Tag: chastity brown

BGS Celebrates Black History Month (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We invite our readers to celebrate Black History Month as we always do, by denoting that celebrating Black contributions in bluegrass, country, and old-time — and roots music as a whole — requires centering Black creators, artists, musicians, and perspectives in our community daily, not just in February.

Over the past year we’ve recommitted ourselves to fully incorporating Black Voices into everything we do and we hope that our readers and listeners, our followers and fans, and our family of artists constantly celebrate, acknowledge, and pay credit to Blackness and Black folks, who we have to thank for everything we love about American roots music.

Following a look back on our BGS Artists of the Month, Cover Story, and Shout & Shine subjects, we close our listicle celebration of Black History Month this year with a sampling of some of the most popular features, premieres, music videos, Friends & Neighbors posts, and 5+5 interviews that have featured Black, African American, and otherwise Afro-centric music. We are so grateful for the ongoing, vital contributions of Black artists, writers, creators, and journalists to American roots music and we’re proud to pay credit exactly where it’s due, in this small way.

Black history is American roots music history and all of these incredible folks certainly prove that point.

An edition of our Roots on Screen column featured an interview with Branford Marsalis and dove into his soundtrack for the new Netflix film based on August Wilson’s 1982 play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Bona fide soul man Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams took us behind the scenes of his album, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It, showing humorous, casual, candid moments from the project’s creation — and giving us all the opportunity to be there, even though we “couldn’t make it.”

Sabine McCalla simply blew us away with her Western AF video session of an original, “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” last year, and we were ecstatic to include her on the BGS Stage lineup for Cabin Fever Fest last weekend, too.

Joy Oladokun’s vision and determination, and her unrelenting trust in both, paid off on a texturally varied second album, in defense of my own happiness (vol. 1), a self-produced exercise in vulnerability and subject of a feature interview. Oladokun will perform a few of her folk-pop songs as part of our Yamaha Guitars + BGS Spotlight Showcase during Folk Alliance’s virtual Folk Unlocked conference this week, as well.

The preeminent hip-hop-meets-bluegrass band, Gangstagrass, stopped by for a 5+5 and to plug their latest, No Time for Enemies. Gangstagrass were another excellent addition to our Cabin Fever Fest lineup and we look forward to being able to catch them in-person again, soon.

To mark Juneteenth 2020, we published a thoughtful round up of new movement music, a sort of patchwork soundtrack for protest, struggle, civil rights, and progress including songs by Leon Bridges, Chastity Brown, Kam Franklin (listen above), and more.

We were ecstatic to feature Valerie June, Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi, Ben Harper, and Yola during our five-episode virtual online variety show, Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, last spring. The show raised over $50,000 for COVID-19 relief — through MusiCares and personal protective equipment via Direct Relief. WSHH season 2? We want that to happen, too! Stay tuned.

Pianist Matt Rollings’ collaboration with Americana-soul duo The War & Treaty was — UNDERSTANDABLY — a mini viral hit, taking off on our social media channels.

Rhiannon Giddens also powerfully and captivatingly warned all of us not to call her names with a new song recently: “The framework in the song is a love affair, but it can happen in any kind of connection,” she explained in a press release. “The real story was accepting my inner strength and refusing to continue being gaslit and held back; and refusing to keep sacrificing my mental health for the sake of anything or anyone.”

We visited once again with now mononymous Kenyan songwriter, Ondara, whose pandemic album, Folk n’ Roll Vol. 1: Tales of Isolation, kept many of us company during sheltering in place.

Speaking of which, Crys Matthews and Heather Mae didn’t let guidelines around social distancing keep them down, as evidenced on “Six Feet Apart.”

Our country-soul queen, Yola, wowed all of us with a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert and some acoustic renderings of her resplendent countrypolitan songs.

As did veteran bluesman Don Bryant, who after a lifelong career writing and recording earned his first Grammy nomination in 2020 for You Make Me Feel, a record that is nothing less than a physical incarnation of rhythm and blues. His Tiny Desk (Home) Concert is entrancing.

Selwyn Birchwood rightly reminded blues fans that it isn’t all sad; in fact, if you aren’t partying to the blues you’re doing it wrong. Just listen to “I Got Drunk, Laid and Stoned” to find out.

Leigh Nash and Ruby Amanfu joined forces on a Congressman John Lewis-inspired number entitled “Good Trouble” just last week, a perfect song to mark Black History Month.

Last year, to mark Women’s History Month (coming up again in March!) we spotlighted the huge influence and contributions of Elizabeth “Libba” Cotten, a folk singer and picker famous for playing her guitar left-handed — and upside down and “backwards!” Though Cotten spent most of her adult life working as a housekeeper, her original folksongs and her idiosyncratic picking style still inspire bluegrass, old-time, and blues musicians alike.

Country singer-songwriter Miko Marks returns this year with new music for the first time in thirteen years, after effectively being shut out of Music City and its country music machine because of her Blackness. A recent single release reclaims “Hard Times,” a song composed by Stephen Foster, who was an American songbook stalwart and folk music legend who performed in minstrel shows and in blackface.

Chris Pierce challenges his listeners with a new song this month, “American Silence,” because as he puts it, “It’s important to not give up on reaching out to those who have stayed silent for too long about the issues that affect those around us all.” A timely reminder to all of us — especially those of us who are allies and accomplices — as we approach the one-year anniversary of this most recent racial reckoning in the United States.

And finally, to close this gargantuan list — which is still just the tip of the iceberg of Black music in bluegrass, country, and Americana — we’ll leave you with a relative newcomer in country-soul and Americana, Annie Mack. Mack’s gorgeous blend of genres and styles is anchored by her powerful and tender voice and we were glad to be stopped in our tracks by her debut EP, Testify. 

Editor’s Note: Read part one of our Black History Month collection here.

Photo credit (L to R): Chris Pierce by Mathieu Bitton; Elizabeth Cotten; Annie Mack by Shelly Mosman.

BGS Celebrates Black History Month (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

At BGS, we firmly believe that Black history is American roots music history. Full stop.

Last year, following the extrajudicial murder of George Floyd and the civil unrest, protests, and rebellions against racial injustice and systemic inequality in this country, we realized that that belief wasn’t present enough in our daily content and editorial. We knew that it needed to be overt, expressed within every aspect of what we do.

Which is why this month, we’ve invited you to celebrate Black History Month as we always do, by denoting that celebrating Black contributions in bluegrass, country, and old-time — and roots music as a whole — requires centering Black creators, artists, musicians, and perspectives in our community daily, not just in February. (Though, for the entire month we’ve been sharing music, stories, and songs featuring Black artists every day, too!)

In the past year we’ve recommitted ourselves to fully incorporating Black Voices into everything we do and we hope that our readers and listeners, our followers and fans, and our family of artists constantly celebrate, acknowledge, and pay credit to Blackness and Black folks, who we have to thank for everything we love about American roots music. To bid adieu to Black History Month 2021, we’re spotlighting Black artists who have graced our pages in the last year in a two-part roundup.

Editor’s note: Read part two of our Black History Month celebration here.

Artists of the Month

Fresh off of an appearance at President Biden’s inauguration, Grammy nominees Black Pumas are our current Artist of the Month honorees, but they aren’t the only ones to hold down our most prestigious monthly series and editorial spotlight. Drawing on folk songwriting as much as soul groove, both men agree that the term “American Roots” fits their sound well. The Americana Music Association seconds that notion, as the duo picked up that organization’s Emerging Act of the Year award in late 2020.

Modern blues legend Shemekia Copeland was our Artist of the Month in November, when we celebrated her latest release, Uncivil War from Alligator Records. The song sequence offers quite a few topical numbers ranging from gun rights (“Apple Pie and a .45”) to LGBT affirmation (“She Don’t Wear Pink”). But a standout is certainly the title track, Copeland’s most bluegrassy foray yet, which features Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas

Song-interpreter extraordinaire Bettye LaVette held down the AOTM post in August, reminding us of the value of persistence, perseverance, and perspective – especially by Black women. Her interpretation of the ubiquitous “Blackbird” recalls the fact that Paul McCartney wrote the song about a Black woman (as British slang refers to a girl as a “bird”). In LaVette’s rendition, though, she is the one who’s been waiting… and waiting… and waiting for this moment to arrive. And, in a specific allusion to this moment in history, to be free.

On the Cover

Both country & western crooner Charley Crockett and old-time banjoist, fiddler, and ethnomusicologist Jake Blount graced our digital covers in the past year, demonstrating the width, depth, and breadth of Black contributions to American roots music across the country and drawing from various regions and traditions.

In our interview and on his most recent release, Crockett doesn’t just reckon with the current historical moment. With Welcome to Hard Times, which is comprised of 13 tracks of searing anguish set to slick, ’60s-style, country-western production, he’s also examining his own place in this moment, and how his music has a different impact with different audiences. Even as he — a man living somewhere between Black and white, privileged and not — feels that his message is obvious.

Queer old-time musician and scholar Jake Blount is intimately familiar with the history of Black artists in the twentieth century who spoke out against white supremacy and often paid for it with their lives. He sees his music — and his most recent album, Spider Tales — within that subversive, radical lineage, and rightly so. A critically acclaimed project that landed on seemingly dozens of year-end lists in 2020, Blount’s carefully curated tunes convey that racial inequality in this country is a long, self-feeding cycle and this current iteration of the civil rights movement was neither surprising nor unpredictable. In a year defined by music created in response to current events or simply passively shaped by them, Blount’s Spider Tales stands out, an example of action rather than reaction.

Last week, we celebrated the grand opening of the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville with a feature that explores the ways Music City has always been a major player in the African American music world — from the days of the Fisk Jubilee Singers to radio station WLAC breaking R&B, soul, and blues hits, and the Jefferson Street nightclub scene providing both valuable training for emerging artists and a vital showcase for established ones. The 56,000-square-foot museum, something of a musical equivalent to the the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. (definitely with the same level of visual splendor and attractiveness) is a testament to the Black, African American, and Afro contributions that have touched, impacted, and influenced every sphere of American pop culture and art.

The striking marquee of the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville, TN

The BGS Podcast Network

Over the course of the past year, the BGS Podcast Network has been proud to feature many Black artists over our shows about bluegrass, Americana, touring, wellness, and of course, music. On Harmonics season one, three Black women joined host Beth Behrs to talk about living through so much stress and tumult and how self-care, wellness, and music are all woven so tightly together.

