Tag: Artist of the Month

Artist of the Month: Old Crow Medicine Show

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From their earliest days of busking and playing to capacity crowds at the Station Inn, Old Crow Medicine Show has shown they know how to pull in a crowd. Now they’ve captured that raucous, captivating energy in their newest release, Live From the Ryman, recorded during the group’s numerous headlining performances at the landmark Nashville venue.

The band has seen its share of setbacks and lineup changes over the years, but their catalog is surprisingly limber. In other words, the songs from Eutaw and O.C.M.S. blend seamlessly with tracks from newer releases like Remedy and Volunteer.

It’s a testament to the vision of band founder Ketch Secor, who tells BGS, “If they had tried to stop us a long time ago, they probably would have been able to, but they never tried. We were never curtailed. We were asked to be quiet and to clean up, but nobody ever said ‘no’ enough times for us to pay attention.”

Look for a two-part interview with Old Crow Medicine Show coming up on BGS this month, and enjoy our Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: Crackerfarm; (L-R): Charlie Worsham, Cory Younts, Critter Fuqua, Ketch Secor, Joe Andrews, Morgan Jahnig

Ken Burns, Vince Gill Discuss ‘Country Music’

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For the most dedicated country fans, the moment has finally arrived. The 16-hour documentary Country Music is complete and headed to PBS stations on Sunday, September 15. Across eight episodes, filmmakers Ken Burns, Dayton Duncan, and Julie Dunfey tell the story of country music from its beginnings through the mid-1990s

On Today, Burns stated, “This is American history firing on all cylinders. It’s who we are. It’s another way to see the complicated 20th century, and it’s also for today a time where we can bring ourselves together. Country music reminds us we’re all the same boat together. The themes of a country song are the themes of human experience, of love and loss — two four-letter words that most of us are uncomfortable with.”

He added, “You know, we disguise it and say it’s about good ol’ boys, and pick-up trucks, and hound dogs, and six-packs of beer. That’s a small, tiny, little sub-genre. When you hear ‘Go Rest High on That Mountain’ by Vince…. He says, ‘At the end of the day, all I ever wanted from music was to be moved.’ Country music at its heart is telling us about basic human experiences, and that we’re all together in this. It’s only us, there’s no them, and that’s good medicine right now.”

Asked about the evolution of country music, Gill responded, “I think if you’re going to do a comparison, you have to do all music. It’s not fair to just take country music and say only country music has changed. Because jazz has changed, rock ‘n’ roll has changed, rhythm and blues has changed, there’s hip-hop, there’s rap. Every kind of music has found a new way to communicate with people. And we’re no different.”

He continued, “We are so grateful to Ken and Dayton and Julie for taking this on. And from my viewpoint, finally giving us some dignity and some respect that we have longed for ever since we started making this music.”

Vince Gill Looks Back on His Bluegrass Years (Part 2 of 2)

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In the second half of our interview with Vince Gill, the country legend reflects on his bluegrass history, explaining how he became interested in the music, what he learned by listening closer, and why it led to one of his most famous songs.

Editor’s Note: Read the first part of our Artist of the Month interview with Vince Gill.

BGS: “Go Rest High on That Mountain,” in my opinion, is going to live forever. And I think the bluegrass audience loves hearing Patty Loveless and Ricky Skaggs sing with you, too.

Gill: You know, I wouldn’t have been able to write that song if I hadn’t played bluegrass music and learned the structure of that music and how it works — and the emotion of it. Bluegrass music is so honest and so real. Some of those morbid murder ballads and the saddest of the sad songs are what I love most. Give me “Mother’s not dead. She’s only a-sleepin’. Patiently waiting for Jesus to come.” That’s about as good as it gets. “The Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake.” I could just go on and on and on.

All these tortured songs, but you know they’re real life. They’re not somebody going, “How can I slip one up on the world and make a bunch of money having a big hit record?” They’re so honest and real. And the fact that my past had so much to do with Ricky and Patty, they were the only two people that I would’ve consider it singing on that song.

I still love it when Patty comes to do the Opry.

There’s a really unique thing that happens when our voices sing together. It’s so… obvious. I sang on her very first record in the early ‘80s. I sang on her first hit record and she sang on my first hit record. So it’s my little sis.

Tell me about how you found bluegrass. Was there an entry point for you?

Yeah, I knew of it because my dad played the banjo a little bit. He never could figure out the three-finger, Scruggs-style banjo. He cussed Earl his whole life because he couldn’t figure it out. He played more of a folky banjo. Not drop thumb, not old-timey, but more of a frailing kind of banjo. So I was always around the music, as best I can remember, forever. There were obviously the Flatt & Scruggs things from The Beverly Hillbillies that were in everybody’s DNA. Then I was playing mostly in rock bands in junior high school and high school.

