainly one. Tracks like “When the Pills Wear Off” and “The Money Grows on Trees” synthesize broad, generational, socio-economic realities that are often discussed, understood, and intellectualized – but rarely with their subjects first in mind. Carlisle is clearly making these songs for the people most impacted by their content; any translation they have in more zoomed-out contexts or to wider audiences is simply an added bonus. Others, like “Dry County Dust,” “Two-Headed Lamb,” and the titular “Critterland” seem to wink at the rural cosplay worn by all songwriters and music makers in roots music, but again, winking first to those who already understand it was always cosplay, from the very beginning.

Whether inhabiting the character of his onstage persona, which often but not always aligns with the human himself, or merely reflecting the pantheon of folks in his own life and communities, there’s a quality to Carlisle’s music and to Critterland that’s saying, “This music is for our kind of people.” And in the words of another backwoods poet, Jimmy Martin, “It takes one to know one, and I know you.” That could almost be the entire thesis statement of the album.

Darrell Scott’s production – and his own multi-pronged relationship to the anti-idyll – makes the clumsiness and haphazardness of this set of songs feel fully like a feature and not a bug. This is Critterland, after all, these side show animatronics are on their last legs and that’s why we love them. This sort of charm is certainly carried over from Peculiar, Missouri – which has delightfully variable production styles across the tracks – and really from all of Carlisle’s releases to date. (Including, if not especially, his hugely popular sessions with Western AF.)

Critterland, in the end, may not be the most magical place on earth, but it doesn’t want to be. And, it’s still a place you’ll end up returning to again and again. Because Willi Carlisle’s big tent is really, actually big enough for all of us. On our best and on our worst days and on all of the many days in between.

BGS will spend all of February celebrating Willi Carlisle as our Artist of the Month. Watch for an in-depth feature by music journalist and author Steacy Easton coming soon and, for now, enjoy our Essential Willi Carlisle playlist. Plus, don’t miss Willi and Critterland in the debut issue of Good Country, a new bi-weekly email newsletter from BGS.

Photo Credit: Madison Hurley

MIXTAPE: Bonnie Montgomery’s Music of an Arkansas Childhood

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I was born into a music-centered family in small town Arkansas near “where the Delta meets the Ozarks.” My grandparents started a music store on the court square in the 1960s and they sold instruments and equipment, et al. – and also carried the top records of the day. So, music and musicians were infused into my life from birth and my family was at the center of a vibrant musical community.

At every holiday or birthday or community event, we played music together and sang with a cast of characters ranging from the local church organist to Sun Records session players. I thought every family was like that, but as I’ve grown older and a lot of those characters have passed on, I’ve realized how rare my upbringing was and I cherish it with all my heart.

I remember the voices and the sounds of the jams like it was yesterday, and I’m honored to make a playlist of some of the favorites we played and sang together. I didn’t discover a lot of the recordings of these songs until much later in my life because we played them by rote – or sheet music – at those beautiful, heavenly hoe-downs. These songs are the soundtrack of my early life. I’m honored to share them. – Bonnie Montgomery

(Editor’s Note: Scroll to find the full Mixtape playlist below, to enjoy while you read.)

“Precious Memories” – Merle Haggard & The Strangers featuring the Carter Family

I chose Merle Haggard and the Carter Family’s version of this hymn, because it’s the closest version to what I remember our hoe-down version sounding like. My grandfather Ivan would always request this song and all the old-timers would sing with such passion, and even tears. I remember the far away look in their tear-filled eyes when they sang it, and although I never felt it like they did back then, I loved the song. We always thought it was a funny selection too, because they would always sing it “pray – shush mam -ries” over and over, which made us laugh. But now that those faces are all passed and gone across the great divide, I feel it like my grandfather used to. Now, just like them, all I have is the memories. Sacred, precious, treasured memories gathered around the piano in my grandparent’s music room – in what feels like a lifetime ago.

“Your Cheatin’ Heart” – Hank Williams Sr.

I didn’t hear the recorded Hank Williams version of this until my late teen years, but we sang it as the grand finale of the Christmas Eve hoe-down every year. After hours of singing the entire catalogue of Christmas carols and standards, my grandfather would sing this one with the most volume and gusto of them all. My mother, or our dear family friend Teddy Reidel, would play a romping walking bass line on the piano with it. So when I went Christmas caroling with friends at age 11, I was ready for the big grand finale and started in on “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” but none of my friends knew it! It was then that I realized “Your Cheatin’ Heart” in fact wasn’t a Christmas carol!

