Tag: Interview

Aaron Lee Tasjan Exclaims His Love of Guitars, Games, and Silly Little Songs

Posted on by Editor

Not every songwriter can get away with an opening line like: “The world outside my window / looks like Nintendo / but I’m not playing games anymore.” Leave it to Aaron Lee Tasjan, who guides us past those lyrics into “Not That Bad,” a subtle and sincere song about confidence and capability that showcases the Nashville-based musician’s gift as an acoustic instrumentalist as well.

Tasjan wrote the song just after suggesting to his longtime label that he wanted to produce the next album — an idea that the executives weren’t sure about. So, Tasjan went ahead and did it anyway, working with co-producer Gregory Lattimer. The result is Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, likely his most revealing album yet, and one that embraces his fondness of guitar, video games, and his own self-proclaimed dumb songs. He chatted with BGS by phone leading up to the release.

BGS: “Up All Night” sounds like a pop song, but it’s also very personal. What was on your mind as you were writing that song?

Tasjan: A couple of things. I love songs that I would call silly little pop songs. Something as simple as “Sugar” by the Archies. I just love simple, but with a good hook. I’ve been listening to music like that for a long time. As far as the lyrical content, all that stuff came directly out of my life. There’s not one thing that I’m singing about in that song that isn’t 100 percent me, really. And honestly, if I could say there was a mission statement for the record, it was to just be as unabashedly me as I possibly could. So, “Up All Night” became a front-runner early on, a cool blueprint of anything else that I wanted to do.

To me, that song is about the things in life that come and go — you mention money and love and health. And then you’re ultimately realizing that’s just how life is. Is that a fair assessment?

Exactly. I’ve been a very analytical person in my life. And there are some things that you don’t have to analyze. Like, if you are analyzing it, you’re spinning your wheels, or in some cases, creating scenarios that wouldn’t even exist otherwise. It’s kind of a mental health tip for myself to realize, “Look, man, that’s just the way it is, dude.” [Laughs]

It’s refreshing when you come to that realization and you just go on and live your life.

Right! I think that’s true. Control is part of it — you want to feel like you’re in control. But all of that is an illusion. Certainly we have been witness to several moments recently where it feels like reality is coming undone, so we’ve had to reckon with how little control we have over everything. But at the same time, for a guy like me, it’s helped me to reassert the parts of what I can do, of being seen, asking to be seen, and seeing others. That’s not something that I’ve always been that comfortable with — the asking to be seen part. It’s been hard for me, but on this record, I felt more called to do that.

Speaking of that, there’s a lyric in “Up All Night” about breaking up with your boyfriend to go out with your girlfriend. Is that the first time you’ve addressed that topic on a record?

I think so, yeah. Well… on the Silver Tears album, there’s a song called “Hard Life,” and a verse in that where I sang, “There’s a redneck bummer in an H2 Hummer and he sure does hate the queers.” That was true. That happened to me. I got stuck in a drive-through at Taco Bell one time in small-town Ohio with some football team kids who, in their mind, had me pegged. They were yelling all kinds of stuff. I parked my car later to eat the food I’d gotten in the drive-through and they came over and were banging on the windows, calling me names. It was scary, man.

I didn’t know that happened to you. That’s frightening.

But at the same time, that is a tiny part of what someone who is transgender encounters. You kind of put in perspective. What’s it like for somebody who has to deal with that every day? It’s heartbreaking. In a lot of ways, I’m trying to show this side of myself because I feel like, especially if I’m going to be the most “me” that I’ve ever been on a record, it’s imperative to stand in that truth.

The videos for “Up All Night” and a few other songs resemble really cool arcade games. What is it about that visual presentation that grabbed you?

I think a lot of it is in because of the time I grew up in, which was the late ‘80s and the ‘90s. Video games were just huge! And something to do was to go over to the arcade for the whole day. [Laughs] Like, drop me off at 11 in the morning and come pick me up at 8 p.m., and I’ll have the time of my life! I thought with the music, sonically, I wanted to create sounds that were almost like a Polaroid picture, colors that didn’t quite exist in real life. There’s a lot of guitars on the record that sound like synthesizers almost. They’re sort of this weird hybrid combination somewhere between a guitar and a synthesizer, which was very intentional.

When did you get interested in guitar?

I was really young! In fact, I remember when it was. I was 8 or 9 years and my family took a summer vacation and my parents hired a girl who went to the local high school to watch me and my sister, because we were so young. And this girl was obsessed with MTV, of course! So, that’s what we watched all summer long.

My two favorite music videos were “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum — because I loved that driving, strumming, acoustic guitar, which has become something I use in my own music all the time — and the other one that I really, really loved was the Black Crowes’ cover of “Hard to Handle.” I loved how Chris Robinson looked and I loved how the song sounded. It made me turn every single thing that I had in my possession that could be a guitar, into a guitar. So, my tennis racket became a guitar. My baseball bat became a guitar.

The place where we staying that summer at the beach, somebody who played guitar must have stayed there before, because I actually found a tortoise-shell guitar pick in that house. I didn’t play guitar for years after that, but I carried that pick with me EVERYWHERE. It was my most prized possession. So, when my family moved to Southern California a few years later, there wasn’t a lot to do when I first got there, and I was able to talk my parents into letting me get a guitar and start trying to go for it. I was 11 or 12 by that point.

Were you listening to any bluegrass or country at that time?

The first thing I heard that set me off in that direction was played for me by my mom, and that was early Bob Dylan stuff. That got me into acoustic music, and I remembered the “Runaway Train” video, and I thought, “Let me find some more stuff like that.” I actually started writing songs almost right away. I was a really funny kid, you know what I mean? I was like the class clown, so making my songs kind of humorous felt natural to me. I was only 13 or 14 years old when I played a song I had written to an older guy, and he said, “Man, let me help you out. It sounds like what you’re trying to do, is something like what this guy does.”

And he gave me a cassette tape of Prime Prine, which was a John Prine greatest hits collection. And that was the day I decided that I wanted to be a songwriter. [Laughs] Not only was he doing what I had been trying to do, he was doing it in this way where it was like I’d only ever seen Clark Kent – this super-nice guy, mild-mannered, kind of plain. Then you press play and you hear “Please don’t bury me down in the cold cold ground…” and Superman showed up! That was everything, you know? I got obsessed with that.

Listening to your new album on the whole now, what do you like most about it?

