Ismay arrives in Austin, Texas to dig through the Collections Deposit Library at the University of Texas in order to understand the life of Lucinda Williams’ father, Miller. A poet and teacher, Miller Williams overcame setbacks to become a prominent writer. Ismay discovers his personal writings, letters, and photographs, highlighting his mentorship and the artistic community that shaped Lucinda’s career.
Produced in partnership with BGS and distributed through the BGS Podcast Network, Finding Lucinda expands on the themes of Ismay’s eponymous documentary film, exploring artistic influence, creative resilience, and the impact of Williams’ music. New episodes are released twice a month. Listen right here on BGS or wherever you get podcasts.
Finding Lucinda, the documentary film that inspired and instigated the podcast, is slated for release in the fall. Both the film and podcast showcase never-before-heard archival material, intimate conversations, and a visual journey through the literal and figurative landscapes that molded Lucinda’s songwriting.
Credits: Produced and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC. Music by Ismay. Artwork by Avery Hellman. With recordings from The Collections Deposit Library at UT Austin, and records from The Harry Ransom Center. Sound recordist: Rodrigo Nino Producer: Liz McBee Director: Joel Fendelman Co-Director: Rose Bush “The Caterpillar” and “Of History and Hope” appear courtesy of Rebecca Jordan Williams. Special thanks to: Mick Hellman, Chuck Prophet, Jonathan McHugh, Jacqueline Sabec, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Overby.
Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here.
2024 served up a treasure trove of great music books – too many to encapsulate in a concise way. However, it’s still worth a try! So, here is a look at some notable books (in no particular order) that should hold an appeal to the BGS community. This baker’s dozen hopefully provides a diverse and interesting sampling of what has been published over the past year.
There are biographies of superstars like Joni Mitchell and Dolly Parton alongside important if underappreciated figures, such as guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Look into the lives of bluegrass icons Tony Rice and John Hartford led by those that knew them while Joan Baez, Lucinda Williams, and Alice Randall each released memoirs that told their life stories in fascinating ways.
There are books here, too, that examine sub-genres like the world of busking and the outlaw country movement, as well as scenes from the musical history of Greenwich Village and the story of a little-known but significant music project that was part of FDR’s New Deal.
There’s a little something for everyone, whether for your holiday shopping list, your winter break stack of books “to be read,” to use up those bookstore gift cards, or for your 2025 resolution to sit down and read more.
2024 was a big year for Joni Mitchell, with her captivating appearance at the GRAMMY Awards representing another major milestone on her amazing recuperation from her 2015 brain aneurysm. NPR music critic (and occasional BGS contributor) Ann Powers extensively examines the many sides of Joni Mitchell in this stimulating and provocative book. Powers makes it clear from the get-go that she isn’t a biographer and compares her work here to being like a mapmaker. It makes total sense then that Powers entitled the book Traveling. The word not only references Mitchell’s tune “All I Want,” but it also reflects the numerous paths that Mitchell has traveled down during her long, storied career – a journey Powers incisively and insightfully explores over the course of some 400-some pages.
Dolly Parton’s White Limozeen by Steacy Easton (Bloomsbury)
Steacy Easton followed up their Tammy Wynette biography, Why Tammy Matters, by tackling an even larger female country music icon: Dolly Parton. Part of the acclaimed 33 1/3 book series, this compact tome focuses on Parton’s popular 1989 album White Limozeen. Easton views it as a pivotal work for Parton as it represented a triumphant rebound from her roundly disappointing 1987 release, Rainbow. Besides delving into how the Ricky Skaggs-produced White Limozeen found Dolly returning more to her country roots from the more pop-oriented Rainbow, Easton also uses her album as something like a prism to look at Dolly’s wildly successful career and her iconic persona.
Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams (Crown)
Fans of Lucinda Williams’ songs may think they know her through her lyrics, which are often drawn from Lu’s own experiences. Williams’ memoir, however, reveals more about her extraordinary life than even her deeply felt lyrics have expressed. The book is especially strong in covering her quite turbulent childhood involving her father Miller Williams (a poet/professor long in search of tenure) and her mother, Lucille, who suffered from manic depression. Fittingly, Williams prefaces her book by listing the many places where she lived (a dozen before she was 18) which reflects her rootless childhood and set her up for a home in the Americana music pantheon. While the title suggests a racy tell-all, the book feels more like having the great pleasure of listening to Lucinda intimately tell stories from her life – what more could you ask for?
Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis by Douglas K. Miller (Liveright)
Jesse Ed Davis is a name that probably is not familiar to most music fans. Lovers of ’70s rock might recognize his name as a guitarist who worked with the likes of Taj Mahal, Eric Clapton, Neil Diamond, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison (Davis performed at the fabled Concert For Bangladesh). Those who know him from those gigs, however, might not even know that Davis was a rare Native American in the rock ‘n’ roll world. He only really made his Indigenous heritage prominent when he teamed with Native American poet/activist John Trudell during the ’80s in the Graffiti Band. Sadly, Davis’ career was derailed due to alcohol and drug abuse, which also led to his death in 1988 at the age of 48. In this vividly told biography, Douglas K. Miller, a professor of Native American History at Oklahoma State University, turns a spotlight on this ground-breaking and underappreciated musician.
Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music by Cary Baker (Jawbone Press)
For his debut book, longtime publicist and journalist Cary Baker turned to a lifelong music interest of his: street musicians. Early on in this book, he relates the transformative moment when, as a teenager, he was taken by his father to Chicago’s famous Maxwell Street where he saw bluesman Blind Arvella Gray perform on the street. This experience not only led to his first journalism work, but it also launched a love for street music. His enlightening book, which is broadly divided geographically, profiles buskers from across America and Europe. Down On The Corner is populated with colorful characters like Bongo Joe, Tubby Skinny, and Wild Man Fischer along with well-known musicians, such as the Old Crow Medicine Show, Rambling Jack Elliott, Billy Bragg, Fantastic Negrito, and Peter Case, who share tales about playing on the streets.
My own memories of John Hartford are of him playing on Glen Campbell’s TV show. He seemed so cool and laidback – and he could play banjo with lightning-fast virtuosity. Happily, Bob Carlin has more interesting memories about the legendary musician, and he comes to this book from a pretty unique perspective. Carlin first met Hartford when he interviewed him in the mid-1980s for the radio program Fresh Air. Carlin (himself an award-winning banjoist) later performed with Hartford and even became his de facto road manager. In his book, he deftly balances his background as a journalist and position as a longtime friend in telling the story of Hartford, who was a true crossover star bluegrass musician of his time.
Like Bob Carlin with John Hartford, Bill Amatneek has a privileged perspective when it comes to writing about his subject, the late, great Tony Rice. Amatneek, a musician as well as writer, spent several years playing with Rice in the David Grisman Quintet. Rice was one of the best-ever flatpicking guitarists (and a terrific vocalist) whose career was undercut by illnesses and his own personal demons. Amatneek constructed his book as an oral biography, built around stories told to him by fellow musicians who knew Tony, like Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Peter Rowan, and Jerry Douglas along with Rice family members, allowing readers to discover the bright and dark sides of this bluegrass master.
Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital by David Browne (Hachette Books)
As its title plainly states, Talkin’ Greenwich Village discusses the renowned area of New York City that has been a center for bohemian arts culture for decades. The book can be described as a “biography” of both the people (Dave Van Ronk plays a prominent role throughout this story) and the places (particularly the clubs, such as the Bottom Line, Kenny’s Castaways, Gerde’s Folk City, and the Bitter End) that populated the Village’s music scene from 1957-2004. (Browne here basically concentrates on the West Village.) The author of books on the Grateful Dead, CSN&Y, and Sonic Youth, Browne does a masterful job at bringing this neighborhood to life during its many eras. The Village holds a special place in Browne’s heart; he discovered the neighborhood as an undergrad at NYU just as the new folk scene of the early ’80s was brewing. His passion shines through in his storytelling.
My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future By Alice Randall (Simon & Schuster)
You may have already heard about Alice Randall and her book right here, on BGS and Good Country. My Black Country has received great acclaim (NPR listed the book among its “Books We Love” for 2024) and justifiably so. An author, professor, and songwriter, Randall tapped all her talents in creating this inspiring work that addresses her life story and investigates the history of Black country music, which she traces back nearly a hundred years to when DeFord Bailey performed on Nashville’s WSM radio station. It should be noted, too, that this isn’t just a Nashville-centered book; it explores Black country music made all across America. Besides enjoying Randall’s literary creation, you can also enjoy her songwriting craft too; Oh Boy Records released an eponymous compilation of Randall-penned tunes interpreted by such artists as Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, Valerie June, and Leyla McCalla. (Of which, Giddens’ performance of “The Ballad of Sally Anne” is nominated for a GRAMMY for Best American Roots Performance.)
Spirit of the Century: Our Own Story by The Blind Boys of Alabama & Preston Lauterbach (Hachette Books)
The Blind Boys of Alabama are a remarkable story. Remarkable in the sense that the vocal group came into existence around 1940 at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Deaf and Blind and made their way out into the world through the gospel music circuit. And it is remarkable, too, that the Blind Boys of Alabama not only remain a group today (they describe themselves as the “longest running group in American music”), but they have earned five GRAMMYs (and a Lifetime Achievement Award) as well as an NEA National Heritage Fellowship. Preston Lauterbach (author of books like Beale Street Dynasty and The Chitlin’ Circuit) has done an eloquent job weaving together stories from band members and other musical colleagues, and turning them into this absorbing biography.
Willie, Waylon and the Boys: the Ultimate Outlaw Country Primer by Brian Fairbanks (Hachette Books)
This book is something of a biographical combo platter. The first nine chapters concentrate on the “Mount Rushmore” of outlaw country: Willie, Waylon, Johnny, and Kris. Those 240 pages are packed with colorful tales of the foursome, whether on their own or together as the Highwaymen. At that point, the book pivots and explores outlaw country’s legacy in the form of the alternative country scene that was burgeoning during the ’90s, as the Highwaymen were ending their run (their third, final, and least successful album came out in 1995). Fans of alt-country and “new outlaw” artists might wish for a deeper dive into this scene. The chapter on “The New Highwaymen” (built upon the idea of guys like Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell, Ryan Bingham, and Sturgill Simpson as a new outlaw quartet) feels a bit too speculative. Fairbanks, however, is on stronger footing with his “Highwaywomen” chapter, which looks at the actual supergroup collaboration of the Highwomen, featuring Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires that, among other things, countered the male dominance of the original outlaw movement.
A Chance to Harmonize: How FDR’s Hidden Music Unit Sought to Save America from the Great Depression—One Song at a Time By Sheryl Kaskowitz (Pegasus)
This is a book for history buffs who love music – and vice versa. Author Sheryl Kaskowitz (who previously wrote a book on the history of the song “God Bless America”) has dug up the story on a little-known music unit that was part of the New Deal. This U.S. government program led by Charles Seeger (yes, the father of Pete) sent out musician/agents (noted American ethnomusicologist Sidney Robertson was one prime participant) to gather up folk songs around the country. The goal was to use these songs to build community spirit at homestead communities launched by federal government under the auspices of the Resettlement Administration. The projects were considered radical and controversial back then and, consequently, were very short-lived. Fortunately, however, more than 800 songs were recorded and have been stored away in the Library of Congress.
When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance by Joan Baez (David R. Godine)
Joan Baez spent over 60 years making music and touring. While she has basically retired from music, Baez hasn’t put an end to expressing her creativity. In 2023, she released a book of drawings and in 2024, she published this book of poetry. There are at least a couple of notable aspects to this poetry project. Baez has long been known more for being an interpreter of songs rather than a songwriter, so it is intriguing to see more of her writer side expressed in this collection. Also, she has struggled with dissociative identity disorder (AKA multiple personality disorder, a topic addressed in the powerful documentary Joan Baez:I Am A Noise). Baez candidly states in the Author’s Notes that some of the poems are “are heavily influenced by, or in effect written by, some of the inner authors,” adding intriguing layers to her creative process – which she displays through the pieces collected in this book.
Journalist, author, and cultural critic Ann Powers released her latest book, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell, in June of this year. A thought leader in pop and pop culture criticism – and an occasional BGS contributor – Powers considers this legendary figure in folk and American music with deliberation and intention. Traveling isn’t merely a biography or a retelling of well-known and oft-repeated Mitchell lore; instead it’s a careful consideration of the artifice and sincerity, publicity and privacy, myth-making and universe-building of this iconic musician, songwriter, and celebrity.
“I wanted to think about how Joni Mitchell became JONI MITCHELL,” Powers relays in her conversation with BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs. “How she fought against that in her own life, and how she reinforced the legend as well.”
And how well-timed is this book and conversation, with Mitchell’s mythos at perhaps its lifelong peak? With Brandi Carlile’s assist, Mitchell has been enjoying a “Joni-ssance” of late, with jaw-dropping public appearances over the past couple of years after an extended hiatus and star-studded Joni Jams delighting fans and acolytes from the Gorge in Washington state to Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island.
Fresh off Mitchell’s headline-grabbing appearances at the Hollywood Bowl on October 19 and 20, we’re sharing our recent conversation with Powers about Traveling, its inception and writing, and how a truer telling of Mitchell’s life and creative journey requires a degree of skepticism – and may just result in becoming an even deeper fan of the one-and-only Joni Mitchell.
Right off the bat, I really connected with your hesitation to write this book, because I find that I have a complicated relationship and love of Joni, and I’ve never been able to put it into words. So when you start your introduction with that exact sentiment, I felt that really deeply. What was your thought process in committing to the book?
Ann Powers: Well, Amy, you understand more than most the thorny relationship we as writers and as lovers and supporters of music have with not artists in particular, but kind of the edifice around the art, or as Joni herself says, “The star-making machinery.” I’m very aware of how artists exist in one space and then there’s like a room where the artist lives, and in between is this space where a lot of misconceptions can happen. A lot of fetishization can happen. I was kind of trying to walk between those rooms and think about her as a public figure, as a legend.
And then, also what I could know of her from a distance. I say from a distance, because I did not interview her for this book – which is not unusual for biographies, by the way – but I foreground that because I wanted to say, “Look, I’m also a stand-in for maybe not the average Joni fan, but for those of us who are kind of considering these people that we’ve made immortal through our love and adulation.”
I wanted to think about how Joni Mitchell became JONI MITCHELL, how she fought against that in her own life, and how she reinforced the legend as well. That was the strong thread for me and an attraction to the project. My hesitancy was that I wasn’t going to be able to overcome the legend.
You say multiple times in the book how you’re not a biographer, but despite the chronological order, the book felt almost like a guide to being a critical fan. How have you developed as a fan in this writing process? Are you still a fan?
I’m definitely more of a fan than I ever was before. I would count myself among those people who took Joni Mitchell for granted before I was approached to do this book. And part of it, I think, is my self-styled “outsider” status. That’s a weird thing to say, but [I say it] as a misfit or someone who came from punk. When I was at the right age to have my “Joni phase,” my idols were Kate Bush, Debbie Harry, Chrissie Hynde, women who I now realize were deeply influenced by Joni themselves, but at the time who seemed almost like an alternative to her and Dylan and Neil Young.
The ’90s [were] the natural time for me to go through another Joni phase and then I did. I did get to see her at that amazing show at the Fez [in 1995] with Brian Blade. I had some prime Joni moments and definitely was listening more than I had in the past, but that was sort of like that moment when Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, PJ Harvey, and so many amazing artists were breaking through the Lilith Fair generation.
And here’s Joni in the press, bad-mouthing them or saying, “I don’t want to have anything to do with them.” So again, I’m like, “Oh, who is this person? Why is this person so hostile?” It’s like all these moments that would have been the one where I stepped onto that path turned me away from it – until much later, when I had an occasion, this book, to go beyond the surface of my fandom. Then I just went completely, fully in. So deep. And every step I took that was closer to her actual music and her actual words, not just her song lyrics, but interviews she’s given or the circumstances of her life, I became more and more of a fan.
In that way, this book is the story of me becoming that defender in the end, even if I’m still a skeptical defender, but I believe that that is something Joni teaches us to be – to yourself and as a skeptical defender of those people she admires.
The funny thing about Joni is that she took every step she could to stay off of that pedestal throughout her career. Sometimes I think her desire to not be encased in amber came from her own anxieties, like her own unhappiness with what fame wrought. It’s a very delicate thing.
This is such an important part of her music and her songs as well, especially an album like TheHissing of Summer Lawns, which is basically a critique of Hollywood. She’s living in Bel Air. She’s hanging out with Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty and the glitterati. She is of the glitterati. But then she’s also the one who runs away, who goes, “I’m living a monk-like existence outside Vancouver for a while.” Or, “I’m getting in my car by myself and driving across the South and using aliases and checking into hotels and hanging out with whoever’s in the lobby.”
This is something she kept doing in order to check herself and check the mechanisms around her and not become complacent with where she was. Same in terms of her collaborators. Instead of just doing what you’re advised to do in the music industry, which is just stick with the formula, she just kept blowing things up. She’s like, “I want to play with these jazz guys. I want to bring in like Brazilian percussionists.” That’s her curiosity, as I say in the book, but it’s also her refusal to be a conventional pop star. She’s always kind of trying to keep that at bay.
There’s something that you mentioned about the women you did look up to. When I think about Kate and Chrissie and Debbie, these women stand on their own; holding their own in a male-dominated scene and being surrounded by male collaborators and bands, but not necessarily lifting up other women. I’m trying to think of a female collaboration that Kate Bush ever did and I can’t think of one.
Well, when we look historically at the place of women, particularly in rock, there were labels attached to women who primarily collaborated with women – “women’s music,” right? That was lesbian music. And I think there was a lot of fear, and frankly, internalized homophobia, among a lot of women and people in general in the more mainstream music business.
So you didn’t want to be associated with too many women or people might think you don’t like men, you know? Read any interview with a woman star from 1967 to probably like 2020 and you’re going to see that phrase. “I love men,” you know, “I like male energy,” all this stuff. And there’s no shame in liking to work with male collaborators, but it’s amazing how fearful so many women and their teams – the people guiding their careers – were of female collaboration and female affinity. It was like a forbidden zone.
Of course, I also love the Go-Go’s and the Bangles, but girl groups were [their] own kind of zone. They were taking on these personae. These are great musicians, why did they have to dress up like ’50s pin-ups? It’s like they’re saying “Look, don’t worry! We’re real women! We can play instruments, but we can be girls too!” And despite what we think, that’s still so alive and well today. Though I do think there’s been a shift in the mainstream recently with artists like Chappell Roan and boygenius. There’s definitely younger millennials and Gen Z fighting against being confined by gender roles.
I have also noticed that younger artists are more eager to welcome their women heroes on stage and older women are more comfortable embracing it. Olivia Rodrigo is constantly pulling her heroes on stage. Katie Crutchfield from Waxahatchee is like, “Where is Lucinda Williams? Let’s bring her out.” And that was something you actually didn’t see even during the Lilith Fair years. It didn’t happen. You didn’t really see older artists on the lineup.
I loved the line in the book, “A map maker must be open to new routes.” Were there any new routes that surprised you, or unexpected people that came out of the woodwork?
Definitely the whole Florida thing. When I found out she had spent time down there and met Bobby Ingram – who’s since passed away. And, I didn’t really know there was this whole kind of mirror folk scene in Florida to that in New York.
But I also didn’t know about how diverse the early folk revival was. This is something [for which] I give a lot of credit to Dom Flemons. He’s been doing the work on this, but it’s still so under-explored. When Joni started out, she wasn’t just seeing Pete Seeger wannabes. She was also seeing Caribbean musicians and people doing musical theater and jazz rock or jazz folk, and although it was still a predominantly white scene, there were very important nonwhite artists on that scene.
In my early days [of writing], I just wanted to write a book about that. Uncovering the stories of other musicians who we forget when we only talk about Guthrie or Seeger or Dylan or whatever. It’s like, how white and boring can it get? If it’s just that, it’s that same story every time and yet it was so much deeper and richer and more interesting. And it’s so important to understanding Joni’s music, because her music was never pure folk.
Somewhere in the last seven and eight years of putting this book together, Brandi Carlile kickstarted the “Joni-ssance” as you put it. How did that change your process?
I thought Brandi would stop at her Blue concerts [at Carnegie Hall and Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2021], but suddenly it was like, “Oh wait, there’s so much more!” It’s been such an exciting story in and of itself that goes beyond music. It’s really the story of recovery, healing, and having this epic return. So on that level, it’s a like beautiful human story that’s been edifying to watch.
But I made the choice to stand apart [from the Joni Jam concerts] so I could continue to keep my perspective focused. Now with the book out, I can finally just enjoy this woman who gave us so much and is receiving her accolades. There’s a world of elders – and especially women elders – that I want to continually acknowledge. And if this project could be helpful in that, then I’ve done something positive for the world.
With a 40+ year career spanning virtually every aspect of the music business – from performing and songwriting to production, development and even education – Charlie Peacock has battled myriad creative challenges. A standout in the Contemporary Christian format who was also deeply involved in the Americana folk boom of the 2010s (he was even the driving force behind The Civil Wars’ mainstream emergence), no problem seemed too big to handle. But for his new album EVERY KIND OF UH-OH, Peacock had to overcome an obstacle unlike the rest: a rare, debilitating health condition.
Diagnosed with Dysautonomia and Central Sensitization, Peacock has essentially been experiencing a never-ending headache since 2017 – seven grueling years and counting. Needless to say, it has upended the GRAMMY winner’s life, and while some days are better than others, the chronic pain prevented him from music making all together– until a flash of writing in 2023, that is.
Featuring 10 all-new songs penned in a two-week flurry, EVERY KIND OF UH-OH finds Peacock getting back to work, but with fresh appreciation for life’s messy beauty. Co-produced with his son Sam Ashworth, a peaceful mix of dream-folk and gospel match a tender, feathery tenor, as Peacock explores against-the-odds optimism with spirituality, purpose, and humor. In the end, it feels like a veteran songsmith’s statement of revelation; and a set of life lessons delivered with knowledge, not judgement.
Still fighting symptoms on the morning after a party celebrating the album’s arrival, Peacock spoke with BGS about how his life transformed and how it forever changed the way he makes music. Peacock also plans to release his memoir, Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music in February.
We’re really interested in the way things like creativity and mindfulness and health intersect, so I’m fascinated by your story. Can you just tell me how you’re feeling today – both in a micro sense and in terms of the bigger picture with everything you’ve been through?
Charlie Peacock: Well, just for the background, I have a neurological disorder called Central Sensitization, which is a pain management disorder between the brain and the central nervous system about how pain is managed. So, my brain got tricked into thinking I am in trouble, and it’s sending me pain signals. Basically in the same way that if I scratched my arm on something, that scratch pain is there to tell me, “Hey, there’s something wrong with your arm. You might want to take a look at it.” Well, the brain functions in that way for all our pain management throughout our entire body.
So mine, this disorder that I have is that everyday for almost eight years, I’ve had an intractable headache. I’ve had an eight-year headache basically, and it goes up and down in terms of intensity. Sometimes it’s “You’ve got to go to the hospital” intensity. And most of the time it’s just sort of like a three or a four [on a scale of one to 10]. And I’ve learned to function through various methodologies and mindfulness and various kinds of treatments that I’ve done.
I imagine on top of the physical side of things, it has impacted your creativity. How did this change the way you look at making music?
Well, it got me back in some ways. It got me out of the music business and back into music making.
Really? How so?
At the point when I got sick, I was just turning 60 years old. So I was a 60-year-old man who’d been in the music business for 42 years, who was in writing rooms with 20-somethings. And even though part of my whole thing as a songwriter and a producer is that I’ve stayed relatively current, you’re still a person of your time and your generation. It’s like, could I make a trap song? Absolutely. But will I make one that is convincing to people who listen to trap? Maybe not. …
I was functioning more as the older, experienced sage that comes in and cleans up people’s songs. And so what the illness did was it put me back in that more childlike place of working on my own music and experiencing just the joy of creating, rather than coming in as the expert who’s going to be the song doctor or the producer who’s going to give that artist that extra 23% that makes them commercially viable or something like that. So that has been a real joy. And then of course, as I’ve said many times, it’s like you take care of the music and it takes care of you. That’s been the case just in terms of imagination and creativity during this illness, where it’s been a part of my medicine for sure.
Here we are eight years after the illness started and you’ve got a new record. What changed to bring this music out?
Well, [before] this illness period I had gone to Lipscomb University and created their commercial music program, and then became the head of the School of Music for a year. And it was during that time that I got sick. I was already kind of moving out of the producer-for-hire model and kind of had this education piece that was on my bucket list. So I had gone and done that and then I was just here working, making a lot of music, doing a lot of writing, working on a family, a screenplay for a family story from the 1800s, just doing a bunch of different creative things. …
[After the illness], I just had a willingness to say, “If my music career is over at this point, then I will have been really grateful.” And this memoir is kind the period on the end of the sentence. Then all of a sudden it was like I woke up one morning like “Is that an idea for a song?” It was brewing. So I started working on it and then a few more. And then I asked my son, “Hey, you want to help me finish this song?” I go out to his house and we hang and work on this song. We’re both super excited about it. And then he finally, after hearing more of the music, he was like, “Dad, you got to promise me you’ll take this seriously. Don’t just tell everybody, ‘Hey, I have a new record out on Friday and buy a couple ads on Facebook and call it a day.’ I think you need to actually do an old school release and get a distributor and have them set the record up.”
I said, “I don’t know if I have the energy for that.” But [Sam] said, “Well, I’ll help you.” And so he did help me. Really, the whole family has been a huge help. Sam came alongside me and he co-produced the record and we co-wrote three songs on it. And literally, it’s a 10-song album. Within 14 days. I had all 10 songs written. And it was just one of those times where it was just time to do that. I didn’t know it was, but it was.
Fortunately, I also had some pretty good windows of health that I could [record]. I had some days when I tried to sing where it’s just like, “Man, it’s just not happening.” But I’d wait a few days and get rested up again and go up to the studio and sing, and it would still be there. I was actually surprised myself, some of the range that I was able to sing at still.
Have the songs taken on a new shape for you or a new dimension, topic-wise and thematically?
Well, my great-grandfather was a fiddler in Louisiana and my grandfather from Oklahoma loved to sing all the Okie songs of the era. And I thought, let me just lean into that a little bit. So I would say this record is a little taste of that, especially the instrumentation is pretty much still the same in terms of rootsy guitars and just simple drums and bass and fiddle and pedal steel. And the only difference between this record is I really leaned into the gospel vocal sound. A lot of my friends that have been dominant in Black gospel music. And so that’s a difference. Narrative-wise, I was really trying to do this kind of literary thing that was a mix of plain-speak American roots, with these literary elements, and then also take a spiritual element, but not make it religious, and try to create a narrative that was uniquely American. I think in its influence, it’s almost like reading some of the classic American novelists.
There’s a wonderful mix of storytelling and deeper spirituality, for sure. Thank you, Charlie. I’ll just leave you with the big picture. What do you hope people take away from this record?
I think for me, even listening to the songs and seeing the reaction from folks, what they said afterwards is, “This is a world that I want to enter into. There’s something about what you’re creating on this record, this musical world, and this invitation to come on in that feels really safe and that I will belong here and I’ll be well loved, cared for, not judged – allowed to just be myself.”
And I think that’s what we want. I mean, I think that’s what makes our heart beat, is that we just want to be known totally. We want to be known like the intricacies of our personalities. We don’t want to be known superficially. And I hope there’s something about this music that sends that signal that, yeah, I do too. Come on in and listen and see if you find some of that here.
Releasing a new album is stressful enough for most artists, but releasing an album, a documentary, and a book almost simultaneously – while singing and dancing in a Broadway musical? That sounds crazy even to Ani DiFranco, who released her 23rd album, Unprecedented Sh!t, in May, while performing as Persephone in Hadestown, reprising the role she sang on the same-titled Anais Mitchell album that became the folk opera. (The album was released in 2010 on DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records label; the show opened on Broadway in 2019 and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Original Score.) DiFranco wrapped her nearly five-month acting debut on June 30, just after performing at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of director Dana Flora’s documentary, 1-800-ON-HER-OWN, filmed as DiFranco recorded her 2021 album, Revolutionary Love.
On August 27, DiFranco will release her second children’s book, the timely and inspiring lyrical narrative, Show Up and Vote, illustrated by Rachelle Baker. (Her first, The Knowing, was released in 2023.) For most of these endeavors, including Unprecedented Sh!t – only her second album produced by someone else (BJ Burton) – DiFranco did something she’s not used to: giving up control.
Who decides to be in a play, release an album and a book and have a documentary premiere at the same time?
Ani DiFranco: No one would decide that. That’s fate just laughing at me, just fucking with me. But it’s exciting. It’s exhausting. And my hamstrings may or may not hold me up through it all. [Laughs] But I wouldn’t be anywhere else.
Obviously, you’ve spent time in front of audiences. What’s different about doing it in a musical?
I’ve realized that performance has, at least for me, two big components. One is improvisational; it’s of the moment. It’s interactive. The other is putting on the show. I’ve always leaned into the interaction and improvisation. This is very much leaning in the other direction. Doing the same shit every night, eight times a week, for months, is a whole other approach. … What I think I love most about this super unique experience, besides the work itself – Hadestown is such an epic work, and I couldn’t think more highly of it – I’ve never done something where it’s such a group effort. I really have been amazed by [the] collective experience. Like we all became one organism, sort of this collective energy field.
Do you think you would get involved in another production like this?
I’m pretty open to anything. I’m most enamored by the new and terrifying, so I have no idea.
I would think a documentary is exciting, too.
Yeah. Yes …
You don’t sound so sure.
I’m just going with exciting as the adjective. [Laughs] For me, it’s very disconcerting.
In what way?
I actually haven’t seen it and I’m not sure if I will. It’s a lot, to show yourself.
That’s got to be a challenge. But you have led what I consider to be a singular life and have had a really impactful career. It seems like it would make sense to put that onscreen.
It’s not a career-defining, expansive retrospective. Of course, there’s some historical context. But it’s just a walk in the shoes of a woman who’s trying to be an artist in the world, and also a mother and have a relationship and be accountable to everyone that wants her to be at any given moment.
Let’s talk about the voting book. I’m so charmed by the concept, because it’s such an important one to teach. What inspired you to do that?
Exactly what you said. I feel like young people being inspired to vote in this country, in this moment, is the difference between having a democracy tomorrow and not. So when I was invited to make a book for children, I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll try to talk to some future voters.” It’s from a kid’s point of view about going to vote with her mom. The book is a tool with which parents can engage their kids about voting.
I’m somebody who takes my kids with me to vote so that they see it modeled, so that they understand it as a part of being grown and a member of a society. But even more than a teaching tool, I hope that it will inspire kids, that it will get them excited about this thing that they get to do when they’re grown up, because they’re part of a democracy. It’s a really important, empowering, profound thing that connects them to everybody else, and is a way that we take care of each other, a way that we express our love for each other, and all of these really cool things. I guess I most hope that it lights a fire in a kid.
That brings me to the album. I noticed that “The Thing at Hand” and “The Knowing” seem to share similar concepts, but the latter one apparently was describing the ideas to a child. Is there a connection?
They are very related, but “The Knowing,” I wrote specifically to a child. When I was faced with making my first children’s book, I was having a hard time, and the only way I made it through was to pick up my guitar and make a song that was also a book. And “The Thing at Hand,” those themes of identity and ego, and the vast realms that exist beneath that or beyond it, are themes that run through the record.
I totally caught that, and I loved the lyric, “I defy being defined”; that sums up a lot of your career – and your life. How hard has it been to maintain that stance in a society and music industry that seem to be all about definitions, and judging based on them?
It’s been really hard, every step of the way. People want to define and describe you in very finite terms, and they’re often very reductive. Holding onto a sense of myself as this ever-changing field of infinite possibility, so to speak, is a hard thing to do. There are pressures from every direction to be something very concrete, that thing that this person or that person or the other wants you to be or insists that you are. It’s been a real dance of negotiating that all the way along.
What do you do when it gets really frustrating?
I’ve had to just develop this – I mean, I’m as thin-skinned as the next guy, when it comes right down to it. I am as lost in seeking affirmation from the world around me instead of from inside myself as the next guy, so it’s a constant challenge to go beyond all of that and to keep yourself at a distance, no matter what the world is saying about you. I’ve learned that you can’t rely on the world to tell you that you’re worthy and you’re good and you’re great and you’re wonderful, which sometimes it does, because then when it turns around and says you’re unworthy, you’re terrible, you’re horrible, you’re a sham, your whole premise of yourself comes crumbling down. So it’s still a challenge that I am trying to rise to, to self-love. The older I get, the more I believe that the ways that we harm each other all come home to our lack of self-love. So it’s not some kind of trite endeavor; it’s not self-centered or indulgent. It is extremely important to peace on earth that we learn to find our inherent worthiness within ourselves in order that we not turn our self-hatred on each other.
Back to the concepts you address in these songs. “New Bible” sounds almost like a manifesto; there’s so much to unpack there. In other songs, you just allude to an idea; for instance, in “Baby Roe,” you say, “I think we might be wrong about all of that,” which raises the question, wrong about what?
That’s another song that is interrelated on the theme of ego and identity; it’s … stepping back from this debate about abortion and reproductive freedom and going, this is ridiculous. Like, projecting your ego onto a potential human; it’s like, I am a being of light. I am consciousness and that’s what you are. And this is one of many, many lives and manifestations of this unified field of consciousness that unites us all, that we are coming from and returning to infinitely, that we are all one within. This idea that consciousness need be born right now, into this exact body, in order to be manifesting, is really silly. The whole premise of forced reproduction is based in this very stunted understanding of what we are and what life is and what death is. I think a lot of the traps that we fall into that are entrapping us more and more, sociopolitically, environmentally – it’s all ego-based delusion.
In many of these songs, you sing so sweetly, and yet there’s these undertones, like in “More or Less Free.” I was surprised to read that was about somebody in prison; I thought of it as possibly directed to oppressors.
“More or Less Free” is intentionally open-ended, but yes, it’s written from within prison walls, as a free person inside a prison, visiting and having very human moments and connections with people who live in cages all the time. But it’s a tricky business to talk about songs and what is this about and what is that about? I hate doing that, because songs are supposed to reach you the way they reach you and you’re supposed to hear what you hear, or not. And that’s not for me to say, really. They’re about what you decide they are.
But you know what I’m saying. Technically, that’s where it comes from, but it is very much about being born into a society, that dichotomy of – we are all born free, as my friend Utah Phillips would say, and then you wait for somebody to come along and try to take away that freedom. He always said the degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free. So yeah, we are all born free, and yet, we’re not. That’s all that it’s about.
What was different about doing an album with somebody else calling the shots?
Everything of this particular record and process was unique. The remote thing, for one, which is just how it worked out. He and I would have loved to have spent endless hours in a room together vibing off each other, but we did it interacting through many levels of machines. In retrospect, that’s maybe exactly apropos for a record where I was really trying to bring the machines in. BJ, of course, is the one with the machines and the facility to be intuitive and creative with them, but we sort of worked vicariously with each other.
Because I was not in the room with him, I couldn’t say, “Ooh, a little to the left. Oh, a little louder.” It was like, I record the songs, he fucks with them royally, and what comes back is – I mean, we had a little back and forth, but really, it was overwhelmingly a process of giving over. Just saying yes to his artistry, like he was saying yes to mine. I was not prepared to do [that] at 20 or 30 or 40, and with album one or six or 10. But this is album 23. I’m 53 years old, and I’m more than ready to say yes and really delegate.
People have gone back and redone previous albums. Maybe 10 years from now, you might decide that you want to redo it.
Well, I’ve been in this music game and song-making game for 30-plus years, and one thing that I’ve learned from experience is that songs have long lives. And, that even when I was in charge and doing everything “the way I thought it should be done,” which was most of those other records, I don’t necessarily “get it right,” or the album version is not the definitive version of any song of mine, necessarily. In fact, I have no memory of making any of them. And sometimes when I hear them, I’m like, “Whoa, what?” because the song as it’s lived onstage and in the world is not necessarily that moment. When I had misgivings about BJ’s tendency to turn my guitar into some other sound, or eliminate it altogether, or sort of deconstruct what I sent him or something, I would think, “Whoa, is this cool?” And then I was thinking, “Well, who cares? That’s just how it sounds on this little piece of vinyl.” The song, it’s like a snapshot of a human; the human has many faces.
I love the line in “Unprecedented Sh!t,” “the bigger the heart, the more it bleeds.” But it also sounds like there’s an attempt to ignore that [i.e., “I got a lot of heart/ But I can’t afford to let it bleed”]. Sometimes, for example, with animal rescue, I have to stop myself from reading another story about this poor …
Oh, yeah. Dude. That’s all I’m talking about there, is how much we have to numb ourselves to survive being surrounded by pain and suffering and feeling helpless, if not being helpless, to stop it.
It’s a shame that we have to numb ourselves, but on the other hand, do you ever feel like that character in The Green Mile, where it’s just all going into you, and it’s too much to hold sometimes?
Yes, very much. I think anybody whose heart is not dead inside their chest is trying to deal with that.
That’s what I got from “New Bible,” too. There are some really pessimistic statements in there, but there’s also some real optimistic ones, a sense of, yeah, you can let this stuff overwhelm you, or you can look for ways to do something. That, to me, is a really good thing to put out there.
Yeah. Which brings us back around to the children’s book. The tools of nonviolent revolution are right there in our pocket, actually. What do you know? What do you know?
The year’s most discussed, and in some respects, most controversial LP to date has been Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter. Its admirers have painted Beyoncé as a trailblazer for Black country artists. They cite her inclusion on the album of both past – like Linda Martell – and contemporary Black country artists, including Rhiannon Giddens, plus the foursome of Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Tanner Adell, and Tiera Kennedy, all featured on the update of The Beatles classic, “Blackbird” (stylized “Blackbiird”). They also cite Beyoncé’s Texas background as ample proof of her country roots and sincerity.
Others, notably contributors to The Washington Post and The Guardian, have attacked the 27-song project for a variety of sins ranging from overproduction to such emphasis on idiomatic variety that the result to their ears is faceless, forgettable music. Beyoncé herself has repeatedly said “It’s not a country album, it’s a Beyoncé album,” a line that can and has been viewed many different ways.
Still, there’s been a genuine explosion of interest in Black country music the past couple of years prior to the release of Cowboy Carter. It has resulted in a host of attention for artists ranging from Charley Crockett, Mickey Guyton, Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer and Brei Carter to established hitmakers like Darius Rucker and Kane Brown. But there’s one name that stands above all others as a key figure who’s been in the country music trenches over five decades. That’s author and songwriter Alice Randall, a superb novelist and academic. Randall, a Detroit native, made the move to Nashville from Washington, D.C. back in 1983, because she wanted to showcase her skills as a country songwriter and simultaneously wanted to demolish the widely held myth that the music had no links or connection to Black music and zero audience among African Americans.
“Yes, I faced open hostility and overt racism when I began,” Randall told Good Country during a recent interview. “There were plenty of people who looked at me and figured what’s this small Black woman doing here? But I wasn’t going to let that stop me.” Randall spent plenty of time attending songwriters rounds, plus examining and analyzing the songs that were becoming hits. In her book she pays credit to Bob Doyle, who was then a songwriter liaison at ASCAP. Doyle’s Bob Doyle & Associates is the longtime management firm for Garth Brooks. Another of her early Nashville mentors was singer-songwriter Steve Earle, whom she met through Doyle. She cites Earle’s willingness to address personal and social trauma and pain as an influence on her writing style.
Randall earned her first Top 10 country hit in 1987 with the Judy Rodman-recorded “Girls Ride Horses, Too,” which she wrote with Mark D. Sanders. She also launched the publishing company Midsummer Music (which she later sold), with the aim of aiding and developing a community of storytellers. She’d soon enjoy bigger success, becoming one of the first Black women to write a No. 1 country hit, when she and Matraca Berg co-wrote “XXXs and OOOs (An American Girl),” for Trisha Yearwood in 1994. (Donna Summer previously co-wrote Dolly Parton’s “Starting Over Again” in 1980).
Randall was also a writer on Moe Bandy’s top 40 hit, “Many Mansions.” Some other notable Randall milestones include writing the treatment for Reba McEntire’s “Is There Life Out There?” music video, which won an ACM Award and features a Randall cameo. In addition, she wrote and produced the pilot for a primetime drama “XXX’s and OOO’s,” which later aired as a made-for-TV movie on CBS.
But as Randall notes in her book, additional trials can come with success. Randall recounts how after the success of “XXXs and OOOs,” a music publishing executive pressured her into signing a contract before she had time to let her lawyers look at the paperwork. That move eventually led to Randall signing away much of her writer’s share of the song’s profits, an experience she called “part of my graduate school.”
Her new book, My Black Country (and its co-released, eponymous album), nicely combines personal reflection with historical commemoration and cultural examination. It highlights Black country’s finest performers and personalities, while noting that early country music was a far more interracial activity than many realized. “It’s amazing to me how many people don’t realize that Jimmie Rodgers recorded with Louis Armstrong, or that Lil’ Hardin was also involved in that historic recording,” she continues.
Randall cites Hardin as the mother of Black Country, the premier vocalist/harmonica soloist DeFord Bailey as the papa, multi-idiomatic master Ray Charles as the genius child, Charley Pride as Bailey’s side child, and the vocalist and TV/film star Herb Jefferies, also known as the Bronze Buckaroo, as Hardin’s stepchild.
She’s equally passionate about the frequent omission from country music histories and commentary of the contributions of Black cowboys. “I fight for all the Black cowboys who have been erased, all the country and western songs through the years that did not tell those stories,” Randall told Billboard magazine in an earlier interview. “When I wrote songs like ‘Went For a Ride,’ a lot of people did not realize they were Black cowboys I was writing about… but 20 or 30% of all cowboys were Black and brown in the 19th and 20th centuries, so it’s one of the ways that African Americans have contributed so much to the legacy of country music, is through cowboy songs.”
The book also chronicles a further lineage of Black country artists, including the Pointer Sisters and Linda Martell, as well as other artists like Sunny War, Miko Marks, Valerie June, and Rissi Palmer.
With 2024 being a big year for Black country, it’s only fitting that Nashville and the music world at large recognize and celebrate Alice Randall’s achievements. Last month she published the memoir, My Black Country (Simon & Schuster), while an accompanying LP, My Black Country: The Songs Of Alice Randall (Oh Boy Records), was also released.
A pair of sold out events in Music City – a book signing at Parnassus bookstore and a combination celebration/Black Opry concert at the City Winery where contemporary Black country vocalists performed Randall tunes – were just the first events to honor the current Vanderbilt Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies as well as writer-in residence. Randall’s other notable literary feats include The Wind Done Gone, a blistering examination and parody of the book and film, Gone With The Wind.
During Black Music Month in June, Randall will appear at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History & Culture on June 7, and she’ll return to Nashville on June 15 for another in-person conversation about Blacks and country music.
Randall’s book traces her love for country to a family relocation. While growing up in Detroit, she was also a fan of Motown and even spent some time with Stevie Wonder. But upon moving with her mother to Washington, D.C., country became the dominant music she regularly heard. As a student at Harvard studying both English and American Literature & Language Randall says it was after closely surveying Bobby Bare’s 1976 song, “Dropkick Me Through Jesus (Through the Goalposts of Life),” she really began to understand the depth and breadth of country music storytelling.
That knowledge, along with her excellence as a lyricist and storyteller, resonates throughout the many memorable and unforgettable numbers on the album My Black Country: The Songs Of Alice Randall. The roster of 12 women selected to perform the various tunes features many of today’s finest country stylists. The honor roll includes Ada Victoria’s soaring “Went For a Ride,” Allison Russell’s glorious “Many Mansions,” Rhiannon Giddens’ routinely spectacular rendition of “The Ballad of Sally Anne,” and Rissi Palmer’s poignant performance on “Who’s Minding the Garden.” Randall’s daughter, poet and commentator Caroline Randall Williams, delivers a strong performance on “XXXs and OOOs.”
Randall credits Russell for introducing her to Ebonie Smith, better known for her work as a producer on Sturgill Simpson’s Grammy-winning album, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth.
And it’s no surprise Randall would conclude our interview by weighing in on the Beyoncé LP, herself.
“She’s the only Black woman to achieve those feats [No. 1 country single and album], but I don’t think she’ll be the last,” Randall concludes. “I’m more proud of the fact that there are so many great Black country artists out there, that the Black Opry is getting national attention, and that we’re finally putting to rest that garbage about country only being for white people.”
“In fact, to me, Nashville’s becoming a town for wild women, and for Black women to freely express themselves any way they choose.”
Artist:Carrie Newcomer Hometown: Bloomington, Indiana Latest Album:Until Now (September 10, 2021) Personal Nicknames/Rejected Band Names: My husband calls me “bunky” sometimes. 🙂 My bands have always been just The Carrie Newcomer Band. My first band was called Stone Soup.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I don’t think it happened for me in one moment. It was a slow turning, a claiming and reclaiming, a deepening. My favorite game as a little girl was called “Makin’ Somethin’.” I was always making songs, stories, and pictures; painting, sewing, and hammering together boards; cooking or putting on plays in the backyard. I was drawn to creating just about anything, and all these years later, I’m still inordinately happy when I’m makin’ somethin’. But it took me a while to truly claim calling myself a songwriter and poet. I went to school for visual art, then later got a teacher’s license. Both are honorable vocations, but I believe I chose them because it felt too risky to follow what I loved the most: music.
During that time, I was writing songs and playing music everywhere. When I finished school, music was calling. So I followed, not really knowing where it would lead me. But even as I stepped fully into a life in music, things continued to unfold. Something good happened to my writing when I gave myself permission to sound like a “Hoosier,” to claim my own authentic Midwestern voice. Something also shifted when I stopped following music business and started following what my songs were about — asking good questions, sensing a spiritual thread, our shared human condition, finding something extraordinary in an ordinary day. My life as a musician also shifted when I stopped believing that I had to be the best singer-songwriter and knew that all I needed to do and be was the truest Carrie Newcomer.
Today, I have released 19 albums. Music still continues to be a choice. A life in the arts means you must be willing to step right up to your next growing edge and lean in. So every day — even in this time of great disruption and uncertainty, when hope feels a bit frayed at the edges, I still choose to live like an artist, approach my life as an artist, and stay true, lean in and always keep “makin’ somethin’.”
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
I have always been a passionate reader. Of course, music has always moved me, but I am even more drawn to the way music and lyrics entwine to create something uniquely powerful. Many of my songs are inspired by literature (non-fiction and fiction) and particularly poetry. Songwriters have many ways they go about writing a song — if you ask 11 songwriters to describe their process, you’ll get 15 different ways they approach songwriting. My process often begins with writing essays, poetry, short stories and character studies. I have three books of poetry and essays: A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays & Lyrics and my newest collection Until Now: New Poems that will published as a companion piece with my new album Until Now, on September 10, 2021. I’m also a visual artist (mixed media and small sculpture) and visual imagery is always present in my songwriting. Oh, and I’m a passionate knitter.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I try to find a place to get quiet. I meditate, I find my inner center so that I feel more grounded when I step on stage. I’m not a natural performer. In fact, I’m pretty private by nature, which is not uncommon for performers. But I love people, and I love music, and I love what happens when we connect through music. There is nothing like it. Music, when it’s really flowing, comes up from something deep and centered and true. It reaches into the heart of the listener where the listener is deep and true. I imagine those of you reading might know what I’m talking about.
During COVID, we all had to learn how to do this heart-reaching in new ways. I turned to online streaming, as my husband Robert Meitus is (lucky for me) one of the co-founders of Mandolin, a high-quality concert streaming service that streamed the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and RockyGrass this year. Streaming was an incredibly different performance experience. If a live in-person show is an apple and recording a performance is an orange, streaming is kind of like a kiwi. It has many similar elements, but it’s also entirely different. The exciting thing I learned was that the spirit of music really can reach further and wider than I ever expected.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
If I had a mission statement for my career it would be, “be true.” My work in the world is to express what it means to be authentically human with all its ache and awe, sense and senselessness. It’s to hold fast to the power of simple kindness, to acknowledge its messiness, and to be honest about where I most need to grow. My job is to lean into unabashed delight and to be with uncontainable grief. Music reminds me that working toward a better, kinder world is not a destination as much as an orientation. My job is to put into music and language the things we feel that have no words, to do my own inner work so that I can bring what I find there to my outer calling. My job as an artist is to pay attention and ask good questions — and, as much as possible — to be kind.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Natural imagery is almost always present in my poetry and songwriting. It is where I catch glimpses of something extraordinary (even sacred) in the most ordinary of days. I live out in the wooded hills of southern Indiana where years ago, the glaciers stopped their earth-smoothing slide south, leaving deep ravines and beautiful hills. I have walked these hills for years; these forests, creeks and small lakes have become old friends. On my wide, old-fashioned front porch, I love to sit and watch a big storm come in, to feel the drop in the barometric pressure, a rush of cool air, and then waves of summer rain. I love the quiet of the snowy hills, particularly the ones that are lined with elegant smooth beech trees. In senseless times, I take comfort in what never stops making sense, like trees and songbirds, like how the light changes in autumn and the world quiets in the winter. There is a song on the new album called “I Give Myself To This.” It is a love song about what I choose to release and what I fully embrace out in the natural world.
It was a week into lockdown last March that Robert Macfarlane got in touch with Johnny Flynn. The pair were already good friends. Macfarlane is a Cambridge University academic and a bestselling author; his many books, such as The Old Ways and The Wild Places, have helped shape a renaissance in nature writing. Flynn – as well-known for his acting as his albums – writes songs that reverberate with an inescapable yearning for the rural and the pastoral. Britain’s landscape is a place of solace and inspiration for both.
The early days of the pandemic were disturbing, disorienting, frightening. They were also quiet. The nation stayed home and traffic all but ceased: towns fell as silent as the countryside, birdsong had never sounded louder. Macfarlane asked Flynn if he’d like to write a song together and the act of creating together was something to cling to amid the tumult. “It started as just a song,” said Flynn, “and then it became a few songs… but it held me in place and kept me from completely spinning out.”
This May they released the result of their labours: an album, Lost in the Cedar Wood. The combination of Flynn’s folk sensibility with Macfarlane’s sense of place is so sympathetic that you can’t quite believe it’s their first collaboration. But then, Flynn had been reading Macfarlane’s books long before they first met. And Macfarlane was listening to Flynn’s albums like A Larum and Country Mile as he wrote. The author, in fact, thanked the musician in the acknowledgement pages, “because they were the songs I was listening to when I was out walking, and I knew every chord by heart.”
Eventually, a mutual friend introduced them; their first meeting was, in the most English of ways, at a friendly game of cricket. Their shared love of nature and passion for conservation sparked instant bromance. All three of those things manifest in the music they’ve made together.
“Rob was sending me articles about the pandemic being created by deforestation,” says Flynn, “but we were also talking about all the literature that people were reading with a new interest or perspective – Daniel Defoe’s Journal of a Plague Year, or Shakespeare’s King Lear.” Thinking of Anais Mitchell’s Hadestown, based on the Orpheus myth, they wondered what other stories might be worth exploring. Flynn looks at Macfarlane and laughs: “And you said ‘There’s always Gilgamesh’ – as if that was too obvious.”
A 4,000-year-old poem about a Sumerian king, written in cuneiform and discovered on tablets in the ruins of an ancient Assyrian library, might not seem that obvious a starting point to everyone. But it is, as Macfarlane points out, “the oldest story in world literature,” and its potent themes cast extraordinarily contemporary parallels. In the poem two warriors, Gilgamesh and Enkidu, defy the gods by cutting down a sacred forest, bringing calamity upon themselves. “The most powerful myths have a prescient as well as a retrospective vision to them,” says Macfarlane. “And that combination of ancient and urgent pushed us on.”
The songs were written back and forth via WhatsApp and voice memos: “There’s an incredible ease to writing with Johnny,” says Macfarlane. “I never worry much, and we trust each other to say if something isn’t working. I call it the Johnny Flynn song machine. I type out a bunch of words, send them over and they come back as this unbelievable song.”
Macfarlane would like to make clear, at this point, that he can’t play a note; he describes himself as having “all the musical abilities of a deckchair” (“Not true!” says Flynn). When it comes to collaboration with musicians, however, this deckchair has an impressive résumé. He has written a libretto for a jazz opera, had his poems turned into protest songs, and worked with a supergroup of British folk talent – including Kris Drever, Julie Fowlis and Karine Polwart – to create Spell Songs, a musical adaptation of his and Jackie Morris’s book The Lost Words.
Those experiences taught Macfarlane a great deal. “I’ve learned that good lyrics are about letting go, about cutting out order,” he says. “My teacherly prose writer’s inclination to bring grammar to everything has to be left at the door. And a year working with Johnny has brought me to the point where I’ve learned to let the light into language.” He’s particularly pleased with the song “Uncanny Valley,” to be released on seven-inch later this year, “about how things don’t join up with each other in the year we’ve just lived through.”
That sense of dissociation permeates Lost in the Cedar Wood, where melodies expand and contract like our perceptions of time during lockdown. The album doesn’t retell the Gilgamesh narrative – it’s more a series of meditations inspired by it – but Flynn and Macfarlane aren’t shy of tackling its epic themes like death and rebirth.
This should not imply that listening to it is a heavy experience: quite the opposite, in fact. What’s astonishing about the record is how much delight there is in it, from the instantly catchy resonator riff of the opening track “Ten Degrees of Strange” to the modal funk of “Bonedigger.” It often manages to be moving and funny at the same time, as in the plaintive lyrics of “I Can’t Swim There”: “My friend Harry’s got legs to spare/But I can’t find my body, I’ve looked everywhere.”
That sense of light and dark is beautifully mingled in “The World to Come,” which begins with an owlishly haunting melody and ends in a mighty accelerando, gathering speed until it’s a wild, whooping chorus of multiple voices – including Macfarlane’s. “In his wonderfully inclusive way Johnny did recruit me into some distant backing vocals,” he laughs. “And that song is effectively a party — not at the end of the world, but maybe at the beginning of a better world to come. So Johnny was encouraging us into the kitchen — whack the taps! jump up and down! There’s a cutlery basket that goes down at the end and the rawness of that in the record is wonderful to hear.”
The majority of the tracks were recorded in an off-grid cottage on the borders of Dorset and Hampshire, the recording equipment run off batteries powered by solar panels. “I love those albums like Music from Big Pink and The Basement Tapes,” says Flynn, “where you’re feeling the room where it was recorded. And for this one we were in the middle of forestry land, so there was the sound of chainsaws cutting pine trees coming through the windows, and we’d jump out of the window to record birdsong, and we were really in the sonic universe of the stories we were telling.”
Also singing on the album is Flynn’s nine-year-old son Gabriel. That inclusion was important to Flynn – not just because Gabriel is a promising young musician, but because parenting was such an intrinsic part of Flynn’s life, and even his creative process, in the past year.
“I was getting up before the kids in order to write and I’d be halfway through an idea when they piled down for breakfast,” he grins. “Often Rob would get a phone demo of me trying to sing a song and halfway through I’m shouting at the kids…”
“Daddy, where’s the marmalade?” says Macfarlane, recalling the interruptions.
“It was intense,” adds Flynn, “worrying about three kids, but the lovely thing about having them at home was getting to really go into every aspect of their thought process and their day.”
Macfarlane nods. “Stepping out of work into the arms of my eight-year-old, as he runs down the garden, that’s a nice commute.” He pauses. “I hope something like that stays, after lockdown.”
Because that’s the real question behind this album: what have we learned from humanity’s most recent crisis, and how will it change us? When Gilgamesh loses Enkidu as a result of their sacrilegious actions, he begins a new quest for the secret of eternal life. It’s no spoiler to reveal that he doesn’t find it: appreciating what he already has is more to the point.
It is not lost on Flynn and Macfarlane, for instance, that Gilgamesh is a story of close male friendship – even if, as Macfarlane jokingly points out, one of the characters dies horribly and the other’s a brutal despot. You can picture them together, Flynn and Macfarlane, on their much-prized walks through the English countryside, talking of this and that, and coming up with their next creative ideas.
It has, they agree, been a joyful process, and this joint project is surely the first of many. It may have forced them to confront some of their greatest fears for the natural world and the planet on which we live, but it has also endowed them with fresh hope.
Macfarlane also hopes that people don’t feel they need to know anything about Gilgamesh to enjoy the songs – or treat it as a pandemic album. “The days and months of lockdown do soak through its pores but they’re never named,” he says. “I hope in five years time anyone can put their ear to it and not feel they need a key to understand it.”
Allison Moorer has always loved words and it shows in her new memoir, Blood. Expressed in a literary voice that’s both erudite and intimate, her writing goes well beyond the devastation of the 1986 incident where her father shot and killed her mother, and then himself. Surveying Blood as a whole, her childhood stories will be familiar to anyone who has grown up without money, who has relied on other family members to help raise them, and who has found an identity through music.
This fall, Moorer has been touring behind the book by presenting on-stage conversations with music-minded moderators, such as her sister Shelby Lynne (they affectionately call each other “Sissy”) and her husband Hayes Carll. During these events she performs music from her new album, also titled Blood. While that project is inspired by her family trauma, it is not a direct re-telling of it. Longtime producer Kenny Greenberg gives it a sonic texture that fits perfectly in a catalog that now spans two decades.
She caught up with the Bluegrass Situation by phone in between her travels.
BGS: I really admire the research you put into this project. You were willing to try to fill in some gaps. One of the passages that I thought was interesting was the email from your father’s friend, Leon, who wrote this line: “I’ve never figured out if Franklin was two people in one body or if he was one person who made a change into someone I did not know.”
AM: Yeah. That’s pretty powerful, isn’t it?
Do you remember the emotions you felt when you read that message from him?
I felt like I had been seen. Because that’s often how I felt about my father. One of the reasons I wrote to Leon in the first place was because very often I had heard about this great guy that my father was. So many people had admiration for him and the person that they described was not who I knew.
He was a teacher at Leroy High School. This was when I was very small but I remember him being the shop teacher, and he taught English. That’s how he was introduced to my mother in the first place, because he was a teacher where my aunt went to high school. He was a juvenile probation officer. His last job was overseeing the vocational school. And so he had an effect on a lot of people.
But at home, what I had in my mind was not matched up with this person that I heard people outside of our house describe. I spent probably too much time trying to reconcile that and what I know about that is we all are many things. Who we are on the outside is not always who we are on the inside, and we can be more than one thing at the time. So I think in some ways I came up with more questions than answers, but sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.
One thing I found interesting is that he seems to have passed on a love of music and a love of literature to you.
Absolutely.
Have you always been in love with words and storytelling?
Yeah. I don’t think that I knew when I was a kid that I was in love with words. I just knew I liked to read and I had an affinity for them. I somehow kind of knew how to read before I went to school. I went to first grade when I was 5 — funny thing about my momma, she decided that I didn’t need kindergarten and she forged my birth certificate and put me in first grade when I was 5.
It probably had something to do with her work schedule because kindergartners had a shorter school day I think. But they found out that, “Oh, well, Allison at age 5 goes in the advanced reading.” [Laughs] That’s a little revealing about who I am. But I definitely found solace in books and in music when I was a kid and still do, still very much do.
Your father was writing music and lyrics even before you and Shelby came along, but I didn’t know the history of “I’m the One to Blame” on your record. I heard the music before I read the book, then found out later that he wrote those lyrics. I was curious, how did the melody come about to that song?
Sissy wrote it. She found that lyric in his old briefcase, not long after they died. We were definitely in the throes of shock and grief, but I love that she was still able to go, “Hmmm, that’s pretty good. I think I’ll put tune to it.” [Laughs] She did, and she did a fantastic job. So that song’s been around all this time, and neither one of us had ever recorded it. I thought this album was a really good way to do that and to share that with the world. It was important to me that be heard and that he could finally get a song out there. I wanted to do that for him.
I think “The Ties that Bind” is one of the most eloquent songs you’ve ever written.
Thank you. I’m proud of that one, too. I think that’s something that every person asks themselves.
What was on your mind when you were writing that? Did you have to go to a certain frame of mind to get that song out?
Wrestling with the question of inheritance is a big deal for me. How do you take the good and not the bad? How do you make sense of where you come from, and from whom you come? And not drag all of the baggage with you? It’s a tough thing and it’s a never-ending question, right? It’s the theme of a lot of psychological exploration and family therapy and individual therapy. It depends on what school you come from, but a lot of things in people can be traced back to how they were raised, and by who raised them.
We inherited these qualities from our parents whether we want them or not. That’s what “All I Wanted” is about as well. It’s about that same thing – I really am sorry that I inherited your ability to argue with a fence post. But I’m really glad that I got, you know, whatever, this thing or the next thing. I think that’s something that we have to work at as people. I’m fascinated by families and by inherited traits.
There’s a passing reference in the book about how you can feel at home by putting books on the hotel nightstand. That struck a real visual with me. As you’ve moved over the years, you carried all your books with you?
Oh my God. You would not believe how much it cost to move those fuckers. Of course I did! And I’m sure you have the same problem. My books are my prized possessions in a way. I’ve got some guitars, I’ve got a kick-ass shoe collection, and my books, and my heirlooms from family and my little things… I don’t hang on to much. I’m not a hoarder of any kind. I like to keep things pretty sparse but it’s really difficult for me to get rid of a book.
You must feel very comfortable in a bookstore then.
I do. My dream job is to be a librarian.
I am curious about the book event that you just did in Mobile. Because so much of this book is set near there, what was it like for you to go back to that part of Alabama and tell the story?
Well, I played Birmingham on Wednesday night and Mobile on Thursday night, so I had family at both of them, and I have to say I was nervous about talking about this book in front of them. I didn’t ask permission from anybody, and I don’t have to, and I know that, but I still understand that some of these memories are painful. I also realize that some of the things that happened to my sister and me when we were kids might’ve still been unknown to some of our family members and our friends.
So, I’m aware of that and there’s part of me that wants to make sure everybody’s OK. But I also know that’s a trap. And taking care of people is not why I wrote this book. My desire to take care of people is not at all why I wrote this. I think that that’s worth mentioning because I think that not talking about these things is part of what perpetuates the cycle.
So I did feel very much that because I had family in the audience both nights, the instinct is to not say it, to not expose the secrets, to keep hiding because it makes everybody feel better. But what I know is that’s exactly the opposite reason of why I wrote this book. So I had to balance that with myself, and I was aware of it, and I just talked myself through it.
What caught me off guard in this book was the passage titled “What Happens When You Hit Your Daughter.” I felt that deeply.
A lot of people are feeling that.
What have people told you about that passage?
I’ve had a couple of people tell me that they’re going to hang it up in their office because they’re therapists. And I am no therapist. [Laughs] Or any sort of professional. I wrote that passage because I had done so much reading and research on the family and cyclical violence and what the effects of abuse are. On an intellectual level, it’s interesting, but on an emotional and personal level, it’s devastating to me. I have seen to varying degrees all of those things I talk about in that passage applied to my sister, I think. So I wrote it for us.
Look, it’s like this. I recognize that this book has done a lot for me in terms of me coming to terms with my childhood and in realizing what the fallout has been on us. It showed me to myself as art does. We reveal ourselves to ourselves through making art. And the wonderful thing about art and the purpose that it serves in the world is it serves as a mirror for other people. The job of the artist is to reflect the world.
And what I’m getting back from the world about this book is that it is encouraging other people to look under their own rocks and to look at themselves and look at where they came from. They want to then tell me their stories, which is a lot to absorb but I’m also honored and I’m happy about that because so much of these sorts of things are made worse by the shame that they put on us, because we’re told not to talk about Daddy’s drinking or Mama’s violence or whatever’s going on at home.
When children are told to deny what they see and hear and feel, they become distrustful of themselves. I have noticed that in myself. Because growing up we were always told, “Don’t say anything about this. Don’t say anything about that.” In essence, “This isn’t happening,” because you have to deny your feelings. I think that’s absolutely the wrong path. So if someone is able to speak their truth because I spoke mine, then it means I did a good thing.
Photo Credit: Heidi Ross
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