Tag: Joe Henry

Basic Folk: John Smith

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Originally from Devon, English singer-songwriter John Smith got his start playing bars and clubs in Liverpool, both with his own songs and as a side player for artists like Lianne La Havas, Lisa Hannigan, and David Gray. Growing up with folk music and guitar music influences from Eric Clapton to Maria Callas to Nick Drake, John’s sensitivity as a player is one of the cornerstones of his music, especially when it comes to his live music. It’s earned him a passionate fanbase ever since his first EP release in 2009.

Host Lizzie No got to witness the connection he shares with audiences on a recent month-long tour around the UK. Everywhere they went together, audience members had stories of how important John’s songs were to them and guitar nerds flocked to have a look at his pedal board.

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Beyond his musicianship, John’s music is imbued with an earnestness that invites listeners to look around and feel gratitude: for nature (especially the vistas of rural England), for the wisdom that memory can provide, and for the people close to us. His latest album, The Living Kind, is a meditation on how delicate love and life can be, but also how enduring. It also showcases the creative partnership between Smith and his longtime friend and roots music industry icon, Joe Henry. One of the album’s highlights is “Milestones,” in which John reflects on how parenthood has changed his perspective on the artist’s life.

Photo Credit: Phil Fisk

John Smith Explores Life’s Beauty in Tragedy with ‘The Living Kind’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

His name might be a little … beige? But those who know John Smith have long loved the vibrant colors of this gifted guitarist and singer-songwriter’s creative palate – especially the serene sophistication at its core. A unique form of meditative propulsion has endeared Smith to heavyweight collaborators like 3-time Grammy winner Joe Henry and his own fans alike, but with his new album, The Living Kind, Smith paints with a new shade of calm, confident, consciousnesses.

Produced by Henry and driven by Smith’s steamroller of a right hand, The Living Kind seems to have a gravity of its own making – a contemporary folk album that is both spartan and lush, modern and timeless, desolate and dense with the movement of life.

Perhaps that’s due to the subject matter, since it was written as Smith grappled with a season of change and an Alzheimer’s diagnosis that impacted not just his father, but the whole family. Or maybe it came down to the recording style, which found the UK native escaping to Maine with a few vintage guitars in the dead of winter, finding new courage in Henry’s home studio. But no matter the reason, the result is a work of deep reflection – and ultimately deep revelation.

Just after The Living Kind’s release, BGS spoke with Smith about the mix of experiences that led to his cathartic new album, a project that helps convey the beautiful tragedy of living itself.

Thank you for making some time for us to connect, John. To start, I just wonder how you’re feeling about the act of making music these days?

John Smith: I mean, I love music. Music is the good bit. I feel like music is the bit I do for free. The music business itself is tough. It’s in a strange place at the moment and everyone I know is working five times harder for half the money. So I feel that going on tour and playing shows cannot be taken for granted, especially since that moment where it all shut down. It feels like a real privilege to be able to go and do live shows. To make this record with my favorite producer was just a dream come true. The whole thing feels completely satisfying and good to me.

Tell me a little about where these songs came from. I understand they came in sort of a creative burst and you had a lot of tumultuous things going on in life at the time before that. Did this music have an impact on you personally – were you using it to process?

I think the album before [2021’s The Fray] was all about that. It was me writing so I didn’t lose my mind. This album feels more about moving through turmoil and looking behind you, looking at the rear view mirror and seeing a part of your life fade into the distance and recognizing it and keeping your eye on the road ahead. I wrote this as I was emerging from a time of tremendous – well, yeah, I say turmoil again, and the songs came very quickly. Once Joe and I had decided to make a record together, I wrote the songs over the course of the winter of 2022 into ‘23, wrote most of the record in about six weeks.

That’s crazy.

I think the thing is, when you’re writing and you put up your aerial, sometimes you catch a good frequency, you get lucky, and you catch something that falls into your lap.

I noticed that you described this project as an actual song cycle, which is not always so common anymore. What’s the story you feel these songs are really taking people through?

Actually, I think that was a journalist who said that, and it kind of hit me that it was not entirely untrue. The album moves through a series of different moods. It starts in a place of despair with “Candle” – a song about Alzheimer’s and looking after someone and feeling burned out. And it ends with this song “Lily,” which is a kind of evergreen love song about hope and being able to get through something, because you’ve got someone to do it with. And I think the album takes you through various situations of grief and longing and love and hope, and then it ends in a very hopeful place.

You mentioned earlier, “Watching the person you were get left behind.” I mean, is that a scary feeling at this point in life?

Yeah, I think I never seem to have any say in it. Things happen and I move around them. What I’m learning as I get older is just to be more malleable, be more subtle. There’s a line in “The World Turns:” “We’ll be stronger if we soften and yield,” and that’s kind of what I learned over the course of the last five years. I was always someone who would attempt to resist the flow, but I’ve learned that just jumping in and seeing if you don’t drown is probably the best way.

I did want to ask you where your sound is landing on this record. It’s got this very peaceful, but sort of propulsive feeling and it puts me in a good place. I like it a lot. I wonder, does that energy show up in your daily life, or were you sort of getting out of yourself to find this mix of calming but also pushing forward?

That’s a really good question. It’s almost as if you’ve done this before. [Laughs] That’s really good, man. I never thought of that. …

Well, I’m a calm person, but I’m always moving. I’m always thinking of the next thing and always planning and always on it, but I’m generally very calm, and maybe that’s a reflection of me. When I went in, I wanted to record something that sounded like me, but also sounded idiosyncratic to this one recording process.

Most of these songs are driven by the right hand. It’s that propulsive groovy right-hand thing that I do, and I’ve been working on my whole life, really. That is at the center of the mix, and Joe wanted to frame that, then just have other actors walk out onto the stage, do their bit, and then walk off. We wanted to put that front-and-center instead of me being part of the ensemble.

Do you think that’s maybe part of why this one was so satisfying feeling?

I think so. I think that’s largely down to Joe and his recording process. He just put a mic up and asks you to play a song. This felt like the record I’ve been trying to make my whole career, just sometimes you need a beautifully gifted Grammy-winning producer to help you get there.

Fortunately, I’ve played on lots of Joe’s records. I’ve played on four or five of his solo records and a bunch of his productions, so I’m used to that way of working – and as soon as I saw him do it the first time like 13 years ago, I just said, “Right, that’s how I want to record.”

He’s always been very encouraging of me, and tried to get me to do my thing without inhibition. And there was a moment when I was singing the song “Silver Mine.” He looked over and he just kind of winked at me and said, “You’ve done it now, son. You’ve done it.” And it was like, “Yeah, I have actually done it. I’ve managed to sing without inhibition on a record,” which I don’t think I’d ever really done before.

How did the setting of Maine – in the winter – impact what you made?

Well, the idea for the album was born there a year previous. I was on tour in New England in February ’22 and then Joe and I wrote this song early after dinner, went upstairs, made a demo, and then Joe just said to me, “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t make a record here in this house.” And so a year later, I was back there and it was the same icy, snowy, frozen situation from the last February, and I’d had it in mind the whole time I was writing. … I always had those frozen finger lakes where he lives in mind.

So, when I went back, it was exactly as I’d remembered it. The songs suited the place, they suited the setting and the weather, and then it happened. On the second day, the temperature plummeted to -25º Celsius. So we just stayed in, man. We stayed in the house. We looked out the window and we cut the record in four days. It brings a closeness that you can’t manufacture. You can hear that on the record.

Tell me about where “Candle” came from. This is the track that starts the record off, and I know it’s kind of a heavy topic, right?

It is a bit heavy. It’s a song about admitting that something is very wrong and that you have to deal with it, and you have to try not to burn out. In this case, my father suffers from Alzheimer’s. We chose to completely change our lives to move around him and his condition and look after him, and it’s a song about that. I felt there was no point in dressing it up and trying to speak of it in broader strokes, because I know a lot of folk whose parents are suffering dementia of some kind. So I just decided, let’s be straight up about it.

Obviously, the visual metaphor is a candle burning out. You, as a carer, will burn out. But actually, I think really the song is about putting your hands around the candle and trying to just stay warm, enjoy that light as long as you can. The relationship with somebody who has Alzheimer’s just changes every day.

You chose “The Living Kind” as the title track. Why did you feel that was the best way to describe the record?

I don’t know, actually. It’s a bit of an anomaly because it’s such an upbeat song. The record isn’t all that upbeat. … I guess I thought “The Living Kind” sums it up. Rather than becoming complacent in the face of great difficulty or becoming stunned into inaction, it’s about getting on with it and trying to live life as best you can. I think that is what a lot of the record is about.

What do you hope people take away from this?

I just hope it makes listeners feel good. I think at the end of the day, that’s all I can hope for. I believe Bob Dylan when he said that once you release music, it is not your business what people think of it. I hope it makes ‘em feel good.

Photo Credit: Phil Fisk

WATCH: Mark & Maggie O’Connor, “All We Will Be”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Mark & Maggie O’Connor
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Song: “All We Will Be”
Release Date: September 30, 2023
Label: ONErpm/OMAC Records

In Their Words: “‘All We Will Be’ is one of our new vocal songs where we reach for a more contemplative place in words and music. There is such mystery and intrigue with the lyrics, by my co-writer Joe Henry, and the story-telling vocal performance by Maggie, that it was interesting for me to create an expanded instrumental soundscape for it. The musical qualities move from plaintive Americana guitar strums to a jazz-rock acoustic fusion crescendo that showcases Maggie’s majestic violin solo. The powerful and intuitive bass and drums on this song – by Dennis Crouch and John Gardner – help to elevate this idea. Our journey here is about testing faith and rediscovering it through love and music.

“In scouting locations for the music video, it was Maggie that suggested the piece be filmed adjacent to the stillness and reflection of our North Carolina lake. On the day of filming, it poured down during the day leaving us a sense of renewal in the forest when things cleared off to do the shoot. The storm also left a painting in the sky — one of those colorful Southern sunsets over the water that had us dancing to the music for the video on the shoreline. I had my 1865 Martin out there on the edge of the swampy part of the lake conveying timelessness through the bending of the strings like ripples in the water. With inspiration from the lyric, ‘Back into trees, like all that we are,’ the low setting sun gave us the shadow effect essential to combine Maggie’s violin and my viola that accompanies her, returning us into the roots of trees on the forest floor. It was joyful to create this video with my wife Maggie, and even more so to have my son Forrest handling the great camera work and the directing of our music video.” – Mark O’Connor

Track Credits: Written by Joe Henry and Mark O’Connor

Maggie O’Connor – vocals, violin, cello
Mark O’Connor – vocals, guitar, mandolin, mandocello, violin, viola
Dennis Crouch – upright bass
John Gardner – drums
Tracking Engineer – Neal Cappellino
Overdubs and Mixing Engineer – Mark O’Connor
Mastering Engineer – Dave Harris at Studio B Mastering, Charlotte, NC
Recorded at Sound Emporium Studio A, Nashville, TN
Overdubs at Hometone Studio

Photo Credit: David Hume Kennerly
Video Credit: Filmed and directed by Forrest O’Connor

LISTEN: Joe Henry, “Kitchen Door”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Joe Henry
Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina; Rochester, Michigan
Song: “Kitchen Door”
Album: All the Eye Can See
Release Date: January 27, 2023
Label: earMUSIC

In Their Words: “I very rarely know where a song comes from, or what it’s ‘about’ in the real time of writing it; and I am sincere when I tell you that I have no desire to know — as I never want to find myself anticipating direction, or trying to steer the discovery that is a song’s hallmark and most potent offering. Additionally, I will confess here that even when I do know, I’m not likely to be forthcoming about it when asked; because I don’t want a listener either to be making assumptions about the experience that a song so uniquely shepherds. Best always for practitioners and receivers alike to plunge headfirst into a song’s water and let it swallow you whole, with all mystery intact.

“Having said that, I’d feel disingenuous right now — having been asked directly about this particular song — to feign ignorance; for in this unique case, I can readily trace its point of origin, and identify its beating heart …

“My beloved mother passed away, suddenly and with no warning, on the last day of May, 2020, at the home she shared with our father in Shelby, NC. Owing to those early and confusing days of the Covid lockdown — and my own status of being somewhat immune compromised — I was initially unable to travel from my home in Los Angeles to join my grieving dad and siblings. It took three weeks, in fact, for me to find my way safely there to stand with them.

(Read more from Joe Henry below the video player.)

“I’d assumed to feel my mother’s spirit still occupying the house, as my brothers and sister had reported they’d sensed; but as it turned out, once there — and though her handiwork is evident in every corner of that old farm house — I could not divine her presence; felt certain that wherever it is that people go upon departure … she’d flown there.

“As I lay alone and awake in one of my old bunk-beds in the converted attic that first night — weary, and very heavy of heart — I heard myself ask toward the ceiling,

“‘Where are you?’

“ — and knew even as those words escaped me that she was and remains all around and within me.

“The song that followed a day or two after returning home picked up on that very thread. And though the first two verses may strike a more abstracted tone, it is the final one that speaks for me personally as I have rarely allowed a song to. And my willingness to let it stand says less about my evolution as a songwriter, and more about my dedication to letting, as always, a song speak its piece and have its way.” — Joe Henry

Photo Credit: David McClister

BGS 5+5: Dan Knobler

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Dan Knobler (Producer, Engineer, Mixer)
Hometown: New York, New York
Latest Album: Friends Play My Son’s Favorite Songs, Vol. 1

Which artist or producer has influenced you the most … and how?

Artist: There are a million I could cite for different reasons — Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Ray Charles, Lucinda Williams, Blake Mills, Derek Trucks — but probably the two that changed my musical path most dramatically are The Meters and The Band. My dad took me to see The Meters when I was a young teen at a time when I was really digging into the guitar and finding my voice. I was deep into the classic rock and blues legends and seeing that show and then exploring the early instrumental Meters records opened the floodgates for all sorts of groove-based and improvisatory music.

I followed that stream to the fertile soil of New Orleans music: brass bands and Mardi Gras indians (check out The Wild Tchoupitoulas if you don’t know) and Allen Toussaint-produced records. From there my horizons widened to other classic funk/soul/R&B which was hugely influential for me — Stax, Motown, James Brown, King Curtis (and all their respective rhythm sections) — and then onward to soul jazz like Jimmy Smith and Lou Donaldson and big bands like Count Basie and Thad Jones / Mel Lewis, then to various eras of Miles Davis and classic Blue Note and Impulse! records like Blues and The Abstract Truth and A Love Supreme.

Later on, during my early college years, I fell under the spell of The Band’s first two records. They too drew influence from a lot of the same soul and R&B records that I had come to love, but imbued it with elements of country and folk and the songs told stories with depth and mystery and characters that felt real. I followed their influences back to classic country and country blues, aided along by an impeccable playlist that my then-girlfriend-now-wife, Carrie Crowell, put together when she first took me to Nashville. Slightly later I started to follow the influence of The Band forward to great modern Americana records and songwriters, many of whom are now friends and collaborators.

Producer: Again, a million past and present who I respect and admire: John Simon, T Bone Burnett, Blake Mills, Josh Kauffman, Russ Titleman, Lenny Waronker. But the one who had the most direct influence on me is Joe Henry. The man is an artist and a poet and a songwriter of the highest order, but has also been at the helm of so many records that have shaped my musical sensibility. The one that looms largest for me is Solomon Burke’s Don’t Give Up On Me. It’s mysterious and deep and heartfelt and immersive and every single musician is playing with nuance and grace.

And that’s true of every Joe Henry record, whether his name is on the front or the back. He casts the room with the right players and emboldens them to be their best selves; he dismisses pretense and genre archetypes and leaves room for light to slip in through the cracks. Particularly with engineer Ryan Freeland at his side, Joe makes records that envelop you. I told him once that his records feel like a well-appointed lounge with the door left slightly ajar — if the listener feels so inclined there is an open invitation to walk in and sit down and feel welcome.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your work?

I love any well-told story, be it a movie or a novel or a great TV show. I do really love a great TV show. Any time there are characters and a world that continues to feel real in your mind and soul after you’ve put the story down is magic. I like photography; I like impressionist paintings; I like interesting architecture and great trees. I love a good meal.

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

I’ve been lucky enough to sit with Joe Henry and sip negronis, so I can check that off my list. I’m also extremely grateful to be surrounded by world-class musicians and songwriters here in Nashville. I’ve shared studio lunches and falafel plates and had late-night hangs with some of the finest folks to be making music in this town. I suppose I’m gonna dream, I’d love to split a belly ham pizza at City House with Randy Newman.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

I hope I can spend my life making the kinds of records that people carry with them through the years, records that can be revisited and grow with you over time. There are certain albums and artists that were particularly meaningful or influential during certain eras of my life that take on a whole new meaning for me now. I want to make music that captivates and surprises people, with great people playing great songs; I want to create a sonic world for those people and those songs to live in that reflects their light most powerfully. I want to make records that the artist thinks is their finest work, that open doors for them and enable them to move through the creative world with more confidence and resources. I want to make records that I want to go back and listen to. I love making records.

What’s your favorite memory from being in the studio?

Here’s a smattering:

• The first time I ever played with Jason Burger. Not in a studio, but through the chaos of young musicians trying to prove themselves in a big open jam session at a Berklee summer program, Jason, bassist Zack Rosen, and I felt a magical rhythm connection that sparked years of playing together. Though Zack passed in 2019, Jason and I carry that spirit into every record we get to make together: a knowing that the sum is greater than its parts, a simultaneous summoning of interlocking rhythms, an endeavor to channel the deep power and beauty of communication through music.

• Setting up a makeshift studio in the unfinished basement of my in-laws’ house in upstate New York and making my college band Flearoy’s first record. It was winter and we were wearing coats while we recorded. We had bought a Leslie on the way up and left it in the back of keyboardist Matt Porter’s minivan for isolation, cables running through cracked windows. Carrie joined us and made meals and we all sat around the fire in the evening and laughed.

• My son, Willoughby, “drawing the sound of the song” in chalk on the studio patio while Anthony Da Costa and I were recording “Here Comes the Sun” for an album I made called Friends Play My Son’s Favorite Songs, Volume 1 and the feeling of listening to the songs I would record for him in the car on the way to school and have him request them on repeat.

• Any time I walk through the doors at Sound Emporium. That place is one of the world’s great studios; it sounds amazing, it feels amazing, it has been home to countless records I love dearly. Every single time I work there I feel deep gratitude that this is my job and a childlike giddiness that not only do I get to work in that particular sonic temple, but I feel at home there.

• Recording “Joyful Motherfuckers” for Allison Russell’s record Outside Child. That whole record was an incredibly beautiful and spiritual experience and every musician on the floor knew it was special from the first downbeat, well before there was any label support or critical praise. While we tracked “Joyful Motherfuckers” all those feelings were particularly palpable. It was the only song on the record that Alli’s partner in life, songwriter JT Nero, played and sang on. At first I thought it should maybe just be the two of them but I had all the musicians stay in their stations — instruments in hand — and said, “If you feel compelled to play, play.”

While Alli and JT sang and all the musicians in the room had their eyes closed, a spell had been cast. Drew Lindsay bravely played a few choice notes on piano at the end of a verse and somehow everyone else in the room just knew what to do: on the downbeat of the bridge we all came in, gently, subtly, but with deep power. As the take ended no one wanted to say anything because once we acknowledged what had happened, the spell would be broken. Most of us cried listening to playback. Luckily, one of the beautiful things about making records is that when you care to revisit a piece of work you get to experience it both as its final form but also as an opportunity to relive the memory and chapter of your life when you made it.

Photo Credit: Melody Walker

Rodney Crowell’s ‘Triage’ Is All About Love, Mortality, and Making Amends

Posted on by Editor

Heartbreak songs, political takedowns, pronunciations of judgment — on his 18th album, Triage, Rodney Crowell doesn’t indulge much in any of them, with the possible exception of judging his own foibles as he burrows deep into his psyche, hoping to extract whatever nuggets of wisdom might still be buried there.

To help in the trenches, he enlisted son-in-law Dan Knobler, a rising talent who produced one of Crowell’s current favorite albums: Allison Russell’s Outside Child. “I respect him, and I learn from him,” Crowell says. “I learn from young people around me. You kiddin’? They’re on to things that I’m not on to, and they have information that I need.”

Knobler’s not the only family tie: another young artist, Jakob Leventhal, sings backing vocals on “Hymn #43,” a track that also contains contributions from his parents, John Leventhal and Rosanne Cash — Crowell’s ex-wife and mother of Knobler’s wife, Carrie. And though it’s “aimed more at the universal than the personal,” there is an homage to Joe Henry, who produced three Crowell albums: Sex & Gasoline, Kin: Songs by Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell, and The Traveling Kind, his second collection of duets with Emmylou Harris.

“I have a deep abiding love for Joe,” Crowell says. “I wrote the song ‘Triage’ for and to Joe, because the conversations we had when he was in the darkest part of coming to grips with a pretty shocking [cancer] diagnosis, his vulnerability and his courage and willingness to embrace everything about it inspired me, and I wanted to make a song based on the inspiration that I got from Joe’s courage and truthfulness.”

Courage and truthfulness. Those qualities permeate the entire album; in fact, it’s safe to say they’ve guided Crowell’s entire career.

BGS: Reviews are saying Triage is one of your most personal albums, and you referred to making amends in an NPR interview. But I suspect your use of “triage” has more to do with the global state of affairs than the need to address any personal sort of emergency at this stage of your life. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Crowell: Yeah, that’s most reasonable. I think the conversation with NPR started with the opening song [“Don’t Leave Me Now”], which is basically an attempt at amends, and it went from there. But the broader stroke on the album, and in my contemplation as I was writing the song, was how do I weigh in without dating myself? If you go political, or if you go topical in the moment, six months from now … you know, unless you write “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “This Land is Your Land,” you’re not timeless.

So my overview is that I want to write about, say, climate change, and I want to write about a monotheistic approach to livin’ my life, and instead of writing about boy/girl love, to write about a higher love — as Steve Winwood sang, “Bring me a higher love.” That’s what I had in mind, so I spent a lot of time revising all of the songs, checking and double-checking to make sure that I was grounding the language, because I was reaching into that place that’s very hard to define.

And yet, you do go topical on “It’s All About Love,” referring to Greta Thunberg and others, in that kind of talking-blues list style that you do so well. You often throw in pop-cultural references; how do you choose what works?

Well, when COVID happened, I got to slow down a bit and not try to race to make a release date, which allowed me to go back through the songs … you know the old saying, “Show, don’t tell”? I was able to go back through and say, “Oh, here I’m telling. I need to bounce this out of here,” and to stay in the show part of it, which is whatever metaphorical angle you take or however you ground the language in such a way that you can’t be accused of thinking you know better than everybody else.

It’s tongue in cheek for me to stick Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and Greta Thunberg and Jessica Biel and the devil all in one stanza; honestly, I’m giggling to myself. They might not get it; they may take me literally, but this is humor.

You touch on religion repeatedly, and at one point in “I’m All About Love,” you chant the names of the lord, so to speak, so the sense is acceptance. Yet you mentioned monotheistic love, and the notion that there is one particular God seems to be expressed here, regardless of which one.

My mother was quite religious in the Pentecostal, speaking-in-tongues, emotional religious paradigm, and even as a child, it didn’t serve me. I just sensed something was amiss with it. I’ve always felt that way. Religion, I mistrust; the creator of it all, I do trust. Whether that creator of it all is a team, or whatever that is, I don’t really know. But I feel it. And hopefully, as I’m writing the songs and exploring that, I’m not saying that I really know, because I don’t. I can’t tell you anything about your god, and I really can’t tell you a lot about mine. But I sure do have a feeling.

When you’re writing songs, in some cases, you must have specific people or incidents in mind. But you also want to get them to the point where they have that universal feeling, where the listener can relate it to something in their own life. How do you strike that balance of not revealing too much about what’s going on in your life, while alluding to enough of it that it does personalize the lyric and make it touching?

I learned a long time ago, if it’s coming from my own experience, there’s a good chance I’m a step closer to true. And I can mine my personal truth, but confessional only goes so far. I’ve tried to walk that line; if I can carefully write about my own experience and put it in a broader perspective, then [for] the listener, it becomes their experience. It’s no longer my experience. That’s why I feel like I have to be really careful; if I make it too much about my experience, then I start to tread on the listener’s experience. The goal is to get it in such a way where — and there again, it’s the “show, don’t tell” — if it’s show, you show somebody their emotion, their experience. If you tell, you’re tellin’ ’em about you. And down there somewhere in the gravel of it all, I’m telling you about me.

But you’re actually not revealing that much, even though it comes across that way. I can’t listen to this and guess what’s happening in your life, even though I can sense what has happened, possibly.

Well, there you go. If that’s your experience, then I’ve succeeded, because I don’t want [the song] to be about me. I want it to be about it.

Other songs here, like “One Little Bird” and “Girl on the Street,” seem to be written for your children, or specific children. Am I close?

Yeah, you are, in a way. “Girl on the Street,” it’s something that happened in San Francisco. I met a girl and … however she could get money off me for drugs, she was willing to go there. And she was young and beautiful and reminded me of my own children. That was why the regret that the narrator has in the song is like, “I could have done more.” I could have bought her a room for the night where she could get a shower and a good night’s sleep. Or I could have taken her and bought her something to eat and sent her on her way, but no; I gave her 45 cents. So I really failed as an adult on the street. And that’s what I hope the song says.

Regarding amends, who in your life do you feel you haven’t apologized to that you still need to?

I’ve apologized to everybody that needs to be apologized to. But that doesn’t mean everybody accepted. And I have to live with that. If you look closely, in “One Little Bird,” it’s in there. I’ve been rebuffed.

You hit that one high note in “One Little Bird,” that falsetto, that I don’t think I’ve heard you do before. It’s evident that there’s definitely some change in your vocal style; that it’s actually expanding with age, which is interesting, because one would not expect that. Are you doing more training, or just finding ways to do that yourself?

I’m learning; as a matter of fact, I retired “Shame on the Moon” from my performances for years because Bob Seger sang it so damned well. And I’ve reinstated it into my live shows for the first time since ’84. I got an outro that will stand alongside Bob Seger’s now, as far as I’m concerned. I can ad-lib the outros in a way where I feel like, “OK, this is my song again.”

You took possession back.

Yes. I’ve repossessed “Shame on the Moon.” [Laughs] But I had to grow as a vocalist to where I could legitimately reclaim it. So that’s cool, I mean, from my perspective, to want to grow to become better. If I know that I’m getting better on that front, I’ll keep on writing songs because I’ll want to continue to experiment with what I can do.

I wanted to address the issue of mortality a bit. Let’s face it, we’re not all that young anymore, but it sounds as if you’ve still got a lot of plans. So how do you regard life now that there’s plenty of it in the rearview mirror, but you’re not ready to sign off?

Now that time is compressed? [Laughs]

Yes.

As a younger artist, quote/unquote, I was quite comfortable with broad-stroke; I wrote “Please Remember Me” and “Making Memories of Us” and those broad-stroke love songs because I was experiencing life in a way that I was trying to express myself outward, to understand how I fit into that world out there. And now as I age and become a septuagenarian, I made Triage as the kind of record it is because I am facing mortality. As you realize that the time out in front of you is a lot shorter than the time behind you, rather than going for those broad-stroke love songs to send out there into the world to find out who you are, I’m writing about my interior life, because I think, to prepare myself to leave this planet, I have to have a better understanding of my interior self.

What would you still like to achieve that you haven’t yet?

Mmmm, that’s interesting. Well, I’m working on achieving certain things as a singer that continue to reveal themselves to me. I’ve become a better singer and I’m continuing to develop as a vocalist. That makes me happy, because for a long time, I was very unhappy on that front. As I age, the more singular my sensibility becomes about my interior experience; I’m also arrogant enough to think that’s worth sharing out there with these records that I make. But I may yet open up onto another plateau where I’ve examined mortality enough that, hey, it’s time to celebrate a little bit, and I’m gonna make a blues record, or I want to make a honky-tonk record that sounds like 1954. Who knows? I’m pretty much free to do exactly what I want to do.

Photo credit: Sam Esty Rayner Photography

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 216

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week, David Crosby and Sarah Jarosz join up for a Joni Mitchell number, husband-and-wife duo Darin and Brooke Aldridge bring us some beautiful bluegrass harmonies, LA’s own Los Lobos share their rendition of a favorite Jackson Browne tune, and much more.

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The Wallflowers – “Maybe Your Heart’s Not In It Anymore”

25 years after their breakout hit and almost a decade after their most recent release, The Wallflowers are back with a new album, Exit Wounds. In our interview with Jakob Dylan we talk about the project, singing with Shelby Lynne, the documentary Dylan executive produced, Echo in the Canyon, and more.

Ric Robertson – “Carolina Child”

We spoke with Ric Robertson about playing a popcorn kernel in a musical as a kid, his kite surfing aspirations, his new album Carolina Child, and more in a recent edition of 5+5.

Amy Ray Band – “Chuck Will’s Widow”

Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls finds herself often haunted by the song of the nocturnal songbird, the Chuck-will’s-widow: “I find that I witness the most profound moments in the midst of their songs, when everyone else is asleep. While I am often in need of rest, the respite I find in being awake under a miraculous and melodic night sky is too tempting for me to sleep. It’s a conundrum that inspires me, but also leaves me bleary-eyed.”

Darin and Brooke Aldridge – “Once In A While”

Bluegrass husband-and-wife duo Darin & Brooke Aldridge hope that every aspect of their music makes you smile — even more than “Once in a While!”

Matt the Electrician – “Home Again”

Folk singer-songwriter Matt The Electrician will return with a new album called We Imagined an Ending in November. A new track, “Home Again,” takes inspiration from the point of view of his teenage daughter. “The conundrum of parenthood, that as you finally start to figure some things out, and try to pass along some of that hard won wisdom, you’re greeted with your own teenage face staring balefully back at you.”

Tobacco City – “AA Blues”

Says Chris Coleslaw of Tobacco City’s latest single, “The character in the song is trapped between working in a brewery and staring at beers all day and trying to walk a sober line. I think regardless of your sobriety status we can all relate to those kind of blues.”

Jesse Daniel – “Clayton Was A Cowboy”

Jesse Daniel spoke with us about his new album, Beyond These Walls, about growing up catching crawdads and fishing, the chills-inducing feeling when a crowd sings along with his lyrics, and more in a recent 5+5.

Joy Oladokun – “Judas”

Joy Oladokun is able to do more with just an acoustic guitar and her voice than many artists can in an entire discography of work. And going from Arizona to L.A. then across country to Nashville with a new outlook and perspective, her music stands on a plane with a unique vantage point.

Luke LeBlanc – “Same Blues”

A new video for Luke LeBlanc’s co-written tune with Roy August, “Same Blues,” attempts to capture what the song is about: the tug of war between the status quo and what you’re currently doing versus that thing you really want to do.

Midnight North – “Silent Lonely Drifter”

“Silent Lonely Drifter” is an original folk melody reminiscent of timeless Appalachian string band music. Each verse references a different full moon, speaking to the natural balance that exists in the universe.

Los Lobos – “Jamaica Say You Will”

The Jackson Browne tune “Jamaica Say You Will” always resonated for the fellas of Los Lobos and the narrative and storytelling were attractive, too. So, they recorded their own rendition of the track on their latest project, Native Sons.

Aoife O’Donovan ft. Milk Carton Kids – “More Than We Know”

New music from Aoife O’Donovan is here and we’re loving it! Hear tracks created with Joe Henry and the Milk Carton Kids — one inspired by the modern classic re-telling of Peter Pan, the movie Hook.

John R. Miller – “Shenandoah Shakedown”

Depreciated, the new Rounder Records release from singer-songwriter John R. Miller, combines many of his string band and bluegrass influences with a satisfyingly melancholy and dark mood — plus plenty of fiddle.

David Crosby ft. Sarah Jarosz – “For Free”

Legendary singer, guitar picker, and songwriter David Crosby keeps his love for collaboration alive on his new album, For Free, which features guests and co-writers such as Sarah Jarosz, Michael McDonald, his son James Raymond, and more.

Photos: (L to R) Joy Oladokun by Nolan Knight; Aoife O’Donovan courtesy of Shorefire Media; David Crosby by Anna Webber

LISTEN: Aoife O’Donovan, “More Than We Know” & “Captain’s Clock”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Aoife O’Donovan
Hometown: Newton, Massachusetts
Songs: “More Than We Know” (featuring The Milk Carton Kids) & “Captain’s Clock”
Release Date: July 19, 2021

In Their Words: “In January of 2021, I reached out to my friend Joe Henry about some new music I was writing. What transpired from that first conversation was a lot of new music… a lot a lot. I’m so excited to share two songs from those sessions! ‘More Than We Know,’ a new song written with Joe, features the crystalline vocals of Joey and Kenneth (The Milk Carton Kids). The second tune ‘Captain’s Clock’ (yes, it’s a Hook reference) features insanely beautiful woodwinds by Levon Henry. My parts were recorded at Full Sail with Darren Schneider.” — Aoife O’Donovan

Photo courtesy of Shorefire Media

The Show On The Road – Amy Helm

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, The Show On The Road places a call into Woodstock, NY, where we speak to a respected singer, songwriter, and sometimes drummer Amy Helm, beloved daughter of Levon Helm of The Band.

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Growing up in the home of two working performers (her mother is singer Libby Titus, who wrote songs covered by Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt) wasn’t always the easiest for the introspective Helm, but it gave her a fertile proving ground to begin exploring creating her own soaring songs in the folk, blues, and soul traditions. She waited until she was forty-four to release her acclaimed first solo record, Didn’t It Rain, with her father lending his signature earthy drums on several tracks — and this year, she teamed up with multi-instrumentalist and producer Josh Kaufman (Taylor Swift, Bonny Light Horseman) to create What The Flood Leaves Behind, her most emotive and lushly-realized project yet.

With her dogs often joining the conversation from her upstate home, Helm dives into her early years trying her hand at singing in New York City cafes, having folks walk out of her folk fest shows because her band was too loud, founding the band Ollabelle, joining her stepdad Donald Fagen’s group Steely Dan onstage, backing up legends like Stax soul artist William Bell and finally reconnecting with her dad in her mid-thirties as he began his late life renaissance, hosting his epic Americana throwdowns called “The Midnight Rambles.” It was being a member of that crack “ramble band” that gave Amy the final push to pursue her own lead voice.

While Levon famously struggled with heroine addiction and the foibles of post-Bob Dylan and The Band fame fallout, it was when he got clean and took Amy under his wing that both of their stars began to rise again. You can hear Amy singing on his gorgeous return in 2017’s Dirt Farmer. Becoming more ambitious, Amy laid down her upbeat rock-n-soul-tinged second album with producer Joe Henry in LA with notable players like Doyle Bramhall II, Tyler Chester, and a vocal choir of Allison Russell and JT Nero (Birds of Chicago) and Adam Minkoff. This Too Shall Light was released in 2018 on Yep Roc Records and Amy began to be recognized as one of the most powerful singers touring the Americana circuit. Her newest record was recorded at her spiritual home, Levon Helm Studios, where each ramble still takes place on the weekends.

During the pandemic, Helm had a unique idea to keep her creative muscles strong, even when live music gatherings were not technically allowed in public. She began setting up “curbside concerts” for her friends and any curious fans who missed her songs, touring around Woodstock with her guitar, bringing a little joy to her shut-in listeners during New York’s darkest hours.

Stick around to the end of the episode to hear Helm introduce the spiritual opening track of What The Flood Leaves Behind, “Verse 23.”

Photo credit: Ebru Yildiz

Joe Henry Surrenders to the Song

Posted on by Editor

Joe Henry is sitting and chatting in the living room of his vintage, Spanish-style home in Pasadena, California. The subject of the note that starts off his new album, The Gospel According to Water, comes up. He looks over his left shoulder and points to the corner.

“It’s that guitar right there,” he says. “It’s an all-mahogany Martin from 1922. It was the first guitar they made that was created for steel strings.”

Seeing this small, plain instrument, it seems impossible that it was from this that he conjured the note in question, a sound deep yet brittle, intimately resonant. It’s at once ancient and fully present in the now. And it’s a sound that serves as something of a motif throughout the marvelously moving, affectingly poetic cycle of songs. It was a sound from a specific source that was echoing in his head when he sat in the Los Angeles studio of his longtime friend, recording engineer Husky Huskold, to set a new batch of songs on tape.

“I played him one song from Lightnin’ Hopkins,” he says. The song was “Mama and Papa Hopkins,” a 1959 recording from the point of view of young Lightnin’ getting his feuding parents to see the good they share.

“It was just vocal and acoustic guitar. And Lightnin’ is mostly singing to a single string that he’s playing. And yet the way it’s recorded, it’s so heavy. There’s such a sense of ominous space. And I said, ‘Look. I know I’m not him. I’m never going to be Lightnin’ Hopkins. But listen to what’s going on here. There’s something that’s making this so visceral in a way that I want to hear. Even if this is just demos, I want to hear a sense of drama.’”

You’d think Henry, who just turned 59 last week, would have had more than enough drama. A week before Thanksgiving 2018, he’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer, which had metastasized to his skeletal system. (He is in remission now and feeling hearty.) When he went in to record, it was a week before Father’s Day. All but two of the songs had been written in an unexpected rush of expression that started at Valentine’s Day. He specifically references those poignant holidays when giving the timeline.

As he plucked that first note for “Famine Walk” (one of two songs on the album written during a two-month writing residency at a small art college on the west coast of Ireland, before the cancer diagnosis), he had no idea it would be how he opened the album. He had no idea he was making an album.

He just wanted to get these songs down while they seemed fresh, and that’s all he thought he was doing in the course of two quick days of recording with his son, as well as reeds player Levon Henry, pianist Patrick Warren and guitarist John Smith sitting in on some of the songs, and with David Piltch playing bass on “Book of Common Prayer.” At the end of the second day, he went home to listen to the recordings, sitting in his office with his wife Melanie Ciccone, Levon, and a friend. Only then did he really hear what he had.

“We just listened to the whole thing,” he says. “And it was so obvious to me and to everybody in the room listening back that it felt fully realized. I mean, it’s raw. It’s really spare. But emotionally speaking, I heard it and thought, ‘I don’t know if I’ll get closer to the intention of these songs.”

The only thing added later was the background vocals of Allison Russell and JT Nero, AKA Birds of Chicago, on the songs “In Time for Tomorrow” and “The Fact of Love.” He would have added his longtime drummer Jay Bellerose to some of this, but when he sent the tracks to him, Bellerose responded with a simple voicemail: “Um, not on your life.” His drummer’s instincts of when not to play, though extreme here, were exactly right.

In its sense of space, The Gospel According to Water is a perfect portrayal of the experiences that brought it about, mystifying and mystical in as personal a way as can be. At times it’s as elliptical and elastic as the engagingly playful folk-jazz that’s been a signature of his last several albums. But here that portrayal is stripped down to its essence.

At the center is the natural fragility of Henry’s voice as he lingers over key words and phrases in ways that can be enchanting and startling, sometimes both at once. While it’s instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with his work, it stands apart not only from his previous 14 solo albums, but also from his many production credits: for New Orleans titan Allen Toussaint’s final works (including the 2006 The River in Reverse, a collaboration with Elvis Costello following the city’s devastating flood), Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash, Bettye LaVette, the Milk Carton Kids, Joan Baez’s most recent album Whistle Down the Wind, and Rhiannon Giddens’ and Francesco Turrisi’s stunning there is no Other.

But he winces at this being considered his “cancer album.” He even considered trying to avoid the topic in interviews and promotion of the release. But ultimately he opted for openness.

“Whether it’s fair or not, it’s going to happen,” he says. “I lost a little bit of sleep over that, wondering how I can mitigate that. And then I just realized that I can’t now, more than I ever could, control how people respond to the music — if they respond at all — and rein that in… People are going to hear it like that, and there’s not much I can do about it. It’s an aspect of how this record happened and what it is.”

Indeed, as the music made its way out to the world, friends and fans alike started sending him notes, almost all mentioning his health issues. He came to accept that for the good intentions, too.

“I just believe in the songs enough,” he says. “They’re already moving out into the world without me. They’re going to have to make their own way. They’re going to have to straighten their own teeth, find their own job. I can only do so much and when I go out and perform these songs, I may or may not at times offer any framing context about how the songs occurred or when they occurred.”

He references a comment made many years ago by his mentor T Bone Burnett, who produced Henry’s 1990 album Shuffletown, when discussing his Christian faith in regards to his art. Burnett said that while some sing about the light, he sings about what he sees illuminated by the light. Henry addressed that, in his own way, when he first played a few of the songs in public, in a concert at the Los Angeles’s Largo theater.

“Part of my preamble was to say, ‘Look, I know I’m holding this shoehorn that would help you into the tight fit of a big batch of new songs. And if I have one reluctance to hand this shoehorn over it’s because I don’t want you to think, from what I’m about to say, that where a song comes from is what a song is,’” he says. “A song is not where it comes from. Just because my particular health crisis has invited me to receive these songs in a particular sort of way, that is not what the songs are.”

He thinks back to being with Toussaint, doing interviews right after New Orleans was flooded in 2005, his home among the many destroyed. In interview after interview, Henry saw Toussaint refuse to deliver the “heartbreak” stories journalists craved. Finally, when pushed by a CNN interviewer, he made his point.

“He said, ‘You have to understand something: More than a drowning, this was a baptism,’” Henry recalls. “And talk about something that silenced the room, myself included. I’ve thought about this so many times since this occurrence for me, the fact that Allen wasn’t in denial about what had just happened. He just had the ability to see, that his vision didn’t stop with this trauma. He was seeing beyond.”


Some of that is elusive on the album, found in shadows cast by the metaphorical light. The song “Orson Welles” is a good example, with its arresting chorus: “You provide the terms of my surrender, I’ll provide the war.” He’s still mystified how that one came about, the words written as he and Melanie flew from Burbank to San Francisco.

“That’s just something I found falling off my hand,” he says. “I open my notebook and I literally watched my hand write ‘Orson Welles’ at the top of the page. And I didn’t know what Orson had to do with anything. It’s just one of those moments where it felt spring-loaded. I didn’t believe I was writing about Orson, but I believe that somehow his specter was kind of directing, gesturing me on to something, somewhere I needed to go in that moment. And I just followed, because, you know, who wouldn’t?”

He found himself thinking about a part of Citizen Kane in which Welles’ title character wants his newspaper to have headlines from a conflict in South America that is petering out, so he cables his correspondent there, “You provide the prose poems, I’ll provide the war.” (In real life, William Randolph Hearst instructed his staff, “You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war.”)

For Henry it took a different turn, though, with the idea of surrender — certainly tied to his health situation, and the ultimate lack of power over it, but extending far beyond that.

“I feel like I’ve written about surrender a good bit,” he says. “And I don’t mean surrender in terms of resignation, I kind of mean surrender in terms of radical acceptance, which is empowering, which is motivating, as opposed to the idea of collapse.”

Two titles stand out, though, for the clear view of the basics of life, the perspective brought by such things as loss, age, kids growing up and facing mortality. “The Fact of Love” is pretty much self-explanatory, but “Salt and Sugar” really captures it. “Everything is salt and sugar now,” he sings, boiling it down to things that make life possible and meaningful — though too much of either can kill you.

He explains that he and Melanie have been doing some “decluttering” in recent years, having left the large house in which they raised their two kids, and moving twice to subsequently smaller places. But the song definitely shows what he’s seen from the light brought by his health.

“It’s paring things down to salt and sugar,” he says. “Everything. What matters? How do you make a record? How do you express what you want to say? Who do you spend your time with? What do you spend your days doing? All that.”

He recounts many of the changes in his life in recent years, the moves, the attachments and the letting go of attachments. Finally, he sums it up in a way that gets to the heart of what he has done with The Gospel According to Water, and it’s just as on-point as that note he plucked to start the album.

“I mean, just, you know, occupy life.”

Photo Credit: Jacob Blickenstaff