Country singer and 2020 breakout star Mickey Guyton (who, for the record, has been a recording artist for more than a decade despite her recent meteoric rise) appeared on Episode 3, talking about writing “Black Like Me” — a song about her pain and struggles growing up as a Black woman in America — amidst the protests against police brutality across the nation. They also discuss country artists speaking out against racism and injustice, the power and importance of “three chords and the truth” in the midst of Music Row fluff, lifting other women up as a form of therapy, and, of course, Dolly Parton.

Two of Behrs’ closest friends, sisters Tichina & Zenay Arnold also appeared on the show. Tichina, Behr’s co-star on CBS’s The Neighborhood, and her sister are something like spiritual coaches for Beth. The three discuss the spirituality of music and the musicality of comedy, the timeliness of The Neighborhood as well as the pure spirit on the set, the absolutely necessity of open conversation in active anti-racism, balancing professional and familial relationships, and much more.

Finally, Birds of Chicago frontwoman and multi-instrumentalist Allison Russell decided to dig deep into her childhood traumas, the healing power of music and artistic community, the history of the banjo, and the intersectionality of the honest conversations in our culture on her episode of Harmonics. In addition to her career with Birds of Chicago, Russell is one quarter of the supergroup Our Native Daughters, with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, and Leyla McCalla, and is preparing to release her first solo album.

On The Show On The Road, host Z. Lupetin curated a special episode last summer featuring clips and snippets from past editions of the show featuring Sunny War, Bobby Rush, Dom Flemons, and more. As he put it, “I’ve been lucky to talk with truly amazing Black artists, songwriters, and performers in the two years I’ve been creating The Show on the Road. I ask you to go back into our archives and listen to these voices.”

Later in the season, SOTR episodes featured Leyla McCalla — a talented, multilingual cellist, banjoist, and singer-songwriter and member of Our Native Daughters — and a special podcast swap with Under The Radar featuring truly fantastic Oakland-based artist, Fantastic Negrito. And just a couple of weeks ago, the show dropped an episode honoring Black History Month, featuring an interview with Jimmy Carter and Ricky McKinnie of the legendary Blind Boys of Alabama.

Plus, on the String, Craig Havighurst interviewed new lead singer for the Time Jumpers, Wendy Moten, and southern Gothic poet, songwriter, and Americana-blues wizard Adia Victoria.

And, not to be left out,  the BGS Radio Hour always includes music, premieres, and features of Black artists every week, as we round-up the best stories from our pages to include on the airwaves. Like this week, Allison Russell’s Sade cover and Valerie June’s cosmic new single, “Call Me a Fool” — which features Stax soul legend Carla Thomas — both appear on the show. And, on Episode 194, Chris Pierce, our Whiskey Sour Happy Hour friend Ben Harper, and Charley Crockett all make the playlist as well.

Shout & Shine

Our annual IBMA showcase celebrating representation and diversity in 2020 focused entirely on Black performers, building upon our collaboration with PineCone, who co-presents the event each year. Brandi Pace of Decolonizing the Music Room curated the lineup, showing our audience how seamlessly our missions intersect and build off of each other. The showcase lineup included Rissi Palmer, Tray Wellington, Stephanie Anne Johnson, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, and more, drawing a direct line between Black musicians and bluegrass while highlighting the important role Black folks played in the genre’s creation as well as influencing all of its contemporary forms.

To build on this intention, we retooled our monthly column version of Shout & Shine as well, turning the interview series into a regular livestream event. Sponsored by Preston Thompson Guitars, each episode includes thirty-plus minutes of exclusive performances by Lizzie No, Sunny War, Julian Taylor, and Jackie Venson with more to come. Each set of music — and each interview as well — reinforces just how vibrant and varied roots music created by Black musicians and songwriters can be and just how valuable the perspectives and lived experiences of all kinds of people are to our communities.

Editor’s note: Read part two of our Black History Month celebration here.

Photo credit (L to R): Shemekia Copeland by Mike White; Rissi Palmer courtesy of the artist; Bettye LaVette by Joseph A. Rosen; and Mickey Guyton by Chelsea Thompson.

Indigo Girls Expand “Country Radio” With Black, Brown and Queer Musicians

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Hollywood, the 2020 Netflix series from director-screenwriter Ryan Murphy, is a resplendent show dripping in Art Deco that does not wholly reimagine Los Angeles’ golden era, but rather subtly inserts a quintessential question: “What if?”

What if Hollywood hadn’t been as… ___-ist? (Sexist, racist, misogynist, ageist, etc.) If one happens to be born into a region, a folkway, a culture, an art form that doesn’t include you, or that doesn’t quite love you back, one often doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. And then what? Do we, the rural, country-loving queers, wait around for our Ryan Murphy to reimagine the world to better include us? Not quite.

For Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of Indigo Girls — and, for that matter, almost each and every queer who has ever loved roots music — that “What if?” question is existential, but it also doesn’t matter. What if country music loved LGBTQ+ folks? The lyrics of “Country Radio,” a track off the duo’s sixteenth studio album, Look Long, tell it plainly: “But as far as these songs will take me/ Is as far as I’ll go/ I’m just a gay kid in a small town/ Who loves country radio.”

While curating the following playlist of their favorites from country music airwaves and songs they wish were included there, Saliers and Ray offer a quite simple solution actionable in each present moment: Be who you are, listen to the music that brings you joy, love who you love — and be anti-racist.

Emily Saliers: [I began with the idea:] What are the songs that I listened to that I latched onto, that sort of gave me a feeling of “I can’t get into this song [because of its heteronormativity], but I love this song so much”? One of the first songs that came to mind is “Mama’s Song” by Carrie Underwood. 

I should preface this by saying, I don’t expect that there can’t be heteronormative country songs, or that queer life has to be explicitly represented in songs, it’s not that. It’s the feeling of the way a song moves me emotionally, but then it stops me a little bit short of being able to fully experience it because of the language or the obvious implications of man and woman.

I love Carrie Underwood’s voice and she’s taken more of a harder, pop direction since “Mama’s Song,” but she sings this so beautifully. She’s talking to her mother, “He is good… he treats me like a real man should,” and yet the beauty of her song [is in] her telling her mom that’s she’s going to be okay. 

Amy Ray: For me it’s a little different because I never had the experience of feeling like I wish I could put myself in a song. I think it’s because, gender-wise, I always just related to the male singers. I kinda have that gender dysphoria, you know? [Chuckles] I have these filters that sort of make it my own — probably out of necessity, from growing up loving the Allman Brothers, Pure Prairie League, and Randy Travis so much. [Sings] “Amie, whatcha gonna do?” Pure Prairie League!

It’s very odd — Emily’s perspective on this is something I can understand, and I agree that it’s this weird disconnect with country music. We have to kind of acclimate it to ourselves, in some way, using some kind of trick in our minds. But I’ve always had that internal translator…

ES: Another example is Brett Young’s “In Case You Didn’t Know.” Now this is a song that you can listen to and fit your own queer life into it — as far as I remember it doesn’t have any gender pronouns. Then I watched the video and of course he’s singing to a woman who comes into the audience and he plays to her, alone. It’s a love song to his girlfriend — or wife or partner or whatever — so I could live in that song and think back to relationships and apply it in my own life, but then I watched the video and that door shut a little bit.

AR: I love Angaleena Presley, the Pistol Annies. Presley is such a great writer. “Better Off Red” is one of my favorite songs that she’s written… Honestly, if I hear songs, if I like it, I just put myself in it. I don’t really think about it or worry about it. It’s a survival mechanism from my youth, not that it’s the right thing to do. It’s built inside me.

…I thought you couldn’t be a country singer if you were gay and left-wing and a complete dyke. That made me feel more alienated than the songs themselves, that idea of its inaccessibility. Or, if you went to a show and you were sitting there in that audience, in the early days before it all kind of busted open, you would feel scared. Or judged. Or uncomfortable.

ES: Think about what a splash that song by Little Big Town, “Girl Crush,” had. Just the implication of a lesbian relationship or feelings! That song was a big hit, but it got people talking. [Probably] the majority of the people in this world lean more heteronormative, so they’re representing themselves in these songs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

I wouldn’t want to listen to just albums that are for and by queer people, oh my god. No way! But we have to have them as part. I think about what an influence Ferron was, how much Amy and I love Ferron. When her first album came out, it was like, “Oh my gosh this is one of the best songwriters in the country and she’s queer!” I can’t describe how important it was to have an artist like that.

Even Lil Nas X, who had the number one hit forever-ever-ever with Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s awesome to know that he’s queer! And a guy like Young Thug, a rapper out of Atlanta, who’s not gender normative by any stretch, to me. It’s interesting. It’s good to have a mish mosh! It’s not that the majority of songwriters out there can’t be represented in their own songwriting, we just have to have ours, as well.

AR: [We] should add Amythyst Kiah. Amythyst is amazing.

[Racism] is the pivotal struggle of the Americana scene and the roots scene. How do you honor Black and Brown folks who want to be in this scene — and maybe some of them don’t even want to be in this scene because even Americana is rooted in questionable legacy. How much do people of color want to be immersed in that scene when it still feels so racist? Even the best parts of it. It’s a huge question to unwrap and it has to do with such a long history of where country music came from.

We stole the banjo and put it in our hillbilly music in the mountains and called it our own. We forgot all the stuff we learned from “our slaves,” you know? It’s crazy to me, if you think about the racist roots of where a lot of this comes from. Merging this racist legacy with this incredible populist music — music for the people, like Woody Guthrie, like the Carter Family. You get those two things bumping up against each other constantly, how do you entangle that and make this a space where it doesn’t matter what color you are? Where it doesn’t matter what your religious persuasion, or your political party, or your gender, or your sexual preference, or anything.

I think the way we deal with it is by all of us thinking all the time and being mindful of [that racist history]. And including [Black artists] in our playlists and touring with them. Some people are like, “What does it mean if you’re forcing this integration? Is it just going through the motions?” No! No, no, no.

ES: I’ll [echo] the things that Amy said, practically: Tour with Black musicians or Brown musicians or musicians who have not been able to feel that they’re welcome and make everybody welcome. Like Amythyst or Chastity Brown. Those are artists of color who have been discriminated against, who feel other-than in the world of their genres.

I think, first, we all — we white people, we people “of no color,” we “colorless” people — should dig deep, identify our own racism and how far it goes, how much we use it. Break it down, talk about it, identify it in each other. Really start from the core of things and hopefully act outwardly as a result of what we’ve dug through, inwardly. Try to heal and fix, you know? We’ve got to ask artists of color what their experience is like and why it’s like that. I’ve got to assume that there must be some Black artists, who if they hear a song from a white, country, roots singer about the freedom of driving down a dark, country road, they’re not going to feel the same way about the history of Black people down dark country roads. A lot of it is context and, as Amy says, there’s so much to be unraveled. But we are at a tipping point.

AR: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I feel like there’s a lot of crossover, to me from that and the beginnings of early rock ‘n’ roll. That’s kind of what Elvis Presley was doing and borrowing from. I think about that sometimes, that territory. I like old recordings, like field recordings almost, of all the Alan Lomax type stuff he would collect. Field songs, prison songs. I think a lot of country writers have taken from that stuff, you know? 

I remember an interview with Kathleen Hanna that really resonated with me. She said, when they ask you who your favorite artists are, most of us name all these male artists. That’s who we can think of, because that’s who’s archived the best. Straight men, bands, and writers. If you sit down and really think about who you love and make a list of the women and the queer folks — this is what she was talking about, she wasn’t talking about color at the time or race or the social construct of race — and you take that list to your interviews and rattle off those names, you’ll be more honest, because you’ll be talking about who you really listen to and not just trying to remember [anyone] off the top of your head. 

People are so out of the habit — and so in the habit — of white supremacy that we don’t even know how to do the right things, just in our instincts. We have to learn, write it down, so we remember to do it.

Photo credit: Jeremy Cowart

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

New Movement Music: A Black American Soundtrack of Struggle and Protest

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For Black Americans, this day, Juneteenth, has long been a celebration of the momentous historical event of emancipation from slavery — and the nearly two and a half years it took for that news to reach all enslaved peoples in this country. Juneteenth is belatedly gaining wider recognition and arrives at a time of reckoning with systemic patterns of white supremacy, especially police brutality, that remain deeply entrenched.

Like many waves of national protest before it, the uprising in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and many others has spurred the creation of its own soundtrack, and the following list spotlights the contributions of seven roots-savvy, Black music makers. Some draw on lessons learned from how songs gave spiritual succor to those on the front lines of the 1960s Civil Rights struggle, with righteously raised fists and declarations of passion and purpose. Others opt for expression that feels far more personalized or particular, articulating an adamantly complex range of emotions and letting profoundly unsettled, and unsettling, questions hang in the air. All of them are fleshing out their own vivid, timely incarnations of movement music.

Leon Bridges specializes in sophisticated soul, sometimes artfully retro in presentation and other times landing at the thoroughly contemporary end of that musical lineage. His new song “Sweeter” is an example of the latter, two minutes and 50 seconds during which his buttery vocals glide over a lean drum machine pattern, delicate, gospel-dusted bits of guitar, keyboard, piano and bass and Terrace Martin’s saxophone figures. Bridges’ words land with the devastated finality of a black man whose life is leaving his body, taken from him by police. “I thought we moved on from the darker days,” he sings, his cadence fluttery and tone ruminative. “Did the words of the King disappear in the air, like a butterfly?” The blame-laying next line arrives in a burst: “Somebody should hand you a felony.”

Then, Bridges elongates his phrasing with righteous indignation, before steadying himself to spell out the loss: “‘Cause you stole from me/my chance to be.” The elegance he chose gives his performance subtly striking, emotional heft. “From adolescence we are taught how to conduct ourselves when we encounter police to avoid the consequences of being racially profiled,” Bridges wrote in a statement. “I have been numb for too long, calloused when it came to the issues of police brutality. The death of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. It was the first time I wept for a man I never met. I am George Floyd, my brothers are George Floyd, and my sisters are George Floyd. I cannot and will not be silent any longer. Just as Abel’s blood was crying out to God, George Floyd is crying out to me.”

Chastity Brown has been honing her ability to create space for emotional resistance within her songs for a while now. She draws on the pointed, confessional potential of folk and soul and the digital texturing techniques of contemporary pop and hip-hop, while depicting the patient pursuit and safekeeping of self-knowledge as a sign of strength — one that differs wildly from the sort of dominance modeled by systemic power.

In her new song “Golden,” created on her iPad in her garage studio and shared with the world this week, Brown sounds willfully unhurried singing over a skittery programmed beat: “I’ve got joy, even when I’m a target/If ya think that’s political, don’t get me started/You know I’m golden and I flaunt it.” That savoring of selfhood is in striking contrast to the furious question she circles around during the chorus: “Why have I got to be angry?”

In the artist notes accompanying the song, Brown explained that she began writing it when her nephew was beaten by four white cops while walking home in Harlem, mere weeks before George Floyd died in her adopted hometown. “This collective trauma that black, indigenous, immigrant, and queer/trans folk feel is real,” she spelled out. “It’s every god damn day. Yet, we still thrive and flourish in our nature beauty, we still have swag and songs for days. We still have wild and wondrous imaginations like we are all the children of Octavia [Butler]. …This is for me, my people, and the UPRISING to defund police here in Minneapolis and thereby set a new standard for how communities want to be protected.”

Shemekia Copeland, one of the brightest stars in contemporary blues, has been deliberate for years about broadening her repertoire and approach to encompass countrified styles, singer-songwriter song sources and statement-making folk and soul sensibilities and, in the process, positioning herself in the midst of roots music discourse. That’s the insightful perspective she brings to her just-released “Uncivil War,” whose string band style accompaniment boasts the contributions of Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.

Coming from Copeland, and delivered with measured, dignified vibrato, the simple flipping of the name of the nation’s most notorious war to “uncivil” slyly strips a veneer of respectability from the racist and romanticized Lost Cause religion. She strikes a tone of weary but resolute optimism throughout. “It’s not just a song,” she clarified in a statement. “I’m trying to put the ‘united’ back in the United States. Like many people, I miss the days when we treated each other better. For me, this country’s all about people with differences coming together to be part of something we all love. That’s what really makes America beautiful.”

Kam Franklin, on her own and with her Houston horn band The Suffers, has the wide-ranging musical instincts, imagination, nerve, and ear for earthy verisimilitude to make big statements while zeroing in on small interactions. A couple of weeks back, she posted a brand new, self-recorded song fragment to SoundCloud, a platform well suited to off-the-cuff expression, and with it, this comment: “I saw a photo of Breonna Taylor with her homegirls earlier today, and it gutted me. I won’t forget her. I wrote this birthday song for her, her friends that wondered where she was before the news came out, and everyone that loved her.”

Titled “Happy Birthday Breonna,” it’s a pensive, sinuous bit of ‘70s soul that drives home the fact that Taylor was ripped from a web of close relationships. The first, and only verse, lands like a voicemail from a friend who grew worried when she couldn’t reach Taylor. Franklin’s graceful trills and softly insistent phrasing have an understatement that suggests fretful preoccupation. Then she moves into a point-counterpoint refrain, murmuring birthday wishes to Taylor in her breathy upper register and making a devastating declaration beneath: “You should be here.”

Singer-guitarist and actor Celisse Henderson began work on writing, recording, and filming a video for her song “FREEDOM” four years ago, following the slayings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, and watched as black deaths and protest momentum multiplied before she finally completed and released her project earlier this month.

In a message on her website, Henderson explained, “I, along with millions of people, watched video footage of these unarmed black men losing their lives in the most horrific ways. The truth that these unjust deaths revealed about our country, including the systemic failings of our criminal justice system, became my personal call-to-action. Then the 2016 election night happened, and the results added a whole new layer to the purpose of this song and project. Now, almost four years later, too little has been done, and the story remains the same. With the horrific and unjust killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd weighing heavily on our hearts and minds, it is time to release ‘FREEDOM’ as a rallying cry and a call to action to stand up and fight for our freedom.”

Historic footage of the March on Washington that opens the clip is a reminder of the buoying role that spirituals played in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and serves the narrative function of positioning Henderson to measure the too-meager progress for Black Americans since. The track is gospel-schooled and hard-rocking, powered by a thunderous, syncopated drum pattern and grinding electric guitar attack. With gospel fervor and a touch of theatrical flourish, Henderson summons a spirit of urgency and extends a broad welcome to all who are affected or disturbed by injustice.

Joy Oladokun, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter who’s quietly carving out her place in Nashville’s professional songwriting community with introspective, melancholy warmth, steered a co-writing appointment with Natalie Hemby toward an expression of grief. The result was “Who Do I Turn To?” a naked airing of fear and distrust.

Oladokun’s reedy, plaintive performance is accompanied only by minimal piano chords. She spends the chorus adding up horrifying realizations that lead her to a resounding question: “If I can’t save myself/If it’s all black and white/If I can’t call for help/in the middle of the night/If I can’t turn to god/If I can’t turn to you/Who do I turn to?” Her voice subtly catches on the word “help,” as though knowing that life-giving protection is unavailable to her constricts her breath. Oladokun underscored the importance of the chorus lyrics to an interviewer: “[I]t’s illustrating that I don’t trust the police since I’m black. I don’t trust the police enough to know that they would think I’m not robbing my own home. I don’t think a lot of people understand what that is like. The feeling sucks.” In a separate statement she summarized her intent: “I wanted to write a firsthand account of how I feel and the question black people like me ask when this happens over and over again while nothing changes. I want it out now to help an already traumatized people cope, heal, and put words to their struggle.”

Wyatt Waddell, a young Chicago music-maker who’s been expertly, wittily, and self-sufficiently arranging home recordings of classic covers and singer-songwriter soul originals for the past few years, wrote “FIGHT!” as an anthem of admiration and uplift for young, Black Americans putting their bodies on the line in the streets and facing off against police force to agitate for change. “This song is me looking at what’s happening and what I’d tell the people protesting,” he specified in a statement. “I had to look outside of myself at what’s going on and how people are being affected. Hearing people’s fears, anxieties, and watching everything happening on TV really helped me write the song. I hope that it can be an anthem for my people as they’re fighting for a better America.”

Waddell begins with gospel-style repetition, creating a call-and-response pattern made up of his own layered vocals over a churchly foot stomp and hand clap groove: “There’s already so much pain/So much pain/So much pain/There’s already so much pain/And there ain’t nothin’ else we can do.” It seems like he could be building up to a confession of helplessness; instead, his funky refrain is bolstered by a sense of resolve and inevitability: “Nothin’ to do but fight.”

Photo credit: (L to R) Shemekia Copeland by Mike White; Chastity Brown by Wale Agboola; Leon Bridges by Jack McKain.

