Tag: justin vernon

Dig Into Bonny Light Horseman’s Striking Discography

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Bonny Light Horseman is an indie/folk supergroup that formed in 2018 at the Eaux Claires Music & Arts festival in Wisconsin. Composed of Anaïs Mitchell (Hadestown), Josh Kaufman (Bob Weir, Josh Ritter, The National), and Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats), together the band has released two full-length albums. On June 7, their new double album Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free expanded their studio album catalog by 100%.

Their first self-titled release, from 2020, features the band’s takes on traditional folk songs; the second, 2022’s Rolling Golden Holy, is a fully original body of work. Their music is tranquil, gorgeous, and breath-taking and their powerful blend of voices is just as striking. The trio bring a new light to the beauty of folk music, and truly makes each song their own.

To celebrate the new project, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free, we’ve handpicked a few favorite tracks from their past releases – together and separately – to highlight their musicianship, collaboration, and exactly why nearly everyone calls them a supergroup.

“Bonny Light Horseman” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman (2020)

The title track off their first album and namesake of their band, it’s a heart-breaking ballad about a love lost to war that was found in the Roud Folk Index (#1185). The group’s arrangement features a low-tuned guitar and subtle textures of harmonica and saxophone which carry Anaïs’ and Eric’s transporting vocals.

“Deep in Love” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The second song off the band’s debut album is simply illuminating – it feels like a gust of wind on a warm day. Listening to Eric sing, you can hear vocal influences from Joni Mitchell in his jumps and leaps. It has a very freeing feel to it and breathes beautifully.

“The Roving” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The third track on Bonny Light Horseman also demands inclusion. It’s a song about the singer’s heartache over “Annie,” a woman who once said she would marry them, but over time fell out of love with the singer. The melody is subtle and sweeps the listener into a setting of tranquility. In the arrangement, the band switches between a single, double, and quadruple chorus which is a very sweet and simple way to convey the story to the listener.

“Jane Jane” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

“Jane Jane” was first recorded in 1939 by Lila May Stevens. This arrangement combines Stevens’ lyric with the African American spiritual and gospel classic, “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Bonny Light’s rendition is simply breathtaking; Johnson and Mitchell switch voices between the major and minor sections of the song, creating a raw and haunting sound.

“Bright Morning Stars” – Bonny Light Horseman, Bonny Light Horseman

The penultimate song off Bonny Light Horseman is a traditional Appalachian spiritual originally documented by Alan Lomax. This song holds the essence of a church choir belting for their audience and it’s one of the more simple songs on the album, in terms of arrangement. Having only three voices and a piano allows listeners to hear their trading voices on each verse and then the bright light of togetherness on the choruses.

“Gone by Fall” – Bonny Light Horseman, Rolling Golden Holy (2022)

“Gone by Fall” sits directly in the middle of Bonny Light Horseman’s second album, Rolling Golden Holy. Depicting a summer romance, it’s reminiscent of a 1960s folk song you might have heard on the radio during the folk revival. Yet, in listening to it, a veil is seemingly lifted and you can hear it’s an entirely fresh take on such a classic sound. Their voices, which blend so beautifully together, and the crystal clear guitar lines throughout add in the sweetness of a summertime love.

“Someone to Weep for Me” – Bonny Light Horseman, Rolling Golden Holy

Next up is “Someone to Weep for Me,” a song depicting a person going through life craving someone to care for them, but never finding that person. The driving force of the track is the mandolin’s beautiful rolling pattern, a genius touch that’s present throughout the song and adds a sense of stability and a unique texture. Another stroke of genius comes at about 1:40 in, when the electric guitar comes in wailing, bringing the song into a “jam” with Anaïs singing a little line over it. This is such an unexpected vibe change and at the same time it fits so incredibly well.

“Greenland Fishery” – Bonny Light Horseman, Green/Green (2020)

Off the band’s two-track EP release Green/Green comes “Greenland Fishery,” a reimagined traditional sailor song. Bonny Light’s version certainly allows you to float away. The clawhammer banjo throughout is lovely and it’s such a treat as a showcase instrument – it isn’t emphasized often throughout the band’s catalog. It’s also very sweet to hear the second part of the chorus as it echoes the chorus of “Bonny Light Horseman” in such a gorgeous, reminiscent way.

“Willie’s Lady (Child 6)” – Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer, Child Ballads (2013)

Delving into some of the band members’ other projects, we come to Child Ballads, an album of duets from Mitchell and collaborator Jefferson Hamer. The project reimagines seven songs from a 19th century folk song collection “The Child Ballads” collected by Francis James Child. “Willie’s Lady (Child 6)” tells the story of King Willie, who marries a woman his mother despises and, in turn, his mother curses the wife. The guitars on the track have such a strong, driving force, excitedly pushing the song while one holds down the rhythm and the other crosspicks during the instrumental sections. Anaïs and Jefferson use their guitars in a way that perfectly compliments the vocal work in the song; it’s sung entirely in duet, the two voices deepening the texture of the music.

“Cazadera” – Fruit Bats, Gold Past Life (2019)

Fruit Bats is Eric D. Johnson’s indie-rock band that he’s fronted since 1997. Off their seventh album, Gold Past Life, “Cazadera” is one of the grooviest songs around. About a person searching for meaning in life and finding it in love, it’s the kind of track that would help paint your surroundings on a joyful walk. It has a great sense of hope and beauty to it and the chill verses coupled with sharp choruses bring energy and excitement.

