Artist:Del Barber Hometown: Inglis, Manitoba Song: “Nothing Left to Find” Album:Stray Dogs: Collected B-Sides Volume One Release Date: August 20, 2021 Label: acronym Records
In Their Words: “Stray Dogs is a result of over 10 years of writing and recording music. When the pandemic began I was lost, scared about the future and in the depths of an unprecedented creative slump. I built a studio out of an old shed on my farm in an attempt to force myself to try and write songs. Every day I’d go out there in the mornings and struggle to get one line that I liked or one chord progression that was inspired. I wasn’t getting anywhere and it was my first taste of the fabled ‘writer’s block.’ Instead of writing new material like I had intended, I began to delight in the process of looking back. ‘Nothing Left To Find’ was one song I kept coming back to. I had so many versions of it in my files, it begged to be finished. After cutting a dozen of the verses I had written, it’s now a short and sweet song that really ties the tonal landscape of Stray Dogs together.” — Del Barber
In Their Words: “For a big part of my life, I grew up feeling like country and bluegrass were genres that I could never be a part of even though the music has always felt like home. So often queer, trans, and non-binary artists are set apart and left out even though we are everywhere, in every genre, and in every town. When I wrote ‘Countries’ it felt so good to lean into those roots with the help of Todd Sickafoose, Daren Hahn, James Deprato, Alisa Rose, and Andy Waegel. For me this tune was born from an experience of feeling harmed, heartbroken, and gaslit, but in the studio it took on so much joy thanks to the help of an incredible country singer Liz Lewis as well as Briget Boyle and the one and only Vicki Randle on backing vocals. I love that about this song, and about country and bluegrass in general. Its ability to hold complexity and feelings that are sometimes at odds. This song is that. Produced by Julie Wolf with Nino Moschella and released by Waxsimile Production, ‘Countries’ is an ode to where I come from.” — Dillbilly
Artist:Amy Ray Band Hometown: Decatur, Georgia Song: “Chuck Will’s Widow” Release Date: July 23, 2021 Label: Daemon Records, Inc.
In Their Words: “The songs of the Chuck-will’s-widow, along with its fellow Nightjar, the Whip-poor-will, have always haunted me; their relentless, compelling exchange happens all night when the summer comes to my neck of the woods. I find that I witness the most profound moments in the midst of their songs, when everyone else is asleep. While I am often in need of rest, the respite I find in being awake under a miraculous and melodic night sky is too tempting for me to sleep. It’s a conundrum that inspires me, but also leaves me bleary-eyed.
“I laid down a scratch track of electric guitar and singing, then we built this one from a foundation of Jim Brock’s drums and percussion, with Kerry Brooks’ bass. The rhythm track was important to get right, it had to feel sad and happy at the same time…ha ha… that’s my sweet spot. The first melodic instrument for us to play off of was Dan Walker’s accordion riff, then we added Matt Smith’s pedal steel. I put some mandolin and acoustic guitar down and sang a final vocal track, then we had Jeff Fielder record last. He usually goes first, so it was a lot of experimentation for him to find which instruments he wanted to play. We came around to both the dobro and electric guitar being what the song needed.
“We always had in mind what we wanted for harmonies, using both The Band’s version of Springsteen’s ‘Atlantic City’ and the classic record Trio from Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, and Linda Ronstadt as inspiration. Georgia singer Michelle Malone was a perfect fit for this. Then I asked my heroes Tanya and Michael Trotter from The War and Treaty to give us the other two harmony parts to make it complete.” — Amy Ray
Artist:Tobacco City Hometown: Chicago, Illinois Song: “AA Blues” Album:Tobacco City, USA Release Date: July 30, 2021 Label: Scissor Tail Records
In Their Words: “‘AA Blues’ is one of those songs that writes itself. My ex was having to go to AA meetings because of a brush with the law. It was cutting into our plans and I wrote her this ditty to make her feel better. The character in the song is trapped between working in a brewery and staring at beers all day and trying to walk a sober line. I think regardless of your sobriety status we can all relate to those kind of blues.” — Chris Coleslaw, Tobacco City
Artist:Pi Jacobs Hometown: San Francisco, California Song: “Broken Cup” (Intro & Live) Album:Live From Memphis Release Date: August 13, 2021 Label: Blackbird Record Label
In Their Words: “In my late teens and early 20s I wasn’t a person with a much of self-esteem; in fact, I thought pretty damn poorly of myself, so I was habitually getting into relationships with people who would reaffirm my feelings of unworthiness, unlovability, or being damaged goods. I was lucky though — a couple of amazing mentors showed up in my life and wouldn’t let me scare them off. They helped me to start seeing myself in a new and better light, so, by the time I hit 25, I was ready to try some new kinds of relationships. The problem was, I had to learn ALL NEW stuff! I hadn’t operated in the land of ‘healthy’ relationships before, and it felt like I didn’t know how to do ANYTHING, even little things, like returning phone calls. I started to feel as scared and unequipped as Bambi in the middle of a six-lane freeway, but I had had enough of my old ways, so I started to try, and I got very lucky by meeting my now-husband.” — Pi Jacobs
