MIXTAPE: Mick Flannery on Melody and Meaning

Most songs stay in one musical scale or “key.” In this key there are 6 chords which are widely used. The 1 chord is the root chord, usually used to end the song and give a definite feeling.

Chords 2 and 3 are sad sounding minor chords in most cases. Chord 4 and 5 often give a feel of expectation to the ear, willing the melody back to the root (1) chord. The 6 chord is a relative minor to the root, often sad sounding.

In my opinion, some of the most successful moments of empathy occur when the feel of the chords and melody marry in harmony with the meaning of the lyrics. The lyrics themselves can also provide a musical feeling, the choice of vowels can marry to emotions, the consonants selected can give a nod to drum-like rhythm. I will try to give some examples here. – Mick Flannery

Bob Dylan – “Changing of the Guards”

Dylan uses a mixture of metaphors for social struggle and revolution in this epic song. The frequent use of the root chord and its relative minor at the end of phrases helps to add weight to the lines. This gives the song a definite feel, as he is ending on these strong chords as opposed to chords 4 or 5, which suggest a question unanswered.

Bob Dylan – “Baby, Stop Crying”

An example of melody marrying to feeling. The line, “Please stop crying,” is expressed with a longing in the melody concurrent with the meaning of the words. Also, “You know, I know, the sun will always shine” has a comforting feel in the melody with the word “shine” being on the root chord, helping it to sound definite and consoling.

Adele – “Someone Like You”

The top of the chorus in this song works very well between meaning and melody. The word “nevermind” is dismissed in quick order, as it would be in common parlance, giving a natural, talkative feel. The internal rhyme of “mind” and “find” gives a rhythmical feel to the line as a whole, allowing the listener to imagine a snare sound on the “I” vowels. The use of this internal rhyme makes the song universally easy on the ear, even to non-English speakers.

Lana Del Rey – “Video Games”

“It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you, everything I do…” This whole line is placed on a 5 chord, which gives a feeling of something needing to be resolved, so the listener doesn’t know if the narrator is placing her trust in the right place.

“I tell you all the time” lands on a 4 chord – again, an expectant feel – making the listener wait for the line, “Heaven is a place on earth with you” landing on the 1 chord. This gives a definite note to the feeling, but narratively the listener is still left unsure if the feeling is requited, owing to the amount of time spent on uncertain footing in the melody.

Arctic Monkeys – “Fluorescent Adolescent”

The quick, rap-like nature of the verses are aided by the use of short vowels (“I” “E”) and short-sounding consonants like “T” and “K.” The line, “Flicking through your little book of sex tips,” almost sounds like a rhythm played on a high-hat, because of the choice of words.

Tom Waits – “Martha”

The chorus here leans on long vowels to intone nostalgia, “Those were days of roses, poetry and prose and… no tomorrow’s packed away our sorrows and we saved them for a rainy day.” The choice of words echoes a longing and almost sounds like a groan of regretful realization, as per the theme of the song.

Blaze Foley – “Clay Pigeons” 

In this soft and low intoned song, Foley utilizes “T” and “K” with short vowels to inject a spot of rhythm in the line, “Gonna get a ticket to ride.” The line, “Start talking again when I know what to say,” lands on a 4 chord which has an unresolved feel, marrying well to the meaning of the line, wherein we hear that the narrator has not yet reached a certain point.

Anna Tivel – “Riverside Hotel”

“Someday I’m gonna laugh about it, looking down from heaven’s golden plain,” moves from the 4 to the 1 and then 4 to 5. “Someday” marries nicely with the unresolved feel of the 4 chord. Ending on the 5 leaves the listener waiting for a resolve, which comes on the root chord in the line: “But for now I’ve found some piece down by the water, just to watch a building rise up in the rain.” This line uses a root chord on “for now” which gives a reassuring, steady feel concurrent with the sentiment.

Anna Tivel – “The Question”

The title of this song in itself sets the listener up for an unresolved feeling. The use of long “A” sounds (razor, saved, saving, hallelujah waiting, raise, etc.) leading up to the line, “A prayer that never mentioned,” works very well, as it sounds like an expectant chant. On the last words, “The glory of the question and the answer and the same,” the word “glory” lands strongly on the sad sounding relative minor chord, while the line ends on an expectant 5 chord. This gives a juxtaposition, the narrator has seemingly answered a question, but also left it open to further thought because of the use of this uncertain chord underneath.

Eminem – “Lose Yourself”

This song is a masterclass in internal rhyme. The lines of the verses are so phonetically intertwined that they begin to sound like the components of a drum kit. This is easy for the human ear to digest even in an unknown language. The fact that the lines make perfect sense narratively is the “icing” achievement.

Tom Waits – “Hold On”

Long vowels in the chorus marry to the meaning of patience and perseverance. In meditation, long vowels are used in calming chants, which is echoed here in the repetition of  “Hold on.” This feel is broken up slightly by the words “take my hand” where Waits accentuates the “T” and “K” to give a burst of drum-like rhythm.


