Artist: Western Youth
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Let You”
Album: Western Youth
Release Date: September 21, 2018
In Their Words: “This is a song I wrote while trying to get my infant daughter back to sleep. It’s a promise to the one person in my life that I hadn’t broken a promise to. It’s aspirational but honest. It’s for her. It’s one of the first songs I recorded with Western Youth and the last song on the album.” — Graham Weber
Photo credit: Steven Alcala
Artist: The Southern Companion
Hometown: Lymington, Hampshire
Latest Album: 1000 Days of Rain
Sounds Like: Counting Crows, The Black Crowes, (yes they sound like two bands with “crows” in their names. Never thought about a crow genre before, but there ya go). They also remind me of some non-crow artists like Eric Church, Tom Petty, and Ryan Adams.
Why You Should Listen: The musicianship in this band is off the charts, with members having played for Lana Del Rey, Tom Jones, James Morrison, Rumer, and Vanessa May, these guys aren’t messing around. They’ve played together on and off for more than 20 years, and you can hear that in their debut album 1000 Days Of Rain. Yes, it took them two decades to get around to making an album, but sometimes good things take a while – come on, they were busy.
The comfort and musical version of “finishing each other’s sentences” that comes from a band that’s known each other and played together for so long isn’t something you can fake. This band is tight and it sounds like they are having the time of their lives. In a different place and time, lead singer Darren Hodson’s voice would have made him a 90’s “modern rock” god and that’s a wonderful thing as far as I’m concerned. His voice and this album remind me of so many bands I was listening to growing up, that I almost had to check I didn’t already have 1000 Days of Rain on cassette somewhere.
That’s not to say this album is a pastiche or retro, far from it, but the influences are clear. That’s something they acknowledge with a bit of old school yesteryear glorification on “Wrong Side of the 70s.” For an emotional deep dive, check out “Dead Man Walking.” This album has been out for a minute, but it’s taken me until now to fully appreciate it, and sometimes that’s how it goes. I just hope we don’t have to wait another 20 years for more music from them.
Photo credit: Wilky
As a radio and TV host, Baylen Leonard has presented country and Americana shows, specials, and commentary for BBC Radio 2, Chris Country Radio, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 2 Country, BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, Monocle 24, and British Airways, as well as promoting artists through his work with the Americana Music Association UK, the Nashville Meets London Festival, and the Long Road (the UK’s newest outdoor country, Americana, and roots festival). Follow him on Twitter: @HeyBaylen
Artist: Malcolm Holcombe
Hometown: Weaverville, North Carolina
Song: “Black Bitter Moon”
Album: Come Hell or High Water
Release Date: September 14, 2018
Label: Singular Recordings
In Their Words: “This world is full of goodness and a lot of positivity, but it seems like I can relate to the underdog and the downtrodden, for obvious reasons. Those types of songs seem to strike a nerve more deeply than the ‘Yellow Brick Road,’ because I think it’s a struggle for all of us to try to do the next right thing. Some people have the spiritual chemistry to be able to achieve that more easily than others, but I think we all struggle with getting up in the morning and trying to live in our own skin.” — Malcolm Holcombe
Photo credit: Jamie Kalikow
Artist name: Nickel&Rose
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
EP: Americana
Release Date: September 14, 2018
In Their Words: “The EP was inspired by over a year of touring, presenting American folk music to European audiences as well as side gigs playing bluegrass and blues in the US. It made us rethink what “Americana” really is. We wanted to show that we have respect for Americana as it is but also that we feel it needs to be moved in new directions. Each song on the EP is a inspired by American music but performed through our own experiences.” — Carl Nichols
“Americana is sonically our most traditional release yet. We didn’t necessarily set out to be an Americana folk band but the more we played and wrote, the more we identified with that genre. On this release we explored a lot of the roots of Americana and tried to pay homage to the music and the people who made it what it is today while challenging exactly what that looks and sounds like. Throughout the EP, we grapple with our personal experiences of loss, but in the end I think we persevere. We are able to say what we need to and perhaps offer listeners a little compassion. We can’t necessarily say to listeners everything is going to be okay, but we can relate our challenges and say that we got through it and so can you.” — Johanna Rose
Photo credit: Amanda Mills
Take heed, all Americana fans in the UK. Danni Nicholls will be taking the stage on the final day of the Long Road Festival at Stanford Hall in Leicestershire. Leading up to her appearance, the talented singer-songwriter fielded a few questions from The Bluegrass Situation.
As a performer, what do you enjoy most about festivals?
I think the collective good energy that you usually find at festivals is my favourite thing. Everyone has come together to have a good time and that can be infectious. I’ll usually get to bump into friends/fellow artists too which is always lovely. I love to go off and try to discover great new music too.
The life of a touring musician is certainly unpredictable. How do you like to pass the time when you have a couple of free hours on the road?
Ha, sure is! I like to try to see a bit of the place I’m playing in – not just the inside of the venue. I’ll usually go for a wander if there’s some time to kill, and try not to get too lost! I’ve stumbled across some beautiful, memorable places that way.
Do you consider yourself a collector of guitars? And do you have a favorite one that you like to use when you write songs?
I wouldn’t consider myself a collector as such but I do have quite a few that I’ve acquired over the years! My prized possession is my first ever guitar which I inherited from my uncle Heathcliffe when I was 16. It’s a stunning Burns London 1964 shortscale jazz guitar. A real beaut. But my main touring guitar is an acoustic parlour, a Tanglewood TW73 E called Meryl. She’s feisty but sweet and mellow when you get to know her. She’s my favourite for writing on as well as playing live.
How did your grandmother’s record collection influence the kind of music you’re writing and recording now?
Massively! The music that filled her house and so many family parties was mostly American roots – lots of country, soul and rock n roll. It’s deep rooted in my soul and my music. Feels like home.
How would you describe your first visit to Nashville?
Unforgettable. Really – it was like a dream, I remember walking down a side street and turning onto Broadway where so many of my heroes have walked and known so well and feeling this rush of energy and joy. Seeing the Ryman, Tootsies where the likes of Patsy Cline would have hung out before crossing over to Ernest Tubb’s place. My first night in the city I ended up on stage in two of the bars singing old country songs being backed by these incredible musical strangers and I felt so welcome and included. I was hooked and have explored and fallen in love with many more parts of the city since then and I’m so grateful to have had that opportunity.
What are you working on now?
I just returned from Nashville where I have recorded my third studio album with the wonderful, talented Jordan Brooke Hamlin (Indigo Girls, Lucy Wainwright-Roche) at the new and wondrous studio MOXE, out in the woods just north of the city. I’m very excited to be getting it into shape to send off out into the world in early 2019.
When you finish a song that you’re proud of, who is the first person that gets to hear it?
My cat, Winnie. Yes I think of her as a person. I should maybe address that.
For those people who come to see you at the Long Road Festival, what do you hope they take away from that experience?
I hope they can find some connection, some resonance perhaps. By going out singing my truth I hope to contribute to raising positive vibrations, so I hope they walk away with a little lift, a smile, or at least a bit of one of the songs stuck in their heads.
Photo courtesy of the artist
Artist: The Steel Wheels
Hometown: Harrisonburg, Virginia
Song: “Working on a Building”
Album: Working On A Building / Red Rocking Chair
Release Date: September 7, 2018
Label: Big Ring Records
In Their Words: “We decided to go back to our roots and have some fun with a couple old traditional songs this year. In a time of great distraction and short attention spans, it’s great to remember there are songs that have been around and continue to take hold of the imagination today. This song also has a message for us today: let’s build something positive together. The Steel Wheels are donating a portion of the proceeds of this song to Build United, an organization whose aim is to provide affordable housing for people in need.” — The Steel Wheels
Photo credit: The Steel Wheels
Some writers seek out the truth, excavating situations to uncover a universality that shines some light of understanding on the world. For others, the relationship works another way. Hungry to be heard, the truth seeks them out, and time and again makes itself known.
For Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lori McKenna, the latter seems to be the case. Her lyricism, sketched from life’s myriad everyday scenes—hearth fires, heartbreak, and the like—strikes upon central truths to an almost uncanny extent. Listening back through her catalog, which now numbers eleven albums with her new release The Tree, it’s as if she wields some otherworldly wisdom and has been kind enough to share it with listeners.
McKenna’s the first to admit it’s all a “happy mistake.” As she explains, “I think my brain starts small and it takes me a minute to see if there’s a bigger message in there.”
Small has been McKenna’s modus operandi since her 2000 debut album Paper Wings and Halos. She regularly portrays characters’ private interiors, snapshotting quiet moments typically shared with oneself, a partner, a parent, or even the small town one wishes to escape. On The Tree, McKenna found herself identifying in larger ways with what she was writing, even if she hadn’t set out to hold a mirror up to her life. “The more you write, the more comfortable you get in your craft, the more of you reflects back in it, even if it’s a character that isn’t you,” she says.
Time’s circularity informed several songs on The Tree. At a moment when her aging father needed more help and her children needed less, she was struck by the roles she was being asked to play. “Your mom role is getting less intense, and your child role—as far as helping parents—gets a little thicker,” she says. “I think a lot of people get to exactly to this place.”
McKenna took all the fears and pain that go along with aging, and penned a beautiful ode to the daring act of living. On “People Get Old,” with a slight twang to her vocals, she sings: “Time is a thief/ Pain is a gift/ The past is the past, it is what it is / Every line on your face tells a story somebody knows/ It’s just how it goes/ You live long enough, the people you love get old.” The catch is the last line: “You live long enough.” Life can and does hurt like hell, but if you’re lucky you’ll make it long enough to acquire all those scars.
Though she’s been writing and playing for herself since she first picked up a guitar as a teenager in Massachusetts, McKenna’s obvious talent for distilling greater wisdoms down into a hook caught Nashville’s attention early on in her career. Faith Hill recorded three of her songs—”Fireflies,” “Stealing Kisses,” and “If You Ask”—on her 2005 album Fireflies, and set into motion a relationship with Music City that continues to this day. McKenna has gone on to pen songs for some of the biggest names in contemporary country music. “I had never tried to write a song for someone else,” she explains about when she first visited Nashville.
In 2016 she teamed with producer Dave Cobb to release The Bird & the Rifle, a critically-acclaimed project that led to two award nominations from the Americana Music Association — for Artist of the Year and Song of the Year (“Wreck You,” written with Felix McTeigue), as well as three Grammy nominations. She reunited with Cobb for The Tree sessions as well.
McKenna now splits her time between Boston and Nashville, visiting once or twice a month to work on songs. She speaks fondly of her adopted city. “I fell in love with the community. Nashville is such a songwriter town. They really honor their songwriters,” she says. “I have to pinch myself sometimes when I think about the group of people that I get to write with because it’s not just that they’re all great writers. I’ve really found a group that I feel so comfortable with. [An idea] might not be right and it might even be kinda stupid, but they won’t judge me. They’ll say, ‘Well, let’s see. How can we make that work?’ The people that you feel bravest around are the best people to be creative with.”
Among their many collaborations together, McKenna, Hillary Lindsey, and Liz Rose wrote “Girl Crush,” which Little Big Town recorded for their 2014 album Pain Killer. The song focuses on a woman who finds herself developing a complex desire for her ex via his new love interest. It’s jealousy painted in layers: “I want to taste her lips/ Yeah, ‘cause they taste like you.” Despite complaints to pull the song from country radio due to a growing controversy about whom the central figure wanted, it went on to earn McKenna her first Grammy—for Best Country Song. She repeated the following year for “Humble and Kind,” recorded by Tim McGraw.
When it comes to the success of “Girl Crush,” McKenna says she, Lindsey, and Rose weren’t anticipating a hit. “We didn’t think anybody would cut the song—we just chased the song,” she explains. “That song was about reminding ourselves how we want to write the best song we can and reaching that goal on our level.” That same sentiment pops up on The Tree’s final track, “Sing It Like Patsy Would.” McKenna, Lindsey, and Rose wrote the gut-honest song, which details the strife and success of the creative path, but ultimately ends with the important point: Let the love for the work drive you. If you’re looking for fame, you’re in it for the wrong reasons.
The work clearly drives McKenna and other songwriters in Nashville, but the question looms about why men continue to dominate the country charts. “I think overall if you had to figure out why is there are fewer women on country radio—and I’ve never asked anybody this so I might be wrong—I think it may have something to do with the fact that women are less likely to write a party song,” she muses. “They do, but when you look at the women who have become the biggest part of country music, most of their songs—the biggest songs—are statement songs. They say things that men can’t really get away with. Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, they’re saying things.”
Whether or not country radio ever wakes up to the imbalance in its formatting remains to be seen. Even McKenna admits the conversation has been going on for some time. “Ever since [I arrived in Nashville in 2005], I’ve heard people say, ‘The woman thing is coming around. You just watch. I can feel it.’ It’s funny because it always does feel like it’s going to turn.”
In the meantime, she and her cohorts will continue writing the songs that make people sit up and take notice, that help shift the conversation. She says with a chuckle, “I love landing in Nashville and going, ‘Somebody’s writing a great song right now.’ It’s just a given.”
Photo credit: Becky Fluke
Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Artist: The Wailin’ Jennys
Hometown: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Song: “Wildflowers”
Album: Fifteen
Label: Red House Records
In Their Words: “We’re so excited to release our fan-sourced video for our version of Tom Petty’s classic ‘Wildflowers.’ It ended up more beautiful than we could have imagined thanks to our fans submitting gorgeous and meaningful images and video. All of them clearly illustrate each person’s concept of love and freedom. It is a video full of pure joy and we couldn’t be more proud to release it to the world! We hope you love it as much as we do.” — Nicky Mehta
Photo courtesy of Red House Records
Artist: Joshua Hyslop
Hometown: Vancouver, Canada
Song: “No Roots” (by Alice Merton)
Release Date: September 7, 2018
Label: Nettwerk
In Their Words: “With my tour supporting Great Lake Swimmers across the USA this fall, I wanted to try covering a song that was stylistically different from my music. Someone from my record label sent me ‘No Roots’ by Alice Merton, and I thought it would be fun to try it from a folk perspective. I’d never heard her music before so I didn’t have a planned approach, but after I listened through the song once I picked up my guitar and banjo and quickly started piecing together my own version.” — Joshua Hyslop
Photo credit: Jesse Milns
Artist: Dan Johnson
Hometown: Fort Worth, Texas
Latest album: Hemingway
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “Dammit Dan”
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
About a year after I quit my full-time job to pursue music wholeheartedly, I was playing a gig in Amarillo, Texas. It was supposed to be a big show, lots of RSVPs, online interaction, etc. I was stoked to get up there. So the gig starts, and it was quite literally just the bartender, the sound guy, and me. I remember getting several songs in, when I had this thought, ‘This is the dumbest decision you’ve ever made. Nobody’s listening, nobody gives a shit about your music, and nobody ever will.’ Sitting there feeling stupid and sorry for myself, I imagine I was pretty outwardly disengaged and the music probably sucked.
So in the middle of the song, I thought back about the night I decided to quit my job and pursue music as art, full-time. I was at the show of a hero of mine, Walt Wilkins. He had this big audience absolutely spellbound…just him and his guitar. It was the most beautiful music I’d ever heard. That night I dedicated myself to making music my life. Here I was a year later, and I thought to myself, “I wonder how many times Walt had to play to an empty room before he became what he is today?” And I asked myself the question, “Are you really serious about doing whatever it takes to make music for the rest of your life?”
The answer being yes, of course, I decided to play to that bartender and sound guy as if they were a thousand people. Because if I’d play every show that way, eventually they would be a thousand people. And in the middle of the same song, I started belting it out like I was in a stadium, pouring out heart and soul. In that moment, the door beside me slammed open hard. This huge rush of people filled the entire bar. They knew my songs, they requested their favorites, and they sang along all night. I remember thinking it was like the answer to a prayer, not one of petition, but rather one of unwavering dedication.
So that night, after all the good times were had, I went home and wrote the song “Troubadour’s Prayer.” It’s still one of my favorites.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
Since I was very young, I’ve enjoyed literature. In fact long before I ever thought about getting involved in music, I wanted to be an author. In my 20s, I had this sales job where I spent several hours a week on the road (but not as many as I do as a musician). I read this quote from Mark Twain that essentially said, “The Classics are books everyone wants to have read, but nobody wants to read.” So I had this long period of time where I’d go to the library and pick up books on CD of all the classics, Bronte, Dickens, Poe, Hemingway, I went through them all. Now when I write, there are often references to those works, in the lyrics. Most folks will never pick them up. But they’re there for me…and literary nerds.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
My mission in music is to leave a lasting legacy, not only of songs that critical listeners will consider well-written, but even more so songs that connect with people on a deeply emotional level, to help them celebrate their triumphs and loves, and grieve their failures and losses. This life is tragically brief, and when we are gone, how many of us will truly be remembered for what we contributed? Most are forgotten entirely after a few anecdotes from close family fade away with age and the natural transition of generations. But the world is a better place in some small way, when a person finds the one thing they truly do best, and pursues it with a fervor and a dedication that cannot be quelled. Passionate music makes the soundtracks of our lives, and when I am long dead and gone, I want to know the words I’ve written and the notes I’ve sung continue to have meaning in someone’s life.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I’m taking kind of a diagonal approach on this one and saying that there’s a very particular element of nature that has had a significant impact on my work. Firstly, I’m an avid traveler. As I write this, I’m sitting in a treehouse outside Nashville, en route to the mountains of Kentucky, where I spent my early childhood. I left Hot Springs, Arkansas, this morning after washing up in the natural mountain springs. I’ve been to 17 countries and 33 states so far, and the Nature that impacts my writing is the global connection between man and Earth, across all parts of the globe. When you start really traveling this world, you realize how big it is, and yet how small. People as a species love to connect with one another, and the lucky ones even commune with the earth around them. There’s so much to see in our short time here, and if you open yourself to the beauties this world holds, how can you not write about it?
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I’ve grown pretty tired of songs in the first person. Not only my own, but how ubiquitous they are in music in general. Particularly with this latest work, I wanted to look at life through the lens of other people’s views and lives. Still that being said, I don’t really know how to write a song without it being fueled by autobiographical experience. So in this most recent album, all five songs tell a story. And none of them are about me. But all of them are intensely autobiographical…the names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.
Photo credit: Bill Ingram