“Born to Lose” – Ted Daffin

My grandfather always requested this song when I was playing piano, whether at the jam sessions or after school, when I would be practicing piano at their house. I never understood it, because the lyrics were so depressing and I wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to profess to being such a huge loser, ha! I remember practicing my classical pieces (I rebelled in the ultimate way by falling in love with classical music at a young age) and Papaw would holler “quit playing that long hair music and play ‘Born to Lose.'” By “long hair,” he meant classical, as in Handel or Beethoven’s long hair. I still laugh about that – instead of long haired hippies, he was talking about the wild artists from centuries ago.

“Sentimental Journey” – Doris Day, Les Brown & His Orchestra

This was my grandparents’ song. They would request this one and dance together every time we played it. During the Great Depression, my grandfather left Arkansas and went to California to look for work. Once he was there, he sent for my grandmother Frances and when she was out there, they got married. They both missed home terribly, so around 1943, when they finally arranged to go back, they had to go separately because of money. My grandmother was expecting their first child by then and had to ride all the way home from California to Arkansas in the back of pickup truck. She always called it her sentimental journey and you could just see the love between them every time we played this one.

“Tennessee Waltz” – Connie Francis

This was another favorite at the hoe-downs. I must have played it a million times while everybody danced and sang. And other times, when we were just hanging out at home, my grandmother would sit in a chair near the piano and ask me to play this one. She would have such a huge smile on her face and she just seemed to melt into the song. I’m so grateful for her encouragement with my musical endeavors.

“Sweet Dreams” – Patsy Cline

This was another of my grandmother Frances’ favorites. She was a fashion-forward, tall, beautiful red-head, full of life and fire. For small town Arkansas she was way ahead of her time. She started her own businesses (the music store was her main project) and ran for mayor in the ’60s too. She adored Patsy Cline and always thought she was so classy compared to the other female country singers of her time. We didn’t jam on this song, but we listened to the recording at full volume. The string arrangements from those Patsy songs have a huge influence on my string arrangements (arranged and played by maestro Geoffrey Robson) in the studio.

“Goin Down the Road Feelin’ Bad” – Woody Guthrie

My grandfather used to take us to his farm in Garner, Arkansas almost every morning in the summer. It was pure heaven for us as children – we could run wild and do whatever we wanted, ride horses, swing on the barn swing, go fishing, drive old cars and tractors around the farm, eat turnips straight out of the ground when we got hungry, crawl around with the pigs in the pig pen, and much more. We would sing in the truck with him all the way to the farm and he loved to sing this song and make up new verses such as, “I’m goin’ where the boys don’t blow their nose…”

That farm lives in my memory every single day – and incidentally, the highway it’s on (old highway 367), got named the “Rock and Roll Highway,” because it’s the road all the Sun Records artists would drive from Memphis to Helena back in the day. I didn’t know that when I was young, but it makes sense that Johnny Cash, June Carter, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, etc. knew that road well.

“The Strawberry Roan” – Sons of the Pioneers

My grandfather on my father’s side, a wild cattle auctioneer named Leon Montgomery, used to drink his whiskey and burst in the door with his cowboy hat and a grin and croon out “Oh, That Strawberry Roan” as a greeting.

“Gonna Burn Some Bridges” – Ray Price

Ray Price was another familiar voice in the musical landscape of my childhood and is pretty much the ultimate crooner in my opinion. I’m including this tune because it’s direct inspiration for a song on our new album.

“I Was Fine” – Bonnie Montgomery

I’m including one of the songs off my new album, because it was inspired by the music of my childhood and, in particular, the music of Ray Price. My bandmate and engineer, Kevin, came up with a steel guitar riff that’s a direct nod to the steel guitar riff on Price’s “Gonna Burn Some Bridges.” We recorded this one with vibraphone and full string orchestra and I sang my heart out for Ray.

Photo Credit: Jamie Lacombe

Watch the Zany Music Video for Willi Carlisle’s Just-Announced Album, ‘Critterland’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Arkansas-based country and old-time troubadour Willi Carlisle has announced his upcoming, Darrell Scott-produced album, Critterland, with a delightful stop-motion music video. (Watch above.) Set for release January 26, 2024 on Signature Sounds, the collection once again draws on Carlisle’s apt self-positioning as a sort of rural, countercultural, folklorist guru, crafting poetic yet down-to-earth songs that feel all at once fantastic, resplendent, whimsical, and– well, trashy. It’s a dichotomy not unknown to American roots musics, but rarely is this paradoxical construct inhabited so intentionally and subverted so artfully. It’s a language Carlisle isn’t just fluent in, it oozes from his spirit and lives in his bones.

