Tag: carole king

BGS 5+5: Erisy Watt

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Artist: Erisy Watt
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Album: Eyes Like the Ocean

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Ok, there is this one time that stands out, back in 2013, to make a long story short, I wound up on stage with two of my best friends, two members of Blues Traveler, belly equal parts full of butterflies and burritos, at BottleRock Music Festival where we were meant to be volunteering, but things panned out differently.

It was my sophomore year in college. I had just formed my first band, and we had just played our first show ever “headlining” the open mic (can you headline an open mic?) at this nightclub in Santa Barbara. A couple of weeks later we’re at BottleRock volunteering at an artist afterparty at this fancy theatre downtown. Several wine tastings and trips to the burrito bar later, and pretty soon my friend Scott is telling us that we’re going to go on stage in a few minutes and play a couple of songs with some friends he’s just made. It comes to light soon that they’re members of Blues Traveler. If you know my friend Scott, then this is perfectly in character for him. He once was hitchhiking with his guitar in Australia and was picked up by Christopher Hemsworth in a helicopter.

So sure enough, we end up on stage, still in our volunteer shirts. The bright lights, the monitors, the sound guy, the band – it was a Cinderella moment for sure, and enough to solidify the already planted seed that doing the music thing would be like the best job ever. Yes, there are other more serious moments on stage that are meaningful to me, but this one always upwells. It perfectly exemplifies the wacky shit the universe throws at you when you sign up to be a traveling musician. This was one of my first tastes of that, and it definitely lit a fire.

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

Creativity, for me, does not exist in a vacuum. I 100% rely on the absorption of and engagement in other art forms to inform my music. Reading is a huge part of my songwriting process. It’s one of my antidotes to narrow-mindedness, a way to break any tendencies towards cyclical thinking. Reading replenishes the word box, among other things. Everything from poetry to scientific papers, in some way or another, sparks little ideas here and there. Typically, if I’m not writing enough, it’s because I’m not reading enough. As for other art forms I engage in, I grew up dancing and drawing and toggled between those two worlds for many years. My closet was cluttered with colored pencil shavings and dance costumes, and it wasn’t until a series of injuries and desire to explore something new, along with some teenage trauma, that I found the guitar and a journal.

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

I make a real effort to divide my time between the elements, and it’s that combination of mountain, forest, river, coast, and ocean that informs my songwriting and my sound. The interplay between it all, that’s the source. I am lucky (and sometimes unlucky) that my other job besides music has me interacting with the elements in an intimate way. For part of my year, my job is to help lead ecological field courses for university students in the various wilder places of the planet. I have pitched my tent in the swamps of Florida on the heels of a hurricane and rice paddy terraces in the Himalayas. It’s in these moments, in this more stripped-down context away from the grind of home life, that many of my songs first introduce themselves.

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

One of the songs on my new album titled “Nowhere Fast” gave me a particularly hard time. It began on a napkin at a trailhead in the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains in 2017, but when I tried to pick it back up when I got home, it just didn’t go anywhere. It went through many phases — different chords, new melodies, choruses became verses, bridges became choruses. It was a puzzle of a song I kept trying to piece together until I decided to set it down for a few years. Then two things happened — open D tuning and vocal surgery. Both introduced me to new colors and breathed life into my songwriting. Come to think of it, so many of the songs on the record were born from the discovery of new sounds after my surgery and new tunings on the guitar.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Love this question. It reminds me of, this is kind of off-topic, but that short series Pretend It’s a City on Netflix with Fran
Lebowitz. I was folding laundry watching it not too long ago when something she said stuck with me. She says, “I really think that musicians, probably musicians and cooks, are responsible for the most pleasure in human life.” I heard that, looked up from my pile of socks, and thought, hell yes, that is very on point. When I think back on some of my fondest experiences, so many have involved one or the other, and often, both.

Anyhow, there was this one time in Nepal where I met this teenage Tibetan Buddhist monk that had dreams of becoming a rapper. It was a really cold day and I wound up with an invite inside his house and he and his friends made us boiled potatoes with the best spicy dipping sauce I’ve ever had in my life and then he rapped for us. I don’t know if it was the altitude or what, but that’s one of the more memorable music and meal pairings I can recall. So, if I were to have to dream up something, I would like it to be something very unexpected, because a lot of times the cards fall in a way more interesting form than you may have thought to deal them in the first place.

Photo Credit: Hannah Garrett

MIXTAPE: Jesse Terry’s Pure Seventies Troubadour Gold

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I’m not sure what it is about this era that has permanently ensnared my soul. Perhaps the raw, confessional nature of the troubadour has always reassured me that I am not alone. These are the songs that made me abandon my fine art career at the age of 18 and embark on a lifelong quest to appease the songwriting gods. The fact that all of these songs can be fully delivered with one instrument and one voice has always amazed and inspired me. It was wonderful to record a few of these classics on my current EP, Seventies Roots, part of a double album of covers that I’m releasing in February 2022 called Forget-Me-Nots. — Jesse Terry

Joni Mitchell – “A Case of You”

Was there any doubt it would start with Joni and a song off her masterpiece, Blue? I put Joni in a Jimi Hendrix-type category, where it feels like the artist was transported from outer space, in perfect revolutionary form. Her songs, chord progressions, lyrics and vocals have always been otherworldly to me. It was thrilling to record this song on my Seventies Roots EP. Actually it was intimidating, but in the end I love the song too much not to do it.