“Loser’s L-A-M-E-N-T” – Rocketship Park, Off and Away (2008)

Going all the way back to 2008 for a selection from Josh Kaufman’s band, Rocketship Park, a pop-folky project with the intention to play Josh’s original material. The song “Loser’s L-A-M-E-N-T” is off the group’s first album, Off and Away, and immediately displays a very mellow vibe. Jazzy little piano licks come together with electric guitar and pedal steel, creating a western-folk sound. You can truly hear how each instrument is talking to the others and how they all fit together in telling the story.

“When I Was Younger” – Bonny Light Horseman, Keep Me On Your Mind/See You Free (2024)

From the group’s just-released double album comes “When I Was Younger,” which has a sound unlike most of their other music. Combining styles from artists like the Grateful Dead and Billy Joel, the intro riff sounds like it pulls some from the former, yet, once the verse starts, it sounds immediately like the latter – a kind of “Vienna” feeling.

It goes right back into the psychedelic riff before switching voices from Anaïs to Eric, again back to the Billy Joel vibe. The guitar and vocal solo following this verse are so rock and roll, gritty and not at all sparkly like the verses prior. “When I Was Younger” does an incredible job blending musical styles. It’s an absolutely astonishing piece of music, using such few words yet conveying such a strong and vivid story.

(Editor’s Note: Read Bonny Light Horseman In Conversation – With Each Other here.)

Photo courtesy of Chromatic PR. 

The Delightful Rebellions of Swamp Dogg’s ‘Blackgrass’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Early in my recent interview with Swamp Dogg, the iconoclastic singer-songwriter and producer makes a self-aware confession: “I have read columns about Swamp Dogg and so forth, and I try to find out what they classify me as,” referring to the veritable grab-bag of hyphenated micro genres that music writers use to classify him. We connected a few days out from the release of his latest album, Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St, and the artist, born Jerry Williams Jr., seems unbothered. Later he adds, “When I do the Swamp Dogg albums, I really don’t try to please anybody but myself.”

He has known from the jump that the music industry doesn’t know what to do with him. Working as a singer and songwriter under the name Little Jerry Williams, Swamp enjoyed some success with his 1964 soul 7 inch, “I’m The Lover Man,” and was subsequently invited to perform at clubs in the Midwest. As Swamp remembers, “When I showed up they found out I was Black and the audience was lily white. They were good about it, they paid me and said I didn’t have to do a second show.” The small-mindedness of industry gatekeepers would follow him into his first musical steps as Swamp Dogg.

In 1971, Swamp released his second album, Rat On!, on Elektra Records. He was dropped from the label immediately after the release. At issue was the provocatively titled, “God Bless America For What,” track six on the album, which Elektra had pressured Swamp to leave on the cutting room floor. He kept the song, and his brief stint with Elektra was over. (The album cover, featuring Swamp in a victory pose astride an enormous white rat, might also have earned him some detractors in the office.) Asked if he considered caving to the label’s demands, he quickly sets me straight. “No! No. Nuh-uh. I’m dealing in truth!”

The controversy surrounding Rat On! did nothing to slow Swamp’s momentum as a creative force and in the years since its release, has proven itself a classic of left-of-center soul. He produced artists like Patti LaBelle, Z.Z. Hill, and Irma Thomas. Swamp also continued working in A&R. He signed a still-mostly-unknown John Prine to Atlantic Records in 1968, later reuniting with Prine for what would turn out to be the final recording made by the legendary storyteller. Swamp built a cult following among indie music fans in the know, collaborating with artist-tastemakers Justin Vernon and Jenny Lewis – the latter of whom returns as a guest on Blackgrass, as well. He dunked on the snobbier side of the mainstream with albums like Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune, and I Need A Job… So I Can Buy More Autotune.

A list of Swamp’s credits tells the story of one of the most fascinating music careers of the last century, but he himself tells an even deeper one. He speaks about painful failures, like when he became a millionaire in the 1970s and the sudden reality of wealth gutted his mental health. “The right word is obnoxious, I really became obnoxious, my wife pointed out to me. I was running so much that I would run in my sleep and run out of the bed.”

When the nine cars in the family garage proved insufficiently curative, she got him to see a therapist, a “who’s who psychiatrist” in Swamp’s words. He tells me so many sweet things about the great love of his life, Yvonne Williams. “My wife, she was a Leo. She was a strong Leo, she was a leader. Everybody loved her. Everybody feared her when it came to brain-to-brain. She could knock your shit right out the box. She was the reason I made a little money. Her name was Yvonne and I still think about her.” Subsequent girlfriends have told him he is still in mourning, and a second marriage was short-lived.

Discussing his musical roots, Swamp lists “blues, soul, R&B, pop, just about everything except classical and polka, and gotta add country there, cause country is what I was listening to growing up as a kid.”

His brand new record, Blackgrass, released May 31 on Oh Boy Records, is an inventive, often moving exploration of the genre. Sensitive instrumentation by Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull, Chris Scruggs, and Noam Pikelny, among others, pairs beautifully with Swamp’s varied vocal performances across all 12 tracks. “The Other Woman,” featuring Margo Price, is an elegant update of the classic written by Swamp and first performed by Doris Duke. And Swamp himself is at home as a country vocalist, playing characters like the neighborhood ne’er-do-well on “Mess Under That Dress,” the lovelorn crooner on “Gotta Have My Baby Back,” and delivering a breathtaking country gospel performance on “This Is My Dream.”

Even as Blackgrass offers country music moments that should please even the most determined traditionalists, Swamp Dogg remains committed to surprising his listeners. “Rise Up,” for example, a Swamp original first recorded by the Commodores – “Atlantic didn’t know what to do with them!”– is reincarnated as a country-meets-alternative rock and roll foot stomper, with a guitar solo by Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, which readers should listen to in a safe and seated position.

One of the great rebellions of Blackgrass is the singer’s assumption, on an album that is being marketed to country and roots media, of a Black audience. He explains, “I’m calling it Blackgrass … mainly because of the banjo. When I was coming up the minute somebody said ‘country music’ or ‘banjo’ … we turned our nose up at it, way up until Charley Pride came along.”

As Black listeners, we are being made to understand that this record is for us, decades of deliberate exclusion from the genre be damned. Its creator is equanimous about how the art will be received. “If this one sells enough, there will be a next record. If it doesn’t, there will still be a next record. I’ll put it out myself.”

Fifty years since “I’m The Lover Man,” Swamp Dogg remains curious about, and frequently explodes, the boxes into which small-minded gatekeepers of popular music have attempted to place him. As he recalls some of the more colorful antagonists along his musical journey, Swamp is gracious in the knowledge that he has had the last laugh. He speaks with refreshing pettiness about his early critics, reasoning, “The people that I dealt with back in the day are either dead or don’t know who they are. And I know I’m in line for that, but I keep jumping out of line. When I see myself getting near the front of the line I jump out and go to the end of the line.”

As usual, Swamp Dogg plays in his own time. He has finally outlived the haters.

Photo Credit: David McMurry

MIXTAPE: Ana Egge’s Addiction to Melody

Posted on by Editor

One of my favorite things in life is hearing a song for the first time that I know I need to hear again, immediately! Something about the melody or the horn part or the harmony part that catches my ear and get’s stuck in my head. Whenever that happens it’s like I need to understand why it’s so infectious. Usually I end up getting out my guitar and learning the song. It’s always fascinating to get inside a song that someone else has written. It’s a magical way to know someone. Feeling how and why they drop the beat going into the chorus or how they hold a chord longer into the bridge that gives it that special something. Here’s a short list of songs that have affected me this way over the years. — Ana Egge

Flo Morrissey & Matthew E. White, written by Kyle Field – “Look at What the Light Did Now”

My friend Mike Ferrio (Good Luck Mountain) put this as the last tune on a mixtape CD for me a few years ago. I learned it and kept showing it to all of my musician friends.

The Zombies, written by Chris White – “This Will Be Our Year”

I heard this on a TV show I think, can’t remember which one. I had no idea who it was by and I was surprised to find out how long ago it was released. It sounded so fresh! The instrumentation, the sounds, the delivery. And I still can’t get over the incredible chord progression.

The Be Good Tanyas, written by Berzilla Wallin – “Rain and Snow”

I grew up with The Grateful Dead version of this song. I just love how Frazey adds the oooh oooh‘s onto the end of the word snow. Such a great soulful addition and original interpretation of this classic murder ballad.

Phoenix, written by Christian Mazzalai – “1901”

What’s not to love about this song? I can’t sit still when it comes on. I love how they play off the beat so much!

Dengue Fever – “Tip My Canoe”

I’ve probably listened to this song more than anything other song since I got a Dengue Fever two-disc collection at a record store in Toronto on tour a few years back. It’s SO delicious and trippy and great everyday.

The Shins, written by James Mercer – “New Slang”

Such a beautiful melody and evocative lyrics. I don’t always necessarily understand what he means to say, but I feel it.

Antony & The Johnsons, written by Anohni – “My Lady Story”

Oh my god, so beautiful! Beautiful and intense and unique.

Bee Gees, written by Barry & Robin Gibb – “To Love Somebody”

One of my very favorite songs ever. How much better can a song be? They nailed it.

Gnarls Barkley – “Crazy”

Oh that dropped beat. And the melody! So cool how it builds and such a killer chorus.

Amy Winehouse – “You Know I’m No Good”

Incredible personal songwriting. So unflinching and honest and melodic. And such an upbeat feeling while being so depressing. Amazing.

Bon Iver, written by Justin Vernon – “Skinny Love”

I learned this to sing at my friends wedding a few years back. Once again, just magical what an original artist express when they have an inspired idea and melody over Am and C, y’all!

Kimya Dawson – “Anthrax”

I moved to NYC right after 9/11 and went to a talent hour type show. Burlesque and poets and then Kimya Dawson got up and sang a few songs. Her band The Moldy Peaches had recently broken up (I hadn’t heard of them). I bought every home-burned CD she was selling and loved them all. But this song about 9/11 is just brilliant.

Elizabeth Cotten – “Freight Train”

I don’t remember how I old I was when I first heard this song. But I do remember feeling like I’d always known it. It’s damn near perfect. Beyond the truth and depth of experience expressed in this song, I really love the big move to the E major in the key of C.

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

MIXTAPE: Blue Water Highway’s Space Ship in a Barn

Posted on by Editor

We are a four-piece Americana/indie rock and roll band from Austin, Texas, combining our love of singing and harmony (Catherine and Zack were both opera majors in college) with thoughtful songwriting, musicianship, and arranging (Greg and Kyle are multi-instrumentalists, also with college degrees in music). Being from Texas, we are rooted in its southern/western traditions, but love to musically and lyrically explore the contrasts in culture between rural and urban life, and the way that technology has affected both. This was one of the concepts — what we kept calling “building a space ship in a barn” — that was at the heart of our upcoming album, Paper Airplanes, produced by Cason Cooley, and it is the theme of our mixtape.

These “space ship in a barn” songs are a huge inspiration to us, often using acoustic instruments and natural vocals/harmonies mixed with analog synthesizers and electric guitars. Essentially mixing the organic sounds of the country with those of the urbanized, modern world. They also show a contrast between material things, and emotions that can sometimes best be expressed by otherworldly-type sounds. — Blue Water Highway

Bruce Springsteen – “I’m on Fire”

We find ourselves constantly referencing the Boss and his Born in the U.S.A. album, and this track specifically, as a great example of how classic rock and roll and rockabilly crossed with an analog CS-80 synth somehow works so well.

Sandra McCracken – “Reciprocate”

There is something about this track, and whole album really, that uses the roots vs. digital mix to maximum effect. The foundation is the fragility of the vocal and the acoustic guitar, but the “space” sounds peek through, like little slivers of light coming down through the dark clouds. Produced by Cason Cooley, this is one of the initial influences for our album.

The National – “Quiet Light”

The National’s 2019 release, I Am Easy to Find, has some of the best vibe in piano tones and “Quiet Light” is no exception. The soundscapes and drumming on this tune were just so innovative yet familiar.

Matthew Perryman Jones – “Waking the Dead”

The atmosphere kicks in right from the start and supports this upbeat rocker, which happens to be the only non-ballad on this record, is also produced by Cason Cooley, and admittedly is one of the few non-ballads that MPJ writes. The whole record is a rootsy trip through outer space.

Hozier – “Almost (Sweet Music)”

This song combines three things we love: good songwriting, good groove, and jazz. Hozier weaves titles from famous jazz songs throughout the lyrics of this song, and if you didn’t know the jazz songs he mentions you’d have no idea. Hozier is a great example of an artist who uses rootsy sounds with very modern, pop-oriented production techniques.

Phoebe Bridgers – “Motion Sickness”

Is it a country song or not? At least that is the argument we’ve been having in our band since the song came out. The soundscape is obviously a great example of vibey, modern, groovy, indie-rock production, and the lyrics have a very 21st century suburban-kid perspective. But still, there is something in the mood and the lyrics that doesn’t seem too far from Hank Williams… or Dolly Parton… anyone?

Elbow –”lippy kids”

Our producer introduced us to this band and this track, which is not only a perfect example of our theme sonically, but also lyrically. The refrain of “build a rocket boys” exactly conveys the sense of childhood wonder we wanted to evoke on our album.

Taylor Swift – “peace”

We’re big Taylor Swift fans in this band, always have been. Then she released folklore and evermore in 2020, which somehow fit perfectly with sounds of our album, even though we had already recorded it. Catherine never turned these albums off… ever. Taylor Swift is not given nearly enough credit as a songwriter and this is one of those perfectly produced tracks that makes her shine.

Blue Water Highway – “Grateful”

Definitely leaning more on the “barn,” or rootsy, side of things, this is our tongue-in-cheek take on thankfulness, and we still manage to put enough stardust sounds in the mix that it fits with the rest of the album.

Big Red Machine – “Hymnostic”

This song sounds like sunlight shining through the windows of an old white wooden church. Aaron Dessner (The National) and Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) combine to create the ultimate “spaceship in a barn” vibe. Big Red Machine, The National, and Bon Iver have all accompanied us many many times on late-night drives from state to state.

John Moreland – “When My Fever Breaks”

When an amazing songwriter gets a hold of a drum machine, this is the result. Great songs, and vibey drum production, complete with other synths make this album one to keep revisiting.

Brandon Flowers – “Between Me And You”

Brandon Flowers is one of the core artists we reference. Combining a indie synth rock aesthetic with heartland songwriting, he represents one of the many examples of bringing roots rock into a modern era.

Counting Crows – “Amy Hit The Atmosphere”

If this came out in 2021, it would probably be called Americana, but we love how these guys were a mainstream rock band with just the right balance between raw and polished. That’s never truer than on this song from This Desert Life, with the way the band uses atmospheric sounds to support the lyrics.

Maggie Rogers – “Overnight”

This song is a perfect example of how ambient electronic sounds that you can’t really put your finger on really round out and enhance a song that has organic vocals and drums.

Dawes – “Don’t Send Me Away”

One of the under appreciated elements of ’70s Americana will always be the impeccable groove of the rhythm section. Dawes carries this same torch, along with subtle but innovative guitar work, and brilliant songwriting, to become one of our bands favorite bands.

The War on Drugs – “Pain”

Adam Granduciel’s guitar work and songwriting harkens back to the way the ’80s musicians blended the rootsy style before them with modern instrumentation. The War on Drugs unashamed use of drum machine sounds and reverb rich guitar tone creates a cool and nostalgic sonic landscape.

Blue Water Highway – “All Will Be Well”

This is a song about the true meaning of hope, and it uses the synth/acoustic dichotomy as a way to contrast the spiritual with the material, how those realities both rub up against each other and work together. At times it feels like a rickety old space ship, and is one of our favorite examples of this sound in our original music.

Blue Water Highway – “Sign Language”

This is our original song about finding communication, calm, and understanding in the midst of chaos and confusion. The soundscape has many “space ship” elements that evoke communication, i.e. synthesizer and drum machine, which are contrasted with the organic sounds of the harmony vocals, guitar, and drum set.

Photo credit: Cal & Aly

LISTEN: Caiola, “Alaska”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Caiola
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Song: “Alaska”
Album: Only Real When Shared
Release Date: October 2, 2020
Label: Workaround Records

In Their Words: “‘Alaska’ tells the story of a brief yet impactful love affair. Someone who has been emotionally closed off for years has their eyes opened to the opportunity of a relationship. The stripped-down instrumental arrangement draws glaring attention to the lyrics as warm textures build around a droning, woody, repetitive fingerpicked acoustic. The stacked vocals both doubling and harmonizing were meant to add to the width of the track, sonically. I’ve always liked doubling my vocals and wanted the chorus to be set apart from the verses with all the added layers. I think guys like José González, Justin Vernon, and S. Carey do this really effectively and that’s sort of what we referenced, production-wise.” — Caiola

Photo credit: Kirby Sybert

WATCH: Go Behind the Scenes of Swamp Dogg’s ‘Sorry You Couldn’t Make It’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In the winter of 2019, bona fide soul man Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams made his return to Nashville after nearly 50 years away from Music City. His aim was to cut a new record, and a slew of artists joined him in collaboration, chief among them guitarist Jim Oblon, singer/songwriter Justin Vernon, and the late great John Prine. The music that came from those winter sessions feels like a time machine right back to the late 1960s.

The album, titled Sorry You Couldn’t Make It, is a shade more country than Swamp Dogg’s other material, but his warm, rough voice wears his many years on its sleeve, allowing him to sit comfortably in the common core of soul, country, and blues. Portions of the album have moxie for miles while others hold abundant sincerity and sadness. NPR’s Fresh Air reviewed one song, “Sleeping Without You is a Dragg,” which was joined by two other selections from other artists classified as beautiful, comforting songs. A reminiscent sound ties the whole record together beautifully.

A Noisey mini-documentary about the star-studded recording sessions for Sorry You Couldn’t Make It shows humorous, casual, behind-the-scenes moments from the album’s creation. While Dogg had the bad luck of the COVID-19 lockdown slow its rollout, don’t let this music slip through the cracks of your social media timelines!

Photo credit: David McMurry

The Garden of Gospel Music: A Conversation with Phil Cook

Posted on by Editor

The motivation for Phil Cook’s unapologetically familiar gospel sound is simple: he LOVES that style of music and the people he’s learned it from. At times he veers into Appalachian instrumentation, reflecting his current North Carolina surroundings, and there’s individuality and innovation aplenty. But this Wisconsin kid and his band never stray far from a black gospel blueprint, incorporating backing choirs, tinkling piano stabs, organ that’s more Booker T. than Benmont T., and a vocal delivery that’s loose and expressive.

On his new album, People Are My Drug, Cook invites us to marvel gratefully and joyfully at the greatness of so many people whose creativity and communal originality have flourished under oppression, as well as those who hold the weight of the world within their silence.

There is a definite space that People Are My Drug lives in. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. 

I’m lucky. If I’ve learned anything, it’s to surround yourself with people that know what they’re doing, have a lot of experience, and have something to say. I can possess those things, not all at the same damn time, but if I’m surrounded by other people, I feel safer to be that multiplicity. So my circle starts with my brother, as a producer who knows me better than any other and helps me deliver the most honest statement that I can make. He knows when I’m hiding and helps me stand up tall and be who I have to be to do the thing.

From there, all the musicians in the band – we essentially made the record in two days. Most everything was made in a studio in Wisconsin, which happens to be owned and operated by my old friend Justin Vernon. So we brought the whole crew up, and we holed up in a live room, the four of us – drums, bass, keys, and me. We played for two straight days and didn’t leave the room. We trusted the people across the house were doing their job.

And that’s where this record starts: trust. I am surrounded by musicians that I trust more than anyone else in that moment on stage or in the studio, and we made that a bubble. Then after we were done we had a nice dinner and went into the control room and listened to the record that we’d just made. We were laughing and smiling at each other. There are little moments that happen all over the place. We start out “He Gives Us All His Love,” and I was like, “Bass, I love ya.” And when we listened back to it, that’s exactly what the vibe of the entire record is, that fraternal kind of vibe.

Speaking of fraternity, “He Gives Us All His Love” stirs me to feel universally connected to humankind, more brotherhood of man than fatherhood of God. Is that what you were going for?

Yeah! It’s my favorite Randy Newman song off of Sail Away because it’s the one time he lets his sardonic humor-guard down for a very simple song about gratefulness and generosity, and I like that a lot. Funny story, we sang our version of that song for the first time and halfway through it a woman in the front row looks up at me with a little smile and goes, “How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” and immediately switched the entire perspective of the song. And the rest of the song we sang “She gives us all her love.” I was like, “Well, this is how we’re gonna perform it from now on!”

And that’s the kind of spontaneous moment that you have to pay attention to as a musician, to be open when something passes by and be like, “That’s it! Cool! Switch directions. Let’s hit this.” And you trust. It made for a really beautiful moment at a hometown show. So yeah, I do feel that the fraternity, the brotherhood of man, is the heart and soul of how gospel music plays a role in my life. It’s much more of a family, a community. That’s the togetherness of space that I think the center of this record is.

What I ultimately got out of a childhood in church was this great community that was really supportive of me being who I was. They saw a little kid with glasses in Wisconsin, and they told me to keep being who I want to be. That’s what every kid deserves. And as much as I walked away from church, when something is a part of you in your childhood, you can’t just walk away from it. It’s going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, even if you don’t have a weekly interaction with it.

And I think gospel music in general has been a part of me having this continual, ongoing dialogue with my faith and my questions in a deeper way that feels really real, that feels like a real practice, nothing about dogma, nothing about a system. It’s not gonna work for everybody, but I was able to dial back my anxiety medication after two or three years pretty much listening to quartet black gospel music and getting into it until I started to feel it.

What is it about gospel music that connects you to that human moment?

Well, gospel music is the original garden of all music that comes out of America. On one side you’ve got the blues, which way more people in the white community are familiar with. That’s ubiquitous. A lot of people know who Robert Johnson is, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, even someone more eclipsing, like Jimi Hendrix. A lot of those artists were torn their whole lives between what they were doing for money and what they were doing on Sunday morning.

Religion never left them either. Religion gave them so much. So even blues artists weren’t free of that spiritual paradox. If you look at some of the greatest singers, they all came out of this garden of the church. Aretha, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, all the Staples Singers – a vast number that were able to have a safe space as they were growing up. The safest space they could find was church, the place where they were able to seed and plant their art and their voice.

The church was also the source of this friendly competition with players raised up there. You’ve got young kids in the wings watching every single move that you’re doing, and they’re going home and practicing. It creates a whole circle of virtuosity and innovation. It was the only place for it to thrive, and, damnit, it thrived. It changed the entire world. Most of those artists went on to big careers in soul music and left the church in some ways. The church didn’t leave them though. That was with them the entire way.

I appreciate the way in this album you direct attention toward others and away from yourself. I’ve cried twice this morning listening to “Another Mother’s Son.”

It’s heavy. I had my own experience with almost losing my youngest son when he was born to some complications with respiratory stuff. You get close to almost losing the thing that you hold most precious, even though you just met him. Your family is forced to grip with the possibility that things aren’t gonna turn out ok. I don’t know who isn’t gonna be affected by a situation like that in a way that’s gonna crack your heart wide open. And what happens after that is really important.

He came home from the hospital and I put him to bed; we’d had an incredible family day. I felt like, “Oh, my family is so strong. I’m so thankful for this family. We’re gonna get through this life together and it’s gonna be ok.” And then I checked Instagram and saw the video that Philando Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond, took of the police officer after [the officer] shot him multiple times with her daughter in the back seat of the car. In that moment it was the juxtaposition of how safe I was feeling, how strong my family felt, to seeing a young man who was such a giving soul ripped so violently from his own mother, who called him her miracle child.

She wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids and she had a son, Philando Castile. And then this broken-ass justice system completely stole him away from her and everyone else that loved him. And it just hit me way harder than it normally would have because of what I went through. Often times you go through something and then maybe days, months, years down the line, something else will happen that will give you a whole new perspective on what you experienced initially.

The second fold was one of my bandmates, a phenomenally gifted musician and gregarious, incredible human being, Brevan [Hampden], who came over one night to meet [my son] Amos. Brevan was raised by his mother, who had three boys, all black men in America growing up. We sat on the porch drinking beers, and the talk turned to all this stuff. I love Brevan with all my heart. We’ve gone through a lot in our lives as musicians together in just a few years. And I think that moment just a few days after Philando Castile’s death really delivered home the two worlds that are so separate in this country. What some mothers don’t have to worry about. And what some mothers have to live in fear of every single day. And no matter how hard they sandbag and prepare against the terrible reality that could happen, their black son is walking out the door every day with a target on his chest. There’s no guarantees.

Brevan was raised sternly about how to interact with police, body language, tone of voice, every single thing. It was so foreign to me to listen to that, growing up in northern Wisconsin, the diversity-free capitol of the world. I knew all the police officers in Chippewa Falls. They all knew my mom and dad. I don’t know how many benefits of a doubt I got because of that. I can’t ignore that. I’m gonna go through the rest of my life grateful that it’s never happened to me. It’s a poisonous system, and I moved south to get away from indifference, so I could be in more of an interactive dialogue with communities that didn’t look, think, and act like me.

Photo credit: Josh Wool (Top); Graham Tolbert (Middle)

Counsel of Elders: Blind Boys of Alabama’s Jimmy Carter on Singing from Your Spirit

Posted on by Editor

After singing for over 70 years, you’d think the stories wouldn’t come as easily, or the spirit wouldn’t be as willing, or some other facet of life would come to require greater attention. But if you’re talking about the Blind Boys of Alabama — and especially founding member and octogenarian Jimmy Carter — you’d be wrong. Carter makes up one of two remaining original members (along with Clarence Fountain) of the singing group that got its start at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind in the early 20th century, and he’s not ready to quit just yet.

The Blind Boys of Alabama’s new album, Almost Home, nods at the impending end to their journey, but their fervent voices raised together in praise signal a different kind of attitude toward death than typically prevails. It’s a celebration, rather than a worry-driven study, about what exists beyond the known world. Thanks to their faith, they don’t have any doubts in that regard. “He’s been there with me all these years. He’s not about to leave me now,” Carter sings on the title track.

To facilitate their latest album, the Boys’ manager, Charles Driebe, recorded interviews with Carter and Fountain, and then sent out a 30-minute video to an array of lauded songwriters. They received 50 options, which touched on what the men had discussed, and eventually culled that down to 12. John Leventhal and Marc Cohn, Phil Cook, Valerie June, the North Mississippi Allstars, and more contributed to Almost Home, penning songs that touched on the spirit the Boys have long exhibited with their voices. June’s “Train Fare” looks at pain from another angle: Any kind of suffering just deposits more “train fare” in your account so you get where you need to go at the end. While Leventhal and Cohn’s “Stay on the Gospel Side” (taken from Fountain’s recollection) focuses on the offer to become soul singers, and the Boys’ choice to do exactly what the title states. Secular music has never been off-limits for the Boys, though. In fact, they cover Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” and Billy Joe Shaver’s “Live Forever” on their new project. Carter knows it’s a way to reach younger audiences while slipping in that good news they are still so eager to share. He may be “almost home,” but while he has time and health and strength, he still has a message to spread.

What has it meant for you to use your voice in this way?

I’m a firm believer in God. I feel that everything that has happened to me in life is a blessing from Him. Whatever I have accomplished, I owe it to Him.

It does seem as though you’ve been called to deliver a message.

I believe that, too.

How has your faith strengthened your gratitude and vice versa?

Everything that I have asked Him for, I have received. For example, I told God to “Let my mother live until I get grown,” and he did that. He didn’t only let her live — he let her live to get 103 years old, so she just passed in 2009.

Oh my goodness.

Oh yeah, so I have faith, and I am a believer, too.

One of the stories you shared with songwriters eventually became “Let My Mother Live” on the album. What was it like being able to sing that kind of extreme faith?

The guy that wrote the song, John Leventhal, he surprised me! We were talking about it, and he wrote the song just about as I told him. It was a surprise, but a pleasant one. There’s another one on there called “Stay on the Gospel Side.” It talks about how we had some setbacks along the way, but we didn’t deviate and we didn’t turn back. We stayed on the gospel side. [Laughs]

You absolutely could’ve crossed over, as so many others did.

That’s correct. When Sam Cooke crossed over, we were there at the same time.

In the same studio?

In the same studio, and they gave us the same offer, but we told them, “No, we gonna stay on the gospel side.”

It’s so interesting because you’ve found your own way to do that. In recent years, you’ve incorporated more covers from secular artists.

The reason we incorporated and collaborated with secular artists is because we want the young people to know our music, and the secular artists can relate to young people. We collaborated with people like Ben Harper and Aaron Neville, so now, since we did that, we find that we have more young people attending our concerts than ever before.

I’m sure. When you collaborated with Justin Vernon for your 2013 album, that would’ve also opened up a new audience.

That’s true.

And no matter what, you’re still sharing your message: good news.

I say gospel is the good news of God.

If you could distill your many songs, covers, and albums down to one message about faith, what would it be?

Well, we have a signature song that we do every night, “Amazing Grace.” That tells it all because, but for the grace of God, we wouldn’t be here. We sing that song every night; that’s our testimony. If we come to sing for you and you don’t feel anything, then I feel that we’ve failed you because we want you to feel what we feel. If you came to the program and went back the same way you came, then we failed you. We didn’t do you no good, and we don’t like that. That’s the way it is with us.

So it’s your group mission.

We get tremendous response from the crowd, and that keeps us going. People ask me, “You’ve been doing this for almost seven decades, what keeps you going?” I tell them, “When you love what you do — and we love what we’re doing — that keeps you motivated.”

Doesn’t it just, though? It’s so true.

Yeah, so as long God lets us go, we’re going to keep on going.

It’s amazing, too, how your spirit doesn’t always have to come across in words alone. I saw you in 2015 at Justin Vernon’s inaugural Eaux Claires Festival.

Did you?

Yeah, you sang with the Lone Bellow and, at one point, you were all just humming; I felt it deep in my chest. You can’t make that up!

Yeah, that’s what we like to see. That’s our message: We like to touch people’s lives. I’m glad you felt something.

Thank you for it; it was a beautiful moment. So what has been the most surprising moment of your journey with this group?

Let me say this: When the group started out many, many, many years ago [Laughs], we wasn’t expecting anything. We just went out and did this because we loved to sing gospel music, and we loved to tell the world about Jesus Christ. We weren’t looking for no awards, no accolades, no nothing. But I’ll never forget the first Grammy we got. That was a surprise.

A nice one, hopefully.

A good one! And we got five in a row! Oh, that was good. It took a long time.

Isn’t that funny how it happens?

I always say, “Better late than never.” And then another surprise, we got the chance to go to the White House three times. That was a great experience. We had a chance to sing for three presidents.

If Donald Trump were to be the fourth to invite you, what’s the one song you and the Boys would sing to help him understand a more unifying spirit than he’s been displaying?

I don’t think he’s going to invite us.

I don’t think so either, but just in case …

I would say “Amazing Grace.”

If he didn’t feel anything, we’d surely know something’s up, as if we didn’t already. So with the Valerie June-penned song “Train Fare,” I thought that was such a unique way to look at suffering. What was your take when you first heard it?

I didn’t like it! [Laughs] I didn’t like it because I didn’t understand it. I had to listen to it; it had to grow on me.

That is the case sometimes.

Yeah, but as we listened and we talked about it, we began to understand it. My train fare … when I go through trials and tribulations, I’m paying my train fare. It’s a good song.

And with “Singing Brings Us Closer,” I was struck by the sentiment that invoking songs can bring those we’ve lost closer somehow. Do you have a favorite song you like to sing to bring the memory of your mother closer?

Like I said, our favorite song is “Amazing Grace.”

So across the board, that’s the one?

That’s the one.

Photo credit: Jim Herrington

Ani DiFranco: Steady as She Goes

Posted on by Editor

Two decades ago, 1996 was a leap year, a time before America had lost itself in iPhones and Instagram, before music was as much of a soundtrack to life and love as it was a 10-second signal that your mom was calling, and why weren’t you picking up? It was also the year that Ani DiFranco released Dilate, her seventh album, which began, about one minute in, like this:

“Fuck you, and your untouchable face,” she sang. “Fuck you, for existing in the first place.”

DiFranco fired those words with both tenderness and insurmountable fury. And when she did, she spoke for a generation of people who were sick of being polite and playing by the rules — who didn’t fit in with political norms, gender norms, sexual norms, norm norms. With her hair braided and her arms toned from hours upon hours of strumming the guitar, she smiled as she sang; venom dripped from her lips, sealed with a kiss. Her words often rolled out like poetry or magnificent chains of thought, and she didn’t sensor. She was both a political voice and slinger of love songs, a truth-teller and a vehement judge. She took artificial nails and attached them with electrical tape, so she could pluck the strings hard enough to ask the harder questions. It was certainly never what Lee Press-Ons had in mind.

Dilate was just over 20 years ago. And her new LP, Binary, is her 20th studio album. But anyone who expected DiFranco to look back retrospectively on any of those occasions is searching in the wrong place, for the wrong person.

“I’m not really about heralding numbers or time,” DiFranco says. “For me, it’s really all one long song. Other people have asked or presented the idea of looking back. On the anniversary of Dilate, it was, ‘Oh, you should go back on tour and play Dilate!’ I’m like, ‘No, no. That is never going to happen! Next idea?’ I’m into looking forward. What’s the next idea? What’s the uncharted territory?”

Binary is DiFranco taking stock of her present, our present, and, in her own sort of premonition-inclined mind, the future. Though the songs were written before Donald Trump was elected president, they feel as though they could be a reflection on the 2016 election cycle and the world at large, and that sort of preternatural sense is something that DiFranco has always possessed. “See how quickly shit gets absurd,” she sings on “Alrighty.” “You invented angels and then you ignore the birds.” Or, on “Play God”: “You don’t get to play God, man. I do.”

“That has happened to me my whole songwriting life. I’m like a Sunday scientist,” she says in the DiFranco chuckle, mischievous as it is. “I love quantum physics. I love the vanguard of scientific understanding, which has brought us full circle back to a very ancient understanding. I go into this subconscious place when I am writing. That shit, my consciousness sees it coming, even though I don’t know what I am writing about until it happens.”

Many have long-turned to DiFranco as a fearless feminist leader: An activist and outspoken voice against the patriarchy of politics, corporate America, and everything in between, she launched Righteous Babe Records in 1990 as a way of taking control over her own artistic property. She was always going to grow and change, but the morphing DiFranco was sometimes a difficult thing for her long-time fans to stomach. Getting married, having children … these choices occasionally were hard for those who saw DiFranco as belonging to only herself — up there on the stage, tank top tight with sweat and chinos that could have been worn by both a woman or a man — and to them. And though she has released albums since giving birth to her two babies, now 4 and 10, Binary is an album that explores how exercising our rights to belong to one another — be that a lover, a son, a daughter, a friend, or even our green earth — is one of the most feminist proclamations of all.

“I was trying to approach this concept of feminism without saying the word ‘feminism,’ and really get at it in an elemental way,” she says. “That the universe is born of relationships. And until we start holding that understanding as high as we do the individual and the hierarchy of individuals in competition, then I think we’re never gonna get to the right answer.”

The process of becoming a mother was a complex one for DiFranco. Though the act of raising a child “totally reinforces my feminism,” she says, some of the constructs of parenthood were more difficult to see through her enlightened lens.

“I remember the first time I had to push a stroller down the street,” she says. “I felt like such a fucking asshole. There was something about pushing a stroller down the street that didn’t fit with my sense of my own identity. I sort of remember in a humorous way trying to reconcile my identity as a mom with my life until then. But that’s surface, superfluous. Underneath it, the real situation for me was that becoming a mom really reinforced everything I thought I knew. Once I had actually lived the literal experience of ‘Your body is my body,’ I could stand there as tall as I ever did and say, ‘This idea of autonomy is a fallacy.’ The feminist idea is holding relationship higher than anything else. There is no separation between you and me.”

Indeed, Binary is about how our existence, our thoughts, our love, our presence, our fights are only in relationship to something else or someone else. So to celebrate that spirit, she decided to extend outward and invite some participation from special guests: violinist Jenny Scheinman, keyboard player Ivan Neville, Maceo Parker, David Bowie bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver.

“My manager said, ‘You have a lot of amazing friends. You should call them. You should connect with people,'” she recalls. “A lot of my artistic life has been in isolation. I write songs alone. I play them alone. I develop a relationship with an audience alone. But I’ve always been jealous of people whose bands are beautiful communities, and I have been more solitary than I want to be in my art. Calling people up and connecting with them, that was just one of the oblique strategies in his record. How do you make album 20 new and fucking fun again?”

Binary is, well, fucking fun. It’s full of fire, horns, and funky riffs, and stacks of DiFranco couplets that feel as urgent as ever: “They got networks like insects with webs of deception,” she sings on the title track, both a manifesto for the album’s central themes and a call to put down our screens and look not into that white glare, but the white’s of each other’s eyes. And not just look, but listen. “Right from the beginning, I was like, ‘Fuck all that,'” she says. “‘Talk to me.'”

In 2016, DiFranco used her tour to encourage voter turnout: Called “Vote Dammit,” she registered fans in each city she passed through. And she will, of course, still stay political in a Trump era, letting the words of Binary lead the way. But she’s also paying attention to what lies beneath the dark side; and she has been following the shifts in the energy of the earth charted as the “Schumann Resonances.” Remember, she’s a Sunday scientist. Things had been pretty steady here on the planet, but then, just as Trump took office, that measure of energy plummeted.

“If you’re me, you could take this really far,” she says laughing. “What we see up there at the podium is the shadow side of an awakening. And this is the trigger. This is what it takes for us to wake the fuck up. And I feel so excited that there are people who want to talk about the things I want to talk about. And I feel less alone and more hopeful in many ways than I have in my whole life.”

Because consciousness, as she sings, is binary.

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.