Tag: deep dive

Dig Into Bonny Light Horseman’s Striking Discography

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Bonny Light Horseman is an indie/folk supergroup that formed in 2018 at the Eaux Claires Music & Arts festival in Wisconsin. Composed of Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown), Josh Kaufman (Bob Weir, Josh Ritter, The National), and Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats), together the band has released two full-length albums. On June 7, their new double album Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free expanded their studio album catalog by 100%.

Their first self-titled release, from 2020, features the band’s takes on traditional folk songs; the second, 2022’s Rolling Golden Holy, is a fully original body of work. Their music is tranquil, gorgeous, and breath-taking and their powerful blend of voices is just as striking. The trio bring a new light to the beauty of folk music, and truly makes each song their own.

To celebrate the new project, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, we’ve handpicked a few favorite tracks from their past releases – together and separately – to highlight their musicianship, collaboration, and exactly why nearly everyone calls them a supergroup.

“Bonny Light Horseman” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman (2020)

The title track off their first album and namesake of their band, it’s a heart-breaking ballad about a love lost to war that was found in the Roud Folk Index (#1185). The group’s arrangement features a low-tuned guitar and subtle textures of harmonica and saxophone which carry Anaïs’ and Eric’s transporting vocals.

“Deep in Love” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The second song off the band’s debut album is simply illuminating – it feels like a gust of wind on a warm day. Listening to Eric sing, you can hear vocal influences from Joni Mitchell in his jumps and leaps. It has a very freeing feel to it and breathes beautifully.

“The Roving” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The third track on Bonny Light Horseman also demands inclusion. It’s a song about the singer’s heartache over “Annie,” a woman who once said she would marry them, but over time fell out of love with the singer. The melody is subtle and sweeps the listener into a setting of tranquility. In the arrangement, the band switches between a single, double, and quadruple chorus which is a very sweet and simple way to convey the story to the listener.

“Jane Jane” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

“Jane Jane” was first recorded in 1939 by Lila May Stevens. This arrangement combines Stevens’ lyric with the African American spiritual and gospel classic, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Bonny Light’s rendition is simply breathtaking; Johnson and Mitchell switch voices between the major and minor sections of the song, creating a raw and haunting sound.

“Bright Morning Stars” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The penultimate song off Bonny Light Horseman is a traditional Appalachian spiritual originally documented by Alan Lomax. This song holds the essence of a church choir belting for their audience and it’s one of the more simple songs on the album, in terms of arrangement. Having only three voices and a piano allows listeners to hear their trading voices on each verse and then the bright light of togetherness on the choruses.

“Gone by Fall” – Bonny Light Horseman, Rolling Golden Holy (2022)

“Gone by Fall” sits directly in the middle of Bonny Light Horseman’s second album, Rolling Golden Holy. Depicting a summer romance, it’s reminiscent of a 1960s folk song you might have heard on the radio during the folk revival. Yet, in listening to it, a veil is seemingly lifted and you can hear it’s an entirely fresh take on such a classic sound. Their voices, which blend so beautifully together, and the crystal clear guitar lines throughout add in the sweetness of a summertime love.

“Someone to Weep for Me” – Bonny Light Horseman, Rolling Golden Holy

Next up is “Someone to Weep for Me,” a song depicting a person going through life craving someone to care for them, but never finding that person. The driving force of the track is the mandolin’s beautiful rolling pattern, a genius touch that’s present throughout the song and adds a sense of stability and a unique texture. Another stroke of genius comes at about 1:40 in, when the electric guitar comes in wailing, bringing the song into a “jam” with Anaïs singing a little line over it. This is such an unexpected vibe change and at the same time it fits so incredibly well.

“Greenland Fishery” – Bonny Light Horseman, Green/Green (2020)

Off the band’s two-track EP release Green/Green comes “Greenland Fishery,” a reimagined traditional sailor song. Bonny Light’s version certainly allows you to float away. The clawhammer banjo throughout is lovely and it’s such a treat as a showcase instrument – it isn’t emphasized often throughout the band’s catalog. It’s also very sweet to hear the second part of the chorus as it echoes the chorus of “Bonny Light Horseman” in such a gorgeous, reminiscent way.