On “Critterland,” Carlisle positions himself not as an omniscient narrator, but well within his own communities – musical and otherwise – as he examines how the “big tent” of his prior album, Peculiar, Missouri, could be put into action. And, in doing so, he demonstrates how varied, broad, deep – and sometimes ugly – open arm, open heart policies can be. But in that mundane, in that bittersweet, there is endless beauty.

With that thought in mind, Darrell Scott as producer and collaborator here isn’t merely a solid choice, but a nearly perfect one. You hear his touches in the confidence Carlisle has stepped into – with hundreds and hundreds of shows under his belt – with his soaring, passionate vocal on “Critterland,” raising its possums and raccoons and armadillos to saint-like status. Because, after all, aren’t all living beings divine? Don’t we all have something to contribute to our own, particular critterlands? Carlisle says so, and makes a compelling case.

This 2024 album will be a must-listen.

Photo Credit: Madison Hurley

The Show On The Road – Anna Moss (Handmade Moments)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we feature a conversation taped live in New Orleans with Arkansas-born multi-instrumentalist and roots-soul singer Anna Moss, who has criss-crossed the country in recent years with her sonic partner Joel Ludford in their band, Handmade Moments.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER

Growing up as a bathroom-singing nerd playing saxophone in the school band, Anna admits that if she could wield any superpower it might be invisibility. Not necessarily the first thing you think of for an openly political, big-voiced folk festival favorite who has made a name for herself sitting in with some of the biggest names in the Americana scene. A recent collaboration with Rainbow Girls bore especially potent fruit — and if you read my Music That Moved Me in 2022 list, you’ll see at the very top was Anna’s thorny “Big Dick Energy.”

Rarely does a song make you laugh and then dance and then follow with a sucker punch about how unsafe many women feel just taking up space in the world. The video also illustrates the song’s deft twist: Women can gang together to mock and minimize the men who for so long have taken away their agency and power. And yet, the song also makes you want to forget it all and just groove to the sexiest flute solo in recent memory. If this is a foreshadowing of what’s to come with Anna’s solo work, call me quite intrigued.

Whether she’s playing crunchy bass clarinet or upright bass, electric or acoustic guitar, or singing with Joel in Handmade Moments or her other jazzy group, the Nightshades, Anna is never shy about speaking her mind in her music. Take a listen to Handmade Moments’ rapidly rhyming, gorgeously harmonized climate-change banger, “Hole In The Ocean,” which wouldn’t feel out of place in a slam-poetry jam. A song on their forthcoming record End Of The Wars (coming in May) directly confronts Trump’s cult-like status, again not pulling any punches. Want to see an early version of the song played with sax in a cave? Sure you do.

The dangers of the road are not lost on Anna and Joel of course. They were hit head-on during a freak accident on a run in Northern California years back and were lucky to make it out relatively unscathed. She’s trying to keep things a bit mellower these days. It was special talking to Anna in her adopted new home of New Orleans, and the soulful sounds that trickle into her living room on Frenchman Street can be heard throughout the songs she’s working on. Fittingly, a slow burn live track she released, “Slow Down, Kamikaze,” is a great reminder to stop trying to do too much and focus on what actually matters.

WATCH: Melissa Carper, “Ramblin’ Soul”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Melissa Carper
Hometown: Bastrop, Texas (outside of Austin)
Song: “Ramblin’ Soul”
Album: Ramblin’ Soul
Release Date: November 18, 2022
Label: Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Ramblin’ Soul’ driving down the road on a familiar trip from Arkansas back down to Texas. I had just spent time with some musician friends and was feeling re-energized. On this trip, I realized just how much that free, ramblin’ life I’ve lived over the years has stimulated my creative process. Arkansas, Texas, and Tennessee have been states I just keep making the rounds to, as well as New Mexico and Minnesota, so these places made their way into the song. I say, ‘You can’t keep me in a hole, ’cause Lord I’m a ramblin’ soul.’ By that I mean, if something isn’t working for me and making me happy or it seems I’ve gotten in a rut somewhere, then I move on to whatever the next thing is that feels right, or I get out of town for a bit to find some new inspiration and fresh perspective. That is really the gist of it, trying to go with the flow of life wherever it seems the Universe is guiding me.” — Melissa Carper

Photo Credit: Aisha Golliher

AMERICANAFEST 2022 Preview: Check Out These Panels, Parties and Showcases

Posted on by Editor

Even if you’re from Nashville or you’ve visited Music City many times, AMERICANAFEST always offers something new. This year, the annual event encompasses more than a dozen places to hear live music, as well as an impressive slate of industry panels and a near-endless list of parties. Where to begin? Although this story is by no means definitive, here are some promising highlights from the 2022 Americanafest daily schedule.

