Tag: nina simone

BGS Class of 2023: Our Year-End Favorites

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Year-end lists can be so problematic – pitting distinct sounds and music against each other, peddling absolutes, attempting objectivity in a demonstrably subjective field. Each year, as we consider the music that impacted us over the course of twelve months, we try to challenge ourselves and each other, as BGS contributors, to think outside the year-end round up “box.” 

For the BGS Class of 2023, our intention is to highlight music, songs, albums, and performances that have stuck with us, or that we know will continue to stick with us into the future. We wanted to deliberately look beyond the music and creators that merely have the resources, networks, and access to reach us; we wanted to utilize genre as a checkpoint or touchstone, but never as a blanket criterion; we wanted to broaden what forms of media or formats are included; and overall, we wanted to attempt a holistic look at what a year of listening, learning, watching, and hearing can look like to this particular group of people. 

You’ll find ravishing and large indie folk, earnest and literary – and raucous and silly – bluegrass, legendary legacy artists and brand new lineups, soundtracks and live shows, and more. Ultimately, whatever the year, we always want our retrospective lists to be a starting point, a springboard, for our readers, followers, and for roots music fans. This is not the end-all, be-all “Best of 2023” list. Instead, it’s a reminder of the music that scored a year absolutely filled to bursting with excellent, exemplary, ecstatic roots songs, albums, and shows. 

boygenius in Pittsburgh, June 2023

When I saw boygenius this summer, I was milktoast about the whole thing going into it. As soon as I arrived, I realized I was surrounded by young people – and not just any young people: All the beautiful freaks were out for Lucy, Julien, and Phoebe. The energy was palpable and something that I have not experienced in over 20 years. Everyone knew every word. They were FaceTiming friends who cried and sang along remotely with these heroes on stage. It was inspiring!

boygenius feels like an important band. I so wish they had been around when I was an outcast teenager feeling such confusing, wild emotions. Music has a way of helping the world make sense. boygenius radiates communion and it felt like an honor to be a part of their world. – Cindy Howes

Caitlin Canty, Quiet Flame

My favorite bluegrass album of the year is often an album that, through no fault of its own, ends up receiving little to no bluegrass radio airplay or IBMA Awards recognition, and as I listened to Caitlin Canty’s Quiet Flame over and over this year, I couldn’t help but expect it would end up criminally underrated by the general bluegrass community. It’s made by bluegrass pickers – Canty assembled Chris Eldridge (who also was the project’s producer), her husband Noam Pikelny, Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert, Sarah Jarosz, and Andrew Marlin for her band – and as a result Quiet Flame, more often than not, is just an unencumbered string band album that’s as much bluegrass as it is Americana and singer-songwriter folk. But while Mighty Poplar, with a similar lineup of folks, takes off in bluegrass circles, it raises an eyebrow that this impeccable, heartfelt, and complicated set of songs hasn’t seen the same trajectory. Not that that was Canty’s goal – it’s obvious her priorities in music making are grounded and community-minded, part of why this album is such a stunner. “Odds of Getting Even,” co-written with another BGS favorite, Maya de Vitry, is one of the year’s best songs, bar none. – Justin Hiltner

A Homeplace Pilgrimage to Earl Scruggs Music Festival, August 2023

L: Nina Simone’s homeplace in Tryon, NC. R: Earl Scruggs’ homeplace in Boiling Springs, NC. Both photos by Justin Hiltner.

BGS once again co-presented the Earl Scruggs Revue tribute set hosted by Tony Trischka at Earl Scruggs Music Festival, held just outside of Shelby, North Carolina at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in August. On my drive to the festival grounds, I made stops in Tryon proper, to visit Nina Simone’s childhood home, and also in Shelby, to visit the Earl Scruggs Center and to drive by both of the Scruggs homeplaces just outside of Boiling Springs, North Carolina. It was stunning to visit both homes on the same day, to realize the interconnectedness of so much of American popular music. Simone grew up with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from her front porch nestled in one of their hollers, yet we place Scruggs as an Appalachian musician and not Simone? 

The festival and Scruggs Center, for their parts, did an excellent job of demonstrating how broad, varied, and intricate American roots music is, even while focusing closely on bluegrass, string band, and Americana music. Listeners of our podcast, Carolina Calling, will know how much BGS loves North Carolina music history – the show features episodes on both Scruggs and Simone. Seeing that history in person, while heading to a first-class, banjo-heavy festival was a favorite musical moment of this year, for sure. – Justin Hiltner

East Nash Grass, Last Chance to Win

East Nash Grass seems to be all the buzz on the bluegrass circuit these days and those who have ventured to Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge on any Monday night since 2017 can certainly understand why. The band’s long-standing residency at the Madison, Tennessee dive bar has taken them from a weekly pick-up band to performing at the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and at bluegrass festivals across the U.S. Their sophomore album, Last Chance to Win, captures the band at their very best (albeit, without their lovable stage antics). Following a 2023 IBMA nomination for Best New Artist, it won’t be a surprise if we see this record, and these musicians, sweeping awards in 2024 and beyond. – Thomas Cassell

Alejandro Escovedo at Cat’s Cradle Backroom, Carrboro, NC, November 2023

There are countless good reasons why you should make a point of seeing the Texas punk/soul godfather if he’s ever playing anywhere near you. But what might be the best reason of all is it’s a lead-pipe cinch that everyone in your town worth hanging out with will be there, too – onstage as well as in the crowd. Escovedo was among a dozen stars drawn to the North Carolina Triangle for an all-star “Nuggets” tribute show overseen by Lenny Kaye in November. So, he came a night early and played a solo show, too, ably supported by local luminaries Lynn Blakey and Pinetops/The Right Profile guitarist Jeffrey Dean Foster. The love in the room was palpable on deeply moving originals like “Sister Lost Soul” and “Wave Goodbye.” And when Kaye and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck came on for a closing Velvet Underground cameo of “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Sweet Jane,” the circle was complete. – David Menconi

Ben Garnett, “Open Your Books” (featuring Brittany Haas and Paul Kowert)

Before I’d listened to the complete #BGSClassof2023 Spotify playlist and realized this track was one of our first additions, the app kept recommending “Open Your Books” to me – and it’s not hard to see why. From guitarist and composer Ben Garnett’s debut album, Imitation Fields, the track features bassist Paul Kowert and fiddler Brittnay Haas and is an example of what bluegrass music can be, and what traditionally bluegrass instruments can do.