Artist:Jesse Daniel Hometown: Ben Lomond, California Latest Album:Beyond These Walls Personal nicknames: Jessup
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
When I was really young, probably around 6 or 7, my mom took us down to see my dad’s band play at a place called the Fernwood Lodge. We were camping down the road from the music venue and because my brother and I were a few years shy of the legal drinking age, we had to stay back at the tent while the older folks went and played music, partied, etc. There was an older woman who was watching us, so I waited until she fell asleep and I followed the sound of the music up to the bar where my dad was playing. I remember walking onto the front porch and watching my dad on stage from the window outside. Somebody told my mother that I was there and she came outside to get me. I thought she’d make me go back, but she let me stay and I hung out with them. We danced and listened to my dad’s band play with the bikers, hippies and rednecks. I remember knowing that I would be on that stage when I was old enough. It made a huge impact on me.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I was doing a show with Colter Wall, opening up solo at a place called The Orpheum Theater in Flagstaff, Arizona. I was slightly unsure of how the crowd would take a solo opener, because there were thousands of people there — it was sold out on a Tuesday night! The crowd was extremely receptive and I’ll always remember their excitement. As I got to the end of the set, I played “Soft Spot (For the Hard Stuff)”, which is one of my more known songs. The crowd sang the words of the chorus back to me at the top of their lungs and it gave me chills. Still does. There’s no feeling like it.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
As far as a mission statement goes, I’ve told people for a long time that my goal is to make good country music and live a good life. I want to lift others up with my music, help them through life’s hardships and make them happy. Country music is life music and I want to tell stories that are true. I’m in competition with no one and never will be. I’ll keep running my own race and doing what I love.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I love being outdoors. As a kid, I grew up next to a mountain creek and we’d spend whole days catching crawdads, swimming and playing in that creek. If I ever get stressed or overwhelmed by life, going swimming or fishing is a guaranteed way to clear my mind and get back in touch with the here and now. On my new record Beyond These Walls, I’ve got a song about fishing and another about the beauty and simplicity of nature. Nature is as much a part of me as the music is.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I do a mixture of both, partly truth and partly fiction. I love telling stories from others perspectives. A lot of my songs are about my own life experiences, but I’ll attribute them to the character of the song. Many are stories from real people I’ve met in rehabilitation facilities, jails, on the street or on the road. When you look for it, the inspiration is endless. Stories are everywhere and they are waiting to be told.
Artist:Luke LeBlanc Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota Song: “Same Blues” Album:Only Human Release Date: July 9, 2021
In Their Words: “It was October 2018 and I’d just moved to Nashville. I didn’t know I’d only live there six months, but as proud as I was to have been born and raised in North Minneapolis, I knew I had to explore the Nashville music scene: the songs, the stories, the mystique. It had been a long day, but I had to make my first move. So I called Roy August. I had met Roy about six years prior when I was 16 and visiting Nashville for the first time, playing an open mic near Music Row. Now in his 80s, Roy had co-written the Oak Ridge Boys’ “Fancy Free,” their first #1 on the Billboard country chart back in 1981. He happened to be in the audience and he loved my music. We kept in touch every so often through Facebook.
“Roy told me to meet him at the Hardee’s for brunch in Lebanon, Tennessee, just northeast of Nashville. We didn’t have a goal in mind, just to catch up and say hello. At the end of our conversation, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and told me it was something he’d been working on. ‘See what you can do; we’ll co-write it.’ I went home and wrote the rest of the lyrics, changed some, added others, and put music to it. With regards to the video, we tried to capture what the song is about: the tug between the status quo and what you’re currently doing versus that thing you really want to do. It portrays someone who has ‘fooled himself into working all day,’ knowing that deep down, the ‘fever won’t die young.’ Cody Hansen at Exist Media filmed and edited the video and John Cleve Richardson appears in the video playing piano.” — Luke LeBlanc
On his new album Depreciated, John R. Miller shows a true appreciation for traditional country songwriting and progressive bluegrass musicianship, even though his music isn’t neatly defined by either one. A West Virginia native who now lives in Madison, Tennessee, Miller unveiled the material at a club show in Nashville just a few days after the album’s release on Rounder Records. His original songs are rich in detail and humor, although his lyrics can get moody enough to satisfy anybody who’s looking for the darker side of acoustic music. Delivered in his rough-hewn baritone, his songs somehow feel like familiar stories that you want to hear again.
