Tag: Jack White

The BGS Guide to Vinyl: Record Clubs

Posted on by Editor

Is your New Year’s resolution to finally get into vinyl? No? Well, unless you already have crates of LPs hanging around your house, we think it’s time to change that answer to “yes.” Audiophiles have long loved vinyl for its analog sound, large artwork, and the way a record demands you sit down and pay attention — you do have to flip them, after all. New artists have caught on and often release new material on vinyl, so you don’t have to be a fan of vintage music to get in on the action. And, once you do get started, collecting vinyl can be just as fun as listening to it.

If you aren’t sure where to start, though, record clubs — which provide customers with regular, curated subscriptions to vinyl of all kinds — are a great place. There are a bunch of them out there offering various levels of commitment and all kinds of music. We’ve rounded up a few of our favorites below to get your tables turning.

Third Man Records Vault

If you’re a fan of Jack White or his label Third Man Records, this one’s a no-brainer. Subscribers receive quarterly packages of all kinds of goodies — records, singles, pins, and more. Membership also gets you all kinds of digital goodies, like a discounted subscription to TIDAL and access to live chats with White himself.

Vinyl Me, Please

Vinyl Me, Please is your go-to club, if you like options. They have three different subscription levels (meaning you can pay annually, quarterly, or monthly, and receive your shipments accordingly) and offer limited editon releases that you can’t get anywhere else. Packages come with other goodies like cocktail recipes and original art prints, while membership itself gives you access to their exclusive online store.

VNYL

This is the club for you if you’re all about custom curation. Instead of sending the same package to all subscribers, VNYL curates your picks to your musical tastes. With three different subscription levels, VNYL can get you into a few new tunes or build you your own custom music library.

Magnolia Record Club

We’ve written about these folks before, and we still think they’re pretty great. This club, curated by musician Drew Holcomb, gets you one new record each month. It’s perfect if you don’t have a lot of space to store records or if you really want to dig into one great album. Past albums available through Magnolia include Chris Stapleton’s Traveller and Joseph’s I’m Alone, No You’re Not.

Lede photo credit: maycrater via Foter.com / CC BY

Karen Elson, ‘Distant Shore’

Posted on by Editor

There is a story behind the making of Karen Elson’s The Ghost Who Walks that she has spoken about often. And that’s how, while writing the songs and working out the melodies on her guitar, she hid away in her bedroom closet so her family wouldn’t hear her. It’s a stunning revelation from someone who — as a model, as well as an artist — spends much of her time in front of the camera, making a living from being comfortable in her own skin … or at least making us believe that she is. For whatever reason, that story struck me immediately, before I’d even had time to digest the sheer beauty that was encased in her debut album, a perfect amalgam between the folk music of her British upbringing, the modern roots found in her new home of Nashville, and the grit of New York City, whose streets she has traipsed many times before. It resonated, because what woman amongst us hasn’t felt the need to shield ourselves from sharing something so vital, for fear of being judged — judged for being too loud, too pretty, too quiet, too aggressive, too ugly, too powerful? For wanting something too much? Or, perhaps, judged just by those closest to us? Even our aspiring female presidents are not immune.

It’s been seven years since Elson took that leap and let The Ghost Who Walks go from her closet floor to iTunes, and now she’s no longer a musician in secret: Double Roses, produced by Jonathan Wilson, will be released April 7 with help from the likes of Pat Carney, Benmont Tench, Laura Marling, and Father John Misty. Elson just released her first single, “Distant Shore,” and the way it’s been received is enough to force anyone back into seclusion: And that’s how many have made more of a story out of some supposed feud between Carney and her ex-husband Jack White, as if the work of a woman, who happens to be beautiful, couldn’t simply exist as anything but part of some vendetta orchestrated to address the men around her. Newsflash: It’s not. With gentle strings, lush keys from Tench, and her crystalline vocals (alongside backing from Marling), it carries with it the sweetness of Cat Stevens and the emotive touch of an acoustic Mazzy Star. “I am alone, I am free,” she sings. Sometimes freedom does come in solitude. But Elson shows us how it’s so much more freeing to open the door, and stop hiding.

Exploring Their Own Parking Lot: An Interview with Shovels & Rope

Posted on by Editor

When Shovels & Rope played the Vogue in Indianapolis recently — on just the second show of their current tour — the stage looked like it was ready for a much bigger band. There was the drumkit in the center, just a kickdrum and a snare, with a small keyboard possibly duct-taped to it. There were a few guitars, plus an electric piano on stage left. The backdrop was a wall of wooden pallets, worn and weathered from use. It was a big stage for a big room, but there were never more than two people up there, trading off instruments and creating a mighty racket.

“We’re a little tiny band, but we make a lot of noise,” says Cary Ann Hearst, one half of the duo. “We do have a little bit of set design now and a lighting set that makes us look really cool. It’s a way to grow the visual part of what we do.” Shovels & Rope may be getting bigger, but the band remains resolutely small.

Eight years and four albums into their career, Shovels & Rope is still a duo featuring the wife-husband team of Hearst and Michael Trent. On the new Little Seeds — their first for New West Records and their debut as parents — they ramble recklessly from the pedal-to-the-metal storytelling of “Botched Execution” to the heart-on-sleeve thanksgiving of “St. Anne’s Parade.” It’s one of the most bracing and original albums of the year, simultaneously tender and tough, wiry and wounded, punk and country.

Did playing in bigger rooms and even signing with a bigger label change how you approached playing live shows or touring?

Michael Trent: No, not really. Along the way, we have played some larger rooms. We played all types of places — coffeeshops to arena-type places — when we opened for Jack White. I feel like we just do what we do, and hopefully people will come along for the ride. We’re lucky enough that our audience is pretty rock ‘n’ roll, but they will calm down a little bit and appreciate some of the more tender moments in the set.

Are you thinking about a live show when you’re recording?

Cary Ann Hearst: No. Michael can do whatever he wants in the studio.

MT: You don’t want to make something that you don’t sound anything like. I wouldn’t want to put in a bunch of bass and cymbals. When we’re in the studio, it’s in the back of my mind what we can get away with and not, what we can re-create and still make equally impactful in a live show.

The one I keep thinking about in those terms is “Buffalo Nickel,” which has that great drumbeat that sounds like Rick Rubin. It sounds like Jay-Z’s “99 Problems.”

CAH: Thank you for that kickass compliment. Michael made an analogy today about that: “Our sound is like a parking lot. You can drive all around the parking lot, cruising into different corners and exploring what was there, instead of it being like a linear highway that you follow along the course of your career.” I thought that was pretty genius for Michael to say that.

MT: We’re still sort of figuring it out as we go, but that’s also part of the fun for us. We’ve got to think on our feet and get creative with what two people can do with four arms and four legs. It’s four, right?

CAH: Yeah, four.

MT: All of that stuff is really fun to try to bring to life in front of an audience. A lot of the songs, like “Johnny Come Outside,” they’re pretty sing-songy, and there is nothing too particularly out there about any of them. I think they tell a good story, so they are fun to play.

To me, on this album, there is an interesting mix in the songwriting. There are some songs that sound like fiction, like “Botched Execution,” versus something that sounds like nonfiction, like “The Last Hawk.”

MT: I think you’re on base. We enjoy character-based songwriting and have explored that over the past few years. We did write some personal songs on here, and “The Last Hawk” was personal — not to our own lives, but trying to pay tribute to Garth [Hudson].

CAH: We read an article about Garth Hudson visiting Big Pink for the last time. He recently went there for some reason. I don’t know why we were both so moved. It’s like time is going by, and you look at it over the course of your lifetime — the little choices that you’ve made, the tiny things that you do that made the biggest difference, little things that you couldn’t have anticipated. Like Michael said, while that song is not about us, it’s about Garth and life as a band. Life is going by, and you look up astounded at the little things that made all the difference.

That idea seems to inform a lot of these songs, especially “St. Anne’s Parade.”

CAH: We didn’t realize it when we were writing that song. We were coming home from New Orleans after a road trip for a friend’s wedding. Now more time has passed, and those friends just celebrated the birth of their first daughter. Life keeps on moving forward.

MT: We didn’t set out to make a record about songs with some of these events and home life on them. It just happened. They are songs honoring some of these people who were dealing with things such as Alzheimer and loss of loved ones.

CAH: We would have happily skipped most of it, as far as the events that inspired the songs. I would rather have never had the songs to sing. I could always find some other damn song to sing.

I think that’s what makes the last couple of songs so powerful, especially “Eric’s Birthday,” which features a recording of his mother telling the story of how he was born. I didn’t know Eric [Brantley], but I saw that he had died. That song gave me a picture of this person and an idea of what he meant to you.

MT: It was a beautiful moment when Suzanne was telling that story. We discussed it before we put it on here and made sure she was okay with it. We had to think long and hard about it, just because of the personal nature of it. In the end, it seems like the universal sentiment was a beautiful moment in time, like there were people gathered together celebrating somebody’s life and grieving and having a laugh about this fantastic story of how he was born. Everybody was laughing through the tears, and it just felt like a real universal sentiment.

CAH: Obviously, you have to respect the legalities and the privacy that people are entitled to, but there’s another side of it. They’re your own personal memories, the conversations that you have and the voices of people you love. Often, they’re lost to time. So these recordings are like little movies on your phone. We’ve got recordings of our own family and friends that will always be with us. We’ve got their voices so that we can play them for our daughter in five or 10 years. Here’s that little conversation she had with her grandmother. I have those from when I was a little kid. I think that’s’ a great way to archive a life. It doesn’t have to be every waking moment, but just any little precious moment.

It definitely seems to underscore how precious some of those small moments in life can be. On “Eric’s Birthday,” it’s not even about the story itself, but the way she’s telling it. I think that makes it very relatable to people who never knew him.

CAH: I think that’s why she was okay with us sharing such a sensitive and intimate period of her life. For one, it’s not anonymous to us in any way, but we’re careful to protect that moment. We are personally so grateful to talk about Eric and his life. That’s the unseen side effect of sharing this story on the record. We’re sensitive to her feelings, and we would never want to exploit his family. It’s not a way to capitalize on his loss. It’s a way for us to share that experience with other people who have also lost somebody and have had to find a way to celebrate that person.

Do you mind if I ask what her reaction was to the finished recording?

MT: I had been in touch with a close friend of hers. I didn’t have her contact information, but I was able to send it to her. It was a very sensitive time, and they were still moving his stuff. But I felt like she might want to hear it. There wasn’t a plan to put it on the record until we found out what she thought of it. She got right back to us and told us it made her happy. She thanked us for it. And then later, when she listened to the whole record, she reached out and just said thank you. That’s the most you can hope for — that it helped her a little bit.

We were talking about how these songs are fun to play, but that quality is balanced out by the gravity of a moment like “Mourning Song.”

CAH: When you’re putting an album together, you’re hoping for a nice balance. We may come to a place in our lives where we need to write a really sad record, or a record that’s nothing but rock ‘n’ roll, but our writing tends to be balanced anyway. When we put these songs together, that balance is kind of there. We did it by accident, but we’re glad it worked out that way.

How were these sessions different than from previous albums?

CAH: We had a newborn in the house, first of all.

That will make a big difference.

CAH: My availability was limited, and there was a sense of urgency, in the sense that Michael and I don’t really do very many takes of anything. This time we had three or four takes, and if it wasn’t catching, we had to move on. There’s an immediacy that we strive for. We’ve always had self-imposed deadlines, and this was no different. We were under pressure — self-imposed, gentle pressure. I don’t know if you have kids, but there’s a helplessness for dad in those first three or four months. He might not have a whole lot of energy left after taking care of me and the baby and the house, but he has to focus that on the record. He saved the day everyday.

MT: Of course, I was kind of useless in the infant department for a while, but I did have plenty of time to go upstairs and play. It was definitely a struggle to try to get schedules lined up and not make too much noise when the baby was asleep. At the time, it was pretty intense, but it really couldn’t have worked out better in hindsight.

You were talking about the self-imposed time constraints. What prompts that kind of limitation on yourself?

CAH: We make a living by touring. We don’t really make a living selling physical copies of records. We’re on the road all the time. When we have a window, we have to make time for recording. We honestly can’t afford not to live on the road. We can’t really stay home and take a year to make a record. We don’t really operate that way. I know a lot of people who can work that way, and thank God they make great records. That’s not the way we do it. These windows of time and these deadlines keep us going. It keeps us on task to always be writing and to know when an opportunity to make a record is coming. It’s pretty much just dictated by necessity.

MT: Since we have to crack a whip on ourselves, we just set personal deadlines, but I just feel we work best that way. If you have too much room to roam, it’s just like having too many options. I’d rather have an amplifier with three knobs on it rather than one with 20 knobs. I know the limitations of it and I can work within that box a little easier. I feel like having too many options is not the best way to work, for me specifically.

CAH: I think some people can use anything and some people need limitations. I’m not art expert, but I think Andy Warhol could do both. He started with nothing, built the Factory, then when he has unlimited resources, he kind of sticks to his visual. You always know you’re looking at a Warhol. By no means do I mean to compare us to an artist like that.

MT: Some of our heroes are great limiters. Jack White is somebody who has whatever resources available to him, yet he still keeps himself limited, just to keep the pressure on himself. He operates best when someone’s poking him with a sharp stick. I feel like we also thrive with a little bit of struggle. Take the critter that can be the most adaptive in whatever type of environment, and that’s the critter that gets to make extra critters.

CAH: It’s us two on stage, but as we grow, there’s this little family that we travel with. Our sound man who is also our tour manager, and now we’ve got a merchandise person running that whole end of our business. Julie the nanny is taking care of the baby. Now there’s a lighting designer making sure that we look pretty and the homemade set that our tour manager built is illuminated with cool graphics. It’s still small, but there are way more people making it happen, way more little elements that make it special.

MT: We still feel inspired and creatively satisfied, eager to explore, eager to try new things. It’s nice to be in that position. Who knows where it’s going to go next? Maybe we put out a noise record. Maybe we’ll put out a record that’s all …

CAH: … accordion playing.

 

To read about another band breaking down barriers, check out Stephen’s interview with Chatham County Line.

Peachy Pie

Posted on by Editor

I've tossed. I've turned. I've sighed. I've gagged. But I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna give you my pie recipe.* I'm gonna suck up my selfish pride and share with you the very thing that gets me invited back into people's homes, time and time again. The thing that people talk about for years on end after having tasted it just once. The thing that two men (who shall remain nameless to protect their lives) have said out loud to me, "It's better than my grandmother's pie" while clenching their teeth and ducking in front of me for some reason — as if they expected the spirit of Gram Gram herself to come up out of the ground and smack them in the back of the head.

Hozier got one. Lee Ann Womack got two. Jack White got three (one of which John C. Reilly told me that he unapologetically devoured — Jack's birthday peach pie — in gluttonous revelry).

The list goes on. No, this isn't a failed attempt at a humble brag. It's a full on gauntlet thrown down. Consider this similar to one of those infomercials, where it sounds too good to be true, but then you spend the money to order the product and it gets shipped to you and you try it out and find yourself saying, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle! You CAN stick a peppermint wrapped in plastic into that hot skillet and it WILL NOT STICK." Money. Well. Spent.

So let's just get down to it because, if I write about this any more, I'm gonna renege. Big Time.

First things first — or, rather, one thing only: IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CRUST. The pastry, baby. The pastry. This is where you cannot cut corners. You need to go on ahead and buy the good stuff. I can't promise you that your pie will turn out like my pie if you don't want to fork out the cash for the organic all-purpose flour and organic *salted* butter (which is blasphemy to many, I know … trust me, I know). If you use vegetable oil, margarine, or whole wheat flour (what is even wrong with you?!) or any myriad of substitutions, don't write to me to ask why it didn't work for you. Also of note: This is not me saying that other pie recipes which utilize the aforementioned ingredients are crap. I have had many people's pies and many people's pie crusts and enjoyed them. Not everyone follows my code. I'm not here to say this is The Be-All End-All Mouth Explosion. I'm just telling you that it has been that, in my experience, to folks near and far.

Also of note: I studied under the tutelage of one Judy Brooker, a multiply awarded pie maker in Wisconsin, who happened to also give birth to my longtime musical brother, Sam. (She should get an award for that, too.) Although my recipe is different from hers, I wouldn't be who I am today without her. Thank you so much, Judy.

To steady my nerves (due to the big reveal), I'm listening to Joni Mitchell's song "The Circle Game" from her album Ladies of the Canyon. I'm actually listening to the whole album, but this song, in particular, is poignant to me at the moment, thinking about the seasons changing — not just in nature, but in my own life. You can't fight it; you just have to give in. It's better that way, really. And also because pies are, well, round … and round … and round.

Okay. Love you. Buh-bye.

*Full disclosure: I have a few pie recipes. I'm only giving you one of them. This is my basic, no-fail, peach pie recipe. As for the others, you'll just have to invite me over for dinner sometime.

INGREDIENTS
For the crust
2 cups organic all-purpose flour (plus extra for flouring your rolling pin and your surface)
2 sticks organic salted butter
1/4 cup organic cane sugar
1-2 cups of very cold, pulp-free orange juice
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup brown turbinado sugar

For the filling
3 16 oz packages of frozen peaches
2 tsp lemon juice
2 cups organic cane sugar
3 Tbsp organic all-purpose flour
2 tsp ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS
Preheat over to 350.

Place frozen peaches in a large bowl. Sprinkle lemon juice and all of the sugar on top and toss well to coat. Leave in the fridge over night or for at least three hours in the fridge to expel unnecessary juices.

With a large, wide knife, cut all butter into 1/2 inch cubes. Transfer to a small, chilled bowl.

In a 7-11-cup food processor or large mixing bowl, add flour and sugar. Using the pulse setting on your processor or a manual pastry cutter, add butter into flour in fingerfuls, pulsing or cutting in the butter until incorporated. If using the processor, that will be about 6-8 pulses. If using the pastry cutter, work it in until there are no large cubes noticeable. Repeat this step gradually until all of the butter is incorporated. The mixture will be a pale yellow, when it's ready. It doesn't have to be pea-sized crumbles. It just needs to be crumbly and pale yellow with no white flour streaks showing. If you still have white flour exposed, process the mixture more until the color is that even, pale yellow … but NEVER knead your dough. Ever.

Pour ice cold orange juice in tablespoons into the mixture and pulse or process until evenly distributed. Keep adding o.j. in tablespoons until it starts to look and feel like pie dough, pulling away from the sides of the bowl. Pinch a small piece of it with your fingers. If it holds together without crumbling at all, then it's ready to roll out. Don't worry if you get the dough a little too wet by accident. You'll just need to coat it with more flour before you roll it out.

Dust a clean, dry surface with a quarter cup of flour. Spread evenly in a loose, round pattern with a circumference wider than your dough will be rolled out to. With a gentle yet firm motion and either a spatula or an open palm, collect the dough into a large ball. Place the ball in the center of the flour on the surface. Sprinkle extra flour onto the dough ball if it's sticking to the surface or onto your hands. Cut the dough ball in half and wrap each ball in plastic wrap and put in fridge … if you want. I, personally, only do this task sometimes. Mostly, I take my rolling pin to it immediately and lay it into my pie dish, add my fruit and top crust and bake it straight away and it's amazing. However, if I've accidentally added too much liquid to it, I will do the refrigeration step because it firms it up enough for me to roll it out.

Watch a tutorial on how to properly use a rolling pin on dough and roll out your dough into two rounds about 10 inches wide. If you don't know how to do it, it's unfortunately something you just have to see and then experience to learn how to do it. You can also hire me for 50 bucks to come over and train you. It's rather exhilarating once you learn how.

Lay your bottom crust into a 10-inch pie dish. If you only have a 9-inch dish, that's totally fine, too. You will have excess dough on all sides. Take a butter knife and cut around the edges against the side of your dish, leaving 1 inch of dough hanging over the sides. Drain out the majority of liquid from the now-thawed and sugared peaches. Don't worry: It will naturally make more. Add 3 tablespoons of flour and toss to coat. Add cinnamon and toss to coat. Drain one final time, if need be. Pour peaches into pie dish.
Place top crust onto peaches and seal both edges of the dough by crimping and pinching the dough together, little by little.

Take a paring knife and create some air pockets towards the center of your top crust. Get creative. It'll taste good no matter what it looks like, so might as well have fun with it.

Brush your beaten egg onto every bit of exposed crust that you can see. Sprinkle brown turbinado sugar liberally and evenly onto your entire crust.

Place a baking sheet wide enough to catch any potential spillage onto the oven rack just beneath the rack that the pie is going to go on. Place your pie on the center rack of the oven.

Bake until it smells and looks good.**

**Sorry. Some things just have to be instinctual. If you are watchful and trusting of your gut, you will not fail in this. I believe in you. I will strongly advise you to purchase pie edge covers, though, to cover your crust's edges in the oven once they start to brown slightly so that they don't burn.

 

To follow Ruby Amanfu's culinary adventures, check out Recipes by Ruby. Prefer strawberry to peach? Give Natalie Schlabs' pie recipe a whirl.

That Old Feeling: Vince Gill in Conversation with Margo Price

Posted on by Editor

We usually think of musical traditions as being defined by their distinctive stylistic elements: the hard-driving string bands of bluegrass; the nimble, fingerstyle guitar figures of Piedmont blues; the rhythmically frisky washboard and squeeze box of Zydeco. It’s quite possible, though, for us to hear a kinship to country tradition in the music of two artists who serve two separate audiences in separate ways. That’s certainly true of Vince Gill and Margo Price — he, the mainstream country standard-bearer; she, the indie country newcomer. They may both incorporate time-tested textures like pedal steel guitar, but they belong to markedly different traditions of countrified emotional expression.

A classically trained singer who’s cultivated a tough vocal attack, Price musters a worldly brand of feistiness and hardship-withstanding resilience that takes significant cues from Loretta Lynn. And, much as Lynn’s down-home grit has come to command the admiration of a younger generation of rock-reared fans who value rawness and autobiographical authenticity — not to mention attract Jack White as a collaborator — Price’s music holds powerful appeal for that same crowd. It’s White’s Third Man Records that is releasing her bewitching debut, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, an album that arrives with a vintage aesthetic and an underdog narrative: She had to part ways with her car and wedding ring to pay for it.

Gill, on the other hand, ranks as one of modern country’s finest, most tender voices — an openly emotional balladeer par excellence who’s equally at ease with honky-tonk weepers in the George Jones vein and sensitive, sophisticated adult-pop. That expressive range has long endeared Gill to popular country fans and made him a radio fixture through the ’90s. The same major label that was his home back then, MCA Nashville, just put out the immensely rewarding new set that he recorded in his home studio, Down to My Last Habit.

Though Gill’s singing and songwriting often exemplifies the softer side of country and Price stakes out spunkier territory, they had no trouble at all speaking across the divide.

Margo Price, meet Vince Gill. Vince Gill, meet Margo Price.

Vince Gill: Well, it’s great to hear from ya, Margo. Are you doing okay?

Margo Price: Yeah, I’m doing well. How are you?

VG: I’m just fine.

Before you got on the line, Vince, Margo and I were talking about the fact that she’s doing her very first Opry performance this Friday night.

VG: Oh, that’s awesome! It’s a big deal. You will never ever forget it, I can assure you.

MP: Thank you!

It just so happens that Vince is celebrating his 25 th anniversary as a member of the Opry very soon.

MP: Yeah, congrats!

VG: Aw, thanks. I’m just old.

[Both Laugh]

MP: Well, I’m pretty old to be making my first appearance on the Opry. Do you remember the first time that you played?

VG: I do, yeah. I got asked once to play the Opry, I think, in ‘88 or ’89. My daughter was in the second or third grade, and we were all set to do this talent show at school. She asked me to play guitar for her, so I taught her “You Are My Sunshine.” We practiced and learned it and had to make all the rehearsals. [The talent show] was all set for a Saturday night.

So I get this call from the Opry, and they said, “Hey, we’ve been watching your career. We want to invite you out to play the Opry.” And I said, “Awesome! When?” And they said, “Saturday night.” I said, “Oh, my God. I can’t make it. I’m playing at the Grassland Elementary School. I’ve gotta back up my kid.” So I kept my promise to my kid, and they invited me on down the line a little bit later.

MP: That’s really beautiful.

VG: Yeah, it was really cool. Jimmy C. Newman was the one who did the introduction, and I sang “When I Call Your Name.” That’s the first song I sang on that stage. I’d just written it and had hopes for it. I don’t even know if I’d recorded it yet.

MP: Wow, that’s really cool.

I love that we’ve begun this conversation with you two comparing stories. I’ll open with a question for both of you. I admit I almost feel silly asking this of a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame who is himself cited as an influence by so many singers. Here goes anyway: What country singer sets the bar for you when it comes to conveying emotion and being expressive?

VG: Go ahead, kiddo.

MP: Well, I have always been really drawn to a lot of singers of the ‘50s through ‘70s, especially women. Loretta Lynn, I think, is kind of where I’ve tried to set the bar. She could sing so tough, but she was always talking about something. I think Tammy Wynette, too. She could go one second from sounding really vulnerable and fragile to just kind of overcoming and somehow coming out strong, even though she didn’t feel that way. I think probably those two, and Dolly. The three of them I try to live up to, which is a hard thing to do.

What about you, Vince?

VP: One of the most emotional singers I’ve ever heard is Patsy Cline. You felt a tear in the way that she sang all the time. Then the earliest George Jones records. They sounded hungry. They sounded forlorn. They were full of melancholy. To me, that’s the epitome of a great country singer, is you honestly find the emotion, not necessarily through the words of a song but through the emotion of a singer. Come to find out, when I got to be great friends with George, he told me, “I was trying to emulate Roy Acuff.” If you listen to a Roy Acuff record, you hear him do the same kind of thing that George did, but George did it quite a bit differently, with some more soulful notes and bending notes a little differently. But there was a real similarity in them.

I remember when I was first starting to make country records, I wanted to be so traditional, but I was at a label that really wasn’t all that keen on having a real traditional roster. So I was a little bit lost. When I started on my first record, I was singing my heart out as best I could. My producer, Emory Gordy, graciously told me, “Listen, that sounds great, but we already have a George Jones. You need to find your voice. You need to find your way that you want this emotion to be conveyed. Don’t ever imitate. Be inspired by, but find your own voice.”

Vince, the most traditional-sounding song on your new album is the one you’ve dedicated to George Jones, “Sad One Comin’ On.” It’s a real weeper about being deeply affected by his singing in life and deeply affected by his passing. What went into that song?

VG: Just the truth. The greatest songs come from the truth. The truth was he lived every word of that song. All I had to do was tell his truth through my eyes. There’s one moment in that song where I really feel like I channeled him in a really beautiful way. In the last verse, there’s a line that says, “He’d tear your heart out when he sang a song.” Just the way that the word “tear” came out of my mouth, I wanted that to be an instant where it sounds like George.

Margo, I’ve read that you have an interesting connection to George Jones. Is it true that your great uncle is the songwriter Bobby Fischer, who wrote Jones’s “Writing on the Wall”?

MP: Yeah. He actually just had his 80th birthday. His daughter surprised him by getting everybody to sing songs that he wrote. Of course, I picked “Writing on the Wall.” That’s one of my favorites. It was so nerve-wracking. I sang it in front of him and Dickey Lee. George is probably the greatest singer of all time. It’s crazy that he lived the way he did and he could still belt.

Vince, you’ve joked that you cried like a baby at George Jones’s funeral. I was listening live on WSM that day, and I think you filled a really important role in the collective grieving process when you sang your song “Go Rest High on That Mountain” and got so overcome that you couldn’t get the words out.

VG: It was interesting, because I think it gave everybody the okay to let go. Before [I sang], it had all been so performance-oriented that, when I kind of lost it, it gave the room the ability to cry. … Truth be told, what really tore me up was hearing Patty’s [Loveless] voice — the sound of her voice and mine and the history of the two of us [singing together]. We were there getting up for George. So it was a combination of all those things: the passing of one of the true greats.

What’s it been like watching “Go Rest High on That Mountain” become a modern-day standard that people turn to for comfort?

VG: It’s pretty overwhelming, honestly. I was not gonna record that song back in the day when I wrote it. My brother passed in ‘93, and that was my way of honoring my brother and grieving for him and putting it in a song what I hoped was in store for him. I’m so grateful that we did choose to put it out. I guess people have said it’s become the modern-day “Amazing Grace” almost. … When people wanna turn to something you’ve gone and created, in their hardest of times, I can’t even describe how grateful I am [for that].

Not all the songs on your new album are melancholy, but a lot of them really testify to the depths of people’s feelings toward those they love or desire, those they’ve delighted in or let down or been wounded by. For you, how is that kind of sensitivity linked to mature expression?

VG: All I know is that all I’ve ever wanted was to be moved by music, not so much to be impressed. Certain voices can sing all the notes, all the runs, all the licks, or a guitar player can play every note in the book, and at the end of the day, you go, “Well that was impressive, but it didn’t do anything to stir an emotion in me.” That’s kinda what the whole point of it has been for me.

Margo, you were joking earlier that you’re belatedly reaching this point in your career. You’ve been grinding it out in small clubs for a dozen years now, something like that.

MP: That sounds about right.

Since this is your first album under your own name, it’ll be most people’s first chance to form an impression of what you do. The title you chose, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, brings to mind Loretta Lynn’s Coal Miner’s Daughter. What appeals to you about drawing a connection between where you’re coming from and where she was coming from?

MP: It was definitely kind of a nod to her, and also a nod to the Beach Boys’ song [“Farmer’s Daughter”]. It just felt really good to be honest and say where I’m from. I wasn’t born in the South, and sometimes people wanna make a point that I’m not allowed to sing country music or something because of that.

There have been great Canadian country singers.

MP: Yeah. I mean, you’d be surprised when you look back. Connie Smith, she was from Ohio. But yeah, I think it was nice to say something simply about who I am and where I came from.

To get a little more specific, how did Loretta Lynn’s tough-talking tell-offs, songs like “Fist City” and “Don’t Come Home a-Drinkin” and so on, influence some of your songs, say, “About to Find Out,” for instance?

MP: [Laughs] That’s a very good comparison between the three that you just mentioned. That one [“About to Find Out”] definitely mirrors the attitude in her songs. I just always loved that she was able to talk about things and not shove an idea down someone’s throat, but maybe [show] the other side of the coin. “The Pill” and things that she really went out on a limb to do, that kind of writing and living on the edge excites me.

You sing from the perspective of somebody who’s lost the family farm, or who’s spent a weekend in jail, or who’s been kicked around by life and the music industry — someone who’s gone through all that stuff and is a scrappy survivor. That’s the persona I get from a lot of your songs. What feels right to you about singing from that place?

MP: I think, for so long, I was writing from a different point-of-view. That may or may not be why it’s working now and it wasn’t then. I think, like Vince said earlier, the best thing about songs is honesty. An honest song is a good song. I feel really confident when I sing it, because I’ve lived it. It’s a form of therapy, I think, to just get it out and wear my heart on my sleeve a little bit. Plus, everybody loves an underdog.

Have you noticed that people seem to really place a lot of importance on the idea that the hardships you’re singing about are literally your autobiography?

MP: … It’s been interesting that that’s what people want to talk about. I guess the songs are interesting. I think, when I was writing 10 or 12 years ago, I didn’t have a lot of life experience. Like Vince was saying earlier, when your brother passed and you wrote that song, you kind of go into survival mode of, “How do I make myself and other people able to cope with tragedy?” Through that, you get thicker skin and you move on and, hopefully, you can share some of what you’ve learned with the folks around you.

Vince, the way you use your voice — the vibrato and curlicues and bent notes — makes a tremendous difference in making people feel a song. What would you say it takes for you to put that tenderness across vocally?

VP: Well, I think that the key to great singing is when you don’t; it’s when you stop. And what I mean is, if there’s this long line of words, it’s kind of like breathing. You want the listener to be able to take a breath, too. So often singers will sing all the way across the end of a phrase, all the way through, so that they cover up where maybe the hi-hat ends or the guitarist does what he does or whatever. The point of it all is to make room for everybody. That includes the singer.

I think a voice is either interesting to you or it’s not. It’s not going to be more interesting to you if you can sing more notes or if you can sing louder or harder or what have you. … What’s funny is, most singers will find a thing that they think is their thing, their go-to thing. And, to me, it’s generally the least appealing thing that they do. [Laughs] I don’t know why that is, but I’m sure that’s true in my case, as well. There are some go-to things that I think are my thing and everybody will roll their eyes and go, “That’s not what it is.”

MP: [Laughs]

VP: So I don’t know that I’ve got the answer to what it is that I do that people are drawn to. I’m grateful that they are. I think it’s the ability to be subtle with what you’re trying to do.

Margo, you have that no-nonsense, tough vocal attack and hard-edged phrasing. People have compared it not only to Loretta Lynn but also Tanya Tucker, and I’d throw in Wanda Jackson, too. How do you feel like you summon toughness in your approach to singing?

MP: You know, I had so many years of classical training. I was in choir and sang a lot in church and my mom would drive me 45 minutes up to this voice teacher in the city. She would teach me all the things, but it really is about just the raw emotion underneath it. I’m sure I still use some of my technique here and there, but I don’t find myself over-thinking it, because that’s when I’ll mess up. Growing up, too, in the school choir that I was in, the choir director, she never wanted to give me solos. Every now and then I would get to be in an ensemble. It was just like Vince was saying — people either like your voice or they don’t. And I think some people really love my voice because it’s different and it stands out. I’m sure other people are just not sure what to think of it. It’s got its own thing. I don’t quite know how to explain what I do, I guess.

I’d love to close with another question for both of you. We’ve been talking about the emotional traditions that you’re each working in. How do you feel like masculinity or femininity shapes what you do? How do you make use of either in your expression?

MP: You wanna go?

VG: Go ahead, buddy.

You’re both so polite!

MP: I know. Too polite.

… I do love a lot of male musicians and songwriters. So I feel like there’s part of me that’s always been a little jealous of the way that guys have the ability to sing more powerfully. Sometimes there’s this misconception that women have to sing pretty. I guess I like a good mix of the two. I’ve kind of been trying to get back into exercising my head voice a little more, because I do use my belting chest voice a lot. Like I said, I have classical training and I would sing mezzo-soprano Italian songs. I really exercised that delicate, sweet voice. But I think that, for a long time, I’ve kind of wanted to do the opposite and belt things out like Hank or Merle or George — or even women who commanded it, even Etta James or soul singers that really drove it out. You know, you have to find a good balance that works for you. Hopefully I’ve landed somewhere in the middle of that.

VG: [Laughs] You’re asking a question about masculinity and you’re talking to a guy that sings higher than most women on the planet. I already sing like a girl.

I just think that the real key is more about the soul that you bring. You sing what’s appropriate for the song you’re singing. … All you really want to do is sound authentic when you’re singing. You don’t want to sound like, “Hey, I’m a country singer singing a rock tune. Hey, I’m a jazz singer singing a country tune.” I think that each song is gonna dictate the way you should sing it. You may wanna sing it hard, but that could be wrong. I think that it’s more a song to song choice. I can honestly say I don’t think anything about masculinity at any point when I’m singing.

[All Laugh]

I really appreciate you both being good sports about this.

VG: It was fun.

MP: Yeah.

VG: Margo, have a great Friday night. I’m happy for ya.

MP: It was really an honor to speak with you today. I’m not gonna lie: I was a little nervous.

VG: Don’t be!

MP: You’re so sweet.

Illustration by Abby McMillen. Vince Gill photo by J Wright. Margo Price photo by Angelina Castillo for Third Man Records.

The 2015 Americana Music Awards Winners

Posted on by Editor

Sturgill Simpson and Lucinda Williams were big winners at this week's Americana Music Association Honors & Awards. Check out the full winner's list below.

Album of the Year: Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone, Lucinda Williams, Produced by Lucinda Williams, Tom Overby and Greg Leisz

Artist of the Year: Sturgill Simpson

Duo Group of the Year: The Mavericks

Song of the Year: "Turtles All The Way Down" Written by Sturgill Simpson

Emerging Artist of the Year: Shakey Graves

Instrumentalist of the Year: John Leventhal

Spirit of Americana/Free Speech in Music Award co-presented by the Americana Music Association and the First Amendment Center: Buffy Sainte-Marie

Lifetime Achievement Award, Trailblazer: Don Henley

The Lifetime Achievement Award, Songwriting: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings

Lifetime Achievement Award, Instrumentalist: Ricky Skaggs

Lifetime Achievement Award, Performance: Los Lobos

President's Award: BB King

Other Roots Music News:

• Listen to a new track from Donnie Fritts at Rolling Stone. 

• Check out Rolling Stone's photos from backstage at the Americana Awards.

• Jack White and Patrick Carney fought or maybe didn't fight and nobody really cares. [Consequence of Sound] 

• Sharon Jones announced that her cancer has returned. [Pitchfork] 

• Now you can finally hear Ryan Adams cover "Bad Blood" in its entirety.