Tuesday, September 13

If you’re in town early, come say hello to BGS at Station Inn, where Jason Carter & Friends will take the stage. Doors at 8. Although it’s not open to the public, all conference and festival passholders are welcome. To pick up your pass, you’ll need to swing by City Winery or the Westin (the host hotel) earlier that day. An exploration of East Nashville might also be in order, with The Old Fashioned String Band Throwdown from 6-9 p.m. at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge.

Wednesday, September 14

A plethora of panels awaits conference registrants at the Westin, along with a couple of notable interview sessions. The Indigo Girls will be interviewed by NPR Music’s Ann Powers at 10 a.m. (They’ll be honored with a Lifetime Achievement recognition at the Americana Music Honors & Awards later that night too). Stick around for a conversation between Dom Flemons and Asleep at the Wheel’s Ray Benson, presented by WSM’s American Songster Radio. After that, Stax Records’ Al Bell and Deanie Parker will discuss the historic Wattstax festival in 1972.

You can count on BGS for another party as we celebrate our 10-year anniversary with a happy hour at City Winery Lounge from 3 – 5 p.m. Conference and festival passholders welcome. Special performers include Kyshona, Rainbow Girls, and Willie Watson. And after the awards show, there’s an abundance of awesome shows to consider, including a rare solo set by Angel Olsen (our BGS Artist of the Month in August) at Riverside Revival, a set from Bill Monroe acolyte Mike Compton and a surprise headliner at Station Inn, and an acoustic showcase from members of North Mississippi Allstars at Analog at Hutton Hotel immediately followed by Texas great Joshua Ray Walker.

Thursday, September 15

One of the most intriguing panels on Thursday is titled The Narrators: How Jake Blount, Leyla McCalla and Kaia Kater Re-Mapped the Past, Present and Future With Concept Albums. As the Americanafest app points out, all three artists are students of musical and cultural traditions, as well as Black banjo players. The conversation takes place at noon with moderator Jewly Hight. Coincidentally, these three performers are showcasing at the exact same time later that night, so here’s your chance to catch them all at once.

Ishkōdé Records will celebrate Indigenous voices from Turtle Island at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge from 1-4 p.m., with performers such as Amanda Rheaume, Aysanabee, Digging Roots and Evan Redsky. If you’re lucky enough to get into the Bluebird Cafe for a 6 p.m. show, you can enjoy a songwriting round with Gabe Lee, Tristan Bushman and British artist Lauren Housley. A Tribute to Levon Helm with an all-star cast closes out the night at 3rd & Lindsley, following an evening of music with Arkansas roots.

Several of the most buzzed-about showcases of AMERICANAFEST will take place at the Basement East, with a strong lineup boasting Rissi Palmer, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, Trousdale, Bre Kennedy and Jade Bird. If you’re up for bluegrass, the City Winery Lounge lineup includes Tammy Rogers & Thomm Jutz alongside rising talent like the Tray Wellington Band and Troubadour Blue. If honky-tonk is more your style, stay up late for Jesse Daniel at 6th & Peabody, with original music that pays homage to the Bakersfield Sound without losing its contemporary appeal.

Friday, September 16

Diversity is a common theme on Friday’s daytime events, with panels like Booking With Intent: How Curating the Stage Impacts Industry Diversity and How Americana Music Is Embracing Minority Representation. Of particular note, British artist Lady Nade speaks on the influence of Black music in country and Americana in a panel titled You Can’t Be What You Can’t See: Why Representation Is Vital for the Americana Genre. Look for a conversation and performance at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum at noon with rising artists from the Black Opry Revue.

To list all the parties on Friday would take up this whole page. To socialize, you’ve got options ranging from songwriting rounds to label parties to multiple happy hours. (If you’re a craft beer drinker who loves to linger on the deck, it’s worth a visit to Tennessee Brew Works, where Hear Fort Worth is setting up shop.) As for BGS, you’ll find us at the Basement for a party presented with Nettwerk Records and Taylor Guitars. The public may RSVP through the invitation below.

