Tag: BGS Podcast Network

Basic Folk – No-No Boy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Julian Saporiti is the brilliant mind behind No-No Boy, a recording project that tells the incredible stories of historical triumphs of Asian Americans making their way in the United States. Julian, an Italian American and Vietnamese American, has always been drawn to both history and music, and has used his two passions to elevate these stories. He was truly inspired by his doctoral research at Brown University on “Asian American and transpacific history focusing on sound, music, immigration, refugees and everyday life.” Julian began to explore his family’s history, pore over archival material, and conduct interviews; and found untold musical stories of Asian American artists like himself.


LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3
 

Julian got the No-No Boy name from Japanese Americans who were forced to live in internment camps during World War II, soon after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. They were asked to serve in combat and swear allegiance to the United States. Those who answered “no” to those two demands on the government’s “Loyalty Questionnaire” became “No-No Boys.” And those who refused were sent to concentration camps. It’s also a novel by Asian American author John Okada (also a song by The Spiders). Our conversation covers his own family history, in which he also unabashedly shares his perspective on the concept of “generational trauma” (he’s not super into it). He expands on the influence of Asian musicians who have learned and perfected the music of the oppressor, like the George Igawa Orchestra, which was a jazz band held at an internment camp led by Los Angeles musician George Igawa. When he was forced to relocate to the camp, he could only bring what he could carry, which, to him, meant his instruments. He formed a group in the camp where they would play parties and even outside beyond the confines of the camp’s barbed wire.

Julian’s identity and the identity of No-No Boy is solidly rooted in his Asian American experience, but I decided to start our interview with questions about his dad’s work in the music industry. Julian’s father was a major player in Nashville’s country music industry and he would often take Julian with him to work. This left huge impressions on young Julian, so of course, I had to dig into that first thing!

Photo Credit: Diego Luis

Basic Folk – Brent Cobb

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Georgia-born Brent Cobb is a true blue southern Gospel country artist. His music career kicked off when he shared a demo tape with Dave Cobb, one of Nashville’s finest producers and Brent’s cousin. The two have collaborated on numerous albums since Brent’s debut and I had a lot of questions about that creative relationship during our interview.

 

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3
 

Cobb’s 2016 album, Shine On Rainy Day, earned him a Grammy nomination and saw him tour with country stars Chris Stapleton and Zac Brown. He has also written songs for artists like Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert. Brent has fascinating insights about touring, collaboration, and his role as an interpreter of Southern culture in an interconnected world.

In July of 2020, Brent was driving with his one-year-old son when their truck was t-boned. He got up off the pavement and found his son unharmed in his car seat. This brush with death inspired him to create a Gospel album, drawing on the musical tradition in which he was raised. And Now, Let’s Turn to Page… reimagines time-honored hymns and features one original song co-written by Brent and his wife, Layne. Life, death, love, community, and Willie Nelson-style gentle vocal performances – this album has it all.

Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Basic Folk – Suz Slezak (David Wax Museum)

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Suz Slezak is one half of the extremely talented, thoughtful and kind folk band David Wax Museum. Suz, along with her husband David, have been touring and performing their Mexican inspired, Americana folk act since 2009. Along the way, the two got married, had a couple of kids and settled pretty finely into the pandemic with bi-weekly and then weekly live streams. All the while, Suz has been living with her bipolar disorder, which has impacted her life in incredibly unbelievable ways.

 

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3
 

She’s also been pretty vocal, especially lately, about how she interacted with her brain health, mental health and treatment for both of those elements, which includes her intense journey with medications. Her Instagram is filled with brutally honest posts about the difficulty of finding meds that continuously help her stabilize her brain. She’s also very willing to share stories from the times where it didn’t matter what prescriptions she was on.

On her new album, Our Wings May Be Featherless, Suz is addressing her life from the perspective of a person who is bipolar, a mother, a touring musician and a creative person. She digs into the power of acceptance, traumatic birth, and grief. In our conversation, we talk about what a special musician she is and how she’s been able to cultivate and keep a childlike wonder alive through her playing. This conversation is heavily rooted in Suz’s journey with her bipolar disorder and you’ll learn a lot about her experience, as she is very open. She addresses the choice to share her experiences publicly and how the sharing impacts her. About the album, she says, “I hope you will also hear the way that a song, or any piece of art, can transform haunting pain into sounds and rhythm, allowing it to finally diffuse. I have needed to make this record for a long time. The relief I feel that it is finally emerging into this physical realm for you to enjoy is immense.” SUZ!