BGS Celebrates Pride 2018

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s June! The most rainbowy time of the year! BGS is proud to celebrate Pride this month while the world marks the anniversary of the riots that began the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, nearly 50 years ago at The Stonewall Inn in New York City, with parades, parties, protests, and loads of glitter.

Queer voices are an integral part of the roots music communities we all love — and they always have been. Let’s revisit some of our favorite pieces and stories that focus on LGBTQ+ identities, music, and perspectives as we raise up this incredibly strong, vibrant, open, and loving community.

 

Last year, we celebrated 30 years of queer goddesses The Indigo Girls by naming them our Artists of the Month. Some of our favorite songwriters — like Angaleena Presley and Becky Warren — paid them tribute as well. The Indigo Girls blazed a trail for openly queer folks to make music loud and proud. Their wide-reaching influence cannot be overstated.

 

Brandi Carlile gave the remaining 10 months of 2018 an impossibly high standard to live up to when she released her most recent record, By the Way, I Forgive You, in February. One song off of the new project, “The Joke,” is poised to become a queer anthem for our generation — and President Obama himself listed it as one of his favorite songs of 2017. It’s one of our favorites ad infinitum.

 

Southwest Virginia natives and old-time, bluegrass, and folk musicians Sam Gleaves & Tyler Hughes are helping to dispel the all too common assumption that rural communities are devoid of LGBTQ+ folks. “When We Love,” a song off of their self-titled, debut duo release made our Class of 2017 list of favorite songs from the year.

 

We were honored and proud to support the first ever Bluegrass Pride last year, partnering with the California Bluegrass Association on a float in the San Francisco Pride Parade. The float ended up winning Best Overall Contingent and brought live bluegrass music to literally hundreds of thousands of potential fans. The icing on the cake is this bluegrass version of Whitney Houston’s “Dance with Somebody” by Front Country and some fabulous friends.

 

Singer/songwriter Mary Gauthier demonstrates the incredible power of empathy on her record Rifles & Rosary Beads, a collection of songs written with veterans of the armed services. It’s an important message for this day and age — one that Gauthier delivers with, once again, empathy.

 

Americana singer/songwriter Becca Mancari may be based in Nashville, but her debut album, Good Woman, released last fall, draws inspiration from well beyond Music City. The critically-acclaimed album can thank its lyric-driven, personality-rich songs for its success — a reminder that living one’s truth and letting that truth shine is always the best plan of action.

 

Country music is for queers too, damnit! Karen Pittelman of Karen & the Sorrows believes that if we edit our own personalities, perspectives, and identities out of our art, it’s a disservice to everyone. Especially given the fact that queer people have have been making all kinds of art and all kinds of music all along.

 

She took home the crown from RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars Season 3, but last year, before her return to the iconic reality TV show, drag superstar Trixie Mattel (AKA Brian Firkus) released an album of folk-tinged country songs. This year, she released its follow up. We spoke to Trixie after her first album dropped about how a drag queen can fit into roots music communities.

 

Singer/songwriter and “poster child for intersectionality” Crys Matthews carries on the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. through her music, writing relevant, hard-hitting, convicting songs that champion social justice and activism.

 

Country artist Sarah Shook is an activist just by being herself, unapologetically. It’s a classic outlaw perspective and a perfect fit for a queer voice in the country realm.

 

Folk legends, GRAMMY winners, producers, and life partners Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer released their forty-fifth recording, Get Up and Do Right, early last year. It’s no surprise that it has a social justice bent, given that the pair has spent their entire lives and careers on the front lines of the battle for LGBTQ+ rights and women’s rights.

 

Artist and Americana/soul singer Chastity Brown contemplated heartbreak and healing on her latest album, Silhouette of Sirens, released a little over a year ago. To Brown, the personal is political, “Just by me being a bi-racial, half-black, half-white woman living in America right now is political. Just being a person of color, a queer woman of color, for that matter, is freaking political.”

 

Of course, we’ve been proud to highlight diverse and underrepresented identities at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s business conference for the past two years – and continuing this year! The inclusion and diversity movement swept IBMA’s events in Raleigh last year, and we took a look at how and why.

 

And last but certainly least, how could we celebrate Pride without going back to our conversation with the most busted, washed-up, wannabe country star in the universe, Ms. Marlene Twitty-Fargo? As she would holler from stage, “Happy Pride, biscuits! Though I don’t know why all you queers love Charley Pride so much.”

Lede photo by torbakhopper on Foter.com / CC BY-ND

Black History Is Roots Music History

Posted on by Editor

To celebrate Black History Month, we’re taking a moment to revisit pieces that celebrated the creativity, music, and identities of artists of color over the past year.

Plenty of wisdom has been handed down in our Counsel of Elders features:

Jimmy Carter of the Blind Boys of Alabama spoke of faith and singing about reaching the end of the journey: “People ask me, ‘You’ve been doing this for almost seven decades, what keeps you going?’ I tell them, ‘When you love what you do — and we love what we’re doing — that keeps you motivated.’”

Soul singer Lee Fields had advice for staying positive without losing one’s realism: “I do believe that love is out there today, true genuine love, and I think a person should always keep that in mind. Stay positive.”

Then there’s 75 year-old singer and hit songwriter Don Bryant who has only just released his second album, so he knows a thing or two about perseverance and second chances.

Two of the past 12 months have been anchored by roots music legends:

Blues super-duo Keb’ Mo’ and Taj Mahal released TajMo, so we marked the occasion by designating Keb’ our Artist of the Month for May. The album just won a (well-deserved) Grammy.

Country hit-maker Charley Pride held down the Artist of the Month slot in September, when we pointed out that, even now, in his 80s, he is unafraid to shake things up.

Then, there are the cover stories:

With her record, The Order of Time, Valerie June defies labels, spanning blues, bluegrass, soul, folk, rock, and more, gathering pieces from each to build a kaleidoscope that showcases the long undercurrent of history running through each.

Trombone Shorty is intent on keeping the culture and music of New Orleans alive, but without redundancy: “When I grew up, I was listening to brass bands and I was listening to New Orleans hip-hop, so that is a part of my culture. I started, then, playing my horn to hip-hop beats and rock beats. It’s part of knowing where you come from, but trying to move the music forward.”

Black Joe Lewis doesn’t revive rock ‘n’ roll, he just shows the world it’s still alive — and, as a classic form of American music, it should have a seat at the Americana table, too.

For Chastity Brown, making music is like a therapy session: “The music reflected itself back to me and, in one part, let me know I was quite broken, and in another part of [Silhouette of Sirens], let me know I wasn’t that way anymore.”

The historical context of Black identities in roots music is best supplied by, well … Black identities in roots music.

New York-based Black string band the Ebony Hillbillies expertly laid out the diverse history of bluegrass and old-time music in a Shout & Shine interview.

Scholars Doug Seroff and Lynn Abbott have worked together for nearly 40 years researching the history of African-American music in jubilee, quartet, vaudeville, ragtime, and early blues music.

We dove into the history of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, who have featured a rotating cast over the years and continue to share their rich history of West African descent, with performances at presidential inaugurations and other public ceremonies.

By working through a deep-rooted musical heritage, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou uses the language of the past to inform the present, serving up a direct response to the current political climate.

In her album, Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens examined the cyclical struggles of the victims of injustice that suffer throughout history … slaves, children, Black men, and more. We spoke to her about it.

Lesbian, Americana artist Crys Matthews is a native of the South and the daughter of a preacher. She understands and appreciates the myriad ways her background informs her ability to help others empathize with those with whom they might assume they have nothing in common.

Let’s not forget about all of the incredible music:

Birds of Chicago sang one of our favorite songs for a Sitch Session.

Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons released A Black & Tan Ball with Phil Wiggins and built the album on friendship, their commitment to celebrating the wide range of American styles available to any songster, and the joy of sharing those musical styles across generations.

Benjamin Booker’s “Truth Is Heavy” was featured as a Song of the Week this past June.

And Rhiannon Giddens had a Song of the Week, too.

One of our new favorites, Sunny War, sings to her younger self — and all young children today — about the challenges of life.

Guitarist Hubby Jenkins can do more with just his voice and guitar than some folks do with an entire band.

We hosted a number of wonderful artists on Hangin’ & Sangin‘, as well:

Johnnyswim had us laughing for the whole half-hour … and invited us over for dinner, to boot!

The aforementioned Keb’ Mo’ turned on the charm in a big, big way.

Acoustic soul singer Jonny P touched on the importance of positive representation.

Hopping over from the UK, Yola Carter blew our minds with her incredible voice and spirit.

During AmericanaFest, Leyla McCalla talked us through the history of Haitian-Americans.

And last but not least, there have been several stellar Mixtapes, too:

Singer Bette Smith remembers her big brother and his love of soul music with this playlist.

Contemporary blues guitarist Ruthie Foster gave us an introduction to the blues with a dozen foundational tracks upon which a blues novice might begin to build their love of the form.

Our friends at the Music Maker Relief Foundation are working hard to preserve traditional, vernacular American music, especially traditional blues.

BGS Class of 2017: Songs

Posted on by Editor

It seems like every year is a great year in roots music, packing in way more excellence than a single list can handle. That’s why, for our year-end songs collection, the BGS writers have picked tunes they love that were not on any of our year-end albums. That’s not to say that the whole albums represented here aren’t great, though, so use these songs as invitations to dig deeper. 

Andrew Combs, Canyons of My Mind, “Dirty Rain”


Over the three excellent albums, Nashville’s Andrew Combs has proven himself to not only be a songwriter of the highest order, but one with few creative boundaries — he’s bounced from traditional twang to countrypolitan to indie rock, always landing on illustrative stories and cutting vocals moments. On “Dirty Rain,” from Canyons of My Mind, Combs studies a world where our children are left with no vestiges of the planet’s former splendor on which to play — whether it’s green spaces now filled with buildings or books replaced by iPads. “What will all our little children say, when the only place to play is in the dirty rain?” asks Combs, taking his range into stirring falsetto, a gorgeous turn that reminds us that there is still beauty in this world: It’s just up to us to preserve it. — Marissa Moss

Angaleena Presley, Wrangled, “Wrangled”


As a songwriter — and, indeed, an essayist — Angaleena Presley is one of the most potent voices currently putting pen to paper in Nashville. Her sophomore solo release, the wonderful Wrangled, is chock full of cultural commentaries and confessions. On the captivating title track, Lady A filters her own professional frustrations through the lonesome lens of a housewife who feels unappreciated. “Rather eat dirt than bake another prize-winning cherry pie,” she sings with an air of resignation that perfectly encapsulates the emptiness of going through all the right motions and playing all the right parts only to be left feeling utterly unfulfilled and unseen. — Kelly McCartney

Anna Tivel, Small Believer, “Alleyway”


Had “Alleyway” been written in a different era, it likely would’ve found its way into the Brothers Grimm’s treacherous collection. It’s a fairy tale for the flawed. Detailing a one-night stand gone awry, the song examines broken decisions made by broken characters. Tivel’s voice — a whispering alto — works within the song’s minimal strings-based arrangement to tell a bleak but no less beautiful story with razor-sharp lyricism. When she sings, “I guess some folks are born to lose. Some kids are born for someone else’s cradle,” the consonants’ rhythmic pattern communicates her poetic ear for delivering such shattering truths. But while the blunt realism bound up in her writing may lean toward despair, she doesn’t leave things in that fraught territory. Instead, Tivel infuses them with small glimmers of hope, the kind that arise from the simple, oftentimes brave act of moving forward. — Amanda Wicks

The Barr Brothers, Queen of the Breakers, “You Would Have to Lose Your Mind”


The Barr Brothers’ standout, “You Would Have to Lose Your Mind,” off their album, Queen of the Breakers, creates a tension between lived dystopia and imagined utopia. Oscillating between those two polarities, the song takes on multiple melodic personalities, beginning with dreamy shoegaze before shifting into frenetic rock, a la the War on Drugs, and concluding with electrified chamber folk. As a result, everything edges toward cacophony, but the band keeps it together, instead tautening the emotional tightrope through Brad Barr’s contorted vocals and Sarah Pagé’s strings. A dip into madness shortly after the halfway mark builds out into a freeing crescendo, even if that sensation isn’t wholly assured. “Am I on the other side? Am I dreaming?” Brad asks, imagining something better than what he sees. But is the vision enough? — AW

Chastity Brown, Silhouette of Sirens, “Carried Away”


One of the beauties of Americana as an umbrella descriptor is that it allows for experimental branches to reach out far and wide while still remaining grounded by their roots. Chastity Brown is a perfect example of that. At her core, Brown is a folk singer, telling important stories with an acoustic guitar. But, when you zoom out from there, she’s so very much more than that, as evidenced on “Carried Away” off Silhouette of Sirens. Here, the acoustic guitar and confessional story still drive things along, but they collide with a swinging drum groove and a lyrical cadence that wouldn’t be out of place in a spoken word slam. Anyone who says they don’t like Americana music clearly aren’t paying attention and certainly haven’t heard Chastity Brown. — KMc

Dan Auerbach, Waiting on a Song, “Never In My Wildest Dreams”


On his sophomore solo effort, the Black Keys frontman exudes his vintage version of Music City. After moving to Nashville in 2010, he opened Easy Eye Sound studio and has now launched his own record label with the same name. Waiting on a Song is the label’s first output, and Auerbach recruited veterans like Duane Eddy, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, and John Prine to complete the project. A collection of breezy ‘70s pop, the album’s standout comes midway through with “Never in My Wildest Dreams.” Clocking in at just under three minutes, the stripped-down track is a gentle rumination on love that serves as a reminder that good things come in small packages. — Desiré Moses

Flatt Lonesome, Silence in These Walls, “Where Do You Go”


Covering a song by a mainstream country star is an age-old tradition in bluegrass, going back as far as the very beginning of the genre. Decades ago, Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, et al started and propagated the trend, but Flatt Lonesome have now perfected it. Following on their hit cover of Dwight Yoakam’s “You’re the One” in 2015, their brand new album, Silence in These Walls, includes a pristine, soaring, goosebump-inducing rendition of Glen Campbell’s “Where Do You Go.” Siblings and band front-people Buddy Robertson, Charli Robertson, and Kelsi Harrigill have also perfected high lonesome, exquisitely emulsified sibling harmonies and, if they hadn’t recorded this song, we wouldn’t have known it was the tailor-made vessel for their masterful three-part. — Justin Hiltner

Gina Clowes, True Colors, “Saylor’s Creek”


Banjoist Gina Clowes was virtually unknown on the national bluegrass scene before joining veteran outfit Chris Jones and the Night Drivers. Now, barely two years later, she’s on the cover of the holy grail of banjo publications, Banjo Newsletter, and her debut solo album, True Colors, was released by Mountain Home Music. Though the Night Drivers are almost entirely a straight-up traditional band, her playing style is dynamic, thoughtful, intricate, and free. Plenty of banjo players with similar gigs would be content to simply regurgitate their favorite JD Crowe and Earl Scruggs licks interminably, but Clowes is not satisfied with tradition just for tradition’s sake, as evidenced all the way up and down True Colors — especially in original tunes such as “Saylor’s Creek.” — JH

Imelda May, Life Love Flesh Blood, “Call Me” / Rogue + Jaye, Pent Up, “Forces of Decay”



Sometimes, the vibe of a song is enough to make me love it. But, when that vibe gets topped off with stunning vocals and heartbreaking lyrics, well, I’m done for. As such, both Imelda May’s “Call Me” and Rogue + Jaye’s “Forces of Decay” have spent a lot of time on repeat this year. Thematically, these cuts each take on crumbling relationships from slightly different perspectives. In May’s tale, the love affair is all but over, though the singer clings to the thinnest thread of hope that it’s not because her longing is keeping her alive. R + J’s seems to have a smidge more hope than that, but eventually resigns itself to mere gratitude for having loved and lost than not having loved at all. Moral of the stories: If your heart has to break, may it break beautifully. — KMc

John Moreland, Big Bad Luv, “Sallisaw Blues”


Sallisaw, Oklahoma, is the hometown of the Joad clan in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, the place the family must leave when the Dust Bowl gets too dusty. It’s become a piece of a mythic America, heavy with meaning, not unlike nearby Okemah, home of the perpetually uprooted Woody Guthrie. In “Sallisaw Blues,” the opening track on Okie singer/songwriter John Moreland’s fourth album, it’s a place that’s easy to leave and hard to stay. “Slumming I-40 with American songs,” he sings in his robust voice, a little of the old punk showing through. “They can bury our bodies in American wrongs.” The song nearly runs off without him, thanks to a barbed blues lick and a reckless harmonica, but he’s looking for a bit of wisdom out in the American wilderness, using his guitar like a dowsing rod. In Sallisaw, Moreland is, to use Steinbeck’s language, “jus’ pain covered with skin.” — Stephen Deusner

Josh Ritter, Gathering, “Dreams”


Josh Ritter’s experimentation on his new album, Gathering, finds fruition in all manner of musical styles, but he pares things down with “Dreams,” creating a powerful, almost manic, look at a character running off the rails. The quickly delivered free-verse comes closer to a spoken word confession and lists the debilitating incidents keeping the song’s central figure from finding creative absolution. Against structured chamber folk, an infrequent piano riff shivers like a thunder-strike, underscoring the “gathering” storm that has led to this admission. Building on Ritter’s 2015 album, Sermon on the Rocks, the lyrics oscillate between religious and secular imagery; he sings, “Can I outstrip a creator who searches and finds me, then leaves me with demons that I already had?” The entire affair crescendos into an electrified frenzy that edges toward resolution, but in the end, keeps that conclusion just out of reach. — AW

Kacy & Clayton, The Siren’s Song, “The Light of Day”


Through their previous work, the Canadian duo of Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum have proven their uncanny ability to conjure up a sort of folk that reaches not across genres but geographical planes: They weave as much British countryside into their music as they do Tennessee plains. But on their newest LP, Strange Country, they teamed up with Jeff Tweedy — who took the production reins — and came out with something deliciously psychedelic. And “The Light of Day,” which veers Anderson into Grace Slick territory and dips heavily into ’70s Southern rock, is this new equation at its best. “Keep your thoughts to yourself and you’ll be fine,” sings Anderson, welcoming some new, rollicking percussion, “Don’t let them see the light of day.” A menacing bit of advice in a world where the balance of what is said and what is heard has never been so skewed. — MM

Kurt Vile & Courtney Barnett, Lotta Sea Lice, “Over Everything”


Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett’s first joint album is the collaboration we didn’t know we needed, but can’t imagine living without. The Australian rocker and indie kingpin are the perfect tag team, conjuring up warbling, wandering odes to daily life which, for them, centers around songwriting. The record’s opening track, “Over Everything,” is a back-and-forth exchange about the nuances of creativity that has Vile and Barnett picking up lines where the other leaves off and, in some cases, even jumping in early to finish the other’s thought. As spoken word poets wielding languid roots-rock, Vile and Barnett have made one of the most fun releases of the year. — DM

Leif Vollebekk, Twin Solitude, “Elegy”


From the somber heft in the opening piano chords — you can practically hear the keys being pressed — to the commanding bass line that amplifies the chorus, Leif Vollebekk’s “Elegy” exudes weight. It actually feels heavy. But the Canadian singer/songwriter doesn’t dwell in that sensation. He uses the interplay between the song’s melodic mass and its feather-light, stream-of-consciousness lyricism to give shape to the internal struggle at the center: What happens when you want to be better for someone, but can’t rise to the occasion? What happens when you finally do, and they’re no longer around? The conclusion to his narrative occurs at the chorus when he assuredly, if mournfully, sings, “Take a look at me now.” Achieving that moment hasn’t been easy, and “Elegy” artfully articulates the sacrifices made along the way. — AW

Lilly Hiatt, Trinity Lane, “Trinity Lane”


“I get bored, so I wanna get drunk,” sings Lilly Hiatt on the title cut of Trinity Lane. “I know how that goes, so I ain’t gonna touch it.” Melding Hiatt’s unique twang with raucous rock melodies, “Trinity Lane” is an ode to a person in progress who has learned from her mistakes and come out stronger. With production by Shovels & Rope’s Michael Trent, Hiatt’s breed of roots on songs like “Trinity Lane” pushes things back into sweaty clubs and spiraling guitars, never resting on the precious or precocious. Packed with little details, like the scent of cooking garlic or the temptation of the embrace of another, and ferociously constructed, “Trinity Lane” is a raw and honest document of Hiatt’s place in the world. — MM

Little Bandit, Breakfast Alone, “Bed of Bad Luck”


Country’s seen its share of soul this year, particularly in the Chris Stapleton era, but Little Bandit, led by Alex Caress, dips deep into some downright honky-tonk gospel with “Bed of Bad Luck,” off their debut LP Breakfast Alone. Centered on a gentle piano vamp and Caress’s heartbreaking howl, it’s as stirring as it is revelatory, with a backing choir of Caitlin Rose, Larissa Maestro, and Caress’s sister Jordan who help take the whole thing to church — except, here, church is a dusty bar or a lonely bed, with nothing but the scent of an old lover on the pillow. Somehow, Little Bandit is able to meld the timeless with the groundbreaking, coming out with country that doesn’t try to fit into a box. Instead, “Bed of Bad Luck” shapes its own box altogether. — MM

The Lone Bellow, Walk Into a Storm, “Is It Ever Gonna Be Easy”


Sometimes the simplest ideas carry the most weight. This highlight from the Lone Bellow’s third album, Walk Into a Storm, revolves around a question we’ve all undoubtedly asked ourselves over the course of 2017 — “Is it ever gonna be easy?” — followed by a plea for salvation — “Try so hard, please release me.” It’s a quintessential Lone Bellow anthem from Zach Williams, Brian Elmquist, and Kanene Pipkin that showcases their knack for wistfulness, perfectly executed vocal harmonies and catchy hooks. The trio moved from Brooklyn to Nashville and teamed up with producer Dave Cobb for this release, which draws enough upon the gospel tradition to impart a glimpse of what we all need right now: hope. — DM

Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, “Find Yourself”


Landing at number one on the Americana charts, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real’s self-titled LP has undeniably become the band’s breakout release. But that’s not to say that the California-based musicians are newcomers. In fact, they’ve been honing their craft alongside music’s biggest icons for the past decade. While their collaborations with Lukas’s famous father, Willie, and stint as Neil Young’s backing band are common fodder for critics and fans, alike, this collection of songs solidifies the band’s status as a powerhouse in its own right. Nelson’s songwriting prowess is particularly evident on the album’s infectious lead single, “Find Yourself,” featuring none other than pop purveyor Lady Gaga on backing vocals. Dripping with soul and reaching the pinnacle with the declaration, “I know the love that I deserve,” it’s a post-breakup pick-me-up for the ages. — DM

Offa Rex, The Queen of Hearts, “Flash Company”


Dating back to Limerick, Ireland, in the 1850s, this ballad has been known by many different titles and recorded numerous times in the last 50 years, usually by British folk singers. Phoebe Smith did a beautiful and ragged version in 1969, and June Tabor may have sung definitive version, backed by Martin Simpson, on her 1981 album, A Cut Above. But the transatlantic folk-rock group Offa Rex deserves their place in the song’s history. Backed by members of the Decemberists, Olivia Chaney adds to the song’s long tradition, offering a restrained yet powerful interpretation of the central predicament: a women brought low by doomed romantic pursuits. Bonus points for proceeding with no break into “The Old Churchyard,” making explicit the idea that life proceeds directly to the grave. — SD

Rose Cousins, Natural Conclusion, “Freedom”


Rose Cousins captures the paradox of longing for release from the bonds of lost love, while simultaneously clutching every remaining trace as tightly as possible, downright exquisitely in “Freedom.” As all humans touched by love know intimately, liberation from the pain, the loneliness, the regrets, and what-ifs of romance feels like a mirage shimmering just out of reach. Cousins could have focused an entire song on the finality of this freedom alone, but anyone currently or formerly heartbroken knows that seeking this fabled oasis risks undercutting all that was beautiful, joyous, and heartening in love to begin with. And so “Freedom” grapples with these disparate truths of human connection all together. The result is heart-wrenching and comforting, hopeful and despondent, contradictory and perfectly accurate. — JH

Sam Gleaves & Tyler Hughes, Sam Gleaves & Tyler Hughes, “When We Love”


Both natives of southwestern Virginia — a cradle of old-time, bluegrass, country, and their offshoots — Sam Gleaves and Tyler Hughes are experts and acolytes of their region’s musical forms. This swathe of Virginia perfectly defines the forgotten, rural areas of working class America that have felt the political and economic turmoil of the last decade most intensely. But Gleaves and Hughes not only claim their homeland completely, they adore it, focusing on the love that brings us all together instead of the differences we would let drive us apart. With a soft, loping, open-back banjo and a simple acoustic guitar, they evoke the era of the Carter Family as they sing in two-part harmony, “When we love, we will make America great again.” — JH

Steve Earle, So You Wanna Be an Outlaw, “News from Colorado” / Aimee Mann, Mental Illness, “Lies of Summer”



A guy steals a car, lies his ass off, abandons his family, ends up on the wrong side of the law. That sentence sums up new songs by two singer/songwriters with remarkable catalogs that rarely intersect. On “News from Colorado,” Steve Earle sings from the point of view of a character just barely hanging on, perhaps some version of himself from years ago. He hears of his family’s schisms, but lacks the emotional wherewithal to do anything but shake his head and flinch at the ring of the telephone. “Brother stole another car,” Earle sings. “Sister says he’s in the Army.” The song — co-written with his niece, Emily Earle, and ex-wife, Alison Moorer — refuses to provide any easy closure, as the narrator once again realizes his own powerlessness.

Perhaps that troubled brother is the same subject of Aimee Mann’s “Lies of Summer,” now drugged into oblivion by well-meaning doctors. She balances her sympathy over his predicament with an almost scientific fascination over the young man’s deeds, wondering if they’re bad enough to warrant such harsh treatment. Both songs refuse any easy closure, as both narrators only gradually realize their complete inability to offer any comfort or exact any change in the situation. — SD

The Wailin Jennys, Fifteen, “Wildflowers”


The Wailin Jennys could have never known when they were recording their latest album, Fifteen, just how powerfully relevant their cover of Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers” would be for 2017. But then October 2 happened — the day of Petty’s unexpected passing and just three weeks before the street date of the Jennys’ first record in six years. If their lilting, perfectly harmonized version wasn’t already a strong contender for my top song, the weight of remembrance it now carries easily makes it one of this year’s best. — Amy Reitnouer

Will Hoge, Anchors, “Little Bit of Rust” / Charlie Worsham, Beginning of Things, “Cut Your Groove”



Admittedly, I don’t listen to commercial country radio because I have zero interest in songs comparing women’s bodies to curvy roads. But, in an alternate radio universe that had some measure of thoughtfulness and taste, Will Hoge and Charlie Worsham shoulda/coulda/woulda had huge country hits with “Little Bit of Rust” and “Cut Your Groove,” respectively. Alas, these guys are thinking man’s songwriters so the Chevy truck in Hoge’s tune, while a part of the story in its own right, also serves as a metaphor for a marriage that’s lost a bit of its original shine. One of numerous stand-out tracks on the record, “Little Bit of Rust” is catchy as all get-out and features Sheryl Crow on harmonies, to boot. With Worsham, “Cut Your Groove” sounds like a really good Keith Urban tune … just … better. The hook is irresistible and memorable, the message universal and positive, so its lack of success is inexplicable. Go home, country radio. You’re clearly drunk. — KMc

Hear the entire BGS Class of 2017 here:

11 Artists We’re Excited to See at AmericanaFest 2017

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This year, AmericanaFest is packing more than 300 artist showcases into six days in Nashville. Yeah. That’s a LOT of music. It’s not going to be easy to see everyone, but we’re going to try. Here are a few of our absolute musts:

Lee Ann Womack

We may not be big on rules around here, but we sure do love our LAW. That’s why we’re thrilled to say that, on Thursday, she’ll be Hangin’ & Sangin’ with us live on Facebook at 1 pm CT. Then, later that night, LAW & Friends take over the Music City Roots tent to close out the night. AmericanaFest could end right there, and we’d be happy. Luckily, though, there’s plenty more to come!

Birds of Chicago

Just watch the video. You’ll see.

Chastity Brown

Chastity is a rising star in the Americana world, and we couldn’t be more happy about that. Her songs run deep and wide. Catch her Friday night at the Anchor just before Birds of Chicago and Kacy & Clayton.

Lori McKenna

It’s no secret that McKenna is one of our girl crushes. She’ll be at 3rd & Lindsley on Thursday night (at the same time as LAW, sadly) with Willie Watson, Brent Cobb, and Shannon McNally. (We’re working on a cloning machine so we can be everywhere we want to be. Sure hope it’s ready by then!) 

Natalie Hemby

Hemby kicks off the Saturday night lineup at 3rd & Lindsley which also includes Elizabeth Cook, Lucie Silvas, and Jack Ingram. We’ve reserved a table for the whole dang thang. Come say hi!

Yola Carter

Hopefully, you caught Yola’s recent Hangin’ & Sangin’ appearance so that you know how great she is. If you want more, she’ll be at 12th & Porter on Friday night and the Groove on Saturday. 

Erin Rae

We’ve already gotten to hear Erin’s new album which is slated for a release early next year and, suffice it to say, it’s our first favorite record of 2018. Catch her Friday night at City Winery or spend Saturday afternoon at the Groove with her, Yola, Angaleena Presley, Courtney Marie Andrews, and others. (Spoiler alert: That’s where we’ll be.)

Becca Mancari

In another total Sophie’s choice, Becca is playing on Friday night at the SAME EXACT TIME as Chastity, so we’re gonna have to divide and conquer this thing. But divide and conquer we shall because they are both fantastic artists that we’re excited to support.

Leyla McCalla

Like LAW, Leyla is joining us for an AmericanaFest episode of Hangin’ & Sangin’ on Friday at 2 pm CT. She’ll also be showcasing on Thursday night at 9 pm at the Country with Emily Barker and Travis Linville, showing off her beautifully traditional roots.

Phoebe Hunt

If you’re a fan of acoustic folk based in bluegrass with elements of chamber music and far-reaching world music flavors — centered around solid songs — you’ve gotta catch Phoebe (& the Gatherers … band name pun for the win!). She has a couple of early showcases on Tuesday, with her main performance on Friday night at the Basement.

Amanda Shires

Yes. The rumors are true: Amanda will soon make her debut as the new BGS music critic. While you wait for that, you can find her tearing it up at the Station Inn on Friday night with Noam Pikelny and Luke Bulla.

Healing the Heartbreak: A Conversation with Chastity Brown

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“All my life, I was afraid of everything, and I wouldn’t touch what was beautiful to me,” sings Chastity Brown on “Drive Slow,” the first track on her new LP, Silhouette of Sirens. Appropriately, it’s a song filled with motion: an automotive chug toward the horizon, a call to move on and leave our ashes behind. But, like Brown herself, it’s more complex than just that. There are moments to stop, plant your feet, and savor the stillness, a rearview mirror filled with memories both sweet and sinister.

But Brown likes to move, no doubt — right now, she’s just completed a run in Denver, where she’ll be singing in Ani DiFranco’s back-up band later in the night. She certainly likes to move on, too, and Silhouette of Sirens finds the Minnesota-residing, Tennessee-born artist pondering perseverance: how to overcome and heal a broken heart with an understanding of all the many ways one can be shattered in the first place.

Now signed to Red House Records, Brown crafted Silhouette of Sirens with her longtime writing partner, Robert Mulrennan, and the result is a set of songs that exist in the perfect sweet spot between roots inspiration and modern sensibilities. And with plenty of soul-bearing honesty, too. “I try to find a way to sing where I’m not having a therapy session,” says Brown. “But I think there is a lot of longing on this record.” These aren’t songs to be heard prone on the couch anyway. “Pouring Rain” has a soul-filled groove, and “Carried Away” is a delicate but sweeping mid-tempo ode to rising up and over what sets us adrift.

You just got back from a jog — does running help you think creatively?

It helps me calm down. I think I have such high anxiety that it clears out the cob webs. I don’t do it to be entirely healthy. I just have to have something to take the edge off.

It’s been quite a bit of time since 2012’s Back-Road Highways, your last release. So much has changed since then: You have a new label, you’re five years older, we have a new president. How do you reflect back on it all?

There are mile markers that I think are physical: a record label, for one. I finished the album two years ago and, at that point, I had taken two years to make it. That was the longest I had taken for anything. And, at that time, I was also turning 33. I’m not religious or anything, but I was like, “This is my Jesus Christ year. This is my Buddha year.” Thirty-three is where you go big or go home. And I gave myself permission to actually be ambitious and gave myself permission to get what they call in the music business a “team.” To make the album, I had emotionally gone through a really dark time without realizing it, and that influenced the work. I was separating all the dark shit going on in my head with these songs I was writing with my writing partner. It wasn’t until after I finished that I was like, “Holy shit, this actually digs deep into my subconscious and exercises some demons I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.”

How so?

The music reflected itself back to me and, in one part, let me know I was quite broken, and in another part of the album, let me know I wasn’t that way anymore. It’s a fucking therapy session, but I can’t say what it feels like to be different. Though I know I’m literally in a different place than when I was making it.

Was it difficult to give up your independence and sign to a label?

Yeah, I’m a little bit — and I think my band mates can vouch for the fact that — I am a little bit controlling. But at the same time, this isn’t really possible to do alone. I had to ask people for their gifts and talent. It was difficult to relinquish some of that, but we all work really well together. I’m a 34-year-old woman who is not going to be told what to do. Working with these people on collaboration, I don’t feel like it’s me telling them what to do or the opposite. But I do have clear goals, and it wasn’t just a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was thought out, and I have to trust them. And I do.

You mentioned the album was finished two years ago, so do these songs still feel fresh to you?

I was expecting them to be old by now, but they’re not old to me. Maybe it’s just my relationship with them. For 2016, I got the incredible opportunity to tour with Ani DiFranco, and that was the real test of these songs. And I feel like they can hold their own. I still love them. But after you create, and you go on the road, and you geek out, the songs are still evolving. All I did is capture where these songs were at the time. But now I’ve changed, shit’s changed. They augment with me.

Who were you then versus now?

What I was experiencing during that dark time was having a really dark childhood. I think because of that — and the album is not about that at all — but I feel really sensitive to other people’s stories, and what I had realized is, that time period in my life broke my heart. As a child, my heart was broken, and it has taken me so long to mend that and allow love in my life. So the overall theme came out that there are different types of heartbreak. Of course there are love songs, but there are other things that break your heart. There is more to life than songs about coupled relationships — though I love those — but this is a little bit broader. A macro view of different types of heartbreak informed by my own personal heartbreak.

You’re singing with Ani tonight and you’ve opened for her in the past. That must have been an amazing, informative experience.

Yeah. Shit. I’ve said this before: It’s the most generous thing that any artist has done. She’s showed me how it’s done, in a different way. I’ve been touring for 10 years, but there are different things at her level, which you can only see from there. In the folk world, it’s generational, passing things down. It’s huge to me, how generous she’s been. And it’s a good affirmation that someone I respect gives me a thumbs up.

Did you have conversations with her about what it means to be a politically engaged artist?

Well, I don’t think we talk in terms of what things mean. We were out on the road when Trump was elected president, and what we talked about was how to act, and in what capacity. We have such a privilege, all across the country: When you step on stage, you are the loudest person in the room. I feel like Ani teaches by showing. She stands in her integrity so fiercely, it made me want to articulate even more what matters to me. Like how Black Lives Matter has been a huge cornerstone in what I talk about from stage the past year-and-a-half, and it will be until I feel like folks get it. You’d be surprised how many “liberal” audiences have a rebuttal to that.

Really?

I remember in Utah, I was talking about this Nina Simone song and I said, “I play this because Black lives matter.” And this woman was like, “All lives matter!” I want to use compassion to educate people, but at the same time, God, that woman fucking infuriated me. But it wasn’t the time. Going back to what to do as an artist during these times, it’s to use your voice in the capacity of your life. I’m from Tennessee; I have family members who voted for Trump. And those are family members I love, and I can’t pretend that they are evil. But I can get down and dirty in a difficult conversation, trying to figure out where they are coming from.

Have you written any overtly political songs?

I have, but none that I would play out. One of the titles was like, “Fuck You Pieces of Shit!” An ongoing rant. I was like, maybe I can kind of hone it in! But I have been creating. A lot of people are saying, “What are artists going to say as a comeback to all this?” And I’ve heard some incredible work that’s going after how fucked up our government is, but there are other things to focus on. Like the beauty of being a brown woman and celebrating that. There was a time after so many police shootings, all the songs I was writing were really angry. But Solange [and her 2016 LP, A Seat at the Table] was a great reminder of “Yo, let’s talk about our beauty.” And we should.

Photo credit: Wale Agboola

There Will Be Dancing: Erin McKeown in Conversation with Chastity Brown

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It’s a wonder that we journalists ever get away with describing an artist as a singer/songwriter and leaving it at that, as though the meaning of the categorization is so simple, stable, and straightforward as to be universally self-evident. Singer/songwriters, themselves, conceive of what they do in vastly different and ever-evolving ways.

Chastity Brown and Erin McKeown exemplify just how dynamic the role can be. Last week, Brown announced her signing to the folk label Red House Records and McKeown recently released her EP, According to Us, but both are at least a decade into the process of responding to their changing understandings of themselves and the world around them through their music. Along the way, they’ve recalibrated how they want to communicate in, around, and between songs. They were both up for a bracingly honest conversation about what their work requires of them.

Have you two ever crossed paths before now?

Erin McKeown: We haven’t, no. I spent a little time this afternoon perusing Chastity’s website, listening to some music. And I see that you’re on the road with Ani DiFranco right now, which I’ve done before. So I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths.

Chastity Brown: But I’m glad to cross paths today.

I didn’t consider the Ani overlap when I asked you both to do this interview.

CB: No pun at all, because that’s one of Ani’s songs — “Overlap.” People think that women are constantly trying to compete against each other. There have been several possible opportunities of me opening for other people — other women — and managers have been real quick to be like, “No, we don’t want two women on the bill.” Ani’s ethos is really about locking arms and supporting each other, even if we do such different shit [musically]. It makes sense that we would cross paths today, in my opinion. For me, and probably for the both of us, it’s really about locking arms. The music business is difficult enough without trying to compete with your comrades.

EM: I totally agree. Some number of years ago I was like, “I’m just going to play shows and make records with people that make me happy.” Just remove the, like, “Could this person advance my career?” Any of that stuff, in my experience, nine times out of 10, it doesn’t. And in the meantime, I would just rather have a more interesting experience that arouses my curiosity, rather than just punching a clock toward some goal that may or may not materialize.

It seems to me that both of you have evolved in how you think about a particular aspect of being singer/songwriters — whether, why, and how to say things of social and political significance in your music. Erin, you sort of poked at traditional notions of gender and relationships on your album Grand, but your writing on more recent projects, including your new EP, has a different sort of directness and urgency. Chastity, the sound of your music, in itself, makes a statement about how country, soul, and R&B traditions are intertwined, but up until recently, your lyric writing hasn’t been explicitly political in nature. Could you both speak to how your priorities have changed, in terms of what you seek to express?

EM: I appreciate you pointing to what was happening on Grand. Such a long time ago, by the way. At that time, I was definitely knee-deep in trying to advance my career, and I was working with a big — not huge — but big record label at the time. … I was trying to advance my career by a blueprint that was laid out by more or less the label and a more traditional path of the people that had come before me. It’s not that I didn’t know about Ani, of course, but I was sort of trying out this thing and hoping it would work for me. I was definitely exploring politics and relationships in my music, but it was quite cautiously. Some of that was my own personal journey about my internalized homophobia and my internalized misogyny. That’s been a long journey for me of becoming more accepting and open about myself for myself, and that naturally gets reflected in songs. But, at the time, I was very sure that, if I spoke out more clearly or openly or in a less coded way in my songs, there would be some sort of commercial consequence. … Now I’m just looking for an effective song to connect with people. For me, that has been more effective, if I have been more clear about stuff.

CB: I’ve always just sung whatever’s on my mind. And in the beginning, on stuff that wasn’t properly released, it was very hippie-dippy: I love the trees. And I still do — I still fuckin’ love trees.

[All Laugh]

CB: It centered around, “What is this song about? And how can I exhaust this story but not exhaust the listener — like, get the full story out?” It wasn’t ever specifically political. But 10 years later, what I’ve realized is that the personal is political. Just by me being a bi-racial, half-Black, half-white woman living in the world in America right now is political. My focus, as far as this last record, I guess it’s really been psychological. I’m really intrigued by the perseverance of the human spirit and the complexities and contradictions that we embody as human beings. At my live shows, I use the time between songs to dig a little deeper with the folks that are listening about where these things are coming from, whether it’s a blues song that I wrote about Detroit, Michigan, going bankrupt and people losing their retirement. That song is essentially about putting your trust in something that you later realize you shouldn’t have. But if someone doesn’t know that, they might just think it’s a love song, that I’m saying “Fuck you” to somebody.

That rang true for me — what you said, Erin, about trying to be as clear as possible. But because we’re making art, there’s this room, this ambiguity. What happens when you release art to the public is, no matter what narrative I give you, you still may extract pieces of that narrative. People will make it their own and make it applicable to their own spheres. But that’s one huge realization for me as a 34-year-old woman and what’s been happening in Minneapolis — Philando Castile’s murder and last year with Jamar Clark. Just being a person of color, a queer woman of color, for that matter, is freaking political. I don’t even have to say anything; I just leave my house, and that’s a statement. I practice good eating habits and I exercise; radically loving myself is also political. I see that now, and my hope is that that comes out in my work. There are other stories to tell other than just the specifics of politics or my stances on things.

It sounds like those are realizations you’ve come to and priorities you’ve embraced over time.

CB: An author I love, Octavia Butler, she’s freakin’ blowing my mind. Such imaginative writing. She was the first Black woman to write sci-fi. I was geeking out yesterday and watching these YouTube clips of interviews with her. The interviewer asked her about her stance on current politics, and she was just like, “There’s so much that Black people can write about other than just being hated.” There’s so much more to life experience other than just constantly defending your queer self and your queer and transgender brothers and sisters. I love the way that Octavia put it: There’s far more vast creativity within us.

EM: I love that. I also love the reminder that art gets at things in oblique ways that are often just as useful as clear ways.

Erin, on your new EP, you play with the power of a person claiming an identity for herself. You noted in an interview a few years ago that, when first you began to get attention for one aspect of your identity — being queer — it wasn’t because you’d decided that you wanted to start writing or talking about it, but because a blog labeled you that way. Once there was the expectation that you’d be speaking from that identity, what’d you do with that?

EM: Basically, what happened was, I did an interview with a lesbian website. Up to that point I had never come out, and that had been on purpose. We never talked about it in the interview. Then when the article was published, the headline was “lesbian singer/songwriter.”

CB: Oh, damn!

EM: I know! I started getting these emails from people that said, “Oh my God! You’re a lesbian! That’s so great! Thank you for coming out. That means so much to me.” Besides the functional piece of I wasn’t really ready and it wasn’t on my terms, I also felt the responsibility to those folks to say, “Right on! You’re okay as you are!” Because that’s the underlying message that I would hope to give anyone. I just felt like I didn’t have any choice but to just jump off the deep end and accept that it happened and try to work on my own fear about it and try to be a kind and loving example for other folks who could identify with me in that way. I don’t identify as lesbian; I’ve always identified as queer. But I think 10 years ago that was a conversation that wasn’t as nuanced as it is now, which I’m really glad to see.

I played on sports teams in high school — I still play on sports teams — but I always hate putting on the same shirt as somebody else. I think my journey has been to try to recognize that impulse in myself and put it aside and kind of work with the identities that get foisted on me, even though they’re not always my choice or the timing is not my choice.

Once that happened, how did you make creative use of it?

EM: I ignored it. I ignored it in my writing for a while. So much of this work happens, like Chastity said, in between songs. And I’ve always been someone that likes to go out and meet folks after the show and talk. So much of this work in those spaces, as well. I just found, in those interactions, that I could make better use of these identities, if I just gave people space to put their own into the conversation with me.

Chastity, in an interview you gave a few years back you reflected that making political music had become a more isolating practice than it might’ve been for previous generations. At that time, political songwriting didn’t really seem attached to a movement. So much has happened since then. Have your feelings about that changed? Do you feel musically connected to the Black Lives Matter movement?

CB: I’ve never been so specific on stage about current events than I have as of late, on these last few tours. I think it’s this realization that my personal life is political and that I have the fortune to be elevated and amplified night after night; I’m the loudest thing in the room. And what am I gonna do with that type of power?

I came home after the mass demonstration that we did for Jamar Clark through the streets of Minneapolis and wrote this song called “Hey You.” It’s very gentle. Initially, the song was more like, “Fuck you.” [Chuckles] But what I realized was that that changed the focus. If I’m saying, “Fuck you,” that means that I’m on such high guard that I’m also not celebrating. Alice Walker says, “Where there are tears, there will be dancing.” I wanted to write a song in solidarity that sets up these different scenes of brown folk culture and is celebrating it, and then give the listener an opportunity to think about that. The song closes with a bridge saying, “I was wanting you to see me to show you that I exist, but I put that down when I raised my fist.” I would’ve never written a song like that had I not participated in these protests where we’re all crying and then moments later thousands of us are jumping in the streets, dancing to Kendrick Lamar.

I just finished watching the Nina Simone documentary. She was doing her thing; she was rocking it; she was blowing up all over the world. And then the Civil Rights movement happened, and she couldn’t help herself. I felt a kinship to that feeling: I cannot help myself. I talk about Black Lives Matter at ever single concert, and I often will follow it with a Nina Simone song, because she’s such an eloquent woman. I lean on her in that moment, and say, “If I can’t be eloquent enough, let Nina Simone do it.”

Erin, I love what you were saying about the folks who come up to you, because I also have that, especially with little mixed girls. Those of us who grew up in a small town with an afro, you’re really, really aware. And I’m not even dark-skinned, you know? But there were all these nuances that I didn’t have a language for, until I started seeking out images of myself. And there’s nothing more powerful than that sentiment. Even if I’m playing a show in front of a thousand people and I sure as hell know there are only eight people of color there, those eight people of color are definitely gonna link up after the show and just be each other’s echo or be each other’s mirror.

Because I play Americana, it’s been interesting reminding even the Black community that the banjo is an African instrument: “We’re so diverse. We’re so capable of everything.” I end up, in certain ways, educating both sides of me, the white side of me and the white audience and the Black side of me and the Black audience.

I’m glad you brought up the Black banjo tradition. You said that your very existence is political — so is your musical imagination. You have a song called “Banjo Blues” on a recent album where you’re singing over an abstract programmed loop. You’ve incorporated loops in earlier tracks, too, like “House Been Burning.” That album, Back-Road Highways, opens with a very laid-back loop that could work just as well for you if you were a rapper rather than a singer.

CB: Oh, I wish I could rap.

You incorporate hip-hop production elements and myriad rooted musical traditions, including soul, gospel, and country, into what you do. What possibilities do you see for expanding our notions of rooted musical traditions to include hip-hop?

CB: One thing I’ve always said to my band is, “If I don’t feel the kick drum, it ain’t a fuckin’ song.” There’s just something with Black folk music — the beat is essential to everything. What I layer on top of the beat just so happens to be the acoustic guitar.

Since I’ve been playing publicly, people have always questioned me about my genre-blurring. I never had the language for it until this past year. It’s truly, I am both things; I am just as much one as the other. I love Dolly Parton just as much as I love Beyoncé, but for different reasons — or as much as I love Mavis Staples or Van Morrison or Ryan Adams. I grew up listening to Americana and old-school country, and I grew up listening to R&B and gospel, and Irish music. This is just me. If you can’t get it by now, I’m putting out my sixth album and I’ve been pretty consistent. I am soulful, and I’m country. That’s just what’s up. I feel like I’m better able to articulate that this whole duality that people are seeing is, in fact, me. It’s not a duality to me because it’s the life that I live.

EM: Chastity, I appreciate hearing your experience with the assumptions that people make and the way that you don’t even consider having to reconcile those things in yourself. There’s nothing to reconcile. It’s just you. … In the second or third season of Orange Is the New Black, it seemed like there was a tiny little theme running through the whole season where anything any of the characters had a chance to talk about what music they liked, it was never …

CB: … what the stereotype would suggest.

EM: The, I think, racist assumption that, if you’re Latina, you have to listen to Latin music, or if you’re African-American, you have to listen to soul music. I was thinking, “In what ways do I have my own version of answering these questions in my own work?” Obviously, as a white woman, I come with a different set of privileges to unpack and participate in this conversation in a different way than you do. Something that’s been important to me to do in my work is to notice these assumptions and to try to make a space to undo them with actual songs.

CB: I like that. Hell, yeah.

Musically speaking, Erin, you’ve created a lot of space for yourself to maneuver and experiment. In a previous interview, you said that rhythm is often the engine for your songwriting .

EM: Yeah. That’s always been my deal. I don’t know why or where that came from for me, but it’s always been rhythm is the most important thing to me. Then I found Garage Band 10 years ago; the premade loops in Garage Band are the canvas that I start everything on. Stuff evolves or takes left turns, but that’s been my main way of writing of for a long time now.

You’ve expanded into the producer role on your more recent projects. It has to be empowering to have the tools at your disposal to explore these rhythmic ideas and build tracks like you did for “Where Did I Go” and “Histories.”

EM: I could definitely relate to Chastity when you said, if you can’t feel the kick drum, it’s not a song. … For me, that sense of propulsion and directness and body has to be there for me to be interested in music.

I wanna throw something in here. This is something I’m thinking about for the first time as I’m listening to this conversation. It’s making me realize no one has ever asked me, as a white person, to reconcile the different types of genres that have been in my music. No one’s ever asked me that. And I think that there’s something there. There’s a dominant paradigm of “it’s not that interesting if a white person loves soul music.” People don’t question it. It sounds like, from the experience you’re talking about, Chastity, people ask you that question — "These genre that are unexpected from a person of color, why is that in your music?" People don’t ask me that.

CB: Almost every interview I’ve ever had. … That’s crazy that no one’s ever asked you. That blows my mind.

EM: They’ve never asked it to me in the context of me being white. I’ve been asked that in the context of, “Isn’t it unusual for jazz to sit next to rock in your songs?” But I think it actually is an explicitly racial question. No one’s asking me that because I’m white and there’s a long history of it being ”okay” for white people — I’m going to use this word on purpose — to dabble in the music of people who are not like them.

CB: I appreciate you recognizing that.

Erin, I’m surprised that no one’s asked you about some of your global sources, things like borrowing West African blues sounds for “The Jailer.” So that’s not a conversation you’ve ever had?

EM: I have spent lots of time with African music and love it, and it comes through in my writing because of my love of it. I always think about [the fact] that I’m a white person working with those texts, for lack of a better word. I think about that stuff and I try to be as responsible as I can. I certainly have conversations with other musicians about it. But my point was, I’ve never been asked that, in terms of people trying to make sense of my music. And I think that that’s relevant to what we’re talking about.

 

For more on race, politics, and community in music, read Jewly's conversation with Heather McEntire and Sweet Honey in the Rock.