James Taylor – “Fire and Rain”

The blueprint for confessional, honest songwriting. It’s awesome to hear JT tell the story behind the song and know that he put every last personal detail into his lyrics. This inspired me to be vulnerable and completely open in my writing. Nobody sings or plays like JT. And to this day, if I’m having a rough go of it, I blast his records and let that warm voice console me.

Jackson Browne – “For a Dancer”

Another true original with an unmatched voice and sense of melody. I think Jackson is without a doubt one of the best lyricists of all time. His lyrics and melodies flow effortlessly off the tongue and never tire.

Bruce Springsteen – “Growin’ Up”

Springsteen is a legendary rocker and performer. But what really impresses me about the Boss is his songwriting. All of his anthems can be stripped down to an acoustic guitar and still deliver with the same emotion. There aren’t many songwriters that can paint pictures like Springsteen. With him, you’re not just listening to the song, you’re IN the song or maybe even one of the characters.

Carole King – “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”?

Like all of the truly great songwriters, her songs transcend and feel universal and timeless. This song feels perfect, whether you’re listening to Carole’s version or The Shirelles.

Tom Waits – “Shiver Me Timbers”

A truly masterful and utterly unique songwriter. Waits writes about characters and tells stories better than anyone. His lyrics and penchant for perfect timing are well-known, but I also adore Tom Waits’ gift for melody and harmony. His melodies break my heart and are married flawlessly to the lyrics.

Paul Simon – “American Tune”

If you created a singer-songwriter in a lab it would be Paul Simon. Some of the most endearing lyrics and melodies of all time. His songs are so perfect, it’s easy to overlook his guitar playing and singing, which are equally remarkable. Music schools often try to dissect his songs to display the craft of songwriting, but I get the sense that this magic simply flowed out of him.

Elton John – “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”

Over the years, some very talented folks have sent me lyrics and poetry to set to music and I’ve always been disappointed with my results. That makes me even more knocked out by Elton John’s ability to marry Bernie Taupin’s lyrics to the most perfect melodies, tempos and chord progressions. I recorded “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” on my Seventies Roots EP, but I easily could have chosen “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” or any number of tunes. Way too many great options to choose from.

Neil Young – “Comes a Time”

What songwriter list would be complete without Neil Young? Neil is raw unfiltered emotion, live to analog tape with no rewriting or editing. That makes him so special. I can’t think of another songwriter that can cover so much ground with such authenticity.

Randy Newman – “Marie”

Randy Newman is a genius. His character-based songs are on the same level as Tom Waits and his lyrics are just as evocative, biting and unique. It’s impossibly rare to find Newman’s talents as an orchestrator and arranger in the body of a singer-songwriter. “Marie” especially breaks my heart. I believe every word Randy Newman sings.

Townes Van Zandt – “No Place to Fall”

A mythical figure in songwriting, Townes wrote some of the most beautiful and enduring songs of all time. “No Place to Fall” has always spoken to me and broken my heart. Was an honor to record this one.

Bob Dylan – “Simple Twist of Fate”

I admit, as a young kid I was more seduced by the “singers” in this group — artists like Joni, James and Jackson that could sing the phone book. But eventually I became spellbound by Dylan and my affection for him has never waned since. And as I listened more in my life, I realized what an amazing singer and communicator he was. His phrasing, his lyrics, his melodies and his hooks convey the lyrics perfectly. There will never be another Dylan.

Loggins & Messina – “Danny’s Song”

Kenny Loggins went on to have a huge solo career, but the music that he released in the ‘70s with Jim Messina in Loggins & Messina will always be my favorite work. My father used to sing this song to me when I was a kid and it felt like he wrote it for me.

Stevie Wonder – “Love’s in Need of Love Today”

Admittedly my playlist is Laurel Canyon-heavy and that’s what inspired me the most. But I also remember Stevie blaring through speakers as I was growing up. Again, one of the classic singer-songwriters that will never be replaced nor imitated. One in a billion. And on top of that, one of the best, most flexible voices of all time.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – “Our House”

I’ll end my playlist with this classic song that transports you to another time and place. You can almost smell the flowers blooming in this song.