Photo Credit: Tristan Williams

The Show On The Road – St. Paul and the Broken Bones

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we bring you a conversation with Birmingham, Alabama’s Paul Janeway, frontman of the storied soul and art-pop experimenters St. Paul & The Broken Bones.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
 

While many first learned of Paul as the bespectacled former bank teller and accounting student who went from playing tiny clubs around the south to stalking stages from Red Rocks to Coachella in resplendent sequined robes, howling like a reincarnation of Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett with a bold brass section behind him, it really almost never happened at all. A decade ago, Paul made a throwback soul EP with his longtime collaborator Jesse Phillips and friends as a last hurrah before signing off from the dispiriting quest of getting folks to pay attention to his songs as he tilted towards his thirties. But then the wheels started turning. Folks started packing their shows at the Bottle Tree Cafe (RIP) in Birmingham. Ben Tanner of fellow rising star southerners Alabama Shakes helped Paul make the more polished and kinetic EP Half The City in 2014, and with just a Bandcamp release to start, it began selling like crazy. Like, more than most pop records; one-hundred, then two-hundred-thousand copies. Late night shows and world tours and TV placements and opening slots for The Rolling Stones beckoned. The press couldn’t stop asking: how could a guy like this sing like THAT? Paul was suddenly an unlikely star on the burgeoning Americana circuit. Wells Fargo would have to find another guy.

But as Paul discusses throughout our talk, just creating a soul and R&B revival sound was never his plan. He loves losing himself in art museums, exploring Greek myths and diving into deep space travel, and with more daring follow up records Sea Of Noise (2016) and Young Sick Camellia (2018) creating danceable synth-funk bops like “Flow With It (You Got Me)” and “Apollo” – which also have dark underbellies if you listen closely – the group has become much harder to place, in the best way possible.

This year’s release Alien Coast shows Paul and his crack team of collaborators Jesse Phillips (bass), Browan Lollar (guitar), Kevin Leon (drums), Al Gamble (keyboards), Allen Branstetter (trumpet), Chad Fisher (trombone), and Amari Ansari (saxophone), pushing the envelope even further. The ominous narrator in “Bermejo And The Devil” sets the scene for a dreamy trip into the jagged edges of ancient paintings, intergalactic storms and long lost stories – with quieter standouts like “Popcorn Ceiling” grounding the record in themes much more earthbound – like the feeling of isolation Paul felt after traveling the world from stage to stage and lonely hotel room to hotel room, wringing himself out each night before tireless audiences.

Basic Folk – Maya De Vitry

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Maya De Vitry released her third solo record, Violet Light, earlier this year and I, for one, am happy that my fiancée has a new Maya record to play endlessly in our house. Lol jk. I love Maya and this album is perfect. Maya’s originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she lived and met the members of her old band The Stray Birds. Since the dissolution of the Birds, she’s been incredibly prolific with all these solo albums, co-writes and the like. If you’re not familiar, this record is a great intro to the genius of one of the greatest musicians on the scene today. The vibes I’m getting on this record are John Prine, Patty Griffin and, of course, Gillian Welch & Dave Rawlings. We. Are. Digging. IN!

 

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3
 

I’m so happy Maya was up for going through this beauty of a record track by track! It’s a brilliant collection that subtly knocks you to the ground over the course of its eleven songs. Produced at home with her partner, the much in-demand bassist and producer Ethan Jodziewicz (The Milk Carton Kids, Sierra Hull, Aoife O’Donovan, Darol Anger, Tony Trischka), Violet Light actually contains a ton of collaborations from Maya’s extensive musical community. This includes her own family; her siblings all collaborated for the very first time on tape for the song “Real Time, Real Tears,” about losing a favorite uncle. Yeah, you try not to cry during that one. Anyhoo. It feels like a gift to be able to turn these songs over and over, contemplate their meaning, their creation and then be able to talk directly to the brains behind it all. I implore you to check out this whole episode and then go buy Maya’s new album, preferably on Bandcamp. Support an independent artist whose music is meaningful and worth getting paid for. She’s a once in a lifetime artist.