This might be a good time to mention one of the festival’s new venues, The Well at Koinonia. This cozy coffee shop on Music Row played a crucial role in the development of contemporary Christian music, once lending its small stage to a then-unknown Amy Grant. For AMERICANAFEST, it’s providing a listening room environment for a number of quieter artists who still deserve to be heard, such as Nashville songwriter-producer Alex Wong, award-winning acoustic guitarist Christie Lenée, mesmerizing folk duo Ordinary Elephant, Australian troubadour Colin Lillie, and the accomplished Mexican-American musician Lisa Morales on Friday night. If you’re interested in early shows (starting at 6 p.m.), easy parking, and/or enjoying music in a non-alcoholic environment, make an effort to get refueled here.

Not far away lies one of Nashville’s musical landmarks, The Basement (a.k.a. “The Basement O.G.”), and if you’re in town to discover some overlooked voices, this might be an ideal spot to start. Drawing on blues and rock, Chicago musician Nathan Graham is making his AMERICANAFEST debut this year, followed by Southern slide guitarist-songwriter Michelle Malone, who’s touring behind new material like “Not Who I Used to Be.” At Exit/In at 9 p.m., Michigan Rattlers are among Americana music’s best storytellers, with a vibe that’s kind of brooding but still has some rock ‘n’ roll swagger. Hang around for 49 Winchester, a Virginia ensemble that’s been DIY for most of its career. However, 2022’s Fortune Favors the Bold is garnering some much-deserved attention. Listen closely for the Exit/In reference in standout track, “Damn Darlin’.”

For something more mellow, you can zoom over to City Winery for a late set by Milk Carton Kids. It wouldn’t even feel like AMERICANAFEST without seeing these guys. Earlier in the evening, longtime festival favorite Ruston Kelly will play alongside his dad, Tim Kelly, performing exquisite songs that they recorded together (with Ruston serving as producer). Gaby Moreno, Henry Wagons and Rainbow Girls are also on the well-rounded bill. Go ahead, order a bottle.

Saturday, September 17

By the time the weekend arrives, the panels have wrapped and the parties are well underway. You can peruse the Americanafest app for all the options, but first, settle in at City Winery for the Thirty Tigers Gospel Brunch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (It’s on Saturday this year, rather than Sunday.) Artists appearing include Alisa Amador, Brent Cobb, Emily Scott Robinson, Stephanie Lambring, The Fairfield Four and The McCrary Sisters. Musicians Corner in Centennial Park also features free afternoon sets from Nashville mainstay Josh Rouse, Brooklyn’s own Bandits on the Run, Los Angeles songwriter Chris Pierce, Canadian banjo player Ryland Moranz, and more.

Over at The 5 Spot, Alabama bluesman Early James anchors a lineup with Theo Lawrence (a French songwriter-guitarist who opened dates for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss in Europe), Canadian musician Megan Nash, and new ATO Records signing Honey Harper. The night concludes with an 11 p.m. showcase titled Luke Schneider & Friends: A Pedal Steel Showcase. For something similarly atmospheric, consider a one-night-only event, Phosphorescent Performing Songs From the Full Moon Project, also at 11 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl. He’s promising to play more songs than just the covers he’s chosen for this unique album, so you can bask in the afterglow of an incredible week of music.

For more information about these events and countless more, visit AMERICANAFEST.COM.

Artists featured at top (L-R): Phosphorescent, Molly Tuttle, Dom Flemons, Angel Olsen

WATCH: Sarah Jane Nelson, “I Wish I Missed You”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Sarah Jane Nelson
Hometown: Little Rock, Arkansas
Song: “I Wish I Missed You”
Album: Shelby Park
Release Date: April 29, 2022

In Their Words: “I wrote this song very honestly after a breakup that felt so right. When it was time to create the music video, I decided to create something very stylized and fun with an amazing location in East Nashville called House of Adora. It had this incredible pink porch and pink kitchen and I was inspired to do something with a 1950s theme. My mom was a hairstylist in her youth and specialized in updos, so I let her go to town with my hair for this video. I made my first Jell-o mold and found some retro TV dinners and lined the plastic dish with foil to make it more authentic. I love producing and directing my videos and this was perhaps the most fun of any that I’ve made. I hope the end result feels empowered, sincere, and hopeful as I was when I wrote this song.” — Sarah Jane Nelson

Photo Credit: Kurt Ozan