Tag: Mindy Smith

LISTEN: Maia Sharp, “She’ll Let Herself Out”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Maia Sharp
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “She’ll Let Herself Out”
Album: Reckless Thoughts
Release Date: August 18, 2023
Label: Crooked Crown

In Their Words: “I was walking around mulling over the line ‘she’ll let herself out’ for a long time before I brought it into a co-write with Dean Fields (also a co-writer on ‘Kind’ with Mindy Smith). I knew he could help me make sure we got the most out of the two angles: the conversational and the revelational. The perspective needed to be casual and powerful with the same words. Then the challenge for me was to make the production stay true to that mission by having a swagger and a drive at the same time. It took me down a few pre-production rabbit holes for sure. One was too urgent, one was too laid back and then I found that middle ground and brought those preliminary tracks to my all-star band of Joshua Grange, Ross McReynolds and Will Honaker, who solidified the hell out of it.” – Maia Sharp

Photo Credit: Anna Haas

Canon Fodder: Mindy Smith, ‘One Moment More’

Posted on by Editor

I didn’t want to hear “Come to Jesus” in 2004. As the first single from Mindy Smith’s debut album, One Moment More, it’s a gentle pop hymn, delivered in the voice of a parent comforting a child. “Oh, my baby, when you’re prayin’,” Smith sings, “leave your burden by my door. You have Jesus standing by your bedside to keep you calm, to keep you safe, away from harm.” With a subdued roots accompaniment, Smith follows that child throughout her life, documenting her changing emotional needs as well as her changing relationship with her beloved parent. Her vocals lack twang, but they have a steadiness that seems to arise from the certainty of her faith that mother and child will be united in the next life. “Here in heaven we will wait for you arrival, here in heaven you will understand.”

Smith was writing from experience. In 1991 her mother died of cancer — a loss so cataclysmic that she and her father found it too painful to live in their small Long Island hometown. So they headed south, and Smith enrolled at Cincinnati Bible College (now Cincinnati Christian University), although she has said that decision was motivated by her desire to connect with some of her mother’s old acquaintances. When she released One Moment More thirteen years after her mother’s death, Smith filled it with songs of loss, recovery, and renewal. On “Raggedy Ann” she compares herself to a childhood doll whose seams are fraying and whose stuffing is coming out. On “Angel Doves” she reassures herself that “God is soaring above a world that is running out of love.” Musically, she melds several traditions and styles, from contemporary country to contemporary Christian, into a sound that never announces its ambitions or lets them interfere with her lyrics.

I didn’t want to hear any of it at the time. In 2004 I was still raw from a similar loss, the death of my father in 2002 after a long battle with brain cancer. I watched as one of the sharpest minds gradually lost his ability to speak or communicate in any way. I watched as one of the most generous hearts I’ve ever known lost his ability to recognize his sons. A church deacon and a small-town lawyer, he died just a few short months before the birth of his first grandchild and namesake, which seemed too cruel for me to comprehend. It shook me to my core, and I struggled to reconcile the God I had heard about in my small-town Southern Baptist church with the God who would strike down a good, humble man like my father. It felt like there was too much chance and chaos in the world for it to be overseen by a loving God, and I admit I grew angry and resentful.

Even two years later, the consolations that Smith sings about in “Come to Jesus” — namely, the promise that we will meet our loved ones in heaven — sounded cheap. I was tired of empty reassurances designed to rush someone through his grief, to dam up those messy emotions so others wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. I was sick of having people clasp my shoulder sympathetically to tell me that everything happens for a reason. The idea that we could not possibly understand anything in this life, that we must wait until the next one to get any satisfactory answers, hit my ears with a vulgar dissonance. Ungenerous to all others in my confusion, I rejected what I thought were easy excuses and nursed my own angers and sadness. It felt righteous, in a peculiar way, and honest.

“Come to Jesus” is fifteen years old in 2019, and I am fifteen years older. Now when I hear the song, I listen with very different ears. I listen as someone whose life and livelihood involve absorbing all kinds of music constantly, which means that I hopefully have a better sense of Smith inhabiting and innovating these different genres. More crucially, I listen as someone who has grown spiritually and emotionally, who has further processed the tragedy of my father’s death, who has shed so much of that anger that once seemed so essential to survival. I can hear Smith’s song not as a litany of spiritual excuses, but as an expression of someone still grieving, still trying to work through the mayhem of grief in the hope that she might locate some essential truth of life. Her truth is different from mine, but it sounds like she had something healthier than anger to sustain her. And I can be moved by her song now in a way I couldn’t when I was younger.

So it was only in the last few weeks that I finally listened to One Moment More in its entirety and made it to the title track, which closes the album. That might have been too much for my 15-years-ago self to hear. It’s a song about leavetaking, general enough that it could be sung to a lover or a friend or anyone whose departure would upend someone else’s life. But we know it’s not that. We know that is song is about her mother, which makes the chorus sound even more desperate: “Oh, please don’t go,” Smith sings, that faithful steadiness having left her voice. “Let me have you just one moment more.” There is no poetry in that lyric, which only makes her pleading more powerful. It sounds more direct, more desperate, the emotional need stronger than pen and paper could hold.

The composure Smith shows on “Come to Jesus” has eroded into uncertainty. “Tell me that one day you’ll be returning, and maybe, maybe I’ll believe.” It’s that extra “maybe” that sells the sentiment, that conveys her struggle to maintain her faith. Ultimately, the arc of One Moment More veers from certainty to doubt, which seems unusual. Most albums, especially Christian or country albums from this era, would rather end on a note of certitude and firm belief, because the story of overcoming tragedy is attractive and reassuring. But Smith knows you never truly recover from grief. It grips and marks you for the rest of your life. We will mourn our parents until we die, and at this point in my life, that idea is inexplicably comforting.

Photo credit: Fairlight Hubbard

The String – Mindy Smith

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

Fifteen years ago, Mindy Smith rocketed from local sets in Nashville to the national stage in a matter of a few months on the strength of a duet on “Jolene” with Dolly Parton and the January 2004 release of her debut album One Moment More.

LISTEN: APPLE MUSIC

She became the first winner of the Americana Music Association Emerging Artist award, and wide audiences embraced her empathic songs and translucent voice. The years since have seen periods of high profile touring and periods of quiet. She’s preparing to step back out and working on a new album. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary release of One Moment More on vinyl, we catch up about her life and path and a recent discovery.

LISTEN: Danny Burns, “North Country”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Danny Burns
Hometown: Ballyshannon, County Donegal, Ireland
Song: “North Country”
Album: North Country
Release Date: January 18, 2019
Label: Bonfire Recording Co.

In Their Words: “I wrote this about the indigenous people of the island of Ireland engaging the Vikings in Viking raids! I started writing this on the banks of Lough Melvin looking up at Rossinver Mountain in the village of Garrison in County Fermanagh where my family are from. This song took many years to take shape and present itself to me; I started this maybe in 2001 and it was finished in 2015. When we went in to cut it in Nashville with Mindy Smith, Sam Bush, and Chessboxer, they were able to add depth and mood to this historical story.” — Danny Burns

Photo credit Jacob Blickenstaff

The Producers: Lex Price

Posted on by Editor

Lex Price started early. As an eight-year-old growing up in Maryland, he became obsessed with the mandolin after seeing his cousin’s bluegrass band. When his father bought him one, he taught himself to play by listening to Sam Bush and David Grisman. Later, he graduated to guitar and bass.

But it was his Tascam four-track that held special interest for him. He turned his bedroom into a makeshift studio and turned himself into a one-man band. “I think I was 10 or 11,” he recalls. “I had a Tascam four-track that I recorded with constantly, just overdubbing myself over myself. That was my favorite thing. I didn’t put the pieces together that I could make a career out of it.”

And yet, that’s just what Price has done, albeit gradually. After recording his first album at 12 years old and gigging with alt-country bands in the ‘90s, he moved to Nashville and started playing bass for k.d. lang. During that time, he gradually migrated to a spot behind the board, never with any set plan, but with an adaptability that has become his calling card.

Through his work with Mindy Smith, Robby Hecht, Peter Bradley Adams, and others, Price displays considerable range and a sensitive ear for nuanced roots arrangements that complement but never overpower the vocals. On his records, the music usually works like a soundtrack to score the stories told in and the emotions conjured by the lyrics.

How did you move into production?

The first time I even considered it was when I was working with an artist name Clare Burson. This was 2003, I think, and we had been playing together for a couple of years. She was talking about making her first record, and it just seemed like a natural thing that I would play on it. Then she asked if I wanted to help produce it. Up until that point, that hadn’t been something I was pursuing, but I helped to produce that record and it sparked something in me. I loved it. That was the beginning.

So this wasn’t something you set out to do. It wasn’t necessarily a life-long ambition.

No, not at all. I wanted to play on records. That’s what I wanted to do since I was a kid. I always thought that was the end goal. I hadn’t even considered producing until we made Clare’s record, which I think we did in three days. I had moved to Nashville in 1998 or 1999 and, the first few years, I was trying to figure out what my place was here. I worked some odd jobs and started playing with people. I gravitated toward singer/songwriters — being a sideman for them. Clare’s album was about four years after I had been here, and that was really my first studio experience in Nashville. It really hit me hard, and I fell in love with the process.

That was your first studio gig? That’s really a trial by fire.

It was. But it wasn’t that scary, because we had been working together and we were friends. We just went in the studio, spent the three days, and that was that. There wasn’t time to overthink it. We had a great band and that was all we needed. And that’s still my favorite approach — to have a roomful of people and everyone feeding off each other. I enjoy that a lot more than building tracks, at least at this point in my life.

How do you prepare for a session? What kinds of conversations are you having with artists before you go in the studio?

The first conversation is always about the songs. I like for them to send me as many songs as they have, even stuff they might have forgotten about. Everything. At that point, I listen to all of them and start to choose songs and talk to them about that. You can get to know someone discussing their songs over a period of time. That’s the doorway into the next part of it, which would be figuring out what kind of vibe they’re going for.

Then we talk studios — what type of surroundings would be comfortable for them. Everybody’s different. For some folks, making a record means going to a very expensive studio. Well, maybe “expensive” isn’t the word. A very professional studio. But some people find that intimidating and they’d rather do it in a small studio, maybe a home studio. It’s all about the different situations you can get yourself into. And budget always plays a big role. Ultimately, it’s just getting to know someone and trying to figure out what’s going to make them comfortable, what’s going to make them feel like performing and having fun. I guess making them comfortable is a big part of my job.

Tell me about your studio. Where are you most comfortable?

I have my own studio that I mix out of, where I do overdubs. Then, for tracking, Nashville is a great place for studios. Specifically, I like Sound Emporium and Southern Ground. I’ve worked at those two quite a bit. The rooms just sound really good. The folks that run them and work there are fantastic. And great gear, for sure. Everything is dialed in really well. I have some friends with great tracking rooms, as well. It’s all budget dependent, wherever we end up. My process usually involves tracking at a studio that’s not mine. I get as much done as I can in that room, then bring it back to my place where I can finish it out with vocals or any overdubs that need to happen. Then I mix it and that’s it.

It sounds like those experiences as a musician inform your production work, but does it go in the opposite direction? How has your work as a producer informed your work as a sideman?

My hope is that I can see the big picture better while I’m playing and not just worry about myself. Mixing, too, informs how I play. If I’m hired as a session player, it definitely helps knowing what the engineer and the producer are going to have to deal with at the end of the project.

One distinctive aspect of your production is the emphasis on the vocals. Everything revolves around the singer’s voice, complementing it but never intruding on that space.

That’s incredibly important to me. I think I attract singer/songwriters who want that, as well. They want the lyric and the voice to be the center of it all, so I try to stay out of the way. The longer I do this, the more my goal is to be transparent as a producer and not put too much of my sound into it. I really want to get the song over. That’s what I’m thinking about going in and that’s what I’m thinking about through the whole process — somehow staying out of the way, but also helping to steer the whole project.

It’s like the Wizard of Oz: You have to stay behind the curtain but still pull all the strings — on a technical and aesthetic level, but it sounds like also on a social level.

A lot of it is social. That’s the trick. I don’t even know what to say about that. But it is true. You’re working with so many different personalities, and it’s so stressful for the artist. There’s always so much to worry about. My job is to do whatever I can to take your mind off those worries.

You’ve worked with artists on multiple albums — four albums for Peter Bradley Adams, two or three by the Westies. Is it easier to reach that point of comfort after you’ve gone through the process together, or does it reset itself every time?

I think it does make it easier. Peter and I have worked together for years now. We’re just wrapping up a new one, in fact. So we know each other very well. I think that helps. It’s a good question. I did a few with Robby Hecht. I think I’ve done three with him. It’s always nice to have people come back to do more records, and knowing their personalities certainly does help. It’s not like it’s any easier making the record, but there are certain aspects that you can foresee.

The first record you make with somebody, there are a lot of unknowns and that’s really exciting. You’re getting to know each other, and there’s a lot of fun in that. I’ve been fortunate that the folks I’ve been working with are all such cool people, and they have a good vision of what they want. We just all collaborate really well together. And we’ve ended up being friends, too, which is one of the best parts of doing this.

How did you meet?

With Peter, the way we met is, we ended up playing shows together. We played some shows with Clare Burson years ago as a trio, and we got to know each other and started making records together. With Mindy, a friend of mine brought her over to my house. My friend was like, "Hey, you have to hear her sing." This was before she had put out her first record. Our friend was trying to introduce us as music people, and we sat there and jammed for an hour or two. It was incredible. She played all of her songs that would end up on her first record. I was just blown away. We became friends and started playing together, then she made her first record and invited me to play on it. We worked together for years after that. When it was time to make a second record, she asked me to co-produce it with her. So it all stemmed from playing shows and working on tours.

We were talking about the emphasis on the voice, but it also sounds like you work with a lot of storytellers. Does that inform your approach? I’m thinking in particular of something like Mindy’s Long Island Shores, which has a very cinematic sound.

I don’t know exactly what my approach will be, but I am thinking about it. When I listen back to a song, I’m listening to the lyrics and the voice and I’m trying not to get caught up in all the little details. I’m just trying to listen to the song. If the song has made it through, then I know we’re on to something. I feel like that’s something I’m getting better at as the years go by — not getting caught up in the details. If the song is good and the performance is good, then you’re golden.

Photo credit: CJ Hicks