Photo Credit: Alex Berger

BGS 5+5: Nefesh Mountain

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Artist: Nefesh Mountain (Eric Lindberg and Doni Zasloff)
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York City (born & raised); Montclair, New Jersey (current locale)
Latest Album: Songs for the Sparrows

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

As a musician, there are times when you have to sit and write, practice and create music — this process can be so inward, so solitary and alone. But these quieter moments are also filled with their own kind of magic, the kind that personally sustains you and over time hopefully also helps define you as an artist. There are other times when you find yourself in this great shared musical community with friends, bandmates, mentors, and of course audiences and fans. In these moments, we get to experience it all together as a community. I love all of it, and this crazy cycle that we go through as artists — it’s a great question, the mission statement. And while we’ve never really thought of our career having a “mission” exactly, there is a word that comes to mind that for me applies to all aspects of our musical life, and that is inspiration. Doni and I both want to inspire new thought and ideas with our music, and hope that through song we’re able to depict a better world than the one we see sometimes these days. But inspiration also flows in all directions, and we can feel it from an audience just as easily as they can feel it from us, which is such an encouraging thought. Ultimately for me, I think it’s the drive to inspire and be inspired that fuels a song, improvisation, lyric, or melody, and I’d consider us so lucky just to continue to keep receiving, and giving inspiration back and forth throughout our career… I guess you could say invent, inspire, repeat! — Eric Lindberg

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

For me it’s sometimes hard to separate music from life, and vice versa — and when asked this question, I always seem to come back to the artists that’ve shaped me over the years, especially at pivotal moments in my life. As a child, I remember being obsessed with the songs on “Free To Be You And Me.” The songs, messages, and humor on this album opened up a whole new world of inspiration for me at the time. We still listen to it with our kids today! Being a strong woman in the musical world is something that is just so important to me, and in part this is thanks to my next phase of musical influences: Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Joan Baez. For me, I came to a lot of bluegrass and old-time musical forms by way of these artists, tracing backwards from them and finding this amazing and wide world of Americana music like the Carter Family, Ola Belle Reed, Doc Watson, and so many others. Today, I’m also beyond proud that both my and Eric’s biggest bluegrass influences have become dear friends and collaborators on our albums: Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, John Doyle, Bryan Sutton, David Grier, and Mark Schatz among others, have all had such a deep influence on our music, and we’re so grateful for it. — Doni Zasloff

This is such a hard one. There are so many people who have been heroes and “north stars” in my musical life over the years, yet there are two names that always seem to jump to mind when I get asked this question: Pat Metheny and Béla Fleck. I think that I’ve always been drawn to artists who are able to portray their own world on their own terms, and Pat and Béla have done this time and time again, not only defining their sound as composers and improvisers, but all while truly pushing the boundaries of their instruments as well — guitar and banjo, respectively. I also learned early on through them, as well as others like Miles Davis, Bill Monroe, Bill Frisell and more, the importance of composing your own music, and that has been a huge influence on me as it relates to Nefesh Mountain. When I think of Pat and Béla’s music, I actually think of their compositions first. Pat’s “Question and Answer,” “Bright Size Life,” “Farmer’s Trust,” “Letter From Home,” “Last Train Home” and Béla’s “Spanish Point,” “Whitewater,” “Big Country,” “See Rock City,” “Up and Running” to name a few, have all been huge inspirations for me. I’ve learned so much from listening to these two over the years, and not all of it has been exactly music-related. They both always seem to take risks, break rules, and push forward with an inner drive that is just so inspiring to me, and they’ve help pave this musical road out there for other folks, like us perhaps, who also want to build their own world and story on their own terms. — EL

(L-R): Alan Grubner, Eric Lindberg, Doni Zasloff, Max Johnson, David Goldenberg

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

We’ve had so many incredible moments over the years, and one that always comes to mind for me was a number of years back at one of our first IBMA Wide Open Bluegrass festivals in Raleigh, NC. Our music, especially in a more traditionally bluegrass environment like IBMA, can be a bit different, to say the least. We were playing the 5:00 pm spot at the Capitol Stage, right in the center of the city, about to play a set that we knew had a few songs with Hebrew in them. I remember standing backstage looking out at a few thousand people at least, and just being terrified, scared that we would not be accepted for who we are. If you’ve never been, Wide Open Bluegrass is kind of a festival meets street fair. There are no tickets, and for these few days, about a million or so people in Raleigh come out to see some of the best bluegrass music around. So I’m looking out at this crowd that is growing by the second — and in my mind just assumed that they would all leave once they heard a lyric in Hebrew. But in the blink of an eye, I feel Eric come up next to me, grab my hand, and whisk me onto the stage — and less than 60 seconds later we were into our first song. I can barely remember any of the music from that particular performance, but what I do remember are the faces in the crowd… the smiles, the applause, the tears, the joy, the hope, and the rapidly growing numbers of people! When we got to our last song the crowd had more than tripled in size and we received our first standing ovation from the city of Raleigh, NC. It was a show and feeling I’d never forget. Of course, we’d played countless shows before and after that one, but there was a different sense of unknowing that day, of a deeper unknown, and felt like a trust fall between us and all the folks in that crowd who overwhelmingly all reached and caught us! – DZ

