Tag: old country

Women’s History Spotlight: Hazel & Alice, Dale Ann Bradley, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

March is Women’s History Month, and BGS, Good Country, and Real Roots Radio have partnered to highlight a variety of our favorite women in country, bluegrass, and roots music with our Women’s History Spotlight.

Each weekday in March at 11AM Eastern (8AM Pacific) on Real Roots Radio, host Daniel Mullins will be celebrating a powerful woman in roots music during the Women’s History Spotlight segment of The Daniel Mullins Midday Music Spectacular. You can listen to Real Roots Radio online 24/7 or via their FREE app for smartphones or tablets.

Then, we will have a Friday recap here on BGS featuring the artists highlighted throughout the previous week. No list is comprehensive, but we hope to feature some familiar favorites as well as some trailblazers whose music and impact might not be as familiar to you.

This week’s edition of our Women’s History Spotlight features musicians and artists like IBMA Award winner Dale Ann Bradley, the legendary Dolly Parton, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard, early country hitmaker Kitty Wells, and Kentuckian-West Virginian Molly O’Day. Tune in next week for the final installment of our Women’s History Spotlight!

Dolly Parton

You knew it was coming. You can’t tell the story of country music (or American pop culture) without Dolly Parton. Growing up in Sevier County, Tennessee, she is not just the Queen of the Smoky Mountains, but quite possible the Queen of the Universe (if there was such a ridiculous title). Her rags-to-riches story will continue to be told and re-told for generations. Aside from her beautiful voice and philanthropic work (the millions of books that she gives to children through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is her proudest achievement), there are numerous other aspects about Dolly Parton that are remarkable.

Her business acumen is frequently praised, but it still bears repeating. Aside from her numerous endeavors (including Dollywood), it’s often worth remembering that she fought to regain control of her own career and decision-making from Porter Wagoner after her star began shining brighter than his scope of influence. (Remember, it was the ending of this business relationship that was the impetus behind Dolly writing one of her most famous songs, “I Will Always Love You.”) Call it a business decision or just genius, but Dolly’s ability to juggle embracing her role as an undeniable sex symbol and avoiding being labeled as “unwholesome” by conservative crowds has to be one of the most difficult tightrope walks in American entertainment.

Vanity Fair’s 1991 article “Good Golly, Miss Dolly“ did a deep dive into the dichotomy of Dolly’s role as a sort of clean sex symbol: “Dolly, in her openness, demystifies sex. ‘One of the things that makes the image work is that people understand that I look one way, but am another, that there’s a very real person underneath this artificial look,’ she theorizes. ‘It’s not like I am a joke. People can laugh at me, but they don’t make fun.’ … Indeed, Dolly Parton has become the billboard for sex without being the product itself.”

It is the way that she ensures that the “very real person” that is Dolly Rebecca Parton doesn’t get lost in the glitz, glamor, and boob jokes that is part of the reason why she is so endearing and universally beloved by folks from all walks of life; in a world where polarization is en vogue, Dolly is one of the few topics on which everyone agrees! She epitomizes the best of us.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Members of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard were an unlikely pair who blasted down doors for women in bluegrass. Hazel hailed from the mountains of West Virginia, while Alice was from across the country in Seattle, Washington. Alice attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she was exposed to folk and bluegrass music. While a student there, she helped coordinate bringing The Osborne Brothers to the Antioch campus, making history as the first major bluegrass concert held on a college campus! After college, she wound up in the D.C. area, becoming active in their flourishing bluegrass scene, where she became friends and musical partners with Hazel Dickens – who had moved to the region with her family to find factory work years earlier.

Hazel & Alice became some of the first female bluegrass bandleaders and recorded some classic albums for Smithsonian Folkways and Rounder Records before embarking on successful solo careers by the mid-’70s. With Hazel’s mountain sound and Alice’s more folk-oriented sensibilities, their music appealed to both traditional bluegrass fans and those who were being introduced to the genre via the Folk Revival. Their original material which highlighted a woman’s perspective were critical in bringing a voice to women in the bluegrass canon. Decades later, their music and legacy is still rippling across American roots music, with artists as diverse as Rhiannon Giddens and Dudley Connell still celebrating their influence and impact.

Molly O’Day 

Born Lois LaVerne Williamson, country pioneer Molly O’Day was born in Pike County, Kentucky. She would become a popular radio star in West Virginia by the early 1940s, eventually leading Molly O’Day & The Cumberland Mountain Folks. Her band crossed paths with Hank Williams on the radio circuit and Molly even sang quite a few of his songs on radio and later in the recording studio. Molly learned “Tramp On The Street” from Hank Williams and it would land her a recording contract with Columbia Records. (Fun Fact: Her band at the time of her first Columbia recording session featured a young Mac Wiseman on bass!)

In an era when the term “hillbilly music” was still commonly used, Molly’s music, retroactively, could have country and bluegrass labels applied to it. Her powerful voice felt just as at home on an ancient balled like “Poor Ellen Smith” as it did on soul-stirring gospel songs like “Matthew 24.” By the early 1950s, Molly and her husband grew weary of life in the limelight and essentially retired from the music business, both dedicating their life to ministry. She would record a few gospel albums for some small record labels in the ensuing years, but her final album was released in 1960. She would pass away in the late 1980s, but she left a mark on country music and earned the respect of her peers at a time when the list of female country pioneers was relatively short.

Dale Ann Bradley

Revered as one of the most heartfelt bluegrass singers of her generation, this Kentucky songbird’s career started in earnest as a member of the Renfro Valley cast in her home state of Kentucky. The Renfro Valley Barn Dance was an extremely popular barn-dance style radio program in the 1930s and it spurred the creation of Renfro Valley as a country music entertainment destination in Kentucky. This helped kickstart the careers of folks like Steve Gulley, Jeff Parker, Dale Ann Bradley, and more by the 1990s.

While at Renfro Valley, Bradley would eventually join The New Coon Creek Girls, one of bluegrass’s only “all-girl” bands at the time, and aptly named after The Coon Creek Girls, a pioneering female string band of the 1930s who also started on The Renfro Valley Barn Dance.

Dale Ann’s soulful voice, largely influence by the Primitive Baptist tradition which she grew up around, quickly gripped the bluegrass world, leading to a successful solo career for the last three decades. In addition to recording songs that hearken to those familiar with mountain people and mountain ways, the appeal of Dale Ann’s voice has led her to adapt songs from outside of the genre to her style of bluegrass, tackling tunes from Tom Petty, Bobbie Gentry, The Grateful Dead, Jim Croce, and everyone in-between! Her diverse material has led me (and many others) to the conclusion that no matter the material, if Dale Ann is singing it, I already know I’m going to like it!

Kitty Wells

Hailed as the original Queen of Country Music, Kitty Wells hit a massive reset button on the role of women in country music after the massive success of her breakthrough hit, “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels.” Written by J.D. Miller, it was penned as the antithesis of Hank Thompson’s hit, “The Wild Side of Life.” After writing the song, the search began for a woman to sing it. Kitty Wells had pursued a country career, to little avail, and had essentially consented that maybe it wasn’t in the cards for her, when she was contacted to record the song. “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels” would become the first Number One hit by solo female in country music history, and its status as one of the most iconic country songs of all time only grows.

This explosion of success led to many other hit records by Kitty Wells, and opened the doors for those who would follow in her wake like Jean Shepard, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and more! You can’t celebrate Women’s History Month without honoring the gal who famously sang the line, “It’s a shame that all the blame is on us women!” (Still kind of bummed that Margot Robbie didn’t sing that line in Barbie. Seems like a missed opportunity to me!)

As an added bonus, here’s another cool version from 1993, where Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette recruited Kitty Wells to join them on a new version of this country classic on their collaborative album, appropriately entitled Honky Tonk Angels.

 

Three Chords and… Authenticity?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: Sign up here to receive Good Country issues when they launch, direct to your email inbox via Substack.)

In country and roots music, authenticity is treated like the most valuable currency of all. Maybe that’s because the genre has always been caught between the fiction that this music is frozen in amber and the reality that it has always borrowed liberally from current musical trends in order to have commercial value. The earliest popular country music was an amalgamation of regional music from rural white artists, music stolen wholesale from Black and Indigenous artists, and plenty of nods to prevailing pop (i.e., urban or non-rural) trends – looking back at the places young laborers and listeners that had been drawn to cities came from, and the exciting present and future they found themselves in once they arrived.

