Tag: buck owens

Dale Watson Makes Himself at Home in Memphis

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Call us lucky that Dale Watson is feeling so lucky these days. He’s recently bought a house in Memphis, the city where he recorded his new album Call Me Lucky at Sam Phillips Recording studio, purchased the famous nightclub Hernando’s Hideaway, and continues to develop his sound and to reign as the king of Ameripolitan music. Call Me Lucky includes traveling tunes, love songs, and trucking songs, all under three minutes, and featuring Watson’s signature rockabilly sound.

On the slow-burning ballad “Johnny and June,” Watson and Celine Lee, who co-wrote the song, channel Cash and Carter as they look into each other’s eyes and sing about how deeply their lives are intertwined: “you’re the cream in my coffee/you’re the grits to my gravy/you’re the wind in my sails/a lullaby to my baby.” Cash’s drummer W.S. “Fluke” Holland provides the driving beat for “The Dumb Song,” which features a galloping bass line straight out of the Man in Black’s catalog. Every track features Watson’s inventive songwriting, from the Waylon Jennings-like “Restless” to the scampering Merle Haggard-esque “You Weren’t Supposed to Feel This Good.”

BGS caught up with Watson by phone for a chat about songwriting and his new album.

BGS: You recorded this album in Memphis at Sam Phillips Recording studio. Why did you decide to record it there?

Watson: Mostly I record my albums here in Austin, either at my studio, but sometimes at Willie’s or at Ray Hubbard’s studio. A friend of mine, Matt Ross-Spang, who’s a great producer, had been working over there and I went to visit him. I became close to the Phillips family. Since the 1960s, some of the greatest American records have been made there. It felt like home, and it has this great sound, of course.

What made you decide to buy a house in Memphis?

I’ve always liked Memphis. Wherever I was going that took me in that direction, I’d stop in there. The city has grown but it’s done well in cleaning itself up. Memphis reminds me of Austin in the ‘80s. I can record where I want but I wanted to come here to do this one.

You recently purchased the fabled Hernando’s Hideaway nightclub. Is it open yet? How does owning a club help you in your own music?

We’re still doing work on the club but hope it will open up sometime later this year. Hernando’s Hideaway is the only bar where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Charlie Rich played in, never at the same time, though. I am able to get discs from new bands, so I hear some new music. As the owner of the bar, I have to really look for these people to perform and play the kind of music I want in the bar. If I sit in the bar, though, I am going to hear some music that I really like and that I want to hear more of.

Is this album a bookend to your 2015 album Call Me Insane?

(Laughs) I never put those two things together. I never thought of that. The label wanted to go with one of songs for the title, and this is what they chose.

Who would you say are your major influences?

Merle Haggard, Ray Price, Buck Owens, Lefty Frizzell, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins.

Can you define Ameripolitan? How did you come up with the term?

I came up with the term out of frustration, I think. (laughs) I’d be somewhere, and people would ask me what kind of music I do, and I’d say country music. They’d say, “I love Kenny Chesney.” Nothing against them, but by today’s standard of country music, they’d be disappointed with my music. If I tell them my music sounds like Hank Williams or Jimmie Rodgers or Merle Haggard, more often than not people say they’ve never heard of that.

So, it’s easier to explain what we are by using a different word, Ameripolitan, to describe original music with a prominent roots influence. It starts with Jimmie Rodgers and has a relationship to music between Rodgers and Hank Williams. We’ve been holding the Ameripolitan Awards Show now for six years and promoting the music. We held the first four shows in Austin; this year’s show we held in Memphis.

You have a knack for writing songs quickly. What’s your view of songwriting? When did you start writing songs and playing guitar?

Early on, I learned to write from my dad, who wrote songs. When I was about seven or eight years old, I started making up songs on a ukulele. A little later I wrote a song about the girl across the street. All the good ones are about the girls. (laughs) I’m not writing “American Pie.” I pick a subject or I write about people or a situation I see. You write and you write and you have an album.

