Tag: Kris Kristofferson

Born in North Carolina, These 10 Stars Shaped Classic Country Music

Posted on by Editor

When it comes to bluegrass and classic country music, North Carolina offers a talent pool that rivals any other state. It’s also red hot on the modern country scene, with stars like Eric Church, Luke Combs, and Scotty McCreery hailing from the Tarheel State. Some would say these contemporary musicians are following in the footsteps of these 10 North Carolina-born artists who made a mark in country music history.

Earl Scruggs
b. 1924 in Flint Hill, N.C.

Without the banjo innovations of Earl Scruggs in Bill Monroe’s band, would we even have bluegrass? “The Ballad of Jed Clampett” and “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” are obvious Flatt & Scruggs classics, though his catalog runs deep — and his creativity blossomed further in the ’70s with the Earl Scruggs Revue. The city of Shelby has renovated its courthouse into the interactive Earl Scruggs Center.

Don Gibson
b. 1928 in Shelby, N.C.

This soft-spoken artist is arguably country music’s first triple threat — a commanding presence as a vocalist, songwriter and guitarist. Born poor, he persisted through every bad break until finally exploding in 1958 with “Oh Lonesome Me” and an Opry membership. He remained active on the charts for two more decades. Shelby has honored him, as well, with a live music venue, the Don Gibson Theater.

Fred Foster
b. 1931 in Rutherford County, N.C.

Behind the scenes, it’s hard to fathom just how well-connected Fred Foster was. He founded Monument Records in 1958 and produced all of Roy Orbison’s early hits on that label, gave Dolly Parton a publishing and label deal when she first moved to town, and landed a co-writing credit on Kris Kristofferson’s iconic “Me and Bobby McGee.” He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016.

Stonewall Jackson
b. 1932 in Emerson, N.C.

After an impressive audition but no track record, Stonewall Jackson was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1956. For the next 10 years, he charged the country chart with “Life to Go” (written by George Jones), “Waterloo” (a five-week No. 1 in 1959), and “B.J. the DJ” (No. 1 in 1964). He sued Opry for age discrimination in 2006, then after a settlement, resumed appearances on the long-running show.

George Hamilton IV
b. 1937 in Winston-Salem, N.C.

From North Carolina to the world, George Hamilton IV may be the top international ambassador of his generation. His stardom began as a teenager with an unexpected million-selling pop hit, 1956’s “A Rose and a Baby Ruth.” He signed to RCA and the Opry in 1960, setting the foundation for a decade of radio success with “Abilene” (a four-week No. 1 classic), “Break My Mind,” “Early Morning Rain,” and more.

Del Reeves
b. 1932 in Sparta, N.C.

A 1965 novelty smash, “Girl on the Billboard” finally established Del Reeves as a likable country star (after four other record deals didn’t pan out). He’d go on to issue Top 10 singles through 1971, often singing for truckers on tracks like “The Belles of Southern Bell” and “Looking at the World Through a Windshield.” Known for his big personality, he joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in 1966.

Donna Fargo
b. 1945 in Mount Airy, N.C.

A leading artist of the 1970s, Donna Fargo won a Grammy, an ACM Award and a CMA Award for her 1972 breakout hit, “Happiest Girl in the Whole USA.” The feel-good release reached No. 1, as did her next three singles — and she wrote them all. Fargo taught high school English courses before exploring songwriting. By 1979, she’d notched 16 Top 10 country hits and landed her own syndicated variety show.

Ronnie Milsap
b. 1943 in Robbinsville, N.C.

Easily one of the most identifiable voices in country music, Ronnie Milsap dazzled listeners with charisma, musical talent, and an impeccable ear for hearing a hit. Inspired by R&B and country music alike, the entertainer shared his soul with fans for decades, with an astonishing 49 Top 10 country singles on RCA. One of the best, “Smoky Mountain Rain,” topped the chart in December 1980.

Charlie Daniels
b. 1936 in Wilmington, N.C.

Four decades later, Charlie Daniels Band is synonymous with “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Arguably the most famous fiddling song in the country music canon, the single won a Grammy and led to a guest spot in the era-defining film, Urban Cowboy. A member of the Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Daniels remained a highly visible entertainer, especially eager to support causes for veterans and children.

Randy Travis
b. 1959 in Marshville, N.C.

In the mid ’80s, Randy Travis was transformed from a dish-washing hopeful to a country music sensation. Plucked from the kitchen of the Nashville Palace onto the TNN airwaves, Travis was then reportedly rejected by every label in Nashville until finally signing to Warner Bros. And then “1982” changed everything. His resonant voice, though largely silenced now, will live on forever and ever, amen.

Photo of Charlie Daniels courtesy of Charlie Daniels Band, Inc.; Photo of Earl Scruggs by Al Clayton, provided by Sony Music; Photo of Randy Travis provided by 117 Entertainment Group.

Discover more about the North Carolina music scene and #NCMusicMonth through Come Hear North Carolina’s website and on Instagram at @comehearnc.

William Prince Sparks Joy on ‘Reliever’

Posted on by Editor

When Canadian songwriter William Prince cites his influences, there’s one that is particularly surprising: The Mighty Ducks, a feel-good hockey film from 1992. In one pivotal scene, the kids on the down-and-out team get all-new equipment — a cinematic turn of events that Prince has never forgotten from his childhood.

“It moves you in an interesting way. I’ve always gone back to that,” Prince says during a conversation over coffee in Nashville. “That’s one of the first feelings of joy for another that I remember taking on as a young person. Like, ‘Oh, man! That’s great for the disenfranchised hockey team to get that!’ I was a hockey player and loved it – I knew that feeling, I shared that. And from then on, it was about creating similar encounters with people. That’s what these songs are.”

Raised in the community of Peguis First Nation, Prince grew up listening to Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash, as well as the gospel records his father recorded independently. For years Prince barely skated by with an unwavering dream to make it as a performing songwriter. By the end of 2015, he’d released the album, Earthly Days, which led to a Juno Award for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year in 2017, and ultimately the opportunity for an American reissue in 2018 with a new track, “Breathless.”

Five years after Earthly Days, he’s currently in a good spot after grieving the death of his father, getting over a breakup with the mother of his young son, and settling into a stable life in Winnipeg. A keen sense of maturity and perspective informs his newest album, Reliever, but the overwhelming emotion in lead single, “The Spark,” is quite simply love — a reflection of his new relationship and a still-burning passion for making a connection through his music.

BGS: It seems to me that you are writing from a lot of your personal experience throughout Reliever. How much of your own life is in these songs?

WP: Ah, it’s everything. I say it’s just a presentation of different thoughts while going through a plethora of things. Change, transition, all of this. The ever-changing landscape of this adventure we’re on now, making music all the time.

What was that transition like, from wanting to be a musician to now being a musician?

I think I was always a musician, always an artist. People tend to make it become about the album itself: “If I just had a record, I would sell CDs and be an artist.” Or, “If I just had more shows, I would be a musician and artist.” The thing I’ve learned now is that it’s all the time off of the stage. It’s all the time working on the stuff, building it, and the moments in between those short 45 to 90 minutes on the stage. That becomes the smallest part of the whole artist/musician illusion. You are living it all the time. That’s the thing — you will become what you put your greatest effort into. Just writing songs and wanting it that much, you eventually end up with what you dream about.

What took up the most time for you, do you think?

I was going to university for a lot of years, trying to find a path into medicine. I took my entrance exam for college and didn’t get in for the first round of the med school applications. I ended up working on the radio as a morning host on an Indigenous radio station that runs across the country. I was kind of staying alive while working on the songs. I was still finding my voice and how I wanted to build the songs, in a way. It’s all the time spent building. I knew there was going to be one chance for one good first impression, so it was important for me to collect the right things. I’m glad now that it didn’t work out back then. I don’t think the record I made at 20 would have been the record I made at 29.

I’m curious about your First Nations background because I’d think it would give you a different perspective than other songwriters. How has that shaped your musical approach, do you think?

I grew up on a reserve where the conditions are as bad, and sometimes worse – and sometimes better – than what you hear the conditions are for First Nations people in Canada. I was always just singing songs about my family, you know? I never really considered our heritage, in a way. These are songs about loved ones, and that transcends everything – who we are as a family, who we are as a people.

Things can be pretty rough in this living situation, like a house without running water or going to shower at your brother’s, or borrowing jackets because we just couldn’t afford certain things sometimes. When that [burden] is taken off your shoulders, like worrying about how to pay for the place you’re living in, to having groceries and an abundance of things now, it’s been the greatest perspective [going from] the quiet reserve life, to living a life that’s prosperous and doing something you love every day. So that influence and perspective is what it’s given me, for all things.

I don’t have kids, but the songs where you reference your son are very touching. How old is he?

He’s three and a half, and that’s a delicate line to walk. You can get “aw shucks” and then it doesn’t resonate with people who don’t have children. For you to say that is an affirmation of a job done in a direction that I hoped for. You don’t have to have children, but you can see that [the character in the song] takes really good care of what he cares about. That’s the message that I was trying to get across.

And the lessons that you want him to learn are the lessons that you would want your friends to learn, too.

Yeah. A manual for being the kind of person that I’m trying to exit this world as — good and caring and thoughtful and empathetic and conscious of all things around you. People are quite fascinating to observe. That will never go out of style. That will never change in season. There will always be people living life and experiencing great things, and going through things. I understand that’s general, but I get asked this more and more: Where does it come from? What is this thing I’m doing? I’m trying to quantify it for people in a more satisfying way, but the truth is, I’m breathing every moment of it, all the time. Everything is a collection, planting and harvesting, I’d say.

I hadn’t realized that your dad made some records, too.

Yeah. I traveled with him when I was 13 to 17, setting up the amps and we sang songs at all the funerals and wake services, all those traditional hymns. Which is essentially Hank Williams music — it comes from that kind of place. So having that in the center taught me basic structure. Somebody once said there was antiquity within my songs, which is a cool feeling, like you appreciate an old kettle that’s lasted 60 years. That frame for songs is in my life because of that gospel music.

Did all of these songs come to you over the last four years?

Funny enough, after writing through a number of things like grieving my dad passing, and a separation from my partner, and being a new dad and feeling that joy, and finding validity and success in this music thing that I’ve been trying for some time. So, all that is a wild blend to be taking in. I did my best to work through those things. I was writing in real time for a long time and those songs, as they aged, became reflective. They would blend with the songs I was writing in a period where I was past the grief and hurting a little more.

“The Spark” is one of the first half-dozen six songs I’ve ever written in my life. I kept it away because it used to be six minutes long and had this whole other side to it. I got a little nervous coming down to work on this next record with Dave, like, “I don’t know if I have any real love songs like ‘Breathless.’” I wanted something like that to share, and I thought of ‘The Spark.’ I quickly gave it a bit of a haircut and brought it in. Dave made his suggestion to save one lyric for the final line — “You’re the flame, the fire, and most of all you’re the spark.” And we had a song. Funny, too, how things start with a spark. Let’s get it going, now that people are looking. Let’s make it count.

Photo credit: Alan Greyeyes

UK’s Black Deer Festival 2019 in Photographs

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With Band of Horses headlining, and Billy Bragg getting all protest-y on us, the second of year of the Black Deer Festival more than lived up to the promise of the first. From its gloriously eclectic line-up – including brilliant sets from Fantastic Negrito, Kris Kristofferson, Yola, The Sheepdogs and Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton – to its special partnership with Nicolas Winding Refn, screening restored vintage Americana films handpicked by the director of Drive, this was an event ready to flex its creative muscles. It even introduced a new Livefire stage, dedicated to cooking demos and BBQ contests.

Walking around Eridge Park you couldn’t get over spacious feeling, with the beautiful green hills of Kent rolling away in every direction. Despite increasing capacity to 10,000, Black Deer still feels like one of the most pleasant and laid-back festivals on the UK circuit. This should be no surprise given that its creators, Gill Tee and Deborah Shilling, worked on the late lamented Hop Farm Festival, which always put music first and commercial considerations second. Here’s hoping Black Deer will be around a long time — and in the meantime, revisit the fest in photographs.

 

Lede photo: Ania Shrimpton

Rosanne Cash Reveals Herself on ‘She Remembers Everything’ (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

“This is an album for adults,” Rosanne Cash says of She Remembers Everything. “It’s not a kids’ record.”