The tune opens slowly, with guitar and mandola – provided by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway’s own Dominick Leslie. Fiddle swells, orchestral arrangements, and dreamy acoustic production make for a piece that feels distinctly intellectual. It’s chambergrass, but it’s also highly listen-able. While there’s a strong melodic thread throughout, the surrounding instruments and their players are allowed to wander off up the guitar neck, throwing in trill-y banjo licks, and detouring outside traditional fills and solo styles. The record was produced by Chris Eldridge and also features Matthew Davis on banjo and additional guitar from Billy Contreras. I’d recommend this tune to low-fi lovers, roots music fans, and anyone looking for a chilled out moment. It’s perfect for an introspective drive or a rainy winter day spent drinking hot tea at the window. – Lonnie Lee Hood

Alice Gerrard, Sun to Sun

Never, over the course of her lifelong career in music, has Alice Gerrard stopped, having reached her musical destination. She has challenged herself, time and time again, not simply for reinvention’s sake, but because she is a consummate old-time and bluegrass musician, someone so solidly bitten by the string band bug that making music requires that constant movement, that aspirational looking into the future, girded by songs of the past. But Sun to Sun, her latest – and perhaps final – album, features songs decidedly of the present. A synthesizer of traditional art forms, Gerrard takes textures and colors we relate to “authenticity” and leverages them to serve the messages in these tracks. Aging, mortality, justice, apartheid, gun violence, community are all woven into this collection. Alice is their nexus point, around which the entire project revolves and reflects the cosmic light she continues to shine on all of us – and on roots music subjects too often hidden in the shadows. – Justin Hiltner

A Good Year for Soundtracks – Asteroid City, The Holdovers, and More

Between the Writers Guild and Screen Actors’ strikes, 2023 was a weird year for the entertainment industry. But for those releases that did make it to the screen, it was a great year for movie soundtracks, especially for roots music fans.

First up, Wes Anderson’s western sci-fi Asteroid City. In addition to the usual cadre of Anderson’s cast, the film was peppered with classic country and bluegrass recordings from the likes of Tex Ritter, Slim Whitman, Bill Monroe, and Johnny Duncan & the Blue Grass Boys (you read that right). That’s to say nothing of the incredibly catchy original ear worm, “Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” which felt as classic as those twentieth century tunes of the frontier written decades ago.

Capping off the year was Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, a beautiful ode to a particular style of 1970s filmmaking that stars Paul Giamatti. Set in snowy western Massachusetts over a lonely winter break in 1970, the soundtrack plays like an old, soft blanket – familiar and warming.  Newer tracks from Damian Jurado and Khruangbin weave seamlessly alongside ‘70s AM gold and Mark Orton’s pensive, folksy score. But the real standout of this soundtrack is a rediscovery of British folk artist Labi Siffre. His music has been shamefully overlooked in U.S. folk canon. Hopefully this movie can help start to rectify that.

Finally, it would be criminal if I didn’t mention the key placement of Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” in the biggest hit of the year, Barbie. Here’s to another generation of young women finding themselves in Amy and Emily’s music. Thanks, Greta Gerwig. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs

Kristen Grainger & True North, “Extraordinary Grace”

Take the anvil from my chest…

I am gasping for breath at this opening line. In her extraordinary, intimate voice, Kristen Grainger is pleading, letting us know she has lost hope. And we are right there with her. Whether we believed salvation came from the church or the Voting Rights Act, we believe no more. We are a fractured world, and it seems there is no bringing us together. Kristen’s melodies pull you in as much as her words, and I sometimes wake with this haunting song emerging from my dreams. Her bandmates’ graceful harmonies and instrumental accompaniment support the stunning words. 

I once believed in extraordinary grace
I put my faith in saints and saviors
In the mirror, I can’t bear to see my heroine
Killing time until time returns the favor.

Still, there is cause for hope: the promise of more music from True North. – Claire Levine

Angélique Kidjo at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 2023

“We can’t hear! We can’t hear!” Not what a performer wants to hear an audience chanting – though Angélique Kidjo didn’t hear it for a couple of songs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April. She was giving it all, singing and dancing with vigor and verve, as she does. But the Benin-born star’s voice and all but the drums and percussion from her band were not reaching the crowd, that had already waited out a 45-minute rain delay. Finally, the stage crew got the message, but it still took some time to get things working. When they did, Kidjo betrayed no frustration – just pure, joyful release as she packed a full set’s worth of spirit into the handful of songs she could squeeze in the remaining time slot, including a few highlights from her re-infusion of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light album. Closing with her idol/mentor Mariam Makeba’s signature “Pata Pata,” she was radiant, as was everyone who stuck around to see and hear her. – Steve Hochman

The Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony

This album is, without reservation or exaggeration, one of the most beautiful records I have heard in my entire life. Building on inspiration from ‘60s/’70s pop-rock (think the Byrds,Todd Rundgren, the Beach Boys, the Flamin’ Groovies), the Lemon Twigs achieve a layered delicacy of nostalgia and innovation. Their creative impulses are so detailed, articulate, and inspired that the entire album feels unfathomable; how could music reach such timelessness that it tickles at the preterhuman? Brothers Michael and Brian D’addario share the songwriting credits for pieces that feel distinctly matured from much of their earlier work. They’ve pared down the theatrics, tightened the sprawling lyrics, and created from a place that strikes a quintessential balance of self and influence. Their result is something oceanic – music that calls upon its ancestry in a way that is pervasive, striking, and sublimates the query of eternity. – Oriana Mack

Ronnie Milsap’s Final Nashville Concert, October 2023

Ronnie Milsap’s final Nashville concert will resonate with me for many years to come, both because of the multiple memorable performances and because it represented the best of country music from the standpoint of diversity and inclusion. Various performers from across the musical spectrum covered Milsap hits, with songs from every arena – honky-tonk and straight country tearjerkers, reworked doo-wop, R&B, and pop classics, love songs, and slice of life retrospectives. The roster of artists who displayed their love and affection for Milsap’s music crossed racial, gender, and sexual orientation lines, and it was also great to see the legend himself conclude the proceedings. While the Nashville audience and community will miss Milsap’s performances, this last outing provided plenty of wonderful moments and lots of great music that will never be forgotten. – Ron Wynn

New Dangerfield’s Debut at IBMA Bluegrass Live!, September 2023

For years a growing number of Black musicians have entered the trad scene and reclaimed Black traditions key to its development and evolution. Their work has run the gamut from preservation to experimentation. Audiences at this year’s IBMA Bluegrass Live! were introduced to a new Black string band that does it all: New Dangerfield. Made up of powerhouses Tray Wellington, Kaïa Kater, Jake Blount, and Nelson Williams, New Dangerfield has, in their own words, “risen to carry the torch.” In their premiere performance the band delivered an eclectic set of early jazz, early blues — and even a cover of R&B musician H.E.R’s “Hard Place,” led by Kater’s deliciously lush vocals. Each member, proficient instrumentalists in their own right, also showed off their technical chops and drew whoops from the crowd. Their set was something historic, and I’m excited to see what comes next from New Dangerfield. – Brandi Waller-Pace

Railbird Festival, June 2023

Set in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky, under a deep-red Strawberry Moon, the 2023 Railbird Festival was an under-the-radar masterstroke, highlighting the confluence of roots music and the mainstream. Held June 3 and 4 on the spacious lawn of The Infield at Red Mile, a sold-out crowd of 40,000+ enjoyed a non-stop lineup of performers from across the “Americana” pantheon, expertly curated and spread out over three stages. With 32 acts in total, country, rock, folk, bluegrass and more were all represented, as headliners Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan topped a bill including Charley Crockett, Whiskey Myers, Morgan Wade, Nickel Creek, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway – even Weezer and Sheryl Crow. Combine all that with a well-thought out fan experience and an off-the-beaten path vibe, and the weekend was an ideal kickoff to festival season. – Chris Parton

Sam Shackleton at the Horseshoe Tavern, October 2023

Country fandom has always been ideological, but in the last few years the genre’s politics have felt plainer – clear villains and clear heroes, but also messy interior politics. Through this time, I’ve mostly been listening to folk music far away from the fighting at home, from musicians like Sam Shackleton, a genius singer and banjo player from Scotland. He was supporting the Mary Wallopers, the radical Irish party band, in Toronto in October. Shackleton was great, working the audience, singing his songs, and classic folk tracks. The crowd was restless, the beer he was offered on stage seemed pro forma, but he tried. There was a version of “All You Fascists (Are Bound To Lose)” that gave me hope for a few minutes. We step out for a smoke, and Shackelton is on the patio, nursing a lager. I tell him I loved the show and that I wanted vinyl. He hugs me and thanks me. Walking back in, the room is filled with Irish expats who are singing along to the Wallopers in ways that feel a little hostile. I leave early, going for Chinese food. These couple of hours were country/folk in 2023 for me – inclusive, exclusive, hand shakes, hugs, and isolation – plus enough physical/emotional distance from the world that I didn’t ask exactly how the fascists would lose. – Steacy Easton

Sleeping in the Woods Festival, May 2023

At a time when money in the music industry is at an all time low, and expenses are at an all time high, I have immense gratitude for anyone starting new community projects to showcase and uplift musicians and songwriters. I was lucky enough to get to be a part of Nicholas Jamerson’s Sleeping in the Woods Festival in Cumberland, Kentucky in May of 2023, and this event makes my best-of list. The festival bills itself as songwriter specific and showcases many lesser known Kentucky songwriters and bands. The strategy is to create a listening environment and bring together a Southern audience hungry for more straight-shooting roots music and hard hitting lyrics after becoming fans of Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, and of course, Jamerson himself. After a successful first year, the festival is poised to grow exponentially and become a beloved annual event for all of those involved. – Rachel Baiman

Billy Strings at Bourbon and Beyond, September 2023

After five years of programming the BGS stage at Bourbon & Beyond, the Louisville-based festival has become something of a homecoming for our whole team. But nothing was more special than this year, when we got to see Billy Strings headline the main stage in front of over 50,000 people. It seems like just yesterday (in reality it was more like 2018) that Billy played our own stage inside the Bourbon Tent, a memory made all the sweeter by his surprise appearance this year on our stage during Michael Cleveland’s set. Hopefully it’s one of many happy returns to B&B for Billy, his fans, and BGS for years to come. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs

Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel

Nobody sounds like Sunny War. As her profile has risen over the past decade, Sunny has held onto her punk rock politics and direct lyricism, grounding her artistry in the blues. Listening to one of her songs is like looking at a diorama of a nearby planet, similar to our own, but with none of human society’s bullshit. 2023’s Anarchist Gospel features Americana heavyweights David Rawlings, Jim James, Allison Russell, and Chris Pierce, but always sounds exactly like Sunny. Her hypnotic guitar work and precise songcraft shine. Her vocals walk a fine line between eerie and inviting. And at the end of a year when riot grrl aesthetics have gone mainstream, Sunny War is a rare reminder of what the real thing sounds like.  – Lizzie No

Photo Credit: Angélique Kidjo by Fabrice Mabillot; Billy Strings by Christopher Morley; boygenius by Matt Grubb.

 

Nina Simone: Unraveling Her Profound Legacy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

One of the great voices of American song, Nina Simone was a definitive voice of 20th century American music. Her voice, music, and legacy all continue to resonate today, more than two decades since Simone’s death at age 70. She remains a guiding star for multiple artists across styles and genres – including Jaki Shelton Green, Poet Laureate of Simone’s native state of North Carolina. In an in-depth chat, we go deep about the art and inspiration Simone left behind.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • YOUTUBE • MP3
 

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Durham, Asheville, Shelby, Greensboro, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”
Nina Simone – “Sinnerman”

Photo of Nina Simone by Stroud Productions, courtesy of the Nina Simone Project

Artist of the Month: Folk Hero Alice Gerrard Is Unafraid to Be a Real Person

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Fiddler, songwriter, and creator Libby Rodenbough writes this personal essay on her friendship with and admiration for BGS Artist of the Month, Alice Gerrard, accompanied by her original photos taken for Gerrard’s new album, Sun to Sun.)