“Willie’s Lady (Child 6)” – Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer, Child Ballads (2013)

Delving into some of the band members’ other projects, we come to Child Ballads, an album of duets from Mitchell and collaborator Jefferson Hamer. The project reimagines seven songs from a 19th century folk song collection “The Child Ballads” collected by Francis James Child. “Willie’s Lady (Child 6)” tells the story of King Willie, who marries a woman his mother despises and, in turn, his mother curses the wife. The guitars on the track have such a strong, driving force, excitedly pushing the song while one holds down the rhythm and the other crosspicks during the instrumental sections. Anaïs and Jefferson use their guitars in a way that perfectly compliments the vocal work in the song; it’s sung entirely in duet, the two voices deepening the texture of the music.

“Cazadera” – Fruit Bats, Gold Past Life (2019)

Fruit Bats is Eric D. Johnson’s indie-rock band that he’s fronted since 1997. Off their seventh album, Gold Past Life, “Cazadera” is one of the grooviest songs around. About a person searching for meaning in life and finding it in love, it’s the kind of track that would help paint your surroundings on a joyful walk. It has a great sense of hope and beauty to it and the chill verses coupled with sharp choruses bring energy and excitement.

“Loser’s L-A-M-E-N-T” – Rocketship Park, Off and Away (2008)

Going all the way back to 2008 for a selection from Josh Kaufman’s band, Rocketship Park, a pop-folky project with the intention to play Josh’s original material. The song “Loser’s L-A-M-E-N-T” is off the group’s first album, Off and Away, and immediately displays a very mellow vibe. Jazzy little piano licks come together with electric guitar and pedal steel, creating a western-folk sound. You can truly hear how each instrument is talking to the others and how they all fit together in telling the story.

“When I Was Younger” – Bonny Light Horseman, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free (2024)

From the group’s just-released double album comes “When I Was Younger,” which has a sound unlike most of their other music. Combining styles from artists like the Grateful Dead and Billy Joel, the intro riff sounds like it pulls some from the former, yet, once the verse starts, it sounds immediately like the latter – a kind of “Vienna” feeling.

It goes right back into the psychedelic riff before switching voices from Anaïs to Eric, again back to the Billy Joel vibe. The guitar and vocal solo following this verse are so rock and roll, gritty and not at all sparkly like the verses prior. “When I Was Younger” does an incredible job blending musical styles. It’s an absolutely astonishing piece of music, using such few words yet conveying such a strong and vivid story.

(Editor’s Note: Read Bonny Light Horseman In Conversation – With Each Other here.)

Photo courtesy of Chromatic PR. 

Deeper Well Deep Dive

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Editor’s Note: To celebrate the release of Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well, we invited TikTok star, actor, creator, and musician Andi Marie Tillman to guide us on an apropos album ‘Deeper’ dive. Watch her video commentary or enjoy the written version of her thoughts and reactions to the stunning new record below.

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Let’s go on a ride, shall we? I’m about to listen to the Kacey Musgraves album, Deeper Well. I’m hoping that we go so far down this well that we’re gonna get to Wonderland. Let’s see…

“Cardinal”

‘70s all the way!

Okay, right there, Crosby, Stills, & Nash, 100%. All the influences there – the harmonies, the double melody. Even the way it’s mixed, where all the voices kind of sit in that same space.

I love that. That feels so much like “Wooden Ships” in that Crosby, Stills, & Nash era. Such a fresh spin on it, though.

What’s that professional baseball team, the Cardinals? Ain’t there a professional baseball team that’s the Cardinals? Maybe they ought to make this their theme song. Really, this is the way to get chicks into baseball again. I like to think of us all in the Kate Bush “Wuthering Heights” red dress out on the field.

“Deeper Well” 

Now let’s go to the title track, “Deeper Well.”

Love that strumming. I like that sweet refrain. I think that it travels well into the next verse. It seems to set out what the album’s intention is.