I was cleaning up my place for a move a couple of years ago and I found a good song that we dusted off. The only time I wrote songs on the way to the studio to go on an album was for the Sun Sessions. I wrote about four to five songs on the way there. I started playing guitar when my brother Jim needed a rhythm guitar player in his band. He taught me how to play some chord progressions. Two years later I had my own band and I learned on the job.

You wrote “Inside View” on the spot in a club. How did you come up with it?

We were playing the Continental Club in Austin. There were these two girls near the stage and they kept screaming for me to play “inside view, inside view.” Well, we didn’t have a song called that but I said, “All right, ‘Inside View.’” I turned to my band and I wrote the song there on stage. My drummer and road manager, Mike Bernal, usually records our music; he’ll send it to me later to refine. Usually I have to go back and re-record, but I didn’t have to do that with “Inside View.” I get most of my ideas from my audience.

How did the idea for “Johnny and June” come to you?

I was driving with my daughter when the idea came to me, and she wrote it down as I told her about it. I played Johnny’s guitar on that one. It’s got that Cash vibe to it and it’s a duet between Celine and me.

There’s a song on the album called “David Buxkemper.” How did that song come about?

I never met the guy before I wrote the song. One day I got an email through my website from this guy named David Buxkemper. He told me he was a big fan of the Reverend Horton Heat, and he’d seen me on tour with Heat. He told me he was a truckin’ farmer, and he was a big fan of my trucking songs. He also told me he and his grandfather used to watch Hee Haw together and that he liked listening to trucking songs while he was farming. I was intrigued by his story, and with a name like that—you can’t make that up! So I asked him for more details about his life and ended writing this song about him. I like writing about real people.

Photo credit: Mike Brown

MIXTAPE: Eric Corne’s California Country

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California country has deep roots and an enduring influence. It’s given us the Bakersfield Sound, country-rock, cosmic country, cow punk, and much more. I love the more raw/less polished sound and how its artists tend to chart their own course. Nashville was a company town; California was where the mavericks went. I have a strong personal connection to California country, stemming from my work as Dusty Wakeman’s engineer at Mad Dog Studios in Los Angeles. Dusty played bass with Buck Owens, engineered Dwight Yoakam’s seminal albums, and co-produced Lucinda Williams’ first two albums. There’s still a strong core of musicians in L.A. with roots stretching back to these earlier generations, and it’s a thrill and an honor to be writing and producing records with such soulful and beautiful people, many of whom populate the selections below. — Eric Corne

Buck Owens — “Streets of Bakersfield”

Buck Owens is, of course, a pillar of California country and a pioneer of the Bakersfield Sound. An iconic harmony guitar riff provides the instrumental theme, with gorgeous vocal harmonies and pedal steel lifting the choruses. This song really encapsulates what California country represents to me — the desire to be oneself.

Merle Haggard — “Working Man”

This is one of my favorite Merle songs. It’s got a great groove and terrific guitar playing with lyrics that clearly represent the blue-collar ethic he embodied.

Lucinda Williams — “Sweet Ole World”

Lucinda really helped broaden the boundaries of country just by doing her own thing. This song has an angelic vocal melody with beautiful harmony and precise responses from the guitar. Immaculately recorded and co-produced by my mentor Dusty Wakeman.

Dwight Yoakam — “It Only Hurts When I Cry”

Dwight and Pete Anderson were real students of classic country music, especially the Bakersfield Sound, and they were at the center of the cow punk movement, along with X, Lone Justice, and others. This is a great song with witty lyrics, perfect production, and top-notch performances.

Jean Shepard — “If Teardrops Were Silver”

Raised in Bakersfield, Jean Shepard was a pioneer for female country singers and one of its first great stars, following on the heels of Kitty Wells’ breakthrough. She had a really pure voice with a lovely vibrato and a great ability to interpret a song.

Bob Wills — “Bubbles in My Beer”

It could be argued that Bob Wills is the godfather of the Bakersfield Sound. He played there regularly and had a strong influence on both Buck and Merle … something I can really hear in this song.

