Tag: Hank Williams

MIXTAPE: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It is a tale as old as time itself. As above so below. Yin and Yang. The explored and the unexplored. The hero’s journey, any and all of them, are exposed to the eternally enduring dance of chaos and order. We must leave the garden, enter into the forest to find the gold, kill the dragon, and return back to where we began, returning back more harmonized, realized, and higher frequency than we began.

Musically, Cosmic Country takes this pattern and uses it as its sole fuel for the soul and all of its musical fruits. Cosmic Country is an approach that uses simplicity, complexity, and truth to tell stories of life that bring beauty and goodness into reality. This 9-track mixtape I have assembled for your enjoyment and exploration today covers some ground of the far-flung lands of music that is Cosmic Country, where the high frequencies fall like rain and blossom like lilies in the fields that never end nor never began. Let’s get Cosmic. – Daniel Donato

“Honky Tonk Night Time Man” – Merle Haggard

This is a country song. But just like any country, there is more nuance to be discovered and brought to light than meets the eye. This is an archetypal honky-tonk song. A few of these will be on here. Honky-tonk songs cover truthful states of life that apply to all of our brothers and sisters sojourning in space and time together down on this chaotic planet. This song talks about relief from the grind and finally getting around to what is right for the soul when quittin’ time comes around.

“Doggone Cowboy” – Marty Robbins

This is also a country song, but it is also more nuanced than that. This is a cowboy song. The cowboy is one of the great American archetypes. The cowboy embraces a life of service, hard work, endurance, adventure, and most enduringly, faith. It takes faith to stay patient and persistent in pursuing your work through realms of chaos that you must travel through and come out on the other side stronger than you did prior. Marty had a way of personifying sorrow, acceptance, reflection, and hope in his delivery of these transcendant, simple lyrics.

“Mystery Train” – Jerry Reed

It can’t be fully Cosmic Country unless it moves you. Internally, songs move us, but sometimes the pocket and groove move us externally, which is a brilliant expression of personality. What I love about this song is that Jerry Reed always had a vision in his mind that could create a groove for people to dance to and for players to have fun-expression in. Everyone knows “Mystery Train,” but this version can make any club, honky tonk, theatre, or arena dance and move all together. Bonus points for a train song. Everyone loves a train song.

“Everybody’s Talkin’” – Harry Nilsson

The bottomline is that we are on our own trip. It is an individual experience of life, personality, and dynamics that only you experience. No one will ever live your life for you or as you. Songs that find promise and truthful reflection on the truly individualized nature of existence are my favorite. The movie Midnight Cowboy turned me onto this song when I was 16. I’ve never wished I had written another song as much as this American classic.

“I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)” – Hank Williams

The Shakespeare of country music. The man who was able to take the power of the word – through a Western lens of faith, hardship, and hard living – and deliver to us some of the most truthful and beautiful songs composed of themes ranging from love, loss, religious experience, jail time, honky tonkin’, and the universe. This song specifically has a brilliant form to it, just one verse and two B sections, coupled with that classic lap steel signature sound from Don Helms.

“Waiting for a Train” – Jimmie Rodgers

Any storyteller of American songs, country songs, any songs based in truth and experience, must tip their “Slouch Hat” to Jimmie Rodgers in one way or another. A lot of everything country begins with the songbook of Jimmie Rodgers. This song is just a fantastic story through and through. The lyrical furniture, the sophisticated use of actual terms of water tanks, brakemen, boxcar doors, all bring the listener into the simulated reality that this song conjures.

“Long Black Veil” – Lefty Frizzell

Murder songs are a necessity. The reaper takes his toll, and with that, law and order speak their truth. One of the brilliant elements of this song is that the perspective is from the deceased character. That is innately Cosmic, especially given the window of time this song was released. Lefty was one of Merle’s favorite vocalists, and was the band leader with which Roy Nichols and Merle Haggard first played together when Merle was 16.

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – The Byrds

Even though Bob Dylan penned this one on the side of the road, in the rain, waiting for a motorcycle fix, The Byrds – with Gram Parsons and Clarence White – deliver to us one of the most archetypal Cosmic Country recordings there will ever be. The instrumentation, the vocal melody, and harmonies on this song alone explain this sentiment, but the lyrical detail is another universe worth noting with great reverence. The olden language of the great folk songs of America inform the meter and colloquialisms in this song, giving it an ability to exist in the past through its roots, the present through its great orchestration and arrangement, and the future through its seeds of truth, beauty, and goodness – the only values in any creation that endow it to persist through the fleeting episodes of space and time.

“Truck Drivin’ Man” – Buck Owens

If I left out truck driving songs, then everybody from my time at Robert’s Western World would be ashamed of me. The truck driver is a minister of the highways, the great vehicle of true exploration and discovery. The eternal, long white line drags on and on, and the road songs of her fruits just keep coming, but some of the great ones came from Capitol Records in L.A. in the early ’60s.

An element of Cosmic Country that this song relates to is the overall “sound.” What is “the sound?” It is ultimately unqualifiable – it cannot be fully explained or qualified by words – especially when The Sound is doing what it can be doing in potential, which is rendering feelings that hit deeper than words can describe. With the Transcendant Twang of Don Rich’s Telecaster, the immensely clean and powerfully compressed sound of Mickey Cantu’s snare drum, along with that Tic-Tac Fender Bass playing, Buck Owen’s vocal and story rests upon a divinely simple and reverberated landscape of country gold. If there ever was a record that “sounds” like a country song, this one certainly qualifies.

Photo Credit: Jason Stoltzfus

The Show On The Road – The Cactus Blossoms

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

On this new episode, maybe we need something soft to counter the hard news many Americans have witnessed this week: so why not dive into the crystalline brother harmonies of Minneapolis duo The Cactus Blossoms, who just put out a lush new record, One Day?

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Sure, you could write off what Jack Torrey and Page Burkum are creating as simply a loving homage to roots pop pioneers like the Everly or Louvin Brothers with an acerbic modern twist. But with allies like David Lynch (who inserted them into his rebooted Twin Peaks universe) and Jenny Lewis in their corner (she joins them on the bouncy tear-jerker, “Everyday”) there is something a bit more biting under the sweet-as-candy close harmonies and hushed acoustic guitars, Wurlitzer and pedal steel.

With a song like “I Could Almost Cry,” you have to dive beneath the aching minor country chords and Hank Williams-adjacent lyrics to find a Beatles Rubber Soul fury roiling underneath. As the soft-spoken mention in this freewheeling talk – what lurks inside many of the songs on One Day isn’t just the story of a broken love affair – but maybe of our slowly-breaking country which Jack and Page see out on the road and try and make sense of anew.

Sam Williams Carries His Country Music Legacy to Late Night Debut

Posted on by Editor

On his primetime television debut, Sam Williams makes a powerful statement. Grandson of the legendary Hank Williams and son of Hank Williams Jr., the rising recording artist previewed his debut album, Glasshouse Children with a riveting performance from his grandfather’s old house in Franklin, Tennessee. In an extended one-shot capture, Sam Williams does his name proud with a beautifully-written song called “You Can’t Fool Your Own Blood.” Out of a less-than-usual childhood and recent family tragedy, he has emerged with a style that is both poetic and hard-hitting, pulling no punches in his blend of honesty and vulnerability.

With an undoubtedly heavy burden of expectation, Williams blossoms in this realm of singer-songwriters who are more forlorn than raucous, standing with the likes of artists such as Donovan Woods and Ruston Kelly. Although his television debut was one for the books, perhaps the more exciting news is of the debut full-length record, set for a release later this summer on UMG Nashville. Music from Sam Williams has undoubtedly been a long time in the making, but the good news for us is that it’s almost here. Watch his performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.

Photo credit: Claire Joyce

BGS 5+5: Melissa Carper

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Melissa Carper
Hometown: Bastrop, Texas (outside of Austin)
Latest album: Daddy’s Country Gold (out March 19)
Personal nicknames: Daddy

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I’d have to say Jimmie Rodgers, the Father of Country Music, has influenced me the most. My dad gave me the full collection of Jimmie Rodgers on tape when I was about 20 years old. I had grown up listening to Hank Williams, but I’d never heard anything like Jimmie Rodgers. The quality of the recording was raw and initially harder to listen to, but I became addicted and listened over and over to these tapes. When I first started trying to write country songs I would copy the formula in Jimmie Rodgers songs, or rather they had become such a part of me that I couldn’t help but write something similar. Come to find out years later, a lady name Elsie McWilliams co-wrote on many of Jimmie’s songs, so I guess I have been copying her as well. Jimmie Rodgers combined blues and jazz into his country songs and even had horn sections and collaborated with Louis Armstrong on some recordings. Hank Williams and so many country artists coming after Jimmie Rodgers were influenced by his style.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I have many great memories on stage. One of my favorites is playing a farm party and the stage was a trailer bed and one of their goats jumped up on the stage while we were playing. Also, a fun memory is performing at NYC’s Town Hall for Prairie Home Companion‘s Talent in Towns Under 2000 Contest. At the time I lived in a town that was just under a population of 2000 — Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This was in the year 2000, and back then my band, the Camptown Ladies, auditioned by leaving a song on their answering machine — this was one of the ways you could audition! We were one of six finalists chosen and they flew us to Manhattan for the contest. I think the contrast of living in a small town and then being brought to this grand theater in NYC is an amazing memory for me. We won the toolbox prize — which was the staff’s vote for their favorite band.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I love to meditate sitting under trees and listening to the birds. I don’t know that this exactly impacts my work directly. I also just enjoy being in the country where there is space and plenty of nature around. I have noticed that if I spend time in nature I will write a different type of song. I moved from Austin, Texas, to the middle of nowhere in Arkansas in 2014 and rented a cabin in the woods. I felt like I was decompressing from being in a city and I had several old-time songs come out that were nature-oriented. I enjoy writing about birds, trees, flowers, seasons, moons, stars. If I spend a lot of time alone my creativity will open up. Also, I often write when I am driving on a road trip or going for a walk. I almost always write a melody and words first without an instrument, and then I’ll go back with a guitar and figure out what chords go with the melody.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

When I have to try too hard to write something it usually doesn’t turn out to be as good of a song. There have been several times I’ve rehashed a song over and over and am still not satisfied with the outcome. Sometimes I’ll try a song out at a performance and if it feels good and resonates with people then I know I’ve got a good song. I love it when I’m writing and a song just flows right out almost seamlessly as if the universe is helping. Usually, I’ll know right away if I’ve got one of those magic songs happening. I don’t like to force myself to write but I have had long dry spells in which I have tried to do this and sometimes I have some success by just trying to be more aware of ideas and inspiration that is coming in.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I had no choice. We had a family band growing up, and I was probably 5 when we started playing gospel music at churches and retirement homes. Then when I was 12 years old we started the family country band and we would play four-hour shows in the American Legions, Eagles, Elks and Moose clubs around our area. I did enjoy it and the siblings that didn’t enjoy it did get to drop out of the band. The four-hour-long shows were a bit long but my dad bought us as many Shirley Temples as we wanted and they paid us for the gigs as well. I was one of the few kids that had their own money at the age of 12 and I would take my friends out for pizza. My mom and dad wanted all their kids to be musicians and I am glad they encouraged and supported us in this.

I received a scholarship for studying music, upright bass, at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. I had been considering being an English major also, but I chose music. I dropped out of college after two and half years and didn’t play music for maybe a year or so, but I just kept coming back to music and eventually realized I could make a living playing all sorts of styles. I also realized that my choice of upright bass as my instrument was a smart choice as I was able to join bluegrass and old-time bands, country bands, blues and jazz, just about anything and everyone always needed a bass player.

Photo credit: Aisha Golliher

Shaped by Blues and Country, Shemekia Copeland Launches ‘Uncivil War’ (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

At just 41 years old, Shemekia Copeland is already an established multi-decade blues veteran. That’s what happens when you start performing as a pre-teen with your blues legend father Johnny Clyde Copeland and make your recorded debut at 18. As one of the primary hosts on SiriusXM’s BB King’s Bluesville channel, she’s also one of the genre’s highest-profile artists. A recent series of albums have both underlined Copeland as a star of the blues and pushed her beyond the walls of the genre, further into Americana and socially conscious commentary.

Her latest, Uncivil War, is another bold step forward. Recorded in Nashville with producer Will Kimbrough, the album features a wide range of guest performers, including Jason Isbell, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Steve Cropper, Duane Eddy, Webb Wilder and bluegrass legends Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas. She pushes boundaries not just with the instrumentation but the topics she covers, including “Clotilda’s on Fire,” which tells the story of the last slave ship to come to the U.S., and the title track, “Uncivil War,” is a plea for healing in our increasingly divided nation.

“Americana was not on my radar, but I grew up listening to country music because my dad grew up in Texas and loved it,” Copeland tells BGS. “I’d walk around the house singing Patsy Cline and Hank Williams songs that my dad loved, but I hadn’t really even heard anything about the blend of country and roots music until a few years ago, so I think it’s kind of hilarious that people are saying I’m crossing over to Americana. But I welcome all listeners!”

Editor’s Note: Read the second half of our interview with Shemekia Copeland here.

BGS: Over the past few albums, you’ve really stretched out musically and part of that is working with a wide range of musicians, many from outside the blues world. Let’s talk about a few of them on the new record, starting with two bluegrass greats, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas.

SC: Oh my gosh! They are just really talented guys who make anything better. I just love those guys! I think my favorite part about them is that they exemplify something I love about Nashville: nobody cares about genre. It’s all about just whether or not it’s a good song and whether they want to play on it. And that’s it.

You think that’s notably different than other places? Do you find that not to be the case in New York or Chicago, for instance?

I have to say yes to that. I think it’s different in Nashville. People just want to play music. Down there, nobody ever even asks, “How much does it pay?” They’re just like, “What time do I need to show up?” It’s really about the music and Will Kimbrough, who produced the last two records, knows everyone in town and has played with most of them.

Jason Isbell is another great guest on this album and plays a great solo on “Clotilda’s on Fire.”

Yes, that one was a little different. We did a show at the Grand Ole Opry together, so Jason knew who I was when Will called and asked him to play on this song, and he was ready to do it. “Clotilda’s on Fire” is about the slave ship that they found off the coast of Alabama, and he’s from Alabama and we wanted him to play lead guitar on it. It just felt natural. It’s amazing how organically these things happen.

That song is really powerful and it’s just one of several very topical tunes on this record. That’s something different that you’ve really established. The first four songs are not about personal things like heartbreak, but heavy topics addressed in interesting ways. You have “Clotilda’s on Fire,” about the last slave ship; “Walk Until I Ride,” a modern-day Civil Rights anthem; and “Uncivil War” and “Money Makes You Ugly,” whose titles speak for themselves. Did you make a very conscious decision to do this?

Absolutely! I’ve been doing it for several records now. And I think the more confident I get, the better I get at it, and the more comfortable I get with saying what’s on my mind. Like on America’s Child, I did “Would You Take My Blood?” which was the first time I ever tackled a song about racism. On previous records, I did songs about domestic violence, date rape, things like that. But it feels more imperative than ever with everything that’s going on in this country now — and this was before COVID-19. This record was finished when all of this crap happened.

I was struck by the story about the Clotilda ever since the ship was found off the coast of Alabama. My ancestors came over here on one of those ships. I did my DNA and I’m 87 percent African, so I was very interested in that story. I wanted people to know about it and, more importantly, to understand why it still matters so much. The line in that song that’s one of the most important to me is “We’re still living with her ghost.” I want people to know that it hasn’t ended, that we’re still going through the same stuff and it’s very, very saddening. Heartbreaking, really.

Have you had any backlash to being more outspoken?

Oh, of course.

Do you care?

Not at all. You can’t satisfy everyone. The one thing that I’ve learned in my career is you’re going to piss somebody off. Not everybody’s gonna be happy with you. It’s just that simple, and it’s okay. Nobody wants their difficult history dredged up and put out in front of their face, but I’m good as long as I can look at myself in the mirror every day and be happy with myself.

Amidst all the great new original songs is a cool cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb.” How did you choose that one?

Doing that song was, for me, turning the tables on men. In fact, I actually hate it as a Stones song. I don’t want a man talking about a woman in that way — but it’s a great song! I don’t want to think of a woman being under anyone’s thumb, so the tables were turned… but one critic listened to it and said, “She’s talking about Black women being oppressed in this country.” I thought, “They’re making me sound so smart!” Same thing with “No Heart at All,” which a lot of people have read a lot into and interpreted as being about the president. Okay, but that goes for anyone who doesn’t have one.

That’s interesting about “Under My Thumb.” There’s a power to a woman flipping a song as Aretha did with Otis Redding’s “Respect.” That’s a completely different song sung from a woman’s perspective.

Yeah, to me, a guy singing that is just not right. Doesn’t work. Like, I couldn’t do some standard songs, as much as I love them. I would never want to sing things like “I’d Rather Go Blind” because, shit, I don’t want to go blind. You want to go? Get to steppin’! I don’t need you here. You know what I mean? It’s like this great love song but it leaves me saying, screw that. Peace out.

And you’d never think of Etta James as a pushover in any way! You were close with Koko Taylor, who turned some songs around as well.

She did! “I’m a Woman” was her turning the tables on men. I was devastated when we lost her [in 2009] because she always checked on me. She was so worried about me being in this business because of what she went through with her musicians and managers. Meanwhile, I’m out on the road with all these square guys that only drink herbal tea and don’t even smoke cigarettes. This was not her experience at all! I don’t think that she realized that it was just a different time. She had managers stealing money and disappearing into crack dens. She went through some stuff and wanted to make sure that I could avoid them.

You have a very interesting relationship with your manager, John Hahn, who is also your primary songwriter. How did that develop?

I met John when I was 8 years old. When my friends came around, I’d say, “This is Mr. John Hahn and he’s my manager.” Really, he was working with my father and I was just a little kid talking shit. But when I was about 12, he wrote me a song called “Daddy’s Little Girl” for fun. I started to go sit in with my dad. Now fast forward 33 years or so, and John and I talk every day on the phone, about everything. Having someone who knows me so well write songs is like having a tailor make you a suit. These songs are tailor-made to me, and I’m very fortunate to have that.

Your father was a great songwriter who wrote simple but profound lyrics that really resonated with me. Obviously you agree because almost every album you do one of his tunes, this time “Love Song.”

Yes, thank you! People have suggested I could do a whole record of my daddy’s songs, but this is my subtle way of doing it. I’ve already done ten of them. And, I got to tell you, I do believe that my little boy Johnny is my father reincarnated. He acts just like him. He’s three-and-a-half years old, and is so damn sure of himself. This kid knows who he is. He is arrogant in his confidence, and I always felt my father to be that way. Kind and sweet, but definitely sure of himself. You couldn’t tell him who he was, because he knew. And this little boy is all that and a bag of chips. By the way, my dad knew that I was going to be a singer the second that I came out of the womb.

That’s amazing. How?

I don’t know, but he told my mother when she was holding me in her arms, “She’s going to be a singer.”

And you always feel that way?

No! I did not have the confidence to be a singer. I never wanted to be in front of people. Audiences scared me. I’d always ask my dad how he could get up there in front of all those people and perform. That was always a problem for me.

But you did it from such a young age. I saw you when you were about 12!

I did, but I never was comfortable with it. And it’s now my favorite part. The music business sucks, but performing in front of people is the most amazing feeling in the world. That didn’t come to me until I got older, and became more confident in myself. I had to grow up. Eventually I realized this is who I am.

When was that? You put out your first record at 19.

It’s gotten better over the years. You’re always a work in progress. I started out as a child, and a certain confidence comes in when you’ve been doing it a couple of decades! You never ever stop paying your dues, but I’ve now accepted me wholeheartedly.

(Editor’s Note: Read the second half of our interview with Shemekia Copeland here.)

Photo credit: Mike White

BGS 5+5: Paul Burch

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Paul Burch
Hometown: Currently Nashville, Tennessee. I was born in Washington, D.C.
Latest album: Light Sensitive
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): The members of Lambchop call me WP

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Bob Dylan and Hank Williams were the twin Apollos of songwriting in my youth. And I loved the fearlessness of Roger Miller. Elvis Presley — when inspired — gave his audience his soul. But the four writers who most echo my temperament and drove me to compose are Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, John Prine, and Sam Cooke.

Smokey has a gift for literacy. “I Second That Emotion.” John, like Hank Williams, had the gift for sincerity. The taller the tale, the greater the parable. John was seldom at the center of his songs so much as caught up in the center. He could be both in the story and above it. Sam was easy on the ears. “Cupid.” “Having a Party.” “A Change Is Gonna Come.” A Sam Cooke title was exactly what the song was about. By all accounts he was a man of sharp intelligence, a true believer in decency, a hater of bullshit, and a fan of all kinds of music. Chuck could make the past contemporary and the here-and-now heroic. “Johnny B. Goode” is like a film coming into focus — so much detail delivered in less than 20 seconds. “Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans / way back up in the woods among the evergreens / there stood a log cabin made of earth and wood / where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode.”

All of these writers feel like my relatives. Something bubbles inside me when I hear them. All four had a touch of melancholy which they employed to remind you to keep having that party. Chuck is the poet of rock ‘n’ roll. Smokey is the poet of time and place. John was Jimmie Rodgers crossed with Mark Twain and inspired Sam Phillips to come out of retirement. And Sam — well — Sam was Mr. Soul.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I was playing on my own in a bar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one Saturday night. It was about 90 degrees at midnight. All I had was a microphone and an electric guitar and a little 15-watt amp. To try to keep the show dynamic, I kept a tick-tack rhythm on the bass strings when I sang and then added loud accents in between the verses. There were about 10 couples or so dancing in front of me and I could hear the scrape of their shoes on the dance floor.

I thought to myself: “This must have been what Charley Patton heard when he played a dance — the sound of the dancer’s shoes on the floor.” It was so wonderful to think I was doing well enough with what little I had that I could keep them dancing. It made me appreciate that audiences are willing to meet you more than halfway. The intensity of what you’re doing is more important than volume.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I get dreamy over paintings and great photography. I love the photography that Sheila Sachs and Catie Baumer Schwalb took for Light Sensitive.

Film noir is great for a sense of place and for the dialogue. So much had to be conveyed by gesture or innuendo. It was years before I realized that when Ilsa goes to see Rick in Casablanca for the letters of transit, the spotlight tells you they made love one last time. Every time I see it, the ending feels different. I used to think he gave her away. But then you remember Rick said he doesn’t deal in buying and selling people — and that extended to love, too. Now I see that Ilsa was always going to be trouble. She was right for Paris, just nowhere else. And life can never just be about Paris. Even if you live in Paris.

Also, in a film — like in songs — everybody has a job. The cab driver is important when you need that cab. Lately, I’ve been paying close attention to plays and musicals, listening for the rhythm and syncopation in dialogue. Frank Loesser’s songs for Guys and Dolls are spectacular. “I got horse right here / his name is Paul Revere…can do!” Louis Jordan’s songs sounds like musicals to my ear. I’m always on the hunt for an idea. I’m a flint and life is a white-tipped match.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

If I’m recording, I love walking into a studio with a fresh reel of tape under my arm, knowing that when I walk out the door, we will have created something that didn’t exist on Earth a few hours before. When I perform, I take time to walk all around the venue to get an idea of what the show will feel like from every vantage point. I like to talk to the sound engineer — usually someone I’ve never met — to get an idea what their job is like, if it’s a hard venue to deal with.

I ask them if they think the sound in the venue will respond to the kind of show I want to do. I try to make them feel like it’s our performance, not mine. Before the show, I think about my favorite people and my favorite performers. I’ll often write old friends just before a show — “How ya doin?” — just to demystify the whole thing. Other than having a new song in your pocket, there are few better feelings than walking on a stage at the beginning of a show.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

I often imagine a perfect day of music would be some kind of outdoor event with a pile of fried catfish, margaritas, and then a show at twilight with a great lineup of the WPA Ballclub. In reality, outdoor shows are usually a drag. Bugs, bad sound, the drummer falls into the generator. I do think loud guitars and BBQ go together pretty well.

I used to stare at a photo of Little Richard playing at Wrigley Field with his band in the ’50s and thought it was the perfect gig. It must have been hot because the band were all wearing plaid shorts. Now that I’m older, I realize they were probably miserable — with an out-of-tune piano, distorted amps, and a lousy PA. But you know that first beer and smoke after the show must have been delicious.

As for a particular musician and food pairing, I hear that in the 1930s, all the jazz joints served Chinese food. If I could have seen Charlie Christian play guitar or heard Billie Holiday sing in a little joint with Teddy Wilson on piano over a hot plate of home-cooked crispy duck, I would have been very happy.

Photo credit: Emily Beaver

Jesse Daniel: ‘Rollin’ On’ After Rocky Times

Posted on by Editor

To quote the title of his new album, Jesse Daniel is indeed rollin’ on, moving past the setbacks of his past and now celebrating three years sober. One thing that hasn’t changed? His dedication to classic country music. With its echoes of Buck Owens, Ray Price, and other legends of the ‘50s, Rollin’ On simply extends the traditional country sound Daniel explored on his self-titled debut album in 2018. He recorded it in San Antonio with producer Tommy Detamore.

“I’ve been telling people that the record I did before was songs that I had written over a period of years that dealt with a lot of past stuff,” he says. “This one has some of that, but it’s a lot more about moving forward, and to me, even physically driving, moving forward. It’s symbolic of that. I think it naturally fell into place with the theme of this record.”

That drive is evident in “Tar Snakes,” “The Mayo and the Mustard,” and the rousing title track. He knows something about mileage, too. Raised in a rural mountain town near Santa Cruz, California, and now living in Austin, Texas, Daniel caught up with BGS during a tour stop in Nashville.

BGS: I hear a positive attitude coming through several of these songs, like “If You Ain’t Happy Now (You Never Will Be)” as an example. Do you consider yourself an optimist, or in a pretty good place these days?

JD: Yeah, definitely. I’ve been a pessimist before in my life. I know what that’s like, but at this point, yeah, I definitely consider myself an optimist. And that song, it’s funny, the title of the song might seem almost like a slam on someone or something. When you listen to the lyrics, I wrote that song as a reminder to myself. You could have everything in the world and still be miserable if you’re not focusing on the here and now and what matters.

At what point did you begin to write songs?

I’ve been writing songs and short stories since I was a young kid in elementary school, and I would always write wild stories. You know, I had a crazy imagination as a kid, and then I got into punk rock when I was in my teen years. And country songwriting and writing in this style started as a cathartic thing because I always loved country music, but it naturally progressed.

How do you progress from punk to country? How did that happen?

I’ve seen there’s a common thread. I’ve talked to a lot of other musicians who play country music now that were into punk rock, and I think that there’s something about the spirit of it that was similar, that called me to it. …For me, I was introduced when I was really young to Buck Owens and Hank Williams and guys like that, and I always loved that music. There’s a lot of older punk rock guys that I knew that were listening to Black Flag and things like that. But they were also listening to old Hank Williams records. I got influenced by that. To me, it was almost the turning point, a maturity thing. I didn’t feel quite as angry, and even if I was, I wanted to do something constructive about it. And that, to me, was a more constructive form of expression.

Do you remember when you wrote your first country song you liked?

Mm-hmm [Affirmative]. I had been writing for a while and none of them really got completely finished. They were all ideas and things that turned into other things later on. But the first one that I finished that I remember liking was a song called “Don’t Push Your Luck.” I wrote that in a hospital bed in a rehabilitation center in Oakland, California. I was going through a lot of rough times in my life, and that was the head of everything where I decided to really start pouring myself into that. That was the first country song I was ever really proud of.

Was there a turning point where you got healthy or decided to take care of yourself?

Definitely, yeah. There was a guy who was in that program, and he worked there, and he’d come in and play guitar for us. I was sick for about a week detoxing, and I would hear him playing guitar in the other room. He’d come in playing Hank Williams songs and Emmylou Harris and all kinds of classic country songs. I went in and talked to him when I started feeling good enough to get up and walk around. I remember I said, “Man, I want to play music like you someday and do what you’re doing and play country music.” And he was like, “Why don’t you?” And he said it matter-of-fact, just like that. It really stuck with me and I always looked at that as a big turning point when he said that.

So I was sitting at a diner in Austin the other day, and I see this guy walk by, and I knew it was that guy, looked just like him. So I chased him down the street and it turned out that was the guy who told me that. He lives in Austin now, and I told him, “You changed my life, man. You really set this whole thing that I’m doing in motion.” And he is actually a musician and he’s going to sit in with us, hopefully, coming up at a couple of our shows. Pretty crazy twist of fate.

The musicianship on this record is really good. You and Tommy must’ve gotten along pretty well. What do you like about working with somebody a few generations older than you?

I’ve always had an affinity for older people and picking people’s brains, and I figured that it’s life experience. There’s something I can usually learn from those people, and with Tommy, that was definitely the case. He was full of stories and wisdom and experience. So yeah, working with him, with his age and experience, was awesome. Not to say that somebody younger wouldn’t have been great, too. My partner Jodi always jokes around that I will go someplace, and I’ll find the nearest 89-year-old person, and I’ll latch onto them. We’ll be hanging out and catching up.

Are you a bluegrass fan?

Yeah, I love bluegrass.

Tell me about how you discovered bluegrass music.

Oh, man. Actually there’s a lot of bluegrass where I grew up, up in the mountains and stuff, and there’s tons of players. But I first got my hands on a bluegrass compilation from a teacher I had, and she had a bunch of burned CDs. And one of them was a bluegrass mix. I remember she put it on one day, and my ears perked up. I was like, “I love that.” And it was Flatt & Scruggs, or something like that. I ended up borrowing it from her and taking it home and listening to it. I didn’t even know who all the artists were, but that was my intro to bluegrass. And then, over the years, I got exposed to it a lot growing up there.

How did you learn about who the artists were? Did you just start buying records?

Yeah, exactly. Buying records and finding records. I used to shop in the bargain bins a lot, and they had a bargain bluegrass section and country section at the local record shop. So I’d find a lot of stuff there. A lot of the guys that I’ve had in my bands over the years have also been bluegrass players. They’ve introduced me to a lot of that stuff. There’s also a really big old-time scene in Santa Cruz, so there’s an overlap with the old-time and bluegrass.

“Son of the San Lorenzo” is a neat way to close the record. It seems like a very personal song. What was on your mind when you were writing that?

“Son of the San Lorenzo” was really autobiographical. More than any of the other ones on the record, I think that is the most about myself and where I grew up in the San Lorenzo Valley. I didn’t mention it in the song outright, but I’ve had a lot of friends that I grew up with from that area pass away in the last four or five years. There’s a whole lot of drugs in that area, and that song was about leaving that area and leaving not those people, but those issues and past things behind. I’m glad that was the last one on the record, too. That’s why we put it there. It’s like a cathartic, moving forward type of thing.

Photo credit: Molly Gisholm

LISTEN: Darrell Scott, “Fool About You”

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Artist: Darrell Scott
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Fool About You”
Album: Darrell Scott Sings the Blues of Hank Williams
Release Dates: March 13, 2020 (single); April 24, 2020 (album)
Label: Full Light Records / Soundly Music

In Their Words: “I remember this song from early childhood — it was one my dad sang at home. Hank did not write it, but it was fun, it grooves, and it talks about flop-eared mules and hogs rooting under a fence… what more do you want out of a song?” — Darrell Scott

Photo credit: Gabriel Scott

Vince Gill Lets New Songs Stand Out on ‘Okie’ (Part 1 of 2)

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Regarded as one of the good guys in country music, Vince Gill has hosted countless Grand Ole Opry segments and awards shows, and he’s just as welcoming off stage, too. He generously invited the Bluegrass Situation to his Nashville home for a visit about his new album, Okie, as well as his roots in bluegrass music.

In the first part of our Artist of the Month interview, the Country Music Hall of Fame member pulls back the curtain on some of the key tracks on Okie, and explains how artists like Guy Clark, Amy Grant, and Willie Nelson influenced the album.

BGS: I’ve heard you describe this as a songwriter record, but you’ve written a lot of your hits. What do you mean when you describe this as a songwriter record?

VG: Well, I don’t think the intention of any of these songs is thinking they’ll be hits. I think that in the way of production and the instrumentation, the intent is really to never get in the way of the song. I don’t play any electric guitar on this record. I only played one or two solos on the entire record.

The rest of it is just kind of moody, ethereal, all of us playing together, and nobody stepping out so much in a big way of, “Now it’s your break, it’s time for you to play the big ripping solo.” There’s one instance of that. I think the point of it was, hopefully, that nothing ever got in the way of the song.

And there’s not big choruses with lots of harmonies. I liked Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson, and how sparse it was and simple. That’s what I wanted, something with a lot of space.

Did you know that going into it or did that reveal itself?

Yeah, that was the intent. I had this collection of songs. I said this would make a pretty neat, demure kind of record of not trying too hard, I guess. I mean, not singing hard and a lot of licks. Once again, there’s only one song on this record where I really cut loose and sang, and that was “When My Amy Prays.” The rest of it is just telling the story.

I even did a recitation on “Nothing Like a Guy Clark Song,” which scared the crap out of me. I don’t like the sound of my speaking voice very much. I like my singing voice just fine. But I’d only done one other kind of recitation recording in my life and that was tribute to Guy with his song, “The Randall Knife.” It always sounded bizarre to me to hear myself just talking, talking blues kinda stuff.

How did you choose the guitar for that song? Do you have a certain guitar you use?

Yeah, I think I used my guitar or Sparky’s — a friend of mine, Harry Sparks. He’s got a great old 1942 D-45. He lets me keep it here and play it a lot. It’s a long history of a story of our friendship. It’s probably the holy grail of all acoustic guitars and there’s only a few of them made and they sell for many, many, many dollars. And he had it.

I was living in Kentucky at the same time, when I was 18, and we were big buddies. Couple of years later I moved out to California and he called me up when I got out there and said, “Hey, I got to sell my D-45. I’m in trouble.” I bought it from him and told him I’d keep it for him. If he ever wanted it back, I’d sell it back to him for what I paid for it. At the time he finally called, it was worth about 10 times what I paid for it. And I said, “Yeah, I’ll sell it back to you for what I said I would.”

It’s a great story to remind yourself of how important friendship is, and your word. A few years ago we were doing a record here at my house and he brought his D-45 and we played it on a bunch in the record. He was leaving, and he had the case, and he looked at me and just handed to me. He said, “Here. You need to keep this for a while.” So it’s been a neat piece of the puzzle of our friendship.

It sounds beautiful. too, on top of that.

Amazing. It’s one of the best-sounding guitars I’ve ever heard in my life.

You write about race relations on this record a couple of times, particularly on “The Price of Regret.” I was curious if something specific inspired you to explore that topic.

It starts out as basically owning up to, we all have to have some regrets in life, and what they are can be any number of things. But what I’ve always been surprised by is how our eyes fail us. Sometimes when we see something and we look at it, we judge it. It’s the first thing we do is prejudge. Whether someone’s heavy, whether someone’s slovenly-looking, or poor or rich or white or black, and we just have this thing come to us to tell us what we think it is.

If we would honestly receive someone, not seeing them, I think you’d be much more honest in acceptance of one another. That’s what it says in that song: “You’re black and I’m white. We’re blinded by sight. Close your eyes and tell me the color of my skin.” And you couldn’t. Which would be a good thing for us.

At your Ryman show, you spoke about watching the Ken Burns documentary about country music, and you mentioned the fact that AP Carter’s sidekick was a black man, and Hank Williams learned to play guitar from a black man.

Yeah, and DeFord Bailey was one of the first great stars of the Opry and Jimmie Rodgers learned all those songs from black fieldworkers. It goes on and on and it never stops. Ray Charles taught us how much soul our music had. Charley Pride showed you how country somebody could be that was African American. It was powerful to see that we never bought into any of that mess, to some degree. And it is a mess. It’s embarrassing how we’ve handled all that.

The song I keep coming back to on here is “What Choice Will You Make.” I feel like I’m the best friend in the car, hearing that conversation. That first line puts you in the song right away, or at least it did for me.

My favorite part of that song is that it’s a song without judgment, and it happens every day. Young kids wind up, somebody gets pregnant and, “Hey, I’m 16. Look, I wasn’t prepared for this.” And all it says is, “What choice will you make? Whose heart will you break?” It doesn’t say what you should or shouldn’t do. To me, that’s a kinder way to go about tackling the subject of this matter.

The woman I wrote it with, Leslie Satcher, we’ve got a long history of writing really neat songs together. She’s tremendously talented. It was important to me that it not get to that place where we were saying what should or shouldn’t happen. That’s nobody’s place. It’s sort of like “Ode to Billie Joe.” You don’t really know what happens. It starts in that moment of sitting on the edge of town with such a worried mind, and it ends with still sitting there on the edge of town, not sure what to do.

On this record, I hear references to Amy [his wife, Amy Grant] a couple of times, on “Honest Man” and “When My Amy Prays,” of course.  What’s that experience like, playing her a song you’ve written about her?

It’s a running gag. You know you live in Nashville when you write your girl a love song and she tells you the third verse could use a little work. [Laughs] It’s really great to have a friend that does tell you what’s right and what’s not and what’s good and what isn’t. It’s easy to be inspired by her because she’s so gracious with people. She’s the most welcoming person I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Hands down. Nobody I ever seen better at that than her.

And non-judgment. No harsh words about anybody and it’s just beautiful in the way she receives. It’s kind of easy to write songs about her. If they’re songs that are faith-based, everybody assumes that I’m as a big of a church guy as she is. And the truth is, I wasn’t that much of a church kid. So I have to go to her every now and then and say, “Is this kind of close to what happens?” [Laughs] She’ll say, “You’re right on track. You’re OK.”

Read the second half of our Artist of the Month interview with Vince Gill.

Illustration: Zachary Johnson

Six of the Best: Musical Alter Egos

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Before we start, let’s just get this one out of the way: no one will ever do the musical alter ego as well as David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust/The Thin White Duke. But American roots has dabbled plenty with personas, often to pretty hilarious effect.

For example, comedian Rich Hall will be taking his own Tennessee jailbird-turned-singer-songwriter Otis Lee Crenshaw on the road this summer. (You can catch Otis in September at The Long Road Festival in Leicestershire, and for a couple of dates at the National Maritime Museum and Bush Hall in London.) But for now, we think it’s time to pay tribute to all those part-time musicians living in the fantasy fringes.

Hank Wilson / Leon Russell

It was a bold leap, back in 1973, for a California rocker and bluesman like Leon Russell to record a bluegrass and country album. No wonder he didn’t do it under his own name. Hank Wilson’s Back! was a return to his roots for Russell, who had grown up playing the standards in Oklahoma. And here they are all in their glory, including Bill Monroe’s “Uncle Pen” and Jimmie Rodgers’ “In the Jailhouse Now.”

It’s an album filled with special guest appearances, from Jim Buchanan and Johnny Gimble on fiddle to Tut Taylor on dobro, and the whole project was produced at Bradley’s Barn in Tennessee by JJ Cale. Hank’s version of “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” even made it into the charts. Hank had such a great time, he returned over the ensuing decades, with no fewer than three sequel records — and a number one hit recording of “Heartbreak Hotel” with Willie Nelson.

Lester ‘Roadhog’ Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys / The Statler Brothers

If you’ve ever wanted to hear Buddy Spicher purposefully butchering “Wildwood Flower,” there’s only one place to go — the 1974 recording of “Alive at the Johnny Mack Brown High School.” The Cadillac Cowboys, fronted by Lester ‘Roadhog’ Moran, are truly one of the worst country outfits ever committed to vinyl, ploughing their way through “Little Liza Jane,” “Freight Train” and “Keep on the Sunny Side” with all the nuance and musicality of a herd of stampeding hippopotami.

They were, in fact, the Statler Brothers — with a little back up from Spicher and Bob Moore on bass — who had created the fake (dreadful) band for the B-side of their 1972 album Country Music Then and Now. Their nine minute comedy routine, based on their memories of local radio shows from their childhoods, was so popular that Roadhog Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys got their own record deal. “It won’t die,” said Don Reid later. “We can’t even drown it.”

Luke the Drifter / Hank Williams

If you’re going to have an alter ego, you might as well imbue it with all the qualities you wish you had. And that’s certainly what confirmed reprobate Hank Williams seemed to be doing with his “half brother” Luke the Drifter.

Not many would have suspected the infamous bad boy of country music of having a penchant for sermon-making. But in 1950, as the singer was reaching the peak of his popularity and his upbeat hits were being played on radios all over the country, he was also recording a series of “talking blues” records that hit an unexpectedly moralising tone.

“He had another side to him that he wanted to get out,” said his grandson Hank Williams III. “And a lot of people didn’t understand the Luke the Drifter side. That’s a dark side, man.” It was his record label who insisted on the pseudonym, worried that an unsuspecting punter might punch his dime into a jukebox and get a spoken-word dressing-down instead of “Move it On Over.”

The recordings had proverbial titles like “Careful of the Stones You Throw,” and some, like “I’ve Been Down That Road Before,” described the kind of bad behaviour and poor decision-making that Williams was known for in his own life. “I’ve learned to slow my temper down and not to pick no scraps no more,” said Luke. Sadly Hank didn’t always heed his words.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy / Will Oldham

Some will say Bonnie Prince Billy is just a stage name, but to Kentuckian Will Oldham it’s always been more than that. As someone whose career has lasted more than quarter of a century, Oldham has put out records under plenty of different names, including Palace Flophouse (named after a John Steinbeck novel), Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace.

Confirming, perhaps, that he has a thing for royalty, he picked Bonnie “Prince” Billy to differentiate his Nashville-style songwriting from his previous indie rock offerings. “The primary purpose of the pseudonym is to allow both the audience and the performer to have a relationship with the performer that is valid and unbreakable,” he said in an interview.

Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers / Hot Rize

There is arguably no more beloved sideshow in bluegrass than Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers. No Hot Rize live set is truly complete without the promise of these performers from “Wyoming, Montana,” the support act that has supposedly been travelling in the back of their bus, and occasionally emerges to play some of the ‘40s and ‘50s country tunes they learned from the jukebox at their local cafe.

One by one, Tim O’Brien, Nick Forster, and Bryan Sutton will leave the stage, only for a slightly familiar-looking Red, Wendell and Swade to reappear in the time it might take to, say, put on a cowboy shirt. Eventually, they’ll be joined by oddball Waldo on pedal steel – there’s no way that’s Pete Wernick under that accent – and the next 15 minutes will combine music and frankly wacky comedy in the vaudevillian style that was an integral part of the earliest bluegrass bands/

A comic appearance from Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers brings back the days when Bill Monroe would wear a dress and “Uncle Josh and Cousin Jake” provided laughs at Flatt & Scruggs’s shows. But then, Hot Rize have always liked to pay tribute to the old days.

Dirty Doug / Dierks Bentley

In Pennsylvania they were the Scranton Scrotum Boys. In Boston they were the Mansfield Manscapers. They’ve also been the Big Jersey Johnsons, the Michigan Mule ticks and the Bolo Boys Bluegrass Band, but while the act’s name might change, the bluegrass pickers who open for Dierks Bentley keep one thing the same — their guitar player, Dirty Doug.

Beneath his big hat and sunglasses, it normally takes even the keenest eyes in the audience a few songs before they spot the similarity. That guy acoustifying ‘90s country songs — that guy playing Dierks Bentley’s hit “Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do” to a bluegrass groove — isn’t that… Dierks Bentley? Yep.

He started opening for himself on his 2017 What the Hell tour and it just made sense. “I’m crazy about bluegrass,” says Bentley. “You get the building for the whole day so why not take advantage of the fact you’re already paying to rent this place out?”

Photo credit of Dierks Bentley: Jim Wright