I was fortunate to grow up in a time and place where some of the first generation of bluegrass artists were still out performing – and that is my heart. To see these guys on stage made me want to dive in the music more and learn all I could from the people that helped create it. Bobby Osborne is part of the reason I play bluegrass music for a living. I wanted to be like him. He’s also one of the reasons I still play music for a living. At one time, I was gonna give it all up – several times actually – but Bobby’s love for the genre 70-plus years after he started was encouraging. He also believed in me and I can never thank him enough for that.
I met Bobby for the first time in 2004 and got a picture with him (that is included in the new album’s liner notes). The kid in that picture would have never guessed what the next 20 years would hold for him.
Touring with Karl Shiflett’s Big Country Show and then The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, I was around Bobby a lot on the circuit and always made time to visit him. I later joined him for a few months at the Kentucky School of Bluegrass & Traditional Music in Hyden, Kentucky, where I took lessons from him. From there, we somehow became buddies. I started visiting him at home and stayed in constant communication with him.
The new album on Turnberry Records, Keep On Keepin’ On, is a reflection of our friendship. It started as a project with Bobby, then was shelved for quite a while. I couldn’t bear to hear his voice on this record after his passing in June 2023. Then, with a little help from friends and Bobby’s spirit, the project became one that was for Bobby. The original idea was awesome, but what it has bloomed to be with all these amazing guests to help me out– I would have never imagined. I hope folks enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it, and Long Live Bobby Van Osborne! – C.J. Lewandowski
March 17, 1973 was an extremely historic moment for bluegrass music. In this video you are viewing the very first time that bluegrass was played in The White House with the most iconic bluegrass song of all time, “Rocky Top.” Bobby was so proud of this moment and spoke of it often. You can see the joy in his face.
This features a 1970s Gibson mandolin that he later traded for a 1924 Gibson F-5. It was plugged right into an amp, which was also a historical moment for bluegrass. Bobby gave me the strap he is wearing in this video and it now resides in the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The Osborne Brothers were all over network television for decades and this is an example of such with “Ruby.” Even in his 40s, Bobby is stretching his boundaries. The instruments are tuned up 1/2 step, playing a E flat in D position. These are suits that were made by all the wives of the band members, as well.
“Rosie Bokay” is probably my favorite song on the new album. Paul Brewster sings the album cut and is also featured on the guitar in this video. Bobby heard Lincoln Hensley kick this off in the studio, just toying around, and he immediately said, “Let’s do that.” So we did! What Bobby wanted, Bobby got. He sang a scratch vocal, but was never able to get back in the studio.I think Bobby would be very proud of Paul’s vocals on the song.
The look in Bobby’s eyes was incredible in this video. I have a feeling he was proving a point to someone for some reason. Could it have been the divorce he was going through? Could it be the heart surgery that was near to this video taping? Who knows. I just know that Bobby was singing his ass off and I love it!
This has nothing to do with Bobby’s music, but I feel like this needs to be recognized. This is an hour-long interview pertaining to his time in the Korean War. A huge part of Bobby’s life. It may be a long video, but if you want to learn about Bobby Van Osborne, this is mandatory.
He was truly an incredible force of a human being in every aspect. Thank you for your service, Bobby.
This is live at Bean Blossom in 2009 featuring a song from Bobby’s solo career that he recorded on Rounder Records. Bobby talked about cutting this song again on the newest project, but we didn’t get to it. What a great message, right? Bobby’s compassion for people was always present.
Bobby did a YouTube series of him playing his favorites. Here is an example of Bobby playing his own piece, “7th of December.” Mind you, he was in his late 80s and could still play great. This is one of the actual tunes of his own that he taught me while visiting him at his house.
Twin banjos, steel guitar, the Grand Ole Opry, the best singing – can’t ask for anything else.
Bobby worked for several months with The Stanley Brothers before being shipped off to basic training and planned to return to work with them when he came back home. He had no idea his brother was working with Bill Monroe.
This video was filmed at the most important place to Bobby, the Grand Ole Opry. The twin banjos of Sonny and Bobby’s son, Wynn, are just amazing, This song is also featured on the new project. Bobby singing it at 91 years old is a different kind of hurt.
Photo Credit: C.J. Lewandowski (left) and Bobby Osborne (right) by Jeff Daugherty.
If you’ve spent enough time within the sacred walls of a sanctuary, chances are you’ve witnessed or experienced church hurt – the trauma foisted upon others, by others, under the guise of scripture. Logan Simmons – a woman of deep faith and former worship leader who grew up in the church and cultivated her powerhouse vocals in the sanctuary – knows this too well. Together with her best friend and musical other half, Malachi Mills, Simmons channeled her wounds into The Band Loula’s single “Running Off The Angels,” an unfiltered exposé of damage done in the name of religion. Reaction has been overwhelming, as both song and video cut deep into listeners who recognize their own stories in the song.
This isn’t the first time the songwriting team of Simmons and Mills has made a bold statement. Tackling and confronting dark subjects usually swept under rugs and stuffed away in family closets seems to be their comfort zone. “Marshall County Man” began as their take on the traditional “murder ballad.” However, with its challenging lyrics and graphic video, the song quickly pivoted to an outcry about domestic violence and generational trauma, speaking loudly to systemic treatment of victims/survivors.
All is not grim in the world of The Band Loula. Far from it, in fact, as evidenced on their debut EP, Sweet Southern Summer, which was produced by Brothers Osborne’s John Osborne, with additional production by Greg Bieck. The six songs – “Running Off The Angels” among them – are a slice of life reflecting Simmons and Mills’ experiences growing up in Gainesville, Georgia, up to the present. The two attended school and sang in church together and became best friends along the way. At one point, their paths diverged. Mills pursued music full-time, including an American Idol audition (fun fact: Luke Bryan voted him a firm “no”), a solo career, and writing for and working with other artists, while Simmons built a successful photography business.
Music, however, had the strongest hold, bolstered by their enduring friendship. They launched The Band Loula in 2020 and officially debuted as such in 2022. They independently released singles recorded at Ivy Manor Studios, where they worked with close friend, co-writer, and guitarist Gary Nichols. Universal Music Publishing Group discovered, auditioned, and signed them in 2023; Warner Music Nashville did the same the following year. They spent 2024 on the road with Brothers Osborne, Ashley McBryde, Paul Cauthen, Brent Cobb, and Elle King.
This year, The Band Loula and their band – Gary Nichols on guitar, Jamie McFarlane on bass, Justin Holder on drums, and Diana Dawydchak on fiddle – are spending the summer touring with Dierks Bentley and Zach Top. When they spoke again with Good Country, they were weeks away from a date at Madison Square Garden and from their Opry debut, and equal parts overjoyed, incredulous, and grateful for all that has happened and is yet to come.
Let’s begin by having you introduce each other to readers.
Logan Simmons: I’m Logan, I’m half of The Band Loula, and Malachi is the other half who leads us very well. He’s been writing songs and playing music since he was 16 or 17, and we’ve been friends since we were 14, so I’ve gotten to watch that whole journey. He had his own career going, added me into the mix once we found that we had some magic, and we created The Band Loula. We bring different things to the table. He is an incredible singer and guitarist, and he’s the planner of the group. He’s got all the logistics underway. He knows what everybody’s doing and at what time. I’m pretty much the opposite of that. I’m very Type B. He keeps us together. He’s definitely the glue of the band.