Sam Morrow — “Skinny Elvis” (Featuring Jaime Wyatt)

I’m really proud to work with these two brilliant, young, California country artists who are getting well-deserved national attention. I wrote this one for Sam’s album, Concrete and Mud. It’s a little reminiscent of the Gram/Emmylou song “Ooh, Las Vegas,” so I thought it’d make a great duet with Jaime. I recruited legendary Gram Parsons/Byrds pedal steel player Jay Dee Maness to play on it, which was quite a thrill, as you can imagine.

Guy Clark — “L.A. Freeway”

Guy Clark wasn’t in L.A. for long, and this song is about leaving, but it’s a beautiful farewell song. The song makes reference to another beloved and iconic figure of California country — “Skinny” Dennis Sanchez who played bass with Clark, and ran in circles with the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, and Steve Earle. There’s also a thriving honkytonk in Brooklyn named after him. It’s an incredible performance, very dynamic, with a sympathetic arrangement including Wurlitzer piano, weepy fiddle, moaning harmonica, and gorgeous chorus harmonies.

Jade Jackson — “Motorcycle”

Here’s another great, young country singer coming out of Cali right now. I love this lyric and vocal performance — intimate with a dark, rebellious under current.

Linda Ronstadt — “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”

Her early career country records are really underrated. This is a killer country-rock version of a Dick Reynolds/Jack Rhodes classic song with strong ties to the Flying Burrito Brothers. I think Ronstadt is also important to include here, due to her work with Neil Young, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and others in the L.A. country scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s.

The Byrds — “Hickory Wind”

No playlist of California country would be complete without a song from the Byrds’ seminal country album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. My first gig in Los Angeles was assisting Dusty Wakeman on the mixes for the Gram Parsons tribute concert at which Keith Richards did a beautiful heartfelt version of this song by his old pal, Gram.

Sam Outlaw — “Jesus Take the Wheel (And Drive Me to a Bar)”

An instant classic by one of the brightest stars of the current generation of California country singers with outstanding production by Ry Cooder and Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket on keys, who also guests on my new record.

The Flying Burrito Brothers — “Hot Burrito #1”

Even though Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman’s importance is already represented here via the Byrds, I wanted to include this achingly beautiful Burrito song, partly because of Gram’s incredible vocal and melody, and partly due to Bernie Leadon and the link he represented as a member of both the Burritos and the Eagles, the latter heavily influenced by the former.

Gene Autry — “Mexicali Rose”

Gene Autry’s singing cowboy films were instrumental in bringing country music to a national audience in the 1940s. I was very fortunate to record Glen Campbell on his version of “Mexicali Rose,” but thought I’d include Autry’s version here.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young — “Helpless”

I think the Laurel Canyon music scene played an important role in California country and Neil Young, in particular — first with Buffalo Springfield, with songs like “Learning to Fly” and “I Am a Child,” and later with his Nashville-recorded classic, Harvest. “Helpless” to me represents the seeds of Harvest.

Eagles — “Tequila Sunrise”

Not much needs to be said about the first two Eagles’ albums and their role in the popularity of country-rock. Not to include them would seem an oversight. This also represents the beginning of the fruitful Glenn Frey/Don Henley songwriting partnership.

3×3: Cordovas on Brautigan, Baseball Cards, and Buck Owens Back Tattoos

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Artist: Lucca Soria (of Cordovas)
Hometown: Joe’s from Charlotte, NC; Jon’s from Macon, GA; Graham’s from Orange County, CA; and I’m from Des Moines, IA.
Latest Album: That Santa Fe Channel
Personal Nicknames: Monstruo niño

If you had to live the life of a character in a song, which song would you choose?

“Thankful N’ Thoughtful” by Sly & the Family Stone

Where would you most like to live or visit that you haven’t yet?

Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo — Japan in Spring

What was the last thing that made you really mad?

Reading about the proposed “health care” bill.

If you had to get a tattoo of someone’s face, who would it be?

When I just now turned to my girlfriend Kelsey and asked, “Whose face should be tattooed on my back?” she said, “Buck Owens” and I think that’s a good answer.

Whose career do you admire the most?

Willie Dixon’s, Woody Guthrie’s

What are you reading right now?