Photo Credit: Laura Partain

Carolina Calling, Greensboro: the Crossroads of Carolina

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Known as the Gate City, Greensboro, North Carolina is a transitional town: hub of the Piedmont between the mountain high country to the west and coastal Sandhill Plains to the east, and a city defined by the people who have come, gone, and passed through over the years. As a crossroads location, it has long been a way station for many endeavors, including touring musicians – from the likes of the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix at the Greensboro Coliseum, the state’s largest indoor arena, to James Brown and Otis Redding at clubs like the El Rocco on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Throw in the country and string band influences from the textile mill towns in the area, and the regional style of the Piedmont blues, and you’ve got yourself quite the musical melting pot.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • YOUTUBE • MP3
 

This historical mixture was not lost on one of Greensboro’s own, Rhiannon Giddens – one of modern day Americana’s ultimate crossover artists. A child of black and white parents, she grew up in the area hearing folk and country music, participating in music programs in local public schools, and eventually going on to study opera at Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. Once she returned to North Carolina and came under the study of fiddler Joe Thompson and the Black string band tradition, she began playing folk music and forged an artistic identity steeped in classical as well as vernacular music. In this episode of Carolina Calling, we spoke with Giddens about her background in Greensboro and how growing up mixed and immersed in various cultures, in a city so informed by its history of segregation and status as a key civil rights battleground, informed her artistic interests and endeavors, musical styles, and her mission in the music industry.

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Durham, Wilmington, Shelby, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Rhiannon Giddens – “Black is the Color”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Cornbread and Butterbeans”
The Rolling Stones – “Rocks Off”
Count Basie and His Orchestra – “Honeysuckle Rose”
Roy Harvey – “Blue Eyes”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Step It Up and Go”
Rhiannon Giddens, Francesco Turrisi – “Avalon”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig)”
Barbara Lewis -“Hello Stranger”
The O’Kaysions – “Girl Watcher”
Joe and Odell Thompson – “Donna Got a Rambling Mind”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Country Girl”
Carolina Chocolate Drops – “Hit ‘Em Up Style”
Our Native Daughters – “Moon Meets the Sun”
Rhiannon Giddens, Francesco Turrisi – “Si Dolce é’l Tormento”

BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

Enter to win a prize bundle featuring a signed copy of author and Carolina Calling host David Menconi’s ‘Step It Up and Go: The Story of North Carolina Music,’ BGS Merch, and surprises from our friends at Come Hear North Carolina.

Carolina Calling, Shelby: Local Legends Breathe New Life Into Small Town

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • YOUTUBE • MP3
 

In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed”
Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme)
Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag”
Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak”
Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ”
Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time”
Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel”
Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams”
Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me”
The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy”
Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart”
Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love”
Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen”
Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel”
The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released”
The Band – “I Shall Be Released”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run”
Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues”
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)”
Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”

BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.

The Show on the Road – AHI

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

To finish out the season, we bring you a talk from Toronto with rising roots singer-songwriter and folk philosopher AHI (pronounced “eye”), who celebrated the release of his acclaimed third full-length album Prospect in November.

Powered by RedCircle

 

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
 

Born in Brampton, Ontario, to Jamaican and Trinidadian immigrant parents, AHI (short for Ahkinoah Habah Izarh) didn’t initially plan to pursue music — and scared his large family of teachers and educators by jumping ship from college and traveling wildly instead with just his guitar by his side. Stints seeing the remote villages in Ethiopia and Trinidad as well as backpacking all across his native Canada filled his songwriting inkwell to bursting. He also began building his family (he has four children who often appear in playful videos), and he isn’t shy about saying his wife is his muse and number one supporter. His forceful We Made It Through The Fire came in 2017, with the catchy and tender tune “Ole’ Sweet Day” being streamed nearly 20 million times since.

