Tag: Lucinda Willlams

The Show On The Road – Aubrie Sellers

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on the show, we catch up with a rising star in boundary-bending country and take-no-prisoners rock ‘n’ roll, Aubrie Sellers.


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What have you been doing since the pandemic hit in late February? Somehow Aubrie Sellers has managed to release a striking new LP of twisty, guitar-drenched originals on Far From Home (collaborating with her roots rock heroes like Steve Earle) while also pushing herself to make a EP of beloved covers on the aptly-titled, World On Fire. In rejuvenating a faded favorite like Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game,” she takes a song we all thought we knew and twists it around until it seems like a poisonous, reverb-zapped revelation that just arrived out of nowhere.

Sellers was prepared to make music earlier in life than most. Growing up, she often found herself in nontraditional school situations, doing her homework on tour buses, hanging out in green rooms, and getting her feet wet on stages in Nashville’s tight-knit country community; you might know her mom, twangy-pop icon Lee Ann Womack and her dad, Jason Sellers, had a few chart toppers of his own, writing for folks like Kenny Chesney and playing in Ricky Skaggs’ touring band.

Sellers made her major label debut in 2016 with the more straight-ahead, but tightly crafted New City Blues, and earlier sang on a compilation record with the late Ralph Stanley. But at only 27, Sellers feels and sounds like an old soul — one less interested in climbing the current country charts than mining thornier material like her history of anxiety and stage-fright. She harnesses the punky, poetic outlaw energy that more cerebral songwriters like Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams have become known for. And audiences are taking notice, as Sellers’ scorching duet with Earle, “My Love Will Not Change,” was recently nominated for the Americana Music Association’s Song of the Year.

Stick around to the end of this episode of The Show On The Road to hear an acoustic, live-from-home rendition of her tune “Far From Home.”

Photo credit: Scott Siracusano

BGS 5+5: Kristina Murray

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Kristina Murray
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
Latest album: Southern Ambrosia
Personal nicknames: Tina, Trina, Cold Beer Murray

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I was 3 when Lucinda Williams’ eponymous record came out (a perfect record in my opinion.) My momma says my favorite song was “Big Red Sun Blues” and that I used to sing “catchin’ them fishes” instead of “Passionate Kisses,” swingin’ my little legs from the car seat. I guess Lucinda’s been my favorite ever since. To me, her writing and stories are so real, so beautiful, so well-crafted, so true. And when she sings, my God, you can hear she believes everything she has written and delivers that directly, genuinely, and without flash and pomp. AND, she can also rock the fuck out!

You can hear in her music that she is studied and has reverence for all different kinds of music (Delta blues, country, rock, etc.), but her music is her own signature blend. She is a master at weaving lyric, melody, and the band; she writes about love and sex and heartbreak and death and passion and life and being a woman in a way I could only dream about. AND! She gets better and better every decade she blesses us with her artistry. This is all I’ve ever worked to do as an artist: write what I know—real songs—and convey them truly and passionately.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This is hard to pick one because any chance I get to sing on stage feels so good. About five years ago, I was a special guest singer at Copper Country, a festival in Copper Mountain, Colorado; the band, The Long Players were out from Nashville and were playing down the Wanted! The Outlaws album (the first platinum-certified country record.) I was to sing all Jessi Colter’s songs and parts— only slightly nerve-racking as she is another longtime hero of mine! It was my first big festival (with a great sound system) and when I sang the first line of “What’s Happened to Blue Eyes?” I could hear my voice ring off the mountains so clean and clear. I got a standing ovation from 3000 people after that first line and it was the first time I really owned the thought, “Oh. Maybe I am good at this singing thing.”

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

I love to read! At any given time, I’m reading three or four books, usually: a self-help book (Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday), a non-fiction book (Women & Power by Mary Beard), fiction (Journey to Ixtlan by Castenada; The Line That Held Us by David Joy) in addition to articles (subscribe to The Longreads Friday weekly roundup), and poetry (right now, it’s Neruda). As Twyla Tharpe says, “The best writers are well-read people.” Amen.

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

If I get to sit down with a musical hero, it’d be BBQ with Elvis. If it’s a solo endeavor, it’s a bottle of Tempranillo and Joni Mitchell’s incomparable Blue.

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

Almost never; I don’t know how to write like that, hiding behind a character (see answer one). Perhaps that’s a new endeavor and challenge to take on, writing more from the character perspective—I currently have maybe one song like that! When I listened down to the first mastered sequence of my new record, Southern Ambrosia, I burst into tears because it was a very raw exposure of my life and I felt vulnerable and a little terrified that people were gonna hear all these opinions I have and situations I’ve been in. But that’s all me in there; I haven’t figure out how to do it any other way.

Photo credit: Nicholas Widener