Artist:Tessy Lou Williams Hometown: Willow Creek, Montana Song: “Busy Counting Bridges” Album:Tessy Lou Williams Release Date: May 22, 2020 Label: Warehouse Records
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Busy Counting Bridges’ with Jerry Salley during our second co-write. We’d had the idea to write a by-God country shuffle and this was the result. I love the way this song turned out! It’s heartbreak, but you can two-step your way around the room while listening. The band absolutely nailed this song; I had to stop myself from dancing around the vocal booth while recording my vocal parts. I hope it has the same effect on everyone else!” — Tessy Lou Williams
We’ve so enjoyed looking back into the BGS archives with you every week for some of our favorite reporting, videos, interviews, and more. If you haven’t yet, follow our #longreadoftheday series on social media [on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram] and as always, we’ll put all of our picks together right here at the end of each week.
Our long reads this week examine entire careers, dive into different versions of new classic songs, revisit a lost hero, and more.
We spend a lot of time at BGS immersing ourselves in the music, sounds, and careers of our favorite artists — what can we say, we love a deep dive! For this aural long read choice (if such a thing exists?) we unpack twelve of Glen Hansard’s essential songs from myriad points in his globe-crossing career, from rock bands and movie soundtracks and confessional songwriting and more. [Read the entire list, and listen, too]
In a strangely prescient interview from late February, Canadian singer/songwriter Rose Cousins offers some insight and wisdom for being alone — the difference between loneliness and solitude, for instance — and for being present in each moment, as well. Their themes she’s explored in-depth in her music-making across the years, but in some newfound ways on her most recent album, Bravado. [Read our interview]
April 22 marked what would have been Glen Campbell’s 84th birthday. The rhinestone cowboy passed away a short couple of months after releasing his final album, Adiós, in 2017. Campbell’s long-time friend, collaborator, and bandmate Carl Jackson produced the project, and helped coax Campbell through the recording process as Alzheimer’s disease made his singing, playing, and performing increasingly difficult. To honor his birthday, we revisited our conversation with Carl Jackson. [Read]
One of Nashville’s good guys, Steve Wariner was inducted into the Musician’s Hall of Fame last year, recognized for his versatility as a lead guitarist, as a sideman, and a singer/songwriter, too. Over more than four decades the Grand Ole Opry member has had numerous charting singles, so we wanted to explore that catalog and ask Wariner himself: “Do you think you have a signature hit?” [Read the interview]
After Americana singer/songwriter Aubrie Sellers gave a flawless, stripped-down performance of this song on our first episode of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour this week we’ve been returning to it over and over! Written by Shawn Camp and Billy Burnette, Del McCoury and Steve Earle have both been involved in recordings of this modern classic over the years. [Check out four different versions]
Artist:Pam Tillis Hometown: Plant City, Florida (born) + Nashville, Tennessee (lives) Song: “Dark Turn of Mind” Album:Looking for a Feeling Release Date: April 24, 2020 Label: Stellar Cat via OneRPM
In Their Words: “While the album is called Looking for a Feeling, I was drawn to ‘Dark Turn of Mind’ because it’s about owning your feelings. Letting yourself slow down long enough to acknowledge the shadows in your soul helps you experience the light in a deeper way. In this era of everybody trying to keep up some facade on social media, I loved that this song unapologetically says, ‘Yes I reserve the right to have my good old meltdown, pity party, wallow-in-my-misery moments and that will probably keep me way saner than having to fake-smile my way thru these crazy-ass times.'” — Pam Tillis
We’ve so enjoyed looking back into the BGS archives with you every week for some of our favorite reporting, videos, interviews, and more. If you haven’t yet, follow our #longreadoftheday series on social media [on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram] and as always, we’ll put all of our picks together right here at the end of each week.
Our long reads this week are pioneering, longsuffering, triumphant, innovative, and so much more.
April 13 just so happens to be the birthday of this bluegrass pioneer, a man who has had an incredible impact on the genre over the course of his lifelong career. So of course we started off the week in long reads with this 2016 interview with Sam Bush, written by Mipso guitarist and vocalist, Joseph Terrell. Sam talks New Grass Revival, Bluegrass Alliance, the future of mandolin, and so much more. It’s worth a read, birthday or not! Happy Birthday, Sam! [Read more]
It just so happens, we’re featuring two birthday long reads in a row! On Tuesday this week we wished country legend Loretta Lynn a very happy birthday with a revisit to an archived edition of Canon Fodder on Van Lear Rose, her 2004 critically-acclaimed collaborative album made with Jack White. Lynn has changed and innovated upon country music in many more ways than one, and she continues to do so as her career goes on! Just like with Van Lear Rose. [Read more about the album]
We love a two-fer. With this look back into the archives, you get a film choice for tonight or this weekend, too. The Madness & the Mandolin is a documentary following the many challenges and breakthroughs of Kelley Gibson’s (son of The Gibson Brothers’ Eric Gibson) journey and evolution with autism. The film explores methods like exercise, meditation, reading, and music as tools that, combined, can often be the most powerful treatment. We spoke to the project’s producer/director Dr. Sean Ackerman last year.
The Madness & the Mandolin is available to rent on Amazon Prime. [Read the interview]
2019 was a banner year for The Del McCoury Band and The Travelin’ McCourys, Del celebrated his 80th birthday, his Opry anniversary, and DelFest conquered the mid-Atlantic once again. While 2020 is certainly off to a rockier start, the entire bluegrass world — and roots music altogether, too — are so glad to still have this legend of bluegrass making music, laughing a lot, and killing the hair game. At BGS, we’re grateful we got a chance to chat with Del backstage at the Opry last year. [Read more]
She’s not in the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Bluegrass Hall of Fame, and Hollywood has never adapted her story for any sized screen. She’s certainly more than deserving of the former — regarding the latter, you’ll just have to read our feature to see why Rose Maddox deserves to be canonized and then some for her myriad contributions to country, bluegrass, and every other genre in between. [Read about this musical pioneer]
“I’ve always been interested in human struggle,” Rose Cousins says, musing on “The Fraud,” a song off her latest album Bravado. “I think being a living human being is really hard.”
Bravado listens like a series of object lessons on the contradictions inherent to being human, with Cousins using each song to meditate on themes like pretension and vanity, as well as loneliness, solitude, and the crucial distinction between the two. Across the album, her songwriting is as sharp and clear-eyed as it’s ever been, a feat she attributes to pushing herself to dig deeper and share her truth more freely than she’d done on past efforts. Bravado follows her Grammy-nominated 2017 album Natural Conclusion.
BGS caught up with Cousins in late February, just a week after she released Bravado, speaking by phone as she was at home in Halifax putting together packages for Kickstarter supporters. Much has changed for musicians since then, rendering some bits of our conversation irrelevant (like her tour in support of Bravado, which was canceled due to COVID-19), and other portions — as when Cousins shares her desire to spend more of her energy on practices like walking and meditation — strangely prescient.
BGS: When did you begin work on the album, and when did you feel the project was truly starting to come together?
Cousins: Every year I go on a writing retreat with a group of songwriters from Boston; we’ve been doing it now for 10 years. I wrote two of the songs at the retreat: “Love Comes Back” and “The Fraud.” “The Fraud” was the song that really revealed to me the concept of “bravado.” I thought about the word “bravado” and thought it would be an amazing title, and isn’t that an interesting concept?
I went into the studio to work with some different musicians in Canada I hadn’t worked with before. We had such a great time that I booked some more studio time in May [of 2019] and in between that time wrote “The Benefits of Being Alone.” Once I wrote that song, in March of last year, I was like, “It’s on.” I really wanted to write a song that was coming from my perspective of being a single person, and, while society has different stigmas around [being single], it’s not all bad.
I think people experience loneliness whether they’re in a relationship or not. And aloneness is a really rich thing — spending time by yourself and having your own creative time and energy to devote to yourself and what you want to do. So I was really excited when that song came. I knew after our sessions in May that I was chasing a record.
