Tag: Jason Isbell

Want to Write a Protest Song? Read This First

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

“There’s no such thing as someone else’s war
Your creature comforts aren’t the only things worth fighting for
Still breathing, it’s not too late
We’re all carrying one big burden, sharing one fate.”
                                                                                                  — Jason Isbell, “White Man’s World”

If one musical phenomenon united the year 2018 from the very moment the ball dropped over Times Square, it was the protest song. The soundtrack of the resistance clearly had enough time to percolate, deliberate, and incubate since our 45th president’s administration began in January 2017, because protest emerged as a recurring theme.

In the summer of 2017, Americana speak-your-mind hero Jason Isbell may have been the earliest adopter with “White Man’s World,” where he was decrying his own privilege while championing our common humanity and our shared fate. A year later, string band virtuosos Punch Brothers went so far as to name the elephant in the room and describe him thusly on “Jumbo:” “Whoa, here comes Jumbo with a knife and a tan/ And an elephant’s tail for his Instagram/ Grown up brave on the fat of the land of the free…”

Falling in line with this common theme, in an interview earlier this year River Whyless’ drummer Alex Waters described their creative process for their latest album, Kindness, A Rebel, as grappling with the fact that, “it’s just hard to avoid the elephant in the room as far as the current political situation and feeling like we didn’t say or do enough.” Boston-based bluegrass outfit, the Lonely Heartstring Band, opted to protest by not protesting — a press release described their single, “The Other Side,” as, “a song that takes no sides, but encourages empathy and understanding for people regardless of political beliefs.” Korby Lenker and Nora Jane Struthers took that perspective directly to far-right cable television show, Huckabee, performing a co-written plea for the sanctity of the dinner table, “Let’s Just Have Supper.”

Several issues arise when you start to consider the commonalities between all of these songs, the coincidence of their releases, and the apparent level to which political mayhem must reach before the greater community sees these songs as necessary. Look, we’ve got at least two more years of this level of political division and discourse ahead of us. Before you sit down to write your scathing, politically-minded, resistance-inspired anthem perhaps consider these few questions and suggestions:

Is this your story to tell?

Story songs and character songs can be sensationally moving and evocative, and they’re an integral part of American roots music’s songwriting traditions, but writers should be careful not to simply co-opt and capitalize on stories, concepts, ideas, and experiences of a marginalized person or group of people. Try not to appropriate any identity or culture, especially if there are marginalized voices out there already telling these stories. Which leads us neatly to the next question:

Is a marginalized or underprivileged person already telling this story?

One of the best ways folks can utilize their privilege to support resistance and activism is to pointedly and intentionally step aside to let a marginalized person own their own stories, their truths, and to be able to speak to those stories and truths. Ask yourself if telling a certain story, especially someone else’s story, could deny someone else their agency. Use your privilege, whether it be simply tied to your identity or to your professional position, to bring in the voices of forgotten folks who are already telling these stories. Use their points of view to strengthen and reinforce yours, rather than assuming that, by taking on these stories of our own accord, we’re strengthening and reinforcing those who don’t have the access or advantages that we have.

Furthermore, is this song already written?

Consider how galvanized our intersectional movements can be if we draw upon all of our constituent strengths from each and every individual’s personal story. Think of the power of protest music from across the generations. If your song is “already written,” it doesn’t mean that your feelings and your convictions are invalid. It means you aren’t alone. Your goals are the goals of someone — perhaps many someones else. Sometimes you just don’t need to reinvent the wheel.

Stay away from rhetoric such as “we’re better than this,” “this is not who we are,” “we should go back to the way things used to be,” etc.

Ask yourself if the particular phenomenon you’re writing about is truly unprecedented and unique to this era. For instance, indigenous Americans’ experiences are erased if we allow ourselves to believe the narrative that this is the first time our country has detained and imprisoned thousands of children. What about decrying the travel ban on majority-Muslim countries? Not a new occurrence, either. Mourning innocent drone deaths? Those casualty numbers actually don’t neatly correlate to which party holds the White House, as one might assume.

Try to avoid opining for “normalcy” or to “go back to normal.”

As individuals from almost any marginalized people group in this country would be happy to report, there is not an “again” to which we can return the United States that would truly be best, better, or “great” for all Americans. Whether we’re talking about Native Americans, stolen African slaves, African Americans, Americans with disabilities, LGBTQ+ Americans, or women in America — none of these groups have ever enjoyed a period of time in this country that was truly, equally great for any or all of the above. Wishing for something that never existed, except perhaps to the most privileged Americans throughout history, is the self-fulfilling prophecy of erasure at work. There ain’t no such thing as the good ol’ days.

Consider your audience, but not too closely.

Are you writing a protest song knowing that the majority, if not the entirety, of your audience already agrees with you? If so, why? Landing ourselves in echo chambers of our own political and ideological views doesn’t actually do anyone any good. Are you writing the song as a pat on the back? However, having an audience that may diametrically oppose your personal beliefs doesn’t mean that any subject, any cause, or any identity, is yours to take on as your gauntlet. Keep in mind, the most relatable songs, especially politically-minded or motivated songs, are at their best when they’re truly personal.

Speak to your own experiences, unapologetically, and speak to others’ as they relate to yours. It’s called being human. But, don’t get too bogged down considering your audience, either. If you find yourself debating whether or not a song is right for a certain audience, it’s time for a privilege check. Is your anti-gun anthem the best fit for an audience in rural Montana? Maybe not. But consider the artists and songwriters out in the world whose identities are already politicized. The trans artist. The songwriter who uses a wheelchair. An artist of color.

There is no choice, when any of these artists come into the spotlight, of whether or not the political statement of their very existence is too much for their audience. If you are able to avoid a certain song or a political point of view for the convenience of potentially not offending someone, you have an ability that many artists do not possess. That should be in the front of your mind each time you take the stage to find an audience with which you might not feel totally comfortable. For some artists, every audience conjures that feeling. Directly in the face of their art.

Are you simply, innocently following a songwriting trend?

Nope. You’re complicit. Stop. If you’re writing a protest song simply because it’s “in,” something is very broken. (Not capitalism though. That would be very much in tact.)

Write your truth!

Write what you feel. Write what pours out. Let it be personal, let it be real and vulnerable, let it process all of the confusing, complicated, and often treacherous peaks and valleys that we’ve all been crossing together these days. If you’ll stop and consider a few of these points listed above with kindness and empathy, and if you continue with only one metric against which you measure yourself, let it be this: that you are as true to yourself and your truth as you are careful and cautious with the selfhood and truths of others. Carry that with you and you almost can’t go wrong.

Isbell has it pretty much right. And he’ll be the first to admit that he wasn’t the first person to conceptualize the straightforward profundity in his lyrics. We really do all share a common fate–and our own creature comforts, however they’re provided to us, cannot be the only factors that we consider. It’s going to require active, progressive change, allyship realized as a verb, not a noun, to take what has begun as simply a quorum of protest songs from the past year and morph them into a true vehicle for change on the right side of history.

“I’m a white man living in a white man’s nation
I think the man upstairs must’a took a vacation
I still have faith, but I don’t know why
Maybe it’s the fire in my little girl’s eyes…”

Photo by Daniel Jackson

WATCH: Amazon Music Americana Roundtable

Posted on by Editor

Don’t you wish you could pull up a chair at this table? From Brandi Carlile and Margo Price, to producer Dave Cobb and Amanda Shires, to Jason Isbell and John Prine – these songwriters always have something to say in their music. In a conversation with Amazon Music’s Adam Steiner, these Americana all-stars go in-depth about their early musical influences, the mentors and producers who shaped their sound, and the most important parts of recording – including goofing off.

Carlile kicks off the conversation with this childhood memory: “The first time I fell in love with music probably would have been hearing my grandfather yodeling as a 4- or 5-year-old — yodeling, and playing the spoons, with his mom on piano and his brother on banjo and my mom singing background vocals. Kind of the family jam scene. That’s what I remember — falling asleep on the stairs, thinking, ‘Maybe I can do that – that little trick he does – when I get older.’”

Check out the whole video below:

Photo credit: Ky Elliot

A ‘Sunset’ Toast: A Conversation with Amanda Shires

Posted on by Editor

When Amanda Shires throws a party, it’s a crackling and cackling affair. The singer-songwriter has often enjoyed lacing her candor with a biting sense of humor, and her new album To the Sunset offers listeners a celebratory and sharp-tongued toast to all the bits—the good, the bad, the ugly—that have shaped her. Beyond giving birth to her daughter Mercy (with husband Jason Isbell), she completed her MFA in creative writing, but that was after someone stole her thesis and she faced the nightmare of starting over. To the Sunset presents many lessons, but central among them is learning how to accept both sides of the coin because together they pay your way.

Shires once again worked with Dave Cobb, the two aiming for a larger sound than what she’d previously accomplished. For longtime listeners, the result strikes a different chord. She and Cobb hit upon a headier pop sound, integrating slick vocal production, wild rhythms, and scorching, electrified solos. There’s a greater lightning running through To the Sunset, which comes, in part, from the use of pedals to elevate Shires’ fiddle from its folk roots. Between her new sonic direction and razor-edged lyricism—thanks to that MFA—her latest album raises a glass in raucous style. To the Sunset is a dark fête, the kind of party that only occurs when you truly let go and learn to be yourself.

Let’s talk about your MFA. How long did it take you to recover from having your thesis stolen?  

I cried and then I got mad. Jason said, “You know, whatever you write will be better than what you already wrote because you’re practicing writing,” and at the time I thought that was the most stupid thing I’d ever heard somebody say, but it’s true. The more practice you get, the better you get, and it all works out in the end. If you really want something, you’re going to find a way to make it happen.

It’s so exciting to hear what you’ve written on this album.

I think it’s pretty cool because I can tell a difference from other records, where I was working with basically instinct. Going to school, I got what I wanted, which was to learn the reasons why I should go with one choice over another, or at least have a way to argue with myself, and a way to back myself up when I’m editing. They teach you there’s no such thing as writer’s block. If that was a thing then nobody would graduate.

Who are some of your favorite poets?

I like Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Mark Strand, and then, you know, regular favorites like Octavio Paz and all the greats.

What would you say you look for in other poets’ writing?

It’s a time to be quiet and reflect and think deeply. You are the audience of one at the time, really. I like poetry because it can go pretty deep and it’s not three minutes long. It’s as long as it takes you to understand it. Songs are such different animals. You have a lot of things that you don’t get with poems, like, you get a sonic landscape and a mood can be provided, whereas on the page it has to be presented with such precision and such intention that you can understand it without anything else helping you.

You recorded your prior album, My Piece of Land, two weeks before giving birth, and you mentioned having to hide in a closet to write this album. Mercy has, in a way, impacted your last two albums. How do you continue to carve out space—besides the closet—for your creative side to flourish?

I’m lucky because Jason’s an excellent co-parent, so if I need to write and do stuff, he’s all hands on deck, and if he needs to write, I’m right there. When I had to be in the closet, I had to make use of a small space, and it wound up leaking into my bedroom, too, so I was taping everything to the walls, so it wouldn’t accidentally get smashed or crumbled by the two-year-old. I learned how to accept things in their early stages. Before, I was real, like, “Nobody sees what I write until it’s all done.” This was a cool thing where I learned to accept my very shitty lines as they faced me every day and tried to make them better. When I was done, I shredded them and I put them in a composter and that goes into my garden.

Have you found that your plants are growing better because of it?

I don’t know. It’s toward the end of the season until that composter’s done cooking. That was a lot of shredded letters. I’m an editor over and over. Some people can write real fast, but I think everything needs tweaking all the time.

Does the editor side of your brain gets in the way of your natural instinct?

It does, it sure does. I found a thing that helps me with that. It’s called FlowState, it’s an app. You set a timer and if you don’t keep typing it erases your work, so it removes the editing process; you can leave it up there and get your free association going, and really try to put your thoughts into words. When I first got it, I started out doing five minutes at a time, now I do 30 minutes at a time. The further you go with it, it’s like a door in your mind opens and you figure which things you need and which things can wait.

Turning to space, that theme—the space between people—surfaces throughout your catalogue. Here, on “Leave It Alone” and “Charms,” it functions in compelling ways. What particularly interests you about space and relationships?

On “Charms,” my mom’s mom abandoned her at a young age, and that’s where that song came from, and just thinking about how hard that would be for both parties. A lot of times as individuals, I know we all often deal with feeling alone or that nobody understands us. You’re born alone, and you die alone. It’s a thing I think about a lot, and that’s why it presents itself in the work.

As a touring musician, as much fun as it is, things get sacrificed. All that’s to say, writing about it and dealing with it makes me a happier person, and if there’s anybody else that feels like me, then I feel I’ve done a better job because it is a way of connecting in the end.

On the My Piece of Land track “I Know What It’s Like,” the desire to run away comes up, and that theme surfaces again on “Charms.” Except running has turned into forward momentum. When did that shift occur for you? How do you push against the desire to cut and run?

[For “I Know What It’s Like”,] I had a person in my life that was telling me these things, like, “I know what you’re going through, just keep talking to me about it.” To have a comrade in that was nice, and I wanted to keep that conversation, I wanted it to be preserved. The running thing, we all want to run away, but then we’re like, “Nah, our problems aren’t really that bad.” It’s really better for you to not run way, to pick up your big girl underwear or your big boy underwear, or whatever. Put your head down and do the work.

I appreciate that you took the momentum that would cause someone to run and shifted it to a positive momentum on “Charms.”

All this stuff is all inherited—you know, how we do life. I will now cite Philip Larkin: “Your mom and dad, they fuck you up.” So in that one I was moved that even though my mom experienced abandonment, she didn’t fall into that learned thing. I think it’s wild to break habits that have happened in your family, generationally. You can’t let fear be the thing that owns you. It’s just silly. This is such a vague thing to describe, fear and doubt and all that stuff—thinking about hypotheticals for situations—it’s so useless; it’s such a waste of time and energy because you can’t control the future, and you can’t control what’s already happened. It’s about trying to accept what’s happened and move forward, and if you fuck up, you fuck up. At least you tried.

Right, you need to make mistakes in order to figure it out. It’s like editing. You never write something perfect the first time.

Yeah, you’ve gotta find a way to trust yourself.

That’s hard when you’re younger.

Totally because you don’t have much experience with it, so you gotta do all the things that give you experience and wrinkles. They’re worth it. Then you start figuring out that, even as you get older, you were this person and now you’re this person. You’re always changing. You might look back and say, “I don’t even recognize that person.”

Joan Didion had that fantastic quote about making peace with your former selves because you’ll never fully leave them behind.  

That’s a whole thing I’m trying to say with To the Sunset, that sort of a cheers or toast. It takes all the things to make you who you are and who you want to be, rather than just ignoring it, or putting it in a box under the bed.

It’s hard to fight, though, because there can be messy parts of yourself that you don’t want to admit.

If you’re not doing that, you’re probably ignoring something that you need to feel. You need to feel ashamed and humiliated sometimes by your own actions. It’s easy to rewrite the way things happened. Once you face it, you can learn yourself better.

Lastly, there are some beautiful portraits of women on this album. How has your sense of womanhood changed, if at all, since having Mercy?

I always felt like I had a responsibility, but I feel like I have that even more. Doing as much as I can and thinking more about the world for her and hopes for her and fears for her. I also feel like, for a long time, you couldn’t talk about things. Even the ugly parts of being pregnant or postpartum, you couldn’t talk about anything, and everything’s supposed to be dreamy and awesome. Now, it’s easier in that more and more women feel like it’s OK to talk about the ugly parts. I think that that might keep us going in the right direction, somehow. One of the coolest things on the record, woman-wise, is my only guest was Gillian Welch, and she sings the harmony part on “White Feather,” what I call the “God” part. Whatever your God is. That was pretty cool. That was a day I thought I was going to die.

Also, your album is coming out at a time when a lot of artists are challenging this sense of perfection.

Yeah, like we don’t need to write a lot of ballads or whatever. It is a cool moment. I’m so happy to see so many women putting out records this year. There’s always been a ton, but there’s not been as much attention or as much room. … It took all those people before us to get to this spot now; I definitely don’t think it’s just happened over the past few months. They’ve always been there, but to move together works better than to move singly.

Photo credit: Elizaveta Porodina

ANNOUNCING: 2018 Americana Music Awards Nominations

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The Americana Music Association announced the nominees for its 17th annual Honors & Awards show this afternoon at an intimate members-only ceremony held at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The live-streamed event featured performances by its hosts The Milk Carton Kids as well as Daniel Donato, Brittany Haas, Jerry Pentecost, Molly Tuttle and more special guests. The winners of each category will be announced during the Americana Honors & Awards show on September 12, 2018 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN.

Americana Music Awards Nominees

Album of the Year:
All American Made, Margo Price, Produced by Jeremy Ivey, Alex Munoz, Margo Price and Matt Ross-Spang
By The Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile, Produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings
The Nashville Sound, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Produced by Dave Cobb
Rifles & Rosary Beads, Mary Gauthier, Produced by Neilson Hubbard

Artist of the Year:
Brandi Carlile
Jason Isbell
Margo Price
John Prine

Duo/Group of the Year:
I’m With Her
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit
Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

Emerging Artist of the Year:
Courtney Marie Andrews
Tyler Childers
Anderson East
Lilly Hiatt

Song of the Year:
“A Little Pain,” Margo Price, Written by Margo Price
“All The Trouble,” Lee Ann Womack, Written by Waylon Payne, Lee Ann Womack and Adam Wright
“If We Were Vampires,” Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, Written by Jason Isbell
“The Joke,” Brandi Carlile, Written by Brandi Carlile, Dave Cobb, Phil Hanseroth and Tim Hanseroth

Instrumentalist of the Year:
Daniel Donato
Brittany Haas
Jerry Pentecost
Molly Tuttle

John Prine: The Difficulty of Forgiveness

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In the days following the release of The Tree of Forgiveness, John Prine — the 71-year-old master song crafter, storyteller, and lover of a good meatloaf — had the best sales week of his decades-long career. His first album of originals since 2005’s Fair and Square, it’s a rare bit of triumph for the good guys — and for an artist like Prine, who has shaped our current musical climate in ways that are often beyond measure. Because, despite being one of the primary influences on Americana’s best and brightest — from Jason Isbell to Margo Price and Deer Tick — Prine’s never banked those platinum albums. Though 1991’s The Missing Years eventually sold around a half-million copies some 20 years after his self-titled debut, records, like the rest of human life, then went online: People stopped buying, and started streaming.

“Just as I started selling records, records stopped selling. I hope it wasn’t my fault,” Prine says, chuckling from his living room at home in Nashville. “I’d be spoiled, if I sold a million records. I probably wouldn’t go on the road for 10 years. But I don’t ever want to sell so many records that I have to do shows in a stadium. Stadiums are for sporting events: They’re not to watch a guy with a guitar come out and tell his story.”

He’s right, though if there’s anyone who could capture a stadium full of people with just an acoustic guitar and his heart-shaking stories, it would be Prine. The Tree of Forgiveness, an exquisite record that finds Prine looking at love, death, and the passage of time with humor, lightness, and his own quirky sort of grace, isn’t a set of arena rock barnburners (obviously). Instead, it’s touching moments of humanity that stick to the bones and linger in the mind, letting the imagination wander in exactly the direction that Prine wants it to … which is everywhere. Take “Summer’s End,” a nostalgic track if there ever was one, though it’s not explicitly clear for what — for summer, for a relationship, for life itself. “I could sell John Prine Kleenex with a song like that,” he says, laughing.

But it’s hard to be too sad about the end of life or love in Prine’s world, particularly life, if what happens next is as fun as “When I Get to Heaven,” the album’s closer. With Amanda Shires, Jason Isbell, and Brandi Carlile all chiming in on kazoo and vocals — all three appear across the Dave Cobb-produced LP — it details Prine’s perfect afterlife, where he can smoke again, post-cancer, hug his loved ones, and drink his signature cocktail, the Handsome Johnny, to his heart’s content. Like most of what Prine does, “When I Get to Heaven” is loaded with a potent combination of humor and vulnerability. Death is life’s biggest mystery, and Prine would rather solve that problem with lightness than exist in the dark, reality be damned. And Prine likes a good story as much as he likes (or doesn’t like) reality, anyway.

Prine’s own life story is a bit of rock ‘n’ roll lore: He grew up outside of Chicago in a mill town, and formed his songwriting voice after leaving the Army, writing between shifts as a mailman. But much of his signature finger-picking style and his artistic identity come from Kentucky, where his father hailed from, and which feeds the deep bluegrass presence within his songs.

Prine is equally important to Kentucky, too — and to Kentucky’s artists, like Kelsey Waldon, who will open select shows for him in the fall. “John Prine’s music is very special and significant to me,” says Waldon. “He brought together my country and bluegrass worlds, but with relevant and honest songwriting that I think would touch most any walk of life. As a Kentuckian, yes, of course his bluegrass roots make me proud. I have spent some time in Muhlenberg County, and I believe that’s where John learned to play, from his grandfather. That is the area where the great Merle Travis is from, and you can really hear a lot of Merle in John’s pickin’ style — that rhythmic thumb picking. The Everly Brothers and Bill Monroe are also from around the same area so, you know, it’s a lush environment for music. Something has always been in the water. I had heard in an interview that his daddy used to drill the kids that they were not only from Illinois, but also from Kentucky. So, I’d say the roots run deep.”

“I can never really lose those roots,” Prine says. “My family is a big part of my life. A lot of the older relatives are gone now, but I still have family in Kentucky, and I still go to my family reunions every year. Country and bluegrass have always been big influences on me and my music. I still listen to that music.”

Prine listens to a lot of Isbell and Shires, too, and Sturgill Simpson, a fellow Kentucky native with whom he shares a songwriting office — which has never actually been used for any songwriting. Prine stores a big pool table there and, besides, they can’t give it up. Producer/engineer Dave Ferguson uses the space next door, and he likes to smoke there, so Prine and Simpson hold on to it so a new tenant doesn’t put the kibosh on the stogies. “Friendship and cigarettes,” Prine says.

“I would love Sturgill if he was from New York City,” says Prine, “but he is from Kentucky, and I love that he respects and cherishes those roots as I do. He and I both come from the same long line of country-folk-bluegrass guitar-playing musicians. I learned to fingerpick by listening to Elizabeth Cotton and musicians in our tradition. We are all still playing and writing about stuff we know.”

One of the reasons that Prine’s songs are so impactful is how they balance what he knows and what he doesn’t — the mysteries of life, its frustrations, and unknowns. On The Tree of Forgiveness, recorded at RCA Studio A, he’s thinking a lot about forgiveness, itself, and what it means to be kind, something that resonates loud and clear in the Trump era. Prine didn’t write explicitly political songs on this record, but that simple act of forgiveness and kindness is political, in and of itself, in 2018 — a concept that other country and folk singers, like Kacey Musgraves and Courtney Marie Andrews, have also explored on their recent albums.

“Forgiveness, to me, it’s probably the most difficult thing to do,” Prine says. “And the most difficult person to forgive is yourself. A lot of people go through life not forgiving themselves for short-selling something, or paying enough attention to kids or parents, not looking after them when they get old. But the most difficult thing is to forgive yourself.”

Prine’s songs include so much permission to forgive ourselves for being imperfect, for acknowledging that we can love our weaknesses as much as our strengths, and for being content with our priorities, however skewed they may be. Some of Prine’s personal priorities are songs, a good meatloaf, and friends and family. His record label, Oh Boy, is a family affair, with his wife and manager Fiona running things with their son, Jody Whelan. When he’s not touring or playing with his grandkids, he’s writing with friends like Dan Auerbach, who appears on the record, and Pat McLaughlin, or seeing shows around town. He recently checked out the I’m With Her gig at the Station Inn in Nashville. “His support is incredibly meaningful,” says Sara Watkins, who could see he him bopping along from the stage.

“The longer I live in Nashville, I only co-write with friends,” says Prine. “Because, if you spend an afternoon together and you don’t write a song, at least you get to hang out.” For one of The Tree of Forgiveness‘s tracks — “Egg & Daughter Nite, Lincoln Nebraska, 1967 (Crazy Bone)” — Prine and McLaughlin were writing together on a Tuesday (“meatloaf day, that’s our carrot on a stick”) and Prine brought up a story about how he’d heard of farmers taking their daughters to town in order to pawn them off for marriage — which he’d heard jokingly referred to as “egg and daughter night.” Naturally, this gave Prine a good laugh. And an idea.

Prine didn’t think it was a real thing, though (according to Google, apparently, it is), but they wrote the song anyway. “We didn’t think it was about the truth and, when you aren’t writing about the truth,” he says, “the world is your oyster.”

Illustration by Zachary Johnson

Hannah Wicklund & the Steppin Stones, ‘Shadowboxes and Porcelain Faces’

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Any given day of the week, one person or another will try to convince us all that rock ‘n’ roll is dead — that synths have replaced guitars for good and children are growing up more interested in clicking “like” on Facebook than they are clicking a set of distortion pedals. Believe what you want, but there are still generations of kids coming of age fascinated with rock ‘n’ roll and the power of a good riff, and Hannah Wicklund was one of them. There’s no real way to describe her music other than pure, unabashed rock, informed by blues and soul but screamingly ready for dark clubs, ready to get sweaty and solo the night away. Produced by Sadler Vaden, singer/songwriter and guitarist in Jason Isbell’s 400 Unit, Wicklund captures a restless spirit that no computer-generated sound could ever replicate on her self-titled LP.

Here’s the thing, though: This isn’t a rock ‘n’ roll publication. We’re in the business of roots, but our best rock stars have always had a golden touch when it comes to slower, folksier moments — think Led Zeppelin’s masterful “Going to California.” Wicklund, being the ambassador of the genre that she is, has her own similar moment, the gorgeous “Shadowboxes and Porcelain Faces.” To some solemn, thoughtful guitar, Wicklund ponders a world where beauty is only skin deep and connectivity between one another is quickly fading, despite being more technologically connected than ever. “These highlight reels ain’t real life; they’re just for show,” she sings. She’s right: It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s fake. But when it comes to rock ‘n’ roll, Wicklund’s the truth incarnate.

NEWS: 2018 Americana Music Awards UK Winners

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In addition to presenting achievement awards to Robert Plant, Mumford & Sons, the Wandering Hearts, and Come Down and Meet the Folks, the Americana Music Association UK announced the winners of their 2018 awards today at a ceremony in London. The event featured performances by Robert Plant, Marcus Mumford, Imelda May, Angaleena Presley, Courtney Marie Andrews, Emily Barker, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Robert Vincent, Worry Dolls, and the Wandering Hearts.

UK Album of the Year
Brilliant Light by Danny & the Champions of the World (produced by Chris Clarke)
I’ll Make the Most of My Sins by Robert Vincent (produced by Robert Vincent, Michael Gay and Etienne Girard)
Proud Disturber of the Peace by William the Conqueror (produced by Ruarri Joseph and Harry Harding)
Sweet Kind of Blue by Emily Barker (produced by Matt Ross-Spang)

International Album of the Year
A Deeper Understanding by the War on Drugs (produced by Adam Granduciel)
Honest Life by Courtney Marie Andrews (produced by Courtney Marie Andrews)
So You Wanna Be An Outlaw by Steve Earle & the Dukes (produced by Richard Bennett)
The Nashville Sound by Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit (produced by Dave Cobb)

UK Song of the Year
“Devon Brigade” by Police Dog Hogan (written by James Studholme)
“Endless Road” by Worry Dolls (written by Zoe Nicol, Rosie Jones and Jeff Cohen)
“Home” by Yola Carter (written by Yola Carter)
“Moonshine” by Foy Vance (written by Foy Vance)

International Song of the Year
“Pa’lante” by Hurray For The Riff Raff (written by Alynda Segarra and Pedro Pietri)
“Ready to Die” by Aaron Lee Tasjan (written by Aaron Lee Tasjan)
“Tenderheart” by Sam Outlaw (written by Sam Outlaw)
“Thirteen Silver Dollars” by Colter Wall (written by Colter Wall)

UK Artist of the Year
Danni Nicholls
Danny & the Champions of the World
Emily Barker
Laura Marling

International Artist of the Year
Angaleena Presley
Courtney Marie Andrews
Imelda May
Rhiannon Giddens

UK Instrumentalist of the Year
Georgina Leach
Kit Hawes
Harry Harding
Thomas Collison

Tommy Emmanuel: Swinging for the Fences

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There’s a moment at the beginning of “Saturday Night Shuffle” — one of 16 duets from Tommy Emmanuel’s new album, Accomplice One — where the song’s guest, Jorma Kaukonen, turns to his host and says, “You’re a badass cat, man.”

It’s a nod of approval from one guitar great to another. Accomplice One is filled with those unplanned exchanges: a shout of encouragement here, a surprised laugh there. Raw and real-sounding, the album feels like a jam session between friends, mixing off-the-cuff solos and first-take performances with the virtuosity of an instrumentalist who’s been doing this for a long, long time.

Emmanuel began touring more than a half-century ago, hitting the Australian circuit as the youngest member of a family band. Now 62 years old, he still plays 300 shows a year. He doesn’t use a pick. He doesn’t use a regular amp. In a world whose most well-known guitarists — Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Chuck Berry, and the like — inevitably tend to be electric players, Emmanuel has remained true to the acoustic guitar. He’s the king of the unplugged.

With appearances from 20 guests, Accomplice One shows just how far the king’s empire extends. Americana poster boy Jason Isbell joins Emmanuel on the album’s opening track, a soulful reimagining of Doc Watson’s “Deep River Blues.” Bluegrass heavyweight Jerry Douglas stops by to swap solos on Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” Mark Knopfler, Ricky Skaggs, and Rodney Crowell all make their own cameos, too. Recorded in studios across the world, these songs nod to the core ingredients of American roots music — Emmanuel’s bread and butter — without losing their global perspective.

“I grew up with music that came out of America more than the music that came out of Australia,” says Emmanuel, who was raised in New South Wales. “It was a combination of sounds that were coming out of Nashville, Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, and New Orleans. I love all kinds of music, but that’s still the stuff that really touches my soul.”

Those childhood influences resurface on Accomplice One. “Saturday Night Shuffle” flips the Western twang of Merle Travis’s original on its head, sounding instead like the funky work of a New Orleans jazz band. Madonna’s dance-pop hit, “Borderline,” is turned into a lilting folksong with help from Amanda Shires. Emmanuel trades country licks with banjo phenom Charlie Cushman and blues-rock guitarist J.D. Simo on “Wheelin’ & Dealin’,” then bounces between Celtic shuffles and barn-burning bluegrass on his Clive Carroll collaboration, “Keepin’ It Real.”

It’s during “Djangology,” though, that the album truly goes international, with Emmanuel and his guests looking far beyond the Lower 48 for inspiration. A tribute to Django Reinhardt’s laid-back, jazzy phrasing, the song was recorded alongside Frank Vignola and Vinny Ranioloa in Cuba, during the middle of the country’s first-ever guitar camp.

“I was teaching 120 international students — everyone from 18 years to 80 years — for four days, and playing shows at night,” Emmanuel remembers. “One of the days, we went to the studio where they recorded Buena Vista Social Club. All the original microphones were there. We brought in some plastic chairs, and all the students sat in the main orchestral room. We had mics set up in front of us, and we worked out the arrangement in front of the kids. Then we recorded it twice and played it back, so they could hear it. The second take was the best, so that was the one we kept. It was very simple.”

Remember Santana’s Supernatural and its biggest hit, “Smooth,” which paired the guitar legend with Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas? That song was inescapable for years, but it never truly sounded believable. Did anyone actually think Santana and Rob Thomas hung out together? Could anyone imagine them co-leading a guitar camp in Cuba?

That’s what makes Accomplice One so compelling: It’s believable. There’s fret noise on these tracks. There’s studio chatter between the musicians, all of whom are fans of one another. During the Cuban recording, you can hear someone tapping a foot on the studio floor, unable to resist keeping time with the music. The imperfections that would’ve been bulldozed by Supernatural‘s high-gloss production are, instead, put on a pedestal and celebrated by Emmanuel, whose album emphasizes feeling and intention over perfection.

That said, there’s a good bit of perfection here, as well. Emmanuel attributes his refined playing to a lifelong Chet Atkins obsession, which brought him face-to-face with — and eventually under the wing of — his idol during Atkins’ later years.

“Chet lived a life with a lot of great experience,” says Emmanuel, who became friends with the guitarist in 1980. “He had a lot of great people around him. He didn’t just make great music; he made the people around him great, too. He taught me a lot, not just about music, but about human nature. That’s the stuff I can write about.”

Nearly two decades before they met in Nashville, Emmanuel first head Atkins on the radio in 1963.

“It was a sound that I knew, deep in my soul, was what I wanted to make,” he remembers. “I wanted to sound like that. I just wanted to be like that. I think it’s nature’s way that all of us start out emulating somebody.”

If Emmanuel’s approach to the guitar began as emulation, it’s since grown into something signature. Like a one-man band, he’s learned to simultaneously pluck out a song’s melody, underscore it with a walking bass line and beef up the mix with accompanying chords. Listening to “Deep River Blues,” it’s easy to assume that Emmanuel and Isbell are tag-teaming the song’s guitar duties, filling its verses with blue notes and densely stacked chords. But that’s Emmanuel playing alone, with Isbell opting to leave his guitar in the case and, instead, channel his inner soul singer.

“When Jason started to sing that song, you’ve gotta imagine the chicken skin I got,” says Emmanuel, happy to refocus the spotlight on Isbell’s voice rather than his own playing. “I was doing the thumb-picking Doc Watson part and, when you add his voice to mix, it’s totally a soulful experience. It’s real, and that’s what I love about playing music.”

The feeling appears to be mutual. Accomplice One is filled with the sympathetic interplay of musicians who want to be there and that’s what elevates it above the usual catalog of guitar-heavy duets. Filled with covers, originals, (“Rachel’s Lullaby,” a Beatles-inspired song written for Emmanuel’s baby daughter, is one of his most compelling compositions in years.) and top-shelf playing, the album is for guitar nerds and casual Americana fans, alike. It’s the sound of a roots music lifer who, a half-century into the game, is still swinging for the fences.

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

Jason Isbell, ‘Hope the High Road’

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As 2017 draws to a close, one thing is pretty clear: This last year was a son of a bitch for nearly everyone we know. Jason Isbell was talking about 2016 when he wrote these words in “Hope the High Road,” but they couldn’t have resonated more in these last 12 months. It hit hard, right out of the gate, and kept going relentlessly, a perpetual run of the bulls through everything that once felt near and dear. American life has never been anywhere near perfect, but, nowadays, we’re only feeling more and more frayed.

But “Hope the High Road” isn’t just about lowering ourselves into that ditch of depression and disaster; it’s also about the simple act of choosing to keep going, to keep being a better person, to helping others, to taking the high road somewhere greater when everything around us is falling. Isbell’s been a steward to us all through this past year with the songs off The Nashville Sound that are all moments to look at our country’s inescapable patterns, our own personal crutches, and the promise that lies around us — even in the darkest places or death, itself.

So there’s hope, too. And there’s been hope this year, even from the beginning … with millions of people marching for women across bridges and streets in January, to Danica Roen making history as the first out transgender elected official in Virginia, to Doug Jones beating a bigoted, pedophile homophobe in Isbell’s blood-red home state of Alabama. It’s easy to look back on 2017 and feel despair and fear as we approach the falling ball of the New Year. Will things get worse? As Isbell tells us, nothing good ever comes from living life that way. So, when you raise your glass of champagne this Christmas or at midnight on December 31, look into the eyes of another — or just your own — and repeat this wise phrase: “I hope the high road leads you home again.” Maybe it just will.

BGS Class of 2017: Albums

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Way back in January, we proclaimed 2017 to be the “Year of the Banjo” and predicted it would be a stellar year for women in roots music, as well as the more justice-minded songwriters in our midst. All these months later, our intuition proved correct on all counts. And we are thrilled by that. Having Alynda Segarra and Rhiannon Giddens reign supreme in our BGS Class of 2017 is an absolute honor. Both women took on tough thematic terrain with grace and gravitas, and we couldn’t be more proud to support them and all the other fantastic artists who make the BGS roots community so artistically inspiring and culturally important. — Kelly McCartney, BGS Editorial Director

Co-Valedictorians: Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Navigator / Rhiannon Giddens, Freedom Highway

In a year rampant with talk of division — coasts vs heartland, white vs people of color, red vs blue — many artists, thinkers, and activists have attempted to bridge these divides by zooming out and broadening perspective, pointing to the core commonality of our humanity. With The Navigator, Hurray for the Riff Raff accomplishes this same unifying goal, but with the exact opposite approach. Led by Puerto Rican-American Alynda Segarra, they zoom in, viewing these divisions, these cultural and societal rifts, through a microscope trained on New York City, magnifying a Puerto Rican neighborhood and a fictitious young Puerto Rican girl, Navita. The album’s concept — granular, focused, and minute — doesn’t alienate listeners with this specificity. Rather, it plays like a colorful movie entirely enclosed within its own soundtrack, relating Navita’s heart, soul, and story to an audience that, for the most part, would feel they could never relate to a woman like her. Segarra and Hurray for the Riff Raff demonstrate through The Navigator that we ought not shy away from the intensely personal, singular, individual aspects of identity and identity politics for the sake of “coming together.” What’s more, they’ve posited a record that, taken separately, the message, concept, and music each stand on their own respective feet, but together, amplify and augment each other. The message is incredibly clear: We need not gloss over the intricate elemental parts of our differences to understand, appreciate, and love each other. Pa’lante! — Justin Hiltner

If 2017 saw an influx of banjo-centric projects, it also turned out to be a year when music’s political stakes rose ever higher. Singer/songwriter Rhiannon Giddens pairs both, using her instrument as a historical beacon that traces a line from slavery to the growing spate of police brutality. Through narratives about slave mothers, church singers, young men in the crosshairs, and more, Giddens uses these personal stories to explore their ongoing political resonance. Beginning with “At the Purchaser’s Option” — written from the vantage point of a slave mother forced to contend with her baby’s future as a commodity rather than a consciousness — Giddens sews together a quilt of American roots music that is as varied as the stories it encompasses. She explores old-time songs, reels, blues, funk, gospel, and more, stitching her way into and through the rich traditions that inform her craft and comprise her heritage. “Better Get It Right the First Time” blends funk-blues, a rap intersection, and Giddens’ authoritative vocals to challenge how states view and police Black male bodies, while the instrumental “Following the North Star” says everything about that experience through a rhythmically charged dialogue between banjo, drums, and castanets. The relationship between art and politics on Giddens’ new album is not an explicit call to action, but a reminder about the power of stories — both melodic and lyrical. As Giddens admits on “Birmingham Sunday” — about the 1963 church bombing — “All we can do is sing you a song.” — Amanda Wicks

Best Travel Buddy: Becca Mancari, Good Woman

Becca Mancari’s debut album is a world unto itself. Over the course of 33 minutes, the Nashville singer/songwriter crafts atmospheric Americana imbued with a haze that brings to mind the faded edges of a sepia-toned photograph. Born in Staten Island, raised in rural Pennsylvania, and having spent time in Florida, the Appalachian region of Virginia, and even India, Mancari has experienced firsthand the significance of place. It’s only fitting, then, that on each of the album’s nine tracks, Mancari has created an environment to get lost in. It’s a notion that extends beyond Good Woman’s sonic palette and is carried out visually in the album’s music videos. In the video for the title track, Mancari embarks on a snowy walk in the Arizona wilderness with the plaintive landscape providing the perfect backdrop for her rumination on what, in fact, constitutes a “good woman.” Mancari seemingly walks right out of that snow storm and into Arizona’s breathtaking sunny expanse for the accompanying video for “Golden,” while the slow-burning “Arizona Fire” also finds its staging area in Arizona’s canyons. On the standout “Summertime Mama,” which waxes poetic about a warm-weather crush, Mancari sticks closer to home by offering a glimpse into a carefree summer day she spends in Nashville with her girlfriend and fellow songwriters Jesse Lafser and Brittany Howard, with whom she plays in a side project dubbed Bermuda Triangle. Cruising with the windows down en route to an impromptu fishing trip and then onto a nighttime gig, Mancari’s adventures mirror the song’s breezy veneer. Just as Good Woman expands and contracts across terrains, Mancari crosses sonic bounds with her dream-like reflections, making her one of the most significant songwriters to come out of Nashville this year. — Desiré Moses

Best Reminder to Stop and Breathe: Bedouine, Bedouine

There’s no point in talking about Bedouine’s self-titled debut in anything other than colors. Between the rose-tinged “Heart Take Flight,” the dusty blue “Back to You,” the gold-flaked “Summer Cold,” and the silver-inflected “Solitary Daughter,” singer/songwriter Azniv Korkejian’s album hangs like a painting. That’s all thanks to her dusky voice, an easy, somnambulant tone that fits colorfully against Virginia label Spacebomb’s trademark strings. In between songs about her native Syria and her life in Los Angeles, the nomadic Korkejian details a romantic relationship that caught her off guard and encouraged her to stay. Rather than train her gaze on her lover, though, she holds up a mirror to herself and traces the effect love has on her. She defiantly projects her independence on “Solitary Daughter,” gives herself permission to enjoy new love on “Heart Take Flight,” and inevitably questions her lover’s commitment on “Skyline.” Bedouine reflects notes of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, and other poetically driven but somber-toned singer/songwriters, but in the end, its creator has captured a colorful mood that remains solely her own. — AW

Most Likely to Kick Your Ass While Breaking Your Heart: Caroline Spence, Spades & Roses

In a year that kicked off with the Women’s March and seems to be ending on scores #MeToo moments, Caroline Spence‘s “Softball,” from Spades & Roses is an anthem for any woman who is sick of battling on a different playing field. In the hands of the Nashville-based Spence, this is done through the artful metaphor of softball: an unnecessarily gendered sport that keeps women from even having a shot at the big leagues. With a delicate chug of guitar and the soothing coo of Spence’s voice, it’s just one timeless moment from Spades & Roses, a collection of stunning folk songs that explore both the world inside of her own bedroom and the world at large. Spence is self-aware in romance on “All the Beds I’ve Made,” ready to surrender on “Slow Dancer,” and eager to fight on “Softball,” showcasing a keen knack for folk songs often dripped in rock and packed with poetic, artful lyricism. Produced by Neilson Hubbard (The Apache Relay, Matthew Perryman Jones) and featuring Grand Ole Opry fiddler Eamon McLoughlin and cellist David Henry, the album puts Spence’s pitch-perfect, breathy vocals at the center of songs which effortlessly jump from personal confessions to feats of narrative storytelling. “I’ve been playing shows out West with no guarantee that anybody’s ever gonna give a damn about me,” she sings on “Hotel Amarillo,” a track that encapsulates the experiences of any musician who’s slugged through date after date with barely enough money made to keep on the road. But, in her hands, it’s also a study of choices, and all that we’re left to leave behind when we follow our dreams. It’s well worth giving a damn about, indeed. — Marissa Moss

Best Addition to the Time Capsule: Casey Campbell, Mandolin Duets, Vol. 1

Bluegrass is unique among genres in that its living legends — the men and women who helped create and shape it — have never been set apart from the fans, amateur players, and up-and-coming talents. They not only mingle and interact freely with all of the above, but they actively facilitate the future of the music and the greater community, as a whole, by mentoring and shepherding young people. Mandolinist Casey Campbell quite literally grew up at the feet of a host of these living legends, so it’s fitting that, for his first album, Mandolin Duets, Vol. 1, he called upon 11 of these heroes and mentors, each showcased in their own intimate, beautifully pared-down duet. The record is a treasure trove of bluegrass mandolin and the players who have pioneered the form. Grand Ole Opry members Jesse McReynolds and Bobby Osborne hold down the traditional end of the spectrum, while David Grisman and Sam Bush test the waters on the fringes of bluegrass, with all iterations and styles in between represented. Campbell’s own Monroe-infused, clean, studied picking anchors each track, providing the perfect artistic sounding board for each of his guests. This is, by all accounts, a niche album within a niche genre, but the music doesn’t necessitate a bluegrass history lesson or individual bios for each mandolin guru to be fully appreciated. If the future is fair, this record will join the ranks of Skaggs & Rice and Bill Monroe & Doc Watson’s Live Duet Recordings as one of the most important bluegrass duet records ever made. — JH

Most Likely to Cause Shivers, Sobs, or (Whiskey) Sips: Chris Stapleton, From A Room: Volume 1

Chris Stapleton’s magnetic vocals find new forms of expression on From A Room: Volume 1. Mainstream country songs like “Them Stems” prove he can play the game alongside fellow chart-toppers like Thomas Rhett and Luke Bryant, but he’s most successful when he bucks popular trends and follows his own proclivities. With emotionally strained songs like “Either Way,” which reinforce comparisons to George Jones, Stapleton not only shows off his magnanimous voice, but also its ability to communicate the most painful of experiences. “Either Way” examines the nebulous area in between love and loss, when two people realize the plateau they’ve reached as a couple won’t be overcome. Whether they stay together or decide to leave, Stapleton admits, “I won’t love you either way.” It’s the resigned dip in his vocals before he admits the line that rings forth with such agonizing honesty. He treads in a bluesy tradition with “I Was Wrong” and “Death Row,” both of which find his voice exploding past the rafters with howling pleas. Thematically, the album toes country music’s preferred line, touching on drunken nights, bad decisions, whirlwind love, and regret, but in Stapleton’s hands, these subjects don’t feel worn. His voice infuses them with an emotional mastery that creates chills. — AW

Most Likely to Hasten the End of the World: David Rawlings, Poor David’s Almanack

David Rawlings’ third solo album is as sure a harbinger of the apocalypse as any other musical release of 2017. Not because it’s so bad (it’s actually very, very good), and not because it’s that good, either (it’s actually not oceans-boil-over good). It’s because you could buy it on vinyl the day it hit stores and digital outlets. Poor David’s Almanack is the first Acony album to get a simultaneous LP release, which brings to an end Rawlings and Gillian Welch’s nearly 20 years of agonizing over pressings and sound quality. I predicted a global plague would precede such an occasion, and I’m relieved to lose that particular bet. So give these songs a spin on the turntable, which is obviously where they belong. Almanack is an endlessly inventive and lively collection of new folk tunes that sound old, as though Rawlings hadn’t written them but had found them in the back of some old antique store in the middle of nowhere. And yet, just like the old LP technology experiencing its own resurgence, these old-sounding songs somehow sound current, relevant, prescient: “Money Is the Meat in the Coconut” pokes fun at some of our swamp-draining politicians, “Good God a Woman” slyly inverts gender politics, “Come On Over My House” turns class warfare into a randy come-on. Rawlings knows these issues have been driving civilization since before we invented fire, and it’ll continue to drive the last handful of humans staving off the hordes of zombies. — Stephen Deusner

Most Likely to Soundtrack Your Next Roadtrip to Who Knows Where: Hiss Golden Messenger, Hallelujah Anyhow

M.C. Taylor’s favored subjects are home and hearth, family and faith, yet his songs are as much about the lure of the road as the comforts of home. His latest as Hiss Golden Messenger, recorded in a matter of days in North Carolina, is a highway record, an album about being lost out in America in the Anthropocene Age and trying to navigate by moral compass. What do we owe other people, strangers, and loved ones, alike? What do we owe ourselves? On “I Am the Song” and “Harder Rain,” Taylor understands those questions don’t have concrete answers — that they change from one song to another, from one person to another, from one highway to another. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of posing those questions. Instead, the slipperiness of these ideas enlivens his music, which plays with rock and folk history without putting a record collection between Taylor and the listener. “Gulfport, You’ve Been on My Mind” slyly rewrites Bob Dylan, while Van Morrison goes through the wringer of “Domino (Time Will Tell).” Best — or at least, most unexpected — may be the shoutout to the gloriously ridiculous goth act Sisters of Mercy. In his responsibility to his heroes and to his listeners, Taylor finds joy and humility and the special fulfillment of a noble calling, especially when he can rebuke a certain leader of the free world: “What’cha gonna do when the wall comes down?” he asks, not at all rhetorically. “It was built by man, and you can tear it down, tear it down.” — SD

Most Likely to Make You Buy a Shruti Box: House and Land, House and Land

When Shirley Collins recorded “The False True Love” 50 years ago, she made it sound crisp and mournful, as if she were looking out over a frosty morning. You can see her breath hang in the air, and you can sense sorrows as heavy as the clouds. When Louise Henson and Sally Anne Morgan tackle the song on their debut as House and Land, it warms up only slightly, thanks to the interplay between guitar and banjo. It’s less lonely, but no less sorrowful. It sounds more existential, as though romantic woes might blot out their souls. So call House and Land a supergroup: Morgan plays with the Black Twig Pickers and Pelt, two Virginia string bands redefining roots and folk music away from the Americana set, and Henson may be one of the most compelling folk guitarists to pluck a string in 2017. They’ve been collecting songs for a few years now, and they’ve assembled them into an album that mixes banjo, guitar, and rustic drones from a Shruti box in some ways that are familiar and other ways that are entirely new. Just as they straddle folk and avant garde, the duo also contemplate the spiritual crises of this life and the next. Songs like “The Day Is Past and Gone” and “Home Over Yonder” examine faith and its celestial reward, depicting the afterlife as a lonely place. “There was nobody there to answer for me,” they lament on “Listen to the Roll.” “I had to answer for myself.” — SD

Best Fireside Chat: Iron & Wine, Beast Epic

Sam Beam has a stately way of drawing the listener close. Beast Epic, Beam’s sixth project as Iron & Wine, opens with his whispered count in on “Claim Your Ghost” before launching into the warm reverberations of “Thomas County Law,” which boasts poetic musings like, “Every traffic light is red when it tells the truth. The church bell isn’t kidding when it cries for you.” In fact, each track on Beast Epic is rendered with such startling care and intimacy that the listener may as well be sitting fireside with Beam. With lush acoustic arrangements bound by touches of percussion, piano, harp, and cello, Beam wields a gorgeous album brimming with some of the finest songwriting to come out of Iron & Wine’s 15-year trajectory. One highlight, “Bitter Truth,” is packed with hard pills to swallow from a narrator who’s looking in the rearview mirror: “Our missing pieces walk between us, when we were moving through the door. You called ‘em mine, I called ‘em yours.” Those “pieces fall in place” on the album’s pinnacle and lead single, “Call It Dreaming.” By returning to Iron & Wine’s stripped-down roots, Beam reminds us that power can come from the quietest corners. — DM

Most Masterful Finger-Pointing: Jason Isbell, The Nashville Sound

When you make what people universally agree is an absolute masterpiece of a record fairly early on in your career, how do you ever again pick up a pen? Well, if you’re Jason Isbell trying to follow up 2013’s Southeastern, you set an entirely different bar for yourself to clear … which he did, with 2015’s Something More Than Free, and which he has done again, with The Nashville Sound. While both are filled with common-man character studies and captivatingly personal confessionals, The Nashville Sound uses some of those tales to take on politics and privilege in beautiful, bold ways. In both “Hope the High Road” and “White Man’s World,” Isbell points a finger of blame, including one at himself, to show how all of us are accountable to ourselves and to each other. Thing is, as part of the same motion, he opens his hand and extends it to anyone willing to grab on. Hard to think of other songwriters who could accomplish that feat while also rocking their asses off. It’s also hard to think of other songwriters who can switch gears so effortlessly to write some of the most stunning love songs to ever exist. As with “Cover Me Up” and “Flagship” before it, “If We Were Vampires” takes on love, Isbell-style, by turning it inside out. Dave Cobb has used the word “devastating” to describe various songs and songwriters he’s produced. In Isbell’s case, it is very often an understatement. — Kelly McCartney

Most Likely To Flip The Script: Laura Marling, Semper Femina

Since releasing her debut in 2008 at the mere age of 17, UK folkie Laura Marling has garnered a reputation as a prolific artist and a deep thinker. Her knack for intricate guitar work and lyrical allegory has solidified her place among music’s greatest storytellers, and her latest album, Semper Femina, is a layered masterpiece that serves to further bolster her prolific body of work. Here, she works to subvert the male gaze, just as she did in an interview-based podcast exploring women’s experiences in the arts called Reversal of the Muse. Only, on Semper Femina, she does so by taking up the perspective often employed by men in artistic traditions — that is, by admiring and lusting after the women who serve as the album’s centerpiece. But that’s not to say that the album lacks introspection. The collection is just as much an effort for Marling to tap into her core self, as it is an exploration of how women are viewed and portrayed in society. Sonically, Marling’s signature fingerpicking and warm vocals remain, but this collection of songs reflects a marked growth from her previous output. By playing with percussion and making use of space, Marling gives her ideas room to breathe and expand. Whether through bits of spoken word on “Wild Once” or elegant falsetto on the album’s standout “Always This Way,” each song beckons you closer and is imparted like a secret that you’re lucky to be in on. — DM

Most Likely to Soothe and Summon the Spirit of George Jones: Lee Ann Womack, The Lonely, the Lonesome, & the Gone

Lee Ann Womack could win awards for her song selection alone: Throughout the course of her career, she’s sniffed out some of the finest scribes in country music and put tracks by Brent Cobb and Chris Stapleton on her records far before the rest of the world caught on to their powers. Like Linda Ronstadt and George Strait, it was the potent combination of her legendary vocal abilities and her nose for talent that left us with jewels like her 2000 hit, “I Hope You Dance.” Which is why it was surprising to see her own name listed in the credits more than ever on The Lonely, the Lonesome, & the Gone, a personal progression of a record that proves her pen is as mighty as her vocal sword. There’s a touch of mystery and melancholy across the songs of The Lonely, the Lonesome, & the Gone — from the gorgeous balladry of the title track to the simple plucks of “End of the End of the World” where Womack’s twang churns out on glorious full display. Produced by her husband, Frank Liddell, and recorded at Houston’s Sugar Hill Studios, the album lets Womack walk through classics old (a version of “Long Black Veil,” made iconic by Lefty Frizell, that is most welcome) and new (the album opener “All the Trouble,” which is a moody, gospel tour through her stunning range). It’s thrilling to see an artist this deep into her career prove that she still has treasure trove of surprises up her sleeve. — MM

Most Likely to Have Hats Actually Made in the USA: Margo Price, All American Made

On her debut LP, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter, East Nashville’s Margo Price became one of country and Americana’s breakout stars with her honest-to-the-core songwriting that was never afraid of being uncomfortable. She spoke of devastating loss, disappointment, and being done wrong in one of the most revealing, personal albums in years. For her follow-up, All American Made, Price looks outward, surveying the world outside her tour bus window to tackle everything from wage inequality to the plight of rural America, brazenly using her voice to drive conversation in an increasingly perilous political environment. “No one moves away with no money. They just do what they can,” she sings on “Heart of America.” “To live in the heart of America, getting by on their own two hands.” Recorded at Sam Phillips in Memphis, Price weaves everything from gospel to R&B and honky-tonk into the songs, often co-written with her husband Jeremy Ivey, coming out with an album that captures the urgency of late ’60s protest anthems but with heaps of Tennessee soul. With one stellar duet partner, Willie Nelson, on “Learning to Lose” and help from the McCrary Sisters, Price bends and twists the shape of the genre into her own rock band-rooted form, centered around a dynamite set of pipes that can belt, howl, and softly whisper through whatever lies ahead of her. “Wild women don’t worry,” she sings … and Price doesn’t. Like Woody Guthrie, she’s a prophet of the people, not the establishment. — MM


Best Call to Order, Not Arms: Mavis Staples, If All I Was Was Black

Who could’ve known that pairing gospel/soul legend Mavis Staples with alt-country anchor Jeff Tweedy would be darn near perfect? On If All I Was Was Black, Tweedy’s production provides a wonderful warmth and gorgeous grit to match Mavis’s iconic voice. While last year’s Livin’ on a High Note showed Mavis off in all her feisty, funky glory, If All I Was Was Black turns that down a notch to make room for a more heart-centered approach. After all she’s witnessed in her life, Mavis somehow manages to hold fast to hope and continue pleading for peace. If she’s angry about the two-steps-forward-three-steps-back phenomenon currently overtaking the world, you would never know it from listening to her records. Now, that’s not to say Mavis doesn’t see the problems we face. She does. She always has. It’s just that she would prefer we muster all the love we possibly can, and use that to fuel our fire rather than rage. The compassion and patience embedded within “We Go High” — sparked by Michelle Obama’s comment of “When they go low, we go high” — is almost unimaginable in light of the utter cruelty and devastation being heaped upon marginalized populations in 2017. But there it is. Songs like “No Time for Crying” and “Build a Bridge” also lay it out in the clearest of terms. And, with the title track, she calls out the problem of judging people by their skin and not their hearts, as doing so causes us to miss the beauty and goodness that each of us has to offer. All through this album, Mavis implores us to let our better angels be our guides. What she may not understand is that she, herself, is our better angel. — KMc

Most Likely to Carry around a Battered Copy of My Side of the Mountain: Mipso, Coming Down the Mountain

Mipso find themselves at a moment in their lifespan when a rootsy band discovers that a bluegrass-driven aesthetic is no longer quite enough to channel all of their creativity and curiosity. (See: Nickel Creek, Sierra Hull, Mandolin Orange, etc.) But as they fully incorporate drums, electric bass, and guitar into their sound, they aren’t walking directly away from the North Carolinian acoustic traditions that have informed them all the way. This refining of their folk-rooted, definitively Americana sound refutes the idea that doing so means relinquishing the raw authenticity of bluegrass and old-time, by default. On the contrary, Mipso’s finesse allows the more subtle aspects of their constituent influences to shine through on Coming Down the Mountain, undaunted by the “electric” embellishments. The title track epitomizes this down-to-earth sheen with tales of fishing, disdain for the fools of the city, and pictures of rhododendron thickets in the mountain hollers, all dressed up in dreamy, effervescent duds. There’s honky-tonking, California vibes, train whimsy, sad ballads, haunting alt-folk, and much more woven into this record and these songs. With the love and care they’ve invested in its creation, it hits you like a beautiful kaleidoscope, rather than the dull brown of every color of paint combined willy-nilly. If the current commodification of “roots” music has sent you running for the hills, looking for a refuge and a respite, Coming Down the Mountain might just compel you to hang up your fishing pole for a while and come back to the city, even if for only 10 songs. — JH

Best Reminder to Bake Right with Hot Rise: Molly Tuttle, Rise

On the surface, it feels like 2017 was Molly Tuttle’s breakout year. In a matter of months, she went from releasing her debut LP, Rise, to winning the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Guitar Player of the Year award — becoming the first woman in the organization’s history to ever receive the honor. But her poetic, evocative lyrics and her confident, firecracker flatpicking are unmistakable markers of what really has been a life-long career. The firm foundation laid by growing up in bluegrass, performing and touring from a young age, shines through each and every track on the record, assuaging the fears of would-be naysayers who could find the occurrences of lap steel, full drum kit, or electric guitar to be bluegrass disqualifiers. Her haunting vocals, at once ethereal and authoritative, are utterly confident, each artistic choice precise without falling into measured sterility. The distinct voice of Rise — whether emanating from Tuttle’s lips or her pick and strings — isn’t first-timer’s luck; it’s the product of a lifetime of work and expertly honed talent that is simply, at long last, reaching the ears of a broader audience. And, where other burgeoning artists may falter in their first few projects, attempting to pinpoint the perfect vehicle for their artistic personalities, we can sense, feel, and hear that no matter which stylistic direction she may take in the future, we will all be watching Molly Tuttle rise, unencumbered and unwavering. — JH

Most Heartfelt Look at the Heartland: Natalie Hemby, Puxico

Sometimes records sound exactly like you want them to: The songs, the singer, the production … everything just fits and flows. That’s Natalie Hemby‘s Puxico. Equal parts front-porch folk and heartland rock, this album was inspired by the small Missouri town where Hemby spent her childhood summers fishing with her grandpa George and dancing at the annual Homecoming. And it’s infused with the songwriting skill of Nashville where Hemby honed her craft writing cuts for Miranda Lambert, Lee Ann Womack, Maren Morris, Johnnyswim, and others. With Puxico, though, Hemby writes closer to home, metaphorically and musically. No commercial country artist like so many of her friends, Hemby is cut from the Sheryl Crow cloth (with some Tom Petty patches, to be sure). Her voice is warm and soulful, powerful and edgy, all at once. And the songs … the SONGS. From “Time Honored Tradition” to “Cairo, IL” to “This Town Still Talks About You,” the songs are rich with remembrances of lives, loves, and losses. Hemby’s deep, deep fondness for the people and places of her youth is filtered through the lens of time and distance, allowing her to trace the edges of what was and overlay that image upon what still is. The space between the two is where these songs live. — KMc

Best “Year of the Banjo” Brand Ambassador: Noam Pikelny, Universal Favorite

Punch Brothers’ co-founder Noam Pikelny takes “solo record” to another level, playing every instrument on his fourth LP, Universal Favorite. He even sets down the banjo a few times to try his hand at electric guitar — turns out he’s ridiculously good at everything he touches. And would you believe it … he can sing, too! Pikelny’s PB bandmate and frequent producer Gabe Witcher keeps a tight rein on the record’s crystal clear sound, but gives his friend plenty of room to explore and expand his musical horizons. While the songs range from trad/old-time to classical sounds, and include covers from the likes of Elliot Smith (“Bye”), Josh Ritter (“Folk Bloodbath”), Roger Miller (“I’ve Been a Long Time Leavin’ (But I’ll Be a Long Time Gone)”), amongst others, the virtuosic solitude that pervades this fully unaccompanied project allows the whole thing to feel cohesive, complete, and brilliant. — Amy Reitnouer

Most Likely to Not Give Any Fucks: Rachel Baiman, Shame

With the co-founding of Folk Fights Back in Nashville and the release of her second solo album, Rachel Baiman has earned a reputation as a radicalized bluegrass player, although neither of those labels is exactly apt. Her background is in bluegrass, and she’s a dexterous and sensitive fiddler, but that particular musical style is merely a foundation on which she builds songs informed by pop and folk and country, by Gillian Welch and John Hartford and Phil Ochs. And she barely even plays the fiddle on here, instead switching between banjo and acoustic guitar. As for politics, she tackles that topic only because she recognizes that it’s unavoidable. Being a woman and being an artist have become fundamentally radical activity in late-2010s America, which means Baiman is simply following Woody Guthrie’s old adage: “All you can write is what you know.” She knows touring, for instance, and turns that into the rousing “Never Tire of the Road.” She knows about writing songs and writes a song about writing songs, the sing-along “Getting Ready to Start (Getting Ready).” And she knows about old white men using religion as a bludgeon, and she not only makes that the central idea of the title track, but delivers the chorus with a steely defiance: “They wanna bring me shame. Well, there ain’t no shame.” On Shame, she sounds like the voice we need to hear right now, in roots or any other genre. — SD

Most Likely To Break Free: Ryan Adams, Prisoner

A case can be made that love and sex are the backbone of music, so it naturally follows that the other side of the coin carries equal weight. For every song written about relationships or lust, there’s one about the counter moment when everything comes crashing down. Ryan Adams is one of those artists who’s no stranger to the nuances of dissolution. After all, the North Carolina singer/songwriter made his solo debut outside of Whiskeytown in 2000 with a sweeping masterpiece dubbed Heartbreaker. Widely regarded as his best work, Heartbreaker received a deluxe reissue last year while this year saw the release of a companion album of sorts in Prisoner. Written as a means of salvation during Adams’ highly publicized divorce from actress/singer Mandy Moore, Prisoner is a foray into loneliness that embraces the post-breakup fallout headfirst. The mid-album stunner, “To Be Without You,” is a portrait of perfect songwriting that smoothly unfurls amidst lines like “It’s so hard not to call you. Thunder’s in my bones out in the streets where I first saw you. When everything was new and colorful, it’s gotten darker.” That just stings with familiarity. Elsewhere, “Broken Anyway” is a mature attempt at shaking off  the remains: “What was whatever it became? Whatever, we will still be together in some way. It was broken anyway,” sung by a narrator who acknowledges the pains of both inflicting and falling victim to heartbreak. Crafted with Adams’ penchant for the sonic flair of the ‘80s, Prisoner toils in the confines of human emotion and comes out triumphantly on the other side. — DM

Best Trip through the Bluegrass State’s Bardo: Tyler Childers, Purgatory

It can be difficult to stand up to Kentucky’s esteemed history of songwriters and performers — which includes everyone from the legendary Bill Monroe to Sturgill Simpson — but Tyler Childers lives up the legacy of his home state with as keen an eye for its past as for its future. On Purgatory, produced by Simpson and one-time Johnny Cash engineer David Ferguson, Childers emerges with a voice that can cut with the innocence of a child but the knowledge of an aged man and an eye for painting stories of people shaping their identities in small towns and searching for love amongst the ruins. In Childers’ hands, modern roots music can meld into some rock ‘n’ roll fury (“Whitehouse Road,” “Universal Sound”) or striking, chill-inducing romantic opuses like “Lady May,” always centered on those spectacular vocals and an uncannily creative lyrical sense: When he sings “get me higher than the grocery bill” on “Whitehouse Road,” he manages to rouse images of intoxication and the desolation of a segment of America where a simple trip to the grocery store can be a financial burden. Melding the bluegrass roots of his home state with Simpson’s abandonment of genre altogether, Purgatory is a coming of age record for everyone grasping at the space between shelter and freedom, between freedom and commitment to another, between commitment and the fragile promise of eternal love. — MM

Best Musical Evidence That Black Girl Magic Is Real: Valerie June, The Order of Time

Valerie June is an other-worldly artist with a seemingly cosmic connection to her muse. Her songs are full of whimsy, wonder, and wisdom, all grounded in a garden of earthly musical delights. Blues, folk, gospel, soul, country, and more all sneak into June’s work, colliding in a kaleidoscope of sounds and colors. Sputtering guitars bump into stuttering keys on one song, while ethereal strings ebb under ambient steel on another. Harmonium and horns?! Hell yeah. African rhythms and clawhammer banjo?! Ya damn right! She’s from the melting pot of music — Memphis, Tennessee — after all. Nobody else is making music like this. Listening to June’s records feels almost intrusive, as if peering into a private diary filled with poems and doodles that betray the artist’s inner world in its utterly pure, stream of consciousness form. Except that The Order of Time is more refined and restrained than that. Such is this album’s perfection, that it would be a fool’s errand to attempt choosing standout tracks. The booty groove of “Shakedown” or the gentle drone of “If And”? The mystical dance of “Astral Plane” or the bluesy sway of “Love You Once Made”? Not even Sophie could make that choice. Nor should she — or we — ever have to. — KMc

Best Open Diary: The Weather Station, The Weather Station

If other songwriters fight to fit their words within a song’s measure, Tamara Lindeman takes the opposite tactic as the Weather Station. Her verbose songs are chock full of words — their inflections adding rhythmic scope, their syntax unraveling deeply personal confessions. “I don’t know what to say, so I say too much,” she sings on “I Don’t Know What to Say.” Somehow, though, Lindeman keeps her music from feeling overcrowded. Her vocal cadence works in tandem with rhythm guitar (as on “Thirty”) or drums (as on “Complicit”) to reinforce a singular meter rather than stuff each song to the brim. With her self-titled album, she told the BGS that she focused on “figur[ing] out how to be okay when things are not okay.” A central relationship thrums at the album’s center, filling her with all manner of declarations. Lindeman is, at turns, self-deprecating (“My love is the heaviest thing” on “Keep It All to Myself”), regretful (“We never figured out the questions” on “You and I”), and adamant (“I guess I always wanted the impossible” on “Impossible”). But the album’s most devastating addition takes place at the close with “The Most Dangerous Thing About You.” It’s quiet for an album charging forward, either lyrically or rhythmically, and focuses on the aftermath of what she has spent the previous 10 tracks parsing out. For all the communicating Lindeman does on The Weather Station, words don’t offer a magical resolution, but there’s something fiercely beautiful about the effort to keep searching. — AW