Bestie Lizzie No has just released their career-defining new record, Halfsies, and we are 100% here for it on our 250th episode! Lizzie, who co-hosts Basic Folk, put her entire being, identity, and creativity into this project. There’s a lot going on with their main character, the avatar Miss Freedomland, and we’re getting to the bottom of it in our conversation.
Our hero’s journey begins even before the main character is born. Her inception grew out of disdain for childhood beauty pageants – which Lizzie’s mother actually won back in the early ’60s at a now defunct amusement park called Freedomland. And, there are photos of Little Catherine Quinlan with a look of disgust on her five-year-old face. Lizzie grew up with this story and as she got older, she began to think hard about societal expectations and the stock put into women and children’s emotional expression through their faces. Lizzie also grew up hearing and saying the word “No,” hence the stage name.
Enter Miss Freedomland! (Also the name of Lizzie’s new record label.) She has been tasked with a journey to become free, which will require inner healing, exploration of self-identity, and giving up performance of gender that just feels wrong. The album starts with our main character trying to level up (because, yes, this is a video game) with her own self-expression, revisiting past traumas and shedding the baggage and hot garbage that got her trapped in the first place.
In our conversation, we go track by track through this showstopper of a record and even get some solo live performances. I hope you enjoy exploring Lizzie’s world as much as I did. These songs are brilliant and the concept executed remarkably. Thanks to Studio 9 in North Adams, Massachusetts for the use of their beautiful studio!
Bluegrass fans know Mike Compton from his long and eclectic resumé, including decades of touring and recording traditional Monroe-style mandolin with greats like John Hartford, Doc Watson, Peter Rowan, Ralph Stanley, Alison Krauss, and David Grisman, as well as venturing into more mainstream music with with Sting, Gregg Allman, Elvis Costello, and many others. He was also heard on the soundtrack for O Brother, Where Art Thou? and traveled with the smash hit tour, Down from the Mountain, which highlighted the artists and musicians on that incredibly popular soundtrack.
But, as Toy Heart host Tom Power points out, it’s not just virtuosity that makes Compton stand out as a mandolinist – it’s just as much about the heart, feel, and grit that he brings to the instrument.
Tom speaks with Compton for over an hour for this exclusive Toy Heart interview, walking through his life and career, from the musical influence of his great grandparents and growing up in Meridian, Mississippi, to the indelible mark left on his own playing style by Bill Monroe. Compton also recalls his childhood, skipping school to hide out in a “dirt pit” to practice all day, his time in Nashville – including a historic visit to China with the Nashville Bluegrass Band – and recounts his collaborations with the legendary John Hartford. You’ll also hear Compton discuss the impact that playing on O Brother, Where Art Thou? had not only on himself and his own career, but on bluegrass as a whole.
Dinty Child, founding member of Session Americana, the beloved Boston roots music collective who’ve accidentally been a band for 20 years, has just released his second solo album, Letting the Lions In. The new songs feature co-writing on all tracks between Dinty and Boston area songwriters like Mark Erelli, Kris Delmhorst, and Dave Godowsky. A self-proclaimed slow-writer, the majority of these songs were written on the annual Sub Rosa songwriting retreat Dinty runs on Three Mile Island (no, not that Three Mile Island) on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. Owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, Dinty’s family has been working at the island for over 100 years. Dinty currently serves as the off-season manager, putting his musician and carpenter skills to good use hosting songwriter friends at said retreat – like Rose Cousins, Rose Polenzani, Rachael Price, Miss Tess and many more, as well as Miles of Music, a summer camp run by Dinty, Kristin Andreassen, and Laura Cortese.
Letting the Lions In was co-produced by Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne) and recorded at Great North Sound in Parsonsfield, Maine over the course of three days in the spring of 2021. Dinty says, “I often trade construction work for studio time there.”
During our conversation, we dig into why these songs needed to be recorded. Our consensus is that legacy and spreading joy to his community are the top two reasons. Also, Dinty, who says an annoyingly large percentage of his songs start as dreams, talks about what kind of sleeper he is, what’s with the lion, and his thoughts on drinking – thanks to the handful of alcohol songs on the new album. Dinty is a dear friend to the podcast and an important part of the New England musical landscape, we’re thrilled to have him on the show!
Tyrone Cotton, a decades-long mainstay of the Louisville, Kentucky music scene, just released his debut album, Man Like Me. A quick listen to these songs reveals an artist who has spent decades steeped in roots music. Lizzie No spoke with Tyrone and Ray Rizzo, one of the album’s producers, about Tyrone’s journey as an artist and the making of Man Like Me.
Tyrone grew up listening to his grandfather and his friends in the neighborhood playing guitar. With his $60 guitar in hand, Tyrone headed off to music school, studying classic guitar under David Kelsey. At first a shy performer, he leaned into his craft and into the supportive musical community he found in Louisville. Cotton has become a stalwart of the local music scene, playing club shows and a standing gig at a local senior center where he brings the house down with soul classics.
This is where producer Ray Rizzo enters our story. A Kentuckian since the age of 11, he was well-versed in the Louisville music scene when he came across Tyrone and his music at The Rudyard Kipling, a club in town. Ray’s admiration for Tyrone’s songwriting and musical instincts was a guiding principle as they went into the studio to record Man Like Me. Rizzo had spent years watching Cotton perform and wanted to make sure that he captured the magic he had witnessed so many times. If the confident, eclectic roots of Man Like Me are any indication, Tyrone Cotton has more stories to tell and we will be lucky to listen. What makes this album special is what makes the best Americana albums special: a patchwork of influences and traditions, the best of contemporary recording techniques, and a singular storytelling voice.
The legendary Larry Sparks, a prominent player in bluegrass for over six decades and a Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee, joins host Tom Power for this episode of Toy Heart. Sparks shares insightful anecdotes from his early years, touring and performing with the Stanley Brothers and from his tenure with Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys. From traveling in a ‘67 station wagon to the challenges of navigating the music industry over so many decades, Sparks reflects on his particular journey through bluegrass, old-time, and country music. We explore his musical influences, his unique approach to bluegrass guitar playing, and the profound impact of gospel songs on his own soulful, down home sound.
Sparks also offers a glimpse into his Nashville days, highlighting the unique challenges he faced in Music City. His stories reveal a dedication to preserving the essence of bluegrass and his commitment to honest storytelling. Hear Sparks describe making hits like “John Deere Tractor” as well as speaking to the spiritual resonance of gospel music. He paints a vivid picture of a musical legacy that spans more than 60 years, leaving an indelible mark on the heart and soul of the bluegrass community.
Canada’s Talia Schlanger is best known for her work in broadcasting, guest-hosting Q with Tom Power on CBC and Alec Baldwin’s “Here’s the Thing” podcast, as well as having taken over for David Dye on NPR Music’s World Cafe from WXPN in Philadelphia. Before all that, Schlanger was an actor and singer in many theater productions including Mamma Mia, Queen’s We Will Rock You, and Green Day’s American Idiot. While she has found much success in her two previous careers, something has been pulling on Talia for years. She wanted to write, record, and perform her own music. She had something to say and made the brave leap into the unknown, leaving her coveted role at World Cafe in order to say it. This culmination of events has led Talia to her debut album, Grace for Going.
In our conversation, Schlanger shares insights into her upbringing in Thornhill, Ontario within a Jewish family deeply rooted in faith and family heritage. She reflects on the impact of her grandparents, Holocaust survivors whose stories shaped her childhood. Talia also talks about her unique journey from performing eight shows a week in theater productions to becoming a distinguished radio host. Her evolution as a singer, her bravery and some important boundaries have allowed her to find her authentic voice while maintaining a crucial work-life balance. Throughout the interview, she touches on themes of personal growth, acts of kindness, and her commitment to learning and curiosity, offering a fascinating glimpse into the life and career of this remarkable person.
Dive into the enchanting world of Elise Leavy – who hails from picturesque Monterey, California – through her latest album, A Little Longer. Leavy’s artistic journey is steeped in the influences of her magical childhood surroundings. Her life growing up was filled with music and art, thanks to her mom’s painting and her stepdad’s own musical talents. Growing up with a deep appreciation for nature and a belief in faeries, Leavy shares how these elements shaped her musical perspective.
As we explore Elise’s musical evolution in this episode of Basic Folk, we touch on her experiences with live performances, overcoming stage fright, and the art of songwriting. Her unique approach to music, drawing from her magical way of thinking, is reflected in her exploration of various musical instruments – from accordion to guitar, piano, fiddle, and more. We also uncover the impact of her time at summer camps, which fostered a sense of community that continues to shape her artistic expression to this day.
This episode delves into the intriguing intersection of Leavy’s musical journey with homeschooling, highlighting the unconventional path she took to prioritize her love for songwriting and music making. She left public school in eighth grade to focus on her craft and built her schedule around attending music camps. She would go on to study at New England Conservatory and she lived briefly in New York. After several years in Nashville, she has recently found herself living in Lafayette, Louisiana.