Photo Credit: Susie Conroy

Texas Songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson Believes Indigenous Music Is Folk Music

The self-titled country album by East Texan singer-songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson (Choctaw-Apache) oozes of the iconic “Wild West” with honky-tonk sensibilities and bluegrass touches that combine so many favorite textures and styles of country and Americana’s primordial ooze. His personality and identity are forward in every aspect of the project, from the lyrics to the production to the genre fluidity of each individual track – all of which marvelously combine into a cohesive whole.

In Emerson’s exclusive Shout & Shine live session (watch below), he performs two tracks from the album, “High on Gettin’ By” and “The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache,” a song that dutifully tells the story of his grandmother’s community which was impacted by the creation of a man-made lake, the Toledo Bend Reservoir. The flooding of Toledo Bend had a disproportionate impact on impoverished, rural, and marginalized communities – including many Indigenous people – on the Texas-Louisiana border. 

On first listen, “The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache” feels like many classic country songs telling of injustice and standing in opposition to empire and “the man,” but Emerson’s personal connection to the tale is the entrancing spotlight under which this song shines. As you enjoy Emerson’s performance, take in our interview, when we connected via phone to discuss the album, Emerson’s creative process, and the overarching fact that, as he puts it, “Indigenous music is folk music. Indigenous stories are part of American folklore.”

BGS: I loved listening to the album and something that’s striking to me is that it feels so country, but also combines a lot of different genre aesthetics from different subsets of country in a unique way. I hear bluegrass in it, I hear string band music in it as well as western swing and classic country. How do you approach production and deciding which songs sound like what? There are a lot of different flavors here, but they still sound cohesive as well.

Emerson: With this one I got really lucky having Rodney Crowell producing the album. I think a lot of his ideas were what I was hearing in my head anyways. It matched up very well. As far as instrumentation, song by song we sat down and said, “Here’s what I think the song needs.” We were trying to fit the instrumentation around the song and around the story of the song. As opposed to doing it the other way around. If it sounded bluegrassy, that’s because it probably needed it, I guess! 

To me it sounds like that golden age of country before it was divided into sub-genres and all country was just country. 

I appreciate that! 

What was it like working with Rodney? What was the balancing act like as far as his fingerprints being on the music and yours? 

Nothing was forced, it was kind of like, “We got this song and this is what we’re going to do.” And, “Yeah, that sounds good!” [Chuckles] I wouldn’t say he was very hands-off, he knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t really question any move that he made. It was kind of surreal getting to work with him. 

A bystander, or a casual listener, when they hear “Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache” might just hear a country & western song, but I know for you it’s not just a classic, archetypical country song tale, it’s much more personal. It tells the iconic story of this country and this continent of the theft of land, culture, and ways of being from natives. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that song and how it’s more than just you writing a “rootsy” song.

I started writing that song after I sat down and talked with my grandmother about her upbringing, what she went through, and how the whole Toledo Bend Reservoir [creation in Texas and Louisiana and the displacement of natives and entire communities] affected her family. As I’ve been learning more about my tribe I felt that it was necessary to write something about that. I haven’t heard any songs written about it – in fact, not a lot of people talk about it. I thought it was needed. 

Sometimes music like yours can get pigeonholed as “time capsule music” or throwback music. Something I love about this collection of songs is that, even though it’s classic and timeless, it doesn’t feel dusty or antiquated or divorced from the present. Can you talk a bit about that? Your music is down to earth, too, but it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to make music that’s retro. 

There are a lot of bands out there that sort of play dress-up. There’s nothing wrong with that! I respect that and I’ve done it, too, but they’re trying really hard to be a certain era. I love all that music from the old school — I love Bob Wills — it’s just a personal choice. I don’t feel the need to “dress up” or try really hard to make the music sound like it was from back then. I’m so heavily influenced by the people around me and what’s going on around me constantly. 

One guy who really had a good mix of that, too, was Justin Townes Earle. He had the old-time thing going on, then he could bust out “Rogers Park,” a piano ballad, and move in and out of [many different styles]. A personal style of songwriting should be a melting pot, it should be all eras – past and present. 

Music is so subjective, I’m a firm believer in the idea that however you hear it is what it is. Whether that’s a positive thing or a negative thing to someone, I think it’s their right. I can’t tell anybody they’re wrong for forming their own opinion about my music – or anybody’s music. 

It sounds like the process of letting a song have a life of its own is a big part of the process for you and that you understand an audience is always going to project onto or perceive meaning maybe where you didn’t yourself. 

I don’t like to bounce my stuff off of people that much, because I’m going to write what I’m going to write. I don’t want to let people influence me too much in that way. But it is a really good feeling whenever you write something and you get a positive reaction or positive feedback. I think I’m more focused on the songwriting. As long as I’m being one hundred percent honest with myself in the song then I feel like it’s a tool for me to express myself completely. I feel that’s good enough. 

A point that I always try to make about country, Americana – especially “country & western” specifically – Texas swing, and western swing traditions is that none of these genres would exist without the contributions of Indigenous folks. Especially when you think about Indigenous folks living in the occupied “Wild West” before any other folks did. And there were Black and brown folks who were cowboys before white folks ever were. I feel like that’s always missed, forest-for-the-trees style, by the roots music establishment these days. Country wouldn’t exist without Indigenous folks. Do you have thoughts on that? Have you thought about how your music draws on that legacy? 

That’s something I’m still trying to understand myself and really learn about. I think you definitely have a great point there. If you think about it, the settlers came over and they didn’t know how to work the land, they didn’t know how to hunt over here. Natives taught them all that and the settlers took that information and they thrived with it. Our society would not exist in the U.S. if it weren’t for the people who were here before. And it applies to the music as well, yeah.

The album feels so western. Like rhinestones and cactuses and false-fronted buildings. It feels so “authentic,” but it’s not just about the nationalism of settling the Wild West and it’s not about these white supremacist myths about cowboys and western culture. Could you talk a bit about that aesthetic? How Texas and the West and something like cowboy poetry and storytelling come through your songwriting? 

I never really set out to try to write about these things, it’s just the things I’ve been surrounded by. I worked on a ranch for a little while. “High on the Mountain,” that song came to me while I was literally on the top of a mountain – well, it was more of a hill – while I was in Palo Duro Canyon. Growing up in Texas, seeing all that stuff, it kinda [left an impression]. A lot of it, as far as stylistically, comes from listening to people like Bob Wills and Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley. Anyone that I’ve been influenced by, their influence creeps into it. It’s definitely not just a brand, it’s more my life. [Laughs] I never really thought about it, actually! 

I grew up between a horse ranch and a cow pasture in East Texas. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. When you get into cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, these bigger cities, there’s a lot more to the area I’m from than just little podunk country towns. I learned that when I was 19. I moved over here [to the Fort Worth area] and was like, “Holy shit!” There was a lot going on. There’s a lot of rich, cultural, musical history. I’d like to dive more into that on the next record. I want to try to put some Tejano music in the blender. Maybe some polka and western swing. See what happens! If you go down around the Hill Country there’s a lot of German music, German immigrants, there are entire communities that still speak German over there. 

Maybe this is a good way to wrap up our conversation: Who’s inspiring you right now? Who are you listening to? 

As far as Indigenous artists go, I think folks really need to listen to Leo Rondeau. He is one of the baddest motherfuckers out there doing it right now. Really, really great music. In the realm of music I play, there’s not a whole lot of Indigenous people doing it. Of course, I think there are a lot of people with Indigenous heritage, but as far as being able to immediately trace your roots back like my grandmother who is Choctaw-Apache from Ebarb, Louisiana, there’s not a lot of that. It’s kind of a shame. And I’m not the end-all be-all on the subject! I’m not the most up to date on things. I’m sure there are a lot more, I’d love to learn more and hear more. It’s a good thing to bring up and a good question to ask, because it’s something people should be thinking about. 


Photo credit: Melissa Payne

BGS 5+5: Jason Eady

Artist Name: Jason Eady
Hometown: Stephenville, Texas
Latest album: To the Passage of Time

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Merle Haggard. No question about it. I have learned from him in every way. His effortless style of singing, the simplicity in his writing style, the way he covered different genres, the way he managed his career, all of it. Everything I do is in some way influenced by Merle Haggard, whether I’m aware of it or not. I think he was the best all-around country artist who has ever lived.

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

I’m very into photography lately. I got into it about four years ago as a way to have a hobby on the road and it really took. I didn’t realize when I started that it would affect my music the way it has. It has changed the way that I see the world, specifically in looking for more details. After a while with photography, like songwriting, you realize that you’ve exhausted everything that you can see on the surface and you have to start looking deeper for details. Seeing those details through photography has definitely expanded my imagery in my songwriting.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Quiet. That’s the most important pre-performing ritual. I need time to focus and center. If I go straight from noise and commotion to the stage, it can take a while for me to relax into what I’m doing. I always try to set aside the 30 minutes prior to performing to just be quiet and get centered and ready.

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

When I’m on the road I try to make an effort to stop every day and just walk, preferably in nature. This job can be very chaotic at times, and intentionally stopping to walk and look around is a great exercise. If I can walk somewhere quiet then that’s even better. I’m very aware when I come across places where there is no noise. It’s crazy that when you start looking for that you realize how hard it is to find. Just complete silence. But when I find it I try to stop and appreciate it, and what a rare moment it is.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Almost always. Every character I write has some version of me in them. It’s not always 100 percent true, and usually isn’t, but there’s always some truth about me in there somewhere. I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to write a character that is completely separate from me.


Photo credit: Brandon Aguilar

BGS 5+5: Cut Worms

Artist: Cut Worms (Max Clarke)
Hometown: Cleveland, Ohio
Latest Album: Nobody Lives Here Anymore

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

It’s a perhaps predictable or trite answer, but if I had to choose a single entity, I guess I’d say The Beatles or Dylan — either one, respectfully. They both just covered so much ground and have such a wide breadth of material and cultural scope that it’s hard for me to really see or hear anything — contemporary or otherwise in the time since they’ve existed — that doesn’t have some part of their influence in it. Usually whether the artist knows it or not, there’s some influence there. Even people that hate them.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I don’t know that I have a single favorite memory. When a show is going well, it’s great and it doesn’t get much better. It’s a place you can reach at different points in time where you’re kind of just floating there and this thing is happening. It’s really more about being in that moment. It doesn’t quite stick around in a memory.

