Tag: Madison Cunningham
BGS 5+5: Lily Talmers
Artist: Lily Talmers
Hometown: Birmingham, Michigan and Brooklyn, New York
Album: It Is Cyclical, Missing You
Personal nicknames: To most people I’m just Lily or LT. Though… I’ve long been just a hair away from changing my moniker from my real name to “Scary Magdalene.”
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
Judee Sill has been so huge for me – there is such musical intricacy to her work and to the metaphors she works with in writing. She just goes beyond the script of singer-songwriter in every way. She is really playing! With texture and tone and size and scope on every level – lyricism, meaning, arrangement, melody, harmony. She was just so devoted to every facet of the craft, and her songs thematically are themselves devotional.
As far as contemporaries go, though, Madison Cunningham has also totally changed my hopes and dreams. Her ways of being and writing have granted me permissions and reminders as simple as, “Women can be forces on the guitar!” and as wide as, “You can trust your audience to hold depth and complexity!” Her devotion to craft, like Judee’s, is the underlying thing that moves me.
What other art forms – literature, film, dance, painting, etc. – inform your music?
Does teaching count as an art form? I have taught or studied literature formally for the last 10 years off and on. I could rattle off a bunch of titles or something, but to be honest a huge part of my music and craft has to do with performing. I’ve learned so much about the type of performer and space holder I want to be by trying and failing at teaching and witnessing some really brilliant colleagues. It’s influenced everything – my body language, my attention, my ability to embody and to really mean what I’m saying or singing.
I taught literature to college students for four years at an alternative/outdoor education program called the New England Literature Program. I’ve been hugely impacted by the many ways one can go about instructing someone else to undergo a creative act, be it writing or interpreting writing. I’m always floored by what can be done by a group of people just paying attention to a work of art or piece of writing. And that practice of noticing and paying attention is like 80% of how I’ve gotten any good at writing songs or playing music.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
In a word, “often”! I think we’re only really capable of seeing in others the things that we most intimately witness in ourselves. So, if a song is about betrayal, it’s writing both of the betrayer and the betrayed, as if they’re separate people. But, usually, I’m reporting with a real understanding of both sides because I am both, the betrayer and the betrayed, at once! And, if I don’t realize at the time of writing the song that I am both, usually my life reveals it to me somewhere down the line. I hear the accusations and questions and outcries of the songs differently with time. People in my life have a deep impact on me, but a lot of my best songs emerge from the many binaries and paradoxes of my internal world and less often from literal features of my life.
Does pineapple really belong on pizza?
Absolutely. I feel like people who can’t accept this are still crying themselves a river over Dylan going electric. Things that seem like they shouldn’t work often do work! Get with it!! Having a pineapple-goes-on-pizza attitude bodes well with making music too – you should always say yes to inspired ideas that sound weird or impossible. And if it works, it just does. There doesn’t need to be theoretical sense-making of it all.
What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?
HA! I love this question. May the world know that I love Celine Dion. Particularly her French records – D’eux or On Ne Change Pas. When I’m sad I like to watch this video of her singing a Christmas song on TV when she was a teenager and being surprised by her family. I was shown her music in high school French class and have always loved her drama and the way she really dignifies the figure of “singer.”
Photo Credit: Alex Gallitano
Becca Stevens Strips It All Back on ‘Maple to Paper’
In her dynamic, restless career, Becca Stevens plans to never repeat herself, like the proverbial waterway that’s never the same river twice.
Since being noticed by New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen in 2008 as a 24-year-old “best kept secret,” she’s collaborated with: David Crosby and his Lighthouse Band; jazz orchestra Snarky Puppy; the modernist ensemble Kneebody; pianist Brad Mehldau; harmony genius Jacob Collier; the neo-classical Attacca Quartet; and others. Her five solo studio albums, especially the mind-stretching and richly grooving Regina (2018) and Wonderbloom (2022), have mingled folk-grounded melodies and jazz-deep harmonies with pop dazzle. The common denominator has been her uncommon voice, which is conservatory-trained, but utterly unique and enthralling. She is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest overall musicians making song-based music today, a peer to 21st century savants St. Vincent and Madison Cunningham.
One frontier that remained for Stevens was, ironically, the most obvious for a singer-songwriter – the solo acoustic album. Her version of this venerable format finally arrived in late August with Maple to Paper, a 13-song collection that was shaped at every level by a series of landmark life events. After marrying Nathan Schram, violist in the Attacca Quartet, she gave birth to daughters in 2022 and 2024. Their family moved from New York to Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother died, as did her close collaborator and friend David Crosby.
Stevens alchemizes this season of change, love, and loss through songs that challenge conventional forms with rich and fearless lyrics that play at times like Emily Dickinson set to classical guitar. On the cover, she’s demurely naked behind a guitar. In the grooves, she’s as vulnerable as we’ve ever heard her. As she told me of her emotional multiverse of the past few years, “I felt uncomfortable about sharing it, but I also was like, well, if I’m going to do this, I might as well make it completely exposed.”
It’s easy to suppose that the changes of the past few years – moving, having children, losing your mom – made a solo acoustic record sound more appealing at both artistic and practical levels?
Becca Stevens: Absolutely, yeah. You’re spot on. Two things can be true. So the choice to do this album completely solo and from home both served the concept and integrity of the album. But it also was maybe the only way that I could have gotten it done during that time.
Just to put that into perspective, you know, there was the logistics of the grieving. The loss of my mom was super fresh, and I had a six-month-old who was part-time in daycare. And then towards the end of the recording and writing process, I was pregnant again. So there was the logistics of being a new mom, of having morning sickness, of being in a new place, of grieving my mom, and all of that was so much more possible to do from home. But I resisted it.
For a long time, I had the idea of recording the demos at home and then going into the studio. But I went back and forth a lot with Nic Hard, who mixed it with me. He also did Wonderbloom. And the deeper that we got into the material, the more crystal clear it was that the songs were best served if performed live – guitar and singing at the same time – and performed at home, where I was really in the character and in the feelings.
Did writing and making art feel like what you wanted to do under all those cross-cutting pressures and changes, or did you have to force yourself a bit through the work?
“Want” is maybe the wrong word. I felt like, at least for the grieving part, I had to do it because it was like I was going to explode if I didn’t do something. And it was a confusing loss – something that left me with a lot of questions. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been somebody who processes confusing emotions through writing songs or stories, or art in some way.
I felt like I needed to do it. But also, yes, there were times where I just absolutely did not want to and just wanted to lie on the floor. And I had to find a way to incorporate that as part of the process, so that I could forgive myself. I literally had a futon on the floor of my workspace, where I told that part of my brain, “You are invited to lay down there whenever you need to. You’re not at a studio. The clock’s not ticking. You’re not paying for this.” I called it my Womb Room. And I would put on salt lamps and put the lights down really low and lay down. And then some of the songs came from that space.
Some of these feel more like classical art songs than folk songs, in that they’re not shaped around a set number of measures or predictable beats. Did they feel a bit like that to you?
Yeah, the song “Payin’ to be Apart” comes to mind. It definitely felt that way; a little less folky, more like poetry that just happens to be on a wave of music. It’s interesting to hear you say that, because in the writing process – harmonically and in the accompaniment – I took a much simpler approach than what I have done before, on Regina or Wonderbloom, on everything really. Because I put so much intention and honesty and, like, blood, sweat, and tears into the lyric, I gave myself permission to let the waters that it was floating on be a little less turbulent artistically, a little less complex and a little more like I was trying to cradle them and deliver them in a way that takes care of them and makes it easier to metabolize – or something.
Was your mindset different, knowing there’s not going to be the grid of the drum beat? Can drums be a bit of a cage sometimes?
Yeah, they can be a cage. But they can also be like something that’s really cozy to lean on in the arrangement. Like, I can drop everything and have it just be drums and vocals for a verse and it feels really good. But for this album, I set a goal that the songs are meant to be performed as just me and the guitar, because that’s how they were recorded. That means that whatever break that I gave you in Wonderbloom by stripping down the arrangement and going to drums now needs to be created with whatever tools I have by myself, whether that’s narrative, or a right hand finger pattern, or fill in the blank.
This made me wonder how much you have performed solo acoustically in your career, given the emphasis on arrangement on a lot of your records.
Quite a bit, yeah. I have a lot of respect for my bandmates. And if there were ever gigs that we were offered where I felt like I couldn’t cover their fee and treat them well, I would just take it solo. I’ve done that a lot. I’ve done a lot of solo tours. A lot of my writing has started out solo, and I have solo versions – for example, “You Didn’t Know,” the song from Wonderbloom that was inspired from watching the documentary about R. Kelly. That song, I poured my heart out solo and then stripped the solo version back when I was in the studio turning it into the Wonderbloom version.
Solo feels like a home base to me, and it’s something that I think I’ve resisted, because maybe I felt like it wouldn’t be enough. There’s this narrative, especially in the booking world, that they don’t want to book you unless you have more than one or two people on stage, because it’s not enough to create the energy to get the focus of the audience. And maybe it’s not loud enough, you know? I also had that in mind. This might not be very marketable, but I’ve got to do my best to just serve these songs to the best of my ability. And it’s got to get done anyway, because this is how I’m processing this part of my life,
Meanwhile, your tempo of collaborative work never seems to let up. I have my personal favorites, but can you address some of your favorite partnerships here in the last few years?
We haven’t mentioned this yet as part of the story of this record, but knee-deep in the writing and recording stages of this album, we also lost David Crosby. I’d already gotten punched in the face and then I was like, kicked on the ground. Not that it’s about me. The whole world grieved that loss. As I mentioned, when I lost my mom, it was a very complicated grieving process. I took a lot of inspiration from listening to albums like Sufjan Stevens’s Carrie & Lowell, where it’s okay for grief to be ugly and complicated and to show that. But with Croz, it was so sad, because I loved him so much, and I loved being in his band, and I loved writing music with him. But the presence that he held in my life didn’t diminish. I couldn’t hug him, but there was this sort of heavenly presence when I was writing the songs for this album, where I could hear him and see him in my mind, kind of rooting me along.
And tell me about Michael League of Snarky Puppy and the universe that he inhabits with the GroundUP record label, which has been supportive of you all this time. It’s such a fascinating record company. I feel like they’ve got a lot to teach the music industry about curation and cultivation of a tribe, and I’d love for you to remark on how that model has served you.
I like the word tribe. I often think of it as family, but I think tribe is even stronger. I feel safe with that label in a way that I’ve never felt safe with labels before, especially major ones, where, if you’re not performing exactly the way that they want you to, you get kind of put on a shelf, and then your art doesn’t get heard because, because you’re not pleasing the corporation.
With GroundUP, I’ve always felt like whatever I’m getting into is what they want me to do. They’re like, “Your health and happiness and artistry come first and if that’s what you need to make right now, we’re behind it.” And I can’t tell you how liberating and comforting that is as an artist to know that the people that are helping you put your music out have your back. And we all love each other too. We all play together and love each other too.
And speaking of Sufjan Stevens, you got to be on Broadway in his Illinoise musical. What did that add to your world?
Yeah, it was a limited run on Broadway and I did half of the run. So I had Isla, my second daughter, on February 24 of this year. And then I got a call from Timo Andres, who did the orchestrations, saying, “I know you’re on maternity leave. This is crazy. I shouldn’t even be calling you, but I can’t not think of you for this role. Is there a world where you would ever audition for this?” I was like, “Yeah, I could audition and see what happens…” and didn’t expect to get it. I came in with my newborn baby. I handed her to my manager, did the audition, and they called me within a day and said they’d love for me to do it.
Initially I thought, “There’s no way.” I’m giving you all of this extra detail because a huge part of the experience for me was the chaos and the balance of the life that I was living at home for the first half of that day in Princeton – nursing my baby and being a new mama – and then handing her to my husband and jumping on the train for two hours, going into the city just in time to perform, and then coming back home and doing it all again and nursing through the night. It was this superhuman thing that initially I thought, “Oh, there’s no way this is going to work.”
The whole experience was like a dream state – being on stage and singing that music, which I’ve loved for so long. And also, having it not be about me was very refreshing. I’m not the band leader and I’m singing someone else’s music as a narrative that’s coming from the bodies of the dancers. We can lean on the coziness of the production, and just enjoy it.
I would say coming out of that helped me to be less self-absorbed. The headspace that I was in for Maple to Paper was very me, me, me, me, me, me. And then Illinoise was like, “No, it’s not about you. It’s about being in service to something greater than you.” Whether you’re writing a song about your feelings or singing somebody else’s, that’s always what it’s been.
Editor’s Note: Need more Becca Stevens? Check out our recent Basic Folk conversation with Stevens here.
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
PHOTOS: Ed Helms Hosts A Bluegrass Situation at Newport Folk Fest 2024
On the evening of Saturday, July 27, BGS returned to the fabled Newport Folk Festival for the first time in a decade to host a very special after show event, A Bluegrass Situation, hosted by our co-founder Ed Helms, Noam Pikelny, and friends. Held at the Jane Pickens Theater in Newport, Rhode Island, the evening – which benefitted the Newport Festivals Foundation – was produced by BGS executive director Amy Reitnouer Jacobs in partnership with the festival team. The star-studded concert sold out almost instantaneously.
“In today’s overcrowded music festival market, it can be rare to find that place that maintains both comforting familiarity and curatorial daring do,” said Reitnouer Jacobs. “One of the last bastions of this kind of audacious event production is Newport Folk Fest… Saturday marked exactly ten years to the day since the last time BGS curated a stage for Newport. Here’s hoping our next return to Fort Adams will be far sooner!”
Helm’s own band, the Lonesome Trio – with Jacob Tilove and Ian Riggs – served as the evening’s house band, including pal Noam Pikelny (Mighty Poplar, Punch Brothers) on banjo. They kicked off the evening with a pair of bluegrass classics and were on hand throughout the show to back up many BGS friends & neighbors, including Rett Madison, young mandolin phenom Wyatt Ellis, frequent BGS collaborator Langhorne Slim, bluegrass banjo trailblazer Tony Trischka, and more.
Festival mainstay Billy Bragg made an appearance (appropriately covering Bob Dylan), as did Alisa Amador, who also joined singer-songwriter Kaia Kater on a performance of Kater’s original song, “Nine Pin.” Kater was back on stage again later in the evening for a banjo throwdown with Helms, Pikelny, Trischka, and Rhiannon Giddens all picking “Cluck Old Hen,” which brought down the house. Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham, who performed Buckingham Nicks at the festival during the weekend, stopped by for two songs, while elsewhere in the set Giddens called on her musical collaborator Dirk Powell – and Powell called on Giddens – for a pair of selections as well.
“Ed and Noam gathered a gaggle of old friends and buzzy new talent for one of our best bluegrass jams yet,” Reitnouer Jacobs continued. “Rhiannon Giddens and Langhorne Slim warmed up backstage alongside artists making their Newport debut, such as Wyatt Ellis and recent BGS Artist of the Month Kaia Kater (whose supergroup New Dangerfield would take the main stage the next day). Rett Madison dazzled us with sartorial style and voice, and surprise guests dropped by – like Tony Trischka and John C. Reilly. Like any good bluegrass jam, you never quite knew who was going to take the next break, but you knew it was going to be damn good.”
Reilly – arguably best known as an actor/comedian – is also an accomplished Americana songster, and joined his old friend Helms on a rendition of the Stanley Brothers’ “It’s Never Too Late,” to the delight of the Jane Pickens Theater crowd. To close the evening, the full cast of stellar artists, musicians, and creators came together to jam on a few rousing group numbers, including a touching a capella encore of “Amazing Grace.”
Newport Folk Festival is a sacred space in our roots music community; we were so proud and honored to return to the event to host A Bluegrass Situation and offer a stage to so many of our dearest friends in bluegrass, folk, and Americana. Relive our special after show with these photos from the evening:
Our A Bluegrass Situation co-hosts and house band, Ed Helms and Noam Pikelny with Jacob Tilove and Ian Riggs of the Lonesome Trio. By Nina Westervelt.
Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell warm up backstage at the Jane Pickens Theater for A Bluegrass Situation. By Josh Wool.
Billy Bragg takes the stage during A Bluegrass Situation. By Nina Westervelt.
Old friends John C Reilly and Ed Helms backstage during A Bluegrass Situation at Newport Folk Festival. By Josh Wool.
Young mandolin phenom Wyatt Ellis joins the house band on stage during his first time appearing at Newport Folk. By Nina Westervelt.
A longtime friend of BGS, Langhorne Slim was on hand for our A Bluegrass Situation after show. By Nina Westervelt.
Madison Cunningham and Andrew Bird share a quiet moment backstage. By Josh Wool.
Rett Madison joins the house band to sing "Silver Springs." By Nina Westervelt.
John C Reilly takes the stage with the evening's house band and Ed Helms. By Josh Wool.
Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham in duet during A Bluegrass Situation at Newport Folk Festival. By Nina Westervelt.
John C Reilly waves to the crowd at the sold-out Jane Pickens Theater in Newport, RI. By Nina Westervelt.
Dirk Powell and Rhiannon Giddens in a dressing room backstage during A Bluegrass Situation. By Josh Wool.
Langhorn Slim with the Lonesome Trio on the stage at A Bluegrass Situation, our Newport Folk Festival after show. By Nina Westervelt.
All photos by Nina Westervelt and Josh Wool, as noted. Lead Image: Nina Westervelt.
You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Rising Appalachia, Tim O’Brien, and More
What a week in music! Not only has our Artist of the Month, Kaia Kater, released her new album Strange Medicine today, but we’ve also got an absolutely incredible premiere round-up filled to bursting with brand new videos, songs, and tracks.
First, there’s transcendent sister duo Rising Appalachia with a James Blake/Bon Iver cover, “I Need a Forest Fire,” and Tim O’Brien pays tribute to iconic folk songwriter Tom Paxton with a song they co-wrote, “You Took Me In.” Plus, don’t miss new songs from Ellorie McKnight, Natalie Spears, and Nick Taylor.
We round out our list with two premieres that debuted on BGS earlier in the week, a new one from Alisa Amador’s just announced album that features Madison Cunningham and Meadow Mountain continue their SkyTheory Sessions series with “Waiting for Tomorrow.”
It’s all right here on BGS and to be perfectly honest, You Gotta Hear This!
Rising Appalachia, “I Need a Forest Fire”
Artist: Rising Appalachia
Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina
Song: “I Need a Forest Fire”
Album: Folk and Anchor
Release Date: May 17, 2024
In Their Words: “‘I Need A Forest Fire,’ is our interpretation of a rich and righteous James Blake track. We have been big fans of his artistry and aural weavings for many years and wanted to do a folk rendition of this striking song. The texture of its sounds stretch far and wide in atmospheric rhythms as well as the lyrics and it took some deep digging to conceptualize what Blake was perhaps trying to say… Our interpretation is this:
“We live in a time of rapidly destructive (and so often man-made) wildfires in many parts of this planet. Singing a song that says ‘we need a wildfire’ felt cautionary, but enticing, as we explored the many metaphors that ‘forest fire’ could represent. We came to believe it is about the burning of the ego, the take down of destructive habits and destructive relationships, even destructive sides of self. In a time where everyone is on one side of the coin or the other, in a highly polarized nation, a burning symbolizes a great reset. A death and rebirth cycle. We hope you enjoy our take on this track as much as we have enjoyed stretching into its different sounds.” – Rising Appalachia
Tim O’Brien, “You Took Me In” (from Bluegrass Sings Tom Paxton)
Artist: Tim O’Brien
Song: “You Took Me In”
Album: Bluegrass Sings Paxton
Release Date: May 17, 2024 (single)
Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “Jan and I came of age listening to and then singing Paxton songs before we ever knew his name. We both learned ‘Last Thing on My Mind’ and sang it around campfires before we met each other. So like a lot of folks, we kinda have Paxton in our musical DNA.
“Tom has been friendly and supportive over the years and in recent years often expressed his desire to write together. With this project, push came to shove and Jan and I wrote ‘You Took Me In’ with Tom on our second session. I had the lyric idea and imagined some Earl Scruggs-style gospel guitar as backing. We had the song in about an hour. When we were done I asked Tom how many songs he’d written that week and he said, ‘I’ve written four songs today!’
“Paxton’s early songs were the kind that sorta begged audiences to sing along. This one reaches in that direction. I love how simple and direct it is. Since that day, the three of us have written another 15 songs, all of which are daring Jan and I to record them, so stay tuned. Songs are like little puzzles that a certain strata of musicians have fun solving. We’re just honored to sit beside Tom, even if only virtually, as he does his masterful thing. He knows to let the song happen. He can pull a lyric from an instrumental riff, he improvises easily, and you can just trust him. When he says to go higher with the melody or go to the four chord, we’re never afraid to follow.” – Tim O’Brien
Track Credits:
Tim O’Brien – Guitar, lead vocal
Jan Fabricius – Mandolin, harmony vocal
Shad Cobb – Fiddle, harmony vocal
Mike Bub – Upright bass
Ellorie McKnight, “Whitepass”
Artist: Ellorie McKnight
Hometown: Whitehorse, Yukon
Song: “Whitepass”
Album: Equinox
Release Date: May 3, 2024
In Their Words: “White Pass is a magical, remote mountainous area connecting Yukon’s southwest with Alaska. If you’re driving from Whitehorse, YT to Skagway, AK, you pass through mountains and boreal forest until you reach the Canadian border crossing, after which the road winds through 25km of treeless, rugged alpine terrain before dropping down towards the ocean, where you then drive through the US border and then into the coastal ecosystem of Skagway. There is no reception on this stretch of road and no sign of humans except for the road and the border patrol buildings.
“This part of the world is like a dream in summer: the sound of creeks is loud and the wild blueberries are everywhere. In the winter, the area is mystical no matter the weather, with meters of snow blanketing the valleys and mountains. I was making the trip from Whitehorse to Skagway in the middle of winter one year, late at night, to visit a friend. There was a raging blizzard and snow drifts forming on the road, it was hard to see more than a few feet ahead and the going was slow. I pulled over to catch my breath and stepped outside. The wind was steady and the sharp snowflakes bit into my cheeks. I looked up and was surprised when I saw a waxing moon in a clear night sky just above the fog of the ground blizzard. It was a moment of awe, of wonder, of feeling so intertwined with the earth and yet also so small. The song ‘Whitepass’ tries to capture the many similar moments I’ve felt spending time in this stunning part of the world.” – Ellorie McKnight
Track Credits:
Ellorie McKnight – Guitar and vocals
Brigitte Desjardins – Drums
Jeff Dineley – Upright bass
Ryan McNally – Pedal steel and harmonies
Kieran Poile – Fiddle
Video Credit: Midnight Light Media
Natalie Spears, “Hymn Of Wild Things”
Artist: Natalie Spears
Hometown: Carbondale, Colorado
Song: “Hymn Of Wild Things”
Album: Hymn Of Wild Things
Release Date: May 17, 2024 (single); June 28, 2024 (album)
Label: SleeLee
In Their Words: “Early one chilly autumn morning, I awoke to the chortling cries of Sandhill Cranes echoing through our town. Their sound is one like no other, awkward, beautiful, and haunting. It is a sound that we only hear a few times a year as they journey along their migratory path towards warmer shores. Whenever I hear them, I drop everything I’m doing and try to find them. On that particular morning, I got up with my sweet pup and followed their cries to a local nature park near my home. The clouds were sunk low in the valley and although we could hear them close by, we still couldn’t see them. We sat quietly waiting and eventually the sun’s heat lifted the clouds revealing the ghostly shapes of two beautiful Sandhill Cranes. The words to this song began to take shape in my mind and it was then that Hymn Of Wild Things was born.” – Natalie Spears
Track Credits:
Written by Natalie Spears (BMI)
Produced by Jayme Stone
Natalie Spears – Voice
Christine Bougie – Guitars, lap steel
Pat Keen – Bass
Jayme Stone – Synth, drum programming
Nick Taylor, “Dogs”
Artist: Nick Taylor
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Dogs”
Album: Not Alone
Release Date: June 21, 2024
In Their Words: “As one of the earliest compositions I laid down for the album, it’s personal and cathartic, a reflection of the anxiety that’s been an ongoing part of my persona. Sometimes it gets particularly overwhelming and that’s how this song was born. It speaks to uncertainty — how it manifests, how it’s perceived by others, and how it affects those around us. When we went into the studio to record it, it just came alive. It was important to me to get it out into the world. It’s the song that inspired the album title, Not Alone, but more importantly, it explores topics that society tends to dismiss — especially when it comes to matters having to do with mental health, insecurity and stability. It calls for understanding and in that regard, my hope is that it will help anyone dealing with a similar situation feel less alone.
“‘Dogs’ is such an emotional song, almost a confessional, that we wanted to make sure the video felt personal. Shooting just one scene created a space where the lyrics were being recited directly to the audience and I think that format really works well with the song. Huge thanks to Will and the team for their vision and direction.” – Nick Taylor
Track Credits:
Written by Nicholas Taylor Wimberg
Nick Taylor – Lead vocals
Wayne Killius – Drums
Dave Francis – Bass
David Flint – Electric and acoustic guitars
Chris Nole – Piano/keys
Video Credits:
Produced by Charlotte Avenue Entertainment
Directed by William Gawley
Shot by Austin Boylen and Dominick Sotis
Meadow Mountain, “Waiting for Tomorrow” (SkyTheory Sessions)
Artist: Meadow Mountain
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Song: “Waiting for Tomorrow”
Album: June Nights
Release Date: May 13, 2024 (single)
In Their Words: “This song attempts to answer the question, ‘What if, instead of starting the band Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl had picked up a mandolin and spent a year exclusively listening to Alison Krauss & Union Station?’ I guess I was doing a lot of thinking and writing about time – the great healer, but also that which brings an end to all things. And then a new beginning. This is a song about time, and hope.” – Jack Dunlevie
Alisa Amador, “Heartless Author” (feat. Madison Cunningham)
Artist: Alisa Amador
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Heartless Author” (featuring Madison Cunningham)
Album: Multitudes
Release Date: June 7, 2024
Label: Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “I love this song. I love it because it acknowledges all of the uncertainties and pain of life and it shines compassion on all of it. ‘It’s okay not to know.’ It was such a joy to sing this one with Madison Cunningham. She learned it right then and there in the studio, and her voice says so much.” – Alisa Amador
Photo Credit: Rising Appalachia by Syd Woodward; Tim O’Brien by Scott Simontacchi
LISTEN: Alisa Amador, “Heartless Author” (Feat. Madison Cunningham)
Artist: Alisa Amador
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “Heartless Author” (featuring Madison Cunningham)
Album: Multitudes
Release Date: June 7, 2024
Label: Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “Alisa has so much poise, playfulness, and honesty in her writing, with the most velvet voice. It checks so many boxes for me. I loved getting to sing and play guitar on this song.” – Madison Cunningham
“I love this song. I love it because it acknowledges all of the uncertainties and pain of life and it shines compassion on all of it. ‘It’s okay not to know.’ It was such a joy to sing this one with Madison Cunningham. She learned it right then and there in the studio, and her voice says so much.” – Alisa Amador
Track Credits: Written by Alisa Amador and Zia Amador
Produced by Tyler Chester, Daniel Radin, and Alisa Amador
Recorded by David Goucher, Tyler Chester, Daniel Radin, and Dave Brophy at Paperchaser Studio in North Hollywood, Brighton Hills West Studio in Watertown, and Studio Solitaire in Somerville
Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro
LISTEN: Lake Street Dive, “Neighbor Song” (Feat. Madison Cunningham)
Artist: Lake Street Dive
Hometown: New York City, New York
Song: “Neighbor Song” (Featuring Madison Cunningham)
Release Date: October 6, 2023
Label: Fantasy Recordings
In Their Words: “Madison Cunningham is an extremely special musician, the kind who can make a single note sound like music and who breathes life into every song that she comes into contact with. We feel so honored to have had her join us on one of our songs. We first recorded ‘Neighbor Song’ in 2010, shortly after a few of us had moved to Brooklyn. The song narrates an experience, all too familiar to many New York City apartment dwellers, of overhearing your neighbors making love. Involuntarily bearing witness to such intimacy inspires a potent mix of emotions from annoyance to despair to compassion. It’s a fun song to play live because we get to walk the audience through this emotional journey. Some audiences laugh a lot when we play it. Some cry a lot. In preparing to do this song on tour with Madison, we came up with a new musical treatment for the song to bring out some different sides of those emotions. We recorded it with Madison in Brooklyn, live in one room in a single take. We hope it makes you laugh and/or cry!” – Lake Street Dive
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
MIXTAPE: Jill Andrews’ Soundtrack for the Making of ‘Modern Age’
I wrote the songs for Modern Age over a period of a few years. It was a time of reflection. I was looking back on my past, because I had recently gone back to my hometown to sing at a childhood friend’s memorial service. I’m normally a present and future thinker, but this gave me the opportunity to sit with my past for a bit and spend time remembering. I walked around my old neighborhood and drove by my high school. I sat in my car at the park that my friends and I used to go to after school to talk and hang out. The songs that came were a mixture of simple, joyful childhood memories juxtaposed with the beauty and heaviness of adulthood. I listened to quite a bit of music over this period of time. Most of the songs that I was drawn to had beautiful melodies, lush production, and very descriptive lyrics. Here are a few of my favorites. – Jill Andrews
“Beauty Into Cliches” – Madison Cunningham
I first heard this song on the Cayamo cruise, which is a music cruise that sails through the Caribbean. I was a featured artist on the ship, as was Madison. I love the way Madison calls out the beauty standards of our society in this song. As a female artist, this feels especially poignant. There are extra pressures to look and act certain ways in the music industry. Madison’s lyrics are creating space for everyone. Not only is it a positive message, the melody is lovely and the rhythm is so vibey.
“Nightflyer” – Allison Russell
Allison and I run in some of the same circles in Nashville, so when I heard she was putting out an album I immediately checked it out. I was drawn to this song for the obvious reasons, the melody and overall vibe are gorgeous and, in addition, the descriptive nature of her lyrics really made me feel like I was in the same room with her. She uses all of her senses to let the listener in. It’s so descriptive and sings like a poem. “I’m the melody and the space between. Every note the swallow sings. I’m 14 vultures circling. I’m that crawling, dying thing…”
“Pressure Machine” – The Killers
The desperation of this song gets me every time. It describes hard living in a small town in such a visceral way. “A mattress on a hardwood floor. Who could ever ask for more? I’ll get up and cut the grass. Ain’t nothing wrong with working class.” I have listened to this song over and over. It always hits me in a new way. The melody is so delicate and gorgeous.
“First Time” – Becca Mancari
“I remember the first time my Dad didn’t hug me back. Under the porch light with my sister’s old cigarettes. With your hands hanging to your side and my face to your chest.” I love Becca’s description of this moment. It’s so sad and so beautiful. After I heard this song, I messaged Becca and asked her if she would sing on Modern Age. We had met a few years prior, but didn’t know each other well. She ended up singing on three of the songs: “80’s Baby,” “Kids,” and “Better Life.” She is such a talent.
“Teenage Drug” – Ethan Gruska
The production of this song is really cool. It feels very alive, the way that it moves and breathes. I love how the melody follows the instrumentation in the chorus. I first heard this song on a playlist when I was jogging. I kept coming back to it over and over.
“Chemicals” – Gregory Alan Isakov
I played a show that Greg was on a few years back with Hush Kids. When I saw him live, I fell in love with his music. I have listened to his album, Evening Machines, hundreds of times since then. “Chemicals” is my favorite song on that album. I love the lines, “You saw her bathing in the creek. Are you jealous of the water?”
“The Night We Met” – Lord Huron
I first heard Lord Huron play this song at Forecastle Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, a few years ago. I had just gotten done performing and I wandered to the nearest stage to see who was playing. Seeing it live got me hooked. This song feels like a dream. I think it’s a mixture of the heavy tremolo on the electric guitar and the vast reverb on his vocals that capture this dream-state so perfectly. The lyrical theme of wanting to go back in time sits so nicely in this vibe.
“Slow Burn” – Kacey Musgraves
I love the vast soundscape on this song. The album Golden Hour is such a good example of music blurring the genre lines in whatever way feels natural to the artist. These songs could have been produced in a traditional country format, but instead she and producers, (and buddies of mine!) Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, decided to take it a totally different, interesting way. This was incredibly inspiring and helped guide my way of thinking during the making of Modern Age.
Photo Credit: Fairlight Hubbard
The ‘Anarchist Gospel,’ According to Sunny War
Sunny War’s stunning new album, Anarchist Gospel, is never preachy, because it doesn’t need to be. War’s evocation of both anarchy and gospel in this context is strikingly grounded, blossoming from everyday understandings and interactions with each concept. And deeper still, in these sweeping, grand arrangements built on sturdy bones of fingerstyle, folk-informed right-hand guitar techniques, she indicates actions really do speak louder than words.
These songs are active. Bold, resplendent, and broad with dense, fully-realized production leading to tender, contemplative, and microscopic moments, War draws from her lived experiences, her days and years navigating poverty, living unhoused, sheltering in abandoned buildings, relying on and offering mutual aid, to direct messages of hope, resilience, resistance, and joy, not just to us, her listeners, but also to herself.
Perhaps that’s why, in this collection of songs born out of a harrowing and challenging emotional, spiritual, and mental period of Sunny War’s more recent past, there is so much hope in hopelessness, a constant – though sometimes minute – light shimmering at the end of the tunnel. Anarchist Gospel isn’t preaching at us, because she is compassionately, kindly, and tenderly talking to herself. And we all, as listeners, audience members, and fans, are just so fortunate enough to be brought into this internal dialogue, from which we can learn and challenge ourselves, and each other, to make a better world for everyone right now.
It’s a record whose underpinning moral-to-the-story is never burdensome or heavy, but rather uplifting and soaring, exactly as an Anarchist Gospel ought to be. We began our Cover Story interview connecting with Sunny War at home in Chattanooga over the phone, discussing how anarchy is not simply an academic concept, but a real, everyday practice.
I know that in your life, anarchy isn’t just a concept, it has a very real, concrete application in your day-to-day. I think first of your work with Food Not Bombs and the mutual aid work you’ve done in Los Angeles – and wherever you’ve lived. A lot of people right now, especially in younger generations, have frames of reference for anarchy and collectivism and mutual aid work, but usually in the abstract. As if these concepts can only be for some imagined future. So why is anarchy something you wanted to represent in the album and its title, and what does the concept of anarchy mean in your life?
Sunny War: The album title isn’t really political, to me. I felt like the big choruses [on the album] felt gospel in a way, but it wasn’t religious so I felt like it was Anarchist Gospel. It was really because of the one song, “Whole,” where I just felt like the message of the song was kind of about anarchy, in a way that most people could understand. I guess I’m more of a socialist now, but it’s the same sentiment. I just want people to have what they need. That’s more what anarchy means to me. It seems like it’s government that’s in the way of people getting what they need.
For me, it’s more personal. When I was homeless, a lot of times we would be living in abandoned buildings and we’d get arrested for that. Anarchy, to me, means, “Why can’t we be here? Nobody else is going to be in here. Why are you keeping us from this?” It feels weird that we don’t get to claim where we live, but other people do. Why do they have more rights to the same places? I don’t know if that’s anarchy, so much as I just think people have a right to everything.
It feels like there’s this agnosticism to the album, this come-togetherness, as something we can all feel and inhabit without necessarily being called to by a higher power. We really can all realize, whatever our starting points, that all we have is each other.
I’m not against people that need God, or whatever. I’ve been in places where I’ve felt like I wanted to believe in that before, so I can relate to where that comes from. But then, I don’t know… [Laughs] Whether it’s religious or spiritual, I don’t know.
This sounds like a record where we’re all supposed to be singing along. Part of that is the gospel tones, the title but also in the genre and production style, but part of it is also the messages here. Uplifting people from darkness, hope in hopelessness – so to me, so many moments on this album feel like church!
I love church! I grew up in church – well, I don’t love church, but I love gospel. I still listen to gospel and I guess I’m being nostalgic, but also it just slaps. That’s just good music. If you like original R&B, it’s the basis of so much of American music. I wish it was a little more, I dunno… I guess I wish it wasn’t religious. [Laughs] Then I’d really be into it. But it’s cool how it is.
In the moments in this record that feel like they’re at the lowest point, I still hear so much hope. I hear surrender in this album, not the kind that’s giving up, but the kind that feels generative and hopeful – especially in “I Got No Fight” and “Hopeless” and “Higher.”
This record was a lot of me talking to myself. It’s definitely the loneliest I’ve ever been writing something. Every other album I’ve ever made, I was in a relationship. This was different. After me and my ex broke up, I wasn’t even really socializing with my friends, because we had the same friends and I was embarrassed about our break up. I was so bitter, I didn’t want to be around anyone. I felt like I couldn’t be around anyone. I was barely leaving the house, I was isolating myself and got really morbid. I wasn’t turning lights on. [Laughs] I would sit in the dark a lot, I was lighting candles – [Laughing] I don’t really know what was going on, but it was mostly bad, I would drink a lot, and then I’d be like, “I’m drinking too much, I gotta get sober.” It would just repeat over and over again. But I was desperately trying to finish the album, because I was broke. I had the deal with New West, but I still had to produce the album before anything could get rolling. It was just what I had to do, but I was also going insane at the same time, and really angry.
Do you feel like making the record brought closure to any of that for you? I feel like I can hear a release of tension in this album, but I wonder where that comes from, because so many of the songs, individually, have these big, emotional releases. How does it feel to be at this point, looking back with the clarity you have now?
The second I wrote “I Got No Fight” I remember immediately feeling better. I made the demo, and afterwards it made me feel like I was just having a tantrum. But it was like I had to make the song to really understand what I was going through. After making the demo, I realized, “I am just freaking out, I think I’m having a panic attack.” After hearing this song, it helped me understand like, “This is not real, this is just a temporary feeling.” But I couldn’t really feel anything else until after that.
I have spent so much time over the past couple years trying to teach myself that the point of feelings is to feel them.
Yeah, but they suck most of the time. [Laughs] I don’t want most of them.
The line in that song, “Sometimes the end is the only light I see,” might be my favorite line on the record. There’s nihilism and existentialism in it, but it doesn’t feel hopeless or despairing. It’s kind of a cheerful, “Oh right! Nothing matters!” Where did that line come from for you?
That gets me through the day, a lot. Sometimes I think of life as just a jail sentence and I always think like, “Well, I probably am only going to live fifty more years at the most.” Sometimes that helps me get through the day. [Laughs] I know that that sounds negative, but that can really be uplifting if you chose for it to be!
It feels a lot lighter, to me at least, once you realize that nothing matters. Suddenly you can laugh a little bit more, improvise more – like lately, I’ve been trying to accept that I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m trying to get comfortable with it. In my twenties, I felt like I was trying to make plans all the time, planning so far into the future and just getting disappointed with stuff. It’s better to [recognize] – which is almost like religious people – you’re just powerless. Just try to eat something, drink some water. [Laughs]
Let’s talk about your guitar playing. I love your right hand so much. I think what’s entrancing about your guitar on this album is that it’s holding these songs together, but not as much as a rhythmic instrument or comping instrument, like in your past records. It’s more textural, to add depth and complexity, but your playing is still so hooky, melodically. Your personality comes through the guitar on top of all of these tracks. How did you accomplish that balance, having the guitar front and center and immediate, but it’s also not necessarily the centerpiece of these songs?
I think it’s because this is the first record where I knew how to use Logic, so my demos were almost full tracks already. I was adding keyboard and bass and programming drums to things before even going into the studio. A lot of the songs are all based on riffs that I’ve had for a while, that I couldn’t figure out how to use. Before, a lot of my other stuff, I was just writing a song. Now, I just collect guitar parts and I try to make them work in something, but I don’t really have a [plan for them, initially.] I’m basing it more off the guitar parts now.
How do you like the banjo? Is this the first time you had banjo on a record?
Yeah!
What do you think writing on the banjo leads you to that a guitar or keys or writing on another instrument wouldn’t lead you to?
Anything that’s tuned differently makes me have to think differently about stuff. I still don’t really “get” the banjo, it’s weird because I have had a banjo for over 10 years now, but it still seems like something I’m trying to learn about. I just recently got okay with being like, “I’m just going to make sounds with it.” I’m not going to try to “learn” it. [Laughs] I definitely want to make more songs with the banjo – and maybe even without a guitar, and see what that’s like. Some of my favorite buskers I’ve ever seen are just a singer with a banjo. I think it makes people sing different. I gotta get my banjos out now…
Guitar culture – guitar shop culture, guitar show culture – it’s such a toxically masculine scene, and it’s so competitive and punishing, that I kind of have realized over the past few years that the people helping me realize I still love the guitar and guitar culture are all women and femmes. Like, Jackie Venson, Molly Tuttle, folks like Celisse and Madison Cunningham, or like Kaki King and Megan McCormick and Joy Clark – I can think of so many guitarists who aren’t just really good, but they’re also pushing the envelope, they’re innovating, and they have really strong perspectives and voices on the instrument, like yourself. So I wanted to ask you about your own relationship with guitar culture and the guitar scene, because as a queer banjo player who loves music, I kinda hate people who love guitar. But I’ve been so grateful that all these women are reminding me I can love guitar and it’s not just a patriarchal, toxically masculine instrument and scene.
I just try to stay out of it. Sometimes at shows, guitar guys talk to me and I just tell them, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” [Laughs] Because I don’t want to get into any discussion about it. I know a lot of people who can really play, but [guitar guys] make it so you have to be kinda crazy, kinda obsessive. And it’s so competitive. That doesn’t sound fun to me. I don’t get how that’s fun anymore. It’s not art, at that point. It’s almost like a sport. Which you can, go ahead and practice scales all day so you can play the fastest, but then a lot of times people can be really technically good, but there’s no soul in it. They’re just trying to cram as many riffs into something as possible. They take all the art out of it, they’re technically playing perfectly, but I don’t feel anything.
I would much rather be listening to my favorite guitar player, who is Yasmin Williams. It’s not just because of technical ability, but because it’s progressive. I’m like, “That’s outta the box, I don’t know where that’s going.” That’s what I like about it.
Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins
After 100 Shows, Madison Cunningham Broke Through Barrier of Stage Fright
Madison Cunningham isn’t afraid to open up. Her latest album, Revealer, finds the singer-songwriter, well, revealing glimpses into her innermost thoughts, whether she’s musing on the push-pull of big dreams and life on the road in “All I’ve Ever Known” or grappling with mistakes on acclaimed single “Hospital.”
“What’s fun about writing is when you get to the place where you can make yourself laugh, or you’re excited about what’s happening,” she says. Lately, there’s a lot to be excited about. Revealer has earned the 26-year-old California native two Grammy nominations: one under Best Roots Performance for album track “Life According to Raechel,” and one for Best Folk Album. And while she’s long been a regular presence on big stages (BGS fans may recognize her from appearances on Chris Thile’s Live from Here as early as 2017), Cunningham continues to reach new audiences with wide-spanning tour dates and late-night appearances on shows like The Late Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.
Even when she’s bearing vulnerable parts of herself with deeply confessional lyrics, Cunningham seems like a natural on the stage. But despite a nearly lifelong devotion to songwriting and guitar, sharing her work with the world hasn’t always come easy.
“A lot of my life I felt like, as a performer, I wasn’t fully representing myself because of my nerves,” she admits. Stage fright kept her from performing for much of her adolescence, and the confident singer we see today had to work hard to overcome her own reservations. “I am proud of the live music element to what we accomplished in the last year,” she adds. “I mean, that’s most of what I did in 2022—playing shows. My band and I put a lot of time and effort into making these songs translate to a live setting.”
After playing an even one hundred shows in 2022, Cunningham unlocked a new kind of conviction on stage—one that makes the future for this young talent all the more exciting. “I worked on things that I felt like I got better at—stage presence and engaging with an audience—and my voice sounded comfortable,” she says. “I’ve always been very hard on myself for those things, and this time I felt like I broke through some barriers.”
BGS caught up with Cunningham, our BGS Artist of the Month for January, about her musical upbringing, her broad definition of folk music, and the careful balance between believing in yourself and inviting others on your creative journey—both in the studio and on the stage.
BGS: What are your first memories with music?
Cunningham: Apparently, as a kid I really wanted to play guitar at around 4 years old. I didn’t actually start playing until I was 7 and that’s when I can remember falling in love with the guitar. My dad would teach me all the chords that he knew at the pace that I was able to keep up. And then, it grew. I started taking piano lessons but I just kept getting drawn back to guitar. Those are probably my earliest memories, my dad playing and me wanting to be able to join in with him.
How did that evolve into a career as a performer?
It took a long time because I was really shy. I had a terrible case of stage fright, starting when I was a kid. Even though there was a love for it that was brewing behind the scenes, I never pictured myself doing it in front of people. So, that took a really, really long time for me to get over. I was probably 12 when I started really singing from the stage, but there was a whole new phase when I started playing my own music; I was deathly afraid to play it in front of people. I was 17 or 18 when I started to work through that and get over it. All I really knew is I loved writing songs.
You’ve been writing songs for a long time, but you’ve also found new fans through the covers you released during the height of the pandemic. What value did you find in recording music from other artists and songwriters?
It broke down certain barriers that I had for myself as a songwriter. That’s what’s so important about keeping your mind and your heart open to music that challenges you and inspires you. It opens up new ways for you to express yourself and new ways of playing and thinking about music. That’s what those covers were for me: They were linchpin artists who taught me about what it was that I loved about music. Being able to actually step inside of those songs and play them for myself taught me more about what I loved about songwriting in general, and how I wanted my songs to live on beyond myself and the moment in which they were created.
“All I’ve Ever Known” is the first song on the album, and you’ve said it was the first one you wrote for the album. How did the production come together?
That’s the one song on the album where I played everything. But initially the concept of the record was to do that for every song. Things changed; I didn’t want to be stuck in my own echo chamber of ideas and I wanted someone else to bring their unexpected artistry to this. But for whatever reason, with that song, I kept trying to redo it and invite some of my favorite musicians on it, but it just kept pulling the song in a direction that was not how it started and not where it was supposed to end. I think things should always be able to be redirected, and I’m a huge fan of course-correcting, but it felt like the spirit of the song lived in this version that was created by me. So, I left it. I added the production elements that I felt would elevate it. I’d let it sit for a little bit. At one point, I’d added too much and had to go back and turn some things off. [Laughs] But the production of that song was really just an element of me following my curiosity and having the most fun doing it.
You’re nominated for Best Roots Performance for “Life According to Raechel.” But you’ve said that you were actually deeply afraid to record that song. Why?
I was afraid that I was going to complicate it—not be brave enough to let it be the simplistic song that it was. I had recorded a version of it at home that was very much a demo, and we were going to enhance the quality and redo it and add strings. To find the balance between sincerity and theater can be really difficult, but I felt like the song needed both. Tyler Chester, who produced that song, never let me try to get too impressive with it. He kind of slapped my hand if I wanted to add something that was too frivolous or add anything that took away or pulled against the narrative of the song. A song like that is so personal. I was afraid that I would saturate it with sappiness. It was kind of on this tightrope.
The song is about losing your grandmother. Is there anything you wish she could witness about your journey since you wrote it?
I think everybody’s biggest fear, when you think about death and when you think about leaving, is feeling like nobody’s going to care, or that people will soon forget, or that everything that you worked for in your life is a loss. I would love her to see that a story about her in a song has seemingly helped other people through their own versions of grief. I think that would’ve been an impactful thing for her to see—maybe even a bit of closure. Who knows? I don’t know where she is now. Does she even need closure in any way? I don’t know. These are all questions that none of us could ever have the real answers to. But I find it fascinating that death is such a universal reality, but still it’s this massive mystery.
Revealer is nominated for Best Folk Album, but it’s clear that your music is influenced by so much more than just one genre. What elements of folk do you feel have most influenced your music?
Folk music is at the heart of the way we view songwriting today. Folk, to me, is almost just another word for singer-songwriter. The great mothers and fathers of folk like Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan… all of those people brought to the table some real lyrical awakening. They put so much of themselves into the songs. The veil between their emotions and their lyrics was completely translucent. The melody component in folk, too, is incredibly inspiring to me. But folk is just a small word for a very, very large genre packed with so many different ideas. And people have taken it in so many different directions. I’ve been excited about a lot of it.
You struggled with stage fright in the beginning. If you could go back and tell yourself one thing, what would it be?
Probably to not worry so much about the rules around music, or the rules that people set in place. But sometimes, I would like her to come and give me advice, because there was so much less that I was thinking about back then. So much comes into play as you get older, as you’re more aware of the way that life works. I feel like the sort of oblivion, the ignorance that I got to live in at that time was so good for art.
Photo Credit: Claire Marie Vogel