Malachi Mills: I’m Malachi, and as Logan mentioned, we met when we were 14 years old. When I first saw her, she was performing a skit onstage with her cheerleading squad doing a Justin Bieber dance. We were friends through high school, went to church together, and sang together in church a handful of times. I also got to watch Logan’s career as a photographer. She started when she was still in high school and now she is critically acclaimed. Along that journey she learned so much about visual arts, marketing, and things that are a major part of her role in The Band Loula. She is the brains behind our social media and she’s an absolute visionary. Big visions, big emotions, a great songwriter, and obviously an excellent singer. Half the time I’m just trying to keep up with her vocally.
Logan, is it correct that you first heard Malachi sing at a Relay For Life event?
LS: Yes. It was the same event he’s referring to. We both signed up for karaoke, essentially. I saw him first. He was onstage singing “When a Man Loves a Woman” by Percy Sledge. I did not see him when I was onstage in my Justin Bieber outfit, with Ray-Bans on, because I couldn’t see much of anything! But yeah, that was the first time I ever saw him. That’s how we met.
Universal Music Publishing Group came to see you at a gig in a Gainesville parking lot. What, exactly, is the story?
LS: In April 2023, we got an email from Ron Stuve at Universal Music Publishing Group. We had plans a few days later to play under a little pop-up tent by the lake in Gainesville. It was a Food Truck Friday event. Ron came to Georgia with his family and saw us play there for the first time. We didn’t expect this at all. At first, we thought the email was spam because we didn’t have any followers. We were a very small band. But Ron came and he believed in us.
How did he find you?
MM: Ron was on his iPad early one morning and saw an Instagram video of our song “Getting Clean.” He didn’t know how to save it, so he left his iPad open on the charger, for hours, after he had woken up, so he could step away! Thankfully, we were still there when he came back. He submitted a form on our website to email us. We only had that video at the time. It had about 10,000 views, which, when you’re a small band, is a lot. But in the grand scheme of how many views happen daily in the world, that was pretty small odds, so we definitely think it was meant to be.
It’s quite a jump from a food truck gig to Madison Square Garden. Can anything prepare you?
MM: There’s nothing we could have done to fully prepare for the mad rush that has happened over the past two years of our career. It’s been a very quick rise, a lot of opportunities that came fast, but in a weird way we’ve had peace about it the whole time. With our separate journeys, we’ve been able to build the skill sets to come together and be ready for the opportunities that have been given to us. All that to say, stepping out onstage at Madison Square Garden … you can call us back in a couple weeks and see if we feel the same!
LS: There’s nothing to prepare you for something like that except thoughts, and prayers. We’re not even halfway up the ladder. It still feels like we’re babies and a lot of what happens to us doesn’t really hit us until it’s happening or after the fact. We don’t expect anything. We just put our heads down, work, hope that what we believe in is connecting with people, and we’re really thankful when it does. We’re grateful for all the opportunities we’ve been given.
How did your separate journeys help lay the groundwork for the band?
MM: I’ve always had a strong love for songwriting. I looked at the artist side of it as supplementary to that. It’s given me an outlet. I never felt I had a place as an artist until The Band Loula, because there’s so much identity and chemistry in what we have together. All that experience came into play when we started to really commit to this, for sure. You learn what to do and not do, and I was able to bring a lot of what we probably shouldn’t do on our journey as artists, because I had lived and learned in some of those areas.
LS: It taught me a lot about life in general. I shot my first wedding when I was 14 or 15. My dad drove me. One of my cheerleader friend’s sister asked me to shoot her wedding, which is a very important thing. I couldn’t believe she asked me to do it. I learned a lot over twelve years of doing it professionally. You can’t replace the connections you make in that kind of business, where you deal with people of all ages and from all walks of life every day. At one point I was traveling every week, meeting new people, driving across the desert in a podunk car, and sleeping in the car, just to make it to the next shoot. It’s life lessons and learning about yourself.
Now that we’re in the music industry, I find myself using those tools. The photography world is a lot of people-pleasing and deadlines. It tests your strength and emotional intelligence, which is a real skill that you can use in every industry. I feel like I have mastered some corners of that, of being emotionally intelligent, reading people, making real connections, and how that can get you to the next step. Every milestone and opportunity we’ve gotten as the band has been a product of how well we treat the people around us and how we reciprocate the love that’s given to us. I’ve learned how to master that because of all the people that were put in my life during my photography years. I’ll never forget what I learned and the people I met. I [recently] had some backstage guests at a show with Dierks Bentley and it was two people I shot a wedding for in Maine a few years ago. Watching those people become our fans is irreplaceable for me.
What were your goals for Sweet Southern Summer?
MM: Our main goal was to show our listeners a different side of us. A lot of the tracks we’ve put out so far have done a great job of showing a more emotional side. Usually, people don’t come in off the bat with emotional songs. They come in with lighter or more topical songs. We came in with a pretty heavy side of us, and I think that’s why our fans appreciate us. But we wanted to show our fans that we also have songs that are a little less gothic and more bluesy and rocking and soulful.
LS: With this EP and beyond, the goal is to show a different side of us each time, so our fans feel like they are learning more about us, and the relationship gets deeper and deeper. But we also are keeping the common thread of who we are and who we’ve always been. This EP is so exciting because it’s fresh and different, but it is obviously working toward a goal of a debut album. I think these songs will maybe surprise people and keep them on the journey. We really believe in this EP and we hope it connects with folks.
You’re both very open about your faith. How does that guide you and keep you grounded?
MM: A big hinge point in faith is being grateful. Whenever you’re grateful, you’re reminded where opportunities and things in life come from. To think that we could have put all this together with our own two hands would be egotistical. We’ve worked very hard and intentionally, but we believe that if we take care of the small steps, put one foot front in front of the other, and stay grateful for the opportunities that are coming, God will continue to bless us with those opportunities and take care of the big picture.
LS: I agree. Malachi has been a really good leader in that way to point us toward the bigger picture, which is having faith and believing that God will get us where we need to be. I led worship for a long time, but I had a falling out with church and a large moment of my life that was hard to believe that something … I don’t know. It’s a lot to chew on. For the past few months it’s been lovely to watch Malachi lead our band in prayer and keep God and our faith at the center, because I was not previously doing that. I had a really hard time getting past some church hurt and realizing that God is the reason why we’re here and why we’re doing this. That is what I believe now, and that’s what I’m getting back to after a lot of trauma, a lot of hurt, and a lot of figuring things out.
Thankfully, that’s why God put us in a duo – because we’re two different people and we’re able to lead each other in different ways. I’ve continuously been watching Malachi lead in that way and help me regain faith. We like to keep that at the center of our band. I can’t walk onstage without him praying for us now. We both believe we’re not here because of us or something we’re doing with our two hands. It’s a lot more divine than that, and it’s a beautiful thing.
Church hurt is an inconvenient truth mostly swept under the rug, which speaks to the overwhelming positive response to “Running Off The Angels.” Did you also experience blowback?
