Artist:Meredith Moon Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Latest Album:From Here to the Sea (released September 12, 2025)
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
I’m a bit of a deep-dive Dylan archivist. I’m one of those people who knows every bootleg series and can never get enough of the intricacies and nuances surrounding the various versions of his works. So while I know I’m not unique in this answer, I’d have to say Bob Dylan.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
I spend most of my time outside in an attempt to maintain my humanity, but I’m pretty sure I’ve spent the majority of my most meaningful/intentional time in nature up in the lake country of Ontario, canoeing in places like Algonquin Park, The Kawartha Highlands, Northwestern Ontario, etc. I’ve gone on quite a few trips that are generally about a week or two in duration; I did one solo trip (with my dog) in Southern Algonquin Park that lasted five nights and six days. When you’re out there, you know exactly why you’re there and everything you need just comes to you. If you know you know! My belief is that when we put ourselves in vulnerable positions we can access something way back in our DNA that sort of guides us on how to survive. So I like doing that every once in a while, just to remind myself that I’m still connected to that.
What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?
Getting sober, hands down. It took me months after quitting drinking to remember that I was still a musician and that I could still craft songs. I think part of that is the sort of “biopic culture” that follows you around as a musician. That we all have to be drunk cowboys in bars in order to have validity within the Americana scene.
However, as soon as I got sober and actually talked openly about it, it turned out that the majority of musicians I looked up to in the scene were actually sober, too, all along. It came back to me eventually, but there was definitely a period of reinvention before I could get anything out.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
I was real big on ’90s grunge as a teenager. Some may be surprised that there’s actually a pretty strong connection between that stuff and traditional American folk tunes – the structure, some of the changes, etc. When I was a kid, I would have songs by Hole next to songs by Odetta and Doc Watson on the same playlist. I just like songs that have a strong melody and focused lyrics. And if you look at the song that way, there isn’t much difference.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
My first love was painting and probably always will be. I’ve done photography professionally as well through the years, as well as other crafts. So I suppose if the music weren’t around, I’d just switch to the visual arts.
Adam Wright is a songwriter’s songwriter. An artist’s songwriter. A poet whose medium is best set to music. And not just any music, but the absolute highest echelons of bluegrass and country – radio, real, outlaw, Americana, and everything in between and beside. He writes daily from an office nestled between Music Square East and Music Square West in Nashville – the fabled Music Row.
His songs have been cut by stars like Alan Jackson, Lee Ann Womack, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Brandy Clark, and Robert Earl Keen. In bluegrass, bands like Balsam Range and Lonesome River Band have carried his originals high up the charts, and he’s co-written with many players in the genre, like Sierra Hull, for example. His songwriting and its distinct, intentional, and artistic voice has gained him award nominations from the GRAMMYs, the Americana Honors & Awards, and the IBMA Bluegrass Music Awards.
Since early February of this year, Wright has been leaving a trail of musical breadcrumbs online and on streaming platforms, teasing out his brand new album, Nature of Necessity, in four parts, which he calls “sides.” Along with singles peppering the release cycle throughout the following months, the prior three sides of the project finally convene with the fourth today, September 25, as a coalesced and cohesive project of 18 songs. The novel delivery mechanism for Nature of Necessity feels like an extension of the intentionality Wright brings to each of these literary, textural, and fantastic songs. They each stand alone, certainly, but together they sing.
These are not Music Row fodder, or craven attempts at radio hits, or tracks churned out day-in-and-day-out for volume and viral potential. These are passion projects. Ideas and stories that stuck in Wright’s creative craw and demanded much more deliberate treatments. It’s not as though songs written with the bottom line in mind can’t be this successful as works of art – they often are. It’s just that it’s immediately tangible to the listener that these works by Adam Wright aren’t just some of his best, they were clearly written and produced without a single thought towards saleability. Rather, Wright and his creative partners – especially producer Frank Liddell – gave each of these songs the artistic treatment they deserved on their own merits as stories and tableaus, vignettes and pantomimes.
If you remember when Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, there was a whole lot of “discourse” on the internet as to the actual literary value of songs and lyrics. It’s a painfully on the nose, forest for the trees moment to even have to accept the premise of that debate in order to refute it. But with a writer like Adam Wright – ever so rare in country and roots music and becoming even more endangered still – it’s easy, direct, and demonstrable connecting the dots between literature and songwriting. Nature of Necessity being 18 compelling points on that trail. With this album, Wright should perhaps be offered a term as the poet laureate of Music Row. Let each of its four sides stand as a resumé.
I really love the sonics of the album, the production. I’m a bluegrass banjo player, so when I listen to records I want to hear the pick noise, I want to hear the room, I want to hear the distance between a singer’s lips and the microphone. I want it to sound like music and I want it to sound like a moment in time.
Granted, I listen to a lot of music that doesn’t check any of those boxes and I like it a lot for sure, but the first thing I noticed about this album was that it sounds not just live, but alive. Can you talk about that and can you talk about how you accomplished it? It feels like, having heard so much of Frank [Liddell’s] work as producer that he was probably a perfect partner to accomplish that production style, too.
Adam Wright: Yeah, he absolutely was. And we wanted the same thing. We wanted it to be live and to sound live. With all the flaws inherent in performance, like a full unedited, undoctored performance.
‘Cause I’m like you – I’m a pretty poor listener currently but I have, in my long life of listening, listened to an awful lot of music and studied a lot of it. I know when I’m listening to a song that was gridded and then a singer came in and sang very carefully and then they cut it up and got it right. Because I’ve made records like that, too.
You sound your best that way, you truly do. It is so flattering to have someone do that to you and then listen back and go, “Wow, I sound fantastic.” So what I’ve enjoyed, for some reason, [is] getting used to what I sound like, giving it my best effort on a play down all the way through, one whole take, and go, “That’s what I sound like.”
It’s like looking at yourself like in a hotel mirror. [They] are the worst mirrors in the world. Like you go in the bathroom in the hotel room and you look awful and can’t figure out why. Something about the lighting or the quality of the lighting or where they’re placed. Every time I’m in a hotel mirror, I’m just like, “What am I doing out in the world?”
It’s a little bit like that. You listen back to yourself, play this song, and you go, “Man… that is not perfect.” There are things I just really dislike about the way I sing certain things on this record, the way I played. I hear me failing the whole way through. ‘Cause we did track it live. Me and Matt Chamberlain and Glenn Worf tracked us a three-piece, me on acoustic and singing with bass and drums. The idea was just to keep all of that as it is, intact, which we did.
I told Glenn, I said, “You’re the lead instrument. No one’s coming to save us. If something has to happen, we just have to do it right now.” We recorded it with that philosophy. The meat of it is my playing and singing with Glenn and Matt and we didn’t fiddle with it. The caveat was, “Okay, we can add things, but this has to remain what it is.” Whatever we did has to be live as it happened.
We did it a bunch of times. We did every song like seven times. So if I didn’t get it, is it gonna get better? No. That’s how I sing that line, obviously. There was some freedom in that … I’ve just gotten to enjoy it.
These feel like songs for you and not songs to sell or to get cut or to pitch on Music Row. Like, they feel like songs that, as they came out of you, you may have been squirreling them away, caching them for yourself for the future. I wanted to see if that was true or if that resonated with you. To me, they’re poetic and they’re literary without being “pick me” or “try hard.” They’re really thoughtful. I love your lyricism because it’s not too esoteric. But, these traits aren’t exactly regarded as commercial. So how did this collection end up… collected?
That’s exactly how that went. And thank you for the kind words, too. I do write every day for a publisher. Usually that means co-writing. I co-write almost every day of the week. Whether I want to or not. I’m usually writing with younger artists that want a record deal or have a record deal and they have some ambitions about the commercial music industry – and for some reason they thought I could help them. [Laughs] As misguided as that is, that’s usually what our job is in that moment. I don’t think a lot about, “Hey kid, I got a hit for you.” My brain just doesn’t really work that way. I just try to write a really good song that I think is tailored towards that particular artist.
I do a lot of that, but I would never try to force one of these ideas like [that] are on this record on someone that is trying to do something like that. This is a different endeavor. I do categorize it differently. That co-writing with people for their records or for whatever they would like to do is almost like a day job. And these songs are my night job. So they are very different. It feels like a different writing brain altogether. The process of writing ’em is very different. It’s not two hours of looking at each other. Some took me weeks, just because I couldn’t unlock ’em, but I kept tinkering away. It’s a much different thing.
I want to find out the deepest realization of whatever the story was or the idea or the character that I decided the song was gonna be about. Just follow that rabbit through the woods as deep into it and as dark as it got, that’s what we were gonna do. It’s rewarding! It’s a lot of work and it takes a long time and I’m so busy at the moment. I don’t know if I could write some of those songs right now. If you told me to write a song that had a lot of Latin in it about watching the dawn, I’m not sure I could pull it off. [Laughs]
But you know how it is when you find these things. You get a hold of this little spark, you follow it, and then at some point it dims a little. Then you’re looking for another spark to light up. I’m currently between sparks – I’m writing every day, but I haven’t found a new thread that I just can’t wait to chase yet. But sometimes you get a little hint of it.
Let’s talk about some of the music. On “Dreamer and The Realist,” are you the dreamer? Are you the realist? Is it about you?
I never really decided if I contain enough pragmatism to be both a dreamer and a realist. Like in some ways I am. Like when my wife says, “Hey, we’re going to Disney World,” that’s what we’re doing. I would never decide to go to Disney World [on my own], because I don’t like fun. [Laughs] But once I know I’ve gotta go, then I can get pragmatic about it.
But aside from those types of things, I’m pie in the sky. If I could stare out a window 10 hours a day every day for the rest of my life and not starve to death, I would do it.
Thank you!
All I really want to do is walk around the world and roll around inside my own brain. That sounds fascinating to me forever, endlessly. And not because I have a fascinating brain, just because I think it’s fun to just go, “What if” and then, “What if” and then, “What if.”
I feel like this is a long way of trying to say, I feel like everyone is some combination of a dreamer and a realist. Or you couldn’t function. But certainly nobody’s all dreamer or all realist, I don’t think. I think we all compartmentalize our dreaming and our realism to certain areas of our life and hopefully we each find someone that compensates for, or augments, [ourselves] in ways. And that’s never perfect. There’s always like a dueling going on with all that stuff. But I love the push and pull of it; within myself and within a relationship. There’s music in all of that I’ll always find it very interesting. The song really is within the same person.
With “All the Texas,” which features Patty Griffin, one of the first things I thought when I heard it was of Lyle Lovett’s “That’s Right (You’re Not From Texas).” Plus, I was thinking about this moment in time with Texas and politics and the culture wars. Country music tends to feature this thinking like, “Everyone loves Texas and you should too!” “Don’t we all agree, Texas is great??” And then you look at what’s happening in Texas and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, Texas. What the hell?” I’ve had all the Texas…
Help us help you, please! Exactly.
Can you talk to me a little bit about that song? Because I have a feeling that there’s much more going on than just the way we’re all feeling about Texas these days.
It really was written before Texas got so Texas-y, recently. I don’t remember what year it was, but it was probably four or five years ago. Texas is always pretty Texas-y, but this was before it got super Texas-y. It was just about a night opening for Patty Griffin there at the Moody [Center] in Austin. It was just a whirlwind of a trip; flew in day of show, ran around Austin for half an afternoon, and then played a show.
She’s so supernatural. There’s just something like… sorcery around her. Anytime you’re around her, she doesn’t come off that way. She doesn’t walk around like talking wizard speak or anything; she’s just such a lovely, cute, normal, funny individual. But there’s still something that swirls around her that is just supernatural.
With all of that, I was like jotting things down, like the whole 24 hours that we were there. I just kept getting like little snatches of things and they all started to have this kind of mythical quality to ’em. Some of it’s literal, the Driskill and all of that stuff was true. But it turns into a sort of dream logic, mythical stuff – which is like watching [Patty] perform. It was an exercise in playing with almost like a journal entry of that experience and then distorting it with mythical language or symbolism.
I also love “Weeds” – and not just because Lee Ann [Womack] is on it. But also because I am obsessed with wildflowers, with native gardening, and habitat restoration. Something that struck me about that line, “Heaven is a meadow with no weeds” is perhaps heaven is a place where we finally understand that a “weed” is a social construct, right? A weed is a plant that we’ve decided is in a place where it shouldn’t be, but maybe we’re the ones where we shouldn’t be–
Yeah, that’s right.
Maybe we changed so much of the environment that we look out and we see a weed, but that plant has been here all along. And [the habitat is] probably supposed to be all weeds.
Exactly.
When I heard “Weeds” I also thought of Dolly’s song “Wildflowers” and the idea of, “What is the difference between a wildflower and a weed?” So, in my own mind, I heard that line as maybe you get to heaven and you realize all these weeds were wildflowers the whole time. Maybe I’m projecting. [Laughs]
I don’t know how the farmer’s perspective developed [on that song], I just don’t remember. And I’m not trying to put any sort of romanticism on it, it just didn’t come to me. I don’t remember what the jump was, but I remember why I started the song initially. I was at the library looking for something new to read and I came across this book, it was like a catalog of late-1800s farming equipment and the techniques and things. You could order out of these catalogs in like, 1870-whatever.
It also had articles about how to fix your wagon or what to do about this particular tractor part. How to deal with a stubborn mule or a pig that wouldn’t do what you wanted them to do. I thought it was fascinating, and the language of it – I love lingo so much. I love getting into some endeavor or line of work or character where there’s lots of language that I haven’t heard before. Like specialized language to a particular job or whatever. This book was full of it. I was just fascinated by all of it.
The whole thing about the last verse about the pig, all of that, it’s just outta the catalog. Those were all things [from the book]. Like, “Are you dealing with a hog who’s ill-formed? And unquiet in his mind? Here’s what you can do.” I found it all so interesting.
Then the middle verse about the tramp, to me he was dressed in soldiers’ clothes. I imagined he’d been shot and was laid over this farmer’s fence. It would have been just at the close of the Civil War era stuff. I wanted all of it to hang together, but with all of these strange things going on the overarching thing is this farmer going, “I can’t get rid of these weeds.” Why does he care? I don’t know. I just liked the guy [because] the thing that sort of kept him going was that his eternal reward might be a meadow without all of these weeds in it.
Your career has intersected with bluegrass and has been part of your career in so many ways. You’re a picker – which is one of the first things I noticed about this album, you guys tracking it live means we get to hear you pick the guitar. All these bluegrass folks have cut your songs, you’ve been nominated for an IBMA Award. What does the genre mean to you? And of course, the inseparable community that comes with it. How does that fit into the constellation of how you make music, songwrite, and be creative in general?
That’s interesting. I love the world of bluegrass. Maybe I’m just a little particular. Like, if you looked at all genres of music as slices of a pie, there’s really only a sliver that I really love. Out of any genre. Whether it be jazz or a big band or blues or bluegrass or classic country or rock, there’s really only a little bit of it that I really like and most of it, the rest of it I find I can leave alone. Not quite for me.
But I always said, good bluegrass might be the best music ever. Like, when it’s good and it’s right. I wish I had started trying to play that kind of music when I was younger. I got fascinated with it too late to physically do it at a level that I appreciate. I can distinguish the difference in the nuances of really great players, but I’m not able to do that. I don’t lose a lot of sleep over it, but I’ve probably got carpal tunnel trying to figure out Tony Rice licks a few times in my life. There’s so much of it that I really like and I love.
I’ve never really sat down to try to write bluegrass songs. I just write songs. Like you were talking about this interview going under the Good Country category, I’ve always sat somewhere in the mushy in-between of folk, singer-songwriter, bluegrass, and country. I’ve just always existed somewhere in the middle of all that stuff. Some of my favorite artists have done that, as well.
Some of my favorite bluegrass artists were folkier or bluesy-er. Del McCoury or Doc Watson. Tony Rice was such a genre evader. I always appreciated that about certain bluegrass artists. But writing-wise, I just always wrote songs. And because of the nature of what I’ve ingested, they lend themselves fairly well to more traditional bluegrass arrangements. They always play everything a lot faster than I think they’re going to. [Laughs]
Last night at the Bluebird [Cafe] I did my version of “Thunder and Lightning,” which is a moonshining song of mine that Lonesome River Band cut. I think I’m playing my version fast, like it feels fast to me. And then I hear them do it and it’s about twice as fast as I play mine. It sounds great when they do it, but if I try to play it that fast it sounds ridiculous.
I write some with Sierra Hull, she’s so much fun to write with. It’s funny, she hardly plays when we’re writing, which I had to get used to. ‘Cause the first time I wrote with her I was like, “Oh I can’t wait to just watch her play!” And I don’t even know if she touched the instrument a couple of times, just to check a chord. But I got to like her so much and enjoy writing with her that it didn’t matter. [Laughs] …
My dad was a piano player – and still is. His dad was a piano player, too. So I started on piano when I… I think I was like four. I was kinda tugging on their shirt going, “Hey, I wanna play piano!” And they’re like, “Yeah, okay. Sure.” But they did let me, I started, and I did like classical piano for years. Then I went to saxophone and then I heard a Chuck Berry record and I needed a guitar. Today. Right now. This afternoon.
I was talking to a friend of mine who is a bluegrasser, saying, “I just don’t know how you guys do it, the flatpicking. How are you doing this?” And he goes, “You remember when you were learning Rolling Stones songs on a Stratocaster when you were a teenager? Most of these guys were playing D28s with grown men at festivals then.” When they were that age, that’s what they were doing. Picking with grown men.
Who were having pissing contests with those children. [Laughs]
Tift Merritt never thought she’d end up back in her hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina. For about 15 years she toured through America and Europe to support a number of exceptional albums, particularly 2004’s Tambourine. Released on Lost Highway Records, that R&B-influenced LP earned a GRAMMY nomination and elevated her profile among audiences who admired the detail in her songwriting and appreciated her hard-to-define musical style.
After nine years of living in New York City, Merritt wrote her ticket home in 2016 and welcomed a daughter, Jean, that same year. Following the release of a studio album in 2017, Merritt largely stepped away from performing to pursue other ambitions, including the renovation of a historic hotel called the Gables Motel Lodge in Raleigh and working as a practitioner-in-residence at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
“I think we have this sort of unnatural expectation of what performing life is, what creative life is, and you can’t flower all the time,” Merritt tells BGS. “So, it’s been really nice to be away. And it feels really fun to be doing some gigs and be back.”
Merritt’s new album, Time and Patience, gracefully shines a light on her musical moments from two decades ago. Most of the recordings are homemade demos; four others are studio outtakes from the Tambourine sessions. A 20th anniversary edition of Tambourine has also been reissued on vinyl.
Ahead of her first AmericanaFest appearance in more than a decade, Merritt reminisced about writing the title track of her new collection, hearing Dolly Parton’s music as a kid, and the personal decision she considers “one of the best things that ever happened.”
I’ve read that your dog, Lucy, was watching you as you recorded these demos in your kitchen. What was it like to have her with you? Was it a little bit of companionship?
Tift Merritt: Oh yeah! At the time, I lived on a farm outside of Chapel Hill in North Carolina. My boyfriend went on a trip and I stayed home to get down to writing, because I’m a Capricorn in that way. [Laughs] At that point, I had had Lucy for almost 10 years and she was used to staring at me and staring at my notebooks. But she was such a good girl and we had a lot of years where I had a great writing routine when I wasn’t on the road. I’d be writing, then taking walks, then writing… It’s interesting to think back about those days when that’s all I had to do. [Laughs] I didn’t have somebody else to take care of! What did I do with all those hours?!
What was the goal in recording these demos? Were you trying to get someone to listen, or was somebody interested in you already?
I had already done Bramble Rose [in 2002] and the label told me to go home and write a hit. But they didn’t want to spend any money for me going to the studio. Those recordings are what I sent my label and my manager. That was the big audition.
Wow, that’s a tall order: “Go home and write a hit.” How did you receive that?
You know, I was 27 years old and I realized the precarity of the position that I was in. Someone had ambitions for me, which was a really good thing. It’s a lot better than people not having ambitions for you. At the same time, I was very determined to keep my integrity. I always wanted to be a career artist. I didn’t have aspirations to have big hits. I didn’t have aspirations that were purely commercial.
I would try to be very determined to just do excellent work in my own voice. They also told me that I was not allowed to be an Americana artist, because that didn’t really exist at that time and there was no money in it. You know, it was just a weird time. It was a weird time to be a woman in that industry. It still is, it always is. And certainly, a young woman. I mean, nobody trusted me.
What did they not trust?
My judgment, my writing, my band, how I dressed myself, that I knew how I wanted my picture to appear. None of it. It was always a struggle and part of that is because I have strong artistic opinions, I’m sensitive, and I’m not stupid. I came out of a very rigorous writing program and to walk into Nashville where it’s like, “Oh no, it’s not a hit,” I’m like, “That’s not criticism I can do anything with.” Again, I was glad that people had ambitions for me, but [I was told] my songs aren’t good enough. My band wasn’t good enough. And that sort of added up to, I’m not good enough.
The label would trust [the album’s producer] George Drakoulias, but they wouldn’t trust me. And this is not an unusual story: “You don’t trust an artist! And you certainly don’t trust an artist who thinks they’re a writer!” I think there was very much a power dynamic at that time, where you separate the singer from the band, and you separate the singer from the song, and you can get them to do what you want to do. I didn’t want to do any of that.
Your band was such an important part of your sound. How did you put them together?
Well, I was married to the drummer and I didn’t want to be slick Nashville. We were all North Carolina people. We came up together, cutting our teeth in clubs. The label did not want my band to play on Tambourine. And so that band was Mike Campbell, Neal Casal, Maria McKee, and Don Heffington. I trusted George enough to surround me with people who were all friends of Maria McKee, basically, and spoke the same language as I did.
Being from North Carolina, did you grow up around bluegrass? Or did that influence your musical direction at all?
I think the Everly Brothers and harmonies and acoustic instruments did. I wasn’t totally into bluegrass. I was more into songs. My dad had an extremely eclectic record collection, a lot of which was influenced by the radio, which was eclectic at that point. He had Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan and Dolly Parton and all sorts of stuff. He was real song-oriented and kind of a folkie himself. Lots of Dylan songs, lots of finger picking. So, in some way, I would say that I’m more of a folk musician because I learned to play from my father by ear and he learned by picking out the songs that he heard that he loved. They were all that sort of “touch your heart” kind of thing.
Were there any musicians whose melodies inspired you?
I can remember singing Dolly Parton songs with my dad, driving carpool. And she always has such amazing melodies. There were some amazing pivotal records for me, like Emmylou Harris’ Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town and Bonnie Raitt, Bonnie Raitt. Also, as a writer, those early Joni Mitchell records. She is so creative, melodically and with the guitar. It’s never boring.
I always think I’m a much better writer than I am a musician. I try to bring, first, a rigor to what I’m trying to say in words, that it’s something worth saying. And then I try to do the same to the melody, so it’s something worth hearing. It’s not necessarily something fancy, but it’s something interesting and layered.
How old were you when you picked up the guitar?
I started picking it up from my dad, probably at 12 or 13, when all the boys were starting to do it. It was like [in an unimpressed voice], “Oh my God, I can do that, too.” Probably in my middle teens is when I really got into it. I didn’t think I could sing. I didn’t think people would come to a show or anything like that. I just loved doing it and I thought I would be a writer.
When did that shift for you?
In my early 20s. I started a band and we had some sparks kind of quick. That was really lucky. We were in the right place at the right time in Chapel Hill. And then I just didn’t stop getting gigs… until I did!
Have you played a lot over the last nine years?
I toured with my daughter for the first two years and then I said, “You know what, kiddo? This isn’t enough for you.” I thought she deserved roots. At the time, that felt like a big failure, like I hadn’t turned a corner where I’d get a bus and a nanny and make all of that doable. Seven years later, I think it was one of the best things that ever happened. Because I was able to – for the first time in my adult life – not be on the road and not be trying to fit into the creativity that is pretty narrow that the record industry offers. I mean, it’s the “three minutes and 30 seconds.”
