Tag: musical

Becca Stevens Strips It All Back on ‘Maple to Paper’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In her dynamic, restless career, Becca Stevens plans to never repeat herself, like the proverbial waterway that’s never the same river twice.

Since being noticed by New York Times jazz critic Nate Chinen in 2008 as a 24-year-old “best kept secret,” she’s collaborated with: David Crosby and his Lighthouse Band; jazz orchestra Snarky Puppy; the modernist ensemble Kneebody; pianist Brad Mehldau; harmony genius Jacob Collier; the neo-classical Attacca Quartet; and others. Her five solo studio albums, especially the mind-stretching and richly grooving Regina (2018) and Wonderbloom (2022), have mingled folk-grounded melodies and jazz-deep harmonies with pop dazzle. The common denominator has been her uncommon voice, which is conservatory-trained, but utterly unique and enthralling. She is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest overall musicians making song-based music today, a peer to 21st century savants St. Vincent and Madison Cunningham.

One frontier that remained for Stevens was, ironically, the most obvious for a singer-songwriter – the solo acoustic album. Her version of this venerable format finally arrived in late August with Maple to Paper, a 13-song collection that was shaped at every level by a series of landmark life events. After marrying Nathan Schram, violist in the Attacca Quartet, she gave birth to daughters in 2022 and 2024. Their family moved from New York to Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother died, as did her close collaborator and friend David Crosby.

Stevens alchemizes this season of change, love, and loss through songs that challenge conventional forms with rich and fearless lyrics that play at times like Emily Dickinson set to classical guitar. On the cover, she’s demurely naked behind a guitar. In the grooves, she’s as vulnerable as we’ve ever heard her. As she told me of her emotional multiverse of the past few years, “I felt uncomfortable about sharing it, but I also was like, well, if I’m going to do this, I might as well make it completely exposed.”

It’s easy to suppose that the changes of the past few years – moving, having children, losing your mom – made a solo acoustic record sound more appealing at both artistic and practical levels?

Becca Stevens: Absolutely, yeah. You’re spot on. Two things can be true. So the choice to do this album completely solo and from home both served the concept and integrity of the album. But it also was maybe the only way that I could have gotten it done during that time.

Just to put that into perspective, you know, there was the logistics of the grieving. The loss of my mom was super fresh, and I had a six-month-old who was part-time in daycare. And then towards the end of the recording and writing process, I was pregnant again. So there was the logistics of being a new mom, of having morning sickness, of being in a new place, of grieving my mom, and all of that was so much more possible to do from home. But I resisted it.

For a long time, I had the idea of recording the demos at home and then going into the studio. But I went back and forth a lot with Nic Hard, who mixed it with me. He also did Wonderbloom. And the deeper that we got into the material, the more crystal clear it was that the songs were best served if performed live – guitar and singing at the same time – and performed at home, where I was really in the character and in the feelings.

Did writing and making art feel like what you wanted to do under all those cross-cutting pressures and changes, or did you have to force yourself a bit through the work?

“Want” is maybe the wrong word. I felt like, at least for the grieving part, I had to do it because it was like I was going to explode if I didn’t do something. And it was a confusing loss – something that left me with a lot of questions. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been somebody who processes confusing emotions through writing songs or stories, or art in some way.

I felt like I needed to do it. But also, yes, there were times where I just absolutely did not want to and just wanted to lie on the floor. And I had to find a way to incorporate that as part of the process, so that I could forgive myself. I literally had a futon on the floor of my workspace, where I told that part of my brain, “You are invited to lay down there whenever you need to. You’re not at a studio. The clock’s not ticking. You’re not paying for this.” I called it my Womb Room. And I would put on salt lamps and put the lights down really low and lay down. And then some of the songs came from that space.

Some of these feel more like classical art songs than folk songs, in that they’re not shaped around a set number of measures or predictable beats. Did they feel a bit like that to you?

Yeah, the song “Payin’ to be Apart” comes to mind. It definitely felt that way; a little less folky, more like poetry that just happens to be on a wave of music. It’s interesting to hear you say that, because in the writing process – harmonically and in the accompaniment – I took a much simpler approach than what I have done before, on Regina or Wonderbloom, on everything really. Because I put so much intention and honesty and, like, blood, sweat, and tears into the lyric, I gave myself permission to let the waters that it was floating on be a little less turbulent artistically, a little less complex and a little more like I was trying to cradle them and deliver them in a way that takes care of them and makes it easier to metabolize – or something.

Was your mindset different, knowing there’s not going to be the grid of the drum beat? Can drums be a bit of a cage sometimes?

Yeah, they can be a cage. But they can also be like something that’s really cozy to lean on in the arrangement. Like, I can drop everything and have it just be drums and vocals for a verse and it feels really good. But for this album, I set a goal that the songs are meant to be performed as just me and the guitar, because that’s how they were recorded. That means that whatever break that I gave you in Wonderbloom by stripping down the arrangement and going to drums now needs to be created with whatever tools I have by myself, whether that’s narrative, or a right hand finger pattern, or fill in the blank.

This made me wonder how much you have performed solo acoustically in your career, given the emphasis on arrangement on a lot of your records.

Quite a bit, yeah. I have a lot of respect for my bandmates. And if there were ever gigs that we were offered where I felt like I couldn’t cover their fee and treat them well, I would just take it solo. I’ve done that a lot. I’ve done a lot of solo tours. A lot of my writing has started out solo, and I have solo versions – for example, “You Didn’t Know,” the song from Wonderbloom that was inspired from watching the documentary about R. Kelly. That song, I poured my heart out solo and then stripped the solo version back when I was in the studio turning it into the Wonderbloom version.

Solo feels like a home base to me, and it’s something that I think I’ve resisted, because maybe I felt like it wouldn’t be enough. There’s this narrative, especially in the booking world, that they don’t want to book you unless you have more than one or two people on stage, because it’s not enough to create the energy to get the focus of the audience. And maybe it’s not loud enough, you know? I also had that in mind. This might not be very marketable, but I’ve got to do my best to just serve these songs to the best of my ability. And it’s got to get done anyway, because this is how I’m processing this part of my life,

Meanwhile, your tempo of collaborative work never seems to let up. I have my personal favorites, but can you address some of your favorite partnerships here in the last few years?

We haven’t mentioned this yet as part of the story of this record, but knee-deep in the writing and recording stages of this album, we also lost David Crosby. I’d already gotten punched in the face and then I was like, kicked on the ground. Not that it’s about me. The whole world grieved that loss. As I mentioned, when I lost my mom, it was a very complicated grieving process. I took a lot of inspiration from listening to albums like Sufjan Stevens’s Carrie & Lowell, where it’s okay for grief to be ugly and complicated and to show that. But with Croz, it was so sad, because I loved him so much, and I loved being in his band, and I loved writing music with him. But the presence that he held in my life didn’t diminish. I couldn’t hug him, but there was this sort of heavenly presence when I was writing the songs for this album, where I could hear him and see him in my mind, kind of rooting me along.

And tell me about Michael League of Snarky Puppy and the universe that he inhabits with the GroundUP record label, which has been supportive of you all this time. It’s such a fascinating record company. I feel like they’ve got a lot to teach the music industry about curation and cultivation of a tribe, and I’d love for you to remark on how that model has served you.

I like the word tribe. I often think of it as family, but I think tribe is even stronger. I feel safe with that label in a way that I’ve never felt safe with labels before, especially major ones, where, if you’re not performing exactly the way that they want you to, you get kind of put on a shelf, and then your art doesn’t get heard because, because you’re not pleasing the corporation.

With GroundUP, I’ve always felt like whatever I’m getting into is what they want me to do. They’re like, “Your health and happiness and artistry come first and if that’s what you need to make right now, we’re behind it.” And I can’t tell you how liberating and comforting that is as an artist to know that the people that are helping you put your music out have your back. And we all love each other too. We all play together and love each other too.

And speaking of Sufjan Stevens, you got to be on Broadway in his Illinoise musical. What did that add to your world?

Yeah, it was a limited run on Broadway and I did half of the run. So I had Isla, my second daughter, on February 24 of this year. And then I got a call from Timo Andres, who did the orchestrations, saying, “I know you’re on maternity leave. This is crazy. I shouldn’t even be calling you, but I can’t not think of you for this role. Is there a world where you would ever audition for this?” I was like, “Yeah, I could audition and see what happens…” and didn’t expect to get it. I came in with my newborn baby. I handed her to my manager, did the audition, and they called me within a day and said they’d love for me to do it.

Initially I thought, “There’s no way.” I’m giving you all of this extra detail because a huge part of the experience for me was the chaos and the balance of the life that I was living at home for the first half of that day in Princeton – nursing my baby and being a new mama – and then handing her to my husband and jumping on the train for two hours, going into the city just in time to perform, and then coming back home and doing it all again and nursing through the night. It was this superhuman thing that initially I thought, “Oh, there’s no way this is going to work.”

The whole experience was like a dream state – being on stage and singing that music, which I’ve loved for so long. And also, having it not be about me was very refreshing. I’m not the band leader and I’m singing someone else’s music as a narrative that’s coming from the bodies of the dancers. We can lean on the coziness of the production, and just enjoy it.

I would say coming out of that helped me to be less self-absorbed. The headspace that I was in for Maple to Paper was very me, me, me, me, me, me. And then Illinoise was like, “No, it’s not about you. It’s about being in service to something greater than you.” Whether you’re writing a song about your feelings or singing somebody else’s, that’s always what it’s been.

Editor’s Note: Need more Becca Stevens? Check out our recent Basic Folk conversation with Stevens here.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

The Avett Brothers’ Musical, ‘Swept Away,’ Heads to Broadway

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It has been two decades since the Avett Brothers released their shipwreck-themed concept album Mignonette. This fall, the musical Swept Away, based on the album’s story, will premiere on Broadway as the latest in a bevy of roots-based musicals lighting up those storied theaters.

Swept Away is presented in 90 minutes without intermission. During previews in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., the cast and creative team received high praise from theater critics and Avett Brothers fans alike.

The Avetts’ original song cycle was based on the story of a shipwreck near the Cape of Good Hope that left four survivors in a lifeboat. To survive, three of them killed the fourth and ate him for sustenance. When they were finally rescued, the three stood trial, breaking a tradition of maritime law that up to that point had carried the spirit of, “What happens at sea remains at sea.”

It’s quite a story for a band of brothers who have become known for their stirring sincerity. But, Scott Avett told Broadway.com, “We were driving around to places that seemed unknown, in a van. We seemed to have nothing but this belief that we were doing something that was true. … It was easy to see that van as our vessel.”

“It was scary,” adds Seth. “We felt very driven to survive.”

Adrian Blake Enscoe and the Company of the Washington, D.C. Arena Stage production of ‘Swept Away.’ Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

The Avetts discovered the story via their father, Jim Avett, who had a special affection for stories of shipwrecks and handed them a book about its history, The Custom of the Sea: A Shocking True Tale of Shipwreck, Murder, and the Last Taboo. When they wrote Mignonette, the brothers Seth and Scott were 23 and 27, respectively, and just beginning to rise from the clubs. But the disc pointed the way toward a bright future for the Avetts, which then included only the brothers with bassist Bob Crawford.

It was that trio which caught the eyes, ears, and imagination of a young John Gallagher, Jr. Gallagher spent a summer day in 2005 at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, aimlessly checking out bands he’d never heard of before.

Folk audiences were a handful of years out from the release of O Brother, Where Art Thou? – the film that ignited a wildfire of interest in bluegrass and old-time music for a new generation. Plenty of bands in their 20s were throwing their flat caps into the ring. But, Gallagher recalled recently over Zoom, “The thing that struck me … about the Avetts is that they were feeling it, you know. You can’t fake that. You can’t deny that. When you see someone bring that to the stage or put that on a record, it’s totally undeniable.”

That night, while driving back to Delaware with his sister and friends in their mom’s minivan, Gallagher commandeered the discman attached to the cassette adapter that fit into the car’s tape deck to insist everyone listen to the CD he bought after the Avett Brothers’ set.

Mignonette was the only one they had on offer that summer. They’d released it a year earlier on Ramseur Records. Gallagher played its first two tracks – “Swept Away” and “Nothing Short of Thankful” – before moving on to Green Day’s American Idiot, which had also just released.

Fast forward a handful of years and Gallagher was developing a new musical for Broadway based on the very same Green Day album. In his dressing room at the St. James Theater, he’d hung a small poster that showed Seth Avett handing his guitar off to a tech at a live show.

Mignonette had long since turned the young actor into a self-described “fanboy.” Even as he sang eight shows a week of Green Day tunes, he couldn’t have possibly known he’d eventually be cast for another Broadway show, this time based on the Avett Brothers album he’d played in that minivan back in Philly.

John Gallagher, Jr. in the Washington, D.C. Arena Stage production of ‘Swept Away.’ Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

When it dropped in 2004, Mignonette was lauded by the roots music press of the day. Paste extolled the band’s “James Brown precision (in a bluegrass context of course).” No Depression, then still in its original print run, applauded tracks from the album that harnessed “palpable yearning and hope.”

The playwright and filmmaker John Logan (Moulin Rouge) recalls how, in 2017, he received an email from producer Matthew Masten, asking if he’d ever heard Mignonette. After listening to the album for a day, Logan was sold.

He flew to North Carolina, where he pitched his vision for the musical to the Avett Brothers, asking them to open their entire catalog and to write a new song only for the stage. Once they agreed, Swept Away was set in motion. Michael Mayer, who was directing Gallagher in American Idiot at the time – a very different show with a score written by a very different band – was tapped to direct.

The show these men and their team would create would be titled after the album’s opening song, “Swept Away.” It would be somewhat of a jukebox musical, but not really. Somewhere between Jagged Little Pill (which told a new story with Alanis Morisette’s breakthrough album) and Hadestown (whose Tony-winning set designer Rachael Hauck joined Swept Away’s creative team). Plus maybe a little Come From Away. On a ship. In the 1880s.

In recent years, Broadway producers have been more and more interested in revivals (Merrily We Roll Along, Cabaret) and movies-turned-musicals (The Notebook, Moulin Rouge). True originality is more rare on the Broadway stage. Swept Away may be adapted from a 20-year-old folk album, but its songs pull from across the Avetts’ catalog and its book is entirely new.

Like Gallagher, Adrian Blake Enscoe, who is originating the Little Brother character, is a musician away from Broadway. His band, Bandits on the Run, has the scrappy busking energy of early Avetts and he especially appreciates the way the show incorporates the “rough and spontaneous” elements of the Avetts’ music into a score that can resonate with the theater crowd.

“It’s really hard to capture the magic of the little things [about folk music] and translate it to other people,” he acknowledges. Then adds that the music supervisors and arrangers, Chris Miller and Brian Usifer, “did an incredible job of recreating the magic.”

Swept Away is set to open on Broadway October 29, 2024, at the Longacre Theatre on 48th Street.

All production photos courtesy of DKC/O&M. Shot at the Washington, D.C. Arena Stage production of Swept Away by Julieta Cervantes.

Lead Image: Stark Sands, John Gallagher, Jr., Wayne Duvall, and Adrian Blake Enscoe in the Washington, D.C. Arena Stage production of ‘Swept Away.’ Photo by Julieta Cervantes.

WATCH: Jim Kweskin, “You’re Just In Love”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Jim Kweskin
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Song: “You’re Just In Love” (featuring Fiona Kweskin)
Album: Never Too Late
Release Date: January 26, 2024
Label: StorySound Records

In Their Words: “‘You’re Just In Love’ was written by Irving Berlin, who wrote it for the 1950 Broadway musical Call Me Madam. It’s been recorded many times, but never like this – we do it almost as a folk song. I love the counterpoint, the two different words, and the melodies going on at the same time. Irving Berlin, of course, is a famous American popular music composer. He’s written songs that everybody knows, like ‘God Bless America’ and ‘White Christmas,’ but in fact, he wrote hundreds of hit songs for Broadway musicals, movies, and pop records. He’s one of my favorite composers. And for me, what could be better than a grandfather singing to his granddaughter about what it feels like to be in love?” – Jim Kweskin

Track Credits:

Jim Kweskin – Vocal & Guitar
Fiona Kweskin – Vocal
Cindy Cashdollar – Baritone National Tricone
Suzy Thompson – Fiddle
Sean Staples – Mandolin
Richie Guerin – Mandola
Matthew Berlin – Bass

Video Credits: Directed and edited by Lauren Balthrop
Assisted by James Paul Mitchell and Lawson White
Additional concert footage filmed and edited by Wayne Griffith

Photo Credit: Don West

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer Conquer Cancer and Filmmaking with ‘All Wigged Out’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

There is hardly a sphere of the music industry that musicians and community builders Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer have not conquered, from bluegrass and folk music to children’s music and the Grammys. Now, these multi-hyphenate musical polymaths have set their sights on a new medium through which they can create, storytell, and connect with audiences: film. 

All Wigged Out is a documentary musical film that tells the story of Marxer’s journey through breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. The film, which will be available on demand May 16 on Amazon, Google, and many more, utilizes musical mastery, eclectic wit, storytelling, and comedy to share the poignant, bittersweet, hopeful, and downright zany tale spun together from Marxer’s unique perspective, writing style, and multi-instrumental approach. On April 28, an album of the catchy, hilarious, and touching songs from the musical – entitled, All Wigged Out: Songs from the Musical – will be available wherever you download and stream music. (Pre-order on Bandcamp). Watch a trailer for the film:

“[All Wigged Out] is a way to entertain people, but educate at the same time – educate patients and caregivers,” Marxer explains via phone. “Not educating in a condescending way, but there were just so many things that I could not expect, that I didn’t know how to deal with. This is just a way of sharing my experiences – which is just one experience – and help folks to live life one day at a time, doing your best with what you’ve been given to make decisions and move forward. And the next day, when everything changes, you still just make the best decisions that you can at that moment. Then you can live life with no regrets.”

“And don’t lose your sense of humor!” Cathy adds from the background – they both laugh.

Over the course of their widely variable careers, Fink and Marxer have certainly never lost their senses of humor – cancer or not. Together and separately, their careers have exceeded four decades in folk music, old-time, bluegrass, children’s music, and so many other realms of the entertainment industry. It comes as no surprise, that despite not having any prior experience writing, producing, and staging a musical documentary film, that they were able to leverage their personal and professional communities, teach themselves these often punishing skill sets with steep learning curves, and put together a film that’s musically engaging, humorous, joyful, and actually says something. All at a markedly clean-and-crisp, professional level.

All Wigged Out also shines a spotlight on Cathy & Marcy’s relationship, the way they rely and depend on each other not only in their musical careers, but also in their personal lives. They demonstrate, through this film and in all their efforts, that their penchant for community and community building starts at home. They’re committed leaders, mentors, and friends to all in the roots music industry and beyond, so it feels absolutely grounded and genuine to see them both expand their vision for community to include cancer support groups, associations, and all kinds of organizations with missions of supporting and uplifting folks who have had cancer touch their lives. 

With no shortage of laurels and film festival accolades, All Wigged Out is certainly poised to bring Fink & Marxer and their community-minded music to so many new audiences within and outside of the music community, especially with their activist and organizing experience. They’ve taken All Wigged Out to screenings, talk-backs, fundraisers, discussions, and panels, often partnering with Cancer Support Communities and Gilda’s Clubs, as well as making appearances at the NC Museum of Art, Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, American Nurses Association, National Women’s Music Festival, and so many more.

This week, in celebration of the film’s release, they’re partnering with Ebeauty on a film screening and panel that features Marxer, her surgeon, and a representative from Ebeauty, which is a non-profit organization that facilitates cancer patients obtaining wigs and other cancer resources. During the event, Marxer will donate the film’s titular wig to Ebeauty, which will use the hair piece to train wig technicians and cosmetologists on wig styling for patients, then the wig will be passed along to another cancer patient facing hair loss as part of Ebeauty’s wig exchange program. This is just one example of the many ways this film and its music can touch folks’ lives and help them on their own journeys back to health and wellness.

Whether teaching ukulele, competing in local fiddler’s conventions, participating in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, or just camped out in a festival parking lot picking, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer lead by example, putting their hearts and souls into everything they make and by doing so, they open a wide, hospitable door to anyone and everyone they meet. The connection, compassion, and poignance of All Wigged Out will make this task even easier, despite its often challenging or bittersweet subject matter. The joy – and the belly laughs – in this film are second only to what we love most about Cathy & Marcy to begin with: their music.

Photo credit: Todd Rosenberg

LISTEN: Dawn Landes, “Dear Heart”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Dawn Landes
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Song: “Dear Heart”
Album: ROW
Release Date: October 2, 2020
Label: CropDuster/AWAL

Editor’s Note: Landes’ new album offers songs from her anticipated new musical, ROW, which tells the true story of Tori Murden McClure, the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Landes wrote all the music and lyrics for ROW, while playwright Daniel Goldstein wrote the book, based on McClure’s autobiography, A Pearl in the Storm.

In Their Words: “‘Dear Heart’ was one of the first songs I wrote for this project. My collaborator Danny Goldstein (book-writer) and I met with Tori to ask permission to adapt her story into a musical. As a complete stranger, it was a nerve-racking experience to sing this song about one of the darker moments in her memoir, to her face. Something must’ve rang true, because she said ‘Yes!’ Getting to sing this song and tell some of her story at TED a few years ago was one of my most memorable experiences on stage.” — Dawn Landes

Photo credit: Shannon Kelly

Artist of the Month: Anaïs Mitchell

Posted on by Editor

The world has finally caught up with Anaïs Mitchell. With sold-out runs in London and New York, near-constant critical acclaim, and a sweep of eight Tony Awards, the Vermont native was quite literally center stage last summer accepting the award for Best Original Musical for her creation Hadestown.

But Anaïs Mitchell has been center stage for a very long time — it’s the size and location of the venue and audience that has changed. With five solo records under her belt, a growing collection of collaborative projects ranging from a record of obscure English ballads (Child Ballads with Jefferson Hamer) to a new supergroup Bonny Light Horseman (with Eric D Johnson of Fruit Bats and guitarist Josh Kaufman), and the decade-long evolution of her now-famous folk opera Hadestown, Mitchell is profound not only in her turnout, but in the indisputable quality and beauty of everything she touches.

That’s why we’re excited to present her as BGS‘ first Artist of the Month for 2020. Throughout the month, we’ll be digging deeper into her career with an exclusive interview feature by Stephen Deusner. After all she’s accomplished in the last decade alone, we can’t wait to see what’s next for her in the one to come. For now, enjoy our Essentials playlist and prepare yourself for the Month of Anaïs Mitchell.

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez