Caleb Caudle has lived a lot of his life on the road. His father was a truck driver and Caleb learned early on that making a living often meant long days away from home. The North Carolina-born musician started out in a rock band before he found his calling as a thoughtful alt-country singer-songwriter. When Caleb released his debut solo album Red Bank Road in 2007, he was just beginning to realize what made his songwriting voice distinctive, and his numerous releases since then have been a journey deeper into his own sound and point of view.
Caleb has driven a hard road in music, releasing albums and touring relentlessly since ‘07. Albums like Carolina Ghost and Better Hurry Up gained him a reputation as one of the Americana performers to watch in Nashville. As Caleb opened up about getting sober and being more intentional about his legacy, his gifts as a songwriter truly started to blossom. He recorded his latest release, Forsythia, at the Cash Cabin with a close group of trusted collaborators. It is an album whose imagery brings you home with him to North Carolina and into himself. He even came full circle with a new recording of “Red Bank Road,” the title track from his debut album.
Caleb brings the past with him while challenging himself to make something new with his life and with his art.
Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.
Artist:H.C. McEntire Hometown: Durham, North Carolina Song: “Soft Crook” Release Date: October 4, 2022 Label: Merge Records
In Their Words: “‘Soft Crook’ was an exercise in vulnerability and trust. At its narrative core, the lyrics expose my struggle with depression through an unfiltered lens — calling it what it is, shaking hands with it, unapologetically honoring the power of its grip. It’s a mysterious and unpredictable companion that can make walking this world feel like slogging through unforgiving fields of mud. Navigating the nuances of pandemic isolation while under a debilitating depression fog was the most alone I have ever felt. To embody grief honestly, to embrace its clumsy and unhinged corners — to survive — required efforts and elixirs of self-preservation. The chorus became an anthem, of sorts; a mantra for letting go of guilt in needing these things — whether medication or TV shows or other vices — to offer myself some grace.
“I also wanted to capture a moment in time last fall when I’d opened myself back up to love; a way to summon the feeling of resting deeply in my girlfriend’s arms — that safety in hold, that transfer of both white-hot surrender and soft certainty, being touched strong and gentle at the same time; when guards are down and there is peace, if only for a moment, in the quiet consent of joy. So I walked to the front porch and snapped a photo of the late afternoon sky as proof, a reminder that there is much to feel, and much to lose. That love needs to be nurtured, even if stacked with unknowns. And we need to nurture ourselves as best we can, with whatever it takes to move towards another dawn.” — H.C. McEntire
Artist:Barrett Davis Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina Song: “Carolina Still” Album:The Ballad of Aesop Fin Release Date: October 7, 2022
In Their Words: “Since the late 1800s, North Carolina moonshine has made its way into the lips and livers of its avid supporters. ‘Carolina Still’ is a story I wrote to honor the memory of my great-grandfather Gus Davis, a descendant of Buncombe County and a lover of a good corn mash. After spending most of his life as a Cavalry Sergeant, my great-grandfather eventually returned to his home of Asheville where he lived the remainder of his life on Hillside Street. With every word and note, ‘Carolina Still’ reminds me of my family’s heritage, Asheville ancestry and familiar memories of Appalachia. This history is more than memory. It is burned into my very existence like my first drop of moonshine.” — Barrett Davis
This week, we’re back for the fall season with the first face-to-face taping in nearly two years. I was able to catch up with the fearless deep-voiced frontman BJ Barham of North Carolina roots-rock favorites American Aquarium, in the front bar of The Troubadour in LA as his tour was passing through.
American Aquarium’s rawly personal new LP Chicamacomico dropped earlier this year and focuses on the twin losses of BJ’s mother and grandmother — as well as a dark point in his own marriage when he and his wife lost a child. He was already building a room for the little one during the pregnancy when everything changed. While fans have been following the band as a roaring country-tinged rock outfit since they formed in Raleigh around 2006 (the masterful Jason Isbell-produced Burn.Flicker.Die put them on the map right as they thought they would quit), it’s with Barham’s more poetic, stripped down offerings like 2020’s Lamentations and his searing solo work Rockingham that he is breaking new ground. Barham isn’t shy about processing his adoration for The Boss as the preeminent living rock-n-roll intellectual king, and there are cuts off the new LP like “The Things We Lost Along the Way” that feel like they could have been recorded in that haunted place alongside Nebraska or Darkness on the Edge of Town.
As a new dad myself who just experienced my wife going through a terrifying birth, BJ’s songs hit me a little harder these days. I can’t think of a country artist today with as big a following from North Carolina to Texas who would center the title track of his record around the unspoken tragedy of a late miscarriage, but Barham pulls it off with a remarkable sensitivity. Like Isbell, Barham notes that his career really began when he got sober and could finally examine the dark corners of his history, his relationships and the fractured history of the South he grew up in.
Though hard to say, naming a record about working through deep loss Chicamacomico makes all the sense in the world. It’s a real place of course, a life-saving station built in 1874 on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and a beach area where BJ and his wife tried to go to blow off steam and forget their sorrows. Now a proud dad to a little daughter (see the cheerful country banger “Little Things”) Barham has learned that in the end, being a father and husband first doesn’t make him less of a hard-working, deep-thinking artist. In fact, it’s finding that balance that has allowed him to write the most powerful songs of his career.
Artist:Jeremy Squires Hometown: New Bern, North Carolina Song: “Juniper” Album:Hymnal Release Date: October 14, 2022 Label: Blackbird Record Label
In Their Words: “This song is about life playing out in front of my eyes. Watching my childhood, my ex-wife’s childhood and my kids’ lives change as they grow up and their lives flash before my eyes and ultimately realizing that people change, evolve and sometimes people can’t escape their trauma. It’s a sad but beautiful metaphor about two people in love fading and morphing into something beautiful. When writing this song I wanted it to feel just as clear as the imagery I tried to create in my lyrics from my memories. I truly wanted this song to be something that anyone could relate to in some way.” — Jeremy Squires
Artist:The Tallest Man On Earth Hometown: Dalarna, Sweden Song: “Metal Firecracker” (Lucinda Williams cover) Album:Too Late for Edelweiss Release Date: September 23, 2022 Label: ANTI-
In Their Words: “This past year, I’ve spent a lot of time touring but also writing and recording an album that I’m wildly proud of and which will see the light of day eventually. But in the small hours in between trips and sessions, mostly in my house in Sweden and an AirBnb in North Carolina, I lo-fi recorded some covers here and there. Many times as a reset button for my own song writing, to cleanse the palate from my whirlpool mind while writing songs. A little document of songs I had on my mind during those nights.
“I was in the middle of my teenage punk rock years when somehow a copy of Car Wheels On a Gravel Road made it into my stereo. Little did I know at the moment it would stay in there for 24 years and counting, being one of the most important albums in my wildly shuffled bag of influences.” — Kristian Matsson, The Tallest Man On Earth
We’ve all heard the fishing tales about the one that got away. But a new short film titled The Mandolin That Made Mipso tells another story altogether. Directed and produced by filmmaker Taylor Sharp, the film explores how a father-son conversation on a North Carolina fishing pier charted the course of Mipso musician Jacob Sharp. It’s now one of 12 films featured in the First That Last Film Series Competition presented by VisitNC. Voting concludes on September 30.
In this interview with BGS, the brothers recount that pivotal moment on the pier, the special family memories that go along with watching archival footage, and the ongoing fascination with mandolin.
BGS: What was the “a ha!” moment when you decided to make a short film about Jacob’s first mandolin?
Taylor Sharp: I’ve been to hundreds of Mipso shows over the years, and a funny thought that frequently comes to mind when seeing Jacob on stage is wondering if he would’ve ever ended up as a musician if it weren’t for our dad losing that fishing bet with him on the pier way back when. So when VisitNC reached out to me about telling a unique North Carolina story for this film series, I immediately called Jacob and we decided to finally share this family tale.
Taylor Sharp, Will Sharp, and Jacob Sharp
What was going through your mind as you were watching video footage from your childhood?
Taylor Sharp: Those days on the pier provided so many cherished memories for our family. After lunch, our mom would always join us and inevitably catch a fish on her first cast. And our Eastern North Carolina farming grandma would come at the end of the day, with her curly white hair peeking out of her visor, and she’d clean all of the day’s catch so that we could take them home to fry that night. Neither of these women are with us today, so memories of these special fishing outings hold extra weight nowadays. The archival home video section is a quick beat in the film, but it’s extra special to our family.
You’ve referred to this as a “Mipso origin story.” Can you explain why that’s a fitting description?
Jacob Sharp: Mipso is the odd and fascinating collision of me, Joseph, Libby and Wood. On the surface we have similar backgrounds but when you get into the details we have pretty different paths towards falling in love with folk music. If Joe hadn’t learned a Doc tune from his Grandma on the front porch after a Sunday lunch… if Libby hadn’t rebelled from her classical training and decided she needed to learn how to “jam” with friends… and if Wood hadn’t been open to applying his substantial jazz background to some friends of friends wanting to write songs. Lots of small moments where if you had taken a left instead of a right, your whole life would be different. For me, coming from a family who didn’t know a thing about bluegrass, it was seeing an electric mandolin being stretched to the limits by Michael Kang during the second set of a String Cheese Incident show and being fascinated enough to months later make an ambitious fishing bet with my dad. And winning the bet! And then our four worlds collided a few years later in Chapel Hill and the rest is history.
North Carolina also features prominently into this story. Can you share how the state has influenced you creatively?
Taylor Sharp: So many of North Carolina’s stories and storytellers shaped me, so I feel that the culture of this state is embedded in me. And Jacob now carries his mandolin — a symbol of North Carolina’s bluegrass culture — with him wherever he goes, as he travels the world with his band Mipso spreading the music of Appalachia, so this was a fitting film to make for VisitNC.
What is that experience like for you to watch this completed film now?
Taylor Sharp: As a filmmaker, it’s always a treat to get to tell a story that you know intimately well — and this family tale is certainly one of them. I feel fortunate to have been able to document this special story alongside my brother and dad and to now allow others to watch for years to come.
Jacob Sharp: It’s always wild to revisit things. I think when you’re less than secure, revisiting something can border on feeling like a regression. And I’ve always been unsure of where I fit in as a player in the mandolin world. I’m not as heady or fast or tone-driven as I could be, and there have been times where I wonder why this is my main vessel for expressing myself musically and for writing songs on. But when I watched the finished film and revisited those earliest moments and remembered just how random it was that the mandolin found me, I just feel grateful and inspired to continue my relationship with such a beautiful and odd little instrument.
Artist:A Different Thread Hometown: Lichfield, UK and Durham, NC, USA Song: “Behind the Curtain” Album:Call of the Road Release Date: September 1, 2022 Label: Same Cloth
In Their Words: “Sometimes you look back over your shoulder at a time or a place and it’s like an old film playing out. Around eight years ago I was living with a long-term partner and we had agreed early on that we weren’t interested in having children of our own. Then one day she let me know that she had changed her mind: she did want kids after all, and soon. It all came to a pitch at the kitchen table and it ended with me walking out the door. I remember her face partly obscured by the net curtain as she watched me walk away, and it was like we were strangers again. I didn’t recognise her at all. Songwriting can be a way to work through things like this, in a powerful and positive way.” — Robert Jackson, A Different Thread
Banjo hero Earl Scruggs received a rousing tribute near his North Carolina hometown over Labor Day weekend, bringing together bluegrass stars like Sam Bush, Béla Fleck, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, and many others. The inaugural event took place Sept. 4 to 6 in Tryon, about 30 miles from the Earl Scruggs Center in Shelby. Scruggs, who died in 2012, was raised in the small Flint Hill community nearby, and remains one of the most pivotal figures in bluegrass.
Enjoy photos from the inaugural Earl Scruggs Music Festival below. (Photos by Eli Johnson unless otherwise noted.)
Darin & Brooke Aldridge
Alison Brown
Becky Buller
Chatham County Line
The Earls of Leicester
Fireside Collective Photo by Tori Marion
Béla Fleck with Mark Schatz
Andy Thorn of Leftover Salmon
Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band Photo by Ron Pankey
Rissi Palmer
Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley Photo by Ron Pankey
Jon Stickley
Town Mountain
Unspoken Tradition
Fireside Collective hosts a collaborative performance of the 1972 album Earl Scruggs Revue: Live at Kansas State played in its entirety, sponsored by The Bluegrass Situation Photo by Toni Marion
Artist:Jim Lauderdale Hometown: Troutman, North Carolina Song: “Game Changer” Album:Game Changer Release Date: August 26, 2022 Label: Sky Crunch Records
In Their Words: “On my second day of sessions for what became the album, I had done what I knew would be the first few songs on the record and the rest were going to guide me along. Being at Blackbird Studios with the great musicians, engineers, and students helping from the Blackbird Academy, I was in a historic place in good company. The song went down easy with a great feel. As I was working up the next song to lay down, producer Jay Weaver worked with guitarist Craig Smith on the solo, which blows me away every time I hear it. Craig is using a B-Bender guitar (the invention of Clarence White and Gene Parsons) and I think it’s one of the greatest B-Bender solos ever. Go Craig Smith!” — Jim Lauderdale
Photo Credit: Scott Simontacchi
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
