Tag: podcast

Basic Folk – Zach Williams of The Lone Bellow

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

The latest from Nashville-based, New York-bred and Georgia-born trio The Lone Bellow, Love Songs for Losers, was recorded at Roy Orbison’s creepy former house in Hendersonville, TN. The house’s vibe bled its way into the vibe of the album, which was co-produced by band members Brian Elmquist and Kanene Pipkin, producing vocals. The band went for a bombastic sound and they did it with no adult supervision (read: no outside producer influence). Frontman Zach Williams expounded on the experience along with his affinity for the house’s architect, the eccentric Braxton Dixon.

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We talk about a few standout songs from album including “Gold,” which takes a look at new small town life heavily impacted by the opioid crisis, “Honey,” a sort of poking love song to his wife and “Homesick,” which serves as the theme song for his new renovation program The Williams Family Cabin. The TV show features Zach and his wife Stacy flipping a cabin outside of Nashville and all the antics that come with it. Zach is familiar with the world of home renovation shows thanks to his close friend and home reno personality, the designer Leanne Ford. He actually got some good advice from Leanne prior to starting the show, but neglected to listen (LOL).

Zach’s a really fun person to watch on stage, he’s a remarkable showman. Catch The Lone Bellow live if you can. Their new album is fantastic! The creepy old matchstick house must have really worked wonders.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Eric Ryan Anderson

Basic Folk – John Calvin Abney

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

A lot of people like to claim the title “Hardest Working Person In Music” but John Calvin Abney might take the crown from them all. John has made a name for himself as a shit-hot guitar player, accompanying John Moreland, Samantha Crain, Margo Cilker, and many others (including Lizzie No herself!) But the reason we wanted him to join us as a guest on Basic Folk is that his own catalog is poetic and beautifully produced.

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John grew up in Nevada and Oklahoma, and you can hear the restless desert highways in all the soundscapes he creates. His latest album, Tourist, asks the question of how a person can feel at home when they spend their life on the road. It also finds resolution after the death of John’s father, through found recordings and thoughtful lyrics. Listening to Tourist feels like catching up with an old friend. You might hear Elliott Smith in “Good Luck and High Tide” or J.J. Cale in “Call Me Achilles,” but the stories are John Calvin to the core.

We dug into recording techniques, John’s high school identity as “guitar guy,” touring with Hanson, Christian camp, and how running off to Europe as a romantic gesture helped launch John’s career.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Rebecca Sarkar

The Show On The Road – The Heavy Heavy

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we cross the pond for a talk with rising British roots-rockers Will Turner and Georgie Fuller, who harness the freewheeling sonic spirit of the ’60s with a new Brighton-based band they call The Heavy Heavy.

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While the British coast isn’t exactly known for its blissed out sunshiny beaches (or as a haven for rock ‘n’ roll stardom), Will and Georgie decamped there during the pandemic. And through the power of imagination (and production wizardry), they somehow mastered the reverb-y sun-soaked harmonies that Laurel Canyon favorites the Mamas and the Papas and the Byrds brought forth during the summer of love, with their breakout EP Life and Life Only (with a wink to Mr. Dylan), issued stateside by ATO Records.

The response to their Woodstock-flavored tracks like “Go Down River” and “All My Dreams,” led by pairing Will’s roaring guitar and Georgie’s gospel-tinted vocals, has been overwhelming. European tours with label-mates Black Pumas preceded national U.S. TV appearances and their first full run in America. While some could write them off as merely skilled nostalgia-hounds, what Turner has pulled off with his masterful production of Life and Life Only shows an obsessive attention to detail, helping resurrect a sound and, more importantly, a feeling that isn’t stuck in the utopian hippie era, but could be the soundtrack to a more hopeful age that we may just be entering now.

Photo Credit: Holly Whitaker

Basic Folk – Lissa Schneckenburger

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Known as one of the foremost fiddlers of her generation, Lissa Schneckenburger‘s latest release is a huge left turn for the Vermont resident. Thunder In My Arms is unique because Lissa is not only singing her own compositions, but the subject matter is hugely personal. The album chronicles her experiences adopting her son. Through the fostering and adoption process, she came across resources, workshops and books, but no music that specifically was about this experience. Since she processes hard things through music, she decided to step up and create this album for her family and for those in the adoption and fostering communities. Lissa thrives and lives in community through music, so creating and reaching out to this new community came as second nature.

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Born and raised in rural Maine, Lissa grew up around music and started on the fiddle at five years old. She competed in fiddle competitions, went to Maine Fiddle Camp and the much revered Valley of the Moon Camp in Northern California. Arriving in Boston for school at New England Conservatory of Music, she found herself among a familiar group of musicians that she’d grown up with at the camps. She teamed up with Laura Cortese, Hanneke Cassel and Flynn Cohen to form the seminal Boston fiddle group Halali, which inspired so many young players and ignited a fiddle renaissance in town. Since then, she has released solo albums and been a part of groups like Low Lily. She now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont with her son and her husband, in-demand upright bassist Corey DiMario (Crooked Still). Lissa has a new fiddle album on the way in 2023, which you can pre-order right from the lady herself. Enjoy Lissa!

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Lissa Schneckenburger

The Show On The Road – Adrian Quesada

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we head down to Austin, Texas where we talk to multi-instrumentalist and renowned producer Adrian Quesada.

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Many know him as half of ground-breaking deep soul duo Black Pumas, where songs like “Colors” rose up the charts, taking them from tiny Austin clubs to the biggest festivals in the world, garnering Grammy nods, playing as the theme for the Major League Baseball playoffs and even featuring at Joe Biden’s inauguration. But on his own, Quesada has had a remarkably fruitful 2022, first releasing his Spanish-language debut Boleros Psicodélicos with some heavy collaborators, and in November he brought forth Jaguar Sound, a cinematic instrumental opus that’s one part Daptone R&B groove, one part hip-hop sample jam and one part Morricone vintage score mystery.

Growing up on the border town of Laredo, Texas as a MTV-loving, hip-hop and hair-metal obsessed only-child, Quesada discusses how he used the isolation of the pandemic lockdowns (and a pause in his relentless Black Pumas touring) to begin creating the music that had been living in his head for decades, but never had a chance to be heard. Gems like “Noble Metals” feel like a cross-section between an early dreamy Santana cut and something that could be found in a trippy Japanese animation.

A self-professed “studio rat,” Quesada teases at the end of the talk that he’s only just scratched the surface of what he hopes to create. One can only hope that a Black Pumas reunion with charismatic vocalist Eric Burton is in the cards, too.

Photo Credit: Jackie Lee Young and Victoria Villasana

Basic Folk – Melissa Carper

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Upright bassist, singer and songwriter Melissa Carper has been playing in bands since she took up the position of bass in her family band at the age of 12. She grew up with a reverence for country music in her small town Nebraska family. The original Carper Family band toured regionally on the weekends at Elks Lodges, VFWs and small bars. Little Melissa made $50 a gig, which allowed her to take her friends out for dinner and gave her an early sense of what it was like to be a paid musician. She attended school for music, but ended up leaving two and a half years in and began her rambling.

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Melissa has lived in Nebraska, New York, Alaska, New Orleans, Arkansas and Austin, to name only a few. She usually has stayed around a place for a couple years until she moves on. Along the way, she’s formed many bands like a new version of The Carper Family, Sad Daddy and Buffalo Gals. In recent years, she’s been releasing albums under her own name, which is strange because she doesn’t like being the center of attention. Her writing is filled with humorous quips, even though she claims to have a “slow wit.” Her classic country sound is unique in that her writing is sharp, her delivery is relaxed and her voice is unreal. She spent a lot of time studying the voices of Hank Williams and Leadbelly to develop that honeyed, yet raw sound. Melissa Carper is the real deal! Go check out her new album Ramblin’ Soul and enjoy our conversation.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Lyza Renee

The Show On The Road – Ondara

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we talk with Kenyan singer-songwriter Ondara, who came to Minneapolis in search of his voice as a young musician, and found a new creative persona which he now embodies called The Spanish Villager. He has since taken audiences by storm, garnering a Grammy-nomination and now returning with a stunning, politically-charged new LP.

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Spanish Villager No: 3 is produced by Ondara and Mike Viola (Jenny Lewis, Dan Wilson) with collaborations from Taylor Goldsmith and Griffin Goldsmith of Dawes, Sebastian Steinberg, Tim Kuhl and Jeremy Stacey. While he would still call himself a folk singer like his Minneapolis hero Bob Dylan, Ondara (like Dylan) has gone a bit electric on the new offering, harnessing his massive vocal power with a full band around him.

