(Editor’s note: Each issue of Good Country, our co-founder Ed Helms will share a handful of good country artists, albums, and songs direct from his own earphones in Ed’s Picks.
Photo Credits: Cam by Dennis Leupold; Maya de Vitry by Kaitlyn Raitz; Courtney Hartman by Jo Babb; Kyshona by Anna Haas; The Local Honeys by Erica Chambers; Caroline Spence by Kaitlyn Raitz.
For the past eight or so years I’ve been making this joke that we (the music industry) should “Give women Americana.” As in, if we gave the entire genre — and bluegrass and country and old-time and folk, for that matter — to women and femmes and non-men, I wouldn’t so much miss the men and the music would certainly be well cared for and well set up for the future.
My point, as I continue to make this joke year after year to many puzzled reactions, is that women and femme roots musicians have and will always be my favorite artists, creators, songwriters, and pickers. As I crafted my debut solo album, 1992 – often with incredibly talented women like producers and engineers (and pickers) Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, mastering engineer Anna Frick, photographer Laura E. Partain – the music that inspired, informed, and challenged me most through this release was all made by women. (Ask me sometime about my monthly Spotify playlist, Don’t Need No Man.)
When BGS approached me to make a Mixtape to celebrate 1992, I knew I had to share some of the women who helped me realize, musically, artistically, socially, emotionally, that there could be a home for me in bluegrass, largely because they had created such a home exactly for me. Here are a few of my bluegrass, old-time, and country inspirations, all of whom have filtered into this album in one way or another. – Justin Hiltner
Ola Belle Reed – “High On the Mountain”
1992 was tracked in Ashe County, North Carolina, in a little town called Lansing nestled into the Blue Ridge Mountains, right where Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina meet. I love it out there on the mountain, in the wind, in the clouds, on the rocky little road cuts and switchbacks through the hills. Lansing also happens to be the hometown of a legendary Appalachian musician and bluegrass forebear, Ola Belle Reed. A banjo she once owned and had signed hung on the wall beside me while I tracked every song. I definitely see my album as stemming from the lineage of Ola Belle, humbly and gratefully.
Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer – “Hold Each Other Up”
I’ve been so lucky to collaborate with folk icons, Grammy winners, and children’s music legends Cathy & Marcy in so many different contexts and scenarios, every single one delightful and fulfilling. They’re amazing mentors and encouragers and while we recorded 1992 we had to take the chance to channel their amazing attitudes and worldviews into a COVID-inspired (or -instigated) track, “Hold Each Other Up.” I love getting to pick and sing with these two, and their engineering, production, wisdom, and guidance all made this record possible.
Laurie Lewis – “I’m Gonna Be the Wind”
Long before I ever got the chance to tour and perform with Laurie Lewis she was a hero of mine, someone I looked up to and knew would be a bluegrass legend and stalwart who could or would accept me for who I am. Turns out, often in bluegrass, it is okay to meet your heroes, because when we met and I got to work for her, it turned out I was absolutely right. Her writing style, her artistic ethos, and the way she infuses pure bluegrass energy and her personality into everything she does reminds me I can be who I am, play the music I play, and write the way I write. This song picks me up whenever I’m down and gives me self-confidence and optimism when I need it most.
Alice Gerrard & Hazel Dickens – “Mama’s Gonna Stay”
I never had the honor of meeting Hazel before she passed in 2011, but Alice Gerrard and I have become friends over the past six years and honestly, if 17-year-old Justin knew he’d become friends with this Bluegrass Hall of Famer, he’d die. We happen to share a birthday, too. Alice is a gem, a trailblazer, an unassuming and unrelenting activist and organizer and community builder. She inspires me in all of the above, but especially in her willingness, across her entire career, to write music about things no one else was writing about. This song, which Laurie Lewis turned me onto (she performs it as well), is a perfect example.
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Elizabeth Cotten – “Wilson Rag”
Playing shows and recording totally solo is often terrifying. Especially as a bluegrass banjo player used to playing in five-piece lineups. It took many years and lots and lots of practice time and experimental shows to figure out how exactly I wanted to arrange songs, build shows, create and ride a storytelling arc during my shows, guide an audience, and do all of that confidently with just a voice and banjo. Artists and pickers like Elizabeth Cotten gave me frames of reference for what I was doing that felt solidly bluegrass, but still building a show and sound that feels fully realized and not lacking for being minimal.
Missy Raines – “Where You Found Me”
Missy Raines is another hero of mine that I feel so lucky to now call a friend. Despite coming from different generations and very different circumstances we have so much in common. It just sometimes astounds me that we can have seemingly endless conversations around if bluegrass (or country or roots music) are accepting and open; meanwhile one of the winningest pickers in the history of bluegrass and the IBMA – that is, Missy Raines – has always been both accepting and open. Who needs the sexist, homophobic, womanizing, problematic elements of bluegrass when you have absolute badass legends like Missy!? I once covered this song for a “Cover Your Friends” show and it continues to devastate me to this day.
Caroline Spence – “Scale These Walls”
When I first moved to town, Caroline Spence was one of maybe four or five people I knew in all of Nashville. We spent a lot of time together in those early years, back in 2011 and 2012, and pretty soon after that we wrote a song together, “Pieces.” We both loved it a lot, performed it here and there with different lineups and bands, but it never landed on a record ‘til now. “Scale These Walls,” from Caroline’s most recent album, is constantly stuck in my head. I love how it showcases her jaw-dropping skill for writing dead-on hooks that feel so organic and never corny. I love this song.
Molly Tuttle – “Crooked Tree”
Molly Tuttle and I wrote “Benson Street,” a track off my new album, together about five or six years ago. It’s a cute little number about longing told through the lens of an idyllic Southern summer. I love every chance I get to make music or write music with Molly. She’s a constant source of inspiration for me and proof positive that you can be a proverbial crooked tree in bluegrass and still carve a pathway to success. Plus, she’s another great example of a picker who can command an entire audience totally solo. Trying to steal tricks from Molly Tuttle? Couldn’t be me.