I just finished The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens this morning and plan on reading either In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan or The American Claimant by Twain.

 

Summer Tour dates are up at cordovasband.com including @familywash 7/3—see y’all soon #Nashville #NYC

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Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Extrovert because I think anyone singing and playing in front of people becomes one.

What’s your favorite culinary spice?

Red pepper

What was your favorite childhood toy?

Either my baseball card collection or Star Wars action figures.

Photo credit: Rebecca Ward

Marty Stuart: Surfing the Desert Waves

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Marty Stuart’s catalog reads like an ode to the American landscape, even if that reverence arises more through sound than song title. “You’re talking to somebody who will build around a tree instead of cut it down,” Stuart says about his regard and wonder for nature. “I’ve built decks and porches around them just so they could keep living.” Ever since the early days of hillbilly music, country has been rooted in rural terrains so, for a musician with an inclination toward tradition, Stuart doesn’t have to look any further than the songs themselves to channel the land that shaped them.

His projects call — sometimes subtly, others overtly — to different regions. The styles he has worked to both preserve and play with house geographies as diverse as his native Delta, the rugged Badlands, and now the psychedelic California wilderness. His new album, Way Out West, recorded with longtime band His Fabulous Superlatives, pays homage to the rugged West — to the myths, legends, and lore hovering over that arid atmosphere. “The desert’s a funny place,” he says. To reflect that quirk, Stuart blended the twangy surf rock riffs of the California coast with the shimmering sustain of the wavering desert horizon. He calls the resulting mish-mash “hillbilly surfband” music.

While Stuart holds musical traditions in high regard, he has never treated them as fragile things liable to break at the slightest hint of playfulness. But even he wasn’t sure what to make of the sound he and the Superlatives were fusing together for what would become Way Out West, until he realized every reference fed back into country’s winding history. “If I go back and listen to recordings from the 1960s, and I hear what the Shadows and the Ventures were doing, or Merle Haggard or Buck Owens and the Buckaroos — the kind of instrumentals they were playing — I think everybody was listening to everybody back then,” he explains. “Basically, it was all Fender guitar-driven, twangy music.”

Setting that twang in the Mojave Desert culminated from two earlier projects. First came film: Billy Bob Thornton approached Stuart about scoring All the Pretty Horses (2000), which opened him up to music’s visual properties in an entirely new way. “I learned more about making cinematic songs come to life when we were doing that film,” he says. “I actually called upon Kristen Wilkinson, who was the arranger — we scored that film together — so anytime you hear an orchestral part in [Way Out West], that’s Kris Wilkinson.” Then came his 2006 album Badlands: Ballads of the Lakota. A particular field recording he made for that project stood out and provided the entry point for his new album. “I thought about this prayer that Everett Helper sang and played on his drums. Between that and a sitar and just combining all those sounds, all of a sudden [Way Out West] became a different record.”

Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives tap into the West’s living spirit — as well as the spirits that have shaped it — from the very start. “Desert Prayer 1” opens Way Out West and epitomizes the blended compositions that follow. Wind howling across the desert floor gives way to a psychedelic guitar calling, as if from the horizon, and eventually segues into Native American drumbeats and chanting. “I wanted the listener to reach out and take my hand at the edge of the Mojave Desert, and I wanted to take them on a cosmic, twangified trip through the desert,” he says. The desert, like his hometown Delta, may seem like “thousands of acres of nothing,” according to Stuart, but he knows there’s a presence in all that supposed absence. “If it’s pitch black and you can’t see anything except what’s in front of you, you start hearing things,” he says. “I’ve done this. I hear things and see things that really aren’t there.” If that sounds like the makings of a Hunter S. Thompson adventure, Stuart insists he’s been “stone cold sober” when such moments have occurred. “There’s a whole spirit world dancing around in those places, and I wanted to tap into that in Way Out West,” he says.