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

I think about this a lot, actually. I’m always curious about this connection between music, film, dance, literature and sometimes art as well — that all of it takes place, unfolds, and exists over time. A song, album, TV show, movie or book all have a specific and unique length, and I love that it’s our job as creators to ultimately tell a story within the parameters of our own medium. Our newest album, Songs for the Sparrows, is for me our most “cinematic” yet, in that we really wanted the album as a whole to take on the dramatic flow and characteristics of a film. We took a lot of time to write themes and motifs for this album, both melodically and lyrically, that would weave in and out of the songs. For us, these are our “characters” — the different voices and melodies that make appearances throughout. We also wanted a clear and definite beginning, middle, and end to the album, but overall really wanted it to feel like one story and one experience. I think the most exciting part of attempting to make music in this “cinematic” way is that it forces me to think more visually about the songs… to really focus on the images that we’re striving to create with all these beautiful acoustic instruments. There is a piece on the record called “Suite for a Golden Butterfly,” and for this one, Doni and I actually sat down and wrote out a detailed narrative before even a note of music was written. The music to all five movements came from this story that we wrote together about a Jewish family from Eastern Europe who flees to America to escape the Nazis, and for us it was such an exciting way to collaborate — each putting our own visuals, thoughts, and ideas into the music. — EL

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

The natural world has had a profound influence on our music and lyrics over the years, and as songwriters and composers, we are always looking for ways to convey feelings, stories, and emotions that will resonate, both with ourselves and the listener. We all in one way or another have such a strong relationship with the world around us, and we often lean on this shared “common ground” in our songs, and really love telling our story through the lens of these universal images of rivers, canyons, forests, fields, and of course mountains! One of the great gifts of being a touring musician is having the chance to see the world. When I sit at home at my desk to write or compose a new piece, my mind will often wander on its own, referencing images of the mountains of Colorado, the coasts of Maine, the California sun, the peaks in Switzerland, the hills and valleys in Ireland. It’s a bit abstract and hard to measure, but for me, these elements of nature and personal memories come out in our work all the time — sometimes in an intended lyric or melody, and sometimes in just a few notes of an improvised solo. — EL

We’re always looking for connections in our music… ways of telling our story and how we see the world while bridging bluegrass music with our heritage as Jewish Americans. One common thread that beautifully runs through Americana music and Jewish tradition is the undeniable reverence shown for our natural world, and that connection is so encouraging for me! We so often only look at our differences these days — our backgrounds, skin color, religion, gender, or even musical genre — but over the years of traveling and making music, I’ve found that we can just as easily look at all the things that connect us, that we have in common. Strangely enough, it’s a choice that we can make every day, and it gives me comfort to know that despite our differences we’re all “Somewhere on This Mountain” all at once, all looking up at the same trees, clouds, and sky every day. — DZ

Photo credit: Lawrence Rickford

MIXTAPE: Call Me Spinster’s LadyVox Crock-Pot

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As sisters, our deepest musical influences come from the shared “Crock-Pot” of our household. Our mom is a classical singer and choral director, and daughter of an eccentric music-savant with an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan. Our Amish-born dad was raised in the shape note choral tradition, but flew the coop and became a guitar-plucking singer-songwriter in the vein of Paul Simon and Dan Fogelberg. We were raised on music with an emphasis on voice — Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Ella Fitzgerald and loads of art songs and choral music from all over the world.

We began playing together as a cover band, dipping into our teen favorites, from TLC to the Andrews Sisters, Sparks to ’90’s boy bands. Now that we’re writing our own music we’re pulling from an even broader scope, from the Brazilian and West African percussion Rachel studied in college to Amelia’s obsession with ’80s French pop to Rosie’s deep love of classic rock radio hits.

This playlist is a sampling of vocal-centric artists that straddle the line between various types of pop and folk music that are either currently playing on our speakers, or artists whose DNA flows through the music we make. — Call Me Spinster

Pinc Louds – “Soul in My Body”

I stumbled across this band only recently and am obsessed. The power and vulnerability of Claudi’s voice is mesmerizing, and I love their use of raw percussive sounds like the kalimba, held together with synthy glue. – Amelia

DakhaBrakha – “Baby”

DakhaBrakha formed as an avant-garde theater phenomenon in Kiev, and pulls together folk traditions and soul/pop in a way I’ve never heard before. I love the combination of acoustic instruments like harmonica, glockenspiel and bowed cello/bass with some electric twangs throughout. – Amelia

Call Me Spinster – “Morning”

This song began as a sort of call and response, a cappella lullaby. We toyed around with the idea of keeping it that way, using only body percussion. As we started building it, though, Rachel started hearing a samba-style bateria. As layers quickly snowballed, we started calling it our “Lion King song,” including elements like strings and cymbals that aren’t elsewhere on our EP — but still built around that simple vocal call and response. – Amelia

Fiona Apple – “Hot Knife”

I first listened to this song when a friend told us to cover it — but we didn’t dare touch it, because it is perfect. Fiona Apple’s frenzied energy building in layers and countermelody, on top of a rumbling drum and dissonant keys makes me feel like a sleepless night after a killer date when you feel like your heart might shake down the walls of the apartment. – Rosie

Zap Mama – “W’happy Mama”