Rhiannon Giddens – “Following the North Star”
Rhiannon Giddens is the blueprint. When I think about my artistic future and the way I want to be able to glide between media, between contexts, between areas of expertise and subject matter, between pop and roots and so many other musical communities, I think of Rhiannon. The way she has built her career around her artistic and political perspective, so that no matter what she does it feels grounded in her personality and selfhood is exactly how I want to be as an artist and creator. Plus, I always want to be as big of a music nerd and as big of an old-time nerd as her.
Maya de Vitry – “How Bad I Wanna Live”
Maya is one of those writers and musicians who just makes me feel seen and heard and understood, and I know I’m only one in a huge host of people who would say the same. The vulnerability and transparency in her writing and the emotional and spiritual availability within it are astounding. Plus, she’s almost always, constantly challenging herself to consider the ways she creates and makes music outside of consumerism and art as a commodity. I moved to Nashville to be challenged, musically and artistically, by those around me and I feel so lucky to have Maya around me and a member of my community.
Courtney Hartman – “Moontalk”
Courtney Hartman’s “Moontalk” makes me feel like every single song I’ve ever written about the moon is good and right and allowable. (We both have quite a few songs about the moon, actually.) “Moontalk” feels like Mary Oliver incarnate in bluegrass-informed picking and singing. It feels meditative and contemplative, but not timid or insular – something I’m always trying to accomplish in solo contexts. I’m constantly inspired by Courtney and the way she centers community building in her music and life. She’s another one who, though she thrives performing and making music solo, you know that music came from a multitude of folks pouring through her.
Dale Ann Bradley – “He’s the Last Thing On My Mind”
I thank a few artists who have inspired and influenced me in a huge way in 1992’s liner notes and Dale Ann Bradley is one of them. I feel like I am constantly ripping off and (poorly) mimicking her vocal runs, phrasing, licks, and delivery. I think she might have the best bluegrass voice of all time, or at least it’s very very high up on the list. When I first moved to town I worked as an intern at Compass Records and just getting to be a small part of the team that worked a handful of her records meant so much to me.
Lee Ann Womack – “Last Call”
Lee Ann Womack is another who I thank in the album’s liner notes, another who I emulate vocally as much as I can get away with. I used to wear out this track and this album, Call Me Crazy, listening on repeat over and over. When I found out this song was co-written by an openly gay songwriter, it rocked my world. I already heard so much queerness in LAW’s catalog, and this confirmation came at a time when I needed to feel like I was given permission to exist in bluegrass, country, and Nashville. I know now that no one needs that permission, but it was critical then.
Linda Ronstadt – “Adios”
During the 1992 recording session I recorded a solo banjo rendition of this song, one I’ve been performing for years at shows. It means so much to me and Linda’s performance is stunning in its power and tenderness, a combination I’m often striving for. I hope to release it some time soon as a single, then again on a deluxe vinyl edition of 1992. It will not be the last time I pay tribute to Linda and her incredible career and catalog – plus, she is a huge bluegrass fan! It just makes sense to me.
Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt – “Wildflowers”
When I had the pleasure of being a guest on the hit podcast Dolly Parton’s America, I sang this song and “Silver Dagger” among a few other from Dolly’s catalog that I felt had queer under/overtones. The response to my on-air picking was enormous, and there were immediate demands to release my versions of the songs. Cathy, Marcy and I recorded “Wildflowers” together during the 1992 sessions and it’s one of my favorite tracks that resulted from that week on the mountain. It’s gotten quite a lot of play, which I’m so grateful for, and always gives me an opportunity to talk about Trio and Dolly and how the story in “Wildflowers” parallels many a queer journey. It’s the perfect track to round out this Mixtape and I thank you for reading and listening along.
Photo credit: Laura E. Partain
Folk artist Courtney Hartman is bringing it all back home in Glade, an introspective new album that’s named for the street that runs by the eight-acre farm where she grew up in Loveland, Colorado. As a former member of the roots band Della Mae and a duet partner of Robert Ellis and Taylor Ashton, Hartman is often a willing collaborator. Yet Glade found her working primarily in isolation, living in a trailer and later a barn to rediscover the spark of songwriting.
Now married and residing in Wisconsin, Hartman tells BGS about the process of crafting these new songs, her childhood immersion in bluegrass and the experience of recharging her creativity.
BGS: When I was listening to “Bright at My Back,” the first track on Glade, I noticed the recurring phrase of “I will be returning.” That seems like a good place to start in talking about this album. Can you describe what was going on in your life as this album was starting to take shape?
Hartman: Right around that time, I was in a season just after deciding to leave New York. I had been on the East Coast for about 10 years and felt a real draw to clean the slate and make some space for new things. I didn’t know what that was yet, but I knew that I needed to take some steps and make some clearing, so I left New York and the band that I’d been in for about seven years. I moved back to Colorado to live on the property where I grew up. I still had a couple of siblings there and my dad was there. I’d been away for about 10 years.
I needed to also do a bit of a reset, musically. I needed to find some new joy or new healing in what I was playing or creating. It felt like I had lost some of that over some time. I was at a point where I was willing to let it go if it couldn’t be those things, because it didn’t feel right to keep making music or performing if it wasn’t healing in some way. In creating work, in some way, we are putting it out there and asking to be heard, right? If we didn’t put it out, we wouldn’t be asking that question. So, when I started writing this one, that was right at the cusp of that changing and slowly beginning to write again.
When you went back to Colorado, were you living in the house you grew up in?
When I first went out, my sister had spent a summer rebuilding a camper and she was going to live in it and play music. Through some unexpected circumstances, she ended up with three beautiful foster children. So, she didn’t live in the camper. I ended up moving into the camper in the yard on the property and was present for those early months with those kids. I lived in that camper for a year or so, until it got too cold, and then eventually moved into one of the barns on the property. That was a living space, but it needed a lot of work, so I worked on that for a year and a half. I was there for about three years.
What did that work entail?
Some gutting of the downstairs, and with the help of some friends, moving some beams to open up space. Pretty basic building things, but to me they were very complex because I’ve never done them. (laughs) They were very complex and slow. I think in a similar way, when I knew I needed to return to Colorado and open up some space, I didn’t know why. Similarly, with the barn, I didn’t exactly know why I was preparing that space. I just knew I needed to do that. So, I did it.
