Tag: Grammys

With a Country and Soul Groove, Marcus King Drives ‘El Dorado’ to the Grammys

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Thanks to a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album, Marcus King is getting a second chance to make a first impression.

At the dawn of 2020, he’d been poised to become a breakout star in roots music, able to deliver an electrifying show with the soul chops to match. After three albums billed as The Marcus King Band, his solo debut record, El Dorado (produced by Dan Auerbach), received positive notices just about everywhere, including BGS. But as the year unraveled, so did his touring plans. In response, he turned his attention to songwriting, ended up booking some socially-distanced shows at drive-in movie theaters, and even landed a spot on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. And with attention from the Grammys, he’s back in the game — although he’s been surrounded by music from the time he was a kid.

“I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t entirely prominent in my life,” he tells BGS. “Just a focal point of every conversation or thought that I had.”

In the interview below, the 24-year-old performer talks about the family influence of his father and grandfather (who were both musicians), his earliest years on the stage, and the advice he’d give to teenagers with an equally burning desire to pursue a life in music.

BGS: There’s a lyric in “Wildflowers and Wine” that refers to an “old scratchy record.” I’m assuming you’re a vinyl collector. How did you go about building your collection?

King: It started when I was about 11 years old. I started with my mother’s collection and my dad’s collection, because in the early ‘90s that was dead technology, you know? They had tapes and CDs, so I inherited everybody’s collection. I inherited my Grandpa Pete’s big old stereo from the ‘50s when nobody wanted to carry it around anymore. The first record I bought on my own was Robin Trower, Bridge of Sighs. I just remember that smell of the record store and all those gatefolds and tools that went with it for cleaning your records. You know, the care that goes into it.

Who are some of your country influences?

Man, my grandfather spoon-fed me on all the good things country when I was growing up. We lost him when I was 14. He was a big country music proponent his whole life. He played in the Officers Band when he was in the Air Force in the ‘60s and he and his band backed up Charley Pride when he came over and played Ramstein Air Force Base [in Germany]. He backed up a number of legends over there. They asked him on the base television that they had over there, what he had to say to all the troops, and he said, “Long live country music!” So, he started me young on Charley Pride, of course, and George Jones was our jam. That’s what we listened to the most. Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings… The list goes on and on, you know how that is.

Who are your influences when it comes to showmanship?

As far as showmanship’s concerned, I mentioned that my grandfather was really into country music and I grew up listening to country music with him. And my father turned me on to the Allman Brothers and Southern rock and blues guitar players like Albert, B.B., and Freddie King. What I discovered on my own was soul music. And the first artist I remember really, really digging was James Brown. I just loved the way that he controlled the stage and the way he controlled his band.

You know, to speak about my grandfather, Bill King, again, his biggest advice to me was that you’ve got to dress for the show, never get on the stage without your boots on, and you just need to dress like you’re not there to see the show – but you’re there to put the show on. Showmanship was always instilled in, early on. Well after the importance of knowing how to play your damn instrument, but it was an important one.

I’d read that you started playing professionally at 11 years old. What kind of gigs were those?

It was a lot of Christian bookstores, a lot of coffeehouses. We just played anywhere that would take us. My father is a born again Christian and a blues guitar player, which was a really niche market at the time. So, he wanted to play Hendrix covers but he would rewrite the lyrics from like “red house” to “church house.” And that would be our foothold into the Christian community. He went through his fair share of hard times with that, trying to be accepted into a gospel music community. Because he had long hair and played “the devil’s music.” But that was the kind of venues I started playing.

Were you with your dad’s group, or playing with your own group?

I started playing with my dad’s band when I was about 8 years old. I was playing what I knew. He would let me come up and play. That’s where I cut my teeth. When I was 11, I got my first experience in the studio, playing with my dad’s group. That’s when I started going out with his group.

From there, I tried to be whatever he needed. If he needed a rhythm guitar player, I’d do that, or if his drummer couldn’t make it, I’d play drums. Or his bass player, same situation. I was just there for whatever needed to be done. I just liked to play. When I was 13, that’s when I took on the leadership role, or started the process.

At what point did you start driving? Did they put you behind the wheel when you had gigs?

I was real tenacious about that, man. I had a real roaming nature about me. I was a Bassett Hound. I’d put my nose to the ground, look up, and be lost as hell. I wouldn’t know where I was. So, I was just ready to go and didn’t care where. I got my learner’s permit when I was 14 in South Carolina. The only stipulation was that I could drive as much as I wanted in the daytime, but in the evening, if I needed a licensed driver in the car with me.

So, to me, that meant I needed to hire a band of adults who could act as chaperones for me in the bars, and that could be licensed drivers in the car. Then I could be the sober driver at the end of the night. I had a good situation for anybody who wanted to come play with me. I would drive them there. You could drink as much as you want because I’d drive us home. And I’d get you paid good because I kept us working, at least four or five nights a week. I’d book us under a fake name, through my email, so people would take us more seriously.

What was it like being 14 years old, up on a stage in a club? Did you like it?

Oh man, I loved it! I saw my future ahead of me when I got there. I had to deal with my first drunk audience member. Or I had to play louder than a drunk argument. Or I had to have my first encounter with a lousy club owner that didn’t want to pay us. I saw my first bar brawl. I loved it, I ate it up. You go in there and you’ve got to have an assertiveness about you, but then again, you don’t want to be a 15-year-old asshole that nobody wants to work with.

I’m glad that that didn’t happen. But you had to be assertive because, being 15 years old, there was a lot of opportunity. You know, I have a lot of faith in human beings but there is the opportunity that people will try to rip you off. There was a lot of navigating those waters and it worked out good. I had a lot of great experiences in those days.

Were you going to high school during this time?

I was. I was going to high school and playing four or five nights a week. But, you know, I wasn’t up to no good, so my dad didn’t really see much harm in it. He was supportive of my dreams, but he was torn, though, because I was having trouble in school. I was just not interested and I was hyper-focused on music, so that was difficult for him as a parent but also as a supporter of my dreams. But it worked out.

For teenagers now in that same situation, what message would you send out to a kid who’s frustrated at the moment, but knows they wants to have a career in music?

I’ve always said, you knock on every door, and if they don’t answer the door, knock ‘em down. It’s sometimes better to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission in this industry. You know, it’s a thin line you’ve got to walk. You’ve got to know your worth but you can’t have a big head. You should never be overly confident. Never be your biggest fan, but be your second-biggest fan.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

2020: The Year of Dolly Parton

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Dolly Parton kept her promise to bring good into the world in 2020 and beyond. For so many reasons, this is absolutely the Year of Dolly Parton.

Marking her 50th anniversary as an Opry member in October 2019, she told reporters, “This world is just so dark, ugly and awful. I just can’t believe how we just can’t have a little more light and a little more love. So, I’m going to make it my business to try to do songs that are more uplifting — not just all Christian-based songs but songs that are just about better things. Do better and just have a little more love, a little more light and just don’t be so dark and dirty!”

Gosh, where to begin? How about…

 

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A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton)

Although it seems like a million years ago now, Dolly launched a viral craze on January 21 with a meme that went around the world. Gotta love the acoustic guitar for Instagram!

Also in January, she notched a Top 10 track on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart with “Faith,” which basically transformed the John Hiatt classic into an international EDM hit. Co-starring in the video with her musical collaborators, Galantis, Parton camps things up as the world’s best-dressed bus driver.

Later in the month, Parton collected her ninth career Grammy Award, this time in the category of Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song, sharing the honor with For King and Country with “God Only Knows.” Although Parton wasn’t in attendance, the duo’s Joel Smallbone remarked from the podium, “To dear Dolly Parton, who is an incredible human being. It’s one of the great moments of our career to collaborate with her and her team.”

He continued, “I taught two of her managers in Sunday school growing up, so they were kind enough to reach out and play her the song. But she said something on a call. She said, ‘I love this song because it’s reaching to the marginalized, to the depressed, to the suicidal,’ which is all of us at some point. And then she said this, in her Dolly accent: ‘I’m going to take this song from Dollywood to Bollywood to Hollywood.’ And we did it, Dolly, we took it all the way.”

 

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A post shared by Dolly Parton (@dollyparton)

A few months into the pandemic, Parton told Instagram followers, “I think God is in this, I really do. I think he’s trying to hold us up to the light so we can see ourselves and see each other through the eyes of love. I think that when this passes, we’re all gonna be better people.”

She also revealed on social media that she’d donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt University help find a cure for the coronavirus. She wrote, “My longtime friend Dr. Naji Abumrad, who’s been involved in research at Vanderbilt for many years, informed me that they were making some exciting advancements towards research of the coronavirus for a cure. I am making a donation of $1 million to Vanderbilt towards that research and to encourage people that can afford it to make donations.”

Incredibly, when news of the Moderna vaccine emerged in November, Parton’s contribution was duly noted. “Without a doubt in my mind, her funding made the research toward the vaccine go 10 times faster than it would be without it,” Abumrad told the Washington Post.

In April, she kicked off a series of bedtime stories, told online, in order to bring comfort to children who were scared about sheltering in place. “This is something I have been wanting to do for quite a while, but the timing never felt quite right,” she said. “I think it is pretty clear that now is the time to share a story and to share some love. It is an honor for me to share the incredible talent of these authors and illustrators. They make us smile, they make us laugh and they make us think.” Two of the chosen books she wrote herself: Coat of Many Colors and I Am a Rainbow.

In addition, a new line of uplifting greeting cards inspired by Parton appeared in Walmart stores over the summer. Meanwhile, musically, she responded to the pandemic with a beacon of optimism, titled “When Life Is Good Again.” She shared the song in tandem with an interview (while sitting on her porch in her first-ever Zoom call) with the series Time100 Talks: Finding Hope.

Bluegrass fans rejoiced in August as she made a surprise announcement that six of her albums from the early 2000s were finally available on streaming services, so how about adding title tracks of Little Sparrow and Halos & Horns to your Dolly playlists? Overall, 93 once-missing tracks are now available to stream.

Although she’s rarely controversial, Parton’s commentary about Black Lives Matter caused a commotion among its supporters and detractors — and even inspired a mural in East Nashville. She told Billboard in August, “I think that everybody needs to express themselves however they feel they have to. I’m not out here to tell you what to do. I don’t want you to tell me what to do. But I just do what my heart tells me to do, I ask God to direct me and lead me, and if I’ve got his direction, I don’t have to worry too much about anything else. But I do understand people having to make themselves known and felt and seen. And of course Black lives matter. Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No! Everybody matters.”

In November, she commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Imagination Library – an incredible program she launched in 1995 in order to provide free books every month to preschool children — with a new documentary titled The Library That Dolly Built. Parton stated, “I am so excited that we can finally tell the whole story of the Imagination Library. It is certainly not just about me. Our story is the story of children, of families and communities who all share the dream to inspire kids to love to read and to love to learn. My hope is this documentary will encourage more towns, more states and even more countries to jump onboard. One thing is for sure, I think this is the best investment I have ever made.”

Those who have been fans of Dolly Parton for their whole lives were treated to two magnificent overviews in 2020. The first is a Time Life box set of her career on camera, available in two different configurations. One option for Dolly: The Ultimate Collection clocks in at 11 DVDs, and the other at 19 DVDs. Some of the most interesting footage comes from her variety shows, such as this clip of the superstar singing “Amazing Grace” with Glen Campbell (who, for some reason, has brought along his bagpipes).

The other retrospective is Songteller, a book of lyrics that doubles as a memoir. Compiled by Parton and noted journalist Robert K. Oermann, it portrays Parton as a composer whose catalog goes way deeper (and darker) than “Jolene,” “9 to 5,” and “I Will Always Love You.” Dorian Lynskey, a contributor to the L.A. Times, wrote, “Her shows are carnivals of good-natured inclusivity that unite everyone from LGBTQ millennials to MAGA-hat boomers under one roof. There is room for heartbreak but not deep cuts about suicide and arson. Still, she would not have included so many of these dramas of cruelty and suffering in Songteller if she did not believe that this harsher strain in her life and work was worth remembering. Her optimism stands on the shoulders of pain.”

And if all that isn’t enough, she gifted us with a holiday album and a network special (both titled A Holly Dolly Christmas), a Netflix movie (Christmas on the Square), and even a baking kit at Williams-Sonoma. It may be the only time in history that she’s been affiliated with the words “cookie cutter.”

Right before Thanksgiving, the iconic musician logged her 50th Grammy nomination, this time for “There Was Jesus,” a collaboration with Zach Williams in the Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song category. A week later, former President Barack Obama lamented that he hadn’t given Parton the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perhaps that will happen in 2021?

Not that she’s short on awards. She picked up the new Hitmaker award from Billboard in December, and told viewers, “Of course, I’m proud of all the wonderful women in show business that write all these wonderful songs. I’d like to acknowledge a few — some of them older, kind of back in my day. Cindy Walker, who wrote some of the greatest songs ever, and of course Loretta Lynn, a wonderful, wonderful songwriter. And this day in time, of course, Taylor Swift, she’s just right up there, probably number one. And of course, Brandi Carlile, there’s just so many that write so many good songs. I think it’s so important that we acknowledge the women that write and sing in country music. And I think it’s also very important that they take control of their own business. I know I’ve had my own publishing company for years. Same with a lot of these women that I mentioned. But anyhow, I’ve just wanted to always say, ‘You go, girls!’ We can do it!” (Like hundreds of others, the trophy will be housed in her museum in Dollywood.)

This year, and in all years, we commend Dolly Parton for her work ethic and for making herself available to her fans. Yes, she knows how to market herself through visibility and personality, but in 2020, when so many of us have stayed in, she’s gone the extra mile to put herself out there, safely.

On November 30, she wound up in New York Times‘ Style magazine in its “Diva” series, alongside Patti LaBelle and Barbra Streisand. One of the most accurate depictions of what it’s like to be around Dolly (and to always wish you had more time to spend together), the article’s author Emily Lordi quotes Dolly talking about her ambition: “I just wanted to do really good work, and I wanted it to make a really big difference in the world … to uplift mankind and glorify God.”

Photo courtesy of Dolly Parton

Sister Sadie: Bluegrass Entertainers, Teachers, and Most of All, Friends

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Sister Sadie is a bluegrass supergroup featuring no-holds-barred instrumental and vocal talent presented as world-class entertainment. To list each member’s history in bluegrass and their accomplishments would take up more space than this entire interview, but their music speaks for itself. These women have spent their lives perfecting their craft. The band originally formed to play a one-off show at the historic Station Inn in Nashville. Once they started playing, they knew that they had found something special.

Since that night they have gone on to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, receive a Grammy nomination, and rack up two historic awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association. In 2019 they were the first all-female group to win IBMA Vocal Group of the Year and in 2020 they became the first all-female group to win IBMA Entertainer of the Year. These awards represent not only their individual lifetimes’ worth of hard work and passion, but also the work and love that they put into their music and each other.

BGS caught up with three of the band’s founding members — Tina Adair (mandolin, vocals), Gena Britt (banjo, vocals), and Deanie Richardson (fiddle) — for our Artist of the Month interview.

BGS: Since IBMA was virtual this year I haven’t gotten to see any of y’all in person to congratulate you on your award. I imagine this recognition must feel exciting since you’ve all been playing for your entire lives. Does winning Entertainer of the Year hold any special significance to you?

Tina Adair: I’ve been singing on stage since I was 3 years old. As big of a ham as I am now, I was as big a ham back then, too. I’ve always loved the stage and I love entertaining people and making people feel good and having a good time. I think people go out to see shows to get a break from the everyday world and to enjoy music because music is very therapeutic. It’s always been a goal of mine to make sure that people leave smiling bigger than they did coming into the show and feeling like they’re part of something. I know that Gena and Deanie are the same, all we’ve ever known has been music, you know? It’s not just a part of our lives — it is our life. So to get to do this as a profession, just makes us even luckier. And then to be recognized by your peers. Entertainer of the Year has always been something that I’ve dreamed about all my life. It’s been very special and we’re very honored and grateful.

Gena Britt: That’s pretty much everything I would’ve said.

Deanie Richardson: Yeah, that was pretty good. I’d say we’ve all been going to IBMA since we were teenagers. We all dreamed of being nominated for awards, but I don’t know if we ever thought it would happen. And like Tina said, that Entertainer of the Year category is special for some reason, so winning is just the icing on the cake. It means that we’ve not only gone out and played our best, but entertained them. Tina’s a great entertainer. She can grab that crowd and take them on a big journey. They’ll laugh and cry and anything they need to feel emotionally she can do that with an audience. To pull this off, to experience these awards and what we’ve accomplished together as five friends who have grown up knowing each other and going to IBMA that’s the really special part for me.

You all have this connection to mentoring the next generation, which is such a big part of the bluegrass tradition. How do you feel about being able to influence the generation of bluegrass in general and of women and bluegrass?

TA: Each of us has had such a lifelong journey, and we’re not old, but we’re middle aged now. So we’ve got some experiences to share. With age comes wisdom. I’ve been [working] at Belmont [University] for 20 years now. Personally I love that college age, because it’s such a transitional period in a person’s life. That’s the age where you’re coming into being a young adult and learning to make decisions. I love to be involved in lives at that point in time. I love to be able to provide advice to the kids and share any kind of tips. One of the best pieces of advice I always give to my students that I learned from one of my mentors is to do something every day to help forward yourself towards a goal or the career that you want to go after. Whether you spend five minutes on it or 10 hours that day on it, do something every single day.

And then, as far as influencing women and everything, I hope I can be an influence to a female that doesn’t fit the typical mold of what people think you’re supposed to look like in society. You know what I mean? People who need to be encouraged to get on stage or find the courage to want to learn how to play something even if they’re just sitting in their living room. I think that’s important — having that self-confidence and awareness of knowing who you are and knowing what you stand for. And being okay with yourself. Lord knows I’m not a size four, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve got the confidence of a size two. I love people. And I think if you give love to people then they’re gonna give back to you. I really feed off the energy of an audience because if I’m interacting with them and they’re interacting with me, then they’re invested just as much as I’m invested in them, you know? If I can influence one person that may have thought they couldn’t do something but changed their mind after seeing a Sister Sadie show, then that’s made our journey worth it.

DR: We’re not ones to harp on this whole “We’re women, blah, blah, blah.” But there are lots of women out there who paved the way for us like Laurie Lewis, Lynn Morris, and Kathy Kallick. We look up to them and they made it possible for us to win these awards. Somebody said the other day in an interview, “No woman has ever won this award” or all-female band or whatever. It is a male-dominated business, but there have always been women in this genre. There have been women always working towards what we just accomplished and they helped us get to where we are. And I hope that we’re paving the way for the next group of women to come right behind us. I think we’re working past saying, “Here are some women, and they just did this.” Because, you know what? We’re freaking good. And we just did this. Eighty percent of my roster that I teach is young girls playing fiddle and I want them to not have to worry about being a man or a woman. I want them to just want to be good, or to be the best, and to get out there and do this because that’s their goal.

Gena, I had a question for you because you played in Petticoat Junction, which is another historically significant, all-female group. Do you feel like there’s much of a difference performing in an all-female group now versus back then?

GB: Back then, there were a few other all-female bands, and at the time, if you called a promoter to book a show or something, they would say, “Well, we’ve already got a female band that weekend. We don’t need another female band.” I think we’ve grown so much since then. It hasn’t completely gone away, but we have stepped away from that. Yes, we are women, we are in our 40s, we all have these jobs that we’re doing, like, I have a day job and everything. But people are recognizing our music and we’ve been given these awards, because we’re carrying our own and we’re doing as best we can as musicians.

It’s great to see all of that progress. Bluegrass has this thing where men age into reverence, kind of no matter how talented they are. If you’ve been around for long enough, then people recognize that you have some wisdom which is turned into social capital. But women don’t seem to get that same treatment. It seems like it’s much harder for them to age into legends. You just stop hearing about them as much. It’s a really unsettling phenomenon. So I think it’s doubly exciting for you all to, uh, as… I’m trying so hard to not say, and I’m not saying at all that you guys are —

TA: Just say it, Tristan!

You’re only older than me! You’re not old, I’m just a baby.

TA: I mean, we’re all one step away from menopause. At least I really hope I am, because if I’m not, there’s something else wrong with me. [Laughs]

GB: I was 18 when I joined Petticoat Junction. That was 30 years ago. I’m 48. That gives some perspective on how long we’ve been out here doing this.

You’ve been doing this your entire lives and have been actively involved in the scene the entire time and I think it’s reflected in your music. You’re all talented musicians. The music that you play has its own sound, but clearly has a lot of different influences. How do you bridge the gap between bluegrass and folk and country and blues?

DR: Going into the studio and picking material is a hard thing for five people to do, and as women who all have different tastes and different senses of artistic creativity, it’s a challenge. Everybody brings songs to the table and then we choose as a unit what we think works as a band. That’s a hard process for us, but I feel like, at the end of the day, we work really well through our differences. Hell, we’re probably gonna break into a fight, but it’s gonna be alright. We’re gonna make it through it. And at the end of the day, there’s gonna be 12 songs on the record that we can kick ass on. Part of it comes down to Tina has a singing style that works for her, Gena has a singing style, and Dale Ann had one as well. So that brings in the blues, the hardcore traditional, the folky, from each of us.

GB: It’s all those influences. The East Kentucky, Alabama and the blues from Tina, I’m straight-ahead, traditional bluegrass from here in the heart of North Carolina. And it’s like you said, it is a cohesive sound. We’re all together. All those influences do help create our sound.

TA: It’s what brings it together.

You all clearly put a lot of work and love into your music and it’s really paid off.

DR: The one thing I am most proud of about this band is that we started as five friends played that show at the Station Inn. It went from there to another show, to another show, to a record to another record, to a Grammy nomination, to the Opry, to Vocal Group of the Year, to Fiddle Player and Entertainer of the Year. I wouldn’t have won that Fiddle Player or the Year award without this band so I’m truly grateful for all of that. But we’ve done this all by ourselves. We are five women who love each other, who work through our differences, and who have worked hard together.

We’ve done the booking, we’ve done the managing, we’ve done the publicity — it’s all been organic. It’s not something we’ve gone out and pushed, it’s not something we’ve gone out and publicized a great deal. It’s just all happened organically. It took on its own life. Everything that has happened with Sister Sadie has happened because it was meant to happen. And it’s just out of our love for this music and for each other. That is what I’m most proud of. Five women who raise kids, who work day jobs, who teach, who play professionally. Five women who have done this together. I’m super, super proud of that.

TA: Me, too. I want to piggyback off of that because that’s an important point. We didn’t start off to make it big or anything. We just wanted to play music together and instead of doing it in our living room, we thought, “Well, we could do it at the Station Inn, and that would be fun.” Because Station Inn is like all of our home away from home. So that’s how it all started. I think everything has a time and a place and everything happens the way it’s supposed to happen. I think that night at the Station Inn was supposed to happen. That is what led us down this road to accomplishing and achieving some things that have been lifelong dreams of ours that may not have ever come true had Sister Sadie not been formed. We just love each other dearly and hopefully that comes across. I hope the concept of Sister Sadie comes across as nothing more than we’re trying to love. I love people, we love each other, and love making music. We love bluegrass.

Photo credits: Deanie Richardson by Kerrie Richardson; Tina Adair by John Dorton; Gena Britt by Mike Carter

Rescuing Her Musical Archive, Gillian Welch Reboots 2020 With ‘Boots No. 2’

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Fans of Gillian Welch have been rewarded for their customary patience with an abundance of albums released in 2020. During the earliest days of the pandemic, Welch and her partner, David Rawlings, stayed in and recorded songs from a collection of old songbooks. (The result, All the Good Times, received a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Album last week.) And after literally rescuing an archive of tapes and instruments from a tornado in March — one that blew the roof off their East Nashville studio — the pair set to work on another major undertaking.

This time, the result is even more bountiful: Three albums, encompassing 48 rarely-heard songs written and recorded in 2002 to fulfill a publishing deal. Only a few compositions have seen the light of day, namely the recordings of Alison Krauss & Union Station’s “Wouldn’t Be So Bad,” Solomon Burke’s “Valley of Tears,” and I’m With Her’s “Hundred Miles.” The engaging, one-take performances remained tucked away until this year, but they’ll be compiled into a three-disc box set titled Boots No. 2: The Lost Songs in December, packaged with a book of photography and a songbook of their own. These unearthed tracks were recorded in between 2001’s Time (The Revelator) and 2003’s Soul Journey; meanwhile, Boots No. 1 was an equally satisfying 2016 collection of outtakes from her 1996 debut album, Revival.

BGS caught up with Gillian Welch by phone.

BGS: Prior to preparing these releases, how often did you revisit these recordings?

Welch: Not really, let’s see. They’re pushing 20 years old – they’re 18 years old. I’d say… twice? So, close to once a decade? What would happen is, somebody or an artist that we knew would come to us, asking if we had any songs nobody had heard. Did we have any unreleased songs? One time, Buddy Miller called us up, and I love Buddy. He’s a friend. And he said, “You guys don’t have any country R&B songs, do you?” And I said, “Funnily enough, we’ve got a couple of these that we just didn’t know what to do with.” And he said, “Well, I’m making a record on Solomon Burke!” So, that’s how Solomon came to record “Valley of Tears.”

And same, Alison Krauss heard “Wouldn’t Be So Bad” the day I turned in all these songs to the publishing company. My manager hadn’t even heard them, and my publisher was playing them for my manager, who also managed Alison. They weren’t even pitching her “Wouldn’t Be So Bad.” She was in there to listen to other people’s songs and she heard it through the wall, is what I heard, and came in and said, “What’s that one? It’s awful, that’s just pitiful, I want that one!” [Laughs] So, that’s pretty much how it went. And same thing with I’m With Her. They were looking for some tunes. But truly, man, that’s about it.

How were these recordings made? Did you record them originally on reel-to-reel?

Yeah, they’re on quarter-inch reel-to-reel. They were recorded on a portable Nagra. The old field recordings, when they would take tape machines out to people’s farms and record folk songs and whatnot, these were often the machines they were hauling around. They run on batteries. Just lovely tape machines. So, we had a Nagra at the house and I was singing into a SM57 duct-taped to a guitar stand. [Laughs] My guitar and vocal are going into one microphone. It was very, very minimal, because we didn’t think we were making records, honestly. We weren’t. That’s one of the things that sets this collection apart from our records, is these weren’t records! None of that self-awareness, or self-consciousness, was present. These songs were written in a marathon long weekend and each song was recorded a minute after it was done.

David Rawlings and Gillian Welch by Henry Diltz

All 48 songs were written in a weekend?!

Yes. The ideas, they had languished, unfinished, in writing notebooks. They’d been kicking around. It wasn’t like I had thought of all these things in a weekend. But, I had shortfall with my publishing deal. As we started putting out records and we started touring… I don’t write on the road. So I fell behind. It was like I was never going to be done with it. My life had changed so much, that particular deal had kind of run its course. I didn’t know what to do.

Dave was the one who had the courageous and crazy idea. He was like, “What if we just turn in all the songs?” I sort of laughed, like, “Really? 48 songs?” [Laughs] He was like, “Yeah,” and he started pulling out the old notebooks. I write in spiral-bound, college-ruled notebooks, and there were just stacks of them around. He started pulling them out and we would look for a song that had just never gotten finished.

And he said, “Whatever the song needs, to make it a song, here we go. Right now.” We’re going to do it. He would put this sheet in front of me, and I would try and finish it, and he would go try to find another. And as soon as he came back in, I was supposed to have finished the one he had handed me previously. Then we would turn the tape machine and sing it once, and then that was that. Then we would finish another one. So, yeah, all of these recordings are first vocal takes of me. And I hear it. There’s an off-the-cuff-ness.

As you were recording these songs, were you in chairs facing each other?

I was on the couch! [Laughs] It’s a funny thing, releasing these into the world. It’s strange timing, to have rescued them from a tornado, and to be confronted with them again after all these years. And to literally think, “Why are we saving these?” It was really shocking. You keep things like this, maybe notebooks or photographs or tapes, and you think, “Well, maybe I’ll do something with them someday…” Here’s the sudden realization that they may not always be available to you. A tornado could come along and pulverize the entire thing.

Now, when you say you saved them from a tornado, that’s quite literal.

Oh yeah! That is completely literal. I picked them up in my arms and ran them through a collapsing building, so yes, it is completely literal! In the dark, in cascading water and debris. We physically saved every one of our masters, and every one of our guitars and microphones and gear. … I don’t want to go through that again. It’s the closest window I’ve had to what people go through in extreme duress and trauma. It was really something. That was how our year started out.

As I was looking through some of your press materials, I saw a photograph of you – and the photographer was you. Are you interested in photography? Is that something you’ve taken up?

Yeah, actually, that’s what my degree is in. I have a Bachelor of Arts in photography that I got and promptly made no use of. But I have it! Funny enough, now that we all walk around with cameras on our person, in the form of a phone, at all times, I take more photographs these days than I have since I was an undergrad, you know? I think you’re referring to this record of folk songs that Dave and I made during lockdown, and they said, “Well, we need a picture.” [Laughs] So I took a picture of myself and I took a picture of Dave threading tape on the tape machine that lives in our bookcase.

Gillian Welch by Gillian Welch

I’ve been reading about people who have started to play banjo during the pandemic, to cheer themselves up. Has that been the case for you?

I’ve heard that too! It’s so interesting to see how people are dealing with this, and apparently guitar sales and banjo sales are way up. It’s heartening. Who would have seen that coming? People are learning to play instruments, or returning to ones that have been in the closet for many years, and it’s really a wonderful reaction. We all find our own ways. And for Dave and I, it’s been pulling out all these old folk songs book, flipping them open to a page, and singing all these folk songs. Somehow, that’s been our reaction.

How old are the books?

They’re anywhere from a hundred years old, to fifty years old, forty years old… You know, I like these folk songbooks. I started singing folk songs when I was very young and I came at them not from records, but from this tradition of songbooks and being taught them by teachers and other people. It was not a recorded medium, at first, for me. Strangely, though it sounds incredibly old-timey, it was an oral tradition. …

So, we’re just returning to it. It’s the only thing that made sense to me in April and May of this year, was to sing these songs that touched upon other songs of great upheaval and tragedy and loss. And yet, people came through it, right? It doesn’t matter how dark or tragic the material is. The fact that the song exists tells me that people made it through. That’s part of the great power of folk music. And I use folk as a really, really big word, to cover almost everything! [Laughs] As someone once said, “Folk music is just music sung by folks.”

If I have my timing right, these recordings were made between the O Brother, Where Are Thou soundtrack and Soul Journey. Looking back on that time in your career, there must have been so much happening, and so many commitments you had to honor. Where do you draw strength from, when you start to feel overwhelmed?

Well, that’s an interesting question. When I really start to get overwhelmed, and it has definitely happened this year… It’s been such a challenge to remember who we are, in the face of being separated so much from what we normally do, you know? It’s hard to remember who we are! And I found myself really, in my most dislocated moments, putting on the records that I love. And honestly, this is going to sound kind of crazy, but I’ve heard it from other people, too, who have been putting on our music. Almost to fill the social gaps, to have another person inhabit your home, right? And I did that also. Because I’ve seen no one but Dave, really, and I found myself putting on records and almost communing with them like friends.

I see that there’s a box set coming on vinyl and CD, and there’s a songbook, and a lot of photos. It seems like all of your passions are channeled into one big project.

You know, it was really fun to make that book, that photo-music-lyric book that is a companion to the box set. I’ve never made a book before and it was a really interesting intersection of everything I’ve ever done, with all the photography. I’d say it’s about half [composed of] found photographs, and some photographs of mine, and some photographs of Dave. As it turned out, I realized doing this, there aren’t that many pictures of Dave and I from back then. We didn’t just always have a camera. There are so many pictures to document more current times, but we did find some.

When you listen now to this collection of songs, what kinds of emotions does it bring out in you?

When I listen to them, I think about the craft of songwriting. I think that there’s almost a humbleness to them. There’s not very much ego in them, because I wasn’t writing them to be “recorded by the recording artist Gillian Welch.” I was just trying to have them be songs, and we were so focused on their song-ness. And now 20 years later, I like that about them. We just put things that we were thinking about, and things that we were seeing.

Like in “Back Turn and Swing,” Dave is from New England, and every summer up there, you can’t sit down to a meal where there’s corn on the cob without a protracted discussion about past years’ corn, and how this corn rates against the other years’ corn. It’s funny, it’s hilarious! You just talk about different years of corn! So, I like that that made it in. I like it when these little things that we notice as we go through the world make it into the songs, and this collection has a lot of that. There are a lot of little moments in there.

I’m glad it exists, and it wouldn’t have existed — all of these things would have stayed in the notebook — if it weren’t for having to satisfy my publishing deal! So, I certainly had no hard feelings about any of it. It’s amazing that we did this, and given the timing of everything, I can’t believe in the year of 2020, with all this upheaval and pain and loss and isolation, that we had all of these songs sitting in a box, to say to people, “Here you go.” We rescued them. They are lost no more.

Photo credit (lead): David Rawlings; Photo credit (pair): Henry Diltz; Photo credit (middle): Gillian Welch

WATCH: Grammy Nominee Don Bryant’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After decades writing and performing incredible music, soul icon Don Bryant has earned his first Grammy nod in 2020. This past Juneteenth, the veteran bluesman released his newest album, You Make Me Feel, on Fat Possum Records. Nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album, the record is nothing less than a physical incarnation of rhythm and blues.

The project is also aptly titled, as Bryant’s work imparts a gamut of feelings and emotions — love and joy most predominantly shine through the timelessness of his voice and story. With production and arrangements reminiscent of an old soul record, the simplicity of the music is on display in a recent Tiny Desk (Home) Concert by Bryant. Backed by only an electric guitar and a pianist, the songs fly out of the speakers with unbridled power and emotion.

A decorated songwriter, Bryant holds deep connections to the roots of such powerful music, singing life into just about anything. With only the first few notes of this performance you’ll be entranced! Listen to You Make Me Feel wherever you get your music and watch Bryant’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert below.

2021 Grammy Awards: See Nominees in American Roots Field

Posted on by Editor

The 2021 Grammy Awards finalists were revealed on Thursday, November 24. Here are the nominations in the American Roots field:


Best American Roots Performance

Black Pumas, “Colors”

Bonny Light Horseman, “Deep in Love”

Brittany Howard, “Short and Sweet”

Norah Jones & Mavis Staples, “I’ll Be Gone”

John Prine, “I Remember Everything”

Best American Roots Song

“Cabin,” Laura Rogers & Lydia Rogers, songwriters (The Secret Sisters)

“Ceiling to the Floor,” Sierra Hull & Kai Welch, songwriters (Sierra Hull)

“Hometown,” Sarah Jarosz, songwriter (Sarah Jarosz)

“I Remember Everything,” Pat McLaughlin & John Prine, songwriters (John Prine)

“Man Without a Soul,” Tom Overby & Lucinda Williams, songwriters (Lucinda Williams)


Best Americana Album

Courtney Marie Andrews, Old Flowers

Hiss Golden Messenger, Terms of Surrender

Sarah Jarosz, World on the Ground

Marcus King, El Dorado

Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Angels

Best Bluegrass Album

Danny Barnes, Man on Fire

Thomm Jutz, To Live in Two Worlds, Vol. 1

Steep Canyon Rangers, North Carolina Songbook

Billy Strings, Home

Various Artists, The John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project, Vol. 1

Best Traditional Blues Album

Frank Bey, All My Dues are Paid

Don Bryant, You Make Me Feel

Robert Cray Band, That’s What I Heard

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Cypress Grove

Bobby Rush, Rawer Than Raw


Best Contemporary Blues Album

Fantastic Negrito, Have You Lost Your Mind Yet?

Ruthie Foster Big Band, Live at the Paramount

G. Love, The Juice

Bettye LaVette, Blackbirds

North Mississippi Allstars, Up and Rolling


Best Folk Album

Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

Leonard Cohen, Thanks for the Dance

Laura Marling, Song for Our Daughter

The Secret Sisters, Saturn Return

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, All the Good Times

Best Regional Roots Music Album

Black Lodge Singers, My Relatives “Nikso Kowaiks”

Cameron Dupuy and the Cajun Troubadours, Cameron Dupuy and the Cajun Troubadours

Nā Wai ʽEhā, Lovely Sunrise

New Orleans Nightcrawlers, Atmosphere

Sweet Cecilia, A Tribute to Al Berard

Photo of John Prine by Danny Clinch

Artist of the Month: Shemekia Copeland

Posted on by Editor

When it comes to modern blues, Shemekia Copeland is at the top of her game. Uncivil War, her newest release on Alligator Records, offers a number of topical songs, ranging from gun rights (“Apple Pie and a .45”) to LGBT affirmation (“She Don’t Wear Pink”). Yet as the album progresses, she delivers a few straight-up blues songs like “No Heart at All” and “In the Dark” that could have fallen anywhere in her decades-long career — or found a home with the generation of blues artists that inspired her. Throughout, her voice is strong, drawing you in to hear firsthand what’s on her mind.

Recorded in Nashville with producer Will Kimbrough, Uncivil War gives Copeland a chance to clearly speak her truth. From the historical narrative of “Clotilda’s on Fire” (with an electrifying guitar solo from Jason Isbell) to the philosophical title track (which features acoustic all-stars Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas), Copeland consistently comes across as persuasive, but not abrasive. The message of one of the album’s finest moments, “Walk Until I Ride,” is indeed empowering — but the fact that she needs to walk in the first place is not lost on the listener.

“You know, being angry doesn’t do us any justice,” Copeland told NPR in October. “I spent my time being angry and pissed off and mad about it. But at the end of the day, you know, that just doesn’t help anything.” That determination to channel her emotions into her music paid off in 2019 as she picked up multiple wins in the Blues Music Awards and Living Blues Critic’s Poll on the strength of her prior release, America’s Child. Since 2000, three of her albums have also received Grammy nominations.

In the weeks ahead, BGS will feature a two-part interview with Shemekia Copeland, where she reflects on the influence of her blues musician father, Texas legend Johnny Copeland, as well as the statement she’s making with Uncivil War. (Read part one here. Read part two here.) Author and journalist Alan Paul, who conducted these interviews, also provides us with the BGS Essentials playlist for November Artist of the Month, Shemekia Copeland.

Photo credit: Mike White

Bluegrass Memoirs: Thanks to Eric Weissberg

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

On the morning of March 24, 2020 I learned Eric Weissberg had passed away when a friend posted a long and detailed obit. I found several other substantial ones online — Rolling Stone, Variety, New York Times. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Weissberg’s family had a press release ready; he’d been in decline, suffering from dementia. A few days later Jim Rooney posted a very moving memoir focused on his long-time friend Weissberg in mid- and late years; it shed more light on this influential musician. 

Recently Bob Carlin finished a bio on Weissberg. When we spoke at IBMA’s business conference last fall he told me publishers weren’t interested in a book about a studio musician. Too bad, it’s a good story. In 1972 Weissberg won a Grammy for the banjo hit that propelled the growth of bluegrass festivals, “Dueling Banjos,” the theme from the movie Deliverance. 

I first heard Weissberg’s banjo playing in the fall of 1957. I was an 18-year old Oberlin College freshman who’d gotten into folk music as a high school student in Berkeley, California. This was my first time “back east.” I now had classmates from New York City. One of them, Mike Lipsky, had a new Folkways album, American Banjo Scruggs Style. The final band on the second side was by a friend of his from New York, Eric. 

Weissberg was 17 when he recorded for Folkways, backed by Mike Seeger and Ralph Rinzler. He picked a medley of “Jesse James” and Woody Guthrie’s “Hard Ain’t It Hard,” using Scruggs pegs on the latter. When Lipsky played it to me and my roommate Mayne Smith (fellow Californian and a fledgling banjo picker) he had to explain what Scruggs pegs were. 

Lipsky knew about this music because he was one of a group of New York teenage folk music fans, mainly from elite high schools — Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Music and Art — who socialized together. They’d networked not only in school, but also at leftist summer camps where folk music, spearheaded by Pete Seeger, was an essential part of the experience. They called themselves “The Squadron” and they gathered regularly in Greenwich Village on Sunday afternoons to hear two members of their crowd, Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, picking at the Washington Square folk music jams. Weissberg, a student of Pete Seeger, had been playing the banjo since the age of ten.

Lipsky told us Weissberg and Marshall’s fancy picking confounded Roger Sprung, an older banjoist generally thought to be the best Scruggs picker in New York. And he described their banjos — not long-neck, open-back Vegas like Pete Seeger played, but Gibsons! With resonators, too. And on the fingerboard, down toward the body of the banjo, a little block of mother-of-pearl with “Mastertone” written on it.

This weirdness was all new to me. I’d never heard of “Scruggs picking,” and it was only when I borrowed the LP and read its notes, written by Ralph Rinzler, that I learned this music was called “bluegrass.” 

The following March, at spring vacation, my roommate and I went to New York. I stayed with Mike Lipsky, on this, my first visit to The City. Mayne stayed with another classmate. Among our many adventures — we were rambunctious teen tourists — we went one night to a party for The Squadron in a posh upper East Side residence. 

This was a homecoming party. Attending were young women and men most of whom were like us, on spring vacation from their first year as college and university students at a variety of institutions. Lipsky and Karen, another Oberlin classmate who was part of the group, introduced us to their friends. We’d brought our instruments, leaving them in the anteroom and going up a small flight of stairs to the main floor of this elaborate place. Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman, both of whom were freshmen at the University of Wisconsin, did the same. 

Midway through the evening we were encouraged to get our instruments out and sing. Mayne had his banjo — an old Stewart with a resonator — and I, my guitar — a 1943 Martin 000-21. We went back downstairs. This was the nearest thing to a front porch or back room we could find. We did several pieces, and then Weissberg and Brickman came down and got out their banjos. Mayne had taken one or two lessons with Billy Faier, the virtuoso banjoist who’d arrived in the Bay Area from New York the previous August. Faier had introduced him to three-finger picking. Mayne chatted about Scruggs with Eric and Marshall. 

Then they played a banjo duet, a Scruggs tune, “Earl’s Breakdown,” in harmony, with each picking with the right hand on his own banjo while reaching around to fret the strings on the neck of the other’s banjo. This was the first time we’d ever seen anyone play the banjo Scruggs style, much less a fancy stage stunt like that! It was a very impressive tour-de-force. You can get a good sense of what the harmony sounded like from the version on their 1963 Elektra album, New Dimensions in Banjo and Bluegrass (reissued in 1972 as Dueling Banjos from Deliverance) although they weren’t playing the fancy solo breaks in 1958.

Afterwards Weissberg told us that the best way to learn this music was to study Scruggs’ playing on one of his instrumental records like “Earl’s Breakdown” or “Flint Hill Special.” Mastering all those licks note-for-note would take you a long way towards being able to play like Earl.

Weissberg noticed that I was playing the guitar with just two picks on my fingers — thumb and index. He recommended that I add a pick on my middle finger, like he and Marshall used for the banjo. I followed that advice immediately, and the following year, when I began working seriously on banjo, I also took his advice about studying Scruggs closely.

Putting our instruments away, we went upstairs and joined the party. I conversed for a while with Eric. I told him I’d heard Billy Faier in Berkeley last summer, had been very impressed with his music, and was looking forward to his forthcoming Riverside album, The Art of the Five-String Banjo. Eric agreed, Faier is a great banjo player, and said he had collaborated with Billy and another banjo player, Dick Weissman, on an album due out this coming summer called Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos! 

That summer of 1958, Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos! arrived at Art Music on Telegraph in Berkeley where I hung out listening to new folk records. The album was on Judson, a bargain line label owned by Riverside’s Bill Grauer.

Grauer’s Riverside productions catered to the hip college kids of the fifties — a generation that grew up on hi-fi LPs. Riverside reissued historic prewar jazz and blues; released contemporary jazz and folk; and recorded sports car events. This major independent label ended abruptly in 1964 when Grauer, just 42, died. Their catalog is now with Concord Records, which has reissued some jazz recordings on CDs.

Riverside albums were well-produced, with glossy full-color cover art. Back covers — liners — had a standard format: bold head at the top with album title and artist names. Below it, three dense columns giving the playlist along with information about the music and musicians. Lots to read while listening!

Faier’s The Art of the Five-String Banjo liner held a full column endorsement by Pete Seeger, slightly longer notes by producer Goldstein, and Faier’s bio. In contrast the liner of Banjos, Banjos and More Banjos had its playlist followed by three columns of folklorist John Greenway’s flowery history of the instrument, and brief bios for the three banjoists. I bought the album (later reissued on Grauer’s Washington label with new cover and title: Five-String Jamboree: A Treasury of Banjo Music) because Eric Weissberg was playing Scruggs-style banjo on it.

At the bottom of the center column on the liners for both albums was the standard data of the time: 

A HIGH FIDELITY Recording (Audio Compensation; RIAA Curve). Produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein. Cover by Paul Weller (photography) and Paul Bacon (design). Engineer: Mel Kaiser (Cue Recordings). New York: May, 1957.

 Now I look back at the album, listen to it for the first time in years. When I last heard of Faier, about ten years ago, he was busking in Albuquerque. He died in Alpine, Texas in 2016. We’d seen each other and talked at the Tennessee Banjo Institute in November 1990, recalling the summer of 1958 when I guested on his KPFA show and worked as his backup guitarist at an SF coffee house. Dick Weissman, now 85, had distinguished careers: first as a performer, then as teacher and author. He published his memoir, The Music Never Stops: A Journey Into the Music of the Unknown, The Forgotten, The Rich & Famous, the same year Faier died.

These guys must have been in the Cue Recordings studio more than once in May, 1957. Their recordings were made with a single-track tape recorder; no overdubs. Faier made his solo album at Cue with Frank Hamilton playing guitar, and there’s one track on Banjos with that pairing — probably an outtake from The Art. Most of the other guitar on this album is by Dick Rosmini, then considered the hot, young, go-to guitar accompanist.

Weissberg is heard playing Scruggs-style banjo on five tracks, and singing tenor harmony in duets on three of those. One was an old spiritual, “You Can Dig My Grave,” with Faier. With Weissman, Eric harmonized on the old folksong “Chilly Winds.” My favorite was another spiritual, “Glory Glory.” This vocal duet with Rosmini featured great backup guitar and seven banjo breaks by Eric, each a new variation. I played that track a lot for my friends that summer!

He also did a reprise of his 1956 Folkways track, focusing on “Hard Ain’t It Hard” complete with Scruggs pegs, and a cool version of “900 Miles” in G minor tuning. 

Weissberg’s music spoke to me as a young folk fan just getting into bluegrass. He’d mastered the instrument in this new style, and learned the vocal style that went with it. Here he was applying it to music that I knew — Woody Guthrie songs, a tune the Weavers had sung on their famous Carnegie Hall concert album, and familiar Black spirituals. 

The door to bluegrass was newly opened. Eric Weissberg stood just inside, beckoning in. Come on, it’s not that hard, it’ll be fun.

Neil V. Rosenberg is an author, scholar, historian, banjo player, and Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductee.

Photo of Neil V. Rosenberg: Terri Thomson Rosenberg
Photo of Banjos, Banjos, and More Banjos: Neil V. Rosenberg

Harmonics with Beth Behrs: Episode 7, Mary Gauthier

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Singer, songwriter, activist, and all-around badass Mary Gauthier joins host Beth Behrs on this episode of Harmonics. The two talk about why superheroes are so often adoptees and orphans (and vice versa), the power of songwriting for veterans of the armed forces, her last live show immediately before the shutdown, and so much more.


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Mary Gauthier’s name is spoken with reverence in songwriter circles. She’s won countless awards from organizations like the Americana Music Association, GLAAD, and Folk Alliance International, and was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

A Louisiana native, Gauthier has been releasing her own music for over twenty years, but her 2019 record Rifles & Rosary Beads brought a whole new level to her art, when she collaborated with the Songwriting With Soldiers project to put wounded veterans’ stories to song. 

 

Harmonics with Beth Behrs: Episode 4, Brandi Carlile

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Harmonics with Beth Behrs is the newest show from the BGS Podcast Network, which delves into the intersection of music and wellness. The podcast’s third week features Brandi Carlile, Americana icon and advocate for the empowerment of women and the LGBTQ+ community.

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Harmonics host Beth Behrs talks with Carlile about spirituality and wisdom found through horses and nature, performing the album Blue for Joni Mitchell, the joy and connection of live music, anxiety, and singing with Dolly Parton at the Newport Folk Festival.

For many folks, the first time they heard of Brandi Carlile was during her show-stopping performance of “The Joke” at the 2019 Grammy awards. Carlile walked away with three trophies that night for her record, By The Way, I Forgive You (including Best Americana Album). She’s been honing her distinctive voice and building a dedicated audience for over twenty years, all the while staying committed to building a family and community with her band and team.

That commitment has made her a godmother of modern American roots music — as a curator of festival stages, interpreter of the legendary artists who came before, and producer and collaborator for a whole new generation of female artists.

Listen and subscribe to Harmonics through all podcast platforms and follow BGS and Beth Behrs on Instagram for series updates!