Zap Mama was a staple of our combined middle/high school CD collection and one of the most memorable groups we’ve seen live. It’s a group of badass women led by “Zap Mama” Marie Daulne who mix pop, jazz, and folk. They’re living proof that voices can be anything and all other instruments are extra party. That party brings in elements of funk and hip-hop throughout the song, but goes back to a cappella sounds at the end, reminding you what the true elements are. “Chante, chante, she say, she say.” – Rosie

Rubblebucket – “On the Ground”

I have listened to this album on repeat over the past few years. It makes me dance and cry. Kalmia Traver’s honest and unfettered vocals feel like a best friend reminding me to look around once in a while and stop taking things so f-ing seriously. – Amelia

Cocteau Twins – “Iceblink Luck”

Heaven or Las Vegas is one of my favorite complete albums of all time. Elizabeth Fraser’s uber-melodic, acrobatic vocals were the obvious draw for me, but as we incorporate more electronic elements into the songs we’re working on for our first full-length record, I am paying closer attention to their perfect cocktail of dreamy distortion. – Amelia

Les Rita Mitsouko – “Marcia Baïla”

Catherine Ringer is one of the most balls-to-the-wall performers ever, not only in her vocal style, but [also] the weird visual worlds that she and Fred Chichin created over the years. If you haven’t seen the music video for this song or for “Andy” do yourself a favor. We are often drawn to artists whose visual aesthetic seems inextricable from their music: Kate Bush, Tyler the Creator, FKA Twigs, etc. – Amelia

Lim Kim – “Awoo”

One of the driving forces for finding new music is making playlists for my yoga classes. “Awoo” has a way of wiggling into many — it has the perfect blend of joyful yet meditative vocals and groovy yet simple rhythm. I love when the voice can be a percussion instrument without sounding like an a cappella group. Janelle Monae and Kimbra also nail this vibe. Lim Kim just hits right every time. – Rachel

Alabama Shakes – “Gimme All Your Love”

This album took us by storm as it did so many — and we keep coming back to it again and again, particularly as we began our recording journey. Brittany Howard has the rare ability to harness the raw energy of her live performance in the studio, and the pacing and build of her songwriting is so unusual and satisfying, like the turn in the middle of this song and the build towards the end. – Amelia

Björk – “Hyperballad”

Björk gives us all permission to feel epic feels with few words and ear-dazzling, diverse orchestration. She has been hugely influential for us and so many artists across genres for multiple decades, probably even in bluegrass. I would love to hear a banjo choir re-make of her album Post — just sayin’. – Rachel

Juana Molina – “Al oeste”

Juana Molina has this super sexy and intimate way of singing that feels almost like the microphone is lodged inside of her. Her songwriting always has a trance quality, with a wink. It lulls you into a dream and then adds a tickle to make sure you’re really listening. – Rachel

Judee Sill – “The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown” (Remastered)

We had to include at least one of the great earnest singer-songwriters of the ’60s/’70s, and who better than the enigmatic, bank robber-theosophist-composer Judee Sill? One of our own songwriting tendencies is writing singable songs that have something sneaky lurking underneath — a disjointed rhythm, an odd structure, an unusual chord progression… perhaps this is the ghost of Judee. – Rachel

Lucy Michelle – “Heart Race”

We grew up falling asleep to our dad picking guitar in the living room and this pattern mixed with Lucy’s lilting and beautifully raw voice is everything that is home. – Rosie

The Roches – “Hammond Song”

I also play in a band called Holy Sheboygan and our first gig ever was in Hammond, Wisconsin’s (pop. 2000) Earth Day Celebration. The lady who hired us pleaded for us to cover “Hammond Song.” We haven’t yet, but we did fall in love with The Roches. The shout-singing style is very reminiscent of our Amish family’s shape-note vocal production, the cascading almost choral songwriting, shameless unisons (#sistergoals), and the drone all fit right in to our sisterhood of sounds. – Rachel

Photo credit: Our Ampersand Photography

Devendra Banhart Finds His ‘Ma’ Muse on Both Sides of the Pacific

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On Ma, the new album by folk-globalist Devendra Banhart, there are appearances by singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon and 1970s English folk-rock cult heroine Vashti Bunyan. Lyrics reference his love for Brazilian stars Chico Barque and Caetano Veloso as well as Japanese electro-art-pop pioneer Haruomi Hosono. And no less than Carole King is a presence in a co-write nod via lyrics drawn from “So Far Away.”

But when it comes to guest stars on the album, there’s one that’s hard to top: the Pacific Ocean.

Yup. That noted body of water is credited, fittingly, for “ocean sounds” on the song “October 12.” It’s a song of grief after the death of a friend, and Banhart, who spent much of his youth in Venezuela, his mother’s native country, sings it in Spanish.

“Actually, on every track there is the ocean,” he says, freshly landed at home in Los Angeles after flying across that very ocean from Singapore. “You don’t really hear it, but it is throughout the whole record. What inspired us to do that in the beginning, we recorded in a Buddhist temple in Kyoto with no walls. It is open to a garden. We wanted to create that feel on the album.”

