Tag: Kerrville Folk Festival

Out Now: Madeleine Kelson

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Madeleine Kelson blends traditional folk, country, and Americana. She played Queerfest and took part in AmericanaFest this year, has been featured multiple times on NPR, and was a finalist in the Kerrville Folk Festival’s New Folk Competition. 

Madeleine is from Chicago and based in Nashville, where she lives with her partner. Her single, “The Way I Do,” displays her relationship with her partner through a lens that shows how ordinary queer relationships can be: Drinking coffee every morning, coming home for dinner, and falling asleep beside each other every night. The hook declares, “God has never loved a woman the way I do.” It’s an iconic LGBTQ+ anthem, and in my opinion, it’s one of the most compelling songs about queer love and pride.

We’re proud to promote this dedicated and creative up-and-coming coming artist. Our Out Now interview discusses why Madeleine creates music, her favorite LGBTQ+ artists, her release and touring plans for 2024, and more.

Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?

Making music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. When I started playing and singing as a kid, it was a way for me to connect to the people around me – at first by singing around the house with my mom and my sister and then by playing music with my friends. That’s still a big part of it now, but starting around my teenage years music became a way for me to process big emotions and give them somewhere to live outside of my mind.

As far as the process versus the outcome, I don’t tend to think of making music as having an outcome. A song gets written, and maybe that’s the outcome of songwriting, but then it might get arranged, or performed, or recorded. Even after I stop playing a song at shows, people still listen to it and it grows and changes with them. I’d say the most satisfying part is the impact, whether that be for me or for someone else.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?

I love this question! I couldn’t pick just one piece of advice, so here are a few:

One from my mom: “No is a complete sentence.”

Some from my grandpa: “Shoot for the moon. You might surprise yourself and get it.” “Follow your passion. If you love what you do that’s what you will do best.“ And “Treat others with respect. The way up can be a hard slow journey but the fall can be very fast and you meet the same people on the way down as you did on the way up.”

I’ll throw in a good Yiddish saying too: “When you have a lot to do, go to sleep.”

Who are your favorite LGBTQ+ artists and bands?

Oh man! Here’s a big long list, because it’s so hard to choose!

Brandi Carlile (I will always look up to her), Freddie Mercury (I listened to a lot of Queen in high school), Indigo Girls, Linda Perry, Allison Russell, Brandy Clark, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Katie Pruitt, Amythyst Kiah, Celisse, Boygenius…

Also want to shout out some amazing local artists that I love: Purser, Autumn Nicholas, Jobi Riccio, Becca Mancari, Denitia, Jaimee Harris, Liv Greene, and Julia Cannon.

For anyone reading this who might not be out of the closet, were there any specific people, musicians, or resources that helped you find yourself as a queer individual?

I was really lucky to grow up in a very liberal city in a very liberal family. When I came out, I knew the people around me would be supportive. Any apprehension I felt had to do with the people outside of my circle and my life beyond Chicago. That being said, I still didn’t really know I was gay until high school. I think the things that helped me find myself were the people around me – having friends who were out, seeing queer couples, going to pride parades, watching shows with queer characters, going to concerts or other events that I knew lots of queer people would attend.

Seeing what that part of my life could look like in other people helped me make sense of who I could be. Coming out is something you don’t do just once, but constantly for the rest of your life. At some point it changed from something I dreaded doing to something that has brought me comfort, joy, and community.

What are your release and touring plans for the next year?

I’m currently releasing singles off of a four-song EP that will be out mid-February. I’ll be on tour with Alaina Stacey supporting that EP, through the Midwest and Northeast starting February 16th in Chicago. Touring is one of my favorite things, and I can’t wait to see everyone at these shows! Seriously, show up. I want to see you!

You’ve done a lot this year, from touring to playing several festivals, including Queerfest, AmericanaFest, and Perseids Music Festival. What’s that been like for you?

It has been so much fun! There are few things that bring me more joy, or make me feel more like myself, than being on stage. It’s such a rush and so emotionally gratifying, even to play sad songs and feel things so deeply with other people. There’s really nothing like it. It’s been a busy year, and one in which I have definitely overcommitted myself, but I’m grateful for every part of it.

In 2022, you released your debut album, While I Was Away, on Olivia Records. Can you share some of the key inspirations and themes behind the album?

While I Was Away was actually my college thesis project! The idea was to write and produce an album that musically pulled from the different building block genres of Americana (folk, rock, country, etc.), and lyrically spoke to the years since I moved away from home. It’s a real time capsule of my life from 18-22. It’s about leaving home, being gay in the South (oy), growing up, watching the kids I babysit grow up, my dog, so many things!

You were also a finalist in the Kerrville New Folk Competition. Could you tell us about that experience?

Kerville Folk Festival was incredible. I had no idea what to expect going into it. I applied on a whim and when I heard that I got in, I could never have imagined what it would be like. If you haven’t been to a festival like that, it can be hard to imagine, but essentially there’s a big piece of land in the middle of Texas and for three weeks every year it turns into a city of stages, tents, RVs, and so much good music. It’s home to the most respectful and outstanding song circles that carry on through the night, and quite possibly do not ever end. Playing and competing was an honor, but the real privilege was to be around so many phenomenal songwriters whom I’m happy to now call my friends.

Could you share the creative process, inspirations, and the significance behind your song ‘The Way I Do’?

“The Way I Do” started as a line that floated around in the back of my mind, honestly probably for months before I knew what to do with it. The line was, “If I don’t get to heaven for loving her true, God has never loved a woman the way I do,” which ultimately became the hook of the chorus.

Growing up, I was very aware of homophobia, but it wasn’t something I experienced personally in any significant way. That really changed when I moved to Tennessee. And I say that not to generalize or condemn the South – there are a lot of amazing people here who are deeply involved in fighting inequality. In my experience, it’s a more tangible and pervasive issue here, and if anyone is going to make a difference, it’s the people here who are fighting that fight every day. I think growing up with the experience of feeling entitled to confidence and comfort in my sexuality made me that much more pissed off when I was faced with intolerance. Especially the virulent brand of “Christian” homophobia that the South is so well known for. That, I really didn’t and still don’t understand.

The thought behind the song is kind of a sarcastic, “If your god knew how great it is to love a woman, he/she/it definitely wouldn’t hate me for it.” It’s definitely a “fuck you,” but it’s also an honest reflection on how easy and natural it is to love someone who happens to share your gender.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

BGS 5+5: The Deer’s Grace Rowland

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Deer (answers by Grace Rowland)
Hometown: San Marcos/Austin, Texas
Latest Album: The Beautiful Undead
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): We used to be called Grace Park and The Deer, when I was using that stage name and it was more my folk songwriting project. We have many silly names for Noah, our fiddle/mandolinist, including Nugiel and Space Nug. Our guitar player Michael goes by Deenyo.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

They don’t always come easy, and the muse is ephemeral, like a Whac-A-Mole. We strike when the iron is hot and write independently as much as we can, but we also have to force ourselves to get together and record every now and then whatever comes to mind, even when in a drought. These “drought” sessions are some of the toughest because they are so open-ended. But a lot of good can come from them — the song “Six-Pointed Star” comes to mind right now. It started as a simple song we made in the woods, but when we took it to the studio we had the worst time trying to make it sound right. We must have made four different versions until we finally hit it, but now it is one of our favorites to play.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Gillian Welch’s rustic realism
John Hartford’s wordsmithing
Depeche Mode’s moody chord progressions and deep bass
Pink Floyd’s subtle layering and studio techniques
Tori Amos’ outspoken poignancy and fearless lyricism

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

For me, it’s often the other way around. I will write from a first-person perspective to make it sound like it’s me, but the person is actually someone else in another body, and the events are imaginary, or real but in another time. In this way I feel like I can transcend time and space lyrically, perhaps to sound a call for mystical encounters that would be otherwise impossible, or to set the stage for events that have yet to happen. One example is the lyricism in “Like Through the Eye,” a billowing romp of a dream that never actually took place, but an experience that I have always envisioned and desired to happen to me. Songs are a way of bringing these things to me. Jesse, however, does this all the time. For instance in our new single “Bellwether,” the original lyrics were “I am falling farther into Me.” As a narcissistic ode to ourselves it served a purpose, but for our greater audience we decided to soften it into a palatable love song.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Bodies of water would be our main way of connecting with nature as a group. We make it a point to visit rivers, oceans, hot springs, and lakes wherever we can, and take in Earth’s most valuable essence, and all the plants and animals they gather around them. In lyrics we often reference the sea and the river, flora and fauna, and interspecies relationships, because they reflect the cosmological order that governs our bodies and our feelings. Our complex emotions can be understood better when we zoom out and realize that we are not only driven by this order, but a vital part of it.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I was really into musicals as a kid, watching VHS tapes for hours on end and learning every song. My first concert was Lilith Fair in 1997. I was 12, and it was life-changing. However, my decision to actually pursue music as a career didn’t come until my early 20s, when I met a large swath of working musicians at Kerrville Folk Festival in 2006. Seeing so many people my age who were writing their own songs and touring independently, traveling with freedom and spreading their art, was enough to set my intent upon making that dream real.

Whether we got started later or earlier in life, as a group the media we consumed as kids was probably 100% responsible for illustrating an applied use for the gifts we knew we possessed. MTV (back when they played music videos), the Grammys, Saturday Night Live, the Super Bowl halftime show, and yes, even church — these mainstream outlets showed us at an early age what it looked like when someone was giving it their all to entertain their community, and the world. It was enough to inspire each of us to hone our skills, and bring our talent to people on our own scale.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1N6SuTPadcfEYWC8l5gRqw?si=zp3dc_rGQKOkpL6k3vlhmA&nd=1

Photo credit: Barbara FG

BGS 5+5: Danny Schmidt

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Danny Schmidt
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Latest album: Standard Deviation
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): “The Widowmaker,” for the exploits of my youth. Just kidding.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

There are two moments that really stand out to me. My wife Carrie Elkin and I got to perform at the Ryman Auditorium for a show with Emmylou Harris a few years ago. That represented so many dream moments of mine colliding in one evening that it was utterly surreal and disorienting. The other evening that especially stands out to me was a show when Carrie and I were on tour with the podcast “Welcome To Night Vale,” and Carrie had just announced she was pregnant, and immediately began to crowdsource the name of our daughter live in front of 2000 lunatic Night Vale fans. It was a beautiful silly moment of shared celebration.

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

I’ve always been a lover of photography, both as an appreciator of other’s photography, and of taking my own shots. I love the static nature of the form, the sense of capturing something fleeting. And I love how that static nature forces your eye to choose images that have some sort symbolic quality and associative properties to try and tell a little story in one still impression. It’s a lot like songwriting in that particular way.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I had only been writing for a couple years when 9/11 hit, so it was a craft I was still learning and not very confident in. But like everyone else at that moment in time, my mind was hard at work trying to process all the emotions and geopolitical realities of the situation. So it wasn’t like I set out to write a 9/11 response song, it’s just that I write about the things that are on my mind, and that’s what was on my mind. But it was such a complex stew of emotions that it was extremely hard to distill it down to what felt like a fair and nuanced encapsulation. In the month it took me to write that song (called “Already Done”) to my satisfaction, I wrote about four or five other songs, cause they all felt so easy by comparison, that they just popped right out.

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

Be inspired by everyone and don’t listen to anyone. Cause, y’know … it’s beautiful to be inspired and influenced by the work of other folks in your community. At the same time, you have to have an unflinching internal compass as an artist or you’ll lose your way.

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

That’s a great question! I think the answer is very often. I question the word “hide” though. Sometimes it is hiding. But sometimes it’s choosing a voice that can best deliver the message, and sometimes that’s not the first-person. And sometimes you’re just writing a fictional account in the third person and realize somewhere along the way that the character is starting to feel suspiciously familiar. I think it’s true that, at the very least, we put a lot of ourselves into everything we create, whether it ends up in a highly coded form, or whether it’s completely straight forward.

I picked songs that in one way or another changed the course of my personal life:

Bob Dylan – “It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding”

I discovered Dylan’s music when I was a very disaffected 15-year-old. I thought the world was insane and everyone in it was blind. I still think the world is insane, but Dylan taught me that not everyone was blind, at least, and he helped me start getting my head around the madness of it all in a manageable way. I connected very strongly with his worldview (especially with the stuff he was writing from 1964-1966), and it had a powerful affect on my sense of isolation. From across the world, and across two decades, there was a friend who would commiserate with me. It taught me a lot about the power of song.

Carrie Elkin – “Berlin”

This was the first song I ever heard Carrie Elkin sing, on the night we met. We would go on to become husband and wife, and so “Berlin” was sort of her siren song.

Anaïs Mitchell – “Why We Build the Wall”

I heard Anaïs sing this song around a campfire my first night at the Kerrville Folk Festival in 2006. Anaïs was one of about 20 young songwriters huddled together all night around the fire that evening, almost all of them new to me, and almost all of them would go on to become my closest friends and conspirators in this world of music. If the world could’ve heard the songs shared that night among compatriots, I feel like it might’ve fixed a lot of broken spirits.

Mississippi John Hurt – “I Shall Not Be Moved”

This album inspired me to get an acoustic guitar for the first time, and convinced me that if I practiced for 60-something years, I could get good enough at fingerpicking that I wouldn’t need a band.

Ayub Ogada – “Obiero”

My daughter was born to this album by Ayub Ogada. My wife asked me to pick some music for the birth, something that was calming, soothing, and ethereal. Ayub Ogada might actually be an angel. And Maizy was safely delivered.

Photo credit: Chris Carson