Tag: podcast

Basic Folk: Ben Harper

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Ben Harper has this deep connection to music through his family, who own a beautiful music store in the Inland Empire of California. The legacy of the store is founded on ensuring its community always has access to music. That legacy has deeply impacted the type of person Ben Harper continues to be throughout his artistic life. He’s been a musician who has given so many artists their start (very notably Jack Johnson), and has been a gateway into roots music for many of his listeners.

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In our conversation, we really dig into Ben’s new album Wide Open Light, which takes him back to his acoustic and slide-heavy roots. It walks that beautiful line between singer-songwriter, country and soul that his fans have loved for decades. The record shows him being vulnerable, talking about spirituality and, of course, flexing his impressive guitar chops and his intimate vocal delivery. We also got to talk about Harry Styles, who Harper has recently gone on tour with and where he’s met a whole new generation of fans. It was very cool to discuss not only his beginnings, but where he is now as an artist and how he’s shaping his legacy with the next generation of musical listeners.

Photo Credit: Michael Halsband

Basic Folk: Taylor Ashton

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Canadian-born, New-York based banjo person Taylor Ashton’s second solo album, Stranger to the Feeling, was recorded on a coast-to-coast road trip in 2021. These were the two weeks post-vaccine where we thought everything was A-OK, so Ashton and producer Jacob Blumberg set out on a recording adventure that included collaborations with friends new and old.

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Ashton, who’s since become a new parent with wife Rachael Price (Lake Street Dive), wanted to create an album that “meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection in an age of increasing isolation.” The energy of the new album is just that and it is palpable alongside its use of space and natural sound (gotta love those birds and room noise).

In our conversation, Taylor expands on the making of the album while addressing questions on the difficulty of reconnecting after the pandemic and how the music helped break that barrier of social isolation. We also go through a lot of the album’s songs and get to topics like crying while playing your own song, struggling with expressing feelings, and both being and not being cool. Taylor also graciously shares their thoughts on gender expression and walking the line of benefiting from the patriarchy and not feeling exactly like they embody the male gender all of the time. Being 6’2 and crying while listening to your own song maybe sums it all up? Or maybe you can’t summarize Taylor Ashton? I’m very grateful to welcome him back to Basic Folk!

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Listen to an Exclusive Excerpt From Steve Martin’s Pushkin Audiobook

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s hard to ascribe a single title to Steve Martin. Throughout his nearly 50-year career in entertainment, Martin has been a stand-up comedian, leading man, art collector, TV star, bestselling author, and writer of a Tony-nominated Broadway musical. And then, of course, there’s his love affair with the banjo. Since childhood, Martin has been deeply connected to the instrument, and over the years he’s performed with everyone from Earl Scruggs to the Steep Canyon Rangers to Kermit the Frog.

Adding to that multi-hyphenate lineup, Martin has now released a new audio-only autobiography detailing his lengthy career with friend and co-author Adam Gopnik (longtime contributor to the New Yorker). So Many Steves: Afternoons With Steve Martin, New Yorker contains a year’s worth of conversations between Martin and Gopnik and was published in May of this year by Pushkin, a podcast and audio production company.

In ten chapters, the two men dive into a wide set of life experiences with the kind of vulnerability and humor reserved for old friends, with chapters ranging from Martin’s teenage years working in Merlin’s Magic Shop at Disneyland to selling out arenas on his stand-up tours. But perhaps most exciting to bluegrass fans will, of course, be the chapter in which Martin details playing “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” In the early 2000s, Scruggs himself asked Martin to perform on a 75th anniversary album. When Martin showed up at the studio of his idol, however, he was at a loss. “It was so fast,” Martin proclaims, “I couldn’t believe it.”  Practicing for the record kickstarted the second chapter of his musical life, at a time when he’d almost completely walked away from the instrument. 

As a special exclusive, BGS readers can stream the an audio excerpt from So Many Steves (below) for a limited time. The full audiobook is available to download via Pushkin or stream on Audible, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Discover more here.

Lonnie Lee Hood and Amy Reitnouer Jacobs contributed to this writing.

Basic Folk: Raye Zaragoza

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

The headline for Los Angeles-based Raye Zaragoza’s new album Hold That Spirit is that after she broke off her engagement, she used her wedding budget to fund the recording. She wrote the songs the year she turned 30 while she was thinking of the expectations placed on women in society to have everything together at a certain age: marriage, kids, career, etc. She’s decided to let those expectations go and live in the joy that life offers, and explores her newfound freedom and indigenous identity in these new songs. She’s moving forward as a role model in Los Angeles’ indigenous community, which she has been a part of since she was 14 years old.