Ondara’s immigrant journey is truly one for the storybooks, and while he has dutifully paid homage to American folk protest singers in his previous work, the newest Spanish Villager work shows him really finding his own sound, at once sharply modern and steeped in a dark history he can’t wait to mine.

The Show On The Road – Trampled by Turtles

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we call into Minnesota to talk to frontman and lead-songwriter Dave Simonett of the innovative jamgrass pioneers Trampled by Turtles.

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Celebrating a new record, Alpenglow, produced by Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, the six-piece band has gone from storming shaggy local bars in Duluth to playing their famously fast roots-n-roll in the biggest venues and festivals in the world.

Twenty years in, Simonett is keeping it fresh by letting masters like Tweedy bring his punky minor chord sensibility to the band’s warm acoustic camaraderie (bassist Tim Saxhaug, banjo player Dave Carroll, mandolinist Erik Berry, fiddle player Ryan Young, and cellist Eamonn McLain round out the group) with standout songs like “Starting Over” not shying away from the expectations that come from recognition and giving your art to the world — with the brightness of the banjo always leading the way.

Editor’s note: Trampled by Turtles is the BGS Artist of the Month for November. Check out our Essential Trampled by Turtles playlist and keep an eye out for more exclusive interviews and content throughout the month.

Photo Credit: Zoe Prinds

Basic Folk – Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

A note: our guest on this episode, Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country, passed away on October 31 at the age of 78, several weeks after he’d had a stroke. This episode was produced before his death. We are grateful to be able to share this conversation with Patrick and we hope our listeners will take some time to learn about Patrick’s remarkable life, especially his pro-LGBTQ+ and pro-working class activism. We are sending love to his many fans, friends, and especially his family at this difficult time.

Patrick Haggerty, the frontperson of Lavender Country, is considered a legend of queer country music. He made history when he released the first openly gay country album in 1973. In a lot of ways, Nashville still isn’t ready for queer folks to be our outspoken selves, but in 1973 it was almost unthinkable. Patrick walked into the cultural storm consciously, knowing that his story needed to be told even though few were ready to hear it.

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After being shunned from the music industry, Patrick continued to do important work in the communities he cared about. He worked for decades as a social worker, community organizer, gay rights activist, and anti-racism activist. He got married and raised children. Then, a wild twist of internet fate took place. One of Lavender Country’s songs got posted to YouTube and Patrick found himself signed to a record label, and creating his second album. He re-emerged into a world that was more gay-friendly, and to a new legion of fans who had found his music on the internet.

It was a special honor to speak with Patrick and his husband, JB, after spending time on the road with them this past spring during the “Roundup” queer country tour. Their steadfast relationship, humor, activism, and dedication to building a better world have taught me so much about what it means to make a life in music as a queer person. We at Basic Folk are honored to share this conversation with you.

Content Warning: this episode contains mentions of self-harm, suicide, and homophobia.

Editor’s Note: Basic Folk is currently running their annual fall fundraiser! Visit basicfolk.com/donate for a message from hosts Cindy Howes and Lizzie No, and to support this listener-funded podcast.

Photo Credit: Marie Tamanova

The Show On The Road – Jim Lauderdale

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we call on an Americana pioneer and a beloved fixture of the Nashville roots-country scene, the always affable Grammy-winner Jim Lauderdale. This year he celebrated the release of his thirty-fifth record, Game Changer.

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Growing up in both North and South Carolina, as a young man Lauderdale fell in love with country music but took an unconventional path to becoming a sought-after songwriter, harmonist and writer in Music City. He toured in New York theatre productions when he was starting out, and ended up in LA. Even today you can hear the drama in his aching harmony-soaked songs like “Lightning Love” off Game Changer.

While sales and national recognition haven’t always aligned, the “stylistically restless” Lauderdale has played the Opry over 200 times, collaborated on albums with his heroes like the late bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, written tracks for artists as diverse as George Strait and Elvis Costello, and has accidentally become one of the leading elder-statesman of the Americana movement.

What is Americana exactly? Even Jim impishly won’t say. But it’s that earthy genre-bending sound that has kept his longtime fans coming back for more nearly four decades into his storied run.

Photo Credit: Scott Simontacchi