Tag: Matt Ross-Spang

Guided by Acoustic Demos, Paul Thorn’s New Album Finds Magic in Memphis

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For years, you could always count on a Paul Thorn record for songs about insatiable lust and desire. That’s still true on his newest release, It’s Never Too Late to Call, although that carnal urgency has been overtaken by… yes, actual love. The long-awaited album isn’t exactly sentimental, as “What I Could Do” details the ways his life would be more productive without still being in love with somebody. There’s also “Goodbye Is the Last Word,” an aching slow song that basically offers advice on how to leave a relationship that’s turned toxic. Even the duet with his wife, Heather, is titled “Breaking Up for Good Again.”

Still, on the boisterous “Here We Go,” he sings, “I feel good about what the future holds.” As he should.

“I like to think I’ve just matured a little bit,” Thorn tells BGS. “I’m 57 years old and the way I looked at things 10 years ago ain’t the way I look at them now. If you’re still the same person you were 10 years ago, you wasted 10 years.”

On It’s Never Too Late to Call, there’s not a minute wasted. Thorn can still crank up that R&B groove that’s made him a must-see artist for decades. Meanwhile, “Sapphire Dream” – a duet with his daughter Kitty Jones — stands among his most evocative performances on any of his records. Here, the Mississippi musician tells BGS about how the acoustic guitar shaped these sessions, the bluegrass bands he admires, and what “Sapalo” really means.

BGS: Why was it appealing for you to make this album in Memphis?

Thorn: Sam Phillips Recording Studio in Memphis has a lot of vintage equipment and recording technology that kinda doesn’t exist anymore. The way that Elvis Presley’s records sounded, and the way that Johnny Cash’s records sounded, and many other great artists sounded — in addition to their talent, it was the way they were recorded and the sound that they caught from that studio.

And it’s not Sun Studios. Let me clarify that – Sam Phillips didn’t own Sun. He rented it, but then when he got successful he built another studio two blocks down called Sam Phillips Recording Studio. That’s the studio I’m talking about. A lot of magic was created in there for a lot of reasons. It’s an hour from where I live, so why not?

Did you have an idea of how you wanted this record to sound before you went in?

I really did, yeah. The producer of this record is Matt Ross-Spang. He’s a Grammy Award winner. He’s very good. I was sending him iPhone demos of me just singing with my acoustic guitar on all these songs. We both decided, after talking a few times, that this record should be built around those acoustic demos. I play rhythm guitar on every song, which is something that I used to not do. I used to not play on my records at all. I would just sing it once with my acoustic guitar and the band would play it.

Although that sounds good and it has its place, I think what we captured on this record more defines what I actually sound like and what I do best. It’s a lot more stripped down and it’s not like a jammy record. There are very few solos on any instrument. This record is all about showcasing the songs. I haven’t put a record out of original material in six years and there are a lot of reasons for that, some good, some bad. But I feel like over those years, these songs that I did get are my best work ever. I really feel that way.

Are there any acoustic guitarists that you really look up to?

I know two people who, in my opinion, are the greatest acoustic guitar players. One is Mac McAnally and the other one is Tommy Emmanuel. They’re not only great guitar players but I’m friends with both of them and I know them personally. They’re the monsters! And I mean that as a compliment. I’m not really a great guitar player but I do a thing that’s unique to me. Tommy and Mac, they can sit down and play with anybody. I can play good with myself but I don’t know how to follow other people. These guys are on another planet, as far as guitar players.

Are you a bluegrass listener?

I grew up around two types of music as a child. My dad was a preacher so I grew up around black gospel music and white bluegrass gospel music. You know, there’s a group named Balsam Range who recorded a song I wrote called “Angel Too Soon.” They had a No. 1 on the bluegrass charts and it stayed there a long time. I’m clearly not a bluegrass artist, but I have had songs covered by a top bluegrass artist. So, I have that in me. And when it’s done right, I love it Another group that I’m a big fan of — and in my opinion they do it as good as anybody — is The Isaacs. They do bluegrass gospel and when I watch them, I’m looking at excellence.

On this record, you start out with a couple of mellow songs but then you hit that R&B groove on “Sapalo.” So, I have to ask, what does that title mean?

I was watching a video on YouTube of James Brown, and before I clicked on it, the description said “James Brown High on PCP.” The premise of the video is that he’d just gotten out of jail and he was being interviewed by a very straight-laced lady, a local news anchor. It was clear from the get-go that he was high on drugs while he was doing the interview. She said, “Mr. Brown, how are things now that you’re out of jail?” She said, “How do you feel now?” And he goes, “I feel good! I look good! I smell good! It’s all good! I make love good!” He was saying all this off-the-wall stuff. Then she said, “What are your upcoming plans?” And he said, “Well, I’m going to Brazil. I’m going to São Paulo!” He said, “We’re going to JAM!”

So I was just writing down all of this stuff he was saying, and the song wound up being a song about redemption. At least in that moment, he was claiming that he had put his life back together, which he was lying to himself because he was on TV high on PCP. But I tried to spin it as everyone needs a shot at redemption. It’s about being optimistic with whatever time you’ve got left.

Listening to “You Mess Around & Get a Buzz,” I caught that Clarksdale reference right off. I know that being from Mississippi is a big part of your story, and I’m curious if you ever feel like you’re an ambassador for the state.

Well, I would only say this because you brought it up but I guess I am in some way. When I use the word “ambassador,” to me that means somebody who goes abroad and tells other people about how good it is where he lives. So, in that way I guess I am. I was very flattered a few years ago when the state of Mississippi invited me down to the capitol and they declared March 27 as Paul Thorn Day. So, I got a day! You know, most times you gotta die before you get a day.

You’ve got the same hometown as Elvis. I’m wondering, if you could have pitched him any of the songs you’ve written, which one would you pick?

That’s a hard question, man. I tell you, I wrote a song called “That’s Life.” All the words in that song were words my mother has said throughout my life. I’ve played it a lot and people like the song. If I could get one song recorded by Elvis, it would probably be “That’s Life.”

Your fans often become characters in your songs, too. It happens on this album on “Sapalo” and “Holy Hottie Toddy.” You’ve cultivated one of the most loyal fan bases that I’ve seen. What are some of the things you’ve done right, to keep people invested in you and your career?

That’s a hard question but if I had to answer, I think to get down to the brass nuts of it, they know I love them. You can say that, but a lot of artists will do their show and they walk off the stage and they’re ready to get to the hotel room. I understand that. I feel that way sometimes myself, but at every show – prior to the pandemic – on the last song I always go out into the crowd. And while I’m singing I’m hugging people and shaking people’s hands. And when that’s done I go out in the front and sign CDs and take pictures. I’ll stand there until the last one’s gone.

I don’t do it as a career strategy. I do it because those people got off work, got a babysitter, took a shower, bought a ticket, and they’re going to spend their whole evening with me. And my job is to give them my whole evening. That’s what I try to do. I think that’s why they stay with me, and I think that’s why they’re loyal. They’re loyal to me because I’m loyal to them.

Photo credit: Steve Roberts

WATCH: Foy Vance, “Wind Blows Chloe”

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Name: Foy Vance
Hometown: Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland
Song: “Wind Blows Chloe” (Live from Sun Studios)
Album: To Memphis
Release Date: September 6, 2019
Label: Gingerbread Man Records/Elektra

In Their Words: “It was Matt Ross-Spang, the co-producer on To Memphis, that first mentioned recording at Sam Phillips Recording Studios and I immediately knew it was the right move. Walking into the space confirmed that… it has hardly changed since the heyday. We had a fun couple of days recording there, but few songs were as fun to record as ‘Wind Blows Chloe.’ I wrote that for my manager’s daughter as a bit of fun. I’m looking forward to the world hearing it.” — Foy Vance

Photo credit: Gregg Houston

Calexico and Iron & Wine Reunite for ‘Years to Burn’

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Sam Beam and Joey Burns are just a few feet apart, but they can hardly hear each other. Sitting in nearby booths at a café in Washington, DC, they’re on a conference call – an old-school party line that, for all our technological advances since the invention of the telephone, isn’t working very well. As they discuss their lush, lovely new collaborative album, titled Years to Burn, they speak uncertainly, tentatively, as though testing the ground for landmines. Burns, chief singer and songwriter for the band Calexico, has to repeat himself for Beam, the man behind Iron & Wine.

This is the exact opposite of how they normally work. The sessions for Years to Burn, their first album together in nearly fifteen years, was defined by its easy, fluid communication, or sometimes by the lack of any need for communication at all. Beam’s puzzle-box lyrics reveal deeper meaning with each close listen, while Calexico’s lush accompaniment is grounded in, but not constrained by Latin American traditions as well as straightforward country rock.

The result is a record that takes more risks and yields more rewards than their strong 2005 EP, In the Reins, toggling between the dusty R&B of opener “What Heaven’s Left” to the stomping country-folk of “Father Mountain” to the Spanish-language lullaby that opens the multi-part epic “The Bitter Suite.”

“The sound we made together,” says Beam, “wasn’t about planning or conceptualizing or anything like that. We tried not to get too heavy about it. I’m always interested to hear the ideas they come up with. That’s where the joy is for me.”

Both Calexico and Iron & Wine are indie lifers, each act boasting long careers and sprawling, ambitiously diverse catalogs. Perhaps the secret to their longevity is their openness to new perspectives, new voices — in short, to collaborations like Years to Burn. What follows isn’t the precise conversation they had with the Bluegrass Situation, which was prevented by faulty technology. Instead, after speaking to them separately, their responses have been edited into something like an imagined conversation, a loose oral history of their lively new album as well as an exploration of their close collaboration.

BGS: It’s been nearly fifteen years since you released In the Reins. What made this moment a good time to follow it up?

Joey Burns: It was scheduling!

Sam Beam: “Why are we doing it now?” Is that the question? I can’t speak for Joey and John [Convertino, Calexico drummer and co-founder, who is sitting in the same café], but I always wanted to work with them again. It wasn’t a matter of us not wanting to or not having a good reason. We’d just gotten busy. We’re two different working bands, so it wasn’t very often that our schedules lined up. Finally we had to say, hey, if we don’t just make the time, if we don’t put it on the calendar, it’s never going to happen.

You recorded the album in Nashville. Why there?

SB: I’ve never recorded there before, but we’ve ended up being there a lot. We have a lot of friends who live there, so it was nice to finally work there.

JB: We did a couple of songs back in 2003 with Mark Nevers, but that was it. This time we worked at Sound Emporium with Matt Ross-Spang. Matt’s the master. And he’s got some badass hair, too. The man has got serious style.

SB: The last time we recorded, we didn’t really know each other. We learned each other through that process and from touring that record for a while. I felt like this recording session was about what we learned about each other as musicians touring on the road, although it’s hard to even compare the two sessions because they were so dramatically different.

What can you tell me about “The Bitter Suite,” which is the most elaborate arrangement on the record but also the centerpiece of Years to Burn?

JB: The simple answer is, I said to Sam, why don’t we take part of a verse of “Tennessee Train,” translate it into Spanish, and let Jacob [Valenzuela, Calexico trumpeter and vocalist] have a go at it? And we just kept on experimenting, to see what kind of direction the music would take. Then we were like, why don’t we just do some kind of groove? Because at that point there was no song yet that had a groove. So why don’t we bring that back into mix and see what happens? That song just because a variation on a theme. Sam, you came up with the title…

SB: That idea came from Sebastian [Steinberg, Iron & Wine bassist], who is always saying funny things. It’s a sober-sounding track. It’s bittersweet. So we took music that was the product of serendipity of something that happened in the studio, and we gave it a silly title. But it wasn’t planned. We just went in with these songs and tried to keep an open mind. When you’re in a room with people who have good ideas, you have to keep your ears open. But it was all just something that seemed fun at that moment.