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We go through the album track by track covering topics of social justice, eating disorders and perfectionism. She worked exclusively with female collaborators on Hold That Spirit, which allowed Raye a vulnerability in her writing sessions and studio time that she had yet to experience. She found co-writing with other women an easy space to feel emotionally safe. Working with like-minded feminists and activists fueled this album, which has allowed Raye to begin to break through those unfair expectations society places on women. In our conversation, Raye is thoughtful and serious, yet fun and playful even with such heavy topics addressed. Thank you, Raye!

Photo Credit: Bolora Munkhbold

Basic Folk: Meg Hutchinson

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

It’s been 10 years since Boston-area Meg Hutchinson has released an album … and she did it super quietly, so no shade if you didn’t realize that your favorite middle sister is back with some seriously devastating songs. Meg grew up just outside of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where she had an idyllic childhood surrounded by woods and framed by her desire to become a folk singer. That dream was realized after she graduated college, quit her organic-lettuce-farm job and moved to Boston in the early 2000s. There, she wove herself into its vibrant folk community gigging around New England, performing in the subway and getting signed to the prestigious Red House Records, where she released three albums.

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Throughout her life she has suffered from severe mental illness, experiencing her first major bout of depression at age 19. Not understanding, she felt ashamed and hid her illness for nine years. After a huge whirlwind 2006 tour in England where she experienced a high never felt before, Meg came home and felt mania and severe depression all at once. She called her family to help and it was her younger sister, Tessa, who eventually got Meg professional help. After a long road stabilizing and healing, Meg has a grasp on her bipolar disorder, which she calls by its former name: manic depression. She’s discovered her calling as a palliative care hospital chaplain and hospice worker. She’s no longer working music. She’s playing music and that’s how she approached this new album, All The Wonder All The Beauty, an album she says “is about things we don’t want to talk about.” She writes about her mental illness, midlife and death. This is an intense discussion with one of my favorite people! I’m so happy she’s released this album and excited for you to get to know Meg Hutchinson.

Photo Credit: Stephan Hoglund

Basic Folk – Molly Tuttle Returns to the Podcast

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Basic Folk is thrilled to interview The Bluegrass Situation’s July 2023 Artist of the Month: Molly Tuttle! Quickly becoming the Bluegrass American Idol, Molly Tuttle’s new album City of Gold is hot off the heels of her Grammy-award winning 2022 record, Crooked Tree, which also got her a nomination in one of the coveted “Big Four” categories: Best New Artist. Aaaaand we know that WE ALL have had eyes on Molly for years, BUT since she’s fully embraced the bluegrass genre on these last new albums, Best New Artist makes a lot of sense. Bluegrass was the music she grew up with in Palo Alto, California, with her guitar-teacher father helping her soak in the vibrant scene. She’s also learning how to take control of the bluegrass narrative by telling her story and sharing her perspective through her new songs.

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That rings so true with the new record, City of Gold, co-produced by Tuttle and Dobro-master Jerry Douglas (of Alison Krauss & Union Station fame), mostly co-written with her partner Ketch Secor (of Old Crow Medicine Show) and featuring her crack backing band, Golden Highway. She’s writing bluegrass songs that are fun and insightful at the same time. We get a bluegrass version of Alice In Wonderland, the story of a woman fighting for her bodily autonomy and not to mention that time she married Dave Matthews on a road trip (LOL J/K, but that is a real new song with the real Dave). She digs into her new album as well as finding her own way in the patriarchal world of bluegrass and leveling up about her alopecia, an autoimmune skin disease, causing hair loss. Molly Tuttle is a great hang, an inspiration for us all and has made a fabulous new album, City of Gold. LYLAS, Molly!

Photo Credit: Chelsea Rochelle

The Travis Book Happy Hour: Beppe Gambetta

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

When the opportunity to host Beppe Gambetta on the Happy Hour came up, I jumped on it. Beppe’s a legend and has a totally unique flatpicking voice. An ambassador for flatpicking around the world and for Italian music in the States, he’s also incredibly charming. Beppe’s a disciple of Doc Watson and this being the year Doc would have turned 100, we chose to present the music of Doc for this particular episode. I rank this among the best interviews I’ve ever conducted (due to Beppe) and after the show we all went to a friend’s house and he cooked us broccoli pasta, and we had a classic Italian midnight dinner party. Funny, kind, disarming, grateful, and driven; my musical world is much richer for the friendship I’ve forged with Beppe and his wife Frederica.

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This podcast is an edited distillation of the full-length happy hour which aired live on March 14, 2023. Huge thanks to Beppe Gambetta, Mike Guggino, and Bennett Sullivan.

Timestamps:

00:06 – Soundbyte
01:08 – Introduction
02:30 – Live introduction
05:30 – “Worried Now” > “Texas Gales” > “Beaumont Rag”
12:07 – Accordion joke
12:26 – “Deep River Blues”
17:05 – “Slow Creek”
22:19 – Happiness monologue
26:45 – “Talk About Suffering”
29:20 – Interview with Beppe Gambetta
51:52 – “I am a Pilgrim”
54:24 – “Tennessee Stud”
59:27 – “St. James Hospital”
1:05:44 – “Way Downtown’
1:11:42 – Outro

Editor’s note: The Travis Book Happy Hour is hosted by Travis Book of the GRAMMY Award-winning band, The Infamous Stringdusters. The show’s focus is musical collaboration and conversation around matters of being. The podcast is the best of the interview and music from the live show recorded in Brevard, North Carolina.

The Travis Book Happy Hour Podcast is brought to you by Thompson Guitars and is presented by Americana Vibes and The Bluegrass Situation as part of the BGS Podcast Network. You can find the Travis Book Happy Hour on Instagram and Facebook and online at thetravisbookhappyhour.com.

Photo Credit: Giovanna Cavallo

Basic Folk – Kara Jackson

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Kara Jackson has a mind like a diamond and a voice like maple syrup. She has always been drawn to music as a medium, but you probably first heard of her as the National Youth Poet Laureate. Cutting her teeth as a performing poet gave Jackson a huge public platform as well as a sense of how form can be a foundation for expression.

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Now, at the ripe age of 23, Jackson has released her stunning debut album, Why Does The Earth Give Us People To Love. As the title suggests, this album reflects on love and loss. Kara has some fantastic insights about how embracing grief, and sharing it with others, can lead us to a healthier culture. She also shares about how her parents’ political convictions have influenced her concept of an artist’s role in the world.

One of my favorite moments in my conversation is where Kara articulates how she sees her work in conversation with Black artists who came before her. What a gift, to hear a brilliant young artist speak so clearly about how their creativity fits into a bigger tradition. We cannot wait to see what she does next.

Editor’s Note: Lizzie and Kara talked about Kara’s poem “anthem for my belly after eating too much” at the top of the interview. Read it here.

Photo Credit: Lawrence Agyei

Basic Folk – Tim O’Brien

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Tim O’Brien is one of bluegrass’ beloved players, from his work with the innovative Hot Rize to his yearly appearances at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. He’s just released his first album of all-original material, which is something to be said for his 50-year career. At 69 years old, it’s no surprise that the theme of aging pops up on quite a few of his new songs. He opens up about his perspective on aging and what it has looked like for his predecessors in bluegrass. He reflects on his history, from choosing Colorado over New York or LA, to being very aware of how hard it was for his sister, Mollie O’Brien, to have a solo career and be a parent.

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Nicknamed “Red,” Tim O’Brien serves as hero and mentor to many of today’s finest players in the genre, including Sarah Jarosz and Chris Thile. He recognizes the importance of allowing younger generations to step into the spotlight, while still being ready to honor his own bluegrass heroes. In our conversation, Tim gets into things he’s noticed changing for the better in his scene and also talks about how technology is both a good and challenging thing. For instance, in-ear monitors are great, however, they really isolate the players instead of really feeling like they are playing together. Thanks, Tim O’Brien!

Editor’s Note: Read our interview feature with Tim O’Brien here.

Photo Credit: Scott Simontacchi

The Travis Book Happy Hour: Alexa Rose

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

I started preparing for this episode when I was on a summer trip with my kids in Colorado which mostly involves listening to music. I’ll never forget driving toward Mt. Princeton with tears streaming down my face and I’ll never drive up that road to the hot springs again without thinking of Alexa and her music. Her quiet demeanor hides an absolute monster of a songwriter. Vivid imagery, unique yet familiar, the way she relays the feelings around relationships is unlike anyone I’ve ever heard, on par with the brilliant Robert Ellis. We had a great time on the show, the music was so beautiful and moving, I had to include as much of it as I could.

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This podcast is an edited distillation of the full-length happy hour which aired live on August 24, 2022. Huge thanks to Alexa Rose and Julian Pinelli.

Timestamps:

0:07 – Soundbyte
0:49 – Introduction
2:08 – Bill’s introduction
2:40 – Travis’ welcome
3:35 – “Rise Sun”
6:24 – Monologue
10:12 – “Back Home”
15:10 – Interview 1
20:41 – “Clearwater Park”
26:22 – “Big Sky”
31:16 – “Haywood”
35:21 – Interview 2
50:22 – “1999”
54:25 – “Pale Golden Flowers”
1:00:33 – “Medicine for Living”
1:06:07 – “Human”
1:10:31 – Outro

Editor’s note: The Travis Book Happy Hour is hosted by Travis Book of the GRAMMY Award-winning band, The Infamous Stringdusters. The show’s focus is musical collaboration and conversation around matters of being. The podcast is the best of the interview and music from the live show recorded in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Travis Book Happy Hour Podcast is brought to you by Thompson Guitars and is presented by Americana Vibes and The Bluegrass Situation as part of the BGS Podcast Network. You can find the Travis Book Happy Hour on Instagram and Facebook and online at thetravisbookhappyhour.com.

Photo courtesy of the artist