A kid named Bobby Clark was the one that really got me pointed towards bluegrass. He had a little band in Oklahoma City and his father was a repairman. I had broken the string on my dad’s banjo, messing around with it, and I didn’t know how to change it. So I took it to Charlie and he put a string on it pretty quickly and everything was fine. I wasn’t gonna get my butt kicked. Then I started talking to Charlie, and he says, “You play music, don’t you?” And I said, “Yeah, I love to play. I play electric guitar and play in rock bands and stuff.” He goes, “My son Bobby is a really fine mandolin player and plays bluegrass. You ever played any bluegrass?” I said, “No.”

They stuck an acoustic guitar in my hands and Bobby said, “We just had our lead singer leave the band and we’re looking for a singer.” So they did a pretty good job of raising me and teaching me and showing me how bluegrass worked. I played in their band for the last couple of years of high school. Then in another bluegrassy kind of band called Mountain Smoke. And I started playing all the festivals down around Oklahoma and Texas and Kansas. And ran into all the people that I’ve known in my whole life since I was 15, 16 years old.

Wasn’t that how you met Cheryl White [from The Whites]?

Yeah, I used to carry her bass around the festivals. I always had a thing for the girl bass players for some reason. There was another family band from Missouri called the Calton Family. Got sweet on Brenda. Then I got sweet on Cheryl. And she says I should’ve picked a harmonica player. [Laughs]

Those were such fun days and innocent. I loved the camaraderie that went on in that music. Not only with the people that came to the festivals, but the musicians. Everybody jammed together. There wasn’t a whole lot in it for anybody. Everybody was just kind of getting by. It was amazing, as I look back, what it did for me in the way that I respected other musicians and listened to other musicians. It was really important that I had a lot of that in my past. I haven’t forgotten it.

When I first heard bluegrass, I was just blown away by musicianship of it.

Yeah, I mean Stuart Duncan was as great as he was at 12 or 13. So was Mark O’Connor when he was 12 or 13. And Marty and Ricky and Jerry and on and on and on and on of these wonder kid pickers. Unbelievable. I kind of squeaked in because I could sing a little bit and figured out how play as I went. I kind of played whatever was left over in a lot of the bands I was in, and that was fine.

I saw you play mandolin on quite a few songs when you played Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman. What is it about that instrument that you really enjoy?

I think the mandolin is the most important drive of a bluegrass band. The banjo and that are the two most definitive sounds. In bluegrass, mandolin players are like the drummer, even more so than the guitar player to me. It’s that backbeat and driving it. Sam Bush was a great teacher of how you drive that music, you know? I loved the ferocity and intensity that he played with. When he played, that was powerful to watch as a 15- or 16-year-old kid.

That’s what I like. I like making it dance. I liked the importance of playing that instrument in bluegrass. I’m probably a much better guitar player in bluegrass than I am a mandolin player. But in some bands I had to play banjo. Sometimes I had to play, unfortunately, fiddle on a few things. Terrible! I played Dobro, I played everything. I played bass with Ricky’s band for a minute and then got to play some other instruments, but had a love for all of it. I still do. Probably I love it more now because it reminds me so much of my early days, and those first forays into learning about playing music.

Did Dobro come naturally to you?

It all kind of did. I mean, I put in the hours and I practiced hard. The neat thing was, you had such good people to learn from. I always had big ears and could always hear well and find what I was hearing in my head, figuring out how to play it.

There are so many brother duos that came up in bluegrass. Do you think that rubbed off on you with your harmony singing now?

Absolutely, yeah. I was trying to either be Ralph Stanley or Phil Everly or Ira Louvin or whoever. Don Rich and Buck Owens should’ve been brothers. I was a high singer so bluegrass was a natural fit. There have always been predominant high singers that were the focal point. Whether it was Ralph and Carter or whoever, man, that was a blend. You didn’t understand it when you were 15 or 16, what it was that made that blend so beautiful. It was the blood, you know. The DNA was the same.

I didn’t get to experience that until my oldest daughter was 18, 20 years old and we started singing together. I started calling her my little Everly because I’d spent my whole life trying to be Phil. You know, singing the high parts for everybody else, and blend perfectly, and every nuance they did, I’d do. And I’d just want ‘em to think I was related to ‘em. She wound up naming her daughter Everly because of that, because I called her my little Everly.

But yeah, I love sharing music. I love the collaboration of music more so than I like it by myself. It’s not as interesting by yourself, but when you get to play off somebody, and play with somebody, it’s very powerful.

Photo credit: John Shearer

Vince Gill Lets New Songs Stand Out on ‘Okie’ (Part 1 of 2)

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Regarded as one of the good guys in country music, Vince Gill has hosted countless Grand Ole Opry segments and awards shows, and he’s just as welcoming off stage, too. He generously invited the Bluegrass Situation to his Nashville home for a visit about his new album, Okie, as well as his roots in bluegrass music.

In the first part of our Artist of the Month interview, the Country Music Hall of Fame member pulls back the curtain on some of the key tracks on Okie, and explains how artists like Guy Clark, Amy Grant, and Willie Nelson influenced the album.

BGS: I’ve heard you describe this as a songwriter record, but you’ve written a lot of your hits. What do you mean when you describe this as a songwriter record?

VG: Well, I don’t think the intention of any of these songs is thinking they’ll be hits. I think that in the way of production and the instrumentation, the intent is really to never get in the way of the song. I don’t play any electric guitar on this record. I only played one or two solos on the entire record.

The rest of it is just kind of moody, ethereal, all of us playing together, and nobody stepping out so much in a big way of, “Now it’s your break, it’s time for you to play the big ripping solo.” There’s one instance of that. I think the point of it was, hopefully, that nothing ever got in the way of the song.

And there’s not big choruses with lots of harmonies. I liked Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson, and how sparse it was and simple. That’s what I wanted, something with a lot of space.

Did you know that going into it or did that reveal itself?

Yeah, that was the intent. I had this collection of songs. I said this would make a pretty neat, demure kind of record of not trying too hard, I guess. I mean, not singing hard and a lot of licks. Once again, there’s only one song on this record where I really cut loose and sang, and that was “When My Amy Prays.” The rest of it is just telling the story.

I even did a recitation on “Nothing Like a Guy Clark Song,” which scared the crap out of me. I don’t like the sound of my speaking voice very much. I like my singing voice just fine. But I’d only done one other kind of recitation recording in my life and that was tribute to Guy with his song, “The Randall Knife.” It always sounded bizarre to me to hear myself just talking, talking blues kinda stuff.

How did you choose the guitar for that song? Do you have a certain guitar you use?

Yeah, I think I used my guitar or Sparky’s — a friend of mine, Harry Sparks. He’s got a great old 1942 D-45. He lets me keep it here and play it a lot. It’s a long history of a story of our friendship. It’s probably the holy grail of all acoustic guitars and there’s only a few of them made and they sell for many, many, many dollars. And he had it.

I was living in Kentucky at the same time, when I was 18, and we were big buddies. Couple of years later I moved out to California and he called me up when I got out there and said, “Hey, I got to sell my D-45. I’m in trouble.” I bought it from him and told him I’d keep it for him. If he ever wanted it back, I’d sell it back to him for what I paid for it. At the time he finally called, it was worth about 10 times what I paid for it. And I said, “Yeah, I’ll sell it back to you for what I said I would.”

It’s a great story to remind yourself of how important friendship is, and your word. A few years ago we were doing a record here at my house and he brought his D-45 and we played it on a bunch in the record. He was leaving, and he had the case, and he looked at me and just handed to me. He said, “Here. You need to keep this for a while.” So it’s been a neat piece of the puzzle of our friendship.

It sounds beautiful. too, on top of that.

Amazing. It’s one of the best-sounding guitars I’ve ever heard in my life.

You write about race relations on this record a couple of times, particularly on “The Price of Regret.” I was curious if something specific inspired you to explore that topic.

It starts out as basically owning up to, we all have to have some regrets in life, and what they are can be any number of things. But what I’ve always been surprised by is how our eyes fail us. Sometimes when we see something and we look at it, we judge it. It’s the first thing we do is prejudge. Whether someone’s heavy, whether someone’s slovenly-looking, or poor or rich or white or black, and we just have this thing come to us to tell us what we think it is.

If we would honestly receive someone, not seeing them, I think you’d be much more honest in acceptance of one another. That’s what it says in that song: “You’re black and I’m white. We’re blinded by sight. Close your eyes and tell me the color of my skin.” And you couldn’t. Which would be a good thing for us.

At your Ryman show, you spoke about watching the Ken Burns documentary about country music, and you mentioned the fact that AP Carter’s sidekick was a black man, and Hank Williams learned to play guitar from a black man.

Yeah, and DeFord Bailey was one of the first great stars of the Opry and Jimmie Rodgers learned all those songs from black fieldworkers. It goes on and on and it never stops. Ray Charles taught us how much soul our music had. Charley Pride showed you how country somebody could be that was African American. It was powerful to see that we never bought into any of that mess, to some degree. And it is a mess. It’s embarrassing how we’ve handled all that.

The song I keep coming back to on here is “What Choice Will You Make.” I feel like I’m the best friend in the car, hearing that conversation. That first line puts you in the song right away, or at least it did for me.

My favorite part of that song is that it’s a song without judgment, and it happens every day. Young kids wind up, somebody gets pregnant and, “Hey, I’m 16. Look, I wasn’t prepared for this.” And all it says is, “What choice will you make? Whose heart will you break?” It doesn’t say what you should or shouldn’t do. To me, that’s a kinder way to go about tackling the subject of this matter.

The woman I wrote it with, Leslie Satcher, we’ve got a long history of writing really neat songs together. She’s tremendously talented. It was important to me that it not get to that place where we were saying what should or shouldn’t happen. That’s nobody’s place. It’s sort of like “Ode to Billie Joe.” You don’t really know what happens. It starts in that moment of sitting on the edge of town with such a worried mind, and it ends with still sitting there on the edge of town, not sure what to do.

On this record, I hear references to Amy [his wife, Amy Grant] a couple of times, on “Honest Man” and “When My Amy Prays,” of course.  What’s that experience like, playing her a song you’ve written about her?

It’s a running gag. You know you live in Nashville when you write your girl a love song and she tells you the third verse could use a little work. [Laughs] It’s really great to have a friend that does tell you what’s right and what’s not and what’s good and what isn’t. It’s easy to be inspired by her because she’s so gracious with people. She’s the most welcoming person I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Hands down. Nobody I ever seen better at that than her.

And non-judgment. No harsh words about anybody and it’s just beautiful in the way she receives. It’s kind of easy to write songs about her. If they’re songs that are faith-based, everybody assumes that I’m as a big of a church guy as she is. And the truth is, I wasn’t that much of a church kid. So I have to go to her every now and then and say, “Is this kind of close to what happens?” [Laughs] She’ll say, “You’re right on track. You’re OK.”

Read the second half of our Artist of the Month interview with Vince Gill.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson

Artist of the Month: Vince Gill

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Who doesn’t love Vince Gill? His pristine tenor fits beautifully into bluegrass, country, Western Swing, and even classic rock, as he tours as a member of the Eagles. Still, the good-natured Opry star tells BGS that bluegrass remains close to his heart.

“You get the right band, the right drive and the right thing — I tell people it rocks as hard as the Rolling Stones. When it’s right — it’s really, really right — it’s like a freight train coming at you,” he observed during a visit in his Nashville home, just a few days after his annual summer appearance at Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman.

He continues, “It’s awesome — even in the middle of it. I don’t know that it translates far away like it does in a circle of it. We practiced over here the other night, and just being in this room and being this close to everybody was so much fun.”

Gill’s childhood memories shape a large part of Okie, his exquisite new album — an acoustic-oriented project that puts his voice and songwriting at the forefront. Look for our two-part interview this month with this member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and in the meantime, enjoy our Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: John Shearer

WATCH: Tanya Tucker, Brandi Carlile & Tenille Townes, “Delta Dawn”

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Three generations of country music come together in one performance: Tenille Townes, a newbie on the country block; Brandi Carlile, an established singer-songwriter at the peak of her career; and Tanya Tucker, legendary performer and the Bluegrass Situation’s Artist of the Month. Together, they perform “Delta Dawn,” one of Tucker’s signature songs. Hear this soulful rendition of this country classic.

Read our interview with Tanya Tucker.

Photo courtesy of Cracker Barrel

Tanya Tucker Remains a Songwriter’s Muse (Part 2 of 2)

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Tanya Tucker isn’t known as a songwriter, although “Bring My Flowers Now” from her newest album, While I’m Livin’, shows she can hold her own. Across four consecutive decades of charting singles, she relied largely on the Nashville songwriting community — and in turn, she’s served as a muse for them. Among her forty Top 10 country hits are classics like “Delta Dawn,” “Strong Enough to Bend,” and “Two Sparrows in a Hurricane.”

Now, her life is the inspiration behind the songs of While I’m Livin’, produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings. A bulk of the material was written specifically about Tucker by Carlile and her musical comrades Tim and Phil Hanseroth (a.k.a. The Twins). At her producers’ insistence, she also cut material formerly recorded by Miranda Lambert (“The House That Built Me”) and Waylon Jennings (“High Riding Heroes”).

In the second half of our Artist of the Month interview, Tucker talks about the songwriters she’s known, the mysteries of songwriting, and the left-of-center producer that she credits with her career. (Read the first half of the interview.)

BGS: I read that you had Loretta Lynn in mind while writing “Bring My Flowers Now.”

Tucker: Yeah, I was on the way to Christmas in Texas on the bus. And she called me, or I called her, and we’re always talking songs. She says, “We gotta write something together. You gotta come on over here and write. Me and you gotta write a hit.” And I said, “Well, I got this idea, let me sing a little bit to you. I’ve had it for years, but I just can’t find anything to go with it.” And I sang her the chorus and she goes, “When you come back through here, you gotta stop in here. We’ll finish that song. I love that idea.”

So I went out to California in the meantime, and I guess I’d sung it for some reason to Brandi — and I’m sure I sung a few ideas to her. But then she brought it up the last day of the sessions and we cut it right after we finished writing it. And then it became the title, so yeah, that’s pretty cool.

Yeah, it’s such a minimal production on that song.

That was always her thing. She told me, “It’s time that we hear your voice and it’s been so covered up, and so in the mix. And it’s time for people to hear the real Tanya Tucker, and you don’t need a lot of crap over it and a lot of production.” She’s very into that — very raw, real, flaws and all.

I wanted to ask you about Tom T. Hall because he’s popular among our readers, and he’s in the Bluegrass Hall of Fame now. He’s written a lot of bluegrass hits.