Working with his longtime producer Noah Georgeson and several of his regular musical cohorts, Banhart was invited to record in that temple for just one hour, after a brief Asian tour. The experience was something they wanted to extend through the whole of the album, which they later accomplished by recording in a studio in a house along the Northern California coastline.

“You could hear the Pacific,” he says. “We had the windows open. That’s the big support system for the songs.”

It’s a nurturing presence, even in its most subtle ambience, it being the primal source of life. And as such, it represents the life-giving concept at the heart of the album: motherhood.

“Maternity is the theme,” he says.

There’s more than that here, of course. There is grief in songs such as “Memorial,” about his father, with temple bells mixed in the music, and “The Lost Coast,” about death and loss. The magic of serendipity permeates the album, as does the state of being open to what the world offers. None of the songs are explicitly about motherhood, per se. The notion, in many poetic manifestations, ties it together.

“There’s the relationship one has with a country,” he says, distressed about devastating political and economic strife of the nation in which he was nurtured. “Venezuela has been a constant issue on this record. Moments before now I was talking with my family and reading about what is going on there. It’s a truly apocalyptic situation. My way of writing about it is so related to my mother. At this point I can’t separate my own mother from Venezuela.”

His mother is not currently living there and the last time he visited was two years ago, but he has aunts and uncles and cousins who are there, seeing their country and its people suffer greatly. For him, it’s hard to separate that situation, with which he has such a deep personal relationship, from suffering elsewhere, whether from his own roots or in places where he has spent considerable time (Nepal and Tibet, among them) or that he has merely seen on the news.

“There is the insane suffering of the Venezuelan people, the political madness of the situation in the U.S., Duterte in the Philippines, China and Tibet suffering so much, and the people in Hong Kong.” Banhart seeks solace in the connections he’s made through music, “There’s music and art as the parent-and-child relationship. I turn to music to be consoled, to be less alone, to feel loved and nurtured.”

In that regard, few are more significant to him than Vashti Bunyan. The English singer came from the same folk-rock scene that gave us Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and the Incredible String Band. Her 1970 album, Just Another Diamond Day, languished in obscurity until the late 1990s when it was “discovered” by musicians in a nascent movement that came to be called freak-folk, a young Banhart among its numbers. That brought about the album’s reissue, and various new recording projects, some involving Banhart. Now in her mid-70s, Bunyan sings with him here on the album’s closing “Will I See You Tonight?”

“Within that maternal theme, I don’t think anyone in my life encapsulates the archetype of the wisdom of artists as much as Vashti does, in terms of that nurturing quality of music,” he admits.

Banhart also seeks to make, or embrace, connections in music itself, some coming quite by surprise. This album is threaded with inspirations from and references to music from many lands and cultures, often connecting in ways wondrous, delightful, and serendipitous. Rarely is any of that planned — at least consciously.

“Sometimes the lyrics come first,” he says. “The music is a platform for the lyrics. As you start, as the song starts to take shape, there’s some collaborative element with other musicians, but also with the song itself, in that way. I don’t mean to be oblique, but it’s this strange way that it takes you in these certain directions. It’s out of your hands.

Sometimes it’s easy, he says, as in the song “Carolina,” which cites an earlier song that has influenced him.

“It’s a song for a song, a song written for the song ‘Carolina’ by Chico Barque,” he says. “It’s an homage to Brazilian music and South American music. There’s a samba feel to it, and me really singing about wanting to hear that song and saying I should probably learn Portuguese someday. In those lyrics it was easy to see the shape of that music.”

Others have more convoluted paths, but in them reveal the global pathways he has so openly relished in his music and in his life.

“In some songs I was quite surprised what was coming out.”

“Kantori Ongaku” offered several such surprises. In the chorus, sung in Japanese, he uses words from a song by Hosono, one of the founders of Japan’s landmark trio Yellow Magic Orchestra. At one point in the cited lyrics, Hosono sings, in English, the words “country music.” That planted some ideas for Banhart as he wrote his song although he wished to sidestep literalism.

“I wanted to do a Buck Owens thing here but that wouldn’t work out,” he says. “J.J. Cale was a great hero of mine so I took J.J. Cale as inspiration, not literally, but that kind of platform emerged for the song. Those things aren’t really done consciously. There are people who are inspirations I’ve been listening to for so long that it enters into the music, naturally.”

In some ways, Ma is a culmination of Banhart’s past work in a career from the two shambling albums he released in 2002 through 2016’s ambling Ape in Pink Marble that’s seen him go from neo-hippie troubadour to bossa nova evangelist, from playful folkiness to, well, playful electro-pop. He’s been a part of collaborations with kindred spirits from Beck to Brazilian tropicalia great Gilberto Gil, with whom he shared the Hollywood Bowl stage one highly memorable evening, to the Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti to Antony and the Johnsons.

Yet the range and depth of Ma extends beyond even that, particularly in its emotions, the sense of loss in some songs not just complementing the joy in others, but expanding upon it in ways that truly honor the maternal wonder of the world.

How to make that work? How to bring all that together so naturally?