MM: We don’t ever want to be divisive in any way. Our main goal, without being too specific, is to promote love first. We don’t want to promote judgment. There’s a lot of judging people before you even get to know them, and I think our songs do a good job of reminding people of that reality. I think the ones who get frustrated might be actively judging in that way, or maybe they’re coming to grips that they’re ready to change for the better.
LS: “Running Off The Angels” has been interesting for us, because we weren’t a hundred percent sure we were going to put it out when we first wrote it. It was very specific to my experience and it crosses some lines. We got a wonderful response. We went out on a limb a little bit and were like, “Let’s just post this on social media and see what happens,” and it went viral. There was a lot of blowback, too. On social media, in the Facebook world, people like to talk. They like to hide behind their keyboards. So we did get people who didn’t enjoy the song. But at the end of the day, you can write about experiences that don’t necessarily encapsulate who you will be forever.
When we wrote, “I quit church and never went back, sang my last red-covered hymn,” that isn’t necessarily completely true to me now. But the song has so many truths to it, and it’s something that needs to be said, because people are struggling every day with church hurt and trauma, and it’s not talked about enough. There are wonderful communities and people and churches out there, and I’m thankful for that. And then you have wonderful churches that have people in them with bad intentions or who don’t understand how to treat people. We hope that people always turn toward love, if they can. That’s all that song is about. But it was wonderful writing it, recording it, teasing it, releasing it, and gaining new fans from it.
One of your social media posts says, “Songwriting is an ugly truth. It makes you dig through trauma with your hands, open up an emotional filing cabinet that you locked away and somehow come out on the other side with something you’re proud to sing in front of folks.” How does music help you heal that trauma and protect your mental health?
LS: Music is everything. I’m very much an empath, so music and songs that make me feel something shape who I am and affect me in different ways. That sentiment has amplified now that I’m a songwriter, because I get to create the music that is helping heal me. It’s not just I hear a song that pertains to me and takes me to a place. Now we get to write music that is about what we are feeling and what we experience. That’s therapy. It has deeply affected who I am. It has healed me in many ways. Most of the trauma I went through was recent, in my twenties, so this career choice, leaning into this passion and into music, happened exactly when it was supposed to happen, because it has helped pull me out of some deep, dark places.
MM: I agree. Songwriting and music are very cathartic. The fact that there is a song in my heart, in my brain, inside of me, and having the ability to get it out into the world, is very healing. Also, when you’re able to say things that other people don’t feel they have the words or the song inside of them to say, that is very special, because it makes you feel like you’re really making a difference.
Artist:Bonnie & the Mere Mortals Hometown: Avella, Pennsylvania Latest Album:Take Me to the Moon (available August 29, 2025) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): I get Bonald a lot. Bon Bon, Bonners, Bonnie Romano.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
Two years ago for our Halloween show, I looked out in the crowd and saw a complete stranger scream-singing along for the first time. As an artist, I constantly question what I’m doing. This is a hard path we’ve chosen that can beat you down a lot, but you can’t fabricate that moment. You’ve reached someone, you touched their lives in some way. I’ve since had that experience dozens of times and have even gotten to do a Bonnie & the Mere Mortals tattoo on a fan, but you never forget your first.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
I truly think the difference between art forms is no wider than the difference of medium: oil or watercolor? Everything is how you choose to express your idea. I have a literature degree and I grew up in an abandoned coal town; I wanted to make music the way Southern Gothic writers like Michael McDowell made me feel. Southern Gothic is often seen as just slow Americana in a minor key, but I wanted to expand that thinking to include my experience growing up in a Southern Gothic tableau. I also dress up like a drag queen because I want the Mere Mortals to be as visual as we are musical. Our presentation is always firmly tongue-in-cheek because every murder ballad has a punch line and I never think you should take yourself that seriously.
What’s the most difficult creative transformation you’ve ever undertaken?
When I was growing up, it was the golden age of pop-country. Miss Shania Twain, Garth, the Chicks? Everywhere. I grew up on the values of Hank and “Raise Hell, Praise Dale.” Post 9/11 though, I really started to resent my upbringing. I discovered the Cure, Queen, and Bowie, and put aside Ralph Stanley. I moved to the city, came out as queer, and started a metal band. I never truly felt fulfilled though. I felt I had to hide a part of myself that made up so much of my character.
It wasn’t until I heard Gillian Welch for the first time that I started to dive back into myself and realized that I wasn’t really making art authentically. I bought a banjo and started to learn clawhammer. I rediscovered so many loves I had put aside and I began to feel myself again. I realized that what I loved about the Smiths was the same thing I loved about Jason Isbell, and I couldn’t see why they shouldn’t go together. Some of my folks couldn’t understand the transition, but they certainly do now.
What would a perfect day as an artist and creator look like to you?
Film an episode of The Muppets as a special guest and then head over to Dolly’s house to cook her a pasta dinner.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
My day job for the last 15 years has been working as a tattoo artist. I co-own a shop in Pittsburgh called the Kindred Spirit Tattoo Co. It can be hard making it as an artist on both sides of the sun, but I feel so grateful I get to do two things I love so much.
We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: Earl Scruggs Music Festival is a one-of-a-kind event. BGS is incredibly excited to return for our fourth consecutive year of partnership with ESMF. As we’re packing our bags for Mill Spring, North Carolina, and making our festival plans and short lists we can’t wait to be back in the foothills on Earl Scruggs’ home turf celebrating bluegrass, old-time, country, and Americana of the highest order.
Held each year over Labor Day weekend at the gorgeous and luxurious Tryon International Equestrian Center, ESMF is co-presented by Tryon International, the Earl Scruggs Music Center – located just down the road in Shelby, the county seat near Earl’s hometown of Boiling Springs – and WNCW. This year, headliners include the Wood Brothers, the War and Treaty, Alison Krauss & Union Station, the Del McCoury Band, and a very special performance by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to wrap up the stellar weekend. Of course, there’s plenty more amazing music from across the roots music spectrum set for the weekend, too (see the lineup below), plus plenty of great workshops and panels, jam sessions, and more.
The BGS team spends a lot of time attending, programming for, and covering roots music festivals, so it takes a lot for events to stand out from the crowd. With their lovely grounds, thoughtful footprint, excellent vendors, eclectic and traditional lineup, and all of the many connections this event has – with the Scruggs family, the surrounding area, and the artful communities of North Carolina, South Carolina, and the entire Appalachian and Southeastern region – ESMF continues to raise the bar for bluegrass festivals.
Below, check out a quick list of bands, musicians, and artists we can’t wait to catch at Earl Scruggs Music Festival this year. And make plans to join us – whether this year or in the future! – at one of the most enjoyable bluegrass festivals on the scene today.
Shawn Camp & Verlon Thompson: Songs & Stories of Guy Clark
It’s always a treat when these two longtime collaborators and co-writers get together to pay tribute to their friend, mentor, and hero, the late great Guy Clark. As evidenced by this Suwannee Springfest video from 15 years ago, Camp and Thompson have been performing their Songs & Stories of Guy Clark show in some format for quite a while now, but this feels like a particularly timely chance to catch the pair performing from their repertoire of co-writes with Clark and sharing stories of their times collaborating and creating with the songwriting legend. Camp’s upcoming album, The Ghost of Sis Draper, features songs that he wrote with Clark – including one also penned with Thompson – and revisits the fantastic based-on-a-true-story narrative of a folk hero fiddler by the name of Sis Draper. We can’t wait to catch Camp, Thompson, and as many Sis Draper songs as possible.
