Jaimee Harris Archives - The Bluegrass Situation

Basic Folk: Mary Gauthier & Jaimee Harris

Posted on May 1, 2025June 6, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris talk to Lizzie and Cindy for Basic Folk onboard the Cayamo cruise in front of a live audience. We get down to business in addressing nice things by asking Mary what kind of shoes she’s wearing – as she has a reputation for enjoying the good stuff, especially on her feet. After that, we asked and Jaimee enthusiastically answered the age-old question: What is the correct number of shoes to bring on tour? They generously share about their relationship, which began two years after they met as teacher (Mary) and student (Jaimee) in a songwriting workshop. Interestingly enough, both Harris and Gauthier have been playing music for about the same amount of time, despite their age difference. Jaimee, mid 30s, and Mary, early 60s, are also both sober and expand on what it’s like to be students of their own patterns.

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We also talk about their touring life, songwriting processes, and the alchemy of transforming personal trauma into art. We get to hear the very cute story of how Jaimee first heard of Mary Gauthier, by way of Ray Waylie Hubbard’s song “Name Dropping.” Mary, in turn, talks about her first impressions of Jaimee’s songwriting (spoiler alert: she was completely floored). They share their future plans with us, where they say there will be a Harris-Gauthier album, right after Jaimee completes the three records in her head and Mary writes her second book. They also share what it’s been like when they are together and around people who know Mary (who has a higher profile in the Americana world), but don’t know Jaimee. Each comment that they feel for partners in relationships with people who are “actually famous.”

We end with a great Lightning Round, a game we like to play with partners called “Which One.” We think they might have enjoyed that, because on the last day of the cruise Mary, getting off the boat, shouted, “Thanks for the interview! The Lightning Round was a real moment!!”

Photo Credit: Will Byington

Out Now: Jaimee Harris

Posted on April 22, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Jaimee Harris is a thoughtful songwriter, a kind and quirky human, and an insightful individual. It was an honor to speak with her about her upcoming tour, the inspiration behind her songs, and how she takes care of her mental health in a demanding industry. Our conversation touches on everything from her daily routine – right down to crafting the perfect cup of coffee each morning – to how she stays grounded on the road, to the process behind her songwriting.

We dive into her haunting song, “Orange Avenue,” written about the tragic shooting at the Pulse LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando, Florida – a thoughtful and chilling track. We also explore the details of the title track of her 2023 album, Boomerang Town, a story song rooted in both fact and fiction. It follows intriguing characters with intricate pasts, the restless ache to escape small-town limits and achieve something big, and the soul-crushing realities of a harsh world.

I hope you can feel Jaimee’s humor, intellect, and warmth through this interview.

You have four months of touring coming up. You’re playing shows across the U.S. and you’re also headlining a tour in the Netherlands and Belgium. How does all of that feel and what are you most excited and anxious about?

Jaimee Harris: Mary [Gauthier] and I just got home from being on this incredible thing called Cayamo, which is like a floating music festival on a cruise ship. We were on that boat for seven or eight days and just got home last night. We leave again this weekend for tour. So I’m trying to pretend I’m not home right now. Because if I switch into this mentality of, “I’m home now,” then that just disrupts the system. So I’m looking at this week as if I’m still on the road. With just like a couple days off.

I’m so excited about touring the Netherlands. It’s one of my favorite places to play. It’s one of my favorite places to be. I love the people there. I love the culture there. And it’s been cool because I’ve been over there many times as an opening act, but I’ve never done my whole set there. And it’s been my experience that the people in the Netherlands can really handle and really enjoy the dark songs.

How do you find constantly being on the road? And, how do you balance that with mental health?

Well, I’ve learned that I need to have a couple of things in place to make me feel comfortable and it doesn’t take much, but one of them that is so important to me is my coffee, which might seem silly. But there’s this coffee I love from Austin, it’s called Third Coast, and Mary Gauthier, my partner, used to run restaurants in Boston and one of the only things she kept from her restaurants when she sold them to move to Nashville to become a songwriter is this industrial coffee grinder.

Every morning we grind it and make espresso and that’s like a huge part of my joy. And we bring it on the road with us. I bring a little kettle and my Hydro Flask, I’m a Hydro Flask girl.

Me too! Mine is right here! [Pulls up Hydro Flask]

Amazing! I love them so much. So the water bottle is a huge deal on the road.

Every morning when I start my day with that coffee, it sets me up for success. Having a little bit of routine to keep me tethered to something while we’re on the road is really helpful. I’ve found that I can always find 15 minutes throughout the day to move my body. Making that a priority for me helps everything while I’m on the road. I love being on the road. Today, since we just got home yesterday, I’ve just been on the couch all day. Re-entry is always hard for me. So today I’m just watching movies and being a weirdo on the couch.

Could you tell us about your recent interactions with Emmylou Harris?

I think coming off this thing we just did on the boat was incredible and Emmylou Harris is my number one hero of all time.

Her guitar tech, Maple Byrne, gave us a heads up a few weeks ago that Emmy might want me to play guitar and sing with her for this [songwriters] round we were in. I literally was driving a car in the Hill Country in Texas and I had to pull the car over and scream. I was like, “There’s no way! That’s my number one hero!” And I didn’t even believe it was gonna happen until it happened.

Earlier that day [during Cayamo], I played a show as me on the boat. Twenty minutes before I played, security walked Emmylou Harris and her friend to my show. I literally had to run to the bathroom! I was like, “I’m gonna be sick. I can’t handle this. This is crazy! THIS IS CRAZY!” I literally forgot the first two lines of the first song, because I was so in shock. I just couldn’t believe that happened and then I got to play with her later that afternoon. My wildest dreams have come true!

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You’ve mentioned Mary a little bit. What has it been like for you to find a partner, Mary Gauthier, who is both a partner in life and also a partner in music, playing shows and touring together?

It’s been incredible. I have learned so much from her about what it is to be a troubadour from the business side of things. She’s so wise, because she came to music after running three restaurants. She has a lot of business experience that she’s been able to apply to the world of being a troubadour, which is incredible. She’s been able to do what she does inside her own integrity in a way that’s really beautiful to learn from. And I get to live in a house with one of the greatest living songwriters. I truly think she’s one of the greatest songwriters of all time, and it’s made me a better writer. Just getting to watch her, how hard she works on songs. She is a real hard worker. I mean, she’s got a lot of natural talent, but she chisels and chisels and chisels songs out of the marble. And so it’s made me up my editing game.

Your song “Boomerang Town” is so beautiful and relatable and intimate; it’s a story-song format. How did you come up with the idea for “Boomerang Town” and what does that song mean to you?

It came in different stages. I’d always wanted to write a song about where I grew up. I’m from a small town just outside of Waco, Texas. I remember being in my early twenties and trying to explain to people where I grew up and I came up with the phrase, “It’s a boomerang town.” People try to leave, they end up going back there pretty quick. That phrase had been in my mind for a while.

In 2017, I got asked if I wanted to sing a verse of “This Land Is Your Land” during this 4th of July celebration. The songwriter hosting the song said, “What verse do you want?” I said I want the steeple verse. The verse is: “In the shadow of the steeple, I saw my people/ By the relief office, I saw my people/ They stood there hungry, and so I stood there asking/ Was this land made for you and me?” In my hometown, there’s an interstate, I-35, that runs through the center of it and on the east side of that interstate there’s a steeple from the Truett Seminary in town and on the west side there are two relief offices. The interstate creates a bridge and there’s been a community of people living under that bridge for decades, like my entire life.

When I saw those words, I saw my hometown. The songwriter said, “I always thought Woody got it wrong with that verse.” I couldn’t believe that he would have such a different take on that verse; that planted a little seed for me. I worked on that song for years. I tried a bunch of different perspectives. I initially started with myself and I couldn’t find a way for the song to move forward if I was the narrator. I tried it from the perspective of a veteran. Then I tried it from the perspective of a woman who worked at a cafe. I decided her name was going to be Julie, because I’m a huge fan of Buddy and Julie Miller. I finally landed on the perspective of the 17-year-old boy who worked at Walmart that knocked up his girlfriend. Which is a combination of me when I worked at Walmart and somebody else I knew. That’s when the story started to take off.

I’ve had so many experiences where people came up to me and said, “Hey, you got that song perfectly right.” Like, “My brother died under that bridge, I know all about that scene.”

Also, being a woman from Texas, with the way things are going there – nationally and politically, that song, how it ends, has a way deeper impact than I could have imagined when I wrote it in 2020. The choices women had in 2020 are more than we have now in 2025. There’s no way I could have known that when I was writing it.

You’ve just passed 11 years of sobriety. Is there anything that you’d like to share about your sobriety, your support system, and addiction in general?

Well, I couldn’t have done it without 12-step recovery. I’m very active in 12-step recovery. That’s been my lifeboat, doing it with other people. Someone in recovery said this thing that has stuck with me: “At five years, you get your marbles back. And at 10 years, you get to play with them again.” I feel like that’s true. I’m learning every day.

I remember when I first got into recovery, people would say this thing that I could not understand, “I’m so grateful to be an alcoholic.” When I got there, it was through the criminal justice system, so I was going there to get a paper signed. I was like, “What are these people talking about?” I can’t tell you how many times over the last six years I’ve said, “I’m so grateful, because I have a support system in a time when a lot of people feel really isolated.”

You spent some time in Florida in 2022 and you wrote a song called “Orange Avenue” about the 2016 shooting at the Pulse LGBT nightclub. What does this song mean to you, and what was the process of writing it?

I decided to visit a bunch of spots in Florida to collect stories and write and record a song in each town. I spent a month traveling the state. I wasn’t even gonna go to Pulse, and then somebody mentioned it and I said, “Okay, I’ll check that out.” Everything about it really floored me. I was imagining this bar being in an entertainment district, where there are a bunch of bars. It isn’t like that, it’s a neighborhood bar. So it’s just house, house, house, house, a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street, and then Pulse. Of course it was a gay bar, but it was also a bar that you could get into if you were 18 and up. So it’s also a place where younger kids could get in and just go dance and have a good time. Which is why the youngest girl that was killed was 18 years old. She was there on vacation with her family.

Now it’s been deemed a national monument. When I was there, it was kind of makeshift. There are pictures of people, notes to loved ones, poems, just all sorts of tributes. Then there’s this one kind of official-looking plaque. It has the names of 48 people that died in the shooting. To the side of it says at the request of a family, one name has been left off this list. I was wondering, what’s the story there? I looked it up and it turns out there was a man of Middle Eastern descent and his family didn’t know he was gay until he died in the shooting.

They were ashamed of that. It took quite a long time for anyone to agree to come pick up his body. That’s how deep the shame was. At the time, I believe the police chief of Orlando was a lesbian and because of the element of it being a neighborhood bar, because there were people that were there just because they could get in because of their age, they weren’t necessarily going to come out and say, “Hey, this was a hate crime.” When they found out that that family didn’t want to come pick up their family member, they said, “We have to tell the world that this was a gay bar. This was a hate crime.”

I tried the song from my perspective, but it didn’t really have the impact that it did until I put it in a perspective of that man and his ghost and what it would be like to embody that man’s experience. It was an honor to write that song.

Photo Credit: Brandon Aguilar

You’re Looking At (Feminine) Country

Posted on February 9, 2024March 19, 2024 by Justin Hiltner

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Eight years ago, in 2016, the harp-playing half of Brooklyn-based folk duo Devil & the Deep Blue Sea, found herself filing away songs for a solo project.

“There were certain songs… [that] would tell me who Lizzie No was going to be,” she explained in a recent phone interview.
“There were songs that felt very personal, very femme, and a little more country and a little more pop than would be appropriate in my band. Those songs started getting categorized into the ‘new solo project’ category. And then, I just had to come up with a name, you know. Like, I needed my Sasha Fierce alter ego, to be able to stand in myself.”

The name she landed on, Lizzie No, was a doozy. Considering the femininity she noticed her new songs projecting, the decision to include the word “No” in her name was no small thing. Women, especially feminine women – especially Black feminine women – have a special relationship with the word. It was important to No that her solo singer-songwriter persona reflect the energy she wanted to project, the space she wanted to carve for herself and her songs.

“I think there’s a real difference between singing songs that you wrote in the context of a band versus being a solo artist and having people literally look at you, in your physical body, and associate the songs with you and yourself. So I needed an identity, a performer identity, that would be able to encapsulate the confidence and the directness, and yes the femininity, that I wanted to present with these songs that I was writing.”

The idea of mindfully presenting femininity is nothing new, of course. Women in all professions must decide how they’d like to present; how many minutes or hours they will spend before each workday putting on their face and dressing to impress. But, there is a special place in the history of country music for artists taking the stage while female.

It was far less than a century ago that female country singers were expected to travel with a husband, brother, or other male family member as their escort. Women country singers were expected to eschew ambition and to primarily be a pretty face with a pretty voice.

All that started to shift when Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters made their Grand Ole Opry debut in 1950 – the first all-female band on that storied stage. In fact, well aware of how women were perceived and received by the country music establishment, Mother Maybelle nonetheless insisted her daughters become masterful on their instruments, develop independent business acumen, and forge a career on the stage.

For the 74 years hence, women who can and do shred have been of great interest to country music critics and fans alike.
Author and critic Marissa A. Moss dove deep into this subject with her 2023 book, Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Busted Up the Old Boys Club. Meanwhile, on social media, fans and artists alike routinely return to the evergreen topic of how much airplay women get (or, rather, don’t) on country radio.

To consider what it means to show up wholly oneself while feminine in country music can feel like engaging with a Groundhog Day loop through tired, generations-old expectations. Granted, the options for women have broadened a bit since the Carter Sisters showed up in their gingham checks and transcended what one might have expected from pretty women who sing and play. (A new documentary by Kristen Vaurio on Paramount+ about the youngest Carter Sister, JUNE, is well worth a stream.)

The modern answer to the Carters’ quietly subversive embodiment is a cadre of demonstrably feminine women like Allison Russell, Margo Price, and Amanda Shires. Recent Grammy winner Russell comes off like a clarinet-wielding, angel-voiced supermodel, self-made from equal parts awful trauma and infectious joy. Price appears as a cross between Willie Nelson and Cher, riding her biting narrative lyricism on the vehicles of magic mushrooms and low-cut, glittery fringe. Shires saunters about in spiked heels and leotards, a finer fiddler/poet than you’ll find anywhere else on God’s green earth.

That each of these women is stunningly talented as a lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, and performer, is inarguably the most important thing. But the messages they convey by leaning hard into how they wear their gender, remind us that women in country music no longer need to amplify the pretty and take the brilliance behind the scenes. There’s more than enough space for both/and.

It wouldn’t be a leap to suggest this is thanks in part to a rising tide of queer country artists. Lizzie No, Russell, and others – Jaimee Harris, Brandy Clark, Jaime Wyatt – prioritize songcraft as equivalent to crafting persona. Other queer artists like Paisley Fields subvert the masculine/feminine binary with candid expressions of personhood that transcend traditional femininity while remaining sonically adherent to traditional country music.

All of this raises numerous questions, including: What does 21st century femininity bring to the cis-het boys’ club of country music? Shouldn’t women get country airplay while also being free to show up as the full human they are?

Lizzie No is a good example of a walking answer to both questions.

A rising country singer whose music lands warmly – a stew of Dolly and Emmylou, a twinge of Kris, just a pinch of Sleater Kinney – her new album, Halfsies, is a mostly-country and occasionally rock and roll rumination on the intersections of love, identity, and freedom. While it may resonate for plenty of men and folks who don’t identify as feminine, it is, in other words, about the numerous conundrums and longing-for-transcendence of womanhood.

“There’s a patriarchal anxiety around performance and illusion, and we associate that with femininity,” No says. “[I’m] actually leaning into that and saying, ‘It’s all a mask. Gender is a mask for me and for you.’ That’s a big part of how I’ve constructed my identity as Lizzie No. I am one thousand different things and [you shouldn’t] try to narrow it down musically, or in terms of gender.”

She goes on to affirm that the way she constructed her performer persona is similar to drag. Considering country music is most often associated with Nashville (where No recently relocated from New York City), it’s worth considering that this new wave of feminine people in country music has risen at the same time as a push-back against drag performers in the same state and across the country. The tension between these two phenomena is mostly political and definitely charged.

When indie band Yo La Tengo played a show in Nashville shortly after the state passed its anti-drag bill, their decision to wear dresses onstage was a funny, tongue-in-cheek protest. An overt resistance, an assertion of allyship. This is different from when someone like nonbinary country singer Paisley Fields steps out in a sheer top and jewelry, or a dress. The former is clowning on politicians; the latter is throwing on something comfortable to engage in vulnerable, intensely personal creative expression. The former is playing to its indie rock audience, replete with left-leaning, ironic hipsters; the latter is forging a path of their own in the country music world, where femininity is a little more… complicated.

“The first thing that comes to mind when it comes to femininity in country music is just how misogynistic of a genre it is,” Fields said in a recent interview.

For example, they added, “The first time I wore a dress [onstage], I noticed the way people treat me is very different. Even if I’m just in a more, like, sort of flamboyant or more feminine look—maybe hot pink pants or something – I’m treated very differently. If I’m wearing a dress, it’s almost a little scary.”

Over the past couple of years, since coming out as nonbinary, Fields has been exploring what it means for a person assigned male at birth to express authentic femininity on a country stage. Indeed, they are just as likely to appear in the jeans-boots-hat costume of a country man as they are in a sparkly net top and purple chaps – an outfit nobody would look twice at, were it donned by Margo Price or Lizzie No. In the process, they’ve firmed up their own convictions around country music’s relationship with femininity.

“It would be better for a woman to be masculine [in country music] than for a man to be feminine,” they say. To clarify: “Some of the most successful women in country music are obviously very feminine and embrace their femininity, like Dolly Parton and [Shania] Twain. But there is this sort of like, tough as nails [persona], which I guess is perceived a lot of times as masculine.”
Granted, this tough-as-nails persona is often an outcropping of the mountains these women have needed to climb in order to make it onto the big stage.

In her 2022 memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, Price detailed a few shady encounters with Nashville songwriters and executives who saw her as a young, hopeful girl who deserved to be exploited. That she survived these instances and earned success with her music on her own terms, in the end, perhaps lends itself to a tough-as-nails persona. But it is one that comes from being a woman with well-marked boundaries in a misogynistic boys club. When she rode into the 2022 Stagecoach Festival in a crop top and glitter skirt, on horseback, she knew she’d earned the right.

This balance of toughness and femininity (often used in a context where it’s synonymous with “weak” or “fragile” or “naïve”) is indeed not a stretch, but rather the innate characteristic of a woman with a strong moral center and the desire to get hers.

Lizzie No explains perhaps better than this writer can.

“I feel my most feminine when I am in some way using my physical body to achieve political ends,” she says. “To me, that’s my ideal of femininity. It’s like the women who lured Nazis to their death by being hot. When I want to post about taking down the government, you know, I will always use a bikini pic. … Because it’s like, hey, look over here, you’re going see my midriff and you’re going to learn about how capitalism has alienated us from ourselves.”

Photos of Lizzie No by Cole Nielsen.

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You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Nina de Vitry, Paper Wings, and More

Posted on January 19, 2024January 19, 2024 by Justin Hiltner

This week, BGS readers enjoyed track and video premieres from artists like Appalachian up-and-comer Colby T. Helms, jammy bluegrass string band Armchair Boogie, a full album preview from Clay Parker and Jodi James, a tender and heart-wrenching From ONE to Tenn. performance by Jaimee Harris, and many more.

Below, you’ll find each of our premieres from throughout the week, plus enjoy exclusive, brand-new songs from artists and musicians like Nina de Vitry, Paper Wings, Jesse Lynn Madera, Billy Gilman featuring Rhonda Vincent, The Coal Men, and more.

You Gotta Hear This!

Nina de Vitry, “If We Didn’t Have Night”

Artist: Nina de Vitry
Hometown: Born in Lancaster Pennsylvania, based in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “If We Didn’t Have Night”
Release Date: January 26, 2024

In Their Words: “‘If We Didn’t Have Night’ was recorded during the creation of my recently-released, debut, full-length album, What You Feel Is Real. Though it echoes a similar theme of optimism to many of the songs on the album, I realized that it didn’t sonically belong in the collection and instead begged to be a standalone single. The song explores new territory in my songwriting journey, celebrating some of my deepest musical roots like old-time and country. At the time that I wrote it, I was listening to a lot of Dolly Parton and wanted to attempt to write a chorus inspired by her melodies. What ensued was a lively tune that called for some fiddle, pedal steel, and a two-stepping feel. I hope that it may uplift those who listen and help to keep the winter blues at bay!” – Nina de Vitry

Paper Wings, “Is It True”

Artist: Paper Wings
Hometown: Wila Frank – Nashville, Tennessee via Summit, Oregon; Emily Mann – Big Sur, California
Song: “Is It True”
Album: Listen to the World Spin
Release Date: January 18, 2024 (single); March 15, 2024 (album)
Label: Paper Wings Music, distributed by Free Dirt Records

In Their Words: “‘Is It True’ is our love letter to the hard-working, gritty, capable folks in our lives. Em and I both grew up in rural places around people who truly respect nature and the satisfaction that comes from a hard day’s work, out in the elements. After living in cities, we realized our modern-day culture often fails to celebrate physical labor and the strength of character that comes along with it. We thought it would be fun to shine a spotlight on some of the trademarks of a real hard-working character in a song. ‘Is It True’ is about the allure of someone who isn’t afraid to get their hands in the dirt. The more the world tries to sell us shiny new things, the more we appreciate the well-made, the well-worn, the well-loved.” – Wila Frank

The Coal Men, “Black Cat”

Artist: The Coal Men
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Black Cat”
Album: Everett
Release Date: January 19, 2024 (single); March 29, 2024 (album)
Label: Vaskaleedez Records

In Their Words: “Some folks are magnetic but, ultimately, nothing but trouble. ‘Black Cat’ is a swampy-groove song about that kind of dangerous friend. Drummer Dave Ray got a great snare sound going with a cymbal on top of the drum to mimic an 808 drum machine. Paul Slivka’s thumb-strike bass is doubled with low octaves played by piano tuner Lane Kiefling. I’m playing a short-scale baritone telecaster with flat wound strings and when the fuzz solo comes around, I really tried to be violent with the panning in the mix to make a listener’s head spin. This song is a joy to feel, play, and sing. I hope it’s got a bit of Tony Joe White in my vocal delivery to drive home the ‘thin grin’ humor of the song and warn folks to stay away from that type of crazy.” – Dave Coleman

The Lucky Ones, “Since the Farm Got Sold”

Artist: The Lucky Ones
Hometown: Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada
Song: “Since The Farm Got Sold”
Album: A Nickel For The Fiddler (EP)
Release Date: January 19, 2024

In Their Words: “We wanted to pay homage to our roots with this EP, so that’s why we went with the title A Nickel For The Fiddler. It’s also a Guy Clark song, someone who’s a huge inspiration to us – along with Townes Van Zandt, Blaze Foley and Rodney Crowell. So it’s a bit of a tip-of-the-cap to that circle of songwriters, but more so it’s an homage to our friend and mentor, Joe Loutchan, who had a residency at the ’98 Hotel in Whitehorse up until his passing in 2021. We needed to include a traditional fiddle tune for him, although that led to us add another medley of traditional fiddle two-step tunes. Why stop at one, right?

“The story behind ‘Since The Farm Got Sold’ has taken on greater meaning when we found out that the farmhouse where we recorded the EP was once the home of my great-grandfather and the property was once his farm. The house has had minor renovations to make the building work as a recording studio. However, it has been largely untouched and left with that vintage farmhouse appeal. It was profound – truly a spiritual experience – being in there. It was like stepping into a time machine, visiting with ghosts, and sharing songs and stories with the ancestors.” – Ryan James West, mandolin & vocals

Jesse Lynn Madera, “Austin”

Artist: Jesse Lynn Madera
Hometown: Currently based in Los Angeles, California
Song: “Austin”
Album: Speed of Sound
Release Date: January 19, 2024 (single); March 16, 2024 (album)
Label: Big Fat Dress

In Their Words: “When I was a teenager growing up in Houston, I used to sneak off some weekends to go hang with a guy who was in veterinary school at Texas A&M. This song is about when that rush of lust meets the thrill of the road. I replaced Houston with LA, because it sings and rhymes more easily. I tracked this song three times, in three ways, trying to nail the groove. My friend John ‘JT’ Thomas (Bruce Hornsby) played keys on the final product. I was blown away by the energy he brought to the track. Brian Whelan (Dwight Yoakum) sang harmony and played electric guitar, including the solo.” – Jesse Lynn Madera

Billy Gilman, “That’s Bluegrass To Me” (featuring Rhonda Vincent)

Artist: Billy Gilman
Hometown: Westerly, Rhode Island
Song: “That’s Bluegrass To Me” featuring Rhonda Vincent
Album: Roller Coaster
Release Date: January 19, 2024 (single)
Label: Pinecastle Records

In Their Words: “This song is personal to me, because I wrote about a grandmother in the first verse sitting on her front porch listening to the Osborne Brothers. That grandmother represents my own grandmother, who used to sit in her house and listen to bluegrass music. That is where I first heard it. That is such a fond memory for me, and now it can live on in this song.” – Billy Gilman

Jaimee Harris, “Orange Avenue” for From ONE, to Tenn.

Artist: Jaimee Harris
Hometown: Born in Nacogdoches, Texas; Raised in Hewitt, Texas; Living in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Orange Avenue”

In Their Words: “My partner, Mary Gauthier, was given an incredible writing residency in Key West for the entire month of January 2022. We often tour together, so I decided I’d take the time of solitude to search for songs. I started my search in the panhandle of Florida and spent a month driving down to Key West. Every two to three days I traveled to a different town, collected stories, visited fascinating museums, explored the variety of Florida’s natural beauty, and wrote a song in every town I visited.

“I did not plan to stop by Pulse Nightclub, but I found myself there alone at night. The first thing that struck me about Pulse was its location. I imagined it would be located in a nightlife district, but that is not the case. I was surprised to find it standing at the end of Orange Avenue, across from a Dunkin’ Donuts – the only two businesses on a street lined with houses. Pulse was a queer-friendly club, but it was also a neighborhood bar. The entry age was 18, so there were plenty of teenagers who hung out at Pulse simply because it was a friendly place where they could dance without having to be 21 to enter.

“The second thing that struck me was a plaque that listed 48 names of those who were killed on June 12, 2016. The third thing I noticed was a block of text that read, ‘We honor the 49 angel birthdays by placing angel wings next to their name. You are always in our hearts.’ If there were 49 killed, then why were only 48 names listed? I then noticed a plaque that said, ‘Out of respect for the family’s wishes, a victim’s name has been kept private…'” – Jaimee Harris

WATCH: Jaimee Harris Performs “Orange Avenue” for From One to Tenn

Posted on January 17, 2024 by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Jaimee Harris
Hometown: Born in Nacogdoches, Texas; Raised in Hewitt, Texas; Living in Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Orange Avenue”

“I was curious about why that was and so I did some research. What I discovered was that the family of one male victim did not know he was gay until he was murdered at Pulse. The man’s family did not want to collect his body. This is why officials in Orlando felt it was important to emphasize to the world that this, up until that point, the highest casualty mass shooting in America was a hate crime targeting the LGBTQ+ community.

“I tried not to write ‘Orange Avenue.’ I tried to run away from it. But the song kept nagging at me. The original version of this song was sung from my perspective, but I felt it wasn’t quite right. I tried a lot of other narrative perspectives until I landed on the one that made me cry the hardest: the unnamed, unclaimed man.

“I have only played ‘Orange Avenue’ in public three times. In July 2023 at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, OK, in September 2023 at the Americana Proud showcase hosted by Autumn Nicholas, and for this Pilot Moon Films taping.

“I am so grateful that Pilot Moon Films invited me to participate in this incredible From One, to Tenn. series. Because Pilot Moon Films was so generous with their time and talent, I felt deeply that I should use this gift as an opportunity to share this man’s story.” – Jaimee Harris

(Editor’s Note: Subscribe to the YouTube Channel for From One, to Tenn. for a new exclusive performance video every Wednesday.)

Video Credits: Filmed by David Allison, John DeMaio, and Joel Malizia, Pilot Moon Films / Islander Entertainment
Audio captured – Brett Blandon
Mixed/Mastered – John Kelly
Special thanks to Helene Cronin & Victoria O’Campo

Photo Credit: Video stills courtesy of Pilot Moon Films

Tyler Childers Announces New Album With “In Your Love” Music Video

Posted on July 28, 2023August 30, 2023 by Justin Hiltner

Traditional country phenom and Kentuckian Tyler Childers has announced his upcoming album, Rustin’ In The Rain (available September 8, 2023), with a brand new single and music video, “In Your Love.” Written and creative directed by New York Times bestselling author Silas House, the video tells a gay love story between two working class, Appalachian men – played by queer A-list actors and celebrities Colton Haynes and James Scully. The visuals for “In Your Love” tell one of country music’s most prominent and visible LGBTQ+ narratives to date, entering an industry landscape that has become more and more (openly) queer over the past decade.

“In Your Love” reminds of songs and albums released not just by left-leaning, more mainstream artists like Childers and Parker Millsap, but also by queer artists themselves, telling working-class stories and histories just like that constructed and depicted by House and director Bryan Schlam. In 2015, gay banjo player, singer-songwriter, and fellow Kentucky-resident Sam Gleaves released a landmark album, Ain’t We Brothers, which dripped with the exact same lived experiences and soot-tinged patina that inform Childers’ new video. In the past couple of years, releases by LGBTQ+ identified music makers like Amanda Fields, Willi Carlisle, Adeem the Artist, Amythyst Kiah, Jaimee Harris, and more trod similar ground. It’s notable still that an artist – however outlaw- or fringe-identified – as mainstream as Tyler Childers and with as broad a fanbase as his would choose to not only highlight queer, working-class storytelling, but to do so in a way that normalizes and re-centers these ways of being in Kentucky, the South, and Appalachia.

Rustin’ In The Rain will be released via RCA Records on Childers’ own imprint, Hickman Holler Records, on September 8. Via press release, Childers describes the inspiration that birthed Rustin’: “This is a collection of songs I playfully pieced together as if I was pitching a group of songs to Elvis. Some covers, one co-write, and some I even wrote in my best (terrible) Elvis impersonation, as I worked around the farm and kicked around the house. I hope you enjoy listening to this album as much as I enjoyed creating it. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Clearly, the legacy of “The King” is merely one way drama, mystique, nuance, entertainment, and Southern-ness coalesce within this new project from one of the most exciting voices and perspectives in country.

Photo Credit: Sam Waxman

BGS Class of 2023 Favorites So Far

Posted on July 11, 2023 by Justin Hiltner

Somehow, it’s July and more than half the year has already blown by! In many ways it feels like 2023 is still brand new, despite the calendar saying otherwise and the overabundance of amazing music that has soundtracked the past (nearly) seven months. With many more albums and songs yet to come, we wanted to reflect on the music that has stuck with us and become new favorites of ours since January. It’s a stout list – if we do say so ourselves.

We want to hear from you, too! What albums, songs, and artists have been the underscoring of your 2023? Who’s missing from our list?

(Editor’s Note: Scroll to find our complete BGS Class of 2023 playlist, which is updated every week.)

Rachel Baiman, Common Nation of Sorrow

Fiddler, songwriter, and activist Rachel Baiman has been a part of the BGS family for quite a while now, but recently she joined the ranks of our contributors, as well. (See her writings here.) Her new album, Common Nation of Sorrow, has been a standout for the entire team since it arrived in late March. Though she’s always helmed her creative and musical projects, in many capacities, this record marks the first time she’s been the sole producer on one of her own releases. Her fingerprints are indelible and striking; challenging and convicting. It’s introspective, but expansive.

boygenius, the record

An album so nearly perfect we just have to include it, even though some may believe its connections to roots music are tenuous at best. (We disagree, of course– and wrote an entire list of folk bands for boygenius fans to prove our point.) Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus somehow, against the odds, rise above the simple sum of their parts while reminding of former folk supergroups like Trio (that is, Dolly, Linda, and Emmylou) and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

Caitlin Canty, Quiet Flame

With its acoustic aesthetic and simple, string band underpinnings, Caitlin Canty’s Quiet Flame is a surprise superlative among bluegrass records released in 2023. Her past albums aligning more with folk, Americana, and singer-songwriter traditions, Quiet Flame was produced by Chris Eldridge and though the production values were quite intentional, the bluegrass result was more a happy byproduct than a deliberate destination. Filmmaker and playwright Noah Altshuler spoke to Canty about the project for a recent feature.

Brandy Clark, Brandy Clark

The BGS team has been fans of country singer-songwriter Brandy Clark for quite some time, so it’s more than a little bit enjoyable to watch as more and more listeners and fans discover Clark. And they have so many pathways to find her, whether through her hit, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Shucked, her collaboration with Brandi Carlile – who produced the new, self-titled album – or her many charting hit songs. There’s a point of view on Brandy Clark that we never knew we missed before, a maturity that she never lacked, but she has certainly distilled. It shines in its many spotlights. (Watch for a feature on Clark coming soon to BGS.)

Michael Cleveland, Lovin’ of the Game

Michael Cleveland has won IBMA’s Fiddle Player of the Year award more times than any other fiddler in the organization’s history. His obvious adoration for the instrument – and the life it has led him to – is front and center on his latest album, Lovin’ of the Game. Though he’s collaborated with virtuosos like Chris Thile, Béla Fleck, Billy Strings, and many more over the past handful of years, his perspective remains markedly down-to-earth. As is on display in our Artist of the Month interview from March.

Cat Clyde, Down Rounder

In mid-February, we premiered the music video for the lead single off Canadian alt-folk singer-songwriter Cat Clyde’s album, Down Rounder, and this collection has stuck with us since. For those of us with an affinity for a good red-dirt or red-rock hike, and for western, nomadic, cowboi (that is, all-gendered cowboys) aesthetics – since long before the recent rise of yeehaw culture – this album will provide such perfect daydream scoring. It’s ideal music for journeys internal as well as external.

Iris DeMent, Workin’ On A World

An album of hope – but zero toxic positivity. Iris DeMent knows how it feels to be burnt out, bedraggled, exasperated, defeated. But hope is a radical act and, in those dark moments where hope seems so ethereal and distant, existence is a radical act. The songs of Workin’ On A World never feel preachy or condescending, even while they remind of weeknight church – all-denominational, of course – and raising voices together in the face of oppression and fascism. DeMent isn’t just workin’ on a world, she’s imagining one, too. It’s our job to bring it to fruition, even if we never see it.

Amanda Fields, What, When and Without

Amanda Fields’ voice is impossibly tender, but do not let your guard down or it will bite you just the same. Especially when delivering a bittersweet, southwest Virginia-tinged lyric equally at home played by a bluegrass band or, like on What, When and Without, backed by a vibey, homespun, alt-country sound bed. For a voice and perspective as traditional as her’s, Fields still finds endless new ground to break and lines to color outside of. Her collaboration with guitarist and producer Megan McCormick (who has new solo music coming this year, as well) finds Fields’ musical output climbing to even higher levels of realization, innovation, and professionalism.

Ashby Frank, Leaving Is Believing

Mandolinist, singer, and songwriter Ashby Frank is in the running for IBMA’s Best New Artist award this year, and while reaching the second ballot in this category is certainly a well-deserved recognition, it’s a bit… inaccurate! Frank is not exactly a “newcomer,” as he has been a near permanent fixture in bluegrass, country, and Nashville for the greater part of two decades, performing with outfits like the Likely Culprits, the infamous Darrell Brothers, Special Consensus, Mountain Heart, John Cowan, and so many more. He’s even subbed regularly with the Earls of Leicester – and he’s a hit bluegrass songwriter, too, with charting cuts by Junior Sisk, Dale Ann Bradley, and more. His emerging solo career is where he’s truly hitting his stride, though, and in real time, with this outstanding “debut” on Mountain Home Music.

Brittany Haas & Natalie Haas, HAAS

Genre is dead, we know, but if it hadn’t already been dead, chambergrass, classical-meets-fiddle, string band music such as this would have killed it. It’s a glorious musical territory and is no better inhabited by anyone in this particular scene than sisters Natalie and Brittany Haas, who return to collaborating with one another in an “official” format on HAAS. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of just how toxically masculine improvisational, jammy, virtuosic bluegrass and chambergrass have become. An album like HAAS quickly grounds this aesthetic – so far outside the realm of similar more performative, self-indulgent projects – and reminds just how much newgrass and chambergrass are still out there to be discovered and made.

Jaimee Harris, Boomerang Town

A glut of queer country records are being released at this particular moment in time and Jaimee Harris’ Boomerang Town stands out in a niche that’s becoming more and more crowded. No one welcomes this quick change in country music more than ourselves – and Jaimee, too, we’re sure – but with more voices to be heard, one like Harris’ certainly cuts through. Boomerang Town isn’t exactly autobiographical, but it drips with Harris’ lived experiences and plays as if you’re sitting quietly with her, alone in her room, as she picks each intro on her favorite guitar and every track grows into a fully-realized number. It’s a not-so-idyllic snapshot of a hometown, like country does so well, and, like queer folks the world over know so intimately, the exact hometown really doesn’t matter.

Brennen Leigh, Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet

We hope Brennen Leigh, a multi-hyphenate picker, performer, and songwriter, is never through honky tonkin’. With her latest Signature Sounds recording Leigh has raised the bar for honky tonk sounds – a bar that should never be re-lowered. Equally at home as a “sideman,” a bluegrass picker, a songwriter (with cuts by Lee Ann Womack and others), and as an in-town Nashville picker, Leigh typifies the country everyman archetype – or, perhaps, the country “renaissance man” archetype. Or both! – while doing it better than nearly everyone else in the game, currently. With Nashville’s best on the album’s roster – as band members or featured artists – Ain’t Through Honky Tonkin’ Yet is a gem.

Darren Nicholson, Wanderer

Mandolinist Darren Nicholson recently left Balsam Range, the North Carolina bluegrass group for which he’s known, after criss-crossing the country – and the globe – with the IBMA Award-winning and Grammy-nominated band for decades. He announced his departure from Balsam Range in 2022 and his first release as a solo artist, Wanderer, is a huge success. Nicholson stakes out and lays claim to his own brand of bluegrass – which is rooted equally in the high country of Western North Carolina (Nicholson hails from Haywood County) and in an effervescent joy. Besides his old-time influenced, traditional mandolin picking, his smile and laugh might be his most recognizable traits. The humor he relishes in life comes forward in his playing, too. Wanderer is a harbinger of many fine solo projects to come from Darren Nicholson.

Nickel Creek, Celebrants

Nickel Creek returned and millennial roots-music fans everywhere rejoiced, joining in the Celebrants celebration. After a nearly ten-year wait since 2014’s A Dotted Line, Celebrants seemed to once again impossibly capture the Nickel Creek lightning in a bottle. A Dotted Line felt mature and confident, self-assured but not cocky. On Celebrants, the throughline could be described as gentleness and gratitude; perhaps from Thile and Sara Watkins both becoming parents in the interim. Nevertheless, Celebrants would have been one of the most notable albums released this year – and for good reason – even without these subtle growth points and nuances.

Mighty Poplar, Mighty Poplar

If ever a bluegrass, old-time, and/or string band supergroup convenes with a pun for a name and we do not react with unabashed glee, please check the collective team BGS pulse. Mighty Poplar checks all of the boxes and then some. Yes, with its particular convention of pickers this album could be seen as a “return” to bluegrass, but that’s perhaps the most boring angle on this fascinating record. It’s not merely a return to the format that musically birthed each of these instrumentalists (Chris Eldridge, Greg Garrison, Alex Hargreaves, Andrew Marlin, and Noam Pikelny), it’s a demonstration in bluegrass not just as an aesthetic and tradition, but bluegrass as expression.

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, City of Gold

Though we still have a couple of weeks until City of Gold drops, Molly Tuttle is our current Artist of the Month and we would be remiss to not include the most buzzed about bluegrass album of the year on this list. Singles “El Dorado” (above), “Next Rodeo,” and “San Joaquin” are out now, tempting and teasing another record influenced so heavily by Tuttle’s growing up in the bluegrass scene of California and the West Coast. Her band, Golden Highway (Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, Dominick Leslie, Shelby Means, and Kyle Tuttle) are featured heavily on City of Gold, for which Jerry Douglas returns to producing. Turns out it’s been Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway at the end of the rainbow this whole time!

Kassi Valazza, Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing

Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing, but she does know the power and magic of live recording. Her brand new album, tracked with backing band, fellow Portland, OR-based artists TK & the Holy Know-Nothings, was all tracked live, including vocals. As a result, the entire record buzzes with energy, whether toe-tapping or subdued. Sometimes, it’s a calm, warm, and honeyed patina that feels solemn and poetic, but ultimately, the entire collection is danceable. It’s tear-in-your-beer country and boot-scootin’ country – but that doesn’t make it simplistic. Which might be surprising, from someone who famously knows nothing.

Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel

Sunny War’s latest album, Anarchist Gospel, finds her sound having grown and expanded, while still held together by the most fantastic of glues: Her confounding and entrancing right hand. Yes, War combines DIY music, punk, and grunge with roots music and fingerstyle blues, but that’s decidedly not the point – certainly not the centerpiece – of her art-making. (Despite what the guitar bros might tell you.) The truth is, at times, so much more complicated. At others, it’s really quite simple and literal. As she told us in an interview from earlier this year, she just plays the songs, the licks, the hooks, the lyrics as they’re meant to be played. And anarchy isn’t just a concept.

Bella White, Among Other Things

Bella White’s breakout debut, Just Like Leaving, had already been released when she signed to Rounder Records, who then picked up and distributed the album. It received widespread acclaim as her Alberta- and Virginia-influenced bluegrass sound and Gillian Welch-like lyrics resonated with listeners and critics alike. Her brand new album, Among Other Things, then, feels like both a debut and a sophomore outing, devoid of any sort of “sophomore slump,” but capitalizing on the excitement she continues to generate in the bluegrass realm and well beyond it, too. We featured the new project with an interview in May.

Julie Williams, Julie Williams EP

We first became acquainted with Julie Williams’ music through Black Opry, the artist collective and revue who were our June Artist of the Month. In the Black Opry Revue’s simple, writers’ round format, her songs shone, gorgeous even in their very simple trappings. On her new EP, each of her songs are given the full treatment they deserve. Though they never feel lacking when delivered intimately and stripped down, unencumbered, Williams’ songs in this context soar, especially because they each give us an individualized window into her creative process, her songwriting imagination, and the production landscape she’ll continue to conquer into the future.

Jess Williamson, Time Ain’t Accidental

In May we premiered “Chasing Spirits,” a delightfully hooky number from Jess Williamson’s latest album, Time Ain’t Accidental, which we are glad to return to here. (Williamson, you may know, is one half of duo Plains with Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield.) Time Ain’t Accidental finds its home base where Williamson was raised, in Texas, and while it processes and puts under the microscope a past, failed relationship, this album is about movement, regeneration, and forward momentum. That she accomplishes this with imagery that’s pastoral, stark, and bristling is not an accident, either.

BGS 5+5: Jaimee Harris

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Editor

Artist: Jaimee Harris
Hometown: Hewitt, Texas
Latest Album: Boomerang Town (out February 17, 2023)

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Emmylou Harris. I got my first guitar on Christmas Day. That holiday season, every moment I wasn’t at school or at church I was sitting by the stereo putting “Light of the Stable” on repeat. I was mesmerized by Emmylou’s voice, the production, the melody, and the harmonies. I learned later in life the backing vocals are Dolly Parton, Neil Young, and Linda Ronstadt. Not only have I been tremendously influenced by Emmylou’s voice as a lead singer and a harmony singer, but also by the songs she cut. They opened me up to songwriters who laid out the road map of my own songwriting journey.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

It’s a tie for these two golden bits of wisdom that have been passed down to me by my partner, Mary Gauthier, who is much farther along in her career than I am.

1. Do not sign anything unless they’re writing you a check.
2. Don’t take the Ambien until the plane takes off. (I think this one came from Ralph Murphy)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

The most powerful experience I’ve had sharing my music wasn’t on stage. It was sharing my songs in a circle at an incredible place in Tulsa called Women in Recovery. WIR is an alternative to prison for women facing convictions for non-violent crimes related to substance abuse. Oklahoma incarcerates more women per capita than any state in the country and this place is trying change that brutal statistic by offering twelve step recovery meetings, educational resources, therapeutic resources, and housing solutions. I had no idea that a song I wrote in early sobriety, “Snow White Knuckles,” would go out into the world and be of service in such a powerful way. It’s opened doors for me to play in prisons and recovery centers all over the world. That song has a power so far beyond me. I’m deeply grateful to continue to have the opportunity to share it and follow it into spaces where it can be of service.

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

I’m a huge fan of Michael Fracasso. In addition to being a tremendously gifted songwriter, Fracasso is a fabulous chef. I’ve been extremely fortunate to receive a return invitation to a holiday party in Austin where tons of great songwriters (like my friend Darden Smith) and musicians (David Pulkingham is always a highlight for me) come together to swap songs campfire-style. Michael always puts together a beautiful meal for everyone and sings with us. It’s extraordinary.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

After being a songwriter for 13 years, I went to my very first songwriting workshop in 2017. I couldn’t possibly recommend it more. I wish I’d done it sooner! It helped me to consciously access methods I’d previously been using subconsciously and taught me a lot about where to laser beam my focus in the editing/rewriting process. I co-teach with my partner, Mary Gauthier, often now. This topic comes up often. When we’re working with a student’s song, Gauthier points out that when a listener hears “I” in a song, they’re not thinking about the voice delivering the song. They’re thinking about themselves. I believe this is one of the most powerful tools of songwriting – singing “I,” brings the listener into the experience of the narrator, which creates an opening for empathy to glide through.

Photo Credit: Brandon Aguilar

The Show On The Road – Mary Gauthier

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Shelby Williamson

This week, the show dials into the Nashville studio of one of the most gifted songwriters and empathic storytellers of her generation: Mary Gauthier. While Mary has become known for her darkly honest tales of overcoming addiction and seeking truth and joy after overcoming her troubled upbringing in Louisiana, she was nominated for a Grammy for her devastating record Rifles & Rosary Beads (co-written with U.S. veterans and their loved-ones), and her new record may be her most surprising and moving collection yet.

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Dark Enough to See the Stars, which drops June 3 on Thirty Tigers, is in many ways an unabashed romance album — celebrating, in her own sardonic John Prine-meets-Anthony Bourdain style, how lovely it can be to find true love and creative joy at long last.

During the pandemic she began performing a weekly stream called Sundays With Mary with her amor — the talented songwriter Jaimee Harris — and while Gauthier has now returned to the road, the cathartic weekly song sharing show has continued, too. Harris helped write the swoon-worthy traveling song “Amsterdam” on the newest LP.

Gauthier’s road to stability and creative contentment was a long one. As she gamely explains in this intense conversation, she made the leap to leave the relentless life of being a cook and restaurant owner (and partaker in too many illegal substances) and devoted herself to songwriting after getting arrested at thirty. Was she an instant hit on folk stages in her then base of Boston? Not exactly. In fact, she couldn’t step on any stage without shaking. But she kept at it and the stories flowed. Early tours with Prine gave her confidence. Her breakout record Mercy Now (2005) chronicles her technicolor debauched early years with the clear-eyed grace of the newly sober, trying to give forgiveness to her troubled family and to herself for making it through. Being an openly gay songwriter, she took early inspiration from her heroes the Indigo Girls who showed her there was a place for a new kind of empowered songwriting — not just for women, but for anyone who wanted to look deeper into what women are experiencing behind closed doors.

If Gauthier has one superpower as a songwriter it’s her ability to empathize with everyone around her — even the troubled soldiers who she teamed up with on Rifles & Rosary Beads. We have way more in common with each other than many may think, and overcoming trauma is pretty damn universal. Her book Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting is her most powerful collection of stories, and may explain best how her art has evolved in the last two decades, plus on the road.

Photo Credit: Alexa King Stone