So, I ended up doing a lot of other things that made me feel like I was more of an artist, rather than less of one. I’ve also had this incredible time raising my daughter. We actually just did our first real tour together in Europe and she loved it! I mean, I’ve jumped out here and there and done shows, but my focus has been on other things, mainly my daughter and figuring out how to take care of us.
On the song “Time and Patience,” there’s a glimmer of hope. It’s like you’re saying to yourself, “Hang in there. You can do this.” And there’s a verse where you’re telling somebody else, “I believe in you, too.” Do you remember what was going on in your life at that moment?
I do! I remember very, very much so and I do remember writing that song to myself about how frustrated I was, that nothing I was writing was a hit. I often get insomnia, especially when I’m writing. Like, I can’t get it out of my head. And I really did see the sun come up and I got up and I wrote that song, and then I made grits. Grits are such a good thing when you’ve had insomnia and go back to bed!
It’s funny because my dad has always loved that song. I am not somebody who looks back a lot. I’d much rather look forward. But it’s funny to hear that song now, where I was kind of trying to get myself through something really specific. And now, I’m in a place where my life is not at all what I imagined it to be. But it’s actually better than I imagined it to be and I couldn’t have imagined it. That feels like the timing is special. Maybe that was one of those songs that I didn’t really understand then that I understand a lot better now.
My new album’s theme, along with the theme of this Mixtape, is a roots-inspired journey through the South, with songs that evoke the feeling of traveling across its landscapes and into the heart of the Deep South. I hope the fans enjoy the journey of these songs and all the sounds and people it takes to make them come to life on Southern Sky – it takes a village.
That village comes to life across the nine-track journey of Southern Sky, where Irish roots fuse with Southern soul driven by Dobros, fiddles, and rich storytelling that soar with Appalachian tradition and Southern warmth. Inspired by the textures of the South, the spirit of the album is like Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights, where Appalachian tales intertwine with the deep twang of the South.
Southern Sky features a multitude of musical titans – Vince Gill, Tim O’Brien, Ricky Skaggs, and Sam Bush to name a few – all contributing to the exceptional sound that I strive for. – Danny Burns
“Summer in Siam” – The Pogues
I always loved this tune, growing up listening to the Pogues and having met Shane many moons ago.
“My Old Friend the Blues” – Steve Earle
Steve is one of my favorites. I’ve had the honor to sing with him, open shows with him, and hang on his bus. His songs are epic; this is a great example of that.
“Southern Nights” – Citizen Cope
I first met Clarence Greenwood in New Orleans when I was driving him, Neal Casal, and Jon Graboff (the Cardinals) around while they were playing Tipitina’s. I fell in love with Clarence’s songs and his performances. Another great American artist and songwriter.
“Whenever You Come Around” – Vince Gill
I’m a huge fan of Vince and this track is about as good as it gets. I’ve always admired his songs, his voice, and everything he brings to the table.
“Locals Only” – ERNEST
I first heard this song down in Mexico during the pandemic while hanging out on the beach in Puerto Morelos. It became a bit of an anthem for those days by the water.
“Waiting On You” – Cecilia Castleman
A truly killer talent. Cecilia can play, she can sing, and I’m sure her skills as an engineer and producer are just as strong. This song is fantastic.
“Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground” – Willie Nelson
This has always been one of my go-to lonesome Willie tunes.
“That’s How Every Empire Falls” – John Prine
Epic song written by RB Morris out of Knoxville. I love both versions, but it was John’s take that first introduced me to it.
“The Lucky One” – Alison Krauss & Union Station
What can I say about Alison’s voice– absolutely world-class. Pair that with a world-class band, production, and song and it’s just unbeatable.
“Years” – Sierra Ferrell
This is pure ear candy. So intriguing and instantly captivating. It feels amazing and sounds incredible. Perfect work!
“Colony” – Damien Dempsey
A heavy hitter in the Irish scene, this track is a prime example of his finest work.
“Settle For A Slowdown” – Dierks Bentley
I really loved this album; it feels like a perfect introduction to where country meets bluegrass with a modern twist.
“Señor” – Tim O’Brien
Love Tim and his take on this epic Bob Dylan song.
“Linger” – Áine Burns
Love Áine’s take on this Cranberries hit – can’t wait to hear more from her before the year’s end.
Idaho-born singer-songwriter Josh Ritter has released a dozen studio albums over the past quarter-century, crafting an elegant body of work. A few years back, he earned the ultimate compliment in tunesmith circles when Bob Dylan covered one of his songs, “Only a River,” co-written with Bob Weir.
By now Ritter is well-acquainted with the wisdom of following the muse wherever it leads. Recently, however, he was moved to take a step back and focus more on the muse itself rather than the destination. That inspiration began with “Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding),” a visionary song from his latest batch of compositions. Beautifully simple and unadorned, it’s just voice and guitar as Ritter summons up myths and memories surrounding “the one who got away.”
“Truth…” turned out to be one of the 10 songs making up studio LP number 13 for Ritter, the whimsically titled I Believe in You, My Honeydew, which releases today followed by widespread touring well into next year. Along the way, he’ll be posting regularly on Josh Ritter’s Book of Jubilations (one of the better artist Substacks out there) and at some point he’ll get back to working on his in-progress third novel. Fiction writing has turned out to be yet another thriving subset of Ritter’s career.
“I have a rough draft done,” he reports. “My wife Haley reads all my first drafts because she’s my best reader, so she’ll tell me the problems I need to fix. I’m excited about this one. I’ve written two other full novels since the last one came out, but they don’t have the spark this one does. It’s nice to have an ongoing project you can work on a little at a time, take a break and let it marinate.”
In the meantime, there’s lots to be excited about regarding I Believe in You, My Honeydew. BGS caught up with Ritter by phone from his home in Brooklyn.
You recently wrote a Substack post about first drafts, which you likened to a sculptor’s “acquisition of the stone” that will eventually be carved into a statue. An elegant way to visualize the slog of writing a book.
Josh Ritter: My true writing journey began through songs, which was the first form I really connected with. Writing songs, you can edit very quickly and on the fly. But after years and years of that, I was really struck by the different pace of editing when writing a novel. It takes no big effort to change things in songs. But with a novel, there’s just no getting around that you’re heaving big lumps of stone around – paragraphs that you have to haul from one place to another.
That makes it a lot heavier, but it can also be a joyful act. Pulling the rock is so exciting, that initial spark of inspiration and desire to heave this impossible stone. It’s beautiful when the story is exposed for the first time, all these rich characters. Same as a song.
Your first novel, 2011’s Bright’s Passage, actually started out as a song. Does that happen often, where a piece of writing starts as one thing but becomes another?
As a writer, what I have is water that will fill whatever container I put it in. Songs have a shape that can hold a whole story that could be a novel – like Springsteen’s “The River,” that could be a novel. At the same time, it’s fun to have novels as a different mountain to climb in your mind. Songs are something you can get to quickly, but you might also want to do this other kind of writing that takes a long time and a lot of love. Then you have to decide the economy of that: Is it important enough to you to be worth it?
I’ve always thought songs are like corridors where there are doors but not rooms. Turn on a song, listen to it, and you’re walking down that corridor. And off the corridor, the rooms are your own thoughts and memories, wondering about everything from what to make the kids for dinner to the nature of God. You can hear stuff on the radio that leads to profound questions that are not about that moment, but would not happen without the song. It’s really beautiful. Sometimes you just want to follow songs behind the door, wherever they go.
From your new record, “Truth Is a Dimension (Both Invisible and Blinding)” is such a beautiful, heavy, heartbreaking song. Listening from the outside, it feels like the heart of I Believe in You, My Honeydew. Does it feel that way to you, too?
There are certain songs I feel fortunate to receive, which is what that one felt like. It unfolded in such a quick and finished way, with such clarity, and it gave me so much to draw from. Not just the subject matter, but this idea I became obsessed with about truth becoming changeable. There’s a metaphysical aspect, but also more physical than we give it credit for. And as I was writing it, I realized I was writing this with a muse. Had to be.
Afterward, it occurred to me that this was not something I could’ve done by myself. Hemingway used to say that we all get lucky sometimes and write better than we can. But it all depends on who you’re writing with in your mind. Helps to have a third party in there, between the head and the heart.
That was the first song I wrote for this record, and the rest unfolded out of the same general idea. What I hoped to do was perceive a muse as something fuller than what I had appreciated in the past. To assume that a muse is a spiritual acquisition, that didn’t feel right. And to have “lost” one’s muse implies you had it to begin with. No one likes to be “had,” you know?
The bittersweet vibe of that song reminds me of one of my favorite songs and videos of yours, 2010’s “The Curse.”
That’s another one I fell into. A lot of the story songs are like a trance, with the song unfolding as it’s happening. The song is only as long as the trance lasts, and when it’s over it’s really done. I’m almost glad it doesn’t happen all the time. That sense of revelation is so powerful, and I don’t want it to wear off. I imagine it’s the same feeling as hitting a golf ball really, really far.
On that song and others, you really have an affinity for waltz time.
Oh, I love it. Waltz time is such a beautiful architecture that feels like a Viennese street, really fundamental and blocky. It’s a stone you can build on, a lot of melody can go on top of a waltz. So sweet and dark. If I could do it every time, I probably would.
So with the muse, do you have an actual mental picture of what it looks like? A visual manifestation?
It’s not something I can anthropomorphize, but the closest I’ve found is honeydew. It’s familiar and weird, almost self-luminous. Cut it open and it’s this mess of wires and biology in there. It tastes strange but also good when you eat it, unearthly but also familiar. Music is my way of exploring the euphoria and unexplainable elation of experiencing that vision. Sometimes it seems like ideas and feelings from other worlds are fearful, and I’m comforted by the idea that they can be communed with.
So, how to communicate with this thing? Because when you come right down to it, I couldn’t even assume it knew English. It could read my mind without knowing the language. So I had to teach it about things I love, invite it into this experience of being a 48-year-old man who writes songs for a living and lives with his family in Brooklyn. I had to be open to this other life force, show gratitude and offer it a place at the table.
The songs came out of that and I like playing these songs we worked on together. I wanted this record to be fun. I liked the idea of it being high-flying but also earthy. Like seeing something celestial at a Friday night bonfire party with Solo cups, one of those occasions with friends listening to music together and looking up at stars. That’s as holy a moment as can be found. I wanted to write about that moment as the setting for a soundtrack of that liminal passing as dusk comes on.
What other songs on this record do you like best?
I’m proud of “Noah’s Children,” which I remember as just a marvelous fun time to make in the studio. You could just feel it develop. I brought it in with that strum and quickly realized that Rich Hinman’s amazing guitar-playing really gave it the percussive slink I wanted it to have. It became something I really wanted to be singing at that moment.
“Kudzu Vines” was fun as well, just turn everything way up. And starting the record with “You Won’t Dig My Grave” was intentional. Records are about a moment in the time and life of an artist, and that song’s definitely about surviving bullies and forces that seem dead set against humanity, dragging us downward from our potential. Sometimes the only way to defeat someone like that is to outlive them.
You mentioned that this record was fun to make. Have some of your other records been more of a struggle?
In different ways, every record is never separate from the lives of the people making it. I’m sure every member of my band would have a different answer but [2023’s] Spectral Lines was very difficult to make. It was during the pandemic and also following my mom’s death – like [2013’s] The Beast In Its Tracks followed my divorce. Those were moments of personal crisis, living in that moment and what came out of it. Often there was not joy. But there was need and there’s some joy in that.
So yeah, some records are harder to make than others, but that almost doesn’t make it into the equation as soon as it’s done. You’re proud of it and that bad feeling goes away. I guess there’s a reason we do things twice. Whatever mountain you climb, the hurt is forgotten if you love it enough.
Now this one was all recorded in a way that’s the most fun for me, everybody together in a room, just a great time in Minnesota way out under the stars. No reason for it not to be a good time. I’m very proud of the story and its conclusion.
Long ago, you started out intending to follow your parents into the field of science – until taking organic chemistry in college at Oberlin. Maybe they were disappointed at first, but given your successes they must be pretty sanguine about your career choice.
I always say, never let college get in the way of your schedule! On the one hand, I was really disappointed not to be whatever idea I had at that time. At the same time, I was profoundly impressed with how many of my peers were doing things of just magical intent of purpose. And I was left there thinking, “Okay, this is going to change some things. I have to think about this because I’m not going to be who I thought I was.”
But my parents took it well. My mom died a few years ago and my dad is living in Minnesota with his new wife. It’s been fun, he comes out to the shows. When your mom dies, suddenly you don’t have someone to show your booboos to. I’ve been fortunate that he has become that for me, someone to share both victories and griefs with. Seeing parents go on to new lives and loves is a beautiful thing. It’s one reason why this is such a happy record.
Bob Dylan once called Paul Brady a “secret hero” and meant it as a compliment. The Irish songwriting legend has not been bothered by the fact that his profile has not risen as high as some of his peers. Starting off in the world of traditional Irish music, Brady spent time in the hugely influential Irish group Planxty until they disbanded in 1975. After that, he and bandmate Andy Irvine recorded a record of trad music together. In 1981, Brady released an album of original songs titled Hard Station that was based on his experience of growing up during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. It was a huge left turn for him stylistically and in being so personal with his writing. After that, Brady’s songwriting career took off; he has written songs for Bonnie Raitt, Santana, Tina Turner, and many others.
In our Basic Folk conversation, Brady reflects on his upbringing and how music served as his reliable companion. He also discusses his parents’ artistic influences, particularly his father’s passion for acting and how it shaped his own stage performances. We touch on themes of perfectionism, impostor syndrome, and the inherent pressures of the music industry. Additionally, Paul talks about his latest massive box set, The Archive, which features rare demos, live recordings, and unique collaborations, offering a comprehensive look at his extensive body of work.
At times frowned upon or occasionally slandered, covers are as deep-rooted as the songs and the emerald valleys that have produced them.
Indeed, covers stir discussion, spark research, and add another patch to the great heart-sewn embroidery of music. Fashioned in a similar vein to the original – that’s flattery. When a song circles across genre divides, well, that’s an enriching voyage.
The members of Kissing Other ppl – Rachel Baiman and folk duo Viv & Riley – see their endeavor not just as an individual artistic sojourn but as a larger opportunity to establish a collective conversation. Here, they’ve taken a handful of mostly rock and pop songs and blended, marinated, and sautéed them in unfamiliar flavors. The end results turned out nearer to their own identities.
“I grew up playing traditional Appalachian style,” said Riley. “This is not that!”
Baiman is a sincere and dogged lyricist, with a harmonious ear and a top contender’s punch. She grew up in Chicago, with a factory-made violin in her hands and an insatiable curiosity for why and how music could conform and contort to her swiftly evolving moods. Somewhere along the line, she started getting serious about music and purchased a John Silakowski five-string fiddle on a lengthy installment plan. She arrived in Nashville at age 18, riding fragile finances. Slogging on foot, lugging her fiddle in a hard, cumbersome case, she lacked the extra dollars to hail a taxi. Her odd jobs were many: dog walking; catering; reading novels and writing summaries for a sociology professor; she once even held a job organizing a comedy contest. But a fearless, tenacious sense of purpose compelled her to stick with music.
Pondering all of these circumstances in her heart, Baiman released several persuasive projects, including Shame (2017) and Common Nation of Sorrow (2023). Riley Calcagno, one half of the contemplative folk duo Viv & Riley, added stringed support and pre-production assets to one of Rachel’s albums.
Subsequently, Baiman asked Riley and Vivian Leva (the other half of the duo) if they’d be willing to join her on tour, where long hours on the road were spent in between gigs consuming, swapping, and contemplating music. Baiman’s traditional background taught her how to fully perceive a recording – whether an old fiddle tune or multi-generational, passed down ballad, or even a contemporary pop song – to not only hear it superficially, but to visualize its promise. Through prolonged stretches of asphalt and expressway, she’d oftentimes wonder what she, if given the opportunity, could bring to a certain song.