The word kid of course is a subjective term. “I don’t think it would mean anything for someone who is 25,” she says. Maybe or maybe not, but by “adult” Cash is referring to the album’s perspective: the set of eyes through which she sees the world and writes her songs. It is the perspective of a woman in her early ’60s, with forty years in the music industry, as well an enviable catalog of critically acclaimed albums and mainstream country hits.

When she started writing and recording in the late 1970s, she was unmistakably recognized as the daughter of one of the most popular country artists in history, but what she inherited from him, aside from that iconic surname, is an appreciation for the well-crafted and sturdy pop song, for the wisdom such a thing might convey. During the 1980s she thrived in an industry that made room for left-of-center artists like Lyle Lovett and k.d. lang. Her 1981 smash “Seven Year Ache” remains a classic-country radio staple even today, and King’s Record Shop from 1987 is not only one of the finest country albums of that decade but a pivotal release that sent Cash hurtling into a second career in what we now call the Americana market.

Rather than try to maintain her mainstream success, Cash foregrounded her literary ambitions in the 1990s and in the mid-2000s launched a series of albums that addressed her origins — her career, her family, her South. Black Cadillac, from 2006, blazed rocky trails out of the grief of losing her mother (Vivian Liberto Cash Distin), her father (Johnny Cash), and her stepmother (June Carter Cash) — all too much tragedy to bear in such a short period of time. She put some of those lessons into play on 2009’s The List, featuring her own unique readings of songs made famous by her father. And 2014’s The River & the Thread, one of the best works of her career, is a travelogue through the South and into her own past.

She Remembers Everything sounds like a culmination of those dark, deeply personal ruminations. The songs are full of strong language, poetic and direct, but nothing that would demand a parental advisory sticker. There are intimations of sexual desire both fulfilled and unfulfilled, but nothing that would incur an R rating. There is no violence, but with a specificity that becomes harrowing, she depicts the horrific aftermath of violence, in particular a fatal shooting in “8 Gods of Harlem.” The story behind that long-dormant song begins the first of our two-part interview with Rosanne Cash.

I wanted to start by asking about “8 Gods of Harlem,” which seems like an outlier on the album. Not only does it feature Elvis Costello and Kris Kristofferson, but it’s also written explicitly from someone else’s point of view.

I wrote that with Kris and Elvis in 2008. It’s the oldest song on the record. I just had this idea to write a song with them, so I asked if they would be interested. And they both said yes. We’ve been friends for decades, and we figured out the only day we would all be in New York together was in April, so I wanted to get a lot done before they got here. I remember I had been going into the subway, and this Hispanic woman was coming out, and she seemed really distracted and sad. She was talking to herself, and I thought I heard her say “ocho dios.” She was coming off a train from Harlem, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Why did she say that? Did she say that? I don’t really think so, but the phrase stuck with me.

I’ve worked in the anti-gun-violence movement for twenty years, and I just started writing that verse, about a child who was the victim of a shooting and how it shattered a lot more than just his life and his family, how it rippled out into the community. I sent that to Elvis and Kris, and when we got to the studio, I said, What if I was the mother? What if Kris was the father and Elvis was the brother? They finished writing their verses in the studio and we recorded it that day.

How did it end up on your album instead of one of theirs?

It was in the vaults, and periodically we would touch base. How are we going to get this song out into the world? Is it on your record this time? It didn’t fit on The River and the Thread. When I was working on this record, I asked them if they minded me including it, and they were both happy to have that happen. And it’s still relevant. It’s sadly a familiar scene. I was a bit worried that it would stick out from the other songs. It’s very different, this trio song. The subject matter on the other songs is really deeply personal, and this is the only one that is playing in character about a subject outside myself. But I think it works.

“She Remembers Everything” seems to be about trauma and its aftermath as well, albeit in a very different vein.

I wrote it with Sam Phillips. I sent her the lyrics, and she sent back this amazing melody. I wanted to write about how early trauma affects us, how some people spend the rest of our lives trying to repair it or ignore it or just squeeze your eyes shut against it. Who would you be if it hadn’t happened? How much more would your spirit have expanded out into the world if it hadn’t been truncated by this blow? That’s what that first line is about: “Who knows who she used to be before it all went dark.” You have to find things you can steal from the world, but in a good way: bouts of joy, moments of peace, a good relationship.

But I also feel like a lot of the time you’re getting the third degree from the world. This song comes out right after the Kavanaugh hearings, when a woman’s memory is questioned and discarded. Watching those hearings was very painful to me and to a lot of women I know. It was crushing, in fact. And I started thinking more about “She Remembers Everything.” A memory is like a library, and you can pull things off the shelf. Those memories are safe there, but they can cause a lot of turbulence. But women’s memories aren’t trusted. They never have been. You’re made to feel like you can’t be trusted with yourself, to make decisions about your body or your life or your memory. It just infuriates me.

That shows up again in “The Undiscovered Country,” when I say she went down for me. She knew she would be scorned and mocked, but she took that risk. So many women take that risk—the women in the #MeToo movement, the journalists who keep writing even though they’re threatened on a daily basis. All of these women go down for all of us, so the next generation doesn’t have to live with it.

I want to be hopeful, but there’s thirty years between Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford.

Me too. I thought progress went in one direction. Turns out it doesn’t.

How old are some of the other songs on the album?

“Particle and Wave” is several years old. But those are the only two that really go back further than the last two or three years of writing. I wrote “She Remembers Everything” with Sam Phillips leading up to this record. “Not Many Miles to Go” I wrote shortly before I started recording. “Crossing to Jerusalem” John and I wrote while we were recording. So the songs cover a little bit of a time span, but I’d say most of them are immediate.

This album title, She Remembers Everything, seems to tie everything together. Even those older songs, it’s all remembered.

Absolutely. I think I’ve been working up to these songs. They were the next logical step. They were what was behind the wall up till now.

How do you mean?

I don’t think I could have accessed these songs before now. I couldn’t have gone as deeply into the subject matter. It’s not a record a kid could have written. I couldn’t have written it ten years ago. The songs are all very autobiographical, and I’m not afraid to say that at this point. When I was younger, I would hedge my bets on that: Well, they’re universal. Whatever. No. This is all me.

(Editor’s Note: Read the she second part of Rosanne Cash’s interview.)

Illustration: Zachary Johnson
Photo of Rosanne Cash: Michael Lavine

Small World: Joni Mitchell at 75

Posted on by Editor

A few years back a video started circulating online, a black-and-white clip of a 1965 TV appearance on a local Canadian show of a young woman from Saskatoon, Joni Anderson by name. She performed two songs: a distinctive original “Born to Take the Highway” and a version of John Phillips’ cowboy ballad “Me and My Uncle,” her demeanor tipping between self-possessed and shy. And then, a few times, she looked sideways into the camera, eyes big, sparkling and mysterious, as if she was saying, “Oh, you just wait. I have some things to show you.”

But even she — you know her as Joni Mitchell — could not have had any idea of all the things that were to come as she would become one of the most individualistically creative and influential music artists of our era, someone who defined, redefined, and refused to be defined by what it means to be a singer-songwriter.

One simply cannot sum up the scope of her life in the arts. Yes, arts plural, as she has long said that she considers herself a painter first and a musician second. But in music, her reach is matched by no other’s, starting early on as she drew as much on theater music and classical forms as on anything that one could call folk, no matter how much she used her mountain dulcimer.

Her first albums were marked by invention all her own, starting with her indecipherable guitar tunings. By the early ‘70s she was tapping top jazz musicians, from slick Tom Scott and the L.A. Express to world-exploring Weather Report to worlds-creating Charles Mingus, to expand her already vast musical world, a decade before Sting did the same. Soon she was reveling in African and Afro-Latin sources, from the Burundi drummers to Don Alias, Alex Acuña and Airto Moreira, for some of her most distinctive work, also years before Talking Heads or Peter Gabriel did similar, not to mention Paul Simon’s Graceland.

And in the larger picture, she still stands as one of the most impactful documentarians and enactors of modern womanhood, placing female perspective in prominence where male views had dominated. Her willingness to reveal herself, with her flaws and vulnerabilities visible, was and remains a courageous act.

(L-R) James Taylor, Emmylou Harris, Graham Nash, Seal, Rufus Wainwright, Glen Hansard, Louie Perez, La Marisoul, Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile and Kris Kristofferson perform at Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live At The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Hence, the seemingly impossible task facing JONI 75: A Birthday Celebration Live at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the two-night, all-star celebration of Mitchell’s milestone birthday presented by the Music Center last week in downtown Los Angeles. How can you capture a singular artist in just a few hours? And how can the particular singularity of this artist translate in full flower through other artists? Mitchell herself — her talents, vision and methods — is inextricable from her music. Mitchell is her art, and vice versa.

Several performances on the second night (her actual birthday) embraced and embodied that concept, and in the process transcended mere tribute: Diana Krall’s performances of “For the Roses” and “Amelia” had the audience members in hushed reverence in their course and had stolen their breath by the end. Seal tapped his inner Nat King Cole to transform “Both Sides Now” and “A Strange Boy” into heights-scaling soul-pop-jazz.

Following an audio clip of Mitchell talking about her passion for exploring the richness of America’s ethnic syntheses, three members of Los Lobos, two of the ensemble Los Cambalache, and singer La Marisoul of La Santa Cecilia — three groups crossing generations of musical leadership in L.A.’s Mexican-rooted heritage — teamed with the stellar house band for “Dreamland,” using the percussion-drive of Mitchell’s 1976 original as a mere starting point. For this grouping, with Los Cambalache’s Xochi Flores on the dance-percussion zapateado, the song was transformed into a Mexican folk song, to the point that “La Bamba” was spliced seamlessly into its middle. (Oh, and Chaka Khan, who did vocal counterpoint with Mitchell on the original, came on stage to spar delightfully with La Marisoul!)

Brandi Carlile (L) and Kris Kristofferson perform at Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live At The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

Brandi Carlile was just as arresting sticking to the Mitchell blueprint on her version of “Down to You,” which she did following a charming if ragged “A Case of You” in duet with Kris Kristofferson. On the red carpet before the show, Carlile explained her process.

“I try to do it just like she does it,” she said. “Because, out of respect, out of reverence and out of the fact that I don’t think it can be done better than she does it.”

But as an artist, doesn’t she want herself in anything she does?

“Anybody but Joni,” she said, definitively.

Even Emmylou Harris admitted to the daunting prospect of covering Mitchell. Though “an interpreter for most of my career,” she noted, also on the red carpet, that she had only ever recorded one Mitchell song, “The Magdalene Laundries,” for a 2007 Mitchell tribute album.

“We’re all feeling the little bit of pressure,” she said. “You don’t want to take too much of Joni out of this, but on the other hand we have to make it our own. You’ll see most of the artists did an amazing job.”

Harris performed that song (a lament for “women enslaved in convents in Ireland”) at Joni 75, perfectly striking the balance she cited, and also for these shows added the similarly dark “Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire” to her Joni repertoire. Others found their own balance to varying degrees. Norah Jones brought some twang to “Court and Spark” and “Borderline.” Glen Hansard injected his Irish exuberance into “Coyote” and “The Boho Dance.” Rufus Wainwright, a fellow Canadian, added his mannered drama to “Blue” and took “All I Want” to Broadway. Khan in her two spots brought soul-jazz to “Help Me” and “Two Grey Rooms.” James Taylor managed to make “River” and “Woodstock” sound as if they were his own songs, without losing any of Mitchell’s presence in them.

Through it all, the house band, led and arranged by pianist Jon Cowherd and drummer Brian Blade (the latter a veteran of Mitchell’s bands), expertly covered the full range of the music, shining and soaring in particular on the chamber-orchestral middle section of “Down to You.”

Graham Nash, rather than doing a song by Mitchell, did one about her: “Our House,” his portrait of their Laurel Canyon domesticity from so many years back, the crowd singing along on the chorus and sharing the bliss.

Mitchell herself was in attendance on the second night, hobbled but hearty more than three and a half years after suffering a brain aneurysm. The crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to her twice — once as she took her seat before the show, and again when she came on stage for a curtain call, a cake brought out and the assembled cast and crew reprising the all-hands closer, “Big Yellow Taxi,” Mitchell sporting a huge smile, mouthing the words and even dancing a bit.

Did Joni 75 capture the entire scope and depth of Mitchell’s magnificence? Of course not. With her Canadian roots spotlighted in the stage decorations (a canoe suspended overhead, skis leaned at the back, a couple of barrels framing the set), the evening summed up her global embrace of music and art, and the global embrace of her music and art.

(Editor’s Note — Check out this writer’s Spotify playlist, Epiphanies: A Joni Mitchell Deep Dive.)

Joni Mitchell (seated) attends Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration Live At The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

All photos: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for The Music Center

Margo Price, ‘Weakness’

Posted on by Editor

In an environment where we watch live streams of musicians daily and get constant updates on everything from the songs coming out of their mouths to the food going in, it can be downright refreshing when an artist holds something back. There’s a confidence that comes from just plopping a creation down without the fanfare — hello, Arcade Fire — that can sometimes accompany an album release. Surprise albums are quite frequently the best ones, often simply because whoever is releasing them knows that they’re just good enough to live on their own, no mass pre-marketing required.

Today, Margo Price dropped Weakness, a long-awaited taste of new music without any hints or promotional campaigns: It’s four songs that give a sample of the direction that she’s been heading for a forthcoming sophomore LP. Terrific, succinct, and diverse, it’s both joyous and completely cutting — a signature that Price showcased all across her debut, Midwest Farmer’s Daughter. It begins with the title track, “Weakness,” a jangly modern honkytonk that would make Merle Haggard grin about the dichotomy that lives inside us all: “Sometimes I’m my only friend and my own worst enemy,” she sings. Who out there can’t relate to that feeling that no one can understand our deepest dreams, but our thoughts also breed our worst nightmares? For an artist who has shared the stage with Kris Kristofferson and played Saturday Night Live, there’s comfort that comes from hearing how Price wrestles with the same demons we all do — and, while the EP itself is a surprise, it’s not at all shocking that she took the opportunity to be, once again, as honest as possible. Despite her “Weakness,” it’s truth that takes the utmost strength.

3×3: Jade Jackson on Killing Moons, Rainy Mondays, and Super Moms

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Jade Jackson
Hometown: Santa Margarita, CA
Latest Album: Gilded
Personal Nicknames: My sister calls me George.

 

#SundaySpin – who’s listening to ‘Gilded’ on vinyl?

A post shared by Jade Jackson (@jadejacksonband) on

If you could go back (or forward) to live in any decade, when would you choose?

Early 1700s.

Who would be your dream co-writer?

If he were alive, Townes Van Zandt. I got to write with Mike Ness, which was a dream. Also, Kris Kristofferson, Tom. T. Hall, Conor Oberst, Jason Isbell …

If a song started playing every time you entered the room, what would you want it to be?

“The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen.

 

Gilded | Photo by Xina Hamari Ness.

A post shared by Jade Jackson (@jadejacksonband) on

What is the one thing you can’t survive without on tour?

My lead guitarist, Andrew Rebel.

What are you most afraid of?

Hurting someone’s feelings.

Who is your favorite superhero?

My mom.

 

Thank you for letting me raid your closet, @showmeyourmumu!

A post shared by Jade Jackson (@jadejacksonband) on

Pickles or olives?

Both.

Which primary color is the best — blue, yellow, or red?

Blue.

Which is worse — rainy days or Mondays?

A rainy Monday sounds good to me.

MIXTAPE: Bruce Robison’s Top Texas Songwriters

Posted on by Editor

Who better than to make a Mixtape of Texas songwriters than a great Texas songwriter? No one. That’s why we asked Bruce Robison to compile a collection of his favorite Lone Star State representatives. And we think he did a mighty fine job of it.

Cindy Walker — “Bubbles in My Beer” (Bob Wills version)

But also “Cherokee Maiden,” “You Don’t Know Me,” and many more. From Mexia, Texas. She helped set the tone for Texas songwriters from Texas later. Incredible depth and honesty, yet simple and beautiful at the same time

Lefty Frizzell — “I Love You a Thousand Ways”

Lefty’s influence as a songwriter and singer is hard to understand. The folks listening to his incredible string of hits went out and created what we think of as country music today.

Buddy Holly — “True Love Ways”

What Buddy Holly did in two years coming from nowhere is an accomplishment rivaled only by the band who named themselves after his band.

Roy Orbison — “Crying”

From Wink, Texas. I can’t imagine what rock ‘n’ roll would be without Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison.

Willie Nelson — “It’s Not Supposed to Be That Way”

For good or bad, the great Texas songwriters were not easily contained in any genre. Nothing much I can add to what’s been said about Will.

Kris Kristofferson — “Loving Her Was Easier”

I love the Glaser Brothers’ version of this, too. See above.

Billy Joe Shaver — “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal” (John Anderson version)

Scary, sacred, sublime. Old buddy of mine who managed Billy Joe for 10 minutes said he had storage units full of poetry in Waco somewhere. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.

Guy Clark — “Instant Coffee Blues”

From Monahans, Texas. Took all that came before and changed the rules.

Townes Van Zandt — “Tecumseh Valley”

Fort Worth’s tortured genius.

Rodney Crowell — “Adam’s Song”

Rodney is in the pantheon and right here walking among us. Like Bob, he might not play all your old favorites, but then again, he might.

Hayes Carll — “It’s a Shame”

With humor and attitude and a weird-ass voice, Hayes is a great songwriter by any measure and the original type of artist we are really proud of down here.

Damon Bramblett — “Sweet Sundown” (Kelly Willis version)

Kelly and I and Charlie and others have cut Damon’s incredibly original songs. Johnny Cash meets Bob Dylan.

Robert Earl Keen — “Village Inn”

After Guy and Townes, Robert started another era of Texas country music songwriting.

John Fullbright — “Me Wanting You”

I know he’s an Oklahoma guy … I don’t care. He’s a great songwriter and 90 percent of his gigs and fans are probably in Texas. Go see him and request “Hoyt Axton.”

Courtney Patton — “It’s a Shame”

This will be a hit someday.

The Producers: Tamara Saviano

Posted on by Editor

Tamara Saviano admits she might have beginner’s luck. In 2001, she won a Grammy for Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster, which just happened to be the first record she produced. Fifteen years, two books, and three tribute albums later, she has received another Grammy nomination for Kris Kristofferson’s Cedar Creek Sessions, which just happened to be the first single-artist record she ever produced.

A singular figure in Nashville, Saviano works in the studio like any typical producer, twiddling knobs and convincing bass players they can get a better take. But it’s what she does outside the studio that distinguishes her. She builds albums from the ground up, starting with an idea and pursuing it until it becomes music. For Beautiful Dreamer, as well as for 2006’s The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson and 2011’s This One’s for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark, she assembled the backing bands, scheduled the singers, assigned them songs, oversaw the sessions, determined the sequencing, approved the artwork, and in some cases even directed the promotional campaigns.

In doing so, she has become the foremost producer of tribute albums in Nashville, assembling compilations that are affectionately faithful to the honorees while also revealing new facets of their craft. Together with her recent biography of Clark, released in October 2016 and titled Without Getting Killed or Caught, her small-but-ambitious catalog constitutes a multimedia history of some of the country’s finest songwriters.

The Cedar Creek Sessions were a completely new project, even if the concept was similar: finding new life in old songs. It came together serendipitously, when Saviano found herself in Austin with Kristofferson and a handful of talented players, all with a few days to spare. Kristofferson recorded 25 songs in three days, drawing from his vast catalog spanning 50 years: some well-known (“Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down”), others not so much (“The Law Is for the Protection of the People”).

“He would just call out a song, and the band would start playing it,” Saviano says. “They were amazing, because they were learning things on the spot. For me, it was all about keeping the story centered: Who should be in the studio with him? Who should be engineering and mixing it? It’s all about telling his story.” By turns funky and melancholy, the double album shows a veteran musician who might be pushing 80, but has not lost a beat.

Still, she was shocked when The Cedar Creek Sessions was nominated for a Grammy for Best Americana Album — not because she didn’t think it was worthy. “I felt like I let that record fall through the cracks,” she says. “I run his label, KK Records, and I do most of the administrative stuff for him.” But both her mother and Guy Clark died from cancer in 2016, “so I spent most of the year sitting at somebody’s deathbed.” Still, she managed to get that album out to fans and publish her Guy Clark biography. When the Grammys were announced, “I almost fell off my chair. I think it spoke to people because it just captured this moment in his life.”

In March, she will release her latest tribute, Red Hot: A Memphis Celebration of Sun Records, which gathers a handful of Bluff City musicians to cover songs recorded at Sam Phillips’ legendary studio.

Your job is very different from what a lot of producers do. Do you see yourself in that role?

I think you’re right. What I do is different, even with this Kristofferson album, which is the first time I’ve produced a record by one artist. I approached it the same way I do my tribute albums. I got a house band together to play live in the studio, and then brought Kris in. He sang through 25 of his songs in three days. We did everything live, although we did end up sweetening some of it. But I never think about that when I’m in the studio. Really, it’s all about the live performance. That’s how I’ve done my tribute albums for the most part. Beautiful Dreamer was different because it was the first one. We had a band for some of the tracks, and some people turned in their own tracks. I learned on that album that I didn’t like people just turning in their tracks, because then I had no creative control. Working with a house band means there’s some consistency in the sound, which is the way I like to work.

I’m assuming that makes scheduling a headache.

It is. It’s like herding cats. But it’s so important. When we did Beautiful Dreamer — which I love and we won a Grammy and everything worked out — there were a couple of tracks that were turned in, and I just didn’t feel like they fit with the other tracks. Making the entire album work together was more challenging, and it wasn’t as much fun. It took some of the magic out of it. I realized that I didn’t want to do it that way. I want to schedule artists. It’s not always easy. We had to lay down tracks for Rosanne Cash and Willie Nelson on the Guy tribute. I just couldn’t make the scheduling work, so I had my band lay down the track and they added their vocals later. I don’t like to work that way. It’s better to have everybody in the studio at once. Like Lyle Lovett on the Guy tribute. He’s such a perfectionist, so it was amazing to watch him work. We were in the studio for a long time to get one song, but to be there with the artist and learn how they like to work and watch them give direction to the band is a great learning experience for me.

Are you using the same band for each album?

I pick musicians based on the project. With the Guy tribute, I wanted Shawn Camp and Verlon Thompson and Lloyd Maines in the band, because they all had personal relationships with Guy. Jen Gunderman played keyboards on it. We recorded half the album in Nashville and half in Austin, which was important to me, too. In Austin, we had Glen Fukunaga on bass and John Silva doing a little bit of percussion. We had a couple of bass players in Nashville because it didn’t work out to have just one. But yes, I do pick the band based on the project, based on who I think is going to hit the sweet spot of those songs.

So it’s not just the musician’s skill or technique, but the personal connections they have with the music.

You know, I still think of myself as a writer and a journalist first. I’m telling a story, and every part of it matters to me: the photos and the artwork and who’s in the studio and who’s writing the liner notes. I just did a Sun Records tribute with Luther Dickinson that’s coming out in March, and I had Alanna Nash, who has written several books on Elvis, come into the studio with us so she could write the liner notes. I wanted her to be there so she could get everything that was going on. She’s telling the story of the music that goes with Sun. I do that with all my projects, too. I don’t think a lot of people have the liner note writer in the studio, but I prefer to do that.

How did the Sun project get started?

I wish I could say it was my idea. It wasn’t. I thought I was finished producing tribute records, but there’s a new organization called the Americana Music Society of Memphis and they were fans of my Guy Clark tribute. They approached me about doing an album that was very Memphis-centric. I love Sun Records. That was what I cut my teeth on. Even though I grew up in Milwaukee, my first taste of music was that stuff. My dad was really into that stuff: Sun and Stax and all the Memphis music. Because I’m not from Memphis, it felt a little inauthentic for me to do this, so I brought in Luther. His dad was Jim Dickinson, and he grew up in the area. He has such a deep well of knowledge about the area, so I brought him in to co-produce with me. We put together a house band — all Memphis people — and we did it at Sun and Sam Phillips Recording. It was probably the most fun I’ve had doing a tribute album. It was amazing being in those historic studios with the ghosts of Sam Phillips and Johnny Cash and Charlie Rich.

How are you matching the artists with the songs? Do they get to choose, or do you — as the producer — assign them their covers?

Before I started calling artists, I spent a long time listening to the Sun catalog. And here’s something I learned during that process: Some of the stuff I was listening to was later Sun material that Sam Phillips had nothing to do with. So I had to decide: Are we going to stick to the Phillips era or cut some of the more modern stuff? And we decided to stay true to the Sam Phillips era, and that changed which songs were available. I sent a couple of ideas to the artists — Amy LaVere, Valerie June, Bobby Rush, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Jimbo Mathus. Who am I missing? They all either grabbed on to one or we had further conversations about what they might want to do. I really wanted Luther to do a blues tune. I picked out a couple of really old blues numbers for him, and he ended up choosing Howlin’ Wolf’s “Moanin’ at Midnight,” which turned out great.

Also, CMT has this new history of Sun starting next quarter, with actors playing Jerry Lee and Johnny Cash. Chuck Mead is the music director for that show, so I had him come in and bring in the actors who could really sing. They all did “Red Hot.” It was a lot of hoops to jump through, but I knew their TV show was going to start right around the time the record comes out and I thought it would be a fun tie-in. With Chuck, I was trying to think about what song he could really work with, and it just so happened that one of the songs they were doing in the show was “Red Hot,” so I thought, “Let’s just do that.”

For the Sun tribute, I gave the artists some ideas, but they all made the final decisions on their own. But with the Guy tribute, I was the one picking the songs. I didn’t leave much room for negotiations on that. Because I knew Guy’s catalog so well, I heard certain artists singing certain songs. He has this song called “Magdalene,” which is one of his newer songs. I just love it, and the only person I could hear doing that song is Kevin Welch. I asked Kevin if he would do it and he agreed. I love everything on that album, but that’s one of my favorites. He really made the song his own.

How does your understanding of people like Guy Clark and Sam Phillips change during that process?

Being a journalist, I tend to do a lot of research, so before I even go into the studio, I know so much about the songwriter and their work. So the recording of the music is just a continuation of that story. When we did Beautiful Dreamer, I had just started this nonprofit called American Roots Publishing with David Macias. It was his idea to do that album, and I thought certainly somebody had already done a Stephen Foster tribute. We looked and there was nothing that was Americana folk. It was all orchestral. So, before we started recording, I went back and listened to every Stephen Foster thing I could find. I went to the Stephen Foster Memorial Museum at University of Pittsburgh and looked through everything. I knew the same songs everybody else knew, but I just wanted to know more about him. He was the first professional songwriter in America that we know of. How did that happen? There was no recorded music or radio. It was all sheet music. But somehow “Oh, Susanna” made its way from the East Coast to the California Gold Rush. I wanted to know that story before we started recording, so that I was emotionally attached to Stephen Foster by the time we started laying down those songs.

Working on an artist who has been dead for 140 years must be very different from working with an artist like Kris Kristofferson, who is still alive and kicking.

Beautiful Dreamer was more of a history lesson, but the Kristofferson tribute was much more personal. We did that for his 70th birthday, which was 10 years ago. That was really my birthday present to him, so I wanted him to love it. Even though I had worked with him and know so much about him already, I went back and read everything I could get my hands on. I talked to Kris over and over, just kept asking him questions about the songs he had written, what he liked and what he didn’t like, what he wished he had done differently. Unlike Stephen Foster, he was somebody I could call whenever a thought popped into my head. By the time we recorded, I had a much richer understanding of him as a songwriter.

I remember when I got the final CD. We were shooting a video in the Mojave Desert for a song on This Old Road. We were sitting in this SUV, and I pulled out the final CD to show him. It has a photo of him as a young man, and the first line in the song “This Old Road” is, “Look at that old photograph, is that really me?” And that’s what he said when he saw the CD. “Look at that old photograph, is that really me?” And he started crying. I should mention that Kris does cry. He’s very emotional.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, with all the obituaries for George Michael and Carrie Fisher. I read these beautiful sentiments about how inspiring these people are, but it’s only after they’re dead. I started wondering why we aren’t saying those things to people when they’re alive. Obviously The Pilgrim isn’t the same as an obituary, but it serves a similar function.

Those of us who are music geeks know all about Kris’s songwriting catalog, but I don’t think many people know just how deep it is. I found this out working with him, but a lot of people know him as an actor. Of course he’s a great actor, but his real gift to the world is his songwriting. So it was great to honor that aspect of his life. It was the same thing with Guy. We were talking one day and I thought, “I have to do a tribute album while he’s still here.” And I think that made my biography better.

How so?

I was already familiar with Guy’s catalog from working on the book and just being friends with him, but I hadn’t really been in the studio with him. I had gone in a couple of times when he was recording, and I knew about his recording process a little bit. When I decided to do the tribute album, I decided that I was going to use the same recording process that Guy used. That really was my baby, so I knew which artists I wanted, which songs I wanted them to do, and I knew how I wanted to record it. I wanted to walk in Guy’s footsteps, doing things the way he did them and getting to know his songs in a different way — from a recording standpoint rather than just a listening standpoint.

Even though you have a plan whenever you go into the studio, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’re creating everything on the spot. You’re recording live with a band, and the musicians are learning the songs at the same time that they’re recording them, and it’s a creative moment in the studio. I love that. I love when I have no idea how it’s going to sound, and then a couple of hours later, there it is. It’s a song that I already love because I love Guy and I love his version, but here’s this new version with a new singer. Here’s Lyle Lovett doing “Anyhow I Love You.” Here’s Shawn Colvin doing “All He Wants Is You,” which Guy did from a male perspective and now it’s a female perspective. And then Rosanne Cash doing “Better Days.” That was very important to Guy. He actually stopped singing that song after he wrote it because he didn’t like this one line in it. A few years later, he finally wrote a new line that he liked, so when it came time for Rosanne to record it, Guy called me at least three times to make sure she sang the new line. In his mind, the songs were never really finished.

And it sounds like you’re never really finished working with these people, either. I heard that you are working on a documentary about Guy Clark.

I started working on it in 2014, but last year I didn’t do a thing on it because my book came out and, like I said, my mom died and Guy died. So that will be my first priority in 2017, getting back to work on that film.

 

For more insight into the producer’s mind, read Stephen’s interview with Buddy Miller.

Squared Roots: Kevin Morby Tells a Tale of Harry Dean Stanton

Posted on by Editor

Roots culture cuts a wide swath that expands far beyond music, and Kentucky native Harry Dean Stanton is a living testament to that. Any list of roots icons would have to include him, if only for his performances on screens big and small in everything from Cool Hand Luke to Gunsmoke. But what only the die-hards know is that Stanton was a musician first, playing harmonica and guitar, and doing the old-school troubadour circuit back in the day. His musicianship even creeps into his acting work, from time to time, which is exactly what he was hoping for.​

Born in Lubbock and raised in Kansas City, Kevin Morby has a good bit of the Heartland in him, as well. As a musician, Morby played a part in both Woods and the Babies before branching out on his on a few years back. He recently issued his third solo set, Singing Saw, which finds him looking to his roots in Bob Dylan and Neil Young even while he stretches his wings to reach new heights.

Bold, unexpected choice you've made here with Harry Dean Stanton. I dig it. Let's hear you defend it, though. What is it about this guy that makes you think “roots music hero”?

[Laughs] To preface it, I just have to say that he's one of those people that, for the longest time, I didn't even know who he was. I'd seen him in a lot of movies, and he kind of became one of those people who you become familiar with the face, but you don't really concern yourself with the name because you feel like you already know them. Then, one day, you finally learn his name and it's, “Oh, that's that guy's name. I had no idea he had a name even.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] He was just this leather saddlebag that was always there.

[Laughs] Yeah, exactly. He's just one of those incredible actors who can pull that off. I think the thing about someone like him is that he is just who he is. He sort of plays himself all the time, which is kind of rare.

Anyway, a long time ago, when I was in a band called the Babies, we played this Western-themed art installation in a clock tower in New York. And they wanted us to pick a movie to be projected behind us while we played, and I picked Paris, Texas, because I had seen it recently and that's maybe the only movie where he's the lead role. I just love that movie. The soundtrack is so great. The cinematography is so incredible. So, we played with the movie projected behind us and all these photos came out of it that were really cool — him walking through the desert behind us.

A couple years later, I played at a venue in Portland and I didn't even realize until we were playing that they had this big mural of him from Paris, Texas behind us. So he's just always there.

He's like your guardian angel or something. You guys have a thing.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, then a couple of years ago in L.A., I went to Cinefamily because Kris Kristofferson was doing a Q&A. They were playing Cisco Pike which he starred in and Harry Dean Stanton is also in. I went because he was doing a Q&A and was going to play a couple songs before the movie. When I got there, I had no clue that he was doing the Q&A with Harry Dean Stanton. It kind of blew my mind. It was one of those things where Kristofferson was as together as he could be, but every question, he kind of gave a standard response … like they would ask, “Kris, what was it like working with that director?” And he would say, “It was a very fun time and we all had a good experience.”

Harry Dean Stanton, who was sitting next to him the whole time, literally never didn't have a cigarette in his mouth and was drinking wine on stage. Every time Kristofferson would give a positive answer like that, Harry Dean Stanton would chime in and say, “Nothing means anything.” [Laughs] He would say these nihilistic things and tell Kris Kristofferson to shut up. Even within the Q&A, he was the way he is in movies — this wingman. It was really incredible to see.

At one point, he told a story about when they were doing Billy the Kid and he and Bob Dylan were jogging and they accidentally jogged through the scene. It was really funny imagery. So, they did the Q&A, then they played three songs … they played two songs, then the second song, which might've been “Me & Bobby McGee,” they ended up playing it twice. Totally didn't realize that they were repeating themselves. [Laughs] It was so amazing. They finished the song and, off the mic — but it's a small enough room to hear — Kristofferson leaned back and was like, “Harry, I think we just sang the same song twice.” It was an incredible moment.

Afterward, I was alone because I went by myself … I was sitting outside at the little party before the movie, sitting there by myself just thinking, “What a cool night.” And Harry Dean Stanton sat down right next to me. It was one of those mind-blowing things. He was smoking and drinking wine, and I asked if I could get a picture with him, so I have this photo of me with him. That's my Harry Dean Stanton story. [Laughs]

[Laughs] That's pretty great. It's interesting that he did the thing with Kristofferson because, listening to his music, he's not that great of a singer.

He's not.

But that's never been a prerequisite for country music … like Kristofferson.

Right. Exactly. I think, with Harry Dean Stanton, if you watch the trailer of his documentary, throughout it, he's singing the Nilsson song, “Everybody's Talkin'.” The dude is almost 90 years old and he's got the total turkey warble to his singing, but it's really beautiful. And when I saw him perform, too. I think he's just one of those cool treasures. When you finally decide to look into him, you realize he's a singer who used to sing every night at the Troubadour. He's just this artist that's all-encompassing. He's invested in the arts and he's more of a musician than an actor, in this weird way. He's kind of more interested in that and just maybe happened to be better at acting. He's just an American treasure. And I love people like that.

I think that's a great way to describe him because he did — he made the choice early on to pursue acting because he thought he'd be able to do music as a part of that. And he was right. I'll tell you, it's kind of fun to listen to his take on “Tennessee Whiskey” next to Chris Stapleton's. If you haven't done an A/B on that …

[Laughs] Oh, man. I'd love to hear that. I just watched this video of him and Art Garfunkel singing at some celebration for Jack Nicholson, and they sing “All I Have to Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers. It's so good. He's just one of those charismatic people, this weird all-star.

You're right. And, if you do step outside of music and just consider his roles in Cool Hand Luke, Gunsmoke, How the West Was Won, Dillinger … he's got some dirt road cred. In terms of roots, he was even born in Kentucky.

Right. For sure.

I get it. I dig this choice. We can work with it.

It's funny. That's cool. I remember, in Cool Hand Luke, the first time I saw that was maybe 10 years ago, there's a scene where he's playing banjo and singing, “If you're going to Houston, then you better watch out.” I've never heard that song outside of that movie, but it gets stuck in my head all the time. He's just always there and he plants little seeds in your mind. You look behind you and it's like, “Oh, there's that guy.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] And, like you said, he was jogging with Dylan and he's been in videos by Dylan, Ry Cooder, and Dwight Yoakam. So, he is. He is always there.

Have you seen The Straight Story, the David Lynch movie?

No. But it's on my list.

It's a really incredible movie, a Lynch movie that views nothing like a typical David Lynch movie. It's so good. The whole thing is that this guy goes to see his brother because his brother's about to die, but the guy can't drive anymore, so he drives a tractor. The brother is played by Harry Dean Stanton. It's a very small role that comes at the end, but it's kind of the most perfect Harry Dean Stanton role, in a way. I won't give anything away. Go watch it for yourself and you'll see what I mean.

Kevin Morby photo by Dusdin Condren. Harry Dean Stanton photo by hermitosis via Source / CC BY-ND.