In Their Words: “This song, co-written by myself and Rachel Baiman, is a culmination of the frustrations I felt being a musician during the pandemic. Our jobs were the first to go and the clunkiest to return to full capacity. Performance opportunities are back, but the struggle of sustaining a career continues to weigh heavy on all artists alike. Obviously Spotify is mentioned in this song, and I even call out the media machine and the ‘pay to play’ nature of PR campaigns. We both connected to this song so much that Rachel even recorded a brooding version on her newest album, Common Nation of Sorrow. Our livelier version features banjo, baritone guitar and pedal steel.” – Amy Alvey
Track Credits: Produced by Thomas Bryan Eaton and Golden Shoals
Amy Alvey – acoustic guitar, vocals, harmonies Mark Kilianski – banjo, harmony vocals Thomas Bryan Eaton – piano, pedal steel, baritone guitar Jamie Dick – drums Miss Tess – bass
Photo Credit: Kaitlyn Raitz Video Credit: Trent Freeman
Artist:Melody Walker, Crys Matthews, Heather Mae Hometown: Melody – Bay Area, California; Crys – Richlands, North Carolina; Heather – Washington, D.C. Area Song: “Room” Release Date: September 15, 2023 Label: AntiFragile Music
In Their Words: “‘Room’ started as a conversation between me and my co-writer, Sarah Potenza, about the enduring underrepresentation of women and other marginalized folks on festival lineups, but it blossomed into so much more. The ways that women and woman-aligned people are expected to not take up space in the world: to not be fat, loud, queer, creative, assertive, and are definitely not to band together in solidarity to fight against our own oppression. Community and joy are the keys to liberation, and this song celebrates both. I am so glad my faves Heather and Crys were down to come bring it to life with me.” – Melody Walker
“The first time I heard the demo of ‘Room’ that Melody sent me, I had tears in my eyes by the time it got to, ‘Your win is mine, I’ll root for you.’ As a Black, Butch-of-center lesbian in the Americana and country genres, it rarely feels like there is room for women in general, and especially not for women like me. Getting to lift my voice alongside Melody to echo the powerful sentiment contained within this song was an absolute honor. I hope it empowers women and girls to advocate for one another on and off the stage.” – Crys Matthews
“This song is so much more than just an all-woman collab. ‘Room’ stands as a celebratory rallying cry against the enduring patriarchal norms that fuel female rivalry. There persists this notion that there’s only one seat at the table and, when women scan the music industry’s landscape, you can see why we’d be forced to think that. It’s 2023, and a woman has yet to secure a Grammy for Producer of the Year. Examine festival lineups and you’ll see a stark gender imbalance in the representation of male and female artists. This scarcity of ‘room’ forces us into a perceived competition, when in reality, our struggle should be directed at dismantling the system that pits us against one another.” – Heather Mae
Track Credits: Written by Melody Walker & Sarah Potenza
Vocals: Melody Walker; Heather Mae Vocals and Guitar: Crys Matthews Slide Guitar: Jacob Groopman Bass: Michael Majett Drums: Alex Bice Keys: Jen Gunderman Additional Guitars: Dan Knobler Produced by Dan Knobler
Photo and Video Credit: Kaitlyn Raitz Filmed live at Sound Emporium Studios, Nashville, TN
In Their Words: “I wrote this song in the passenger seat of a Chevy truck on a road trip from Idaho to Colorado. The world was slowly opening back up from those strange days. We found ourselves rediscovering the joys of a good, honest road trip. Rediscovering the joys of the open road. We were fixed up with the perfect ingredients: good company, a good playlist, and the here and now.
“The video was directed and edited by my friend, Jesse Borrell. He had me up at 4 a.m. a few times, headed to particular locations in order to get the right light and angles. I love what he created.” – Daniel Rodriguez
Artist:Cidny Bullens Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Little Pieces” Album:Little Pieces Release Date: September 14, 2023 Label: Kill Rock Stars
In Their Words: “‘Little Pieces’ is the very first song I wrote after I started transitioning. It took months to even notice what would or what eventually did start happening to me. The ‘old’ me was falling away piece by piece, but I could not yet see the ‘new’ me. In this song I ask myself the question, ‘What will I become?’ Knowing that whatever that was going to be — I had gone too far to turn back. I think every human has this experience at some point in their lives — a decision or choice that we make to change our reality from one thing to another. No matter how big or small, there is most likely some fear that accompanies the ‘not knowing’ of that choice.” — Cidny Bullens
Artist:Gwen Levey and the Breakdown Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Barefoot and Pregnant” Album:Not the Girl Next Door EP Release Date: November 3, 2023
In Their Words: “RIP Roe V Wade. That was such a dark day. It’s a very personal issue for me and most women. I was a child who was sexually assaulted. So, everything that’s been happening hit me really hard, especially here in Tennessee, which has the strictest abortion ban. That, even if you’re a child, you can’t get help for anything like that. The song has a serious social commentary, but I wanted it to still be fun so it’s more accessible. You have to be brave to sing that in the south.