“The idea stems from Rachel’s musical generosity and curiosity and the extended times in those van rides,” said Riley. “Eventually, the songs included were the ones that we’d all individually had been listening to and were moved by. Songs that had stopped us in our tracks at different realms of our lives. Songs that hit us emotionally or otherwise… spontaneously contributed in the week that we recorded them.”
Some of Riley’s earliest memories are of his father’s fondness of traditional music. His father played the guitar, fiddle, mandolin, and banjo. At age 3, the younger Calcagno expressed interest in the fiddle. Though he was raised in an unrelentingly urban environment in the heart of Seattle he was never far from the folksy hospitality of music: square dances, jams, and potlucks. At the Wintergrass Music Festival in Bellevue, Washington, he formed connections with musicians originating from the sparsest, most countrified swaths of the state.
“I discovered an authentic-feeling bluegrass scene in the state and an old-time rural music scene on the West Coast that was kept going by people living in cities,” he explained, “and I don’t see that at all as contradictory.”
Like many other kids his age who grew up in Seattle, beginning in middle school, Riley burned liberal hours listening to local indie rock, though the attachment he had made with traditional music would override all else. He met Vivian Leva at a music camp in the Seattle area which emphasized the cultural importance of preserving long-standing traditions.
“I was a fan of Viv’s parents’ music,” said Riley. “We started playing music right away. Viv is a gifted songwriter. We started passing ideas back and forth. That was eight years ago.”
Vivian Leva was born and raised in Lexington, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley close to the abounding cultural and geographical influences of Charlottesville, Roanoke, and the Blue Ridge Mountains. It’s a small town with a deep worship of bluegrass and old-time narratives.
“Before I was born, it was a big hub of old-time traditional music,” said Viv. “Young people moved here for the rich, blossoming scene. My dad came here at 18 and stayed forever.”
Viv’s father, too, took a particular interest in the fiddle, traveling to neighboring counties and states to observe and jam. Her mother sang and guitar-picked, emulating and scrutinizing the local and regional ballads she had fallen in love with. They attended old-time fiddler’s conventions as a family. And when her parents formed a duo and headed out on the highway, sometimes she would share in such jaunts first-hand.
“When I was little I went on tour with them for a bit,” said Viv. “As a teenager, I was playing in my dad’s bands. As a kid he would bring me up to sing a song on stage.”
Certainly, music has long filled the souls of Rachel, Viv, and Riley with good things – and Kissing Other ppl is a remembrance of affection as much as it is a representation of impression. Indeed, Baiman said that Kissing Other ppl is a natural extension of her – and her counterparts’ – inquisitiveness, their attempt to understand the mysterious processes of expression, meaning, and memory.
“In reality,” said Rachel, “I don’t think any band or musical project should attempt monogamy, because you miss out on so many opportunities to learn and grow and bring new inspiration back to your main role.”
Similar to Rachel, Viv finds original songwriting to be a sacred, mysterious place to dwell. But she also believes that covers are a part of the whole process of an artist’s maturity, the recognition of the music of one’s friends, mentors, neighbors, and across-the-board community.
“There can be a stigma about covers,” she said. “You can’t make it your own. You are not creative enough to make your own music. It’s a shortcut. It’s a cop out. But as someone who has written a lot of songs and released a lot of records of original music, and plans to do so in the future, I don’t see it that way. It is an acknowledgment of how being inspired by other people’s music is such an important part of creating your own music. You can’t make your own music in a vacuum.”
“Anytime that you are playing a song, you are creating it again in the moment, and re-interpreting in your own way,” added Riley. “Whether it is a cover or an old traditional song, you still have the power to sing it and do it in a way that really moves someone.”
Baiman said the intuitive, empathetic nature of the type of music she plays requires that she be an attentive observer as well as a cordial, broad-minded learner – prerequisites for a collaboration of this sort.
“I think that having a background in old-time and fiddle music in general really prepares you to be a musician who listens,” said Rachel. “If you approach any musical situation with the mindset of, ‘Can I do something to help support the group musically here?’, that goes a long way.
“Old-time really prepares you for the idea that your best contribution might be not to play at all. The bar is really high for joining in, you have to make sure you’re adding something that isn’t already there, and you’re not dragging down the groove. That’s part of the etiquette of informal jamming and it translates to professional playing.”
A fine cover such as the group’s rendition of Wilco’s “Ashes of American Flags” not only illuminates a previous desire, elevating or enriching it with brand new urgency, but in some fashion it obliges the total re-evaluation of the original.
“There are people who are not able to handle ‘Ashes of American Flags’ because of the context, or they come from a different generation, or they don’t like Jeff Tweedy singing it,” said Riley. “Why not give a song like that another chance or give it another life? If you have a song that’s fun, or one that hits hard, emotionally, lyrically, or harmonically, maybe you can add to it, instead of just burying it on a playlist.”
Riley notes that many of the greatest records and biggest chart sellers are in fact cover-centric productions, though they might not have been advertised or promoted as such at the time. Many great albums are rife with songs written by others, sometimes entire roomfuls of songwriters on Music Row. Many memorable albums, such as Bob Dylan’s 1962 self-titled debut, only have a small number of originals; among the traditional folk and blues arrangements, Dylan’s had but two.
Indeed, Kissing Other ppl simply builds on a long tradition of artists rearranging songs that they like and then reinserting them back into the public sphere of approval.
“We seem to be obsessed with originality in our current moment and society,” said Riley. “But we are also at a time when art and – the pursuit of it – is less funded and less valued monetarily than ever. So many of the great records that we love are cover records. Ours isn’t heavy-handed.”
Perhaps one sterling example of a cover album that marvelously nudged old material into fresh fields was Tim O’Brien’s Red on Blonde, on which O’Brien grabbed a handful of Dylan songs, tinkered with their framework, and dragged them into bluegrass brightness. Many of these songs have stuck around since the album’s release in 1996 and bluegrass buffs routinely call out titles such as “Señor (Tales of Yankee Power)” and “Farewell Angelina.”
One of the record’s most memorable tracks is a rendition of Jason Molina’s “Hold On Magnolia,” which draws out the spookily and eerily beautiful essence of the inscrutable artist’s mystifying original. Rachel’s fiddle punctuates the abstract stylishness with characteristic splendor and aplomb.
“Jason Molina [1973-2013] was one of the greatest songwriters,” said Riley. “He grew up in Lorain, Ohio, and he went to Oberlin College, where I went. He had a rough life and died of alcohol-related complications. He left so much amazing music behind… if even one person hears our version and goes and listens to his records then it is a job well done.”
Alluding to Molina, Viv noted the deferential nature of covers and their special reward.
“That’s the cool element of doing a record of covers,” she said. “You can inspire people with that special song that resonates and if they haven’t heard of that artist, they can go back and listen to their work.”
On both “Hold On Magnolia” and “Ashes of American Flags,” Viv found herself in the new position of playing the drums. She sensed the two songs required the presence of drums and their inclusion was inspired by her simple desire to test the unfamiliar.
“One of the incentives I had to go to guitar lessons when I was younger was that my teacher would let me play drums for the last ten minutes of the lesson,” said Viv. “During COVID, Riley surprised me with a drum kit. He got an electric guitar. We were having fun during the lockdown in our basement. We were doing less folk music, and experimenting with instruments outside of the immediate folk genre. So, I took a crack at it.”
“I think it is a testament to the spirit of making the record that we felt comfortable putting her on the drums,” added Riley. “[Producer] Greg D. Griffith made the snare drums sound huge and awesome, adding a big element to the tracks.”
One song that Viv introduced to the project was “Born to Lose” by Waylon Payne, and the diversity in these respective arrangements is startling: Payne’s original was supported by a complete country band; the new offering is sagaciously stripped down, extracting every syllable of bitterness, sorrow, self-loathing, and private turmoil from the lyrics.
“I had been particularly into this artist, Waylon Payne,” said Viv. “His vocals are really fascinating to me. His ornamentation is really incredible. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what he was doing. I was definitely interested in trying to get his vocal ornaments similar, because I think that they are really beautiful.”
The spacey, moody “Where’d All the Time Go?” by Doctor Dog was another one of Rachel’s proposals.
“That is a fun song to do as a trio, because of its echoing harmony parts,” said Viv. “I would have never picked that song for myself to learn. That’s what made it challenging. It took me outside of my vocal comfort zone, and that was a fun challenge for me.”
The name of the band, Kissing Other ppl, is a teasing affirmation of one of the pop songs covered on the album, a soft, mischievous Lennon Stella song released in 2020.
“It has a fun and flirty vibe,” said Riley, “but it also gets to something funny and true about relationships. It captures the lightness of the experience of playing music and hanging out, and not taking yourself too seriously. It was Rachel’s idea and she stuck with it. It is awkward and funny, and why not? Life is short.”
Baiman said the namesake reveals a good-natured admittance of the diversionary quality of art.
“Coming from two different projects that are based in original music and collaborating on cover songs,” said Rachel, “we chose the band name as a playful nod to the idea that we were cheating on our own projects by trying something different and new.”
The trio intends to take their reincarnated versions on the road. Beyond that they have no fixed plans to continue – or, for that matter, discontinue – sewing and hemming their skills and interests together.
Indeed, sustained in its own special love and humility, kissing other ppl expresses not just innovative lyricism and beautiful buzzes, but a powerful sense of understanding. What Rachel, Viv, and Riley all agree on is that the genre or style of its communication is less important than the nourishing energy and want that necessitated its assembly.
“In the end, a lot of the songs are ambiguous,” said Viv. “It is hard to say exactly what some of the songs are about. We are not spelling out what you should be thinking or feeling. It’s just cool to see how other people are able to communicate things in totally different ways than how you would communicate them. But somehow it still hits you.”
After a quarter century fronting the frenetic bluegrass and jug band outfit Old Crow Medicine Show, Ketch Secor is finally breaking out on his own with his solo debut Story The Crow Told Me. The retrospective record looks back on the past few decades, from his own journey to stardom spurred by a chance encounter with Doc Watson to the certified platinum hit “Wagon Wheel,” through the lens of a soundtrack that’s equal parts bluegrass and contemporary country.
“Because the band [recently] celebrated 25 years, I was already in the mindset of a retrospective look,” Secor tells BGS. “I was thinking about everything that’s happened and transpired over that time and started writing about it. In fact, at first I really thought it was going to be a spoken word record before the music eventually took over.”
Talking over the phone, Secor spoke about the timing for his debut project, its connections to both Old Crow and contemporaries like Dierks Bentley, becoming the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville PBS, and more.
You mentioned this album was initially envisioned as a spoken word compilation. What led to its transformation into a fully realized album?
Ketch Secor: I was working with Jody Stevens. We had written a couple songs that were largely based around spoken word and others we were looking to add background sounds on. Those sounds started getting more and more like what I already do, which is writing songs with choruses and verses and hooks. It just evolved out of the beat poetry version of the album, which was probably a little less listenable but closer to what I was striving for. The musicality of it is a bit of a compromise to be like “Well, I’m going to make this an actual record people might want to listen to” because the spoken word records I enjoy are not highly listened to.
I recently was trying to find them again since my record collection got lost in the 2010 floods we had in Nashville. I went on Spotify, which I’d never used before, to find all these songs in my head like Amiri Baraka’s “It’s Nation Time” or Moondog – a 1950’s renegade beat poet from New York – in trying to get an understanding of how the spoken word music I heard as a kid was being utilized today. It quickly became clear that nobody listens to that stuff anymore. [Laughs] So it seemed like making it musical would make it more fun for people.
It seems a bit ironic that you had to look up all these songs – many of which would be considered part of the Great American Songbook – on a digital streaming platform like Spotify. Talk about two very different worlds colliding!
I talk a little bit about that phenomenon on the song “Junkin’.” A lot of the experience of making music with Old Crow, especially in the beginning when we were still developing a canon, was about music’s physical form. When the band first started the internet was still new and we were still selling cassettes. The last time I made a solo record was on tape, the band didn’t have a website and none of us even used email when all of this started. It meant that searching for the physical was really important.
There’s another song on the album called “Thanks Again” that highlights the personal relationships that you develop out on the road – these chance encounters that are very much real and put the wind in your sails. There’s something to be said about having to come of age in a time when information was so tactile and often involved a human touch.
With the emergence of the internet and things like streaming and social media it really is an entirely different world for artists to navigate nowadays.
I realized that I had a kind of time capsule in my mind I had yet to crack open in the days before going in to make this record, which was done quickly and often with me writing the songs as we were recording them. Opening it up was really cathartic and essential for me to process and move past because the experience of coming to Nashville when we did and the kind of band we were in was, at times, slightly traumatic. It was a very intense quest similar to a military deployment, being a minor league ball player fighting your way through the ranks or even being a teenage whaler in Moby Dick. You end up leaving everything else behind in search of this one pursuit.
It’s not unique to come to Nashville to make it big, but what made our experience unique was that we were trying to do it with these traditional sounds in an era in which technological changes were happening as we were doing it. It was almost like we were going against the literal tide with our choices and artistic motivation.
You just mentioned writing these songs as you were recording them. Is that something you’d done before?
That was a very new way of going about things. I understand that record-making has changed a lot since we first started – our most popular Old Crow records that gave us a career were the early ones we made with Dave Rawlings on analog tape that we cut with a razor blade. Making a record the way Gillian [Welch] and Dave do is very studious, labor and time-intensive. But now the technology exists to do it super fast.
This record almost felt like a throwback to the seminal recordings of the 1920s and ‘30s that are the headwaters of our sound. Those records were made in three minutes oftentimes without knowing what the arrangements would be. Three minutes wasn’t the time frame of hillbilly music until the record company said it was – they just sat there, watched the light turn on and played. Writing a song and building a track like that actually felt really on par with what it would have been like going to Camden, New Jersey, in 1928 on a train when you’d never left your county before that. The challenge is keeping one foot in the past and one in the present. When you play fiddles and banjos and blow harmonica for a living the instrument kind of does it for you.
You name dropped Jody Stevens a few minutes ago. How’d y’all come together and what was it like working with him?
We met through my publishing company. I was going to do a co-write with him and knew he’d written a lot of songs for contemporary country artists, so I brought my bag of tricks that I bring out when I try to pretend I’m going to write the next big, top 10 country smash, except for this one time with Darius [Rucker]. I love country music even though I feel that in the past 25 years I have a whole lot less in common with it than I did when I was a kid, in terms of what it sounds like today in its mainstream output versus when I was singing along to Jo Dee Messina when I was 19. It was interesting to circle the wagons with Jody because he brought such a unique perspective in record making that comes from contemporary country music even though his roots are in hip-hop.
The other thing that brought us together was that Jody had seen Old Crow a lot, especially in our early days from 2000-2005, which is the sweet spot I try to explore on this record. He’d been there at the Station Inn and the festival Lightning 100 used to do downtown and some of these other places that have since been replaced by high rises. The fact that he had been a first-account witness to the band was really helpful to bounce ideas off of. His sister was also a big Old Crow fan and even though I’ve never met her I thought about her as my target demographic – someone who saw us back in 2001 and wanted to know what that time capsule looked like.
The fact that Jody had done all this work with people that rapped – only to find that 25 years later the tapes and demos he’d made with Jelly Roll were now part of a pop culture consciousness that hadn’t been there when he first started working on them – gave him a similar orientation to country music that I have about Americana. When I got started there was nothing called Americana and nobody lived outside of contemporary country music unless you were alt-country. Coming into this period of time in Nashville where it wasn’t yet determined that anyone with a banjo could make it that wasn’t bluegrass is another place where Jody and I shared commonality. The rap game has since become a massive component to contemporary country music similar to how Americana has become the tastemaker for anything roots-related.
In terms of the sound on this record, the way you move between more Old Crow-esque bluegrass and those pop country flavors reminds me a lot of Dierks Bentley, another person who excels at showcasing the best of both sides of roots music.
I came up with Dierks and remember witnessing his arrival. Before [“What Was I Thinkin’”] came out there was an issue of CMA Up Close that had a story about us on the page opposite one about Dierks and I thought to myself, “Well, if a guy named Dierks Bentley can make it, then probably a guy named Ketch Secor can, too.” Surely Nashville has the appetite for two oddly-named boys. [Laughs] Then I went on and took a moniker that wasn’t my name. Because of that I feel very much like a brand-new artist now and have developed a strong sense of empathy for the young guns who are out there trying to put their stuff out for the first time, because it’s so much harder now than when I was a kid.
What are some of those major hurdles you’ve noticed for new artists today compared to what you first encountered with Old Crow?
Now the way you stand out in a crowd is through visual means that often require the least amount of artistic acumen and the most amount of social media acumen. So far, I’m not sure it’s helping the cream rise to the top, though. The skill set should be how good can you pick a banjo, not how good can you pick the keypad on your iPhone, even though you have to do both to be successful today. When I was a kid it was about making these connections with people, knocking on doors so many times that every time something good came to me [it did] on account of me showing up and being in the right place at the right time.
Seeking a viral moment has an undue effect of potentially limiting the number of new entrants into the arena. For one generation, what was once divinized is now digitized. I’m sure that if there’s a God above that He or She can use the binary code to reach people and connect their children. I can pick up The New York Times and feel like there’s a closeness with the loss in Texas right now, which is only amplified by me having swam in the Guadalupe before and having a personal connection to the area. If you’ve plunged in the waters yourself then you’ll share something so much more vital with those who are experiencing the loss.
It’s really a metaphor for how we all have a shot at playing the Grand Ole Opry or going from the Station Inn to the Ryman like I did. There’s a turnstile in front of that and I want to see it spinning wide so that artists of all stripes can find their way up to that stage where they belong. As a steward of those stages, I want to see the people show up who have found music as the great connector that, regardless of the speed of the computer in your pocket, the speed of music breaks all other forms of sonic barriers.
In terms of personnel, what motivated you to bring in past and present Old Crow members like Willie Watson, Critter Fuqua, and Morgan Jahnig to record these songs with?
I really wanted to have all the past members of Old Crow on the record, because it felt like a bit of an offering to the gods to say “thanks.” So I really wanted a little bit of all their spirits on it. Not only that, but I read through a lot of old journals and called up some people I’d met hitchhiking, but hadn’t talked to in 25 years. I went and visited the guy who coined the term “Wagon Wheel,” because that song was always called “Rock Me Mama” until I met James Sizemore – a wonderful rascal and drug-dealing Vietnam vet.
I went to see him on his deathbed and recorded phone conversations late at night with old friends. While none of that stuff is necessarily on the record in its physical form, it all went into the process of trying to bake something that really felt like I was living in the past and bringing it to the present through these songs. I think a lot about cairn stones that the Inuit people up north call inuksuit, which are like sign posts that tell you where to turn, but they’re also spiritual. So imagine a road sign that could say “300 miles to Memphis,” but also told you the ancestral route of the settlers who first brought buffalo down 7,000 years ago, sort of like the duality of a time signature.
That duality of time reminds me of one of the album’s songs, “What Nashville Was,” which highlights how much Nashville has changed over the decades while also highlighting how no matter how many venues are replaced with condos, music will always be the city’s heartbeat.
A lot about the way Bob [Dylan’s] record Nashville Skyline had a way of pointing out Nashville for the first time to anyone who didn’t live in the South or listen to country music. He was really pointing to Nashville from a unique perspective and certainly Bob Dylan’s Nashville was the kind of Nashville that I was looking for when I first started playing on the street corner there in 1996.
Similarly, I was also looking for Dolly Parton’s Nashville. I wanted the Nashville that Dolly got when she stepped out of the pickup truck and married the first guy that honked his horn at her, the kind of Nashville where Willie Nelson was laying down in the street in front of Tootsie’s thinking he’s gonna kill himself because nobody wants his songs.
I used “Girl From The North Country” as the template for a love letter to a changing place and a cityscape that has gone on to do so much stuff that it itself is largely oblivious to the price it pays for its constant reinvention. And the price is that who we’re ushering in … is probably because you were on a reality TV show more consistently than because you had a song that people couldn’t stop singing at summer camps. Not that those things are good or bad, they just change. But we’re at a point now where the legend and lore of Nashville has grown so much that we’re at risk of the bubble bursting and it being something like Seattle after grunge or Austin after it wasn’t weird anymore – which is a glass, monolithic, industry executive business center. Oftentimes those forces stand in opposition to the ability of songwriters, hucksters, showmen, and the survival spirit that goes into creating the next Bob Dylan of a generation. I’m hoping that we, the architects of Nashville, can endeavor to build a place that still allows a hearty hero or heroine to come through the gates just like Loretta Lynn or Jack White did.
You were recently named the new host of Tennessee Crossroads on Nashville Public Television. How’d that opportunity come about and what’s it mean to you?
When PBS called me about this unique role that had come available with the sudden and sad loss of Joe [Elmore] – who ran the show for 30 or so years – it only made sense to find someone else to step in who’s also run a business for around 30 years that’s similar to Tennessee Crossroads. Old Crow Medicine Show has been criss-crossing the American south getting inspired by quilters, gee-haw whimmy diddles, carvers, and folks that plant by the lunar signs – those are the kind of folk heroes that go into our music. They’re also the same kind of stories that this show loves to tell.
I love public broadcasting and care a lot about access to it in this country. I made my television debut on our local PBS affiliate up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia when I was in fifth grade. I fell in love with my own backyard because Ken Burns showed me what was so rich about it and so frightening and tragic, which was the bones of the Union and Confederate armies right here, just past the fence. Ken Burns really illuminated that for me and ever since I’ve been the biggest fan of public broadcasting.
What has the process of bringing this record to life taught you about yourself?
I was born about 35 miles outside the birthplace of Walt Whitman and always wondered why I like the guy so much. Then I recently rode my bicycle there and thought, “God, this guy’s place is really popular!” There were people sleeping on a stoop and waiting for a free sandwich in the parking lot. And it turns out where Walt Whitman used to live is like the center of the drug-addled corpse that is parts of Camden, New Jersey. It looks a bit like the Dickerson Road corridor, at least as it was in about 1999.
I feel like Walt really said it best when he said he contains multitudes on “Song Of Myself, 51.” I feel as a picker of banjos and fiddles and guitars and dulcimers and auto harps; and a blower of jugs and juice harps and harmonicas; and a singer of ballads and lamentations pretty songs; and [an attender of] corn shuckins, frolics, and cotillions, that I am like you, a container of multitudes.
Ismay visits cornerstone music venue The Hole in the Wall in Austin to interview Charlie Sexton, the producer and songwriter who’s best known as a guitarist for Bob Dylan. They discuss Charlie and Lucinda’s first gig together in 1979 when he was just a kid. Charlie shares insights into Lucinda’s remarkable songwriting, as well as the emotional struggles musicians face with self-doubt.
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. “Sundays” written by Lucinda Williams. Artwork by Avery Hellman. Music Supervisor: Jonathan McHugh Austin, Texas recordings at The Hole in the Wall. Sound recordist: Rodrigo Nino Producer: Liz McBee Director: Joel Fendelman Co-Director: Rose Bush Special thanks to: Mick Hellman, Chuck Prophet, Don Fierro, Jacqueline Sabec, Rosemary Carroll, Lucinda Williams & Tom Overby.
Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here.
Today we make a new friend! ISMAY is an outstanding human and artist based in California who happens to have a podcast of her own on The BGS Podcast Network! We went wayyy over on time so you’re welcome and I hope you enjoy learning about ISMAY as much as I did!
ISMAY is an alternative folk music project driven by California-based singer/songwriter Avery Hellman. Avery does it all: curates a music festival called Woollystar, releases amazing records (go listen to ISMAY’s Desert Pavement LP now), and is currently working on a project documenting the early-musical footsteps of Americana icon Lucinda Williams. We dive into that immediately, and bring up Charlie Sexton, an amazing producer who was in Bob Dylan’s band and co-founded the Arc Angels. The Finding Lucinda podcast they recorded on this journey is out NOW everywhere you listen, and is presented by our same amazing podcast network, The Bluegrass Situation! Growing up on a farm in Sonoma County, California, with a grandfather who founded the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, ISMAY is an incredible product of that farm and musical lifestyle. You’re gonna “flip” when we talk about Avery’s phone, and we were instant friends!
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