Working with producer and guitarist Mike Campbell (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), who Stuart has long admired for his “band” ear, he let the songs breathe. Instrumentals like “Mojave” and instructives like “Time Don’t Wait” reflect the desert’s wide open expanse through their instrumentation and, more importantly, their arrangement. Space is a subject close to Stuart’s heart. “I heard a statistic the other day where there are generally 88 people a day moving into Nashville,” he says, balking at the drain that puts on the natural world. “They keep selling pastures and building houses on what used to be beautiful farmland.” Having recently visited London and New York, he worries about their size and the kind of toll that takes on the earth. What happens to Nashville if it grows in that direction? “As citizens, we have a responsibility to care for what’s in front of us, and we don’t do that very well sometimes, in general, as a people,” he admits.

As much as Way Out West is a love letter to the desert landscape and the music personifying it, it’s also a reminder. Stuart didn’t write a political album, but the timeliness of its arrival takes on greater significance in the current political light. With Donald Trump and his administration proposing budget cuts that would not only affect, but in some cases decimate, departments and programs established to protect the country’s more majestic manifestations, Stuart’s album, in some ways, feels like a panegyric. He brings listeners closer to the grandeur and, in turn, the importance of the land by bringing it to life track after track. “When I walk out into the desert and come in front of a saguaro cactus that’s been there for who knows how long, I respect it because I know that I’m in the presence of something that belongs there and I’m just a visitor,” he says. “I do that everywhere I go. I try to honor the land.” Stuart recalls his deep friendship with illustrator Thomas B. Allen, who drew several album covers for Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and the important lesson Allen taught him. “He was one of my favorite people in this world that I’ve ever known. He said, ‘It’s important, as an artist, to keep something in front of you that knows more about you than you know about it. That keeps you honest, and it keeps you digging.’”

Alongside songs dealing with the natural wonder of the land — in melody, if not always in lyric — Stuart also includes a sonic tip of the hat to truck drivers. “Whole Lotta Highway (With a Million Miles to Go)” finds him waxing poetic about a blue-collar character as much a part of the American landscape’s fabric as the land itself. But with automation threatening to replace so many workers, killing some 1.7 million jobs over the course of the next decade, Stuart’s salute could one day become an artifact detailing a way of life thrown over by industrialization’s endless march forward, like the Carolina Tar Heels’ “Peg and Awl.” “I keep hearing and seeing speculation about driverless cars,” Stuart says. “It’ll be the same thing: There are driverless trains already. Truck drivers are, in my opinion, old American folk heroes. They’re the last of the concrete cowboys and they shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s not an easy job they chose.” The chatter about losing jobs to automation isn’t one to be taken lightly. “You can already say that about a caboose on a train,” he says. “The trains I knew as a kid, they had a red caboose at the end and a guy that sat up in the caboose and took care of business from that perspective. We can already say, ‘I remember the caboose on the train.’ Trucks should be concerned.”

For a historian interested in preserving musical traditions and honoring the past, Stuart’s music encapsulates the landscapes and characters that comprise the American experience. Blurring country, rockabilly, psychedelic rock, and surfer rock into some unruly thing, Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives have painted a golden- and amber-hued picture of the Wild West. At the end of the day, though, he only cares about music that means something. “I’m addicted to creating, and I’m addicted to projects that matter and say something,” he says. “The hardest thing in this world — I could write songs all day long — but songs that matter, songs that reach out and touch somebody’s heart? I never know when they’re going to come, but I always keep my radar ready for them.”

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

BGS Class of 2016: Six of the Year’s Best Reissues

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ICYMI, 2016 was a great year for new roots music — go check out our BGS Class of 2016: Albums feature, if you need some convincin'. We were introduced to Courtney Marie Andrews, gifted with a solo album from Amanda Shires, floored by Brandy Clark's sophomore solo effort, and so very much more. Lucky for us, 2016 was also a big year for roots reissues, so those of you playing along at home who have more of a "get off my lawn" approach to listening to music have plenty to be happy about, too. And we've rounded up a handful of this year's reissues that we can't stop spinning.

