Tag: Friends & Neighbors

Hurray for the Riff Raff Announce New Album, ‘The Past Is Still Alive,’ with Music Video

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Alynda Segarra, creative and frontperson extraordinaire of Hurray for the Riff Raff, has announced a brand new album for the Americana/indie folk-rock group that they have spearheaded for now more than 15 years. The Past Is Still Alive (out February 23, 2024 on Nonesuch Records) was heralded last week with a new music video – watch above. “Alibi” showcases a tender, more subdued, and more country-fied sound following the anger and passion of 2022’s LIFE ON EARTH. Segarra has always made their home directly in American roots music, even while they and their ensemble have played most often in its fringes and margins. The Past Is Still Alive feels a bit like a return to the bread-and-butter genre aesthetics that first launched HFTRR into the upper, superlative reaches of indie Americana.

The Past Is Still Alive also showcases Segarra’s incredible talent for processing and displaying all of the beautiful and hideous facets of grief and loss – this time, losses and griefs much more personal than those highlighted on recent albums and songs.

“The Past Is Still Alive is an album grappling with time, memory, love and loss, recorded in Durham, NC a month after losing my father,” Segarra explains via press release. “‘Alibi’ is a plea, a last ditch effort to get through to someone you already know you’re gonna lose. It’s a song to myself, to my father, almost fooling myself because I know what’s done is done. But it feels good to beg. A reckoning with time and memory. The song is exhausted with loving someone so much it hurts. Addiction separates us. With memories of the Lower East Side in the early 2000s of my childhood, mixed with imagery of the endless West that calls to artists and wanderers.”

Even with subject matter as heart-stopping and human as this, it’s difficult to anticipate this new album with anything other than excitement. Segarra is a master of transparent vulnerability, painting and evoking with their queerness, their identity, their cultural background in ways that complicate internalized narratives and stereotypes – while also contextualizing all of these intellectual explorations in a down-to-earth, everyday fashion. That The Past Is Still Alive will engage this sort of exploration within country, Americana, and string band sounds – however experimental or mainstream or “normative” or genre-blending – adds up perfectly.

Photo Credit: Tommy Kha

WATCH & LISTEN: Two Tracks from John Leventhal’s “Debut” Album

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Earlier this week renowned guitarist, producer, and engineer John Leventhal announced his debut album, Rumble Strip, to be released on RumbleStrip Records, a label founded with his wife and collaborator Rosanne Cash that will be distributed by Thirty Tigers. Yes, you read that right, a man known for his nearly 50-year, multi-hyphenate career in roots music is releasing his first ever proper solo album. Leventhal made the announcement with the release of two tracks, an instrumental guitar piece entitled “JL’s Hymn No. 2” and a gritty, rockin’ Americana duet with Cash called “That’s All I Know About Arkansas.”

“JL’s Hymn No. 2” showcases the guitar prowess that has made Leventhal such an in-demand sideman and session player across his entire career. On both of these tracks, his playing reminds of such country and roots renaissance men as Marty Stuart, Buddy Miller, David Bromberg, and Larry Williams with each of his constituent musical skills – as engineer, producer, and picker – on full display. “That’s All I Know About Arkansas” is like a post-modern “brother” duet, with Cash stepping into the role of Buddy’s Julie Miller, or Larry’s Theresa Williams, bolstering and supporting her musical- and life-partner in a touching and artistically successful role reversal for the pair. You can hear the passion they have for each other’s music, for each being members of each other’s “bands.”

With a resume and career as exhaustive and expansive as Leventhal’s, it’s remarkable that he’s only reached this pivotal, “debut” milestone at this late-stage point. And, more remarkable still, is that Rumble Strip is clearly another opportunity for Leventhal to challenge himself, break new ground, experiment with new sounds and textures, and continue to grow, morph, and develop as a quintessential musician-producer. It’s engaging and exciting to hear him turn his studio control room magnifying glass onto his own music, his own record.

Rumble Strip will be released on January 26. Enjoy these two tracks from the project now, right here on BGS.

Photo Credit: Wes Bender

Watch a Brand New Video From Americana Firebrand Sierra Ferrell

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a brand new, to-be-announced album coming in 2024, Americana singer, songwriter, and “musical vagabond” Sierra Ferrell has released “Fox Hunt,” a galloping, gothic track with a storybook-style animated video. (Watch above.) It’s one of her most sonically mainstream single releases to date, reminding of groups like the Lumineers — a shimmering polish on the deeply patina-ed, gritty sounds drawn from her West Virginia raising.

Ferrell is one of the fastest rising stars in American roots music, with a tour schedule and dance card filled to bursting. Listeners place her in musical constellations with such high energy and “back to basics” artists like Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, Zach Bryan, Margo Price, and more – many of whom she calls friends and collaborators. But Ferrell, in a twist of homophonics, brings a feral and untethered mastery into her music, a quality that continually has fans begging for more. Her performance of femininity – and as often, her subversion of it – recalls other mountain music mavens like Dolly Parton, Ola Belle Reed, Wilma Lee Cooper, and Loretta Lynn, but with their often aspirational facades – qualities of each of their professional brands – exchanged for a devil-may-care attitude that’s just as deliberate and intentional. It’s as much an extension of Ferrell’s agency as any of the women who came before her donned their own rhinestones, big hair, and striking make-up as representations of their individuality.

2024 will undoubtedly find Sierra Ferrell notching many more career milestones as her ever-growing audience will be hanging on for every rollicking, frolicking note.

Photo Credit: Bobbi Rich

Watch the Zany Music Video for Willi Carlisle’s Just-Announced Album, ‘Critterland’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Arkansas-based country and old-time troubadour Willi Carlisle has announced his upcoming, Darrell Scott-produced album, Critterland, with a delightful stop-motion music video. (Watch above.) Set for release January 26, 2024 on Signature Sounds, the collection once again draws on Carlisle’s apt self-positioning as a sort of rural, countercultural, folklorist guru, crafting poetic yet down-to-earth songs that feel all at once fantastic, resplendent, whimsical, and– well, trashy. It’s a dichotomy not unknown to American roots musics, but rarely is this paradoxical construct inhabited so intentionally and subverted so artfully. It’s a language Carlisle isn’t just fluent in, it oozes from his spirit and lives in his bones.

On “Critterland,” Carlisle positions himself not as an omniscient narrator, but well within his own communities – musical and otherwise – as he examines how the “big tent” of his prior album, Peculiar, Missouri, could be put into action. And, in doing so, he demonstrates how varied, broad, deep – and sometimes ugly – open arm, open heart policies can be. But in that mundane, in that bittersweet, there is endless beauty.

With that thought in mind, Darrell Scott as producer and collaborator here isn’t merely a solid choice, but a nearly perfect one. You hear his touches in the confidence Carlisle has stepped into – with hundreds and hundreds of shows under his belt – with his soaring, passionate vocal on “Critterland,” raising its possums and raccoons and armadillos to saint-like status. Because, after all, aren’t all living beings divine? Don’t we all have something to contribute to our own, particular critterlands? Carlisle says so, and makes a compelling case.

This 2024 album will be a must-listen.

Photo Credit: Madison Hurley

WATCH: Nat Myers Brings the Healing Power of the Blues to PBS News Hour

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On the heels of his critically-acclaimed Easy Eye Sound release, Yellow Peril, Korean-American blues musician Nat Myers made his national television debut on PBS News Hour last month, channeling the healing power of the blues. Born in Kansas and raised in Tennessee and Kentucky, Myers found the guitar and developed his right hand technique as a youngster. The aspiring poet developed his chops, his lyrical style, and his songwriting perspective as many blues musicians do: Busking and performing for his own enjoyment and entertainment.

Yellow Peril, a stand out among Easy Eye’s and Dan Auerbach’s now expansive catalog of first-rate recordings, finds Myers superseding the stardom of his collaborators – like Yola, another Easy Eye alumnus, did before him – with a collection of songs that capitalize on blues’ unique ability to consume, digest, and engage with complex and divisive issues. Race, justice, equality and equity, class, consumerism, and many more hot-button issues permeate this album. But overall, this is still a rollicking, enjoyable, danceable collection of songs, striking a deft balance that feels inherent to a genre through which Myers expresses himself so well.

Watch Nat Myers’ PBS New Hour appearance above and don’t miss his recent Grand Ole Opry debut, as well. Myers will continue to tour Yellow Peril through the end of 2023 and into 2024 – don’t miss this singular voice among the current American roots music scene.

Photo Credit: Jim Herrington

WATCH: Jim Lauderdale & the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, “Drop the Hammer Down”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Jim Lauderdale and The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
Song: “Drop the Hammer Down”
Album: The Long and Lonesome Letting Go
Release Date: September 15, 2023
Label: Sky Crunch

In Their Words: “The first place I heard The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and got to sit in with them was at MerleFest a few years back.  Now we have come full circle with an album together and a song that Josh Rinkel and I wrote called ‘Drop the Hammer Down.’ Here is the first time we performed it, last spring at MerleFest.” – Jim Lauderdale

Photo Credit: Jim Lauderdale by Scott Simontacchi; the Po’ Ramblin’ Boys by Amy Richmond.

Tyler Childers Announces New Album With “In Your Love” Music Video

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Traditional country phenom and Kentuckian Tyler Childers has announced his upcoming album, Rustin’ In The Rain (available September 8, 2023), with a brand new single and music video, “In Your Love.” Written and creative directed by New York Times bestselling author Silas House, the video tells a gay love story between two working class, Appalachian men – played by queer A-list actors and celebrities Colton Haynes and James Scully. The visuals for “In Your Love” tell one of country music’s most prominent and visible LGBTQ+ narratives to date, entering an industry landscape that has become more and more (openly) queer over the past decade.

“In Your Love” reminds of songs and albums released not just by left-leaning, more mainstream artists like Childers and Parker Millsap, but also by queer artists themselves, telling working-class stories and histories just like that constructed and depicted by House and director Bryan Schlam. In 2015, gay banjo player, singer-songwriter, and fellow Kentucky-resident Sam Gleaves released a landmark album, Ain’t We Brothers, which dripped with the exact same lived experiences and soot-tinged patina that inform Childers’ new video. In the past couple of years, releases by LGBTQ+ identified music makers like Amanda Fields, Willi Carlisle, Adeem the Artist, Amythyst Kiah, Jaimee Harris, and more trod similar ground. It’s notable still that an artist – however outlaw- or fringe-identified – as mainstream as Tyler Childers and with as broad a fanbase as his would choose to not only highlight queer, working-class storytelling, but to do so in a way that normalizes and re-centers these ways of being in Kentucky, the South, and Appalachia.

Rustin’ In The Rain will be released via RCA Records on Childers’ own imprint, Hickman Holler Records, on September 8. Via press release, Childers describes the inspiration that birthed Rustin’: “This is a collection of songs I playfully pieced together as if I was pitching a group of songs to Elvis. Some covers, one co-write, and some I even wrote in my best (terrible) Elvis impersonation, as I worked around the farm and kicked around the house. I hope you enjoy listening to this album as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Clearly, the legacy of “The King” is merely one way drama, mystique, nuance, entertainment, and Southern-ness coalesce within this new project from one of the most exciting voices and perspectives in country.

Photo Credit: Sam Waxman

Young Mandolinist Wyatt Ellis Collaborates with Sierra Hull

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

At only 14 years old, mandolinist Wyatt Ellis is a sight to behold in the official music video for “Grassy Cove.” The tune was co-written with the superbly talented Sierra Hull and recorded as part of a larger project that’s coming out at a later date. “Grassy Cove” came about after Ellis completed a Tennessee Folklife apprenticeship with Hull. Its music video was filmed at the Station Inn in Nashville, TN – with Cory Walker on banjo, Deanie Richardson on fiddle, Justin Moses on guitar, and Mike Bub on bass – and debuted only days ago.

Ellis made his Grand Ole Opry debut at just 13 years old. He also performed at MerleFest this year and has nearly 100,000 followers on social media across his combined pages, so keep your eyes on this rising star!

 

Alison Brown and Sierra Hull Swap Licks on Classical-Flavored Tune

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Two of the most accomplished musicians in bluegrass – certainly two of the most notable women players in the history of the music – have joined together on a mind-blowing chamber-grass duet. Alison Brown, the first woman to win the Banjo Player of the Year Award from the IBMA, and Sierra Hull, the first woman to win Mandolin Player of the Year, joined forces on Brown’s recent album, On Banjo, and a classical-influenced original tune, “Sweet Sixteenths.”

Both Brown and Hull are virtuosic players adept in many styles and “Sweet Sixteenths” shows just how effortlessly they bring bluegrass improvisation and energy into what’s regarded as a more stoic format, creating an exciting, jaw-dropping, impossibly complicated – yet, totally down to earth – sound. Their synchronicity is just as impressive, inspiring a sort of wonder that chamber-grass is well known for: How much of this is planned out, and totally written-through, and how much is off-the-cuff and in the moment?

Bluegrass pickers are so well equipped to confound and delight us with these sorts of questions and that fact is no more apparent than in this live, studio performance video by Brown and Hull. We hope you also enjoy “Sweet Sixteenths.”

 

WATCH: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway Target Their “Next Rodeo”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The queen returns and she’s kicking ass and taking names. Molly Tuttle’s new video for the single “Next Rodeo” debuted last week, and with it comes an album announcement from the multi-IBMA-Award and Grammy-winning flatpicker extraordinaire.

A film by Edgar Evin, the “Next Rodeo” video finds Molly & Golden Highway (comprised of Bronwyn Keith-Hynes on fiddle, Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Kyle Tuttle on banjo, Shelby Means on bass, and Jordan Perlsan on drums) getting even with a cheating ex — complete with kidnapping, duct tape, and a super-spicy helping of “Goodbye Earl” vibes. 

Tuttle’s new album, City of Gold, drops on July 21 with Nonesuch Records. Each track was co-written with Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and co-produced with bluegrass legend Jerry Douglas. 

“When I was a kid we took a field trip to Coloma, California, to learn about the gold rush,” Tuttle said in a statement, revealing the inspiration behind the record. “I’ll never forget the dusty hills and the grizzled old miner who showed us the gold nugget around his neck—just like gold fever, music has always captivated me and driven me to great lengths to explore its depths.” 

Songs include spellbinding tales about gold miners, fortune tellers, love and loss and a fast-changing world — as well as a reimagining of Alice in Wonderland set in the backwoods of Kentucky. City of Gold is a follow-up to 2022’s Crooked Tree, a beloved LP that won the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album. Tuttle is also the first woman to win the IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year award and a member of the First Ladies of Bluegrass — so you won’t want to miss her new release.

Photo Credit: Chelsea Rochelle