It does feel like this title track here, she is trying to communicate, “Hey, I’ve matured. I ain’t all about just the drugs. I ain’t all about getting high and having a good time.”

“Too Good to be True”

Now, shut up if that ain’t a Joni Mitchell little guitar intro right there! That’s like “Little Green” right there, a hundred percent. That’s like a “Ladies of the Canyon” kind of intro. Even the mix!

Now, that to me is quintessential country. When you got a clever line in there, that wordplay. “Be good to me, I’ll be good to you. But please don’t be too good to be true.”

That, to me, is like old school ladies of country, when they’re talking about love, but they’re like, “I’m going to be clever about it. I’m going to pull a Jane Austen on you.”

That right there is a Kacey Musgraves moment. That right there screamed Kacey to me. I almost said “scrumpt.” [Laughs] “Scrampt.” My Appalachian really came out there! But that right there is a Kacey moment, when the drum drops in that second verse. That was huge for Golden Hour. I remember “Slow Burn,” that was huge for “Slow Burn.” You know, she had that open chord and then the drum came in on the second verse. I know a lot of people do that, but it really felt like a Kacey move there. And it feels good too.

Love that harmony there. A lot of those harmonies remind me of Shania’s Come On Over. I don’t know who the guy is that did the background vocals for that, but the “Still the one / still the one I run to / one that I belong to…” the harmony in that is so freaking good. Go back and listen to it, but the harmonies here are tight.

This album makes me want to go buy a lamp. And move into a new house. Like it’s making me want to uproot my whole life and tell my husband we’re moving. We’re moving to California.

“Moving Out”

So something a little bit more straightforward, here. I am expecting a good story, because the instrumentation is kind of simple.

Oh, that hurts me! Okay. So autumn’s moving in and we’re moving out. As you see that, it’s almost like you can feel the transition of the season and she’s got all these vignettes of a marriage, like the resolution of a marriage, the eventual fading away of this relationship. That’s really, really pretty.

I even like how that little guitar whines at the end, an echoing of the haunting.

Kacey! That was campy as shit! Okay, so she even had a little sound effect for “it might be haunted” and you can kind of hear the ghostly echoes in the background. I love a campy moment! Good for you!

Anyone who’s been in a breakup can feel this one. Anyone who’s ever lived with somebody and had to say goodbye knows that that is so painful when you’ve intertwined lives with them. And then you do start to play that back. With every room that you clear out, it’s like you go through each room and your ghosts dance in front of you. I feel like she has set up these beautiful vignettes of a marriage that you get to peek into, like little rooms of a house. Each verse feels like that.

“Giver / Taker”

Nick Drake, where are you son?! We got some Nick Drake here, hon. Oh, I love it. I love all these open chords, sis.

She took Nick Drake, made it country. Just her voice is country. It really is. You gotta remember, she can do a lot of stuff and the essence of her voice has the twang and the pain. And it just sounds country.

Yes, sis! Again, clever. We got clever there. That’s where country comes in. Beautiful.

I like that one. I like that one so much, I can feel myself driving down a country road, windows down with that one. That one’s definitely a summer track. That “Giver / Taker,” it kind of sneaks up on you. I got a lump in my throat, because I remember what it felt like when you first started falling in love with somebody and you were like, “I wanna sop you up like gravy. I wanna sop you up with my biscuit. I’m gonna put my biscuit on you and I’m gonna sop you right up.

I am going to put you into a blender and drink you through a straw.” [Laughs]

“Sway”

That almost feels like horses running with that padding, [that] beat. Ooh, that’s nice. I like the soundscape on that end. And I also like that she’s having a nice vulnerable moment in the middle of the album. Because at the beginning we start out with like, you know, “I’m a big girl now,” but she’s also saying, “There’s some shit I gotta work on.”

“Maybe one day I’ll learn how to sway–” It reminds me of that Tanya Tucker “Strong Enough to Bend” kind of thing.

Can you ever just go with the flow? So she’s admitting, “Hey, I’ve gotten better, but I’m not all there.” And neither am I honestly, neither am I.

