Tag: country & western

Andy Hedges’ Favorite Cowboy Poems Turned Into Songs

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Since the very beginning of the cowboy genre, cowboy songs and cowboy poetry have been closely related. Many of the best-known traditional cowboy songs started out as poems and many cowboys have recited song lyrics as poetry. The first man to collect cowboy songs was a New York-bred cowpuncher named Jack Thorp. As Thorp observed in his book, Pardner of the Wind: “Cowboy songs were always sung by one person, never by a group. I never did hear a cowboy with a real good voice; if he had one to start with, he always lost it bawling at cattle, or sleeping out in the open, or tellin’ the judge that he didn’t steal that horse.”

That old-time cowboy singing was mostly done a cappella, as there were not many guitars to be found on the trail drives or in the cow camps. It also seems that there was a fine line between “singing” and “reciting.”

This tradition of setting cowboy poems to music has continued to the present day. My old friend and mentor Don Edwards was master of this. He taught me that if you find an old poem or a set of lyrics with no music, then you just make up your own tune and make your own song out of it. That’s part of the cowboy songster tradition. – Andy Hedges

“The Strawberry Roan” – Harry Jackson

This is the most famous of all bronc ridin’ songs and one of the most famous of all cowboy songs. It was originally written as a poem by Curley Fletcher in 1914. The original title was “The Outlaw Broncho.” Rumor has it that Fletcher wrote the poem about a bronc ride made by the legendary cowboy artist and writer Will James.

Even though the poem became one of the most recorded cowboy songs of all time, Curley Fletcher never made a dime off of it due to unscrupulous copyrighters and publishers. This recording by Harry Jackson is a great example of the old-time unaccompanied style of cowboy singing.

“Sierry Petes” – Gail Steiger

“Sierry Petes” was written as a poem by Arizona cowboy Gail Gardner in 1917. It’s been set to music many times and is better known as “Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail.” Many folks have failed to give proper credit to Gail Gardner and have also failed to get the words right. This is the original version recited by Gail Gardner’s grandson, Gail Steiger.

“Sierra Peaks” – Ian Tyson

A fun version by the great Ian Tyson with a corrupted title, some incorrect words, and a modern beat. Ian Tyson revitalized cowboy music in the 1980s with both his versions of traditional cowboy songs and his original compositions.

“The Dixie Cowboy” – Taylor’s Kentucky Boys

Montana cowboy D.J. O’Malley published a poem entitled “After the Roundup” in the Miles City Stock Grower’s Journal in 1893. It became known as “When the Work’s All Done this Fall” and a 1925 recording by Carl T. Sprague sold over 900,000 copies. I’ve always loved this obscure version by Taylor’s Kentucky Boys with an alternate melody.

“The Long Road West” – Don Edwards

Henry Herbert Knibbs was a poet, novelist, hobo, and owner of a violin repair shop. He never earned a dime as a working cowboy, but his poetry entered the oral tradition of working cowboys. “The Long Road West” speaks to the kinship between cowboys, hobos, and sailors. It was set to music by the great Don Edwards.

“The Old Cowman” – Andy Hedges & Brenn Hill

In his book Classic Cowboy Songs, Don Edwards tells the story of how he fell asleep reciting this poem one night and woke with the melody in his head. This song is more relevant now than when it was written, over 100 years ago. I recorded this version with my pard Brenn Hill for my 2023 album of cowboy duets entitled Roll On, Cowboys.

“Spanish is the Lovin’ Tongue” – Michael Martin Murphey

Originally written as a poem entitled “A Border Affair” by Charles Badger Clark. I think that Michael Martin Murphey plays the definitive version of this song. And it was also the first song that Murph sang onstage at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, when he showed up at one of the early gatherings. It always reminds me of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.

“The Westerner” – Andy Hedges

I found the “The Westerner” in Charles Badger Clark’s 1915 book Sun & Saddle Leather. The poem speaks to the values of folks who live in the rural West. I hope that my melody does it justice. It is the title track of my new album.

“Shadow on the Cutbank” – Trinity Seely

This is a modern-day poem set to music – the poem by horseman, cowboy, and poet Joel Nelson, and the melody by horsewoman and singer-songwriter Trinity Seely. The poem is Joel Nelson’s answer to the historians who have written the cowboy off as a vanishing breed.

“Hitting the Trail Tonight” – Buck Ramsey

“Hittin’ the Trail Tonight” was a signature song for the late great Texas cowboy singer and poet Buck Ramsey. Originally written as a poem by classic cowpuncher poet Bruce Kiskaddon, folklorist and musician Hal Cannon set this one to music sometime in the mid-1980s. I asked Hal about this piece and he told me that he “always felt there is something about Kiskaddon’s words that feel good in the mouth as they come out.” This one will have you singin’ along.

Photo Credit: Gabrielle Watson

The Performance of Rodeo, Music, and Country & Western

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

A few years ago, Tyler Halverson had a near-breakthrough hit with his track “Mac Miller,” a song more spoken than sung about the too-soon-departed hip-hop star and how Halverson felt about him. It was a modest song, and a discreet one, a mumbled ode to a kind of masculinity, arguing in favor of a wide and expansive country aesthetic. When he sings about the cowboy killer in the first verse of the song, there is some ambivalence there: Is it the cowboy doing the killing or the cowboy being killed? And, is it an actual cowboy or the larger myth of the West?

The West here is a distinct category from back when country used to be C&W, before the W for western was dropped. Halverson knows more about that W than most other twentysomethings. He grew up in a small town in South Dakota, surrounded by farmland and ranchland. Basically anything that could be done with cattle in the Dakotas, Halverson or his family have likely done. There might be some dissonance here, that ode to Mac Miller perhaps at expense to these country bona fides, but his parents loved listening to music as much as they loved working with cattle. He tells stories about driving around in a truck with his folks playing rock, rap, and country in their truck and making sure that he saw live shows in all those genres.

Music and rodeo are two kinds of performance, two ways of big action, and both boast big audiences – but songs about rodeo are often about the idea of the West. There are songs about small towns by people who haven’t lived in small towns for decades, or whose ideas of small towns are more about commuter suburbs an hour from Atlanta.

The small town is reflected in a kind of fascist excess lately and the rodeo has been stripped of any of its working class parts. What’s left is a kind of stadium tour. If local and small rodeos abstract the actual tasks of ranch hands (roping, tying, cutting cattle, breaking broncos), the overtaking of the Professional Bull Riders Tour made spectacle of that abstraction. Halverson has noted that middle ground between the rodeo and the cattle lots – and has also noted where the music business overlaps with these concerns, though he has not reached PBR or stadium tour levels himself. Yet.

Listening to Halverson’s many songs about the rodeo on his brand new album, In Defense of Drinking (released February 13, 2026 via CmdShft), they are another kind of cowboy killer. One of the best things about his song about Mac Miller was how artful it was displaying the boredom of driving around a small town, the anomie of a blank Saturday night, of being on the aux cord flipping through songs, trying to find something to listen to, trying to find something to do.

So, when Halverson returns to the cowboy killer idea in “Fort Worth Losing,” a song about heartbreak in the stockyards that slices through the myth of the West with a surgical precision, the song bucks, guitars roaring. Then, almost instead of a chorus, a guitar break arrives sounding like an outtake of “Ghost Riders of the Sky.” The mix of failure, heartbreak, heartland rock, and cowboy songs adds to the great tradition of Texas-shaped heartbreak. (It’s less goofy than George Strait’s “All My Exes” and more serious than Mark Chesnutt’s “Going Through the Big D,” but you could two-step to all three.)

“Forth Worth Losing” is one of three rodeo songs on the album; there is a reprise of “Beer Garden Baby,” this time with Parker McCollum – a rollicking and tender song which reminds a potential hookup of the differences between those who ride and those who play music for those riders. The musicians get paid, never out of the money. For all of its joviality, there is an undercurrent of playful cruelty. The musician asks the barrel racer, “Who’s going to pay for your Coors tonight, honey?” They still have tonight – to drink, to smoke dope, to fuck, to play music, and play at being a cowgirl or a cowboy.

The carpe diem nature of these dual performances is made even clearer with “Eight Second Ride,” a tense ballad which notes that “the time between is a long comedown.” Describing the comedown, about “rodeo queens, go around dreams,” and then eventually noting that the lack of money and the melancholy of that comedown doesn’t matter as much as the “eight second high.” His point punctuated with a squall of harmonica.

If “Beer Garden Baby” is a gender-reversed argument about the intersections of musicians and riders, the idea is made deeper and sadder on the heartbreaking “Like the Rodeo,” where Halverson asks, “Could she ever love me, like the rodeo?” He’s telling the listener that the musician and the rider have the same kind of itinerant circuit, one which might never develop into any kind of permanence. Though, on the next song, he makes the suggestion that wanting “cows and cowboy babies” might result in that Dakota grassland. That the cattle of the rodeo might lead to the cattle of the range, in a personal song made more poignant when realising this might be what his parents have done.

These rodeo songs have a kind of modesty, a small softness, that could be considered sober. And though at least one of them is about drinking, the soberness of the sound could also mark a move away from the partying done by the rowdy boys who sing about the events which Halverson sings.

In the ballad “In Defense of Drinking,” which rests on a double entendre that would make ‘70s countrypolitan singers proud, the narrator’s lover leaves him because he’s an asshole who drinks. It’s not the booze’s fault, but the fault of the person who drinks. The soberness continues on the last song of the album, “Son, Brother, Believer.” He sells the cliché from the first line, “I know these hands are made for praying,” but there is a lovely line about rolling joints with the Book of James. The song is about not wanting to disappoint his mother and not wanting to go to Hell, but there is a weariness and a sadness about the realization. Like how his rodeo songs strip away the large-scale spectacle for the one-on-one intimacy of after the show; this Jesus song is about giving up everything for the Lord. The number is threaded by a poignant, almost weeping harmonica, correcting the raucous instrumentation of “Eight Second Ride.”

The modesty of the record, especially the ballads, marks the conversation I had with Halverson for Good Country, a back-and-forth where the silences are as telling as the insights – and where Halverson is only willing to speak for himself. If In Defense of Drinking kills that cowboy, it’s one where the cowboy can’t speak for anyone but their own experience, and also one which foregrounds the eight second ride, the dance after, and the smoke at the back of the chutes.

I know that you have talked about listening to the radio in your parents’ truck and how that can help explain the eclecticism of your work, but I am wondering also about where you first heard Mac Miller. Does his work still influence this album?

Tyler Halverson: Me and my parents were like big concert junkies. They were going to everything… and were kind of just around music a lot. And then we would show cattle all over the country and that’d be at kind of fairs and festivals and stuff like that. So there would always be concerts going on there as well. I feel like it was just [that] we’re kind of always around it.

What was it like working with Wade Forster – you’ve mentioned that touring the rodeo and touring music are similar, can you talk a little bit about that? I love how smart the rodeo songs are on this album, and how careful they are in their metaphors. I know you rode for a while, how directly does the riding undergird the writing?

I mean, I think the rodeo and the music hustle is kind of the same thing, just in the sense of you’re not making no money sitting still. You got to keep going to the next one. Kind of the fun part of it, too, is that it’s like singing, starting out. You’re playing every shithole bar that you can find that lets you sing for four hours for a couple hundred bucks. It’s the same thing for rodeo in some small town that’s not paying out, too. Well, it’s the same kind of progression and build up, I think. I think just being around that – like my dad’s side was all horses and rodeo. My mom’s was all cattle and farming – the whole thing on both sides of that. It’s just a whole big gamble. If you’re gonna ride, you don’t know if that show is going to sell out, or if anyone’s gonna come. I think it’s all that.

There are two drinking songs on this album or perhaps anti-drinking songs [“In Defense of Drinking” and “Son, Brother, Believer”], but they are also in some ways about sobriety. Do you think there is a reconsideration of what drinking means in country right now or do the songs function as a kind of reconsideration?

Yeah, I mean, I think I can’t really speak for anybody else, and what’s going on right now, but I think for myself, you know, when you’re playing, we’ve played 115, 120 shows the last couple years, and you can get a little carried away [with] the party… every damn night.

And then that trickles right back home to me, so I think it was just a little like, I don’t know, sober enough, and a little realization. But it’s not all one big party, you know. Take care of yourself a little bit when you’re off the road.

Marissa Moss and Natalie Weiner of Don’t Rock the Inbox have talked about you as connecting to a revived Texas scene, and I know that you spent a year there, not in Nashville. How was that time? Do you consider yourself part of that scene, and also how was the Bob Wills festival?

Yeah, it was like a year or two. [It] was good for me to kind of reset and, I mean, at the time, we put “Beer Garden Baby.” That was kind of going off in Texas. So it was nice. It was a good timing for that, to be there, to play … I think I was just a little upset and fighting with Nashville at the time. I think Texas was great for just kind of reassuring me that we’re … doing it all right and we’re on the right track. It was a good little pressure, breath, fresh air, I think.

That town [Turkey, Texas] itself was just like 300 people. The dogs that get dropped off at the Allsup’s gas station by random truckers and shit like that, like there is nobody there. My phone didn’t work. I lived a block away from… Hotel Turkey [which] was owned by Bob Wills. There’s a huge history and music scene there in itself. That hotel’s got music every weekend, year-round.

So there’s always this kind of like, little transient hippie hole, people stopping in and out. It’s cool for that, just meeting people and then getting out of Nashville and being around people that were just having normal everyday conversations. …You can’t meet a stranger in Turkey, Texas. Whoever’s at the bar that night you’re sitting by, you’re gonna be friends with them. It’s gonna be just fine, but it was refreshing to kind of hear people with real jobs, real problems, and real things going on in life and collecting from that.

You grew up in Canton, South Dakota, right? About 30 minutes from Sioux Falls?

30, 40 minutes south of Sioux Falls.

How was growing up in Canton?

I grew up in a small town. Like, my family, my mom and dad were probably about the only ones living in town. Everybody else was out in the country… So I kind of grew up with the best of both worlds, I guess. I mean, during the week, I’d be hanging out in town skateboarding with my friends and all that and causing trouble. Then we’d go out to the farm on the weekends and we were just out there working cattle or going to a cattle show.

It’s kind of nice being able to have both, and I think that kind of helped frame a lot of music – like my taste and my phrasing. The things that I have just by hanging out with the kids in town and a bunch of my friends. Like my neighbor was in this punk band for a long time. So I didn’t pick up an acoustic guitar. How about my skateboard, electric guitar, and I had a mohawk? And then I’d show up at a cattle chute with that. I was just a misfit the whole time.

Thinking about working with members of Muscadline Bloodline [as producers] – I always think of them as a little outsider, too. How did that process work? How did you get them involved in the album?

Well, Gary Stanton, he found a clip of “Beer Garden Baby” way back in the day when I was [sending it] ‘round and he’s actually the one that reached out and said we should make a record. That’s where the first record came from. And then we made another one with Eddie Spear. I was kind of missing the sound that was going on with the first record, I guess, after that, and decided to go back with them.

I just think that they’re great, Gary and Ryan [Youmans] as the other producers. We’ve just always been pretty collaborative on sound and what we’re trying to go towards. I think they understand my crowd and what I’m trying to do, maybe sometimes a little better than I do. It was an easy choice to go with them. I look up to Muscadine a lot and what they’re doing independently. I just really trust Gary with the sound of what we’re trying to do. They’re doing it all on their own and busting their asses and making it happen.

Photo Credit: Ben Christensen

Honky-Tonkin’ Country with a Bluegrass Approach

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For anyone cheering on the mainstream country return of classic roots musicianship, Spencer Hatcher is a name to remember. Joining the likes of Zach Top and even Billy Strings, he’s a new country artist with some decidedly old-school tendencies and a deep foundation in bluegrass.

Having dropped his debut EP, Honky Tonk Hideaway, in November 2025, the Virginia native planted his flag for two-stepping rhythms and hot-blooded twang. Hatcher got his start in a family bluegrass band; over six tracks, his rich Shenandoah Valley vocal stands center stage, flanked by boundless barn-dance energy and timeless emotional heft. But with a thriving TikTok fanbase and a steamy, slow-dancing debut at country radio (“When She Calls Me Cowboy”), his style goes beyond nostalgia. It marks a shift in possibility, with room for roots artists in the commercial country space.

Speaking with Good Country a few weeks into his first promotional radio tour, Hatcher filled us in on his bluegrass beginnings and why they will always be his baseline. Plus, he opens up about the mainstream return of roots country, TikTok-ing back when it was “a dancing app,” and where he sees his music evolving.

Lately it seems like the foundational stuff from bluegrass and classic country is making a mainstream comeback, and you’re part of that. Do you have any sense of what is driving it?

Spencer Hatcher: I think that it’s like anything, I do believe in a full-circle moment – everything comes back into style. In this case, I’m overjoyed that the traditional sound is coming back. I’ve always called that “real country music,” and that’s just the stuff that all my heroes played. Growing up, I didn’t even know what modern country music was. I thought George Jones was modern. I thought that Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings were modern, and then I found out that stuff was 30 years old 20 years ago.

You grew up on a farm in Virginia, right? Shenandoah Valley?

Yes, sir.

How did you get your country education?

A lot of it was just literally how I was raised. It’s what I lived by. I don’t know if everybody lives by what they sing, but I certainly do. I remember at a very early age, probably 6 or 7 years old, I learned how to drive a tractor and I’d be out in the fields every day working with my dad and running cows, and we had some goats. That’s just been my lifestyle. It’s what I love, still today. Growing up on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley right there at the Blue Ridge Mountains, and coming from a small town, that’s what home is to me. I had a lot of bluegrass around me, of course, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and a lot of old-style country music. So that’s what we listened to, and sang, and jammed to on Friday nights.

You had a family bluegrass band. What drew you all into that music? I mean, this would’ve been in the 2000s. It wasn’t really in fashion.

It’s a fair statement to say that, in the 2000s, bluegrass was probably at an all-time low as far as popularity goes. But in my hometown, you wouldn’t really know that. There were jams, and what attracted me to it was definitely my dad. I can remember my dad sitting there watching me and my brothers play, and he’d be either playing the guitar or playing the banjo and singing. Growing up, I wanted to be like my dad, and so I picked up the banjo at 12 years old and started playing that, and I was just absorbed in it. That was the moment that music really took me over.

I just wanted to play the banjo, and so that’s what I did for three years straight. Friday night wasn’t spent with my friends at football games. It was at the local jam session where the average age was probably 75 years old. … Then my younger brother Connor decided to pick up the bass fiddle and that was history. From there, we started a band and we started playing everywhere we could.

@spencerhatcher Burnt It! #foryou #foryoupage #country #bluegrass #music #brother @connor_hatcher00 ♬ original sound – Spencer

Early on, you and Connor made bluegrass and country life seem fun on TikTok and you ended up with a pretty big following. What made you want to start posting?

I’d seen some friends do it in college and I admired their confidence. I was never into social media. I had it, but I didn’t post. It wasn’t an interest I had. But after I graduated college in 2019, I decided to move back home in March as COVID had hit, and I said, “I’m going to go back home and see about just playing country music.” I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I had a business degree. I was maybe going to be a financial advisor or something, but music was what I wanted to do. It’s what I did all through college, too. I was in four bands in college, and I just had this infatuation with becoming a country performer. I wanted to add that into my bluegrass shows.

So, I did the only thing I thought I could, and I decided to turn on a camera and sing a song. It took about six weeks for me to work up the courage to finally post that video. … And the fifth one is the one that went viral. It only took five videos and it was insane.

Wow, that’s pretty fast. And I think it’s cool that something so modern as TikTok can have so much fiddle playing and traditional lifestyle on there.

Back then in 2020, TikTok was still a dancing app, and I hadn’t seen any [country lifestyle] stuff on there yet. I was like, “Well, I’m going to show people how we live around here and just be myself.” I would oftentimes just turn the camera on and just let it roll.

Let’s talk about where you’re at now. You’ve got this country career going and it’s a little different from the bluegrass stuff, right? I mean, do you see a difference?

Yes, sir. There definitely is. But I guess you could say [I take] a very bluegrass, old-fashioned approach. I play as many shows as I can, just like the guys in bluegrass do and always have. … Of course, yes, the music is different, but I do believe that you can hear some bluegrass influence in my country music. It’s real country music. What we do in the studio, we can directly replicate on stage, and that’s how it is in bluegrass music. That’s how I wanted my country music to be.

I’ve got a fiddle, I’ve got a pedal steel, I’ve got guitars. Every single show I still play bluegrass. And maybe the difference between country music and bluegrass is that country is a little bit more polished, a little bit more produced. But I don’t like a tremendous amount of production. I don’t have anything faking my songs like bass loops or autotune or anything like that. If you come to a show, you get what you hear online.

Honky Tonk Hideaway is your debut EP. What did you want it to be like?

There was definitely a lot of thought and planning that went into the EP. And the song itself, “Honky Tonk Hideaway,” was a very exciting song. I’ve been calling it a barn burner. It’s one that makes you want to get up and dance, and that’s one thing that I hold pretty highly at my shows. I want people to just have fun and dance and have a good time. They did back in the day – you watch Urban Cowboy and everybody’s dancing, everybody’s cutting up and having fun. I don’t know if that’s been lost over the years, but I know that at my shows, a lot of people feel like they can get up and be themselves.

Did you have much of a hand in the songwriting, or are these outside cuts that you fell in love with?

All of these songs right now have been outside cuts, because basically I came to [Nashville in] July of 2024 and it was immediately like, “We need to get to the studio, let’s start getting some music.” There have been songs floating around Nashville for 30 years and they’re just stacked up – things people wrote years and years ago. There’s a song that I’ve not released yet, but it was written in 2009, so for 16 years it’s just been laying in a folder and nobody’s cut it until I came to town. And I’m like, “Man, I love this. This is country music.”

That’s a lot of what these first couple songs that people are getting to hear are. But since I’ve been in town, I’ve been doing a lot of writing and we’re very excited about the songs that I’ve gotten to write. I think we’re going to see a lot more Spencer Hatcher songs coming in the future.

There’s a lot of gold out there that’s still yet to be mined, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, it was amazing. My producers would reach out to some of the really big companies and say, “Hey, we’ve got a new artist in town that’s looking for songs like George Strait would cut, or Joe Diffie or Keith Whitley or Merle Haggard, so send us what you got.” And we would get these folders of 50 songs and you just go through it and listen and listen.

Tell me about the single, “When She Calls Me Cowboy.” It’s got some of that Keith Whitley thing going on, in my opinion. Why did you want that to be the first single at country radio?

To me, that’s a very special song. … If anything, I compare it to maybe a Conway Twitty song, because it’s pretty intimate, but it certainly isn’t a Conway Twitty song. … It’s very country, very traditional. I love the melody, I love the words, and it’s relatable. I would say a lot of people can relate to a song like that.

I was thinking the same about “Cold Beer and Common Sense.” I feel like everybody has been saying they wish for more of that these days. What’s the sentiment behind the song?

Man, that message is just so powerful and it’s one I wish the entire world could listen to and live by – and not necessarily the cold beer part. As far as common sense and everybody getting along, regardless of what side of the fence you stand on, regardless of your political party, that’s one thing a lot of people want – to make it about politics. It’s like, “This is not a political song.” You’ve got to listen to the words. It’s about no matter what your beliefs are, everybody should be able to sit at a table and laugh and have fun and get along. I’ve always believed that there needs to be so much more of that in the world. And that’s honestly why I’m in music, is because music spreads joy. It spreads smiles.

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Photo Credit: Riker Brothers

The Latest of Joshua Hedley’s Many Hats

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

As one of Nashville’s key classic-country connoisseurs, fiddle maestro Joshua Hedley has long been a musician of many hats. In 2018 his first solo album Mr. Jukebox tapped 1960s-style countrypolitan. 2022’s Neon Blue embraced the lush warmth of the ‘90s-era format, and he regularly thrills crowds with cover sets from across time at the famed Nashville honky-tonk, Robert’s Western World. Yet with his new album All Hat, Hedley dons the metaphorical cap he’s long obsessed over – the wide-brimmed stetson of his Western Swing heroes.

A titan of twang and perhaps Broadway’s finest down-home devotee of the traditional arts, All Hat finds the lifelong Bob Wills fan going back to his roots. Produced by Western Swing icon and Asleep at the Wheel founder Ray Benson, the album captures the upbeat joy of an eminently danceable (yet often overlooked) country style, which Hedley has been loving and learning since he was 8 years old.

Over 11 tracks of old-style originals, he celebrates a genre defined by jaunty rhythms and euphoric solos meant to keep a crowd dancing long into the night. With an already-respected resumé, Hedley still calls All Hat his “pièce de resistance,” and feels Western Swing deserves its due in this era of cultural callbacks.

“It’s definitely not seen the renaissance that say bluegrass or the outlaw country sound have,” he laments.

Joshua Hedley spoke with Good Country about the new album, the differences between Western Swing and other country styles, and what it’s like to be produced by one of your heroes. Plus, he explains how “getting stoned and playing country music” is the best cure for creative burnout.

Your new album is called All Hat. But that term is famously used to describe posers – and you don’t fit that bill when it comes to country. So why are you calling it All Hat?

Joshua Hedley: Well some people disagree, man. [Laughs] I don’t know what constitutes “not a poser.” I would think playing country music since you were 8 would take care of that, but apparently not.

Really?

It is what it is. I don’t really give a shit, but it was just kind of poking fun at myself and those criticisms. I just think it’s funny. But honestly, for the album, I was working on a different album. I was writing for something else and I was on the road with Asleep at the Wheel and Brennen Leigh – we were doing a package show tour together – and I was just hanging out with Ray. He was like, “You ought to let me make a record on you.” I’ve been wanting to do another Western Swing album for a long time and I was just like, “This is it.” When Ray Benson wants to make a record on you, you make a fucking Western Swing record.

It came out really great. I’m enjoying it for sure. I wonder, how are you feeling about your craft these days? Like you said you’ve been doing this since… well, your whole life really.

Man, I’m feeling good about it these days. This album in particular has been just a joy all the way around. Writing – it was really fun. Recording – it was really fun. Playing these songs live is super fun, and it’s something I’ve been needing. You get pretty burned out when you do it this much. I come off the road and I go back to playing music just at home. When you play like that, you get burnt out hard – and I was really burnt out. This record is kind of pulling me out of the burnout.

That’s interesting. I’ve been watching you at Robert’s Western World for years and it’s always felt like you had that dialed in. I mean, you’ve earned the respect of everybody in the field, and you could probably be making a more commercial play, but it seems like you’re more inspired to make music with your friends and do small residencies. Is that a more satisfying life?

Definitely. I’ve done a lot of touring and all of that, but when I’m really having fun is when I’m down at Robert’s or Dee’s [Country Cocktail Lounge] or Skinny Dennis. I’ve been playing these solo acoustic shifts at Dee’s, it’s just two hours a week and I just sit there with my guitar and get stoned and play country songs. It’s kind of empty in there, and I get to do whatever I want. I forgot how much fun I have doing that, so I’ve been leaning more towards playing at Robert’s and doing the honky-tonk thing lately, just because at the end of the day, you got to do what makes you happy. If I was going to do something I wasn’t enjoying, then I could get a desk job and probably make a lot more money than I make doing this.

Maybe.

I wonder, do you ever feel like you know a secret that some of your peers are missing? I mean, when you talk about that burnout phase, and being able to sit down and just get stoned and play country music, is that a secret hack of the lifestyle?

I don’t know about a hack or anything like that, but for me, I am having the most fun when I am playing covers and just singing old songs that I really love. You hear a great song on the radio and the feeling that you get from hearing that song? Imagine the feeling you get from singing it. That’s my jam.

You’ve been calling All Hat your “pièce de resistance.” And I cannot speak French, so I can’t say that phrase. But how do you figure?

I love country music in all its forms – well… maybe not all its forms. But most of its forms. Western Swing has always been my very favorite thing to play and sing, and I actually made a tribute to Bob Wills when I was 15 with Buddy Spicher and his band up here in Nashville.

What? Really?

Yeah, it’s all Bob Wills covers, and a lot of ’em, I think probably I learned them from Asleep at the Wheel. … It’s just always been on my mind that I should write one of these instead of just doing Bob Wills songs, and always wanted to do it. And then getting to do it with somebody like Ray and with the players who are on the album – guys I’ve looked up to my whole life. I don’t know, it’s just the vibe was in the room and this record came out better than I could ever imagine.

Tell me a little bit about your songwriting on this one. What do you do differently when you’re writing a Western Swing tune?

Oh yeah. It is actually quite different because a lot of those melodies come out of the pop world. And when I say pop, I mean like ’30s and ’40s pop.

Like the original pop.

The original pop. Big band music and stuff like that. Country’s very structured, at least the classic kind that I do to where you’re verse, chorus, turnaround, chorus, outro, something like that. It’s real regimented and formulaic and it’s a different approach to writing Western Swing. A lot of those songs are just one verse, and then you play a bunch of solos, and then you just repeat that verse and take it home, which is a very jazz standards thing to do.

I guess I never thought of that.

Like on “Fresh Hot Biscuits.” I kind of approached that how Bob and them would approach “Ida Red” or something, which is really just a fiddle tune that he wrote words to. I leaned into borrowing old lines from old blues songs and tried to find some of those old lines. Like in “All Hat” – “I know a gal up over the hill/ She won’t do it, but her sister will.” That line’s as old as time.

Right. So the structure, is that because it’s made for dancing?

Yeah, the vocal is secondary a lot of the time, and the lyrics certainly are. It’s more about dancing and the whole thing evolved out of square dance culture and callers where there weren’t lyrics to the songs. It was just a guy telling you what to do on the dance floor. The lyrics are kind of secondary to the overall vibe, and the musicianship is really a big part of it, too.

I did want to ask you about “Stuck in Texas” because that one’s got Ray on it. It’s got that jumpy beat, and a little bit of yodeling in there, too. Where did that one come from?

I had wrote several songs that had really similar chord progressions at that time. I had written them in a row, and I was trying to get out of that. And I’m also trying to push myself on guitar to write outside of three chords, four chords. I just kind of came up with that. I was thinking about the Sons of the Pioneers when I wrote that song, wanting a real good guy, cowboy-movie cowboy. Thinking about Gene Autry and stuff. Then it was just a no brainer for Ray to step in on. Mr. Texas.

What’s it like to be produced by a guy like Ray Benson? Is it different than playing in his band?

It is different than playing in his band because his band is his brainchild and he knows exactly what he wants it to sound like. I think he recognized that this was my brainchild and we all kind of did it together. Ray, he kind of choreographed a lot of it being like, “We should throw the ensemble part here and twin this,” and “We got to have fiddle on the intro,” that sort of thing. But a lot of it was just a group of guys that play together all the time getting together and playing these songs. And what happened was just natural.

You said somewhere in your bio that you grew up playing fiddle with guys who were in their 50s and 60s, and learning from them. I just wonder, is that what you aspire to be one day?

Yeah, definitely. There’s actually this kid Nash [Grier] that comes down to Robert’s whenever Brazilbilly plays and it’s always a treat. He’s like six or seven years old and he’s a really great fiddle player. He comes up and he sings “Hey, Good Lookin'” and he plays “Orange Blossom Special” behind his back – all the little things I used to do when I was his age. Now that I’m 40 years old, I’m like, “Man, look at that little guy.” It really brings back memories. I was that kid and I love seeing a new generation embracing all this stuff. It’s really special to get to pass it on.

What you hope people take away from this one. I know it’s a labor of love for you and a lot of fun to do, but what do you hope people get from this thing? Do you want to spark a revival?

I don’t know about any revival, but I hope people have fun with it. I hope that they don’t take it too serious. Music can get so heavy these days, and I get it. But I want to remind folks that you can just keep it light and make a great record. Sometimes it’s nice to just dance, to just do some two-stepping, learn how to polka and not be so serious all the time. It’s all fun. That’s why we got into this. So I just want people to remember to enjoy themselves.

Photo Credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

Brennen Leigh’s Modern Retro Country

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Brennen Leigh says she’s been a goner for country music since she was a teenager. But when it comes to her discography, she hasn’t been gone for long. Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love (released October 3) is the musician’s fourth album in five years, and it continues a creative streak that matches her love of traditional country arrangements with clever, well-crafted songwriting.

Recorded in Dayton, Texas, where Leigh now lives, Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love is a mostly up-tempo collection that should appeal to anyone who loves country from its golden eras. Catching up with Good Country, Leigh talks about the turning point in her love of country, her fondness for bluegrass, and how she really feels about one of Nashville’s most famous phrases.

I was curious about the title track, “Don’t You Ever Give Up On Love.” It’s got such a positive feel. Why did you choose that one to put on the cover of your record?

Brennen Leigh: I love the title of it, for one, and for two, I wrote that with a dear friend named Elijah Ocean. He’s a great writer and a player and we kind of came up through the mud together, I’ll say. He told me, “I just was thinking about you as I was writing it.” And not even about me singing it, but me as a person. He sent me the first verse – and I’m a procrastinator and I won’t read people’s texts and I won’t return phone calls – but he knows I love him, he doesn’t care. That’s how songwriters are. But about a month later, when I finally went and listened to it, I said, “Elijah, I hope you haven’t finished that, because I would love to participate.” He said, “Yeah, of course, that’s why I sent it to you.”

So I finished it. And it’s just two verses. That’s the whole song. I love that thing about songwriting, and specifically country music, where it’s just a quick statement and out. So many of the best songs are just a verse and a chorus, or even just a verse. We wrote it in the midst of recording this album and then we recorded it down in Dayton. And it’s like, well, that’s an obvious choice for the album, because it is so positive. I really like performing it.

It’s encouraging, too. Have you had a good response from the crowd with that song?

Yeah, I’ve had a lot of positive feedback from people. On the surface, it’s a love song and it’s a relationship record, but to me, it’s really more of a “Don’t ever give up on yourself” message. Because people come and go, sadly, in our lives, and for me, it’s more a story of resilience.

I think it’s similar to the song “Dumpster Diving,” where it gets the point across in a pretty cool way. You filmed that video for “Dumpster Diving” at the Sagebrush in Austin, right?

We did, and it was hot! It was like 90 degrees in April or something. We brought one of our favorite videographers, Oceanna, down from Nashville, and I just kind of threw her into this situation in Austin, but she rolled with it. She really has a wonderful eye. And we dressed me up and put me in a dumpster. [Laughs]

Then some of the other videos for this project look like ‘60s Nashville country. I love the vintage eyeglasses and that cool yellow-and-orange shirt in the “You’re Finally Hurting” video.

Those are my real glasses! [Laughs] I really have a prescription in them to drive with. And the thing specifically about the “Tell Me” video was that we wanted to make it look like we were the Nashville A-Team in the ‘60s. We were just going to work, like country business casual or Western business casual. Like, how an Anita Kerr or Chet Atkins would show up to work in kind of fancy dress, but casual. Read their charts, put the song down, and smoke a cigarette. You know, we weren’t smoking, but that’s kind of the idea.

“Tell Me” is a simple title, but that song says a lot. What was on your mind as you wrote it?

I was imagining calling somebody in a sweaty panic, like, “Oh, I heard something, I’ve got this feeling, and I need you to confirm my suspicions.” And not getting the answer that you want, but sort of trying to demand this answer. I love country songs that are one-sided conversations. There are so many good ones throughout history. For some reason, the one that is popping into my head is “I Met a Friend of Yours Today.” You’re feeling like a little bit of a psycho, like you’re losing your mind a little bit, and you confront somebody. That’s the sort of song that that is.

People often say country is “three chords and the truth.” Do you like that phrase?

I do like it, but I think in a way it’s not 100 percent accurate. We’re splitting hairs here, but for me, a lot of my writing is at least semi-fictional. Maybe I’m doing myself a disservice as an artist by saying that. But fans want to believe, and I think the listener wants to believe, that this is my story, and this came from me tossing in desperation on my bed and grabbing my notebook.

Well, you know, I’m a songwriter and it’s my job to make up stories. While this record has some truth on it, some of these stories are just straight made up! That doesn’t mean that there’s not feeling behind them, or that I haven’t experienced something similar, but I’m also a private enough person that I’m not going to just air things of a certain nature for the public. I do have lines that I won’t cross. Now, I’ll say some of these are true, word for word, and some of them are not. But that’s what imagination is for.

I think the song is not for me, it’s for the listener. So, if somebody gleaned something that they feel personally in one of these songs, I love that. And probably, as a Western swing person at heart, I should say we have a few more than three chords. But I do really appreciate and love that sentiment of like, “This is just no BS, I’m gonna sing this.” I mean, I like that saying, and I think at its heart, it’s pretty true.

How old were you when country music kind of sparked your interest?

I grew up hearing it around the house, but I was maybe 14 before I went headlong into it.

Was there a song or an artist that pulled you in?

There was one summer when my brother and I were already budding musicians. We were already playing gigs. He was heavily into Robert Johnson. I had gotten into that stuff, too, and I liked oldies. I liked ‘50s and ‘60s rock and roll and soul music, like Buddy Holly and Bessie Smith, and I liked some show tunes. We got into country one summer, courtesy of our parents’ record collection.

Then we got a free ticket – via donating a canned good to the radio station – to see Dwight Yoakam. I think I was turning 15, and I kind of flipped my lid. It was our county fair in Fargo, North Dakota and it was probably September or August – and it was probably 40 degrees. I stood there for that whole concert and went, “Wow!!” [Laughs] Then one friend gave me a box set of Hank Williams and that was huge. I already had heard him, but that Bear Family box set is like six or eight discs. I dubbed it onto tapes and that’s all I listened to.

Somebody else gave me a Smithsonian Folkways set that had Bill Monroe on it and it had Lucinda Williams on it, because it was more of a folk label. It was like, “Wow, there’s all these tentacles to country music.” And my family was into it, too. So, I was pretty well immersed, except geographically. I wasn’t around any live music, but I was around a lot of good recorded music.

Are you a fan of bluegrass?

Oh, yeah! Very much, and I grew up with it. My favorite guitar player is Norman Blake. I get asked all the time, “When’s your bluegrass record?” I would love to do something. I just need to get the songs together, because the bluegrass community, they’re the best fans in the world. Bluegrass fans are so loyal, and they know what they like and they don’t care what you look like. It’s a great culture and it’s diverse, and that’s a beautiful thing. So, yeah, that’ll happen.

You know, I wish there were two of me and I had double time. I’ve been loving East Nash Grass and Thunder & Rain. I love the Kody Norris Show. They’re so poised and so good. I’ve been feeling the influence to do something with bluegrass again, because it’s been a long time.

We can maybe wrap it up with this. What are you looking forward to the most coming up?

I just got off a three-week album release tour that was great fun. Before that, I was everywhere. [Laughs] So, to be completely honest, I’m looking forward to being home for a bit. But I’m also working on another project that’s even weirder than all the other ones I’ve ever done. I don’t want to say too much about it, but it feels like a spiritually important album for me to do. I’ve also got some songs in the can with my other band, Wonder Women of Country. We have a couple singles we’ve recorded and I think we’re going to be out together some next year, too.

You’re so collaborative and you’re not just off doing your own thing. It’s like a luxury to have such a great, rich community around you.

Well, thank you. And it is a luxury. Honestly that’s how I’ve gotten by and kept it sane, because I know it’s not about me. I know it’s about the art, and the art can be more fun than when you involve others sometime. Also, I’ve noticed a lot of the good things that have happened in my career are because I’ve worked with other people on musical collaborations. It’s just so much stronger together.

Photo Credit: Lyza Renee

What Is a Cowboy Ballad?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Sam Shackleton is a good example of the successful contemporary songwriter – a Scottish traditional folk singer with some formal education in musicology. He posts excellent, moody clips online; he goes viral enough to open for bands and artists like the Mary Wallopers or Willi Carlisle; and he releases music on Bandcamp. Though he could easily slide into a minor but culturally significant record label, he released his new album Scottish Cowboy Ballads and Early American Folk Songs independently; when a writer emails him, the answers come back on a plain Hotmail account, his avatar a famous 19th century painting of Robbie Burns.

There is something telling in this amalgamation: the 200 years of cowboy songs, the move between America and Scotland, the slightly old-fashioned email address. Even Shackelton’s very contemporary distribution methods envelop other kinds of tradition, the busker as troubadour or a work song floating across oceans. For example, when he sings “The Butcher Boy,” his framing includes that Mary Wallopers’ cover from a couple of years ago, the Sinead O’Connor version before that, and the Tommy Makem version before that. And he also echoes those who sang before them. “The Butcher Boy” is not even a cowboy song, though. When he offers songs like “Chisholm Trail” or “I Ride an Auld Paint,” something shifts in how he sings them.

The cowboy song is muddled – it is the expression of poor, often Black, Hispanic, or Indigenous agricultural workers, telling explicit stories about their lives – but like a shanty, it is also a song that aids labor, in passing the time and moving the livestock along. These dual instincts of work and entertainment gathered into an oral tradition, which was translated into grand public spectacles. These spectacles were later depicted on radio, film, and television, abstracted and cleaned up. When a singer chooses to return to these songs, their versions are always paratextual – they are making choices of interpretation. When Shackleton sings the verses in “Chisholm Trail” about punching bosses or selling cowboy gear, he is foregrounding a kind of economic subtext, which might be less fun and seems more serious.

It reminds me a bit of growing up in Alberta (maybe because on “Roving Cowboy” Shackleton sings about crossing the Rockies and the “cold and distant plains”), or my relations in Calgary, that city mostly named after Scottish figures, romantic still for a set of cultures that doesn’t exist. How much easier it is to consider the romance of the West without considering the isolation of it all. Men would be sent from places like Scotland to the prairies as part of a great colonial project; the rascal sons of minor aristocracy, rampaging across the land. That roving grew into myths of grand cowboy narratives. The big rodeo turned into a banal bacchanal. When Shackleton sings in “Roving Cowboy” about leaving “his good old father” or “his friends and home there,” he refuses the grandeur and returns to the profound isolation. A kind of homecoming in place and in time that may never occur.

Talking to Shackleton via email for Good Country, I learned that an album I first thought was a small jape was really a sophisticated conversation with these traditions, lands, and desires.

I am curious about why cowboy ballads and also how you define a cowboy ballad – some of the songs seem very clearly part of that tradition, but some to be an extension of it. Is “Butcher Boy” a cowboy ballad?

Sam Shackelton: I’ve always been a fan of cowboy music since spending many hours watching old Westerns, when I’d go through and spend the weekends with my dad as a kid in a wee Scottish town called Bridge of Alan. For me, the best part about them was the music, singing, whistling, and yodeling. Even to this day I think it’s pretty hard to find anything cooler than Dean Martin singing “My Rifle, My Pony and Me” in Rio Bravo.

Much of my early musical influences were inspired by my father. I remember vividly the first time he showed me the excellent Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music documentary of the 1969 festival, which first led me down the path of learning to play and wanting to be a musician – though at the time I didn’t think I’d ever be good enough to step on a stage. In regard to the album title, I originally was going to just call the album Scottish Cowboy Ballads, but decided to throw in the “Early American Folk Songs” to allow me to add a broader range of songs to the album such as “The Butcher Boy” or “O Death.”

Could you talk a little bit about the loops of influence which exist in folk music circles. The Scottish ballads which end up in Appalachia, from the 18th century onward, but also the dual folk revivals in the 1950s and 1960s? Where do you see your place in the ebb and flow of these revivals or these conversations?

Mainly through my own research and watching many hours of old music videos and documentaries on YouTube as a teenager, I discovered the American and Scottish folk revivals of the 1950s and ‘60s and knew I’d finally found my musical home, so to speak. I strongly believe that what you put in is what you get out, as a musician, when it comes to inspiration, so I deeply immersed myself in this music for many years. Still to this day only really listen to music from this period or those who can capture a similar sound today. I was deeply inspired by Woody Guthrie and also by his close friend, Cisco Houston, especially his album, Cowboy Ballads, which was a big influence on my latest album and much of my earlier music too.

I’ve always been drawn to less commercially popular musicians, such as Walt Robertson or Alex Campbell, those with incredible talent but whose work went generally under the radar in favor of bigger, more commercialised folk artists. People often talk of Guthrie when referring to the folk revival, but even his songs were greatly aided by Cisco’s harmonies and Sonny Terry’s whooping harmonica, another huge inspiration of mine.

I also had the great privilege of studying at the School of Scottish Studies at the University of Edinburgh for 5 years, where I got both my undergraduate and master’s degrees. The School of Scottish Studies was founded during the Scottish folk revival in the 1950s and was based on a vast collection of field recordings collected primarily by Calum MacLean – brother of the legendary Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean – and renowned ethnomusicologist and poet Hamish Henderson. [Henderson] made many of his early Scottish recordings with Alan Lomax during his time in Scotland in the ‘50s.

I focused primarily on Scottish/Celtic studies, Scots-American emigration and musical traditions, and ethnomusicology, with a specific focus on the work of Alan Lomax – and what I identified as the new “digital folk revival,” which is happening right now on social media. In my masters thesis, I argued that modern online digital communications technologies (such as social media platforms like YouTube) are facilitating multiple new folk revivals. Lomax prophetically identified this in his 1972 paper “Appeal for Cultural Equity,” where he identified both the risk of mass communication technologies to traditional folk cultures, but also their extraordinary ability to preserve and facilitate folk revivals by allowing everyone to share and participate in folk traditions on a vastly more even playing field. All you need now is a mobile phone and you can participate in the digital folk revival, sharing and listening to songs from every corner of the world.

In relation to your original question, it is indeed true that many of the songs that were sung during the folk revival in North America at that time (and throughout American history) also had a very close and deep connection to the mass emigration of people from Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales during the 18th and 19th centuries and beyond. This is evident in songs such as “Pretty Saro,” which is also on the album. This was a song sung commonly in England but was lost to time, only to be rediscovered being sung in the mountains of Appalachia by early song collectors. And, as such, the song became popular again across the Atlantic. This is a perfect example of how these early folk revivals facilitated this full circle of cross-cultural transfer.

How was this album affected by the large-scale American touring you have done in the last few years?

My time spent touring in the USA and Canada was certainly a big influence on this album. I traveled all over the states, starting in Nashville, where I then traveled through Kentucky and Tennessee with my good friend and director of the YouTube channel GemsOnVHS, Anthony Simpkins – his channel being another great example of the digital folk revival in action. We recorded a bunch of amazing music in the hollers and I met many amazing musicians during my time there, such as Benjamin Tod and Ashley Mae from Lost Dog Street Band.

[They] kindly invited us to spend the night at their house in rural Kentucky along with Jason O’Dea to shoot some guns (my first time doing so in the USA) and play some songs around the campfire. I remember playing Benjamin Tod an old Scottish ballad called “Tramps and Hawkers” on the banjo by the fire, to which he then responded that he was also aware of versions of the same song that had been sung in the American folk tradition. Again, highlighting this close cross-cultural connection between the Scottish and American musical folk traditions. I then toured all across the East and West Coasts of the USA and Canada with my good pals, legendary Irish folk band the Mary Wallopers, before selling out a couple shows of my own on the East Coast.

I noticed that the album’s songs are mostly very short – some under two minutes. Can you talk a little bit about that? Is that related to busking? How else does busking appear in these kinds of recordings? How does busking online relate to busking in person?

Since this is the first ever album I will be releasing on 12” vinyl LPs, I decided to try and fit as many songs on it as possible. Obviously, due to the physical limitations of the vinyl medium, I had to make sure my album was within a certain length of time, hence why some of the songs may seem shorter. Although there are a good few short songs on there, you will indeed find a few longer ones such as “Old Rosin the Bow” or “The Blackest Crow.”

I know that the Mary Wallopers sing “Butcher Boy,” and it is often a touchstone for Irish singers (the Mary Wallopers, Lankum, Lisa O’Neil, Sinead O’Connor, the Clancy Brothers), but also the Irish diaspora. In fact, in a live recording from the Clancys, Tommy Makem calls it, “Well known in America.” What is your relationship to both the song and the people listening to it? How do you make songs thought commonly to be American or Irish to be Scottish?

“The Butcher Boy” is a class wee ballad and you are right in noting that it is indeed popular amongst Irish artists such as The Clancy Brothers, their version being my favorite. However, the history of this ballad and its origins are far more complex, as this ballad is actually derived from multiple old English broadside ballads such as “Sheffield Park,” “The Brisk Young Sailor,” and “The Squire’s Daughter,” to name but a few. Many versions of this song have been collected across England, Ireland, Scotland, and North America. It is perhaps one of the best examples of a cross-cultural folk ballad I can think of.

I had actually stopped singing this song for a long time after what happened with my dad, as the later verses were far too similar to what I had experienced with my father’s suicide. But, despite how hard it was for me to sing again, I felt it absolutely needed to be included on this album. If anything comes from people hearing that song in particular, I hope that they show some love to the people in their lives who may be struggling. It’s not easy being a human on this cruel old rock hurtling through space, so we all need all the love and support we can get.

I noticed that you dedicated this album to your father – what was your relationship to him?

Yes, I dedicated this album to my father, as it’s my first major release since he tragically took his own life in the summer of 2023. We also used to sing many of these songs from the album together when I was younger. As I mentioned at the start, my father has always been a huge influence on my music and I can say for certain that I wouldn’t be a musician today if it weren’t for him. From buying me my first guitar to constantly taking me on stage to perform with him as a child.

My mother and father actually used to be in a band together before I was born called Big Shacks. My mother, Kim, was the singer and my father, Norman, was the lead guitarist. I have many fond memories of busking with my dad on the streets of Edinburgh and Glasgow as a child, too. It was something that brought us very close together over the years. When he died, it really took a huge toll on me. I was actually down in England opening for Willi Carlisle when it happened and I was also in the process of getting my American O-1 visa at the time. I decided to still go ahead with the first American tour a few months later, regardless. However, afterwards I was in a really bad place mentally, so I decided to take a long break from performing until I finally felt ready to return. In that time, I recorded this album and as such I have dedicated it to his memory. I’ve now also returned to touring in the last few months and will be announcing a really big tour of my own in the very near future!

What makes a Scottish Cowboy different than other cowboys?

Scotland has a very long history of cattle droving, going back many hundreds if not thousands of years. There is indeed much to be said on the topic of Scottish cowboys and their influence on the conceptualization of the American cowboy and the Wild West. A good place to start, if you want to research this fascinating topic further, is the fantastic book by Rob Gibson called Highland Cowboys: From the Hills of Scotland to the American Wild West. In it, he details the links between the two cultures, as not only did the thousands of emigrants from the Scottish Highlands and Lowlands bring with them their musical culture and songs to the New World, they also brought with them their unique way of life and cattle-herding culture and practices. Not to mention the practice of cattle rustling, which although not unique to Scotland was a very common yet serious crime throughout Scottish history.

To further emphasise this connection, I included the song “Chisholm Trail,” as this song is sung about the historic cattle trail that runs from Texas to Kansas, which is named after the famous half-Scottish, half-Cherokee cowboy, Jesse Chisholm.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Rebecca Porter
Rolls With the Punches

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Rebecca Porter has earned some much-deserved praise in the past couple years as she has emerged on the national singer-songwriter scene. Following the release of her 2023 EP, Queen of the Local, she drew the eyes and ears of BGS and Good Country’s founder and was invited to perform at Mountain Stage. Not bad for an artist who had only released five songs total.

Now, however, Porter is back with a full-length album, Roll With The Punches, which released August 8. It’s a concept recording that introduces her life story as if it were a 1970s Western film. If that seems an unlikely concept for a Guam-born, Shenandoah Valley-raised singer-songwriter, Porter concedes that maybe it is – at least on the surface.

In her recent conversation with Good Country about the project, Porter talked about how the concept came together, why she thinks people assume her music is going to sound different than it does, and what she hopes listeners gain from tuning in.

Where did the concept for this album come from? Did you have the idea first, or did the songs sort of come together in this way that started to feel cinematic?

Rebecca Porter: Yeah, I had most of the songs written. Some of them I wasn’t playing out, though, because I wasn’t really sure where they fit or what their purpose was. I started writing “Roll with the Punches” and it felt like it went with some of these other songs. We hadn’t even started talking about recording an album. [But] when I put “Roll with the Punches” with these other songs, they all were autobiographical. I felt like they really could be pieced together in this concept and be brought to life through Western cinema.

I grew up watching spaghetti westerns with my stepdad and family, but [this theme] felt like a way to take control of a narrative that [people may not] see coming from a woman – a woman of color – the term itself, “roll with the punches,” turning that on its head with the record and the songs. [It’s about] not just going with the flow or with what’s said that I’m allowed to have and changing what that actually means for me.

I’m sure people ask you all the time about coming from your cultural heritage as a Southern Pacific Islander and growing up in Appalachia. What is identity to you? What’s your relationship with the concept of identity? Did that have anything to do with this album?

When I talk about the concept itself, I try to be intentional about saying that this is my interpretive lens of Western cinematography, because I’m certainly not an expert on Western cinematography. This is just something that I grew up watching and really loved and enjoyed but, like many things, I just didn’t see myself in. I very much loved what it brought about in the way that I connected with it.

Then, my mixed heritage: Being from Guam, having more Indigenous heritage, growing up in rural Virginia from a young age, my parents divorcing. I very physically represent my Pacific Islander heritage, but I’ve been raised in this rural Appalachian state.

I actually just did a radio interview and was talking about not understanding as a child, but understanding [better] as an adult, with the help of therapy, like, “What is my identity? Are there clear boundaries?” [It’s] like the analogy of the person spinning all the plates. There’s all these moving pieces and it’s complicated. There’s trauma involved. [I’m] embracing that I can be more than one thing. Therapy has really helped me take hold of two or more things to be true at once.

A personal struggle is [wondering,] “Am I a good representation of my ancestors, whoever that is?” You know, physically, I really identify and represent my Chamorro heritage, but I wasn’t raised in Guam. I was raised in the States … by my grandmother, who I have identity and connection struggles [with] at times. My mother and I have gone through a lot in our lifetime together and she’s a huge supporter of mine, but there are very big and real aspects of my life – and who I am as a person, [how] I experience the world – that she doesn’t understand. So then how do I deal with that and how do I process that?

You roll with the punches?

You know, I have to admit, as a white lady in Maine, I feel an obligation to underscore identity for the purpose of representation, but I also recognize that my ability to understand that question and how to word it is clunky at best.

I appreciate you asking. I mean, I’ve certainly been in spaces where people immediately think that I don’t belong or there’s this othering. And then I’ve been in spaces where I’m with people who will just come up and ask, “Why did you pick country music?” or “Why did you decide to do this and not this other kind of music – or your music?” It’s like… A) What does that mean? And B) I grew up in rural Virginia, so this is my music.

Let’s talk about the songs on this album, which are so fantastic. What I love about this album is that it does everything country music does. It’s speaking for the average everyday person on a working-class level – like “The Laundry Pile” and “Payday Loans.” But it also doesn’t get trope-y. I wonder if that is a happy accident, or if it’s something you worked really hard on with editing and crafting these songs.

Sometimes it’s a happy accident. With those songs, particularly, I tried to be really intentional about the things I was saying and how I was saying them. [I was] coming from a real place and personal experience with those things. Laundry is something I struggle with. The day I wrote that song, I had piles of laundry that needed to be done and, mentally, I could not get with the program. You have these things you need to do. They’re simple mundane tasks, you know. “Why is this such a big deal?” So I sat on the edge of the bed and I wrote this song.

In my mind, the topic of authenticity … bring[s] it back to identity. You know, people have questioned the authenticity of me singing country music or, you know, my relationship with [country]. You can hear these songs and feel and know that they’re real and they’re coming from a very real place, real experiences. I may not “look like I sing country music” to some people, but that isn’t where the authenticity comes from in my mind.

“Payday Loans” is the same. You know, payday loans were just part of my childhood. I was really struggling with finances as an adult. [I was stuck in] these cycles that I had learned as a young child – the weight of financial stability. I have a five-year-old and I was trying to reconcile how I talk about and deal with money or financial things in front of my son. … Payday loans were this big weight that I was aware of at a very young age. [I thought of] how terrible that entire system is, but then also how it affected me from that time into adulthood.

Listening to you talk about that as a sort of enculturation goes back to the topic of identity. Realizing what you grew up with, what you want to carry forward, what you want to hand to your children, and what you want to let go of.

Identity is all over this record. I didn’t hear it to that depth until you were just explaining payday loans, but it’s really there as a through line. Do you feel like that was a common thread in this album, tying everything together? Reckoning with what you have been handed and, and what you want to give?

One hundred percent. Roll with the punches. I don’t have to just take what I’ve been handed or allowed to have or been given. I’m finding ways that I can make changes for myself and for my son, or if I ever have more children. [I’m] able to break those cycles.

I want to go back to “The Laundry Pile.” I could be projecting, but it feels straight out of the Dolly Parton canon. It’s a small thing, but it’s also so big – literally and figuratively. You get to this line, “That shit ain’t getting put away.” It’s sort of a resignation, but it’s also empowering to be able to make a decision about it.

That makes the song feel bigger than, “Oh my God, I don’t want to do the laundry.” Was that what you were trying to figure out with the song? Or was it really like, “I’m going to write one for the laundry pile, because I don’t want to fold the laundry?”

It was intentional. I think, when I first started writing it, I [thought,] “This is kind of silly.” But you have to make a decision: Are you going to beat yourself up [about] laundry or not?

You know, you have to decide how you’re going to deal with the situation. The option isn’t just, “You have to get it done.” You can sidestep it or you can save it for another day.

What do you hope people walk away from this project with, once they’ve really dug into it?

I want people to see something that hits home for them, either on a musical level or through the lyrics. I want them to feel seen. I want them to know that everything’s going to be OK. There are ways that we all have the capacity to make changes in our lives. We don’t have to just deal with what we’ve been given and keep going with the flow. You might cause upset, whether it’s personally or externally, but you don’t have to accept what people are willing to give you, or what you’re surrounded by.

That certainly does not mean it’s easy to make changes, but I just want people to feel seen and feel, I guess, even the slightest sense of empowerment. There is something that can change even the smallest piece of their day or where they’re at in a relationship. That there’s some music out there [for them].

Photo Credit: Heather Goodloe

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Rick Trevino on Only Vans
with Bri Bagwell

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Today on Only Vans, a living legend. A wordsmith. A wine connoisseur. Rick Trevino joins me in the van to talk about his whole experience of life thus far. We discuss wine, his getting signed Cinderella story, speaking Spanish, tropical music, writing on piano versus guitar, having a writing partner, and his awesome family, too.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

Rick Trevino is a dang living legend in my book and when his cousin and tour manager Gibby (who has filmed some of my music videos) told me Rick wanted to be on the podcast, I almost died. Then Rick and Gibby showed up with a bottles of wine and whiskey for us and I actually did die.

I think what’s cool about this casual conversation with Rick is that he has gotten to write, record, and sing among so many legendary people – so much so that he just talks about everyone on a first-named basis. Raul is Raul Malo from The Mavericks, for example, and Flaco is of course Flaco Jimenez, rest in peace.

I re-listened to the Los Super Seven records that I had forgotten Rick was a part of, and man, y’all gotta dive back into those! And also all of Rick’s catalog, but especially get to a live show. Thanks for the chat and gifts, Ricky!

 

Sunny Sweeney’s Musical Full-Circle Moment

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Self-producing an album wasn’t something that Sunny Sweeney spent much time pondering – until it happened.

Rhinestone Requiem is the pinnacle of her taking charge, hoeing her own bean row, and flexing her self-determining vigor. It’s just the latest from an artist committed to exploring her imaginative energies on her terms.

“I’m happy with what we ended up with on this project,” said Sweeney. “We could just pay ourselves. Plus we only had to have two opinions [hers and co-producer Harley Husbands’] versus more opinions.”

“Our mentality going in was, ‘We know how to do this and we are going to try it and see what happens.’”

Rhinestone Requiem, released August 1, is pure Sweeney, sharing tales of figures who win hearts readily and whose outlaw lifestyles embody freedom from responsibility. There are songs devoted to romantic quests, the forever keeping on and the forever searching, like such richly rendered titles as “Traveling On” and “Diamonds and Divorce Decrees.”

Most of the album’s tracks are the result of Sweeney’s collaborations with several musicians she has been working with for a number of years. There are also two covers, “Find It Where I Can,” popularized by Jerry Lee Lewis, and “Last Hard Bible” by Sweeney’s friend and mentor Kasey Chambers.

Though she once saw the sharing of songwriting duties from a tentative and even negative point of view, Sweeney wholly embraced the notion of teamwork on Rhinestone Requiem.

“Songs were written with the rest of the people that I have known for a long, long time … I know what I’m going to get when I write with those people. They know their strengths and I know my strengths, and that’s why we continue to write together.

“I used to never collaborate,” she continued. “But now I’m co-writing and thinking this is awesome. I was petrified at first. Songwriting with others forces you to put down all of your worries. A lot of people worry about co-writing. But I see it as a double bonus thing. You hang out with friends and you get to work.”

Rhinestone Requiem is a throwback to Sweeney’s upbringing and all of the earliest things that have had a colossal effect on her: Her father’s records, which she had open access to; listening to Jerry Reed; watching The Dukes of Hazzard; processing the initial songs that jiggled her plaster loose.

Sweeney vividly recalls at age 8 hearing Jessi Colter’s “I’m Not Lisa,” a great example of one of her songwriting paradigms of setting mood and meaning.

“I sat and watched the record play,” said Sweeney, “I remember thinking she sounded really sad, but now I know what she’s talking about. I also remember hearing Jerry Reed’s ‘Amos Moses.’ I thought, man, what type of noise is this? I knew I needed to hear more of it in my life. Waylon Jennings’ ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ theme and I loved The Dukes of Hazzard. I told my mom that I wanted a son and was going to name him Bo and Luke Duke. I loved them both, those Duke boys, and I loved that Telecaster sound.”

The whole fictional gang of rural Hazzard County folks, Bo and Luke and Daisy Duke, mechanic Cooter Davenport, accident-prone though incorruptible deputy sheriff Enos Strate, and others, resembled the classmates, pals, and neighbors who Sweeney was raised with in the Texas countryside.

“Those were the kinds of people that existed in my life,” said Sweeney. “Country boys were dressed like that and they’d drive too fast down the street. I saw Daisy Duke and I wanted heels like that. Daisy Duke. Dolly Parton. Grease. Heels and lipstick. I had seen my future!”

Sweeney was born in Houston, but after her father decided that he no longer wanted to work in the family insurance business, he quit the agency and packed everyone and everything up and drove more than 200 miles north to Longview, where he’d grown up.

“I’m grateful for that small town,” said Sweeney. “I don’t know if I would have ended up in the music business if I wasn’t raised there. There were opportunities for small-town people and small-town interactions, which have shaped the way I feel musically.”

Indeed, the move to Longview would play a decisive role in Sweeney’s relationship with music. There was a low-watt country music station in the town of about 60,000 people featuring a succession of howling DJs who routinely tried to break the songs of lesser-known artists, allowed for call-ins, and welcomed conversations. Sweeney started listening in the third grade and calling in to request Conway Twitty.

After her parents’ divorce, Longview was also where her mother met Paul, the person who would become her stepfather – and, in hindsight, her biggest career influence. Paul and one of his brothers liked to twang the guitar. Nurturing and never hardhearted, Paul slowly and caringly taught Sweeney how to play the instrument. The first guitar that he gave to her was a black composite Martin, “a cheap, old, sentimental thing,” she said. She learned that her grandfather was a member of a big band orchestra. He played the trumpet, drank scotch, and chain-smoked cigarettes. She thought that he was the apex of cool. But the notion of becoming a musician as an occupation seemed, in her words, “far-fetched.” She asked Paul what he thought – and he merely grinned.

Years later, Sweeney, thinking about her stepdad’s tenderness, her grandfather’s stark sense of flair, and some of the songs and musical moments that touched her as a child, she re-examined her intentions.

“I had a college degree and I didn’t want to use it. I wanted to work for myself and wear jeans everyday and be my own boss. That was 20 years ago.”

Sweeney, now 48, lived in Austin for approximately 25 years, going through some precariously bony times, financially. She juggled other jobs while making barely enough to cover bills. At one point, strapped for cash, she pawned the original Martin that her stepdad had given to her. The Chaparral Lounge in South Austin was the very first place that Sweeney performed and several months elapsed before she would muster the courage to return to the stage a second time. That second performance took place in August 2004 at the Carousel Lounge on East 51st Street.

“There was a halfway house across the street and I was not that good,” she said. “My mom said that there were two or three minutes in between each song and lots of discussing how we were going to play it.”

Swiftly, however, Sweeney improved. “I threw myself into it 150 percent.”

She began hustling seven nights a week, performing wherever there was the potential of a free meal or the likelihood of even a single pair of listening ears. At grocery stores, perched on hay bales, in the rutted corners of falling apart parking lots. If the spot had electricity, she would play there. And if it didn’t, she would still sing, at any rate.

“Many nights I played outdoors without lights,” said Sweeney. “We had lights on a stick, two canister lights, before LED lights. At Poodle Dog Lounge, which was a staple in Austin – now Aristocrat Lounge – there was no stage. No credit card machine. No dance floor. There were some chairs, and you were three feet in front of that, standing there. I missed one or two Sundays in three years.”

At Poodle Dog Lounge, Sweeney played her set between 8 and 11 p.m., plenty of shuffles and polkas to satisfy the dancers. Her act was mostly covers, with the occasional original thrown in, hoping that the audience was too sauced or too ebullient to even notice.

Her rewards and incentives, she said, were comparatively picayune. “Eating for free was pretty cool. Not having to get up early. Maybe play at a couple of other nearby towns.”

Things were moving along satisfactorily, if not spectacularly, when she received a message on MySpace from a record producer who told her that he liked what he had heard out of her in a club in Austin one night. He was based in Nashville, and once he learned that Sweeney would be performing there, he showed up. Without delay he offered her a recording contract.

Since then, she has won over a sizable group of listeners with a repertoire of songs that are frank, discerning, and occasionally grief-stricken, teasing, provocative, and ultimately convincing.

@sunnysweeney New song from the new record! You ever tried to get away from a relationship that keeps sucking you back in? #sunnysweeney #countrymusic #foryourpage ♬ original sound – Sunny Sweeney

Co-producer Harley Husbands has worked with Sweeney for about 10 years, his guitar licks always craftily and reliably adding richness to their musical portraits. The pair are so joined at the hip that his contributions to Rhinestone Requiem are virtually indistinguishable from Sweeney’s, their palettes bleeding into a single piece of artistry.

“We live together and work and travel and play together,” said Sweeney. “That forces you to work well together in the studio. We’ve got no time to not work well together. Having a bad day? Too bad.”

Sweeney said that the vocals on the record are about as close to the authentic article as she could deliver, done without any polishing or cleansing or much enhancing. She credits Harley with being the ultimate arbiter, the most prized of assayers. He knows her voice better than anyone. If she didn’t sound right at a particular moment, he made sure to tell her so.

“I’d be in the vocal booth running through songs and he would be in the control room, knowing what I do like hearing out of myself… He knows what I like to hear. If he was not hearing me sing that way, he would know it perfectly. It’s as close to me knowing it on my own as possible.”

Her vocals on Rhinestone Requiem are firm, authoritative, and insightful enough to be considered some of her best work.

“It is not smushed down and compressed,” said Sweeney. “It is as close to sounding as they’ve sounded at the show. I don’t like it when you buy a record and put it on the turntable and it doesn’t sound like what you’ve just heard at a show. I like reaching the high end. It can be shrill. Either people love it or hate it. Harley’s job was mixing me and pulling out my significant sound and frequency, but without squishing what people are already used to hearing.”

By the way, a requiem, by definition, is an action or token of remembrance. It is a word that has generated a bit of droll reaction, Sweeney said. “Some guy just wrote on my page that we need to pick a word that we can pronounce. I laughed my ass off out loud. My sister said that we need to get those boys a dictionary!”

Nevertheless, it is a pleasing and easily engaging listen, whether to devotees or casual fans of clear-cut country. Out of the new songs, “Traveling On” and “Diamonds and Divorce Decrees” are receiving the largest number of spins.

“I hate having to pick songs to release as singles,” said Sweeney. “I think we should release all of the songs and let people pick themselves. There are a couple of deeper ones, like ‘Half Lit in 3/4 Time’ that I’m really liking. ‘As Long as There’s a Honky Tonk’ is going over well at gigs and live is getting a really good response.”

Indeed, the formula of Rhinestone Requiem is the same modus operandi of loving labor, mischievous candor, bittersweet humor, and resolute truthfulness. And it seems to be paying Sweeney impressive dividends.

“Years of wearing myself out and gigs and travel,” said Sweeney. “I’ve started to see people now at every single gig. It’s all starting to feel real now. We’ve been living with these songs for a year, and now other people are now hearing them. The excitement is building.”

Photo Credit: Nash Nouveau

Sad Songs & Storytelling

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

As an artist who believes the sad songs of the world could be a little sadder, of course there’s a haunting beauty to the work of Ken Pomeroy.

With her debut album, Cruel Joke, the 22-year-old Oklahoma-born Cherokee Nation member gives fans a gorgeous tribute to inner unease rooted in the wisdom of her own hard times. Pairing a feathery, lilting vocal with an earthy folk sound – plus metaphoric themes filled with animals and the lessons of nature – she looks back on a difficult upbringing, turning tears into sonic transcendence.

Pomeroy’s “Wall of Death” was featured in the 2024 film Twisters, and she’s been on the road with everyone from Lukas Nelson and Iron & Wine to American Aquarium and John Moreland. Good Country even featured the track “Cicadas” back in 2024. But with Cruel Joke, the world finally gets a full look at a “deep feeling” talent on the rise.

Speaking from her home in Tulsa, Pomeroy fills us in on the making of her debut album and an origin story with no punch line.

For folks who don’t know, tell us a little bit about where you’re coming from. You grew up in Oklahoma and you’re part of the Cherokee Nation, right? Does that show up in the tunes?

Ken Pomeroy: Oh, yeah. I never really tried to put it in anywhere. I think it just fits in naturally with how I write music in general. There are a lot of themes of nature and traditional storytelling elements that I include – animals and things of that sort – that I think carry through just naturally. And storytelling is such a huge part of pretty much every tribe, and specifically the Cherokees are huge storytellers. So I don’t think it’s a coincidence I’m writing songs and telling stories.

No, I bet not. I love the way you’re able to use animals. It seems like a great way to talk about yourself or other people, but through metaphor. Does [the use of animals] make that a little bit easier?

Absolutely, yes. I think kind of assigning someone something, it makes it 10 times easier, not so direct.

Like an artful way of saying something that’s hard to say?

Yes, absolutely.

Tell me a little about where your sound comes from. So many moments on Cruel Joke are hushed and haunting. What did you grow up listening to? Where did you pick up music?

Well, honestly, I’ve been playing music and writing for longer than I haven’t been. I really got started from hearing John Denver when I was 6 or 7 years old. That was the start. I wanted to do that and I wanted to make people feel like he made me feel at that moment. It was like a third eye opening about maybe I could do this. And the album, when I sit down and write a song, I am not thinking about production really. I just kind of write the song, me and my guitar, and then that’s the song. My partner, Dakota McDaniel, produced most of the record. It’s such a natural working. … It’s been so easy getting to the right final form of the song with Dakota and I’m really thankful that that worked out. For the record, we were listening to Big Thief and Buck Meek and Jake Xerxes Fussell. Jake was a huge inspiration with the instrumentation we used. It was a very steel-heavy approach.

I can hear that for sure.

It’s called Cruel Joke. What do people need to know about this album from your perspective?

I think from the beginning, with any of my music in general, I just don’t want people to feel alone in anything. I am a real deep feeler, so sometimes I feel like it’s just the tip of the iceberg with sad songs in the mainstream. I feel like they’re not as sad as they could be. I try to make people not feel so alone in those really deep feelings, just because I’ve kind of had to feel that.

Your songs definitely cut pretty deep, emotionally. Have you always been the type of person to root around inside yourself and stir things up?

Oh, yeah. Yes. I grew up very quickly and I had a lot of adult-sized feelings as a kid that I didn’t really know how to deal with. And dealing with these unresolved childhood feelings later on is not for the weak. I feel like everyone goes through it, and I’ve really always tried to stay in touch with just how I’m feeling, or what goes on in my head. Songwriting is how I feel like I do that.

You’ve had some big things happening, like with Twisters and being on the road with John Moreland. How do you feel about today’s appetite for the music you make? Are we ready for another folk revival?

That’s a great question. I really think we are in for a new wave of music, just because I feel like going country is as popular as anything right now. Everybody is going country, which can be a little disheartening. It’s not super genuine on some fronts, but I’m really excited for people to explore the genre and I hope people who explore the genre take a deep dive on where it comes from and who were the pioneers, because it has so much history. I feel like country and bluegrass and folk music have so much history.

I read that you wrote one of these songs at 13, right? Does it still speak to you or still feel true?

Yeah, totally. It’s “Grey Skies.” I remember that being the first song I was ever proud of and I think that’s really special to have still around. Even though I might get tired of it, I have to remember my 13-year-old self was proud of it. But yeah, that was also the first time I feel like I really found “my thing” with writing. I included a lot of imagery with nature and animals and that was the first time I was like, “Maybe this is kind of my vein.”

Tell me about “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes.” This one is a love song, but which person is the hidden wolf?

Oh, gosh. … Everyone laughs, because I say it’s a love song and then it’s called “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes.” So it’s kind of like, “Well, is it?” But it definitely is. The person I’m writing to is a protector of some sorts, can see through all of the bullshit in the world that maybe I can’t see sometimes, and has my best interest. Whenever this wolf, whoever or whatever it may be, when the dark parts of life come around, this person can kind of clear through it and say, “You’re just a dog. Just get out of here, shoo.”

That’s interesting. How about “Coyote” with John Moreland? You guys toured together and I love the idea of looking at yourself like a coyote, sort of scared of the world. Why do you feel that?

I actually asked John to be a part of this before we started touring together and it was a huge deal for me, because I’ve been a fan of him for so long. I went out on a limb and texted him like, “Hey, I have this song and totally chill if you don’t want to do it, but I figured I would just stick my arm out and ask if you wanted to be a part of it?” And I think that he just said, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” So that was a really cool thing.

That song was– so, my mamaw gave me the name [ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ], which means Little Wolf, but she called me Coyote. That was a big thing, because coyotes are not the greatest omen at all. They’re kind of like the trickster. So I grew up a little bit and remembered that that was my nickname and I was not happy with myself at that point. I think it was two or three years ago. I was just like, “Man, I need to do something different, because this is not who I want to start being or get on this path. I just don’t feel comfortable in my skin.” So I wrote a song. I wrote the song “Coyote” kind of being all right that I can be the coyote and also be the person I wanted to be.

Did it help?

Yeah, absolutely. I think so.

That’s good. How about “Cicadas.” This is one of the most energetic songs, in my opinion, and it’s got this line in there about the cicadas crying out to you. Why were they crying to you?

“Cicadas” was actually the first song that we recorded when we started the record. We weren’t even sure if we were going to do a record, but after that song, [we knew]. It was such an experience, because the ending of the song, when it kind of goes back and forth, that was a total accident. I did not mean to do that, but beautiful things kept happening in this song just completely by accident, so it was a really great sign of reassurance that we were doing something in the right direction. I was so, so worried. I had been working on my music for a bit, and I was like, “Man, I really hope this is the one.” … I wrote that song as I was about to turn 20 years old, and cicadas were always a constant in my childhood. That was one of the only constants that I just knew 100 percent they were going to be there every summer. And I wanted a reminder of that a little bit, just to maybe prove to myself, that there was something stable.

“Innocent Eyes” is such a beautiful track about, I guess, looking back on life with clarity. When you look back, what does the story look like?

Yeah, so “Innocent Eyes” is totally about taking off the rose-colored glasses. Looking back at some of the things you had gone through growing up, or even looking at your parents in a different way. Growing up, it’s really difficult to just see parents as people. “Innocent Eyes” is when you’re a kid, you think your parents can do no wrong and they’re there for you and that they want everything the best for you. And then you grow up and you realize they’re just people. They’re just people that had a kid. And in my case, I was a complete accident and kind of a product of something very quick, and so I was not necessarily meant to be here. And the two people that brought me here did not love each other whatsoever. And so I looked back at that wondering how that shaped me a little bit. And I think that’s where the song started.

Photo Credit: Kali Spitzer