Etta Baker, Railroad Bill

It's no secret that we at the BGS love Music Maker Relief Foundation, a North Carolina-based nonprofit dedicated to preserving Southern music. One of the many wonderful things they did in 2016 was reissuing Etta Baker's excellent Railroad Bill on vinyl. If experiencing Baker's take on Woody Guthrie's "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" in all its analog glory isn't enough of a draw, perhaps the never-before-seen digital videos that accompany the piece are.

J.D. Crowe and the New South, 0044

One of the most beloved bluegrass albums of all time came from a band that was around for less than a year. That album, nicknamed 0044 after being assigned the number by label Rounder Records, was the sole project of J.D. Crowe and the New South, features musicians like Gordon Lightfoot and Rodney Crowell, and counted Alison Krauss and her band as fans. It was re-released as an expanded vinyl edition on Record Store Day in April. If you're interested in learning the history of this iconic release, Rounder Records founder Bill Nowlin wrote a three-part series about 0044 for us earlier this year. Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Trio, The Complete Trio Collection

Oh man, where do we even begin with this one. Dolly, Emmylou, AND Linda? On not one but TWO albums? With bonus demos and unreleased songs? We mere mortals don't deserve it, but we'll sure as hell take it.

Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, The Complete Capitol Singles: 1957-1966

This new collection from Omnivore pulls together 56 of the songs that made Buck Owens a legend, and packages them up all nice and remastered. A liner note introduction written by Dwight Yoakam is the icing on top of this sweet, twangy cake.

The New Kentucky Colonels, Live in Sweden 1973

This sought-after live album from the New Kentucky Colonels has been out of print since 1976, but now it's finally available, and with additional content, to boot. Some 26 tracks chronicle two nights in Stockholm — a big step up from the original LP's 14 songs.

Junior Kimbrough, Meet Me in the City

It was the year of the reissue for Fat Possum Records, who released 30 different blues titles to vinyl in 2016. One of those albums was Junior Kimbrough's Meet Me in the City, a compilation of some of the Mississippi bluesman's greatest tunes, released one year after he passed away from a heart attack at the age of 67 in 1998.

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A BGS Roots Road Trip

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Nothing says Summer like a road trip, and nothing says road trip like awesome — and sometimes awesomely weird — roadside attractions. There's no shortage of amazing destinations for roots music fans in the good ole US of A, so we've put together a handful of our favorite roots-related roadside romps. Whether you're deep in the South or soaking up the sun in Southern California, there's something here for you. 

And hey, any good road trip needs a great soundtrack, so check out our road-worthy Spotify playlist, too.

Loretta Lynn's Hurricane Mills

Photo credit: countryboy1949 via DesignHunt / CC BY-SA

Why have one museum when you can have six? That's what Loretta Lynn was thinking when she opened Hurricane Mills, her ranch in the Tennessee town of the same name that features plenty of Loretta history, sure, but also houses a doll museum and rentable log cabins.

Dollywood

Photo credit: Valerie Everett via DIYlovin / CC BY-SA

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, (and neighboring Gatlinburg) is a strange place. It's perhaps the only town on earth where one can bungee jump and visit a replica of the Titanic on the same stretch of road. More importantly, though, it's home to Dollywood — your definitive source for Southern food, surprisingly scary roller coasters, and, of course, all things Dolly Parton.

Bill Monroe Music Park and Campground

Photo courtesy of BillMonroeMusicPark.com

The legacy of Bill Monroe, an array beautiful campsites, and live events galore? Those are some darn good reasons to head to Brown Country, Indiana, for some outdoor R&R.

International Bluegrass Music Museum

Rendering courtesy of International Bluegrass Music Museum

There's no better place to learn about the history of bluegrass that the International Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky. And what luck for you, bluegrass fans out there, as the Museum recently broke ground on an extensive expansion.

Buck Owens' Crystal Palace

Photo credit: Panegyrics of Granovetter via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

We can't vouch for the food at this Bakersfield joint, but the on-site "museum" hosts a number of cool bronze statues of country luminaries that are sure to give your Instagram some real, down-home cred.

50 National Landmarks

If you want to throw in some stops at non-music monuments and hit all of the lower 48 States, Michigan State University doctoral student Randy Olson compiled a fantastic map of national landmarks like Yellowstone, the French Quarter, Pikes Peak, Graceland, Mount Vernon, and more.

Lede photo credit: auspices via Foter.com / CC BY

Canadian Cousins Exploring Strange Countries: A Conversation with Kacy & Clayton

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Cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum may hail from Canada — specifically the isolated Wood Mountain Uplands in Saskatchewan — but their music is by no means limited to that geographical region. Fans of older sounds than what they heard playing on the radio growing up, they sought out British folk and American roots music that broadened their horizons and went on to influence their own take on these classic traditions.

Their new album, Strange Country, contains darker subject matter that belies the pair’s young age: Kacy at 19 and Clayton at 21 write music far beyond their years. With Clayton’s clear, articulate guitar guiding the songs along and Kacy’s woeful, emotionally laden vocals — sliding from soprano to a weighted alto and back again — the pair have penned an album that feels woozy at times for the heights it soars and the depths it reaches, all dealing with tragedies in one way or another. Strange Country feels solemn and especially grave, both figuratively and literally. The album’s last song, “Dyin’ Bed Maker,” is a murder ballad Kacy wrote from the point of view of a female. The sheer desire that arises from the song’s melody and lyricism feels overwhelming: “I know he loved me best. I know he loved me best,” Kacy sings, her voice edging on provocation against Clayton’s mournful guitar.

It seems like the younger generations are largely interested in the past in an ironic sense. How do you keep your engagement more genuine?

Kacy: I think you can kind of stray away from clichés. If you know about certain song topics or things that have been overdone, in different periods or over time, then you can kind of be aware of that and draw from lesser-known influences. Yeah, just go for a more uncommon influence, I guess.

Clayton: Wow, that is so true. I did not realize that. [Laughs] This is educational for me, too. Keep ‘em coming, Kacy. That was genuine tone and it came off as sarcastic.

How do you avoid appropriating a musical tradition?

Clayton: I think not dressing like pioneers.

Kacy: Yeah, I think that’s actually the main thing. And not having press photos that show us churning butter and riding on wagons with a team of horses.

Clayton: That is one thing that we’ve really been striving for, is to take influence from that older world but not try and put on a theatre production.

Kacy: It’s cool if it’s done really well, but I don’t think I’m capable of being … like there are certain people, like Frank Fairfield, he’s just — I don’t know how to say this in a non-cheesy way because everything that’s come to mind is a total mom phrase — so authentic and he doesn’t try, but that’s where all of his interests are. He has no regards for the current world. There are certain people like that who can do it real well. Personally, I don’t think I can, so I’m not going to wear suspenders and little old timey shoes. That does not make sense for me, because I don’t want to spend all my time trying to find woven pants and stuff. That’s a whole new level of hard work.

Clayton: And hard work to wear them.

Especially in the Summer.

Clayton: Oh, yeah.

Kacy: I do also love pioneer clothes and acting in pioneer dramas that my Aunt Thelma writes.

Obviously, you’re both very young, but there’s a weighted solemnity about your music that suggests someone much older and experienced. Where does that sensibility come from?

Kacy: I think that it mostly just comes from listening to traditional music from certain areas where it’s so dark, and you are consumed by tragedy and death and music relating to hard parts of life, experiences you haven’t really had. I don’t know anyone that’s been murdered or anything. But you can listen to a murder ballad and get a sense for it and relate to it and try and make your own stories or work off of things that you heard. I think just talking about kind of heavy subject matter makes the music seem a little more mature.

Do you find that since you’re singing about characters that you almost inhabit characters?

Kacy: Yeah, I think when there’s a strong character in a song or a good story or something, you feel attached to it. You put yourself in the situation. I guess that’s the fun thing about singing songs: It’s getting to sing from other people’s perspective. With folk music, for sure. It’s not as fun to sing your own songs, because you know yourself. It’s boring.

You hail from the prairie provinces, but some of your songs, especially “Down at the Dance Hall,” have an Acadiana feel. What interests you about that sound?

Clayton: Well, if you’re wondering about where that influence came from, we were both listening to a lot to the Balfa Brothers around the time we recorded the album. Kacy had been playing around with the fiddle and I thought, "Who do we know that could play button accordion?" And the answer was not really anyone, so then I tried to learn the accordion and learned about two songs, and played it briefly on that song. That’s about all the progress I’ve made. It happened in about a month and then stopped.

Are you going to pick up the accordion again?

Clayton: You know, I think I will. I would like to take some lessons. I had a couple homespun Dirk Powell DVDs, which are great. I just need to motivate myself a little more. And someone gave us a negative review. They called it "unnecessary accordion," so that was a bit of a blow.

Kacy: Yeah, that’s a major blow.

I can see how that’s a set back, but don’t let it derail any future accordion plans.

Clayton: I won’t. I was just fishing for some pity. I think I was successful in that, so thank you.

Take me through your recording process. How did the frozen wilderness surrounding the recording studio eke its way into the record?

Kacy: It definitely made everything a little bit more urgent. When I was singing, I felt kind of tense and the studio furnace kicked out at a certain point. We had to wear mittens and coats when we could. When I heard the album, I was surprised by how fast all the songs were. I think it was just because it was cold. I would like to make a record in the Summer. I feel like you get a definitely laidback sound.

Yeah, it would languish a bit.

Clayton: We’ve made all of our albums in the Winter.

Kacy: Yeah, or even just record in a warmer climate during the Winter.

Are there any modern artists you admire?

Clayton: We definitely like Jason Molina. Is that what you were going to say Kacy? Did I steal that from you?

Kacy: No, I just said Jason Molina’s dead, so that’s not current.

Clayton: Well, I know that he’s dead but he’s …

Right, like artists in the past 20 years or so.

Clayton: I really like Ryley Walker and Daniel Bachman. I like what they did on the guitar a lot.

Clayton, do you tend to listen to instrumental songwriters or narrative songwriters?

Clayton: I tend to listen to mostly old country music these days, like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and that kind of songwriting. I think Kacy and I both are pretty influenced by that style of country imagery and country storytelling. We try to bring that into our British folk influences, as well, which is kind of what Richard Thompson was doing back in the Richard and Linda days. He was really into Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, but he’s also got the traditional British stuff.

That’s the interesting thing about watching artists develop. Once they introduce listeners to their own sound, they can begin stretching themselves by incorporating influences more heavily.

Clayton: It takes a while to get comfortable enough to try and mimic a style that you’re not really known for or what people expect. But I think that it’s kind of good for a longer career, if you’re able to do that.

And also for your own personal growth. I want to turn to murder ballads. I noticed that you composed “Dyin’ Bed Maker” from the perspective of a female. What provoked you to explore that subject matter in that way?

Kacy: I took influence from “Henry Lee,” where it’s just a lady and she’s very rancid. She does some dirty deeds. Basically, that one lacks a lot of detail — the storyline — I think, but I kind of liked that about it. There are no real characters introduced or anything.

Speaking of writing, how does the composition process work?

Kacy: We write back and forth, and then work together — try and come up with something good.

Clayton: It’s kind of a filtering process, you know? We both trust each other’s opinions and sometimes it’s kind of frustrating if something is rejected by the other person, but in the end, it’s kind of rewarding because you feel that much better about the songs if they pass through two minds. I think that’s something unique that you don’t get just working on songs by yourself.

Kacy: Yeah, having a person that you trust as much or more than yourself that can give just an opinion or change something or tell you what they think. Like things that I might be unsure about and then Clayton might think is really great, or maybe I’m really confident in it and Clayton thinks it’s awful and tries to cover it up by saying, "It’s fine, but …"

Is that how conversations usually go? There’s no nitty gritty critique?

Clayton: I say Kacy usually gives me the nitty gritty, and I have to dance around my point a lot.

Kacy: Well, your songs are really annoying.

Clayton: My songs are really annoying? Sheesh, I didn’t expect to get that on this interview call. I think what Kacy was saying is that she doesn’t really hold back with me, and I think what I’m saying is that’s just the way it is.

Photo credit: Dane Roy