I just love how dumb it is. [Laughs] I love how simple it is! I know that sounds silly, but it forces you to consider how much of what’s there really needs to be there. I really do like hearing people sing about their stories, so the more that’s in the way of that, the less enchanted I am. I just wanted to make these songs kind of simple and plain spoken. To have some poetry, certainly, if it’s possible for me to do that, but also to really lay it out there in this dumb but hopefully sweet way. I don’t look at it as though I’ve made some sort of amazing artistic statement or whatever. I just got really got down to it and said what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it.

Photo credit: Curtis Wayne Millard

From Homemade Tapes to Hip Hop, Black Pumas Share Their Influences (2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Heading into the Grammy Awards this year, Black Pumas are competing for three trophies, two of them in high-profile categories. Their breakout single, “Colors,” is up for Record of the Year, while Black Pumas (Deluxe Edition) will vie for Album of the Year. Their third nod, with “Colors” in the Best American Roots Performance category, reflects the duo’s affinity for soul and folk music, as well as the way they blend genres without losing the groove or the message. The recognition also follows their 2020 win from the Americana Music Association as Emerging Act of the Year.

From their home base in Austin, Texas, Black Pumas’ Eric Burton and Adrian Quesada caught up with BGS by phone, speaking about the music that shaped them, trusting their instincts, and the message they’d like to send out in 2021.

Editor’s Note: Read part one of our Artist of the Month interview with Black Pumas.

BGS: One of my favorite songs on this album is “Fire.” To me, it has a message of encouragement. What sparked the idea to write that song?

Eric: “Fire” was one of the tracks that Adrian first sent me. Adrian has such a brilliant way of making music that feels almost visual and vivid, almost cinematic, so when I got it, I couldn’t help but be moved to allow the song to inspire lyrics. At the time I was living with a girlfriend who was going through some health issues. She had an autoimmune deficiency and I was encouraging her to call on me. That you don’t have to feel like you’re overbearing or too much was the message that I made universal on the song “Fire.”

And lastly, with that song specifically, the funny thing was, before this I had never sung to another man on the phone. But this was one of the first songs that I was inspired to write lyrics to. When I get an idea, I like to show my friends almost right away. I called Adrian right away, not even meeting him yet. I called him and I said, “Hey, man, check this out!” I turned the song up and I started singing the melody and a few lyrics here and there, showing where it was moving, so I could integrate the space. It was really interesting to show Adrian that, and I was glad we were able to finalize the idea.

Adrian, what was going through your mind when you heard Eric sing in person, in the same room at the same time?

Adrian: Goosebumps. Trying to play it cool and not get too excited. I tried to play it off, but yeah, I knew that it was going to be a special thing, but I hadn’t heard it in the room. There was obviously a spark there, so it was just a matter of containing my enthusiasm and not getting too ahead of anything — until I finally broke down and said, “All right, man, we have to play this stuff live. Are you into doing that?” And he was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

It seems like you guys are in tune with your instincts. How important has that been to the success of Black Pumas?

Eric: It’s hard to put too much pressure on ourselves regarding what others are going to think about us. As opposed to trusting how easy it is to know what moves you first. It’s much more of an easygoing experience making music if you’re doing it to move yourself, knowing that what moves you has a really good chance of moving someone else. As Adrian mentioned earlier, when we started making music together, it was to have fun. We really dug what we were doing and we just kept doing it, and it turned into what it is now. Regardless if anyone was listening to the music or not, we would probably be making music every other week or so, because we enjoy doing it together. Hopefully like what we having coming up next, but if not, I think we’ll still be making music. It won’t crush it.

Adrian, who are some of your favorite guitarists?

Adrian: I personally have gravitated more toward rhythm players, and the finesse and nuance that goes into something like that. Recently I’ve been getting into Cornell Dupree, who played on thousands of recording sessions. He was in Aretha Franklin’s band for a long time and played with Donnie Hathaway and all the classic soul recordings. He’s an unsung hero of the instrument, and of the genre, too, because he didn’t always get all the shine. I don’t know if you saw that Aretha movie, Amazing Grace, from a few years ago that finally saw the light of day. I saw him playing on there and it was like, “Oh, man!” He never got that much attention, but I just started going down the rabbit hole of looking up YouTube videos.

Eric, I read that you grew up listening almost exclusively to gospel music. Is that right?

Eric: Not necessarily. My family comes from the church, and my grandparents were missionaries, so it was part of what was around, but for the most part, my family are also very artistic – musicians and writers. I would listen to my uncle write songs. He would pull out tubs and tubs of little tapes, and I would pop in one of his tapes once in a while and listen to his songwriting process. As a young kid, that was one of my toys, if you will. That’s pretty much how I learned to write music, listening to an uncle who had a really heavy hand in raising me, bringing me up, especially as an artist. For the most part, I would either hear whatever was on the radio in California, but most intimately it was through my uncle’s songmanship and his songwriting.

Adrian, who did you grow up listening to?

Adrian: I grew up listening to whatever was on MTV. I was really influenced by that. I was an only child and I was home by myself a lot. I grew up in South Texas and didn’t have a lot of places to get music from. So, when I discovered MTV, it turned me on to a lot of stuff, everything from hair rock bands to Nirvana and that whole sound. But the one thing I was really into, that had the biggest influence, is hip hop music, which I discovered through one of my neighbors who would always be playing stuff outside when they would be playing basketball. … I don’t know exactly what it was about the sound of hip-hop, but as I discovered the source of a lot of it, there was jazz and soul and funk at its core. And later on, I started getting into that music. I realized there was *that* underneath, hiding there for me to discover.

Looking ahead, what would be the best-case scenario for you in 2021? What would you hope that this year brings for you?

Eric: That we get to continue to create time and space to do exactly what we really love to do, which is to create music. We’re very fortunate that we’re seeing the opportunities we’re seeing now because people are buying the music and supporting us. Individually I look forward to creating more with Adrian, one, and also I just bought a house so I look forward creating somewhat of a studio set-up to can get into production myself.

Adrian: Yeah, I’ll second that — just the opportunity to put some new music to tape and get some out this year.

Eric: Lastly, I’ll speak for both of us briefly and say thank you [to our fans]. Thank you so much for listening to our music, for supporting us. We miss you guys, we love you guys. You guys fuel our passion and we look forward to continuing to be honest in the studio, together, that we may take what comes from our heart to allow it to move you guys’ heart.

Photo credit: Jackie Lee Young

The Show On The Road – Blind Boys of Alabama

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, in honor of Black History Month, we bring you a conversation with members of foundational gospel group, The Blind Boys Of Alabama, including longtime singer Ricky McKinnie and beloved senior member Jimmy Carter, who has been with the group for four decades.

LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER

Formed in the late 1930s with talent discovered at the Alabama Institute For The Negro Blind, the Blind Boys of Alabama have superseded limitations to bring their own high-spirited version of jubilee gospel throughout the world. Their music was often the backdrop to the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther King Jr. toured the south, and Jimmy and Ricky are both amazed and grateful that their message is still ringing true throughout the latest iteration Black Lives Matter movement that grew during the tumultuous last year.

While the members of the band have changed through time, the group has stayed steadfast to preserving a kinetic, church-based music that doesn’t seek to evangelize, but can bring people of all faiths together. Indeed, watching Jimmy and the other bespectacled members walk with hands on each other’s shoulders into the youthful crowds of adoring festival-goers, from Bonnaroo to Jazzfest, is really something to behold.

The Blind Boys’ body of work continues to grow. In the last few decades they’ve gamely collaborated with a wide range of secular artists from Peter Gabriel to Ben Harper to Bonnie Raitt, they made an album produced by Justin Vernon, AKA Bon Iver (2013’s stellar I’ll Find A Way), and they shrewdly reworked the ominous Tom Waits classic, “Way Down In The Hole,” which became the theme for HBO’s The Wire.

Their newest full length album, Almost Home, is a particularly moving treatise on morality and mortality. It features songs written by Marc Cohn, Valerie June, The North Mississippi All Stars and many others and was the last record that longtime member and bandleader Clarence Fountain was a part of before he passed away. He was a member of the Blind Boys of Alabama for nearly sixty years.

As Jimmy playfully mentions throughout our conversation, the Blind Boys of Alabama never let being blind stand in the way of doing what they do best: putting on a show. They’re entertainers at heart and it’s no small feat that they’ve brought a nearly lost form of swinging, soulful (and expertly arranged) gospel from the small southern towns where they grew up, all the way to the White House, where they’ve held court for three different presidents. And they’ve won five Grammy Awards along the way.

Stick around to the end of the episode hear their rich cover of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.”

Photo credit: Jim Herrington

The Show On The Road – Langhorne Slim

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, a wide-ranging conversation with the peripatetic, Pennsylvania-born, confessional folk songwriter Sean Scolnick, who for the last fifteen years has become a troubadour truth-teller of the Americana circuit, amassing a devoted following performing as his many-hatted, impish alter-ego: Langhorne Slim.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
Host Z. Lupetin caught up with Slim to discuss his much awaited new LP, Strawberry Mansion (just released last week via Dualtone), which is named after the neighborhood in Philadelphia where both of his grandfathers grew up. Coming out of a deep creative funk, Slim produced a record of many entwined reckonings. A flurry of twenty-two diaristic sonic sketches, incantations, and emotive story-songs follow his struggle with mental illness, sometimes in real time, his pandemic isolation, and sobriety. It’s an overall hopeful collection that shows Langhorne may finally be finding his true calling on the other side of the darkness.

Sean Scolnick is never shy about revealing how his mental health and creativity are ever-evolving. Without playing the hundreds of international shows and festivals a year he normally does, Scolnick had to create at home in a new way. A note his therapist gave him still holds true, as he releases his newest record without being able to take his guitar and his trademark worn hat in public to support it: “When you’re freaking out, just play.”

Make sure you stick around ’til the end of the episode when Slim plays an acoustic rendition of “Morning Prayer,” joined briefly by his cat, Mr. Beautiful.

Photo credit: Harvey Robinson

Guitarist Jackie Venson Charges Down a Path of Joy, Vulnerability, and Shredding

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Jackie Venson, Austin, Texas’s resident singer, songwriter, guitar shredder, and joy dispenser, took a couple of months to restart the locomotive momentum of her career after it was halted by the coronavirus pandemic in March of 2020. A summer of stepping up her touring and festival appearances trashed, she had to purposefully and intentionally consider a way forward. 

She chose the path less traveled, but she never trekked it alone. By the end of 2020, Venson’s totally independent team had landed her at number 10 on Pollstar’s Top 100 livestreamers chart for the entire year — higher than superstars Luke Combs, Brad Paisley, and even K-pop, heartthrob boy band BTS’s stream counts, with streams totaling more than 2.8 million viewers. 

“It felt like the train stopped and then I created work for myself,” Venson admits, describing an intentional pivot to virtual, streaming shows and alternative programming that never felt like she was giving up the most important parts of her art and expression. Just the opposite. Venson is a rare example of a musician who has utilized the pandemic to not only discover a new, novel way forward in an industry that promises burnout, extractive power dynamics, and the commodification of selfhood even in the best, most profitable cases. She also grew her fan base, her community, and found enough time to release five projects in the last calendar year, as well. 

Jackie Venson’s Shout & Shine livestream (viewable in the player above or here) — which highlights many of the entrancing, charming, entertaining aspects of Venson’s music, creativity, and most of all her stunning improvisation — will debut on BGS on Wednesday, February 3, at 4pm PST / 7pm EST. We began our interview talking about joy, which is not only present in every note of Venson’s playing, but is the first song of her Shout & Shine concert and the title track of her 2019 album. 

I wanted to start by asking you about joy. It feels so obvious and palpable in your music, especially in your playing style. Not just in how you’re so engaging and charismatic, and not just because it’s the title of your 2019 album, Joy. On “Surrender,” for instance, you sing, “Feet are so tired, but I keep running/ Heart is so heavy, but I keep singing.” That sounds like the radical act of choosing joy, to me.

JV: Well, it’s literally what I’m feeling while I’m actually playing the music. It’s just really cool to be able to play the guitar. I worked really hard to be able to play the guitar and when I look in the mirror I see the same face who started guitar, I guess ten years ago now, except this person can play the guitar! This person can play the guitar, and everybody likes listening to this person who can play the guitar. Not only is this person having a really good time doing something she set out to do ten years ago, but everybody else is enjoying it and having a good time on a base level — and by base level I mean, often they’ve just walked in the room. [Laughs] They weren’t there ten years ago! They’re enjoying it, objectively, and I’m sitting here looking at the depths of [the music] and then I’m watching other people, who don’t even know the story, just having a good time. That is pretty awesome and actually, I’m pretty sure that’s why most people set out to play instruments. They see somebody having fun doing it and they want to have fun, too. 

It sounds like gratitude is equally important to you. You’re clearly expressing so much gratitude for being able to do this thing that creates so much joy in your own life and in others’.

Well, absolutely. Gratitude is the foundation of joy. You can’t really have joy if you don’t have gratitude. 

One thing that jumped out at me from your livestreams and performances is the way you sing along with your guitar lines, the way you’re constantly in dialogue with yourself and your own voice. It made me think of the age old tradition of fiddling and singing along with yourself — and of course, it makes me think of jazz and bebop solos as well — but I wondered where singing along with the line in your head came from for you? 

My dad told me the best way to learn how to improv solos. I had been working on trying to improv from even the time I played piano from when I was like fifteen. I remember getting another piano teacher who knew jazz so that they could teach me how to improvise. Obviously, [Laughs] that’s the wrong angle. I was four years into playing guitar before I learned that I was approaching improvisation the wrong way. The funny thing is that my dad told me, when I was fifteen, he was like, “All you need to know about improvising is that you just think of a melody and you play it, and after you play the melody you thought of a few times, you start messing with it.” So you play it, and add a note here or subtract a note there, and he’s like, “That’s all you’ve got to do and then it’s a great solo!” Because a melody isn’t just playing notes randomly, it has purpose. You want your solos to have purpose. My dad told me that fifteen years ago and I just didn’t hear him. I wasn’t ready to hear him. It took the guitar and years and years of singing, as well, to put it all together and arrive at the destination my dad tried to usher me to. 

I’m a picker and a teacher as well, and I’m sure you’ve had this happen, you’ll get students who are so intimidated by the idea of improvising, I’ve had students just cry when you say, “Can you try improvising something?” 

It’s a touchy subject! It’s like singing, how people are way more sensitive about their singing. They’ll show you their drum licks all day, but you ask them to sing and they’re like, “Noooo!!” 

It’s the vulnerability! 

It’s a new level of vulnerability. But here’s the thing, it’s not very hard, all you have to do is just listen to a crapload of music, stuff a bunch of melodies into your brain, and then, just think about all of the melodies you know and think about them a lot. Always listen to music. Keep listening to the music you already have listened to and listen to new music. If you’re constantly listening then you’re going to be sitting on stage and everyone’s going to point to you to solo — say Cm going to F — BOOM! All of a sudden you’re playing, [Sings] “They smile in your face/ All the time they wanna take your place” on the guitar. You’re playing “Back Stabbers,” because suddenly  you’re going from Cm to F7 and you know it will sound good. You know? [Laughs] Because you’ve heard that melody and it’s not very hard! A beginner could play it. [Hums line] But you’re crushing it with some tone and everybody in the audience is thinking you’re a master. When really, what you’re playing is not that hard. It’s just musical. 

My jaw literally dropped when I was doing my research for this interview — you released five projects in 2020. Two double, live albums, the two volumes of Jackie the Robot, and also Vintage Machine. You also landed in the top ten of Pollstar’s livestream chart for the entire year. I hear you say “the train ground to a halt,” and I see a new train that didn’t just start up, but is roaring. I’m sure you see that, too. What does that pivot feel like now that you’ve got some retrospect. 

In that moment, it felt really busy, but it also felt kind of maddening. I was busy, but I was never leaving my house. Then it felt crazy. And in the next moment after that, the numbers started to juice. For a couple of months it was full stop, for a couple of months it was maddening like, “Wow, these numbers are really rad, maybe this is the way.” A couple of months after that I knew this was definitely the way. I stumbled upon the way. I was walking along on a path and then that path had like, a giant tree fall over it and I couldn’t go down it anymore. I saw this side path — you know when you’re in the woods and you see a path but you’re not sure it’s a path or if your eyes are just tricking you? 

“Is that a deer trail or is that actually a trail?”

Right. Is that really a trail? It’s like, “I don’t know… but there’s also a giant tree over the path I was on. Can’t go that way. I guess I’m going to go down this path, I hope there’s not too much poison ivy…” [Laughs]

That was the livestream path. There was maybe one creature that walked down this path, one way, one time. It appears there’s a path, but it clearly hasn’t been followed very often. That’s what it felt like, to be on this uncertain path, which then ends up opening up and it turns out I was right the whole time. The way I feel now is not the way I felt when it was all happening. The way I feel now is all because of having retrospect on my side. And the development — the direction things are going in. It’s a lot more clear than it was six months ago. 

 

I have found myself repeating throughout the pandemic that we should be building the world we want to exist after the pandemic while we’re in it. To me that’s what it sounds like you’re describing, finding this other path. Looking to the future, what will you be bringing with you from this time, into whatever a post-COVID reality looks like? 

The thing I’m taking with me is the fact that there’s never any need to be desperate, there’s never any reason to act out of desperation. There’s no person or contract to be signed that holds the “keys to the kingdom.” There is no kingdom. We are IN the kingdom. We just exist within different perspectives of it. Maybe your perspective in the kingdom right now is that you’re a baby band, you’ve just established yourself. You’re in the same kingdom as Beyoncé! You’re just standing in a different spot than her. There are thousands of spots you can stand in this kingdom. Beyoncé’s spot isn’t the only one that’s good. There are lots of places to stand! Millions of artists, that you don’t know about, are standing in pretty sweet spots in this kingdom that we all exist within, together. 

There’s no person that’s going to give you her spot. She got to her spot by her own weird, twisty trail to get there. Maybe a deer walked down it once! She took her own path. You’re not going to be able to recreate that, but she just took a path to get to a spot, not the kingdom itself. You consider that spot the kingdom, but we’re all in the kingdom already. The way we used to live had this weird illusion that we all had to climb these ladders, but really you just need to get where you want to be. You don’t need to climb that same ladder just because someone else climbed it, and they’re famous, and you’ve got to do what they did. It doesn’t make any sense, it’s completely futile, and you’re going to just be spinning in your hamster wheel, stuck in the same vantage point. There’s not one guy or gatekeeper who can unlock everything for you. There are people who will say they can, but what happens? You end up stuck at one spot, one vantage point. There’s no one person, one artist who has it all.

All photos: Ismael Quintanilla III

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

Posted on by Editor

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who are some of your country influences?

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

Who are your influences when it comes to showmanship?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Were you going to high school during this time?

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

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

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

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

LISTEN: ‘Once Upon a River’ Soundtrack

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Written and directed by Haroula Rose and based upon a best-selling novel by Bonnie Jo Campbell, the award-winning indie film Once Upon a River tells the story of Margo Crane, a Native American teenager who sets out to find her mother as her own life takes one dramatic turn after another. Margo is portrayed by Kenadi DelaCerna, in her screen debut.

Shot to evoke rural Michigan in the 1970s, the mood of Once Upon a River is frequently elevated by original music from Rodney Crowell, JD Souther, Will Oldham, Bridget St. John, Fran Farley, Peter Bradley Adams, and Haroula Rose, as well as an atmospheric score by Zac Rae. Hear the soundtrack below, and enjoy an exclusive interview with Haroula Rose.

BGS: This story is set in 1977. How did that influence the music you chose for the movie?

Rose: Having it set in the 1970s made me excited about being able to use my favorite era in both music and cinema as inspiration. It was one of the reasons I loved the source material for this very unique kind of road movie, because I knew at once that I could use some psych folk, soul, country and ambient sounds to get into this tale and characters. My film partner at Thirty Tigers (David Macias) was literally the first person onboard for this project, while composer (Zac Rae) and music supervisor (Mike Turner) were also among the first people creatively involved once I had the shooting script. As a musician first, I am always thinking about it as a central element even as I am writing, and the music is deeply embedded into the process from the beginning. I used certain themes Zac had created to play for the actors while we were on set and they were very moved by hearing them.

There are moments of quiet in this movie, too. It reminds me of the adage that a good musician knows when to play a solo, as well as when not to. Can you tell me about your process for placing the music into the film without distracting from the storyline?

I love that analogy! I feel that silence can be as potent as noise, and the pauses in the film all have a voice and are communicating something as well. Margo is not the most traditionally vocal character but is so expressive, thus the music had to parallel that… such that we are still able to feel her subjective experience through the pregnant moments of quiet as much as the action scenes. Ultimately it was about continually paring the story down, sculpting it to its very essence, and the music supported that goal since we were always allowing it to evolve and not give too much away too soon. There was this balance we had to strike with regard to supporting the story and not giving away the emotions before their time. I’m really happy to hear you say it worked!

The placement for Will Oldham’s “Always Bound” works especially well in this film. Can you describe why you felt that scene and that particular recording synched up so well?

Will was the first person to write an original song for the film upon reading the script, and it was this magical piece. In fact “Always Bound” was what I used for our very first scene we shot of the film, which was Margo by the fire when she is eating canned food and camping. I brought these bluetooth speakers out to the woods and played it as we filmed, so we all dropped into this same emotional zone. It was a special moment, having Will as a creative force of support right then at the start. So I already knew which space it would inhabit in the film right when I heard it.

As you were writing dialogue, were there any characters whose perspective, or “voice,” that you particularly enjoyed?

Writing Smoke and Fishbone’s dialogue and banter was super fun, because like so many other parts of this story that inspire me, it is a unique relationship. I loved it in the book too. In terms of perspective/voice, writing Luanne because she is someone who is very complicated and all too easy to depict in a one-dimensional way, was a cool process. I really liked trying to find a way into her that is more complex and nuanced, more empathetic in seeing and understanding her pain, as she struggles to communicate and to exist in the world.

There’s a Rodney Crowell song here, too, and it’s filled with imagery. How did that song, “The Damage,” make its way into the film? And what do you remember about hearing that song for the first time?

Well, Rodney was one of the people considered for acting in the role of Smoke! David Macias reached out and then Rodney and I had a conversation about it. It was surreal because I have long been a Rodney fan. Hearing him play years ago at the Old Town School of Folk literally changed the stream of my life. When he found out he couldn’t do the role, Rodney kindly offered up the idea of a song. I was tremendously honored and then upon hearing it, with its visceral imagery and his manner in singing it, I got very emotional.

He got to the heart of two lonely but loving souls we don’t often see, and their connection. And then recording it — I sang harmonies with him — was so special in many ways. It was similar with JD Souther who wrote a song that Smoke (John Ashton) sings in one of his final scenes. It feels like a dream how this all came together, very fulfilling in terms of making music and making films. I co-wrote a song with Peter Bradley Adams and Zac Rae for the soundtrack as well, that plays in the final scene; that song always gets me emotional too.

To me, cultural identity seems to be a significant theme in this film — in a sense of racial identity, but also privilege. Was that element of diversity part of what attracted you to adapting this film?

Definitely. Bonnie’s novel alludes to Margo’s bloodline, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase talent that would also add a dimension of depth to what the story is saying about “otherness” in her character as well as others, like her father (Tatanka Means) and Will (Ajuawak Kapashesit), who she meets along the way. It’s also part of her journey in coming to know herself and who she will be, that she knows where she came from. Will is the first person who asks her about her own potential, and hence why she makes the choice she does towards the end (no spoilers). In terms of privilege, I think it’s also depicted in terms of the Murrays and how they have interacted with and abused the land and the community, but I hope it’s conveyed that Margo is also someone with skills and talents that she learned from her father, which are a great gift. She has the depth and the comfort in being in the wild, knowing how to survive.

This film will be finding its way to even more viewers in the months ahead. Watching it now, more than a year after you completed it, what are some of the emotions you feel?

I still feel very inspired and emotional, especially at the ending. I also feel beyond proud of every single person involved and their hard work. It’s hard making an independent film and it’s my job to bring out the best in everyone. I hope the world out there sees that as they experience the film, the story, the music. A year after it premiered, 40 festivals and 19 awards later and many years after first reading the book, well it has been a wild and ambitious ride all to support a story that I truly believe we could see more of — seeing one another with compassion, empathy… Margo’s nonjudgmental and generous philosophy of live and let live… even or especially for those who cause you pain. It helps you find your own way.

Once Upon a River is available to watch via Film Movement. You can listen to the soundtrack on all streaming platforms.

Through His Music, Charley Crockett Speaks to ‘Hard Times’ We’re All Facing

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“Welcome to Hard Times,” the opening and title track from country crooner Charley Crockett’s eighth album is Crockett at his finest. He is pensive and pitch perfect, relevant and retro. “The dice are loaded, and everything’s fixed,” he sings. “Even a hobo would tell you this.”

It’s hard to tell if the 36-year-old Crockett is the hobo he references in that line, though it’s entirely plausible. As contemporaries cut their teeth at Belmont and Berklee, Crockett was busking on the streets of New Orleans and New York. While there, he learned how to entertain an audience in pursuit of a tip; perhaps more importantly, he learned the ways of this world, how we’ve all been ushered into a 24/7 casino where the house is telling lies and the gamblers are predestined to sin.

Welcome to Hard Times, comprised of 13 tracks of searing anguish set to slick, ’60s-style, country-western production, culminates with the particularly sorrowful “The Poplar Tree.” It’s a song that Crockett says has been received differently by different audiences, even as he — a man living somewhere between Black and white, privileged and not — feels that his message is obvious. “I have, many times, on this album cycle, said to press folks, ‘Yes, we’re all oppressed folks, but some folks just have it harder,’” he says. “And you have to recognize that.”

By phone, we talked to Crockett about his album, the role of artist as activist, and, of course, these very hard times.

Welcome to Hard Times sounds like you wrote it for this moment — in the midst of a pandemic, with widespread racial unrest — but you actually wrote it before everything went down. What inspired you?

You didn’t need this shit going on this year to know about these problems that we’re talking about. I don’t know how you could travel this world as an artist and not see it. I think that says everything about the nature of people. I recognize people are in different positions, but there are a lot of people who are in positions to not see what’s going on, and there are no consequences for them. Then there’s everybody else who’s forced to see it, who deals with it and suffers for it.

You’ve definitely been vocal in interviews and in your music. But even as you speak now, I get this sense that there’s a push and pull, or a toeing of some line that you’re subconsciously doing.

I’m trying to walk this line that is strange because I have been identified by a lot of my audiences as just a regular white man. Then there are a lot of people that look at me strangely as the complete opposite, as African-American. But I can’t speak for the Black community and I don’t really feel like I’m speaking on behalf of the white community either. I never saw myself as Black but I never liked my whiteness.

What does it mean when you say that you never liked your whiteness?

I dreamt of myself and viewed myself as not white from probably 5 years old. And then I look at myself now in videos and stuff, and I just… I feel like I look strange.

I guess what I’m saying to you is: My issues with my own identity tie to the kind of James Baldwin viewpoint that whiteness is just a metaphor for power, and that my identity as somebody who is uncomfortable in my whiteness says a lot about the relationship between Europeans in America and African-Americans and Natives. The romanticization of genocide is an unbelievable crime, but I think what is probably more savage and brutal is the assimilation through rape, through bondage, through [people like] my grandmother [who was mixed].

The easy thing for somebody to do is say, “Well, you can’t skip white responsibility for institutional and structural privilege.” I see that, so I’m not saying, “Hey, whiteness isn’t real, therefore nothing that’s happening to you is valid.” I’m saying you have to recognize that it’s happening, and then, if you truly wanna change it, at what point in the future do whites need to stop looking at whiteness as meaning anything? That’s the step that I feel is completely absent in the national conversation.

There are conversations happening though, right? And white people, at least some of them, appear to be really listening.

There’s a combination of white consciousness, and then there’s this other, fake, white virtue signaling. I just can’t stand some of that stuff ‘cause I see a lot of these people playing politics with their public image who are not doing anything in their life about shit. It’s whites signaling to other whites, and that’s what Martin Luther King was talking about at the end, you know? He really was. I think Malcolm X saw it at the end; I think James Baldwin, because he was so intellectual, was saying it to everyone, but he managed to get away with it because I think he seemed like he was mostly speaking within that kind of elite, intellectual world.

“Blackjack County Chain” is a song written in the ‘60s about a Black chain gang in Georgia that kills their supervising sheriff. Word on the street is that Red Lane, the writer, offered it to Charley Pride, but he passed on it because he didn’t want to stir up controversy. You covered it on Welcome to Hard Times, and it’s the only song on the album that you didn’t write. Why’d you decide to cut it?

I sung that song mostly ‘cause I listened to the words and identified with it. I feel like I’m dragging chains, you know? I just do. I always have. I think that that’s the other weird thing about America that is really hard to recognize, for a lot of us. It’s, like, no matter how much better a lot of these people have it, the insane thing that I’ve seen about America is, even among all these people in positions of power and privilege, they all view themselves as discriminated against and oppressed.

Your song “Poplar Tree” discusses lynching. Was there a concern about going too far when you wrote it?

I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking a whole lot about where that song was gonna go. It just went there.

Right, because you said this stuff dominates your mind.

It just does. And it’s who I am. I am in the public eye on some level and people got all kinds of crazy shit to say about that. And it is not lost on me that, for whatever reason, these people saying the crazy shit that they’re saying about me, they got nothing like that to say about these people that I’m getting compared to in the independent, Americana country scene. Even if I can sing ‘em under the table, they don’t criticize how they sound, but they criticize me up and down. And I’m not blaming them; I’m not mad at ‘em, I’m asking for it, in a way. I know that I’m asking for it, ‘cause I can just pack up and stop doing this shit.

 

Like, let’s talk about folk music. Let’s talk about blues, back in the day. When these guys were singing about their situation, it was all code. It had to be code because if it wasn’t, that might mean your life. So I’m stepping up and down to say this shit loudly, but I’m trying to build my audience to a place beyond where it is now. I’m just saying, I don’t exactly know who I’m speaking for, really, because of how completely outside of this society that I feel.

How did playing on the streets for so long shape you as an artist?

To me, that’s the best education I could’ve ever gotten in my life. It was unfortunate circumstances and difficult living that brought me there, but I would never wanna go another direction. It’s informed what I’ve done, and I learned about folk music, hip-hop, and everything else. I just absorbed it all on the street, and I made it into what it is now.

I have people in country who look at me like, “This guy’s an imposter! Look at this video of him on the subway train ten years ago! He’s wearing a beanie and tight pants; he’s not a real cowboy! He’s not country music!” And I’m like, who is more authentic than me? I never got a leg up in the business, period. I never opened up for anybody of note. I built my career out of the most unlikely of circumstances.

Do you think artists have a responsibility to speak up about social issues?

It’s like this: If your art isn’t saying shit, I don’t care about your political opinion. Like, if your art isn’t making an impact, your political opinion, to me, is little more than you trying to get ahead. And I mean that about white people; I mean that about everybody. If the art isn’t doing anything, then what’s the point?

Photo credit: Laura E. Partain. See the full photo story.

Lori McKenna Shows Love of Every Kind on ‘The Balladeer’

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When it comes to capturing life’s big loves — romantic ones, sure, but also the love between siblings, parents, children, and friends — Lori McKenna is one of the strongest songwriters of our time. The Stoughton, Massachusetts-based singer finds fodder in the everyday moments that most of us overlook, reminding us that every day is worth singing about.

Her new album The Balladeer, produced by Dave Cobb, embraces the same openness, expert wordplay, and quiet wisdom that have become her hallmarks. “This Town Is a Woman” uses extended metaphor to reflect on the push-pull of a hometown. Perceptive songs like “When You’re My Age” and “Til You’re Grown” offer hope and direction to a younger generation, while “Good Fight” is an ode to hard-won, imperfect, lifelong love. The Balladeer shows McKenna at her best.

BGS caught up with McKenna by phone about where she found the courage to try open mic night, the advice she’d give to aspiring artists, and the family moments that keep her centered.

BGS: How did you first begin writing songs?

McKenna: I started writing songs with my two older brothers that were songwriters. They always wrote songs in their bedrooms and that’s what I would always do with my siblings. I grew up just outside of Boston and we were listening to singer/songwriters and talk radio and things like that, but not a lot of country music. But strangely enough, the first song I wrote was a country song about… a rodeo? [Laughs] My mother was like, Where did this come from? I joke now that I must’ve brought it along with me from another life.

How did that evolve into performing and writing professionally?

It was really unexpected. I’m sure my husband would say this as well, but I didn’t know that I could do music for a living. I never sang outside of our house, because I had such a strange voice — certainly, compared to my siblings, I have like the weirdest voice out of all of us. My siblings all sing so beautifully. [Laughs] I never thought that I really could do it.

I always say my kids really gave me the courage to really step out and try. I started doing open mics around here in the Boston area because we have this really great community of venues and a great acoustic or live music scene. But it was especially a surprise to me more than anybody else, that I could do this. It has been such a big part of my life since and I’m very thankful for it.

“This Town Is a Woman” finds so many ways to drive home the metaphor: “You curse her every time she tries to change / and when you’re not happy, you swear that she’s to blame,” which sounds like a tumultuous relationship, or “The way you talk is partly her fault / From the back roads to the church parking lot,” which sounds more motherly. What was the first example that clicked for you, that told you this was a comparison you could make?

The song came to me in a strange conversation that I had with Dave Cobb on the phone one day. He called, and he was talking about putting together a record of women singer/songwriters in the Nashville community. The next day, I was driving my daughter to school, and it just occurred to me that if a town could have a gender — you know, the way they name storms after women, or boats, or whatever — surely a town would be a woman. I mean, there’s just no question.

It’s very motherly, in my brain. She’s gonna let you grow up and push you out, but she’s gonna wait right there for you to come home if you need her. She’s always gonna see you as yourself. She’s gonna know things about you that nobody else knows. It’s that calling; that call of the blood, the call of the hometown. Springsteen talks about it in Springsteen on Broadway, how he couldn’t wait to get out of there and now he lives five minutes from where he grew up. We all have that in us. And if so, it’s definitely because … well, it’s a woman.

And you live in the same town where you grew up. What do you love about where you live?

I think there’s just something in my bones about New England; it would be hard for us to leave here. I live just up the road from where I grew up in this town — I could walk to my dad’s house — and my husband grew up here as well. Our kids had some of the same teachers we had. Family is such a big part of both of our lives. I’m the youngest of six kids. My mom passed away when I was little, and when that happened my family just hunkered in on each other. The older I get, the more I realize that my siblings are such a big part of my life. I need to be around them.

You write a lot about family, specifically about motherhood. You were young when your mother passed away, but is there any specific way you feel she shaped you, particularly as a writer?

There’s some sort of button that was pressed when we lost my mother. I had just turned seven, and when there’s a death of someone that big in a family, and you’re that young, everyone’s going to come up to you and explain that your emotion is warranted: This is a real emotion, you should have it, it’s your right to have it and own it. When kids have really blissful lives, everyone’s brushing off their emotions a lot. You’ll be okay. You fell, but you can get up. You don’t need a Band-Aid. You’re tough. But because at such a young age, I had this family around me that said, “You’re sad, and it’s okay,” it stuck with me. I gave my emotions, when they came to me, a little bit more space than some people are able to. Me having the right to a very powerful emotion at such a young age informed a lot about being a songwriter.

What advice would you give someone who’s just embarking on a career as a songwriter and artist?

The biggest thing they have to be careful of is not changing themselves to bend toward what is in style at the moment. I was so lucky, in so many ways, that I started so much later than everybody else. I was too set in my ways to change very much. Your best asset is to be yourself — nothing is going to be always right for everybody, so you might as well. I think with any kid growing up, they have to learn not to look at social media and feel like it’s a lesson book on how to be. You have to be who you are right this minute, and it may be different next year, but you still have to be who you are as an artist — even if it’s an artist that’s not ready.

You recorded the title track a little differently than the others on The Balladeer, two vocals singing in unison throughout. Why?

That was one of my favorite production moves of the record. It was Dave Cobb’s idea and I’ve never done it on a whole song before. Making demos over the years, there are times where you’ll double your vocal on a chorus, but that song actually doesn’t have a chorus. [Laughs] That’s the reason he thought to do that. He didn’t tell me he was going to do it: We tracked live, and when we finished, he said, go ahead and sing it again. I said, What do you mean? It’s over! You’re crazy! And it just came out so good. To a producer, a song like that, without a chorus, is a little bit of a challenge. And he just brought it to life.

The main character in that song struggles with an insecurity — the idea that if she stops being sad, she won’t be able to write. Have you encountered that fear in the songwriting world — in yourself or in collaborators?

I definitely have had that conversation with people over the years, and I’ve always been kind of the opposite of it. I’ve been so lucky in my career and in my life, and I’ve had so many blessings — things I don’t even know how I got so lucky to do. People sometimes ask me, “How are your songs so sad when you’re so happy?” … But I think your job as an artist or as a songwriter is to learn how to not always need the pain to be able to write. Pain cannot always have to inform your craft. Once I discovered that character in “The Balladeer,” I liked the idea of her being challenged by that, and then coming back and realizing that there is pain in life no matter what — it just doesn’t have to be all of it.

So many of your songs are a good reminder of that balance, the good and the bad. Right now, is there anything in your life that centers you when things get tough?

That’s such a good question, especially now, because we don’t really know what’s next. Every day is like four days, emotionally. This whole time and space thing is like… you forget what day of the month it is, but you’ve had four emotions before lunchtime. For me, I still draw from music, and I’ve had really, really great dinners in the backyard with my kids, because everyone’s slowed down a bit.

In the past, my husband and I have taken the kids on vacation, tried to do all these things to make all these moments. But this year my favorite moments have been sitting in the backyard, with takeout, and talking to each other. We’ve all had to slow down a little bit, and as scary as that seems sometimes, I’ve tried to find the beauty in it. Watching most people around me find the beauty in it has been rewarding, too.

Photo credit: Becky Fluke

After Nearly Dying, John Anderson Adds ‘Years’ to His Life

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Over the past few years, country crooner John Anderson’s inimitable voice escaped him after suffering health issues and brushes with death. Through the creation of his new album, Years, he found it again.

In the album’s opening song, he opines, “There were people placing bets that I’d be dead and gone/But I’m still hanging on.” Although he does not disclose details, he does concede that the illness affected his hearing and, in his words, “I had nearly died a couple of times.” Listening through the album produced by Dan Auerbach and David Ferguson, it is clear that now Anderson is doing more than just hanging on; he’s creatively thriving. He tells BGS what it was like getting back in the studio, how he’s spending his time amidst the pandemic, and his feelings about making music these days.

BGS: Tell me a little bit about how Dan Auerbach came into your life.

Anderson: Actually we were introduced through a mutual friend by the name of Jeremy Tepper. He does a lot of work for Sirius/XM Radio. We’ve been friends a long time and he called me one morning and said, “I was with this guy the other day and we were talking about you and I would really like you to get together.” I said, “Well sure, I’m really not doing much these days.”

He asked if he could give Dan my number and I said, “By all means, give it to him!” The next day or so I got a call from Dan and we ended up setting up a meeting to get together and talk. Originally mainly just to talk about writing some songs together. At the time he was busy producing some other acts. I thought they might need some material and I thought I might help them write some.

What was your writing process like for this record? I’ve read you had some surprise co-creators on this one. What was that like?

We did. It was great. Looking back, I have to thank Dan and Dave Ferguson (aka Fergie). They were both involved in setting up the writing appointments. As it turned out, I got to write not only with some heroes, but some great old friends. It was really a joy. Writing these songs was a real pleasure for me. And it was at a time when I really needed to do some writing and get some music out of me. I’d been sick for a couple of years and hadn’t been able to do much writing or performing. At this point, I was recovering and really wanting to get back into my music.

This was all really good for me as far as writing the songs. We wrote for a couple of days, then the recording part came up. I remember saying, “Boys, I don’t know. That’d be great, but I’m really not sure I can do it.” I think it was Fergie who said, “We think you can.” I looked at him real serious and said, “Really?” And they both nodded. There wasn’t a lot said. It was a pretty solemn time there. I remember saying, “Well, if I do it, I’m going to treat it like it is the last one I’ll ever do.” Just because I was in that frame of mind at the time, mostly due to physical health reasons.

What was the moment like when you stepped up to the mic for the first time?

For me, singing is really something I’ve, thank the Lord, never really had to think about it, when it is time to step up to the mic. I do spend a lot of time thinking about singing, mind you. Most of my life I’ve walked around humming a tune. And maybe humming it a different little way. But when it is time to go into the studio or when I step up to the mic, I’m kind of on autopilot. I’m mainly trying to deliver the song, whatever the song is.

That certainly comes across in your singing.

Well, thank you. I want it to be real, in every kind of way. I’ve been a real stickler for that through my career. Sometimes you pay a price for that and sometimes it doesn’t turn out as good as you thought. On the other hand, when it is all over you can be proud of doing your own thing.

When you had those songs together, what was the recording process like? Did you cut them all at once or piecemeal?

We went in like three or four days one week and then we took a little break. I don’t even think we took a week break. We cut Monday through Thursday it seems and then took the weekend off and showed back up Monday. We had about 20 songs to choose from that we’d written over the previous months. I’ll always recall that as a really good time in my life. It really helped me to heal up. Even to the point today, I almost forget I was ever sick.

That’s so great.

It’s a blessing, is was it is. It took a lot of praying to get it. And now I am, and have been, well enough long enough that now the music is back on autopilot. I just do it all the time.

There’s a heaviness on this record as it deals so pointedly with mortality. On the flip side, it explores the simple pleasures in life and these elements really balance the record. Can you tell us some of the simple pleasures you are finding in life in these strange times?

I kind of found them a bit earlier through the songs and doing this record in a time when yeah, I had nearly died a couple of times. So, mortality is certainly in some of these songs, as far as my influence on them. Now there again, I can’t take the credit for any single song on the record because we had a lot of great help writing them. But my influence is a lot about mortality and the part in the songs about being thankful. That was kind of where I was at the time.

And you know what? As far as the situation right now and playing shows. … That’s been probably the biggest part of my life ever outside of my family has been going and playing the music to the fans. That’s pretty much all I have dealt with for the last fifteen years. As I’ve not been actively in the recording business, my live shows are what mean the most to me. It is a little bit difficult not knowing if or when or how we’ll be playing again to crowds. That’s been on my mind.

On the other hand, I feel very blessed to still feel healthy and have a great outlook. I’m still trying to write and sing most every day and doing a lot of gardening work and doing a lot of fishing. Fishing and gardening is what I’ve been doing and trying to play with my grandchildren. You have to save up energy to go do that.

How did the collaboration with Blake Shelton come about?

Blake is an old friend. I was a fan of Blake’s when I first heard him and then come to find out, he’s told people I was one of his biggest inspirations. At the time, when we were recording this record, low and behold we got a call from Blake’s people asking if we’d be interested in going on tour with him. For me, I did have to cancel tours previously on account of my hearing was nearly gone at the time. I didn’t have a working band. I hadn’t been on the road in a while.

I told them I didn’t have all that together and they said it was just for a few songs a night and his band will back you up. I said, “Really? That’d be a real treat. That’s like chocolate cake.” So it did work out and about the time the tour worked out we were finishing some of the tracks on this record and I said, “I’d love it if Blake could come in and sing with me on this.” We asked him and he was very gracious and did. Not only that, he invited me on the tour the next year also. Blake Shelton is a true hero of mine at this point. The tour was called Heroes and Friends and he’ll always be one of my heroes.

Do you ever revisit your old records? With all you’ve been through, do you view those songs in a different light?

Oh, I do. And I have been lately. That’s part of what I’ve been doing in this solitary time. What’s really been going through my mind lately are some of the songs that I thought were just as good as anything that I had ever written but really nobody got to hear them. Maybe I have twenty of them. I’ve been thinking about going in. It’s strange that you’d mention old stuff, and I’m talking about even from the time I was a teenager. Just things that I might go in and work on. Mainly just to pull it together and have that piece of work together, those songs. I’m thinking about that lately.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen