Tag: Muscle Shoals

The String – Single Lock Records and Muscle Shoals

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

How and why this humble collection of towns hugging the Tennessee River in northern Alabama became a historic musical hot spot is an improbable, wonderful American story. More and more, roots and rock and roll musicians have been traveling to Muscle Shoals to record.

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A string of remarkable bands and songwriters, including Jason Isbell, John Paul White, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Dylan LeBlanc, and The Secret Sisters, have had projects emerge from the area in recent years. Half a dozen studios are in demand and busy. It’s become clear that Muscle Shoals is no museum. It’s a scene. So the only thing to do was to go there and listen.

In Death as in Life: Remembering the Soul of Gregg Allman

Posted on by Editor

In 2012, two years after receiving a liver transplant, Gregg Allman was diagnosed with a reoccurrence of liver cancer and given a prognosis of 12 to 18 months to live. The pioneering rock legend kept the news private and moved forward doing what he did best: playing music. Choosing not to undergo treatment, he beat the odds and continued his musical journey for another five years, passing away on May 27, 2017. His parting gift — to himself, his family, his friends, and his fans — is Southern Blood, his poignant farewell album that was released posthumously last month. Produced by the legendary Don Was, Southern Blood features a selection of nine cover songs and one original tune, “My Only True Friend,” co-written with Gregg Allman Band guitarist and music director, Scott Sharrard.

“I was one of a very, very small inner circle of people who knew that he had received the terminal diagnosis with the idea that he may live longer, he may die tomorrow, and I had to make every decision as his music director, as kind of his lieutenant, and as his songwriting collaborator, based on his imminent demise, and that was extremely difficult,” Sharrard says. “We became much closer through that period. I think some of that had to do with our mutual deep, deep love for music, and it also had to do with him, I think, realizing that those of us in his inner circle who were helping to collaborate were kind of ferrying him across to the other side as best we could.”

Don Was and Allman’s longtime friend and manager, Michael Lehman, helped him choose the covers from a list of artists he admired and songs he loved, like Lowell George’s “Willin’,” Tim Buckley’s “Once I Was,” and Jackson Browne’s “Song for Adam,” which always reminded him of his brother, Duane. In a cosmic full-circle move, Allman recorded Southern Blood over a two-week period in March of 2016 at the historic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, where he and his brother Duane recorded their first demo tracks as part of their early band, the Hour Glass, and where Duane later famously became the session guitarist for Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, and others.

“I would go with [Gregg] to most of his milestone health appointments at the Mayo Clinic where he had his transplant and where his oncology team was, and every time we’d get there, we’d be amazed because his health was maintained for the most part,” Lehman recalls. “But as the team of doctors always said, one day the lid is gonna come off the kettle. And as we were getting into ’16, and he was starting to have more days than not where he wasn’t always feeling great, he knew. Even though we had never heard that yet from the doctors, I truly believe he knew inside of him that that day was coming sooner than later and so he was going to make the best of it with this record.”

Allman’s health began deteriorating rapidly after those sessions, and he was never able to get back into the studio to record his vocal harmonies, as was his custom. With Allman’s blessing, Lehman enlisted Buddy Miller to fill out the harmonies and Jackson Browne, who he had played with when they were both teenagers, contributed to his “Song for Adam.” Allman signed off on his preferred version of “Song for Adam” with Browne’s additions, and was able to take a final listen to some of the other songs.

“The day before he passed, I had received three final tracks and, that night, Gregg and I listened for about an hour to the tracks and I said, ‘They’re perfect, Gregg. There’s nothing to do, nothing to worry about,’” Lehman recalls. “And we talked about exactly what he wanted to be done with this record. He confirmed that I could share his journey with his health and talked about how to go out there and make this record everything that it should be. And I’ve followed his plan to the tee, right now … I think he just wanted to feel really close to home on this record, and all these songs sort of allowed him to retrace his life’s journey.”

On Gregg’s Final Years

Sharrard: It was very difficult to juggle Gregg’s desire to perform live, his need financially to perform live, because the music business sure ain’t what it used to be. I mean, you can’t just sit home and collect mailbox money anymore; you’ve gotta go tour. That’s why you see these guys touring all the way to the end. They love it, but it’s not just because of that. And then, his health battles. When you’re ill like this, it’s a game of whack-a-mole. They’d give him one drug, and it’d cause some other thing, and then this thing would make him get pneumonia and that thing would make him get COPD, and this thing would do that and then he’s out for various things that had nothing to do with the cancer, that were complications of trying to manage it and trying to manage a new liver … He was not in a writing period. He was not in that frame. I’ve always called him the Frank Sinatra of rock ‘n’ roll. He had grown into this elder statesman master interpreter of song — someone like Nina Simone or Billie Holiday or Muddy Waters. He became a voice, like that voice that could sing the phonebook, as they say. And I think he was inhabiting that.

On Recording at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals

Lehman: As people know — and it’s well-documented — really probably not a day in his life wouldn’t pass where Gregg either wouldn’t think of Duane or talk about him. So he was always ever-present and [FAME] is the place that Duane recorded with Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin and other greats. It was also where Gregg and Duane recorded some demo tracks for one of their early bands, the Hour Glass. And lastly, we had reconnected with Rick and Rodney Hall, father and son, from FAME Studios of Muscle Shoals three or four years ago when the Muscle Shoals film documentary came out. And Gregg was so happy to reconnect and contribute to the doc, that he actually went out and helped promote it and I think, in doing so and reconnecting with Rick after so many years, it just brought back a flood of memories. And Gregg loved the sound that would come from an old studio and a studio like that has so much history and so many artists were there. They had all the analog equipment and boards, and so Gregg said, “You get the best of both worlds because you record in analog, you can mix digitally,” and this was just a place that meant so much to him, so he was thrilled to get back there … I would say about close to half the days he was not feeling great, but his work ethic was such that he would spend four or five hours a day in the studio and then, the other 19 or 20 hours, he’d be back in the hotel room eating, sleeping, resting, and just preparing for the next day. So he did not waste any energy and conserved his energy so that he would deliver the performance that he needed to on the tracks that we went into the studio to record.

Sharrard: Since that demo session with the Hour Glass, Gregg had never been back there. I think it was his first professional recording session, actually. So his first session and his last session were in that studio. That’s pretty amazing, right? I’m sure he thought that through … When we got there, we were all really knocked out by the vibe. Don Was had never even been in the building in his life, and Gregg hadn’t been there since he was a teenager, so the two of them were like kids in a candy store, too, which was also inspiring for us. You think these guys are totally jaded, right? Not at all. They were as freaked out as we were about working in there. So that added to the vibe and the anticipation that you need to get it right.

On the Album’s Only Original Song, “My Only True Friend”

Sharrard: Of all the stories I have about the making of Southern Blood, that song is my personal journey with Gregg. The story of the creation of that song has no shortage of drama, I’ll warn you. But it’s a 100 percent true story, like some of the best ones. I was really lucky to go through this experience with him. I was at his house — this was probably around 2015 is when that song started being written. When we were off the road, I would go for a few days, and we would do these writing sessions. We had already knocked out one song, which was a funky blues tune, and we were real happy about it. We had a good vibe going, and he had had some other ideas we were bouncing back and forth, and we were just having a good time one night. We went to bed real late, as usual, and he had been telling me a lot of road stories. We’d go out to the boat slip and come back — he had this beautiful property in Savannah — and it was just one of those really one-on-one hangs, when he was really lucid and telling a lot of detailed stories, and we always talked a lot about Duane. I was staying in his mother’s room at the house and, as I was going to bed, I was looking at all these pictures of them as kids in military uniforms together and stuff in military school, and I was just digging the whole family vibe. And I drifted off to sleep and then I shot up in bed at dawn with the sun coming up over the swamp. And as I shot out of bed, you know how it’s like you have those dreams where you remember it like it’s a movie you saw and you can’t tell if it’s a movie or a dream? Well, what I immediately remembered — and even weirder, I can still see it in my mind what it looked like, the beginning of it — it was Duane actually speaking to Gregg. And right away, it’s the first two lines of the verse and the hook to the song is what he said to Gregg in the dream. So I run downstairs and I grab an acoustic guitar off the couch, I go out on the porch, and I’m looking at the sun coming up over the boat slip and I start playing that intro that you hear on the record … I had an intro and I had a verse and I didn’t have anything else except for this line, “You and I both know the road’s my only true friend.” And, by the way, I never told Gregg that story because I was worried it would spook him out. I didn’t want him to judge the song or anything about it based on that because I know how much he respected his brother … I had been pacing all morning waiting for him to wake up because I knew how special this song was. When he woke up, I sat there and played what I had for him and he said, “This is it, man. We gotta do this. This is gonna be the tune.”

Fast forward to later that year, I go to the hotel near the Beacon Theatre when he was doing his second-to-last run with the Allman Brothers to do more writing. And when I get to his hotel room, we’re still working on this song, “My Only True Friend,” but it’s going back and forth with all these different pre-chorus and chorus ideas and bridge ideas. So I get to his room and the vibe is really messed up, and he sits me down and he tells me about his terminal diagnosis right there. And I said, “Look, obviously we don’t have to work today, we can just hang. I can leave. Whatever you need,” and he’s like, “No, we need to work.” So we started working and we’re getting into stuff and, right in the beginning of that writing section, he reached over and he crossed out the pre-chorus we had — and I still have this sheet of paper, by the way — he crossed out the pre-chorus we had and he wrote in “I hope you’re haunted by the music of my soul when I’m gone,” and that was the first time that line came in.

The first time he had ever sang the third verse was that day when we cut the song. So that song was almost not recorded. It was right down to the wire. I gotta be honest with you: I had been writing the song for almost three years with him at that point — or two years or whatever it had been — and I was at my wit’s end with getting it right. But I see why it was so important to him now, and it all makes sense now. That’s why, sometimes, you just have to follow the zeitgeist. Creativity is never a straight line. You’ve just gotta trust the process.

On the Cover of Jackson Browne’s “Song for Adam”

Sharrard: It’s about the untimely death of a friend and Gregg and Chank always relate it to their experience with Duane Allman as their brother and friend who they lost so tragically and so early. I can’t tell you how important Chank was. He was like the spirit animal of everything Gregg Allman. He personally really wanted Gregg to record this song and Gregg was fighting him. I think Gregg was very emotional about doing that song because he related it to his brother. So basically, when we got in the studio, I’m gonna tell you that this record, everything is first or second takes. We were having a ball every day, knocking out two songs a day. Fun times. We got to “Song for Adam,” they had sent the horns home and they’d sent Mark Quiñones home, so we had lost a lot of the yucks from the session. It’s like we went into the studio that day to do “Song for Adam” and we’ve got one song left to do, “Song for Adam” — the horns are gone, Mark’s gone. So the vibe in the studio was kind of like a little of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. And I remember when we were cutting it, on the floor, we had the rhythm section — Steve Potts, Ron Johnson, Pete Levin, and me — four-piece band. Gregg was standing singing. I played all the guitars on that track. So Gregg’s standing up singing with Chank sitting next to him on a stool and Chank was like almost holding his hand through it … We played that fucking song for like seven hours … Now you listen to it and it sounds absolutely gorgeous and, of course, Gregg emotionally was never able to sing the last two lines, and I thought it was quite brilliant that Don Was decided to just let the verse end with that last line about singing his song. I mean, it’s a pretty incredible and dramatic exit to an album.

Photo credit: Danny Clinch

The Sound of the Shoals

Posted on by Editor

Attempts to codify the “Muscle Shoals sound,” which fueled a plethora of rhythm and blues hits in the ‘60s and ‘70s, often result in anthropomorphizing. Musicians, producers, and fans alike refer to its heart, its pulse, its gut, and, above all, its soul. Originating in the Shoals — a group of small towns located along the Tennessee River in northwest Alabama — it drew musical heavyweights like Aretha Franklin, Etta James, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. Now, the public can experience a slice of that musical history. The success of filmmaker Greg Camalier’s 2013 documentary, Muscle Shoals, prompted Beats Electronics and Google to put up nearly $1 million for the restoration of Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, the site of some of the region’s most legendary recordings. While the studio just reopened for tours on January 9, the Alabama Tourism Department has already named it the state’s top attraction for 2017.

Located at 3614 Jackson Highway in Sheffield, Alabama, the studio dates back to 1969, when the session musicians at a neighboring musical hallmark, FAME Studios, decided to open their own facility. Affectionately known as the Swampers, the Muscle Shoals rhythm section consisted of Jimmy Johnson on guitar, David Hood on bass, Barry Beckett on keyboards, and Roger Hawkins on drums. During their time at FAME Studios working with founder Rick Hall, they played on classic records ranging from Wilson Pickett’s popular cover of “Mustang Sally,” to Aretha Franklin’s “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You),” and Etta James’s rendition of “Come to Mama.” Their approach wasn’t anything like the arranged compositions played in the studios in New York. Instead, their process was reminiscent of a jam session: Once in the studio, they would noodle around on their instruments together and come up with an arrangement to go with the vocal. While Nashville had country music and Memphis had the blues, Muscle Shoals sat between the two, becoming a melting pot of Southern rock, R&B, and soul. And the Swampers, with their bass-heavy funk, helped catapult that sound. The result was a musical renaissance that crossed racial boundaries. During a time of extreme racial tension, some of the most iconic Black artists in music history would travel to the South to record with a white producer and a white band.

Four towns make up what is considered the Shoals: Florence, Sheffield, Tuscumbia, and Muscle Shoals, itself. With a combined population of around 71,000 according to the most recent census reports, this small, rural region was an unassuming hotbed for musical innovation. “It always seems to come out of the river, you know, even in Liverpool, you know, the Mersey sound and, of course, the Mississippi,” U2 frontman Bono says in the Muscle Shoals documentary. “And here you have the Tennessee River. It’s like the songs come out of the mud.”

The Shoals’ rich musical roots can be traced back to the water. The Yuchi Native American tribe first made note of the Tennessee River’s musical power, naming it “The River That Sings.” It was their belief that a woman in the river sang songs to protect them. Years later, the town of Florence became the birthplace of both WC Handy, known as the “Father of the Blues,” and Sam Phillips, the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Phillips went on to become the owner of Sun Studios and Sun Records, putting Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis on the map. Through Rick Hall’s production at FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals became the “Hit Recording Capital of the World,” with Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records sending his artists to the Shoals to record.

Once the Swampers struck out on their own with the help of a loan from Wexler, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was a haven for popular artists who flocked from recording hubs like New York City and Los Angeles in search of the “Muscle Shoals sound.” Cher became the first artist to record at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, followed by the Rolling Stones, who recorded both “Wild Horses” and “Brown Sugar” from their 1971 album Sticky Fingers. Before long, the Swampers were cutting around 50 albums per year, with countless legendary artists. The shortlist includes Paul Simon, Boz Scaggs, Levon Helm, John Prine, Joan Baez, Cat Stevens, the Staple Singers, Willie Nelson, Santana, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan, and Bob Seger. (Yes, that’s the shortlist.)

Measuring about 75 feet by 25 feet, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio is located across from a cemetery and had once been a storage unit for headstones, grave slabs, and coffins. There’s something poetic about the fact that the very room that housed markers of death ended up becoming a space of remarkable rebirth. The Swampers closed the location in 1979, moving to 1000 Alabama Avenue. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and was sold to the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation in 2013.

Judy Hood, the wife of Swampers bassist David Hood, is the chair of the Muscle Shoals Music Foundation, which still owns and operates the studio. The facility’s recent renovations aim to bring an authentic Muscle Shoals recording experience to tourists. Replete with vintage recording equipment in the production booth, original guitars, basses, organs, pianos, amps, and retro chairs and paint colors, the atmosphere stays true to how the studio looked in the early ‘70s. Studio tours start in the basement, also known as the “den of debauchery,” where musicians hung out during breaks from recording. Visitors will also be able to visit the bathroom where Keith Richards wrote “Wild Horses,” the couch where Steve Winwood took a nap, and the “listening porch” where the Rolling Stones took smoke breaks. But most importantly, visitors will have access to archives of music, bringing the “Muscle Shoals sound” front and center. More than anything, the “Muscle Shoals sound” is a feeling, and visitors can now walk on hallowed ground and experience that Muscle Shoals soul firsthand.

“What music built there is not something that you can see with your eye,” Bono explains at the end of the Muscle Shoals documentary. “In fact, if you look at the recording studios, they were humble shells. But what they contained was an empire that crossed race and creed and ethnicity. It was revolutionary.”

Photos courtesy of Music Shoals Music Foundation

Here, Nobody Wears a Crown: A Conversation with Lindi Ortega

Posted on by Editor

Born in Toronto to parents of Irish and Mexican decent, singer/songwriter Lindi Ortega picked up a guitar and wrote her first song at age 17. For the next 15 years or so, she bounced from record label to record label — including a brief stint with Interscope — before making her home with Last Gang Records in 2011. Since then, she's made some great albums that highlight her fiery voice and passionate lyricism. Her newest set, Faded Gloryville, showcases her striking talent over the course of a dozen tunes produced by a trio of name brand producers. She took time out from her fall tour to chat about her approach to making her new album, why she chose three different producers, and whether or not drinking the water in Muscle Shoals will make you sing like Aretha Franklin..

How are things in the 615 today?

They’re good. It’s not really a sunny day, though. It’s a bit rainy and overcast in the 615.

The report from the 360 is that the sun is trying to kick through. Let’s start our little conversation with a chat about the cover of your new album. I love the dress. I love the picture. I love the Wild West graphics. Was that all your idea?

Yeah, it was my idea to hire the guy who did the artwork. He goes by the name Straw Castle Designs. His name is Derrick Castle. I’ve been following him on Instagram for a really long time; he does a lot of wood block printing and old school, vintage designs. I always said to myself, when it came time to do my next record, I really wanted him to be involved somehow. So I contacted him when we started working on the album. He came up with some really great stuff.

Was it Julie Moe who took the picture?

Yeah, it was. She’s a dear friend of mine.

It’s a great picture. I love the whole vibe. Then we get inside and find songs recorded in Muscle Shoals, songs produced by Dave Cobb — who can do no wrong right now — and songs recorded by one of the nicest, most talented dudes out there — Colin Linden. Most people would kill for one of those opportunities, much less all three. How did you manage that?

