Tag: indie

Mark Knopfler’s ‘Shangri-La’ Rearranged Adam Wright’s Artistic DNA

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: No Skips is a brand new feature from BGS that asks artists, songwriters, musicians, and industry professionals what albums they regard as perfect, with every track a masterpiece – i.e., No Skips!

For the first edition of the column, songwriter-artist-musician Adam Wright highlights Mark Knopfler’s seminal album, Shangri-La, as we look ahead to Wright’s own upcoming project, Nature of Necessity, coming later this year.)

There are only a few times in your creative life when someone’s work hits you so hard it rearranges your artistic DNA. I could probably count those moments for me on one hand.

Shangri-La was a big one. It told me that you can write away from the outside understanding of things. That you can start from the inside of your own knowledge and continue inward. It also taught me that you can write about anything you find interesting. That being understood is not as important as whether or not you’ve put something down worthy of working out for whomever decides to try to understand it. And that there are so many things to write about that are not falling in and out of love. (People probably could have stopped writing love songs in 1950 and we still would have too many.)

The depth and perspective of the storytelling, the crafted excellence of the writing and the sublimely tasteful musicianship make it, to me, Knopfler’s masterpiece. He’s done this on all of his albums, they all include brilliant gems of songs, but Shangri-La is just perfection from top to bottom. – Adam Wright

“5:15 AM” (Track 1)

Like all of the songs on this album, “5:15 AM” is exquisitely written and recorded. It is the story of a coal miner on his way home from the night shift discovering a murder victim who turns out to be involved with organized crime. It is chock-full of lingo and references to specifics about gambling machines, nightclubs, and lots of mining terms. The way Mark weaves all of this language into lyricism and brings it back to the tragic lives of the coal miners at the end is exceptional and beautiful writing. The recording is gorgeous and still somehow earthy as dirt. Just a masterclass in songcraft.

“Boom, Like That” (Track 2)

“Boom, Like That” is about the rise of Ray Kroc from a milkshake salesman to a fast food emperor. Like “5:15 AM,” there are plenty of specific references in this one. “Going to San Bernardino, ring a ding ding. Milkshake mixes, that’s my thing now.” You’re in the middle of the beginning of a story right off the bat. I love songs from the character’s perspective and few writers do that as well as Knopfler.

The movie The Founder was filmed in my hometown of Newnan, Georgia. I noticed the town when I saw it, so I looked it up and read a bit about the filming. While the song was inspired by the book about Kroc, I’d read the movie was actually inspired by the song. Even if the song weren’t so well-written, the riff at the end of the chorus is enough to keep any guitar player happily busy for days.

“All That Matters” (Track 11)

Much of Shangri-La is written from the perspective of the characters in its songs. The title track and “All That Matters” seem to be more personal. “All That Matters” is just a sweet, simple song from a father to his children. Again, beautifully written and pretty as porcelain. It has some surprising chordal and melodic turns in the B section to juxtapose the nursery rhymey-ness of the verses. Just perfect. And a nice respite from the mostly cynical tone of much of the album.

“Stand Up Guy” (Track 12)

“Brew the coffee in a bucket/ Double straight man and banjo/ If you don’t got the snake oil/ Buster, you don’t got a show.”

Again, you’re right smack dab in the middle of someone’s story. This time it’s a musician in a group of traveling, Victorian-era pitchmen. They apparently have teamed up with “the Doctor” who peddles snake oil medicine to townspeople and does it well enough to keep them fed on beefsteak and whiskey. Just wonderfully interesting, both lyrically and musically.

If you wanted to become a very good songwriter (or musician or producer, for that matter), you could only study Shangri-La for years and get a very long way toward the goal. I’ve been mining this album for inspiration for twenty years. It always gives me something more.

Photo Credit: Jo Lopez

Basic Folk: Gary Louris

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This special episode of Basic Folk featuring Gary Louris is guest-hosted by singer-songwriter and friend of the podcast Mark Erelli.)

You probably know Gary Louris as the leader of The Jayhawks – or as they refer to themselves, “a band from Minnesota.” The Jayhawks are pioneers of roots rock, alt-country, and Americana. Whatever you wanna call it, they’ve been making records where rock, pop, country, and other forms of American roots music overlap since the mid-1980s.