“Dinner with Friends”

I hope to god it’s not a song about what podcast they talked about. Hopefully dinner with friends is not, “Hey, how are you trying to optimize your life? What floor plan are y’all using?”

Dinner with my friends is just talking about Tim Curry and the Muppets, so…

[Kacey sings:] “Dinner with friends in cities where none of us live…”

Ooh! I cannot relate at all to this. [Laughs] But that sounds fabulous. I aspire to be the level of rich one day where I’m having dinner with my friends in cities that none of us live in.

[Kacey sings:] “The face somebody makes when you give ‘em a gift…”

Except for the Christmas that my mom bought my husband condoms – expired condoms at that. You should have seen my husband’s face that year. And then he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll put them to good use, Claudia.”

That was a great transition right there into that little chorus. Oh my Lord. You can just feel in that change, her being swept away, once again. You could be independent all day long, but then the right hottie comes along. Did I just write a song? [Laughs]

Yeah, somebody comes along with that body-ody-ody and sweeps you into a whole damn key change, sis.

[Kacey sings:] “Early in June, when the fireflies first start to glow, it never gets old…”

It don’t ever get old. Them lightning bugs, honey, the lightning bugs in June, there ain’t nothing like them. I’m ashamed to say we used to, I hate saying this – We used to pinch the little ends off of them and decorate our faces with them and say that we were, you know, wood nymph princesses.

It was real romantic at the time, now it’s just slaughter.

I love the whinin’ guitar that keeps weaving its way through here. It’s such a great motif, that ethereal cry out there. I love that.

“Heart of the Woods”

Ooh! I think we made it to Wonderland. We’re talking about the communication of trees, the secret life of trees under the ground. There’s a world that cannot be seen. And I think this might be a commentary on us finding out that trees communicate through their roots. They’re talking.

Now I’m anxious, all of a sudden, thinking about the trees talking, conspiring against us behind our backs.

I love the double vocal on so many of these tracks, because it does still hearken back to that canyon era, that Laurel Canyon, the folk singers of the ‘70s. But her voice always seems to bring an element of country to it. Always, her sound is so fresh and modern. I think it’s an interesting take. I like that. It’s kind of hippy-dippy, kind of flowy.

“Heart of the Woods” feels like it’s going on my playlist when I want to start a commune. You know, when I transition into my commune era – which is basically just when I have a kid and I don’t want to take care of it no more. I’m like, “Hey, y’all want to move out to the woods and help me with this shit?”

“Jade Green”

I like that mandolin.

Girl, I feel myself on a black stallion riding through the night. I feel myself topless, on a black stallion. That’s what I feel. And I feel like that moonlight’s just hitting me. It’s just like, my milky bosom through the night and like, maybe I have like a sheer cloth that’s just flowing behind me. [Laughs]

It’s got a real heartbeat to it. We need to put this behind a paywall!

I can really feel that being… that right there is a great drag performance. Somebody can have that.

“The Architect”

I like that this is that simple country songwriting format, so that the point is coming across. This song feels like kind of embracing the mystery. Did somebody do it? Was it here or is it part of some kind of design or not? I think a lot of us ask that question every day.

“Lonely Millionaire”

Sade? Sade? Where are you sis? Sade! I just got transported to a ‘90s Dillard’s. I would like those shoes in cream. Do you got a kitten heel?

That’s so sexy. I’m sending that to my husband right now. That one’s my favorite so far. Honestly. Because that shoots me back to “Lovers Rock,” that’s like a “Lovers Rock” tribute almost. Obviously she always puts her own spin on things, but she is an excellent curator of other pop moments.

“Heaven Is”

What is heaven?

[Kacey sings:] “We spent all day where the north wind blows / And you bought me a lavender rose / Put it in water when we got home / That’s what heaven is…”

This is your Ren Faire song. Honey, grab a turkey leg, because we’re going LARPing. We are LARPing, honey. You know, maybe I’m gonna go LARPing as Kacey at the Ren Faire this year. Grab you a turkey leg and a funnel cake, because we’re about to watch a joust and go make out behind the porta potties.

