Tag: old town school of folk

LISTEN: ‘Once Upon a River’ Soundtrack

Posted on by Editor

Written and directed by Haroula Rose and based upon a best-selling novel by Bonnie Jo Campbell, the award-winning indie film Once Upon a River tells the story of Margo Crane, a Native American teenager who sets out to find her mother as her own life takes one dramatic turn after another. Margo is portrayed by Kenadi DelaCerna, in her screen debut.

Shot to evoke rural Michigan in the 1970s, the mood of Once Upon a River is frequently elevated by original music from Rodney Crowell, JD Souther, Will Oldham, Bridget St. John, Fran Farley, Peter Bradley Adams, and Haroula Rose, as well as an atmospheric score by Zac Rae. Hear the soundtrack below, and enjoy an exclusive interview with Haroula Rose.

BGS: This story is set in 1977. How did that influence the music you chose for the movie?

Rose: Having it set in the 1970s made me excited about being able to use my favorite era in both music and cinema as inspiration. It was one of the reasons I loved the source material for this very unique kind of road movie, because I knew at once that I could use some psych folk, soul, country and ambient sounds to get into this tale and characters. My film partner at Thirty Tigers (David Macias) was literally the first person onboard for this project, while composer (Zac Rae) and music supervisor (Mike Turner) were also among the first people creatively involved once I had the shooting script. As a musician first, I am always thinking about it as a central element even as I am writing, and the music is deeply embedded into the process from the beginning. I used certain themes Zac had created to play for the actors while we were on set and they were very moved by hearing them.

There are moments of quiet in this movie, too. It reminds me of the adage that a good musician knows when to play a solo, as well as when not to. Can you tell me about your process for placing the music into the film without distracting from the storyline?

I love that analogy! I feel that silence can be as potent as noise, and the pauses in the film all have a voice and are communicating something as well. Margo is not the most traditionally vocal character but is so expressive, thus the music had to parallel that… such that we are still able to feel her subjective experience through the pregnant moments of quiet as much as the action scenes. Ultimately it was about continually paring the story down, sculpting it to its very essence, and the music supported that goal since we were always allowing it to evolve and not give too much away too soon. There was this balance we had to strike with regard to supporting the story and not giving away the emotions before their time. I’m really happy to hear you say it worked!

The placement for Will Oldham’s “Always Bound” works especially well in this film. Can you describe why you felt that scene and that particular recording synched up so well?

Will was the first person to write an original song for the film upon reading the script, and it was this magical piece. In fact “Always Bound” was what I used for our very first scene we shot of the film, which was Margo by the fire when she is eating canned food and camping. I brought these bluetooth speakers out to the woods and played it as we filmed, so we all dropped into this same emotional zone. It was a special moment, having Will as a creative force of support right then at the start. So I already knew which space it would inhabit in the film right when I heard it.

As you were writing dialogue, were there any characters whose perspective, or “voice,” that you particularly enjoyed?

Writing Smoke and Fishbone’s dialogue and banter was super fun, because like so many other parts of this story that inspire me, it is a unique relationship. I loved it in the book too. In terms of perspective/voice, writing Luanne because she is someone who is very complicated and all too easy to depict in a one-dimensional way, was a cool process. I really liked trying to find a way into her that is more complex and nuanced, more empathetic in seeing and understanding her pain, as she struggles to communicate and to exist in the world.

There’s a Rodney Crowell song here, too, and it’s filled with imagery. How did that song, “The Damage,” make its way into the film? And what do you remember about hearing that song for the first time?

Well, Rodney was one of the people considered for acting in the role of Smoke! David Macias reached out and then Rodney and I had a conversation about it. It was surreal because I have long been a Rodney fan. Hearing him play years ago at the Old Town School of Folk literally changed the stream of my life. When he found out he couldn’t do the role, Rodney kindly offered up the idea of a song. I was tremendously honored and then upon hearing it, with its visceral imagery and his manner in singing it, I got very emotional.

He got to the heart of two lonely but loving souls we don’t often see, and their connection. And then recording it — I sang harmonies with him — was so special in many ways. It was similar with JD Souther who wrote a song that Smoke (John Ashton) sings in one of his final scenes. It feels like a dream how this all came together, very fulfilling in terms of making music and making films. I co-wrote a song with Peter Bradley Adams and Zac Rae for the soundtrack as well, that plays in the final scene; that song always gets me emotional too.

To me, cultural identity seems to be a significant theme in this film — in a sense of racial identity, but also privilege. Was that element of diversity part of what attracted you to adapting this film?

Definitely. Bonnie’s novel alludes to Margo’s bloodline, and I thought it would be a great opportunity to showcase talent that would also add a dimension of depth to what the story is saying about “otherness” in her character as well as others, like her father (Tatanka Means) and Will (Ajuawak Kapashesit), who she meets along the way. It’s also part of her journey in coming to know herself and who she will be, that she knows where she came from. Will is the first person who asks her about her own potential, and hence why she makes the choice she does towards the end (no spoilers). In terms of privilege, I think it’s also depicted in terms of the Murrays and how they have interacted with and abused the land and the community, but I hope it’s conveyed that Margo is also someone with skills and talents that she learned from her father, which are a great gift. She has the depth and the comfort in being in the wild, knowing how to survive.

This film will be finding its way to even more viewers in the months ahead. Watching it now, more than a year after you completed it, what are some of the emotions you feel?

I still feel very inspired and emotional, especially at the ending. I also feel beyond proud of every single person involved and their hard work. It’s hard making an independent film and it’s my job to bring out the best in everyone. I hope the world out there sees that as they experience the film, the story, the music. A year after it premiered, 40 festivals and 19 awards later and many years after first reading the book, well it has been a wild and ambitious ride all to support a story that I truly believe we could see more of — seeing one another with compassion, empathy… Margo’s nonjudgmental and generous philosophy of live and let live… even or especially for those who cause you pain. It helps you find your own way.

Once Upon a River is available to watch via Film Movement. You can listen to the soundtrack on all streaming platforms.

Bonny Light Horseman Turn to British Folk Songs for Supergroup Debut

Posted on by Editor

Bonny Light Horseman, a new American supergroup interpreting old British folk tunes, is one of the few good things to come from Twitter. After spending nearly fifteen years shepherding her ambitious musical Hadestown all the way to Broadway, Anaïs Mitchell was catching up on some of music she’d missed out on, and she took to the social media platform to shout out the Fruit Bats, the long-running indie-pop band led by Eric D. Johnson. It just so happened that he had recently discovered Mitchell’s music and was a new fan.

“It’s an embarrassing way to meet someone,” Johnson says, “but that’s how it happened. She tagged me and said she loved my band. There are so many bad vibes on [Twitter], but I do like the fact that you can write a very short fan letter and you know they’ll get it.”

Mitchell was already working with producer/multi-instrumentalist Josh Kaufman (Craig Finn, Josh Ritter) on a new project for the Eaux Claires Festival, and Johnson admits he steamrolled his way into the gig. At the 37d03d Festival in Berlin, the trio spent a few hours each day creating and recording new arrangements of old folk tunes like “Blackwaterside” and “Lowlands” with a small army of friends and collaborators joining in — including members of the National, Hiss Golden Messenger, the Staves, and Bon Iver. The result is a lush and lovely collection of songs that may be centuries old, but sound very much of their moment.

At least on paper it may seem like an unlikely folk alliance, considering Mitchell is the only artist among them popularly identified with that genre. Kaufman is more associated with artful indie rock, while Johnson is well known for crafting supremely catchy pop hooks.

“I have a fairly strong folk background,” says Johnson. “I used to teach banjo at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, but somewhere along the way I veered off on a poppier path. But Anaïs has a bona fide folk background beyond her career as a singer/songwriter. She knows all the old stuff and grew up with those records in her house. So she’s been a teacher to Josh and me in a lot of ways.”

This kind of collaboration fits with the 37d03d ethos. Founded by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon and the National’s Aaron Dessner, the organization encourages and supports creative cooperation between artists in different genres and often on different continents. Already the duo have released an album together under the name Big Red Machine, and the recent posthumous Leonard Cohen album features 37d03d artists putting new music to his unrecorded lyrics. (It should be noted that the organization was originally known as PEOPLE, but changed its name to 37d03d in early 2019. It’s still pronounced PEOPLE, though. To see why, just turn your computer upside down.)

“They’re interested in artists expanding and exploring and collaborating,” says Mitchell. “After a while you get a kind of artistic identity, like a calcification of who you are as an artist and what you do. But there are people who are yearning to be free from the trappings of who people think they are. So PEOPLE offers an opportunity to be kind of childlike, to get back to that beginner’s mindset.”

For Mitchell it’s been a nice break, a way to settle gently back into her old life as a singer/songwriter after devoting so much time to Hadestown. Just before they embarked on a long tour supporting their debut, two-thirds of Bonny Light Horseman — Johnson and Mitchell — convened to talk about the durability of folk music, the joys of collaboration, and people who need 37d03d.

BGS: How did 37d03d inform this project?

Anaïs Mitchell: I feel like we were forged in the fires of PEOPLE. They’re interested in people expanding and exploring and collaborating and trying new things, so it was really perfect that we got to be a part of it before we really had any idea who we were or what we were doing.

Eric D. Johnson: I don’t know where this project would be without it. I don’t know if there’s anything modern that can be compared to it. I try to imagine how they pull it off from a financial or logistical standpoint, but they’re doing truly the Lord’s work, which is essentially creating a really easy platform for a bunch of people to get together and do something creative. I don’t know if it’s the most modern construct ever and they’re light years ahead of time, or if they’re completely out of their minds and operating on some sort of beatnik principle that’s completely untenable today. It’s probably both and/or neither. It’s an out-of-time thing in a very beautiful way.

AM: I’d been working with Josh on some of this material. I’ve been an admirer of his for a few years now — his playing and his producing on other people’s records. The thing was kind of a gleam in the eye, you know, when Justin [Vernon from Bon Iver] and Aaron [Dessner from the National] reached out to see if we wanted to do this project. Why don’t you play that at Eaux Claires festival? That was cool of them, because we didn’t even have a band name yet. We were just exploring. Just messing around.

EDJ: Then I steamrolled my way in, and it ended up becoming this band. That’s how it got started, and that parlayed its way into the big Berlin project, where they did this big, unique artist-in-residency festival type thing at the Funkhaus. It was like summer camp. That’s the only way to describe it.

Photo credit: D. James Goodwin

I think of PEOPLE as promoting that kind of collaboration, where you can play on somebody’s record or in somebody’s band without having it be a major statement.

AM: Totally. There was a moment in the middle of the recording where Josh said, “Man, we could really use a drum on this track.” Out in the hall, we heard a cymbal fall to the floor and make a big crash. Josh opened the door and it was Andrew Barr from the Barr Brothers. He was on his way to another session, but he had three minutes so he came in played the one drum that we needed on that tracks. It’s stuff like that. Or there’s a song that has a couple of the Staves on it and Lisa Hannigan. They just happened to be free. There was a lot of serendipity with that stuff.

When we were in Berlin, we didn’t know that we were making a record or that any of that stuff was going to have any value to anyone else outside of us. But then we got back to the States and we listened back and we were like, Wow, this gig is really good! It felt like half of an album. So the question became, how can we finish it? How can we make the other half of the record feel like it’s of a piece with that stuff, even though the setting is going to be different? So we made the rest of the record at Woodstock at this beautiful studio called Dreamland, which is just a big, old, weird church.

EDJ: We recorded in Woodstock for two days. It was more of a traditional recording setup. I remember we did “The Roving” there and “Deep in Love,” which are two of the singles and I think two of the strongest tracks. We did them at 1 in the morning. They’re both completely eleventh-hour songs.

At what point did the idea to cover old folk songs come into play?

AM: Traditional folk music is kind of a passion of both of ours, especially like British Isles stuff. We started to mess around with some things, and the very first song that Josh and I ever worked on together was “Lowlands.” Which is interesting because I hadn’t heard any versions of that song. I guess I had maybe seen some texts, and I learned that there are two strains. One is this British Isles strain, and the other is from the American South. They’re basically ghost stories, in which a dead lover appears to a woman or in some versions a man. They’re also stevedore songs, songs about working up on the shore, loading crates onto ships.

So the song that we put together contains elements of both of those things as well as some stuff that we made up. It felt like a cool puzzle to put together. A lot of them I would say have had less research. We said very early on that we didn’t want it to feel like a research project. We really wanted to be more heart-led and wide open.

EDJ: I would say we were adamant that we didn’t want to do a research project. We just want to enjoy it. But it is incredible when you do a little research on these songs — and this is not news — you don’t have to be an advanced musicologist to know just how interwoven American music and the music of the British Isles are. That music came to western Appalachians and eventually gave us country music and rock ‘n’ roll.

The through lines are so short still. It’s really not that old. When it split off, our grandparents were alive. Those songs are so ancient and so thoroughly modern at the same time in the themes they’re singing about. If you listen to the lyrics of “The Roving,” which are hundreds of years old, it sounds like the plot to a teen summer movie from the ‘80s. It’s just people loving and longing and grieving and having sex and everything else we’ve been doing and singing about for as long as anything.

It doesn’t sound like an album concerned with preservation or historical accuracy. You’re taking a lot of liberties with them without trying to explicitly update them to our current moment.

AM: A lot of the songs have new music but the text is traditional to one degree or another. The text of “The Roving” is based on songs like “Courting Is a Pleasure” and “Handsome Molly,” but the music isn’t connected to any of those songs. But it still feels like a heartfelt way that the voice wants to sing. This is a total aside, but it’s just such a pleasure to sing with Eric. He’s so unfettered in his singing. It makes me want to sing that way, too. I had to sing my heart out in order to get on the same level as him.

EDJ: This is folk music. It doesn’t need to be finely hewn. It can just be a lump of clay that you emotionally hack at until you get something out of it. There might be some deep, deep purists who think we’re very impure in how we approach these songs. But these songs are meant to change over the years. They’re from the oral tradition, from pre-recorded times, so we don’t even know what the original version of “Deep in Love” sounds like. We just know what we came up with. That song was sort of a sketch that I had written for the last Fruit Bats album, but I couldn’t get anywhere with it. I had a melody written, just a do-do-do verse that I sang in the studio, and Josh opened up a book of traditional Welsh folk lyrics. He said, “Sing these lyrics over that melody.” They slotted perfectly, and that’s how you hear it.

Is this a one-off project, or do you think Bonny Light Horseman will continue?

EDJ: I think we’re gonna pick it up again, but we have no clue what we’re gonna do next. We could just be this band that keeps reinterpreting British folk music forever, but maybe not. Making this first one was very natural and easy in a lot of ways, and we’ve enjoyed playing shows together, but I don’t think the way forward has been pointed out to us just yet.

Photo credit: Nolan Knight