I remember first hearing Ola Belle Reed’s “Undone in Sorrow” when I was 19 or 20. I felt like a portal had been opened unto a world that had existed around me my whole life, unseen and unheard. I grew up in North Carolina going to visit my mom’s family in Madison County, along the Blue Ridge, where any of the graveyards on the mountain sides with their little mounds of clay outside my backseat window might have been the one from Ola Belle’s song.

That portal didn’t open for me in the mountains of North Carolina, though – it was in Chicago, at the Old Town School of Folk Music, an institution that had come out of the ‘50s folk revival. I was big on Pete Seeger and John Prine at that time in my life, and had found out my dad had a cousin with a spare room in Chicago, so I went on a little pilgrimage during a recess from college.

It was there that I learned my first old time fiddle tunes, belting the refrain “down in North Carolina” from “Waterbound” at the school’s open jam while the Chicago winter dumped three feet of snow outside. It was there I first learned the rudiments – very rude in my case – of clawhammer banjo. It was also there that I first heard a left hook of a song called “A Few Old Memories” by Hazel Dickens, which appeared on her 1973 duo record with Alice Gerrard, Hazel & Alice.

I went home from Chicago with new eyes and ears. Places I’d known forever became newly populated with epic figures, recast in the light of 200-year-old narratives. My first semester back in school, I was in an introductory folklore course taught by Mike Taylor (of Hiss Golden Messenger) and he started talking about his friend Alice Gerrard, who lived a town over in Durham. I was fairly well tangled up in time and place at that point – even the deceased people I’d been learning about were brand new to me – so I had to blink a few times to digest that she was the same person singing harmony on “A Few Old Memories.”

Today, 10-ish years later, I sit with Alice in preparation for writing this piece and she tells me about driving Ola Belle Reed in her Dodge van on tours through the South in the late ‘60s. She’s my oldest friend (nearly 90), and all competition lags behind her years pretty pathetically. She also makes a lot of the people I talk to seem boring. We’re in the same business: We sing songs and play shows and make records. She’s been doing it a lot longer, and I think she knows about five times as many songs.

Hanging out with Alice helps me understand why she wanted to be friends with people like Elizabeth Cotten and Luther Davis, who were elderly when she met them. She heard the way they played and sang and had to talk to them about their lives. “They knew exactly who they were,” she says. For a young person who had moved across the country from Oregon to Washington, D.C., without maintaining much contact with home, dropped out of college, and had four children, that self-knowledge was aspirational. Though their rootedness in their communities was part of what drew her to them, she didn’t think of them as avatars of bygone primitive ways of life, or as characters in a play – they were people. Elizabeth Cotten was somewhat guarded, but over years traveling and playing together, she told Alice about indignities she had suffered as a domestic worker and as a Black female folk performer, and about subtle acts of defiance she had worked into both vocations. Luther Davis talked about how lonely it was to get old and run out of witnesses to your own life.

Alice is likewise unafraid of being a person. She’ll tell you straightforwardly that she was unprepared to be a mother, that it was essentially impossible to pursue a music career – which was something she knew she wanted for herself – and still give adequate time to her kids. We commiserate about music industry bullshit and engage in light shit-talking about the idea of showmanship.

She’s usually wearing one of her collection of t-shirts that pertain to her dog Polly’s agility training facility (“Fast and Furryous”). This past March, when I took these photos of her to use for promotion of her new album, Sun to Sun, we went through her closet together and dug out some gems, including a bedazzled commemorative t-shirt from Obama’s inauguration.

I have no training in photography – I shoot film because I enjoy the feeling of not really knowing how it works. We went to Duke Gardens in Durham, where we both live, on a week when the cherry trees had popcorned into glory. Alice looks radiant in the halo of those glowing blooms. But I also love the photos where she’s at home, standing in front of the brick retaining wall around her front yard, before she realized she still had her Apple Watch on. The sky was so blue that day, her white hair incandescent. She looks like she knows something you don’t, but in a warm way, like she knows you’ll get it eventually.

Alice is unafraid to treat a song like it can handle a little handling. She knows that songs are alive and she’s interested in being a part of their lives, not their memorialization. She smiles talking about how, in an old John Cohen film, the Madison County ballad singer Dillard Chandler starts a song in a key around here (she holds her hand at her waistline) and ends it here (she raises her hand up level with her temple). She’s delighted by the particularity of the human touch. She prefers singing voices with a bit of weirdness over purely pretty ones. Talking about Carter Stanley’s high whine, she says, “Whatever was eating on him from the inside, it was showing up in the way he sang. Nina Simone, the same way.” She tells me what a struggle it is to teach that kind of feeling to people accustomed to singing prettily. “If you’re trying to get somebody out of the soft, breathy voice, you say, ‘Look, your kid is running out into the street and you have to call your kid back.’ You don’t say,” — she coos — “‘Heyyyyy Brian, get back here.’ You say, ‘BRIAN! GET BACK HERE!’”

Whenever I’ve played music with her, Alice seems to lean into what people at the Old Town School liked – actually, loved – to call “the folk process;” she lets arrangements evolve as the spirit of the universe sees fit. I’m lucky she’s not a stickler for tradition, even traditions she could write encyclopedias about, because my fiddling style is distinctly unmoored. I was a half-rate Suzuki classical violin student growing up and then at the Old Town School I learned how to accompany folk singers on songs with three or fewer chords. I came home and started going to the old-time jam at Nightlight Bar & Club in Chapel Hill, where the jam leaders were American Studies PhD candidates who also grew up learning fiddle tunes from their hometown octogenarians. Some of my friends started a band called Mipso that was flirtatious with bluegrass and asked me to join, but I told them up front I didn’t know any licks. (They didn’t seem bothered by that.) I’ve since learned a few licks, and I would rather play an old time tune any day of the week than do almost anything else, but I never could sit still long enough to do what Alice calls “holding the line” — keeping and caring for the tradition.

I’m indebted to, and grateful in my heart for, people who do that work. I may roll my eyes at gatekeeping, but it’s more than wide-eyed would-be fiddle players at the gate; it’s the whole monster of monolithic, capitalist cultural imperialism, chomping down on everything small or strange. Songs can, and do, disappear, like cultures and forests, and not just by inertia but by clear-cutting. A lot of days I feel self-conscious about whatever it is I’m doing instead of holding that line. When I listen to Alice tell stories about the many singers and players she’s known over the years, though, I remind myself that they each have a distinct relationship with tradition – and with what it means to be an artist.

For a long time there’s been a divide, rhetorical and sometimes actual, between “the folk” and “the folkies,” which maybe means country people versus city people, or maybe people who grew up in a given musical tradition versus those who came to it later. Alice and I both fall into the latter category, though she’s had considerably sharper focus since her initiation. I’d rather replay a 10-second clip of a Mark O’Connor fiddle solo at one-quarter speed forty-seven times in a row than try to examine that dichotomy in any more detail at this moment, but I did spend a lot of my undergraduate days thinking about authenticity and who’s entitled to do what with old songs. Alice has often found herself among people who look at it from an academic angle – her ex-husband, Mike Seeger, came from a folklorist family – but her view remains that the compulsion to define and categorize is basically academia trying to justify itself. I don’t take that as bitter or glib, I just think she hasn’t found it necessary, in her personal relationship with the music she loves, to try to determine who gets to claim it. Or maybe, for Alice, the claim is in the singing. Talking about what makes a voice “authentic” (a word that sends a chill down my spine), she paraphrases Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart from 1967 in his definition of pornography: “I know it when I see it.”

As we clink the ice around our $7 decaf specialty iced lattes, Alice tells me about a song she’d just heard, a haunting falsetto voice with nylon string guitar, in the opening scene of Pedro Almodóvar’s new short film, Strange Way of Life. After some Google sleuthing, she identified it as a recording by the Brazilian artist Caetano Veloso (in fact, the movie is named for it – “Estranha Forma de Vida.”) She’s head over heels for this song, itching to go home and dig into Veloso’s catalog. If they ever meet, I know she will have great questions for him, the type of questions that make a person believe songs must do real work in this world.

I ask her if she thinks of her music as having “a purpose.” “Not really,” she says. But she goes on, “I want people to hear what I hear in this music.”

In my view, that’s an altruistic goal, because it’s clear that whatever it is Alice hears in the music, it gives her life its very marrow. I admire the decades she has devoted to learning and documenting traditional music, but what I aspire to most is the way she still loves a song — viscerally, instinctively, with gusto. That’s what makes a line worth holding.

“There was something about the music, the quality of the voices,” she says, recalling first hearing Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. “There’s so much beauty in it, it’s like, God, yeah.”

I had that “yeah” moment when I heard “Undone in Sorrow” and “A Few Old Memories” – and now, Sun to Sun. I hope to be saying “yeah” like that about songs for the rest of my life.

All photos: Libby Rodenbough

MIXTAPE: Chris Pierce on the Healing Powers of Music

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Hello Folks! My name is Chris Pierce. I’m a musician, songwriter and storyteller. My new album, Let All Who Will, was created to offer a message of resilience and empowerment – and to remind those who have been pressed to never give up the good fight for justice and equality. The songs are there for folks to hear, dissect and discuss. They also offer suggestions of ways to speak up and move together from a place of common ground. I believe that compassion is the only way forward. I fight with compassion. I sing with compassion. For this Mixtape, let’s explore a theme of the healing powers of music. Songs of liberation, pain, encouragement, empowerment and togetherness. – Chris Pierce

Reverend Gary Davis – “Let Us Get Together Right Down Here”

Starting with a song from Rev. Gary Davis – also known as Blind Gary Davis (born on April 30, 1896) – a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar, and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina, and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina, in the 1930s. After relocating to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked through the 1960s. I’ve always been particularly moved by this song by Rev. Davis as it draws the listener in right away and encourages us all to “get together” as part of the great congregation of humanity.

Nina Simone – “Backlash Blues”

Growing up, my mother was an English teacher and I was fortunate enough to have access to books by some of the greatest writers of our time. I gravitated towards studying Langston Hughes from the time I was around 10 years old and the inspiration from reading his profound works is one of the reasons that I became a songwriter. “Backlash Blues” is one of his poems that was given a melody and was sung by the high priestess of soul, Nina Simone. It was written as a sign of hope for Black people during times of segregation.

Chris Pierce – “It’s Been Burning for a While”

This song is a response to the furor surrounding the tragic death of George Floyd in 2020. It was beyond puzzling to see how surprised many voices were, in the media and beyond, at the anger people felt. My co-writer and I collaborated on this song in an effort to point out that while all these stories have been making the headlines a lot recently, repression of the marginalized is nothing new.

Richie Havens – “Handsome Johnny”

Richie Havens’ music has elements of folk, soul and rhythm and blues. He had an intense and rhythmic guitar style and often played in open tunings. A lot of folks know him from Woodstock, but he continued on playing concerts right up until his passing in 2013.

I’ve been deeply inspired by Richie Havens in my own songwriting and growing up hearing songs like “Handsome Johnny” inspired me to expand my writing. To me, “Handsome Johnny” testifies about the sacrifices and inner struggles of the soldier and describes soldiers of all kinds going off to fight for what they believe in.

Lead Belly – “In the Pines” / “Black Girl” / “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?”

I’ve studied Lead Belly’s songs throughout my journey as a songwriter. His songs covered a wide range of genres and topics including gospel music; love, loss, liquor, prison life and racism; and folk songs about cowboys, prison, work, sailors, cattle herding and dancing. His version of “In The Pines” is one of the most widely known.

“In the Pines” is an American folk song originating from two songs, “In the Pines” and “The Longest Train,” both of whose authorship is unknown and date back to at least the 1870s. The songs originated in the Southern Appalachian area of the United States. Historians have said this song was probably born from African Americans living along or east of the Appalachian Mountains around the turn of the 20th century. Huddie Ledbetter, better known as Lead Belly, recorded over half-a-dozen versions between 1944 and 1948, most often under the title “Black Girl” or “Black Gal.” His first rendition, recorded for Musicraft Records in New York City in February 1944, is arguably his most familiar.

Odetta – “Got My Mind on Freedom”

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, is an inspiration to all. Born in Birmingham, Alabama on December 31, 1930, her voice has inspired hearts all over the world and she is often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement.” Odetta truly embodied a voice that inspired change. Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music. 

Terry Callier – “Spin, Spin, Spin”

Terry Callier was born in the North Side of Chicago. He was a childhood friend of Curtis Mayfield, Major Lance and Jerry Butler and he sang in doo-wop groups in his teens. In 1964 he recorded his debut album on Prestige Records. The album wasn’t released until 1968 as The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. A dear musician friend of mine gifted me a copy of the album around 20 years ago and it’s been in steady rotation in my house ever since. My opinion, widely shared, is that Terry Callier didn’t get the popular recognition his varied talents deserved. Nonetheless, he released a string of enduring and influential albums.

Josh White – “Southern Exposure”

When I was in the 6th grade, I wrote a book report on the music of Josh White. I remember heading to the library in Claremont, California, and finding a treasure chest of literature and recordings by White. I dove in and was deeply inspired by the man, the songwriter, guitarist and civil rights activist that he was. White grew up in the South during the 1920s and 1930s. He released a prolific output of recordings in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel music and social protest songs. His music went on to influence several generations of artists, including yours truly. White’s album, Southern Exposure, is known as a political blues album and dealt with issues of Jim Crow. The album as a whole, to me, is a protest album of protest albums.    

Bob Dylan – “Only a Pawn in Their Game”

Bob Dylan sang a stirring solo performance of “Only a Pawn In Their Game,” at The March on Washington, a retelling of the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. The lyrics attribute blame for the killing and other racial violence to the rich white politicians and authorities who manipulated poor whites into directing their anger and hatred at Black people. The song suggests that Evers’ killer does not deserve to be remembered by name, unlike the man he murdered (“They lowered him down as a king”), because he was “only a pawn in their game.”

Chris Pierce – “Mr. McMartin”

My song, “Mr. McMartin” from my new album, Let All Who Will, is about a street sweeper who has seen a lot of what human beings are capable of in the past 40 years on the job. He sweeps after celebrations, uprisings, political rallies, parades, holidays and catastrophes. As he sweeps on through the years, he wonders if we are capable of real change or just broken promises and broken prayer.

Photo Credit: Mathieu Bitton

BGS 5+5: Dougie Poole

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Dougie Poole
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Latest Album: The Rainbow Wheel of Death

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Once I was playing at The Glove, a great old DIY venue in Brooklyn. It was a hot night in the summer and I was playing to a fairly empty room. I started a song called “Elbow” which is a country waltz that probably tops out at around 80bpm. And when I did, a group of four or five friends began to writhe and grind right in front of the stage. It was such a silly sight, these young sweaty kids grinding to a slow country waltz, that I caught the giggles and couldn’t get through the words of the song. For years after, if I happened to think of that night during another performance, I’d lose my place in the song or forget the words and start laughing spontaneously all over again.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I watch a lot of television. TV writers are masters of short form story arcs, constructing conflict and resolution and tension and release over the course of an episode arc. And in some cases, tying those small episode arcs into the arc of a larger season or series. To me it seems not dissimilar from writing a song that fits in the larger context of a record. I’m a huge, lifelong fan of The Sopranos, Seinfeld, Star Trek: The Next Generation — stuff that was primetime TV when I was growing up. I revisit them often.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I like to have a weak drink or two before we perform. Something like a bitters soda or a digestif with enough of a kick to loosen me up, but not strong enough to make me sloppy. It’s not my healthiest habit, and they start to add up over a long tour. I’ve gotten some suspicious looks trying to order a Cynar or something at the wrong dive bar.

What has been the best advice you’ve received in your career so far?

I’ve gotten great advice from lots of people, directly and indirectly, throughout my career. It’s hard to boil down into a bite-sized nugget, but I do remember when I was in my 20s seeing a commencement address that Patti Smith gave at an art school. I think it was Pratt. She said something to the effect of: build your name. Not in the sense of fame or branding or anything like that. But just to focus on honing your craft and doing good work and trying to treat other artists and other people with kindness and respect, and to let your name carry your code as an artist. To listen to your conscience and take care of your teeth. And that if you do this, success will define itself for you.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

This is a cool question because it’s not like: “Who would you love to talk to for an hour?” I love cooking and eating. And I love spending a whole day overeating and sitting around outside. Like a barbecue or something. So it’d have to be someone who also ate a lot too, so I didn’t feel self-conscious about eating way too much. Lowell George famously overate — maybe we’d have a nice time just sitting in silence and eat ribs together or whatever. If I were sitting across from a table from like Prince or something, I’d be too nervous to eat.

MIXTAPE: Korby Lenker’s Joyful Contrarians

Posted on by Editor

To me, the idea of the joyful contrarian is synonymous with being an artist. Joyful because on some level the creative person’s pursuit is to get high and stay high, to chase the spark that sets your soul on fire; contrarian because artists go their own way. The artist’s work may reinforce or defy social norms but either way the connection is coincidental.

These are a few of the songs, artists, and contrarians who have inspired me. — Korby Lenker

Doc Watson – “Country Blues”

Doc is a reliable tastemaker of enduring songs, but his interpretation of the Dock Boggs classic stands apart. Something uncharacteristically sour in it. Watson usually moves through happier vistas — as in say “Ramblin’ Hobo” or “Froggie Went A-Courtin’.” But here his rueful tenor slaps against a clawhammer banjo and the mood is plaintive, down spirited, and harrowing as shallow grave.

Sierra Ferrell – “Bells of Every Chapel”

In love with this Appalachian Queen of modern yesteryear. She can belt, growl and chuckle inside the same song and still leave you with a lump in your throat. Plus that strong bent of humor and just plain orneriness. Is that a word? Sierra is funny and she’s been doing it her own way since she started. Joyful contrarian incarnate.

Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”

I could have chosen a dozen Nina Simone songs. The playfully saccharine “Sugar in My Bowl” might have been a good choice, but there’s a performance from when she was older, well into her activist chapter, where she plays this version of “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” live at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. It was 1976. The musicianship is effortless, playful even as she sings that lyric of doleful, unfulfilled desire. But the real magic is toward the end. It’s as close as you’ll ever get to watching someone’s spirit wrestle with angels and demons inside. Electrifying.

Bill Miller – “Ghostdance”

I got to know Bill Miller over the last few years, I guess during the pandemic. He sang and played Native American flute on one of my songs. A soft spoken humble man with three Grammys and a life of music behind and in front of him, he is absolutely himself wherever he goes. I’ve watched him bring a room full of Nashville cool kids to tears with his singing. For this studio version of “Ghostdance,” he bussed several members of his tribe down from Wisconsin to a Music Row recording studio. He told me the engineer didn’t know how to mic a tribal drum encircled with elders. It got a little wild. I’m trying to think of a way to put Bill’s relationship with music. Blind to judgment, it’s something like that.

Jerry Garcia and David Grisman – “Teddy Bear Picnic”

Picked this one because it’s an outlier in an outlier’s repertoire. Jerry Garcia did not give a shit who sang what or why. For him a song was good or it wasn’t. “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” from Not for Kids Only is a children’s tune written and originally performed by Henry Hall over a hundred years ago. It’s uplifting and a little sinister at the same time. Plus the chords are magic. I play it sometimes in my own shows.

Robert Ellis – “California”

Writing these blurb things, I notice that most of the artists I’m drawn to are accomplished musicians as well as being great songwriters. Robert Ellis is among the best. He’s like, maybe too good for his own good. At home on piano or guitar, he can reference more musicians and songs than you, and he does this thing I really like with his albums where every song is a moment, its own little movie. This one, “California,” is a slow-motion explosion from the years in his life before he calmed down a little.

Adam Hurt – “Flannery’s Dream”

This was my most listened to album of 2019. Ten tracks of solo gourd banjo, interpreted by a introverted master of the niche. I spend a lot of time with instrumental music. Wordless emotions hit different. I defy you to find anything in the string music lexicon as inventive and emotive as Hurt’s solo music. It’s banjo as high art. Especially this album, Earth Tones.

Anaïs Mitchell – “Brooklyn Bridge”

More widely known as the creator of 2019’s Tony Award-winning musical Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell has been making the most inventive music in folk for two decades. Her album Young Man In America is my favorite record of the last ten years. I chose this track from her 2022 eponymous release because it’s a perfect example of deep sentiment couched in well-turned phrases matched with one of the more unique singing voices in the business.

Lou Reed – “Perfect Day”

Lou Reed, helming The Velvet Underground in the ’60s, was really the first artist to make music devoid of or without regard to commercial appeal. The original contrarian of art house rock, his songs explored heroin addiction, transgenderism, art for its own sake, and love. During his solo career, collaborations with Andy Warhol and composer John Cage cemented his status as a dissonant God of the avant-garde. “Perfect Day” is from his later catalogue. Sweet and small and sad. You probably know it from the movie Trainspotting.

Randy Newman – “Marie”

Randy Newman is an artist of intimidating powers. Another master musician and songwriter and curmudgeonly iconoclast. Watch his Tiny Desk Concert and see what happens to you. Setting aside his singular piano style with its striding left hand and those constantly tumbling suspensions, the songwriting is pure emotion when he wants it to be, derisive if the mood strikes him, or, in the case of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” (which he penned), the soundtrack of your childhood. “Marie” is my favorite song of his. Listen to the solo piano version on The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1.

Jimmie Rodgers – “Blue Yodel No. 9”

Hard to find a contrarian with more joy than the Singin’ Brakeman, who died from tuberculosis at the height of his fame at the age of 35. I would describe “Blue Yodel No. 9” as charmingly incorrigible. Something that might’ve made a decent Depression-era mother cover her children’s ears. Little known fact: his longtime songwriting partner, who cowrote more than 40 of his songs, was his sister-in-law, Elsie McWilliams.

James McMurtry – “Long Island Sound”

Joyful contrarian or talented asshole? Both probably. I maybe should have selected his paean to North Texas methamphetamine culture, “Choctaw Bingo,” as the most contrarian, but I picked this one, the last track from his fantastic 2016 record, Complicated Game. I like this one best because it’s about making peace with where you’re at in life, maybe even celebrating the spot where you land: “These are the best days / These are the best days / Boys put your money away / I got the round / Here’s to all you strangers / the Mets and the Rangers / Long may we thrive on the Long Island Sound.”

Photo Credit: Ali Alsaleh

Carolina Calling, Shelby: Local Legends Breathe New Life Into Small Town

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

The image of bluegrass is mountain music played and heard at high altitudes and towns like Deep Gap and remote mountain hollers across the Appalachians. But the earliest form of the music originated at lower elevations, in textile towns across the North Carolina Piedmont. As far back as the 1920s, old-time string bands like Charlie Poole’s North Carolina Ramblers were playing an early form of the music in textile towns, like Gastonia, Spray, and Shelby – in Cleveland County west of Charlotte.

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In this second episode of Carolina Calling, a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it, we visit the small town of Shelby: a seemingly quiet place, like most small Southern towns one might pass by in their travels. Until you see the signs for the likes of the Don Gibson Theatre and the Earl Scruggs Center, you wouldn’t guess that it was the town that raised two of the most influential musicians and songwriters in bluegrass and country music: Earl Scruggs, one of the most important musicians in the birth of bluegrass, whose banjo playing was so innovative that it still bears his name, “Scruggs style,” and Don Gibson, one of the greatest songwriters in the pop & country pantheon, who wrote “I Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Sweet Dreams,” and other songs you know by heart. For both Don Gibson and Earl Scruggs, Shelby is where it all began.

Subscribe to Carolina Calling on any and all podcast platforms to follow along as we journey across the Old North State, visiting towns like Greensboro, Durham, Wilmington, Asheville, and more.

Music featured in this episode:

Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers – “Take a Drink On Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Ground Speed”
Don Gibson – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Andrew Marlin – “Erie Fiddler” (Carolina Calling Theme)
Hedy West – “Cotton Mill Girl”
Blind Boy Fuller – “Rag Mama, Rag”
Don Gibson – “Sea Of Heartbreak”
Patsy Cline – “Sweet Dreams ”
Ray Charles – “I Can’t Stop Loving You”
Ronnie Milsap – “(I’d Be) A Legend In My Time”
Elvis Presley – “Crying In The Chapel”
Hank Snow – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Don Gibson – “Sweet Dreams”
Don Gibson – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Chet Atkins – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Johnny Cash – “Oh, Lonesome Me”
The Everly Brothers – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Neil Young – “Oh Lonesome Me”
Flatt & Scruggs – “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”
Bill Preston – “Holy, Holy, Holy”
Flat & Scruggs – “We’ll Meet Again Sweetheart”
Snuffy Jenkins – “Careless Love”
Bill Monroe – “Uncle Pen”
Bill Monroe – “It’s Mighty Dark To Travel”
The Earl Scruggs Revue – “I Shall Be Released”
The Band – “I Shall Be Released”
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”
The Country Gentlemen – “Fox On The Run”
Sonny Terry – “Whoopin’ The Blues”
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee – “Born With The Blues (Live)”
Nina Simone – “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free”

BGS is proud to produce Carolina Calling in partnership with Come Hear NC, a campaign from the North Carolina Department of Natural & Cultural Resources designed to celebrate North Carolinians’ contribution to the canon of American music.

BGS & Come Hear NC Explore the Musical History of North Carolina in New Podcast ‘Carolina Calling’

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

The Bluegrass Situation is excited to announce a partnership with Come Hear North Carolina, and the latest addition to the BGS Podcast Network, in Carolina Calling: a podcast exploring the history of North Carolina through its music and the musicians who made it. The state’s rich musical history has influenced the musical styles of the U.S. and beyond, and Carolina Calling aims to connect the roots of these progressions and uncover the spark in these artistic communities. From Asheville to Wilmington, we’ll be diving into the cities and regions that have cultivated decades of talent as diverse as Blind Boy Fuller to the Steep Canyon Rangers, from Robert Moog to James Taylor and Rhiannon Giddens.

The series’ first episode, focusing on the creative spirit of retreat in Asheville, premieres Monday, January 31 and features the likes of Pokey LaFarge, Woody Platt of the Steep Canyon Rangers, Gar Ragland of Citizen Vinyl, and more. Subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and be on the lookout for brand new episodes coming soon.

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LISTEN: Mike Younger, “Killing Time”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mike Younger
Hometown: Halifax, Canada/Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Killing Time”
Album: Burning the Bigtop Down
Release Date: August 27, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Killing Time’ is a sideways glance at another time and the dreams and people of that time. I had survived the Hall Of Horrors which was the street/squatter experience in New York City in 1992/1993 — and I’d lost more than a few pals along the way. The lyrics take comfort in the remembrance of past friendships forged in the fire of struggle, but swept apart like grains of sand. … I’ve always been deeply affected by the struggles faced by our disenfranchised communities. I greatly admire those writers and creative people in general, who, through their work, have lent their voices to the struggle for equity in our society, like John Lennon, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Marvin Gaye, Bob Marley, and others. Artists have nothing to lose by speaking their truth, and doing so unapologetically, especially these days. That’s what I strive for in my work. There are enough great songs about pickup trucks already.” — Mike Younger

Photo credit: Michael Weintraub

BGS 5+5: Anna Tivel

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Anna Tivel
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: Blue World

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

Literature and poetry really get in my bloodstream and make me want to write, all those vivid words and ways of telling a thing. I get the itch to write the most from reading things that unravel like a song but are in much longer form. Right now I’m digging deep through the novels and short stories of Annie Proulx and finding so much inspiration. The way she spins a story, unadorned and brutally human, feels honest in this way I’m forever working toward with songs. Andre Dubus sparks a similar feeling, this gut-punch of everyday struggle told in a way that feels just like reality, but more stunningly laid out in bite-sized, brilliantly observed and relatable moments. I dream of writing songs that make people feel that way.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

Music has always been the place I felt most at home in my mind, where I could just be, work things out and communicate in a slower, more intentional way. I first found that freedom playing violin as a kid, backing people up later, learning that kind of conversation without speaking that feels so powerful. I started writing songs when I was about 23 and it was a completely magnetic force of expression that I must have been really hurting for because it took hold of me immediately and forcefully. I don’t remember consciously thinking, “This is what I want to do with my life,” just couldn’t seem to think about anything else. I’m forever grateful to be able to move through the world this way. It constantly pushes me out of my box, allows me to bump up against the world, try to see it more clearly and with more curiosity all the time, try to reflect something true.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

Seems like touring is always shaping the way nature plays out in my writing. You’re on these long expansive drives through empty country, red canyon cliffs, vultures, sun bleached sagebrush, and heat waves on the blacktop that stretch out farther than you can see. And then two days later you’re in a dense forest, lush and wet and forty shades of green darkness. And then you’re suddenly in a giant metropolis. Watching it all change for hours and hours out the window feels like a recipe of sorts, like gathering all the images that hold an emotion to draw on later when a song is forming. I love to set a scene for the emotion of a story to play out in, and this constant observing of the natural (and man-made) world through car and plane windows seems to help tie human struggle and beauty to place and landscape in a way that feels necessary.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I want so badly to have pre-show and studio rituals, like vocal warmups or a three-piece show suit or something, anything. Mostly I let shows eat me alive in good and bad ways and I’m trying to work on being more intentional about that stuff. When I have time and space, I like to read something beautiful or listen to something that moves me before a show, sit somewhere all alone and take in some words and music that make me feel free and vast and inspired. It feels really good to get up on stage and get the chance to play my heart out after that. I’m going to do it more, just decided. OK I have a ritual starting now.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Write and write. And play songs for people. And try to be 90 years old someday and still loving these two things with wild abandon.

Photo credit: Matt Kennelly