Oh! I had no idea. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. We text, I text him. Johnny Rodriguez and I were together the other day, talking about how Tom T. brought him to Nashville to play guitar. And how I toured with him. I used his van when I was a kid. That was always hard because some people didn’t like you using their van. But he was very cool with it.

I was 14. We had dinner one night and even back then he said, “You know, you gave me a great idea for a song.” So I guess I’ve always come by it naturally. Now songwriters hang out around me, just knowing any minute something’s gonna come out of my mouth. I can’t tell you how many big songs that were my idea. But I didn’t write it, so that’s the way it goes.

I’m a great idea person. I’m a great hook person. But it’s just like “Bring My Flowers Now,” I had the chorus but I could not find the meat. I had the bread, but no meat. And if you don’t have that, then you might as well hang it up. Sometimes it takes a catalyst to get that out of you. Gary Stewart was that way with me. … He could somehow get things out of me. I’ve known some people that can just be in a room, while you’re in the room writing, and just bring it out without even realizing it.

I don’t know what it is. Writing a song is very hard to explain in words how it happens. It’s almost like you have to explain it after, “Well that happened. Curiously, it happened this way.” I don’t really think about it much. Harlan Howard always told me, “Oh, you’re a writer trying to get out of a singer’s body.” Max D. Barnes was a good friend of mine and he said, “If you just sit down and focus for a few minutes, I bet we would write at least three standards.” At least three. So I’ve had the greats say things like that to me — and mean them.

You’ve been listening for great material from the very start of your career.

When I was a kid, one day I said to Billy Sherrill, “I’m getting a little irritated. You know, you write all these songs for Tammy Wynette and you ain’t never written one for me.” And he goes, “Well, let me tell you why.” Either he knows how to build a fence real quick or he was really being honest, and he said, “It’s because I have never written a song that’s as good as you are a singer.” And I went, “Oh, well that was really cool. I’m not sure I believe that shit.” But he did finally write me one and I did record it. It wasn’t a single. It was called “I Guess I’ll Have to Love Him More.”

I used to fight with him about recording some songs. “Almost Persuaded” — he goes, “Nah nah nah, we don’t need to do that.” And I’d go, “WE’RE GOING TO DO THAT!” I had someone tell me the other day, “God, I loved the way you sang ‘Almost Persuaded.’” It was a totally different change from the boy to the girl. But he never did want me to cut any of his songs and I had to fight him to do it. Sure miss old Billy. I give him all the credit. Without him, I don’t think any of this would have happened.

He set the stage for you.

Well, he listened to me. They’re walking out of there going, “What the hell?! This guy’s lost his mind listening to this kid.” Because I turned down “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” I said, “Love the song, it’s great, but it’s not my song.” And then when he played “Delta Dawn,” with Alex Harvey on guitar/vocal, and I went, “There you go. That’s my song.” And he listened. I didn’t record anything that I didn’t want to with Billy.

He was a little left-of-center and I’ve always said that anybody that gave me a chance in life was… maybe dealing with more decks of cards, a little off-center. Because anybody logical, who had a watch, was on time, never gave me a shot. It was always those people that were just a little crazy…

I’m so proud to have known some of those boys. Oh my god, all my boys at CBS [Records] were really great. When Billy signed me, the record label thought he was crazy, too. But they couldn’t mess with him too much because he had all the hits on the charts. They thought he was kind of strange, actually very strange. And he was. He wasn’t a normal kind of guy. At all. So, those kind of people, I have a soft spot for because they’re the ones that gave me my chance, my shot.

Your fans are going to hear this and might say, “Well, this is different.” What do you hope they hear in this record?

Well, I hope they like it. “The Wheels of Laredo” is a good song, but it’s not “Only two things in life make it worth living.” It didn’t grab me like that, but it’s grabbed everybody. I’m amazed that they like it as much as they do. People have come out of the woodwork, they’re sending me videos of them listening to it in Canada and in the pool, Buck Brannaman riding in the arena to it — and it’s just like, “Whoa, what is it about this song?”

I really don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m glad it’s happened. I bet it’s like what Elvis felt when they gave him “Hound Dog” – “What the hell?! I ain’t singing this: ‘You aint’ nothing but a hound dog, cryin’ all the time.’” Like, “OK, no…” And then he cuts it and it’s a big ol’ smash. Makes you second guess yourself a little bit.

So I really don’t have any explanations of how all this happened and why. I look at all that stuff up there [plaques on the wall]. It’s not all the stuff I’ve done, but it’s a lot of my work and my catalog and my albums. But I never would’ve imagined this album would do what it’s done. Really. I have no answer for it, I have no explanation.

Photo credit: Danny Clinch
Illustration: Zachary Johnson

Tanya Tucker Just Might Prove Her Dad Right (Part 1 of 2)

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Although her voice is instantly identifiable to even a casual country listener, Tanya Tucker has perpetually reinvented herself in the public eye since she debuted with “Delta Dawn” in 1972. From a mature teen singer in the ’70s, a scandalous star of the ’80s, and an award-winning vocalist in the ’90s, it’s never been easy to define her.

Now she’s back with While I’m Livin’, a stunning song cycle that shows her tender side as well as her rowdy, ready-to-party personality. It’s her first album of new material in 17 years, and by working with producers Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, she’s made the most striking album of her career. Here’s the first of our two-part interview with Artist of the Month, Tanya Tucker.

BGS: I’m sure you’ve been approached to make a record over the last 17 years. What was it about this situation that made you say, “Yeah, let’s do it”?

Tucker: I’ve been working on other projects that I’m doing on my own. I’m really proud of those things and I hope that they see [a release]. I feel like this album, for some reason, is going to open that door. It seemed like before it was low interest. I don’t feel like there was a lot of interest. Maybe there was, I didn’t know about it, but when Shooter said something to me about it, I was like, “Yeah, great, great…” I went off and did Tucson and forgot all about it.

But I came back and it snowballed, and before I knew it, I was in LA doing some recordings on songs that I really didn’t know. I do my deal. I’ve done it all my life. When a song is pitched to me, I put my own something on it — I’ve changed a lot of ‘his’ to ‘her’ and made it my own. That’s one of the biggest compliments I’ve gotten from songwriters. I’ve heard from many of them that I can take their song and make it my own. They’ve always told me that, so it’s a very big compliment to me and I think that’s important. But this kind of came out of nowhere. I really can’t explain it. It kind of just happened and I don’t know how it happened. It did though. I’m pretty sure.

I’ve heard it, it’s real.

I think it is real. I’ve listened to it a few times and the good news is that the more I listen, the more I like it. Because it started out not that way.

What was your first impression of the final product?

I said, “No! Absolutely not.” I just didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the songs as being anything I could really get into, or put my heart into. I really didn’t think it was going to be that good. I was wrong, and I love being wrong. I mean, I’m wrong a lot, but I was really wrong about that.

What was the relationship like in the studio with Shooter, and what’s he like as a person?

Well, Shooter’s great. I’ve known him before he was Shooter. But if you really would concentrate the time we spent together — very little time. But we spent more time probably on this project than we ever had, and we’ve become best friends. I wouldn’t say I had any better friends. He’s as good as any friend I’ve got.

Good. How about Brandi?

Oh, Brandi. She’s not even right. She is not local. She’s not of this world, she’s just in it. Yeah, she’s very exceptional. Something about her communication skills — maybe it’s just me, I don’t know, but I’ve watched her with everybody and you see the respect people have for her. … That’s the way that you want it to be. The way we made that record — I wish they were all that way. Brandi’s the same way [as Shooter]. I feel like she’s my best friend, totally. And I’d never heard her sing. Not until the Grammys and we were already done with the album.

What did you think when you heard “The Joke”?

I was blown away. Yeah. Blown away. And I loved “That Wasn’t Me.” I think I’m going to learn that one. I may not record it but behind closed doors I may learn that song. If anything, to just say thanks. Hell, she knows all of mine, I should probably start learning a couple of hers, you know? I’m way behind.

Well, it’s important who you surround yourself with. I mean, I don’t have to tell you that.

It used to be really hard for me to see anything bad about anybody. My dad was real good at seeing it before they even knew they were. He was very good about that. I hope that I am acquiring his skills. I’m still not as good as he was.

About a week ago, I read Nickel Dreams [Tucker’s 1997 memoir] and he was like your co-star in that book.

Yeah, well, he is the star, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never read the book, but they’re on to me about writing another book. I really think that’s the real story. If there was a movie, I believe it should be his life. And then when I get started, that would be the end of the movie. Sequel! I plan ahead. But I think his story is phenomenal and it really needs to be told. His life was pretty unbelievable.

Your childhood is pretty interesting, though, too. Living in Utah…

Arizona, Nevada, and Arkansas.

It is a very dramatic life.

Yes.

It would work well for a script.

Yeah, well, I lived it, so it’s not so interesting to me, but maybe it is. And if it is, then that’s great.

What do you think your dad would say about this record if he had a chance to listen to it?

Oh wow, that’s a good question. Wow, oh wow…. Well, I’d have to say I believe he would love it because there’s two or three songs in there about him. The Twins [Carlile’s longtime bandmates, Tim and Phil Hanseroth] and Brandi actually wrote and custom-fit those songs to me, which is a real talent right there. One that I do not have, among others. But they have the talent. I don’t know if they have it all the time or if it was just this one time. They brought it all together. I don’t know. But I know that it’s unusual.

In fact, Brandi said, “God, I’d give anything if I could’ve met your dad.” And I told her, “Well, he didn’t like many people, but I do believe he would’ve liked you. I really do.” … I think he would like those songs but I think he would definitely be proud of “Bring My Flowers Now”. Because he always told me — Oh my God! You know what? I just figured something out.

What’s that?

My dad told me once, he said, “Let me tell you something.” He said, “The biggest record you’ll ever have, it’ll be the one that you wrote.”

How old were you when he told you that?

Oh, he told me several times. I was already started. I mean, it wasn’t when I was a kid, but many times he’d tell me that. “That’s what you need to do, is write.” But he didn’t like the association that I had to associate with to write. Because back in the day, party party party. Stay up all night, write a few songs. Stay up for a few days and something’s going to come out of it. He didn’t like that part of it. Now it’s become like a business. Meet me at 8:30 and we’ll write until 10:00, we’ll be done before noon.

But you had the Song House, which I read about in your book. You lived there, and then all the songwriters would come over.

Yep, right. Yep, that’s true.

So you love that association.

Oh yeah. I love to party, too, so it all kind of went hand in hand, like alcohol and cigarettes, or cocaine and cigarettes, and alcohol. And blackjack, throw that in there.

Read the second part of the interview.

Lede photo: Derrek Kupish

Artist of the Month: Tanya Tucker

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Tanya Tucker is just as surprised as you are that she’s made a brand new record, While I’m Livin’. In an upcoming two-part interview with the enduring country artist, she talks about working with her producers — and new best friends — Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile, her friendship with icons like Tom T. Hall and Loretta Lynn, and the shock at seeing the overwhelmingly positive response so far to the new music.

From signing to a major label as a teenager, to rebounding with an award-winning career in her 30s, Tucker placed milestone singles at country radio throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, and she’s earned her reputation as one of the most important female country artists of her generation. Enjoy some of her most significant musical achievements in our Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: Danny Clinch

Buddy & Julie Miller Get Back on Track With ‘Breakdown on 20th Ave. South’

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There’s a bit of dramatic license baked in to the title of Buddy & Julie Miller’s new album Breakdown On 20th Ave. South. The wheels are not coming off this epic 35-year marriage, most of which has been spent on that very street in Nashville’s Belmont neighborhood. But the long haul doesn’t come without strife and tests, as older married folks know. And when a songwriter as unguardedly emotional as Julie Miller began to express her feelings about being sidelined during the busiest-ever stretch of Buddy’s long and fruitful career, the results were bound to be provocative.

“We started out writing a record and my brother died right in the middle of it and I just sort of fell apart,” said Julie in late May in an interview in the home in question. “And I had fibromyalgia, so combine the two, and you’re not good to go. I just sort of went to pieces. So Buddy went and made a living.”

“And I kind of shut her down in some ways,” Buddy said. “I took that opportunity, which I shouldn’t have done, away from her to make Universal United House of Prayer at that time and then took every gig that came along for the next 12 or 13 years. She was kind of put on…”

“I took care of dogs,” Julie said with a wistful laugh.

Thus the songs on Breakdown — songs of yearning, of incompleteness and the striving for connection — have that specific power that comes from being both personal and universal.

Buddy Miller has been as in demand as any musician in Americana for more than a decade. He produced stellar albums for Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle, and others. He steered the music on the television show Nashville for multiple seasons. He hosts a radio show for SiriusXM with Jim Lauderdale. It’s evidence of the respect and the singular place Buddy has carved out since picking up the guitar in the early ‘70s and heading to the ferment of Austin, Texas.

That’s where he met Julie Griffin, and soon he was auditioning for her band and then for her hand. Julie recorded a handful of solo albums for a Christian music label in the ‘90s, and Buddy’s been releasing music nearly as long. Yet when the Millers started to focus on recording as a unit, the results have been particularly spectacular. Their self-titled duo debut in 2001 earned the Americana Music Association’s first-ever Album of the Year award. Eight years later Written in Chalk took the same honor, though Buddy concedes that was part of the difficult time for Julie and it was not truly a 50/50 creation.

If anything, Breakdown is a Julie-dominated project, written by her on her timetable, recorded over a long stretch in unusual circumstances. That’s where we pick up our conversation with the first couple of Americana music.

Buddy: After [Nashville] was over we just spent time together, just sitting together watching TV, something we’d never done before — or for a long time. Then slowly, we started approaching music at her speed, whatever that was. When we started recording, we didn’t record it in here [his much-admired home studio on the main floor]. We recorded in a little corner of the bedroom. She’d write a song and I’d slowly bring up little pieces of gear and something to record on — a laptop. Instead of live players we’d just play the two of us and build tracks.

BGS: Were you trying to sort of trick yourselves into recording, instead of the full production with everybody coming over at a set time?

Julie: Exactly! It was like, let’s pretend we’re not really doing it. We’re just having fun!

Buddy: We would say we’re not doing a record. We were getting the songs recorded but we would never say we’re doing a record. But we like how it sounded. … I want to look at somebody if I’m making a record. I love playing with players and having a drummer to look at and play off of. And upstairs I was looking in the dog’s face this far from me. But it was a really great experience doing that.

Julie, respecting your privacy, what can you say about your fibromyalgia and how you’ve been feeling lately?

Julie: Well I’ve had it since 1978 maybe — a really long time — more than half my life. And you get sort of used to a certain amount because it’s always there. But it gives you wallops now and then. And being on the road with fibromyalgia is such stress. It’s indescribable. And Buddy, because I’d always been heave ho you know, he didn’t get it. I could say it, but it didn’t click. Which is understandable. You have to be sick to get it, you really do. It’s progressively gotten more painful over the years, so it’s pretty painful at this point. But I’m never pessimistic about it. God will do something. The medical professional will acknowledge something.

I understand that’s a big challenge of this disease — getting validation from doctors.

Julie: It was incredible how many years I had it with doctors going ‘I guess you’re crazy’ in so many words. And that was making it twice as bad. You know good and well you’re in pain and you’re crying and you’re not crazy – or maybe you are crazy, but crazy people can be in pain, too. [Laughs]

Is there a connection between music making and the creative headspace, and feeling relief?

Julie: You know what? That’s interesting you’d say that because when I was writing I could focus on one thing. I could focus on the writing or the fibromyalgia. And I was just lost in the writing, so I was oblivious to so much — [to] a degree of my fibromyalgia. It made me realize I was meant to write songs.

Was there a stretch when you were estranged from the writing process?

Julie: There was a long time I was estranged from it. In fact, ten years or more after we’d signed with New West and I’d gotten sick and my brother had passed, I thought they were done with me. And Buddy said, ten years later, “No they’re just waiting for a record!” I was like what? They’re willing to take a record now? “Yeah, they’re just waiting for it.” So I was so excited. And ten years before I had written a lot of songs for the record, but they didn’t make it on this record. In fact the songs I wrote for this record didn’t make it. Accidentally other songs came that ended up on the record, so I’ve got a lot of songs.

Buddy: We started with a whole different list. When we knew we were working on a record, the list would change on a weekly basis because she’d write a new song. And it’s just the two of us working, and it’s hard to have a perspective on what we’re doing when it’s just one bouncing it off the other. She’d write a song and we’d record it that day.

So you have a lot of work tapes and demos.

Julie: Oh, you wouldn’t ever want to ever hear ‘em! There are so many of ‘em that you’d lose your mind.

Buddy: And some of them are on the record.

Julie: For the first six years, from 18 to 24, I’d try to write a song and I’d get so disgusted with how bad it was, I’d write it and throw it in the trash. But after I came to know the Lord… Here’s what the big thing was with him — he loved me and accepted me whether my song was good or not, and that enabled me to learn how to write a song.

Was getting involved with HighTone Records in the ‘90s a real pivot point?

Julie: Well it was really funny because Christians didn’t really like my music! [Laughs]

Buddy: There was that too — I meant to say that! That’s one reason it was easy to get out of it, because they didn’t get it at all.

Julie: They kind of let me go, and off I went, and the next people who wanted me to sign up were some Jews from San Francisco! So I just did it, you know? They heard me sing harmony on Buddy’s record. They got Buddy first, and then they got me and so that’s how it happened. I mean, I didn’t leave Christian music. I just went with who wanted me.

Buddy: Yeah, I was playing guitar with Jim Lauderdale. We all met when he moved to New York around 1980. Jim was working in the Rolling Stone mail room and we were all playing together. We moved to LA and I called Lauderdale and I said, “If you need a guitar player let me know,” and that’s when I got back into playing with Jim. HighTone asked Jim if he would do a track on this Points West record [a 1990 compilation of West Coast country music]. He said, “I can’t, but my guitar player would probably do it for you.”

So I did a couple tracks for them and based on that, a couple years later after we moved to Nashville, they must have had a hole in their release schedule, and they asked if I could do a record. I said, “Absolutely, yes.” They said “Do you have the songs?” I said, “Absolutely.” And we didn’t, at all. [Julie laughs] But we got that record together in a pretty quick time. Then they heard Julie singing on a song called “Hole in My Head” on that record that I wrote with Jim. Larry Sloven, who owned the company along with Bruce Bromberg heard her, and he said, “She sounds tough. She’s great.” He liked her voice.

Julie: [Laughing] Just a sweet little girl and they said I sounded tough. I’ll never understand it.

Buddy: At that point, Emmylou Harris had cut Julie’s song, “All My Tears,” on Wrecking Ball, so they knew she was a writer, and they said, “Would she want to do a record?” That was shortly after my first record, I think, and she was happy about it at the time at the time.

Julie: Very happy!

Buddy: They were really supportive. One thing we got with HighTone — and we probably got it because they had no budget so they had no oversight, and we made our records at home — we just turned in a finished record. There was nobody looking over our shoulder. There was no A&R department. They were just encouragers who had hopefully come up with a tiny budget, and they were really good folks over there, in that respect, and they gave us freedom to make whatever kind of records we wanted to make.

This interview was recorded for WMOT’s talk show The String. The full conversation can be streamed here.

Illustration by Zachary Johnson
Photo credit: Kate York