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

I would say film, TV, and books. Those are the main mediums through which I experience good stories. To me it’s all about the stories and narrative styles and touching on some kind of feeling. What someone (who I can’t recall at the moment) referred to in poetry as being “the words behind words.”

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

I don’t know that there was ever a single moment, but at some point I realized music was able to transport me in a way that other things could not. It seemed like a worthwhile endeavor to try to figure out how to do that. I am still trying.

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

All of them. It’s hard work I tell you.


Photo credit: Caroline Gohlke

BGS 5+5: Arlo McKinley

Artist: Arlo McKinley
Hometown: Norwood, Ohio
Latest Album: Die Midwestern (Oh Boy Records)
Rejected Band Names: Hatchet Wounds, Black Locust Inn, Thousand Dollar Car

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

With so many influences I could name, I always go back to Blaze Foley. His ability to put so much feeling and emotion into a simple song without ever taking himself so seriously. He always influenced me in my writing, and has been a reminder to always be myself.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I would have to say that performing and knowing that one of my heroes, John Prine, had taken the time out of his day in the middle of the week to come see me play would probably top the list. He came to watch the band play at the High Watt in Nashville. That was a night I’ll never forget.

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

I read a lot when not listening to or writing music. Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Greil Marcus, Ted Chiang and many others. Ted Chiang writes very smart, socially-conscious science fiction that really stands out to me. I highly recommend checking him out if you haven’t already.

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

That would have to be growing up in the Baptist church. Seeing that music could be so much more to people than just a sound and evoke real emotions in people appealed to me in a way that is hard to put into words. Along with that I grew up constantly surrounded by so many kinds of music that my family would be listening to. Country, punk, bluegrass, folk, metal, hip-hop, etc. It’s the only thing that I ever thought that I should be doing so I’d say the simple answer is, from the moment I discovered music I knew that’s what I wanted to do with my life.

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

It would be to keep pushing myself to grow as a musician, always pushing myself to never create the same album twice. It would be to also keep creating music that people can correlate to their own lives in one way or another.


Photo credit: David McClister

Ten Years After ‘Crazy Heart,’ Ryan Bingham Comes Around to “The Weary Kind”

When Ryan Bingham accepted an Academy Award in 2010, he looked like he was on top of the world. Amanda Seyfried and Miley Cyrus announced that his song “The Weary Kind,” from the film Crazy Heart, had beaten two compositions by Randy Newman, and he took the stage with producer/co-writer T Bone Burnett, thanking his wife (“I love you more than rainbows, baby”) before showing gratitude to the cast and crew. It was a modest and heartfelt speech, not to mention a rare moment when roots music is given a prominent platform and one of the most prestigious awards in any art form.

A decade later, however, Bingham admits he was in a dark place, unable to enjoy the honor or the opportunities that came with it. “It was pretty tough when that film came out,” says the New Mexico-born/Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter. “A lot of people didn’t know that my mother had passed away just before it came out, and my father passed away soon after. People kept asking me to play that song all the time, and they kept saying, ‘Aren’t you happy about winning an Oscar? You must be having the best time of your life.’ But it was actually one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. I didn’t know how to talk about it, and I was depressed.”

A downcast tune that captures his mood at the time, “The Weary Kind” is one of those songs that doesn’t sound like it was written; rather, it sounds like it’s been haunting dive bar jukeboxes for decades, even if it dispels any romance that might cling to such locations. “This ain’t no place for the weary kind,” Bingham sings, his voice tender as a bruise. “This ain’t no place to fall behind.”

There’s a danger to this place he’s describing, which might be one of the cramped bars depicted in Crazy Heart or might be something more figurative, like down in the dumps, but the song isn’t exactly grim. Bingham manages to locate a small, precious kernel of hope: “Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try.”

When asked by the press about the inspiration for the tune, he didn’t talk about his parents or their hard lives. “I would just tell them it was the film and the character,” Bingham says, referring to the main character, a washed-up outlaw country singer named Bad Blake. Played by Jeff Bridges (who won the Best Actor Oscar), Bad drives his trusty Suburban to shows around the Southwest, playing to a handful of aging fans while trading off the notoriety of a few dusty hits from decades ago. A barely functioning alcoholic, he bristles against all opportunities to crawl out of his rut, convincing himself that his knockabout life is somehow noble. In the novel he meets a tragic end, but in Cooper’s film Bad finds a possibility of salvation.

“The Weary Kind” is a remarkable piece of songwriterly ventriloquism, not only showing the obstacles Bad faces but how he feels about them. Cooper devotes several scenes to showing Bad writing those lines, picking out the melody on his guitar, searching diligently for the perfect rhyme. Rarely do movies give so much time and attention to the mundanities of the creative process, but the act of writing that song in the film is a transformative endeavor, a means of confronting his demons and embracing a future that has scared him for so long.

Bingham, however, could find no such solace in the tune. “I was trying to find my place in the world, and I’ve always struggled with my identity — where I was from and what I wanted my music to do. I hadn’t figured that out yet, and I was afraid of getting pigeonholed. I was young and rebelling against notoriety and fame and all that. It was all too heavy for me to bring up without breaking down. People just didn’t know, and that wasn’t their fault. How could they have known?”

