BGS Class of 2015: Songs

What an overwhelmingly fantastic year for roots music! We couldn't fit all the greatness into our album list, so we picked another 21 of our favorite songs.

Anderson East, Delilah, "Find 'Em, Fool 'Em, and Forget 'Em"


A song from the heart of Southern soul music, AndersonEast found this little George Jackson/Rick Hall gem hiding down in Muscle Shoals and made it his own.

Brandi Carlile, The Firewatcher's Daughter, "The Stranger at My Door"

While "The Eye" would be the obviously outstanding song to pick, this little ditty is sneakily special and captures so much of what is great about Brandi Carlile.

Dave Rawlings Machine, Nashville Obsolete, "The Weekend"


It's always a good year when we get new music from Dave Rawlings Machine, and this opening track from Nashville Obsolete expresses a sentiment we can likely all relate to: hitting the weekend like a freight.

David Ramirez, Fables, "Harder to Lie"


This is one of those tunes that absolutely rocks you back on your heels with its unabashed forthrightness. Good luck getting past it to hear the rest of the record.

Drew Holcomb, Medicine, "American Beauty"


Drew Holcomb captured lightning in a bottle with "American Beauty" — a love song for anyone who has had to let go sooner than they wanted.

Glen Campbell, I'll Be Me, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You"


One of Campbell's final recordings, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" may, at first listen, sound like a kiss-off to a former lover, but it was actually inspired by the legendary songwriter's ongoing battle with Alzheimer's, a fact that makes the depth of the lyrics and quality of the song all the more impressive.

HoneyHoney, 3, "Big Man"


Never did a song about the death of a "Big Man" sound so sweet. Suzanne Santo's voice is just about perfect … and the fiddle-laced song ain't too shabby, either.

Indigo Girls, One Lost Day, "Fishtails"


Amy Ray crafted some mighty fine tunes for the latest Indigo Girls' record, including this stunner that shows how powerful a well-placed horn part can be.

JD McPherson, Let the Good Times Roll, "Head Over Heels"


This Oklahoma boy knows how to rock ’n’ roll! Under the production guidance of Mark Neill, “Head Over Heels” sounds like the Flamingos went on an extended acid trip. Vibrato Fender dreams oscillate behind McPherson’s crooning, a chorus of handclaps, and a tack piano from Hell. Oh yeah, it’ll make you dance, too.

Julien Baker, Sprained Ankle, "Sprained Ankle"


“Wish I could write songs about anything other than death,” Julien Baker sings within the first seconds of this crippling ballad, led by an electric guitar and tritone anxiety. Having grown up in Memphis, the songwriter has the lyrical talent of a serious Delta blues player, but her music is darker and more daring than much of what Tennessee knows.

Kacey Musgraves, Pageant Material, "Good Ol' Boys Club"


Less outwardly biting than the album’s title track, this cut from Pageant Material stands out in a year dominated by a ridiculous question: Just where do women belong in the salad that is country music? Plus, that inside baseball slap-in-the-face to Big Machine is pretty rad.

LP, Muddy Waters, "Muddy Waters"


LP really knocked this darkly plodding one out of the park. Elements of it echo back to her pop past, but her bluesy roots are also showing.

Mavis Staples, Your Good Fortune, "Fight"


A collaboration with Son Little, this groovy track from Mavis Staples' EP snaps and snakes, using gospel-inspired backing vocals to drive it all home.

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, S/T, "S.O.B."


Ladies and germs, Nathaniel Rateliff has finally arrived. The Midwestern singer was bound to hit a new level of popularity with each year that passed — but that moment never seemed to arrive. That is, until Rateliff traded folk music for soul. Now you simply can’t escape that "S.O.B." This Stax-approved prison pen jam gets in its licks early, and washes it down with dirty bourbon.

Rayland Baxter, Imaginary Man, "Freakin Me Out"


We’re all losing our minds … some of us are just more freaked out by it than others. Rayland Baxter provides the sing-along anthem for those of us on the “more” end of the spectrum.

Rhiannon Giddens, Tomorrow Is My Turn, "Black Is the Color"


Rhiannon Giddens is known for her work with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but she is also a formidable solo artist. This cover of an Appalachian folk tune — the excellent accompanying video for which was shot at historic Fisk University — shows off all Giddens has to offer: her soulful voice, knack for finding a groove, and ear for interpretation.

Russell Moore and IIIrd Tyme Out, It's About Tyme, "Brown County Red"


This Kyle Burnett-penned tune is filled with danger, bootlegin’, and cold-blooded murder on the banks of the Ohio River. When a moonshiner emerges from his secret corn liquor corner, he has an unfortunate run-in with the law, killing dead a few deputies. It’s the bluegrass equivalent to Juice. Kid just can’t stop killing! The best part about “Brown County Red,” is that it’s cast upon a major key backdrop. Surreal does not begin to describe it.

Ryan Culwell, Flatlands, "Flatlands"


Hailing from the great expanse of nothingness known as the Panhandle of Texas, Ryan Culwell speaks fondly of his childhood home and its understated beauty. “Take me back where I can see miles of dirt in front of me,” he sings. It’s something every God-fearing Midwesterner/Southerner knows to be true: Life is easier in the heat and emptiness of the flatlands … but we left them anyway.

Sufjan Stevens, Carrie & Lowell, "The Only Thing"


The sonic equivalent of David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon,” the important distinction being that Stevens’ narrator sees Perseus twinkling in the clear night sky just in time to correct the steering wheel. 

The Weather Station, Loyalty, "Way It Is, Way It Could Be"


From the mind of Canadian songwriter Tamara Lindeman comes this tune, “Way It Is, Way It Could Be” — a meditation on the other side of the fence. The place where the grass always seems to be greenest. The song, off the fabulous Loyalty, has the snowy imagery of an Edith Wharton novel and the leary suspicion of Virginia Woolf. Lindeman sings in falsetto equanimity: “Was it a look in your eye? I wasn’t sure. The way it is and the way it could be both are.” Painted with images of frozen Quebec, this opening track sets the mood for the Weather Station’s best album yet.

Wilco, Star Wars, "Random Name Generator"


Wilco’s surprise album also had a few surprise hits, like “Random Name Generator.” Like the song’s “flame creator” protagonist, this tune packs plenty of dirt and burn. “I think I miss my family I found,” Jeff Tweedy laments, resigning himself as a father who simply names things. It is one of recent Wilco’s most affecting songs.

For more musical goodness, check out the full Class of 2015. Follow the playlist on Spotify and add your own favorite songs to it:

Natalie Merchant and the Power of Reflection

Natalie Merchant was only 18 years old when she first joined 10,000 Maniacs back in 1981. A handful of years later, the politically inclined folk-rock ensemble was taking the world by storm as part of a generation of musicians who used their art as activism. When Merchant departed the band in 1993, it was to find her voice … which also happened to be the voice of her generation. Finding it, becoming it was something she accomplished right out of the gate with 1995’s Tigerlily.

In the 20 years since that stirring solo debut, Merchant has mined Shakespeare, traditional folk music, environmental concerns, parenthood, and more to create a discography that is equally potent and poignant. This year, she turned her gaze back to Tigerlily, reworking the old compositions and releasing the new collection as Paradise Is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. She also made a companion documentary that serves as a visual memoir, tracing her footsteps back from here to there and bringing us all along for the journey.

The first thing you say in the documentary is about, essentially, do-overs — what they mean and if they are even possible. The premise is that, if you could do anything differently, the butterfly effect, everything after it changes. Though it wasn’t exactly a do-over, what have you gleaned from this experiment?

Well, I just made a record of everything I’ve gleaned over the last 20 years about these songs. The catalyst for the whole project was the string arrangements that I’d had written over the years for some orchestral shows. People really enjoyed the orchestral versions, so we decided to adapt them to string quartet and put them on the album. And then the 20th anniversary came up and it seemed like the right time to release the record.

If you had to pick one word to describe how the process went, how it felt revisiting these songs, what would it be?

Educational.

Even working off those arrangements, were you and the players able to go in without any other preconceived notions about how the songs have always been? Sort of deconstruct and rebuild them anew with your more mature musical vocabulary?

It’s interesting because several members of the band weren’t even born … [Laughs]

[Laughs] I was thinking that as I watched the documentary, actually.

[Laughs] They were in diapers when this record was made. And they had never listened to it before they started playing with me, so they had no preconceived notions of the songs, which was great. They may as well have been brand new songs. Then there were some of us in the band who have played them for years, like Gabriel [Gordon] who has been playing with me for 17 years, so he’s been here for almost the whole ride.

I think we sort of reinvented the songs over the years every time we went on stage and played them. They’ve evolved into the versions we’re doing now. A few of the songs, like “Where I Go” and “I May Know the Word” and “Jealousy,” had been sort of left by the wayside years ago. And it was actually fun to rediscover them, especially “I May Know the Word.” That was kind of an illumination. It was a song that I never felt I completely captured and then I left it behind. I think it turned out to be my favorite song on the whole project.

“Beloved Wife,” in particular, hits me that much harder with 20 more, or maybe fewer, years on my relationships clock. Was that a similar thing for you? It’s tricky, because you’ve been with these songs all along, but …

When I wrote that song, I was observing my grandfather’s grief. Since then, I’ve lost my parents and other people I had decades-long relationships with, so I understand death now in a different way. I’ve sat with many people who died. It’s just part of the age, I think, and experience. My father actually just passed away in September. And, since it was his father I wrote the song about, it made the feeling in the film different for me — seeing that photograph of my grandfather, having just watched my father pass. It makes the circle complete, in a way.

Right. How do you process having touched so many people with your songs, especially “Wonder”? Is that something you can get your head around, or your heart?

It continues to astound me, how many people have been impacted by that song. I think it’s also — it’s a powerful song — but it’s also such a scarce topic. There aren’t a lot of songs about children, to begin with. [Laughs] If you were to make a bar graph of how many songs are about break-ups, initial romance, and sexual craving … and then when you got to what all that leads to, which is children … [Laughs] Nobody has anything to say about that. Maybe they’re too busy picking crumbs off the floor, but …

[Laughs] The romance is gone, at that point.

But the romance, for me, really began with my child. The greatest love of my life is my child. And, to write a song about a child with special needs, takes it into an even scarcer part of the graph with a fraction of a percentage of songs. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Yes. Exactly one song. We can probably safely say there’s just this one song.

Yeah. There’s one song. And I wrote it. And people have radar for that. They are looking for their own experience in art. When they see it and recognize themselves, it’s powerful. And it’s positive.

That’s the other thing: So many people with a special needs child feel like they are the object of pity. And they really feel their experience is so much more than the challenges. There’s so much joy and connection … and achievements. Incredible achievements. And they are made even more profound and more powerful because of the challenges. I think they are valued more. I think those kids, when they do achieve … like in the film, when Kate and Kelly graduated from college, I was there. It was a massive accomplishment for them to get those bachelor’s degrees. They would have agonizing nursing care, sometimes eight hours a day, and they were still able to write the papers and study for the exams. And they both graduated with honors.

Wow. Those kinds of stories certainly put so much into perspective. Not to belittle anyone else’s strife or compare people’s pains …

And that’s the thing that Kate and Kelly used to say to me all the time: “We don’t quantify pain around here. Pain is pain.” I would always say, “Oh, you don’t want to hear about my problems.” And they’d say, “We don’t put it on a scale. We understand pain, so you can talk to us about it.” [Laughs]

If In My Tribe or Blind Man’s Zoo came out today, how do you think those would be received? “Gun Shy,” “Jubilee,” and “Hateful Hate” … they are just as relevant and could all certainly stand a comeback right now with everything that’s happening.

I don’t know. The music industry is a very mysterious creature these days. There’s an artist like Adele who can sell millions of records in a week, and artists like myself who used to sell millions of records and now … It’s just harder to reach the audience. I don’t know. I don’t know how receptive the culture is to more serious pop music that examines the soul or examines society.

I came up with 10,000 Maniacs, R.E.M., Tracy Chapman, and Indigo Girls as my influences and idols. And I’m not sure I see the same kind of art as activism pouring out of younger musicians these days. Do you feel like the upcoming generation has that in them? Or is your group still carrying the flag for now?

I recently met Aloe Blacc and I think his music is definitely of the same character as Tracy Chapman’s or my music. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not as aware of pop music as I used to be. But someone like Ray LaMontagne is out there making thought-provoking music.

I think there are certainly singular examples, but it felt to me, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, that there was a whole class of artists who were in the same vein. But maybe I was in a little bit of a bubble.

There’s also someone like Billy Bragg. He really remained true to his principles and became very active in politics. I can remember the first time I saw Billy Bragg. I was playing a club in Brixton with him and he was passing a bucket for the miners who were on strike. I’d never seen that before. It felt like something from the Woody Guthrie days.

Is it safe to say that artists like Mavis Staples, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie … are those elders some of the artists you look up to? Because they are all still going. They all have new projects.

Yeah. I’m hugely influenced by them, especially Joan Baez. Talk about someone who has remained true to her principles since day one. She’s a powerhouse of integrity. When Pete Seeger died and everyone said, “No one will ever take his place!” I was like, “What about Joan Baez?” [Laughs] She’s still playing in prisons.

Yeah. They’re still carrying the flag, themselves. Considering all that’s going on in the world, is your perspective at all different whether you’re looking at it as an artist, an activist, a parent, or a woman? Does one of those identities feel more or less pressure to step up? Or are they indistinguishable?

I think that, over the last six years, my activist facet of my work and life has become much more pronounced. It’s a result of feeling older and more responsible and more experienced — knowing how to accomplish things like organizing big benefit concerts or making films about something. I made a film about domestic violence and I was really involved, for four years, in the the campaign to have fracking banned in New York. We succeeded and everyone credits the film we made, and I was the person that decided we needed to make that film, that we needed to have that concert and have those filmmakers collect the film and photographs that presented evidence and the testimony of people whose well water had been contaminated in other states where hydraulic fracking was already happening. I just didn’t have the skill set and the confidence to do that [when I was younger].

And the film about domestic violence was the same thing. When I was in my 20s or 30s or, even, 40s, to have the wherewithal to contact special prosecutors from two counties and have them at the table with me and say, “I need to know what the statistics are in our region.” And say, “I want to create an event and a film around that that’s going to be moving and motivate people.” I just didn’t know how to do that then. The music, as in making albums and going on tour and promoting my own work, has taken a back seat to the work that I’ve done trying to use music as a tool for advancing social justice.

And, yet, two records in two years from you.

Yeah … [Laughs]

[Laughs] Fertile time or fluke timing?

I feel like the domestic violence film and the campaign around that was the moment … When I finished that, I realized, “I need to make a record again.” [Laughs] I really hadn’t made one since Leave Your Sleep in 2010. It’s funny because people would say, “Oh, you’re not very prolific.” And I’d say, “Well, for somebody who’s not prolific, I feel like all I do is work!” [Laughs] But the work that I’ve been doing is more community organizing and creating these multimedia protest pieces and being a mom.


Photo credit: Dan Winters

STREAM: Amy Ray, ‘The Tender Hour: Live from Seattle’

Artist: Amy Ray
Hometown: Dahlonega, GA
Album: The Tender Hour: Amy Ray Live from Seattle
Release Date: November 13
Label: Daemon Records

In Their Words: “I asked sound man Craig Montgomery at Seattle’s Triple Door to press ‘record’ and he captured a treasure of a night with my top-notch country band and my 'home away from home’ hometown crowd. My hope is that this new recording, The Tender Hour, does what any satisfying live record should do — put the listener in the room and immerse them in the humanity of the show … complete with stories, blunders, an incredible band, and a energetic heartfelt night of music!” — Amy Ray

Tour Dates
11.18.15 – Benefit for the Pick and Bow School – Crimson Moon – Dahlonega, GA
12.10.15 – Supporting Tedeschi Trucks Band – Jefferson Center – Roanoke, VA
12.11.15 – Supporting Tedeschi Trucks Band – Sandler Center for the Arts – Virginia Beach, VA
12.31.15 – Homeless benefit – First Night – Dahlonega, GA

Hey Nashville, Get Off Your Ass and Go See Some Live Music in September

Summer's winding down. Kids are back in school. And AmericanaFest is coming right up. Get Off Your Ass, America.

September 2, 3, 24 // Rosanne Cash // Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Rosanne Cash is doing a residency at the Hall of Fame. Three nights, three completely different performances. See you there!

September 4 // Los Colognes // The Basement East
Want to know where the cool kids will be tonight? At the BEast with Los Colognes.

September 10 // Farewell Drifters // Station Inn
The Farewell Drifters have a few shows on the books, including one last month with Julie Lee. Catch them while you can.

September 12 // Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys // Centennial Park
We'll just leave this right here. 

September 12 // Jimmy Webb, Bobby Whitlock // City Winery
How do you celebrate seeing Ralph Stanley? By seeing Jimmy Webb, for Pete's sake. Oh, and Bobby Whitlock, too. 

September 14 // Kevin Gordon // City Winery
If you like tales of Southern living done up with the just-right balance of grit and grace, check out Kevin Gordon.

September 15-20 // Americana Fest // All Over Town
Sam Outlaw, Nathaniel Rateliff, Ryan Culwell, Lee Ann Womack, Lera Lynn, HoneyHoney, Whitey Morgan, Patty Griffin, JD McPherson, and a whole bunch of other great artists will be playing shows all over town. Get you some.

September 22 // Indigo Girls // Ryman Auditorium
It's the Indigo Girls. How can you not go see the Indigo Girls?!

September 22 // BB King Birthday Tribute // City Winery
It must be nice to have your birthday celebrated by Claudette King, Gary Nicholson, Mike Farris, T. Graham Brown, Stacy Mitchhart, Derek St. Holmes, Crystal Shawanda, and more, right BB?

September 30 // George Ezra // Ryman Auditorium
This George Ezra kid … he's got something. His record and his live show are both thoroughly charming. You should maybe go.

September 30 // Cory Chisel Celebrates City Winery's One-Year Anniversary // City Winery
And yet another birthday party happening at City Winery … their own!

Ryan Adams Is Gonna Party Like It’s ‘1989’

There's never a dull moment in the career of Ryan Adams, but he may have just topped himself with his latest move: covering Taylor Swift's chart-topping 2014 release 1989 start to finish… in the style of the Smiths. He's already shared a clip or two, and it sounds pretty epic.

Read more at Rolling Stone.

Other Roots Music News:

• Go behind the scenes of the making of Indigo Girls' "One Lost Day."

• Ashley Monroe covered John Mellencamp's "Pink Houses."

• Bruce Springsteen earned the distinct honor of serving as Jon Stewart's last Moment of Zen. [Consequence of Sound

• Laura Marling performed "I Feel Your Love" on The Late Late Show with James Corden.

• IBMA announced their film festival selections. [Bluegrass Today

Ryan Adams photo by Alice Baxley, courtesy of Nasty Little Man