And, hey, that’s what heaven is to me. Who are you to judge me? Judge ye not. Lest ye be judged.

Listening to this song, I’m ready to give away all my rights and be burned at the stake.

I love that she goes for the romance. I feel like this album is one that you can play if you’re wanting to get hyped up or if you’re just wanting to toot around the house. It’s perfect. It’s perfect for all the occasions. It’s like my one cousin who was a carny that we know can swing both ways, if you know what I’m saying.

“Anime Eyes”

That got cute fast. I’m glad that I kind of get these references, because we just watched a Miyazaki film the other night. It does kind of bring in that sweet, magical element to it.

It’s cute, the song is cute, but also, it’s got a little bit of its own magic to it, too.

That got psychedelic plum quick. But I like it, I like [that] she leaned way into camp on that one.

I’m proud of you.

“Nothing to be Scared Of”

I feel like this puts a nice bow at the end, as the end track, because it’s sweet, we’ve got those tight harmonies returning. It’s the simple design. It’s the simple structure.

Basically, “I’ve got your back. I’ve got you on my mind. Don’t be afraid.” It’s like a peaceful entry to love and I think that that really fits with the whole vibe of the album, of, “I’m going to a mature place. I want to love the right way.”

Honey, I ain’t even been further west than Oklahoma, and this album takes me all the way to Laurel Canyon. I’m just driving through that canyon, got my top down, and I’m hoping not to get stabbed by the Manson family.

The album makes me want to start making dandelion tea. I’ve never thought about doing that in my whole life. But like, I could crush up some dandelions. This shit is bad for me, because I might start asking people for sourdough starters.

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Photo Credit: Kelly Christine Sutton

Epiphanies: A Joni Mitchell Deep Dive

Posted on by Editor

Joni Mitchell’s 75th birthday provides a great excuse (as if one is needed) for an examination of her catalog. A recent listen to her albums, in order, from the 1968 debut Song to a Seagull through 1979’s Mingus, was entrancing and revelatory.

Through these albums, motifs emerge: mechanical and technology metaphors (“Electricity,” “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” “Just Like This Train”), the allure/elusiveness of a free spirit (“Carey,” “Coyote”), the road as freedom and/or the illusion of freedom (“Refuge of the Road”), seemingly countless cafe and bar tableaus, each one vividly fresh (“Barangrill,” “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” “The Jungle Line”). And musically there’s the vertiginous vocal constructions, the ascending modal chordal guitar climbs, the preternatural classicalism of her piano and, of course, the mystique-filled harmonics of her idiosyncratic guitar tunings.

But the real motif throughout is that of the restless spirit: Just as you think you’ve got her pinned down, she’s going to bolt. This is, after all, the woman who, in her most radio-friendly pop song, “Help Me,” followed the domesticated joy of “we love our loving” with the wildcat escape clause, “not like we love our freedom.”

It’s also a catalog full of epiphanies, even for those intimately familiar with it, if approached with open ears. With each album there seemed to be one song that had gotten by in the past without making a full impression, but now grabbed the ears and mind in full, startling engagement, often standing out as different from anything else on its album, in some cases different from anything else Mitchell had offered. It’s Joni as Rorschach test, revealing as much of the listener by the response as it reveals of Mitchell the artist.

Try it yourself. See what grabs you. With commentary below the playlist, here are the songs that did that now for this writer.

“I Had a King” (from Song to a Seagull, 1968)

Never mind the “next Dylan” tag applied to every singer-songwriter of that time. The opening song of Mitchell’s debut album, produced by David Crosby, might make one wonder if she could have been the next Stephen Sondheim. The sophistication of the song is considerable, both the music and the words, a yearning soliloquy that could have been more at home on a Broadway stage than in a Village coffee house.

“The Fiddle and the Drum” (from Clouds, 1969)

The astonishing overdubbed harmonies. The indelibly idiosyncratic guitar tunings. The spritely dulcimer. The vivid close-up imagery and emotions. The sonata-like piano. None of those Mitchell signatures are on this song. Rather, this is a little coda for Joni Anderson, Canadian folkie. It’s just a solo, unaccompanied voice in an anti-war plaint, a song that she wrote but could easily pass for an English lament from centuries past. No wonder that among the several cover versions of it, one was by English singer June Tabor. As atypical a Mitchell song as it is, it’s resonated through the years with various versions, not least in its use as the title tune for a 2007 ballet conceived by Mitchell with Jean Grand-Maître of the Alberta Ballet Company. “This is a song I wrote for America, as a Canadian living in this country,” she said, introducing it on a 1969 Dick Cavett Show performance.

“Rainy Night House” (from Ladies of the Canyon, 1970)

“She went to Florida and left you with your father’s gun alone…” The tale is startling in its starkness, the melody deceptive in its plainness (relatively), but it’s the brief bits of “upstairs choir” harmonies illustrative in the middle and elegiac at the end that bring the light to these shadows.

“The Last Time I Saw Richard” (from Blue, 1971)

It’s a full minute into this song before Mitchell sings, as if she needed the time to consider whether to tell the story of dreams held and lost or just to keep it to herself while sitting and playing the piano. “All romantics meet the same fate someday” — as Joni a line as there is.

“Judgment of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig’s Tune)” (from For the Roses, 1972)

The middle instrumental section comes almost out of nowhere, Mitchell’s piano turning angular and fragile before being joined by waves of voices, flutes and strings, and then goes away just as suddenly, as if a tease for a concerto she was holding inside her. The title parenthetically evokes Beethoven, but the music suggests some of the 20th century’s great composers.

“Car on a Hill” (from Court and Spark, 1974)

Anticipation as palpable as it comes, first in the pure joy of it, but then full of anxious worry. You can picture Mitchell peeking out the window, checking her watch, trying to check her rising fears, waiting…. waiting… waiting….

“The Jungle Line” (from The Hissing of Summer Lawns, 1975)

Not only is there nothing else like this in Mitchell’s catalog, there is nothing else like this anywhere. Burundi drummers roil, punctuated by blatting synth lines, as Mitchell paints an account of another cafe scene with renewed vividness.

“Song for Sharon” (from Hejira, 1976)

On paper, musically at least, “Song for Sharon” would seem to be the plainest of the songs among the electric-guitar texture explorations of Hejira (not a piano or acoustic guitar to be found here), nearly nine minutes long. But patience pays off as line after line startles, shocks, an account of wanderlust, of suicide, of searching, of revealing resignation as she writes to a childhood friend: “Well, there’s a wide wide world of noble causes / And lovely landscapes to discover / But all I really want right now / Is, find another lover.” And keeping her company, a doo-wop chorus of Saskatchewan ghosts, though it’s unclear whether she’s carrying them with her or running from them.

“The Tenth World” and perhaps “Dreamland,” as the two are something of a piece (from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, 1977)

The shifting landscapes of the 16-minute “Paprika Plain” is this album’s masterpiece, perhaps, but “The Tenth World,” six minutes of dense and intense Afro-Latin percussion laced with barely perceptible chants and chatter, may be the most unbridled expression in all of Mitchell’s work, the sound of total, joyful abandon. And it leads right into “Dreamland,” also just percussion and voice (in a very different way than “The Jungle Line”), which carries that joy from fantasy to reality. Bonus on the latter: Chaka Khan’s soul-moan counterpoints.

“The Wolf That Lives in Lindsey” (from Mingus, 1979)

A low detuned guitar string buzzes and roar while wolves — real wolves — howl as Mitchell casts a dark, wary, jaundiced eye on a two-legged lupine predatorily prowling the Hollywood Hills. It’s an odd side-trip on this album, nothing really directly to do with the honoree. Maybe that says something about the wolf that lives in Joni Mitchell.

Photo credit: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for The Music Center — (L-R) Jorn Weisbrodt, Charles Valentino, Joni Mitchell, Sauchuen, and James Taylor celebrate onstage at Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live At The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on November 7, 2018 in Los Angeles, California.