Artist:Billy Raffoul Hometown: Leamington, Ontario, Canada Song: “In My Arms” Album:For All These Years Release Date: July 28, 2023 (single); October 20, 2023 (album) Label: Nettwerk Music Group
In Their Words: “‘In My Arms’ is a special one for me, because it’s something I wrote with my brother. For the first half of 2022 I was writing nearly a song every other day getting ready for this album, and there were about two weeks that Peter and I wrote at our place in Nashville. We would get six songs, and ‘In My Arms’ was one of them.
“I wrote it on my ’59 Gibson 335. I’m a lefty who plays right-handed guitars upside down and this song requires me to get pretty high up the neck for some of these chord shapes. Needed something with a double cutaway and the 335 did the trick. There’s no real picking pattern to this one. Just kind of raking into the chords and quite a bit of palm muting. This one was more about the tone, a ’40s tweed deluxe right at its breaking point.
“Playing the guitar upside down can be super inspiring when I’m writing. Having the bass strings on the bottom allows me to use my index, middle, and ring fingers to make some different bass patterns while my thumb plays the melody on the higher strings. These patterns are found all over this new album, particularly in songs like ‘Jim Carrey’ and ‘I Can’t Love You Anymore.’ I’m thrilled about this new album, because it’s the first time all of my influences are rolled into one record. Recording songs has always just been a vehicle to get people in a room together to hear them live, and the dynamic of this album is a good representation of what you’d hear from me in a live setting. I can’t wait to bring these songs to life on stage.” – Billy Raffoul
This week on The Show On The Road, we jump in our podcast time machine for a face-to-face interview (remember those?) with acclaimed blues and roots guitarist and singer-songwriter Samantha Fish.
Now based in New Orleans, the SOTR caught up with Samantha Fish at the Sugar Magnolia Music Fest in Mississippi before the world shut down — and to be real, until recently, the very idea of airing this interview seemed inappropriate. Two songwriters speaking into one mic at close range? With everyone crammed into a little trailer? No sanitizer in sight? Indeed.
And yet, as in-person interviews are set to recommence and venues are reopening at last, it felt good to remind ourselves what a real Show On The Road conversation feels like. There are no Zoom glitches or quick edits needed here. We talk about favorite restaurants in New Orleans, dream festival lineups, and guitar solo self-esteem pep talks. We question if Elvis’s ghost is watching over us as we record — and you’ll notice the sound is not pristine, but maybe that’s the best part. You can hear the squeak of the seats, the grit in the voices before they are warmed up for an upcoming set. There’s a band warming up in the background and you can hear Samantha tuning her acoustic guitar just off mic before playing her favorite forlorn love-song, “I Need You More,” near the end.
For folks who are not familiar with Fish’s work, she’s been one of the hardest touring bandleaders on the blues and Americana circuit since she started recording out of her hometown of Kansas City a decade ago. She was still slinging and delivering pizzas then, but now she’s an award-winning veteran of various music scenes and a headliner at music fests from the Crescent City (where she played her first Jazz Fest) to jazz and blues gatherings across Europe and beyond. With seven albums and counting under her belt, including her Memphis brass-embellished latest, Kill Or Be Kind, and her standout rocker, Belle Of The West, (created with Luther Luther Dickinson, which we discuss at length here) Fish is proving again and again that she is in it for the long haul.
One of the more moving moments of the episode centers on Fish’s memories of growing up playing the drums and jamming with her musical family. Even then she didn’t see many girls like her taking the lead guitar as their destiny. She had to believe in herself before anyone else would, and here she is. Representation matters and Fish is showing a whole generation of young players that despite Rolling Stone barely mentioning women in their ongoing “greatest guitarists of all time” lists there are new people who walk and talk and look a little different taking up the mantle of guitar god (or goddess).
Artist:Judith Hill Hometown: North Hollywood, California Song: “Baby, I’m Hollywood!” Album:Baby, I’m Hollywood! Release Date: March 5, 2021 Label: Regime Music Group
In Their Words: “‘Baby, I’m Hollywood’ is a defining statement for me. It sums up all of the drama, love, and pain that surrounds my life as an entertainer. I personify Hollywood as a woman who has become her own rock in spite of a very unstable world. She will take all of the pain and turn into the performance of her life because that’s what she was born to do. The show is not only a spectacle but a service because it puts words, music, lights, and costumes to our secrets and inner battles, giving them a safe place to live.” — Judith Hill
Jackie Venson, Austin, Texas’s resident singer, songwriter, guitar shredder, and joy dispenser, took a couple of months to restart the locomotive momentum of her career after it was halted by the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. A summer of stepping up her touring and festival appearances trashed, she had to purposefully and intentionally consider a way forward.
She chose the path less traveled, but she never trekked it alone. By the end of 2020, Venson’s totally independent team had landed her at number 10 on Pollstar’s Top 100 livestreamers chart for the entire year — higher than superstars Luke Combs, Brad Paisley, and even K-pop, heartthrob boy band BTS’s stream counts, with streams totaling more than 2.8 million viewers.
“It felt like the train stopped and then I created work for myself,” Venson admits, describing an intentional pivot to virtual, streaming shows and alternative programming that never felt like she was giving up the most important parts of her art and expression. Just the opposite. Venson is a rare example of a musician who has utilized the pandemic to not only discover a new, novel way forward in an industry that promises burnout, extractive power dynamics, and the commodification of selfhood even in the best, most profitable cases. She also grew her fan base, her community, and found enough time to release five projects in the last calendar year, as well.
Jackie Venson’s Shout & Shine livestream (viewable in the player above or here) — which highlights many of the entrancing, charming, entertaining aspects of Venson’s music, creativity, and most of all her stunning improvisation — will debut on BGS on Wednesday, February 3, at 4pm PST / 7pm EST. We began our interview talking about joy, which is not only present in every note of Venson’s playing, but is the first song of her Shout & Shine concert and the title track of her 2019 album.
I wanted to start by asking you about joy. It feels so obvious and palpable in your music, especially in your playing style. Not just in how you’re so engaging and charismatic, and not just because it’s the title of your 2019 album, Joy. On “Surrender,” for instance, you sing, “Feet are so tired, but I keep running/ Heart is so heavy, but I keep singing.” That sounds like the radical act of choosing joy, to me.
JV: Well, it’s literally what I’m feeling while I’m actually playing the music. It’s just really cool to be able to play the guitar. I worked really hard to be able to play the guitar and when I look in the mirror I see the same face who started guitar, I guess ten years ago now, except this person can play the guitar! This person can play the guitar, and everybody likes listening to this person who can play the guitar. Not only is this person having a really good time doing something she set out to do ten years ago, but everybody else is enjoying it and having a good time on a base level — and by base level I mean, often they’ve just walked in the room. [Laughs] They weren’t there ten years ago! They’re enjoying it, objectively, and I’m sitting here looking at the depths of [the music] and then I’m watching other people, who don’t even know the story, just having a good time. That is pretty awesome and actually, I’m pretty sure that’s why most people set out to play instruments. They see somebody having fun doing it and they want to have fun, too.
It sounds like gratitude is equally important to you. You’re clearly expressing so much gratitude for being able to do this thing that creates so much joy in your own life and in others’.
Well, absolutely. Gratitude is the foundation of joy. You can’t really have joy if you don’t have gratitude.
One thing that jumped out at me from your livestreams and performances is the way you sing along with your guitar lines, the way you’re constantly in dialogue with yourself and your own voice. It made me think of the age old tradition of fiddling and singing along with yourself — and of course, it makes me think of jazz and bebop solos as well — but I wondered where singing along with the line in your head came from for you?
My dad told me the best way to learn how to improv solos. I had been working on trying to improv from even the time I played piano from when I was like fifteen. I remember getting another piano teacher who knew jazz so that they could teach me how to improvise. Obviously, [Laughs] that’s the wrong angle. I was four years into playing guitar before I learned that I was approaching improvisation the wrong way. The funny thing is that my dad told me, when I was fifteen, he was like, “All you need to know about improvising is that you just think of a melody and you play it, and after you play the melody you thought of a few times, you start messing with it.” So you play it, and add a note here or subtract a note there, and he’s like, “That’s all you’ve got to do and then it’s a great solo!” Because a melody isn’t just playing notes randomly, it has purpose. You want your solos to have purpose. My dad told me that fifteen years ago and I just didn’t hear him. I wasn’t ready to hear him. It took the guitar and years and years of singing, as well, to put it all together and arrive at the destination my dad tried to usher me to.
I’m a picker and a teacher as well, and I’m sure you’ve had this happen, you’ll get students who are so intimidated by the idea of improvising, I’ve had students just cry when you say, “Can you try improvising something?”
It’s a touchy subject! It’s like singing, how people are way more sensitive about their singing. They’ll show you their drum licks all day, but you ask them to sing and they’re like, “Noooo!!”
It’s the vulnerability!
It’s a new level of vulnerability. But here’s the thing, it’s not very hard, all you have to do is just listen to a crapload of music, stuff a bunch of melodies into your brain, and then, just think about all of the melodies you know and think about them a lot. Always listen to music. Keep listening to the music you already have listened to and listen to new music. If you’re constantly listening then you’re going to be sitting on stage and everyone’s going to point to you to solo — say Cm going to F — BOOM! All of a sudden you’re playing, [Sings] “They smile in your face/ All the time they wanna take your place” on the guitar. You’re playing “Back Stabbers,” because suddenly you’re going from Cm to F7 and you know it will sound good. You know? [Laughs] Because you’ve heard that melody and it’s not very hard! A beginner could play it. [Hums line] But you’re crushing it with some tone and everybody in the audience is thinking you’re a master. When really, what you’re playing is not that hard. It’s just musical.
My jaw literally dropped when I was doing my research for this interview — you released five projects in 2020. Two double, live albums, the two volumes of Jackie the Robot, and also Vintage Machine. You also landed in the top ten of Pollstar’s livestream chart for the entire year. I hear you say “the train ground to a halt,” and I see a new train that didn’t just start up, but is roaring. I’m sure you see that, too. What does that pivot feel like now that you’ve got some retrospect.
In that moment, it felt really busy, but it also felt kind of maddening. I was busy, but I was never leaving my house. Then it felt crazy. And in the next moment after that, the numbers started to juice. For a couple of months it was full stop, for a couple of months it was maddening like, “Wow, these numbers are really rad, maybe this is the way.” A couple of months after that I knew this was definitely the way. I stumbled upon the way. I was walking along on a path and then that path had like, a giant tree fall over it and I couldn’t go down it anymore. I saw this side path — you know when you’re in the woods and you see a path but you’re not sure it’s a path or if your eyes are just tricking you?
“Is that a deer trail or is that actually a trail?”
Right. Is that really a trail? It’s like, “I don’t know… but there’s also a giant tree over the path I was on. Can’t go that way. I guess I’m going to go down this path, I hope there’s not too much poison ivy…” [Laughs]
That was the livestream path. There was maybe one creature that walked down this path, one way, one time. It appears there’s a path, but it clearly hasn’t been followed very often. That’s what it felt like, to be on this uncertain path, which then ends up opening up and it turns out I was right the whole time. The way I feel now is not the way I felt when it was all happening. The way I feel now is all because of having retrospect on my side. And the development — the direction things are going in. It’s a lot more clear than it was six months ago.
As if today couldn’t be any more extra… Y’all, I just found out I was named number TEN on @Pollstar‘s top 100 live streamers for ALL OF 2020. Completely independent, my team is small but we fight hard! ❤️❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/d1kkaF4teX
I have found myself repeating throughout the pandemic that we should be building the world we want to exist after the pandemic while we’re in it. To me that’s what it sounds like you’re describing, finding this other path. Looking to the future, what will you be bringing with you from this time, into whatever a post-COVID reality looks like?
The thing I’m taking with me is the fact that there’s never any need to be desperate, there’s never any reason to act out of desperation. There’s no person or contract to be signed that holds the “keys to the kingdom.” There is no kingdom. We are IN the kingdom. We just exist within different perspectives of it. Maybe your perspective in the kingdom right now is that you’re a baby band, you’ve just established yourself. You’re in the same kingdom as Beyoncé! You’re just standing in a different spot than her. There are thousands of spots you can stand in this kingdom. Beyoncé’s spot isn’t the only one that’s good. There are lots of places to stand! Millions of artists, that you don’t know about, are standing in pretty sweet spots in this kingdom that we all exist within, together.
There’s no person that’s going to give you her spot. She got to her spot by her own weird, twisty trail to get there. Maybe a deer walked down it once! She took her own path. You’re not going to be able to recreate that, but she just took a path to get to a spot, not the kingdom itself. You consider that spot the kingdom, but we’re all in the kingdom already. The way we used to live had this weird illusion that we all had to climb these ladders, but really you just need to get where you want to be. You don’t need to climb that same ladder just because someone else climbed it, and they’re famous, and you’ve got to do what they did. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s completely futile, and you’re going to just be spinning in your hamster wheel, stuck in the same vantage point. There’s not one guy or gatekeeper who can unlock everything for you. There are people who will say they can, but what happens? You end up stuck at one spot, one vantage point. There’s no one person, one artist who has it all.
Brittany Howard embarked on a road trip to recalibrate after stepping away from Alabama Shakes, the Grammy award-winning band known for anthems like “Hold On.” Those relentless highway miles gave her time to rest before roaring back with Jaime, one of the year’s most compelling new albums — and her first as a solo artist.
The acclaimed project is named for Howard’s late sister, who died as a teenager from a rare cancer, but these songs are all about Brittany Howard, and namely her experiences with racism, sexuality, religion, and other touchy topics that are rarely addressed by artists at the peak of their mainstream popularity.
Not to say it’s all heavy — for example, the breathtaking “Stay High” may be the album’s sweetest moment. The production, which is also credited to Howard, is especially remarkable, as Jaime feels like a unified statement, even as the inspirations run the musical gamut. And of course her electric guitar prowess is ceaselessly stunning.
In her first tour dates behind the record, the Alabama native skipped the Shakes catalog in favor of material on Jaime, along with tracks from her other bands. But for our BGS Essentials, we put ’em all in there. Enjoy this hand-picked playlist from our BGS Artist of the Month, Brittany Howard.
If Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, and Mohammed were in a band together, who would play what? Well, Jesus would obviously be the lead singer because every singer believes they're the spawn of God. Buddha would hold things down on the bass. Krishna would, without a doubt, be the drummer, and Mohammed would be lead guitar because every guitarist believes they're the Holy Prophet.
If you were a candle, what scent would you be? Skunk Baxter
What literary character or story do you most relate to? Well, I do read a lot of music books, rock bios, and such. I enjoy those quite a bit because I like to know where people came from and the details of their journey. But I like Huck Finn. He was scrappy.
Touring artists spend so much of their time on the road that they, inevitably, find all the best places to eat, drink, shop, and relax. Want to know where to find the best burger, beer, boots, or bunks? Ask a musician. Better yet, let us ask them for you.
Pizza: Art of Pizza in Chicago, IL. We have a few pizza snobs in the group, so any pizza experience that leaves everyone happy is a win. Their slices are pretty much a whole pizza in and of themselves.
Highway “Health” Food: Panera. It’s hard to eat “healthy” on the road. When we have a chance, we try to aim for a Panera. A salad a week keeps the doctor away, right?
Highway Fast Food: Chick-fil-a. When we have to jump off the interstate and eat something fast, Chick-fil-a is one of those places we look up. Plus, no matter where you are, there are few things better than starting your day off with a chicken biscuit.
Coffeehouse:Blue Bottle in Brooklyn, NY. Not only does Blue Bottle make incredible coffee, but they also ship it to us every two weeks so, needless to say, they are a big part of our coffee life.
Bar:The Libertine in Green Bay, WI. Most nights, our alcohol consumption consists of the cheapest beer possible, but when we go to Green Bay, we get to live like kings. Let’s just say that my last drink consisted of some kind of whiskey magic topped with a partially burned cinnamon stick. Tony, the owner of the Libertine, is the man and he invites us to the bar after all our Green Bay shows. It’s worth whatever distance it takes for you to go there. So good.
Gear Shop:Chicago Music Exchange in Chicago, IL. It’s one of those spots we always try to hit when we’re in the area. One time, Tyler accidentally knocked down the whole front window display, so we owe them a blood debt now.
Listening Room:Sixth & I in Washington, D.C. Last Fall, we got to go out with the Oh Hellos and play the Sixth & I, which is a giant sanctuary of a historic church. Never have we gotten to play for that many people, and it still feel as intimate as a small venue. It was a powerful experience.
House Concert: We are in the middle of a tour right now, playing shows in non-traditional venues like houses, warehouses, and co-working spaces. We use a website called Closeup.fm that lets us facilitate those nights better than anything else we’ve ever used. We love Closeup and their passion for creating those intimate shows.
Backstage Hang:Iron City in Birmingham, AL. It’s rare that an opening band gets the red carpet treatment, but we did at Iron City. They fed us well, it was so comfortable and clean, they even did our laundry. It was a little taste of the celebrity life, and we’ll never forget it!
Music Festival: Mile of Music in Appleton, WI. We first got invited to play Mile of Music because a few friends vetted us. What started as just another festival has turned into a second home. It’s rare that any place on the road feels as good as Appleton — even more so a festival. The staff, volunteers, and attenders of Mile of Music are some of the best you’ll find.
Least Favorite Highway Stretch: I40 from Memphis to Knoxville. It’s usually the first or last stretch of highway we see before or after home. It’s just so, so, so boring. One of those six-hour straight-aways that feels like it never ends.
Radio Station:Spotify. I wish we could say we listen regularly to tons of radio stations, but we don’t anymore. Plus, our antenna has seen better days. We are big fans of Spotify. You can find a playlist for just about anything these days. We’ve all discovered really good music through it!
Day Off Activity: Swimming. Although not everyone feels this way (looking at you Evan), most of us love a good swim. If we are, by chance, staying at a hotel with a pool or have a day off with a body of water semi-close, you better believe we’ll try to swim in it.
Tour Hobby: YouTube. The Internet is a terrible and wonderful place. Whether it’s awful covers, Tim & Eric videos, or Wife Swap clips, YouTube is usually at least a little part of every drive.
Driving Album:Voodoo by D’Angelo. It’s one of those albums that will always have more for you each time you listen. The dude’s so damn talented.
Most Memorable Show: Bluegrass Underground in McMinnville, Tennessee. We got the opportunity to open for honeyhoney years ago, as one of our first shows. If you don’t know about Bluegrass Underground, it’s a venue 350 feet underground in a giant cave. It’s one of the most unique, wild places we ever got to play. Definitely worth a trip to catch a show there!
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