The songs on Leavy’s new album, A Little Longer, were mostly written while she was based in the Northeast. In our conversation, Elise opens up about her connections to music, magical creatures, and the harmonious blend of romance and fantasy in her musical creations.
Sarah Jarosz is what happens when young women are taken seriously. A huge part of the mandolinist’s story is that she had supportive male mentors and that has added to her confidence. We all know the age old story of “Young woman shows promise, gets exploited by the patriarchy and it affects her work.” We need to hear stories like this. Starting in her hometown of Wimberley, Texas, just 45 minutes outside of Austin – the live music capital of the world – Sarah found the mandolin at 10 years old. Labeled a prodigy, and thanks to the encouraging spirit of folk music, she found mentorship with seasoned professionals like David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien and Béla Fleck. Following her time at The New England Conservatory of Music, she moved to New York and would go on to collaborate with people like Chris Thile in the Live From Here House Band and her trio I’m With Her, featuring Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, and won four Grammys.
After making the move to Nashville, on her latest album, the very impressive and sonically expansive Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz collaborated with producer Daniel Tashian, which originally was just a low-stakes co-writing project. The success of her first co-writing experience with Daniel led her to pursue other songwriting sessions with Ruston Kelly and Natalie Hemby. The collaboration found on the record has opened Sarah up to new sounds and new experiences. In our conversation, we talk about Sarah stepping into her own voice with confidence on this record and knowing her musical self enough at this point in her life. She describes her experience with confidence using the Dunning–Kruger effect, in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. AKA “fake it till you make it,” AKA “leap and the net will appear.” She also talks about her parents’ influence on her early musicality and how her mom is doing with her cancer remission. An overall theme of this conversation is that Sarah never lost sight of her goal: Keep it all about the music and don’t let noise get in the way of your important work.
Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno, known as Viv & Riley, dive deep into the nuances of old-time music, their folk influences, and the process behind their album, Imaginary People. The duo, who met at a music camp in Port Townsend, Washington, trace their roots from Riley’s disciplined musical practice to Viv’s intuitive approach. The two found inspiration from growing up in the Seattle area listening to KEXP to living in Portland, Oregon, to their current home in Durham, North Carolina. Drawing on their experiences at fiddlers conventions and music camps, Viv & Riley reflect on the transformative power of collaboration and the vibrant community that has shaped their unique sound in their duo as well as their other band, The Onlies.
As they share insights into their songwriting process, the episode unravels the intricate layers of Imaginary People, delving into the harmonious blend of indie roots and experimental production that defines their latest release. With a nod to their eclectic influences, including the supportive atmosphere of Durham, North Carolina, the duo discusses the evolution of their sound under the guidance of producer Alex Bingham from Hiss Golden Messenger, who produced their latest album.
I first encountered Brittany Haas when I was 14 years old, attending the Mark O’Connor Fiddle Camp outside of Nashville. Brittany was only a few years older than me, but she was miles ahead of me musically and professionally, already gigging with some of the best traditional musicians around. I bought a copy of her self-titled CD and learned every single track on it. When I would meet other fiddle players my age, we would often bond over this recording and its shared influence on our playing.
Haas went on to join Boston-based band Crooked Still, one of the most influential string bands of the last 20 years. In the small community of acoustic music makers and lovers, Crooked Still was the kind of iconic band – much like Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers – that created a hundred baby bands in its wake, each inspired by the reinvention of traditional song in modern and exciting ways. There was even a period of time when seemingly all of the young women involved in the folk and bluegrass scene (myself included) began dressing like Haas, wearing messy buns in their hair and colorful leggings under short boho dresses.
Following her time with Crooked Still, Haas went on to play with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, in the house band on Live From Here, and with her own genre-bending quartet, Hawktail – among many other projects. Unlike other powerhouse women instrumentalists like Missy Raines, Molly Tuttle, and Sierra Hull, who have carved out career paths by leading their own bands, Haas has stayed largely under the radar to the wider public, working primarily as a collaborator or band member.
As my own musical interests have grown and changed, I have found myself feeling guilty at times for not putting my focus on being an improvisational instrumentalist, fearing that I’m taking a too traditionally female path as a songwriter, and reenforcing gender expectations. But as Brittany has kicked through ceiling after ceiling as an instrumentalist, I’ve thought “Hey, it’s OK, Brittany is so good that nobody will ever doubt that a woman can do it!” For years, Haas has been a pinnacle, an example for the rest of us female instrumentalists. So, you can imagine the thrill that I felt when it was announced that Haas would be the newest member of Punch Brothers, a band that is representative of the highest caliber instrumental prowess in today’s acoustic music scene.
Haas’ first gigs with the band have been as part of The Energy Curfew Music Hour, a live radio-style show created by Claire Coffee and Chris Thile in collaboration with Audible. The show features Punch Brothers along with special guests like Jason Isbell, Gaby Moreno, and Sylvan Esso among others.
BGS had the opportunity to ask Brittany Haas a few questions about her career and her hopes for joining the band in the lead up to a handful of Energy Curfew Music Hour shows in New York City this month at Minetta Lane Theater.
Chris Thile & Punch Brothers perform at Energy Curfew Music Hour with Jason Isbell in December. Photo by Rebecca J Michelson.
You’ve had a lot of experience working with various members of Punch Brothers in different bands and formats over the years, what about the particular aesthetic and ambition of Punch Brothers made you want to accept the gig?
I’ve been a fan of the band for a long time – I guess as long as they’ve been a band. So the idea of joining was very exciting. I think any fan would tell you that there’s something about the band – the expansive nature of their approach to writing and arranging music – that is really unique. They’re making music that doesn’t sound like anything else. Getting to jump into something that’s been evolving and expanding into and beyond itself for so long is really cool. And as an instrumentalist in this “new acoustic” musical universe, it’s basically a dream gig, joining four incredibly talented and smart people and making music through which I know I will grow as an artist.
You’re known as a fiddle player that’s rooted in old-time traditions, but also improvisationally virtuosic. Do you feel like your background in old-time will bring a different flavor to the band moving forward?
Old-time is a genre in which I feel a lot of joy and comfort, so it’s always nice when that can be utilized in service of a tune or a song. Lately, in playing with my sister and with Hawktail, I also feel that my voice is strongly Celtic and Scandinavian – basically a combination of the genres I grew up around at fiddle camp and got obsessed with. I think that stuff will come out naturally no matter what new music we’re creating and perhaps some of the music will be written in that direction.
When stepping into a role that has been created and maintained by one specific fiddle player for so many years (Gabe Witcher), how much freedom do you have to remake the parts for the older material in your own voice?
I think this is true in many areas of life– the more deeply you know something, the more you can put yourself into it. Once you know intimately how it goes, you can be freer and more artful and playful with it while staying true to its nature. So that’ll be a journey for me with the back catalog material. Also, sometimes the parts he played were just the best thing that could happen in that musical moment. Some of the parts are more written than textural/improvised, so in those cases I will need to stay true to what he played. And I love his playing! Playing like Gabe is fun for me, because it stretches me in a different way than I normally go.
What made you want to wear a suit for this gig?
I’d never worn a suit before joining the band, so I saw it as an opportunity to try that. I always thought that the women I saw wearing pantsuits looked awesome. Plus it’s great having so many pockets for mic and in-ear packs. The other part of my thought process was, this is a band and I want to integrate into it, so it makes sense to wear the uniform. No one said I had to wear a suit. I’m sure it would be cool with everyone if one of them wanted to start wearing dresses, so it’d be cool for me to do that too, and maybe I will at some point.
You’ve made incredible records in a lot of different fiddle genres at this point, is there any uncharted territory that you hope to explore in the future?
The depths of my own mind! I’m partially kidding; I do want to write more music. But there is always uncharted territory! Darol Anger is an inspiration in this – he never stops practicing and devising new ideas for getting around the fiddle. I hope to keep learning tunes from different musical traditions. Lately I’ve enjoyed learning conjunto music and I’d like to spend more time with Eastern European folk music, getting comfortable in different time signatures, etc.
What is a record that has been inspiring you lately?
James Taylor’s album Hourglass from 1997. We learned a few of those songs to play with him on the show and I fell in love with them. Also Alasdair Fraser’s album Dawn Dance, which I returned to recently after first being obsessed with it about 25 years ago. It is still as lovely as I remembered.
What is your process for preparing to play with so many different guest artists on the show – how do you approach constructing fiddle parts?
Mostly listening. Generally, when we get together with the guest artists that’s when most of the decision making about parts happens. So my job is just to show up being familiar with the music. Sometimes there are more specific string-oriented parts to play.
You’ve been a part of the Live From Here house band in the past, how does the vision and format for the Energy Curfew shows differ from that show?
The format feels similar, although there is more of an air of collaboration, because there is a bit more time for creation and also the same core band for every show. And, the premise of the show centers on the idea of it being purely acoustic music, so that’s mostly what it is with some inventive ways around that rule when needed.
Photos courtesy of Audible. Lead image by Avery Brunkus; inset image by Rebecca J Michelson.
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