I was listening to “Bright at My Back” and “Moontalk” back-to-back, and they both have that nocturnal imagery. Were you inspired by the nighttime?
Yeah. I haven’t drawn that parallel before, but I’m remembering right when I moved back that I was outside at night a lot. I remember being so comforted by seeing the sky, because being in the city, you didn’t have that. So, that felt like a comfort of home, being able to look up and experience the stars and the moon changing. And I wasn’t traveling, so there was something about being in one place and watching slow changes happen that also felt grounding.
“Wandering,” to me, feels like a love song. What was on your mind as you were writing it?
It felt like… Oh God, this is going to sound dorky, it felt like an all-encompassing love song. I felt like I was able to accept love from my family at that point for who I was, even though I was at a low place and a very humbling place. And maybe accept love from myself. But alongside that — looking back I can see now — I had met my now-husband just weeks prior. Just a very brief meeting at a festival and we had been talking. So that certainly played in, but it wasn’t a thing at that point. It was more like a just a broader internal opening, I think.
What were some of the formative albums or artists that guided you to this point?
There was a Rounder Records compilation with Alison Krauss on the cover. I think she was probably 8 years old or so. My parents got that CD for me and a Yanni CD for me. I was 6 and I think I lost the Yanni CD pretty quickly, but I wore that other album out. It was pretty bluegrass, which was my background. Alison Krauss and Laurie Lewis were both on that. They were very influential. And as I got into that world, I think the singing of Tony Rice was a huge influence, besides his guitar playing obviously.
Did you get interested in bluegrass at some point, or was it just always there?
That was woven into me. My parents somehow got into it and I think they were really drawn into the familial piece of that community. They saw other families that were playing music together and I don’t know if they saw something there that they didn’t have in their childhood. I had grandparents who played music. My grandma played piano in the church, my other grandpa was a classical violinist. But they didn’t play much in their later years.
You know, the bluegrass festival is very friendly to the family unit, as far as places to go and places for kids to run around. My dad was just so patient. I wanted to run around and play in jams until one or two in the morning as a 12-year-old. And he would tag along with me. He was so kind and diligent in taking us to lessons. That was a lot to give. And it was something we could do together and not be off at soccer practice, or this or that, and be separate. … I grew up with nine siblings so there was a sort of limiting factor. We had to do things that we could do together, or at least the majority could do together.
As I was reading these liner notes, I saw that you are playing a lot of instruments on this record – guitar, bass, violin, and so on. Does that versatility come naturally to you?
Again, that was something that was woven in. I started on violin as my first instrument. My older sisters started playing when they were 12 and I was about 3 at the time. So, I started playing when I was 3, doing Suzuki. I played violin for a lot of years and that morphed into fiddle, then mandolin and guitar. My mom had a guitar. It wasn’t a forbidden instrument, but it wasn’t the instrument I was told to practice, so I inevitably got really into it.
There was a piano at the house, and all these strange instruments Dad would find on eBay. He loved buying instruments at auctions. One of the instruments he had around the house was a waterphone, which ended up on the record a good bit because it’s still at the house. And part of the playing a lot of things on this album is just the necessity of wanting a sound and being the only one working on it, so I had to figure out how to do it. I’m not a bass player by any means.
Did you just know the basics of the bass?
Enough. (laughs) I know when I play something, and it doesn’t work. And then it’s just finding something that does. It’s close enough to guitar, but with every new thing I was doing, it made me appreciate and value the people who do it really well. I value that in a different way now.
When you do listen to this record all the way through now, what goes through your mind?
I listened to the test pressing of the vinyl, which was last time I listened all the way through it. When I listen to it, in some ways it’s like depiction of a very specific time and season, and I’m so grateful for that. And of a place that’s very dear to me. Also, as much as it is that, I can hear all the learning that I have left to do. So, I’m content with it. I’m excited, too. It felt like carrying this thing for however many years, then setting it down. My arms are open again for whatever’s next, whatever that may be.
Photo Credit: Jo Babb
John Smith is resilient. You have to be, when you’ve spent your 15-year musical career — by choice — unsigned to a record label. When you’ve arranged every gig, every tour, every album release yourself. When you’ve invested your own money in everything you’ve done. As Smith himself puts it he’s been “planning for the worst” his entire professional life.
So when catastrophe hit a year ago, he was ready, in his words, to roll with the punches. The pandemic had already necessitated the painstaking and anxiety-inducing cancellation of all his gigs and tours. His mother was diagnosed with cancer at a time he couldn’t visit her. His wife lost a pregnancy. “It was devastating,” says Smith, from his home in North Wales. “But all you can do is try and make sense of it and the way I do that is write songs.”
The result is The Fray, an album of searing honesty and lithe beauty whose songs amplify the emotions and experiences of so many of us this year — the reassessed relationships, the self-reflection, and the ultimate search for hope. It is, perhaps, something of a change of pace for the British singer-songwriter, who describes it as his most honest album yet.
“In the past I’ve been drawn towards mythic perspective and character-based songs and more fantastical references,” he nods. “This one I just wrote about me and what I was feeling.” In doing so, he has created a work of extraordinary emotional nuance. As he puts it: “There’s lots of color and dark and light in everyday life. ‘How do I get to bed tonight without cracking up?’”
The songs are deeply tender — “She’s Doing Fine” and “One Day at a Time” are poignant responses to the grief of losing a baby — but they’re not as spare as Smith’s 2019 folk record, Hummingbird. This one is a cashmere blend of guitar, piano and horns, with eloquent contributions from friends in the US and elsewhere. Sarah Jarosz and Courtney Hartman lend their ethereal voices to “Deserving” and “Eye to Eye,” respectively. Milk Carton Kids contribute, alongside Smith’s longtime collaborator Lisa Hannigan, to the rousing title track “The Fray,” which tips the hat to the West Coast stylings of Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky, one of Smith’s favorite records.
For Smith, it was a delight to be able to sing and play with his friends, even if they couldn’t be in the same space. “I normally see Lisa, for instance, very often, and I haven’t seen her for a year. So in the absence of being backstage at the same festivals, drinking and laughing, I thought let’s all get on the same track, then it’s like we’ve all seen each other.”
It had been six months since he had played with anyone else at all. When the pandemic first began to spread, Smith was touring in Australia, about to play the Blue Mountain Festival near Sydney. “I woke up in my hotel room to a text saying that the festival had been cancelled,” says Smith. “I looked at local news reports and it was obvious everything was going to get pulled and they were shutting down the borders between Australian states — it was just time to get out of there.”
Having got himself home from literally the other side of the world, Smith undertook the soul-crushing work of cancelling all his gigs, including what would have been his first-ever headline tour in the US. “It had taken years to get to that point,” he adds, ruefully. But managing his own brand has made Smith resourceful and he quickly worked together an album of unreleased recordings (Live in Chester) and took them on a “virtual world tour,” playing dates in different time zones.
“That all went really well and after the last of those gigs, that evening, my wife started feeling really bad and we had to get her to hospital and she spent a week there. And within a few weeks of that I’d found out my mum had cancer. So suddenly everything in my life was upside down.”
New songs simply fell out of him, he says. Some came from ideas he’d worked up with others, such as the opening track, “Friends.” The chorus had been written with fellow singer-songwriter Paul Usher, before the UK went into lockdown; four months later, it found a new meaning. “When I sat down and listened back to the voice memo on my phone I started singing it and wrote all the verses in one go.”
Other songs were inspired by particular instruments. He bought a classical guitar and quickly wrote “She’s Doing Fine” on it. A ‘57 Telecaster replica he acquired — “just a piece of swamp ash with a neck on it really” — inspired a riff which stayed under his fingers for five weeks before it was followed with any words. The finished product was “Hold On.”
Britain’s strict lockdown laws, which have included stay-at-home orders with only an hour a day allowed for exercise, were partially lifted in the late summer and fall, giving Smith the opportunity to get inside a studio. He and Hummingbird producer Sam Lakeman both isolated ahead of the session, and so were able to work together freely and without masks. The other musicians, too, self-quarantined before they arrived: “We didn’t have anyone involved we didn’t trust completely,” he says.
Smith laid down his own tracks in the first couple of days — the bare bones of guitar and vocals — so that the sound could build organically with each additional contribution. “Since recording all together live logistically wasn’t possible, I had to take a slightly different route,” he says. “We went with a lot of first takes and kept a few mistakes in there and tried to allow it to breathe spontaneously and didn’t overthink it… I’ve been guilty of that in the past.”
There’s a lovely moment at the end of “Friends,” as the song finishes and is punctuated with a little applause. It feels, for just a brief moment, like you’re in the room with the band. Smith laughs and explains its origins: “I’d put down the vocal take and it sounded so good in the headphones I just started clapping. And Sam shot me a look as if to say: ‘You know we’re going to have to do that again now.’” But it was such a joyful and spontaneous sound, they decided instead to ask the other musicians to clap at the end of their takes, too.
The other contributions — from Hannigan, Jarosz, et al. — were recorded at their homes and sent in digitally (“You can catch a lot of horrible stuff over email,” smiles Smith, “but not COVID”). They include electric guitar from Bill Frisell, one of Smith’s heroes, whom he approached via their mutual friend, Joe Henry. It is clear, from Smith’s tone, that having Frisell play on “Best of Me” is one of the best things to have happened to him in a very long time.
The future remains as uncertain as ever. “I’ve just moved some gigs for the third time,” says Smith. “It’s going to be a while before I’m going out and physically playing these songs.” It’s typical, he says, with good humour — he’d lined up some great venues to play in, and with the social distancing requirements significantly reducing their capacity, he would even have been able to say he had sold them out.
But Smith is not one to dwell on what-might-have-beens. Instead, he’ll be launching The Fray with a collection of livestreamed gigs, knowing that they have proved successful for him before. He has been reading a lot, recently, into business and economics and financial strategies – as he very sensibly observes, “it’s important for any musician to understand how money works because there’s going to be less of it going around.”
Smith has always been one to live the simple life, and with full lockdown resumed in Britain since the start of 2021, there has been ample opportunity to do so. There is no doubt that The Fray’s themes of getting by in the day-to-day will resonate broadly. After all, never before have so many humans experienced such similar circumstances all at the same time. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” says Smith.
Photos by: Elly Lucas
Sara Watkins is up to something — or at least, there’s a pretty good chance she’s up to something. The singer/songwriter and fiddler first found international recognition with Nickel Creek, but these days she stays busy with a rotating lineup of other creative outlets, from her solo work (three albums and counting) to her harmony-singing supergroup, I’m With Her. Oh, and then there’s the raucous Watkins Family Hour, an act with her brother, Sean, that holds regular residencies at LA’s Largo with a delightfully irregular cast of collaborators liable to join them.
This time, though, they wanted to focus on the core of the group. Their new album, brother sister, marks the first time that the siblings have sat down to write together. “We were both in a place where we wanted to focus on the potential of the Family Hour in a different way, a totally new approach than what we’d done before,” says Sara. “Apart from a few shows every year, we had never really focused on just us — particularly in writing.”
BGS caught up with Sean and Sara individually to hear more about how brother sister came together. Read the interview with Sara below, and take a look at Sean’s interview from earlier this week.
BGS: This is your first album as Watkins Family Hour in five years. What made you decide to prioritize this particular project again?
Sara Watkins: The first record that we did was sort of an accident. We made it when our friend offered us some free studio time, just to document what we’d been doing for a while. That record was very natural arrangements to songs that we’d been playing for a long time, cover songs. It was about a year and a half ago when we started talking about doing this record. We were catching up on what we’d each been up to, and as we were talking — I don’t remember who suggested it first — it became clear that we were both really interested in digging into the potential of the Family Hour, but focusing on the core element that’s always been there, which is my brother and me. This record is the first example of our collaboration as co-writers outside of a band format. Maybe as a reaction to the first Family Hour album, but also as a reaction to being in the projects that we’ve been a part of, we wanted to really focus on the potential of this combination.
