When you wake up in a world where hatred and fascism have been resoundingly endorsed by so many of your neighbors and fellow citizens, how do you proceed? That question becomes even more daunting at its second or third or umpteenth asking.
Yes, music will play a vital role over the next handful of years, as we continue the fight for justice, self-determination, and agency for all people, in the U.S. and around the world. But music, the arts, and creativity won’t be enough to save us. They won’t be an end-all, be-all solution to the political and cultural hurdles we will have to clear in the near future.
This is a moment that calls for so much more. Solidarity, first and foremost – the idea that, at the beginning or end of the day, all we have is each other – and community, organizing, and advocating for each other will be essential. Mutual aid will be more necessary than ever. Putting our own privilege on the line in order to protect and ensure safety for those more marginalized than ourselves is the task immediately at hand. Showing up – yes, for our country, but more importantly, for our friends and neighbors – is the very next step. Literally and figuratively.
Still, the soundtrack we will all write, that we will all curate, that we will all partake in while opposing the craven and hateful policies being proffered by our would-be dictator will be a powerful tool. Music – especially roots music, country and bluegrass, blues and old-time, folk with a lowercase and capital F, and more – are traditions steeped in populism, in worker’s rights, in justice, in standing up for the downtrodden and beleaguered. There are no better genres for this exact moment. There are no betters artists, musicians, and songs than those in and made by our very community.
BGS and Good Country include in our mission a commitment to intentionally crafting a roots music space, a bluegrass- and country-centered universe, where everyone is welcome, regardless of identity, background, nationality, ethnicity, disability, class, or belief system. We are determined to continue that work, to be a place where – hopefully – anyone and everyone can feel seen, heard, safe, and valid in their love for and appreciation of all things roots music.
As we summon courage for the work ahead and lean on our community, here are eight songs perfect for this exact moment in history, to hold up as we remind ourselves our goals are the same at the end of this week as they were at the beginning: liberty, agency, and self-determination for all. – TheBGS & Good Country Team
“Mercy Now” – Mary Gauthier
A modern Americana classic, singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier shared “Mercy Now” on social media very early on Wednesday morning, after the news broke that Trump had won another term. It spread quickly on social media with many a repost and reshare. The message here, of mercy applied broadly, universally, and without qualification, is more than timely. It’s evergreen.
“Crisis” – Aoife O’Donovan
Connecting our current struggle to those of past generations is exactly how we continue to put one foot in front of the other, despite setbacks and losses and despair. Aoife O’Donovan’s latest record, All My Friends, is a perfect intergenerational connecting of the dots, centering women, girls, and femmes, and shines a light on the non-linear track that leads to victory. We know we will continue to return to this music over and over in the future, as a balm and a catalyst for progress.
And, as our friends at Basic Folk reminded us yesterday, Aoife’s and Dawn Landes’ episode of the podcast – which focuses on their similar albums centering women, feminism, and women’s issues – is an incredibly timely re-listen. Find that episode here.
“Sun to Sun” – Alice Gerrard
Looking to our roots music elders in this moment is exactly what we all need! Alice Gerrard’s most recent album, Sun to Sun, and certainly its title track, indicate a kind of perseverance and long view that we all could take on as we face the uncertain future.
With a loping, almost marching rhythm, there’s a grounded, realistic, and convicting approach here on “Sun to Sun.” While we all talk, and talk, and talk, and talk, the problems we face continue unabated and unchallenged. What will we do besides talk?
While we talk another fool goes and buys a gun…
“Listen” – Kyshona
Speaking of talking… why don’t we take a turn at listening? The challenge has been set by Kyshona, a powerful and restorative singer-songwriter and activist who channels her ancestors, connects generations, and builds community with every note and every word sung. Originally released in 2020, “Listen” is just as encouraging now as it was then, and just as indelible in its striving for a better, more compassionate world. Media, social media, and the internet all incentivize us to speak, to center ourselves, to prefer “me” and “I” over “us” and “we.” Let’s maybe listen more, instead. Especially right now.
“Beautiful” – Sam Gleaves
Appalachian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Sam Gleaves – who was raised in southwest Virginia but now lives in eastern Kentucky – released one of the most quietly and emphatically radical queer country and old-time albums of this year, Honest. “Beautiful” is the collection’s stunner, a track about how there’s endless beauty, mystique, and life lessons to be drawn from the ways we’re all different from each other. Through the lyrics, you see the world from the eyes of a young Gleaves, singing about sights and sounds unfamiliar and foreign to a boy from the mountains, loved and cherished by his family and shown that love without question.
Seeing beauty in our differences? What a way to live…
“The Numbers” – Mipso
THE ECONOMY! THE ECONOMY! THE ECONOMY!
What about those of us for whom this economy has never worked well or fully functioned? What about the millions who can’t make ends meet right now, under blue or red presidents? From their 2023 album, Book of Fools, Mipso turn over this very question, examining how and why “The Numbers” could be soaring – hiring numbers, the stock market, crypto values, Tesla market cap – while so many are still struggling day to day.
“Put No Walls Around Your Garden” – New Dangerfield
From Black string band supergroup New Dangerfield – which features Jake Blount, Kaia Kater, Tray Wellington, and Nelson Williams – “Put No Walls Around Your Garden” is an Americana-tinged old-time number, written by Kater, with a collectivist stance and a solidarity through line. There may be instincts in the near future to revert to an “every man for himself” sort of survival strategy, but the only way we’ll get through is together. Rather than hoarding, walling ourselves off, retreating, or recoiling, now is the time to throw open our garden gates and welcome each other in. Share our abundance, work through our scarcity and lack, and care for each other’s needs – big or small.
“Trees” – Laurie Lewis
Consider the trees. Consider the birds, the rivers, the oceans, the saguaro, the pikas, the whooping cranes. Did their realities change between Tuesday and Wednesday? Is the world any less or more likely to burn, to flood, to be blown away by hurricanes and tornadoes now than on Monday? Sadly, no. The march towards climate apartheid continues entirely unfettered, regardless of who holds the White House.
Laurie Lewis, a bluegrass forebear who has carried the mantle of climate justice for her entire life, embodies trees in the title track of her latest album. She and her band show how the fight for justice – climate justice, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant rights – is a fight not measured by human lifespans and human time, but against earth’s clock. The trees will continue to watch, waiting, for us to either figure it all out or to fail at our mission.
We must not fail. The work continues and we’ll be working – and singing – alongside you all, the entire way.
Seven years have elapsed between Ben Sollee’s last studio release, his 2017 album with Kentucky Native, and his new one, Long Haul (arriving August 16). Much has happened in Sollee’s life since ‘17. His family has grown by two children. He worked on a number of soundtracks, even winning an Emmy Award in 2018 for his score on the ABC special, Base Ballet. The Kentucky born and based singer/songwriter/cellist, who has long been an advocate for environmental and other social causes, also helped launch a nonprofit named Canopy, which helps businesses in his home state positively impact people, the planet, and the future.
When COVID hit, it hit Sollee hard. “I was one of the early folks to get COVID in fall of 2020 and it stuck with me in a way that didn’t stick with other people.” During his prolonged recovery, he had to change how he ate, what he drank, how he slept, and how he exercised. “It turned into a journey of inward exploration and changing my external life. I really changed pretty much everything… It wasn’t until I started emerging from long haul [COVID], I was like, ‘Oh, I think I’ve got something to say about this.’”
While this album grew out of Sollee’s personal health crisis, it also was greatly affected by the death of his close friend and long-time collaborator, Jordon Ellis, who died by suicide in early 2023.
Always ready to blur genres, Sollee felt more free to expand his sonic palette on Long Haul, which includes a gospel-style choir, a Little Richard-inspired rock ‘n’ roll rave-up, West African rhythms, and Caribbean grooves. He purposely wanted to have lively, rhythmic melodies to balance deeply thoughtful lyrics.
“The same way,” he explained, “That Michael Jackson would have these big statements in the middle of these dance songs.” Sollee also recorded a special Dolby ATMOS Spatial Audio version for this album – a first for him – to underscore Long Haul’s immersive sound quality.
Part of what the title Long Haul refers to is your serious battle with long COVID and it also addresses life as being a long haul. How did the two interrelate for you, personally?
Ben Sollee: [COVID] definitely put me in relationship with my body in a way that I had never been before and once you start that relationship with your body, you realize just how interconnected everything is. I mean, we’re all on this long haul together… and I realized that maybe the most radical thing that I could do was to care for myself. That really shifted how I think of my live performances and really my purpose for being out on the road, [which] is to help people connect with themselves. Because once they connect with themselves, then they can have the capacity to be in relationship with nature, other people, animals, you name it. How I be in the world has shifted. It’s subtle from an external view, but internally it’s pretty profound.
How did this all affect your approach in making this album?
I realized that I had a very exploitative relationship with my creativity over the years, where it was just like: Here’s a project, just make stuff. And that was just really eye-opening.
I took a couple of different approaches in the making of this record. The passing of my friend and musical collaborator, Jordon, in the process of writing this record was really profound, because he was such a keystone to my creative process. It kind of forced me to think about how I was approaching music-making in the record without him.
So, I tried a couple different mantras, and one of them was “follow the resonance.” If it said something to me, I didn’t need to figure out why it said something to me, even if that is Polynesian flute playing or this sort of strange Tejano Caribbean groove – just follow it. In the past, I would kind of hedge; like I would hear something, I’d be really into that sound, but I wouldn’t feel like I could, for whatever reason. Like it’s not part of my cultural heritage. I would come up with a reason to be like, I shouldn’t make music with that sound or influence.
Another mantra was “show our fingerprints.” The way that we recorded the record – it was about hearing the hands and the strings and hearing the breath. I chose instruments that would really feature those human aspects of breath and touch. We incorporated woodwinds, which you can hear prominently on the first single, “Misty Miles.” We incorporated choirs in this record for the first time, because I really wanted that breath and sound. Much of the percussion is hand percussion. It’s a very tactile record… very high touch record.
You produced Long Haul. What was the recording process like?
It was a very intuitive, collective approach, and it meant that not only did the music turn out as a surprise to me and others, but it also meant that it was a very engaged, emotional journey. Adrienne Maree Brown [author of the book, Emergent Strategy] is really the inspiration for this – instead of having a singular artist’s vision, you really bring together a group of people in a facilitated way.
It made me maybe a little bit more brave and confident that wherever things went, we could execute that… I mean, musicians left the sessions crying, because they had such a good time and they felt seen and heard. And that, to me, means as much as the music that came out.
Did your experiences composing film soundtracks serve at all as an influence?
[Film work] also inspired me to explore Atmos. I really wanted this record to be an immersive experience, kind of like a sonic film. In keeping with that, there are a few songs that actually have sound design incorporated into them. It’s the first time I’ve done it in such an intentional and immersive way where we’ve got cars driving by with “Hawk and Crows.”
There is a real stylistic diversity to the sound of this album, like “Under The Spell” is one song with a funky dance groove to it.
[Laughs] I wasn’t trying to make a dance track. It started with that cello lick that you hear at the beginning. And it’s sort of this hypnotic West African loop of a lick that really began as kind of me trying to figure out some old-time banjo, like clawhammer music, on the cello.
The words are referencing this kind of duality… dealing with identity and self and how often we are under the influence of the stories that people tell of us. Every time I have this ambition, desire, and even just like the idea of me having something, it sets me down a path of being unsatisfied, which causes a lot of harm to other people and myself in the world. So, the words can go as deep as somebody wants to, but it’s also if people just want to release and have some sort of existential-like dance experience – then let’s go, let’s dance!
It touches on an evolution that I don’t expect anybody to notice in my music and career. My early records had a lot of direct social and political statements in the song. I realized that they were a little bit superficial and surface-y. They weren’t really getting it to the core of those issues. So, I’ve kind of moved into, I guess what I would call like a “post-activist” stance. My music has moved away from direct political commentary most of the time to more of a foundational, fundamental idea of togetherness, of connectedness.
“One More Day” stands out as a key song too.
I guess the original seed of that song emerged as I was beginning to travel again after Jordon had passed away – to places where he and I had traveled so many times. I started thinking about what would I have said had he called me in that moment of decision before he took his life? But the only thing that I would have really said to him is, “Listen, I hear you, I respect your decision, but what’s the rush? Like, if you’re going to do it, you’re going to do it, but you don’t have to do it right now. Just give it one more day, give it one more sunrise. Just get one last look.”
I think that’s what I would have said to him. And the song makes that case through different vignettes of our time together on the road. And, it does it over this Caribbean, Tejano groove that must have come from some jams that he and I did together. It must have. It just feels like a very Jordon groove. What I love about that is it has this real joyous, almost like early Police kind of vibe to it. There’s some really tough content in there and I just love the idea of people dancing at a festival – and just saying, “Give it one more day.”
The closing song, “When You Gonna Learn,” features a rousing gospel-style choir and addresses following your inner voice. It launches the listener out of the album and into the world in a very uplifting way.
I wanted to end with that message, because as a father I watch my four- and six-year-old who have yet to really settle into a sense of self or identity, and they are just so connected to their world and just basic truths about caring for things and protecting things and love and justice. And I think that it’s just more proof to me that there are things we know that get taught out of us. This song just is like: When are you going to learn that you already know?
You address a lot of tough issues on the album, but do so with a sense of humanism and spirited music that offer a hopeful way out of these challenging times.
I often reflect on that “Pale Blue Dot” image that Voyager took looking back at Earth and it’s just black and there’s just one little, tiny dot. And that dot really says it all, because it’s all there, as Carl Sagan says: every love, every heartbreak, every war, every church, it’s all on that one little dot.
So, we got to make it work here. And I think that’s the biggest challenge that we have right now. How do we make this work? I get that we’re going to make some big mistakes along the way. I sure have in my life. That’s where the grace comes in, but we got to make it work here. We don’t have another spot.
Counting John Prine, Linda Ronstadt, and Wendell Berry among her fans, Laurie Lewis is arguably one of the most diversely influential figures in American roots music culture. She’s a songwriter, fiddler, frontwoman, performer, producer, teacher, and mentor. She’s been nominated for multiple Grammy awards and graced the stage at the Grand Ole Opry. The International Bluegrass Music Association has twice named Lewis Female Vocalist of the Year, and the association’s former executive director, Dan Hays, once called her “one of the preeminent bluegrass and Americana artists of our time and one of the top five female artists of the last 30 years.”
Lewis’s latest release — her 24th full-length record — pairs the artist’s musical mastery with her willingness and courage to face the full spectrum of life’s experiences. From personal grief to environmental despair, Lewis does not shield her eyes from difficult truths. In many ways, the album pays homage to its namesake, trees. When asked why, Lewis notes their tenacity. When something is tenacious, it grips firmly, with determination and persistence. Even in the face of immense challenge and uncertainty, trees abide in their purpose and work — and so does Laurie Lewis.
TREES is a long-play collection of songs that tenderly, earnestly, and sometimes joyfully explore what it means to exist on a vulnerable planet through times of loss and love. Supported by a band of masterful collaborators — Haselden Ciaccio (bass, vocals), Brandon Godman (fiddle, vocals), Patrick Sauber (banjo, vocals), George Guthrie (banjo, vocals, guitar), Tom Rozum (vocals, cover art), Andrew Marlin (mandolin), Sam Reider (accordion), and Nina Gerber (guitar) — Lewis dives into the deep end of sorrow and change with tenderness, authenticity, and Americana storytelling prowess.
In the album’s liner notes, Lewis shares that TREES is the first project she’s made in nearly 30 years without the mandolin accompaniment of her partner Tom Rozum, who recently developed Parkinson’s disease. “This collection represents a difficult transition in my musical life,” Lewis shares. “Think of it as ‘Music Minus One.’”
From bright bluegrass tracks like “Just a Little Ways Down the Road” to the somber invocations of “Enough” and “The Banks Are Covered in Blue,” this album is intricate and complex, much like a healthy forest. The album brings us “Quaking Aspen,” showcasing Lewis’s characteristic lyrical fiddle style, and title track “Trees,” an a cappella bluegrass-gospel ballad that gently yet hauntingly denounces the violence of industrial civilization.
Always looking to the natural world for strength and guidance, TREES is about love — for life, for land, and for people. But love isn’t a purely hopeful or romantic thing; it encompasses both loss and pain, and Lewis gracefully and vulnerably reckons with both on this album.
You just returned from a string of shows playing songs from the new album. Where did you go?
Laurie Lewis: My string of shows was actually mostly a river trip. So I did play every night, but I was mostly spending the days in the canyons… On the Yampa River, which starts in Colorado and goes into Utah and flows into the Green River. It’s a really, really beautiful canyon.
I love that. When you were playing shows, how did it feel to share these new songs with the world?
I’ve been doing a lot of songs from the new album, yeah, and I’m really enjoying that. But also, in any of our sets with my band, we pull out the old ones, too.
Speaking of the older stuff, I listened to your first solo record, Restless Rambling Heart, directly after listening to your newest record from start to finish. The first thing I noticed was that the tempo has downshifted quite a bit from that first release. Does TREES feel more introspective to you than other records you’ve made?
Oh yeah, it definitely does — especially compared to Restless Rambling Heart.
You’ve collaborated with the great poet, writer, and activist Wendell Berry — he asked you to set some of his poems to music. What was that experience like?
It was really fantastic. I’m such a fan of Wendell Berry’s writing. It came about because I was putting out a songbook and the publisher said, “Well, you need to get some blurbs for the back.” I happened to be at a writing workshop and one of the writers there said, “Hey, do you know Wendell Berry?” And I said no, and he said, “Well, he’s a big fan of yours.” [He had been] at a writing conference with Wendell and Wendell asked if he knew me and, you know, small world sort of thing.
So I thought, Well, how do I get in touch with him? Maybe he could write me a blurb, who knows? But [Wendell] famously doesn’t do e-mail or anything like that, so I got his mailing address and wrote him a long-hand letter on one of those yellow legal pads, you know, and I sent it off to him. And lo and behold, he wrote back. He said, “Well, I really don’t know anything about music, and my wife says I can’t carry a tune in a bucket, so hadn’t I better say no to writing a blurb?” And I thought, Well… that’s a question, so it deserves to be answered. So I wrote back and said, “Of course you should say yes, because really, the only prerequisite for saying you like something is that you actually like it. It doesn’t matter that you don’t have a background in music. It’s a personal response.”
And he said, “Well yeah, okay. I’ve been telling people I’m not writing blurbs anymore because too many people ask me, but didn’t I write something in that first letter that you could take out [and use]?” And there was this really nice thing…
So we just ended up having this back-and-forth conversation. He sent me some books. I sent him some CDs. I finally got a chance to meet him, but eventually I just felt like this is a person who is so conscientious, he’s going to respond to whatever I write. And he’s so busy, and he’s got so much stuff to do, I don’t want to bother him anymore. So I kind of dropped the correspondence. I wish I hadn’t, but it felt like the right thing to do. I just didn’t want to be that pestering voice that he felt he had to write back to.
Did he get back in touch with you at some point? Is that how his request came to light?
In the midst of all our back and forth, he sent me a poem in the mail and asked if I wouldn’t mind terribly trying to put it to music. So I did. That was “Burley Coulter’s Song for Kate Helen Branch.” It was quite a puzzle, because it’s not a standard rhyme scheme or anything. I had to make it loop around like a little crooked fiddle tune to make it really work.
Trees aren’t just the theme of this album — they’re growing all over your creative imprint. Your label is called Spruce and Maple Music, for example. What is it about trees specifically that inspires you?
I love the tenacity of trees — the way they just wait ‘til you get out of the way and then come back. … There are too many humans on the earth. We take up way too much space and way too many resources and we’re crowding everybody else out. And by “everybody else” I mean all the animals and plants and everything that also shares our earth. I just feel that, you know, trees are these beneficent beings that just wait and take their time and come back whenever they’re given a chance. They’re responsible for the oxygen we breathe and for taking in the CO2 we release. They’re sort of purifying everything. So it makes me feel very hopeful… If we just get out of the way a little bit, trees can come in and help set the planet right again.
Speaking of trees, the title track on this album is written from such a unique perspective. You literally embody the voice of the trees. How did this idea come about? Had you written from the perspective of the natural world before?
Well actually, “The Maple’s Lament” … I think that was the first time I tried to embody a tree. But I’ve done a few songs like that since. “American Chestnuts,” from my Skippin’ and Flyin’ album is from the voice of the American chestnut trees, which were the main tree along the Appalachian Mountains before the Chinese chestnut blight.
You know, I have, and I thought, Well, this is my song! [Laughs] But I wasn’t inspired by the book.
I personally take comfort in the knowledge that the world will go on spinning without us, despite how powerful we imagine ourselves to be. What sustains you as a sensitive person who feels the weight of what’s happening in and to the world? What carries you through?
Well, that’s that hope – [in] the other beings on the earth, their ability to repair the damage we’re doing. But I don’t hold out a lot of hope for human beings to rein in our excesses. I just don’t. I unfortunately do not see that happening in a timely enough manner to prevent, for instance, desertification of much of the earth’s crust. I’ve never said this stuff in an interview before, but yeah– I do not hold out a lot of hope.
I really appreciate you saying that. I feel like we’re often pressured to feel hopeful, but sometimes it feels more important to just be present with our grief about what’s happening to the world. Where did your deep relationship with and love for the natural world begin?
Oh boy, well, lots and lots of places. From ages three to eight, I lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in this new subdivision a block from the country. I loved to ramble in the woods and just see the farms and stuff like that. When my family [moved to] Berkeley, California, it was really a shock for me, and I have to say, Tilden Park probably saved my life. It’s a big regional park that’s up over at the top of the Berkeley Hills. It’s a huge park — you could get lost in it for days. Being able to take the bus to the top of the hill and disappear into Tilden Park when I was a kid was the best thing ever, and it really helped me through a lot. So I would say Tilden was maybe the first place where I really sought refuge in the natural world.
In addition to environmental grief, you’ve spoken about the role personal grief played in the creation of this album, and the presence of these feelings is very tangible throughout. Has some part of you had to practice becoming more vulnerable as an artist over time, or did the process of sharing your pain through your songwriting come naturally?
I have been accused throughout my career of writing songs that are a little bit too easy to figure out, you know, where they’re from. They’re personal songs — people have noted that. [But] maybe they’re putting stuff in them that’s not actually there, and I believe that to be the case on some of the stuff. Writing has always been my best source of communication with the world and I think I’ve always just written from an emotional place. If my songs are deeper now, it’s because events in life are a lot harder when you’re 73 than when you’re 23 or 33 or 43.
One of the more uncommon forms of grief is the grief over the loss of one’s own voice. A few years ago, you lost your singing voice for six months. What was that experience like for you, as someone who’s spent so much of your life using your voice to connect with the world?
It was terrible. It was paresis, [so] the right side of my neck muscles were paralyzed, and I couldn’t move my larynx on the right side. It made singing very, very difficult, until it got to a point where my voice just quit. And I thought, I’m not gonna sing anymore. It took about six months to recover, and it hasn’t completely recovered. My voice is different now.
It was a very difficult time. I went to many doctors, and one said, “Well, you have about a 50/50 chance of getting your voice back.” And I’m going, “Those odds are just not good, you know? It could happen or not — it’s a coin toss.” That freaked me out.
But some amazing things happened in that time. I have an annual gig, the concert I do at the Freight & Salvage here in Berkeley, my hometown, over Thanksgiving weekend. When I had no voice, I didn’t want to give up my night, so I asked my friends to come and sing my songs. I put together a folder of tons of songs and nobody picked the same song. It was amazing. It was the most incredible healing night of music for me. I mean, it was really the best Laurie Lewis show ever and I never opened my mouth except to speak a little bit. It was really lovely. Out of anything, I think that helped me get my voice back.
I’m honestly tearing up a little hearing you talk about that. It really speaks to the power of community. Speaking of community and audiences, who do you write music for? When you’re writing a song or recording an album, do you have a particular listener or audience in mind?
Just myself, really. It’s very selfish. [Laughs] I mean, I just write for myself, what I’m feeling or what I’m observing. … That’s always the starting point. If I think up a story, it’s because I want to tell the story, you know? I want to hear the story. If it’s an emotional thing, it’s because it’s something I’m dealing with or going through. But after the initial thought, I try and use my craft to make the songs better so that somebody can actually understand what I’m singing about and talking about in my music. And that’s really the most gratifying thing, when a listener really responds. It’s just great.
You’ve described your music, particularly on this album, as a way of interpreting the voices of the landscapes you adore. How do you experience or receive the voices of the natural world? How did you learn to listen for these much-needed voices?
I’ve always been a fairly quiet person. I listen more than I speak. I’ve had to actually learn to speak, you know, out loud. But I think I just have an observational approach to the world. I would rather listen and observe people talking to me than jump in and add my own spin or make a lot of noise myself. The same thing is true in my relationship with the natural world. I’m an avid walker and I find that walking and listening and looking in the natural world is my favorite thing to do.
Do you have a favorite song on the album?
I like a lot of them actually. You know, they’re different moods. Speaking of walking, “Just a Little Ways Down the Road” I find to be just so fun to sing and play. And of course, “Enough.” It’s heart-wrenching for me. It’s still hard for me to play that song in public. It requires a really different audience. It’s not a festival song. It’s much quieter, so I hold it back a lot. I just love the sound of the instruments on that cut. But I really like them all, from “Just a Little Ways Down the Road” to “Rock the Pain Away.”
It depends on the mood too. If I talk about John Prine and I sing that song [“Why’d You Have to Break My Heart?”], that really goes over well with audiences. I truly appreciate that people connect with that song.
Do you have a favorite tree?
[Laughs] No. I do not have a favorite tree.
Fair enough. [Laughs]
The California buckeye – I think it’s the prettiest little tree ever. But then I see another, you know? I was just out in Colorado among the junipers. That was the main tree alongside the river, junipers and cottonwoods. Every one of those trees was astoundingly beautiful – and so tenacious.
Is there somewhere special close to home where you’ve been going recently to be with the trees?
Well, yes. I stick around home quite a bit, because I have a lot of caregiving to do with my partner. We had to cut down a tree in our yard a couple of years ago and I was very, very sad about cutting down this great big old blackwood acacia. But we had to do it – it was gonna fall over and wreak havoc. But it cleared the way for me to view these two enormous birch trees that are like four-stories high in the neighbors’ yard. Those two trees are just remarkable, through all the seasons. They’re so graceful, and they change so much. I’ve been enjoying those trees a lot from the kitchen.
And Tilden Park is still my go-to. It’s five minutes up the road, so I can get out and walk amongst the oaks and the laurels and, unfortunately, eucalyptus, which is an invasive fire-hazard tree around here, but they’re still beautiful.
It’s so special that you still get to spend time in the same place that meant so much to you as a kid. There’s really so much we could talk about, but is there anything else you’d like to share about the album?
I did it mostly with a very small group of fantastic musicians – my bandmates Hasee Ciaccio on bass, Brandon Godman on fiddle, Patrick Sauber on banjo, and then George Guthrie also on banjo and some guitar. It’s just been really great working with these wonderful people. What they bring to the songs and how they help shape the music, they really are part of the fabric of what makes this album what it is, and it feels important to me to share that.
Artist:The Montvales Hometown: Knoxville, Tennessee, but currently residing in Cincinnati, Ohio Song: “Lou” Album:Born Strangers Release Date: February 2, 2024
In Their Words: “I spent a year teaching English in a small town in France. My baby niece came to visit during that time and I got to take her to the ocean for the first time. I showed her beaches, vineyards, and forests.
“Sometimes being far away makes troubling news of home feel more vivid. Threats to American public land felt especially heartbreaking as I watched my niece grow to love the land for the first time. I wrote this song imagining a future in which she gets to love all the mountains, beaches, and forests that I love. It felt like the only acceptable option was a world passed on to her intact.” – Sally Buice
Track Credits: Produced by Mike Eli LoPinto Engineered by Sean Sullivan Mixed by Jake Davis Mastered by Kevin Butler
Photo Credit: Suzi Kern Video Credit: Contrary Western
Over the last few years, William Elliott Whitmore has been thinking a lot about how we – as individuals and as a society – have a tendency to repeat our mistakes, and how we’re always trying not to. Yet the tone of his new album, I’m With You, is still infused with optimism, which often stems from the wisdom he’s learned from his family.
I’m With You is Whitmore’s first album of new material in five years, though its material wouldn’t sound out of place alongside his early songs like “Old Devils” or “Don’t Need It.” As always, his banjo and guitar are central to the album’s sound, while his raspy singing voice remains an effective tool at getting his point across.
Though the album does have some heavy themes, Whitmore often points out the silver lining in a situation, and moreover, he’s comfortable chatting up a stranger — a trait not uncommon to the Midwest. He spoke with BGS by phone from his farm in Lee County, Iowa, where he’s quarantining with his wife and their six-month-old baby.
BGS: There are several family relationships that you reference in the album’s first song, “Put It to Use,” and you’ve had family members as characters in your songs for a long time. Why is that bond with your family so inspiring?
Whitmore: Yeah, the bond with my family has always been inspiring. I’m pretty lucky in that I’ve got a big family that’s close by. Aunts and uncles and cousins. My folks were great people, full of wisdom and just caring, beautiful people, but through different circumstances they passed away when I was in my teens. So, that’s when I started writing songs, and in fact, that’s what made me start doing that — to codify what they had always been teaching me. And as a way to deal with it and not just go off the deep end. They pop up in songs a lot, and have since the beginning.
I don’t have them here, so I just think about their words of wisdom and lessons. I think we all get those lessons from someone, whether it’s your folks and a grandparent or a neighbor or a cool uncle or aunt. That cool person down the block that introduced you to The Ramones when you were a kid. [Laughs] It’s like, “Hey, check out Black Sabbath!” So you go, “I should listen up.” Not just music, but lessons, and we can gather that from anywhere. “Put It to Use” is about, OK, you’ve gathered all this good information. Now, put it to use. And more than just music — let’s try to love each other.
Was it someone in your family that introduced you to banjo?
Yeah, both of my grandpas played the banjo. One of them passed away when I was one year old, so I never knew him, but I actually have his old banjo. And one died when I was in my teens, and he was a banjo picker from the Ozark Mountains down in Missouri. My folks loved country music. My mom loved Willie Nelson and Charley Pride – those were her favorites. And in fact, my parents’ first date was a Charley Pride show at a county fair.
But [my interest in] the old-time stuff, Appalachia music and Ozark mountain music, came from my grandpa, and he played the banjo. When he passed away, I got his banjo because I was into playing guitar. I was like, “Oh, the banjo… it’s not THAT different than a guitar.” And I inherited all of his old records. He loved Roy Acuff and the Stanley Brothers. Again, it’s getting that influence from wherever you can.
Were those records your gateway to bluegrass? How did you become aware of bluegrass?
Yeah, those records. … He had a lot of compilations with 15 different artists on one record. You’d find out about a bunch of different stuff, like how Bill Monroe pretty much invented bluegrass by playing old-time music faster than everybody else. [Laughs] And the subtle differences between that and the old-time, slower stuff. A lot of it does have to do with tempo. The feeling is there for all of it, but Bill Monroe kicked it into that next gear.
It’s this whole rich history that’s really cool, and there’s still a lot to learn about, too. So I took that bluegrass influence, but I also liked Minor Threat and Bad Religion and Public Enemy, growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. There’s a theme running through all of this — punk and country and bluegrass and blues. Using simple tools to convey a message. No matter where you come from or what color you are, there’s a way to do this.
One thing you do well on this record, in my opinion, is setting the scene. While a lot of songwriters write primarily about themselves, or about love, you are writing about what’s around you. When did you become interested in environmentalism, for example?
That’s a great compliment, first of all. I’m right here on the farm I grew up on, and I’m very lucky to have that. So, the woods and nature and planting gardens — my folks were both naturalists. They wouldn’t have had the word for that, but they loved the land and they appreciated nature. That was passed on to us kids, the appreciation for the trees and the plants and the deer out in the field, and how we live among them and we’re part of it. We’re not above them. The grass in the meadow, the flora and the fauna that we see all around us, we’re just a part of that.
So it just doesn’t make sense to me, as an adult, why anyone would want to pour oil in the water, or level a whole forest, and cut every old-growth oak tree in the forest, just for the money! You want to live in harmony with nature, and sometimes you do have to cut a tree, but you want to be selective and do it in a smart way. … There are so many ways to do it mindfully. That’s my slant on it, and it all comes from living in the woods and living on a farm, and being instilled with those things at an early age.
Listening to your older records, I was struck by how much your singing voice has become more commanding. Did that come from you having to sing on stage, and use it as an instrument? At what point did you sense that your voice was becoming stronger?
That’s another great compliment. I didn’t even know if it was, but you know, it’s funny how things change over 20 years. I first started touring — gosh, it’s been over 20 years ago now. I used to smoke a lot of cigarettes and a lot of weed. … Well, maybe don’t write down “weed.” Oh, whatever, I don’t care. I just had a fucked up voice, but it was all I had. I was like, I wish I could croon like Dean Martin and Morrissey or Ralph Stanley, and have a beautiful voice, and I could never quite get there. So you just work with what you got, right?
So, I quit the cigarettes – and only the cigarettes. [Laughs] My voice changed after that, maybe, but it did come with playing a couple hundred shows a year, for years, and just being on stage, at least in the beginning, where they didn’t know who you are. It’s hard to be a presence when you’re by yourself. I was doing a lot of punk clubs and DIY spaces and bars, where they might not even care that you’re there. So you do have to make your presence known. I had to be more commanding. I am a loudmouth anyway, so it was natural. Put a microphone in front of me and I’ll make you listen! [Laughs] “I’m gonna start singing and you’re gonna wanna listen!” was my attitude, which is funny now.
But that did help me use it as almost a cudgel. Over the years, I’ve tried to sharpen that and make it more of a surgical thing and not a blunt instrument. [Laughs] I mean, I’m only dealing with guitar, banjo, and voice, and a beat — a kick drum now. Each one of them has to count. Any would singer would tell you, you take the time to write these lyrics, and in a live setting they just get lost. You’re just hollering. You have to learn to cut through. … Now it’s a bad habit to break because I’ll be singing in a quiet place, where everyone’s sitting down and listening and no one’s talking, and I’m just yelling like someone needs to hear me ten miles away. It’s those years of screaming over a bar room. I can’t shut it off.
Photo credit: Chris Casella
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