Crazy Heart was a modest hit at the box office and a major hit during awards season, but it has proved surprisingly durable and influential over the last decade, too. It provided the template for Bradley Cooper’s remake of A Star Is Born last year, in which the actor-director played a much younger, somehow more grizzled version of Bad Blake. It also put outlaw country in front of a mainstream filmgoing audience, creating a space for such similar fare as Ethan Hawke’s Blaze (about the singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, who was partly an inspiration for Bad Blake).

Since winning an Oscar, Bingham has released four albums, including this year’s roadhouse-ready American Love Song. And he has continued acting, with a role in Cooper’s 2017 western Hostiles and a recurring part on the Paramount Network series Yellowstone, starring Kevin Costner and Wes Bentley. As Crazy Heart’s influence has grown, Bingham’s relationship with its theme song has softened, and he’s learned to embrace “The Weary Kind” and to appreciate its impact on his fans.

“I’ve grown up and grown more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve dealt with family stuff, so it’s been easier to get back into playing that song for people,” he says. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the film, Bingham spoke with BGS about his impromptu audition, the film’s original downer ending, and growing up in the pool halls and dive bars of New Mexico.

BGS: When you think back on that time, what stands out to you most?

RB: The thing that always stands out to me is the script. I hadn’t written any songs for TV or film before. In fact, the songs that I’d been writing tended to be very personal — about things I’d gone through in my own life. But reading this script and looking at this other character allowed me to get out of my own skin and put myself in the shoes of someone else. I got to live vicariously through them and tell their story through the songs, and at the same time I was able to relate some of my own experiences as well.

And you’re not just writing for a character, but you’re writing for a character as he goes through this ordeal and tries to get his life together.

When I first read the script, the ending was different. They found him dead in a ditch outside some bar. It was really gloomy, so when I was writing that song, I was thinking about this poor son of a bitch dying by the side of the road somewhere. Then they changed the ending later on. I think the original ending was in the novel that Thomas Cobb had written, but I’m glad they changed it.

What kind of direction did you get from Scott Cooper or music supervisor T Bone Burnett?

None at all. I had met Scott just one time. He contacted me and said he was looking for some songs, so I met him for lunch and he told me about the project. I hit the road right after that, and he told me to read the script and let him know if I was inspired to write anything.

When I got home a few months later, I recorded this tune I’d been working on, and I called him up to ask where I should send it. I was just looking for an address, but he said he happened to be in L.A. visiting T Bone Burnett and asked if I could just bring it by.

So I drove over there to drop it off, and T Bone answers the door, all seven feet of him, and says, “Why don’t you come in and play it for us?” It was him and Scott and Jeff Bridges and Stephen Bruton and some other people. So I play him a little bit of the recording, and T Bone says, “That’s cool but can you play it for us yourself?” He gave me a guitar and sat me down on the couch, and I’m like, “Aw fuck, here we go!”

That sounds like a trial by fire.

It was. I wasn’t even sure I could remember it! But they liked it and unanimously decided to use it. I ended up hanging around with them and working on more songs for the film. I think from that point on I was over at T Bone’s house every day writing with those guys.

Did you have people in mind while you were writing? I see Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley in the character of Bad Blake.

I had a ton of people in mind. Where I’m from out in Hobbs, New Mexico, right on the Texas border, there are a lot of those characters out there, and one of them in particular was my father. He was very much a character like Townes or Bad, so I wrote the song thinking about my father and his situation.

When I was growing up, he would drag me into these old pool halls and bars. I was barely old enough to see over the bars, but he and his friends would give me quarters for the jukebox or the pool table. They’d all get drunk during happy hour and then I’d drive them all home. I grew up in those rough roadhouse places, and then when I got into writing songs, I discovered all these songwriters from that area, like Townes and Guy Clark and Joe Ely and Terry Allen and Billy Joe Shaver.

Those guys took me under their wing in a big way. I don’t know how many times I’d go see them play a show and they’d invite me up to play a song and introduce me to their audience. They really helped me out a lot and encouraged me to play. I was this young kid from a little town in the middle of nowhere, and I had no direction or any kind of formal lessons. I didn’t have anybody to teach me anything, so those guys were really important to me.

Was your father a musician?

He wasn’t. He was just a straight-up ol’ boozer who worked in the oilfields. My dad and uncles were all cowboys and roughnecks. When I was a kid, I used to go to these junior rodeos. My dad would haul me around on weekends, and it was always long drives on desolate roads. There was always the piss jug in the van. That translated into my own music later on when I started playing in a band and spending a lot of time on the highway. It was a lifestyle I had lived as a kid. So I could relate to that aspect of Bad Blake when I read the script.

Is that why you were cast as his backing band in those early scenes? How did that happen?

I had a show in Los Angeles at the Troubadour, and Scott came out to see me and my band the Dead Horses play. He said, “You guys gotta be in this thing!” He wanted to cast us as the backing band in the bowling alley. We were really just a bar band playing around in these roadhouses and honky-tonks in Texas, but we had just started coming up to the West Coast to play. We would play at bowling alleys, bars, backyard parties — anywhere anyone would let us play.

Did you ever work as somebody else’s pickup band?

I’d never done that before. I didn’t get into playing music until later on, and for the longest time it was just me and a guitar. Once I started getting gigs in these bars, they wanted you to have a band, so the whole experience of playing in a band was still new to me. I’d never been a side player for anybody or played in a backing band. That was new to me.

But some of my friends who were playing with me in the Dead Horses had been in backing bands, so they knew the deal. And I thought about those guys who’d mentored me when we did that scene where Bad Blake was giving advice to his band. He’s not passing down the torch, but those guys were always giving a little bit to the younger guys, showing them how you do it. There was a bit of that in those scenes.

It almost felt like he was trying to warn them away from that troubadour life.

You bet. I think about guys like Townes who lived a very hard, sad life, and that’s something I’ve always been cautious about. You don’t have to do it that way. You don’t have to be sad to write a good song. I’ve known a lot of songwriters who felt like they needed to live that lifestyle in order to create, and I grew up around that with my old man and my mother as well. That was something I knew I didn’t want to do, and I’ve always tried to get away from that stuff. There’s gotta be a better way or else you’re going to end up in a ditch somewhere.

Crazy Heart seems to suggest that that’s the easy way out. It’s easy to embrace that self-destructive side of it.

And that lifestyle too is so easy to slip into when you’re in a bar every night. You’ve always got people bringing you drinks and wanting to party with you. It’s hard to get away from it when it’s always around you.

Did writing for this character and this project change the way you write?

It didn’t really change the way that I approach songwriting, but it definitely exposed my music to so many people who might never have even heard it. It opened up a lot of doors for me to play in other places. We were this bar band from Austin, and a lot of those places we played early on… people went there to get drunk and dance and have a good time. They didn’t go to sit down and listen to a folk singer performing sad, quiet songs.

We were caught in between some of those things, with a lot of people coming out to our shows to hear that one song they knew from the film. But the rest of our set was full of loud rock ‘n’ roll and barn-burning honky-tonk songs. Our fanbase grew, but some people didn’t know what it was all about. So it was an interesting time, with fans getting to know what I was doing and me trying to figure out what they wanted. It was an interesting challenge because at the same time I just wanted to be myself and grab hold of whatever identity I had.

That has to be even tougher when you’re writing songs about your own personal experiences.

I had been around these older people who’d been playing for a long time, and they told me constantly that you have to have something to say in the song. You have to be truthful with people and be truthful about how you feel. So I’ve always felt an obligation to wear my heart on my sleeve when I’m writing songs. I need to be vulnerable, which is a way of carrying on that tradition.

“The Weary Kind” has started showing up in your sets recently. What has it been like to revisit the song?

I’ve been playing it a lot more these days. I’ve managed to deal with my family stuff, so it’s been easier to play that song for people. It’s still very emotional for me, but it’s different now. I think what brought it back for me was hearing stories from all these fans who have their own experiences and tell me how they relate to the song, how it’s helped them deal with certain things.

That was really inspiring, and now I sing it because I realize how much it means to people who come to the shows. I try to be respectful of that. If that song means something to them, then that’s a good thing for all of us — and a bit of a healing process for me as well. I can sing that song and not suppress all those emotions. I can get it all off my chest.

It makes for some heavy shows, especially when it’s just me and a guitar. I’ve played that song with four or five people in the front row just bawling. I’ve come to realize that the more I can give them, the more they give back to me. And they understand when there’s a rough night and I can’t play song. They know why.


 

Discovery of Townes Van Zandt Continues With ‘Sky Blue’

“I have a big gun safe next to my desk….”

When a tale starts with those words, you know it’s going to be interesting. But it’s not what you might first think. This safe didn’t contain the weapon for a hunt. It held the prey.

Let’s let the speaker continue:

“…where I keep all the CDs people give me, but can’t listen to them all.”

That’s Jeanene Van Zandt, who was married to the late Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Inside that gun safe in her Nashville home was also a disc containing “lost” recordings Townes made in a friend’s basement studio in the early 1970s. And on that disc were two songs for which she had been hunting around the world for years — as well as what may be the first recorded versions of Townes’ most famous song, the ballad “Pancho and Lefty,” and another favorite, “Rex’s Blues.”

Now 11 songs from that disc, including those four, have been put together for the album Sky Blue, the title coming from one of the previously unheard selections. On March 7, the set was released on his family’s TVZ Records via Fat Possum, on the 75th anniversary of Townes’ birth. And it comes at a time when a new generation — the fourth, by Jeanene’s calculations — is coming to discover Van Zandt’s music, even if some don’t know that he died in 1997 after years of issues with substances and mental health.

“I still get letters from people who have no idea he’s dead,” says Jeanene, who is also executor of Townes’ literary estate. “Things like, ‘We’re working on this tour and heard your music.’ I have to say, ‘Sorry to inform you that he died 22 years ago.’”

Since Townes died, Jeanene has spent a lot of time and effort tracking down recordings he’d made and never-released songs in his rather itinerant life. It’s been a dedicated effort of tracing rumors, following document trails, seeking out his friends and acquaintances, and/or just going with intuition, sometimes paying off, but often finding dead ends.

The current discovery was made by Will Van Zandt, her son with Townes, who took it upon himself to go through the stored material. One of them was a disc simply labeled “1973,” given to Jeanene a while back by Van Zandt’s longtime friend, Atlanta-based journalist Bill Hedgepeth, who had a little studio in the basement of his home where the singer would sometimes record things on which he was working.

“Will came and took some of the discs and had a box of them in his closet and kept telling me about some of the recordings and I said, ‘Bring ‘em!’” she says. “There have been certain missing songs I had looked for for years. Townes would say, ‘I know they’re out there! Find them!’ Over the years I’d stumble across lost songs here and there. And there are two on this one! Two songs I’d scoured the world for.”

“Sky Blue” and “All I Need,” the other missing song, are prime examples of the mix of sorrow and sharp character portrayals plied with starkly economic language that stand as Van Zandt’s artistic signatures. But there’s much more to be treasured on this set, including what may be the first recording he made of “Pancho and Lefty.” That song was made familiar to many when Emmylou Harris recorded it in 1977, and to many more in 1983 when a duet by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard took it to No. 1 on the country charts, cementing Van Zandt’s stature as a premiere folk songwriter of that era. Townes himself has a cameo in the pair’s video.

Among the others on the album are deeply caring versions of the folk song “Blue Ridge Mountain Blues” and the murder ballad “Hills of Roane County,” plus tributes to fellow songwriters Richard Dobson with “Forever For Always For Certain” and Tom Paxton with a gorgeous “The Last Thing on My Mind,” which is a perfect closer for the new collection.

That there have been so many songs and recordings to be tracked down is a reflection of Van Zandt’s scattered life. The actual dates of these recordings may have come over the course of several years in the early ’70s, a time when he was living variously in Texas, Colorado, and Tennessee, at least when he settled down at all from his wanderlust. He released six albums in that time and had some tentative success, but nothing solid.

Hedgepeth’s home studio, though, was a refuge for Van Zandt, where he felt free to try out songs.

“They were very good friends and he was a very nice man,” Jeanene says. “When Townes would play Hot ‘Lanta he would stay with Bill. Listening to the tapes I’d hear Townes saying, ‘I want this here or that on here.’ So he was working on some project of some sort. Don’t know if this was one sitting or different trips.”

There’s enough variation of sound from song to song that it’s reasonable to assume that it was not all done at one time, but what ties them together is a sense of freedom to express, to try out songs, to sing some things he loved and see how they worked.

“There were 27 tracks, some were repeats, one with a dog barking in the middle, another with the phone ringing,” Jeanene says. “Once we whittled them down we thought, ‘This sounds like a family of songs.’”

A little cleaning up was needed, but the raw unguardedness shines with Van Zandt’s masterful songwriting, guitar playing and singing, connecting the dots between his own spare style and the traditions he revered.

Townes’ own legacy is secure, with dozens of notable artists having recorded his songs and been inspired by his writing, prominently Steve Earle, who not only made a whole album of Van Zandt songs in 2009, but named his son Justin Townes Earle. Others are finding their way to Townes’ music with other new avenues of exposure. Recently Charlie Sexton played him in the movie Blaze, about mercurial singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, a close friend/running partner of Van Zandt and even more of a cult figure.

“[Sexton] was so nervous when they were filming that,” she says. “He knew I’d be there. I came up to him and said, ‘You did fabulous!’”

Townes also figures in the Foley episode of the animated Tales From the Tour Bus series from 2017, in which Jeanene appears sharing her reminiscences of some, uh, colorful exploits.

Katie Belle Van Zandt, daughter of Jeanene and Townes, has found many big fans among her contemporaries.

“I have quite a few friends of the same type of lifestyle that he was living at that age,” says Katie Belle, who is not a musician herself. “There are a lot of musicians around my age, in their 20s, hopping trains and traveling, busking on the road and such, making real folk music.”

A few weeks ago she had the opportunity to play the new release for her friends Benjamin Tod and Ashley Mae of the Lost Dog Street Band and another musician, Matt Heckler, who often travels with them.

“They were the first people I played this to,” she says. “They loved it. They thought it was beautiful. Ben said it reminded him of what songwriting’s about.”

For Katie Belle, the sorrow is what comes through most strongly, but also a sense of life in him that she largely missed, as she didn’t get much time with him.

“The very end of ‘Sky Blue,’ the first time I heard it, where he talks about how he longs to be the sun and longs to be the moon, made me tear up,” she says. “It’s beautiful. When my dad passed away I was really young, and when I get new music I hadn’t heard by him, it’s like wearing another piece of him.”

Jeanene Van Zandt is gratified, but not at all surprised, that her ongoing efforts to get her husband’s music to the world, both old releases and new discoveries, is having impact.

“I don’t think there’s going to be a human who can’t identify with these songs, whether 50 years from now or yesterday,” she says. “He was a master of the English language, studied people — in fact a little naughty doing it. He would push buttons and see what reactions he could get out of people and a lot of times they’d be jumping up and down and trying to kill each other and he would giggle and think it was funny as hell.”

And if some people hear him for the first time with this new release, that’s great too, she says.

“He’s not shrinking away,” she says. “I’m pretty sure there will be a fifth, sixth, seventh generation who will try to get ahold of him to go on tour with them.”

MIXTAPE: The Brother Brothers, Tunes to Get Us Down the Road

If you’ve looked at our tour schedule recently, you’ll notice that it’s jam-packed, and each place is hours from the next. One of us will be on driving duty and the other on the tunes/podcasts. This is a list of tunes that have found their way onto our speakers in times of natural serenity, boredom, inspiration, or just plain “Ooh, I want to listen to that song.” They consist of friends, heroes, and people we admire — if it were all of them it would go on for hours. Here is a quick list for now, and it may get longer by the day.

“Ditch” – Sam Baker

There are many modern songwriters that can spin a story that makes the listener feel like they’re living it, but Sam is really one of the coolest and relaxed. Every time I hear one of his songs I feel like I’m remembering a dream I’ve just awoken from.

“Dad’s Gonna Kill Me” – Richard Thompson

Needless to say that Richard is one of the most influential songwriters of all, and this is a song that has really hit me hard recently. Songs of fighting war are a common theme in songwriting, and this one is very effective.

“Katie Dear” – The Blue Sky Boys

When you do research to learn harmonies, you stop here.

“Down in a Willow Garden” – The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling

Boy is this just good and in the way like not much else.

“Willie O’ Winsbury” – Anne Briggs

I remember the first time I heard this version. I’d listened to many others before and then the clouds parted but the rain kept pouring down and I was in heaven

“If You Ain’t Got Love” – The Revelers

What is there to say about the essence of country? This is where it lies for me. It is kind of the perfect song.

“Tired of Your Tears” – Feufollet

After attending the Black Pot Festival in Lafayette, LA we heard this band. To describe a better time listening to music would be very few and far between. What a great dance band and group of musicians

“Diggin’ Holes” – Brent Cobb

There are very few times that you hear a song and decide it’s time to quit music because you could never be as clever or sincere or capture a feeling to its core as Brent does in this song. I hate how good this song is.

“Fool Me” – Buck Meek

Listening to Terry Allen and Michael Hurley is one thing, and our pal Buck does it so very well with this song. It’s so perfect.

“Jonathan” – Adrianne Lenker

There are times that I sit down to write a song and just can’t because this song haunts me. It is the stars I am shooting for.

“Take Me Back” – Sarah Jarosz

We had the wonderful opportunity to do a bunch of opening shows with Sarah and this is the song that has stuck with me all this time. I wake up with it sometimes and can’t seem to get enough of it.

“Cosmic Doo Doo” – Blaze Foley

What can I say, but how great is this song?

“Real Peach” – Henry Jamison

He doesn’t remember how, but Adam found out about Henry, and we listened to his album every day in the car for weeks. It’s so good.

“Ain’t That Bad” – Timmy the Teeth

This is just a hit and I love the sentiment. His voice and the vibe and the words, it just is the butter that makes you want another.

“Emmylou” – First Aid Kit

We heard three different bands cover this song before we checked out the original. Then we listened to it over and over again. It’s just one of those earworms that gets in both ears.

“The King’s Shilling” – Karan Casey

When you visit Scotland and the UK you just end up falling in love with it all, and this is one of my favorite songs I’ve heard that isn’t twenty minutes long.


Photo credit: Erika Kapin

LISTEN, Aaron Lee Tasjan, ‘Lucinda’s Room’

Artist: Aaron Lee Tasjan
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: “Lucinda’s Room"
Album: In the Blazes
Release Date: October 6
Label: First of 3 Records

In Their Words: "Two summers ago, I was hired to play a week-long gig in Portland, OR, at this place called the Crystal Hotel. Part of the deal is that they put you up in the hotel for the week, and each room is named after a different musician. I ended up in the Drunken Angel room, aka the Lucinda Williams room. While this song is not really about Lucinda herself, there are definite references to her throughout the lyrics.

I love that she wrote a song like 'Drunken Angel' about Blaze Foley. Blaze and Lucinda are two writers I've definitely studied and admired a bunch. I think there's a great lineage of artists paying tribute to their heroes in song — Bob Dylan's 'Song For Woody,' Don McLean's tribute to Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and JP Richardson that he did in 'American Pie.' I guess, in some ways, I was trying to do that on 'Lucinda's Room.' I just kept thinking about Blaze and his songs and the tragic but ultimately mythic way in which he passed, and how someone like Lucinda Williams could illuminate the sentiment of all these things in such a simple way.

It never really gets me down, but I admit I kind of feel lost in the shuffle, sometimes, as an artist. I know I'm a bit of an 'acquired taste,' as Ray Wylie Hubbard would say, and I identify with folks like Lucinda and Blaze who, to me, will always be remembered by everyone because — even though they never became Elvis or anything like that — they have these amazing bodies of work that clearly show they're masters of their thing. And I aspire to be that way because that's a far more comfortable and useful approach to life than worrying about whether I'm on some chart or sold a bunch of records. I just want to make a song that maybe somewhere along the way will be remembered — not because it was a big hit, but because it said something true that made somebody happy, and maybe helped make me a better person in the process of its creation." — Aaron Lee Tasjan


Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba