LISTEN: Rachel Angel, “Bring Me Down”

Artist: Rachel Angel
Hometown: Miami, Florida
Song: “Bring Me Down”
Album: Highway Songs
Release Date: August 21, 2020
Label: Public Works

In Their Words: “‘Bring Me Down’ is a personal song about looking internally to find the inner strength to deal with life’s vagrancies. I wrote the song after extensive touring on the road. I was paranoid and feeling like an outcast as I adjusted to a slower pace back home. I isolated myself in my apartment, using music as a bulwark to shield me from the uneasiness I was feeling.

“The first song that I wrote for the EP was ‘Mexico.’ At the time, I was experiencing a lot of catastrophic anxiety and chronic health problems. I was mentally and physically all out of sorts. I embarked on a family trip to Mexico, and before I left began writing the song: ‘I had enough of that windy ocean road/But I packed up my car and I drove/and I drove.’ My feeling at the time was that something bad was going to happen but I couldn’t determine if it was anxiety or a premonition. Within the first week of being there, we experienced a 7.1 earthquake in Mexico City, many buildings around us fell, power lines down, power was lost throughout the city, everything closed. I was so frightened and immediately wanted to leave, but decided that pushing myself through the discomfort would ultimately make me stronger.

“I spent the remainder of the year touring different cities on the East Coast, in the UK, and traveling around for various events. I was listening to a lot of Outlaw country and the spirit of the music made me feel alive and brave. I wrote and recorded the content of Highway Songs during a breaking point and crisis period in my life, right before I made it out to the other side. I ultimately left New York City for Miami in need of great healing, and have since been on a spiritual journey. I am in pre-production on a new album that finds me in a grounded place and writing lots of songs!” — Rachel Angel


Photo credit: Yasser Marte

LISTEN: Michael McArthur, “Warmer Months” (Take 3, Acoustic)

Artist: Michael McArthur
Hometown: Lakeland, Florida
Song: “Warmer Months” (Take 3, Acoustic)
Album: How to Fall In Love EP
Release Date: August 14, 2020
Label: Dark River Records

In Their Words: “I started almost every show last year with this song for two reasons: One, it’s great for warming up the voice and hands. Often, I didn’t have the chance to do so before walking out to center stage. And two, people have always responded so well to it. It has that ‘draw you close’ quality, like a good hug.” — Michael McArthur


Photo credit: Michael Flores

LISTEN: Laura Rabell, “This Stone”

Artist: Laura Rabell
Hometowns: Pensacola, FL & Charlotte, NC; now in Nashville
Song: “This Stone”
Album: Immortal
Release Date: July 31, 2020

In Their Words: “‘This Stone’ turned out to be prophetic. It foreshadowed some important emotional truths I ended up having to face. And I’ll be damned if the Pfaltzgraff wedding china I inherited from my grandmother didn’t literally start cracking and falling apart! Be careful what you write, I guess… ‘This Stone’ is about really trying to make something work, but coming to the realization that it never will. That you can keep on being miserable or make a change. It’s a song about walking away. After all was said and done and the recording was finished, my husband and I had survived an incredibly stressful and tumultuous year thanks to my cancer diagnosis, which inevitably spilled over into our marriage. But this song gave me a precious gift — it was an outlet for all those feelings that were deep beneath the surface.” — Laura Rabell


Photo credit: Daniel Coston

LISTEN: Vanessa Peters, “Florida”

Artist: Vanessa Peters
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Song: “Florida” (Patty Griffin cover)
Album: Mixtape
Release Date: April 24, 2020
Label: Little Sandwich Music

In Their Words: “We began this covers album more than three years ago, and this was one of the first songs we tackled. It was winter when we began this project and we were cooped up inside for several days. The dreary, icy weather outside reminded me of this song and the lovely juxtaposition between the idea of Florida as a sunny, summery place and the actual song, which talks of escapism and sadness and has such a melancholy melody. I’ve always loved this song; the chorus of ‘Isn’t it hard sometimes/isn’t it lonely/how I still hang around here/when there’s nothing to hold me’ is just so perfect.” — Vanessa Peters


Photo credit: Giulia de Gregori

Possessed by Paul James: The Texas Schoolteacher Who Goes Wandering

Long before Konrad Wert took the stage name Possessed by Paul James, he was a kid living in what sounds like a fable. Wert grew up amidst the marshes and palmettos of Immokalee, Florida, watchful of “gators” but delighting in a monkey that swung from a mangrove tree near his home. Alongside his sister and the children of Mexican and Haitian immigrants, he attended the small Mennonite chapel his parents founded, worshipping and harmonizing on sturdy, simple hymns at least three times a week.

As a young adult Wert left Southwest Florida and his conservative, religious past. Free to listen to whatever he pleased, he was drawn to punk and the blues. But he set his love of music aside to pursue a teaching career. And for the last 20 years he has devoted his life to teaching special education and advocating for students and teachers.

Several years ago, with two young kids and a meager teaching salary, music became a way of supplementing his teaching income. His energetic, multi-instrumental shows quickly gained popularity and soon Possessed by Paul James (a nod to Wert’s father and grandfather) was born.

It’s been six years since Wert’s last album, There Will Be Nights When I’m Lonely. In that time, he has undergone two vocal surgeries, losing “two whole steps or three half-steps in terms of range,” he says. His latest album, As We Go Wandering, took nearly five years to complete. He would hum his compositions in school hallways, scribble lyrics on scratch paper or napkins and travel two hours northeast from his home in Kerrville, Texas, to Austin to record.

Finding common ground between the instrumental traditions of old-time music and a contemporary call to social action, As We Go Wandering is the collective work of 20 musicians. While Wert stayed consistent on banjo, fiddle, guitar and clogging, he wanted his friends and “picking pals” to add texture and feel on the record by contributing harmonies, mandolin, percussion and guitar.

He explains, “The greatest contribution to the participating musicians were the harmonies and choral effect such as in ‘Be at Rest,’ ‘As We Go Wandering,’ and ‘I’m So Good at Absolutely Nothing.’ … Their contributions added to the texture and feel tremendously. At the end of the day we’re all Possessed by Paul James. I like it like that. It’s not about the ‘me,’ it’s all about the ‘we.'”

BGS: Can you talk a little about the making of As We Go Wandering?

Wert: Our albums are very reflective of where we are in life. As We Go Wandering is really reflective of where we are as a family. My boys are 11 and 9. The kids are healthy, our relationship [with my wife] is strong, but where do we keep going?

I notice you say “we” and “our” when talking about the making of your music. Are you talking about your wife? The musicians you play with?

Yes. I’m a firm believer that the pronoun “we” is far more powerful than “I.” It’s never meant as the third person or some strange pretentious way of thinking. [Laughs] Rather, I can talk about how my family impacts the writing, how our friendships impact the writing, how life impacts the writing. I like to say, “We are Possessed by Paul James,” not “I am Possessed by Paul James.”

In the song “When It Breaks” you seem to be saying that when we hit our breaking points, we need to keep plugging away. What’s the story behind this song?

When I write, I’ll put songs on the shelf, and I’ll let it collect some dust until it feels ready to record it. We originally recorded this track on the album Feed the Family, and it was [recorded] just with me. It was very raw.

The sentiment when I wrote it then, and how we have reinvented it with this composition, has so much to do with, number one, my work as a schoolteacher. I had to take a year off in 2015 just for my mental health. It was starting to beat me down, that [feeling of] we’re not able to help these young people in the way that we want to help them. For me, some of these songs are reflective of, what am I going to do when I can’t take it anymore? What are teachers going to do when we can’t take it any longer? I get emotional about it.

Your performances always appear so cathartic, like you’re really just letting it all out. It sounds like your lyrics are a way of releasing emotions and inner struggles as well?

Oh, yeah. Maybe to a fault. Being raised a Mennonite, you were raised to recognize your weaknesses and your faults. You know the phrase would always be: Remember you’re broken and then you can have healing. Some people say, “When we come to your shows it feels like church.” Well, it’s meant to have people gather around and have a good time, share our burdens and talk with one another.

Many songs on this album feel nostalgic. Is that a reflection on where you are in life?

Yes. I understand how people sort of lose their footing in their mid-40s. There’s the adventures and excitement of your roaring 20s and then you’re balancing out in your 30s and quote-unquote growing up. Then in your 40s, the waters are calm and you’re thinking: What’s next? Am I just counting the minutes before I croak? I think there’s a lot of pondering, wandering in the album. I know I also wanted to slow things down. My wife is like, “Hey, can you have an album without cussing?” We wanted a more folk-y element, along with that theme of advocacy and hopefulness.

Some artists who have to have a day job to survive might compartmentalize those two things. You blend your job and your art together quite a bit.

Absolutely. I truly feel you can’t do one without the other. When I was [teaching] in elementary school, music was always in my classroom. I teach high school now, but on my wall there’s a picture of me teaching, my second-year teaching, with these little guys in school with a guitar. And there’s a little guy with a tambourine in his hand, a kid with Down syndrome, a sweet kid. So, music has always been in the class.

The song “Be at Rest” has been described as a social justice anthem related to education in this country. Is this a song you could’ve written in any other phase of your life?

No. I think with the rise of school shootings, when those tragedies occur, as a schoolteacher or counselor or any kind of educator, you’re literally walking in the same shoes of those that were injured or killed. It takes such a toll on you. You start thinking, whoa, look at this environment we are working in and this is truly now part of our job. This is truly part of our professional development and training — how to handle if someone comes into the school with a firearm. That’s profound when it’s an educational setting and we’re trying to help people learn and grow. The song was a response that came out in a cathartic manner.

My intent is to remind myself to be at rest. To remind myself that I can persevere. Is it specifically about someone coming into my school with a firearm? Yes and no. There are a lot of conflicts right now in public education that we have to focus our energy on. And I think by singing about that — there are battles in these classrooms, there are battles in these hearts — it might just be a reminder. It’s preachy, possibly. But not too preachy. I feel like if I get too preachy I lose the listener. But you have to live your convictions without losing your audience. That’s the balance.


Photo credit: George Blosser

LISTEN: Grant Peeples, “Rich Man”

Artist: Grant Peeples
Hometown: Tallahassee, Florida
Song: “Rich Man” (written by Rebekah Pulley)
Album: Bad Wife
Release Date: February 14, 2020

From the Artist: “I unknowingly gathered these songs [on Bad Wife] for years. I’ve worked with all these women in some aspect of the business; they are all friends. I heard all the songs for the first time in a live setting, where they entered me, worked me over, and never left. As I began the project, I didn’t have to go looking for songs. They had already found me. My learning and recording them was an exercise of rediscovery, a search for those original nerves the songs had struck.

“In 2008 I wandered up to a camp at the Florida Folk Festival and heard Rebekah singing this song. I feel it is the only unmitigated love song on the album — hopeful, adoring, and accepting. It is Hank Williamsian in both its depth and its simplicity.” — Grant Peeples


Photo credit: Inga Finch

LISTEN: Edan Archer, “Scenes from a Spanish Cantina”

Artist: Edan Archer
Hometown: Gainesville, Florida, generally nomadic though 🙂
Song: “Scenes from a Spanish Cantina”
Album: Journey Proud
Release Date: August 2, 2019

In Their Words: “This song was inspired by Miami, where I spent many years, both as a young child and later as an adult. The rhythm is a kind of samba and references the drum schools of Brazil where ‘all of the dancers come, and all of the little drums.’ It also contains imagery of fleeting love and celebrating — roses going for a dollar and a half, Valentine’s chocolates melting in the sun of a street market. The singer is warned not to go ‘running with the leader of the band,’ but when the drums play in the street, the dancers still come, and in the moment, it’s worth it.

“My grandmother was from Cuba and my mom also grew up in Spain, so I’ve always loved Latin music and felt a special connection with it. I do speak Spanish and sing in Spanish also. I learned traditional Cuban songs from my uncles and even sang Spanish songs at their funerals. I sang in the Brazilian ensemble in college and developed a love of Samba and big percussion. We also spent most summers in Mexico so mariachi and ranchero music are faves too. I loved being able to combine all my influences in this album, and that had to include something with a Latin vibe.” — Edan Archer


Photo credit: Gregg Roth

LISTEN: Lauren Pratt, “Twenty-five”

Artist: Lauren Pratt
Hometown: Fort Myers, Florida
Song: “Twenty-five”
Album: Young American Sycamore
Release Date: September 13, 2019

In Their Words: “‘Twenty-five’ started out as a song about life on the road and quickly evolved into a ballad of cyclical family dynamics and the things we inherit. One brother is a moonshiner and the other a lawman. One is doing the only job he’s ever known, the one he learned from his father, and the other is trying to feed his kids as a bounty hunter. There’s a brief mention of this occurring in the generation before them: ‘and just like my daddy I am on the run / from a man with the same damn red blood / running in his veins.’ It’s a bit obscure but I wanted to convey a sense of déjà vu, a faded family legend that might reside in the mists of the Appalachians.” — Lauren Pratt


Photo credit: Shelby Nicole Goldsmith

LISTEN: Amanda Cook, “Point of No Return”

Artist: Amanda Cook
Hometown: Jay, Florida
Song: “Point Of No Return”
Album: Point Of No Return
Release Date: April 12, 2019
Label: Mountain Fever Records

In Their Words: “When I first heard Ashby Frank’s song ‘Point Of No Return,’ it spoke to me. I feel like it represents the journey that I’m on with my music and my career. I truly have reached the point that I could never go back to what I was doing before. Music is my life, and I’m so truly blessed to do what I do. It was a no-brainer to make this tune the title track of my new album. I’m proud of the work the band did recording it, and I hope everyone enjoys it!” — Amanda Cook


Photo Credit: Katelyn Carter

LISTEN: Michael McArthur, “Rest’s Unknown”

Artist: Michael McArthur
Hometown: Lakeland, Florida
Song: “Rest’s Unknown”
Album: Ever Green, Ever Rain
Release Date: January 25, 2019
Label: Dark River Records

In Their Words: “When we were kids, the world we lived in seemed larger than life. The trees we climbed, our backyards, and our bedrooms. As you grow, that perspective grows with you. When I was 5, my older brother and I were racing to the field near our house. He stepped in front of me and I tripped and fell on the asphalt. Broke my writing arm, but I didn’t cry. The greatest lessons in life can’t be taught, they can only be learned. ‘Rest’s Unknown’ tells the story of growing up and going through life, learning that you’re not invincible, but meeting strength and courage for the first time. It’s about losing your innocence and realizing that if you look hard enough, you’ll find it again.” — Michael McArthur


Photo credit: Michael Flore