WATCH: Hollow Coves, “Blessings”

Artist: Hollow Coves
Hometown: Gold Coast, Australia
Song: “Blessings”
Album: Blessings EP
Release Date: June 11, 2021
Label: Nettwerk Records

In Their Words: “‘Blessings’ is a song of gratitude. It’s about recognizing the little blessings that life has to offer. If we don’t take a moment to acknowledge them, we can often miss them. Practicing gratitude is known to be good for mental health, yet anxiety and depression seem to be more and more prevalent in our generation. I think we are just too distracted to stop and take time to practice gratitude. We hope this song helps people realize that there are blessings all around if you just look up and take the time to think about how much we have to be grateful for.” — Ryan Henderson and Matt Carins, Hollow Coves


Photo credit: @Leniflashes

WATCH: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors, “Navigating to Hope”

Artist: Charly Lowry & The Heart Collectors
Hometown: Charly Lowry: Pembroke, North Carolina; The Heart Collectors: Hinterland Byron Bay, NSW, Australia
Song: “Navigating to Hope” from Folk Alliance‘s Artists In (Their) Residence program
Release Date: June 1, 2021

In Their Words: “It’s safe to say this global ordeal has proven that no one being has all of the answers; we are all navigating this plane the best way we know how. The Heart Collectors and I find ourselves on opposite sides of planet Earth, navigating to hope. We likened our experiences during this time to being aboard a ship, fighting against Poseidon’s watery fists and underneath dark, ominous skies. We do so with the understanding that we are in this together, and instead of accepting the defeat of a sinking ship, we remain steadfast in our voyage to find our lighthouse, our beacon of hope. This type of imagery was key in the songwriting process and aided us in delivering a message for the downtrodden. Whatever your case may be, we encourage you to seek your peace first, and then move your vessel onward and forward to hope for a new day, season, or way of being.” — Charly Lowry

“Coming together in collaboration from all points on the earth is an extraordinary experience, and one that makes our world so much bigger. Hearing and being present to the stories of people and cultures from one side of the world to another made us see how we literally are all in this together, we have all suffered this at once. Not in our life time has a global experience like this ever been the case, and it brings everything to a level. Things that seemed important became unimportant. The heartbreak of individuals suffering has a profound way of naturally breaking us open to be so much more capable than the usual way of dealing with existence. Finding each other and joining in this online type of creative common room has been the unifying strength to move forward, one step at a time.” — The Heart Collectors


Photo credit: Courtesy of Folk Alliance, Charly Lowry, and the Heart Collectors

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 203

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the Radio Hour has been our weekly recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the pages of BGS. This week, we’ve got music from CeeLo Green to Loretta Lynn! Remember to check back every week for a new episode.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

Loretta Lynn feat. Margo Price – “One’s On The Way”

Loretta Lynn’s original cut of this song made it to No. 1 on the charts in 1971. When Margo Price teamed up with Lynn to celebrate the latter’s 50th anniversary of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Price chose this song specifically, suggesting how legendary it was for Lynn to have sung about women’s rights and birth control in the country music of the ’70s. It’s still legendary today.

Todd Snider – “Turn Me Loose (I’ll Never Be the Same)”

“Turn me loose, I’ll never be the same!” is a phrase that rodeo cowboys used to yell when they were ready – something Snider first heard from Jerry Jeff Walker, but fitting himself perfectly. He asked the cosmos to provide a rock to put is foot on, and so the story goes, the new album from Todd Snider: First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder. 

DL Rossi – “Tumbling”

From Grand Rapids, Michigan, DL Rossi brings us a song from his upcoming album, Lonesome Kind. It’s a kind of youthful innocence, warming up to the harsher realities of life. And while we can’t opt out of our hurtful experiences, as Rossi suggests, we can share them to encourage one another.

Aaron Burdett – “Arlo”

North Carolina-based singer and songwriter Aaron Burdett compiled this song by noting quotes that his friend Arlo would say, collecting them for over 10 years. Arlo isn’t necessarily the character in the song, Burdett says, but character, someone who always has a bold thing to say.

CeeLo Green – “Slow Down”

CeeLo Green brings us a video for “Slow Down” from his latest album, CeeLo Green is… Thomas Calloway. From the writing of the song, to the recording and then making of the video, it was a completely expressive process for Green, who called it an “out of body experience.” Ironically titled, the song pulls the listener even closer into the climactic height of the record.

Natalie D-Napoleon – “Gasoline & Liquor”

Driving through the rural Mojave, D-Napoleon passed a sign that read “Gasoline and Liquor.” While she knew it would be a song, she thought it sounded like a man’s song, one written via passing lines back and forth with her husband. The video reflects the landscape of the “Wild Wests” of both the American desert and Western Australia, the places between which this artist splits her time.

Danny Paisley and the Southern Grass – “Date With an Angel”

Danny Paisley is the current reigning prince of Baltimore-D.C.-area bluegrass, a scene with rich history dating back to the 1950s. This week, Paisley and his band the Southern Grass bring us a song from their upcoming release, Bluegrass Troubadour. 

Aoife O’Donovan feat. Kris Drever – “Transatlantic”

Aoife O’Donovan is no stranger here at BGS, or anywhere in the roots community for that matter! Her work with artists like Crooked Still, I’m With Her, and the Goat Rodeo Sessions proves why that is. This week on BGS, she teams up with Scottish artist Kris Drever to bring us a message that we’ll all be together again.

Brigitte DeMeyer – “Salt of the Earth”

BGS caught up with Brigitte DeMeyer from San Francisco this week on a 5+5 – that is, 5 questions, 5 songs. We talked musical inspirations, songwriting techniques, and her mission statement: being herself.

Will Orchard – “Rita”

For Boston-based Will Orchard, this song is about trusting impulses, and the constant questioning of whether or not those feelings are valid. Written on tour in two parts separated by almost year, Orchard was able to combine them with the perspective of time, earning a place on his newly released album, I Reached My Hand Out. 

Helena Rose – “What’s Killing You is Killing Me”

Helena Rose wrote this song while struggling to tell a loved one how she felt about their addiction. Rose offers this song to others who have loved ones battling addiction, giving hope to the struggle, and showing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Valerie June – “Smile”

As March has slipped away and we welcome April, we bid farewell to our March Artist of the Month, Valerie June. This song comes from her latest album, The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers.

The Bones of J.R. Jones – “Bad Moves”

In celebration of his latest album, A Celebration, we caught up with the Bones of J.R. Jones for a 5+5, talking about performance memories, art forms, and songwriting techniques. Jones’ curated playlist brings us everything from Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen to the White Stripes.

John Smith – “Friends”

The pandemic was hard on us all, no doubt, but for Wales-based John Smith, it just kept bringing the punches. Trying to make sense of it all, Smith brings us The Fray, his latest album in a 15-year career, teaming up with artists and friends like Sarah Jarosz and Bill Frisell.


Photos: (L to R) Margo Price by Bobbi Rich; Aoife O’Donovan by Rich Gilligan; Todd Snider by Stacie Huckeba

WATCH: Natalie D-Napoleon, “Gasoline & Liquor”

Artist: Natalie D-Napoleon
Hometown: Freemantle, Western Australia and Santa Barbara
Song: “Gasoline & Liquor”
Album: You Wanted to Be the Shore but Instead You Were the Sea
Release Date: March 26, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Gasoline & Liquor’ came about after traveling through California’s Mojave Desert so when it came to making a video for the song the other ‘Wild West’ — that of Western Australia — seemed the perfect location. We were headed out to Joshua Tree to catch some music at Pappy & Harriet’s when we passed a sign at the side of the highway that read ‘Gasoline and Liquor.’ I pointed at the sign and said to my husband, ‘That is a song — but it’s a man’s song.’ I then blurted out, ‘You’ve gotta help me write it!’ We passed lyrics back and forth while I honed the music. A week before we were set to record the new album I started fingerpicking the song and the arrangement fell into place. We recorded the album live in an old church in the hills behind Santa Barbara and the take you hear was captured during a momentary pause between someone chainsawing trees nearby!

“I wanted to make a video that reflected the bleak desert landscape of places like Victorville and Barstow, which inspired the song. Since we’re currently in Australia we went to the western mining town of Kalgoorlie where there is no shortage of abandoned gas stations and outback pubs. One of my favorite places is the Broad Arrow Tavern, a quintessential outback pub, miles from town in the middle of anywhere with writing scribbled all over the walls giving it an edge-of-civilization atmosphere. The crusty outback characters and bar flies stared at us menacingly during the entire shoot, leaving us pondering whether we were going to get out of there alive. We almost didn’t, managing to grab our cameras and equipment and get out of there before a bar brawl broke loose. Music sure takes you down some interesting roads!” — Natalie D-Napoleon


Photo credit: Brett Leigh Dicks

LISTEN: Woodlock, “Normal”

Artist: Woodlock
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Normal”
Album: Collateral EP
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Nettwerk Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Normal’ a few years ago in Adelaide after a friend came to a show, and we were chatting about relationships. I wasn’t married at the time, but I was thinking about taking the next step. My friend opened my eyes on how marriage, after all the glamour, needs serious work, and how he still loved his partner, but it expressed itself differently over the years. I loved the idea of describing a deep love for someone without saying the word ‘love.'” — Eze Walters, Woodlock


Photo credit: Kane Hibbered

Amid Climate Crisis, Emily Barker Brings ‘A Dark Murmuration of Words’ to Light

Emily Barker is sitting at home in the southwest of England, as the country sweats through its worst heat wave in 60 years. There’s something not quite right about temperatures of 90 degrees F and tropical downpours flooding the sleepy villages. It’s that kind of creeping unease that’s reflected in her new album, A Dark Murmuration of Words — a moving meditation on the state of the world today, in which climate change is a recurring theme.

Barker, who recorded the songs last November, worried whether it might be too much for an audience reeling from the pandemic. “Before the album came out I was wondering: are people going to want to hear these difficult songs at a time like this? Or do they just want escapism?” In the end, she decided to release them anyway. “I know myself I’ve been needing the hard stuff as a source of comfort to feel that collective experience of all the emotions we’re going through.”

In fact, her music achieves the perfect tone for the many unsettling feelings that COVID-19 has forced us to confront. Barker’s wistful melodies bear the listener along even as her evocative lyrics take you into uncomfortable territory. “Strange Weather” grapples with the real-life conversations she has had with her musician husband Lucas about whether to bring a child into a world under threat. “Any More Goodbyes” sounds like a breakup song, says Barker, but is actually a hymn of love to vanishing species. And “Where Have the Sparrows Gone,” with its haunting chorus (“they’re where the woods were once”), takes us into a not-so-distant future where birds have abandoned London, and the city is in lockdown.

The album captures the emotions of anyone struggling to take in the frightening predictions of climate scientists and witnessing the desperate fight of environmentalists like Greta Thunberg to bring humanity to its senses before it’s too late. “Last year the climate crisis was very much at the forefront of all of our conversations and thoughts, wondering what we can do to adapt, and feeling helpless and guilty and angry and upset and all these things,” says Barker, who admits she that even as an optimistic person, she had moments, in 2019, of feeling “really, really pessimistic about it.”

Her response was to try and change her perspective to focus on her closer community. “Sometimes that’s how we cope,” she says. “I have to focus on my immediate community and the things I can change, the conversations I can have, because I can’t fix the world.” Hence the presence on this album of a tribute to Wangari Maathai, “The Woman Who Planted Trees.” The Kenyan activist’s simple individual acts of tree-planting grew an entire movement, empowering the women around her with forestry and beekeeping skills, and educating thousands of people on ecology.

Barker’s new community focus manifested in all aspects of the album’s production. “I wanted to bring in as many local artists as I could,” says Barker, whose band was made up of good friends from the UK’s thriving South West scene, including her husband. “And not only the musicians but the painter who did the art cover and the filmmakers who did the music videos. That fit with the ethos of the album but also with lockdown — we’ve got limitations now and it’s a good reason to make the work happen here.”

Stroud, the town where she lives, sits in a beautiful landscape surrounded by rivers, lakes and rolling hills. She and Lucas have just moved into a new house, and are being visited by electricians and workmen when we talk. The theme of home has been a recurrent one throughout her work, prompted by the fact that she left her country of birth 20 years ago. Having grown up in a small country town in Western Australia, she came to the UK as a backpacker in 2000, and has made her life there.

Several songs in the new album remain redolent of her love for her homeland, from the vast night skies she conjures in “When Stars Cannot Be Found” to the nostalgia of “Return Me” and “Geography,” the music to which she wrote with English rock band 10cc’s Graham Gouldman. “Eucalyptus after rain remind me who I am again,” she sings, and it makes you wonder whether having two homes rather than one is a blessing or a burden.

“It’s less easy in some ways,” Barker agrees, “because I always have this constant question of where should I be. I’m always missing at least one place. Sometimes two places! You can feel quite fragmented.” Every year she escapes the English winter to spend 10 weeks with her family down under. She had just returned before the pandemic hit.

Barker wasted no time, when lockdown began, in reaching out to her neighbours. She saw the “viral kindness” forms that Extinction Rebellion had created and posted help slips through doors on her street, asking if anyone needed someone to talk to, or their errands done. “We had five vulnerable people who were living on their own give me a call and we started doing a weekly shop for them. It was such a good way of meeting people and gave us a sense of purpose, especially with festivals and gigs being cancelled seemingly every hour.”

Purpose and mission are clearly important to Barker. At university, aware that her Australian education had celebrated colonialist settlers and taught her nothing of the oppression and injustice they had brought with them, she sought out a course taught by Indigenous historians. “That was the trigger for me looking into structural racism,” she says. “I never understood growing up why in my country town there were so few Aboriginal people — we never learned about that.”

Recent years touring the US with her friend and mentor Mary Chapin Carpenter led her to research more widely. It was Ava DuVernay’s film The 13th, about the Constitutional amendment that abolished slavery, but allowed it to continue in prisons, which inspired her song “Machine.” Written before the killing of George Floyd, her lyrics prove uncannily timely, sung from the point of view of one of the architects of a system that has oppressed Black people for centuries.

“I covered all my tracks in books on history, justified my actions through anthropology,” she sings. And then, as if anticipating the Black Lives Matter protests that have since taken hold, “a crack has appeared, it keeps me up at night… I’ve been a bully and a sinner now I’m on the way out.”

She has seen, in Australia, how the arts have influenced politics by bringing untold stories and narratives to light. Some of her favourites are Indigenous singer/songwriters Archie Roach and Gurrumul. “I feel like the story of how Australia was settled is really well-known now among your average citizen,” she says.

So there remains hope in her outlook, however challenging times may appear. As she changes her own behaviour — flying less, taking trains when on European tours — she looks for ways to help others confront theirs. “Environment and equality are very important to me,” she says. “And it’s finding the right perspective to write that from and being respectful of the people in society who are suffering.”


Photo credit: Emma John

LISTEN: The Weeping Willows, “Wheels Won’t Roll”

Artist: The Weeping Willows
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Wheels Won’t Roll”
Release Date: August 14, 2020 (Single)

In Their Words: “Penned in 2019, ‘Wheels Won’t Roll’ is our ‘accidental isolation song’ about feeling stuck in a rut (we owe 2019 an apology!) Early last year we were spinning our wheels, struggling to move forward, crippled by self-doubt and writer’s block. But despite all that, we longed to be back out on the open road… ‘Wheels’ is our folkie homage to the great Australian song, ‘Rock and Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)’ written by Kevin Johnson, made famous by Mac Davis.” — Laura Coates and Andrew Wrigglesworth, The Weeping Willows


Photo credit: Lachlan Bryan

LISTEN: Rod McCormack, “Fingerprints”

Artist: Rod McCormack
Hometown: Terrigal, NSW, Australia
Song: “Fingerprints”
Album: Fingerprints
Label: Sonic Timber Records

From the Artist: “‘Fingerprints’ was written for my beautiful wife Gina. As I flew over to the States to record this album, she reminded my that I hadn’t written a love song for her yet — and after 20-odd years I thought it was about time. I was so glad to work with John Scott Sherrill on this song idea, and then to have Gina sing on it with me was a real treat. I really wanted ‘Fingerprints’ to have an Appalachian feel to it, and hearing the fiddle and banjo weave around the acoustic guitar still takes me back to our early years together. Along with the current single, ‘Shimmers,’ ‘Fingerprints’ is probably the most requested song from the album.” — Rod McCormack


Photo credit: Steve Kearney

BGS 5+5: Garrett Kato

Artist: Garrett Kato
Hometown: Born in Port Coquitlam, BC; current home is Byron Bay, Australia
Latest Album: s. hemisphere EP
Nickname: “Shoji is my middle name, some crew call me that”

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I think it would have to be Bob Dylan as cliché as that sounds. I feel there’s only a handful of artists that can hit you in the guts with lyrics and melody. He’s probably the master of storytelling and symbolism in song.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This was probably one of favourite moments in life. I was supporting Damien Rice in Australia and was a big fan of his work. I hadn’t seen him much and figured he’d be too busy to see my set. I played to a beautiful and attentive audience, and once I left the stage, out of the darkness he emerged to say he enjoyed the set. Later that night, we went busking in the streets of Brisbane. It was something I won’t soon forget.

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

I’m a big fan of most A24 films at the moment. They always have such intensity and mystery to them highly recommend. As far as for my music, I’d say I draw more from conversations in real life or stories I hear from people I know, and love that, for some reason, it seems to seep in more often when I’m writing.

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

I think it’s almost every time. Each song comes with its own set of challenges and problems that are particular to the message or music. I find it the hardest to write when I’m spending too much time on social media. It really sucks the life out of being creative, and you end up just worrying about what everyone else is doing.

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

Try to give some comfort to someone who may be feeling lost or alone.


Photo credit: Jess Parkes

LISTEN: Kristy Cox, “Finger Picking Good”

Artist: Kristy Cox
Hometown: Adelaide, Australia originally (now Nashville, TN)
Song: “Finger Picking Good”
Album: No Headlights
Release Date: February 28, 2020
Label: Mountain Fever Records

In Their Words: “Since I was a girl, I have been a huge fan of Tommy Emmanuel. When my co-writers Jerry Salley, Bill Wythe, and I were writing this song we spoke about how great it would be if we could feature Tommy on the different fingerpicking tunes throughout the track, I was so incredibly excited when he said yes. I love this song; it was so much fun to write and even more fun to perform.” — Kristy Cox


Photo credit: Billy Joe and Clockwork Photography