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Is ‘Little Blue’ Kristina Murray’s “Ten Year Town” Breakout Moment?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Patience and persistence have long been traits embodied by the music and songwriting of Kristina Murray, but with her new album, Little Blue, she can add another “P” word to the mix: perseverance.

Now a decade into her time in Nashville, Little Blue (out May 9 on New West Records) is poised to be her “ten year town” breakout moment. Through its blend of old school country twang and swampy southern R&B she ruminates on everything from the grind, pursuing her honky-tonk dream, to finding love, and the unseen burdens placed on women. She shows off her formidable knack for storytelling in the process. The project is also direct evidence of the inroads she’s made in Music City, with artists like Erin Rae, Logan Ledger, Sean Thompson, Miss Tess, Frank Rische, and John Mailander all lending a hand.

Originally from Atlanta, Murray was introduced to country as a child via a cassette of Patsy Cline’s greatest hits in her mother’s car. She eventually got her first guitar in high school, but didn’t play it anywhere outside of open mics and church camps until she moved to Colorado in the mid 2000s to pursue a degree in recreational therapy. While there, she became immersed in the regional bluegrass scene and began playing out more, slowly gaining confidence and building toward her eventual move to Nashville in 2014. While she was only in Colorado for six years, Murray still looks back on her time out west as foundational for her direction in life and the art she’s pursuing now.

“I’d never lived outside the South before and had a couple mentors of mine tell me I should give it a try for a little bit,” recalls Murray. “It was out there where I realized that being a musician is what I wanted to do with my life. Once you get bit by the playing-on-stage bug, there’s no going back. It’s so much more than just playing for people, too. It’s also being in sync with your band and performing at a high level and the energy feedback loop that can come from that.”

Since relocating to Nashville, Murray has become a linchpin of the city’s dive bar and juke joint scene, frequently popping up at places like Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge and Bobby’s Idle Hour, and became one of the first women to front a full band at Santa’s Pub. But despite all this, she was starting to feel stuck as the pressure of things like her father’s sudden death, car wrecks, watching others have the success she’d been waiting on began to weigh her down. But in that darkness she was able to find a glimmer of light, and Little Blue was born.

Leading up to the album’s release, Good Country caught up with Murray to discuss imposter syndrome, expectations in the music business, the healing power of music, and more.

If going from open mics and church camps in Georgia to diving into Colorado’s bluegrass scene was a big step, then moving from there to Nashville must’ve felt like being on another planet. What was that transition like?

Kristina Murray: My time in Colorado was foundational in some ways. I learned the Nashville number system, how to play with a band, and how to execute a bunch of different songs really well while I was there. But, eventually, it got to being a big fish, small pond kind of thing. You can make a living out there just by playing cover songs in bars, but what I wanted was to write songs and be around people my age who were also writing the kind of songs I like, wanted to listen to, and wanted to write. Moving there was a big step because Nashville is the place where the music I love was and is still being made.

You’ve been grinding away in Nashville for a decade now as an independent musician, but this new record marks your debut with New West. How’d that partnership come about?

Southern Ambrosia [was] the first record I put out after moving to Nashville and, quite frankly, I didn’t know what I was doing. I had seen a lot of my peers kind of take off and naively I thought, “Well, this is a really good record full of great players and good writing and I’m in this kind of circle community; because all those things are true, then this record should get me to the next place that I wanted to go.”

It was actually on the radar of Normaltown and New West back in 2018, but things fizzled out because I didn’t know how to go about having conversations with business people about my music – I’d never done anything like that before. Fast forward a few years, this record was done in 2023 and by early 2024 I was talking with them again about picking it up. Their support means a lot, because it’s really difficult to get your record and your career to the places that you want to go without it.

New West and Normaltown are also based out of Athens, Georgia, and I’m from Atlanta, so it means a lot to be involved with them on that level as well. I was a huge Drive-By Truckers fan in my 20s and can’t get enough of Jaime Wyatt, Lilly Hiatt, Nikki Lane and others. There’s just a lot of people that I love and respect on that record label and I’m happy to be a part of the family.

Better late than never, I suppose! You just mentioned the feedback for Southern Ambrosia not meeting the lofty expectations you had for it. I imagine seeing friends and colleagues having success with their music – from signing with labels to getting on bigger and bigger shows to nailing down high-profile writing sessions – doesn’t help to keep the imposter syndrome at bay.

It’s funny, because during my decade in Nashville I really have seen so many people just skyrocket, and it’s all been so deserved, like Erin Rae – nobody sings or writes like her – or Sierra Ferrell, I mean who else sings like that? Logan Ledger, who also joins me on this record, is one of my favorite singers and songwriters around. During my time here there’s been so many times when I’ve thought that something must be wrong with the way I sing or write to not be getting all those opportunities for myself. But I’ve come to realize that having all that isn’t what will validate me as a musician, writer, performer, and person who simply loves this music, because at the end of the day, if I still get something out of it, shouldn’t that be enough? It’s something I’ve grappled with a lot through the years and continue to do on this album.

Speaking of expectations in the music business not always being reality and the illusion of success, are those things you’re tackling head on in the song “Watchin’ the World Pass Me By”?

What’s funny about that song is it started out as me just trying to see if I could write a basic “outlaw” country song. It obviously evolved a bit from a writing exercise parody to a commentary on getting “so tired of watching ‘em livin’ my dreams” and “daddy’s bankroll to make the rules” nepotism and suddenly being a country singer, because you threw on a cowboy hat. But I also poke a bit of fun at myself, too, with lines like “She’s just a bitter, jaded, helpless fool.”

Another tune I’ve really enjoyed is “Phenix City.” In many ways it seems like an outlier on the record, a story song amid a sea of deeply personal, autobiographical tales. With that in mind, what was your intention for including it here?

Most of this record is autobiographical or composite sketches of me and those around me, but that one specifically is a story song. It very much paints a picture of small-town circumstances in Phenix City, a small town in Alabama along the Georgia border. One time I was driving down to a gig in Columbus, Georgia, and instead of going through Atlanta I decided to head straight down from Nashville through Alabama. I rented a car because my van was out of commission, and about a half hour outside Columbus I broke down after running out of gas because I had my music so loud I couldn’t hear it beeping. I eventually got it to a mechanic shop in Phenix City where the man told me I just needed some gas, which was both a relief and a moment that made me feel like the biggest idiot around, but briefly getting stuck there did inspire the song in a roundabout way.

Similar to “Phenix City,” another outlier of sorts on Little Blue is the lead track, “You Got Me,” which seems to revolve around the early, butterflies-fueled stages of love. Mind telling me a bit about it and the mood it sets for the remainder of the project?

I’m not one for writing love songs too much. The only other real love song I have is “The Ballad Of Angel & Donnie” from Southern Ambrosia, which is another story song about a meth dealer and his girlfriend. I wrote “You Got Me” early on in my relationship with my now-partner. It’s a very true-to-life song and I knew if it was going to be about him that it had to be a really cool-sounding song. My guitarist, James Paul Mitchell, came over one night when I was writing it and helped to come up with that signature lick you hear on it right at the beginning, which I loved. I really wanted it to be like a Band song with the Clavinet sounds that they twin throughout the song. My partner, Corey [Parsons], also plays percussion on this one, which is really sweet that he got to put some of his touch on a song about him.

The song also starts with the word “and,” which came from a writing exercise after listening to Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain.” It begins with “And I followed her to the station.” I thought it was so cool to start a song with “and,” because it’s like you’re just dropping someone into the middle of a story.

While “You Got Me” is a bright spot, a lot of this album leans more toward the somber and dark. What are your thoughts on the catharsis and healing that can come from writing through difficult times such as the ones you’re encountering here?

The album is titled Little Blue for a reason. We are remiss to forget how significant the pandemic was and how devastatingly sad that period of time in our collective human history was. A good chunk of these songs were written during that two-year period along with general ruminations about the sad and unjust world we live in that even the music industry isn’t immune from. It feels silly at times to whine and cry about the music industry when there’s so much other crazy stuff happening, but that’s the world I live in so I have to write through that.

I wouldn’t say that writing songs is cathartic for me as much as sharing in the collective. What grabs me about music is when it feels real and is relatable to me and I hope that I’ve done that here with what I’ve written about. Music is magical, so the fact that I get to do this at all is amazing and continues to drive me. I’m never not going to be amazed by music. For instance, I took a harmonica lesson the other day with Ilya Portnov, who also plays on the record. I’ve done a little bit of Bob Dylan-esque singer-songwriter harmonica, but I really wanted to understand the harp a little bit better. It’s a magical feeling when the music and notes and scale are all working together. I feel endlessly humbled by it and very proud that I get to be a small ripple in the river of music.

What did the process of bringing Little Blue to life teach you about yourself?

That I’m gonna keep doing it regardless of if it makes any sense at all. I didn’t get my record deal until after everything for this album was done, meaning that I funded it all myself. It was a lot to handle, because making records isn’t cheap, especially if you’re paying people what they deserve to get paid. I feel very lucky and grateful for all the folks that lended their talent to this record. It made me realize that the more I keep pushing ahead to more everything will begin to make sense around me. It’s a mix of perseverance and understanding that good things take time and intention. I feel really good about this record and even though it’s only my third, and first in six years, I’m glad to put it out in the world because we need art now more than ever.

Photo Credit: Schuyler Howie

“I Once Was Lost, But I’m Pretty Found Lately” – Olivia Ellen Lloyd Finds Herself Again

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

In the wake of several viral country songs released in 2023 – most notably the ill-conceived pair of Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” and Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” – renowned author and country journalist David Cantwell penned an essay for TIME magazine with an absolutely stunning (while quite simple) observation included. Cantwell considered place, citizenship, and ownership. To whom does the “small town” belong?

“…For most of today’s country fans that small town isn’t TV’s tiny Mayberry; it’s a suburb or exurb of some decent-or-giant-sized metro,” Cantwell explains. “I wish more country songs would talk about that proximity, how city folk and small-town folk flow back and forth for work and fun – and are very often the same people.”

And are very often the same people. Humans don’t live their lives along strict, black-and-white boundaries and borders – no matter how often society attempts such demarcations. Our lives are lived in the gray, in the blurry in-betweens, as collections of many disparate and often dichotomous parts.

Singer-songwriter Olivia Ellen Lloyd is just such a person, caught up in the nebulous purgatory between rural and urban, city folk and country folk, doing it for herself and doing it for ambition. Her brand new independent album, Do It Myself, finds Lloyd with a sense of confidence that could only be earned through a hard-working, bootstraps approach to making music – a mindset that, whether within or outside the arts, is well known to West Virginians like herself.

After a stint living in Nashville, Lloyd returned to New York City, following up 2021’s fantastic Loose Cannon with the heartfelt, sensitive, and often point-blank songs of Do It Myself. Like Loose Cannon, this material is danceable, country, honky-tonkin’, and bluegrassy while it boasts deft and majestic moments of WV DIY, punk, and rock and roll. After crisscrossing the country proffering her art, Lloyd seems to have realized that being both a city person and a country person is never a drawback, it’s a superpower. Having her feet in NYC, her heart in West Virginia, and her work anywhere and everywhere, Lloyd has clearly determined it’s not a dilution of the “authentic” or roots-music-ready facets of herself to straddle these arbitrary borders and own that duality.

As a result, Do It Myself is remarkably successful. Like Hazel Dickens in D.C. or Dolly Parton in Nashville or Tina Turner in Memphis, Lloyd has found her voice and found herself not by running from who she thinks she can’t be anymore, or editing out the parts of herself that don’t seem to “fit” with country tropes and perceptions of good ol’ American rurality. Instead, she’s reached this current era of music making by resting easy – or not so easy, at times – in the knowledge that the best she can do as a singer-songwriter-artist is to be herself, whoever that is, in the truest format possible at any given time.

We began our BGS Cover Story interview by discussing that ongoing search for herself and how that particular journey shows up throughout Do It Myself – in the lyrics, sonics, and beyond.

It feels like your music in general, whether we’re talking about Loose Cannon or the new album, Do It Myself, you’re most often turning over the idea of finding yourself – and not that that’s a static thing to be found. It’s not that you find it once and you’re done finding it. Your music orbits around these questions of, “Who am I? Is this me?” I feel that really strongly in this record. So, as you’re releasing this album I wondered, who is the self you have found? And how goes the search for yourself?

Olivia Ellen Lloyd: I think what’s really interesting is I don’t know that I would’ve put a finger on that until recently. I’ve also come around to the understanding that that is what my music has done, which is help me come back to myself and find myself. I would say it’s currently going pretty well, but boy it has been a journey to get there.

I think writing this record, I was much closer to her – to me – when I started writing this record, but I wasn’t as close as I thought I was. It’s taken not only writing it and realizing that I wanted to put it out and all that stuff, but also deciding to self release it and deciding to continue to champion my own work where I’ve truly found that. That, “Oh there she is!” [feeling]. I feel very recently like I have arrived at the person that I’ve been looking for and that’s exciting and also really scary, because boy, has most of my work orbited around, “What the fuck happened? How did we get so lost?”

I once was lost, but I’m pretty found lately.

How do you feel about writing songs that are so personal and that are so much about growth, introspection, and questioning and then having to carry them around on your back for a year or two or three on tour – or for the rest of your life! How does that process feel to you or that emotional or mental understanding?

Interestingly, at least with my first record, I think I wrote often with no aim, so there were no expectations. I mean it’s funny, Justin, because you are one of the few people in the music industry and in my music world who knew me when I was writing many of these songs, but not performing often. The process of writing was very much a way to try and tune into this inner voice that I’ve been learning to listen to. It was an attempt to get in touch with myself, which I really have struggled to do for various reasons throughout my life.

I think I’m also quite an impulsive person, historically, and I have a lot of tattoos – a lot of stupid tattoos – and I kind of think of these songs, especially the personal ones that no longer represent [me like tattoos.] I don’t drink anymore really – I wouldn’t say that I’m sober, but drinking is not a big part of my life anymore – and all of Loose Cannon and much of this record involves talking about those moments in my life. But I have this tattoo of a possum drinking a High Life. That’s not who I am anymore, but that was a part of how I got here. When I think about these personal songs that involve a lot of myself and a lot of what’s really going on I think, “Well, that’s a part of the patchwork,” but it doesn’t have to be – luckily – the whole story or the end of the story, either.

The way that you’re utilizing so many different roots styles, it’s disarming of a listener, so you can have a danceable, honky-tonkin’ track that’s still lonesome as fuck, tear in your beer. It feels like it can still be very country, very Americana in the way that it is melodramatic, but it still feels grounded in reality.

I think that playing with genre in the same way that we experiment with different sidemen and co-writers is just another tool that we can use. I see a lot of artists, especially right now, there’s just so much pressure to hit. There’s so much pressure to hit on a vibe, hit on a moment. Part of the joy of this is playing in those in-between spaces and finding something unexpected.

Come on, if we’ve got Dolly and Patsy and Loretta, they did a lot of the groundwork so we should get to play around that space! We’re not gonna outwrite or outsing those women, we simply cannot, so the opportunity we have is to explore. I don’t wanna go back. I don’t wanna go back to any type of past anywhere. The future is scary for me, but I’m really curious about what could come next, after those things, and how we can develop those sounds.

You’ve spoken on social media and on microphone about your approach to genre and how so much of it comes from growing up in West Virginia having this agnostic approach to genre aesthetic, on a practical day-to-day level. You’re doing West Virginia music, you’re bringing in Nashville, you’re bringing in New York City. Can you talk a little bit about that?

For the first record I got the feedback that you can hear the country and the city kind of intermingling together and someone was like, “This [new] record feels like so much more New York.” I think I understand where people are coming from, but actually I think what’s happened is I built a musical community in New York City around bluegrass, which I think is one of the great community music forms. It is a great way to bring people together. I’m so grateful that I knew a bunch of those songs and then I got better with those songs and then I met people who were passionate about that music. But actually, this record was more about digging into the sounds that I grew up with. I grew up going to DIY punk shows, I grew up with my dad listening to the Grateful Dead, the Band, some Jerry Jeff Walker, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

I think this record really returns to a landscape that’s more true to how I was raised, which was eclectic, a little bit daring, and a little bit more rock influence. I think I’ve been quoted once and I’ll say it again, I think the reason that the places in West Virginia gravitate more towards that kind of music is because music got gentrified and country became this bizarre fascist, patriotic propaganda wing of the Republicans and of government.

If you are not one of those things, if you were not a kid who could afford to go to Berklee and you were not somebody who was all that proud to be a fucking American in the 2000s, you likely grew up listening to a lot of that. Especially in rural places, you likely grew up listening to a lot of punk, a lot of rock, a lot of indie pop. Like many people do, I walked way far away from that stuff and dug into the roots of country and folk and bluegrass. I swirled around in that stuff for so long, and then I came back to myself; I came back to the first music that really inspired me and felt less academic.

In my opinion, the most interesting part is all of those genres coming together. I do think that I’m very wary of anybody who talks about “good folk music” or “real bluegrass” or anything like that, because typically some very nice man in a fisherman sweater in New England has told them [to think that way]. I learned to like music the way that most normal people learn, I just listened to it and I didn’t worry about whether I was listening correctly or not. I think we gotta return to that.

Community has come up multiple times already in our conversation and I know how important community is to you – how pivotal it’s been in your musical career. How do you balance the “doing it for yourself” with the “doing it with community”? How do you do it for yourself and trust yourself and give yourself permission to be who you are and take up space to do it your own way, while also being a member of a community and doing it for the collective at the same time?

Have you been listening to my therapy conversations? [Laughs] I struggle with deep individualistic tendencies. I have a tendency to be like, “Fuck it.” That can also be bad. Notably, have yet to accomplish a successful relationship, because of this thing I do. “Fuck it, I’ll deal with it myself. I’ll just do everything myself. I will stop relying on you. I don’t need to rely on anybody for anything.”

I hope it comes through in the music that many of my songs, including “Do It Myself,” include enough self-awareness to know that I’m talking about choices that I’m making and things that I’m doing and they are not always the healthiest choice or the best choice. That’s okay. I think there’s a side of this where, yeah, I have been way too [self-reliant]. As I sit here selling shows out, opening for Jeff Tweedy, and unable to get a booking agent or a manager. Yes, I have isolated myself a little bit too much for people to be paying close attention.

Certainly “doing it myself,” in this context, many people told me to wait to put this record out. Maybe that would’ve made sense for a more reasonable person, but I think this is really important: Your community is everything. You need to be able to trust that the people around you are people who are willing to let you show up like however [you are]. In the last two years, I have focused so hard on surrounding myself with people who I know I can trust to both keep me honest and on my shit and love me through mistakes and they will engage in conflict resolution. They will be gentle with me and like I can do the same for them.

It’s not possible to be self-sufficient, emotionally, creatively, if you do not have a community that supports that in you.

I love that on the album you have “Live With It” back-to-back with “Do It Myself.” I think it’s pretty striking, they’re kind of a reaction or a response to the other – and vice versa. That line, “If this don’t kill me…” feels like such a natural lead in to “Do It Myself.” I wanted to ask you about “Live With It” and also about that placement of those, like bookends.

Thank you for asking about “Live With It.” My producer Mike Robinson is gonna be so happy and that’s his favorite song on the record. I mean, that’s my pandemic [song]. The chorus of that song I wrote during the pandemic. Looking back, it was probably also the worst point in my life for my drinking. I was at a point where I was not in control. Things were so bleak that it was like, what’s the point of trying to slow down or get a handle on it? There was no future to look forward to.

But by the time I finished the song, what I really hoped to accomplish is [communicating that] there are many times in our life where we have a pessimistic view on our own personal outcomes. We’re not really convinced that things could get better and yet there is an interesting tendency with human beings, we just keep going anyway most of the time. I find that to be both very curious and also something that is inspirational in its own way. We can continue to live and survive through unsurvivable things, even when we don’t know entirely why or how. That’s what “Live With It” is about. It’s four people experiencing something that they, for whatever reason, don’t see why they have to live through it or how they’re going to, but they do.

I also love the feel change in “Every Good Man.” So good. It’s nasty. That song is a bit like “Stand By Your Man,” playing with country tropes in a really fun way, but that feel change – I think I made a stank face just listening to it. Can you talk about that one a little bit?

Once again I just have to say, I think a lot of what you hear and the really cool musical stuff is owed to the creative partnership that Mike Robinson and I have. I can’t say enough good things about him. I met Mike at a fucking bluegrass jam and he was playing the banjo, which is like his fourth instrument, you know? I think these days he mostly makes money as a pedal steel player. Everyone is sleeping on his ability to play the acoustic guitar. Like, truly.

I met Mike six years ago now and out of the blue he coached me into a music career. He would deny that, but that is 100% what happened. He bullied me into it. And something I really love is that I can bring songs to him and he finds exactly [how it should sound], especially when he’s excited about the songs. Both “Every Good Man” and “Live With It” were definitely high on his list of loves. He finds these like beautiful moments and we have such a similar [approach], we were raised on the same music. For “Every Good Man,” that feel change came from some moment in a John Prine song.

Another song that I really like – it might be my favorite – is “Knotty Wood.” It feels like country. It feels like church. The lyric, “Who says memories can’t be bought? We always sold ours for a song…” grabbed me. You’re talking about how we compare and contrast and measure ourselves against other people and our perceptions of other people’s lives. “Don’t they look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood?” It’s such a great hook. I love the imagery of it. I love that it takes me to my grandma’s house. But I feel like it begs the question: Do you ever worry that in synthesizing your experiences, putting them into songs, and taking them to the world that there’s any part of that process that is also “painting over the knotty wood”?

Yes, and my mother would definitely say yes. The genesis of that song actually came from my mother and I growing up in the same small town. I grew up a mile from [where she grew up] and from our home to her childhood home it was less than a mile. That house, my grandparents’ house, I spent probably two days a week there and almost every day after school I walked from my elementary school to my grandparents’ house. It was my home, too.

It got sold after he died, we couldn’t hang onto it. It got sold again during the pandemic by an actually really lovely woman. She started renovating it on Instagram and I watched this place that held generational memories be stripped in some cases to the studs and rebuilt. It was pretty public. I felt a sense of ownership of our place – that I do not factually own and never have – that got me. Being curious about place and home made me think about the journey my grandparents went on to become property owners and to become middle class. And about that moment in the height of prosperity in the ‘50s, all the things my grandparents sacrificed.

I think the song is about thinking about those generational ties, thinking about the things my grandparents sacrificed, and did not sacrifice or did not give away. I’m also thinking about how, especially right now in this weird American moment – “Don’t other people’s lives look good when you paint over the pain and knotty wood” – how many people want to talk about their humble, hardscrabble beginnings without having to actually live them.

There are so many other reasons why it’s taken me so long to get here, why it’s taken me so long to put my songs out. But it all revolved around the generational trauma of growing up relatively poor and with people who had to give up everything in order to get anything.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have the small-town, Appalachian upbringing and also have the confidence and gumption of [privilege]. I mean, it’s rare. It happens, but you don’t often then also come equipped with the gumption to believe that you have the right to be a fucking artist. All my grandparents wanted was just a nice home in a small town.

I’ve been hustling, self-promoting my own art and music, and in a desire to attain the things that the people I’m criticizing have attained, we get to the third verse. … The crux of that song is, I think, a way more interesting story than “rags to riches.” It’s middle class to rags.

I mean, my grandparents went to war so they could get an education, right? My grandfather’s nickname was “Bones,” because he was so thin he looked like a bag of bones. The trajectory of their lives into middle class comfort is astounding, and the way that his grandchildren and children are sliding back into poverty is much more so. It’s much more true to what is happening in this country than this “rags to riches” bullshit that we are still being asked to sell, but it’s trickier to talk about.

Listen to Olivia Ellen Lloyd on Basic Folk here.

Photo Credit: Aaron May

AJ Lee & Blue Summit’s ‘City of Glass’ is Funny, Sexy, and Empowered

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

At 26, the prodigy phase of AJ Lee’s music career has passed. It might take a little more time for the tendency to confuse her with a professional wrestler using the same name to fade away.

“I think I could take her!” Lee — the singing one — gamely pronounces at the conclusion of an interview on the third album by AJ Lee & Blue Summit, City of Glass (out July 19 on Signature Sounds), prompting laughter from the band’s Scott Gates, who asserts himself on the new album writing three songs on which he sings lead.

Rounding out Santa Cruz, California-based Blue Summit are fiddler Jan Purat and guitarist Sullivan Tuttle, one of the children of educator-musician Jack Tuttle and brother of breakout star Molly Tuttle. Lee also got her start with “The Tuttles with AJ Lee.”

A keen sense of humor dots City of Glass, which was produced by Lech Wierzynski of “retro-soul” band The California Honeydrops. It was Wierzynski who suggested Harlan Howard’s “He Called Me Baby,” on which Lee delivers a notably sultry lead vocal. The reference point for her version of “He Called Me Baby” is soul singer Candi Stanton, rather than Patsy Cline or Charlie Rich.

“I was raised to sing pretty straightforward. I wanted to remove as much ego as I could, because I just wanted to sing and have fun,” Lee said. “I’ve learned to put a little bit more of my personality into it and that, I think, is making me a better singer overall, which is why we wanted to work with Lech in the first place, because he’s such a powerful singer.

“That really resonated with me and I’m trying to move more in that direction.”

Gates pipes up at this point: “AJ’s not going to say this, but Lech brought ‘He Called Me Baby’ to the table because he had the foresight, coming from that soul world, he recognizes in AJ’s voice the ability to do this kind of thing.

“The cross-pollination of these American roots, is a smart move from Lech, I think,” he said.

BGS caught up with Lee and Gates as they rehearsed in Nashville, Tennessee, and prepared to do some lip synching for a video. As a seasoned bandleader, Lee takes pains to spread the credit for her success around and steers some questions toward Gates to try and ensure she doesn’t dominate the conversation.

City of Glass is AJ Lee & Blue Summit’s third album. How do you view the progression that got you to this point?

AJ Lee: The first album, [Like I Used To], we were looking for what kind of sound we wanted as a band. Because at that time, it was only four members without a fiddle player. So on that one, we had some more electric instruments and more drums. The second album, [I’ll Come Back], we went more acoustic roots, because we just wanted to play more bluegrass, because that’s what we grew up on and that’s what we do best. For this third album, we’re confident doing bluegrass, roots, and country, sticking with more stringed instruments, but also branching out. With Lech’s involvement, we’re leaning a little bit towards soul, R&B, and keeping it interesting, but still showcasing ourselves and what we like to play and what we like to do.

Several songs on City of Glass are funny. There’s one, “Toys,” making fun of a men who act like boys, another about getting “Sick on a Plane” and a humorous take on busking, “Solicitor Man.” Why so lighthearted this time around?

Scott Gates: I grew up playing bluegrass with a lot of silly guys. There’s a bouncy kind of lighthearted feel in a lot of traditional stuff. … I noticed that a lot of songs that I had written were kind of getting down into my feelings and whatnot, and I wanted to write one that I knew would be fun for my friends to play.

Are there models in bluegrass you’re following with the humor?

SG: There is a history of fun stuff like The Louvin Brothers. I’m also influenced by Jimmy Martin. Jimmy Martin is one of the pillars of bluegrass music, and he’s hilarious.

“Toys” is about a young guy or maybe an immature man. Is it about yourself, Scott?

SG: A little bit, yeah, probably as a teenager noticing the involuntary methods by which young, dumb boys go about thinking of themselves. It was mostly born out of that phrase, “The man who dies with the most toys wins.”

The title cut, “City of Glass,” is about leaving an artistic legacy. Aren’t you guys a little young to be concerned about that?

AJ: Yeah, I’m pretty young. I’m 26 now, but I have been doing music since I was really young. Collectively, we figured out that the band has about 90 years worth of experience. I’ve been playing on stage since I was about four or five years old. So I’m young, but I have been doing it for a long time. Legacy is having something that you’ve made be around even when you’re not doing it anymore. That’s a big theme of “City of Glass.”

As you say, you got started very young as musicians and Jack Tuttle was a common mentor. How did that develop?

SG: I met AJ when she was four. I knew her older sister Molly, ‘cause she’s my age. So I knew her more. But [Sullivan Tuttle] was around, and Sully and AJ had known each other since back then. I was probably about seven or eight when I first started going to the Father’s Day Festival and the music camp. So I got an opportunity to learn and play from people like John Reischman and Mike Compton and see musicians like The Osborne Brothers and Earl Scruggs. The picking scene is incredibly high quality.

AJ, you were the only non-Tuttle in the Tuttle family band when you were very young. What was that like?

AJ: I loved it. As a young kid, it’s kind of hard to be in the moment and really appreciate what you’re doing. As a seven-year-old to fifteen-year-old, I went about it as like, “OK, we’re playing a gig, I’m going to practice here and I’m going to sing my song. I’m hanging out with my friends, and that’s it.” But being in that band was definitely instrumental in my progress as a bluegrass musician, because I got to work directly with Jack Tuttle. Everyone loves Jack because he’s such a renowned teacher in the community and obviously all of his kids are talented beyond measure. So I was able to play with people who were better than me and also equal to me. My mom, growing up, she always said, “You always want to play with people who are better than you, because that’s how you’re going to get better.” And so I got to have that opportunity for many years.

Is there any competition now between yourself, Molly Tuttle and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes now that you all are competing musicians in the marketplace?

SG: Absolutely! [Laughs]

AJ: No, no, no, definitely not. For me and Molly, we’re branching off and doing our own thing. We were in a band for however many years, and now we’re off doing our own projects. And Bronwyn is branching off and doing her own projects in a similar way.

So, it’s the same in any community or genre of music, you played together and now you’re doing your own thing. Molly’s singing on our album as well, on a song [“I Can’t Find You at All”] that her dad wrote.

AJ, you could pursue a solo career, why do you prefer a band situation?

AJ: It makes me happy. I like playing with other people. I don’t really like performing by myself. I feel like I have a lot to offer, but I also like playing with people who also have a lot to offer and are amazing talents. And, you know, people compliment our band on how many singers there are. I always think that the more singers the better, the more talent you can showcase the better.

Pretty much anyone in the band could peel off and do a solo career. But I think what makes us really unique and strong as a band is that we all can be individual musicians, but we choose to play together, because it just makes the creative juices flow more and it makes us want to even continue on more than I would as a solo musician.

SG: At some point, I’ll probably do my own project. But right now, all I care about is playing music with AJ and the boys and see where this goes. I try not to plan too much. I don’t really scheme. I probably should scheme a little bit more, but I just don’t.

How does the California bluegrass scene differ from the South?

SG: A lot of people think of California as the jammy stuff, the Deadhead stuff that comes out of there. But even to this day, the California Bluegrass Association is very traditional. It’s one of the most traditional associations out there and there’s also a huge focus on singing. The singers that come out of a place like Tennessee are extremely good at blending. There’s a school of singing, and a lot of them sound very similar. Their harmonies are incredibly perfect. But California tends to reward individuality and uniqueness. The unique voices are kind of put on a pedestal.

AJ, your singing style is more subtle than showy. Why?

AJ: I agree with you. I’ve always really appreciated the subtlety of singing to where it’s not, “Look at me. Look at how well I can sing.”

“Hillside” uses the metaphor of a hill that aspires to be a mountain. What does the metaphor represent?

AJ: “Hillside” is about women empowerment. The metaphor is that you are this hill that is bombarded by all these outside elements trying to knock you down. But your foundation has become so strong and nothing’s really going to topple you over.

Have you experienced a lot of sexism in your career?

AJ: I’ve experienced some, of course. Especially after shows, you know a lot of older gentleman say things to me that obviously they mean well, but it just turns out to be very sexist. I get a lot of the, “If I was 20-years, 30-years younger” sort of statements, and it’s just like, “Ooh, gosh.”

How about general discrimination?

AJ: Yeah, especially jamming in the bluegrass community, as a woman sometimes you’ll just get into those circles that have that male energy so present and it’s really hard for women to join a jam sometimes. But I’ve learned to try to just get myself in there over the years with support from my mom and other strong women who are also in the community.

Are you on the record on where the “Blue Summit” band name originates?

AJ: Our first festival we played was a Kate Wolf festival. We actually didn’t really have a band name yet that we were happy with. The original name we hated. Our original bass player at the time, Isaac Cornelius, came up with The Highway 17 Savages, which doesn’t really resonate with our band at all. We totally needed to change this name. So we made these recordings to send in to Kate Wolf at Isaac’s house, which he grew up on the summit in Santa Cruz. So we were like bluegrass on the summit. So we became Blue Summit.

Photo Credit: Natia Cinco

Women’s History Spotlight: Rhonda Vincent, Rissi Palmer, 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 Jean Shepard, Rissi Palmer, Tammy Wynette, Rhonda Vincent, and Leona Williams. Tune in next week for more accomplished and impactful women of roots music!

Jean Shepard

Jean Shepard was a boss. She was the first female country artist to have a million-selling single after World War II with the smash hit, “Dear John Letter” (featuring Ferlin Husky), which was also a Top 5 hit on the Billboard Pop charts. Her debut album, Songs of A Love Affair, may very well be country music’s first concept album – and certainly the first by a female country artist. Her feisty spirit came across in her honky-tonk sound.

Tall tales abound about Jean’s moxy, including her being the only artist on a big package tour who was brave enough to call out George Jones for his drunkenness embarrassing the entire troupe (supposedly, he sobered up quick rather than face her wrath again). Her straight ahead country sound can be heard on such hits as “Slippin’ Away,” “Second Fiddle (To An Old Guitar),” “A Satisfied Mind,” and more.

In a career spanning seven different decades, she was the first female Grand Ole Opry member to remain active for 60 consecutive years, and she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011 (decades late according to some, myself included). Jean married fellow country star Hawkshaw Hawkins in 1960, and was widowed after only three years of marriage as Hawkshaw passed away in the same plane crash that took the lives of Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. She would remarry to Benny Birchfield (who appeared on countless classic recordings by The Osborne Brothers), and they would be a quintessential country couple until her passing in 2016.

Rissi Palmer

In 2007, Rissi Palmer ended a 20 year drought, during which a woman African-American country artist had not appeared on the country charts. Her debut single, the catchy as heck “Country Girl,” marked the occasion and since then she has continued to be an advocate for Black women in country music spaces. The Pittsburgh native was largely influenced by Patsy Cline (whose “Leavin’ On Your Mind” was beautifully covered by Palmer on her debut album). For over a decade and a half, she has been a leader for Black voices in country, illuminating the stories of Black country artists — past and present — with her Apple Music Radio show, Color Me Country, named after the debut album of country trailblazer Linda Martell, who Beyoncé recently just overtook as the highest charting African-American woman on the Billboard country charts. Palmer’s most personal song, “You Were Here” has encouraged women worldwide, as it deals openly and honestly with miscarriage.

“This song was written for and to the child I lost at 3 months pregnant in the Summer of 2018, who would have been named Sage. I dedicate this song to anyone who has suffered a miscarriage or loss of any kind. You aren’t alone…” — Rissi Palmer

Tammy Wynette

Known was “The First Lady of Country Music,” Tammy Wynette’s life was filled with tragic twists and turns. Born Virginia Wynette Pugh in Itawamba County, Mississippi, she became a massive country music star shortly following the release of her debut single, “Apartment No. 9.” Her working relationship with producer Billy Sherrill (who came up with the stage name “Tammy” and paired it with her middle name, Wynette) was one of the most fruitful artist-producer pairings in the country music history, resulting in such massive hits as “Your Good Girl’s Gonna Go Bad,” “I Don’t Wanna Play House,” “D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” and dozens more.

Her signature song, “Stand By Your Man,” was viewed as an anti-feminist anthem when it was released. Topping the country charts and reaching the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the popularity of “Stand By Your Man” catapulted Wynette’s career to another level, including Grand Ole Opry membership and a slew of awards. Ironically, the “Stand By Your Man” singer’s personal life was tabloid fodder for decades, as she was married five times (including famously to George Jones, with whom she released some of the most iconic country duet hits of all time).

Tragically, the public stigma of having been divorced four times was a contributing factor to her not leaving her last husband, George Richey. Wynette’s toxic relationship with Richey resulted in her (presumably) faking her own kidnapping to cover up signs of abuse, expedited her decline into drug abuse, and ended with her mysterious passing at only 55 years of age. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1998, the same year as her passing.

Rhonda Vincent

The undisputed “Queen of Bluegrass,” Rhonda Vincent grew up performing with her family band, The Sally Mountain Show. This Missouri family band performed frequently at Silver Dollar City and was a popular bluegrass festival act, also including Rhonda’s younger brother, Darrin Vincent of Dailey & Vincent. In the 1980s, she would be hired by country music legend Jim Ed Brown. (When she went on the road with Jim Ed Brown, The Sally Mountain Show hired a young Illinois girl named Alison Krauss to fill Rhonda’s shows for their summer festival schedule.)

Rhonda would release some solo bluegrass projects for Rebel Records in the early 1990s before signing a country deal with Giant Records. Her country records in the mid-’90s are phenomenal, but unfortunately for Rhonda, the fickle winds of music industry trends shifted to a more pop sound at the same time she was releasing these great traditional country records, resulting in a lack of commercial success. As the new millennium dawned, Rhonda Vincent triumphantly returned to bluegrass in 2000 with the release of Back Home Again on Rounder Records, and hasn’t looked back.

The All-American Bluegrass Girl has certainly been one of the genre’s biggest stars for the last few decades, with no signs of slowing down, winning her first Grammy and joining the Grand Ole Opry in recent years. She is also a popular collaboration partner both inside and outside of bluegrass, including recordings with Gene Watson, Daryle Singletary, Cody Johnson, Dolly Parton, Bobby Osborne, and many more. Her influence is felt all over bluegrass — heck, one of the most popular bluegrass Instagram accounts, Bluegrass Barbie, is practically a Rhonda Vincent stan account, and we’re here for it.

Bluegrass fans are blessed to live in a time where this future member of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame is still in her prime – enjoy it because your future great-grandchildren will want to hear about it someday.

See if you can recognize the future superstar that makes a brief appearance in this 2003 Rhonda Vincent music video.

Leona Williams

Another Missouri gal, Leona Williams is one of the best traditional country singers with whom you may not be as familiar. She has been making country music for over 65 years! Early in her career, she played bass and sang backup on the road with Loretta Lynn, before releasing her own solo records. She had modest success with “Country Girl With Hot Pants On” and “Once More,” but her signature song, the now classic, “Yes Ma’am, He Found Me In A Honky Tonk,” never charted.

Leona also became the first female country artist to release a live prison album with 1976’s San Quentin’s First Lady. Many may remember Leona for her duet recordings with Merle Haggard (like “The Bull and The Beaver”); they were married for five years. Leona penned some major hits for her ex-husband, like “Some Day When Things Are Good” and “You Take Me For Granted,” the latter of which she supposedly wrote about her rocky relationship with The Hag and sang to him to express how she was feeling. She also wrote hits for Connie Smith and Loretta Lynn. Leona continues to record and tour. Having seen her in concert just a few years ago, be sure to catch her live show if you are in need of pure country music from a living legend!

Last week we included a bonus video of Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl. No beloved Pixar characters are included this week, but hopefully Tammy Wynette’s guest appearance with The KLF in the hit music video, “Justified & Ancient,” will suffice:

 

Real Roots Radio, BGS, and Good Country Partner on Women’s History Spotlight

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. 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.

You can listen to Real Roots Radio online 24/7 or via their FREE app for smartphones or tablets. You can also ask your smart speaker at home to play “Real Roots Radio.” Based out of southwestern Ohio, we feature the best in country, bluegrass, and Americana music — past and present.

Each week in March, we hope you enjoy learning more about the incredible women who have made American roots music what it is today.

Patsy Cline

One of the most impactful voices in 20th century American music, Patsy Cline’s legacy still looms large over country music. An crossover star in the genre, her timeless voice has influenced generations of country stars — Loretta Lynn, k.d. lang, Mandy Barnett, and countless others. The strength and emotion with which she sang endeared her to music fans of all walks of life; she has sold over 14 million albums and had songs on the country charts two decades after her untimely passing. Her 1973 posthumous induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame made her the first solo female artist inducted into the hallowed hall.

This week marked the anniversary of the tragic 1963 plane accident that took the lives of Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins, and their pilot, Randy Hughes. Although she passed away at the age of 32, there is always Patsy Cline.

Lynn Morris

A recent inductee into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Lynn Morris is renowned in bluegrass circles for her virtuosity as a musician and her sincerity as a vocalist. The first person to win the National Banjo Championship in Winfield, Kansas twice, she is also a fantastic guitar player. After playing with Whetstone Run throughout much of the 1980s, she founded The Lynn Morris Band in 1988. Anchored by her heartfelt voice, The Lynn Morris Band featured a who’s who of future bluegrass stars over the years, including Jesse Brock, Ron Stewart, Chris Jones, Tom Adams, Jeff Autry, Audie Blaylock, and Marshall Wilborn (Lynn’s husband), among many others. She was forced to retire in 2003 due to a stroke, but her love for animals and radiant smile have continue to inspire the bluegrass community.

Connie Smith

Connie Smith was discovered at a talent contest in Columbus, Ohio at the famed Frontier Ranch by Bill Anderson, who quickly got her to Nashville where her debut single, “Once A Day,” shot to the top of the charts (her only number one hit). Connie Smith was an instant star. After many hit records, she semi-retired beginning in the late ’70s, only working sparingly while she raised her children, until she mounted a comeback in the mid ’90s. She continues to captivate Opry audiences, is still releasing powerful country albums, and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012. Once billed as “Miss Cute ’n’ Country,” Eddie Stubbs more aptly (and more appropriately) dubbed her “The Rolls Royce of Country Music Singers.”

Paulette Carlson

’80s and ’90s country still slaps (which is one of the few things people can agree on these days), and if you’re familiar with country music from that era, you’re definitely familiar with the voice of Paulette Carlson. A Minnesota native, her talent quickly outgrew the bars of Minneapolis and Fargo, North Dakota and she moved to Music City in the late ’70s. After working as a songwriter and releasing a few songs on her own, she formed the band Highway 101 in 1986.

On the strength of Paulette’s distinct vocals, Highway 101 quickly began churning out hit records, like “Whiskey, If You Were A Woman,” “Walkin’, Talkin’, Cryin’,” “Barely Beatin’ Broken Heart,” and their breakthrough hit, “The Bed You Made For Me” (written by Carlson). Highway 101 received “Vocal Group of the Year” honors in 1988 and 1989 at both the CMA and ACM awards. Paulette Carlson left the band in 1990 to pursue a solo career, but failed to reach the commercial success that she achieved while leading Highway 101. In recent years, she has resumed recording touring, with several songs saluting the military, inspired by her brother Gary, a Vietnam War veteran.

Lee Ann Womack

One of the most revered country vocalists of her generation, Lee Ann Womack’s impact on the current generation of female vocalists is obvious. In bluegrass alone, Sister Sadie’s Dani Flowers and Jaelee Roberts both point to her as a major influence, and before that, Flatt Lonesome’s Charli Robertson and Kelsi Harrigill did the same.

While “I Hope You Dance” is still played at nearly every graduation ceremony and high school prom, the depth of Womack’s talent and catalog is remarkable. Her ability to combine her style of traditional country with contemporary elements has allowed her to find great success outside of the genre, while unashamedly being an advocate for country music. In addition to some killer records of her own in recent years (I’m looking straight at you, The Lonely, The Lonesome & The Gone), the timelessness of her voice and the respect she has among her peers has allowed her name to pop up on some amazing all-star albums that truly run the gamut. I implore you to check out her contributions to Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War, last year’s Nashville tribute to the music of Bill & Gloria Gather, the country tribute to Elton John (Restoration), the Fisk Jubilee Singer’s 150th anniversary project, and the award-winning Industrial Strength Bluegrass album.

Patsy Montana

Born Rubye Rose Blevins, Patsy Montana was the original singin’ cowgirl. Her musical talent really blossomed during her time studying at what is now UCLA, where she studied violin, sang, played guitar, and yodeled on the side (which would remain a prominent part of her music). She traveled to Chicago’s World Fair with the hopes of receiving recognition for her family’s watermelon that she toted from Arkansas, but wound up auditioning for WLS’s National Barn Dance, becoming a part of the cast, and quickly becoming a radio star.

Her 1935 hit, “I Wanna Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart,” would be country music’s first million-selling single by a female artist. She performed on WLS’s airwaves until the 1950s, until she took time off from the music business, but would continue to record occasionally into the 1990s. (Her 1964 album even featured a young lead guitarist named Waylon Jennings, before he was a household name.) Her impact in the early days of country music is remarkable as a trailblazer in the genre. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Patsy Montana is known to have been an influence on future Hall of Famers like Patsy Cline and Dottie West.

It’s also not a stretch that Patsy Montana may have inspired Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl from the Toy Story franchise… Well, at least it is known that the singing voice of Jessie, Devon Dawson, is influenced by Patsy Montana, but Jessie herself seemed pretty excited to receive the “Patsy Montana Award” by the National Cowgirl Museum in 2000. (Yes. This is actually happened.)

We hope you enjoyed this first installment of our Women’s History Spotlight presented by Real Roots Radio, Good Country, and BGS. Stay tuned for weekly updates each Friday in March.

 

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

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

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

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

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

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

Music featured in this episode:

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

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

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 221

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! For the past five years, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. And this week, we say a bittersweet goodbye to the airwaves with our final episode. We want to give a special thank you to our partner station, WMOT Roots Radio 89.5 FM in Murfreesboro / Nashville, and all the stations that have aired our show over the years! And of course, a huge thank you to our readers and listeners for following along as well.

For this final week of the BGS Radio Hour, we have a recap of last week’s IBMA Awards, brand new music from our Artist of the Month — and newly crowned IBMA Entertainer and Guitar Player of the Year — Billy Strings, and much more.

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Billy Strings – “Secrets”

With a brand new album, Renewal, and his win this past week of IBMA’s highest honor, Entertainer of the Year, there’s no one else we’d rather have as our October Artist of the Month than Billy Strings. Check out our Essential Billy Strings playlist and stay tuned for more Billy content all month long.

RC & the Ambers – “Gravy and Biscuits”

Oklahoma-based RC & the Ambers spoke on their biggest musical influence, watching The Golden Girls as a pre-show ritual, kayaking on the Illinois River, and more in a recent edition of 5+5.

Asleep at the Wheel (feat. George Strait and Willie Nelson) – “Take Me Back to Tulsa”

On the latest episode of The Show on the Road, we bring you a conversation with Ray Benson: ringleader of the Grammy-winning, half-century-spanning group, and one of American roots music’s most durable and iconic bands, Asleep at the Wheel.

High Fidelity – “Banjo Player’s Blues”

This song from traditional bluegrass group High Fidelity was nominated for Song of the Year at last week’s IBMA Awards. Hard to have the “Banjo Player’s Blues” when you have news like that to share!

Haunted Like Human – “Ohio”

Americana duo Haunted Like Human wrote “Ohio” inspired by a true story, and the end result is a tale told through letters of a man wanting to do right by his family while also wanting to get back home to them.

Single Girl, Married Girl – “Wreck Cut Loose”

Single Girl, Married Girl has always loved torch songs and big weepy ballads — especially country ones! “Wreck Cut Loose” is placed in a more modern aesthetic and setting, but the lineage — and ties to the likes of Patsy Cline — should be obvious.

Patrick Dethlefs – “If You Listen”

The title track for Patrick Dethlefs’ brand new album explores the idea of still feeling connected to loved ones who have passed on. Patrick tells us, “[It’s] maybe even asking the question, ‘Is this person with me now more than they have ever been?'”

Balsam Range – “Richest Man”

Balsam Range, hailing from Haywood County, North Carolina, are no strangers to the IBMA Awards, having won the 2014 and 2018 award for Entertainer of the Year, among other accolades and awards over the years. And now in 2021, they’ve won Song of the Year for “Richest Man.”

Fireside Collective – “And The Rain Came Down”

Asheville bluegrass band Fireside Collective wrote “And the Rain Came Down” inspired by the many “storms” of COVID and the Great Flood tale from the Old Testament. But, despite the song’s somber overtones and the uncertainty of the story, there is still a message of hope.

Kris Gruen – “Pictures Of”

Alt-folk singer-songwriter Kris Gruen wrote “Pictures Of” about his daughter, as a tribute to her maturation and readiness for the world. In different words “Pictures Of” says, “Be excited for and in love with the world! Regardless of our collective fear in the unknown…”

James McMurtry – “Canola Fields”

Holding a conversation with James McMurtry is similar to experiencing his music. He is frank, eloquent, and gets to the heart of the matter with few words. On The Horses and the Hounds, his first album of new material in nearly seven years, he tells sometimes complicated emotional stories through his fictional characters, crafted within the limits of rhyme and meter. His deft chronicling of human nature woven with descriptions of place and scene give the listener context beyond the experience, almost like each song is the essence of a short story or novel. Listen to “Canola Fields” and read our conversation with McMurtry.

Appalachian Road Show – “The Appalachian Road”

At this year’s IBMA Awards, Appalachian Road Show was the second most nominated group, and they were awarded the honors of Instrumental Group of the Year and New Artist of the Year. On top of those wins, this tune, “The Appalachian Road,” was nominated for Instrumental Recording of the Year.

Clinton Davis – “Curly Headed Woman”

Old-time musician Clinton Davis has recorded his own version of “Curly Headed Woman,” a rare rendition of one of the most common American folk songs: “The Hesitation Blues” or “If the River Was Whisky” as most people call it.

Sideline – “Old Guitar Case”

Sideline reminisces on how they became a band, the importance of teamwork, prioritizing having fun every time they step out on stage, and more in a recent 5+5.

Photos: (L to R) Billy Strings by Jesse Faatz; Ray Benson by Mike Shore; James McMurtry by Mary Keating-Bruton

MIXTAPE: Staci Griesbach’s Great American Songbook of Country Music

Posted on by Editor

The Great American Songbook of country music is a vast terrain to cherish and celebrate. So vast, in fact, that to narrow it down into one playlist of favorite “picks” is an incredible challenge! That said, I’m sharing here a selection of songs that are some of my all-time favorite lyrics and melodies. (The kind of songs you’d take with you to a desert island.) When you look through this list, it is no doubt that you’ll agree: each one of these songs rightly deserves its space in the pages of 20th century American music history for the mark the songwriters and the musical icons performing them have made. The generations these songs have touched (and hopefully will continue to touch)… the audiences moved by performances, in some cases to tears… all from the impact of a single song. Amazing!

As I hope to do with my Songbook series of recordings, my artistic path honors these songwriters and musical icons in reimagining these songs in a new way, offering an inspired interpretation of some of these classic songs (as you’ll see below). I hope you enjoy a slice of what I like to call “My American Songbook.” — Staci Griesbach

Dolly Parton – “Coat of Many Colors”

Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2021, and in my mind, there may be no more perfect storytelling song with a purpose in all of country music. Through the lyrics, Dolly approaches some important underlying themes in her message with this song. From humble beginnings to the love of a mother to encouraging self-talk and faith to the discussion of bullying, this song is so inspiring no matter where you live or what your upbringing was like. Coupled with her incredible human compassion and all she does with her celebrity to make the world a better place, Parton continues to be awesomely inspiring. For my interpretation, we played up the whimsical nature with the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat reference to also celebrate Dolly’s immense talent in the Broadway space. Fun fact: I was once “Narrator” in the musical production, so there’s a special sort of kismet connection!

Willie Nelson – “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”

When a song is recorded by Hank Williams, Roy Acuff, Willie Nelson, and probably hundreds of other artists, you may wish your name was songwriter and country music legend Fred Rose. Willie Nelson’s voice and this song pair so well for me. It’s his renditions — especially the live acoustic ones where he brings the tempo down — that are my favorite.

Patsy Cline – “Crazy”

If you’re going to do a playlist about country music standards, then this one has got to be on the list and perhaps top the list. As the most-played jukebox hit in history, the combination of Willie Nelson’s pen and Patsy Cline’s voice makes for a combination that never gets old.

Merle Haggard – “That’s the Way Love Goes”

Merle Haggard could sing the phone book to me, and I’d fall in love. This classic Haggard tune shows off some of his trademark moves, hitting the low notes with a sense of natural charm that could arguably make any gal swoon. His influence from Lefty Frizzell, who penned the song and had a strong arm in shaping many of country music’s early male voices in terms of style, is clear.

Anne Murray – “Could I Have This Dance”

I’m a sucker for a country waltz and the romantic in me gets caught up in this lyric every time I hear it. While the vocal is more modest in range and dynamic, it’s the sweetness of the tune that makes it feel like you’ve just put on your favorite winter sweater and nestled up to the fireplace.

George Jones – “He Stopped Loving Her Today”

Classified by many as the greatest country song of all time, it’s an exemplary tale of great songwriting paired with incredible talent. The song, the lyrics, and the vocal performance George Jones gives in this tear-stained ballad can’t possibly leave a dry eye in the room, no matter how many times you’ve heard the recording! This was the first song we tackled for my album celebrating Possum’s 90th birthday, and I was thrilled when songwriter Bobby Braddock shared his praise. In my cover version, arranger Jeremy Siskind arguably created a stage for this song to really sit in a spotlight it has never been in before.

Ernest Tubb – “Waltz Across Texas”

Listening to this song play as a young girl, I used to dream of being swept off my feet in love someday, filled with the imagery of waltzing across a big ballroom with someone serenading me. When Ernest Tubb calls out his band members, it feels like you’re right in the room listening as they’re playing. I’ve always enjoyed his iconic characteristics in his sense of showmanship.

Patsy Cline – “Walkin’ After Midnight”

Several songs in Patsy Cline’s catalog can be called standards in country music and this is one of them. A favorite for many girl singers who adore her, Patsy’s swagger comes through in her bluesy vocal performance adding just the right touch of cry to connect us with her desire for finding love. For my cover version, also from arranger and pianist Jeremy Siskind, the song offers more of a meditative groove creating a moodiness that implores a sense of searching matching the lyrics with a more internal reflection.

Ray Price -–”Make the World Go Away”

The great Hank Cochran had a way with songwriting and that’s no secret. One of my favorite songwriters in Nashville history. His songs create a lasting impression, especially this one recorded by Eddy Arnold, Elvis Presley, Martina McBride, and the late great Ray Price.

Tammy Wynette – “‘Til I Can Make it On My Own”

When you put Tammy Wynette, George Richie, and Billy Sherrill in a room, you know a hit song will find its way out of the door. Wynette’s performance is simply stunning here, and this song really showcases her dynamic range as a vocalist. I also really enjoy Martina McBride’s cover on her standards tribute album.

Merle Haggard – “Today I Started Loving You Again”

The poetic nature of Merle Haggard’s catalog cannot be questioned, and while he’s known as the poet of the common man, it’s his love songs that have me right in the palm of his hand. Penned along with Bonnie Owens, this song might top the Haggard catalog for me.

Dolly Parton – “Here You Come Again”

Only recently I became aware that this song was written by the great Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. I’ve always associated the song with Dolly, and with her incredible songwriting prowess, it was a natural assumption. This is definitely one of my favorite songs in Dolly’s catalog. For my cover, which is the flip side of my Digital 45 with “Coat of Many Colors,” Jeremy Siskind and I explored a ballad context to really bring out the emotional quality of the lyrics and the feelings that bubble up when you’re so in love with someone and forget for a moment that they’re not good for you.

Hank Williams – “Cold, Cold Heart

There’s a lure around Hank Williams like no other in country music. And it’s no surprise when you listen to Williams’ catalog why George Jones and so many others looked up to and tried to emulate Williams at the beginning of their careers. A true country music standard for its number of covers (including Tony Bennett), I’m a huge fan of Norah Jones’ performance.

Patsy Cline – “Lonely Street”

From Kitty Wells, Melba Montgomery, and Emmylou Harris to Ray Price, George Jones, and Tammy Wynette, this song has been recorded many times over. While Andy Williams’ version might have hit the highest notes on Billboard’s charts, it’s Patsy Cline’s heartache-filled performance that is my favorite version. There were a few of her classic hits that didn’t make my tribute album and this one might top that list.

Kris Kristofferson – “Help Me Make it Through the Night”

The stories of Kris Kristofferson and Bill Withers have always touched me in the fact that both of them were working everyday jobs (sweeping floors and working at an airplane parts factory respectively) when their demos catapulted them into the spotlight. I’ve seen Mr. Kristofferson perform this live a few times and my heart melts every time.

Photo credit: Kim Thiel

WATCH: Single Girl, Married Girl, “Wreck Cut Loose”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Single Girl, Married Girl
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Wreck Cut Loose”
Album: Three Generations of Leaving
Release Date: November 19, 2021
Label: Head Bitch Music

In Their Words: “I’ve always loved torch songs and big weepy ballads, especially country ones. ‘Wreck Cut Loose’ lets me belt and sing like the incomparable voices I grew up listening to and have tried to emulate countless times — Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Tammy Wynette, and Patsy Cline, but in a contemporary musical setting. We didn’t want to sound like an old country or pop vocal song, but the lineage should be obvious.

“Lyrically, it’s about something most people have gone through in their lives — a breakup, but Dan Morosi, our friend and former drummer, who wrote the song, manages to portray the emotional intensity we feel in the aftermath of being dumped through simple, direct language. It sort of fixates on mundane elements that belie the complex feelings being expressed and examined, all the while building to this heartbreaking crescendo.

“For the music video, we wanted a concept that was not gimmicky but a little tongue-in-cheek. It’s literally one shot once the music starts; I’m walking home from being dumped and encounter multiple friends along the way who try to cheer me up, when all I want to do is go home, be alone, and have a really good cry. It’s all to say that we need a little support in our lives during hard times, that we are stronger together. We hope the video feels like a big group hug.” — Chelsey Coy, Single Girl, Married Girl

Photo credit: Anna Azarov