But Louris’s hidden superpower is that he’s kind of like a musical Swiss Army knife – he’s basically got a creative skill for any application. Want him and his band to serve as accompanists for some of the most distinctive singer-songwriters, like Wesley Stage and Joe Henry? He can do that. Looking for achingly perfect, near-fraternal harmonies on hit songs like Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones”? He can (and did) do that. If you’re Tedeschi Trucks Band or The Chicks and looking for someone to write you some catchy, melodic, roots-pop songs? Gary’s your guy. If that’s not enough, he has also produced records for artists like Dar Williams, The Sadies, and The Jayhawks, too. Whatever your musical need may be, chances are that Gary Louris can do it.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

In between all these varied musical roles, Louris has also found time to release several solo albums, the newest of which – Dark Country – was released earlier this month. He recorded it mostly solo in his home studio and the word on the street is that this collection of songs, inspired by his wife, is his most intimate and romantic album yet. I’ve been a big fan of Gary Louris for basically my entire adult life and enjoyed our wide-ranging Basic Folk conversation, touching on the way technical limitations can shape an artist’s style, what he’s learned from a career’s worth of collaborations, his process working on his new solo album, the relationship between versatility and longevity, and what the influence of romance on his songwriting looks like now, in the fifth decade of his music career.

Listen to Mark Erelli guest on Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Steve Cohen

MIXTAPE: Denison Witmer and the Meaning of “Home”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

What does “home” mean?

Answering this question became one of the main themes in my lyrics over the last several years – especially on my new album, Anything At All. After touring consistently for the first 15-20 years of my music career, I finally bought a house in South Philadelphia. Ten years later, my family and I relocated to my hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Before moving back to Lancaster, most of the places I lived felt kind of like a coat rack. Sure, most of my belongings were there, but I knew I’d be traveling again soon – things that felt centering or “home-like” to me existed outside of the confines of a space.

My current life is a lot different than that time. Now I am a husband, a dad of two young kids, a carpenter, and a part of my local community. I spend a lot of time trying to build a comfortable and consistent home life for myself and my family. My idea of what a home means is changing yet again. I’ve compiled a few songs that encompass the various meanings of “home” to me. – Denison Witmer

“Homesick” – Kings of Convenience

I think this is one of the best opening tracks on any album. The way the two guitars immediately start walking down the scale is captivating. My favorite lyrics are the last few: “A song for someone who needs somewhere to long for/ Homesick because I no longer know where home is…” It makes me think about the many days I’ve spent in headphones traveling in trains or tour vans, leaning my head against the window and listening to music that made me feel at home.

“Rene And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War” (Original Acoustic Demo) – Paul Simon

I put this song on almost every mix I make. This is Paul Simon at his finest – just him and a guitar. In this story we follow Rene and Georgette Magritte as they reflect on the differences between their time in New York City and their lives in Europe during WWII. Ordinary moments like opening dresser drawers or window-shopping trigger memories of home.

 “Just A Song Before I Go” – Crosby, Stills, & Nash

Starting with a crash cymbal and leading right into a fuzzy guitar riff, this song has an instant warm vibe. I’ve always loved the way Graham Nash leans into writing about his life as a musician/songwriter. There’s a risk that it might not be relatable to a wider audience, yet he always finds a way to make the feeling universal. The lyrics “When the shows were over/ We had to get back home/ When we opened up the door/ I had to be alone…” connect deeply with me.

There were a lot of times on tour that I felt like I was turning into a ghost – passing through towns and people with no real sense of deeper connection or longevity. No real sense of home. Sometimes weeks would pass with mostly small talk and I would lose sight of who I was. Finally getting home, dropping my bags, closing a door behind me, and spending a week alone in silence was just what I needed to recoup.

“In Tall Buildings” (Live) – Gillian Welch

A lovely song written about returning to and centering your life around the things that really matter to you. I love the lyrics “When I’m retired/ My life is my own/ I made all the payments/ It’s time to go home/ And wonder what happened/ Betwixt and between/ When I went to work in tall buildings.” It’s a beautiful reflection on the things that we leave behind either knowingly or unknowingly when we get swept up in the paths our lives take. Gillian Welch’s vocal delivery is always beautiful. The way she can take any song and filter it through her own style with honesty and sincerity is incredible.

“A House With” – Denison Witmer

Yes, adding one of my own songs here. It fits with the theme. Mid-COVID lockdown, my wife and I got really into two things: birding and plants. We did everything we could to get birds to visit our yard. We did everything we could to green the outside and inside of our house. This led to hanging bird feeders all over the place and planting everything from shrubs to trees to lots (and I mean lots) of indoor plants.

This song started as kind of a joke. I often walk around my house playing a small classical guitar and making up goofy songs to make my wife and kids laugh. This song started that way — I was watching the birds on our feeder and naming them as I saw them, then I went from room to room naming the plants we have in our window sills. I recorded an iPhone voice memo and forgot about it. I’m not sure what motivated me to share it with Sufjan (who produced my new album and this track), but I think it was because I knew he is a fan of concrete nouns and words that are interesting phonetically. He ended up choosing this from the batch of demos I presented to him. I am glad he did, because it’s one of my favorite songs on the album.

Sufjan didn’t like the original lyrics of the last verse… I remember him saying, “In the first two verses you are telling us what you are doing and how it fills your heart, but you never tell us why. You should try to answer that question for yourself.” I rewrote the ending and it was at that moment that things clicked into place for me.

“Take Me Home, Country Roads” – John Denver

You can’t really go wrong with the earnest nature of John Denver. I love the lilting quality of this song – lyrics about longing juxtaposed against the happy upbeat sound. It’s a love song to a place. I have a lot of respect for John Denver, because he was always unapologetically himself. He talked about how he wanted to not just entertain people, but also touch them. I think he understood the magic of music and connection. Listening to John Denver also makes me think about my dad because he was his favorite musician.

Photo Credit: Lindsay Elliott

Basic Folk: Lilly Hiatt

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Singer-songwriter Lilly Hiatt has an interesting way of working melodies and a down-to-earth way of telling stories about her life and about how she sees the world. All of her albums have cool, crunchy guitar parts that take folk songwriting to a rockin’ level. On her new album, Forever, her diverse influences are woven into songs that touch on everything from relationships to anxiety and mental health to good old-fashioned rock and roll.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • AMAZON • MP3

In our Basic Folk conversation, we talked about the lessons that Lilly learned growing up the daughter of legendary songwriter John Hiatt and what it meant to her to see her dad go through the ups and downs of the music business while having the humility and self-belief to keep going. She also talks about how she thinks about herself as a performer – and how that’s changed since the pandemic. Before the pandemic Hiatt had a couple of really big records (Trinity Lane, 2017 and Walking Proof, 2020) that gained a lot of hype and attention. Once coronavirus hit, she had to sit in the house and ask the big questions like a lot of us did. She sat with the loneliness, alienation, and uncertainty.

You can hear in our interview just how much mutual respect and admiration we have for each other and how much belief we have in one another, not only as songwriters, but as women and as people who are in recovery. Very LYLAS vibes, lots of laughs.

Photo Credit: Jody Domingue

MIXTAPE: Max McNown’s Northwestern Woods Adventure

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Indie-folk singer-songwriter Max McNown released his anticipated new album, Night Diving, on January 24. Only 23 years old, McNown is a bit of a social media sensation, his energetic and passionate songs having already garnered millions of streams, fans, and listeners. To celebrate Night Diving, he has curated a Mixtape for BGS that pays tribute to the beautiful natural locales of his Oregon and Pacific Northwest homelands. Enjoy a playlist adventure into the Northwestern Woods with Max McNown.)

These are the songs that inspired me to go on late night drives to the Oregon coast with the windows down, feeling the breeze funnel across my face while I sing every word at the top of my lungs. – Max McNown

“The Stable Song” – Gregory Alan Isakov

I first heard this in the movie The Peanut Butter Falcon. The song, coupled with the adventurous feel to the movie, makes it one of my favorite camping songs.

“By and By” – Caamp

Due to similar vocal tone, this song is one I feel confident belting with the volume high on a late night drive.

“Vagabond” – Caamp

The folky nature of this song fits perfectly with the Mount Hood National Forest scenery.

“Flowers In Your Hair” – The Lumineers

When I discovered this song, I had just found a path I could drive down to reach the coast, directly onto the sand. This song will forever remind me of the sunset that evening.

“Big Black Car” – Gregory Alan Isakov

I play this song on repeat when hiking on the Columbia River Gorge.

“Angela” – The Lumineers

This is one of the first songs I’ve ever tired learning on the guitar & will always remind me of my parents’ place in Oregon.

“Amsterdam” – Gregory Alan Isakov

One of the many songs by Gregory Alan Isakov that makes me feel like I’m in the Northwestern woods when I feel homesick.

“Late to the Fire” – Sam Burchfield

Sam Burchfield, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated artists on the scene. There aren’t many other songs filled with as much nostalgia for my younger years than this one.

“Forever” – Noah Kahan

“Forever” is the most influential song in my songwriting journey. Noah’s folkiness and Northeastern upbringing fits the theme well.

“Northern Attitude” – Noah Kahan

I’ve experienced the northern attitude on the other side of the country, and found this song to be very relatable to me and inspirational.

Photo Credit: Benjamin Edwards

Dream Date with JOHNNYSWIM

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Last week, JOHNNYSWIM – husband-and-wife indie-folk duo of Amanda Sudano Ramirez and Abner Ramirez – released their highly-anticipated new album, When the War Is Over. A stand out track, “Los Feliz,” can be found second-to-last in the sequence.

“Los Feliz” was written by Ramirezes and songwriter-producer Britten Newbill. It kicks in with grooving, pocketed drums and warm electric guitar, loping as if up and down the southern California hills.

“Somethin’ ‘bout LA/ Golden hour getaway/ Oh… I want you close,” Amanda sings the opening lines. Abner picks up where she leaves off, creating another musical dialogue – a common facet of the pair’s music across their twenty-year-plus catalog. Their songs feel like intimate vignettes, a window into their lives, their relationship, their family, and their creative processes.

“Los Feliz” is a love song– to each other, to Los Angeles, and to their favorite neighborhood, of course. The lyrics and message feel especially apropos since the devastating LA wildfires, as we all feel heartbroken seeing these neighborhoods we hold dear forever altered. But, like in the track, there’s plenty of redemption to be found in this beautiful city and this sweet corner of the City of Angels.

To celebrate When The War Is Over, JOHNNYSWIM brought Good Country along on an adorable Los Feliz date, taking us and our readers to a few of their favorite spots, captured by their longtime friend and photographer Amy Waters.

Below, Amanda describes their date for each of us as we all get the unlikely treat of third wheeling with JOHNNYSWIM.

Little Dom’s

One of our favorite date activities is to go to Little Dom’s in Los Feliz. It’s an old school Italian restaurant with delicious food, a cozy vibe, and it just makes you feel like you’re in a movie.

Reckless Unicorn

After that, we walk right across the street to an adorable toy shop called The Reckless Unicorn. Because we’re parents (and every parent knows that you can’t go on a date night without talking about your kids), we end up buying our kids presents so they get excited when we go on date nights knowing they’ll usually get a treat when we come home.

Vermont Ave. x Melbourne Ave.

From there, we’ll take a stroll around the neighborhood. There’s a beautiful florist on the corner of Vermont and Melbourne where we’ll pick up some flowers or a plant, or even just smell some roses.

Maru

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All photos by Amy Waters.

Drew & Ellie Holcomb Take Us Through Their ‘Memory Bank’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Husband-and-wife indie-folk duo Drew & Ellie Holcomb have been making music together for 20 years. Ellie was a member of Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors when they first collaborated on a record in 2005 (now out of print). That was followed by 2007’s A Million Miles Away, which was then succeeded by something like their breakout, Passenger Seat, in 2008.

Over the years since, they’ve built up the Neighbors – and their cohort of friends, neighbors, fans, and listeners – into a more than tidy little paradise of a musical cul-de-sac, with more than a dozen releases (together and separately) and amassing more than a hundred million streams.

This year, the pair put out their first full-length duo album together, as equal fronting artists with the Neighbors behind them. Memory Bank, released on January 24, looks forward while looking back – a hallmark and through line of the duo, their group, and their creative output across their two-decade career. So many of the songs on Memory Bank seem to speak to the longevity they have – “Rain or Shine,” “Shut Up and Dance,” “Never Gonna Let You Go,” “Bones” – there’s a wisdom and perspective in this album that speaks to the distance they’ve traveled together. As well as denoting the upcoming miles they have yet to cover as partners, parents, and musical collaborators.

With the release of Memory Bank, we thought it was the perfect opportunity to stroll down memory lane with Drew & Ellie Holcomb, to contrast their latest project and the artists they have become now with their early projects and the artists they were then, in our most recent edition of First & Latest.

 I wonder, as you put together this Memory Bank, what memories from 2008 and that first album came up for you? How did that nearly 20-year history of making music filter into this project and its songs?

Drew Holcomb: Honestly, Passenger Seat was not even the first project. There was a record in 2005 called Washed in Blue that Ellie sang on that has been scrubbed from the internet. We put on an album called A Million Miles Away in 2007, which had a bunch of songs like “I Like to Be with Me When I’m With You” and “Hung the Moon” and others. I think the younger version of us was much less confident, in a way. We were flying blind. We hadn’t made a lot of records yet and you don’t know what you’re doing in the studio. We didn’t know what we were doing as songwriters. Ellie was just a member of the band at the time.

Ellie Holcomb: I was a neighbor with benefits. The starkest difference for me between Passenger Seat in 2008 and Memory Bank in 2025 is an open-handedness and a freedom that comes with the death of ego and also with a general posture of curiosity and gratitude.

You are both prolific creators – together and separately – how have you balanced your individual musical identities with your collective work over that time period? Do you find it to be an easy balance or a tricky one?

EH: One of my favorite things about us doing music both together and separately is that there’s a massive amount of respect for each other. The reason it took us 20 years to write and record an album together is because we’ve always honored that artistic and creative space with each other. We write really differently, we create really differently. I think that mutual respect and space that we’ve given each other made space for us to make what we we’ve released into the world now – and I love it.

DH: My only addition is a short answer: No, it’s not an easy balance. It’s very tricky, but it’s worth it.

I think our relationship definitely manifests itself through the music. I think on the one hand, there’s like the aspiration – love songs are often about the love that you hope that you have. So, when you’re young and you’re speaking about when you get older, you’re making a promise to yourself and to each other about the kind of love you hope for. There’s also a bit of the truths of your own personalities make it into songs.

There’s clearly a mission and a message in your music, and I think that’s part of your staying power as artists and part of why over so many releases in so many iterations – as a couple, with the Neighbors, as solo artists, as collaborators on outside projects – your songs continue to resonate with audiences in such an authentic and down to earth way. I wonder how much of that encouragement folks get from your music that you get, yourselves? I can see that being a big part of how you’ve gotten this far and are still moving forward.

EH: I’d say we talk to our kids a lot about what a stage is for and we always tell them that a stage is to bring joy. It’s a shared space where our stories mingle together. Music is a bridge builder. Our mission, if you will, with music is that it would help people connect to their own story and that it would help people connect to everybody else and feel a little less alone. There’s this beautiful quote that says we decorate space with art and we use music to decorate time. We feel so deeply grateful that people have used our songs to decorate like the time and the seasons of their lives, sorrow, joy, road trips, family gatherings, etc.

What will you take with you in your “memory bank” as you move forward, as you stare down the next 17 years of making music together? What do you see as your touchstones – or, alternatively, what do you hope you’ll look back and recall if we were to have this conversation again in 20 more years?

DH: Our memory bank as we move forward in the next 17 years of making music together, we are always trying to keep growing. I didn’t know how to sing harmony until this record. I learned how to sing harmony, not with the intention of making a record, but because I wanted to learn. Ellie’s learning piano with similar intentions. There are always new songs to find.

When you were making and releasing Passenger Seat, where did you see yourself now, all these years later? Was this always the goal? Did it seem like a pipe dream that you’d still be doing this together? Or was it inevitable?

DH: Music was definitely not inevitable. When I started making music, Ellie was a school teacher with no intention of being a professional musician. So we have just taken it a year at a time.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artists.

Valerie June Announces New Album, Shares Infectious Video for “Joy, Joy!”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Exuberance is the exact right mood on a day when the transcendental Valerie June announces a new album, and exuberant is certainly the vibe of her new track, “Joy, Joy!” and its brand new accompanying music video. (Watch above.) The song was dropped this morning in tandem with an announcement of the Memphis native’s new album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles, produced by M. Ward and arriving April 11 via Concord Records.

“Joy, Joy!” begins with June planting an illuminated seed singing, “There’s a light that you can find/ If you stop to take the time…” a prescient reminder to stay grounded, connected, and searching for the light. With a Rosetta Tharpe-esque Epiphone SG in hand, the track broadens and blooms, showcasing vibrant colors, whimsical scenes, and a cosmic style that June has become known for.

The antidote for darkness – for all that may challenge us – resides within us, June shouts in the chorus. It’s clear she’s not only reminding her listeners of this fact, but herself, too. “Joy, Joy!” is a delicious three-minute bite that will stick to your ribs and, hopefully, grow a seed of joy in each of our hearts.

“Everyone has felt moments of darkness, depression, anxiety, stress, ailments, or pain,” June explains, via press release. “Some say it takes mud to have a lotus flower.”

“This song reflects on the hard times we might face: to fail, to fall, to lose, to be held down, to be silenced, to be shut out yet still hold onto a purely innocent and childlike joy. I come from a heritage of ancestors who lived this truth by inventing blues music,” she continues. “Generations after theyʼve gone, the inner joy they instilled in us radiates and lifts cultures throughout the world. From the world to home, what would a city council focused on inspiring inner joy for all of a town’s citizens look like? As the times are changing across the planet, what would it look like to collectively activate our superpowers of joy?”

It’s certainly the perfect message and song for this day and age, delivered as only an artist like Valerie June could deliver it. By another creator, it might seem saccharine or twee to face our daily reality with joy exclusively as a shield. But June demonstrates joy is just one of many important tools we all need to hold onto while we face these “hard times.” Except, this is a joy without blinders on – it’s eyes-wide-open to the truth that acknowledging and challenging hardship and inequity requires a joy that need not deny those hardships’ existence in order to have transformative power.

Owls, Omens, and Oracles is poised to continue June’s post-genre explorations of psychedelia, rock and roll, folk, Appalachian music, blues, string band, and so much more, as well as featuring special guests like the Blind Boys of Alabama and Norah Jones. No one is making music quite like Valerie June and, from this first listen especially, it seems the roots music envelope will continue to be pushed and pushed and pushed some more by June with this new release. And, June will be taking the project on the road with an extensive full band tour stretching from March through the summer. Tickets are on sale now.

Photo Credit: Marcela Avelar

MIXTAPE: Lucero’s Ben Nichols & Rick Steff Celebrate the Spaces In Between

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Ben Nichols and Rick Steff, two members of Lucero, recently released a special acoustic album, Lucero Unplugged, reimagining songs from across the band’s 25-year catalog. To celebrate its release on January 24, we asked the pair to curate a Mixtape for BGS.)

Rick and I each chose five songs for this playlist focusing on the spaces in between the notes. We feel these songs illustrate that sometimes it’s the notes that are chosen not to be played that add weight and impact. It’s the spaces in between the notes that bring life to the notes that are there. Rick’s picks naturally focus on piano players and my own choices lean more towards acoustic guitars. It’s easy to tell who suggested which songs. But I love the list we ended up with. Thanks for letting us participate in this and thanks for listening. – Ben Nichols

With all these choices it’s the notes not played, the spaces between, the breaths between the sounds. When making Lucero Unplugged these players and records informed a lot of the choices and approaches I took with regards to dynamics and voicings, and mainly just trying to be a solid accompanist for Ben and to the song. – Rick Steff

“Dayton Ohio 1903” – Randy Newman

Randy Newman is the king of piano voicing. Where he places his notes is always perfect. He’s also an amazing accompanist and I always think of him whenever I record piano. This often overlooked song shows all of that as well as being a portal to another time. – RS

“Florida” – Thomas Dollbaum

One of my favorite (mainly) acoustic records. A friend turned me on to Thomas’ album, Wellswood, and I liked it so much I asked Thomas to come to The Whitewater Tavern in my hometown of Little Rock and play my 50th birthday party with me. In the song “Florida” we hear a story that’s rough around the edges sung in a voice that’s vulnerable, but builds with the music and then pulls the rug out from under you, punching you in the gut. He’s so good he makes me jealous. – BN

 “Waterlow” – Mott the Hoople

Ian Hunter. No band was more influential to me than Mott the Hoople and their early records have amazing keyboard parts. “Waterlow” reminds me of Lucero songs compositionally. Beautiful song and lovely piano arpeggio that follows the vocal. – RS

“Goin’ Down South”  – R.L. Burnside

The haunting drone of this early R.L. Burnside recording captured my imagination the first time I heard it. In between the driving acoustic guitar licks and the churning vocals you can hear the Mississippi Hill Country nights. You can see the Mississippi River and feel its meandering presence as it makes its way south relentlessly, through the middle of the country. – BN

“I Keep a Close Watch” – John Cale

John Cale. Again, all about accompanying. This performance has always been a favorite of mine from the ex-Velvet Underground solo catalog. John’s piano work in the Velvets has also influenced and showed up on Lucero records for sure. – RS

“Good Woman” – Cat Power

The Lucero song “When You Decided to Leave,” featured on the new Lucero Unplugged album Rick and I just released, was written after I heard this Cat Power song. The lyrics about leaving something you love, being a “good” or “bad” woman or man, and the conflict and heartbreak bound up in that hit me hard. The instrumentation and performances accentuate that ache and desire. A desire for someone (maybe ourselves) to be a way they cannot be. – BN

“A Salty Dog” – Procol Harum

Gary Brooker was an amazing pianist and this song features something I’ve tried to achieve on various recordings throughout the years, the piano vignette. A small section removed from everything else that resets the song in a unique way. Like a structured solo, sort of. This is to me one of the most moving songs of the sixties and often still brings me a tear. Same band as “Whiter Shade of Pale,” by the way. – RS

“Bruised Ribs” – Joey Kneiser

I’d been a fan of Joey Kneiser’s band, Glossary, for years and when he released this acoustic solo album I fell in love with it. The straightforward presentation with delicate and thoughtful accompaniment lets the power of his simply perfect lyrics shine through. It doesn’t get much better than this. This album definitely influenced me to write some solo acoustic songs myself. – BN

“Ruby’s Arms” – Tom Waits

It’s difficult to choose one Tom Waits song to show his piano style, having spent decades with his music. His barroom piano voicings and dramatic tempo rises and falls – “Ruby’s Arms” showcases those beautifully and heartbreakingly. – RS

“Living on the Moon” – Adam Faucett

Adam is from Little Rock, Arkansas (like me), and this song is one of my favorites. Again, it goes back to the spaces in between the notes– the choices he made about the sounds we hear. We hear everything we need and nothing we don’t for the ultimate emotional impact. There is a preciseness to the recordings of all the songs on this list that I haven’t been able to capture much in my career. But I love it. And I’m still learning and hopefully there is a little of that on this new Lucero Unplugged album. – BN

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the artist.

With a Collection of ‘Vignettes,’ Humbird Show How Expansive Love Can Be

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

What makes a song?

It’s a simple sounding question, one that invites discussion about structure, melody, production techniques and more (and certainly has no real answer). It’s also something Humbird explores on her transcendent new record, Astrovan: The Love Song Vignettes, which follows last year’s critically acclaimed Humbird LP, Right On.

Written before the pandemic, the 11-song project spans just 16 minutes, but is expansive in its vision and emotional depth, as principal Siri Undlin muses on love in its many forms using varied musical styles. The resulting album is especially meditative when enjoyed in one sitting and invites listeners to consider how love is present in their own lives, whether in the beauty of nature or in small, domestic gestures from loved ones.

Below, BGS caught up with Undlin to chat about making Astrovan, finding beauty in mundane moments and how creative restrictions can often lead to happy artistic accidents.

This new project is such a cool idea with these short vignettes. I’d love to hear a little bit about the project’s beginnings and how that idea came to you?

Siri Undlin: It started off very much not an album. I was struggling to write and struggling to feel inspired. A friend of mine was like, “Why don’t you write simple, short songs and not worry about if they’re good or not?” I had recently fallen in love, so I was trying to write some love songs that weren’t super annoying. I was like, “Maybe short is the way.” So, yeah, it was just a goofy project that I sometimes did at live shows, because it’s funny.

People usually get a kick out of it and it’s fun to talk on stage about what a song is, like, “Why do we expect it to be a certain length?” It’s a fun, intimate audience moment. But then, a couple of friends who are really talented producers and engineers were at a show and they were like, “What the heck? You should definitely record these.” Those pals were Brian Joseph and Shane Leonard, so the three of us recorded them. This was all back in 2019, so it was also a while ago.

So, you’ve been sitting on those for a little while. What made it feel like the right time to put them out as a full album?

They were just weird enough that I was not quite sure what to do with them. Back in 2019, we were very much a DIY band. I was booking most of the tours. We were self-managed, putting out albums independently. So, it was just this one-woman shop. I honestly didn’t have time. I don’t want to release music unless I can do a good job and be proud of really putting my whole heart behind releasing it. It took a while, but I feel like, in the last year, it was like, “Oh, you should come out.” They’ve been waiting for a while, and now I have the bandwidth thanks to some folks helping me out behind the scenes. I’m also more confident as an artist. We’ve been a band for longer, and we’ve put out other music. So, I felt like, “Okay, if [fans] are into what we’re doing, they have an idea of this project’s personality and we can throw this strange project at them.”

I love how know each song is a love song, but you’re you’re covering lots of different types of love. It’s not just your standard, romantic love – there’s love for nature and plants and for mundane-seeming gestures like leaving food out for someone who’s coming home late. It’s a very expansive vision of love.

I know that in my personal life, sometimes those [mundane] moments are the most loving. Sometimes in love songs, on a broader scale, we get high drama and high stakes. But I love the little, ordinary moments that, when you put them in a song, feel really magical.

It’s a rewarding experience to sit and listen to the record start-to-finish. It feels very meditative, in a way. What was your time recording like? A few moments ago, you mentioned thinking about what makes a song a “song,” and what a song is allowed to be. How did that play out while you brought these songs to life?

In my memory, it was a pretty quick, moving process. I think we did the initial tracking in maybe four days and then we did some overdubs a handful of other days, maybe half a year later. And because the songs are so short, it was like, “Okay, how can we make these feel fully realized in such a short period of time and still take risks and have various arrangement choices that are engaging?”

It has to happen in such a condensed period. It was a great challenge: take your ideas but make them as compact and meaningful as possible because you only have a few seconds. Now that it’s out in the world, people are like, “I wish this song was just a normal length. It’s so sad when it’s over.” But I felt like we had to stick to the premise. Some of the songs could go way longer, sure, but it’s fun to keep it short and sweet.

What did you take away from that experience? It seems like it would be instructive to have to work with those restrictions and to learn how to cram so much meaning into a minute’s worth of music.

The biggest takeaway was that you can do it. You can have an emotionally resonant song in 45 seconds or one minute if you’re really determined. Going forward with recordings that came after it made me a better listener and a better editor of my own work, because when you have to be so cutthroat during the editing and arranging processes, you’ve flexed that muscle. I think it strengthens the writing and arrangements going forward because it was sort of a, “Do we absolutely need this or not?” question. That’s how I prefer to move through music recording: throw it all at the wall and then pare it back and have something you’re really proud of.

I’m surprised to hear that these songs were written so long ago, as I had noticed some musical and thematic connection points between Astrovan and Right On and assumed that Right On played an influential role. Do you feel a connection there, too?

I think you’re hearing it just right. But the truth is that Astrovan led to Right On. Astrovan has some folky, almost country music moments. But then there are also some rockers. Those are, to be honest, some of the first times in the studio where I was like, “Dang, rock and roll is fun to play.” It’s so fun to turn up the amp and use a distortion pedal and just have fun. It’s really cathartic, and those songs were only a minute. So then, when I picked up the guitar again later on to write songs for Right On, I think in the back of my mind I was like, “I want to do more of that fun, loud, more abrasive stuff.” And that definitely informed choices for Right On.

Speaking of Right On, that’s been such a big record for you. And now that we’ve hit 2025, it’s been out for the better part of a year. When you reflect on the year you had in 2024, what comes to mind?

One really cool thing that I didn’t anticipate was a level of confidence that me and my bandmates were able to sink into with the Right On album. We put our whole hearts into making it. It was so fun to record and it’s so fun to play live. As a result of performing it all year, we’ve just gotten better at performing. I think we all really stand behind what we do on stage and in a music ecosystem that’s so confusing and hard to know. But when you can get on stage with people you love and play music that you’re proud of and you’re excited to share with people, that is the best feeling ever.

I feel like that was what a lot of our year was about. We love playing this music. We’re stoked to share it with you. And we’re not getting too caught up in all of the other elements that swirl around with making music your livelihood. Not that those factors aren’t there, but ultimately, the year was about this record that we were proud of. So, that feels great.

You have some festival dates on the books for this year. Do you have any plans to tour, too?

We’re a band that definitely hits the road, historically, and that’s the plan for 2025, as well. We were all upper Midwest kids, so we also hibernate hard. But when the snow thaws, we’ll be out there, and I think it’ll be pretty consistent throughout the year. That’s where we’re at right now as a band and we’re soaking it up because it’s a good chapter to be in.

Photo Credit: Juliet Farmer