Well, now we get to the other concept of Ma. Yes, the title is a word generally associated with mothers. Banhart’s use of it comes from something else.

“The word ma is actually born from a different meaning,” he says. “It’s a philosophical term for space in Japanese. Starting the record in Kyoto, that’s where I learned the word. I’ve always failed but have strived to get a type of space in the music. How do you create spaciousness in music? Ma is a term of how essential it is to an object, and in music the space between the notes is essential. I really got into that word, and it also happened to be the perfect word for the theme of the album.”

Photo Credit: Lauren Dukoff

Canon Fodder: Aretha Franklin, ‘Amazing Grace’

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Listen to Aretha Franklin sing “Amazing Grace.” The hymn was nearly 200 years old when she tore into it on her 1972 double-live gospel album with the same title. Her version is nearly eleven minutes, and she spends most of that time wringing those lines of every emotion that has ever been felt in those intervening centuries. Aretha delivers those lines like she’s preaching, and the congregation answers in kind: applauding when she hits that high note on “a wretch like MEEEE” and voicing their excited approval when she locates untranscribable vowels in those simple words “amazing grace.” It is a vibrant collaboration between performer and audience, each pushing the other to new heights of spiritual ecstasy. The Southern California Community Choir comes in like a band of angels, but Aretha isn’t even done yet. Instead, she shakes them off and tests the limits of her upper register.

That is just one of many goose bump-inducing moments on Amazing Grace, which remains her best-selling album as well as the best-selling black gospel album of all time. While it has been overshadowed by the secular albums she recorded for Atlantic Records in the late 1960s and by her unprecedented comeback albums in the 1980s, it remains a touchstone in her catalog, an album that explains her complicated relationship to the gospel world as well as to the pop charts. Beyond that, it’s just an incredible set of music, with all the intensity, all the purposefulness, and all the spontaneity of her own or anybody else’s live albums. Amazing Grace surpasses even her 1971 Live at the Fillmore West, which is saying a lot because that album is a stone classic.

It is, however, an unusual album in her catalog: Title track aside, her voice is often subsumed into a larger choir. She was never one to be upstaged (the only instance I have found is when the violence outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention overshadowed her performance of the national anthem inside), but she slips in and out of the choir, harmonizing with them one moment and soloing the next. The point of the album—the point of gospel, in general—is to share the spotlight with a host of friends and family. Aretha understood that gospel was not a solitary pursuit; the music is not private or internalized.

Rather, it is public, communal: the sound of many voices united in a joyful noise unto the Lord. Even when she is pushing heavenward on “Amazing Grace,” she is no longer the diva she was in the secular world; perhaps this project offered her some escape from the royal demands of pop stardom, the tabloids printing rumors, the endless tours, the complicated business machinations, the physical drain of being the best-known pop singer on the planet. In church, surrounded by people she loved and trusted and admired, with only God as her audience, perhaps she felt at ease.

Nearly fifty years later, the origins of the project are still debated. Jerry Wexler, president of Atlantic Records, claims he encouraged her to record a gospel album, believing she needed to issue a major statement after so many singles-oriented albums. Aretha, however, claims the idea was hers all along, as was the plan to record it live in church. Others claim her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, pressured her to reconnect with the church, although he had instilled in her at a young age the belief that spiritual gospel and secular pop both sprung from the same well of black history. “If you want to know the truth,” proclaims a very proud C.L. during his short sermon, “she has never left the church!”

Aretha surrounded herself with some of her gospel heroes, including James Cleveland (the King of Gospel to her Queen of Soul) conducting the choir. Also taking part were her brothers and sisters, her grandmother, and her idol and mentor Clara Ward of the Famous Ward Singers. According to David Ritz’s 2015 biography Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin, Wexler “was determined to sneak the devil’s rhythm section into church,” which meant hiring some of the session musicians that had been backing Aretha on her recent records: bass player Chuck Rainey, drummer Bernard Purdie, guitarist Cornell Dupree, and percussionist Pancho Morales. Even that rhythm section is in dispute, however, as Aretha denied the devil had anything to do with the way they played.

And that is where the disputes end, because as soon as Aretha enters on the opener “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” she presides over the album. She is the choir director, the producer, the soloist, the choir member, the preacher. She hammered out the track list with Cleveland in the weeks before the performances, favoring a repertoire that mixed old hymns and new pop songs often in the same arrangements. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” bleeds so gracefully into “You’ve Got a Friend” that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish Thomas A. Dorsey’s composition with Carole King’s hit. She swaggers through Marvin Gaye’s “Wholly Holy” as well, but the most commanding arrangement is her gospelization of “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” which had recently debuted in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel. Not exactly churchly fare, but Aretha and the musicians playing with her find the kernel of spiritual steadfastness in each one. “He walks beside you,” the choir testifies, and she interjects, “He’ll put all of his angels beside you!”

Perhaps she doesn’t mean heavenly angels. Perhaps she means earthly angels: the people up on stage with her and the people down in the pews. In those words are echoes of the Civil Rights movement, a reminder of all the marches and demonstrations that showed strength and righteousness in unity. Gospel was integral to those events; in fact, Aretha performed with Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly both as a gospel singer and a pop star. Perhaps that connection is what made Amazing Grace so popular at the time; it’s definitely what makes the album so powerful nearly fifty years later.

“Can I get y’all to help me sing?” she exhorts the congregation on closer “Never Grow Old,” and by “congregation” I mean everyone in the church and everyone who ever listens to the album. No one can sing to the heavens like Aretha, but by inviting everyone to sing along, these performances continue to provide an example of how all of America might sing in one beautifully harmonized voice.

MIXTAPE: Jillette Johnson’s Piano Pioneers

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Piano players aren’t as common in roots music as pickers are, so we asked Jillette Johnson to compile a list of her favorites for us. The keys-tickling singer/songwriter’s new album, All I Ever See in You Is Me, pretty well indicates that she’s on her way to joining this list herself.

Molly Drake – “The First Day”

There is no sweeter, more poignant sound than that of Molly Drake, Nick Drake’s mother. She sounds like my childhood, chasing bunnies in my grandparents’ yard in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, while my aunts, grandparents, and parents ate tuna fish sandwiches on the patio and talked about the weather. This song, in particular, has taken me through many changes in my life, from ending relationships to moving to new states to simply starting new days. 

Aretha Franklin – “Since You’ve Been Gone (Sweet Sweet Baby)”

What a voice. And, by voice, I don’t just mean what happens when she opens her mouth. Aretha Franklin is, hands down, my favorite piano player. She plays like she sings. Without apologies and, simply, better than anyone else ever could, and perhaps ever will. 

Randy Newman – “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today”

I first saw Randy Newman play when I was 16, at an ASCAP convention, where he was the guest of honor. He sat for two hours playing his songs and talking about them for long intervals in between. That day changed everything about songwriting for me. This song, I had already heard from my favorite movie of all time Beaches. Bette Midler, who plays Cecelia Bloom, sings a beautiful version of it. It’s one of my favorite moments in the movie. But honestly, once I heard Randy sing it live in that room, I fell madly in love with him, and don’t think anyone can hold a candle to his recording of it. 

Carole King – “So Far Away”

I can’t think of a single person, album, or song, for that matter, that has influenced me more as a songwriter than this one. This — and she — taught me everything, starting at a very young age. I’m so grateful for it.

Elton John — “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters”

Favorite Elton song. I was already a superfan, but when my childhood friend, Chelsea, put this on a mix she made for me when we were in middle school, I became forever addicted to it. I listened to it every morning on the bus going to school and every afternoon coming home.  

Leon Russell — “Tight Rope”

Saucy, groovy, wicked excellence. 

Tom Waits — “Martha”

He released Closing Time when he was 23, I think, which means he must have written “Martha” before then, which doesn’t make any sense. “Martha” is a story that only an old man would be able to tell. My best friend and I often drive around Nashville together, singing this song at the top of our lungs. 

Billy Joel — “Summer, Highland Falls”

I grew up on Billy Joel, and this has always been one of my favorite songs of his. He taught me not to be afraid of wordy mouthfuls of lyrics, as long as they tell the story in a way you can understand. My brother also, coincidentally, went to West Point for college, which is in Highland Falls, New York. So I blasted this song every time I drove up to bribe him to do my physics homework for me in exchange for donuts. 

Tori Amos — “Winter”

My friend Jon once said to me that he believes music can be reincarnated in people as generations pass. If that’s true, in my wildest dreams, I might be a reincarnation of Tori Amos. The way she writes, sings, and plays makes so much sense to me. It feels like my pain and my happiness, when I listen to her pain and her happiness. I know she makes the rest of the world feel that way, too, which is part of why she’s brilliant. And this song gets me every time. 

Ben Folds Five — “Boxing”

Ben is the only person I’ve ever “fan girled” over. I was 17 and saw him in line at Starbucks in New York City. I walked up to him, thanked him for having such a big influence on me, and darted out before he could even respond. My big brother got me into him when I was 11 or 12, and I ate up everything he ever did from then on. 

Fiona Apple — “Paper Bag”

Now if I had the opportunity, I would definitely fan girl over Fiona. I dreamed of being her from the minute Criminal hit the airwaves. I’ve watched that music video thousands of times. I had a hard time picking just one song. 

Rufus Wainwright — “Poses”

If you are a man and you sound anything like Rufus Wainwright, I will probably fall in love with you, at least a little bit. He really sunk into my skull after I turned 20, and changed the way that I thought about melody. He’s got this lilting, grand romance to him that few people other than Rufus can pull off. 

Father John Misty — “I Went to the Store One Day”

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I had to listen to Father John Misty … I’ll admit I was late to the game and fairly resistant, just because I live under the constant, bull-headed assumption that modern music is less good than the stuff I grew up on. But I’ll be damned if Father John Misty isn’t amazing. This song is beautiful, jarring, painful, and lives in a world all its own. 

Photo credit: Anna Webber