Saturday, August 20, Silver Spoon Saloon, 12 pm to 1 pm, “The Silver Spoon Sessions with Craig Havighurst” Saturday, August 30, Foggy Mountain Stage, 6 pm to 7 pm.
Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves
These days, sometimes the best bluegrass you can find is old-time. This incredible duo often falls into that category directly, with endless drive, expansive pocket, and a penchant for listening, responding, and following each other that’s nearly familial. We’ve caught de Groot & Hargreaves shows countless times and still never tire of these two instrumentalists, singers, and writers unspooling musical moments together and reweaving them in realtime. Though de Groot hails from Canada and Hargreaves grew up in the Pacific Northwest, this is one of ESMF’s acts whose music, and the traditions that have made it, is most deeply rooted in this lush artistic region of the world – Western North Carolina.
Saturday, August 30, Legends Stage, 9 am to 10:30 am, “Bluegrass Over Easy Breakfast.” Saturday, August 30, Foggy Mountain Stage, 2 pm to 3 pm.
Healing the Hollers featuring Unspoken Tradition
Western North Carolina-based bluegrass band Unspoken Tradition will host a special livestream and concert at ESMF on Saturday, August 30, featuring performances by Josh Goforth, Lance Mills, Laura Boosinger, Nest of Singing Birds, Zoe & Cloyd, and more. Healing the Hollers will shine a spotlight on the impacts and devastation of Hurricane Helene and the ongoing efforts of folks in the region – like each of the artists and bands on the show bill – to keep rebuilding their communities, neighborhoods, hollers, and homes. BGS is proud to be promoting Healing the Hollers, as well, and we’ll even be carrying the livestream of the set on our Facebook page. There’s plenty of work still to be done to heal and move forward after Hurricane Helene, but with a roster of artists like these and a community like that which surrounds ESMF, we know we’ll all get it done together. That’s the exact kind of Resilience Unspoken Tradition are talking about on their brand new album – which we hope we’ll hear from during Healing the Hollers, too.
Oh, the places she’ll go! Award-winning fiddler, singer, and songwriter Bronwyn Keith-Hynes has not slowed down for a moment since her time in Molly Tuttle’s GRAMMY-winning ensemble, Golden Highway, came to a close earlier this summer. She’s got a packed tour schedule of sold-out or nearly sold-out dates across the country, rapidly building an engaged and energetic fan base behind her style of jamgrass built on a trad foundation. It feels like, in many ways, we’ve gotten to watch Keith-Hynes “grow up” as an individual artist so each time we get a chance to catch her band live, we enjoy marking the leaps and bounds she’s taken since the last time. She’s sure to impress and inspire yet again – and who knows what impeccable pickers she’ll have out on the road with her, too!
Saturday, August 30, Foggy Mountain Stage, 7:45 pm to 9 pm.
Alison Krauss & Union Station Ft. Jerry Douglas
If you haven’t gotten to catch Alison Krauss & Union Station on their most extensive headlining tour in nearly fifteen years, Earl Scruggs Music Festival is your chance! With just over four weeks left in their continent-spanning Arcadia Tour, we’re the lucky ones for being able to catch the iconic band and their iconic songs at Tryon International. Social media videos from the tour show quite a few fan favorite tracks have made the set list alongside the bevy of new material from their brand new album, Arcadia. Veteran bluegrass picker and vocalist Russell Moore, who was just tapped this year to join the group, is certainly holding his own on this gig of a lifetime. We can’t wait for our evening with AKUS in North Carolina!
Saturday, August 30, Flint Hill Stage, 9 pm to 10:30 pm.
Heartbroken that the one and only Nitty Gritty Dirt Band are on their farewell tour at the moment? Us too! With only a handful of dates left in their All The Good Times: The Farewell Tour, the existential woe is creeping in fast. The best way to stave off the end-of-an-era scaries is to be there at ESMF for their headlining set, the culmination not only of a superlative festival weekend, but of a decades-spanning career of a seminal string band who took Earl Scruggs’ legacy places it wouldn’t have ever gone without them. There could be no better way to cap the main stage at Earl Scruggs Music Festival this year than with NGDB. Of all the “must-see” happenings at this year’s event, this set is truly top of the list. Once in a lifetime occurrences happen every year at ESMF.
Sunday, August 31, Flint Hill Stage, 7:45 pm to 9:15 pm.
Sister Sadie
You have not one but two chances not to miss this bluegrass supergroup at Earl Scruggs Music Festival this year. Fresh off the release of their new album, All Will Be Well, Sister Sadie are sounding better than ever – and these are IBMA Award-winning veterans, right here. Their new album is full of emotion, contemplation, and redemption while at the same time it’s just… plain fun. They strike a deft balance between heartfelt songwriting, gut-wrenching narratives, hair-raising harmonies, and bluegrass virtuosity that will make you hoot, holler, and dance. We can’t ever get enough of Sister Sadie, so you may catch us on the barricade for both of their ESMF appearances.
Friday, August 29, Flint Hill Stage, 5 pm to 6:30 pm. Friday, August 29, Foggy Mountain Stage, 10 pm to 11:30 pm.
When you’ve been on the roots music beat like we have for more than 12 years, festival season isn’t just about festivals – it’s like a mobile family reunion. We can’t wait to reunite with our old pals Andrew and Emily – and in North Carolina, too! – for Watchhouse at ESMF. Like Earl Scruggs himself, Watchhouse carefully and intentionally synthesize so many different textures and inspirations from North Carolinian folk music through their own creativity and songcraft, creating something totally brand new that’s still deeply rooted in tradition and the region. That’s just one small reason why they’re a perfect lineup selection for this amazing festival. We’re geared up and ready to hear new music from their new album, Rituals, during the weekend. See you there!
Sunday, August 31, Silver Spoon Saloon, 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm, “The Silver Spoon Sessions with Craig Havighurst” Sunday, August 31, Flint Hill Stage, 6 pm to 7:15 pm.
Blending blues, Southern rock, alt-country, and jam band music, the Wood Brothers have an eclectic and often psychedelic approach to roots music that’s all their own. They pop up along the roots music genre spectrum with ease at every waypoint, from string band folk to grungy, hard rock and roll – like the most exciting game of musical aesthetic whack-a-mole you’ll ever play. There’s something for every kind of listener in the Wood Brothers’ catalog of music and their brand new album, Puff of Smoke, is as entrancing and diverting as ever. We’ll be camped out in the grandstand for this set, for sure!
Friday, August 29, Flint Hill Stage, 9 pm to 10:30 pm.
These bands and artists listed above are truly just the tip of the iceberg for everything that’s going on this year at Earl Scruggs Music Festival. You also won’t want to miss Town Mountain, Sam Bush, Sierra Hull, the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Tony Trischka’s EarlJam, Fireside Collective, the Earls of Leicester, the Del McCoury Band, and still many more.
Check out the full schedule of panels, chats, performances, and acts here on the ESMF website and make plans to join us this year or in the future in Mill Spring, North Carolina, for a lovely weekend of bluegrass and roots music.
Lead image: Tanya Tucker performs on the Flint Hill Stage during ESMF 2024, shot by Jess Maples.
These girls, Madison Dunn and Reid Kohls, are on a mission to bring light to the Twin Rivers Music Scene, which is the place I call home in New Braunfels, Texas. They became friends through meeting at shows and events in the Twin Rivers scene and decided to take their passion to the next level with media coverage and a podcast of their own. This conversation was my first ever time talking with Reid and Madison, but we hit it off instantly.
Today on Only Vans I’m joined by Madison and Reid of the Twin Rivers Music Scene podcast and they are two adorable, smart, hard-working young ladies who love live music and are working to promote it, especially in the area where I live. I’ve hung out with them a few times since we recorded this podcast and we’re becoming fast friends. They’re awesome and it’s crazy that this conversation is the first time we had ever met.
Producer Kyle had the idea to do a practical joke on these sweet babies, which was the first ever on this podcast, where I asked them how they felt about the recent bombing in Iran, which is totally not our M.O. It was hilarious and I think that she was pretty mortified, and I’m so sorry Madison… I blame Kyle. Anyway, in a total ironic twist of events, this podcast has terrible audio for the first six minutes, because the interface glitched. It’s so funny how we’re talking about being a professional podcast and it sounds like total heck until it kicks in about minute seven, so hang in there. Sorry about that, girlfriends.
Anyway, check out Twin Rivers wherever you get your podcasts – and they recently had me on an episode, as well! They are also available to hire to film content, too. Hustlers. I love it!
Ismay travels across Nashville to the Station Inn to meet with legendary folk singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier. This episode of Finding Lucinda is different from those in the past – rather than interviewing a character from Lucinda Williams’ history, Ismay speaks to Mary because of their shared experiences as fans and devotees of Lucinda’s music.
Mary reveals that her most well known song was in fact directly derived from techniques Lucinda uses in her songwriting. This conversation turns out to be incredibly revelatory, as wisdom Mary imparts allows Ismay to discover that what they initially thought this journey was all about may in fact be completely upended.
Produced in partnership with BGS and distributed through the BGS Podcast Network, Finding Lucinda expands on the themes of Ismay’s eponymous documentary film, exploring artistic influence, creative resilience, and the impact of Williams’ music. New episodes are released twice a month. Listen right here on BGS or wherever you get podcasts.
Finding Lucinda, the documentary film that inspired and instigated the podcast, is slated for release on September 9, 2025. Both the film and podcast showcase never-before-heard archival material, intimate conversations, and a visual journey through the literal and figurative landscapes that molded Lucinda’s songwriting.
Credits: Produced and mixed by Avery Hellman for Neanderthal Records, LLC. Music by Ismay Artwork by Avery Hellman. Nashville Recording: Recorded at The Station Inn. Sound Recordist: Rodrigo Nino Producer: Liz McBee Director: Joel Fendelman Co-Director & Cinematographer: Rose Bush Special thanks to: Mick Hellman, Chuck Prophet, Jonathan McHugh, Sydney Lane, Don Fierro, Jacqueline Sabec, Rosemary Carroll, Lucinda Williams, and Tom Overby.
Find more information on Finding Lucinda here. Find our full Finding Lucinda episode archive here. Pre-order the documentary film via Apple TV here.
Sit back and relax and enjoy a New Music Friday roots music picture show, right here on BGS! It’s wall-to-wall music and performance videos in this week’s roundup.
Starting us off, Roman Alexander’s new album, Midwest Calling, is available today, so we’re celebrating the occasion with his new music video for “Way Over You.” Built on strong mainstream country sounds, the track showcases how the entire project is built on an indelible sense of self, on acceptance, and firm home ties. In bluegrass, Kentuckian picker and singer-songwriter Josh “Jug” Rinkel debuts a new performance video for “I’m Only So Good At Being Good,” an original song about overcoming addiction and facing down temptation time after time. With just a guitar and a voice, it’s gorgeous-and-simple bluegrass at its best – down-to-earth and moving, too.
West Texas Exiles call on Kelly Willis to share lead vocals on “Division,” which they’ve paired with a gentle fingerpicked melody and a very fun and charming stop-motion music video inspired by a Wes Anderson sort of aesthetic. The harsh realities of a long-term relationship coming to a close have never looked so cute, but this song will gut you – or give comfort – all the same. Singer-songwriter Pete Droge brings us a gauzy, kaleidoscopic video for “Fade Away Blue,” the title track for his new album (out today) featuring lead guitar by Rusty Anderson. Steeped in azure and cerulean, there’s a tenor of hope and looking ahead in the alt-folk twang and open guitar tuning.
Plus, Rachel McIntyre Smith continues her Honeysuckle Friend Sessions with her pal Duke Jones. The pair perform a cover of Zach Bryan’s “Oklahoma City” to celebrate McIntyre Smith’s recent deluxe EP and the robustly talented community of musician, artist, and creator friends that surrounds her. It’s the second installment from the series we’ve shared here (see the first edition here) and we’ll continue in a couple of weeks with another video from the Honeysuckle Friend Sessions.
Pop some popcorn and enjoy the pictures – You Gotta Hear This!
Roman Alexander, “Way Over You”
Artist:Roman Alexander Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri Song: “Way Over You” Album:Midwest Calling Release Date: August 22, 2025 Label: Twelve6 Entertainment
In Their Words: “Midwest Calling is about knowing who you are no matter where you go. It’s about carrying a sense of home through breakups, long nights, and big dreams – the moments that shape you, but also test you. No matter how far I’ve wandered or how much life has shifted, there’s always a part of the Midwest that pulls me back, grounding me in where I come from and reminding me why I started chasing this dream in the first place. It’s both a comfort and a compass – a voice that whispers you can grow, you can change, you can hurt and you can hope, but you’ll always belong to something bigger than yourself.” – Roman Alexander
Video Credits: Directed and edited by Sean O’Halloran. Coloring by Sam Aldrich.
Pete Droge, “Fade Away Blue”
Artist:Pete Droge Hometown: Bainbridge Island, Washington Song: “Fade Away Blue” Album:Fade Away Blue Release Date: August 22, 2025 Label: Puzzle Tree/Missing Piece Records
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Fade Away Blue’ in an open tuning, DADGAD. There is a melody inherent in my acoustic rhythm part that was not speaking through the track once we added drums and bass. So we enlisted Rusty Anderson from Paul McCartney’s band on lead guitar to bring those phrases to the forefront. His tone, pocket, and feel are impeccable. He also added the slide guitar and an additional rhythm part in the chorus. Listen carefully and you’ll hear him add a nice Beatles chord on the last note. I guess after working with Sir Paul for all those years, that stuff is bound to rub off.” – Pete Droge
Rachel McIntyre Smith, “Oklahoma City” featuring Duke Jones (Honeysuckle Friend Sessions)
Artist:Rachel McIntyre Smith and Duke Jones Hometown: Oliver Springs, Tennessee Song: “Oklahoma City” Latest Album: Honeysuckle Friend (Deluxe) Release Date: August 27, 2025 (video); June 27, 2025 (deluxe EP)
In Their Words: “Duke and I both made our Whiskey Jam debut on the same night! His artistry really stuck out to me and I knew that I wanted to invite him to be part of my ongoing series, the Honeysuckle Friend Sessions. This song was suggested by Duke and for good reason! No one can cover a Zach Bryan song better than him. I’m grateful that BGS partnered with me to release this session. Keep an eye out in two weeks for the final video in this series with BGS as part of ‘You Gotta Hear This.’” – Rachel McIntyre Smith
“This song was one of the songs that inspired me to start singing and playing guitar. I’m thankful Rachel let me join her in this performance! Truly a special song for a special moment.” – Duke Jones
Track Credits: Duke Jones – Vocals, guitar Rachel McIntyre Smith – Vocals
Video Credits: Filmed and edited by Rachel McIntyre Smith.
Artist:Josh Rinkel Hometown: Mount Eden, Kentucky Song: “I’m Only So Good At Being Good” Album:Live from Reverb and Echo Studio Release Date: August 22, 2025 Label: Reverb and Echo
In Their Words: “‘Only So Good At Being Good,’ at its core, is a song about overcoming addiction. About a year into being sober, I started wondering how long I could actually keep it going, how long could I continue to make good decisions and say no to constant temptation. Recognizing your weaknesses is an essential part of overcoming them. That’s what ‘Only So Good At Being Good’ was for me. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to co-write this song with the legendary Jim Lauderdale and he recorded it on his most recent bluegrass album, The Long And Lonesome Letting Go.” – Josh Rinkel
Video Credits: Carter Brice
West Texas Exiles, “Division” featuring Kelly Willis
Artist:West Texas Exiles Hometown: Austin, Texas Song: “Division” featuring Kelly Willis Album:8000 Days Release Date: August 22, 2025 (video); May 2, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album) Label: Floating Mesa Records
In Their Words: “‘Division’ dissects some harsh realities that come with ending a long-term relationship. Hopeful beginnings can unravel to expose a bitter end. Adding Kelly Willis as a counterpart lead vocal really brought home the split screen feeling of the song:
It’s the division I’ll take the couch, you sleep wherever Division I’ve learned there’s no such thing as forever Division A storage unit full of tainted memories And things you deem unworthy for the next part of life…
“As we were finishing this song, the production was really giving Wes Anderson-esque feels. The idea to make a stop-motion video of a house building itself then being torn apart, but the ‘stifling vines’ just felt like a natural and fun way expand upon the emotion and vibe of the song. Callum Scott-Dyson makes award-winning art and absolutely nailed the vision we had for the video.” – West Texas Exiles
Track Credits: Marco Gutierrez – Lead vocals, guitar Kelly Willis – Lead vocals Daniel Davis – Guitar, keys, BGVs Eric Harrison – Bass, BGVs Colin Gilmore – Mandolin, BGVs Trinidad Leal – Drums
Photo Credit: Josh Rinkel by Dan Deurloo; West Texas Exiles with Kelly Willis by Ramon Meija.
I remember my very first snipe hunt. I was a teenager and my family, along with a handful of others, had recently left our former congregation, deciding to spend each Sunday alternating between our various houses to hold “home church” instead. This particular Sunday afternoon, we had already finished our DIY service, had enjoyed our shared meal, and were sitting scattered in lawn chairs and on the front porch of a humble little brick home in the foothills of southeastern Ohio.
A few of the more mischievous, prank-minded adults had begun gathering as many of the kids as possible, from toddlers to teens like me to young adults, with empty plastic grocery bags spanning the distance between our arms as we tramped off from the porch to the surrounding trees and woods. We were taught to shout, to bang sticks together or against tree trunks, and to keep those grocery bags open and ready, as the snipe were hiding above and – when correctly startled using these certified methods – would fall directly and immediately into our waiting plastic sacks.
We made attempts, we marched around, we laughed and shrieked and ran about. No, we didn’t catch a single snipe that day, but that’s not how I determined it was a prank. It was my very first snipe hunt – we weren’t a Scouts or summer camp sort of family – and still, as soon as they began passing around grocery bags, I knew a joke was being played. I wasn’t on the inside of it yet, but I knew what was happening – even though I really had no clue.
As a young teen, I had at that point spent my entire life obsessed with two things: banjo and birds. So when the jokester adults began spinning their yarn about how we were going to all catch snipe together, I knew we most certainly were not. After all, I knew Wilson’s Snipe were the only snipe species native to North America and that they preferred grasslands, marshes, beaver ponds, shorelines, and flooded meadows to lush hardwood forests in the foothills. Plus, at that time of year they would have already migrated back to their summer grounds in the north.
I had also already passed my Ohio Department of Natural Resources Hunter Safety Course – incredibly proud that I had scored 100% and hadn’t missed a single question – and knew that Wilson’s Snipe were hunted across the U.S. as upland game birds. I hadn’t hunted or bagged any, but having already spent countless hours across multiple seasons tracking down pheasant, partridge, and grouse, I knew that a grocery bag wouldn’t be our first choice if taking home snipe were really our aim.
Though I had never before been initiated into the lore or ritual of such a snipe hunt, I immediately knew what was happening, why it was happening, and – somehow, despite the odds – I overcame my primary instinct as a know-it-all bird nerd and didn’t “Um, actually…” obnoxiously and ruin the joke for everyone. I stretched out that Kroger bag and ran alongside all my home church friends as we hunted for snipe.
On July 25, Kentuckian country megalith Tyler Childers released Snipe Hunter, a Rick Rubin-produced Appalachian fever dream of an album that has had a remarkably polarizing effect across the diverse and disparate swathes of folks who profess to be Childers fans. Drawing from grunge and garage rock as often as old-time fiddle and bluegrassy mountain music, the 13 songs of Snipe Hunter are impeccable, harlequin, and mystifying. This is a fantastic collection – superlative yes, but even moreso, these songs are pure fantasy.
Being a snipe huntin’ veteran myself, as I first listened through the LP, I was floored. As each unpredictable, unhinged, unparalleled song ended and the next began I was all at once shocked and surprised, but still knew exactly what was coming next – and why. (Even though, as for that first snipe hunt as a kid, I actually had no idea what was going on. How could any of us?)
It’s just, I was already on the inside of this joke, too. While the internet (especially TikTok and Instagram Reels) quickly became swallowed up in wall-to-wall speculative videos about the album – claiming it was a prank, a litmus test, a Rorschach inkblot, a middle finger to the red hat-wearing fans who blow capillaries in their eyes screaming for “Feathered Indians” at every show – a host of folks pushed back on their front porch gliders and smiled to themselves. Because, if you’re Appalachian, or a lifelong folk musician, or even just an ardent and committed fan of true country, Americana, and bluegrass, you know exactly what this album is – and you know without a single shred of doubt that it’s not a prank.
It’s clear that many listeners feel challenged and excluded by Snipe Hunter. Many folks think it must be a joke purely because the thing is downright silly, or because Childers forsook the Sturgill Simpson or Zach Bryan trajectory he could have taken quite a few records ago and they’re still grieving what could have been. Other listeners seem to think the album is unserious not because it’s hilarious, but because they don’t hear the country in it. Or the Appalachia in it. Or the homespun, DIY, front-porch, hay-barn-recording-studio, rural-East-Kentucky-VFW-hall of it all throughout the sequence.
But to folks from inside the scenes Childers paints, to folks who’ve lived their lives in or touching on the regions he tributes with these poetic (and ugly and greasy) songs, to folks who still have grounded, everyday relationships with this type of rural mountain creativity and the folkways he draws on, this is just a standard phenotypic Appalachian country record. With more than a dash of Childers panache, of course.
There are eye-widening and jaw-dropping tales of far-off and exotic places (“Down Under,” “Tirtha Yatra”); there are eyebrow-raising retellings of hunting trips that seem just a bit too good or too successful or too chaotic to be true (“Dirty Ought Trill,” “Poachers,” “Snipe Hunt”); there are songs about sticking it to the man, sticking up for the working class, and sticking out your wrist to clown your not-as-rich neighbors (“Eatin’ Big Time,” “Nose On The Grindstone,” “Getting to the Bottom”); there are tributes to the true, multi-ethnic reality of Appalachia and the Southeast (“Tirtha Yatra,” “Dirty Ought Trill”); and of course, there’s “transatlantic” “Scotch/Irish” present, too (“Tomcat and a Dandy”). In short, it’s a country album. It’s an Appalachian album. Rick Rubin be damned.
For a record that has been regarded by thousands and thousands of listeners as a “prank,” it’s striking how grounded in Kentucky, Appalachia, and the Southeast this set of songs really is. Though you may need to be viewing it from the inside of the kaleidoscope to hold onto this fact.
This is a traditional album; it might even be Childers’ most regional and culturally anchored project yet – which is saying something, given the terroir of Long Violent History, the Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven? trilogy, and well, you know, his entire remaining catalog of country and bluegrass. Plus, he tracked the thing in Hawai’i. Quite a different set of mountains than East Kentucky.
Snipe Hunter is only a joke if you see Appalachia as a joke. And, my, how so many folks are telling on themselves in this moment. Luckily, Appalachians are used to being the butt of the joke. (And Childers is, too, as he writes himself into that role over and over again – on Snipe Hunter for sure, and beyond.)
The area grew its regional and cultural identity that we all still venerate today from being the first “wild west” of the New World. An ancient mountain range – the bedrock older than trees, older than our current continents, and older than bones themselves – with its hidden hollers, switchbacks, and impenetrable forests and hills, it was the perfect hiding spot for hardscrabble working class folks of all backgrounds and ethnicities fleeing civilization on a continent that didn’t have a lot of that to go around anyway. Villages and towns were often multi-ethnic (white, Black, Asian, Native American) and, by necessity, were remarkably communitarian as, until the advent of the railroad, survival, getting anything done, and getting anywhere in the Appalachians was a tall task that required insider knowledge and a host of help. Back then “it took a village” to survive in Appalachia, and it does to this day.
Alongside the trend of speculating about the intrinsic prank of Snipe Hunter online you’re just as likely to encounter dozens and dozens of vertical videos explaining and hyping up Appalachian folklore about cryptids, ghosts, and paranormal activity. Never before in the history of the region have skinwalkers and unexplained whistling in the middle of the night and beings like Mothman held such cultural power outside of the mountains themselves. You can make an entire career off of explaining creepy Appalachian myths without ever having been there yourself – and with an accent so passé you could be from anywhere.
You wouldn’t think these brands of videos – “Tyler Childers made Sniper Hunter to piss off the fans he doesn’t like” vs. “Here’s what to do when you hear a voice call your name in the middle of the night in rural Appalachia” – would be so analogous, but they really and truly are.
With these kinds of Appalachian myths, of monsters and cryptids and spirits and ghosts, their validity is entirely based upon their contexts, right? Appalachians know there’s no easier way to spot an outsider, a city slicker, or a poverty tourist in their midst than by letting someone who thinks they know what they’re talking about do just that with all the unearned confidence of a person who actually doesn’t know what they mean. These myths, while in many communities and families are held up as true in particular contexts or shared as knowledge – an amalgam of legend, myth, truth, science, and spirituality – their purpose has always largely been to determine one thing: Who’s an insider and who’s an outsider?
If you hear a stranger on TikTok explain to you that you should: 1) never go outside in Appalachia at night and 2) if you do, and you hear a voice you recognize call your name, you should 3) not do that and go back from where you came and thank your lucky stars that you respected this magical place enough to learn your lesson in advance – that person is not an insider. And, if you believe that video as truth or as cultural knowledge, you may not be an insider, either.
And that’s where we land. Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunter is not a prank, except it most certainly is. It’s a cryptid. A litmus test to show who is on the inside of what he’s making and who’s on the outside. It’s artful, stunning, and resplendent because he makes his musical test such that anyone can pass, anyone can enjoy the product, and anyone can be a part of this wild, ridiculous, and joyous reality. But will you be inside the joke, or outside of it? Will you be shuddering in your car, doors locked, afraid of skinwalkers? Or will you be out under the stars on a ridgetop listening to the hounds bray as Dirty Ought Trill chases the dogs who are chasing raccoons down the holler?
Either way, the music will still hit, but wherever you start or end up here will change how the snipe hunt goes for you – and will determine whether or not you take anything home with you in that crinkled-up grocery bag.
My fifth grade teacher, after announcing pop quizzes, would, without fail, remind my panicked classmates and I sitting at our desks to “Look down in desperation, look up for inspiration, but do not look side-to-side for information.” A memorable way to keep ten-year-olds from cheating on each other’s exams. There’s something about the adage that’s stuck with me twenty-five years on.
To this day, if I’m feeling desperate or helpless, my head droops down, oftentimes collapsing into the palms of my hands. I still also look up for answers to the unanswerable, the unknowable, or as Mrs. Schock put it, for “inspiration.” Sat at my desk once again, reading about last month’s flooding in Texas on this country’s 249th birthday, my head automatically fell into my hands and, just as quickly, my eyes lifted their gaze upwards. Above my computer, nestled in the Napa Valley Wooden Cassette Rack, something caught my eye, the audio cassette of One Fair Summer Evening by Nanci Griffith.
The GRAMMY-winning “Lone Star State of Mind” singer landed like a raindrop into this world on July 6, 1953, in Seguin, Texas, a small town in Guadalupe County in the watershed of the Guadalupe River. Raised in Austin, Griffith achieved international attention following the release of her breakthrough 1986 album, The Last of The True Believers, that showcased her impressive singing and songwriting, which she had honed in the decade prior alongside the likes of her Hill Country contemporaries Townes Van Zandt and Lyle Lovett.
Griffith died on August 13, 2021, at the age of 68. Thirty-three years earlier, on August 19 and 20, 1988 – less than two months after that May’s blue moon – she recorded her sole live album, One Fair Summer Evening, at Anderson Fair, an intimate folk club in Houston. It’s a remarkable recording, not just for how good Griffith’s songs sound stripped of the instrumental flourishes that colored her studio albums up to that point, but the Texas charm she provides in the banter between songs.
While introducing “Trouble in The Fields,” she jokes self-deprecatingly, “Most of my mother’s family came from way out in West Texas in a little town called Lockney, which is somewhere close to Lubbock, but not too close to Lubbock. Nobody likes to be too close to Lubbock.”
The crowd laughs, hysterically.
She continues with her squeaky soliloquy, one long run-on sentence without much pause for breath, “My great aunt Nettie Mae said that surviving the Great Depression on a farm was not easy and she understands why the young farmers nowadays are having such a hard time, because she went through it herself and the dust blew so hard during the Great Depression on her farm that she said she was afraid to go to sleep at night, because she was afraid the dust would blow so hard one night that she’d wake up the next morning and find herself living in Oklahoma and she by God didn’t want to live in Oklahoma.”
The audience, cackling louder now and showering Griffith’s gift of gab with rounds of applause, quickly quiets themselves as Griffith shifts her tone and launches into the song about her family’s trials and tribulations being farmers in Texas during the Dust Bowl, singing the words: “And all this trouble in our fields/ If this rain can fall, these wounds can heal.”
Sometimes, we look up in desperation as well, for any precipitation the sky can offer us.
In the introduction to the next song, “The Wing and The Wheel,” Griffith tells her captive crowd, “There’s no need for any human being to ever be complacent.” The emotional whiplash might be too much to take, stark laughter swiftly shifting gears to deadpan seriousness, if the sincerity in the songs didn’t shine through with each passing line: “The wing and the wheel, they carry things away/ Whether it’s me that does the leavin’ or the love that flies away/ The moon outside my window looks so lonely tonight/ Oh, there’s a chunk out of its middle, big enough for an old fool to hide.”
Ten years later, in August 1998, Griffith’s relationship with her home state had become fraught. She wrote and sent letters to every major newspaper in Texas – the Dallas Morning News, the Houston and Austin Chronicles, the Austin-American Statesman, Texas Monthly – after a poor critical reception to her album Other Voices, Too (A Trip Back to Bountiful), released the month prior. In her letter, she defiantly rails, “There has always been a certain amount of pathos within artists who leave their sacred bountiful homes of birth for the benefit of preserving their own belief in their art—especially in cases such as my own where my native soil that I have so championed around this globe has done its best to choke whatever dignity I carried within me.” In the probing missive, she references Thomas Wolfe, whose own novels so severely damaged his reputation in his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina – which last year was decimated by the historic flooding of Hurricane Helene – he never returned.
The full moon in July is otherwise called a “Buck Moon,” named for the time of year the male deer’s antlers grow anew and hunters can track them more easily midday. This year, the Buck Moon swung across a fair, summer evening sky over Texas on July 12th, barely a week after the floods. That night Luke Borchelt, a country musician and singer-songwriter from Maryland, was seated at a bar in Austin. The night prior, he had performed at Parish, a club in the heart of the state’s capitol, right near where a Woolworth’s once stood at Sixth Street and Congress Ave. The very same shop Griffith sang about in her “Love at The Five and Dime” – and is pictured in front of on the album cover for The Last of The True Believers.
After striking up a conversation with a local patron at the bar, Borchelt was asked, “You’re a country singer? Could we do a concert tomorrow to raise money?” Borchelt agreed. So it often goes with Texans: forward, empathetic and community-oriented. Prior to becoming a full-time musician, Borchelt worked for Mercy Chefs, the Virginia-based, disaster relief non-profit.
“I managed logistics and the distribution of meals in disaster areas. That was my passion. It’s also where I got my musical start. After hours, I would play for the chefs. Disaster is a part of my story.”
As Borchelt recounts his journey, it sounds like a country song. There’s a rhythm to his speech that’s musical. He tells me “…there’s a stereotype of ‘badass’ Texans,” but in the wake of the floods, the “Every Rain” singer says, “I can’t say enough about the amount of people that showed up. We asked them ‘What brought you here?,’ and they would say, ‘I’m a Texan. We just show up.’”
After his performance in Austin, Borchelt headed to volunteer with Mercy Chefs, who had stationed themselves at a church in Kerrville to prepare and serve meals to evacuees, first responders, and search and rescue teams. Since the intense rains fell on July 4 in the central part of the state, 136 people lost their lives – 116 of which were lost in Kerr County.
In the flash flood’s waters, which crested at 30 feet, lay Camp Mystic – a girls’ summer camp situated alongside the banks of the Guadalupe River, northwest of Seguin. It was there that 27 people, counselors and campers, mostly children, died during one of the most tragic natural disasters in recent memory.
The six different flags that have waved over Texas throughout its history – some more star-spangled than others – have always flown over a proud people. When I speak to Mercy Chefs’ Ashbi Wilson, the managing chef on the deployment teams in Kerrville and Ingram, it’s no surprise she’s proud of her Texas roots. She lived in Kerrville for eight years before relocating southeast to her current home in Wimberley. At 21 years-old, before she became a chef, she spent a summer as a counselor at Camp Mystic, based on the recommendation of a professor at the local college, Schreiner University.
Regarding Camp Mystic she recalls, “Mystic is a really special place. Everybody was so warm and welcoming. Everybody was really just there to be encouraging and to have fun, and to help these girls, growing up to be young women.”
Hours before she got the call to deploy to Kerr County in early July, her bags were already packed. “It was a lot more personal this time, so I was ready to go,” she tells me. “Disasters are always both devastating and inspiring at the same time. So, even though there’s been so much heaviness and devastation around the lives and the places lost, it’s still really rewarding and inspiring to watch the community, and people from all over the state, and the first responders from all over the country and all over the world come in and do the work that’s needed.”
If these rains can fall, these wounds can heal.
— Nanci Griffith
Thousands of Texans called FEMA for assistance, and in the days following the torrential downpours, those calls were left unanswered, leaving recovery efforts largely in the hands of local authorities and volunteers. Firefighters from Mexico, a nation whose flag once flew over Texas, travelled north to Kerrville, and served a critical role in search and rescue operations. Earlier this month, after several Texas lawmakers fled the state in protest of a vote in the State Senate to gerrymander congressional districts along racial lines, one of their peers called upon a different federal agency, the FBI, to bring them back home. Is it any wonder why someone with such deep Texas roots as Nanci Griffith would disavow her home state?
Simultaneously, from where I write in Southern California, taqueros in East Los Angeles, farm workers in Camarillo, and day-laborers in the parking lots of Home Depots strewn across the city are being hunted like bucks at midday by armed and masked agents of the state, taken into federal custody to be deported to Tijuana, where there are now makeshift slums filled with deportees. In January, Mexican firefighters again headed north to volunteer to battle the blazes that burned across various pockets of the sprawling metropolis. Fire and I.C.E.
The desperation and helplessness one is inclined to feel while watching disasters both natural and unnatural unfold can be crippling. You don’t know how to do anything but languish in hopelessness and hang your head in shame, but as Wilson says, disasters can be both devastating and inspiring, no matter which way you look. Oftentimes, we turn to music to guide us through the dark and remove us from our solitude.
A live record gives its listener a glimpse into a communal space from afar, a moment captured crystalline and pure. Griffith’s One Fair Summer Evening served as my reminder that, not only in Texas, but everywhere a human draws breath, that “there’s no need for any human being to ever be complacent…” After all, “if these rains can fall, these wounds can heal.”
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.
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
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