Is there something specific about writing with a sibling that is either a positive that can’t be replicated, or an obstacle you don’t face with other people?
I think that any time you can be completely honest or you communicate well, it plays to your advantage. I don’t know if it’s sibling-related. For the first twenty-seven years of my life, which was the first twenty years of my musical existence, we shared our musical experience pretty closely. Sean and I have the advantage of a shared foundation — a shared musical foundation, a shared personal foundation — but I think at this point in our lives, what made writing together intriguing is actually how much time we’ve spent apart.
Instrumental tracks are rarely the ones held up as singles or played on the radio, but they’re a huge part of the bluegrass tradition — and something you and Sean do really well. In the writing and recording process, where do you begin in expressing a feeling without lyrics?
Playing instrumentals scratches a specific itch for me. It’s less guaranteed [with an instrumental song] that someone’s gonna get the gist of what you’re saying, but I don’t know that that matters. Even with lyrics, Sean and I have found that we get different things out of the same song — more cynical for him and more optimistic for me, or vice versa. People might hear a lyric completely differently, and that doesn’t make it a failure of expression. Maybe that’s a success.
When I listen to instrumentals, I really enjoy things that I can grab hold of. I enjoy a melody or a hook that comes back around. And I enjoy feeling like I’m along for the ride as a listener: that the person who’s playing is taking me with them. Sometimes you can sense, when someone’s soloing, that they’re also along for the ride — that maybe they don’t know where it’s going. I think a lot of us get that from like a Dave Rawlings solo. That’s really exciting.
So I think that’s the goal, for me: to take the listener, give them enough to hold onto, and invite them along for the ride. When we’re writing an instrumental, we want to try and take somebody’s hand and bring them with us. Otherwise, they’re just listening to a flurry of notes.
The melody and cadence on “Fake Badge, Real Gun” could be just as at home in a pop song. What were you going for when you sat down to record?
Sean has a real knack for melodies that have a pop sensibility. He has a really great way of blending and marrying that with the foundation and the scope of his bluegrass background. I think he’s uniquely good at that. This song is really hard to sing. [Laughs] It’s probably the most challenging song that I sing. Because of where the melody goes in my register, I’m always just singing it with my fingers crossed.
We were consciously trying to satisfy what the song wanted, which was percussion and some low end, but we wanted to give that to the song in a way that didn’t make it feel detached from the record. We kept the drums tight and to one side, and gave it bass that wasn’t too percussive. Then, when we recorded some of the other songs on the record that are much quieter — like the Warren Zevon song, “Accidentally Like a Martyr” — we recorded to tape, and Clay [Blair], who was our mix engineer, hit the take really hard. That means there’s some distortion on the tape, but it gives it a presence that I think matches the intensity of the songs that have a bigger instrumentation.
“Neighborhood Name,” a song about gentrification by Courtney Hartman and Taylor Ashton, is a newer number that you decided to cover on this album. What drew you to it?
It speaks to what a lot of people are aware of and sensitive to right now, as the world is changing and neighborhoods are changing. Some of us don’t know what our place is in that and others are being pretty directly affected. It’s also something that has happened for generations. This song doesn’t put an ethical stamp on it, to my ear, as much as it just speaks to the relatability of the sadness of being displaced. In addition to that, it speaks to the question of wondering if anybody’s gonna remember you — if you made a mark at all. And that’s something that’s always relatable, to everyone.
The song I’ve listened to the most is “The Cure.” What does that song mean to you, specifically the phrase “I avoided the cure, but it found me anyway”? Does it have any special meaning?
Life has a way of being persistent in the lessons that you need to learn. We might procrastinate on things that we know are going to be valuable for us or to start things that might be beneficial. Life pokes and prods in a way that often will bring you to those places, whether you like it or not. It’s a funny thing that a lot of us are so reluctant to do the thing that we know is going to bring us the outcome we’re looking for. It’s a strange but calming phenomenon that I think a lot of us can relate to.
Absolutely. It’s kind of a hopeful message. What’s one thing that has made you feel hopeful recently?
That’s a hard question, not because I’m devoid of hope, but because you could be so pessimistic in so many ways: The resilience of nature gives me hope, but we’re also being so mean to nature, and maybe it’s not going to be resilient forever. One thing that I have been enjoying is a lot of family time lately. I think digging into relationships and feeling the invaluable place that relationships should have in our lives, remembering that, feeling attached to that in a new way has made me hopeful. I feel that there are a lot of people realizing that again, and I think that’s really good for the world.
(Read our interview with Sean Watkins here.)
Photo credit: Jacob Boll
The decade-plus since the conclusion of his era-shifting band BR549 have been a case study in creative evolution for Chuck Mead.
LISTEN: APPLE MUSIC
He’s still a stalwart of classic country music and an original songwriter, but he’s found new ways to express his expertise. Most significantly has been supervising the music for the Tony Award-winning musical The Million Dollar Quartet and the CMT series Sun Records. Those deep dives into Memphis music culture led to his most recent album Close To Home, which was made at Sam Phillips Recording. Also in the hour, the fresh new direction of songwriter/guitarist Courtney Hartman. Her life after string band Della Mae has been introspective and exploratory, culminating in a 500-mile pilgrimage in Spain and a solo debut album, Ready Reckoner.
Building community is part of what music, and all good art, does. It brings us together. Music is a common rhythm, a poetic notion, an underlying common language for us all. A good mixtape grabs hold of that commonality and builds on it, with a few surprises along the way. As a band, The Steel Wheels curate a music festival each year, and a mixtape, or playlist, is kind of the digital version of that venture. So, let’s stop talking about it, and start building community with a PERFECT mix. – Trent Wagler, The Steel Wheels
Fruit Bats* – “Humbug Mountain Song”
Let’s start with a groove anyone can get behind. It’s accessible for the pop music lovers who wandered into this gathering — they didn’t know they liked the banjo at all until the second half of this intro kicks in. But now they’re engaged. And why can’t the piano, banjo, and drums live together in harmony? Stop closing your mind.