Can anyone or anything truly be considered “authentic” in America, a country whose identity is built on masking fundamental historical truths?

While artists like Zach Bryan are hailed for their “authenticity,” the vast majority of the current class of mainstream country and Americana artists grew up in suburbs, in postmodern America, in the internet age, and are graduates of major colleges – like Nashville’s Belmont University or Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Their experiences are also authentic, of course, to each individual artist – just as Bryan’s initial motel room demos are electrifying for the soul he brought to them. But these origins bring up questions around how country and Americana construct “authentic” narratives, especially to market roots music.

Still, it’s noticeable that certain types of creators are automatically considered “authentic” country artists – and they often match the complexion of the first generations of country singers, when “race records” and “hillbilly music” were originally split and whose most famous individuals wore cowboy cosplay on stage.

We want to tip you off to some real Good Country music: Music that portrays life in its complexity and a deep appreciation for one’s roots, whether they lie in the Bronx, rural Arkansas, or anywhere else on this rich blue marble we live on. Because authenticity in country doesn’t necessarily equate to rurality, to back roads and red dirt and farm trucks; real country music is real not because it’s built to be “authentic,” but because it’s honest.

Hurray For the Riff Raff

Hurray For the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra is from a little bit of everywhere, but the Bronx is where they grew up and the punk houses of the Lower East Side raised them. Between their jazz artist father and picking up a guitar as they rode the rails, Segarra’s approach to folk music began with a traditional bent and has since exhaled into an expansive approach, as with their astonishing 2022 album Life on Earth. Their upcoming album The Past Is Still Alive finds Segarra focusing more on twang, but their philosophical core has always remained the same: breathing life into unspoken pain and empowering people that society would like us to forget.

Amythyst Kiah

Amythyst Kiah’s music is a powerful force. Inspired by the blues and old time music, Kiah uses her art to prop the furnace doors open to make way for blasts of grief and abandonment. Kiah grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and picked up the guitar while attending an arts magnet school. She fell in love with old time music at East Tennessee State University and never looked back.

I first saw Kiah in 2016 at Karen Pittelman’s Queer Country Quarterly, her first show in NYC. Karen introduced her by remarking, “trust me, she’s going to be famous.” When Kiah belted her powerful alto, we all knew we were in the midst of greatness. Kiah’s most recent work on Wary + Strange (2021) takes us in a more experimental direction, but her exploration of alienation – like a toy in her hands – informs her music no matter what she’s plugging into her pedalboard. Kiah’s “Black Myself,” originally recorded with supergroup Our Native Daughters, fiercely proclaims her love for herself and her ancestors.

Willi Carlisle

Willi Carlisle has seen a thing or two in his travels across the lower 48. Carlisle cut his teeth musically in DIY and punk rock, but his search for queer role models and love for poetry drew him to New York City. With disgust for the elitism of the poetry scene there – and their mockery of his roots in the Midwest – Carlisle went searching for a life of words in folk music.

Carlisle has a knack for painting complex portraits of down-and-out characters, refusing to be drawn into simple narratives of left and right, red and blue. His stunning “When the Pills Wear Off” from the upcoming Critterland demonstrates Carlisle’s ability to turn the personal into the political – and back into the personal again. This is not the blind invective of JD Vance, but the realization that only empathy can build bridges between people who think they have nothing in common.

(Editor’s Note: Willi Carlisle is BGS’s February 2024 Artist of the Month.)

ISMAY

ISMAY (née Avery Hellman) has spent their whole life around folk and bluegrass music – their grandfather is one of the founders of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. As a contestant on Apple TV+’s short-lived My Kind of Country competition series, ISMAY is very much a representative of roots music’s vanguard. With their sparse arrangements and winsome vocals, ISMAY’s music feels like deconstructed folk music. They understand the core elements of the sound thanks to a lifetime immersed in it, and they create something wholly unique from its constituent parts, as we hear on “Point Reyes.” There, ISMAY’s contemplative vocals are orbited by a gauzy cloud of pedal steel and gentle finger-picking. ISMAY’s upcoming album Desert Pavement speaks to their sense of place: all of their music is enamored by nature. “Golden Palomino” illustrates ISMAY’s love for their rural California upbringing, guiding us to realize how much our natural and inner worlds inform each other.

Buffalo Nichols

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more devastating songwriter or guitar player than Buffalo Nichols. Nichols, like many teenagers before him, picked up a guitar and played his way through the hip-hop and hardcore scenes in his Milwaukee hometown. He found himself drawn to blues music as he began to dig into his mother’s collection and connect with Cream City’s West African community. Nichols and musical partner Joanna Rose made a mark on the Americana scene with their duo Nickel and Rose, shining a harsh light on the ignorance on full display in the community’s supposedly liberal refuge on the song “Americana.”

With his most recent solo album The Fatalist, Nichols brings all of his experience to bear on a remarkable collection of songs that combine elements of all of his musical loves. On his rendition of the classic “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond,” Nichols’ guitar becomes an extension of his own body with lightning-fast licks. Buttressed by electronic drum samples and a haze of synths, Nichols shows that music is at its most vital when it is rooted in the past and embraces the future.

Ally Free

Ally Free is one to keep your eye on in 2024. They write in their bio that they see music as the universal language that can bring people together, and that’s clear on their versatile 2019 album Rise. From the nu metal-inspired chugging of “Fool’s Gold” to the craftsman’s approach to “Fast Train,” Free isn’t embarrassed to draw from any inspiration to make a damn good song. Free’s rich alto gives their music depth: from their performances, it’s clear that this is someone who has lived a lot of life. Free is one of the newest members of the Black Opry and has taken a few steps out of their Huntsville, AL hometown to playing more shows around Nashville. Here’s hoping that means the rest of us get to hear more from this remarkable performer soon.

William Prince

William Prince’s voice carries a warm, earthy timbre that is wholly unique. Prince grew up on Peguis First Nation (in what is now Canada) and is well-versed in the travails of people living under oppression. But that experience is translated into patience and warmth, a gentle perseverance that can only come from a keen observer. Prince’s stark breakout album Reliever (2020) has given way to the warm Stand in the Joy (2023), which details the travails and victories we most often find in daily life. “Tanqueray” is a gorgeous example of Prince’s dynamic, a story of two improbable lovers finally coming together to make it work.

Sabine McCalla

Sabine McCalla is readying for a breakout 2024. McCalla’s music is steeped in the sounds of New Orleans, which she has made her home. McCalla has performed with others, but her performance on Offbeat Magazine’s OnBeat Session from September 2023 shows us she’s ready to step out on her own. For now, we have her 2018 EP Folk, which sports arresting songs that feel timeless. Maybe it’s the gentle groove in her music that feels like the stately flow of the Mississippi River – discordant with the immediacy of her lyrics that protest violence and oppression, as demonstrated by “I Went to the Levee.”

Margo Cilker

Look – Margo Cilker is literally a cowboy, okay?? Isn’t that what you imagine when someone mentions “country music” and “authenticity” in the same breath? But Cilker’s music glorifies a life of searching, not a mythologized America of white picket fences, so you can also picture the quintessential Nashville executive saying, “We like cowboys, but no, not like that.”

Cilker’s latest album, critical darling Valley of Heart’s Delight, is nostalgic for her family orchard in California’s Santa Clara Valley – but not without a heavy dose of reality. “Mother Told Her Mother Told Me” caution the listener not to become too attached to any one place – and the cost of leaving it behind. Cilker’s impassioned “With The Middle” cuts to the core of her work – a weighing of the contrasts between pleasure and pain and yearning to find common ground between the two.

Brittany Howard

Brittany Howard transcends pretty much everything – except the act of exploration with wild abandon. Having gained notoriety as the lead singer of the retro soul band the Alabama Shakes, Howard seemingly will not rest until she’s drawn with every musical crayon in the box. In her recent interview with NPR’s Jewly Hight, Howard cracks that she grew up in a trailer and would still be perfectly content to be working the land somewhere. But her music has led her elsewhere, perhaps everywhere. Howard has teased a few songs off her upcoming album, What Now, with the title track featuring hooky grooves and propulsive energy, but it’s “Red Flags” that astounds with its jarring drum loop, woozy vocals, and disorienting production that demonstrates how much mastery Howard has gained in her craft as an artist and storyteller.

Samantha Crain

Few artists in the last decade have shown the same growth and versatility as Samantha Crain. A part of the rich Tulsa music scene that has given us John Moreland, John Calvin Abney, and M Lockwood Porter, Crain follows a road all her own. Under Branch & Thorn & Tree (2015) found Crain exploring the pride and trauma of her Choctaw heritage through folk-inspired music. In 2017, Crain broke her own mold with the quirky indie-pop album You Had Me at Goodbye (2017.) Since her 2020 album, A Small Death, Crain has been playing in the spaces in between, utilizing woodwinds, pedal steel, pianos, and guitar to create a woozy soundscape as her spacious, gravelly voice helps us stay anchored in the real.

Nick Shoulders

Nick Shoulders rounds up the list with his commanding All Bad. While Shoulders’ music leans traditional sonically, it’s anything but. The Fayetteville, Arkansas singer begins his album with phaser blasts and a menacing invitation to a “conversation,” and that conversation is explicitly about all the “country” stylings that deserve to be thrown in the trash heap – and the many, many qualities we need to hold on to and claim for ourselves: grit, honesty, love, and togetherness. “Won’t Fence Us In” and “Appreciate’cha” speak to this theme most clearly, but the way Shoulders approaches the classic country canon with loving irreverence reminds us that we never have to be weighed down by tradition.

Sign up here to receive Good Country issues when they launch, direct to your email inbox via Substack.

Photo Credit: Margo Cilker by Jen Borst.

NEWS: BGS Announces New Brand, Good Country

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

BGS is proud to announce the launch of a new brand in 2024: GOOD COUNTRY. By this point, you may have seen or heard mentions of Good Country on our site, at our events, and on our socials feeds as we prepare this exciting new expansion for our readers and fans.

Launching in mid-January 2024, Good Country is a curated, bespoke email newsletter that will highlight all good country from across the roots music landscape. Every other week, GC will deliver high-end country music reporting, long reads, playlists, videos, and exclusive content from your favorite country artists direct to your email inbox. As you scroll, you’ll dive into the deep and broad world of Good Country, from gritty and raw Americana to glitzy and glamorous radio hits, from bluegrass supergroups to southern rock ensembles and swampy string bands. Sign up for Good Country now.

“Good Country is a brand new horizon for BGS,” says managing editor Justin Hiltner. “But, at the same time, it’s nothing more than a reinforcement of our values as a media company and roots music community. Country – like its family members bluegrass, folk, and Americana – is more than just music, it’s a lifestyle, an identity, a way of being. There’s so much good country being made out there right now and we know our audience agrees. Whatever ‘good country’ means, you’ll know it when you hear it. And you’ll hear plenty of it in this newsletter!”

Each issue of Good Country will center features, think pieces, and interviews penned by the best writers and thinkers in country music highlighting not just the biggest names in the genre, but new and upstart artists as well. Exclusive newsletter content will live alongside deep dive playlists, sonic explorations, and thoughtful examinations of what country is, who makes it, and to whom it can belong – everyone.

BGS co-founder, actor, activist, and musician Ed Helms, will be featured in each issue as well with “Ed’s Picks,” artists and bands selected by Helms himself, direct from his own listening.

“From the very beginning, BGS was forged on a foundation of celebrating the full spectrum of roots music fans and artists,” explains BGS co-founder Amy Reitnouer Jacobs. “This community has never been one thing, nor has it been static. It’s a diverse, expansive, and ever-changing art form. The same can and should be said for country music. And that’s why now is the perfect time to create a more representative media landscape. It’s time for Good Country.”

Good Country’s first issues will feature music, art, and content featuring Zach Bryan, Sierra Ferrell, Amanda Fields, Veronique Medrano, Shania Twain, Chris Stapleton, Vincent Neil Emerson, Brittney Spencer, and so many more. No matter your entry point to this music, with our new brand and newsletter you will find endless Good Country to enjoy. Interact with content in your email inbox, on our website, and on our social media – wherever you are, Good Country will meet you there.

Good Country isn’t about deciding what is or isn’t good country music. Good Country is a place. It’s a way of looking at the world, a way of enjoying music. If you think it’s good and you think it’s country, then you’ve found Good Country.

Sign up now to be one of the first readers to receive Good Country direct to your email inbox. And, begin your exploration of Good Country with our BGS Class of 2023: Good Country year-end list.

Photo Credit: Zach Bryan by Trevor Pavlik; Vincent Neil Emerson by Thomas Crabtree; Sierra Ferrell by Bobbi Rich.

MIXTAPE: Bonnie Montgomery’s Music of an Arkansas Childhood

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I was born into a music-centered family in small town Arkansas near “where the Delta meets the Ozarks.” My grandparents started a music store on the court square in the 1960s and they sold instruments and equipment, et al. – and also carried the top records of the day. So, music and musicians were infused into my life from birth and my family was at the center of a vibrant musical community.

At every holiday or birthday or community event, we played music together and sang with a cast of characters ranging from the local church organist to Sun Records session players. I thought every family was like that, but as I’ve grown older and a lot of those characters have passed on, I’ve realized how rare my upbringing was and I cherish it with all my heart.

I remember the voices and the sounds of the jams like it was yesterday, and I’m honored to make a playlist of some of the favorites we played and sang together. I didn’t discover a lot of the recordings of these songs until much later in my life because we played them by rote – or sheet music – at those beautiful, heavenly hoe-downs. These songs are the soundtrack of my early life. I’m honored to share them. – Bonnie Montgomery

(Editor’s Note: Scroll to find the full Mixtape playlist below, to enjoy while you read.)

“Precious Memories” – Merle Haggard & The Strangers featuring the Carter Family

I chose Merle Haggard and the Carter Family’s version of this hymn, because it’s the closest version to what I remember our hoe-down version sounding like. My grandfather Ivan would always request this song and all the old-timers would sing with such passion, and even tears. I remember the far away look in their tear-filled eyes when they sang it, and although I never felt it like they did back then, I loved the song. We always thought it was a funny selection too, because they would always sing it “pray – shush mam -ries” over and over, which made us laugh. But now that those faces are all passed and gone across the great divide, I feel it like my grandfather used to. Now, just like them, all I have is the memories. Sacred, precious, treasured memories gathered around the piano in my grandparent’s music room – in what feels like a lifetime ago.

“Your Cheatin’ Heart” – Hank Williams Sr.

I didn’t hear the recorded Hank Williams version of this until my late teen years, but we sang it as the grand finale of the Christmas Eve hoe-down every year. After hours of singing the entire catalogue of Christmas carols and standards, my grandfather would sing this one with the most volume and gusto of them all. My mother, or our dear family friend Teddy Reidel, would play a romping walking bass line on the piano with it. So when I went Christmas caroling with friends at age 11, I was ready for the big grand finale and started in on “Your Cheatin’ Heart,” but none of my friends knew it! It was then that I realized “Your Cheatin’ Heart” in fact wasn’t a Christmas carol!

“Born to Lose” – Ted Daffin

My grandfather always requested this song when I was playing piano, whether at the jam sessions or after school, when I would be practicing piano at their house. I never understood it, because the lyrics were so depressing and I wondered why anyone in their right mind would want to profess to being such a huge loser, ha! I remember practicing my classical pieces (I rebelled in the ultimate way by falling in love with classical music at a young age) and Papaw would holler “quit playing that long hair music and play ‘Born to Lose.'” By “long hair,” he meant classical, as in Handel or Beethoven’s long hair. I still laugh about that – instead of long haired hippies, he was talking about the wild artists from centuries ago.

“Sentimental Journey” – Doris Day, Les Brown & His Orchestra

This was my grandparents’ song. They would request this one and dance together every time we played it. During the Great Depression, my grandfather left Arkansas and went to California to look for work. Once he was there, he sent for my grandmother Frances and when she was out there, they got married. They both missed home terribly, so around 1943, when they finally arranged to go back, they had to go separately because of money. My grandmother was expecting their first child by then and had to ride all the way home from California to Arkansas in the back of pickup truck. She always called it her sentimental journey and you could just see the love between them every time we played this one.

“Tennessee Waltz” – Connie Francis

This was another favorite at the hoe-downs. I must have played it a million times while everybody danced and sang. And other times, when we were just hanging out at home, my grandmother would sit in a chair near the piano and ask me to play this one. She would have such a huge smile on her face and she just seemed to melt into the song. I’m so grateful for her encouragement with my musical endeavors.

“Sweet Dreams” – Patsy Cline

This was another of my grandmother Frances’ favorites. She was a fashion-forward, tall, beautiful red-head, full of life and fire. For small town Arkansas she was way ahead of her time. She started her own businesses (the music store was her main project) and ran for mayor in the ’60s too. She adored Patsy Cline and always thought she was so classy compared to the other female country singers of her time. We didn’t jam on this song, but we listened to the recording at full volume. The string arrangements from those Patsy songs have a huge influence on my string arrangements (arranged and played by maestro Geoffrey Robson) in the studio.

“Goin Down the Road Feelin’ Bad” – Woody Guthrie

My grandfather used to take us to his farm in Garner, Arkansas almost every morning in the summer. It was pure heaven for us as children – we could run wild and do whatever we wanted, ride horses, swing on the barn swing, go fishing, drive old cars and tractors around the farm, eat turnips straight out of the ground when we got hungry, crawl around with the pigs in the pig pen, and much more. We would sing in the truck with him all the way to the farm and he loved to sing this song and make up new verses such as, “I’m goin’ where the boys don’t blow their nose…”

That farm lives in my memory every single day – and incidentally, the highway it’s on (old highway 367), got named the “Rock and Roll Highway,” because it’s the road all the Sun Records artists would drive from Memphis to Helena back in the day. I didn’t know that when I was young, but it makes sense that Johnny Cash, June Carter, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, etc. knew that road well.

“The Strawberry Roan” – Sons of the Pioneers

My grandfather on my father’s side, a wild cattle auctioneer named Leon Montgomery, used to drink his whiskey and burst in the door with his cowboy hat and a grin and croon out “Oh, That Strawberry Roan” as a greeting.

“Gonna Burn Some Bridges” – Ray Price

Ray Price was another familiar voice in the musical landscape of my childhood and is pretty much the ultimate crooner in my opinion. I’m including this tune because it’s direct inspiration for a song on our new album.

“I Was Fine” – Bonnie Montgomery

I’m including one of the songs off my new album, because it was inspired by the music of my childhood and, in particular, the music of Ray Price. My bandmate and engineer, Kevin, came up with a steel guitar riff that’s a direct nod to the steel guitar riff on Price’s “Gonna Burn Some Bridges.” We recorded this one with vibraphone and full string orchestra and I sang my heart out for Ray.

Photo Credit: Jamie Lacombe

Bluegrass, Folk, and Country Communities Made Jobi Riccio

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in full on Basic Folk. Listen on BGS or wherever you get podcasts. The following has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.)

Jobi Riccio has only begun to scratch the surface of what they have to offer on their debut album, Whiplash. The songwriting is centered around self discovery and mourning past lives, laid alongside super-smart country and pop melodies. Our hero grew up an outdoor kid amongst the woods of Red Rocks Parks Amphitheatre in Colorado.

A strong bluegrass community encircled her playing from a very young age in a way that encouraged her to pursue music as a career. She spent time in Boston attending Berklee College of Music, nestled in the folk community centered around the historic venue Club Passim. March 2020 hit. Jobi had to leave her newfound community and found herself back in her childhood bedroom.

While wrestling with all the complications of finding herself and her place in the world, they were letting go of their childhood and the sense of grounding that came with it. Eventually, they made their way to Asheville, North Carolina to work on Whiplash.

In the studio, she took her time making the album and discovered that indeed, she had a strong sense of vision for the music. The trust of her collaborators allowed her to trust in herself and create an album that is turning heads and making Jobi Riccio one of the most exciting young songwriters of 2023.

BGS: Thank you so much for being on Basic Folk.

Jobi Riccio: Thank you for having me.

Alright, let’s start. I wanted to talk about identity and give you the opportunity to talk about your identity, like how do you identify pronouns, orientation, any of that stuff that we want to address.

JR: Yeah, I use she/they pronouns. I identify as queer and identity has been something that feels like it’s been important and very complicated for me. It feels like something that I have spoken about and made a part of my career, and now I’m kind of feeling, a little bit, like it’s become too much of a focus in my career, actually.

It’s funny, because I was listening to your other podcast that [you do], I can’t remember–

It’s [Basic Folk Debate Club], an occasional crossover series with Why We Write.

Yes! I was like, you’ll know the person to plug – and I’m so sorry to Why We Write.

It’s based on actually something that Lizzie No was saying. I just really resonated with something that she said, which was it’s about who is asking those questions of me. It can feel like a fine line. It’s kind of “cool” right now to be a queer artist or a Black artist or an artist of color in the folk space.

When you’re with your community, that feels one way, or with people who are truly great. And then when you’re with people who it just seems like they need to check that box. It’s so obvious and it’s so painful and it feels like a betrayal of yourself. And [Lizzie] put it a lot more eloquently than all that, but if we’re really going down the discussion of identity, it’s important to me that I am open with my identity, but I also feel like there have been times where it’s been so hyper-focused on. In a way that it’s like, “Did you even listen to any of my songs or did you know what I mean?”

I really enjoyed that answer. Doing these interviews, sometimes I feel like I’m gonna ask and I think that the interview is gonna go one way or a question is gonna go one way and it goes the complete opposite way. I just get to enjoy the ride.

You are from Morrison, Colorado, which is outside of Denver – the same place as Red Rocks Parks and Amphitheatre. You were an outdoor kid. How do you think your early experience in nature has impacted the person you became?

I think that it’s something that I really value and need and it’s a processing tool for me, being out in nature. It’s almost equivalent to songwriting and writing in my journal. It’s honestly super hard here in Nashville, because I don’t feel like I can get that, in the way that I used to be able to walk to a hiking trail five minutes from my house. I was absolutely supremely spoiled with outdoor access as a kid. [I didn’t] know any better. Like, there’s going to come a time where you’re going to live somewhere the nearest mountains are two and a half hours away. That is rough. It’s something I have to really intentionally build into my life now.

I think that nature heavily informs me as a person. Musically, I feel like it shows up in my lyrics [and] images from home, talking about coyotes and cactus and etc. I feel like it’s so intrinsic to who I am as a person.

So nature ruined you.

For real. The nature ruined me. Colorado ruined me.

There has always been this strong draw to music for you – country radio, your parents and sister’s collection of music, and also making music on your own. Can you set the scene for what music looked like in your house? And when did you get a grasp on your own taste in music?

My parents definitely – we had like a home stereo and a big collection of CDs and I spent a lot of time just sort of putzing around my house as a little kid, opening cabinets, and looking at things and opening the encyclopedia and reading. I don’t know if anyone else feels like a really intrinsic part of childhood was just looking at things.

The CD collection in like, a big wicker basket was definitely a huge one for me. They felt like little gifts. I could open up the CD and then there was this extra thing I could pull out and there were liner notes and lyrics and I could read along. That was really big for me, because I was always really interested in lyrics.

My dad’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. We love the Boss and sometimes we can’t understand the Boss. And like, his lyrics are wonderful, too. I really feel like that was pretty formative to me, looking through my parents’ CDs and my sister’s CDs as well. My oldest sister had like a clear, hot pink, very early 2000s lockbox thing that she kept her CDs in. I very vividly remember going into her room and stealing CDs – The Killers, Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head was a big one for me, Sheryl Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club, Yellow Ocean Avenue. Then like Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, James Taylor.

There is a strong bluegrass community where you’re from. You found it at an early age, playing mandolin when you were like eight or nine years old. Since then you’ve sought out musical community, so what did you learn from that first musical community? 

The bluegrass community was a big part of feeling supported for me in music. I was always a kid who sang and was like, the girl with a good voice in like my elementary school class or whatever, but I didn’t see myself as a musician until I really started playing mandolin. I had a teacher and he was super supportive and was like, “You’re really great at instruments, too.”

I feel like the bluegrass community in my hometown took me seriously even though I was a little kid running around at RockyGrass – and by “a little kid” I mean 16. I didn’t go to my first bluegrass festival until I was a teenager. I would go and sit and jam with adults and be taken seriously. I really looked up to [those who were] offering their support to me, that was immeasurable to [growing] my own self confidence at that age.

I mean, I was so insecure at like 15, 16. The first year I ever went to RockyGrass, which sort of became my home festival, I didn’t even go out and play with anyone. I just sat in my camper with my mom, because I was so scared and so nervous and having trouble with confidence. The next year, I was out like playing every night ’til like 2 or 3 a.m.

That’s a huge shift!

Yeah. I feel like community and music– I mean, no musician is an island. We’re nothing without the musicians who came before us and those who’ve supported us. Sometimes I look back on that time and wonder if I hadn’t gotten that nod in that jam from that older kid who was really good, who I thought was awesome; or from that artist who I worshipped, who told me I had a beautiful voice; or I had shared one of my songs with them, and they were encouraging of me writing. I wonder if I would have taken it this far?

Then I got to be in a really beautiful community space working at Club Passim in college, too. That also further helped bolster my confidence, especially playing solo. Because – as you know, as also somebody who worked there in a much different capacity – it’s very much like a solo listening room, singer-songwriter space.

I play solo [a lot] now on tour, because I can’t afford to bring out a band. I feel like I really garnered some valuable skills watching other people like Mark Erelli and Lori McKenna play solo at Passim and also having to do that myself, learning how to speak about the songs I had written and not be painfully awkward, but doing that in the loving embrace of that room.

You’ve talked about Sheryl Crow and The Chicks as having a huge impact on you. You picked up the mandolin after you first heard Nickel Creek – can you talk more about the influence Chris Thile and Sara and Sean Watkins had on you?

So, I first heard Nickel Creek on the radio on KBCO, which is like the AAA station.

Hell yeah, that’s a huge station. That’s where AAA was born!

Where AAA was born, famously, yes! That was my local radio station that I listened to as a kid. And they would play “Smoothie Song” by Nickel Creek. This was around the same time that I heard the Home album by The Chicks. I was listening to Top 40 country music and also hearing mandolin here and there. It’s so strange, because I don’t play the mandolin anymore. It’s just something I’m not interested in now – it makes me almost kind of sad to think of how this was such a big part of my life.

Then I really pivoted – and it’s like, I’ll never say never, but yeah, I started playing mandolin when I was 15, I wanted to play mandolin when I was about eight or nine years old, because that was when we got Why Should the Fire Die on CD as a family. When I started opening up the CD and reading the booklet and listening – that album is so cool, because there’s a little bit of almost a pop-punk thing to some of the songs, like “Somebody More Like You.” That was so of-the-time and I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of that.

Being introduced to this new palette of instruments that I really hadn’t heard played in this way. I was familiar with bluegrass to some extent, but it like bluegrass for me and my like angsty little 12-year-old self. And, you know, everybody’s angsty selves at any age. That struck such a chord in me…

The first song I heard by them was that Pavement cover.

And Pavement’s super emo! “Spit On a Stranger,” right?

Yeah, that’s it.

I loved that album, too. They were all older than me, but I didn’t really know that either because, like, they’re pretty young on the CD case. They’re probably [around] my older sister’s age, who is now 28. They’re not that close in age to me, but I did feel a kindred-ness that I feel like a lot of roots artists talk about, hearing them and the Chicks and being like, “Oh, this is cool! This is of the moment.” They’re incorporating sounds that we like from other genres, which is really what I think I’m trying to get with the whole pop-punk thing, though I know that can be kind of a “dirty” word, like pop country. I don’t think it should be, I don’t think any genre word should be.

And I definitely had like a three month period where I was like, “I’m in love with Chris Thile. I’m going to marry him.” That was a little, you know, short lived, but it was strong. His high, angelic voice really spoke to my prepubescent soul.

That’s so sweet.

You’re like, “I don’t know what to say about that!”

Thank you for sharing. No, it turns out it was Sara Watkins the whole time!

Right, yeah! Hiding in plain sight!

Your bluegrass wife.

(Editor’s Note: Listen to the unabridged Basic Folk episode featuring Jobi Riccio here.)

Photo Credit: Monica Murray

MIXTAPE: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It is a tale as old as time itself. As above so below. Yin and Yang. The explored and the unexplored. The hero’s journey, any and all of them, are exposed to the eternally enduring dance of chaos and order. We must leave the garden, enter into the forest to find the gold, kill the dragon, and return back to where we began, returning back more harmonized, realized, and higher frequency than we began.

Musically, Cosmic Country takes this pattern and uses it as its sole fuel for the soul and all of its musical fruits. Cosmic Country is an approach that uses simplicity, complexity, and truth to tell stories of life that bring beauty and goodness into reality. This 9-track mixtape I have assembled for your enjoyment and exploration today covers some ground of the far-flung lands of music that is Cosmic Country, where the high frequencies fall like rain and blossom like lilies in the fields that never end nor never began. Let’s get Cosmic. – Daniel Donato

“Honky Tonk Night Time Man” – Merle Haggard

This is a country song. But just like any country, there is more nuance to be discovered and brought to light than meets the eye. This is an archetypal honky-tonk song. A few of these will be on here. Honky-tonk songs cover truthful states of life that apply to all of our brothers and sisters sojourning in space and time together down on this chaotic planet. This song talks about relief from the grind and finally getting around to what is right for the soul when quittin’ time comes around.

“Doggone Cowboy” – Marty Robbins

This is also a country song, but it is also more nuanced than that. This is a cowboy song. The cowboy is one of the great American archetypes. The cowboy embraces a life of service, hard work, endurance, adventure, and most enduringly, faith. It takes faith to stay patient and persistent in pursuing your work through realms of chaos that you must travel through and come out on the other side stronger than you did prior. Marty had a way of personifying sorrow, acceptance, reflection, and hope in his delivery of these transcendant, simple lyrics.

“Mystery Train” – Jerry Reed

It can’t be fully Cosmic Country unless it moves you. Internally, songs move us, but sometimes the pocket and groove move us externally, which is a brilliant expression of personality. What I love about this song is that Jerry Reed always had a vision in his mind that could create a groove for people to dance to and for players to have fun-expression in. Everyone knows “Mystery Train,” but this version can make any club, honky tonk, theatre, or arena dance and move all together. Bonus points for a train song. Everyone loves a train song.

“Everybody’s Talkin’” – Harry Nilsson

The bottomline is that we are on our own trip. It is an individual experience of life, personality, and dynamics that only you experience. No one will ever live your life for you or as you. Songs that find promise and truthful reflection on the truly individualized nature of existence are my favorite. The movie Midnight Cowboy turned me onto this song when I was 16. I’ve never wished I had written another song as much as this American classic.

“I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You)” – Hank Williams

The Shakespeare of country music. The man who was able to take the power of the word – through a Western lens of faith, hardship, and hard living – and deliver to us some of the most truthful and beautiful songs composed of themes ranging from love, loss, religious experience, jail time, honky tonkin’, and the universe. This song specifically has a brilliant form to it, just one verse and two B sections, coupled with that classic lap steel signature sound from Don Helms.

“Waiting for a Train” – Jimmie Rodgers

Any storyteller of American songs, country songs, any songs based in truth and experience, must tip their “Slouch Hat” to Jimmie Rodgers in one way or another. A lot of everything country begins with the songbook of Jimmie Rodgers. This song is just a fantastic story through and through. The lyrical furniture, the sophisticated use of actual terms of water tanks, brakemen, boxcar doors, all bring the listener into the simulated reality that this song conjures.

“Long Black Veil” – Lefty Frizzell

Murder songs are a necessity. The reaper takes his toll, and with that, law and order speak their truth. One of the brilliant elements of this song is that the perspective is from the deceased character. That is innately Cosmic, especially given the window of time this song was released. Lefty was one of Merle’s favorite vocalists, and was the band leader with which Roy Nichols and Merle Haggard first played together when Merle was 16.

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” – The Byrds

Even though Bob Dylan penned this one on the side of the road, in the rain, waiting for a motorcycle fix, The Byrds – with Gram Parsons and Clarence White – deliver to us one of the most archetypal Cosmic Country recordings there will ever be. The instrumentation, the vocal melody, and harmonies on this song alone explain this sentiment, but the lyrical detail is another universe worth noting with great reverence. The olden language of the great folk songs of America inform the meter and colloquialisms in this song, giving it an ability to exist in the past through its roots, the present through its great orchestration and arrangement, and the future through its seeds of truth, beauty, and goodness – the only values in any creation that endow it to persist through the fleeting episodes of space and time.

“Truck Drivin’ Man” – Buck Owens

If I left out truck driving songs, then everybody from my time at Robert’s Western World would be ashamed of me. The truck driver is a minister of the highways, the great vehicle of true exploration and discovery. The eternal, long white line drags on and on, and the road songs of her fruits just keep coming, but some of the great ones came from Capitol Records in L.A. in the early ’60s.

An element of Cosmic Country that this song relates to is the overall “sound.” What is “the sound?” It is ultimately unqualifiable – it cannot be fully explained or qualified by words – especially when The Sound is doing what it can be doing in potential, which is rendering feelings that hit deeper than words can describe. With the Transcendant Twang of Don Rich’s Telecaster, the immensely clean and powerfully compressed sound of Mickey Cantu’s snare drum, along with that Tic-Tac Fender Bass playing, Buck Owen’s vocal and story rests upon a divinely simple and reverberated landscape of country gold. If there ever was a record that “sounds” like a country song, this one certainly qualifies.

Photo Credit: Jason Stoltzfus

Brent Cobb Follows the Inspiration of His ‘Southern Star’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Over his entire Grammy-nominated career, Brent Cobb has made no secret of being guided by a “Southern Star” – a rootsy creative beacon shining high above and seeming to point straight down on his South Georgia home.

A native of the Peach state, Cobb has staked a claim on the organic side of country, with acclaimed projects like Shine On a Rainy Day, Providence Canyon, and even the 2022 gospel set, And Now, Let’s Turn to Page…. Each one paints a loving portrait of Southern life, looking far beyond the cliches for inspiration. But with his new album Southern Star, those pictures are more vivid (and more Southern) than ever.

Finding easy-going wisdom and big-picture beauty in the simple minutiae of everyday life, Southern Star is engrossed in all things Georgia. Ten tender tracks were recorded in Macon, using Georgian musicians and embracing the sonic history of the region. That means a warm, humid mix of back-porch country and rural R&B, with funky (but feather soft) bass lines and a casual vocal drawl, as Cobb invites listeners in to his personal world – a world full of unexpected contrasts, and undeniable human wonder.

Speaking with BGS from that South Georgia home on a sunny fall day – perhaps the last one of the lawn-mowing season, he says – the humble and homegrown singer-songwriter explains what makes his Southern Star shine so bright.

Every artist or songwriter goes through phases of how they think about their role. What’s important to you these days?

Brent Cobb: It really hasn’t changed a whole lot. I know that doesn’t sound good, but I always try to still focus on my roots of where I’m from, and I try to still be universally personal, personally universal. … I think there’s something so poetic about specifically the American South and rural life, but also something that if you do it right, anybody anywhere can relate to it. So that’s really what I try to do. I try to make music that my kids can enjoy and that my grandma could enjoy, and everybody in between.

Tell me a little bit about Southern Star, the imagery of that title, specifically. I mean, is this kind of a play on the idea of a North Star guiding you?

Partly, yeah. You always learn growing up, if you get lost out there, you look for the Northern Star, it’ll guide you and give you direction. But I’m from South Georgia, so I look for the Southern Star. [Laughs]  … So partly that. Then there was also my buddy ‘Rowdy’ Jason Cope, who was the founding member of The Steel Woods and played electric guitar for Jamey Johnson from 2008 until 2014 or so. He’s no longer with us [Cope passed away at age 42 in 2021, after suffering “severe complications from diabetes”]. But during those days he lived about 45 minutes outside Nashville, and I’d go down there to his place and we’d go to this little bar and it was a pretty seedy little spot where we’d hang out, it was called the Southern Star.

Plus, I often thought about my buddy as someone who sort of behind the scenes had a lot of influence on a lot of people, but they may not even be aware of it. He never got to be a superstar, but if nothing else he was a Southern star. And I feel that same way about myself sometimes. So there are a couple different meanings behind it. … I miss him every day.

The other part of this album is what seems like a love letter to Georgia – and maybe just the whole region. It can be easy to misunderstand the Southern people and the area, and you’ve called it kind of a melting pot, right? What’s so inspiring to you about Georgia?

I think it’s because, well, first of all the American South as a whole, there would be no music as we know it if not for the American South. And that comes with its blessings and the curses, and it wouldn’t be the same place without those things also. Specifically Macon is the home of Otis Redding and Little Richard, and then you have Ray Charles from right down the road, and then right up the road you got James Brown, and then of course the Allman Brothers. There’s so many endless artists that have influenced the whole world.

But then even just as day-to-day life, where I’m from, every school I went to, we’re all mixed in together down here. We’re living and praying and learning and working all together. It’s easy to be on the outside and look in, and go, ‘Man, the South, what a terrible place.’ And there are some terrible things that still happen to this day, and historically that are terrible, but for the most part we’re all living and working and eating and breathing together. You don’t hear about that side of the South so much. But I think that’s why the music from here is so influencing and so profound – it isn’t just one way. And you got people that obviously have had to struggle and people who still struggle to this day, but that’s where the good shit comes from. That’s where the great art comes from, for better or worse.

I read that this was your first self-produced record. Did it have a different vibe working that way, or did the sound come out any different?

Luckily I was able to use a couple of my friends as guinea pigs, so I got a little comfortable in the producer’s seat [on previous projects]. But more than anything I believe first of all, to make a great album, you need great songs, and then you can record them any way you want to record them. If it’s a great song, it’s a great song no matter what.

… I think the second most important part of making a great album is the drums and percussion. Once you have those two things, you can really leave it at that and it’s going to be great. Folks can sing along and might want to dance a little bit. You’re going to be fine.

Then you need a little funky bass part. And, being from that area of the music I heard my whole life – soul music and gospel music, it all has keys. So I knew I had to have some keys and organ on there. I don’t know that it was much different [from other records], except for this time I had nearly 20 years of experience.

“It’s a Start” is such an interesting track. On the surface, it’s just about simple things. But it seems to kind of point at a bigger truth, right? Where’d that come from?

Well, I appreciate you noticing that, because it’s with intent. I try to do that with most all of my songs – like I said earlier, to make something personal, make it universal. What is the core of that emotion or that experience? And vice versa, universally personal. That song particularly, I wanted to throw everybody off and not give that song a double meaning.

Really, why’s that?

I feel like sometimes I’m stuck in between two worlds. Sometimes I feel like people only think ‘Oh, there’s Brent writing another album about Georgia.’ And then I feel like some people go, ‘What is the deeper meaning here?’ Most of the time there is one for me, but that song is really about nothing and intentionally, it’s about exactly what it says.

People can get real meta about certain songwriters, but I just think that’s a mark of a really good artist.

Yeah I’m not ever complaining as long as anybody’s listening for any reason. I do think it’s funny though. Sometimes I feel like other songwriters may get the benefit of the doubt, like it’ll be a really on-the-nose double meaning, just real obvious that, “Oh, okay, you meant to give it this undercurrent.” Then other songwriters, sometimes I feel like including myself, they do not get that benefit. They only get the doubt. [Laughs]

Call me a simple man – I am. There should always be a little something extra in there if someone’s looking for it. But I also think a songwriter should do their best to craft it so that it can be enjoyed at face value.

“Shade Tree” seems like a fitting way to end things, then. It wraps the record up with a peaceful, soothing scene. Where did that come from?

Well, my sister and I had started that song two years probably before I even knew that I was going to make an album. My sister is such a wonderful singer and she’s got a lot of soul in her voice, but like me, she has a kid. It’s hard to just sit down and write a song together. Well, then I get studio time booked and I wanted to finish that song because I thought it really defined Southern Star as a way of life in the South – there was a pecan tree in my grandma’s backyard, so after church and after Sunday dinner, the whole family would hang out under it in the shade tree. A lot of things happened [under that tree] …

The day before going in the studio, I went over to my sister’s house and I had dropped my kids off at school, and we drank some coffee on her back porch amongst some pine trees. Then my wife, she threw in some lines and it became a family affair. And yeah, it seemed fitting.

The whole thing seems like it has so much personal meaning. What do you hope people take away from this one?

More than anything I always hope, like I’ve said, that it’s universally personal. I hope that anybody will be able to take away from it whatever they feel. And if nothing else, I hope they can just enjoy it in the background.

Photo Credit: Jace Kartye

One to Watch: Viv & Riley Are Much More Than Just Old-Time or Americana

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Comprised of singer-songwriters and instrumentalists Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, Viv & Riley are an up-and-coming musical duo that defy definition. Their new album, Imaginary People, is a masterful blend that weaves together their shared reverence for traditional Appalachian music alongside indie-folk, pop-leaning adornments. The result is an emotionally potent 10-track album that covers a vibrant range of personal and universal truths — from the bittersweet nostalgia of visiting a beloved childhood hideaway decades later, to the poignant curiosities that accompany reckoning with climate grief.

Based out of the dynamic music scene in Durham, North Carolina, this duo is currently on tour across North America. With their insightful explorations of the past and creative probings of the future, Viv & Riley uncover rich and complicated explorations of what it means to be alive in this precise moment.

So how did the two of you first start making music together?

Vivian Leva: Well, we first started making music together when we first met in 2016, the summer after we both graduated high school. I grew up in Lexington, Virginia, and Riley grew up in Seattle, Washington, and we just happened to meet at a camp in Port Townsend, Washington. It’s one of those camps that has weeks back to back — there was a vocal week that I was teaching with my mom, and then Riley came to teach fiddle the following week. We happened to overlap by a few days, and Riley was there with his band The Onlies. The first night we met, we played music together all night! After that, I joined the band, and we also started playing together as a duo and writing songs.

Riley Calcagno: The origin of our sort of band, our duo, came later that year, in the fall. We had been communicating and texting some music back and forth, and then Viv invited me down to Asheville to play a gig with her and her dad. I was a fan of her dad, James Leva, for his fiddle and singing, so we did that gig. But we thought it’d be also fun to try out some duo material while we were down in the same place, even though we had never played songs just the two of us. We emailed a venue in Asheville called Isis Music Hall, which was a prominent venue there at the time. Somehow they slotted us in, on a Wednesday night, into this big hall that they had — 200-person capacity, maybe bigger. We had never played music together going into that, but we put together some material and we enlisted some friends to play with us. It was a bold move! Talk about faking it until you make it. Only about 15 people came out to the show, and I’m sure it sounded terrible. But it was fun!

That sounds amazing. So how would you describe your musical chemistry? What is it like playing together?

VL: ​​Well, I think our initial musical chemistry initially came from our shared background in old time music and traditional music. That first night that we met, we played a lot of fiddle tunes, old music, and traditional songs. So it kind of began from a place of excitement about being exactly the same age, having never before met, and somehow both being raised around this same music that we have a shared respect and love for. So that was the initial spark of actually finding another young person who’s into the same niche genre and community. But since then it’s totally stretched into other realms. We are both so open to other kinds of music, and we have very similar tastes and aesthetics. It’s very easy to create music together because we come to it from a similar place.

RC: One of our dynamics in making music together has also been sharing our individual strengths with the other person. When we first started playing together, I couldn’t really sing harmony or find a harmony part. Vivian was very patient with me and helped me learn, and I still feel like I’m getting better all the time. That’s exciting!

VL: I just play guitar, and Riley plays every other instrument. He’s a great fiddler, guitar player, banjo player, mandolin player— instrumentally he brings so much to the table. And I feel I bring a lot of singing and songwriting-focused material to the table. We stretch each other, fill in the gaps for each other, and learn from each other.

What a beautiful thing! So what do you each feel like the biggest difference in your respective musicianships is?

RC: Viv is a very natural musician. She grew up traveling around with her parents as they toured, sitting in on harmonica at her dad’s gigs when she was only three or four. I also was born and raised around music, but it was a bit more formalized, whereas Viv’s music just comes very naturally and it’s not forced in any way. She does what she does super well and consistently and steadily, and I’m a bit more erratic. I take chances and get obsessed with things and take big leaps that sometimes fall flat. Every time she steps on stage, Viv can knock out a great performance, and I feel more streaky.

VL: But he tries lots of different things! And like he mentioned, Riley has a more formal background in music. He took lessons, he learned how to read music, he knows music theory, he did classical violin. So I think a big difference is that he technically knows what’s going on, whereas I don’t have the language or skills that he has. I’m definitely more intuition based than technically based.

You really balance each other out! So your new album, Imaginary People, just came out on September 15, and I’m wondering how your songwriting, as it appears on this album, has shifted since you first began as a duo.

RC: Well, in the past, before we started writing music for this record, we were living in different places so it was a lot of collaboration from afar. A lot of the songs on our last record came from texting voice memos back and forth. And you know, it’s not utterly different to work on them in person, but some of these new songs came out playing them together in the moment.

VL: Another big difference is Riley has started writing way more. So I think there’s more of an equal voicing on this record than in the past. There’s more of his perspective in it. And I think now that we’re living in the same place it’s also allowed us to write about a more diverse range of things. We’ve written a lot of intense emotional, romantic songs in the past, but in this recent past couple of years, we’re more interested in other things, like our shared experiences about other parts of life.

RC: And it’s also partly stylistic. Our last record was pretty much a country record. During that time, I was listening to a lot of classic country music, and this time we were listening to a wider range of things. Having a broader array of influences definitely helped us push the narrative forward.

What are you each proudest of on the album?

VL: I think what I am most proud of isn’t a specific track or anything — mostly it’s this feeling that I unlocked something. I think I let go of some fears in the process of making this record. I felt more free to just say yes to trying new things and became less concerned with things like what genre it was going to be considered, or if the people who liked our last record would like this record… and so on. I stopped worrying about categories like, “This doesn’t sound traditional enough,” or “This isn’t country enough,” or “That’s too rocker or indie.” Instead, I was able to adopt the mentality of “Hmm, that sounds interesting, let’s try and just do what feels fun!” I think I’m most proud that I was able to do that. It felt amazing to take things a little lighter and to roll with ideas that felt a little outside of the mold.

RC: When you start making music, being young musicians, you get immediately labeled. It’s not something that I think either of us necessarily anticipated, but when that first record got classified, people said it was Appalachian and classic country. And then the next one was classic country and Americana. Like “Hits-the-Spot Americana,” whatever that means. And I think there’s an urge for musicians, when you get labeled as something, to keep reproducing it. There’s this toothlessness to the modern Americana music label— it’s the creation of music that is literally meant to sound like other music under a category. I don’t have a problem with genre or specifications, I think it’s oftentimes useful, but it’s [useful] when you’re trying to reproduce sounds so that you can cater to an audience, it’s like you’re trying to sell something in a market that’s already been created. I think that can be the “dampification” of art. And while I think there’s been so many amazing things created within the Americana industry, I also think it often leads to less creativity and less interesting music.

Coming out of our last record, we had some buzz in the Americana world, and it would have been easy for us to make another “Hits-the-Spot Americana” record. But I don’t think that we did that, and I feel proud of that. Like Viv was saying, we didn’t just do what we were supposed to do. You know, there’s synthesizers, but there’s also a fiddle track, and personally, I think it all works together. So maybe if you’re an Americana devotee, you’re not going to love this album, but that’s okay with me. I think there’s a power in making an album that the machine doesn’t really know what to do with. The machine can make up albums and spit them out, but I feel proud that this one isn’t something that can just be spit out because of how we combine traditional and non-traditional music. For example, there were super organic moments where we all stood around one mic and sang together, coupled with other moments where we had things locked in, produced, and added synths because a particular song called for it. Making those two things coexist in the same ecosystem was definitely a challenge, but listening to the record, I think it all makes sense together.

It’s an album full of teeth! Now, before we wrap up, I have to ask: you’re our One to Watch, but who are you watching right now? Any creatives, musical artists, or otherwise that are inspiring you right now?

RC: One is our neighbor in Durham, North Carolina, Alice Gerrard. She’s almost 90, and she’s putting out a record on this indie label from the area called Sleepy Cat. She’s collaborating with a bunch of young people and their art for the record, like making these amazing videos. It’s a really cool thing! People around here are really conscious and thoughtful about aesthetics and sound and ethos. Everything is done with integrity, so it’s a cool scene around here in that way. Alice makes amazing music, I’m really excited for her upcoming record — I think we’ll all be glued to it once it comes out. Another one is our friend who we wrote two songs with on our previous record, “Love and Chains” and “Time Is Everything”— often people’s favorite songs of ours. I just had the honor of producing his upcoming record under his band’s name, Preacher & Daisy. I love the music, so I definitely want to give them a bump! The fun thing is that all this music is sourced locally from the Durham, North Carolina area, where we’re based.

VL: Some folks I’m enjoying listening to right now, not that they’re not already being watched, are: KC Jones, Canary Room, Dori Freeman, Alexa Rose.

Photo Credit: Libby Rodenbough

Better Late Than Never, David “Ferg” Ferguson Debuts ‘Nashville No More’

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As the go-to producer for some of Nashville’s most enigmatic roots talents, David Ferguson is what you’d call a behind-the-board legend. The studio savant known simply as “Ferg” started out as a protégé of producer and eccentric tape-splicer Cowboy Jack Clement and went on to become Johnny Cash’s favored engineer during his late-career resurgence. More recently, Ferguson has been imparting his old-school wisdom on tastemakers like Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price, while on his own debut album Nashville No More, he puts decades of knowledge to work once more.

With 10 songs full of classic charm and creative whimsy, it’s a loose-feeling project of tunes Ferg’s been falling in love with (and recording for himself) for years, molded into an album during the pandemic doldrums. A rotating cast of Nashville A-listers like Kenny Vaughan, Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Béla Fleck and Tim O’Brien helped him flesh it out, presenting gruff vocals with tender, honest reverence for the lost art of record-making. In the end, it sounds like a love letter to his life’s work – and maybe the last hurrah of a creative culture.

BGS: So we’ll start with obvious question: Why did you want to make your own record, after so many years of helping others make theirs?

David Ferguson: Well, I’ve really always been a musician at heart. But this one fell into my lap over the pandemic. I had to shut down my studio, the Butcher Shoppe, in Nashville because they sold the buildings. So I set up a control room and an overdub room at my house, then the pandemic came along and there wasn’t much work. I started digging around in my recordings from over the years, got ‘em out and started seeing what I could do. That’s kind of how it came together. I really was just putting it together for family. Like, I was just gonna give it to my mom.

That’s interesting, because I think some people might assume you’ve been wanting to do this your whole life, but it sounds more spur of the moment.

Yeah, it’s a little late in life for me to be launching a solo career. [Laughs] But it’s fun to have one coming out and I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.

It might be late to get started, but you’ve had good teachers. Working with people like Cowboy Jack and Johnny Cash, and more recently Sturgill and Margo, what have you learned about being an artist?

To try to be humble. Even doing interviews, it’s hard to talk about yourself. Somebody who enjoys sitting and talking about themselves, there’s something a little bit wrong with them. I think being humble is a great lesson. Johnny Cash was a very humble man, very humble. So I think that — and trying to be kind to people. And don’t take it for granted, because even if something does happen, it may never happen again. You gotta appreciate what you’ve got.

The people you’ve been known for working with, they’re all artists of very strong vision – ones who didn’t compromise their art. Why are you drawn to people like that?

That’s a good question. I don’t know that I am particularly drawn there, maybe it’s just kind of the way it happened. Stuff comes your way and you have to grab the opportunity if it comes. You’ve gotta be ready to make a fool of yourself if you have to, and learn to grow from mistakes. I made a whole lot of records on a whole lot of people that weren’t any good – tons of them! Not everything you’re gonna do is good. But you do your best for the amount of time or money you have.

I always tried to do my very best. I was a fast engineer and got it going quick, because I didn’t want to waste people’s money. It’s hard to come by, and to get to make a record in a studio is a special thing. It used to be a really special thing. Now anybody can make a record. You can make one in your own house. But back in the day when I started, being able to have the money and resources to go in and record an album was a big deal. I still look at it as a big deal.

I think that comes through on your record.

Thank you, man, I tried not to cut any corners. I could have, and used keyboard strings, things like that. But I had real ones. I tried to do it as real as I could do it.

Did you record this the way you would have back in the day?

Yeah. Everybody’s recording on the Pro Tools format, but I can still fire up a tape machine, I’m not afraid of it. It’s just not economically feasible anymore. And plus, people don’t realize, they always used to say, ‘Oh, tape machines sounded great.’ And it’s true. They did and they still do, but you still wind up with a 16-bit CD. Unless you’re listening to it off the tape machine or on a vinyl record, or some super high resolution format, it’s just not gonna make very much difference.

Tell me about the title you chose. You’re from Nashville and have seen how it’s changed. How did you end up with the title Nashville No More? The whole thing has a kind of weary feel to it.

[Laughs] You know it’s not really a bummer. A lot of them are actually love songs. Like “Chardonnay” is a love song to wine. And then “Looking for Rainbows,” it’s kind of a sad song about love. … Nashville No More means a lot to me, because the Nashville that I used to know is no more. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just that things evolve, and Nashville has really evolved. The music has evolved into an unlistenable thing to me. Modern country music, to me, is really difficult to listen to. Top 10 radio, it’s not for me. And I know some of those people who are on those channels, those singers, and I really like ‘em. I’m not saying anything bad about their music or anything … I’m really happy for their success, but it’s not the kind of stuff I’m gonna listen to.

Margo Price is featured on “Chardonnay,” and that has such a lovely sway to it. Where did that track come from?

That was written by my friend Roger Cook, and some years ago I made a demo of him doing the song, and I found it like ‘Jeez, where has this song been? I love this!’ … I finished it up with some real players on it, re-sung a couple of lines here and there and then sent it to Margo, and she said, ‘God, I love that song so much.’ She graciously came over and hung out for the afternoon and sung on that and “Looking for Rainbows.” Margo’s a real sweetheart and she doesn’t live far from me. The other person on there is Harry Stinson. He sings harmony, too, and Harry is in the Fabulous Superlatives. Harry’s singing on “Four Strong Winds,” too. He can blend right in there.

I love that you start off with “Four Strong Winds,” which is such a tender song. The first thing you hear is this gentle piano and a loping drum beat. Why start with that sound?

The album was totally sequenced … and it started off just exactly the opposite of what it is now. It started off with number six being number one, and we swapped the A side and B side.

Really?

That’s an old record trick I learned from Jack Clement and Johnny Cash.

What’s the benefit there?

It just kind of takes the obvious away, and that’s good. I’ve done that on more than one record for the years, and I’ve seen Jack Clement do it a few times. It’s a strange thing, but I mentioned to the guys, “Jack used to sequence it out A and B, then a couple of days later he’d be like, ‘You know, B oughta be A, I think.'” And it works!

You end on “Hard Times Come Again No More.” What’s the message in that ending?

Like I said before, that would have been number five, and we swapped it around. But it just seemed like a natural song to go out with. Sierra and Justin were kind enough to show up on that, and I think she’s just a major talent. Probably one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. She’s got the touch, and she’s not one to nitpick stuff. If you say you’re happy, she says, “OK, let’s move on.” She won’t just wear you out with it.

What was it like trying to produce your own songs, though? Is it hard to be critical of yourself?

It’s nearly impossible. Anybody you talk to who sings or even talks for a living, there’s hardly anything more painful than listening to yourself back. It’s as painful to a singer and artist as it is to anybody — unless they have an ego the size of [spreads his arms wide]. But you get in a situation where you have to be critical, so I learned how to do it on this record. I figured it out.

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi