Tag: mississippi

WATCH: Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, “Long Distance Woman”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Hometown: Clarksdale, Mississippi
Song: “Long Distance Woman”
Album: 662
Release Date: July 23, 2021
Label: Alligator Records

In Their Words: “Maintaining a healthy relationship is already hard and when you sprinkle in distance it can make matters of the heart particularly taxing. Covid certainly changed and tested how we all communicate. So as a response to the times, using video chat, the ‘Long Distance Woman’ visuals speak to how romantic relationships can be challenged by proximity.” — Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

Editor’s Note: Read our BGS interview with Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

Photo Credit: Justin Hardiman

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: Elder Jack Ward, “The Way Is Already Made”

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Artist: Elder Jack Ward
Hometown: Itta Bena, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee
Song: “The Way Is Already Made”
Album: Already Made
Release Date: August 20, 2021
Label: Bible & Tire Recording Co.

In Their Words: “I can just about sing anything anyone else sings. I never bragged on myself, but this was a gift from God and the Bible says, ‘A gift comes without repentance.’ In other words, you don’t have to be a Christian to be able to sing. If you’ve got that God-given gift you can do it — your choice if you want to sing rock ‘n’ roll, blues, gospel — but I choose the right side.” — Elder Jack Ward

Photo credit: Matt White

A Blues Sensation, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram Tells His Story on ‘662’

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Christone “Kingfish” Ingram seemed to come out of nowhere with his 2019 Alligator Records debut Kingfish. At 20 years old, the native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, emerged as a fully-formed guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter and was quickly hailed as a defining blues voice of his generation. Since then, he’s toured the nation, performed with acts ranging from alt-rockers Vampire Weekend to Americana star Jason Isbell to blues godfather Buddy Guy.

In the midst of all this success, just as his career was taking off amidst over a year of non-stop touring, he lost his mother, Princess Pride Ingram, a devastating blow that the young man had to overcome.

“She was the biggest supporter that I had,” says Ingram, who is now 22. “She took care of all my business and she didn’t mess around about her baby. She was everything: she was the bodyguard, the manager, the handler. She christened the people who she wanted me to look after me, a few people who had already taken me on as their own, so she knew we were gonna be all right.”

All of this life experience is reflected on Ingram’s second album, 662, named after the area code for his North Mississippi home. Like his debut, 662 was co-written and co-produced by Tom Hambridge, who also collaborates with Buddy Guy. The joint connection is no coincidence.

“I met Tom in 2017 through Mr. Buddy Guy,” says Ingram. “Mr. Guy is the one who fronted the first record and he put us with Tom. Our first writing session together went so smoothly that we got six songs done that day. It was very cool. He’ll spend time listening to the stories that I tell him and we will put our heads together on a groove. We basically bounce ideas off each other until we have a song. The main thing is we’re trying to tell my story.”

Ingram’s story shines through on 662 songs like “Rock and Roll,” which directly addresses his mother’s passing. He says that transferring his emotions into a song was a key part of his grieving process.

“It definitely helped because music has always been my out,” he says. “I never had been a big talker, but I’ve always been able to get my fears and thoughts out through music. There are times when music doesn’t work and tears just have to fall, but most of the time, music is how I get it out. It was a big relief for me. Big time relief.”

Ingram’s personal story about growing up in the Delta, home of the blues, and picking up the torch is also told explicitly in the song “Too Young to Remember,” where the chorus states “I’m too young to remember, but I’m old enough to know.” The song also includes the evocative line, “When you see me play my guitar, you’re looking back 100 years.”

“That’s me representing all the greats that I studied,” says Ingram. “Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, Johnny Shines, Robert Nighthawk, Albert King, Otis Rush, B.B. King, Buddy Guy… all those guys that I soaked up, including stuff I’ve gotten from my local blues players. All of that represents way more than 100 years of our history and tradition — maybe 300 years — and it’s important to me.”

Ingram was first exposed to the blues by his father, who showed him a Muddy Waters documentary that drew him in, and then showed him B.B. King’s cameo appearance on Sanford and Son, an underrated moment in the history of the blues. Young Christone was also inspired by the blues band that lived next door to him. But what really turned Ingram from a passive fan of the blues into an active participant was his enrollment in a music education program at the Delta Blues Museum.

“That was the foundation for me,” he says. “When I went there, not only did they teach me how to play but I got a chance to understand more about the blues, where it came from and the history of great blues men and women, many of whom were from the same part of the world as me. Not only did we study songs and instruments and whatnot, but they had these file cabinets they would open up and take out files where we’d read blues stories and have conversations about them. It was a full-on arts education program, a very important part of my development. Before the Blues Museum I sort of knew about the history but I didn’t know it was that important.”

Kingfish focused mostly on hard-driving blues shuffles, though it also included a wider range of material: “Listen,” a gorgeous, upbeat, melodic duet with Keb’ Mo’; “Been Here Before,” an acoustic deep blues that explored his own outsider status as a kid digging an ancient musical form; and a couple of aching slow ballads, highlighted by “That’s Fine By Me.”

662 continues to dig deeper into a wider range of material. “That’s All It Takes” is a beautiful ballad punctuated by surging horn charts and Ingram’s sweet guitar fills framing his aching vocal. “Rock and Roll” and “You’re Already Gone” feature gentle, nuanced singing and swinging, non-blues-based acoustic picking. Indeed, while Hopkins, House, and Shines are the acoustic blues players that Ingram says were his primary influences, they’re not the first unplugged players who come out of his mouth when asked who’s currently inspiring him the most. That would be Tommy Emmanuel and Monte Montgomery, two virtuosos conversant with the blues, but certainly not wedded to the genre.

Ingram considers his acoustic playing essential to his music, featured on stage every night, with him playing duets with the keyboardist. “I love playing acoustic and switching up the dynamics,” he says. “I like to bring the energy up real high and then bring it down.”

As rooted as Ingram is in the roots of the blues, he has also been a proponent of bringing the music into the future, collaborating with peers and with hip hop musicians. Even before his first album was released, he recorded two songs for the streaming series Luke Cage with hip hop artist Rakim, with whom he performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts.

“I always wanted to do something with blues and hip hop, because hip hop is like the blues’ grandchild,” he says. “We have something like that planned down the road that I can’t discuss yet but I’m really excited about. Working with Rakim was the foundation of me wanting to play real instruments behind rappers. That’s a really great path.”

Working with older musicians from Rakim to Guy also allowed Ingram to observe how to be more professional. When he first started, he was playing covers and took pride in not making setlists, instead just following his instincts.

“In order to have a structured show, you have to have a setlist, so I started to make them and to really work on arrangements instead of just playing,” he says. “All of that worked and then playing all these shows, now I feel like I have more confidence up there. I still get nervous but I have confidence behind it.”

Part of Ingram’s growing confidence is due to simple maturity. Part is due to the reaction of fellow musicians. And part is just watching the crowd and seeing their enthusiastic response. As his touring has grown ever wider, his crowds ever larger, positive reinforcement is the natural consequence of seeing positive response.

“In that moment it really does give me more confidence to see the crowd enjoying it,” he says. “It gives me a sigh of relief and makes me say, ‘Maybe what I’m doing is all right. Somebody likes it.”

Photo credit: Justin Hardiman

WATCH: Charlie Worsham, “Half Drunk”

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Artist: Charlie Worsham
Hometown: Grenada, Mississippi
Song: “Half Drunk”
Album: Sugarcane EP
Release Date: July 16, 2021
Label: Warner Music Nashville

In Their Words: “‘Half Drunk’ tells the story of the first time I told my wife I loved her. I’d just been fired by my publisher and my manager had quit management that week, but I was singing that day in one of my favorite rooms in all the world, the Station Inn. Powered by Yazoo Pale Ale, applause, and a sense that this girl I was crazy about might just be more special and more permanent than the whole music industry thing, I turned to Kristen, said those three magic words, and she said ‘I love you too.’ I hope this song inspires a lot of drunken making out and maybe a few last-time-saying-I-love-you-for-the-first-time moments.” — Charlie Worsham

Photo credit: Jason Myers

LISTEN: Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, “662”

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Artist: Christone “Kingfish” Ingram
Hometown: Clarksdale, Mississippi
Song: “662”
Release Date: May 11, 2021
Label: Alligator Records

In Their Words: “‘662’ is an ode to my roots, a nod to the area where I was born and raised. This is a track that encompasses how a small corner of the Earth influenced my view of life and music. This song also points to the growth I have had since my debut album. As much as I have been fortunate to get ‘Outside of This Town’ [his breakout single], I do want people to know that the ‘662’ will always be a major part of who I am.” — Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

Photo credit: Laura Carbone

Garrison Starr’s ‘Girl I Used to Be’ Makes Peace With the Woman She Is Now

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For the last decade, many queer singer-songwriters have doubled down on laconic melancholy, so it’s pleasant to hear Garrison Starr’s new album, Girl I Used to Be, has the ease of Dave Matthews or Sheryl Crow, but Starr is more open about her sexuality on this album than her previous work. At 45, she is older than a cluster of younger generation of performers (some queer, some writing about queerness) who are still working through experiences of gender, sexuality, and religion.

Listening to her new album, one can hear connections to work like Semler’s “Youth Group,” a small, pointed folk song about discovering that you are queer after a youth group lock-in, or Stephanie Lambring’s lacerating attack against homophobia, “Joys of Jesus.” There are also echoes of the joyous call for selfhood in some of Katie Pruitt’s best work. Starr has written with Pruitt, and “The Devil in Me” from Girl I Used to Be was at first intended for her.

“I was sure that would be a song for Katie’s upcoming record,” Starr tells BGS in an email interview. “But she didn’t take to it like I did, and truthfully, I’m happy because I realize how much that song really is a biography of my experience and of my questions as well. I love the curiosity in it and the sense of breaking away from something that doesn’t serve me anymore. I’m not sure where I fit in with Christianity at this point and even if I’m drawn to it, really. The hypocrisy and elitism, at least in the evangelical church, is repulsive to me, and though I think the story of Jesus’ love and redemption is the best thing about any of it, I’m still searching. I believe in a power greater than myself that I choose to call God — that’s all I really know.”

Lyrically there are places where Girl I Used to Be points to the woman she is now, while still drawing on the memories of her childhood in Mississippi, trying to fit in. This merging of past and present give Starr an authority which leads to a commitment to declarative sentences via a voice that is often plainer and clearer than younger queer performers. She is most declarative about issues of sexuality and geography, particularly on her best West Coast songs.

On “Downtown Hollywood,” Starr tells the story of a runaway that gradually shifts from third-person into first-person. She sings about how “they were raising and they were failing” and trying to “cash it all in.” It has a jab against kids with so much privilege that they didn’t need to grow up, and thus, is a grown-up song, almost burnt out, almost jaded about a town Starr still claims to love.

“My only advice to anybody is to find your authenticity, lean into it and never look back,” she says about her adopted hometown. “Los Angeles is a funny place… it’s changed so much and it hasn’t changed at all. The homeless situation here is definitely worse since I came in the late ‘90s. Some of my favorite old haunts aren’t there anymore, but new stuff has popped up in its place. The hustle, the funkiness, the freedom and the hills haven’t changed, and that’s really what made me fall in love with it in the first place.”

Starr grew up in the Deep South, spending some of her undergrad years at Ole Miss, where she was in a sorority. Feeling restricted in that environment, she moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Her major label debut, Eighteen Over Me, was released by Geffen in 1997, and the sudden attention was complex for this queer songwriter. She has mentioned in an interview with Mississippi Today that in her mid-1990s heyday she was told by handlers not to butch it up too much, to avoid the tomboy aesthetic.

Her subsequent career was as an independent touring artist and a successful jobbing musician. She has sung back up for Mary Chapin Carpenter, worked with Josh Joplin, covered the Indigo Girls, and ended up on the soundtrack to multiple television shows, including The Fosters and Grey’s Anatomy. In 2019, her song “Better Day Comin’” was featured in a trailer for the Oscar-nominated Mister Rogers biopic, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. In addition, her production credits include Margaret Cho’s Grammy-nominated comedy album, American Tragedy. “Margaret is one of the most generous and down to earth people on the planet. I am grateful to know her and have had the opportunity to work with her,” Starr says.

Girl I Used to Be builds upon all of this complex history, while at the same time, provides a way into the future.

“I’ve spent a lot more time in my studio, working on production and mixing, and I’ve been able to continue to create content,” she says about the past year. “My business hasn’t been dependent on touring, thank god. I realized a while ago that if I want to make a living in this business, I gotta figure out how to diversify. So, I write a lot of songs with a lot of people, and I make sure some of them make it into TV and film so I can afford to be an artist for a living.”

Like many contemporary singer-songwriters, a paradox exists between the authority she shows in her music and the helplessness she felt about the political situation as she was writing the record. She says that the song “Dam That’s Breaking” is a response to the administration of the 45th president. He was, she says, “empowered and embraced by evangelicals, even though they knew it was wrong. It’s definitely about religious hypocrisy as well as greed and power, cowardice, selfishness and everything else that makes you feel like the walls are closing in on you and you are powerless to stop it.”

What Starr has to say about long-won battles, about landscape, and about power, through the lens of knowing, has something to teach younger queer artists, and can be an example for a young artist striving to write with a strong sense of place, delicate emotion, and a talent for observation. For example, her song “Train That’s Bound for Glory” is inspired by a remark by her late grandfather at his birthday party.

“He loved to goof around and he loved to pick on you,” she says. “They were singing him ‘Happy Birthday,’ and he carried on about not being around for his next birthday and that it was ‘probably gonna be my last birthday. … He ended it with, ‘Yep, I can hear the whistle on the train that’s bound for glory, calling me home.’ I knew of the Guthrie song, but I had honestly never heard it until after I wrote my version.”

As a whole, Girl I Used to Be answers the question of who the girl is now: a queer woman attempting to reconcile her history and her present. She embodies a queer desire to reinvent oneself in another space. You can have a career anywhere these days, and stories of the Midwest and the South have become central to new LGBTQIA stories — and so the exile motif in Starr’s work might be another kind of lived-in quality. Her experience shows that finding home does not mean exile.

One such example is “Make Peace With It,” among the album’s most trenchant moments. Starr says, “Well, the lyric is, ‘If I’m ever gonna live this life, I gotta make peace with it.’ I was thinking in that moment about how much I was struggling to hold onto blame for the rejection I experienced in the church, for the way I felt like my career wasn’t working like I wanted it to, and name whatever else I felt victim to for a long time in my life. I finally got to a place, through what I’m calling grace, and I’ll explain that in a second, where I realized I’d rather be happy than be right. (Thank you, Alanon.).”

She concludes, “What I mean by grace is that there have been so many times in my life where I have been accepted, as I am, by people who truly love me, when I’ve been at my absolute worst. That is what I mean when I say grace. Grace is love, no matter what.”

Photo credit: Heather Holty-Newton

Jake Blount, “Goodbye, Honey, You Call That Gone”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The title of banjoist, fiddler, and ethnomusicologist Jake Blount’s upcoming album, Spider Tales, is a reference to Anansi the Spider, a folklore character of the Akan people of West Africa. Says Blount, “The Anansi were tales that celebrated unseating the oppressor, and finding ways to undermine those in power even if you’re not in a position to initiate a direct conflict.” 

With such a deft, succinct mission, Blount takes a vibrant and dense, harlequin cultural tradition — which has lived on across the African diaspora, brought to the United States and colonies in this hemisphere by enslaved Africans — and applies it to a collection of old-time tunes in a way that’s intuitive and digestible. Without oversimplification or homogenization to achieve broader “appeal,” these songs and these instruments speak to much more important lessons and narratives than the average old-time record.

Take for instance “Goodbye, Honey, You Call That Gone.” A tastefully unadorned tune, performed by Blount on banjo and percussive dancer and scholar Nic Gareiss, it comes from Lucius Smith, a Black Mississippi banjoist recorded by Alan Lomax first in the ‘40s. “Smith played a steel-string banjo rather than a nylon-string one like mine,” Blount explains. “But tuned all the way down to the same pitch. The looseness of [his] strings causes the pitch of each note to waver as he plays it, imparting a ‘wandering’ quality to the melody.”

Wandering, a condition not uncommon among diasporic communities, or Appalachian musical traditions, or queer folks, or movers and dancers, is not only communicated here in the tune’s title, and its delightful, lazy half-tones and breaths of quarter-tones, but also in the syncopation, virtuosity and musicality of Gareiss’ feet playing off Blount’s clawhammer. 

Above all of these, the epitome of Blount’s Spider Tales may be the intention with which Blount and Gareiss approach creating and music-making together, providing an indelible benchmark by which we can better learn to queer old-time and string band music while telling its true, unabridged history, and centering Black, Indigenous, and non-white stories — all with the same treepling toes and fretting fingers.

Editor’s Note: Blount and Gareiss will be featured in the Bluegrass Situation Presents: A St. Patrick’s Day Festival at New York’s New Irish Arts Center, participating in an opening night jam session with clawhammer banjoist Allison de Groot and fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves on March 17 as well as a headlining performance on March 18.

LISTEN: Webb Wilder, “Night Without Love”

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Artist: Webb Wilder
Hometown: Born and raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, based in Nashville since 1982
Song: “Night Without Love”
Album: Night Without Love
Release Date: April 10, 2020
Label: Landslide Records

From the Artist: “‘Night Without Love’ is an old song by RS Field whom I have known for about 50 years! The song itself is easily 40 years old, although it has never been recorded and released until now. I’ve always known about it and I’ve always liked it. I guess I’m just a sucker for a good line and ‘face like an Idol from the Yucatán’ pretty much cinched it for me when I first heard it all those years ago. I used to be in a band called the Drapes. We played this song live, although Bruce Tinnin sang it instead of me.” — Webb Wilder

Photo credit: David McClister

LISTEN: Volume Five, “Somewhere”

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Artist: Volume Five
Hometown: Boonville, Mississippi
Song: “Somewhere”
Album: For Those Who Care to Listen
Release Date: October 25, 2019
Label: Mountain Fever Records

From the Artist: “Each week on stage I am surrounded by the best of the best in the music business. All of the guys in Volume Five are really talented, and I always love to feature them as much as possible. The song ‘Somewhere’ was written by our bass player, Jeff Partin. Jeff is a multi-talented guy. He’s not only a great musician, but he’s an extraordinary songwriter and singer as well. As a band, we love what we do, and we want to bring the very best music we can to our fans and bluegrass listeners around the world.” – Glen Harrell, Volume Five

Photo credit: Samantha Harrell