Tag: Folk

Hiss Golden Messenger: Hope, Joy, and ‘Terms of Surrender’

Posted on by Editor

To make his eighth proper album as Hiss Golden Messenger, M.C. Taylor left his adopted hometown of Durham, North Carolina, and went… everywhere? He booked studio time in Nashville, tracked songs in New Orleans, and headed north to upstate New York, where he recorded at the studio owned by The National’s Aaron Dessner. There might have been even more cities in that list, but logistics and time cut his traveling sessions short.

“I wanted to make a record anywhere other than Durham,” he says. “I felt like I needed a change, and it felt like the songs were asking for a change. This is a wandering record. It just felt like the songs were wandering around a little bit. So I felt like maybe I should, too.”

Travel is a major theme of his music, both as inspiration and consequence. Working as a musician means touring; providing for his family means leaving them. Out on the road, however, he finds new reasons to make music. Taylor peppers Hiss Golden Messenger songs with place names, references to home and elsewhere. For Terms of Surrender he decided he needed to make that part of the creative process, which meant recording wherever he landed.

Taylor’s wanderlust extends to the music, too, which draws from a range of roots traditions: psychedelic folk and rural funk, southern soul and classic rock, American primitive guitar and ‘60s frat rock, J.J. Cale and the Staple Singers, Neil Young and composer Harry Partch. The result is a sober but hardly somber album that surveys America at the end of the 2010s, during a moment that is — to say the very least — tumultuous.

BGS: Place always feels so important to your music, so it made me wonder if getting away from a place was as important as getting to a place. Could you have made this record back home in Durham?

Taylor: Yeah, I could have made it in Durham. Definitely. But it would have a very different character. I try not to think of the records as the final form of the songs. I think of them as snapshots of the songs, snapshots in time — a documentation of the tunes as they exist among a certain group of people on a certain day in a certain city. So this particular version of Terms of Surrender is a document of that particular time in my life.

Given that these are wandering songs, and given that you’ve talked about the album coming out of a very hard year, how did that inform the music?

The trials and tribulations I was experiencing are obviously threaded through the songs. Some of that is maybe obvious lyrically, and some of it is a little more coded. It’s something that is obvious only to me. I was dealing with those issues in the composition of the songs, but the making of the record was pretty joyous. Actually, the writing was, too, because it’s always a cathartic experience.

So I can’t really say that I went into the writing of the songs in a tortured place and came out with all the answers. The songs were just a way for me to speak about that stuff, to process it in a way that made me feel like I was evolving emotionally. Not that I was solving my problems, but I was at least beginning to understand what they were. We don’t find an answer in an instant, but we can identify the issue and over time find ways to address it.

To what degree can you talk about the events that informed this album?

It’s a tricky question, because it was something that was part of the fabric of my life for the last year or two. It’s something that comes up in the one-sheet because every record has to have a story, but then when it comes time to talk about it, it’s tough. You never know how much you want to reveal, you know what I mean? I’m a pretty open person but there’s this curtain between all of the stuff that I make public and all the stuff that I keep private.

So I’ll just say that I had some personal problems with someone that I worked very closely with. It felt like over the years they had become an emotionally abusive person. I couldn’t even put a name to the things I was feeling because of that relationship. I thought I had lost my way a little bit. Over time I came to understand what was going on and was able to extricate myself from that relationship. That was important. And then to have all that against the backdrop of the way our country feels right now… it was a lot. I’m a sensitive guy, I guess.

That definitely seems like something that informs these songs, but it’s not a political record. It’s more about living at a certain time when these things are encroaching on your mental health.

And I want to be clear: I’m one of the fortunate ones. I’m a white man in this country. I’m living on Easy Street compared to people of color, queer people, women. But that was a question that came up on the last record, Hallelujah Anyhow. That wasn’t really a political record either, unless you realize that everything is political. The personal is political; the emotional is political. But that record and the new one were made a different times, so the relationship to hope is different.

That’s something I picked up on: this sense of optimism as well as something like joy. That’s not necessarily a word that I associate with this time in history, but it comes through on a lot of these songs.

On Hallelujah Anyhow joy and hope seemed like these bright, sharp things, a nice glinting in the sunlight. They could cut through just about anything. But they work differently on this record, I think, because you realize that we have to work at them every day. If we don’t, they’ll become dull and unwieldy.

And hope and joy are things that I have to work at. Some of these songs are reminders to myself to work at these things that bring me hope and joy. You have to keep that bright thing sharp. It’s like marriage: If you stay in a marriage long enough, you realize that it takes a lot of hard work to keep it going. I’m pretty sure that that’s the way forward for me if I want to survive.

Is it difficult to get into that mindset when you’re writing, to remind yourself of these larger goals?

There are days when I wake up and think, I don’t want to make this music anymore. I don’t want to make any music anymore. This isn’t something that’s making me happy anymore. There’s too much competition, too much saber-rattling, which is all so superfluous to what we all actually do. I guess I’m interested in people who have been making music for a long time, because I want to be in this for the long haul. How does their language change over time? How do they adapt to survive in the world?

You mentioned that you wrote these songs as reminders to yourself. Does that change how you relate to them on the road, when you have to perform them night after night?

That’s why I try to approach records as snapshots. I know the songs are going to change every night, because of the emotional content in them. That changes the phrasing of how I sing certain things. Part of that comes from my emotional understanding of the songs, you know? The other part of that is that my favorite songs are the one I write without totally understanding. Usually I’m not very satisfied with them when I get them down on paper, but eventually I realize that if I live with that dissatisfaction, it’ll becomes something different.

It’s like there’s a hand that is guiding this stuff. It’s not God-like; it’s more an unconscious feeling that it’s okay to feel that way. It’s OK to feel like, “OK, this is as good as I can do right now. I don’t have the time or the emotional capacity right now to make this any better.” And then you just leave it. It’s like planting a seed. It grows even though the words on the page don’t change.

Is there a particular song in your catalog that changed or grown like that?

I would say most of the songs that are in live rotation remain in the set list because there is that element of discovery from day to day or week to week. “Blue Country Mystic” [from 2012’s Poor Moon] is a good one. And there’s one on the new record called “Down at the Uptown,” which is about this dive bar where we all used to hang out in the Mission District in San Francisco. This was many years ago, late ‘90s. It was a formative place for many of us.

I knew that I wanted to write about that time in my life, and I did the best I could. But it felt clunky. I thought, I’m just going to leave these words here and hope that if something better does come along, it’ll be better than what’s on the page now. But the process of singing it in rehearsals has made me realize that no, this is really good. Not a great song, but for me it’s good. It does the thing that I needed it to do.

That one did stand out because it seemed like a very specific reference to a very specific place. I thought it might be in North Carolina, but I was on the wrong side of the country.

I don’t even know if the Uptown is still there. When my friends and I moved to San Francisco in the late ‘90s, we found this bar on the corner of 17th and Capp in the Mission District. It was pretty scuzzy, you know. But the Uptown was this little hidden waystation where all of us learned to drink. There were a lot of promises made at that place, some of which we kept and some of which we didn’t. It was a clubhouse. And the jukebox was very educational. Lots of stuff on there was way above my pay grade. That’s where I heard Patti Smith’s “Horses” for the first time. I’d be lying if I said I loved it immediately. But all of my favorite music is not something that’s immediate.

I was an adult, but I was still a child in a lot of ways. I was out of the punk rock phase of my life — at least musically, not spiritually. I wanted more, but I didn’t know how to do it. It was a time when I was discovering all of the music that has continued to inform my life. So Patti Smith, but also the Silver Jews, Johnny Paycheck, Merle Haggard. All of that stuff was coming into my life at that time, and it was overwhelming in the most beautiful way.

That discovery of oneself is thrilling. It’s exhilarating to find a formative record one day and the very next day it’s another record that brings a similar emotional resonance. It happens less now because I’ve heard more. But every time I have that feeling, it’s wonderful.

That gets at something I’ve been thinking about regarding Hiss Golden Messenger. You’ve got eight albums in ten years, which is very prolific. How do you manage to keep things fresh for yourself?

Just trying to remember why I started doing this in the first place is usually the best way. I try to make sure what I’m doing feels vulnerable and genuine. Whether or not it feels fresh to other people? I don’t know if that’s something that I necessarily feel I should concern myself with. I hope people continue to find things in my music that moves them, because I’m still discovering new things in the music.

Photo credit: Graham Tolbert

Dori Freeman: From Appalachian Roots to ‘Every Single Star’

Posted on by Editor

Dori Freeman has been hurt and felt torn. We know because she’s told us so, always with unblinking frankness in crisp pop songs with deep Appalachian roots. But even if we couldn’t understand her words, we’d hear the pain in her soprano, which rings out with melancholy strength only gained from living.

In her new album Every Single Star, the Galax, Virginia, native pushes her blend of familial mountain grit and mid-century-inspired polish even further into its own creative territory. Never one to shy away from truth, Freeman writes about motherhood, expectations, and relationships from a distinctly female perspective.

BGS: In the songs on Every Single Star we seem to hear real contentment. While there’s still some conflict, especially when it comes to having to be away from your daughters, there is peace, too. Was writing these songs a different experience than writing your first two albums?

Dori Freeman: Definitely. I had recently been married when I started writing a lot of the songs on this record. It was the first time I’d been in a happy, stable relationship, which obviously will have an effect on the themes in the songs you write. I was in a different headspace. For the previous two records, I was in different phases. Whether it was getting over a particularly difficult relationship or looking back on that and thinking what I didn’t want to have. With this one, I was with someone that I really love. So the songwriting was different.

I did a lot of imagining scenarios, which I didn’t do as much with the first two records. Those were based more on very direct experiences. On Every Single Star, the songs about my daughter are very direct and personal, but some of the other ones, like “Of Me and You” — that was a song that I wrote for a friend of mine who’d had a relationship that didn’t work out so well. I’ve had to look for different sources of inspiration this time around. When you’re happy, it definitely makes songwriting harder. [Laughs]

I’m happy you have that problem.

It’s a great problem to have. [Laughs]

Do you have a favorite memory of playing one of these new songs live over the past several months?

Nothing too specific stands out, but one of my favorite songs on the record is “All I Ever Wanted.” One of the things that’s nice about performing that song is almost every time I’ve done it, I’ve had women come up to me afterwards and say how much they enjoyed the song. That was the intention: to write a song fully from a woman’s perspective that other women could relate to. So it’s nice to have girls come up and tell me they liked it.

You’ve said you admire Peggy Lee and the mid-century aesthetic. What is it about the ’50s and ’60s sound that you like?

Peggy Lee is one of my favorite singers of all time. I don’t know what it is. I think for one thing, they still recorded in a more live situation, in a bigger room, so everything sounded a lot fuller on records back then. I also like the style people sang in in that era. My dad played a lot of that music for me growing up. Actually, he just made a record with mandolin, playing a bunch of swing tunes, so he’s really drawn to that music too. I think that it’s that I always listened to it, and I can’t help but have it influence what I do.

You grew up in such a musical family. When you were a kid, did y’all just sit around and play music together?

Yeah, definitely. I was always in choir in school. I didn’t really start to play guitar and sing in front of people by myself until I was about 15 or 16, but even when I was little, I would go jam at parties and festivals with my dad and grandpa, and then sit around and watch people play music.

As I got older, I started to perform with my dad and grandpa on stage. They used to have a little show on Friday nights at the frame shop that my family runs. So that’s one of the first places I really got some good practice performing in front of people. We still do shows together. We still play together as a trio with my husband as well, who plays drums with us now. So yeah, it’s still very much a family thing.

You’ve said that people don’t really talk about motherhood in the music industry. Are there specific experiences you’ve had or witnessed that made the great motherhood omission personally more evident to you?

Yeah, I can think of one in particular, when my daughter was not quite a baby, but not quite 2 years old — so she was still pretty little and motherhood was still a pretty new thing to me. It was also around the same time I was putting out my first record, so it was hard to manage all those things and to figure out how to balance them. I was at a music conference. I won’t say which one. They had this thing where they wanted a bunch of women to get together and talk about problems they faced in the industry as women. So people were raising their hands, going around, and sharing their experiences.

There was a lot we’d all been through, with sexism and dealing with men being inappropriate in a whole variety of ways. That is obviously a huge issue too. But I remember raising my hand and saying, “You know, it’s hard being a mom on tour, especially if there’s no green room, or you don’t have a babysitter to look after your child while you’re playing and then figuring out logistics — you can’t just stay anywhere after a show.”

I just remember crickets in the room. It got overlooked so quickly — everyone moved on. No one really seemed to care. And this was in a group of women. I think most of them, if not all of them, probably didn’t have children. I can understand why it didn’t seem important. But it was not a good feeling to share something personal and important to me and have it seemingly immediately overlooked and dismissed.

I can imagine. You’ve said it was cathartic to write songs about your daughter for this album. What kind of healing do you experience when you write songs about her?

I feel like she becomes more a part of what I’m doing, especially when she’s not physically present. If I can perform on stage and sing songs that are about her, I feel like she’s involved in some way. That makes me feel better because sometimes I’m on the road for four or five days at a time, which I know is not that long, but when you have a child — especially a young one — it starts to feel like a long time after a while.

It was really important for me with this record to write a couple of songs about her, and also to make sure that people knew when I was performing them on stage that they were about her. I always introduce the songs as being about my daughter. I want the audience to know she is an important part of my life. I want to feel like my daughter is involved, even when she’s not there. I guess it helps me feel better about missing her.

It helps you, but it also seems like talking about it openly — just saying, “This song is for my daughter” — could go a long way toward normalizing motherhood in music. Many women artists are also mothers.

Absolutely. I feel like in most industries, it’s hard to be a working mother, but being a musician brings a very specific set of challenges. One of the questions I get so often — and it’s one of my least favorite questions — is, “Do you travel with your daughter?” or “How come your daughter’s not with you?”

I just think, “Well, do you bring your daughter to a board meeting? Do you bring your child on your business trips?” I realize that music seems like fun and not a lot of work, but it is a lot of work. It’s a job, as much as I love it. So it doesn’t always make sense to have my child there, and I don’t think it’s fair to be judged for that.

You’ve stepped confidently into this tradition of strong Appalachian women — strong Appalachian women artists, in particular. Instead of me assigning a definition to what that means, how would you describe the particular strength of an Appalachian woman?

Oh gosh. That’s a tough one. I can give you one example: When I think of a strong, Appalachian woman, I think of my great grandmother. She was from eastern Kentucky and had seven or eight siblings that were younger than she was. She raised them from the time she was 13 on. When she was an adult, she went right into having her own children. She took care of everything. She did the housework. She raised the children. She killed the chickens to cook. It was classic, what you imagine when you think of Appalachia 70 years ago.

If her life had been different — if she’d grown up somewhere else or maybe with more opportunity or more money — she would have pursued music in some way. I know she really loved music. She loved to sing and play guitar. She taught my grandfather how to play guitar.

I feel like in a roundabout way, she has some part in my choice to be a musician. My grandfather has been such a big influence on me musically, and if it wasn’t for her passing on her love of music to him, then it wouldn’t have made its way to me. Even though she couldn’t pursue those things in her own life, she wanted to make sure she passed them on so that someone eventually could.

Photo Credit: Kristina LeBlanc

STREAM: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, ‘WAHOO!’

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer
Hometown: Silver Spring, Maryland
Song: “High on a Mountain”
Album: WAHOO!
Release Date: October 11, 2019
Label: Community Music, Inc.

In Their Words: “The ukulele has as many Americana and roots music voices as the player has, and that’s what we’ve explored on WAHOO! From the Turlough O’Carrolan Irish piece ‘Morgan Megan’ to a bluesy version of Ola Belle Reed’s ‘High on a Mountain,’ we’re pushing the ukulele into places that are new and exciting and love creating unique combinations with uke and cello banjo, uke and guitar, baritone and tenor uke, uke and electric guitar, songwriting and vocals. Somehow, all of our musical worlds come together on this little four string piece of magic.” — Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer

Photo credit: Irene Young

Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In honor of the new documentary film, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, and in appreciation of her connection to bluegrass — and in an attempt to shout it from the proverbial rooftops! — we’re reprinting Dan Mazer’s 1996 Bluegrass Unlimited interview with Ronstadt split into two parts, but in its entirety on BGS. Special thanks to the team at Bluegrass Unlimited for partnering with BGS to spotlight how bluegrass has touched one of the most important and truly iconic voices to ever grace this planet.

(Read part one of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)

“Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass”
By Dan Mazer. Bluegrass Unlimited, June 1996

…Our conversation moved to a discussion of Alison Krauss’ musicianship. Krauss seems to have an incredible variety of influences, which come out when she wants them to. “And in an appropriate manner,” Ronstadt continued. “There seems to be a general agreement among all the people that I know – whose various subjectivities are very strict and very demanding – that Alison has the best taste of any of those people.

“Every fiddle player that I’ve ever worked with will be tempted to play sound(s) like donkeys braying; or just play too much – play ‘flash’ licks in an inappropriate manner. (I call it) ‘The Paganini Syndrome.’ And Alison never is.

“Her pitch is completely stunning! I’m a pitch nazi, and she’s even a little more strict than I am, in terms of pitch. And the thing that I like the very best about her playing is her rhythm. She’s got that great, easy, loping sense of the groove that bluegrass players generally don’t have. When it’s right, of course, it’s got a great swing to it. But bluegrass players have a tendency to get a little stiff and a little on top of the groove. And she never does! I don’t think she’s played with drummers that much, but we put her together with Jim Keltner, and it was just an amazing thing. She’s got the same sense of the groove that he does, and he has the effortless pocket. I consider her as good as any musician I’ve ever worked with. My cousin (David Lindley) said she was his favorite fiddle player ever. And I love her. And also, she owns Maria Callas’ bed! (Laughter) I don’t know why, or how she managed to get her hands on it, but she did. I was jealous. I wanted to be the one to get it. Emmylou Harris and I are both Maria Callas fans. Slobbering, drooling Maria Callas fans!” 

When asked to comment on other bluegrass acts, Ronstadt confessed that she doesn’t listen to any modern music of any style. In fact, she was unfamiliar with many of the major country acts. Nor had she ever heard of the IBMA. “Honestly, the only ones I know (are) Ricky Skaggs, Alison, and (the) Seldom Scene,” she said. “But before that, it really was those original guys (Flatt and Scruggs and Monroe). I mean, it was such a short-lived era. And before that, the Blue Sky Boys, which wasn’t really bluegrass, but which really sorta fed right into it. I love those guys, and I listen to the Louvin Brothers a lot. So I listen to all the stuff that led right up to it. 

“I know very little of any kind of contemporary music. I just don’t. I listen to NPR, and I listen to Maria Callas and them, and I listen to a lot of Mexican music, and that’s about it. And if it penetrates through that it’s usually because Emmy calls me up, or John Starling calls me up, or Quint Davis. Quint Davis is the guy that runs the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and he put on that thing on the Mall for the inauguration. That’s where I saw Alison. I was just blown away by her!

“I don’t know modern stuff. I haven’t a clue. It seems like when we did the ‘Trio’ record, nobody was interested in traditional music. And then that record was pretty successful, and at that point, Ricky Skaggs was extremely successful, but all of a sudden, I don’t know. I don’t watch this type of stuff on television. I haven’t got the vaguest idea, and I don’t listen to the radio. I have a great respect for anything that anybody does. I mean, I think it’s just so hard to make a record – any record – that I don’t like to put myself in the position of, ‘This is good, and that’s not good,’ like a bean-counter. But I have to say that (modern country fails) to capture my interest.

“There’s always music in front of my face. If I was gonna sit and listen to Mozart, (and) someone said, ‘OK, this is gonna be it (you can only listen to Mozart) forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ And if someone was playing me some Mexican traditional music, and they said, ‘This is gonna be it forever,’ I’d go, ‘OK.’ Because there’s enough in any of those things, to (keep me interested). 

“Somebody came over to my house the other day with some musicians from Madagascar. They sit down in my kitchen and played this Malagassi music, and it just blew me through the wall! So, if they had said at that point, ‘Well, you’re gonna have to sing a little Malagassi now,’ I would’ve said, ‘Well, OK. Fine!’ I could’ve got right down and sung with them, and had no problem at all. But I can only concentrate on one thing at a time, and if that thin is interesting, I just don’t have any particular need to shift my attention. 

“When John Starling comes out to visit me, he sits down at my kitchen table with his guitar, and we start singing. I get pried back to English. But I’d really rather sing in Spanish or Italian. Because all that stuff (bluegrass and country) is based on rural southern pronunciation. And in Spanish – if I’m singing a Latin jazz thing that’s a Caribbean base, I have to push myself from my northern Mexican rural accent into a Caribbean accent, which is painful for me. I find it an unpleasant way to pronounce the language, but I have to do it in order to get the rhythms right. So I do it. I really push myself into that other accent. But I prefer singing in my own accent – the accent of my family’s region. I can just get so much more sound out of my voice in that language.” 

Over the course of a career, an artist makes many decisions based upon the age-old dilemma of commercialism versus artistic merit. What the public wants to buy is not always what the artists likes [sic] to paint, play, or sing. Ms. Ronstadt has lately recorded opera, Big Band and Mexican music, none of which usually sells platinum in today’s market. It seems that she has reached a point in which she doesn’t have to worry about selling a certain number of records; her musical decisions are now totally artistic. “Well, they were to start with, too. It’s just that I wasn’t as good at executing them!” She protested with a laugh. “And I find that now. I’m making my choices based on an artistic thing, but I am also finding that my choices were made for me when I was a baby. It’s getting harder, though. I do find that the record companies have a tendency to stick their oar in a lot more now. It’s very nervous-making. Although, the one person that I’ve allowed to submit material and give advice – I don’t always take it, but I always consider it – is (Asylum Records President) Kyle Lehning. He’s an amazing guy! He really, genuinely likes music, first of all, which is rare for a record person. Second of all, he’s extremely knowledgeable, and he has great taste in songs. And he seems dedicated to the idea of trying to save what he can that’s quality, and nurture it.

“(The latest project) started with several nagging phone calls from John Starling!” She laughed. “John Starling doesn’t get down behind traditional Mexican music! And then Emmy calling me, because Emmy and I are such fans of the McGarrigle Sisters. We were talking about doing some television stuff. We were just trying to think of how we could get in the living room together again with John Starling. So we started working on tunes, like the Carter Family songs that only Emmy and I would be interested in. And maybe John Starling or Claire Lynch, or somebody. John had, a long time ago, sent us Claire Lynch records, saying, ‘You really gotta sing with this girl. She’s real wonderful.’ So claire and Emmy and I have done some stuff together. 

“And then, I’ve been working with Valerie Carter. She put a record out in the ‘70s. Everybody in Hollywood was after her. She’s an extraordinary singer, and she was exceptionally beautiful. She was about 19, I think, then. Lowell George and Mick Jagger and Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther and Danny Kortchmar – everybody wanted to work with her. Everybody tried to, and then George Massenberg, who is my production partner – who I met through John Starling – did produce a record from her, and so did Lowell George. I sang on it. Then she just had some problems, and she dropped out of sight for about 15 years, which was really a tragedy for us. ‘Cause she’s one of those girls that can sing as well as Whitney Houston. She’s got that kind of chops. But it doesn’t sound like her. It’s a very distinctive voice. But that kind of ability. It was too bad, ‘cause she was (a) really interesting singer. So she’s now been singing on the road with James Taylor a lot. I used her to sing a lot on my last record, that I put out. The blend between her and me and Emmy was just really magical! So we’ve done some stuff together, the three of us. 

“But what Emmy and I wanted to do was just explore. See what we could go find out there. We wanted to push the limits a little bit, and see what we could find in terms of texture, combining styles, of things that we liked that don’t always fit in one little (category). Like the McGarrigle Sisters. Where do you put that? It’s not really traditional folk music, and it’s got traditional roots. It certainly isn’t bluegrass. And the sentiment is too unbridled for current pop, ‘cool’ standards. But it’s very intelligent music. 

“There’s other stuff that is kind of like that; that’s kind of ‘out there.’ And there’s some stuff that’s just real, real traditional. So we’ve just been fooling around with various singers. And then I sang with Claire Lynch and my cousin John, who’s got a wonderful voice – on two songs.” 

Although she maintains that after a project is finished she doesn’t care what happens, Ronstadt is intensely involved in its creation. “Oh, I mix everything! I do every single thing,” she declared. “I make the record, I do the arrangements, I do the harmony arrangements, I do a lot of the instrumental arrangements. Nothing is done on the record without me being there. But when it’s finished, I never listen to it again. You can take it and throw it off a cliff, for all I care. I’ve heard it and I’ve done it, and that’s the experience; and now I go on to something else. So at that point, I surrender it to the record company, and they do whatever. They can shoot it with a gun if they want to. I don’t care what they do. Long as they don’t shoot me.” 

Returning to the topic of bluegrass, Ronstadt commented, “I understand what [the banjo] does, rhythmically. And I appreciate what it does – that syncopated thing; the difference in all those accents. 

“I think of the banjo kinda like I think of the trumpet in mariachi, which is: trumpet was brought in about the same time that the resonator was added onto the back of the banjo. It was a ‘radio’ event, and a good one. It was a really good thing; it needed that high end to cut through. But if somebody came to bed and blew a trumpet in my ear, I’d get annoyed! If somebody came to bed with me and started plucking a banjo, I would probably jump right up to the ceiling! But it’s a great instrument in the orchestral blend. It’s really got a great place. And I don’t think the banjo will ever go out of style. 

“Those other instruments are a lot more flexible. They can bear a lot more. I’ve really become a complete mandolin fan, ‘cause I’ve been working with David Grisman. I just think he’s a genius. I knew his playing. I knew he was considered a ‘hot chops’ player. I think he plays bluegrass sometimes, but he really predates and transcends all of that stuff completely. I mean, he can play like a classical player. I’ve never heard anybody with dynamics like that, and I’ve never played with anybody that could play with a vocalist; and play little internal harmonies. He just flits around like a little hummingbird – all around the vocal line – and plays a beautiful little harmony for a while, and then he goes off to a rhythm pattern, then he comes back. He has great ideas for voicings, and he has very, very good rhythm ideas. I just love to work with him. I think he’s brilliant.

“You know what I think is missing from bluegrass at this point? And from all that kind of traditional music? Dancing. That’s what I discovered with Mexican music, was that it is dance music. Period. I think, as is fiddle (music). As soon as you uncouple it from (dancing), the music changes. It’s the same way with pop music. As soon as it became recorded music – people started dancing in discos to recorded music – the music stopped being alive, and it stopped changing in a real vital way. Started changing in a more static, strange, mechanized way. 

“So my suggestion, to the bluegrass world would be, one should never uncouple that music from dancing. There should always be dancers involved with bluegrass music.” 

The author commented that singing is also something that’s been taken away from most people and given only to professionals. “Yeah, it’s an outrage! In Mexican culture, everyone sings,” she responded. “Everyone knows all the words, and they all sing. We sing at the dinner table. Whatever you’re doing, you sing. You sing in a funeral, you sing at a birthday, you sing at a wedding. You sing if you’re happy, you sing if you’re sad. It’s a thing you get to do to help you along with your life. Everyone should sing. It’s a biological necessity. Even little babies sing. I mean, even when they’re pre-verbal, you hear them kind of leaning into a sound.”

(Read part one of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)

Photos and artwork courtesy of Shore Fire Media
Article appears courtesy of Bluegrass Unlimited

Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Barely three minutes into the brand new documentary, Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, the viewer is already presented with none other than Dolly Parton, who exclaims, “Linda could literally sing anything.” 

Over the course of her singular, era-defining career Ronstadt did sing almost anything — from The Pirates of Penzance to American standards to Mexican folk songs — but she’s rarely referenced in the same breath as bluegrass. The BGS x Linda Ronstadt history notwithstanding, it’s understanding that the twain rarely meet, in conversation and consideration. Of her most easily recognizable hits, among them “Willin’,” “You’re No Good,” and “Desperado,” perhaps “Blue Bayou” is the closest to bluegrass — and in its Ronstadt iteration, less so than in other covers of the languid ballad. 

Scratch the surface, though, no matter how slightly, and her bluegrass cred runs deep. This should come as no surprise, given her immaculate performances alongside Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris on Trio and Trio II — the first song the three sang together, informally, at Harris’s house in L.A. was “Bury Me Beneath the Willow.” The Sound of My Voice digs a little deeper still, reminding that Ronstadt’s very first hit, “Different Drum,” recorded with folk-rock trio the Stone Poneys, was discovered by Ronstadt, who first heard the song from a now almost-forgotten bluegrass band, the Greenbriar Boys. 

Elsewhere in the film, Ronstadt mentions that during her early days in the city she frequented Los Angeles’ The Ash Grove, the foremost folk and bluegrass venue there in the ‘60s and ‘70s. She also made appearances and recorded with the Seldom Scene, and remained close friends and musical confidantes with John Starling. One of the last studio recordings Ronstadt ever released was a duet of the Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard classic, “Pretty Bird” with bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis. The track was released on Ronstadt’s Duets project as well as Lewis’s The Hazel and Alice Sessions and the pair worked together prior, as well, performing as “The Bluebirds” with Maria Muldaur at Wintergrass Music Festival in 2005.

The bluegrass tendrils are there, undeniably, woven alongside so many other influences and inspirations and impressions that informed Ronstadt’s art. Still, it was surprising to this writer to find that in June 1996 Bluegrass Unlimited, the foremost and longest-running print publication dedicated solely to bluegrass music, had featured a lengthy, in-depth interview with Linda Ronstadt herself. Even by author Dan Mazer’s own admission, “Ms. Ronstadt’s bluegrass/country connection is tenuous at best.” And yet, for nearly five thousand words, the article displays that Ronstadt isn’t just tangentially connected to bluegrass, it is a permanent part of her musical self. 

In honor of the new documentary film, and in appreciation of this connection to bluegrass — and in an attempt to shout it from the proverbial rooftops! — we’re reprinting Dan Mazer’s interview with Ronstadt exactly how it appeared in 1996, split into two parts, but in its entirety on BGS. Special thanks to the team at Bluegrass Unlimited for partnering with BGS to spotlight how bluegrass has touched one of the most important and truly iconic voices to ever grace this planet. — Justin Hiltner, BGS Associate Editor

(Read part two of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)

“Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass”
By Dan Mazer. Bluegrass Unlimited, June 1996

While preparing an article on the influence of bluegrass on today’s country music, I had the opportunity to interview several prominent country stars. During discussions with Bluegrass Unlimited’s editorial staff about artists to interview, the name Linda Ronstadt came up. 

Linda Ronstadt? It seemed an odd choice at first. Ms. Ronstadt has had a long and varied career, and while her forays into bluegrass with the Seldom Scene have been recognized and celebrated within the bluegrass community, as an artist, she just didn’t seem to fit in with the likes of Marty Stuart, Hal Ketchum, and Patty Loveless. On the other hand, her classic recordings of “Blue Bayou,” “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and “When Will I Be Loved?” are still copied by country music cover bands some 20 years after their release. Some of her work as also been covered by bluegrass artists. 

Because Ms. Ronstadt’s bluegrass/country connection is tenuous at best (especially in recent years, when her recordings have featured opera, Big Band and Mexican music), it was with little hope that I sent an interview request to Ms. Ronstadt’s publicist. To my surprise and delight, the request as answered quickly with a call from the publicist to set an appointment for a telephone interview. Ms. Ronstadt called me from her home in Los Angeles, and graciously granted me a significantly longer interview than we had arranged – that was just because the conversation was so interesting and enjoyable! She is remarkably well-spoken, intelligent and passionate. In the end, we decided not to include Ms. Ronstadt’s remarks in the profile of country artists with bluegrass roots. 

Ms. Ronstadt grew up in Tuscon, Ariz. Her family listened to a broad variety of music on the radio. Opera, country, rock ‘n’ roll, and jazz filled the house. Some radio shows also featured bluegrass. “We were right in the pat of XERF, Del Rio, Tex,” she said. “And we (had) the Louisiana Hayride. We were right there, where there was a lot of big transmitters, and not a lot of interference. So I heard (bluegrass) when I was little, growing up.

“When we were kids just listening to stuff on the radio, we tried to sing it. My brother and sister and I could always harmonize real early. So we used to sing the stuff we heard on the radio. We heard Bill Monroe, and we heard Flatt and Scruggs, we heard Homer and Jethro doing a sendup of ‘Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes.’ I had such a cross-section! And then, when I was in high school, I think it really intensified.

“I’ve always been interested in harmony. I’ve always been a harmony singer. When I was a real little child, I could sing harmony. I’m always surprised when children say, when they’re three, that they can’t. But all my brothers and sisters could, real early. I could hear strange harmonies, too. But I understood Mexican harmonies better, and they have a tendency to be very, very clear kind of parallel thirds.”

(Author’s Note: “Parallel thirds” refers to what, in bluegrass, corresponds to the lead and tenor part singing close harmony at the interval called a “third.” Brother duets also feature this harmony.) 

As an artist, Ronstadt doesn’t feel authentically connected to bluegrass. “I feel that I would have had to live in the rural south, and grow up in the mountains,” she said. “There’s just such a difference between mountain South and plantation South. Culturally and musically.”

Since she grew up near the Mexican border, and her father is Mexican, Ronstadt mostly sang Mexican music as a child. “There’s a great deal of similarities (between bluegrass and Mexican music),” she noted. “One of them is that the three-part harmony stuff that we sang a lot is Mexican mountain music, and it’s country music. The music of an agrarian lifestyle is what I’ve always been most attracted to. I love it, and having grown up in a kind of isolated, rural setting, it was something that reflected what I was witnessing around me. 

“I’ve always had an ear for any kind of a thrilling, wild, high tenor. And again, in Mexican music, there’s a loose parallel, especially up in the mountains, where they sing real high in this falsetto, in the huapango style.

“The language and the pronunciation of the language – whatever the rural accent is – influences the style of singing and the vocal intonation so profoundly! With bluegrass music it was those ways of pronouncing 16th Century English, probably, frozen in those mountains. But in Mexico, of course, it was the indigenous language of nahuatl, which was what was mostly spoken there, which gave the pronunciation and forced the tonality into that nasal thing. 

“Also, having to communicate across long distances, you get a real high, ringing (tone). Men get a lot of power out of that high register; way more than women do, which is why – having absolutely nothing to do with sexism –I feel that bluegrass is very wonderful when it’s three male voices. Mariachi music, also (is an example), which is from a different region (Jalisco). But when all those male voices are singing up in the high register, it’s a different sound from a woman’s voice singing up in a more comfortable register. I can sing bluegrass tenor pretty well, but it doesn’t quite have the power that it will ever have from a man forcing himself up way high in that register. It just doesn’t have the same dynamic. It’s still good. I call it ‘pink grass.’”

Until recently, bluegrass has been almost entirely a male reserve. Ronstadt feels that there is good reason for that, although, as she pointed out, “There was old-time music before that, which of course, happily embraced women singers. But I still think it was just that thrilling sound of those male voices in two- and three-part harmony, pushed way, way up high, that really gave it a very distinctive characteristic. And it’s pretty hard to compromise that, regardless of your sexual politics, without making it into something different. 

“There are women singers today that have what I think (are) very, very good, and very authentic-sounding bluegrass voices. I think Claire Lynch has a wonderful voice. I love her singing! And those girls that sing with Alison Krauss; the Cox Family. But it’s hard to say. Where do you draw the line? Is that bluegrass, or is that old-time? I think that’s a combination; both things.” 

When thinking of acts that embrace and also expand bluegrass, the Seldom Scene immediately comes to mind. Many people argue with some justification that the inclusion of a banjo defines an act as a bluegrass band. Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, Reno and Smiley and the Stanley Brothers all performed certain songs (usually gospel numbers) without the banjo, but the Seldom Scene broke new ground with their unprecedented, mellow guitar-based sound. Furthermore, because Ben Eldridge’s banjo playing is unparalleled for taste and restraint, the Seldom Scene can be mellow even on tunes that include the banjo. They also distinguished themselves by using Linda Ronstadt as a backup vocalist on some of their earlier recordings. They remain her favorite bluegrass band. 

“They really are an urban band with very, very strong rural influences,” she said. “They had all the benefit of a sophisticated, cosmopolitan atmosphere, which Washington, D.C., certainly is, and they were able to refine in any direction they wanted to. I really think they made an extraordinary synthesis. I love that band; I always have.

“Mike (Auldridge) is such a unique player. Nobody sounds like him. He’s got that real beautiful, lyrical, velvet thing that happens, but it’s still got plenty of strength and guts behind it. There are more famous Dobro [resonator guitar] players than that, but I like him the best and I always call him when I want a Dobro [resonator guitar] player.

“John Starling is an exceptional singer, and has a wonderful sense of the groove. He’s a very, very fine guitar player. Emmylou Harris and I both spent so many hours and hours and nights and nights and months and months with him, way on into the night, just grooving on that sound and exploring it! He’s given us a wealth of something. It’s hard to define. But just having that superb musicianship to lean on, and the focus of his sensibility, which is very keen and very well-developed in that direction. 

“I remember getting snowed in at John Starling’s house with Lowell George, and Emmy, and Ricky Skaggs (in 1974 or 1975). Fayssoux Starling was there, who was a good singer. And we sang forever! I mean, we sang all night, and they were there for three days. I was sick, so i was there for a month, they were there for three days, and in that time, Ricky Skaggs taught me a whole lot about how to sing bluegrass harmony. I knew a little bit about it, but he really showed me how the suspensions worked, and it helped me to refine it a lot. I understood (the suspensions), but didn’t know quite how to really imply them. He Walked me through ‘em, and after that, I had ‘em.”

(Author’s Note: “Suspensions” is a musical term referring to creating tension in a chord by sounding a not that is not in the chord, and then releasing that tension by lowering the dissonant note. For example, a guitarist will sometimes play a “D” chord and add a high “G” note on the third fret of the first string for one measure, then release that fret, so that the “F#” note rings.)

Ronstadt is surprised that she is sometimes cited within country music. “I was never a country singer,” she stated. “I never thought of myself as a country singer. Always very surprised if anybody else did. I was a pop music singer, and I used various root forms that were acceptable to me, and that was one of the things that was readily acceptable to me. 

“I’ve always had a little rule about my singing. If it wasn’t there in the living room by the time I was eight years old, it generally won’t be very successful if I take a swing at it, at least to my standards. But thanks to the radio, there was a lot of stuff in play by the time I was eight. And thanks to the fact that my family has very eclectic kind of taste, anyway. 

“So, when I came into pop music, I played songs that I loved. I didn’t care whether they were written by George Gershwin or Hank Williams. A song that would really inspire me for one reason or another, I’d try to sing it. And I’d always try to put it into its appropriate setting. So if it (was) a bluegrass song, I’d try to put it in that kind of setting, and I knew enough about the mechanics of how it worked, so that I would do that. Then there were these singers and players that I really admired, and tried to emulate. But that thrilling high tenor sound, there’s just nothing like it.” 

The closest Ronstadt has come to recording bluegrass in recent years was on the “Trio” album, which featured her along with Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. A follow-up recording was eagerly anticipated, but never materialized. “The ‘Trio’ record became so difficult, schedule-wise, that we all gave up,” she said. “But Emmy and I did quite a lot of singing together. We had a great time! See, Emmy and I started out with this idea to do a record together, where we would use some guest artists. And we sort of progressed down that road, but it never got to where everybody would agree on a release date. Everybody did agree at some point, but the people kept changin’ their minds.

“But Emmy and I really are kind of locked on to each other musically. Emmy and I have sung some stuff together that’s gonna be on my record; Emmy and I have sung some stuff together that’s gonna be on her record. And we also did some stuff with Valerie Carter, who’s just a great singer.” 

Ronstadt’s bluegrass influence is definitely shown in her current release.

(Read part two of “Linda Ronstadt Talks Bluegrass” here.)

Photos courtesy of Shore Fire Media
Article appears courtesy of Bluegrass Unlimited

LISTEN: Heather Masse & Jed Wilson, “Crazy”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Heather Masse & Jed Wilson
Hometown: Accord, New York
Song: “Crazy”
Album: Hold On
Release Date: October 11, 2019

In Their Words: “I wrote the song ‘Crazy’ after a gathering where a friend of mine told me I was crazy. Normally, I would laugh that off, or even take it in with a sense of pride since some of the greatest minds are a little out of their minds, but at that particular moment I was in fact feeling pretty wacky and emotional, so it hit a little too close to home. I got in the car feeling a little mad/sad and this song came out and had me feeling a whole lot better. Jed brought this tune to a whole other crazy on his piano solo. He ended up in some many different places and keys it really brought the song to life!” — Heather Masse

Photo credit: Darren Miller

The Likely Culprits Issue an Arresting Debut

Posted on by Editor

Most likely to succeed? That’s of no interest to the Likely Culprits, an easygoing group of bluegrass cut-ups who just released one of the most entertaining albums out of Nashville this year.

With four of the band’s members bantering inside a forgotten conference room at IBMA, they readily confess that their name derives from an ongoing conversation within the band: Who’s the most likely to end up behind bars? It’s currently a seven-way tie between Brandon Bostic, Ronnie and Garnet Bowman, Melonie Cannon, Ashby Frank, Deanie Richardson, and Austin Ward. The informal happy hour vibe of this conversation lends itself to proceed on a first-name basis.

“We’re all pretty rowdy,” Deanie says. “We’re all a bunch of hillbilly rebels and we were like, ‘Well, one of us probably get arrested eventually.’ And it was just, which one of us was going to go to jail, and who’s the likely culprit?”

Turns out, that unpredictability is the album’s greatest strength. When pulling together its dozen tracks, they wanted to ensure that all five of the band’s vocalists had a chance to sing, and that nobody’s favorite song was left out. The result is something like listening to a stereo with a seven-disc changer, but with a throughline of excellent musicianship and a high caliber of songwriting.

For example, Melonie unearthed album cuts from Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams, Brandy Clark, and Matraca Berg, while Ashby reconfigured pop star Gavin DeGraw’s melodious “Where You Are.” After years of singing it at the band’s Station Inn shows, Garnet finally recorded “Tennessee Blues,” a deep cut from Keith Whitley. That tearjerker is immediately followed on the album by Brandon’s version of Dave Matthews Band’s “Gravedigger.” Listening to the self-titled album as a complete body of work, it somehow fits.

There might be a shorter version of how the Likely Culprits all met, but here’s one way to tell the story: Deanie and Melonie have been friends since childhood, and when Melonie married Deanie’s brother, they’d host guitar pulls with their mutual friends. Garnet would come to those parties, forging a bond among all three women that’s lasted 25 years. In the years ahead, she would marry Ronnie, who cultivated his bluegrass reputation in the ‘90s with the Lonesome River Band and as a solo artist. He also produced Melonie’s solo albums with her father, Buddy Cannon.

Meanwhile, Ashby met Garnet and Melonie when he was playing in Ronnie’s band. Later on, when Deanie and Ashby crossed paths a party, they recognized that they’d found kindred spirits in each other. Then, as happens in Nashville, they had an idea to form a band, admittedly with no real intentions of taking it on the road. Instead, the priority would be simply making good music. So, together they rounded up Melonie and Garnet, while Ashby recruited two of his friends, Brandon and Austin. And just as the band was hitting its stride, Ashby took a temporary job as a musician on a cruise ship.

“We were having so much fun, it was like, man, we don’t want to stop,’” Garnet recalls. That’s when Deanie asked Ronnie to take Ashby’s spot, not sure if he’d even want to.

Ronnie explains, “Not that I don’t enjoy being in the band now, but I enjoyed not being in the band back then, because I could actually go to a place where I wasn’t expected to play, and I could see these guys play. I mean, I loved them. And by the time Ashby left, I knew all the songs.”

“I knew he was having fun coming and hanging out, drinking a few beers without the pressure of getting up there,” Deanie says. “But he said he would do it and then it just felt amazing. It felt like it should. He’s one of my heroes and I love him to pieces. Just to get him on stage with us was a big dream of ours. So I’m honored he agreed to do it. Ashby eventually came back from the boat and we thought, ‘Well, let’s throw everybody in there.’ And we did. We played a few shows and said, ‘Let’s do a record, why not?’ So here we are with the record.”

So, what makes the Lonely Culprits click anyway? To borrow a title from the album, “Everybody’s Got Something They’re Good At.” Deanie is an exceptional fiddler, while Melonie and Garnet possess warm, instantly identifiable voices. Ronnie sings and plays guitar, and also serves as co-producer (with Buddy Cannon). Brandon provides vocal, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar, and Ashby sings and plays mandolin. Austin keeps the Likely Culprits moving along on upright bass.

Though it sounds like a long-lost Harlan Howard composition, “Everybody’s Got Something They’re Good At” happens to be a Ronnie Bowman/Dale Dodson original, with Garnet singing lead. (Lee Ann Womack recorded it first but her version never came out. Alison Krauss plays fiddle on this version.)

Just after that throwback country tune, Ronnie sings another of his compositions, “Won’t Do That No More,” with such poignancy that it’s no surprise at all that he’s won multiple IBMA male vocalist awards. He’s also an accomplished songwriter who has placed major hits with Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, and Chris Stapleton.

It’s worth mentioning, too, that Deanie earned an IBMA award this year as a member of Sister Sadie. She’s also toured, along with Brandon, in Patty Loveless’ band. Asked what it feels like to have a lead vocal that keeps changing, she immediately replies, “Oh my gosh, I love it because with Sister Sadie it’s bluegrass. With Patty Loveless, it’s country. But with these guys, it’s all of it.”

That bond has only strengthened since the band’s first show at Station Inn in 2012. It remains a special spot for the band, who listened to the album in its entirety for the first time over the club’s sound system. (Yes, they rang the bell.) They’ll also play an album release show there on November 15.

Thinking back to those days, Brandon recalls, “I moved to town and I didn’t know a single person. I took a job playing in a bluegrass band and moved up on a whim. I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of the house, I’ve got to meet some people.’ So I started hanging out at the Station Inn and I found a group of people that are my family now. We’re all pretty much on the same page and we’re like-minded with music and what we like and what we don’t like. Playing with them, it’s like coming home all the time.”

One of the band’s biggest champions is Jamey Johnson, the country singer-songwriter who made it his mission to get the Likely Culprits’ new album into the world. He’s also invited them to open a series of shows this week in the Southeast, part of his ongoing effort to support female artists in country music.

While Jamey’s fans are devoted to his singular approach to songwriting, it’s just as likely that they’ll appreciate the perspective from these seven musicians, too. Because Melonie is already a familiar presence at his shows as a harmony vocalist – and because Jamey comes to all the band’s shows — there’s a certain comfort zone already in place for the Likely Culprits, one that doesn’t involve prison guards or enforced curfew.

“This is us sitting in a living room with somebody saying, ‘Ronnie, pick a song,” Deanie says. “Ronnie might pick one, and Garnet might pick ‘Tennessee Blues,’ and Brandon might pick ‘Gravedigger.’ It’s what we do, man. It’s great. I love these guys. I’d go all over the world with them.”

“I would too,” says Brandon, says as Ronnie chimes in with a “Yeah.”

“Same here,” Garnet concludes. “We all feel the same way.”

Photo courtesy of the artist

The Show On The Road – Charlie Parr

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

This week on The Show On The Road, Charlie Parr — a Minnesota-based folk blues lifer who writes novelistic, multi-layered stories that shine a kaleidoscopic light on defiant, unseen characters thriving in the shadows all around us.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3

Parr has a new record with only his name on it, and it isn’t shiny and perfect and commercial and catchy. It’s him. It’s pure Charlie Parr and maybe that’s enough. He hasn’t moved to LA or Nashville; he’s stayed in the cold grey north of Minnesota, because that’s his home. Take a second wherever you call home right now and listen to his episode — and his new record. You might hear something different every time.

WATCH: Rhiannon Giddens Plays the Tiny Desk

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Former Carolina Chocolate Drops leader and old-time music maven Rhiannon Giddens has the uncanny ability to sing through an audience. In May, she released her third full-length, studio album, there is no Other, with Nonesuch Records. In this new chapter, Giddens collaborated with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, who is known for his virtuosity on percussion and jazz piano. Giddens, Turrisi, and bassist Jason Sypher stopped by NPR to perform some music from the latest record; watch as they stun the audience huddled around the Tiny Desk.

Photo credit: Claire Harbage/NPR

MIXTAPE: Lydia Ramsey’s Songs to Keep Your Heart Inspired

Posted on by Editor

There’s so much going on in the world right now, I find myself feeling somewhat unhinged at times. For me, the best remedy for fighting that feeling is writing, playing, and listening to music. In September, I released a new album, Flames for the Heart, which was written on themes of hopefulness, resilience, and discovering how to keep yourself inspired to move through this life with joy. Here’s a selection of songs that help do that for me. — Lydia Ramsey

Chris Staples – “Walking With a Stranger”

Chris is a dear friend I met in Seattle, Washington. I’m always impressed with his simple and poignant arrangements, there’s an understated sweetness to his voice and cathartic messages in his songs. In most of his songs he’s playing all the instruments and he often also records everything himself in his garage.

Kevin Morby – “Aboard My Train”

Kevin Morby is another one for me who’s able to bring a sweet vocal tone with hopeful lyricism through fun musical ‘60s rock vibes. He’s been putting out so much great music, I like this tune in particular on a gloomy day.

Laura Veirs – “I Can See Your Tracks”

I love the fingerpicking in this one and the soft, makes-you-feel-like-floating arrangement she has worked out — with the reverb on her voice and background vocals creating lovely, layered textures. The lyrics have a theme of forgiveness I like to reflect on when I think about the difficult people in my life.

Lydia Ramsey – “Things Get Better”

I wrote this song thinking about all the good things happening around us every day. Good people helping each other out, and calling each other out when things aren’t right. I believe keeping hope in our hearts is paramount in keeping ourselves intact through the troubles we face.

Fruit Bats – “My Sweet Midwest”

I love the pace of this song, it feels like getting rocked in a hammock in the breeze. It always puts me in a good mood and it’s sweet thinking about all the beautiful parts of this vast country, and people everywhere celebrating the place they call home.

Julie Byrne – “Sleepwalker”

I fell in love with Julie through her record Not Even Happiness when I filled in for her on a show opening for Steve Gunn. The vocal stylings on this are so dreamy and that clear guitar tone is so gorgeous I could listen to this song for days.

Becca Mancari – “Golden”

I met Becca at a show she opened in Seattle when I sang backing vocals with the band Joseph. Her record Good Woman has this rad pedal steel all over it and I just love the swoony, warm tones of this song especially.

Adrianne Lenker – “symbol”

I love Adrianne’s sort of stream of consciousness lyricism, quick rhymes, and hypnotic melodies that later break free with the guitar into this little chorus. Her work with Big Thief is also great, but I often lean into these tender songs of hers a bit more.

Neko Case – “I Wish I Was the Moon”

You know how when you watch someone just shred on the guitar you think, “Oh, that’s how you play a guitar”? When I hear Neko sing I’m like, “Oh, THAT’S how you sing.” I think we all wish we could be the moon sometimes, where we can’t help but shine, high up above it all.

Lydia Ramsey – “Take My Only Heart”

A few years ago, two friends of mine sold their house and everything they owned to travel the world together. I wrote this song loving the idea that all we need is each other to face and embrace the unknown depths of the world.

Photo credit: Kendall Rock