Tag: mark erelli

Mark Erelli Had an Idea for a Special First Live Album: a String Quintet

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Just as spring began its soft awakening here in the Northeast, Mark Erelli breathed new life into his vast catalog with the release of Live in Rockport: Mark Erelli & His String Quintet. As if his 13 solo albums, three bluegrass albums, and a considerable list of collaborations weren’t extensive enough, Erelli’s newest album forages entirely novel innovations.

With the help of longtime collaborator Zachariah Hickman (bass, vocals, arrangements), Erelli dispenses a selection of nine songs from throughout his decades-long vault of material with an imaginative twist – each has been delicately rearranged for Erelli, his guitar, and a string quintet. Recorded live in the sonically apt Shalin Liu Performance Center of Rockport, Massachusetts, the painstakingly intricate layers of strings weave a dynamic backdrop for Erelli’s potent songsmanship.

Cinematic and profound, the resulting tracklist examines these illustrious songs through new textures and colors. With deep attunement to both past iterations and new arrangements, listeners are struck by the simultaneously transient and perpetual nature of a good song.

BGS had the pleasure of chatting with Mark Erelli about the musings and process behind his newest creation.

So tell me about what the inception of this project was like – what propelled you to make a live album with a string quintet?

Mark Erelli: I’ve wanted to make a live record for years. And the question for any artist is always, “When do you do it?” If you do it too early in your career, you don’t maybe have as much experience performing live and you’re maybe not at the height of your powers. Yet, if you do it when it’s been a long time between records, it can seem almost like an afterthought. So I’ve always wanted to do it, but I’ve really struggled with the “when” of it. And then I’ve also grappled with what the format should be, because I perform in a lot of different formats, but I think my native performance format is still as a solo acoustic singer-songwriter.

I’ve thought about doing that live since I don’t have any records where it’s just me and my guitar. I’ve actually tried to professionally record live shows, but I never really captured a show that felt magical, and that’s the thing about live performance, right? It’s such an ephemeral thing, that’s the beauty of it, and that’s the frustrating thing if you’re trying to capture it. As I got further and further in my career, I realized I didn’t want to do the kind of live record that is just a snapshot of me on a normal night. I decided if I was going to do it, I wanted to make something really special and I wanted it to be a classic moment that really transforms how you think about an artist.

One of my favorite live albums is At Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers Band – it’s a high bar to measure yourself against, but I really wanted a live album that showcased my work in a new light. That’s where the string quintet came in. I had worked with strings on my most recent three records or so and I started working with strings on my covers record in 2018 called Mixtape. Strings are such a novel, fun, really amazing element to be able to work with – they’re quite the extra color to paint with, but I always had used them in the context of a band performance, tracking the strings after to support and augment the band.

I started wondering, what would it sound like if the strings just were the band? I got the chance to figure this out when I re-released my debut record on its 25th anniversary and I re-recorded one of the songs with a string quintet. That’s when I realized, “Oh yeah, this is gonna work out great, we’ve got to find a way to document this.” We made the live record shortly thereafter.

What do you think changes about the music and the material when you intentionalize the context and the sound like this?

Strings are really unique in that they can support a very wide dynamic range. For example, if you’re playing with a rock band, it’s pretty easy to get and you can only really get so quiet. The drums can only be so quiet. Electric guitars can only be so quiet. But the strings can get as loud and as percussive as stirring as a rock band. There’s this extra part of the dynamic range at the lower end of the spectrum, at the quieter end, that is not really accessible in any other kind of band format. String players are really adept at playing very quietly, because sometimes they have to provide atmosphere and/or introduce tension. But then other times they have to have this totally, totally aggressive, intense kind of energy, like with Psycho. What I love about the string quintet is that they just let me keep the full dynamic range of my music on the table, as far as what kind of songs I can play and how I deliver them, meanwhile I don’t have to sing over a drum kit.

Could you talk a little bit more about that process of arranging with the quintet? And I’m also curious about song selection – what it was like picking and choosing which songs you’d arrange?

I mean, I can’t speak specifically to the arrangement process, because that is pretty much entirely the purview of Zachariah Hickman, who wrote all the arrangements. I’ve worked with Zach basically on every project I’ve done since 2008 in some capacity. He’s produced a lot of them. We do a lot of projects and side projects together, which is to say that we’ve built up almost 20 years of really intense, deep trust. Zach is a far more trained musician than I am and he just always knows what I want to hear or what I’m trying to strive for, even if I can’t quite verbalize it. And he wrote these string parts accordingly.

As far as which songs to do, I think some songs have a more cinematic quality to them for whatever reason, whether it’s the sweep of the imagery and lyrics or the interaction between tempo of the song and the chord changes. Some chord progressions just feel more majestic. Anytime there’s majesty and a big sweep of emotion involved, the strings are a no-brainer. The bigger challenge is to present the strings within the kind of fuller spectrum of what I can do. I didn’t want to just do a whole live record of ballads. I wanted some songs to be able to rock, and I wanted to show that the strings can rock too. “Is it Enough” and “Love Wins in the Long Run” are two songs I specifically commissioned for this record to have some rockers with strings, not just these beautiful ballads. As far as which songs to add strings to from my catalog, I feel like I’m not even done with this yet. I want more.

Yes, same here! What was it like practicing with the strings for this performance?

It’s interesting – when you have a rock band, the parts aren’t always necessarily written out. There might be specific hooks or chord changes that have to happen, but there’s a lot more freedom for improvisation in the performance. You just kind of play the songs together a few times, then you go out and you play them in front of people, and you see what happens. Oftentimes it’s very different with strings. All their parts are written out, so I’m the thing that changes every time. Zach’s bass parts are not written out either, so the two of us can kind of move together as a dynamic unit. If I move to sing something a certain way, or phrase something with a particular feel, he can match my feel and translate between what I’m doing and what the rest of the quintet is doing.

But for the most part, the form is set. If I don’t play the basic structure as their charts are written out, they’re lost and then it comes off the rails. But within the form, there’s a lot of freedom for me to phrase things a certain way. I can phrase behind the beat I can push my phrasing a little bit against how they’re voicing their parts. That’s where I think a lot of the best art comes from. Having complete freedom to create and improvise, unless you’re working with the highest, highest caliber of musicians, is just really tough. Having no rules and no parameters – it’s really hard to make that compelling, unless you’re a band of virtuosos.

To me, it’s the constraints that really let you play around with the other factors. Maybe that’s the scientist in me talking. Everything can change. Something has to stay the same. In the case of these string quintet shows, the structure of the song is the same every time, but the way that you color in those lines – there’s almost endless variations to play with.

I’m curious how your relationship to these songs has evolved throughout the years and then specifically within the creation of this record. How will this process inspire your artistry moving forward?

The first song on Live in Rockport is the last song from my most recent studio record. Then towards the end of the live record is the song “Northern Star,” which is from my debut that I re-recorded 25 years later. So there’s a huge spread there. It tends to be mostly focused on stuff from the last 10 years or so, but having that early song there has helped me see more of a through line within my body of work that I previously was less aware of.

I think of my catalog as falling into either side of a particular line, and that line being parenthood—or at least when I started to really think seriously about becoming a parent. The art that I made before I was a parent, or before I started considering it, that all feels sort of separate from the art I make now. Sometimes it’s been hard for me to relate to the kid that made that work and the kind of man that I am now that’s been changed in so many ways by all that new love in my life – not just marriage, but family. So to reach back across that dividing line and to take a song like “Northern Star” and treat it the same way that we’re treating some of these newer songs and have it come alive so vibrantly really made me think, “Okay, well maybe that was the same person all along.”

I was just growing all along. So in some strange way, the strings have helped me kind of reconnect with some of my earlier material when I would have never thought to even dream of having a string quintet on my records – I wouldn’t have had any idea how to do that. And if you’d asked me if the songs would support it or if it was appropriate for the songs, I would have said, “I don’t think so. “Hearing all the songs side by side like this from such a long period of time has made me connect with the fact that maybe I’ve always been the same kind of artist that I am now and it just took me a while to grow into that realization.

I think when the audience is hearing me with the strings, it can be pretty revelatory – they’re really learning new things about me as an artist. And when I’m on stage performing with the strings, I’m learning new things about myself in real time, too. To me, that’s the beautiful thing that made working with the strings just so amazing – it really was a growth opportunity all around, just like anytime you do something that affords you a new perspective, or a new appreciation of a particular dimension of what you do. You just can’t help but be a better artist on the other side of that. I have a lot to be grateful for, as far as the different configurations that I’ve been able to work with. And this, right now – this is one of my absolute favorites.

Photo Credit: Bri Gately

Basic Folk: Gary Louris

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This special episode of Basic Folk featuring Gary Louris is guest-hosted by singer-songwriter and friend of the podcast Mark Erelli.)

You probably know Gary Louris as the leader of The Jayhawks – or as they refer to themselves, “a band from Minnesota.” The Jayhawks are pioneers of roots rock, alt-country, and Americana. Whatever you wanna call it, they’ve been making records where rock, pop, country, and other forms of American roots music overlap since the mid-1980s.

But Louris’s hidden superpower is that he’s kind of like a musical Swiss Army knife – he’s basically got a creative skill for any application. Want him and his band to serve as accompanists for some of the most distinctive singer-songwriters, like Wesley Stage and Joe Henry? He can do that. Looking for achingly perfect, near-fraternal harmonies on hit songs like Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones”? He can (and did) do that. If you’re Tedeschi Trucks Band or The Chicks and looking for someone to write you some catchy, melodic, roots-pop songs? Gary’s your guy. If that’s not enough, he has also produced records for artists like Dar Williams, The Sadies, and The Jayhawks, too. Whatever your musical need may be, chances are that Gary Louris can do it.

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In between all these varied musical roles, Louris has also found time to release several solo albums, the newest of which – Dark Country – was released earlier this month. He recorded it mostly solo in his home studio and the word on the street is that this collection of songs, inspired by his wife, is his most intimate and romantic album yet. I’ve been a big fan of Gary Louris for basically my entire adult life and enjoyed our wide-ranging Basic Folk conversation, touching on the way technical limitations can shape an artist’s style, what he’s learned from a career’s worth of collaborations, his process working on his new solo album, the relationship between versatility and longevity, and what the influence of romance on his songwriting looks like now, in the fifth decade of his music career.

Listen to Mark Erelli guest on Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Steve Cohen

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Lonesome River Band, Lily Talmers, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Where did the first month of 2025 go!? Wherever it went, we’ve got an excellent batch of premieres for your final New Music Friday of January.

Below, check out brand new music and performance videos like Amanda Bjorn’s “Until We Become Earth,” a song about searching for yourself set to a gorgeously warm and retro video shot on film. Pitney Meyer (a duo of longtime country and bluegrass pals, John Meyer and Mo Pitney) bring a live performance of their new single, “Bear Creek Clay,” as well.

Bluegrass mainstays Lonesome River Band bring back a Jimmy Yeary song that Sammy Shelor turned into a classic, “I’m On To You,” with the full LRB on this new rendition. Plus, Dave Murphy calls on Mark Erelli for his new number, “Planet of Pain II,”  a sequel to the original “Planet of Pain” from his 1998 album, Under the Lights.

Elsewhere, don’t miss Joshua Finsel’s “Before the Snow,” about through hiking the Appalachian Trail and cresting Mount Katahdin in Maine before wintertime hits. And, Lily Talmers celebrates release day for her new album, It’s Cyclical, Missing You, by bringing us that project’s lush and deep folky title track.

It’s all right here on BGS – we’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: You Gotta Hear This!

Amanda Bjorn, “Until We Become Earth”

Artist: Amanda Bjorn
Hometown: Los Angeles, California and Spain
Song: “Until We Become Earth”
Album: That Kind of Woman
Release Date: January 24, 2025 (single)

In Their Words: “‘Until We Become Earth’ is the first single off my upcoming debut album, That Kind of Woman, which is set to release in April 2025. A blend of blues and folk with a bit of Americana, the new album reads like a diary touching on major changes in my life – balancing motherhood with artistry, finding and losing myself within relationships, postpartum mental health, and the transformation that happens from living abroad and returning home.

“The song was written in a School of Song workshop with one of my favorite songwriters, Adrianne Lenker, exactly one year ago. Without ruining it, the song is about that search for self-identity within a relationship, the vulnerability of building your own voice, and the risk it takes to keep expanding.

“With the help of my old friend, producer Aaron Stern, I recorded the album this past summer in Los Angeles at Verdugo Sound. With the help of some very talented musicians, we performed live together in the same room for most of the album, our aim was to capture the magic of improvisation and the authentic energy that arises from truly listening and connecting, free from a click track.” – Amanda Bjorn

Track Credits:
Phillip Krohnengold – Guitar, keys
Michael Villiers – Drums
Aaron Stern – Bass
Amanda Bjorn – Vocals
Adam Ayan – Mastering
Aaron Stern – Producer

Video Credits: Filmed by Giacomo Gex; color by Ruben Sogomonian; film processed by Kafard Films, Paris, France.
Starring Amanda Bjorn and Brando Wild.

Joshua Finsel, “Before the Snow”

Artist: Joshua Finsel
Hometown: Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania
Song: “Before the Snow”
Album: No Honey
Release Date: February 6, 2024

In Their Words: “‘Before The Snow’ is a song about an Appalachian Trail through-hiker whose river meditation is interrupted by a daydream. Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park in Maine is the northern end of the trail, and a hiker must get there ‘before the snow’ in order to be allowed to finish the journey.

“The lyrics are autobiographical. I teamed up with the famed string trio Bizarre Star Strings (Brandi Carlile, Madison Cunningham, The Shins) for the lush, theatrical river-like passages. Award winning fiddle player Katelynn Casper and mandolinist Quentin Fisher of Serene Green added to the arrangements. Finally, David Bowie producer and bass player Mark Plati mixed the record and played fretless bass.” – Joshua Finsel

Lonesome River Band, “I’m On To You”

Artist: Lonesome River Band
Hometown: Floyd, Virginia
Song: “I’m On To You”
Release Date: January 31, 2025
Label: Mountain Home Music Company

In Their Words: “‘I’m On To You’ is a song written by my friend Jimmy Yeary, who has become one of the most in-demand writers in Nashville. I recorded this song back in 1997 and it was the first song Jimmy had featured on an album. The album is long out of print, but this song kept making its way into sound checks and the show every now and then. It has that ’80s country vibe that we felt would lend itself to the sound we are doing for this upcoming album. We hope you like this version!” – Sammy Shelor

Track Credits:
Sammy Shelor – Banjo, vocal
Jesse Smathers – Acoustic guitar, lead vocals
Mike Hartgrove – Fiddle
Adam Miller – Mandolin, vocals
Kameron Keller – Upright bass

Dave Murphy, “Planet of Pain II” (Featuring Mark Erelli)

Artist: Dave Murphy
Hometown: Madison, New Jersey
Song: “Planet of Pain II” featuring Mark Erelli
Album: A Heart So Rare
Release Date: January 31, 2025

In Their Words: “The song is a rumination on the fragility of life, disappointment, lessons learned, and carrying on. This theme is illustrated in my lyrics, ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust/ Sometimes it feels like it’s all just too much/ When something is lost (they say) something is gained/ Still finding my way on this planet of pain.’ The original ‘Planet of Pain‘ appeared on my first album, Under the Lights. It was just one voice, one acoustic, and a lap steel. Part II borrows some lyrics, but elevates the song to a different level with the support of Chris Tarrow’s mysterious pedal steel playing, Shawn Pelton’s percussion, and Mark Erelli’s haunting vocals.” – Dave Murphy

Track Credits:
Dave Murphy – Vocals, acoustic guitar
Shawn Pelton – Drums
Chris Tarrow – Electric guitar, pedal steel
Richard Hammond – Bass
Mark Erelli – Backing vocals

Pitney Meyer, “Bear Creek Clay”

Artist: Pitney Meyer
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Bear Creek Clay”
Album: Cherokee Pioneer
Release Date: January 10, 2025 (single); April 18, 2025 (album)
Label: Curb Records

In Their Words: “‘Bear Creek Clay’ is a song brought to the group by Danielle Yother from North Carolina. It’s a snapshot of a pioneering Daniel Boone-type of character, blazing a trail to a home in the mountains. ‘Bear Creek Clay’ was the title we settled on, which in the moment I figured was something we would come back and edit later, but come to find out, there are creeks and rivers by that name all over Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri. Driving through Bon Aqua, Tennessee, I noticed on the map I was nearing a Bear Creek. This was just a few miles from the log cabin where we would be recording. When we cut the song to tape a few days later, I knew we had to drive down to the creek first. The water was brown and rushing fast, swollen from the rains the night before. We made it back to the cabin a bit soaked but ready to step in and sing this song that seemed to be coming to life in the landscape around us.” – John Meyer

Track Credits:
Mo Pitney – Guitar
John Meyer – Banjo
Nate Burie – Mandolin
Blake Pitney – Bass
Jenee Fleenor – Fiddle

Lily Talmers, “It’s Cyclical, Missing You”

Artist: Lily Talmers
Hometown: Birmingham, Michigan and Brooklyn, New York
Song: “It Is Cyclical, Missing You”
Album: It Is Cyclical, Missing You
Release Date: January 30, 2025

In Their Words: “This song is sort of meant to mirror the experience of running up and down a hill, continuously. It was born of witnessing two brothers arguing in a parking lot– the younger, around five years old, was sobbing trying to get his older brother’s attention. The older brother, around age seven, clearly had the awareness that ignoring someone only makes them more desperate for your attention, and wouldn’t look his brother in the eye. The whole record is sort of a big statement of what it means to be in both of these positions, cyclically. I am both the desperate, reaching brother, and the power-hungry, indignant brother who hasn’t learned the responsibility of loving other people.” – Lily Talmers

Track Credits:
Lily Talmers – Vocals, acoustic guitar, music, lyrics
Raffi Boden – Cello
Konstantinos Revelas – Bouzouki
Alec Spiegelman – Clarinet, bass clarinet, flute
David Ward – Drums, percussion

Photo Credit: Lonesome River Band by Sandlin Gaither; Lily Talmers by Bailey Lecat.

Chuck Prophet Talks Music, Surfing, and Storytelling with Mark Erelli

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Editor’s note: For this episode, we invited our friend Mark Erelli to interview Chuck Prophet. The two are familiar with each other’s work through songwriting together for Mark’s latest album Lay Your Darkness Down (2023). We’re thrilled to welcome Mark back as guest host!

Chuck Prophet has been a mainstay on the indie and Americana music scenes since the 1980s, before either designation was a common part of the rock ‘n’ roll lexicon. Through his guitar work in the seminal psychedelic desert rock band Green On Red, musical collaborations with Kelly Willis, Kim Richey, and Warren Zevon, and a string of over a dozen solo records, Prophet has carved out a respected niche in rock music history with his “California Noir” sound. It’s a streak he probably could have kept riding for the rest of his career, if not for his sudden diagnosis with lymphoma a couple years ago. During his treatment and eventual recovery from cancer, Prophet found solace in his record collection — in particular the vibrant rhythms and danceable energy of Cumbia. He eventually sought out a favorite local band in the genre to jam, and then formally collaborate on Wake The Dead, Prophet’s first new solo album in four years. The project blends his longtime band The Mission Express with members of the Cumbia outfit Quiensave, and the result is equal parts familiar and fresh.

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I have firsthand knowledge of Prophet’s freewheeling collaborative process, having worked with him and his longtime songwriting partner Klipschutz on a song for my 2020 album Blindsided. I once taught with Chuck at a folk festival songwriting school, and was relieved to be able to play before him at the instructor open mic, because no one wants to follow Chuck Prophet. His musical catalog is so deep and broad that it’s both inspiring… and a bit overwhelming. It was a joy to reconnect with him for a wide-ranging conversation about his new album that also touched upon his sense of humor, guitar-playing techniques, surfing culture, and even his favorite Bob Seger song.

Photo Credit: Chuck Prophet by Kory Thibeault; Mark Erelli by Joe Navas

Basic Folk: Barnstar!

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Barnstar!, Boston’s premier kinda bluegrass and definitely bombastic band, has released their new album Furious Kindness and we’re #blessed to welcome Mark Erelli and Zachariah Hickman to the pod. Originally a fun side hustle and bluegrass vehicle for Zack, the group – which also includes Charlie Rose and Taylor and Jake Armerding – started very casually performing at the legendary local Cantab Lounge. Zack accurately likens the vibe of the place to a basement Star Wars Cantina full of bluegrass bands.

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In between their main gigs with performers like Josh Ritter and Lori McKenna and amidst their solo careers, Barnstar! has cultivated explosive live performances filled with energy and emotional expression, leaving concert attendees cheering and crying along. Included in their repertoire are some of the finest covers including many that you’d never expect to see on a kind of bluegrass band album, like The Hold Steady, Patty Griffin, Elliott Smith, and Elizabeth & The Catapult.

On this episode of Basic Folk, we talk about what it’s like to bring a cover song to the band to learn as well as co-writing with friends like Dinty Child and Chuck Prophet. We’d be remiss if we did not address the alien-like quality of Mark Erelli’s singing voice and learn that it is because of his bestie Zack and Barnstar! that he can sing like this. Now he finds himself performing vocal warm-ups before hitting the stage with the guys. Not something he ever thought he’d do. All members of Barnstar! contribute to and sing on the new album, Furious Kindness, a recording that just wants to shout in your face about how awesome you really are.

Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro

Basic Folk: Dinty Child

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Dinty Child, founding member of Session Americana, the beloved Boston roots music collective who’ve accidentally been a band for 20 years, has just released his second solo album, Letting the Lions In. The new songs feature co-writing on all tracks between Dinty and Boston area songwriters like Mark Erelli, Kris Delmhorst, and Dave Godowsky. A self-proclaimed slow-writer, the majority of these songs were written on the annual Sub Rosa songwriting retreat Dinty runs on Three Mile Island (no, not that Three Mile Island) on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, Dinty’s family has been working at the island for over 100 years. Dinty currently serves as the off-season manager, putting his musician and carpenter skills to good use hosting songwriter friends at said retreat – like Rose Cousins, Rose Polenzani, Rachael Price, Miss Tess and many more, as well as Miles of Music, a summer camp run by Dinty, Kristin Andreassen, and Laura Cortese.

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Letting the Lions In was co-produced by Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne) and recorded at Great North Sound in Parsonsfield, Maine over the course of three days in the spring of 2021. Dinty says, “I often trade construction work for studio time there.”

During our conversation, we dig into why these songs needed to be recorded. Our consensus is that legacy and spreading joy to his community are the top two reasons. Also, Dinty, who says an annoyingly large percentage of his songs start as dreams, talks about what kind of sleeper he is, what’s with the lion, and his thoughts on drinking – thanks to the handful of alcohol songs on the new album. Dinty is a dear friend to the podcast and an important part of the New England musical landscape, we’re thrilled to have him on the show!

Photo Credit: Sam Kassirer

Bluegrass, Folk, and Country Communities Made Jobi Riccio

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in full on Basic Folk. Listen on BGS or wherever you get podcasts. The following has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.)

Jobi Riccio has only begun to scratch the surface of what they have to offer on their debut album, Whiplash. The songwriting is centered around self discovery and mourning past lives, laid alongside super-smart country and pop melodies. Our hero grew up an outdoor kid amongst the woods of Red Rocks Parks Amphitheatre in Colorado.

A strong bluegrass community encircled her playing from a very young age in a way that encouraged her to pursue music as a career. She spent time in Boston attending Berklee College of Music, nestled in the folk community centered around the historic venue Club Passim. March 2020 hit. Jobi had to leave her newfound community and found herself back in her childhood bedroom.

While wrestling with all the complications of finding herself and her place in the world, they were letting go of their childhood and the sense of grounding that came with it. Eventually, they made their way to Asheville, North Carolina to work on Whiplash.

In the studio, she took her time making the album and discovered that indeed, she had a strong sense of vision for the music. The trust of her collaborators allowed her to trust in herself and create an album that is turning heads and making Jobi Riccio one of the most exciting young songwriters of 2023.

BGS: Thank you so much for being on Basic Folk.

Jobi Riccio: Thank you for having me.

Alright, let’s start. I wanted to talk about identity and give you the opportunity to talk about your identity, like how do you identify pronouns, orientation, any of that stuff that we want to address.

JR: Yeah, I use she/they pronouns. I identify as queer and identity has been something that feels like it’s been important and very complicated for me. It feels like something that I have spoken about and made a part of my career, and now I’m kind of feeling, a little bit, like it’s become too much of a focus in my career, actually.

It’s funny, because I was listening to your other podcast that [you do], I can’t remember–

It’s [Basic Folk Debate Club], an occasional crossover series with Why We Write.

Yes! I was like, you’ll know the person to plug – and I’m so sorry to Why We Write.

It’s based on actually something that Lizzie No was saying. I just really resonated with something that she said, which was it’s about who is asking those questions of me. It can feel like a fine line. It’s kind of “cool” right now to be a queer artist or a Black artist or an artist of color in the folk space.

When you’re with your community, that feels one way, or with people who are truly great. And then when you’re with people who it just seems like they need to check that box. It’s so obvious and it’s so painful and it feels like a betrayal of yourself. And [Lizzie] put it a lot more eloquently than all that, but if we’re really going down the discussion of identity, it’s important to me that I am open with my identity, but I also feel like there have been times where it’s been so hyper-focused on. In a way that it’s like, “Did you even listen to any of my songs or did you know what I mean?”

I really enjoyed that answer. Doing these interviews, sometimes I feel like I’m gonna ask and I think that the interview is gonna go one way or a question is gonna go one way and it goes the complete opposite way. I just get to enjoy the ride.

You are from Morrison, Colorado, which is outside of Denver – the same place as Red Rocks Parks and Amphitheatre. You were an outdoor kid. How do you think your early experience in nature has impacted the person you became?

I think that it’s something that I really value and need and it’s a processing tool for me, being out in nature. It’s almost equivalent to songwriting and writing in my journal. It’s honestly super hard here in Nashville, because I don’t feel like I can get that, in the way that I used to be able to walk to a hiking trail five minutes from my house. I was absolutely supremely spoiled with outdoor access as a kid. [I didn’t] know any better. Like, there’s going to come a time where you’re going to live somewhere the nearest mountains are two and a half hours away. That is rough. It’s something I have to really intentionally build into my life now.

I think that nature heavily informs me as a person. Musically, I feel like it shows up in my lyrics [and] images from home, talking about coyotes and cactus and etc. I feel like it’s so intrinsic to who I am as a person.

So nature ruined you.

For real. The nature ruined me. Colorado ruined me.

There has always been this strong draw to music for you – country radio, your parents and sister’s collection of music, and also making music on your own. Can you set the scene for what music looked like in your house? And when did you get a grasp on your own taste in music?

My parents definitely – we had like a home stereo and a big collection of CDs and I spent a lot of time just sort of putzing around my house as a little kid, opening cabinets, and looking at things and opening the encyclopedia and reading. I don’t know if anyone else feels like a really intrinsic part of childhood was just looking at things.

The CD collection in like, a big wicker basket was definitely a huge one for me. They felt like little gifts. I could open up the CD and then there was this extra thing I could pull out and there were liner notes and lyrics and I could read along. That was really big for me, because I was always really interested in lyrics.

My dad’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. We love the Boss and sometimes we can’t understand the Boss. And like, his lyrics are wonderful, too. I really feel like that was pretty formative to me, looking through my parents’ CDs and my sister’s CDs as well. My oldest sister had like a clear, hot pink, very early 2000s lockbox thing that she kept her CDs in. I very vividly remember going into her room and stealing CDs – The Killers, Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head was a big one for me, Sheryl Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club, Yellow Ocean Avenue. Then like Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, James Taylor.

There is a strong bluegrass community where you’re from. You found it at an early age, playing mandolin when you were like eight or nine years old. Since then you’ve sought out musical community, so what did you learn from that first musical community? 

The bluegrass community was a big part of feeling supported for me in music. I was always a kid who sang and was like, the girl with a good voice in like my elementary school class or whatever, but I didn’t see myself as a musician until I really started playing mandolin. I had a teacher and he was super supportive and was like, “You’re really great at instruments, too.”

I feel like the bluegrass community in my hometown took me seriously even though I was a little kid running around at RockyGrass – and by “a little kid” I mean 16. I didn’t go to my first bluegrass festival until I was a teenager. I would go and sit and jam with adults and be taken seriously. I really looked up to [those who were] offering their support to me, that was immeasurable to [growing] my own self confidence at that age.

I mean, I was so insecure at like 15, 16. The first year I ever went to RockyGrass, which sort of became my home festival, I didn’t even go out and play with anyone. I just sat in my camper with my mom, because I was so scared and so nervous and having trouble with confidence. The next year, I was out like playing every night ’til like 2 or 3 a.m.

That’s a huge shift!

Yeah. I feel like community and music– I mean, no musician is an island. We’re nothing without the musicians who came before us and those who’ve supported us. Sometimes I look back on that time and wonder if I hadn’t gotten that nod in that jam from that older kid who was really good, who I thought was awesome; or from that artist who I worshipped, who told me I had a beautiful voice; or I had shared one of my songs with them, and they were encouraging of me writing. I wonder if I would have taken it this far?

Then I got to be in a really beautiful community space working at Club Passim in college, too. That also further helped bolster my confidence, especially playing solo. Because – as you know, as also somebody who worked there in a much different capacity – it’s very much like a solo listening room, singer-songwriter space.

I play solo [a lot] now on tour, because I can’t afford to bring out a band. I feel like I really garnered some valuable skills watching other people like Mark Erelli and Lori McKenna play solo at Passim and also having to do that myself, learning how to speak about the songs I had written and not be painfully awkward, but doing that in the loving embrace of that room.

You’ve talked about Sheryl Crow and The Chicks as having a huge impact on you. You picked up the mandolin after you first heard Nickel Creek – can you talk more about the influence Chris Thile and Sara and Sean Watkins had on you?

So, I first heard Nickel Creek on the radio on KBCO, which is like the AAA station.

Hell yeah, that’s a huge station. That’s where AAA was born!

Where AAA was born, famously, yes! That was my local radio station that I listened to as a kid. And they would play “Smoothie Song” by Nickel Creek. This was around the same time that I heard the Home album by The Chicks. I was listening to Top 40 country music and also hearing mandolin here and there. It’s so strange, because I don’t play the mandolin anymore. It’s just something I’m not interested in now – it makes me almost kind of sad to think of how this was such a big part of my life.

Then I really pivoted – and it’s like, I’ll never say never, but yeah, I started playing mandolin when I was 15, I wanted to play mandolin when I was about eight or nine years old, because that was when we got Why Should the Fire Die on CD as a family. When I started opening up the CD and reading the booklet and listening – that album is so cool, because there’s a little bit of almost a pop-punk thing to some of the songs, like “Somebody More Like You.” That was so of-the-time and I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of that.

Being introduced to this new palette of instruments that I really hadn’t heard played in this way. I was familiar with bluegrass to some extent, but it like bluegrass for me and my like angsty little 12-year-old self. And, you know, everybody’s angsty selves at any age. That struck such a chord in me…

The first song I heard by them was that Pavement cover.

And Pavement’s super emo! “Spit On a Stranger,” right?

Yeah, that’s it.

I loved that album, too. They were all older than me, but I didn’t really know that either because, like, they’re pretty young on the CD case. They’re probably [around] my older sister’s age, who is now 28. They’re not that close in age to me, but I did feel a kindred-ness that I feel like a lot of roots artists talk about, hearing them and the Chicks and being like, “Oh, this is cool! This is of the moment.” They’re incorporating sounds that we like from other genres, which is really what I think I’m trying to get with the whole pop-punk thing, though I know that can be kind of a “dirty” word, like pop country. I don’t think it should be, I don’t think any genre word should be.

And I definitely had like a three month period where I was like, “I’m in love with Chris Thile. I’m going to marry him.” That was a little, you know, short lived, but it was strong. His high, angelic voice really spoke to my prepubescent soul.

That’s so sweet.

You’re like, “I don’t know what to say about that!”

Thank you for sharing. No, it turns out it was Sara Watkins the whole time!

Right, yeah! Hiding in plain sight!

Your bluegrass wife.

(Editor’s Note: Listen to the unabridged Basic Folk episode featuring Jobi Riccio here.)

Photo Credit: Monica Murray

Basic Folk: Antje Duvekot

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Antje Duvekot confronts trauma with a newfound wisdom and fierceness on her new record, My New Wild West, her best in her 20-plus year career produced by her friend, Mark Erelli. To put it plainly, Antje, who moved to America from Germany at age 13, had a really rough time as a teenager. She was transplanted to a totally new universe with a new language she barely understood with unsupportive and abusive parents. She soothed herself with music, her first love. She sang and played guitar very quietly, which has translated to the musician she has become. Her voice can be soft, childlike and playful, but it can also be strong and deep. The control is incredible. Not to mention, this woman’s observation of the world is profound. In each song, she creates worlds that come to life with her poignant lyricism. It’s arresting and always unexpected.

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This interview was different for me in that Antje and I have known each other for over two decades. That’s happened before on Basic Folk, but it feels like our careers started on the exact same day and we’ve grown together in this messy business. The story is that we met at Club Passim (maybe it was a Gillian Welch tribute night, and thanks to Matt Smith) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, around 2002. It took one song and I was floored. She gave me her CD, I took it, and played it over and over on the WERS Coffeehouse (the morning folk show). Every Coffeehouse DJ knew how to spell her name and would expect to field calls every time we played her music. That just doesn’t happen anymore; it was right at the end of an era when radio could do that. From there, Antje’s career took shape. I’ll be forever grateful to her for that experience. It really felt like radio at its best: connecting a community with something really needed in an organic way. It’s good to get back together in our conversation. Please excuse me if I’m a little too casual in this one!

Photo Credit: Jeff Fasano

BGS 5+5: Mark Erelli

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mark Erelli
Hometown: Melrose, Massachusetts
Latest Album: Lay Your Darkness Down
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Oh man, I don’t really have any! The only nicknames I had were in elementary school, where kids would taunt me with adjectives that rhyme with “Erelli.” I’m sure you can come up with all the permutations on your own. I’ve always been a solo artist, so I don’t have any rejected band names, either. I feel like I’m letting a lot of people down with this particular answer!

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

At heart, I’m just a really big music fan, so I’ve thought a lot about my influences and how they’ve changed over the years. I think most of us start out trying to follow in the footsteps of our musical heroes, typically bigger, established artists from a different time. I was no different in my early years but, truthfully, the longer I do this, the less those early heroes tend to matter to me in terms of conscious influence. And the music business that helped those artists become so influential is gone for good. So the artists that have deeply influenced me for a long time now are my friends, peers I have worked alongside, seeing firsthand how they manage their art and their careers.

It’s hard to pick the friend that has had the most profound influence, but I have learned more than I can really articulate from Lori McKenna. We met in 1996 when we both lost the same songwriting contest, came up through the Boston scene together, I’ve produced some of her albums, and played in her band since 2005. I’ve had a chance to see the choices she’s made throughout every stage of her storied career—before she even had a ‘career’—and I find her journey to be extremely inspiring and educational. Lori’s consistent friendship and generosity have been a real north star for me, and she’s a big part of my new album Lay Your Darkness Down, having written a wonderful song together and singing harmony on the title track.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

About a decade ago, I opened for Darrell Scott one night in Portland, Maine. I had played the room several times on my own, but I campaigned for the gig just so I could meet Darrell and let him know I’d been a big fan of his for years. I was convinced I’d come on a bit too strong at soundcheck, endlessly proclaiming my love of obscure independent records that he’d played on in the ’90s, but I was later humbled to see that he was watching my set.

When he took the stage for his headlining set, he said, “We’re gonna do something a little different tonight. Instead of just me up here playing one long solo set, I’m going to do a short set, we’ll take a quick break, then Mark and I will come back up together, trading songs until we feel like stopping, like an old-fashioned Nashville guitar pull.” He hadn’t mentioned this plan to me before he went on, so I was just floored. But that’s what we did. I think we played for 90 minutes or so, the whole night of music approaching three hours of music in total, a marathon that no one had even asked for! To have a musical hero invite me into a space where we were both completely in service to the songs, supporting each other as equals, was just an incredible gift. I’ll never forget it.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Two words: vocal warmups. This is not a sexy ritual, but I cannot stress enough how regularly warming my voice up for 15-20 minutes before a show or a recording session has changed my life. I’ve always been a decent singer, I guess, but since I’ve been warming up regularly before shows I find that I can sing at the level of proficiency I strive to perform at, for longer, and with far less emotional distress about being able to keep it up night after night. The whiskey you think you need before you go on stage is not doing you any favors, it just makes you care less about how you sound. The vocal warmups I do have helped make singing a more physically enjoyable experience for me, and the sooner you start the more it’s going to help you. I know, I didn’t listen either when I was in my 20s and 30s and people told me to warm up my voice. But if I could go back and change one thing it would be to have started this ritual far earlier in my career.

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

I think the toughest part of ‘writing a song’ isn’t really the writing itself, it’s the observations, experiences, and realizations that ultimately lead me to the point where I feel compelled to sit down and write about something, to try and make sense of it. The songs on my new album Lay Your Darkness Down were largely written in the wake of being diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disease (retinitis pigmentosa) that is slowly causing me to go blind. The songs that weren’t directly inspired by my RP diagnosis were written against the backdrop of a global pandemic, and the profound hits to what serves double duty as my livelihood and spiritual practice.

Those were just extremely tough times, and for a while songwriting just felt like a very ineffectual tool for dealing with them. Thankfully, the practice gradually came back to me, and it ultimately became something that helped me process what I was going through. I have to thank friends like Mary Bragg, Anthony da Costa, Matt Nathanson, and Lori McKenna, who all co-wrote remotely with me over Zoom during the pandemic and helped me sidestep some of the loneliness and isolation I was feeling. The writing is often fun and exciting, it’s living a life worth writing about that’s the tough part.

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

I think I do this an awful lot. I will frequently consider myself to be writing a song from the perspective of a character, only to find out at some point after the fact that there is perhaps an uncomfortable amount of “me” in the song’s protagonist. This realization can take years, and I think it’s just a simple truth that the songs often get there before I do, and they wait patiently for me to catch up. Even when I am writing from a first-person perspective, I’m often portraying myself and my motivations as I’d like them to be, and maybe not as they actually are. I often use songwriting to envision what’s possible, instead of cataloging things as they are. In that way, I like to think that my songs can be inspiring and stir hope, not just for others, but for me too.

Photo Credit: Joe Navas

Basic Folk – Mark Erelli

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Mark Erelli is slowly going blind. In August 2020, he noticed he couldn’t see his fingers during a show. After that, as he was driving in a tunnel, everything went black. Mark went to the doctor and was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. Since then, his life has changed in ways he could never have imagined. He doesn’t drive at night, he carries a flashlight everywhere he goes, his relationship with his family, his writing and career have been pushed to the brink. All the processing he’s done over the last three years has led him to his latest album, Lay Your Darkness Down.

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In our conversation, we talk about Mark’s new challenges he’s faced while living with RP. He shares what it was like for him to tell friends and how he constantly has to advocate for himself. One aspect he did not expect was being able to use his white male privilege to speak up about his disability in hopes to help the community of people with disabilities. Once he realized that, he recognized that it was his responsibility to speak up for the greater good.

One hilarious note: my 6 month old puppy decided she wanted to interrupt and tear apart a book during the interview. I tried to get her out of the room, but in the end, she insisted that she remain. I apologize for the occasional rustling and background noise. If you listen hard enough at one point, you can hear Dottie the cat growling at her. Yay puppies.

Photo Credit: Joe Navas