“This song is for all the freedom-lovin’, democracy-lovin’, country music-lovin’ people out there who want to help women win back their Reproductive Rights!” – Gwen Levey
Artist:Katie Curley Hometown: Brooklyn, New York; originally from Home, Washington Song: “Lucky In Love” Album:Penny For My Heartbreak Release Date: September 8, 2023
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Lucky In Love’ while driving through Kansas with my husband and bandmate, guitarist Brendan Curley. Actually, he was driving, and I was listening to the Rolling Stones on the car stereo and watching the flat roll by. By the time we got to St. Louis, I had everything but the second verse. I’m incredibly honored that Mary Lee Kortes agreed to sing harmonies for this song on the album. Blue Betty, the ’79 baby blue Ford pickup in the video, was a dream to drive and her owners are also lovely people. I borrowed Brendan’s guitar and cowboy hat to add a bit of a magical element to the storyline, and I think it works well with director Michael Bartolomeo’s quirky, cool style.” – Katie Curley
In Their Words: “This song seems to have fallen out of the sky. Tommy and I were really inspired by the show ‘Daisy Jones & the Six.’ It made us want to tap into our rock roots a bit. Tommy wrote the music in his head one night when he was falling asleep. He actually imagined it written out in notation so he would be able to remember it in the morning. When he played it for me, it was just a musical idea, chords and melody. I tweaked it a bit and tried to discern what the chords made me feel so I could find a lyrical direction, which was an interesting process, because usually for me, lyrics always come first. What came out was kind of a battle cry, for all who fight a war with anxiety and depression.
“We know how important it is not to bottle things up, but what happens once we’ve let it out? I think the song is asking if we can process all our feelings in a healthy way and move on, rather than sitting in our sadness. The song ended up being the perfect title track, because not only are we expressing some really vulnerable emotions, we’re also literally ‘letting out’ a lot of previously unreleased songs and pulling back the curtain a bit on mine and Tommy’s story, which has always been at the center of our music, though we have been hesitant to draw attention to it before now. And in giving ourselves the freedom to let it out, we feel we’re being more true to our authentic selves, musically and personally, and it just feels right.” – Noah Wall
Artist:Tom Heyman Hometown: San Francisco, California Song: “The Mission Is On Fire” Album:24th Street Blues Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Bohemian Neglect Recording Works
In Their Words: “I have lived on the Eastern end of 24th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District around the corner from SF General Hospital for more than 20 years now. I work at a bar near the corner of Mission and 22nd Street and a number of years ago (pre-pandemic), there were a series of devastating fires on Mission Street — two of them practically next door to my workplace, and another about three quarters of a mile south at 29th Street. Fires in a densely-populated city full of attached wooden houses are scary enough, but add in the scarcity of affordable housing, the simmering resentments around the huge influx of tech workers, and the white-hot real estate market and the overall effect was pretty unsettling.
“The phrase, ‘The Mission is on fire’ popped into my head and I knew there was a song there. I chased it down until I thought I had it. Around the time that I wrote it, I had another record coming out that it wasn’t really right for, but I knew that it was going to fit squarely into the group of songs that made up my new record, 24th Street Blues. It seems that San Francisco is in the news often these days and is struggling with all the things that an awful lot of cities are struggling with, but I deeply love my neighborhood – and most days I find it difficult to imagine living anywhere else.” – Tom Heyman
Artist:Nicolette & The Nobodies Hometown: Guelph, Ontario, Canada Song: “Rodeo” Release Date: August 24, 2023 Label: Art Haus
In Their Words: “I gave up on being a musician a long time ago. I let some negative thoughts knock me down and keep me down. That if I wasn’t good enough then, I’d never be. ‘Rodeo,’ the song and video, is about how I got back up again. The night I walked into that karaoke, sang some songs and met my band – that was the first step to bringing me back to doing something I truly loved.” – Nicolette Hoang
Artist:Barbaro Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota Song: “Gardens” Album:About the Winter Release Date: October 20, 2023 Label: StorySound Records
In Their Words: “This tune is one of those that was written quite easily in one sitting, but took the band a while to finalize it. Looking back at voice memos, we started working on this one about three years ago. There was a clear vision for the composition, but took us a little to realize how each instrument can be used to accomplish it. The goal for the song was to be a long crescendo from start to finish. It starts with just guitar, then adds bass, then adds a simple counter melody on the banjo, then fiddle, etc. We like to think of it like building with Lego blocks, every six bars you add a new piece, a new color, until a nice little mosaic presents itself. It’s a really simple song, same three chords looping over and over again, the same melody plays following every verse. Because of this, the goal was to change the way these parts were played every go around, whether playing muted, more percussive, or playing each note with more sustain.” – Barbaro
Photo Credit: Wolfskull Creative
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