I wish I could say there was some design to “The Bitter Suite.” There’s this thing in poetry where your brain really tries hard to make connections and make sense of things in a certain way. You put two lines together and you can dismiss them, but you can put three lines together and your brain will go nuts trying to figure out how they connect. I felt like that song was something along those lines: Let’s put together different sounds and different structures, let’s vamp on different chords and different feels, and let’s see what happens when you put them all together.

How much of the album was conceived that way?

JB: It was all completely intuitive. We received some demos from Sam a week before we met in Nashville, and I knew from experience that those demos were not necessarily set in stone. They’re just reference points. I think we were all open to them being malleable and adaptable. Plus we only had four or five days max booked for studio time. That was it. Those parameters forced us to do as much homework as we could, but also it forced us to be as open to what kinds of possibilities there could be.

If we’d had another two, three days, who knows what would have happened? But I had a lot of fun working within that framework. We didn’t invite others in, and we didn’t send track out to the other members of Calexico. It was just six musicians in the studio, the six who will go on tour. The only person outside that ensemble who played on the record was Paul Niehaus on pedal steel.

SB: Since we were only in the studio for a few days, all the decisions had to be made pretty quickly. I like that. I have a tendency to overthink things, especially if I don’t put a time limit on myself. So the album is a snapshot of what we were doing on the fly rather than the ultimate example of creative expression.

JB: Everyone is pretty comfortable behind their own instrument, so we got great sounds in that short period of time. When you start adding more layers or textures, that’s where things can sound congested… or they can sound even better. It can be tricky. Most of the record was done live. Sam’s really quite a phenomenal musician, so a lot of the basic tracks are first takes, then we added some overdubs, then we were done.

Sam, were you writing songs with these guys in mind?

SB: Not really. I finished some stuff for this. You end up with so many bits and bobs laying around that don’t fit into other songs, and they’re perfect for this kind of project. Folk-rock melodies are good for this sort of pairing, so I moved the more country-ish songs to the top of the pile. The one thing I did want to do was … bring in a finished script, one that has plenty of room for interpretation, because that was the only way to get finished in the amount of time we’re talking about.

Were there any songs that changed more than others during that process?

SB: The one we worked on the longest was the opening track, “What Heaven’s Left.” It’s really the only one where I had a more specific idea of what I wanted to get at, but I didn’t know how to communicate it. That’s why it was more difficult; I had something specific that I wanted to achieve. But even that one had lots of room, especially that full-band crunch at the end. We thought it should go longer, so we just decided to play longer and see what happened. The ending became a whole separate thing, just letting the ideas take hold and not limiting yourself and capturing what you’re feeling.

JB: That was one of those things where we had recorded the song and then listened back, and it must have been Sam who said, what if we just kept on playing? It feels like the song ends too soon. Then Jacob arrived; he came on day three. So we thought, why not just add him to the outro? I really enjoyed that moment, and it’s one of my favorite songs on the record.

SB: The guys in Calexico are very sensitive listeners, not just in terms of the music but the point of the song: What’s happening here? What are we trying to communicate? That’s something you don’t always get to talk about. Also, they like to rock the fuck out as often as possible. I trust them enough that even if we get into some kind of argument, they’re going to be feeling it just as much as me, so I should at least listen to them.

Were there any disagreements?

SB: No, we didn’t really have time! Everybody was being really supportive. There was never a shortage of ideas, so it was just a matter of how to politely say we need to concentrate on this or that if we’re going to get anything done.

JB: This was one of those instances where the music really reflects your inner voice. Every turn we took just seemed to come about naturally and effortlessly. I think we all expected we’d probably walk away with another EP, like In the Reins, which would have been great, but we wound up having such a good time and getting through the songs quickly enough that we came up with something much bigger and more experimental.

Photo credit: Piper Ferguson

At Your Service: A Conversation With Nicki Bluhm

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Nicki Bluhm is venturing out on her own with her newly-released solo album, To Rise You Gotta Fall. The aptly titled album chronicles her life since her split from her husband and musical collaborator, Tim Bluhm, and subsequent departure from the Gramblers two years ago. Seeking a change of scenery and a new challenge, the lifelong California resident acted on impulse and made a cross-country move to Nashville in 2017.

To Rise You Gotta Fall, produced by Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price), features a collaboration with Ryan Adams (“Battlechain Rose”), as well as a Dan Penn cover (“I Hate You”). It was recorded in the legendary Sam Phillips Recording studio in Memphis and captures the raw emotion she poured into her writing over the two-year period. Each song is a different phase in a process of grieving and letting go — a testament that sometimes something beautiful comes out of our darkest times.

When you’re paying homage to that Memphis sound, you get something that’s tinged with nostalgia, but also totally its own and new. Did recording at Sam Phillips Recording play into that sound?

Yeah, I think so, for sure. Matt Ross-Spang produced the record and he’s a Memphian. He basically started working at Sun Records when he was a teenager. His parents got him a session for his birthday to record there. He quickly realized that he wanted to be on the other side of the experience, in the control room, and he started working at Sun as a young teenager.

Then when they started to understand his commitment and passion, and love of that era, and all of the gear that they were using at that time, the people at Sun were like, “Well, we’ve got Sam Phillips Recording Service.” which Sam built in 1958. It has really been left untouched. I mean, it looks the same. All of the decor is the same, everything short of the cigarette butts in Sam Phillips’ office. Sam’s office is exactly the same. So Matt has really been like a steward of reviving Sam Phillips.

How did that factor into you working together?

His love of that era of music is very pure and real. We have so much overlap of the things that we love in music. From my first meeting with him, I knew that we were going to agree on a lot sonically, and also pull inspiration from similar places. One of the records that he sent me to listen to was a Bobby Charles record, which, unbeknownst to him, is one of my favorite records. It’s just like, “Okay, we have a lot of commonality.”

Your record was all done analog, too, right?

Yep. We did it all to tape. We recorded it live and we tracked, I think, everything in five days. At the time, I didn’t really think – I thought that the band would get the songs and I would sing scratch. But I realized I had never met the band before. I entrusted Matt to choose the players and he did a spectacular job. I was beyond happy with the guys who played on the record but I hadn’t met a single one of them. They really hadn’t heard any of the demos either. Maybe Matt had shared the demos with them but it was really day-of stuff.

I realized really quickly that I was going to have to sing for real, because I needed to show them where I wanted the energy and where I wanted the arc of the song. It was a really cool experience. I had a straight sight line to all of them. Particularly Ken Coomer on drums. There was a realness to it. That was really inspiring. It made me fall back into that time where I knew I wasn’t going to, nor did I want to, overanalyze or bring out the microscope. I just wanted to capture the moment, and not get in my head about all the small details and nitpick stuff. So it was a great space, and a great group of people to make that happen.

Obviously, you’re a songwriter, so all songs are personal in some sense, but these are especially personal. Is there ever a fear when you’re writing that something is too personal? Or is it more of a relief that those thoughts and feelings are going to be out there for people to relate to?

Totally. It’s super vulnerable. I felt like I didn’t really have a choice. I tried not to be cruel, but I had to speak my truth, and that was important to me. I didn’t have the opportunity to have a lot of closure or conversations towards the end of this relationship that ended. So this was kind of my way of getting through that, and coming to terms with it, and getting those ruminating thoughts out of my mind, because I knew the toxicity of keeping them in. You have to allow those feelings to happen, you know?

Definitely.

They’re going to happen. And I felt like this was a healthy way for me to move through it. Now, singing them on the stage in front of a bunch of people — I’ve had to do that for the last six months by myself, because I’ve been on these solo tours, and I have solo tours opening for Lukas Nelson, and Josh Ritter, and just recently, the Wood Brothers. I’ve definitely felt what that was going to feel like.

Is it more difficult to do it in a live setting?

It was super vulnerable but at this point it’s almost like a service. It sounds weird but it’s almost like a service I’m providing because we all go through this stuff. For me, music has gotten me through so many hard times. It is comforting to know you’re not the only person that’s suffering and struggling.

While it’s really vulnerable and scary to get up and voice that in front of strangers, it’s really inspiring and comforting when, after the show, I go to the merch table, like I do every night, and people come up with tears in their eyes because they’re going through something similar. Or something has helped them.

For sure. One of the songs on the album that got my attention, and I think it’s because there’s such a cool juxtaposition, was “I Hate You.” It’s not what you expect it to be.

It’s a fantastic song. I didn’t write that. I wish I did. But it’s so good.

Your vocal on it is fantastic because it’s just so raw. But then, you’ve got that Hammond organ in the background, and it reminds me of walking into a Southern Baptist church or something. There’s such a cool contrast there, and that it could be such a melancholy kind of song, but it’s got this odd optimism behind it, too.

It’s interesting because there were definitely many conversations over that song between the creative and the business roles within my camp. The business side was like, “Oh, this is really harsh. This is really harsh language.” And from the creative side, we were like, “You’ve got to listen closer.”

It sounds at first listen like it’s scathing, and by the title, you might think that. But it’s not. It was written by a guy named Dan Penn. When I got together with Matt, he suggested we put a cover on the record. I was like, “Well, if we’re going to do that, I want to pay homage to Memphis. I want to do something that is of that area.” Matt is obsessed with Dan Penn. I heard that song, and I was like, “Wow. That’s it.” So we recorded it, and a month later, I was at my friend AJ Croce’s album release show, which turns out Dan Penn produced, and Dan Penn was there.

So I was introduced to Dan Penn and his wife, and my friend was like, “Dan, I want you to meet Nicki. She just put your song, ‘I Hate You,’ on her record.” His wife’s face just lit up and she was like, “I love that song so much.” She goes, “It sounds mean but he said, ‘I’m trying to hate you.’ And I should know, because that song’s about me.”

It was just so cute, and such an amazing moment to have recorded that song — and to meet the very person who it was written about, and written by. It was this really amazing, full-circle Tennessee moment for me. It’s true. Emotions aren’t always straightforward. You can love someone and hate them at the same time, and that’s confusing. Human emotions are very complex. I think that song does a great job of displaying that in a really simple way. But you have to be open to hearing that juxtaposition.

The first thing that struck me listening to the title track was that it’s probably not one of the first ones you wrote. Was that one that came toward the end?

It did. I had moved out. I had moved into what I call my healing nest, which was this amazing studio in Sausalito, California, owned by my dear friend. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Sausalito but it’s beautiful and it’s on the water. I had this gorgeous view from where I lived, and it was just me and my cat. I was really feeling the support of my girlfriends and my family.

I had come out of such a dark place. Again, not that I didn’t return back to that dark place after I wrote that song, but it was definitely a respite in time, or a part of that process where I saw some blue sky, which was a huge relief. When you’re deep in it, any relief from that darkness is so welcomed, and for me, that song was a gift because it just made me feel better. I remember the day I wrote it. I was literally smoking a joint on my deck with my cat, and I got into that groove, and it just happened. It was one of those songs that happened quickly, and it just made me feel good.

This is a record that a lot of people could pull off the shelf and use it to make themselves feel better about anything they’re going through. What are some albums that you pull out when you’re going through a hard time?

Oh, well always Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, because I love her. Talk about articulating feelings and situations and scenes. She is a master of that. And then, I will just go and binge on J.J. Cale. I’ll listen to J.J. Cale for like a month straight. I love Stan Getz. I love a lot of jazz. I don’t know if it makes me feel close to my dad. But like, you know, a glass of white wine and some Coltrane or Getz, or something like that, always makes me feel relaxed and good. I mean, the list just goes on and on.

Photo credit: Noah Adams