Before returning to the road, Miller caught up with BGS at an East Nashville coffee shop to talk about his acoustic heroes, where he found his first guitar, and why he puts a fiddle in a rock ‘n’ roll band.
BGS: You announced this record by releasing “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder,” which is not exactly a happy song, but it does makes me laugh. What was on your mind as that song was taking shape?
Miller: I wrote that after I moved away from the town I’d lived in for a while. It’s a small-town scenario. When you go back after being away, you’re in the mode of trying to avoid some people. It can be tricky to navigate but I thought it was a funny little song that I didn’t think we would end up recording. Then we rearranged it a little bit and turned it into what it is now – and it’s the first song on the record. You just never know, I guess.
Where is your hometown?
The place where I grew up is just off the highway in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. It has historically been pretty rural. There’s a lot of development around the highway, so it’s turned into a strip mall highway town. Just over the mountain, it gets real country real quick. But for most of my 20s I lived in a river town called Shepherdstown. It’s small, just a couple of bars in town and everybody knows everybody. That was home for a long time, but I felt like I needed a fresh start, so I moved down here. I spent so much time traveling and felt untethered in the first place. A lot of my friends started getting older and moving away. A few of them actually came down here. This was the next place, where I knew the most people and the most couches to crash on for a little while. I decided to give it a shot and I’m still here.
When did you gravitate toward playing guitar?
I was about 14 when I picked up guitar. My dad had a nylon string guitar in the closet that I never saw him play. I was starting to get into music more, and into punk bands that I found out about from my friends. Basically I was trying to learn power chords on this classical nylon string guitar classical guitar. Eventually I wrote that out and got a Stratocaster and tried to do garage bands in high school.
Were you and your friends listening to acoustic music too?
Maybe not when I was a teenager. We were mostly into indie rock and punk rock growing up, like skater kids. It probably wasn’t until I was 19 that my musical interests expanded a little bit. I started getting into songwriters. The real gateway for me was that Steve Earle and Del McCoury Band album, [1999’s The Mountain], which is one of the best out there. I had already found my way into Steve Earle’s music and then that dovetailed nicely with bluegrass and old-time music with that record. That was a big one for me.
Are you a bluegrass fan?
Oh yeah. I’ve lived in the bluegrass world a little bit and during times in my life a whole lot. I used to play in a string band too. It was more like a fiddle-centric string band, but we did some bluegrass stuff as well and got on that circuit for a little while. There were a couple of guys in the string band that were ahead of me in terms of what they knew about and what they liked, so they helped me learn about a whole lot of stuff.
Who were some of your influences in bluegrass?
I’m a huge Jimmy Martin fan. That stuff’s so cool and just kind of ragged in all the right ways. The Stanley Brothers, of course. There are some modern bluegrass bands that I’ve grown to love a whole lot. Town Mountain is one of the best out there. We crossed paths with them a little bit back in the day and it’s cool to see them still doing it. The Seldom Scene’s Live at the Cellar Door record is a classic too. I really love that. I also really love that early newgrass stuff, like Old & In the Way and John Hartford. That Old & In the Way record was a constant in the van.
Speaking of that, how did you get the idea for “Half Ton Van“?
That song in particular, I spent months looking for an old van to get the band moving. I was on Craigslist and Marketplace a whole lot. I feel like I was seeing a lot of the same tricks, you know? I went to look at a lot of terrible vans. It was a few years ago and I had already been through a few vans with other bands, and it always feels like I’m trying to find one at the last minute. I ended up getting one that was full of rust holes and leaking oil and everything like that. So the song is an amalgam of all those experiences of people trying to sell their junk to you.
At your show, the crowd really responded to “Shenandoah Shakedown,” which surprised me. It has that gothic feel, and seems to be the sleeper on the record.
That one seems to be doing pretty good. I wouldn’t have expected that either because it’s kind of different. It doesn’t strike me as an accessible song necessarily. That one is heavily inspired by living on the river out there. It’s more of a collection of vignettes of time spent up there, and some mushrooms and whatnot involved, you know? Some of the characters are composites but there are specific people in it, for sure.
There’s a lot of fiddle on this record too. Why do you like having that in the mix?
I love fiddle tunes and fiddle music and I spend a lot of time at fiddlers conventions, like the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia, or in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It’s been a constant in my life for a really long time now. I’ve got a lot of buddies in that world and I play a little fiddle myself too. It’s a great way to just sit down and play tunes with people. The communal feeling and the non-commerciality of it is really cool. So I’m a little obsessive about it. Putting fiddle in a full rock ‘n’ roll band sounds good to my ears, and I also feel like if it wasn’t there, I would miss it — the presence of it.
Why did you want to include a guitar instrumental, “What’s Left of the Valley,” on here?
I’ve definitely written a couple of guitar pieces, but my partner Chloe really liked that one. I played it for her and it was her idea to just try it in the studio. We took a break from doing the stuff we had on the docket and gave that a try. It ended up feeling so nice, I thought it would be a good way to break up the songs on the record. I like that kind of stuff too, like an instrumental interlude.
At your show I was happy to hear you cover a Gary Stewart song, “Single Again.” What is it about that honky-tonk sound that appeals to you?
Man, it just sounds so cool to me. There’s a really wide range of it but that Gary Stewart stuff is so cool and so nuanced. A really high level of musicianship playing pretty accessible music is pretty awesome. I love country music very much. That’s been my soul food. Early to mid ‘70s is the sweet spot for me.
As a songwriter going into a music career, did you always want to have a full-band sound?
I don’t mind playing by myself — it’s kind of its own thing — but I’ve always played in bands and I love that connection. It’s so much fun. I prefer to be making music with my buddies and I’m fortunate to be playing with the band I’ve got now. They’re easygoing folks and great musicians. We’ve been on the road for a little over a week now and this is the first long tour that we’ve gotten to take together. We’re all getting used to it again.
Listening back to this record now, what goes through your mind?
I’m really proud of the work we did and what I love most about it is that I got to actually sit and play the songs live in a room with some of my close friends. Adam Meisterhans, who played guitar with us the other night, co-produced the record. He and I played in bands in West Virginia. I know him from Shepherdstown too. He’s like a brother to me. So it’s been cool to very intentionally work on a project and have it get finished and work out, you know? It’s nice to know that we did it the way we wanted to.
Artist:Elijah Ocean Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Honky Tonk Hole” Album:Born Blue Release Date: July 23, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Honky Tonk Hole’ is about a guy who has seen better days and whose big dreams have all gone up in smoke. Now he spends all his time drinking and playing country music in bars. Not entirely sure why he’s complaining about it, though. Seems kinda fun and not a bad life. It’s a high-energy shuffle about falling into a rut but also kind of loving it.” — Elijah Ocean
Artist:Dallas Burrow Hometown: New Braunfels, Texas Song: “My Father’s Son” Album:Dallas Burrow Release Date: July 23, 2021
In Their Words: “A real storyteller’s song, this is an autobiographical history of four generations of men in a family line and the influence that fathers have on their sons, sparing no detail. My grandfather was born on the 4th of July and he was a Master-Sergeant in the Army Air Corps, and survived D-Day. They called him Junebug. He’s always been a mythical character in my mind, as I never got to meet him. My dad never saw much of him either, as my grandfather was usually either off at war, or otherwise absent. Then my father was a hippie and a hitchhiker, a rebel and an outlaw, a poet and a songwriter, and later in life, a teacher, a triathlete, and more than anything else, unlike his father, always there for me. So I absorbed all those things; the legacy of having a war hero for a grandfather who was there when our country needed him, but who was absent from his own children’s lives because of it, and the stories my dad told me of his own travels and exploits when America was young and wild and free, in the ’60s and ’70s.
“Then of course there was my own journey, taking up the mantle of being a storytelling musician, the struggles, the trials, the beauty, the wonder, all of that, which would eventually lead me to meeting a woman, and having a son, which ultimately, radically changed my life from one of a wandering troubadour with an insatiable taste for the wild side of life, to a relatively responsible, grounded adult, still a troubadour, and still with a wanderlust, but with an entirely different set of priorities and lifestyle choices. This tune tackles the job of weaving all of those nuances of my family line into a neat little folk song that captures the idea that no matter who our fathers were, we are who we are in part because of those that came before us.” — Dallas Burrow
Photo credit: Ryan Vestil
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