Kristin Andreassen* – “Get Together”
A good mixtape needs to establish that everyone is included. Loading things up with all your favorite new and rare songs isn’t always inviting. A cover song is common language at the very best. A little freshening up of a classic song will get us all swaying together in time. And what better theme than coming together? Now we’ve got everyone in the room in tune and we can introduce more variance in the mix.
The Wood Brothers* – “Sing About It”
The foundation of community is the strength we have together. Nothing better exemplifies this than the tight grooves and sweet harmonies of the Wood Brothers. And their message here is spot on. No matter where we are in our journey of pain, loss, trouble, or fear, singing a song just might help it pass.
Kaia Kater* – “New Colossus”
Now that we’re all in this, let’s tie the knots tighter. This song is like a sweet honey that helps stick us tightly. The way the melody veers and twists through literary verses encourages your conversations to dig a little deeper.
Jerry Garcia & David Grisman – “Russian Lullaby”
I think it’s more than nostalgia that brings me back to these late Garcia recordings, when he teamed up with longtime friend and musical pioneer David Grisman. The loose nature of these recordings makes you want to sit crisscross applesauce and share most embarrassing moments with a new acquaintance. If the ice wasn’t broken earlier, Jerry will rockabye you, baby. Collaborations are community building at their core.
River Whyless* – “All of My Friends”
Now that we’re all floating together in a musical high, don’t pull away. Leave the phones in your pocket. Let’s be here together fully. River Whyless is a band that simultaneously indicts and playfully dances with the information-overwhelmed age we live in.
Cedric Burnside* – “Hard To Stay Cool”
What is more true blue than these dyed in the wool Burnside family blues. Cedric Burnside’s whole album is full of these tasty grooves. It’s not hard for him to stay cool.
Tim O’Brien* & Darrell Scott – “With a Memory Like Mine”
Here’s another one of my favorite collaborations. The album Real Time by Tim and Darrell has had such a musical impact on me. To hear two great songwriters, who sing and play any instrument they pick up with such mastery, is humbling and inspiring.
Bahamas – “No Wrong”
I’m obsessed with Bahamas’ music right now. The guitar, the groove, and the vocals. The presence of this recording is also so immediate and direct. When you’re among your people, it feels like you can do no wrong.
The Steel Wheels* – “Road Never Ends”
I couldn’t help but include one from our new record. The love and joy of the road is bittersweet. This song puts words to the difficulties of transience while acknowledging the beauty of the strange kind of mobile community it creates.
Ana Egge – “Rock Me (Divine Mother)”
There are few songwriters who tap into deep spiritual depths without cliché like Ana Egge. She’s a treasure. And this song has slayed me every single time I’ve ever heard it.
Tinariwen – “Imidiwan Win Sahara” (feat. Tunde Adebimpe)
All music conjures up a sense of place. Tinariwen was introduced to me by our drummer, Kevin Garcia, and I’ve regularly wanted to go to where their sound takes me. As a songwriter and specifically a lyricist, it’s helpful to reset your listening ear and turn off the language centers of your brain by listening to music with lyrical content in a language you do not speak.
Dr. Dog – “Listening In”
A good mixtape has some curveballs. Dr. Dog has been a sonic companion for me since I first saw them live 10 years ago at Bristol Rhythm and Roots. The lyrical tapestry is so full and always connects through some kind of thought-lightning striking through your brain. I love the line, “I can hear the fear in me…talking.”
David Wax Museum – “Time Will Not Track Us Down”
We’re getting towards the end of our little mixtape. Like the Sunday afternoon lazy picnic, we are starting to wind it all down. David Wax is known for his high energy original Latin-inspired masterpieces, but this simple paired down guitar/vocal really calms my spirit and prepares us to part.
Robert Ellis & Courtney Hartman* – “Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie”
One more cover song for good measure. Let’s celebrate the most wacky and wonderful souls among us, and let’s boogie like John Hartford.
Josh Ritter – “Homecoming”
Remember that curating music for your gathering is a privilege. You are setting the sonic table for everyone in your presence. It’s also a responsibility. Everyone wants to feel at home at the end of the day. Everyone wants be at their best and be reminded that they are capable of their best. Music replenishes the various ways daily life drags us down. A mixtape is a good refuge and stand-in for when music festival season is slow.
Photo credit: Josh Saul
*2019 Red Wing performers. Red Wing Roots Music Festival takes place in Mt. Solon, Virginia, on July 12-14, and is hosted by The Steel Wheels
Courtney Hartman told only a few people about her plans. She bought a transatlantic plane ticket, packed a small bag of clothes, and flew to Spain to hike the Camino de Santiago. It’s a 500-mile hike along old pilgrimage routes in rural Spain, an arduous journey that often prompts a spiritual journey. During that 40-day trek she would step off the trail, pull out her specially-made, travel-ready guitar, and sing a few bars into her phone. Eventually those voice memos — those notes to herself, journal entries chronicling her trip — coalesced into songs that ended up on her solo debut, Ready Reckoner.
It is not, however, an album about walking or wanderlust. Rather, it’s about motion: the physical movement that propels oneself along a path, but also the spiritual motion it takes to gain a deeper understand of your place in the world — in particular, your place in the world as an artist. Drawing from the music she made as a member of Della Mae, Ready Reckoner forays into new territory: folk and pop, of course, but also jazz, avant garde composition, drones, even musique concrète. It’s often dark but just as often hopeful, as Hartman traces the both subtle and sublime changes that she is still going through.
BGS: What took you to Spain?
Hartman: I think anybody that I met on the trail had a similar story. There was something that started popping up on their radar[s] over and over until they couldn’t ignore it anymore. That’s what happened with me. I had friends who had gone over there and I was listening to several albums that were influenced by that region of Spain.
Also, two of my writing heroes are Anne Lamott and Mary Oliver. While I was teaching writing at different summer camps, I would talk about how they talk about writing and walking. In the books they’ve written, they talk about how good it is to go out and walk. That would be my assignment to students: Go take a walk in the woods and do some writing.
At one point I realized that I was giving this assignment, but I’d never done it myself. I wanted to know if that was something I could do, if that was a way of creating that would resonate with me. And then a cheap flight to Spain popped up and I bought. I had 24 hours to cancel and I didn’t. So I went!
How did you prepare musically and creatively for such a trip?
I called Dana Bourgeois, who has built a number of guitars for me. I said, Dana, I’m doing this thing and I haven’t told anybody. What do you think would be the sturdiest, most lightweight, best-sounding guitar I could take? And he said, well, what if we build you something? So they did. They weighed out every single component of the guitar and then I had somebody build a guitar sling for me. And then I walked and I wrote. I took me forty days. There’s something about the repetition and the movement, let alone being out in the open.
What did you learn from that experience?
I learned so much, but one of the things that kept occurring to me is that you’re carrying the weight of your belongings with you every day. It didn’t matter if I wrote anything or played anything that day. I still had to carry the weight. There was a point when someone helped me go through my bag and decide what was necessary.
You think you’ve really narrowed it down, and then you’re like, okay, I guess I’ll get rid of this extra layer of clothes. But every night I would think, no I need this or I need that. I need this because I’m afraid of what might happen without it. So I learned that our needs and fears are linked. But I didn’t need that extra layer of clothes, even though I thought I did. When that snow came — that’s what I was afraid of — I made it through.
Did that change your perspective on music?
I want to say that I need to be writing songs or I need to be making music, that they’re my life source. But I don’t need to write or play. Those are extra gifts. I would survive without them. I don’t want to. Don’t ask me to. But I think letting go allowed me to hold them a little more loosely or with a bit more gentleness, instead of clinging to them or gripping them too tightly.
Often, writing meant stepping away from the trail. It meant taking my guitar down or taking my pen out or singing voice memos. I have hours and hours of endless mumbling. You step away from the people you’re walking with, and you might not see them again for a few days or even a week. Or maybe never again. It’s very much like life that way.
That experience seems to inform this album in ways that are very explicit. Even just the sound of footfalls on “Too Much.”
About half the album came directly from songs I wrote on the trail. But it’s not a walking record. It’s just a shot of where I’ve been the last year. I worked on it while I was staying in a little wagon in Oregon for a couple of days, just trying to finish putting together takes and sequences. I would walk and listen. But the album pretty evenly spread out between songs I wrote before, during and after walking. The first track I wrote was “January First,” and I wrote all the other songs later that year. I don’t know that it always works that way.
Tell me about the album title. Why did those words resonate with you?
I was obsessed with the word reckon. I was reckoning with myself and my work, reckoning with the relationship to the music I was making, reckoning with whether I should even be doing it at all. That word felt like it had a lot of motion, so I looked it up and found that a ready reckoner was at one point the name of a hard-copy calculator. A merchant might have a ready reckoner, which is essentially a book of tables. I found one from 1905 for sale and ordered it on Amazon, as you do. I keep it in my guitar case. It’s this tiny, beautiful book with all these weird calculations for things. I felt like these songs were trying to calculate something, trying to get to a formula or an equation.
There was some trepidation on your part about recording this record and taking on the role of co-producer. How did you reckon with that?
Shahzad Ismaily, my co-producer, could have easily taken the wheel and produced this record himself, and I think I would have felt good about that. But he believed very strongly that that was not his role. He wanted mostly to be engineering. He was pushing me to make the decisions that needed to be made and to listen more deeply. Just by stepping away he became a guiding hand. I didn’t want to be producing this record but I’m grateful that he was able to ease me into that place.
And I realized that I really love it. It’s such a different space. I’ve produced one other record for a band since then, and I want to do more. There aren’t a lot of women in that role. The studio can be a very intimidating place for women who are trying to explore and learn and admit what often feel like deficiencies, but if I’m able to do that in the future, I hope I can make that space feel comfortable and gracious and open.
I remember I was so afraid to record this album, so when I went into the studio the first day, I was reading through some of my walking journals. I opened the first page, and I was writing about feeling terrified. It was the same feeling I had about going into the studio, but it’s exactly what I needed to hear at that moment. We learn the exact thing in so many ways over and over. Or we don’t learn it at all. Maybe that’s the thing. Maybe I didn’t learn anything.
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
Artist: Courtney Hartman & Taylor Ashton
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Better”
Album: Been on Your Side
Release Date: August 31, 2018
Label: Free Dirt Records
In Their Words: “Courtney and I and about 25 other songwriter friends around the world had an email thread going last year where we had a weekly deadline to send in a new song, as an exercise in mutual encouragement to keep in the practice of writing. One week I forgot about it until 1 a.m. on the night of the deadline, and even though I had a gig at 9 a.m. the next morning, I spent a couple hours with my banjo and “Better” came to me. It took a second to arrive at the first line and the rest all sort of fell into place. At some times in my life I’ve been attracted to the idea that you can’t force inspiration, and that it chooses when to strike. But this is an example of a time where if I hadn’t been holding myself to some arbitrary deadline I would definitely have just fallen asleep and never written this song.
The voice in the song is sort of an amalgam of myself and of a lot of people in my life so it feels good to sing it with Courtney — it brings it into a cool middle ground for me, between a specific personal sentiment and a more universal one. And to me it feels good to sing about your personal flaws in harmony with somebody else. I think the chorus is something we all want to cry out at certain times in our lives.” — Taylor Ashton
Photo credit: Shervin Lainez
There’s a strangely specific conversation that takes place between two guitars. Long-time friends Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman know the very kind. They’ve been playing music together for some time now, but they partnered in a new way when they set about to record a selection of folk singer John Hartford’s songs for their collaborative tribute album, Dear John. The musicians — solo artists in their own respect (with Hartman also playing in Americana group Della Mae) — paired their guitars, as well as their voices for a harmonically infused update on Hartford’s work, both known and obscure.
