John Prine, ‘Sweet Revenge’

So, yeah, everyone is talking about Taylor Swift. This is an undeniable fact and a constant that will exist from now until the release of her sixth record in three months; it will surely dominate the cultural landscape until we’re all sick of her Reputation … Swift included. This anticipation is a electrifying thing — those bubbles of excitement are not unlike the thrill of waiting on the touch of a new lover — but the machine in which music is released these days is also exhausting, and so often the chorus that envelops a body of work is much louder than the songs themselves. As Swift knows, her reputation precedes her. And surrounds her. And tweets at her and …

Of course, there is music out there now other than what belongs to Swift, and some of it are true bits of treasure. John Prine’s September ’78 was dug up like a literal one: The legendary songwriter found the recording in his basement, a live document of his ’70s swagger and prolific prime. Included in the collection is “Sweet Revenge,” a song full of Prine-ian wisdom, the lyric video for which is premiering exclusively here. Somewhat like Swift, Prine wrote “Sweet Revenge” and the album of the same name as a bit of sonic retribution. His label wasn’t happy with the commercial reception to his second LP, so he dropped a veritable masterpiece to set them straight and silence them once and for all. Swift might experience a different kind of detractor — in the form of tabloids, gossip blogs, and maybe a Kardashian or two — but she could take some marching orders from the ever-sage Prine: “Through rock and through stone, the black wind still moans. Sweet revenge. Sweet revenge, without fail.”

ANNOUNCING: 2017 Americana Music Awards Nominations

Today, the nominees for the 16th annual Americana Music Association‘s Honors & Awards show were announced during an event at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum hosted by the Milk Carton Kids and featuring performances by Jason Isbell, Jerry Douglas, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley of the Drive-By Truckers, and Caitlin Canty. The winners will be announced during the Americana Honors & Awards show on September 13, 2017 at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.

Album of the Year:
American Band, Drive-By Truckers, Produced by David Barbe
Close Ties, Rodney Crowell, Produced by Kim Buie and Jordan Lehning
Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens, Produced David Bither, Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell
The Navigator, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Produced by Paul Butler
A Sailor’s Guide to Earth, Sturgill Simpson, Produced by Sturgill Simpson

Artist of the Year:
Jason Isbell
John Prine
Lori McKenna
Margo Price
Sturgill Simpson

Duo/Group of the Year:
Billy Bragg & Joe Henry
Drive-By Truckers
Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives
The Lumineers

Emerging Artist of the Year:
Aaron Lee Tasjan
Amanda Shires
Brent Cobb
Sam Outlaw

Song of the Year:
“All Around You,” Sturgill Simpson, Written by Sturgill Simpson
“It Ain’t Over Yet,” Rodney Crowell (featuring Rosanne Cash & John Paul White), Written by Rodney Crowell
“To Be Without You,” Ryan Adams, Written by Ryan Adams
“Wreck You,” Lori McKenna, Written by Lori McKenna and Felix McTeigue

Instrumentalist of the Year:
Spencer Cullum, Jr.
Jen Gunderman
Courtney Hartman
Charlie Sexton

How I Got to Memphis: Cory Branan in Conversation with Coco Hames

Cory Branan and Coco Hames lived in Nashville for years, had mutual friends, moved in the same singer/songwriter circles, released records, played shows, lived life, but somehow managed never to actually meet each other. “We would have absolutely met, if I’d ever left my house for five years,” Branan says, somewhat apologetically. “I just never go out when I get off the road. I stay at home and just look at the wife and child.”

“I never go out,” says Hames. “People are always trying to get me to go to some new bar, and I’m like, ‘I live in bars! I would rather put on some soft pants and stay at home and read.’”

Their homebodiness is well-earned, even if it’s not the only thing they have in common. Both have been road warriors for the better part of the 21st century, Branan as a solo artist and Hames as the frontwoman for the garage-pop outfit the Ettes. He writes witty, roguish songs full of concrete details and wry observations, like John Prine — if he was really into vintage synths and classic rock. Hames’s songs are minimal and smart, eccentric and rambunctious, as though she’s triangulating the spot where the Ramones, Josie & the Pussycats, and Tammy Wynette overlap.

Plus, they’ve both just released what may be their best albums to date. After the Ettes made an amicable split, she went solo with a self-titled record that shows more range and acuity, toggling between a torch song like “I Do Love You” and a country lament like “Tennessee Hollow.” On Adios, Branan writes movingly about the deaths of his father and grandparents and the ongoing trials of small town heroes like the heroine of “Blacksburg” and anyone sentenced to live in “Walls, MS.”

Neither of you live in Nashville anymore. These days, you don’t leave the house in Memphis, Tennessee.

CH: I’ll just tell you: I fell in love, got married. That’s what brought me to Memphis. I left Nashville and moved here a couple years ago, and I love everything about it. I’m very happy here. Actually, in a little bit, I’m going to go see my friend Margo Price at Minglewood Hall. I don’t know if you know her, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

CB: I met Margo, yeah, just a couple times. I’ve been back in Memphis for a whopping two week altogether. Nashville priced us out. We found a cheap place in Memphis, and it was just decided. We got the truck the day we decided to move, and we loaded up. We moved the next day, returned the truck the next day. I told my wife, “Well, it’s a new place, baby. I’ll see you in two months.” She’s already painted the whole place. She’s got it on lockdown. She’s good at moving.

Memphis has great history, but Nashville is still such a big industry city. Did it feel strange to leave that behind?

CH: I have put my foot in my mouth more than once, for more than one city. I’ve lived in New York and L.A. and London and Madrid and Nashville and Austin and Memphis. I always say something stupid about one of those cities, but I don’t really mean it. Nowhere is really home for me anyway, so it’s not really hard for me to leave. I opened a record store in Nashville, but it was getting really expensive. And my husband was visiting me, and I said to him, “What do you do when you’re an adult and you fall in love with somebody and you want to be with them?” He said, “Well, you know, you move to Memphis or I could move to Nashville.” I’m like, “I’ll move to Memphis.” So it wasn’t super weird. It’s a cool place and there’s a lot going on, but nothing I miss too much, to be honest.

CB: What record store did you have?

CH: It’s called Fond Object, and it was up in Riverside Village on the east side.

CB: I didn’t know that was your place. I’ve been up there a few times. I played behind it one time.

CH: Did you get to meet my goats and my pig?

CB: Yes. My son was fascinated. He wanted to take one home.

CH: When I was leaving, I knew it was in capable hands, so I signed off on it and gave it to my bandmates. I think they lost their lease and moved downtown.

CB: I liked living there, but it’s all the same, honestly. Mainly Memphis means geographical ease. There’s a reason FedEx is in Memphis. It has access to Chicago and New Orleans, and it’s so close to Atlanta. When I lived in Austin, you can get in to Mexico before you can get out of Texas. I do well in three or four cities in Texas. L.A., you wouldn’t think it, but it’s pretty isolated. I’m spoiled from being in Memphis. It’s really easy to tour out of. You can do two-week runs in any direction, as opposed to California, where it’s an ordeal going anywhere but the West Coast.

When I lived in Memphis, there a big Memphis-Nashville competition that everybody in Memphis knew about and nobody in Nashville had any clue about.

CB: Exactly. They didn’t know they were in the fight. I’m happy to be from Memphis, but it does give you a little bit of a chip on the shoulder. There’s no scene here. It’s splintered and fractured. There are great musicians who never leave. You can go see somebody who’s amazing, but they’re not touring very much. On the other hand, there’s never anyone in the crowd that can help you. There’s never a producer, never a publisher that’s going to offer to help your career. Nashville has that element. I didn’t enjoy that element. If you’re playing to a stubborn Memphis crowd, it burns off the chaff. If you’re not alive for it or you don’t love it, they’re going to expose you.

CH: Nashville is a hard place to feel comfortable, because I don’t think they’re really interested in anything, which feels very sad and lonely. I’d rather you dislike me than try to chat me up about who we both know. That’s the worst part of what I do. I’m not very schmoozy. I’m probably the least schmoozy person. There are plenty of people to pay for that sort of thing, but I’m not crazy about it.

CB: Don’t get me wrong — there are great things about Nashville and there are shit things about Memphis. It’s a rough town, and there’s a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots. They’re refurbishing downtown, but I don’t know if they’re working a bit on education. Nashville, on the other hand, has no infrastructure for the massive number of people that are moving there, but the city itself is a little more thirsty. They’ll go out to a show: “Oh, I don’t know what it is. Let’s go check it out.” Memphis, they need to know that their buddy is going to be there. But you can be at a party and the guitar will not come out. Unlike Nashville. Some asshole’s always pulling out an acoustic guitar in Nashville. That’s the best way to kill a party right there.

CH: That’s my cue to leave.

I wanted to ask you two about Memphis and Nashville because I feel like place figures very prominently into your songwriting. There are lots of place names in your lyrics, along with a sense of travel and movement.

CH: Cory, you can go first because you’re from here. I’m from Florida, so place has always been something I was trying to get away from.

CB: Really?

CH: I don’t know. It’s more in my record collection than it is outside my window. It’s cooler to be from Mississippi.

CB: That’s the thing. I grew up in a damn suburb. I was a little hoodrat. My grandparents had a farm, but my old man worked at FedEx. He moved us up to the last town in Mississippi, so I was just as much a suburban kid as anybody else. I grew up with the music in the church. Gospel has blues roots, maybe a little more prominent than your typical Southern Baptist reading out of the hymnal. It swings a little more. It depends on where I’m playing whether people consider me country or not. When I’m out opening rock shows or something, as soon as I open my mouth and they hear the accent, they’re like, “Oh, he’s country.” You can’t wash it off. Everything I do, it’s filtered through that lens.

But my music is all over the place. I don’t really play a particular genre. I tend to stay away from a lot of things that I love — old blues, the Piedmont stuff, that’s all scripture for me. Maybe some of the finger picking works its way in, but I don’t really play the blues or anything. I just stay away from that stuff. There’s more of a white suburban thing to me, I think. My music is more about Big Star or the Replacements. That’s sort of blues music, in a way. I’ve always said there’s a reason why Johnny Cash fans are Clash fans and Clash fans are Johnny Cash fans.

Stylistically, both of your albums are all over the map. You get a lot of different sounds and genres, but they all make sense as part of this larger musical personality that you project.

CB: Probably the last record [2014’s The No-Hit Wonder] is the closest I’ve gotten to a consistent sound. I hammered it out really fast, and they just happened to be a bunch of roots-based songs. I’m always about whatever the song sort of wants, and I don’t think as an album, as a whole. I try to structure it later, as far as the pacing of it and what songs go where. I definitely play that loose. Frankly, my obscurity lets me do that. I would probably have a bit more of a career if I didn’t change it up so much. I was on tour with Lucero, and [frontman] Ben [Nichols] was listening to Adios and he said, “Why don’t you do a full album with this kind of song and then another whole album of this kind of song?” I was like, “Because it bores me, and I don’t get to do enough albums to do that.” It takes two-and-a half-years to get a new record through the red tape.

CH: That’s true. At my level, whatever that is, I can do whatever I want, so I do whatever I want. When I was in the Ettes, it was very formulaic without me really knowing it. I was writing for this specific group of people, so of course I kept doing the same thing. There are people who are very sweet and love my band, and I’m sure they want all the songs to be just like that. But with this solo record, I wrote all the songs and let them go wherever they went. It’s all over the place. The whole point was to try these new things, and hopefully I did a good job with them.

That seems most prominent on “I Do Love You,” which reminds me of Dusty Springfield. That’s a nice thing to hear between a country song and a garage song.

CB: I get that same vibe off that one.

CH: I was trying to go for something epic, because I wrote it about my husband. I wanted an epic love story and big feelings. When I was singing it in the studio, I had my arms up like Eva Perón. I’d never really sung like that before. I just assumed I could do it. No one was telling me I couldn’t, so why not?

You’re both writing songs about real people in your lives. That songs about your husband. There are some songs about your dad and your grandparents on Adios.

CB: The one about my father, I wrote that one right after he died, and I never played it out. It seemed a little too specific. I like songs to be useful for other people. I never want to be like, “Oh, look at my pain.” But my wife told me to just shut up, play it out a few times, and see if anybody responds. She was right, as always. Since it seemed to be useful for other people, I went ahead and cut it. But usually, the closer it is to me, the more I will cast it with other characters and other situations. I’ll take all that grief and mourning or even joy and cast it into another storyline. But “The Vow” was very specifically about my dad and it seemed like it worked out all right.

CH: What do you mean? You try to put that sort of emotion or experience away from yourself? You try to insert maybe like a “he” or a “she” where it might be a “me”?

CB: That’s part of it. Also, I’m just not a fan of diary writers. When he died, I did put out a record after that [The No-Hit Wonder], and there was a song on there called “All I Got and Gone.” It’s about a guy in New Orleans and a woman, and there’s a note that he found, but you don’t know if it’s a suicide note or a “Dear John” letter. I was mourning, but I put that feeling in a completely different scenario. That song for me was like, “Okay, here we go. I got this out of me.” But no one would ever connect that, you know? I don’t tend to write with any sort of precision, while I’m still in the whirlwind. I like to get perspective on things and, if I’m going to try to do the old man justice, it’s hard to get a whole human being in a three-minute song.

CH: Yeah. Especially with something like that, do you ever feel like it’s too … I’m going through something that happened recently, and it means so much to me that it feels cheap to approach it where I’m going to put it into song. A lot of people write like that. That’s part of how they get it out, but to me, it’s so precious to me that I can’t distill it.

CB: I know exactly what you’re talking about there. Added on to all of this is that I wanted to do right by the old man and not be maudlin. I didn’t want to manipulate emotions. It’s hard to earn the genuine feeling of “Okay, this was a solid person, a human being.” The second verse is talking about how he gave shit advice. It’s got humor in there, because the old man was funny. But he was also very stoic and his advice usually amounted to, “Don’t do it.”

I Do Love You” is obviously a very different song, but the approach is similar in that you’re writing about a real person and trying to capture that complex relationship in three minutes of music.

CH: I think everybody has had the feelings in that song. I hope everybody has. But I very rarely feel ready to immediately turn my observations or my feelings about important things into a song. It’s not something that I usually need to do, and so I don’t do it. But something that affects your life so strongly, maybe it’s okay not to write about it as a way to understand it, because it’s so big that I don’t think it’s fair for me to understand it yet. So I wait. If something strikes me or I get drunk and write a bunch of stupid lines and one of them is good, maybe it will spur something useful. That’s the most I can do and, if it comes back around and still stands up, if I still know what I was talking about, then it can make me say more.

CB: I won’t mention anybody’s name, but there is an artist I really love and respect. They got successful and found a good relationship, and then they trashed it on purpose, because they thought that’s the only one they could create. It’s the whole tortured artist myth. John Prine has my favorite quote on that: “I’d rather have a hot dog than a song.” Take the joy. You can have both the joy and the song. People say to me, “You’re a relatively sane human being now that you’ve settled down and stopped acting like an asshole, and you have kids, so how do you write when you’re happy?” Well, I know it’s all fleeting. I know all the good stuff is only here for a little bit. My fears and dreams, they go deeper and darker now that I have kids and I’m living for other people. I have no problem writing sad songs, but I take the happy while it’s there.

CH: I don’t like to see somebody who’s a wreck up on stage. I’ll be there. I’ll support them, but really I’m like, “You should take a break, man.” Because I’m not that way. If everything was going wrong and I was unwell, then I couldn’t write. I’d be so depleted and sad and wouldn’t see the point of any of it. I’m a super happy camper right now, but don’t worry, sad things will keep happening — probably as soon as I hang up the phone.


Cory Branan photo by Joshua Black Wilkins. Coco Hames photo by Rachel Briggs.

A Slice of Life: A Conversation with Mac Wiseman

Members of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys — and there were more than 150 of them during his half-century career — often started their own bands in the style of their mentor. This was a huge part of Monroe’s influence: He was both bandleader and charismatic evangelist, training future bandleaders to preach bluegrass in a Monroe-style band of their own. His star students (Jimmy Martin, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Carter Stanley, Del McCoury, Peter Rowan) started their own influential bluegrass bands — not carbon copies, of course, but homages to the Founding Father’s vision. It was an apprenticeship model.

But one early Blue Grass Boy, Mac Wiseman, left the band to do something unusual: He played solo. He still sang songs from the canon of bluegrass and early country, but he presented them with just his guitar and voice. For dyed-in-the-wool grassers, it was kind of weird. The inside joke went something like, “Did you hear the sad news? Mac Wiseman broke up.”

There was another thing that made him different — and this is just my impression, but I think our interview backs it up. Among the early Monroe disciples, he projected a pretty non-bluegrass relationship to his Southern-ness. Wiseman grew up during the Depression in Virginia coal country, having as much of an authentic claim to rural roots as any of the bombastic blue-collar belters like Jimmy Martin, but he de-emphasized the drawl. Wiseman started his career as a radio broadcaster and always sounded like one. He didn’t want to develop a groovy, bluesy, Monroe-style band or shake the rafters with a piercing tenor. Instead, he found a home in the ’60s folk revival crowd. He told stories. He enunciated. He crooned.

And now, at 91, he has a new album. I Sang the Song (Life of the Voice with a Heart) features 10 songs that tell the story of Wiseman’s long, busy life. Featured guests like John Prine, Shawn Camp, Sierra Hull, and Alison Krauss help pay tribute to his distinctive voice and one-of-a-kind career. Amazingly, Mac Wiseman can still hit the high notes.

I called Mac at his house in Nashville and first got his answering machine. He picked up, interrupting my message, and said, “Sorry I almost missed you! I had the vacuum going!” We talked about his childhood during the Depression, how he learned guitar while recovering from polio, his introduction to John Prine (it involves a threat — and Earl Scruggs), and his deep disappointment with the direction of country music. At 91, he’s gracious, funny, and sharp as a tack — and, maybe most impressively, he still does his own vacuuming.

First of all, I think it’s amazing that you’re 91 years old and still singing. It’s amazing, too, to think of how much social and cultural change you must’ve seen in your lifetime.

Oh, it certainly is. And I’ve been blessed with a decent memory. When I think of all the different phases I’ve gone through, it’s hard to cope with it sometimes.

I know you were born in mining country in Crimera, Virginia, in 1925. I’m sure life in Virginia back then was pretty different.

The first four or five years I was alive, it was peaches and cream. Then the Depression hit and it was the opposite. It was onions and water! I have vivid memories of when I was four, five, six years old. I remember how carefree things were. When the new highways were being constructed all over the place, my dad was making nine dollars a day. He had a Ford Model T car with solid rubber tires on it in 1928. Then, the next year, he couldn’t even afford to buy the tags for it.

I heard that you started learning the guitar while you were recovering from polio, is that right?

Actually, it was while I was recovering from a few corrective surgeries. I had polio when I was six months old, but they wouldn’t do any surgeries until I was approximately the growth I was going to be. So, at about 13 years of age, I went to Charlottesville to the hospital — twice. They operated on my legs, and it made all the difference in the world. That’s when I started learning the guitar, just laying around with a cast on up to my butt!

I guess you couldn’t do much but sit and sing.

That’s exactly right. I had been very active, of course, working the farm for our livelihood, but when I was laid up that summer and fall through the seventh grade, my mother had to take me to pick up the school bus in a little buggy. Then I went on and became valedictorian. How do you like them apples? [Laughs]

That’s impressive! I heard another impressive quote about you. Bill Monroe called you “the best lead singer I ever had.” That’s pretty high praise from a guy who was a tough bandleader.

Well, he did say that, and that was very complimentary. Oh, working for him was very interesting. We toured a lot. He was from Kentucky, of course, and we played all the big theaters around there. We traveled and watched all the movie rolls. Bill and I watched them so much we could recite them riding along in the car! He was a very interesting man to work for. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he told you. But I enjoyed working for him and we never had a cross word.

You’ve made over 60 albums, recorded some 800 songs …

Yep, sure have. A lot!

… and most of that was before the Google era, when you could look up all 50 versions of a song with one click. How did you learn new songs, and how did you decide which ones to record?

In my growing up days, we mostly listened to live radio. In the ’20s and ’30s, radio was just coming into its own, you know, and it was mostly live — there were no disc jockeys. My mother was quite interested in music. She would play the organ and read shape notes and things like that. She encouraged me, hoping I would learn something that would get me out of the fields. That’s where I learned a lot of those old songs. She would sit out by the radio — we had the first battery radio in our community — in the wintertime, when it was too cold to work outside, she sat there and quilted and crocheted. She had a composition book laying on top of the radio, and when a live group would come on and sing a song, she’d get a verse or two of it. A few days later, they’d sing it again and she’d get some more. I’ve got 13 composition books in her handwriting where she wrote those songs down for me.

That’s really a treasure.

It is indeed. That’s where I got my background of the old songs. I can remember some of those songs from when I was four or five years old. “Granny’s Old Arm Chair” and “Barbara Allen,” things like that.

That’s interesting. Those old ballads like “Barbara Allen,” they’re story songs. And that’s sort of what the songs on this new record do. They tell your story.

That’s right. It’s my life story in song … 10 songs.

That’s one thing I really like about your singing, that sets you apart from some bluegrass and country singers — it may be a small thing, but it strikes me as important to you — that you sing words really clearly. It’s always easy to hear your lyrics.

Lyrics are very important to me. That’s been an important identity for me, as well. I went to college majoring in radio and did a lot of air work — news, pop records shows, working the control room — and that’s where a lot of my diction comes from.

Well, it shows in your songs. You know how to tell a story.

Well, I try to do that. You know, I actually lived those stories. They don’t change with generations. Even with a new batch of people, the old songs remain the same, and the themes remain the same. Disasters and love and train wrecks, things like that. They’re a slice of life, so to speak.

I’m only 26. My generation grew up with the Internet, many of us living in suburbs, getting our food from an air conditioned grocery store. Do you think all these songs about trains and cabin homes and farming can still resonate emotionally with people?

Well, like I said, they’re a slice of life. Maybe there aren’t many train wrecks that you know about anymore, but it’s also an historical look, these songs. I’ve played a lot of the colleges, the listening rooms, just me and a guitar. They’ve wanted to hear these old songs that paint a picture of a life these kids have never been exposed to. That’s the reason for the longevity of them, I think.

One amazing thing to me is that you’ve played through so many eras of history and eras of music. You were right there through the beginning of bluegrass in the ’40s, but you also played the Newport Folk Festival in the ’60s — what was the Newport folk scene like?

I never knew Bob Dylan, but I did a number of festivals with Joan Baez. After these festivals in the evenings, that was fun, we’d gather up in hotel rooms and sing old songs.

So you’ve been making music for a long time, and it seems like learning from every different generation — bluegrass in the ’40s, folk in the ’60s, pop along the way. Do you feel like you had to reinvent yourself for different eras?

No, I just kept on doing my thing, you know. I could’ve been a bigger star for a short period of time by following the trends, but I decided to just be myself and hoped people liked that. Fortunately, I’ve had a pretty good haul all these years. But I never tried to copy anybody else in the business or change my style to seek what they wanted.

You got to work with a lot of great musicians on this new record.

That’s right. Alison Krauss came by my house and we recorded “’Tis Sweet to Be Remembered” for the new CD. And I sang it the same key as I sang it in 1951 when I recorded it first for Dot Records! Even the new songs we wrote for this record, those are true stories in those songs: standing and warming my feet where the cows had been laying … wheat crop going bad because it rained on it … Every one of those are actual stories about my life. So, yeah, sorry to repeat myself, but it’s a slice of life.

John Prine is featured on this record, and you made a record with him in 2007. How did you get to know each other?

Well, I’d always been aware of his work. Then, one time, a guy who owned a studio came to Earl Scruggs’ birthday party — he’s a real boisterous fellow and he told me, “John says, if you don’t come see him Thursday, he’s going to kick your butt!” I admired him and all, so I went down to his office. What he had in mind was pitching me songs for me to do on my own. We got to talking and found out we knew a lot of the same things, so that’s how that record came about. That was one of the great experiences of my life, singing with John and swapping verses, you know. John still comes to my house to see me quite frequently.

You’ve been around for so much of country music history. I’m curious if you listen to any new music and what you think about it.

Today’s music? Well, I’m very disappointed in it, because so many of the younger artists don’t know the background. That’s the reason I go to colleges: They sit on the floor all hush-hush and listen to the old stories. Sometimes I have to do the same old song two or three times in a concert. So it’s an educational thing to the younger people. For so many industry people today, it’s all a mechanical thing. The record companies have publishing companies, so they can sign up an artist and put him in a room for four or five hours a day to write. Pretty often, one song out of the whole album is the one that hits, but the rest of them are junk. I still listen to it just to see what changes, but I don’t enjoy it like I did. There’s a few acts that I enjoy, but a lot of the younger ones, I don’t know who the hell they are!

So you feel like a lot of the younger artists don’t have an understanding of the history of country music?

No, they really don’t. They don’t have the knowledge of it. Actually, the record companies don’t have a knowledge of it. They’re business people out of New York and Chicago and L.A., and they come to Nashville to make business out of it. A lot of them have no idea of the history. I’ll give you a quick example: I was on the board of directors for the CMA where we nominated people for the Hall of Fame. And there was a young man on there from New York representing Decca Records here. We were at a board meeting, and folks like Owen Bradley were there, people of that vintage. [Note: Owen Bradley was an influential producer who helped modernize the Nashville sound in the ’50s and ’60s.] Owen nominated Brenda Lee. This young man stood up and quite innocently said, “Who is she and what did she do?” I wrote a letter of resignation right then and there. He was an honest fellow, and it was okay that he didn’t know, but what was he doing on that board?

Didn’t that make you want to stay on the board and change it and teach them a little more about the history?

No, you know, I was one of the founders. I worked at every facet of it. I’m the only living member of the original board of directors. I’ve been in it professionally since ’44, you know. Radio, bands, and recording. I was A&R director of the country department for Dot Records out of Hollywood for six years. Done a lot of things.

Well, you’re still singing at 91 — and you still sound like you. I’m sure a lot of people are wondering what’s your secret to staying productive into your 90s and still being able to sing so well.

I don’t know, but it is a blessing. I think it’s sticking to your guns and the good Lord’s blessing — that’s it.

Mr. Wiseman, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me this afternoon.

Well, it was my pleasure. I’m so pleased you’re writing about this music. But at the same time, you know, it keeps me alive.

MIXTAPE: It’s a Cheating Situation

About two weeks into February, you’ll find that darlings in love glow; strong, single types treat themselves; and the unlucky who’ve been wronged get a brutal reminder of that wronging. Who needs all those normative flowers, heart-shaped boxes, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and bubbly? Who needs that ungrateful someone who-shall-not-be-named with the wandering eye? We’ll take depressing songs about heartbreak and infidelity instead, thanks. At least, that’s what we’ll keep telling ourselves.

Ricky Skaggs: “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown”

Ricky started performing this song with Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys back when both he and a young Keith Whitley were in the band. (The best iteration of the Clinch Mountain Boys ever? Yes.) Now, it would seem like the subject of this song would go without saying. While we do not condone philandering, we do recommend sticking to this rule of thumb, if you find yourself thinking it’s smart to break his heart and run down his name. (As a bonus, check out the album artwork from Ricky’s eponymous country record. It is everything.)

Darrell Scott: “Too Close to Comfort”

There’s one line in this song that bugged me for a while: “Lying with strangers one more last time.” It felt clunky, the grammar felt off. Then one day, it just hit me. There have been plenty of “last times” before this one. It’s the singer’s last “last time.” Just once more. Anyone with first-hand experience of the foolin’ around kind knows that with this line — hell, the whole song — Darrell Scott delivers songwriting gold, once again.

J.D. Crowe & the New South: “Summer Wages”

It would seem that there’s a much higher rate of friends stealing friends’ girls in bluegrass music than other genres. Tony sings this with such conviction; it really is one of the best existentially sad songs of bluegrass. “Never leave your woman alone when your friends are out to steal her. She’ll be gambled and lost like summer wages.”

Dolly Parton: “I’m Gonna Sleep with One Eye Open”

Dolly has no shortage of cheating songs in her repertoire. (Let’s be honest: “Jolene” would’ve been too easy a choice.) It’s nice to hear a woman sing cheating songs because, despite the greater number of songs sung by jilted men, we know infidelity isn’t really a gender issue; it’s pretty much just a human one.

Flatt & Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys: “I’ll Go Stepping Too”

Just a classic. Lester’s drawl, Earl’s banjo, the iconic fiddle turn-around kickoff … you gotta love it all. Equal footing in an unfaithful relationship might not be the best approach, though. Just make sure you put out the cat before you go stepping, too.

John Prine: “It’s a Cheating Situation”

John Prine and Irish folk singer Dolores Keane hit the nail so solidly on the head. They sing to the humanity we overlook in wandering spouses or significant others. “It’s a cheating situation. Just a cheap imitation. Doing what we have to do. When there’s no love at home.” This one was written by Moe Bandy, who happens to be so adept at penning cheating songs, we had to include him later on in this list, too.

Nickel Creek: “Can’t Complain”

This song feels like a sort of roots music trance experiment — with its title as mantra. To the offending party, cheating often feels like an inevitability, but does that absolve the sin? In retrospect, do the circumstances change the nature of the outcome? Or perhaps the crux is that, despite the way things end and the bridges burnt, maybe it’s all still worth it. There’s a redemptive message we can get behind.

The Kendalls: “Heaven’s Just a Sin Away”

Now this is a song with a hook. Yeah, it’s a little weird to hear a father and daughter sing in harmony about forbidden love, but let’s just gloss over that and enjoy it for what it is: a killer, old-fashioned, bittersweet, real country, cheatin’ duet with some sick twin electric guitar. Bonus: Check out their tune “Pittsburgh Stealers.” Once again, a cheating song, but with steel mills and, yes, football wordplay for a hook. Simply masterful.

Shania Twain: “Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under?”

Two words: guilty pleasure. This is like the country version of “Mambo No. 5” … “List a bunch of women’s names!” But damn, it’s an earworm. End of caption.

Moe Bandy: “I Just Started Hatin’ Cheatin’ Songs Today”

Listening to heartbreak song after heartbreak song can be particularly painful when you empathize a little too strongly with them. Throw-a-bottle-at-the-jukebox painful. But those moments are when we find the therapeutic power of song at its strongest. It is comforting to know there are other sad bastards out there taking out their hurt on depressing records, too, right?

Doyle & Debbie: “When You’re Screwin’ Other Women (Think of Me)”

The reason we had to put this song last on this list is because it renders all of the other songs above null and void. This is the only one that matters. This is the magnum opus of cheating songs done up right by America’s number one country sweethearts. Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all.


Photo credit: KTDrasky via Foter.com / CC BY

A Conversation with Filmmaker Beth Harrington on Her Carter Family Documentary

For those who appreciate a good movie about music, the name Beth Harrington stands at the top of many lists of excellent filmmakers. The Boston native’s 2003 documentary, Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly, was nominated for a Grammy Award and applauded at numerous film festivals around the world. The last dozen or more years have been dedicated to completing her latest film, The Winding Stream: The Carters, the Cashes, and the Course of Country Music. Now living in Vancouver, WA, the one-time member of Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers talks about how her passion project is progressing.

So, how long has been since we've had coffee? Two years?

I bet it's been more than that. I don't think I had any hope of finishing the film the last time I talked to you.

Really?

Well, I didn't think there was any real clear-cut path to the end. There was so much money to raise. I had enough money to make a film, but if I finished it and didn't have the music licensed and the archival footage licensed and the photos licensed, I couldn't show it to anyone.

It's been a long and arduos road, it sounds.

Yeah, it has.

The soundtrack has an interesting mix of music, both old and new. Were the new songs commissioned for the film?

Some of them were. While we were making the film, there was an album being recorded that was a tribute album to the Carter family. So we filmed some of that. And we were allowed to use the stuff we filmed. So when we made the soundtrack album, that stuff got released again.

Which ones specifically?

The John Prine one (“Bear Creek Blues”).

… which is one of the ones I like.

Absolutely, I love that one. The George Jones one (“Worried Man Blues”), the Sheryl Crow song — which is in the film but not on the CD. Rosanne [Cash] did the title track.

So, the challenge you were facing from the music licensing standpoint had to do with the original Carter Family material?

Yeah. [The CD] just scratches the surface of what we used in the film. We had lots and lots of Carter Family songs — 30 or more tracks that were mostly original recordings, or radio recordings, from when the Carters were on Border Radio. That stuff largely belonged to Sony, so Sony had to be paid.

Gotcha. They weren't up to negotiating, were they? [Laughs]

We're glad that they let us license the music … let's put it that way. [Laughs]

That's terribly cynical of me. We'll just make sure that, in the interview, that comment is clearly attributed to me and not to you. [Laughs] There’s one tune on the CD with an introduction of the family and then there’s a little snippet … they only sang a few bars.

That’s their theme song, that’s why. “Keep on the Sunny Side” was their theme song, so they sang it on every show. And then they went into another song.

You know what I found striking? I’ve heard the Carter Family’s song countless times, as we all have. Maybe not these exact recordings, but we’ve all heard them to some degree. What was most striking to me is how youthful they sound in these songs.

I never thought about it that way! It’s funny, because I always think of Sara as having this very gothic sound. Even as a young woman, she was very authoritative sounding. It was really a strong voice. To me, that’s an older person’s authority. But even then, she was probably only in her 30s. I think they were kind of youthful. And Maybelle was younger than them, so she was energetic and inventive, and she found all these new things to play. That’s fresh and youthful sounding, I think.

It becomes even more interesting when you have what sounds fresh and youthful in its delivery but sounds old from a stylistic and technological standpoint. What inspired you to do this film?

I had made another music documentary called Welcome to the Club: The Women of Rockabilly and, in making that film, I had met a whole bunch of women who were contemporaries of Elvis Presley.

Like Wanda [Jackson].

Wanda, Janice Martin, the Collins Kids, Brenda Lee, a bunch of others who didn’t make the cut but are mentioned in the film. A lot of them talked about what they grew up with and, of course, a lot of them grew up with the Carter Family. The ones who were in the film toured with Johnny Cash and Maybelle and the sisters. There were very strong connections there. Plus, Rosanne Cash narrated that film, so the whole time I was working on it, I was connecting these dots in my head. I knew who the Carters were. I knew Johnny Cash, of course. I was growing up when the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album came out with Maybelle and Doc Watson and all those people on it.

I don’t know that there are many people who fully grasp what the relationships were between all these names. Everyone knows the name June Carter Cash — if you know Johnny Cash you know that name — but I don’t think people fully appreciate who she is and where comes from and what that’s connected to … unless you’re deeply into roots music, like BGS readers are. But a lot of people don’t know. I thought it might be useful to connect those dots for people and tell that story because it’s a big saga and a really interesting family. They influenced people, not just in country music, but in folk music and country-rock or whatever you want to call it in the '70s. And they still continue to influence people in Americana today.

I thought it would be cool to do that. I never imagined it would take as long as it took, but I certainly thought it would be interesting to people. The cool thing is, one of the best compliments I get for the film is when people say, "I don’t even like this kind of music and I like your film."

Nice.

So I think, "Cool, my work here is done." Because I just want people to know there’s this underpinning in American music. It’s a thread of the bigger fabric of American music that I think people should know. As was said in the film, "People should know who they are like they know who the first president of the United States was." Maybe a slight overstatement, but I think there’s something to that.

Well, it’s a statement from someone who’s in the front row, the front pew. There’s no need to preach to him. He’s basically standing up and turning around to the rest of the church and saying, "Listen, they’re up here." So I totally get that. How long has it taken up to this point?

Twelve years.

Twelve years!

Well, we’re into the distribution part now, so I’ll have been working on this for probably about 14 years by the time I finish. I never expected it would take this much of my life. 

That’s a lot of patience.

It’s a lot of something. I don’t know. [Laughs] Stubbornness, maybe. I don’t know if it’s patience. It’s definitely stubbornness.

So tell me briefly: Where am I going so see it and how’s it being distributed?

It’s being distributed all over the country right now. If people go to Argot Pictures, there’s a huge list of places it’s showing. It opened in L.A. last week. It’s going to be playing in New York in December for a week. It will be in Boston, at some point. It’s booked in over 40 places right now.

Is there hope for distribution via a streaming service of some kind?

Yes, we have a deal for that, but we have to wait until the theatrical release runs its course.

So, while you’ve been doing this for the past 14 years, what’s been in the back of your head to do next?

Honestly, this was so trying that I thought some days this might be the last film I do. The landscape of documentary filmmaking is so difficult right now … especially if you’re doing a music documentary.

Because of licensing.

Half of my budget was licensing. I could have made two films for the price of this one film. And, whereas I’m happy to pay musicians, I’m less interested in all the other business parts of it. I’m one little person who lives in Vancouver, WA, making a film. I’m not Steven Spielberg.

I think that when people hear that you’re making a documentary with Johnny Cash in it, somehow they think that you’re rolling in the dough. That’s just not the reality. So, I haven’t made plans to do anything yet. I have thoughts.

Oh, do tell! We’re not going to hold you to it. But if it’s in print on the Internet …

I know! This is the problem. You’re going to dog me no matter what I do. [Laughs] I think there are other music docs I’d like to do. I think there are some great stories out there. There are certainly stories from my own life that have to do with bands that I was in.

Like Jonathan Richman …

I would have to explore it with Jonathan, and he may or may not be interested. But I think it’s a really great story about the pre-punk era, with some great people in it — including people who launched some of the new-wave and punk stuff. Jerry Harrison from the Talking Heads, David Robinson from the Cars … these are people who were in the original Modern Lovers. That was a very influential band even though it’s not very well-known. I think there are a lot of cool stories there.

It’s really about the story, right?

It’s gotta be about the story. I’ve seen lots of music documentaries where I think, "Well, that’s great footage … but is there a story?" So, I think about that. There are some other things I’d love to do. I might do something narrative with music in it because I need, like, a mental palate cleanser after doing documentaries. Being a journalist — as you know — being accurate and being faithful to the facts, which I strive to be, is very difficult when you’re trying to make something that’s entertaining. That’s why most biopics that you see have no relationship at all to reality! [Laughs]

Exactly! [Laughs] Right, because reality is boring, and we need a story!

Of course!

He didn’t have a mistress, but we put one in just to make it more interesting!

I think that some of that stuff seems really liberating. Like, you could just make something fictitious and fun.

Semi-fictitious? Or completely fictitious?

Well, completely fictitious. If I was going to do it, I would make it completely fictitious. But then you’re right back into the rights issues and the image and likeness of the person. I just think it would be fun to do a music film with musicians that reflected the life of a musicians but wasn’t steeped in the particulars of one musician. I’ve certainly got a lot of content, from doing all the research I did for this film. It goes back to the 1920s and all the way up to the present. I’ve had a lot of time to think about that trajectory and the many influences that this one family had. I think there’s some spin-off of that that might be interesting as a fictional piece.

In the back of my mind, I’m thinking Spinal Tap Goes Americana! [Laughs]

[Laughs] Totally, totally. Spinal Tap and The Godfather — still my two favorite films of all time.

Get Off Your Ass: December’s Halls Need Deckin’

Gary Clark, Jr. // The Theatre At Ace Hotel // December 1

Corb Lund // Resident  // December 7

The Wild Reeds // Echoplex // December 8

Lee Ann Womack // The Canyon // December 9

The Steel Wheels // Genghis Cohen // December 10

Tribute to Linda Ronstadt // The Theatre At Ace Hotel // December 11

Michael Kiwanuka // The Fonda // December 12

Sara Watkins // The Troubadour // December 14

Brothers Osborne // The Belasco Theater // December 15

The Dustbowl Revival // The Hi Hat // December 15

Cody Jinks // 3rd & Lindsley // December 2-3

Ruby Amanfu & Friends // 3rd & Lindsley // December 4

Billy Strings // The 5 Spot // December 7

Birds of Chicago & Michaela Anne // The Basement // December 7

Mary Gauthier // Bluebird Café // December 8

Shawn Colvin // City Winery // December 14

Brent Cobb // The Basement East // December 15

Luke Bell // Exit/In // December 15

Gillian Welch // Ryman Auditorium // December 27

Robert Earl Keen // Ryman Auditorium // December 28

Jason Isbell, John Prine, & Kacey Musgraves // Grand Ole Opry House // December 31

Old Crow Medicine Show & Dom Flemons // Ryman Auditorium // December 31

Andra Day // PlayStation Theater  // December 1

Donovan // Symphony Space // December 2

Chris Thile // Town Hall // December 3

Steve Earle // City Winery // December 5

Kacey Musgraves // Town Hall // December 8

Cris Jacobs // Brooklyn Bowl // December 9

Steep Canyon Rangers // Town Hall // December 10

The Stray Birds // Rockwood Music Hall // December 15

Albatross // Rockwood Music Hall // December 16

Anais Mitchell // Rubin Museum of Art  // December 23

Tony Trischka // Joe's Pub // December 24

Nathan Bowles // Terminal 5 // December 28

Jonny Fritz, ‘Are You Thirsty’

Somewhere along the way, when everyone in folk and country songwriting started to get just a little too serious, there was one unexpected casualty: detail. Just ask Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes: Mention a "chicken wing" in your song, as he did in "A Little Bit of Everything," and Reddit riots break out. Even though some of our greatest writers thrived — and still thrive — on very specific narrative imagery (well, hello, Bob Dylan and John Prine), it's far from an accepted thing — especially when it's used in any subversive or slightly satirical context. Any time we hear that sort of combination, we immediately classify it not as smart wordplay that captures the shadier side of human existence, but as comedy. Who knew that a chicken wing could be so divisive?

Such is the case, often, with Jonny Fritz, who happens to have featured Goldsmith and his brother Griffin on his Jim James-produced LP, Sweet Creep. Fritz has always been an extremely detailed writer, singing about trash cans, panty liners, and, now, alcoholics and seedy hotels; and sometimes that can make people a little uncomfortable. It's a lot easier to laugh than to actually appeal to the visceral nature of his work. "Are You Thirsty," the song that opens Sweet Creep, is deliciously specific: "Are you packing on the pounds now that you quit?" Fritz asks over a chugging countrypolitan doo-wop. It's about an alcoholic who left the bottle behind, and Fritz never buries his ideas in too many metaphors or grand, sweeping statements — he's simply turning life to lyric. And, really, life is almost always a combination of funny, imperfect, weird, and sad … a meaningful one, anyway. Same goes for music. Fritz knows this well, and delivers, whether or not your instinct is to laugh or cry.

John Prine with Holly Williams, ‘I’m Tellin’ You’

Keeping the circle unbroken in country music is a very serious thing — legacy, family, and tradition are not to be taken lightly, with certain last names (Williams, Jennings, Cash, to name a few) holding the most shimmering of golden thrones. There's that legacy, and then there are the interlopers: like a singer/songwriter from Illinois named John Prine who, without any actual geographical or genetic pre-programming, manages to carry in his body some of thickest, most brilliant blood in the business, grabbing a laugh in the same sentence as a tear. Few can blend wit and wisdom like Prine can, often because he takes that storied circle and warps it into loops and figure eights, without ever losing its original foundation.

Despite his unparalleled skills as a songwriter, one of Prine's most beloved LP's is 1999's In Spite of Ourselves, a collection of classic country duets that contained only one original: the title track, sung with Iris DeMent, which boasts lines about big balls and underwear-sniffin' while still managing to paint a sincere picture of love enduring, for better or worse. It's a purely Prine move that, on an album of reverence, he still warped tradition to suit his splendors and squeezed sweetness out of a panty-puffer.

Thus it's why his version of "I'm Tellin' You," off For Better, Or Worse — his casual companion to In Spite of Ourselves — is one of the truest examples of how Prine, even when not driven by his own pen, twists and tangles the past in his own tender humor. One of the album's more unassuming little ditties, the duet with Holly Williams bends tradition (Williams, of course, is the granddaughter of Hank and her grandmother, Audrey Williams, used to perform the tune) with the Prine eye, turning it from a solo affair into a push-pull conversation. "You better straighten out, I'm tellin' you," they sing to each other while a mischievous fiddle dances along. Prine saw the charm in those aged words but knew that all love is a two-way street — not just preserving the circle, but turning it into a sphere.

Daddy-O: A Father’s Day Playlist

This Father's Day (June 19), you could do what you always do and buy your pops the same pair of new socks that he doesn't need. Or, you could give dear old dad the gift of music. To get you started, we've pulled together some of our favorite songs about dads, written from both the perspective of fathers and from those of the kids who loved them. If you're feeling generous, pick up an album or two featuring songs from the list. If not, at least send dad a link to the Spotify playlist. Either way, his sock drawer will thank you.

"Daddy Doesn't Pray Anymore" — Chris Stapleton

This tearjerker from Chris Stapleton is served up with a little twist, made all the more heartwrenching by his stellar vocals and somber delivery.

"Daddy Sang Bass" — Johnny Cash

This 1968 tune, written for Cash by Carl Perkins, is a testament to the bonds of both family and music — both of which, in this case, are anchored by dad and his bass.

"Undercover Dad" — Jonny Corndawg (now Jonny Fritz)

A snooping dad must grapple with what he finds in his teenage daughter's diary in this sweet, light-hearted tune from Jonny Corndawg's 2011 Down on the Bikini Line.

"Paradise" — John Prine

A father teaches his son about the perils of mountaintop removal in this classic John Prine tune from his 1971 self-titled debut album. 

"My Father's Father" — the Civil Wars

Ghosts of the past and his "father's father's" blood on the tracks bring a prodigal son home in this song from the now-defunct duo's 2011 debut album, Barton Hollow.

"A Father's First Spring" — the Avett Brothers

One of the most profound statements on an album (The Carpenter) that grapples with bassist Bob Crawford's daughter's battle with brain cancer, "A Father's First Spring" tugs at heartstrings with lines like "I do not live unless I live in your light."

"Coal Miner's Daughter" — Loretta Lynn

"Daddy worked all night in the Van Lear coal mines," and his proud daughter wrote one of the greatest country songs of all time to thank him for that hard work.

"Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)" — Sturgill Simpson

Sturgill Simpson's new album, A Sailor's Guide to Earth, is something of a guidebook for living for his young son, and opening track "Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)" introduces us to "the greatest love [he's] ever known."


Photo credit: CarbonNYC [in SF!] via Foter.com / CC BY.