Becoming a traveler again, this time as a storyteller sharing his ever-growing catalogue (the hooky and politically-charged In Our Time came in 2018) forced AHI to be away from his family for months at a time — and as the pandemic arrived, his priorities began to shift. Prospect is his most heartfelt and introspective work yet, diving into where he stands as a Black man raising Black boys in a dangerous but increasingly hopeful world. Using booming gospel backing vocals and sweeping church-like reverb behind his warm acoustic guitar and silky voice, a standout like “Coldest Fire” feels like a post-George Floyd reckoning piece as well as a pure poetic pop jam.

Stick around to the end of the talk to hear AHI discuss how he would make vegan nachos for Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Dave Chapelle — and he ends the show with an acoustic rendition of the sexy “Until You.”

Photo courtesy of Shore Fire

The Show on the Road – Brandy Clark

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we bring you a conversation with one of Nashville’s supreme songwriters: Brandy Clark.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
 

Born in a logging town in Washington state, Clark started playing guitar at age 9 before setting it aside and getting a scholarship for basketball. Music kept tugging her back in though. Like a modern Patsy Cline, she has a knack for nailing a heartbreaker. Reba recorded two of her songs in (“Cry,” “The Day She Got Divorced”) and Brandy soon found a valuable mentor in Marty Stuart, who helped her make her Opry debut in 2012.

While you may just be learning about Clark’s stellar solo work, which mixes old school and witty new school country with some of the tightest pop hooks in the game, Clark has been co-writing for some of country and rock’s leading ladies for years, like Miranda Lambert, Kacey Musgraves, LeAnn Rimes and Sheryl Crow to name a few. But it was with her lyrically masterful, lushly-orchestrated 2020 LP Your Life Is A Record that doors started opening in a whole new way. 2021 saw an extended deluxe version drop.

In this unearthed conversation (blame a faulty hard-drive), we go through her darkest breakup songs, hear about her tastiest kiss-offs and discuss her unique perspective of Nashville’s Music Row Boys’ Club.

Don’t miss the end of the taping when Brandy discusses teaming up with her songwriting hero Randy Newman on the cheeky tune “Bigger Boat” and she plays an exclusive acoustic performance.

This episode of The Show On The Road is brought to you by WYLD Gallery: an Austin, Texas-based art gallery that exclusively features works by Native American artists. Find unique gifts for your loved ones this holiday season and support Indigenous artists at the same time. Pieces at all price points are available at wyld.gallery.

The Show On The Road – Hayes Carll

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we get on the horn with renowned Texas-born singer and deeply observational songwriter Hayes Carll, who is celebrating the release of his seventh LP, the atmospheric country-tinted You Get It All.

Powered by RedCircle

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
 

While some may just be discovering Hayes’ lived-in songs which are often spun with dark humor (he admits John Prine and Jimmy Buffett were early inspirations), next year marks the twentieth anniversary of his first album Flowers and Liquor, which he wrote while still in college in Arkansas. His acclaimed follow-up Little Rock (2005) remains one of the only self-released albums to make to #1 on the Americana chart.

Hard-charging years on the road and humble years before, getting by working long nights at Chili’s, Red Lobster and more, made Hayes truly appreciate when his star in the roots circuit began rising. His tongue-and-cheek country kiss off “She Left Me For Jesus” off his breakout major label debut Trouble In Mind (2008) might have shocked mainstream radio programmers, but it brought in a whole new wave of fans who have been diligently following him across the world ever since. KMAG YOYO & Other American Stories came in 2011 and pulled even fewer punches – showing his knack for a devastating hook. “KMAG YOYO” is army-speak for “Kiss my ass, guys, you’re on your own.”

Some artists may bring their wives into the studio as a cute cameo now and again, but Carll is lucky enough to have artist and sought-after producer Allison Moorer on the home team. Together with Kenny Greenberg, she helped bring out a softer, deeper side of Carll on the newest You Get It All – with the standout heartbreaker “Help Me Remember” centering on his experience watching his grandfather in Texas drift away with dementia.

Maybe the most fun on the new record comes from the rollicking opener “Nice Things” – which reveals why Carll may not be getting on right-leaning pop-country radio anytime soon, while still winning legions of listeners anyway: it’s a countrified conversation between God and her screwed up human subjects on earth … and God is a frustrated (and rightly so) lady.

Photo credit: David McClister