Back to what you were saying about choosing the word Bravado as your album title, that concept comes up in “The Expert,” too. Can you elaborate on why you felt that idea was so representative of this collection of songs? I always find it interesting when an artist chooses a title for an album that isn’t also the title of a track.
It’s definitely the thread that goes through all the songs. When I was writing “The Fraud,” I was singing, almost in an observational way, about my own self, about presenting yourself one way and feeling another way. And if there is a time in the world that that is happening, it’s right now, where people are presenting versions of themselves that aren’t necessarily true. Maybe it isn’t a complete lie, but we never used to be able to filter photographs. Only people who worked at magazines could do that. Now we are putting versions of ourselves through social media that are depicting the best bits. …
Since my last record, I’ve been thinking a lot about what matters to me, what’s really true, what do I love, what are the things I can let go of? And how can I be more in touch with myself and the ground? It’s really hard. I don’t think there is a single human being who escapes any of that. You can have 75 emotions in one day….
The hardest, deepest, most uncomfortable work — and this is where I’m at in my life — is dealing with your own self. And where you are calling upon bravado. That’s the concept of this whole record. It’s the duality of being a living human being. We present the version of ourselves we want but when we’re in a vulnerable situation, can we live up to the person that we presented? That’s the question for me.
To your point about trying to be more real and truthful in your everyday life, there was a quotation in your bio that stuck with me. You said, “I realized I was chasing a theme and a feeling I had been pondering for months. And it turned into a whole record of perhaps my best writing.” Did that personal digging contribute to your feelings about the finished album?
My last record was definitely some of my most truthful writing. I remember having nervousness about some of the stuff being too dark or that kind of thing. Of course it’s hard to have perspective on your own work, but I historically feel like I elude; I don’t always tell the full story at one time. I elude telling the full story and I allude to things. With this record, it feels closer to an admittance and staring really hard at the way I’ve set my own life up. By being more truthful for my own self, I think that always makes the writing better, and makes the connection to the music better.
Elsewhere in reading about the album creation, I came across a passage where you share that you felt a kind of pressure to be productive, as opposed to going for a walk or enjoying silence. Did making this record alleviate that feeling for you in any way, or offer you a differing perspective?
It did not. It’s funny. So this month, February, I tried to protect all of February as best I could from travel so that I could be home and deal with all the Kickstarter things and all of the press that’s coming in, all of the merch, all the things people don’t see and don’t need to know about. Within that, I dedicated myself to two things that I have been talking to myself about for years: I’ve taken a walk outside every single day and I’ve meditated every single day. Those are two things I’ve wanted to incorporate into my world.
I definitely am a workaholic. I definitely have this thought-circle in my mind of, “If you’re not doing something productive, if you’re not moving forward…” I can’t let myself off the hook… I’ve still been trying to put those desires into motion. There are plenty of days when I don’t want to go for a walk, but once I’m outside I feel better. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard to get back to the gym, or stop eating garbage? It’s because we’re emotional people and we form habits and you have to make different decisions. Sometimes the psychic pain of change is horrible and also exactly what we need.
That’s a good segue to one of the songs I’ve found myself coming back to a lot, which is “The Time Being (Impending Mortality Awareness Society).” First of all, that is such a fantastic title. I’d love to hear how you wrote that one.
I feel very lucky to have a friend, an older gentleman, who is a fisherman. We were catching up one day and he was talking about coming back from a fishing trip where he had a gentleman with him who was much older than him. He said, in passing, “impending mortality awareness.” I thought it was brilliant and about a month later I found myself sitting at a piano and came up with that first line, “The Impending Mortality Awareness Society meets twice a week / Do or die because time is of the essence.” And I kept running with that…
Of all the stuff we’ve just talked about, isn’t it the hardest to just be present? That’s what going for the walk is. That’s what meditation is. Can you give yourself a moment where you tune in to your own body and your own brain and pause? It is about paying attention to what is important. It’s about telling the people you love that you love them. It’s about checking in with your fears. Because most of them are not real. It’s about acknowledging that time is in motion and you need to get your head out of your ass and be in it.
As the enormous, ever-turning wheels of the music industry ground to a halt and the coronavirus crisis first came to a head, BGS co-founders Amy Reitnouer and Ed Helms were already brainstorming what would become the Whiskey Sour Happy Hour.
“MusiCares felt like a really natural fit,” Helms told the Recording Academy in a recent interview. “I hosted their gala a couple of years ago. I’m a big fan of that organization. And then more directly on the medical front, Direct Relief was also just a no-brainer because they’re doing incredible work [to make] sure frontline workers are properly protected and supplied.”
The mission was pretty simple: Support the music industry and our BGS family, while also bolstering first line responders doing the difficult, vital work of fighting this virus in hospitals and clinics across the country and around the world.
Here’s the great thing — although the show concluded on May 13 with a no-holds-barred, star-studded finale show, each episode is still available for viewing right here on BGS (as well as on our YouTube channel). Why? Because we’re still raising money! At this point, our generous fans, listeners, and supporters, have given more than $54,000, so we’re keeping Whiskey Sour Happy Hour online until May 25 to give you the chance to not only rewatch and experience these wonderful shows, but also to give you the chance to contribute, if you can. Your gift will be split half and half between MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund and Direct Relief.
DONATE HERE! And as you do, you can also check out each of the four prior episodes of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour below! No donation is too small in making a difference, any amount helps:
Our inaugural episode got off to a bit of a rocky start when our entire website CRASHED because you turned out in such huge numbers. An excellent problem to have. We’re all in this socially distant boat together, aren’t we?
So, we weathered the technical difficulties, exercised patience, and landed with a gorgeous, heartfelt, and tender first episode — complete with a surprise appearance by comedian and actor Jenny Slate (who has been visiting a pet cemetery a lot during her confinement) and a mother/daughter duet of “Keep On the Sunny Side” by modern country queen Lee Ann Womack and her Americana rocker daughter, Aubrie Sellers. Fresh off the release of Fiona Apple’s critically acclaimed pandemic-perfect album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, producer Davíd Garza played us a little number, too.
Between Watkins Family Hour dueting through a window (rockin’ the at least six-feet-apart rule!), cartoonist Matt Diffee’s dry, dry goods, Yola’s undeniable effervescent power, and our ringmaster Ed Helms choreographing the entire thing, Episode 1 was the perfect first effort for WSHH.
Episode 2:
April 29 brought a much less dramatic downbeat, as Episode 2 kicked off just as planned — and with a cameo from a very stern, nocturnal friend. Who we miss very dearly, already.
Ed may have seemed a little enamored with Texan piano man Robert Ellis’ robe, but we all were so who can blame him? Julian Lage and Margaret Glaspy massaged every last strand of tension from our weary bodies and ears with two simple, resplendent duets together, a rare treat that may not have happened if it weren’t for good ol’ shelter-in-place. Raw, virtuosic, genius musical talent was on display by mandolinist Sierra Hull, Americana godfather Rodney Crowell, and Ed’s buddy Ben Harper — who may have elicited a few tears with a John Prine tribute we all needed badly at that point.
The comedy was not in short supply either on week two, viewers found themselves temptingly influenced by Nick Kroll and given a literally unbelievable bicycle tour by Rob Huebel.
Episode 3:
It felt like we really hit our stride on episode 3, packing in so many incredible performances there simply wasn’t a single frame to trim. With that being the case, right off the bat the show went zero to sixty with Avi Kaplan’s booming, resonant baritone melting all of us. Aoife O’Donovan called upon her husband, cellist Eric Jacobsen, and their housemate, Eric’s brother Colin Jacobsen, to form an impromptu trio of guitar, cello, and violin. It was the perfect make-do, isolation arrangement for “Red and White and Blue and Gold.”
Now, if you hadn’t tuned in specifically to catch the cameo of Jerry Douglas’ three matching katanas, you may have tuned in for one of the most prolific and well-loved comedians of the past decade or so, Jim Gaffigan. Ed and Jim spend some time catching up, talking about life in the time of COVID-19, and sharing laughs, too.
The evening was capped off by Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi doing what they do best, reminding us that the world is much smaller and we are all much more connected than we’re often led to believe. Who else besides Rhiannon would you want to hear cover Bessie Jones’ rendition of “O Death” right now? Exactly. No one.
Episode 4:
We truly did not intend to “save the best for last,” because this is a how-could-you-ever-pick-a-favorite-child situation, here. Somehow, though, we landed in week four with an absolutely stacked, jaw-dropping lineup. Stephen Colbert stopped by — on his BIRTHDAY of all days — to visit with Ed. Yes, Broccoli Rob and the ‘Nard Dog are on speaking terms. But that wasn’t the only way The Office permeated episode four,as the Indigo Girls also shared a song with the Whiskey Sour Happy Hour audience. It may not have included Jim Halpert and Andy Bernard tipsily singing along with “Closer To Fine,” but it was just as good, watch for yourself to confirm.
This music was filled with sexual energy, it could replace the generic Viagra or any other medicine.
The Banjo House Lockdown crew of Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn made an appearance, Molly Tuttle once again wrestled a six-string into submission with her otherworldly clawhammer technique, Rosanne Cash covered Bob Dylan, Chris Thile brought in Bach, Buffy Sainte-Marie sang to us from the jungle of Hawaii — need we go on!?
Yes, actually, we do. Because as Bryan Sutton, Gabe Witcher, and Ed jammed a bit on the bluegrass tune, “Billy in the Lowground,” who should show up but… KENNY G!
That’s right, the king of sexy sax blazed through a solo on “Billy in the Lowground” and proceeded to trade bars with Bryan, Gabe, and Ed before sitting down for a chat. That wouldn’t have been satisfactory in and of itself, though, so Kenny played us an original before bidding adieu as well. Please have your lighters ready for waving at that selection, entitled, “Loving You.”
To cap off an already inconceivably perfect series, Ed, Gabe Witcher, and a host of our WSHH friends wrangled us a superjam. Admit it, you knew we would! Where the BGS team gathers, there a superjam will also be. Chris Eldridge, Madison Cunningham, Robert Ellis, Sierra Hull, Noam Pikelny, and so many others joined in on “The Weight.” There may have been a tear or two among viewers when the women of I’m With Her came on screen together in their matching yellow jumpsuits, but how could we ever confirm that?
Bonus Episode:
We just had to give y’all a bonus episode!
Our back-by-popular-demand show featured extra performances and footage from artists who had already graced the Whiskey Sour Happy Hour lineup including: Watkins Family Hour, Madison Cunningham, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Davíd Garza, Matt the Electrician, Valerie June, Ben Harper, Billy Strings, and Rodney Crowell.
Billy Strings played us a bluegrass gospel classic via one of his (and our) heroes, Doc Watson. Ben Harper treated all of us to a heartstrings-tugging rendition of an original, “Never Needed Anyone,” which was recorded by Mavis Staples on her most recent album, We Get By. And Rodney Crowell closed out the show with a dramatic solo performance of “Highway 17.” An extra week of music, an extra week of generosity, and an extra week of sharing WSHH with all of you!
Whiskey Sour Happy Hour has been a resounding success thanks to all of the artists, musicians, and creators involved, thanks to our generous supporters, thanks to the hardworking team who built it, but especially thanks to you for tuning in and for giving. (Which you can still do, by the way. Right here.)
While we as an industry face the most uncertain times to befall our community in our lifetimes, it’s comforting to have gathered with all of you for the past four weeks to enjoy this show, while taking direct action to lift up those around us and those fighting COVID-19 every day. Thank you for being a part of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour!
Special thanks to our sponsors: the Americana Music Association, TX Whiskey, and Allbirds.
Read the April 15 announcement:
The BGS team and our co-founder Ed Helms are excited to announce Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, a 21st-century online variety show to benefit MusiCares’ COVID-19 Relief Fund and Direct Relief. Debuting on April 22 and presented in partnership with the Americana Music Association, TX Whiskey, and Allbirds, new editions of the event will be broadcast each Wednesday for the following three weeks — April 29, May 6, and May 13. The shows begin at 5 pm PT/8pm ET.
With Helms serving as host of the series, Whiskey Sour Happy Hour will draw on his long-running Whiskey Sour Radio Hour shows at LA’s Largo to bring world-class music, comedy, and interviews directly into homes across the country and world.
The premiere edition of Whiskey Sour Happy Hour on April 22 will feature music from Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers, Billy Strings, Davíd Garza, Yola, Watkins Family Hour, and Madison Cunningham — plus an appearance by cartoonist and humorist Matt Diffee.
Whiskey Sour Happy Hour can be streamed right here on The Bluegrass Situation, as well as on our YouTube channel. Other confirmed guests for the series include Chris Thile, Yola, Billy Strings, Sarah Jarosz, Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi, Rodney Crowell, Aoife O’Donovan, Robert Ellis, and our current Artist of the Month, Watkins Family Hour. Additional artists will be announced in the coming weeks.
“As soon as we realized the severity of the current crisis, Ed and I both knew we had to do something to support both our musical and medical community—and not just a one-time thing, but something that could promote more sustained giving through multiple shows,” says BGS co-founder Amy Reitnouer Jacobs. “In a short amount of time, our BGS family of artists has come together in such a big way to make this happen. It makes us feel like even though we’re all separated right now, we’re closer than ever before.” Fans will be able to donate to MusiCares and Direct Relief here, as well as via links provided wherever viewers watch the show.
In addition to supporting Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, TX Whiskey has already stepped up their efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting 100% of their production to making hand sanitizer. As of March 31, the TX team has produced 800 gallons of hand sanitizer for government agencies. With more raw materials inbound, TX Whiskey is currently positioned to make and bottle 5000 more gallons of sanitizer. On top of that, TX Whiskey continues to support local musicians by giving them an online stage and revenue generator through their Straight From the Couch Sessions— streaming every Friday night in April on IGTV.
Also a presenting sponsor for Whiskey Sour Happy Hour, Allbirds have been working hard to lift up the healthcare community responding to COVID-19, having already donated $500,000 dollars worth of shoes to healthcare workers nationwide. While supplies last, customers are able to bundle any shoe purchase with a donation to immediately supply a pair of Wool Runners to a healthcare professional who’s already reached out to Allbirds for support. Don’t need a new pair yourself, but still want to help? That’s an option, too.
Special thanks to the Americana Music Association for their partnership and support.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
When I heard Bill Monroe’s voice and mandolin. No one around me was doing it and I knew that was a way of being different and getting noticed. It was the most ballsy and exotic thing I’d heard up in [my] first fourteen years on earth.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
I love to dance with my buddies and with ladies, I am an avid reader of fiction, such as novels, and non-fiction, too — usually, WWI, WWII, Mafia, and artist biographies.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Well, any and all… but my preferences are water or forests over mountains and desert. I like to go to local parks and run or hike. I like long walks anywhere I can. But I actually spend a lot of time in the gym, specifically the boxing gym. I have tons of energy and need to exert that physically or my mind gets overworked. An easy mind and a fit body makes Pokey a peaceful boy.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
Steak and potatoes and wine with Tom Waits, a piano, a guitar, and an orchestra.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I almost always write in first person, or so I think.
Artist:Heather Anne Lomax Hometown: Los Angeles, California Song: “Heart Don’t Lie” Album:All This Time Release Date: May 1, 2020
In Their Words: “This is a song about love and longing. It is a song of yearning and of the unseen ties that bind two souls, regardless of space and time. It’s about ‘memories, pressed between the pages of of my mind.’ I think I wrote this song in ten to fifteen minutes while up late at night, probably around two or three in the morning.” — Heather Anne Lomax
Sam Doores cut his teeth as a Bay Area-born teen troubadour busking around the U.S. before he got his first real break with a steady gig at an Irish pub in New Orleans. In that same city he co-created some of the last decade’s most arresting socially-conscious anthems with Hurray for the Riff Raff and made sparkling folk- and country-derived excursions with his own band, the Deslondes.
And now he’s got his first solo album, Sam Doores, recorded primarily in Berlin and filled with echoes of everything from Tin Pan Alley to the Mississippi hill country, from French Quarter jazz to California psychedelic-folk-rock.
So, let’s talk about Cambodian rock ’n’ roll. “Cambodian Rock n’ Roll” is, in fact, the title of one of the songs on the album.
“No one’s asked me about that!” he says, excitedly, on the phone from New Orleans, where he’s lived now for 14 years. “Do you know the compilation, Cambodian Rocks?”
It’s a 1996 collection of recordings made by a wealth of artists in Cambodia who embraced American surf, garage-rock and psychedelic styles and gave them scintillating Southeast Asian twists, before the brutal reign of the Khmer Rouge, in which many of those performers were killed or imprisoned.
“A friend played it for me one time on a road trip and I fell in love with the style and sound,” he says, adding that he then watched Never Forget, a documentary about that time. “So heartbreaking, and after watching it the music hits on a deeper level.”
Now to be clear, the song doesn’t sound like Cambodian rock ’n’ roll, but rather is a “tip of the cap” to it, in a somber reminiscence about listening to it with the friend who introduced him to that music. The songs on Sam Doores aren’t tinged with that tragedy, yet there is a wistful, muted melancholy and sadness throughout. “There’s some darkness, for sure,” he says.
Well, there’s going to be. It’s a breakup record, after all, largely coming from the end of a long-term relationship. The album explores various shades of that darkness, of unsettling loss and longing. There’s often light shining through, with residual and resurgent hope and joy. To some extent it all comes together, brutally, midway through the album with the song “Had a Dream,” born out of two losses that happened in his life over the four years in which the material on the album came together.
“That came to me when I knew I was losing someone who had been one of the closest people in my whole life, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get that person back,” he says. “And a friend of mine was dying. It’s about eventual letting go. For a long time I thought my friend was going to pull through, beat his sickness, and I thought I was not going to lose my love. Both ended up getting lost. I wrote about that time. Wanted the music to have the frantic, desperate feeling on the verses, but also the melancholy of the choruses.”
The sensibilities tie together seemingly disparate emotions, and disparate musical tones. On one end is the upbeat, generous and genuine “Wish You Well,” one of several songs featuring members of Tuba Skinny, a leader of a vibrant wave of young bands enlivening traditional New Orleans jazz. On the other, the very downcast acoustic guitar “Red Leaf Rag,” evoking a “dark dream world” that he says really should have been called a “drag” rather than a “rag,” or maybe a “dirge.” It’s all no less a factor on songs occupying the middle ground, including “Other Side of Town,” co-written with and featuring lead vocals of Doores’ longtime musical partner, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s dynamic leader, Alynda Segarra.
They also tie together, or perhaps are tied together by, the two cities in which the songs were shaped: New Orleans and Berlin. In many ways the album is the story of his 14 years in the former, having arrived when he was just 19.
“I was hitchhiking on my way [here] when Hurricane Katrina hit [in August 2005] and ended up in Austin for a while” he says. “Met some New Orleans musicians who had relocated there and they talked me into coming to JazzFest in 2006. I felt like I’d left the country. By far the most exciting place I’d been. Been to Havana, Cuba, once before. My high school jazz band went there. Reminded me more of that than anywhere. Was just going to be here one weekend.”
New Orleans has a way of changing people’s plans. That first day he stumbled upon an unannounced small-stage set by Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint warming up for their later big-stage show, and later saw the incredibly powerful performance in which Bruce Springsteen debuted his folky, New Orleans-esque Seeger Sessions Band, a show that had tens of thousands in the devastated city shedding tears of both sorrow and hope — and turned Doores from a Bruce doubter to a fan. He also had his first encounter with the colorful, beaded-and-feathered Mardi Gras Indian troupes, and he was smitten with it all.
“It totally felt like the beginning of the rest of my life that day,” he says.
Having spent all of his money, he went to busk on Bourbon Street, the owner of the now-gone Kelly’s Irish pub saw him and hired him for a regular gig. “He said, ‘Want to try your luck on a real stage?’” Doores says. “I thought, ‘Wow! Playing inside?’”
Soon he met Segarra and formed a musical partnership that evolved into Hurray for the Riff Raff. As that band took off, he launched the Deslondes (named after the street on which he was living) as a second creative outlet. Through it all, the love and loss captured in Sam Doores took place.
It was in Berlin that he found the environment in which he could shape that into the album; that took place over the course of four years in a studio built by producer Anders Christopherson.
“I actually didn’t know Anders until we started recording,” he says. “He wrote me and Alynda one time out of the blue. Had heard a record of a band we were in together, Sundown Songs. Wrote and said if you are ever coming through Berlin I’d love to record you.”
Not long after, as it happened, the Deslondes were doing the band’s first European tour, so he arranged to spend a week in Berlin and by the end of that time he determined to make a full record there, though it would have to be done in four different stretches over several years. Christopherson put together a “house” band to bring Doores’ ideas to life, primarily himself and a Spanish keyboardist named, yes, Carlos Santana. A lot of experimentation happened with combinations of instruments — vibes, autoharp, an electronic “disc” organ, glockenspiel, and so on. And realizing Doores’ long-standing ambition, strings were added to some songs in arrangements by Manon Parent.
Somehow, it all works as an integrated whole.
“I think there are some core instruments we tended to use in the arrangements that sonically thread the record together,” he says. “In terms of influences, a lot of different tones. Some old New Orleans R&B, some of the opposite — psychedelic folk experimental soundtrack music.”
In some places it might remind of the “vintage” touches associated with such figures as Harry Nilsson and Van Dyke Parks. Doores loves those comparisons, then observes, “We listened to a lot of Nina Simone and early reggae — a lot of Upsetters, early Studio One stuff, early Wailers. Anders has an incredible record collection. Wherever we weren’t recording, we were in his kitchen listening to that stuff. We didn’t do any straight up reggae, but it influenced us in some ways, the bass lines and the organ.”
That was just part of the musical and personal oasis he found there, a space that let him find the full expression for his New Orleans stories. The importance of that is so profound that he wrote an instrumental impression of that environment, “Tempelhofer Dawn,” a gentle, muted, nostalgic waltz — and ultimately chose it to open the album, to serve as a curtain-raiser on the song cycle that follows.
“Tempelhofer is the name of the street the studio is on,” he says. “A lot of moments after late nights going out, or early mornings waking up, I spent a lot of time there with the birds or children playing and that gave a feeling that matched the song.”
He recorded it live in studio, with himself on piano joined by Santana on organ and Parent and Mia Bodet on violins. “It’s a nice way to ease into the record,” he says.
In many ways, given the breakup at the heart of the album, it sounds like both a beginning and an ending.
“It felt like the first track,” he says. “Or the last track.”
Artist:James Hyland Hometown: Austin, Texas Song: “Ghost” Album:Western Release Date: May 1, 2020 Label: James Hyland Music
In Their Words: “‘Ghost’ is about how strong the past can influence our emotions that drive us to make the decisions that shape our future. This song is about writing and creating songs that my dead heroes would enjoy. I imagine they’re in the room with me as I’m writing and if the line isn’t good enough for the imaginary people there in my room, how could I possibly keep it and play it for the people who are alive? Every couplet counts. The character in the song is haunted by their dead heroes, whose unwritten songs manifest in the writings of the one they influence.” — James Hyland
Photo credit: Ty Hudgins
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