While their voices ebb and flow like the river that runs central to Hartford’s songwriting, it’s their stunning guitar work that elevates the 10-track LP into a conversation within a conversation. The slow, building guitars of “Delta Queen Waltz” trickle like a stream, widening at the first verse’s start to allow Ellis’s and Hartman’s voices space to enter. Then, of course, there’s their take on one of Hartford’s most famous songs, “Gentle on My Mind.” As the song winds down, their guitars spend nearly two minutes in a tête-à-tête that is as evocative as their harmonies at the beginning. Dear John is a winsome nod to the “weird” writing of Hartford told not through his traditional banjo and fiddle, but two very talkative, beguiling guitars.
What was it about this opportunity to sing together that felt so enticing?
Robert Ellis: We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve been taking every opportunity to play together ever since we met. I think the tour and the record are products of that vibe of enjoying each other’s company.
Courtney Hartman: Exactly. And, actually, the record had been made before we toured.
What about Hartford’s songwriting feels modern or timeless to you, and how do you feel his subject matter still resonating?
CH: John Hartford writes really specifically and really poignantly, and I think those lyrics will always feel timeless. He would also write some really specific cultural or political or environmental songs, and I think they’re still very relevant today.
RE: Yeah, I think that’s a strength of his style. I was explaining to a student the other day — we were talking about writing — I think, when we’re young, all of our instinct as writers is to want to be profound, to search for this way to say something meaningful that no one has said, or just say something in this unique or profound way. I think, as we get older, we figure out that the most profundity there is in the universe is in the little details of, you know, ironing your shirt or the weird interaction you had with a lover at a coffee shop. There’s something about the very specific narrative nature of that tradition that makes these profound things happen. I think, for John Hartford’s stuff, they’re specific ideas about a specific thing happening, and that says something about this much larger, more important thing.
Speaking about his political songs, “Old Time River Man” comes to mind because I couldn’t help drawing parallels to, let’s say, “Peg and Awl,” and the plight of the laborer. Even that feels relevant still.
CH: I think his songs about interactions, people’s interactions, are imminently relatable, and I think it’s the same specific details that he gives that make you go, “Oh, I know that feeling.” Those are still and always will be relevant.
He once described his compositions as “weird songs.” Where do you see them fitting in the greater tradition of folk?
RE: Especially in the context of the world he was in, he’s very weird. I guess everyone’s odd in some way, but he definitely embraced his eccentricities. Rather than shy away from something that’s really nuanced and John Hartford-y, he would embrace it. “Down on the River,” from an arrangement perspective, you have these weird, old-time fiddle lines, and it sounds like he overdubbed 20 tracks of them. It’s a huge section of fiddles. His instinct was to really be himself regardless of the context. I think that’s what drew both of us to him.
As far as themes, one thing I really like about his meaning and motive for writing songs is that he’s really careful to highlight beauty in the world rather than to call out specific things. You catch more flies with honey. Instead of going out and saying, “This is messed up! This is messed up!” he really shows someone how poignant a day of labor can be. A song like “Tall Building,” it’s not necessarily about how the city sucks. There’s this depth to everything he’s saying that’s much more fair and real-life to me, it’s not so preachy.
CH: I don’t know if he would have said it was protest songwriting.
Not exclusively, but I do think protest comes up in a rather sneaky way.
CH: Mmhmm, and I think it comes with a sense of tenderness.
RE: Exactly. It’s not that he’s softer; I just think he’s more honest. Life is this really nuanced, gray area most of the time, and I think songwriting has a bad habit of not allowing that. Instead of being the gray, uncomfortable feeling we all feel, songwriting tries to be very pointed and very one-sided. Writers like Hartford were comfortable being nuanced.
CH: And he wasn’t afraid to use humor and just be a weirdo in the way that he wrote. His ability to make people dance and his deep rhythmic groove and integrity … when people are dancing, you can’t help but listen to what someone’s playing, so songs like “Up on the Hill Where They Do the Boogie,” who knows what that’s about really. I think there are a lot of things that song can be about. Part of the gift of getting to play it for generations is to go, “Oh, maybe it’s about this. Maybe it’s about the hippies on the hill. Maybe it’s about the White House.”
RE: We were playing it the other day, and I thought, “Oh, maybe it’s about Capitol Hill, and you were like, ‘Well, yeah.’”
CH: I was like, “Duh.”
RE: That had never occurred to me. I had never heard it that way.
CH: The whole time I’m like, “This is such a political song.”
Hartford brought together banjo and fiddle for his compositions, whereas you’ve partnered your two guitars. How did you want to cultivate that particular sound while paying homage to Hartford?
CH: My first introduction to learning Hartford material was his fiddle tunes. I think one of the strongest components of his songs is to shape melodies, and to write really memorable melodies. Coming from playing fiddle tunes on guitar was a bonding place for both Robert and me, when we both came to this material. The first tune we learned together was “Delta Queen Waltz.” We thought it sounded really good; we had a lot of fun playing it.
RE: A lot of it, for me at least, was really intuitive.
It does seem that way watching you two play, but that makes sense, if it’s born of this friendship.
CH: We had two days to rehearse this material, but rehearse meant play it over and over again and learn it, and then we had two days to record, so it was all done in four days. We kept being like, “Dang, this is pretty easy,” because we both had similar instincts, so we didn’t have to talk about nuanced arrangement parts of dynamic because there was a deeper level of understanding, musically.
RE: It was really easy. All of it’s been really easy.
It’s nice when it works out that way. This is a weird question, I admit, but besides sounding beautiful, what did you hope your harmonies would achieve?
RE: I think there’s definitely a tension in the harmony thing that we’re doing on this record; I think we went for more of a conversation within the harmony itself because we are doing this thing as a duo. I don’t know. This is all subconscious. I think when musicians do interviews, a lot of the time they do things because it feels right and they do them naturally.
Right, and then they’re asked to think about them more critically.
RE: And then they have these grandiose explanations as to why. The harmony is having a conversation while the two of us are having a conversation, and I think it accidentally — in a good way — reinforces the lyrics of a song. If it’s a love song, then the harmony tends to be really sweet and beautiful and then, if it’s a song about tension in a relationship, we kind of leaned on dark harmony. I think it’s entirely natural that it happened that way. A lot of it is taking cues from the writing. Hartford already did a lot of the work in the writing.
