Tag: Brandi Carlile

BGS 5+5: The Accidentals

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Accidentals
Hometowns: We split hometowns of Traverse City and Nashville; we have houses in both (Sav and Katie) and Michael is from Grand Rapids
Newest Album: TIME OUT (Session 1)
Nicknames: Savannah is Sav, Katherine is Katie, Michael is ALWAYS Michael. haha.
Rejected band names: Flavor Monkeys, Savage Kittens (now our publishing company), Go Dog Go, Jalapeno Honeymoon, Comfort and Dismay. We were The Treehuggers before.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Katie: Brandi Carlile is one of those through-line artists we bonded over when we were teenagers and have never stopped learning from. I’ll never forget hearing “The Story” for the first time and doing a double take when the music drops out and she belts the chorus like there’s no tomorrow. As a socially anxious kid I wanted nothing more than to be able to hurl my feelings out of my lungs the way she does. Over the years we’ve watched her do everything from producing records to making her own music festival in order to support women artists.

One of the last shows we saw before the lockdown was Brandi playing with Kim Richey at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. We had just moved to town and as we sat on the worn wooden pews overlooking the stage, I was moved to tears watching the young girls in the front row throwing their heads back and belting along to “The Story.” Never in a million years would we imagine that a few months later we’d be writing music for our TIME OUT EP with Kim Richey, but we’ve learned even our heroes are humans who we can talk to on Zoom while wearing sweatpants and talking about bread baking. When we cancelled all our tours in 2020 we started feeling lost, but so many artists including Brandi reminded us that you never have to give up collaboration, activism, hard work, and heart.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Katie: Looking back, I have to say that 90% of my favorite moments were the unplanned ones. In 2018 we had the opportunity to sing on stage with Joan Baez for the Ann Arbor Folk Festival. I had just finished reading her biography and was starstruck, but once we were onstage her voice made everyone at ease and soon there were thousands of voices singing along. While everyone was walking off stage she grabbed my hand and I felt like my feet were floating.

Another favorite memory was playing Summerfolk Festival in Ontario — they have a tradition of pairing up two bands at the festival who’ve never met, and put them on stage together to play an after-party set. We had no idea what to expect when we loaded in our gear, but ended up playing an insanely fun hour-long set with Turbo Street Funk, a five-piece brass funk band including electric guitar, drums, sax, French horn and a hand-painted sousaphone plugged into a bass amp. We improvised on each other’s tunes all night, throwing in covers of “Ghostbusters” to The Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the Black Keys. We’re friends to this day, it was amazing.

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

Sav: Katie and I pick up inspiration everywhere we go. Usually every song is a culmination of things we’ve picked up around us – a piece of an Edgar Allan Poe poem here; the first sentence of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief paraphrased; a story in the New York Times about an endangered kind of parrot; an art piece made entirely of thread in the Crystal Bridges Museum, or if you’re Katie, sometimes a perfectly made plate of zucchini noodles is all it takes to be inspired.

We never really know where the moments of inspiration strike. I keep voice memos on my phone of little ideas as they come to me (usually in a public place, so I have to mumble them into my phone like a nerd) and a whole list of sticky notes of random billboards saying ominous phrases or things I pick up in conversation. There’s an episode of the Song Exploder podcast featuring John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, who talks about keeping a whole list of song titles written down at his disposal, so I started picking that up recently, too.

I will say that being in the music industry requires you to know a little bit about other art forms like film and visual art, because you never know when you’re going to be writing a treatment for a music video, or brainstorming / creating an album cover from scratch. Seeing how projects like TIME OUT EP or our upcoming album Vessel translate into film or visual art is fascinating, because it shows how when an art piece becomes multimedia, it starts to feel like you’re not just looking at a picture anymore – you’re standing in a room full of color, and you can see how it all fits together.

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

Sav: I think the answer would be different for both of us — our processes for writing vary song-to-song, but also Katie and I are really different writers. Katie usually takes her time with writing, and she’ll work on the same song for months at a time until it’s perfect. I usually like to knock out a song by sitting down once in a blue moon and just getting it down in two hours. So a process like “Night Train,” co-written with Dar Williams over the course of many Zoom calls, was pretty tough for me. That song had a Leonard Cohen-like aspect where it had infinite verses; the stories Dar told would have amounted to at least ten different songs. It was really hard to pick and choose what best told the story we were trying to tell.

Ultimately the version we kept is a travel journal about the power of community, the magic you experience in meeting strangers and finding common ground. The song is about coming to the realization that we are more alike than not, and there is more goodness in the world than we might believe. We wanted a song that would speak to every generation and community, a song about healing and investing in our future, because there’s still work to be done.

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

Sav: This is one of the very first things Beth Nielsen Chapman called me out on when Katie and I were doing our first co-write with her (which was also our first co-write in general). Beth made a good point that using “you” too many times in a song starts to sound pretty accusatory. If that’s what you’re going for, great! Ha ha. She went further to say that saying “I” makes it more personal. I definitely have a habit of doing this — putting “you” where “I” should be — and sometimes I still do it, but I’m watchful of it now.

One thing we picked up this year is that songs don’t always have to be about us, necessarily. They can be from someone else’s perspective, while still using “I” and “me.” On one of our weekly Monday writes with Tom Paxton, he told us one of the best ways to get started was to pick up a newspaper, read a story, and write like you’re a person standing in the room where it happened. There will always be some personal piece of you invested in it by the time you’re done. The goal is to get outside of yourself for a moment and write for the sake of the story. That was a good lesson to take away after a year of isolation. It’s human nature to tell stories — whether that story is to heal, to inspire, to relate, or to learn from. So even if it’s “me” or “you” or “they” or “we,” the goal is for someone to walk away feeling like they got something out of that story, so that they may retell it in their own way.

Photo credit: Aryn Madigan

MIXTAPE: Jeffery Straker’s “How the Heck Did I Get Here?” Playlist

Posted on by Editor

It’s been a year and a month since I got back from my last tour in pre-pandemic times (as we now refer to it). I was winding through the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada, performing a run of seven shows. The month of March in the Okanagan usually has summer-like weather and the temperatures on this trip delivered and then some. Even though I was working, the mountains, valleys, and blue skies reflected in lakes made it feel like a vacation during those long drives with music humming along on the car stereo.

Working full-time as a touring musician is a really busy lifestyle. If you’re not writing new material you’re getting ready to release songs, you’re promoting songs, planning a tour, going on tour — the cycle is endless. As a result, some of the only time I have for my mind to rest somewhat idle is on the long drives between gigs. I see it as a bit of a gift. The music accompanying my travels helps me get a little lost for just a little while. Sometimes I arrive at the next place wondering “how the heck did I get here?” Here are some of the songs that I’ve enjoyed getting lost in. — Jeffery Straker

Jason Isbell – “Traveling Alone”

Often when I’m out on the road I’m traveling alone, or with a side-musician who is asleep in the passenger seat. Isbell sings about being a traveler missing someone he loves, and about reflections on some of the life decisions he’s made. “So high the street girls wouldn’t take my pay, they said come see me on a better day, she just danced away.” It’s perfect fodder for a freed up mind to wander within.

Joni Mitchell – “A Case of You”

Joni released this in 1971. When I first heard it I just loved that within the first few seconds of the song she sang “if you want me I’ll be in the bar”. Who writes like that? She does. I’ve never figured out the meaning of “I could drink a case of you and I would still be on my feet”. It’s perfectly vague. Does it mean “I could never get enough of you”, or does it mean “I’ll never be drunk on your love because it’s not enough”?

John Prine – “Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)”

This is such a visual romp for me. Prine sings about how farmers would bring their daughters with them to town to sell eggs and the gals would head to the local roller rink. It’s so specific, but he delivers this great universal ponderance through chronicling this quirky event: “When you got hell to pay, put the truth on layaway, and blame it on that ol’ crazy bone.”

George Jones – “He Stopped Loving Her Today”

My grandma and grandpa loved this song and so many of the songs like this from the same era of country. It’s such a “story-song.” It’s so sad and the steel guitar with the string section accompanying it is such a perfect pairing. That ascending string line at the start of the chorus really heightens the emotions too; I hear it and wonder who thought of that line? George? The producer? George breaks into a spoken-word second verse and brings even more intimacy — you literally lean in closer to the speaker. Those feelings for the one he loves never go away until the day he dies. It just grabs you and doesn’t let go.

Brandi Carlile – “The Joke”

Stratospheric vocals, brooding piano, and a riveting story. It’s all here. Carlile is passing along some advice to young children who don’t quite fit in. They’re probably from the LGBTQ community, but certainly from any marginalized group. “Let ’em laugh while they can. Let ’em spin, let ’em scatter in the wind. I have been to the movies, I’ve seen how it ends, and the joke’s on them.” Riveting stuff and you want to hit repeat.

Lori McKenna – “The Lot Behind St. Mary’s”

In the wake of my mom passing away just over two years ago, I discovered Lori through her song, “A Mother Never Rests.” It’s perfect. And through that song I found this one that really struck me; it’s from the same album. She very fluidly goes back and forth between “younger days” and the present, both longing for the past and accepting the present.

Jeffery Straker – “Play That Song Again”

This is the latest single I released from my upcoming album; it’s a waltz. This song, like the album, is lyrically reflective. I figured that the waltz-time would add to that feeling — I find waltzes take me back in time. Lyrically the singer looks back at life’s ups and downs, but ultimately lands in a place of contentment with where he’s landed. I think that’s all we want to eventually be able to do — be comfortable with the path we’ve taken.

Leon Russell – “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”

This is a Dylan tune that Leon Russell recorded in 1971. Dylan recorded it in ’65. It’s the vibe that I love here, though I don’t actually know what it’s about. It’s got all sorts of sexual allusions in its swagger. Russell approaches it slower than Dylan and for me this tempo suits it perfectly.

Harry Nilsson – “Everybody’s Talkin’”

I moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, for part of my university studies and lived in a house with some great singers. At late-night song and drink sessions this song was a favorite for two harmony-singing gals, Carol and Loraine. Every time I hear this I’m transported back to that old Georgian row house and I’m standing in the kitchen listening to them.

Dolly Parton – “My Tennessee Mountain Home”

There’s such beauty in the simplicity that Dolly conjures up with her words. In the very first verse you see her “Watch the kids a’ playin’ with June bugs on a string.” It’s lovely, and now I want to do that. It’s a different time and Dolly paints an idyllic picture of her roots. When I think back to my home, thankfully I have good memories of it too — and she sort of takes me there even though she grew up in a two-room log cabin and I did not. But that’s Dolly — taking something specific and making it wonderfully universal.


Gordon Lightfoot – “If You Could Read my Mind”

I wasn’t a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan in my teens and 20s, but once I hit my 30s I became rabidly into his poetry. This song is quite simply about the failure of a marriage but the language he uses to describe it just takes me somewhere else when I listen. All his talk of “ghosts from wishing wells,” “a paperback novel, the kind the drugstore sells,” and “a movie star getting burned in a three way script.” It just grabs me and doesn’t let go.

Paul Simon – “American Tune”

I once had the chance to sing this in a variety show in a big theatre in Toronto. I had to memorize the lyrics and chords for the performance so I got to know it really well. The chord progressions are just stunning and the melody sails along on top of it like the sun dancing across water. “I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees, but it’s all right, it’s all right, for we’ve lived so well so long.”

Madison Violet – “No Fool for Trying”

I’ve always loved these two gals from the first time I saw them in concert. Their chemistry is really magical through both their musicianship and their vocal harmonies. The arrangement on this song is really simple and the chug-chug-chug rhythm seems to pull me down the highway on long drives. It opens with the lyric: “There’s trouble on this road…” and you’re left curious as to what’s happened. It pulls you in like a good book.

David Francey – “Blue Sorrow and Then Some”

It’s a longing song and the title says it all. I really like the 6/8 feel. The tempo he’s chosen keeps it kind of light and almost cheerful, but with such a sad sentiment in the story being told. “…but sometimes I wonder, do you think of me?” His vocal performance helps you feel the fragility of it all.

Photo credit: Ali Lauren

The Show on the Road – Shovels & Rope

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, The Show On The Road celebrates the newest record by Charleston’s hellion harmonizers, Shovels & Rope, with a new conversation with the married duo of Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst.


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You’d be hard-pressed to find two harder working singer-songwriters than this prolific duo, even before they got together to record their honey-voiced self-titled debut over a decade ago. Thinking it was just a sonic souvenir before they split off again to pursue their barnstorming bar-band solo careers, their human hearts and some encouraging listeners had other plans, convincing them to keep creating as a team. They’ve been off to the races ever since — making five acclaimed records of originals beginning with O’ Be Joyful and following with three gritty covers albums with collaborators like Lucius, Shakey Graves, Brandi Carlile, The War & Treaty, and more.

Shovels & Rope’s newest cover project, Busted Jukebox Volume 3, which dropped on February 5 via Dualtone Records, is a new experiment. You could say it’s an angsty rock record for kids or maybe it’s an homage to the yearning, defiant, ever-hopeful teenager in all of us. With indie-darlings like Sharon Van Etten sitting in on standouts like the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” and Deer Tick joining a rollicking version of the Janis Joplin favorite “Cry Baby,” like a good Pixar animated flick, this collection has just as much to offer Mom and Dad as it does for the kiddos.

If you’ve seen Shovels & Rope live, you’ll notice that Trent and Hearst often face each other, not the audience; their eyes never seem to leave each other. Almost all their songs, like the award-winning favorite “Birmingham,” include spot-on harmony and intensely-focused unison singing. Somehow they create a blisteringly big sound despite always remaining a duo. Even on the biggest stages, from Red Rocks to their own acclaimed festival High Water Fest (set in their longtime South Carolina home base), they stick to their simple but potent formula. Switching back and forth between jangly and crunchy guitars, humming keyboards and pounding piano, hopping from sweat-strewn stripped-down drum kits to aching accordions, their joyous garage-rock Americana keeps gaining them new fans worldwide.

If you’re stuck at home and have kids running rowdily through your house like Shovels & Rope do, (this taping had to be rescheduled three times), maybe try turning on Busted Jukebox Volume 3 nice and loud and see what little ones think. Or just put them to bed and rock out yourself!

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear Shovels & Rope present the sweet campfire jam “My Little Buckaroo” featuring M. Ward.

Photo credit: Mike Crackerfarm

LISTEN: Leslie Jordan feat. Brandi Carlile, “Angel Band”

Posted on by Editor

Artists: Leslie Jordan featuring Brandi Carlile
Hometown: Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Ravensdale, Washington
Song: “Angel Band”
Album: Company’s Comin’
Release Date: April 2, 2021
Label: Platoon

In Their Words: “Brandi Carlile deserves to be accompanied by more than a single band of angels, not only for being a singular artist of our time, but also for living an exemplary life full of love and devotion to everyone she meets. … Singing these songs, it felt like I was recapturing the joy of what this music meant to me as a kid but without all the baggage. When I was growing up, I wanted so badly to be a good Christian, but I knew that the church would never accept me for who I was. It’s liberating now to come back to these hymns, completely at peace with myself, and sing without any hint of the guilt or shame I felt in my youth.

“My dear friend Travis Howard and I would get together on Sundays to sing these old hymns just because we loved them. Somewhere along the way, my business partner, Mike Lotus, took a real interest in what we were doing and started looking up and learning about every old Baptist hymn he could find. I think he realized, like we did, that the songs held something brilliant about the human condition and were a deep comfort to anyone who heard them, religious or not. He started posting our performances online, and the response was just incredible.” — Leslie Jordan

Photo credit: Miller Mobley

The Show on the Road – The Secret Sisters

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, host Z. Lupetin talks with Laura and Lydia Rodgers, Grammy-nominated songwriters and preeminent harmonizers from Muscle Shoals, AL, who for the last decade have recorded as The Secret Sisters.

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First breaking through with their warmly-vintage, vocally-entwined self-titled record in 2010, the Secret Sisters have toured the world relentlessly, while recording with a who’s who of Americana royalty like Dave Cobb and T Bone Burnett. If you’ve ever seen them live, Laura and Lydia are known for their sharp-tongued and story-filled live shows — which, even over Zoom, made them particularly rip-roaring interviewees.

After breaking free of a major label hell which sidelined and nearly bankrupted them for a time, the sisters regrouped and created their most personal and pop-forward work yet, the heart-string pulling You Don’t Own Me Anymore (2017) and 2020’s fiery Saturn Return. Both were made with friend and producer Brandi Carlile, and both were nominated for a Grammy.

While the last year plus was hard — they lost both grandmothers — there was quite a silver lining: Lydia and Laura each become moms, and have begun to sing their own lead pieces, courageously facing uncomfortable truths about their southern upbringing, calling out the double standards and sexual politics of the music industry, and showcasing their very different experiences as young mothers.

With Carlile pushing them to find their own voices, Laura wrote the tender “Hold You Dear” while Lydia penned the more yearning and sardonic “Late Bloomer,” two favorites that stick out after repeated listens to the album. Still, the true beauty of Saturn Return — which they recorded with Carlile’s beloved band — may be how Laura and Lydia can split off into new territory and then return together in chills-inducing harmony, as only sisters could.

Stick around to the end of episode for an intimate acoustic performance of “Nowhere, Baby.”

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

WATCH: The Secret Sisters Give “Cabin” an Acoustic Makeover

Posted on by Editor

The Secret Sisters’ Saturn Return is a beautiful record marked by stripes of maturity, grief, and resilience, reflecting the significant life experiences the sisters were sharing at the time of the album’s creation. From the hope and promise of “Late Bloomer” to the anger and passion of “Cabin,” the duo’s full range is on display, mixing incisive lyrics and truly pure arrangements to create their unique brand of roots music. In a statement, they noted, “With Saturn Return, our hope is that women can feel less alone in their journey through the modern world. We need each other more than we ever have; the less competition and the more inclusiveness and understanding, the better. We are southern women in the 21st century, convicted by our beliefs.”

Our BGS Artist of the Month in March 2020, the Secret Sisters return this year with two Grammy Award nominations. Saturn Return, produced by a roots music trinity of Brandi Carlile and the Hanseroth twins, will compete for Best Folk Album (the group’s second appearance in this category) while “Cabin” is a nominee for Best American Roots Song. To commemorate the pair of nominations, the siblings recorded an up close and personal performance of “Cabin.” Read our one-on-one interviews with Lydia and Laura, and enjoy their acoustic video below.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

WATCH: On Acoustic Guitar, Katie Pruitt Covers Brandi Carlile’s “Turpentine”

Posted on by Editor

Katie Pruitt may be a new kid on the roots music block, but she is quickly making a name for herself as a gifted writer and gripping vocalist. Her debut record, Expectations, was released on Rounder Records in 2020, and although the year didn’t allow for touring, she remains hard at work sharing her music. Last summer Pruitt began a series of cover videos to pay homage to the gay women whose careers fueled her own hopes and aspirations. Titled the “Out of the Closet Series,” the videos offer Pruitt’s renditions of songs by Tegan and Sara, Indigo Girls, and in this final installment, Brandi Carlile.

About the cover series, Pruitt says, “I picked a collection of songs by gay women in particular who have inspired me to be transparent in my music. I think representation is huge… If it weren’t for people like Indigo Girls, Brandi Carlile, Courtney Barnett, and Tegan and Sara, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to be as honest as I was on Expectations.” Pruitt’s bravery and honesty are exactly what have earned her acclaim from outlets like NPR and Rolling Stone, just to name a couple. If you haven’t yet heard it, treat yourself to Katie Pruitt’s Expectations, and watch this lovely performance of Brandi Carlile’s “Turpentine.”

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

LISTEN: Barry Gibb and Jason Isbell Share “Words of a Fool”

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Legendary artist Sir Barry Gibb of Bee Gees fame has now fulfilled one of his greatest artistic visions. Gibb, the sole remnant of the pop music paradigm, is a self-avowed lifelong bluegrass and country music fan, and his new album bears testament to that affinity. The record, titled Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook, Vol. 1, offers twelve Gibb brothers classics reimagined with voices from across the bluegrass and country music realms. Guests include Brandi Carlile, Tommy Emmanuel, Jason Isbell, Alison Krauss, Dolly Parton, and Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, to name only a few.

The magnitude of creative power is manned by none other than Nashville producer Dave Cobb, whose expertise and track record ensure that the new album will be nothing short of magical. Remembering his late brothers, Gibb says the collection is something that “Maurice and Robin would have loved… for different reasons.” To promote the January 8 release, Gibb shared an insightful trailer for the album, in which he details the influences, goals, and parts of the recording process that created Greenfields. Watch the trailer and listen to “Words of a Fool” featuring Jason Isbell below.

Photo credit: Desiree Prieto

Beth Behrs: What Dolly Parton Means to Me

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Everyone has a “Dolly Story.” Whether it’s a personal interaction (like when Brandi Carlile confessed on my podcast, Harmonics, that when she met her backstage at Newport Folk Fest, Dolly prayed with Brandi to calm her nerves) or the first time you heard your own story in one of her songs (like when BGS editor Justin Hiltner explained to host Jad Abumrad how “Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That” is a gay anthem on his podcast, Dolly Parton’s America), these stories are the universal connectors for Dolly Parton fans.

My own love of Dolly Parton’s music goes back a very long time, but my “Dolly Story” finally happened a few years ago, when my husband and I got to meet her after her show at the Hollywood Bowl. It was surreal and wonderful and the moment was over far too soon, but from that day on I knew I wanted to live my life more like Dolly Parton.

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One of these days, I hope to be able to have a longer chat with Dolly (DOLLY IF YOU’RE READING THIS YOU CAN BE ON MY SHOW ANYTIME). But until then, I’ve distilled four pillars of What Dolly Parton Means to Me:

1) Dolly is Always Unapologetically Herself.

“I’ve often made the statement that I’d never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do…. Once they got past the shock of the ridiculous way I looked and all, they would see there are parts of me to be appreciated. I’m very real where it counts — and that’s inside.”

In today’s fractured society, there are few figures as unifying as Dolly Parton. Say her name to almost anyone, anywhere, and almost certainly they will know who she is. Maybe part of the reason for this is her indelible commitment to never being anything but herself. And it’s because of that raw honesty that she can mean so many things to so many people. Over the years when I’ve been pressured to conform to certain looks, trends, people, or situations for the “sake of my career,” Dolly has been a glorious, glittering reminder to never apologize for sticking to who you truly are.

2) Dolly is Always Decent.

“I think everybody should be treated with respect. I don’t judge and I try not to get too caught up in the controversy of things. I hope everybody gets a chance to be who they are.”

Decency and goodness are not just about building a massive resort and theme park to revive the economy of your hometown in East Tennessee (Dollywood). They’re not just about founding a charity that has given away over 150 million books to underprivileged children around the world (Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library). They’re not even just about donating over a million dollars to help fund a COVID-19 vaccine. (Seriously. The hero we needed in 2020.)

Real goodness and decency are about how you act when no one is looking. Dolly is not just a good person, but she is a decent one. She has a universal acceptance for everyone just as they are, and uses her wealth and visibility to stand up for those who cannot. If that’s not decent I don’t know what is.

3) Dolly is Always Resilient.

“I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.”

Dolly may seem like a divine being sent from heaven above, but she’s as human as the rest of us. In so many interviews she’s talked about her rough patches, her health problems, her doubts, her frustrations and failures. But one thing she has never lost is a resounding resiliency to keep going. It’s important to realize that our heroes are just flesh and blood, but it’s also important to remember that what makes someone a true hero is how they remind us to get back up and keep going.

4) Dolly is Always in on the Joke.

“All these years, the people have thought the joke was on me, but it’s actually been on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing and I can change it at any time. I make more jokes about myself than anybody.”

As a comic actor, I love and admire Dolly’s ability to not only be in on the joke, but often two steps ahead of it. It’s easy enough to assume that she’s some dumb blonde with big boobs, but as she shows us time and time again, looking good and being the smartest person in the room are not mutually exclusive. You can see her adeptness in clips from her late night appearances from the ’80s and ’90s, where the host usually takes a cheap jab at Dolly’s ample attributes and makes the interview about her physicality rather than her talent. But without missing a beat, Dolly always throws it right back at him (it’s always a him), usually with a punchline that’s even funnier than the host’s bit.

It’s like she says in her classic song “Dumb Blonde:” “Just because I’m blonde / Don’t think I’m dumb / Cause this dumb blonde ain’t nobody’s fool.” I’ve sat on those same couches, fielded countless embarrassing questions, and in my retort I always try to ask myself: What Would Dolly Do?

Beth Behrs is an actress (The Neighborhood, Two Broke Girls) and host of the BGS podcast, Harmonics. Check out season 1 of Harmonics and follow Beth on Instagram at @bethbehrs for updates on season 2.

Americana Honors & Awards: Black Pumas, The Highwomen Among Winners

Posted on by Editor

The Highwomen picked up three trophies for the Americana Music Association’s 19th Annual Americana Honors & Awards, which were revealed online today. The collective of Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris, and Amanda Shires, joined fellow winners Black Pumas, Brittany Haas, and the late John Prine.

The Highwomen received the following awards: Album of the Year for their self-titled debut, produced by Dave Cobb; Song of the Year for “Crowded Table,” written by Carlile, Hemby and Lori McKenna; and Duo/Group of the Year.

Prine, who died in April, was named Artist of the Year for the fourth time since 2005. Black Pumas carried the Emerging Act of the Year category, while fiddler Brittany Haas won the Instrumentalist of the Year award.

For nearly two decades, the Americana Honors & Awards program has provided a unique platform for commemorating the best and brightest musicians in the Americana music scene at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in an effort to preserve the safety of musicians, fans and other members of the close-knit roots community, the Americana Music Association chose to forego having an in-person ceremony this year.

Photo of Black Pumas: Lyza Renee; Photo of The Highwomen: Alysse Gafkjen; Photo of John Prine: Danny Clinch; Photo of Brittany Hass: Michael George