I just consider myself very fortunate and very lucky to be able to work with these people. I’ve developed a nice relationship with them and they happened to be available at the time. It was really incredible. They’re all very different producers with different approaches to things, but they all seem to have, in common, a real appreciation for the way things were recorded "back in the day." They enjoy using vintage tube amps and old microphones and the whole idea of recording the bed tracks live off the floor. The bass and guitar and drums and I are all recorded at the same time. I’m a huge fan of that. I feel like it really captures the essence of the song, and that we all feed off each other in that setting.

The first two cuts, “Ashes” and “Faded Gloryville,” are Colin productions. Will you be flattered if I tell you they remind me a little of Emmylou Harris?

Absolutely. I’m a huge fan. I’m not sure but maybe you’re referring to the Wrecking Ball record?

Your voice on those tunes reminds me of her earlier stuff — the production, maybe, of things that came later with Daniel Lanois.

That’s what I love about Colin: He’s sort of "of that world." He’s worked with T Bone Burnett a lot. He really loves capturing the ambiance, doing these beautiful, lush soundscapes with guitars and production. I was the one who allotted the songs to each producer and he was definitely the one I felt would really capture the essence of those two songs.

I’m not much for slow songs but “Faded Gloryville” raised some goose bumps. “Here nobody wears a crown …”.

Yeah. [Laughs] When I wrote that song, it was inspired by the movie Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges — sort of me asking myself if I was going to end up like that. Then going back and remembering my romantic ideal of what I thought the music industry was, dreams that I had … the journeys, the ups and downs, the moments when you doubt yourself. And I wrote it without realizing I truly am, sort of, living these things right now. When I go to sing these songs live, I’m very affected by them. So, that song, I feel very very close to; it makes me very emotional when I’m singing it.

Then you track three in a row in Muscle Shoals. When you drink the tap water in Muscle Shoals, do you immediately start feeling a little like Aretha Franklin?

[Laughs] I wish I could sing like that! 

Me, too. They’re very groovy, soulful songs.

It’s sort of embedded in the musicians down there. There was definitely a unique vibe and sound that grew from Muscle Shoals. When I decided I wanted John Paul White and Ben Tanner to do the Bee Gees song (“To Love Somebody”), I had the other songs in mind to fit with that vibe. I happened to be watching the Muscle Shoals documentary when I was down there recording with them, so it was a pretty amazing thing. David Hood, who is in that movie, actually played on those three sessions so it was another incredible experience.

“To Love Somebody” really endures and you definitely read it as a torch song.

[Laughs] I have to thank Nina Simone for that because it was her live version that really blew me away. I really felt the unrequited yearning through her interpretation of the lyrics, from a woman’s perspective. Then I heard the Bee Gees’ version which has a groovier, '60s feel. I think our version falls somewhere in between the inspiration from the Bee Gees and Nina Simone.

I’m impressed you referenced the Nina version because that’s the first thing I thought of when I heard your take. It’s cool the inspiration didn’t come just from the Nina catalog. Then you pretty much close out the set with the songs Dave produced, which sound a little like Wanda Jackson — just fun, dance party rock 'n' roll. Did you have this sequence mapped out in your mind as you approached production?

When I allotted the songs to the producers, I kept the styles they're really good at in mind. I felt like those songs, in particular, Dave Cobb would be especially suited for. I think he’s really good at making what I call a "barn burner."

It’s kind of like three little EPs in one full album, tied together with your voice and a classic country rock vibe.

It makes perfect sense. I’m a fan of records that have variation and diversity; I’ve never been into records that sound like one big long song. I was a bit worried people wouldn’t get it, that it wouldn’t flow properly. But when all was said and done, I was happy with it. It’s been nice to hear the positive response from people.

Photo credit: Julie Moe

Death Wears a Wedding Ring: Lydia Loveless in Conversation with John Paul White

Posted on by Editor

Like all of us everywhere, Lydia Loveless and John Paul White are in dire need of coffee. It’s early morning on a weekday, and they’re both out on the road: Loveless en route from Houston to a gig in Birmingham; White biding his time in Charlotte, North Carolina, before a show that evening. They’re both far from home, making do with hotel continental breakfasts and fast-food caffeine.

“It’ll probably take me an hour or so to sound somewhat intelligent,” says White. Loveless agrees. “I’m just waking up. I’ll probably be pretty rambling.”

As caveats go, neither is especially believable. Both White and Loveless have released ambitious albums that are confessional but evasive, musically confident yet emotionally messy. Beulah is White’s second solo album, but his first since the dissolution of the Civil Wars, the duo that helped codify roots music for a mainstream audience. Written and recorded in Muscles Shoals, Alabama, where he lives and runs Single Lock Records, his songs range from cowboy-trail folk to swampy blues to pop songs that recall Elliott Smith, yet his lyrics are single-minded in their darkness.

Loveless’s latest, Real, is a similarly harrowing exorcism. Leaving the alt-country of her early albums far behind, the Ohioan adopts a darker, tougher sound, somewhere between the stuck-in-the-city riffs of prime Strokes and the ‘70s pop-rock flare of the early Heartbreakers (Johnny Thunders or Tom Petty — pick one).

Both albums contain so much wit that you can’t imagine either would be at a loss for words.

So, do you two know each other?

[Awkward Silence]

Lydia Loveless: No. I don’t think so.

John Paul White: I don’t believe so. I was afraid to answer.

LL: [Laughs] I’m always afraid to answer that question.

JPW: I’m always concerned someone’s going to say, "You asshole! We’ve met three times." I think we have mutual friends. We run in a lot of the same circles, but I don’t think we’ve ever met. So it’s nice to meet you, Lydia.

LL: Likewise.

Both of you represent smaller music scenes. Not your Brooklyn or Nashville, but the Shoals and Columbus, Ohio. How have those slightly out-of-the-way places shaped your music?

LL: For me, Columbus is such a bitter and pessimistic town, at least in some of the scenes that I run in. There are the really angry punk kids and smelly metal kids, and then, on the other side, there’s this really uplifting attitude — like we’re really going to develop the city and make it great. I have some journalist friends who are very excited about everything. So there’s a balance. But my music is not the most optimistic or mood-lightening in the world. But I do think it’s about that very Midwestern struggle, that everything-is-so-hard attitude.

JPW: My dad used to live up there. He and all of his brothers moved up in the ‘60s to work in the auto plants, and he brought back a lot of stories about that. I won’t say he disliked it or liked it, but he definitely felt that struggle. It didn’t feel uncommon to him, being from the South. In some ways, it was a different kind of struggle, but in other ways, it was the same. You’re just trying to put food on your table. Down here, there’s more an attitude that you shouldn’t have an identity; you should just fit in. Put your head down, nose to the grindstone, hoe your row, and then move on to the next one.

I grew up around a lot of that, but at the same time, in the Muscle Shoals community, you had this sense that you could accomplish something great. You saw a lot of people who were heroes and you heard the great music they made. They made a small-town kid from the Tennessee Valley feel like he could do it, too. So I think that there was a lot of hope when I was growing up: "They did it, so why can’t I?"

Music remains an industry in the Shoals, but it’s less so in Columbus. Did it offer something like escape for you, Lydia?

LL: I think so. I’m a very shy person, and was even more shy as a kid. If you spend a lot of time sitting alone in the woods or walking by yourself lost in thought, music can be a good way to filter a very overactive brain. It also gave me an opportunity to perform with someone else. Any time I was onstage, I had to go to a very different headspace and get outside of my own personality.

JPW: I always hear people talk about playing music or writing songs as a cathartic experience, and I guess that can be true. But it’s such a strange existence we share: We write these songs and we feel them so personally — we open these veins so publicly, and that can be cathartic. But then you have to sing it again the next night and the next night and the next night. So you get to exorcise those demons, but then you have to live with them every single day and night. It’s a weird existence.

LL: It’s definitely not normal. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because our record was made a long time before we started doing this tour. I’m like, "Damn, I feel like I’m as depressed as I was when I was writing these songs," and I realize maybe it’s because I have to sing them every night. You can’t just go through the motions. You have to really feel it, and you’re never going to get over that.

JPW: And people want to see it. They want to feel it, too.

LL: What’s wrong with them?

JPW: They pay to be bummed out. What the hell? But thank God for them. I wouldn’t have a career, if it weren’t for people who are as screwed up as I am.

How do you psych yourself up to sing such harrowing songs?

LL: I don’t know. I get really tired.

JPW: Amen. I have an out for me, at least. I don’t know about you, Lydia — I don’t know how intensely personal everything is that you write. But I tend to make it where it’s not 100 percent about me. There are parts of me in there. I like to get down in there and get as close to the bone as I can, but it isn’t always autobiography. And so I can step into a character and step back out of it sometimes. Otherwise, I don’t know how long I could do it, if it was just a constant shedding of skin every night. I’d be pretty raw after a while.

LL: There’s definitely an element of character to my songs, but I guess, for this particular record, it was more personal. It’s been a new touring experience, especially with the world being so insane and with the political climate so crazy. After a while you’re like, "God, why am I up here screaming about personal things right now?"

It definitely seems like listeners conflate the songwriter with the song.

JPW: Most of my favorite songwriters and artists were always talking through characters — like John Prine, Kris Kristofferson … folks like that. I grew up with a lot of country music, and a lot of the time those artists didn’t write the songs. They lived through them, so it wasn’t necessarily their story, but you believed every word that came out of their mouths. We don’t force our fiction writers to only write about their own personal lives. If they did, they’d run out of stories pretty soon. I feel like what we do is not that far removed.

LL: It’s the difference between doing something with shades of you in it and doing something completely autobiographical. And, I guess, doing something that’s obviously totally phony.

Does that change from one night to the next? Do you find more or less of yourself in these characters over time?

LL: I would say yes. And that’s why I really hate when people are like, "What’s this song about?" And you have to come up with some seven-second explanation. Not only does it change every night for me, but people come up to you every night and say, "Oh, this really helped me through this time." Or, "This has this meaning to me." I don’t want to ruin it for them or myself.

JPW: I agree 1,000 percent. I need to start writing down what people think my songs are about, because that’s so much better than what some of them actually are. And they tell me these elaborate situations they were in and how this song was a perfect way to deal with that trauma. If I had been in that headspace, I would have never written that song. I’d just write something that was too on the nose. I try to write everything vague and blurry so that anybody can step in and be the screwed-up character in the middle of it.

That seems like something that both of you are doing in your songs. Lydia, I read an interview with you about the song “Longer,” which I heard as a break-up song, but which you said was inspired by the death of a friend.

LL: Honestly, it could go either way for me. I don’t want people to be forced to listen to that song and think about death. I’ve broken my rule on a couple of these songs in interviews, just because I get nervous and flustered and said, "IT’S ABOUT THIS!!!!"

JPW: A friend of mine, a mentor of sorts as a songwriter, used to tell me not to put a wedding ring in a song. What he meant is what you’re talking about. If you paint that picture in too much detail, then the song doesn’t leave any room for interpretation. The moment you mention somebody has on a ring, then it’s about a married person or a person who was married or getting married. And you’ve just alienated every single person on earth from the song. All I have to do is take that ring out and now this song works for everyone that hears it. It could be about love and it could be about death.

LL: Death wearing a wedding ring.

JPW: [Laughs] That’s the next album title.

I would think that would make these songs fresh every night. You can live with them long-term and maybe not feel like you’re going through the motions.

LL: For me personally, you have to think about that, but it’s important to not think about those things while you’re writing. Certainly it comes up when you’re touring.

JPW: I tend to just go with whatever feels right at the moment. What I have a problem with is looking at the page and thinking, "Oh God, what are people going to think this means? How much therapy am I going to be offered?" I could go back and change it, but then it just feels watered down. If you’re trying to write the best song you can, then you have to be okay with putting a part of yourself out there. I just hope that people are still listening to those songs by the end of the year.

LL: Or by the end of the song.

JPW: Amen. I don’t sing any songs that I wrote that long ago, to be honest. The stuff I was writing then was completely different. I was pretty obsessed with Jeff Buckley at the time, and that’s probably obvious. Everybody has been obsessed with Jeff Buckley, at some point. I reserve the right not to play songs I don’t want to play.

LL: There are certain songs that I wrote five years ago that I don’t want to play. It’s a different situation because I was learning to write songs when I started making records. That was always what I wanted to do and I just started to do it. So there’s certainly some cringe-worthy material in my catalog. Not everybody puts their 19-year-old decisions out there. You mellow out as a human when you get older.

JPW: I’m older than you are, so I don’t have to worry about the 19-year-old-me stuff. Nobody knows about it and nobody will ever hear it. Thank God.

Do you ever have a chance to go back to those songs?

LL: I try not to revisit too much. Sometimes I’m subjected to it somehow, or sometimes it just comes up. You’re making a record or whatever. Someone will put it on in the room and you just melt into the floor and die of embarrassment.

JPW: In a really small town like the Shoals, I can walk into Best Buy or some place like that and sometimes somebody will think it’s a clever idea to put my music on the stereo. I just turn on my heel and walk right back out. That’s probably not a good sales ploy. For this recent record, I was doing an interview, and they were playing tracks during the interview. It was a weird out-of-body experience, because we’ve been playing them live for so long and we do them so differently. They keep morphing every single night, and there are even lyrics that change. So the album versions sound so innocent now. When I recorded them, I hadn’t been touring for three or four years, so they were all super fresh. They didn’t go through their paces of growing. They were just documented. I’m proud of them, but they’re completely different songs now.

Does that happen to you in Columbus? Can you be a celebrity of sorts in a small city?

LL: I think they know better than to do that. There’s certainly much less anonymity in a smaller town. I would never refer to myself as a celebrity, but there’s definitely some recognition there. I think you get more shit than accolades, when you live in a small town.

JPW: That’s how I grew up. The other side of that is that you have a lot of people pinning their hopes on you. Every time you talk to them, they’re like, "Man, we’re all rooting for you. We’re all living through you. We’re watching and you’re making us proud." Which is awesome, but it’s a lot of accountability.

LL: Yeah, it’s scary. You forget how to have a normal conversation.

JPW: It’s true. You get so laser focused on your career and your job that you have hard time being that small town guy again. Can we just talk about football?

LL: People are like, "You probably don’t want to talk about anything small." But I’d like to talk about anything but how the tour went. "There was beer … We played shows … No one died …"

JPW: I have a really hard time listening to music. I’ve been doing it for so long that I have such a hard time letting go and immersing myself in music like I did when I was younger. I’ve seen how the hotdog gets made. I see all the cracks and I also have a hard time not wondering why they chose to do it like that. "Why didn’t you do this?" It’s hard not to second-guess everything. I do a whole lot more reading and watching movies than I do listening to music.

LL: I think that’s why I like to listen to music that I sound nothing like. People will ask me what I’m listening to and, when I tell them, they’re like, "You don’t sound like that." Yeah, because I don’t want it to get in my head or really ruin music for me.

What kind of stuff are you listening to?

LL: Right now, I’ve been really enjoying that Mitski record. And the Angel Olsen. But I just covered a Justin Bieber song, if that tells you anything about my taste in music.

JPW: My 14-year-old is a huge metal head. I am an extremely proud father because of that. He’s constantly turning me on to new bands, which are all pretty much the same, but still it’s so much fun watching him get so excited about music. It’s amazing to see it meaning so much to him. It’s good for me, as a father, to see that. And I think it’s good for me, as a creator of music, to see how people react to music that’s not their own. That makes me want to do this a whole lot more.

 

To get into more Deep Sh!t, read Jewly Hight's conversation with Erin McKeown and Chastity Brown.

John Paul White photo courtesy of the artist. Lydia Loveless photo by David T. Kindler.

LISTEN: Julie Rhodes, ‘Faith’

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Artist: Julie Rhodes
Hometown: Boston, MA
Song: "Faith"
Album: Bound to Meet the Devil
Release Date: February 26

In Their Words: "When I started writing songs for Bound to Meet the Devil, it was all sort of uncharted territory for me. I had just started writing not long before that. I don’t even think I had played my first show yet, and here we were making a record. There was a lot of fear to get over in a pretty short amount of time. I found myself reaching out to Jonah [Tolchin] for reassurance a lot during those first few months. From those conversations came this song, 'Faith.'

Jonah sent me a message one day while I was at work saying, 'I wrote this song for you, we should record it!' The track was just an iPhone recording of him and an acoustic guitar. With the underlying message that you have to believe that things are going to work out if you’re going to be happy in this world, it was perfect for what I was going through at that time. We recorded the track live outside, basically in the middle of the woods at Dirt Floor Studio, then did additional tracking at FAME Studio in Muscle Shoals. The funny thing about the album version of 'Faith' is that we went into it thinking we were recording a demo, but as soon as we all started playing together, there was this incredible unspoken feeling of 'I think we have something here.' It ended up being one of my favorite songs on the record." — Julie Rhodes

Photo credit: Roberto Terrones

8 Netflix Documentaries to Stream in Your Post-Turkey Coma

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Thanksgiving approacheth and, if you haven't already planned out exactly what you're going to binge watch after you binge eat, you better get to adding to that queue ASAP before the carb coma kicks in. Allow us to help you out a bit by providing a handful of our favorite documentaries currently streaming on Netflix.

Chef's Table

Go behind-the-scenes with some of the world's most acclaimed chefs in this original series from Netflix. That is, if you can handle a show about food after you've eaten your body weight in stuffing.

How to Grow a Band

Join Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers in the early stages of their days together as a band. Chock full of performance footage and clips of the guys writing and recording, this is a must-see for any Punch Brothers fan.

How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson

Do you ever wonder how we went from cave-dwelling knuckle-draggers to tiny house-building iPhone zombies? This series from PBS and BBC 2 shines a light on a handful of the great ideas that got us there.

Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

We don't really need to explain why you need to watch this one. It's Glen Campbell. Just do it.

Hey Bartender

In case you didn't know, bartending is not an easy job. Go behind the bar with some of the world's top mixologists as they mix and serve some seriously amazing cocktails.

Muscle Shoals

One of the best music documentaries to come out in a long time, Muscle Shoals looks at the history of one of the best must towns in, well, ever. 

The Battered Bastards of Baseball

If you like your baseball a little more ragtag and a little less 'roid rage, you'll love this portrait of a now-defunct minor league team in Portland, OR.

Austin to Boston

What's life on the road really like for touring musicians? Find out in this documentary, which follows Ben Howard, Nathaniel Rateliff, and more across the United States.

Lede photo credit: keirstenmarie / Foter.com / CC BY