Artist: Charley Crockett
Hometown: San Benito, Texas
Song: “I Can Help”
Album: The Next Waltz, Vol. 3
Label: The Next Waltz
In Their Words: “We showed up at the studio without any idea what we were gonna cut. Once we got in there I remembered this old Billy Swan number and I’d always wanted to record it. I think we got it in one or two takes. Like everything else at Bruce [Robison]’s place, magic stuck to the tape.” — Charley Crockett
Photo credit: Taylor Grace
Sierra Hull, an accomplished instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter who also co-hosted the IBMA Awards this year, notched another career highlight this fall. In her first fully animated music video for “Beautifully Out of Place” she offers a refreshed meaning to the song, now set to the story of a girl walking through her day and noticing beauty in many modest places. Be it a flower growing through the sidewalk or silhouettes forming in the clouds, the main character finds herself more open to the lyrical message of “Beautifully Out of Place.”
Hull’s latest album, 25 Trips, features several heavy-hitting songs such as this, featuring positive themes, skillful singing, and weightless picking. In an interview with American Songwriter, Hull echoes this song’s sentiment, saying that the message holds true in the world even now; during an unprecedented time of uncertainty and unrest, there is still abundant beauty to behold. By the way, her song “Ceiling to the Floor” (also from 25 Trips) is up for a Grammy Award in the category of Best American Roots Song. Watch “Beautifully Out of Place” below.
Photo credit: Gina Binkley
Artist: Sarah Harmer
Hometown: Burlington, Ontario, Canada
Song: “Little Frogs”
Album: Are You Gone?
Release Date: February 21, 2020
Label: Arts & Crafts Records
In Their Words: “Written from a list of summer memories and life’s small pleasures, the video takes you through a day in the life of a little frog — hoser by day, crooner by nightfall.” — Sarah Harmer
“Creating this video for Sarah was so joyful. Her music always makes my heart feel so good, so to support her art through visuals was a golden experience. As a friend, Sarah has taught me a lot about the science of nature and staying grateful inside its gifts – so our little frog friend decided to spend some quality time high-fiving that feeling.” — Ali J Eisner, director and puppeteer
Photo Credit: Vanessa Heins
Artist: Josh Shilling
Hometown: Martinsville, Virginia
Song: “(Go to Hell) 2020”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Josh Shilling Music
In Their Words: “This song wrote itself. It fell out one morning while waiting for a Skype writing session to start with another songwriter. It felt like a personal and heavy conversation with an old confidant. I was positive this would impact people. Each verse is something I’ve faced personally since spring regarding the pandemic: societal unrest, facing loss and grief, and relationship tension throughout 2020. The chorus provides hope and belief that life will get better and ‘someday soon we’ll be free and this will be in the rear view.’ The song is where I am; it’s where I think we all are right now. No tricks, no big production, this was a live take, three chords and the truth … the truth for everyone, I think.” — Josh Shilling
Photo credit: Sebastian Smith
Artist: Raye Zaragoza (feat. Colin Meloy on harmonica and Laura Veirs on banjo)
Hometown: New York City
Song: “They Say”
Album: Woman in Color (produced by Tucker Martine)
Release Date: October 23, 2020
Label: Rebel River Records
In Their Words: “This song is about the dysfunction of American power structures. It’s about how the systems built to support the people don’t support all people. Especially during a pandemic, it’s been exposed how those lower on the socio-economic ladder are left without the basic resources everyone deserves.” — Raye Zaragoza
Photo credit: Cultivate Consulting
Artist: Katie Pruitt
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Normal”
Album: Expectations
Release Date: February 21, 2020
Label: Rounder Records
In Their Words: “‘Normal’ was always a concept I fought against… I hated dresses, played with action figures instead of Barbies, I even cut my hair short. Kids aren’t afraid to be themselves, which is something we lose sight of as adults. We all feel this pressure to conform when the truth is… there is no mold we need to fit, no script we have to read from, and no such thing as ‘normal.'” — Katie Pruitt
Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen
Artist: Sarah Jarosz
Hometown: Wimberley, Texas; now living in New York City
Song: “Johnny”
Album: World on the Ground
Release Date: June 5, 2020
Label: Rounder Records
In Their Words: “The song ‘Johnny’ was one of the first ones I wrote for my new record, and it was the first single I released back in March. I had plans to make a video for it the week that everything went into lockdown, so obviously that didn’t happen! But I was able to head over to a filming studio here in Nashville last month and do a socially distanced shoot, and I’m so happy it’s finally coming out, albeit many months after originally planned.
“Grant Claire put the concept for the video together, which we had to tweak a little bit due to filming limitations. I wound up shooting the whole thing in front of a green screen. But I really loved his vision for it being this colorful, collage-heavy, kind of trippy video for this song. I always have a lot of commentary when working on the visuals that go with my songs, and I really enjoyed working with Grant on this.” — Sarah Jarosz
Photo credit: Josh Wool
Artist: The Avett Brothers
Hometown: Concord, North Carolina
Song: “Victory”
Album: The Third Gleam
Release Date: August 28, 2020
Label: Loma Vista Recordings
In Their Words: “The Third Gleam was finished before a virus and its carnage swept through humankind in the spring of 2020. It was finished before the most recent injustices against Black lives inspired outrage and a much-needed call for social reform and revolution. Through the fever pitch of fear over the pandemic, outcry in the wake of widely observable bigotry, and mourning over the death caused by both, we are united in conflict… put to task in the arenas of our fortitude, our morality, indeed the strength of our own souls, individually and collectively. It is a time of heightened experience; heightened response; heightened resolve. If you are reading or hearing this statement now, you are a part of it.
(Editor’s Note: Read more from their statement below.)
“And yet, neither of these massive fundamental concerns are entirely new to us. Sickness… in body and in mind are old news for our species, and in truth have found us susceptible throughout our complex history. And so our plagues, biological, behavioral and systemic, are intrinsically a part of us. We navigate them poorly at times and heroically at others.
“To the point of this writing, as it pertains to the announcement of a record release, it barely warrants mentioning that an eight-song collection is a whisper of an offering in a time of blaring considerations. As I mentioned before, Scott and I finished this album just before these two fundamental concerns overtook nearly the entire planet. Consequently, as the timeline goes, the songs were not informed specifically by the urgent and pivotal concepts which are now center stage. However, as these factors have been and will remain a part of us as a whole, independent of a specific moment in history, the songs of this particular piece do connect somehow to this particular time. Our personal perspectives and experiences are inherently the common thread, which is an element we have found to be imperative in our process of making art. Even so, there are themes which have made their way into this chapter of songs that are undeniably universal, and anchored in our current world…
“Isolation, resilience, frustration, confusion, contemplation and hope are here, both in regards to our own lives and as a consideration of the human experience in general. There is humor and love, both for life itself and as it binds a pairing of people. We touch on historical prejudice, faith, economic disparity, gun violence, incarceration, redemption, and as is increasingly standard with our records, stark mortality. This is by no means a record defined by any specific social or cultural goal, nor is it informed by a singular challenge posed to humanity. It is merely the sound of my brother and I in a room, singing about what is on our minds and in our hearts at the time…sharing it now is about what sharing art is always about: another chance that we may partake in connecting with our brothers and sisters of this world, and hopefully joining you in noticing a speck of light gleaming in what appears to be a relatively long and dark night.” — The Avett Brothers
Photo credit: Crackerfarm
Molly Tuttle and Old Crow Medicine Show have combined their voices to bring attention to a terrible byproduct of the COVID-19 pandemic. Together the BGS favorites cover Neil Young’s “Helpless,” spreading awareness and raising funds for WhyHunger, which works to eradicate hunger through community solutions rooted in social, environmental, racial and economic justice.
The accompanying music video for “Helpless” shares eye-opening statistics detailing what the coronavirus has meant to families and individuals facing food insecurity in the U.S. and around the world. WhyHunger aims to establish an understanding of food as a basic human right and to address structural inequities that cause varying degrees of access to food. Tuttle and Old Crow are further supporting WhyHunger by donating all proceeds collected from this track to the organization.
Watch “Helpless” right here, and consider giving to WhyHunger to support this critical work.
Artist: Candi Staton
Single: “I Wonna Holla”
Album: It’s Time to Be Free (2016)
Release Date: June 19, 2020 (video)
In Their Words: “I’m so proud to be among the men, women and children of all races, marching together to end systemic racism, police brutality, [and] to reform the criminal justice system. When I saw George Floyd literally being lynched by a white police officer in the eyes of the whole world, my soul and my spirit wept. It brought back so many unpleasant memories from my own life.*
“Then I remembered ‘I Wonna Holla,’ a song I wrote years ago. Sometimes it’s hard to describe pain, tears and emotions. It makes you feel like you’re losing it, but this song says it all — ‘It Makes Me Wonna Holla!’ Now I really, really do want to holla! This song represents the language of the unheard. I will be donating to organizations like Black Lives Matter and others who are fighting to further the cause to stop police brutality, and those helping to rebuild small businesses that were looted while protesters were marching against this injustice.” — Candi Staton
*As a teenager in the 1950s, Staton worked the gospel circuit with Sam Cooke, where she and her musicians were victims of segregation and racial profiling. In 1963, she was in Birmingham, Alabama, and experienced the chaos and heartbreak on the day of the 16th Street church bombing.
Photo credit: Drea Nicole
