(Editor’s Note: No Skips is a brand new feature from BGS that asks artists, songwriters, musicians, and industry professionals what albums they regard as perfect, with every track a masterpiece – i.e., No Skips!
For the first edition of the column, songwriter-artist-musician Adam Wright highlights Mark Knopfler’s seminal album, Shangri-La, as we look ahead to Wright’s own upcoming project, Nature of Necessity, coming later this year.)
There are only a few times in your creative life when someone’s work hits you so hard it rearranges your artistic DNA. I could probably count those moments for me on one hand.
Shangri-La was a big one. It told me that you can write away from the outside understanding of things. That you can start from the inside of your own knowledge and continue inward. It also taught me that you can write about anything you find interesting. That being understood is not as important as whether or not you’ve put something down worthy of working out for whomever decides to try to understand it. And that there are so many things to write about that are not falling in and out of love. (People probably could have stopped writing love songs in 1950 and we still would have too many.)
The depth and perspective of the storytelling, the crafted excellence of the writing and the sublimely tasteful musicianship make it, to me, Knopfler’s masterpiece. He’s done this on all of his albums, they all include brilliant gems of songs, but Shangri-La is just perfection from top to bottom. – Adam Wright
“5:15 AM” (Track 1)
Like all of the songs on this album, “5:15 AM” is exquisitely written and recorded. It is the story of a coal miner on his way home from the night shift discovering a murder victim who turns out to be involved with organized crime. It is chock-full of lingo and references to specifics about gambling machines, nightclubs, and lots of mining terms. The way Mark weaves all of this language into lyricism and brings it back to the tragic lives of the coal miners at the end is exceptional and beautiful writing. The recording is gorgeous and still somehow earthy as dirt. Just a masterclass in songcraft.
“Boom, Like That” (Track 2)
“Boom, Like That” is about the rise of Ray Kroc from a milkshake salesman to a fast food emperor. Like “5:15 AM,” there are plenty of specific references in this one. “Going to San Bernardino, ring a ding ding. Milkshake mixes, that’s my thing now.” You’re in the middle of the beginning of a story right off the bat. I love songs from the character’s perspective and few writers do that as well as Knopfler.
The movie The Founder was filmed in my hometown of Newnan, Georgia. I noticed the town when I saw it, so I looked it up and read a bit about the filming. While the song was inspired by the book about Kroc, I’d read the movie was actually inspired by the song. Even if the song weren’t so well-written, the riff at the end of the chorus is enough to keep any guitar player happily busy for days.
“All That Matters” (Track 11)
Much of Shangri-La is written from the perspective of the characters in its songs. The title track and “All That Matters” seem to be more personal. “All That Matters” is just a sweet, simple song from a father to his children. Again, beautifully written and pretty as porcelain. It has some surprising chordal and melodic turns in the B section to juxtapose the nursery rhymey-ness of the verses. Just perfect. And a nice respite from the mostly cynical tone of much of the album.
“Stand Up Guy” (Track 12)
“Brew the coffee in a bucket/ Double straight man and banjo/ If you don’t got the snake oil/ Buster, you don’t got a show.”
Again, you’re right smack dab in the middle of someone’s story. This time it’s a musician in a group of traveling, Victorian-era pitchmen. They apparently have teamed up with “the Doctor” who peddles snake oil medicine to townspeople and does it well enough to keep them fed on beefsteak and whiskey. Just wonderfully interesting, both lyrically and musically.
If you wanted to become a very good songwriter (or musician or producer, for that matter), you could only study Shangri-La for years and get a very long way toward the goal. I’ve been mining this album for inspiration for twenty years. It always gives me something more.
(Editor’s Note: This special episode of Basic Folk featuring Gary Louris is guest-hosted by singer-songwriter and friend of the podcast Mark Erelli.)
You probably know Gary Louris as the leader of The Jayhawks – or as they refer to themselves, “a band from Minnesota.” The Jayhawks are pioneers of roots rock, alt-country, and Americana. Whatever you wanna call it, they’ve been making records where rock, pop, country, and other forms of American roots music overlap since the mid-1980s.
But Louris’s hidden superpower is that he’s kind of like a musical Swiss Army knife – he’s basically got a creative skill for any application. Want him and his band to serve as accompanists for some of the most distinctive singer-songwriters, like Wesley Stage and Joe Henry? He can do that. Looking for achingly perfect, near-fraternal harmonies on hit songs like Counting Crows’ “Mr. Jones”? He can (and did) do that. If you’re Tedeschi Trucks Band or The Chicks and looking for someone to write you some catchy, melodic, roots-pop songs? Gary’s your guy. If that’s not enough, he has also produced records for artists like Dar Williams, The Sadies, and The Jayhawks, too. Whatever your musical need may be, chances are that Gary Louris can do it.
In between all these varied musical roles, Louris has also found time to release several solo albums, the newest of which – Dark Country – was released earlier this month. He recorded it mostly solo in his home studio and the word on the street is that this collection of songs, inspired by his wife, is his most intimate and romantic album yet. I’ve been a big fan of Gary Louris for basically my entire adult life and enjoyed our wide-ranging Basic Folk conversation, touching on the way technical limitations can shape an artist’s style, what he’s learned from a career’s worth of collaborations, his process working on his new solo album, the relationship between versatility and longevity, and what the influence of romance on his songwriting looks like now, in the fifth decade of his music career.
Carolyn Kendrick is known among folk and roots fans as a fiddler with legitimate trad bona fides and as a singer-songwriter prone to introspective, observational songwriting. In the podcast zone she has carved a place as producer, researcher, and composer for several shows, including the award-winning You’re Wrong About podcast hosted by Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes.
In fact, it was while Kendrick was researching the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s for an episode of You’re Wrong About that she became obsessed with cultural panics in general. That obsession ultimately led to her haunting new album, Each Machine, which released December 6 on Occulture Records.
Last month, from her home in Los Angeles, Kendrick explained the album’s genesis.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about lineage and tradition lately,” she says. “… I’ve been thinking of all of these songs that have these deep traditional roots, that I’ve been listening to and learning and singing around campfires with, you know, friends at bluegrass festivals and folk festivals for years and years and years.”
The songs that were standing out to her all carried some darkness, a little shadow of the devil. She started wondering what might happen if she decided to reinterpret some of them in a way that asserted her personal instincts. “That includes things like more electric instrumentation, more sound design, more world building,” she says. “Not for it to sound inflated, but what if it was part of a more extended concept rather than just, you know, individual songs?”
To explore these curiosities, she enlisted the collaboration of her friend, multi-instrumentalist, and fellow Berklee grad Isa Burke (Aoife O’Donovan, Mountain Goats) to help her flesh out the sonic landscapes that are sure to envelop Each Machine’s listeners in a creepy, devilish fog.
Indeed, the album’s swallowing darkness even pervades on deceptively welcoming songs like “Sumer (Sing Cuckoo)” –sung here in the traditional round, a cappella except for some decidedly spooky timpani wallops. As a result, and in the context of so many songs about the devil, the duo’s approach feels particularly untouchable, like the story of a photograph of a memory of lighter times.
Then again, Kendrick felt compelled to include it amid her exploration of panic. As if to say: Perhaps the light is gone for now, but the nature of summer is that it returns.
To that end, she notes: “It was really, really fun to be able to take these older songs that have such a rich lineage and reinterpret them with the lens of … the issues that we’re going through as a people right now.”
This side of the 2024 election, most topical interpretations are probably incidental – she wrote the album long before votes were cast. But, while Each Machine implies a general warning about what happens when humans become wrapped up in an historical moment, it also becomes specific, for at least one track, on the topic of women’s health.
Track nine is a spoken-word piece Kendrick has titled “Sugar and Spice.” For fifty-five seconds, the listener is treated to a collection of recordings about what it is to be a woman in America. From the nursery school rhyme from which the track gets its name to a news report about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the track ends with a distant crowd of protestors chanting about abortion. This is followed by the artist’s take on the trad song “Wind and Rain,” about a pair of sisters competing for a man’s attention: In pursuit of her prize, the one shoves the other into a river to drown.
Kendrick isn’t wasting anyone’s time being subtle about her views here. Then again, where’s the room for subtlety amidst panic?
As The New York Times reported in 1994, the Satanic Panic encompassed “12,000 accusations of group cult sexual abuse based on satanic ritual.” The same Times article clarified that none of these events seem to have actually occurred, but the fear they provoked in the public was definitely real. As a folk singer drawn to moments of cultural import, digging into the Satanic Panic caused Kendrick to consider the way these “panics” might be connected.
That she tied in songs about the devil; ruminations on a view of Earth from space; what womanhood requires of us; and even the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke means this is not an album meant to be background music. To be sure, the musicianship and arrangements are lovely, but the spoken word bits are necessarily jarring.
Over and over, the disc interrupts itself with interludes that pull one’s attention back – from feeling to meaning – before moving into another song. This tennis match between the heart and the head reaches its apex about halfway in, when Kendrick pivots between two separate recordings, “Are You Washed” and “In the Blood.” Between them sits a spoken word piece (the title track) which feels intimidating and disorienting.
Her decision to include two interpretations of the one song was inspired by Naomi Klein’s Doppleganger. That book, Kendrick explains, “really changed how I’m thinking about how we receive information.”
“As Americans,” she adds, “our media diets are so different and atomized from one another. And there’s also this confusion within the conspiracy landscape that we live in right now. … How can we be receiving the same information and interpreting it so differently? … [So that song is] an experiment. How do I approach one thing and look at it from all different angles? And how will that make me feel differently?”
Indeed, Each Machine is clearly trying to get through a whole lot of questions. And in just eight songs, it somehow achieves its goal. In addition to the questions already mentioned, there’s the Satanic Panic of it all. What, then, does fear – of the devil, of freedom, of technology, of one another – teach us?
As she sends Each Machine out into the world, Kendrick is clear that the lesson she learned is that she’s grateful to have a creative outlet to help her find light in darkness.
“I had been going through all of this really difficult subject matter,” she says. “… I had so many feelings of distress and worry – and also of hope. [I was in] this flurry of all the big emotions that we go through [when] we’re dealing with reality. I needed a place to put all of my feelings about moral panics, I guess.”
Chris Eldridge and I met when I stepped off of an elevator with my bass at the International Bluegrass Music Association’s convention in 2004. The Infamous Stringdusters were forming in Nashville at the time and they needed a bass player for the jam that night and, it turned out, for the band in general. We spent the first two years of that band traveling and making music together and Chris is still one of my favorite musicians and humans. A member of Punch Brothers and Mighty Poplar, he’s also made a couple great records with guitarist Julian Lage and plays in a duo with his wife Kristen Andreassen. Our conversation started when he arrived at my house and didn’t end until he pulled out of the driveway the next day, but we’ve captured some of the best parts here for the podcast.
This episode was recorded live at 185 King St in Brevard, NC on November 12, 2024
Photo Credit: Laura E Partain
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 includes highlights from Travis’s interviews and music from each live show recorded in Brevard, North Carolina.
The Travis Book Happy Hour 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.
With a 40+ year career spanning virtually every aspect of the music business – from performing and songwriting to production, development and even education – Charlie Peacock has battled myriad creative challenges. A standout in the Contemporary Christian format who was also deeply involved in the Americana folk boom of the 2010s (he was even the driving force behind The Civil Wars’ mainstream emergence), no problem seemed too big to handle. But for his new album EVERY KIND OF UH-OH, Peacock had to overcome an obstacle unlike the rest: a rare, debilitating health condition.
Diagnosed with Dysautonomia and Central Sensitization, Peacock has essentially been experiencing a never-ending headache since 2017 – seven grueling years and counting. Needless to say, it has upended the GRAMMY winner’s life, and while some days are better than others, the chronic pain prevented him from music making all together– until a flash of writing in 2023, that is.
Featuring 10 all-new songs penned in a two-week flurry, EVERY KIND OF UH-OH finds Peacock getting back to work, but with fresh appreciation for life’s messy beauty. Co-produced with his son Sam Ashworth, a peaceful mix of dream-folk and gospel match a tender, feathery tenor, as Peacock explores against-the-odds optimism with spirituality, purpose, and humor. In the end, it feels like a veteran songsmith’s statement of revelation; and a set of life lessons delivered with knowledge, not judgement.
Still fighting symptoms on the morning after a party celebrating the album’s arrival, Peacock spoke with BGS about how his life transformed and how it forever changed the way he makes music. Peacock also plans to release his memoir, Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music in February.
We’re really interested in the way things like creativity and mindfulness and health intersect, so I’m fascinated by your story. Can you just tell me how you’re feeling today – both in a micro sense and in terms of the bigger picture with everything you’ve been through?
Charlie Peacock: Well, just for the background, I have a neurological disorder called Central Sensitization, which is a pain management disorder between the brain and the central nervous system about how pain is managed. So, my brain got tricked into thinking I am in trouble, and it’s sending me pain signals. Basically in the same way that if I scratched my arm on something, that scratch pain is there to tell me, “Hey, there’s something wrong with your arm. You might want to take a look at it.” Well, the brain functions in that way for all our pain management throughout our entire body.
So mine, this disorder that I have is that everyday for almost eight years, I’ve had an intractable headache. I’ve had an eight-year headache basically, and it goes up and down in terms of intensity. Sometimes it’s “You’ve got to go to the hospital” intensity. And most of the time it’s just sort of like a three or a four [on a scale of one to 10]. And I’ve learned to function through various methodologies and mindfulness and various kinds of treatments that I’ve done.
I imagine on top of the physical side of things, it has impacted your creativity. How did this change the way you look at making music?
Well, it got me back in some ways. It got me out of the music business and back into music making.
Really? How so?
At the point when I got sick, I was just turning 60 years old. So I was a 60-year-old man who’d been in the music business for 42 years, who was in writing rooms with 20-somethings. And even though part of my whole thing as a songwriter and a producer is that I’ve stayed relatively current, you’re still a person of your time and your generation. It’s like, could I make a trap song? Absolutely. But will I make one that is convincing to people who listen to trap? Maybe not. …
I was functioning more as the older, experienced sage that comes in and cleans up people’s songs. And so what the illness did was it put me back in that more childlike place of working on my own music and experiencing just the joy of creating, rather than coming in as the expert who’s going to be the song doctor or the producer who’s going to give that artist that extra 23% that makes them commercially viable or something like that. So that has been a real joy. And then of course, as I’ve said many times, it’s like you take care of the music and it takes care of you. That’s been the case just in terms of imagination and creativity during this illness, where it’s been a part of my medicine for sure.
Here we are eight years after the illness started and you’ve got a new record. What changed to bring this music out?
Well, [before] this illness period I had gone to Lipscomb University and created their commercial music program, and then became the head of the School of Music for a year. And it was during that time that I got sick. I was already kind of moving out of the producer-for-hire model and kind of had this education piece that was on my bucket list. So I had gone and done that and then I was just here working, making a lot of music, doing a lot of writing, working on a family, a screenplay for a family story from the 1800s, just doing a bunch of different creative things. …
[After the illness], I just had a willingness to say, “If my music career is over at this point, then I will have been really grateful.” And this memoir is kind the period on the end of the sentence. Then all of a sudden it was like I woke up one morning like “Is that an idea for a song?” It was brewing. So I started working on it and then a few more. And then I asked my son, “Hey, you want to help me finish this song?” I go out to his house and we hang and work on this song. We’re both super excited about it. And then he finally, after hearing more of the music, he was like, “Dad, you got to promise me you’ll take this seriously. Don’t just tell everybody, ‘Hey, I have a new record out on Friday and buy a couple ads on Facebook and call it a day.’ I think you need to actually do an old school release and get a distributor and have them set the record up.”
I said, “I don’t know if I have the energy for that.” But [Sam] said, “Well, I’ll help you.” And so he did help me. Really, the whole family has been a huge help. Sam came alongside me and he co-produced the record and we co-wrote three songs on it. And literally, it’s a 10-song album. Within 14 days. I had all 10 songs written. And it was just one of those times where it was just time to do that. I didn’t know it was, but it was.
Fortunately, I also had some pretty good windows of health that I could [record]. I had some days when I tried to sing where it’s just like, “Man, it’s just not happening.” But I’d wait a few days and get rested up again and go up to the studio and sing, and it would still be there. I was actually surprised myself, some of the range that I was able to sing at still.
Have the songs taken on a new shape for you or a new dimension, topic-wise and thematically?
Well, my great-grandfather was a fiddler in Louisiana and my grandfather from Oklahoma loved to sing all the Okie songs of the era. And I thought, let me just lean into that a little bit. So I would say this record is a little taste of that, especially the instrumentation is pretty much still the same in terms of rootsy guitars and just simple drums and bass and fiddle and pedal steel. And the only difference between this record is I really leaned into the gospel vocal sound. A lot of my friends that have been dominant in Black gospel music. And so that’s a difference. Narrative-wise, I was really trying to do this kind of literary thing that was a mix of plain-speak American roots, with these literary elements, and then also take a spiritual element, but not make it religious, and try to create a narrative that was uniquely American. I think in its influence, it’s almost like reading some of the classic American novelists.
There’s a wonderful mix of storytelling and deeper spirituality, for sure. Thank you, Charlie. I’ll just leave you with the big picture. What do you hope people take away from this record?
I think for me, even listening to the songs and seeing the reaction from folks, what they said afterwards is, “This is a world that I want to enter into. There’s something about what you’re creating on this record, this musical world, and this invitation to come on in that feels really safe and that I will belong here and I’ll be well loved, cared for, not judged – allowed to just be myself.”
And I think that’s what we want. I mean, I think that’s what makes our heart beat, is that we just want to be known totally. We want to be known like the intricacies of our personalities. We don’t want to be known superficially. And I hope there’s something about this music that sends that signal that, yeah, I do too. Come on in and listen and see if you find some of that here.
Though Randall Deaton’s excellence as a producer and engineer has been well known for many years in the bluegrass world, he had taken a hiatus from music for nearly nine years before returning in 2024. His latest venture is both a conceptual and musical triumph. The new release, Silver Bullet Bluegrass (Lonesome Day Records), pays tribute to the great rocker Bob Seger with an all-star corps of bluegrass vocalists and instrumentalists performing his tunes reworked, bluegrass style. The lineup of performers includes Gary Nichols, Tim Shelton, Shonna Tucker, Bo Bice, Tim Stafford, Bill Taylor, Larry Cordle, and more.
The project’s origin dates back even further, as Deaton detailed during a recent extensive interview with BGS conducted via email.
“(I got the idea) probably sometime around 2009,” Deaton said. “We released records by the band Blue Moon Rising and Ralph Stanley II in 2008 and each of those records contained songs that were pulled from non-traditional bluegrass sources. Blue Moon Rising did a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Youngstown’ and Fred Eaglesmith’s ‘Freight Train,’ while Ralph II did Elton John’s ‘Georgia’ and Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Loretta.’ I brought all those songs to the artists and I was really pleased with the way they turned out. They ended up being very legitimate takes on the songs without having any of the ‘pickin’ on’ vibe. I think the first thoughts of a Seger bluegrass record came from the idea of wondering how ‘Hollywood Nights’ would sound in a bluegrass style.”
However, the project took longer to happen than anticipated. “The overall recording process took over 12 years, but that was because I took about an eight year break from music in the middle to pursue other things,” Deaton continued. “The original challenge was to track the songs without the final lead vocalist. Seger is such a great vocalist and can comfortably sing in keys that most other male singers can’t, so I had to consider which keys to track some of the songs in. Some songs I left in the original keys and just knew that those songs needed to stay right there. Other songs we dropped down a step or so in order to have more options when it came to finding the right singer. The actual studio work was pretty easy once we knew who was doing what.”
“A great deal of the tracking band was the same group of musicians that we used on a record by Jeff Parker entitled Go Parker!” Deaton continued. “Mike Bub, Stephen Mougin, Ned Luberecki, and Shawn Brock all had plenty of experience playing and recording traditional bluegrass, but they also had experience outside of that – including Mike playing with Steve Earle on The Mountain record and Stephen touring with Sam Bush. Ned is a very progressive banjo player and Shawn is simply one of the best musicians I know. Other musicians were added based on what I thought the track needed. We used several fiddle players on this record and each of them brought something special and unique.”
When asked about personal favorites from the session Deaton responded: “The first singer to agree to perform on the record was Josh Shilling of the band Mountain Heart. He did “Main Street.” He did such an awesome job on that song that he set a bar for the rest of the record. That song is definitely one of my favorites. I am also partial to that track, because Megan Lynch [Chowning] played my grandfather’s fiddle on that track. It was just an old catalog fiddle from the 1930s, but I was told that he used to sit on the front porch and play it.”
“He passed away before I was born, but somehow I ended up with the fiddle. I think it is really neat that the same fiddle is doing that signature melody on ‘Main Street.’ The last two vocals that we recorded for the record were the Carson Peters and Bill Taylor tracks. Producing those vocals and in Carson’s case the fiddle was the first time I had been in a studio in many years and I wasn’t sure how effective I would be after so much time away. I am very proud of how those tracks turned out because they made me feel like I could do this again in the future if the right situation came up.”
An interesting thing about Deaton is bluegrass wasn’t his initial musical love growing up. “When I was a kid, we listened to country music around the house,” he recalled in his bio. “I knew more about Exile than I did about The Police. I knew a little bit about bluegrass, but I didn’t really get into bluegrass until I started learning how to play guitar. All the people that I could play with around home were mostly playing bluegrass music. That’s how I really got introduced to it.”
From that early start as a guitarist, Deaton converted a church left him by his grandmother in 1999 to a studio and started focusing on engineering. That led to the creation of the Lonesome Day label, which took its name off a Springsteen tune. Their first project was by Eastern Kentucky bluegrass artist Sam Wilson. The label soon became celebrated in bluegrass circles for turning out both hits and classic albums by a host of greats. The list includes Jeff Parker, Lou Reid, Blue Moon Rising, Larry Cordle, Steve Gulley, Ralph Stanley II, Ernie Thacker, Darrell Webb, Richard Bennett, Shotgun Holler, Wildfire, Fred Eaglesmith, and more.
Deaton’s accomplishments aren’t limited solely to the music world. He’s overcome retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic condition that affects nerve cells in the retina that causes functional failure and an inability to transmit information from the eye to the brain. But that hasn’t prevented Deaton from continuing his brilliance in the studio, nor from expanding into other musical areas as a label owner and producer. In 2011, Lonesome Day would release Sweet Nothings by Girls Guns & Glory – now known as Ward Hayden & the Outliers – which was produced by Paul Kolderie and recorded in Boston.
Kolderie would later produce Tim Shelton’s album, Jackson Browne Revisited. In 2014, A second Girls Guns & Glory project titled Good Luck was produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel. Prior to taking his break from music, Deaton’s label would also issue three albums by bluegrass guitar master Richard Bennett. But, by 2015, Deaton was both a bit disillusioned by some things happening in the music business and ready to do something else.
“Something else” included converting his music studio into an AirBnb, investing in short-term rentals in Eastern Kentucky, and later buying resorts in two different areas in Michigan, as well as a restaurant. Deaton also did a bit of concert promotion in the meantime. Eventually, he’d return to making music, with the latest result being Silver Bullet Bluegrass.
When asked about his favorite projects over his career, Deaton offers these selections:
“I really like the work I did with the band Blue Moon Rising. Their first record, On The Rise, was very well received and made me feel like I could make records that would find their place in the bluegrass genre. The second record I did with them entitled, One Lonely Shadow, is the record that contained ‘Youngstown’ and to me that is still probably the single best record I have been a part of. The song selection, the performances, and the engineering work of Mike Latterell are all outstanding. I am also very proud of the Ralph Stanley II record entitled, This One Is II. Again, the performances and song selections were outstanding and Mike also tracked and mixed this record.”
“We did both of these records in the same timeframe so they are kind of linked for me,” he continued. “These are consistently the two records that people still bring up to me saying that one of them is their favorite. One of my very first things that I still think guided me was my work on the record entitled Time by Lou Reid & Carolina. This was a band record and most everything on the record was done by Lou’s current band. Lou brought the song ‘Time’ that ended up being the title track to the record and it was clear to me that the song needed more than just what the band could bring.”
“We ended up using some great outside musicians,” he continued, “Such as Ron Stewart, Randy Kohrs, and Harold Nixon to get a track that was more solid. We also ended up getting Vince Gill and Ricky Skaggs to sing on the track. The final track turned out great and it ended up being a #1 song on the Bluegrass Unlimited chart in 2005. The song was also a challenge, because I felt like I was pushing for greatness and the artist was taking into account other things besides the record – such as the feelings of the band (which also included his then wife) and how those considerations would always be there moving forward. I always thought that if you were going to make a record you should do everything that is possible to make it as good as it can be within the means that you have.”
Deaton hesitates to pick personal favorites in terms of artists he’s worked with, but acknowledges a few names. “That is a tough one, because I have worked with so many talented people. Since I am such a proponent for great records, I would have to say that the audio engineers that I have worked with are always very special to me. In the very beginning I worked a lot with a guy named Harold Nixon and Harold introduced me to Ron Stewart.”
“Harold and Ron were very big parts of a lot of the Lonesome Day work from the beginning through when I got out in 2015. I also did a lot of work with Mike Latterell starting in 2005. Mike is one of the best audio engineers that I know and we still keep in touch to this day. I also had the chance to work with Brandon Bell on a couple records. He is also an incredible engineer and just a great guy in the studio. Gary Nichols introduced me to Jimmy Nutt back around 2013 or so, and he has been awesome to work with on this Silver Bullet Bluegrass record. When I got back in the studio in 2023 with Carson Peters, Jimmy made me feel like it was just yesterday that we were in the studio together, not eight years ago. Jimmy and his wife Angie have also become great friends to me and my wife, Shelagh, so if there is music in my future Jimmy will definitely be involved.”
“One musician that I have known for years, but never have worked with is Shawn Camp,” is Deaton’s first response when asked about possible future collaborations. “I think he is so talented and such a nice guy that I would love to work with him sometime in the future. A lot of the singers on Silver Bullet Bluegrass I had worked with in the past. Carson Peters and Bill Taylor were great in the studio and I think they have immense talent and I would like to work with those guys sometime in the future.”
As for possibly adapting other musicians’ tunes to the bluegrass idiom, Deaton immediately cites one name. “I think it would be great to do a Bruce Springsteen record. I am a big Springsteen fan and even named my label after one of his songs. I’ve lost count of the number of [his] concerts I have been to, but it is well over 100 from 1999 to 2024.”
His first response to the final question, regarding what’s next for his label, is “I don’t know.”
“I have been really focused on finally getting Silver Bullet Bluegrass finished and released that I haven’t thought about anything else. The landscape of the music business has changed so much since I started that I am in the middle of a learning curve again. I know that I like making records and I know that I don’t need to make records in order to make money. Whatever I end up doing, if anything, I want it to be fun and I want to at least think that it may matter somehow.”
Whether or not you realize it, the majority of people reading this have been listening to Mike Post’s music for a very long time. Like, a lot of it.
Post is the guy behind the theme songs to Magnum P.I., Hill Street Blues, Quantum Leap, The Greatest American Hero, and countless others. He even invented the famous Law & Order “DUN-DUN.”
But that’s only part of the story. Post began his 60+ year career as a member of the mythologized Wrecking Crew, becoming a Grammy-winning record producer who has worked with the likes of Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, and Van Halen whilst finding his niche in the television world with frequent collaborators Dick Wolf and Steven Bochco.
Now, Mike Post adds another chapter to his biographical tome, having released Message from the Mountains / Echoes of the Delta – an ambitious double album that blends his love of bluegrass and blues with his orchestral pedigree.
BGS co-founder Amy Reitnouer Jacobs sat down with Mike for an in-depth conversation, covering everything from Aaron Copeland to Earl Scruggs to Eddie Van Halen.
Amy Reitnouer Jacobs: Mike, what was your introduction to roots music? Because there is a long history, I think, of bluegrass and folk in Los Angeles that a lot of people don’t expect or understand. How did you get into bluegrass and Delta blues specifically?
Mike Post: I think I was first attracted to the harmonies and the melodies that are common to Irish music, to bluegrass, to the blues. There’s this modal sort of a thing that all those genres share, right?
Maybe even as far back as lullabies… My mom used to sing me this Irish lullaby, “Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral,” and I still remember it. And then I recall the first time I heard The New World Symphony and Grand Canyon Suite, things my parents were playing when I was 4 years old.
But, like every other white middle class kid from the Valley, when [Flatt & Scruggs’] Foggy Mountain Banjo album came out, it was like somebody handing you the Bible or the encyclopedia or something. I had to understand everything about it.
It wasn’t like [just] one thing that happened. It was a mishmash of The Kings: B.B., Albert, and Freddie. Flatt & Scruggs led me back to Monroe, which led me to Jim & Jesse and the Osbornes, and then I just drowned in this stuff.
This is not just a roots music album though, and I think you’ve kind of just touched on this in saying about how many different things you were pulling from. This is a record that has a really epic scale, often only saved for symphonic pieces and movie scores. It evoked Aaron Copeland the second I heard it. But it also has some of the most legit roots music players in Los Angeles on there, like Gabe Witcher, Herb Petersen, and Patrick Sauber. How did you get connected to those folks for the project? Did you already know them?
I met Herb when I was 18. You know, he just moved down from Berkeley. He’s about six months older than me, but we actually met at Hootenanny Night at the Troubadour. He was in a band called the Pine Valley Boys from Northern California, I had this five piece folk group; we were sort of like an expanded Peter, Paul and Mary. I had a Gibson 12-string and I’m a finger picker.
I heard [Herb] before I met him and I went, “Who was that?” And through Herb, I’ve known Gabe since he was a little boy.
Actually, I hadn’t worked with [Gabe Witcher’s brother], Mike Witcher before. And I’ve heard and worked with the best guys. So when I heard Mike, it was shattering to me because he is so soulful. You know, he’s not the flashiest, overplayer in the world. There’s a lot of them out there that have brought it to a place of technicality and speed that phenomenal. But Mike’s got the thing that Josh [Graves] had, which is the way he vibrates.
You can’t find much more authentic, better bluegrass players than the guys that are on this record. And the reason both the blues piece and the bluegrass piece are weird is because I’m weird.
You know, I’m a rock and roller folky that learned how to read, write, and orchestrate. So the idea for this was an odd idea. It only happened because my TV shows were on the beach, because of COVID. So I’m sitting there with nothing to do and I’m driving down to the desert to play golf. And I go down this Spotify bluegrass rabbit hole. I heard a couple of things I hadn’t heard before. And it just struck me.
I said, “You haven’t done anything scared you in a long time.” Not that I’ve been coasting – I’ve been writing music for television shows and producing some records all this time. But as a composer, you know, I’m the guy that at 23 years of age did this record, Classical Gas, which was supposed to be kind of off-the-beaten-path. I thought, well, why can’t you combine the orchestra and a bluegrass rhythm section? Not just a single fiddle player or a dobro player or a banjo player or a guitar player. Why don’t you put the five guys in front and have a conversation?
To have those things feed off of each other is really the formality of an orchestra and the improvisation that comes with bluegrass. It works really beautifully.
Thank you. I didn’t even know whether this was going to work. But I did it the old way… I got my drafting board out and my papers and pencils and score paper and did it by hand.
The we went into the Sony scoring stage in Culver City and had 80 players, genius orchestral players come in and it was thrilling.
Because orchestral recording, at least for television scoring, is more rare these days, has this inspired you to want to do more? To not just compose for picture?
It certainly was a different kind of rewarding. You know, working with pictures is fun because it’s so collaborative. They bring me their art and I put my art with it. Hopefully the whole thing’s more artful, right? But the truth is, I’m so satiated. I’ve been a member of the union since I was 16. I’ll be 80 in a few months. I’m still working. I was in here this morning working on the last episode of the season of SVU and still enjoying it!
One thing that I have noticed throughout your career is you consistently surround yourself with great collaborators that also seem like friends. First there’s your time starting with the Wrecking Crew and producing Kenny Rogers & the First Edition. Then there’s your ongoing projects with Steven Bochco, Stephen Cannell, Dick Wolf. Can you talk about those friendships and returning to work with people that you love and trust over and over again?
You’re never going to find anybody more fortunate than me. I am – it’s a corny word cause everybody overuses it – but I am blessed. It’s supposed to be a treacherous business, right? Supposed to be a business of people elbowing each other out of the way and climbing over bodies and litigation and getting screwed by the man and by the club owner and the record company. That never happened to me, none of it. I’ve been treated great. So why not give that back in double?
You know, I’ve been so fortunate to meet Steve Cannell before he’d ever sold a script. To be musical partners with a guy like Pete Carpenter… we worked together for 17 years. We wrote 1700 hours of music together for TV and never had an unkind word. So, you know, that’s the way my life has gone. Cannell led me to Bochco, Bochco led me to Dick Wolf. Cannell, Bellisario, Bochco, Dick Wolf. We did all kinds of stuff together, musically and film-wise and fun-wise and business-wise.
I just have never embraced the competitiveness. I’ve either made dear friends with the people I work with, or hired my friends, or the guys that hired me were already my friends. Wow, who gets to do that?
I moved out here to LA to work in film and then kind of stumbled into my musical life. But the whole time, I only wanted to surround myself with good people. It’s not about the competition. And it always surprised me, I guess, how revolutionary that seems to some people.
Speaking of working with your friends, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about your work with Eddie Van Halen. Eddie is such a consistently referenced and venerated artist by some of the biggest bluegrassers today, like Billy Strings and Bryan Sutton. I read that you and Ed were friends before you produced Van Halen III. What was it about your musical sensibilities that attracted you to work together?
Let’s be honest. Eddie Van Halen is not the first martian that landed on the face of the planet, okay? Look at Mozart! Fast forward… how did Earl Scruggs sit there and go… [imitates the banjo]. Every once in a while, a genius shows up and changes everything.
After becoming friends, Eddie turned to me and he said, “Hey, will you help me with something?” I said, “Sure. What?” And he said, “I’d like to do one sober.”
I’ve never done any drugs. And Eddie knew that. So he said, you know, you can help me do this without any substance. And I went, am I producing an album or am I the sergeant at arms at the door? Am I your sponsor? And he goes, man, I don’t know, both? And I went, all right, fuck it. Let’s go.
Basically all I did was get out of the way. It’s not a very good album. It’s nobody’s fault. It was an experiment. Unfortunately, [Alex Van Halen] was going through a terrible time in his life. So Al didn’t play on that. Eddie played everything. It just didn’t have magic. That’s all.
Ed was right on that trail of genius martians that look at music a different way. And no one else is ever going to do it like that. That’s just once. When you study Mozart, you look at it on paper and you go, “How in the world did that happen? Look at that.”
It doesn’t make sense, actually. That’s the beauty of it.
Exactly. It doesn’t make sense.
The last thing I wanted to say is what a fan I am and to let you know how grateful I am for taking the time today. I was going through your catalog last night and realizing how many of the songs you have written have been true soundtracks of my life. I kid you not when I tell you that “Hill Street Blues” is still my ringtone on my phone. So, uh, I just need you to know that I still love that song.
That really makes me feel really happy! Sometimes [I look back at my career and] I don’t know that I actually believe that emotionally; I believe it intellectually. I go, “Oh yeah, that’s me up on the TV.” Like, did this really happen to me?
Mississippi is well-known for storytellers who craft in multiple mediums. From songwriter-guitar shredder-photographer Marty Stuart, to filmmaker-actor-business owner Morgan Freeman, to author-TV personality-business magnate Oprah Winfrey, the list of multi-hyphenates originating in the state is formidable. Hailing from different parts of the state and from different generations, Charlie Worsham and Mac McAnally are both known as consummate songwriters, instrumentalists, storytellers, singers, producers, and prolific performers.
McAnally frequently jokes that spare time is the chief export of the state of Mississippi, and while hyperbolic, this does underline the fact that it takes time and space to become an expert music creator. Whether Mississippi afforded them both the opportunity to develop their crafts or whether their own obsessions forced them to carve pathways to success for themselves, we’ll never know.
The way the pair speak about playing instruments is reminiscent of the youthful compulsion with which some people describe playing video games or sports. Both Worsham and McAnally started very young. By age 12, Worsham was on the Grand Ole Opry’s hallowed stage. McAnally grew up playing in bars and honky tonks on the Tennessee state line and started playing sessions in Muscle Shoals studios by his early teen years.
In an industry rife with surly personalities, both McAnally and Worsham have reputations of kindness that precede them. It is no coincidence that both of their calendars are fully booked with tours, both solo and in support of other artists and acts, studio work, and various and sundry creative projects.Worsham’s most recent solo release, Compadres, is a who’s who of modern Nashville duet partners; he’s also a current member of Dierks Bentley’s band. McAnally has a fully packed solo tour schedule after losing his long-time collaborator and Coral Reefer Band leader, Jimmy Buffett, just last year and is currently collaborating with Disney on updating the Country Bear Jamboree.
Good Country spoke with Worsham and McAnally from their homes in Nashville. Worsham was making Valentine’s Day memes, preparing for a run of solo shows, and balancing it all with a toddler in the house. McAnally was fresh off a week-long run of shows in Hawaii co-headlining with fellow multi-hyphenate, Jake Shimabukuro, and gearing up for a run of solo shows himself.
The discussion was a mutual admiration society as they are clearly big fans of each other’s work. They talked about their progressions to becoming multi-hyphenates, the benefits of being able to pivot, what their younger selves would think about their careers, and in a Substack-exclusive epilogue, they paid tribute to the fellow multi-hyphenate greats that we lost this past year, Jimmy Buffett and Toby Keith.
As you both became multi-hyphenate creators, were there people in your pasts who either discouraged you from this or encouraged you towards this?
Mac McAnally: Well, I began just by being pretty much fascinated with everything. As far as the multi-instrumentalist part of it, that came from my dad, because he kept the books at an auction and he came home every week with some musical instrument, and it wouldn’t be connected to the last one that he brought. He was just fascinated with music, too, so he would trade up a saxophone one week. He’d have a clarinet the next week, a fiddle the next week. And then drums, which he was kind of glad I didn’t stick with. I was always interested and fascinated by what kind of sounds they made, whether I could help make them or not.
When it became the studio application, I don’t wanna say I was discouraged, but my application in Muscle Shoals was that there wasn’t really a dedicated acoustic guitar player. There was a rhythm section at every studio. Broadway had a rhythm section. Fame had a rhythm section. Muscle Shoals Sound had a rhythm section. Wishbone, where I was working mainly, had a rhythm section. But none of them had a dedicated acoustic player, so it allowed me to go cross-pollinate those different rhythm sections and learn with different producers.
I wouldn’t say I was discouraged, but initially, I was encouraged to be primarily an acoustic player. But I think just because I’m so fascinated with all of it, I was paying attention to all of those jobs; to what the engineers were doing, to what the producers were doing. And then, as I began to have opportunities to do some of those other jobs later on, I certainly believe that having done a few of them gave me more consideration or compassion for everybody that was doing them. I think that it is a good thing to go through life with respect for everybody, and how they’re doing their job. So the more jobs you’ve done, the more you can identify with individual situations of those jobs.
Charlie Worsham: I couldn’t agree more on that last statement. You know, I always have felt that way, and all my favorite people in music are people who have worn different hats over the years, because they have that added perspective and appreciation. And I think it was similar for me, Mac. I was curious. I wasn’t really good at sports, so for me instead of picking up a new sport, it was picking up a new instrument. I was fortunate to have supportive parents who would help me acquire that instrument and acquire a connection to someone who could give me lessons, or a book or video tapes to learn from, or whatever, or just be playing along to records.
That was a big driver for me – and I don’t think anyone ever discouraged me in a similar way. It wasn’t discouragement so much as an encouragement in the other direction, which was because I was a bluegrass kid. There were a handful of people in the bluegrass world who sort of said, “Hey, if you want to be a fiddler, or if you want to be a banjo player, you need to dedicate everything you got to that one instrument,” and I figured out pretty early on I that I was too curious about the full picture, like you said. I wanted to get a little bit of understanding about it all, especially once I got the bug for recording equipment.
I had a chance to come to Nashville when I was 13 and make a bluegrass record. And this guy named Bobby Clark, who played mandolin with Mike Snider at the time, had a 2-inch tape machine in the guest bedroom. I walked in, saw that thing, and I was hooked. It was game over. And so, of course, my new mission became that I had this room full of instruments and I needed a way to record them. That’s what got me into being a songwriter. It all kind of snowballed, because I ran out of fiddle tunes to record. I was like, well, I need to write something now that I’m running out of material to record. By the time I got to Nashville, my motto in those early years was, “Say yes, ‘til you can afford to say no.”
I really wanted to be the big ol’ electric solo rippin’ guitar player. But everybody was an electric guitar player, like you said. A lot of times they needed an acoustic player or the band needed a harmony singer and someone who could play mandolin. So it was a way to always be able to pay the rent. And then, as I got more and more connections, and I guess my stock rose, then I could afford to choose a little bit more what I wanted to do specifically. Looking back, I wouldn’t have wanted to do it any other way, because I love being able to pivot.
I have a question for your 16-year-old selves. What hat do you wear today that you would be most surprised about?
CW: So if 16-year-old us popped into the future and said, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming?” Man! What’s yours, Mac?
MM: I probably didn’t understand what record production was, so it would have seriously surprised my 16-year-old self. A), That there was a job that was really what this is, and B), I wanted to do it. My 16-year-old self just wanted to be a guitar player in a band. At the time I was kind of having to be a piano player in the band, because I knew the notes on the piano and that pretty much disqualified me as a guitar player. Everybody played a little guitar in North Mississippi and almost nobody played the keyboard. If you had a keyboard, you were a keyboard player. I had a Fender Rhodes, which meant I was gonna load it by myself every night and blow my back out by the time I was 20.
I didn’t want to be a singer. I didn’t think I could sing. I wanted to be a guitar player, and I didn’t even want to be the guy playing the solo. I honestly think that’s probably what’s got me so many gigs in bands, because I would always just sit and play rhythm for two hours while somebody jammed over “Down By the River.” I was just trying to make it groove.
My adult self is fueled a little bit by my ignorant teenage self, and like you, I wasn’t necessarily inclined to sports, but I was a big enough guy that they expected me to play football in Belmont, Mississippi. I was blessed by the fact that Belmont, Mississippi did not own a helmet that would go on my head – even in junior high school. My head is huge, and the high school coach took me into the equipment room and said, “Son, see if you get any of these high school helmets on that head of yours. You’re a big boy, and we’d love to have you out on that field.” And I sat and mashed as hard as I could. It looked like Mr. Peanut. I went trotting out on the field, and the coach said, “No, that ain’t on, son.” The face mask was still over my hairline, you know, so I didn’t get to play football.
But a record producer, somebody that is in the service of the music and in the service of helping somebody’s dream come true, I didn’t understand what that job was. I don’t view myself as particularly good at it, but I relish the fact that I get to do that on occasion. I just sort of think of myself as a steward of music. It doesn’t matter which of these hats, which of these hyphens is today’s job. I just like to wake up and go back to bed, having been in the service of music, and I don’t really care what way it is.
CW: It’s interesting, because I think I’m closer in my mindset today, for the first time, to my 16-year-old self than I’ve been since then. In that, like you, I just wanted to be where the music was. I wanted to be involved. By my early twenties, there was a part of me that if I brought my 22-year-old self to the present he’d be going, “Where’s the building you own on Music Row? And where’s your wall full of plaques and all your 10 number ones?” I was pretty fired up by then to go out and change the world and be a star. But at 16, I just wanted to be around the music. I wanted to get to Nashville and be in those rooms. I think that the part of me that’s fueled by gratitude and excitement, that 16-year-old self, would be blown away by how much music I get to make and the people who I get to make it with. And the fact that the liner notes legends that I revered and learned from know me and that people like Vince Gill, who were my ultimate North Star and still are, that they would know me, and even respect what I do, and want me to be around to help.
That early 20s self, who just thought I had to have the number ones and thought I had to have it a certain way, has given way to realizing that it’s unfolded in a much cooler way. Had I had that one hyphen, the guy in the spotlight, and if everything had gone the way I thought I wanted it to go, I would not have gotten the chance to do all these other things. Being a big star means that’s really all you have time to do. I’ve had the chance to be on the tour bus with Vince, with Old Crow Medicine Show, or right now with the Dierks Bentley gig. And I’m still hungry for certain things in the spotlight part of the hyphen, but it’s way cooler now – and I have so much more perspective and gratitude. It comes down to getting to be around the music and getting to witness that miracle of an idea coming to fruition. We’re sort of midwives for creativity.
MM: That’s well said, and I almost bet as many of these multi-hyphenates as you talk to, they are gonna have that in common. I didn’t even desire to get a record deal, but I got a record deal when I was 19 and I had a record on the charts when I was 19. I was just really on a dare out there. I was like, “They’re gonna send me back home within 6 months.” I didn’t have any ambition to be in the middle of the stage at all. And still don’t. It’s Old Testament miracles, daisy-chained together, that I ever got a record deal, because I never even played my songs to my parents. I was so bashful.
But had the record deal been a big blow-up kind of deal, as you said, Charlie, it takes up all your time, and it also can shorten your career.
CW: So true.
MM: You can only take the hard spotlight for a few years and then people kinda want you out of their living room.
Charlie, you’re actually a few decades closer to your 16-year-old self than I am. I still have the mindset of that, and I’m grateful every day, really, that I didn’t blow up when I was 19, because I didn’t have a clue how to handle that. It allowed me to watch a bunch more people, how they do it, how they make records to get to play along with a bunch of people, and, as you said so well, I got to play with heroes of mine that I would never dream to be even shaking hands with. All of that is partly a result of not being a big deal when I was 19.
CW: We do it backward, right? Because I think when people hit about 40, that’s when they’re actually finally prepared to be a big star and they’re at their peak. That’s one of the best pieces of wisdom I’ve been fortunate to glean from Vince in particular, as the great mentor that he is. He’s making the best records he’s ever made now, and that’s my own hope, too, that every 10 years I can be proud of the music I’m making today, and I can look back at the music I made 10 years ago. I’ll still be proud, but also part of me cringes a little bit, because that means I’m growing. That’s the dream really.
MM: I couldn’t say it better.
Can you both talk about what being from Mississippi means to you as music makers and in terms of how you developed as music creators?
CW: The older I get, the more I recognize that you can tell the whole story of America, and particularly American music, through the lens of Mississippi. All the really inspiring parts and all the really scary parts and tragic parts of it, too. It’s all wrapped up there, and somehow, it just seems like the folks who came out of Mississippi with music in their heart did just a bang-up job of documenting all of that.
I think back to when I first acquired an electric guitar. It took me a while. I had the banjo, I had the mandolin, and I was playing all the acoustic and bluegrass instruments. But I still wanted to be Vince Gill or Marty Stuart. And I finally got that electric, and it was B.B. King records that I used to learn first. The reason was I thought, “Oh, he didn’t play that many notes. I’ll figure all this out in no time. One weekend and I’ll be playing like B.B. King.” I very quickly learned, no. He might only be playing one note, but the way that he bends a note is like watching Mozart compose.
Growing up [in Mississippi], there was that factor of seeing Marty Stuart on TV, knowing he grew up where I grew up. Same with B.B. King and Pops Staples. And same with you, Mac. I’ve always looked up to you, as well. If there’s anything I know about Mississippi, I know the only thing bigger than our mosquitoes are our stories. We really know how to tell a story.
MM: It is the truth. I got to run around with Jimmy Buffett for years, he was a Mississippi guy who had done well and I respected him. And the same with all of the blues guys. I wasn’t so much a student of blues, but I knew that the blues essentially came out of our delta. I appreciate and honor the fact that it came out of our soil there.
Our home state is fiftieth in most things. We’re the poorest and the least educated, and the most overweight. We get the number 50 a lot. But I also think that the spirit of community– when everyone’s kind of close to one another because nobody’s that far apart. The poor and middle class are almost everybody. So you kinda know your situation and how everything you do affects everybody you know. It gives you a big picture from a small town. That is a big picture that applies to the whole world. There’s a ripple of good or bad, according to whether you’re doing good or bad, it goes out through your community. That, I think, informs our storytelling nature.
If you had to boil it down today and you could only pick one thing that you do, what would you choose?
CW: Today? There’s a part of me that wants to say, “Play mandolin,” as crazy as that sounds. It’s probably number six on the list of things I do. I learned over the years that being on tour and playing that two hours of music every night doesn’t necessarily mean that you keep your chops, because you’re playing the same two hours of material. And so over the last few years, I’ve sort of set a mission ahead of every tour: I want to pick a music nerd project – and last year it was mandolin. So I try to put in a couple of hours every day out on the road, learning solos I always wanted to learn, or just playing along, or jamming with the other guys in the band.
Since I’m sort of in the middle of a mandolin renaissance, there’s a part of me that would be relieved to just go, “Oh, that’s all I’m gonna do is just go get really good at mandolin right now.” Just because it’s what’s fueling my curiosity and my creativity. I also think it’d be impossible for me to not pick songwriting, especially off the heels of us talking about being from Mississippi and the fact that we’re kind of born into telling stories growing up there.
I process so much of my life and my feelings through writing songs. If I don’t get it out, it builds up and it comes out all sideways. One of my life’s mantras is “I ain’t right if I can’t write.”
But most days, to make a long story short, I just want to play guitar. You give me a guitar and I just want to play, and that’s fine by me.
MM: You could just superimpose my voice on what Charlie said pretty much. I love everything that I do. But I just came home from working every day for a long time and literally, before I took my shoes off, I was playing a guitar. Like you said, Charlie, on tour you play what you already know how to play. You don’t really challenge yourself, because you’re spending two hours just trying to make that show be as good as you can.
But I know that I still want to get better. At a certain age, you also want to maintain. I’ve got arthritis in my hands. I remember my grandmother, who was a musician as well, she crocheted all the time, and she crocheted things that we didn’t need, because she was afraid to stop. She was afraid her hands would lock up if she stopped, so we got sweaters and doilies and blankets and bedspreads. She was really just trying to keep her hands active. There’s an element of that in what I’m doing, too. But it also lights me up. I can’t imagine being separated from a guitar for any long period of time. That’s sort of terrifying.
CW: I brought a guitar on my honeymoon. That tells you how bad it is.
MM: Yeah, I was just all week last week with my buddy Jake Shimabukuro, and he’s blessed by the fact that his passion is the ukulele. He literally doesn’t go to dinner without it. Anytime we get in the van to ride from the airport to the hotel, I make a personal bet with myself whether we get to the first speed bump on the way out of the airport before he’s playing. He’s still just as fired up about it as ever, and that’s inspiring to a 66-year-old. And I hope there’s some 78-year-old that’s looking at me going, “Look at that idiot! He’s playing guitar before he sets his suitcase down!”
Even though you’re in different generations, the modern-day music business is so different from when either of you guys were coming up. And there’s a lot of extra hats that you guys are having to wear. Given that it is a different landscape, do you have advice for people coming up who aspire to do what you two do?
CW: Most of it is stuff I’m passing on secondhand. I’d love to start by saying I believe we are in the best time in my lifetime to go into this world of music with this multi-hyphenate mindset. My dad was a banker and my mom was a teacher, both professions that they held for decades. I grew up with this message from the world that this is kind of how it works, right? You get a job, and you keep that one job, and that’s what your job is. That has kind of gone away. I’m actually particularly grateful now that I never had a plan to stay on one track. Generally music, yes. But I was always prepared to pivot. Looking at where we are now, I think that the ability to pivot is going to be the most important skill someone could have, especially in music going into the future.
I could give you tons of great advice from other people like, never be the best musician in your band, because then you don’t have anything to learn. You’re gonna learn more if you’re the weak link in that band.
But in terms of personal advice that I can give, I think it’s figure out how to have a sustainable and not-so-toxic relationship with your public-facing platform, most of the time that’s going to be through whatever social media is happening. And you can count on that changing. It’s TikTok today. It’ll be something else in a couple of years. But I have found success in finding something that I know I can commit to, that I know I can be consistent with, and that isn’t going to just drain my soul.
You know, the definition of integrity I keep is that the insides match the outside. If it’s guitar nerd stuff, I know there are other guitar nerds out there, and I know that’s something I can always put 10 minutes of my time into. I do believe that our presence online, in so many ways, is becoming the currency of the future. I mean, even for songwriters, even for session players. You know, if someone heard your name twenty years ago, they’d pick up the phone and call a musician they trust and say, “Hey, have you heard about this kid? What are they like? Have you worked with them?” And basically, that was your best shot at getting called by that person. But now they’re more likely to just search you online and look at your YouTube or your Instagram. Iif you’re there and you have a consistent presentation of who you are, they can get to know you really quickly. You also have to keep in mind that it isn’t everything. There are seasons in life where it’s okay to let that go and shut it down and focus on something else. But it is something you kind of have to at least keep on the back burner.
Ultimately, if it ain’t who you really are, it’s just not gonna work long term. And if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if you can’t pull it off long term, it’s not worth doing. Like Mac said earlier in this conversation, being a big star isn’t made for thirty years. You’re not meant to stand in that bright of a light for a long time. The real trick is being able to run the full marathon. With social media, you have to really be careful not to lose your spirit in it.
MM: I have missed my opportunity to take some of your good advice, because social media came too late into my life. I’m probably not ever gonna be anybody that posts a lot, but I will say just in general, whatever the new thing is tomorrow, that was the old thing yesterday.
What I would say to folks starting out is to widen the lens, to dream wider. When you are a teenager, when you’re full of hormones, you tend to dream narrow. There’s so many rewarding aspects of what’s available to us that you don’t know about in your teen years and if you narrow your dreams down to where all bands suck except the one you like, you eliminate not only a lot of career opportunities, but you eliminate a whole bunch of joy that’s just sitting there waiting in the music.
There are just all sorts of payoffs to leaving everything as a possibility. And then, besides that, I would just say, in the context of all success, in all the ways that we measure it and quantify it, if you can just remember that the music is the reward. It is the primary reward. Everything else, as wonderful as everything else is, is secondary to the music itself. Nothing will ever compete with that to me. The things that I’ve gotten to be part of, or play on, or make a little bit better just because I was there, that is the most career reward that I’ll ever have, regardless of how much revenue I ever generate or how many people mistake me for the musician of the year, or whatever songwriting accolades that we get. All of those are great, but they’re secondary to the work. The work is the reward.
CW: That is incredibly profound and true. I relate to that every day these days. It calls to mind for me, too, that when we talk about awards, number ones, or getting big checks in the mail, you don’t often in those kinds of conversations hear people talk about respect. I’ve found that the work is the reward. But to feel the respect of people that you admire and look up to, respect is about as sweet a feeling as anything you could get.
MM: It is awesome
CW: And it’s also kind of a hedge against hard seasons. If you operate with empathy and respect for others, one of the best ways to get respect is to respect other people in the first place.
MM: Absolutely
CW: It is a bit of insurance, I think, against hard times, because it means in your lowest point you got people you can call who are gonna shoot you straight, who are gonna help in any way they can. There are people with big mansions and number ones, and all the things who don’t necessarily have respect, and if I had to pick one or the other, I’d rather have the respect and not have all the rest than have all the rest, and not have respect.
MM: No, that’s correct. And there is no hard turn or dark corner that music can’t get you out of. Not necessarily financial and success-wise, but whatever headspace you’re in, music can turn bad into good. There aren’t many things that do that and we’re connected to one of those. The worst thing that ever happens to you can become a song that makes somebody else’s life better who is going through a similar thing. And they couldn’t articulate it. They couldn’t speak it. But we can help with that and help ourselves at the same time.
Mary Bragg crafts music with beauty and pain, vulnerability and authenticity, and raw emotions. Mary played Queerfest 2022 at The Basement East in Nashville. Tonight, January 23, 2024, she will be back on stage at The Basement to celebrate her new single, “Only So Much You Can Do.”
In addition to being a phenomenal songwriter and vocalist, Mary is also a producer. In 2022, she earned a Master of Arts in Songwriting and Production from Berklee NYC, elevating her skills to the next level. Her self-titled album centers around self-discovery with tender lyrics that touch on love, loss, and self-esteem. Mary writes compelling music filled with nostalgia and honesty. We’re delighted to feature this incredible artist, Mary Bragg.
What would you say is your current state of mind?
Mary Bragg: Wow, what a way to start the conversation; I love it. My current state of mind is as follows: Grateful – for my life, my love, my work. Steady – managing a wonderfully robust docket of creative work while continuing to establish balance in my everyday life and internal dialogue. Excited – always, about a song. Several actually, new ones, ever percolating.
When I co-write, songs typically arrive at a near-complete form pretty quickly, but when I write alone, I’m much more patient with the process. I move through the world keeping my antennae up, looking for a way back into a lyric I’m working on that gets me in the gut. I’m obsessed with it.
What would a “perfect day” look like for you?
Being a touring musician is a funny thing, because touring life is very, very different than home life. I’ll frame the “perfect day” for you on the road beginning at 2 or 3 p.m., when we load in and have a perfect soundcheck with a killer engineer. Doors at 6. Show at 7. (Did I mention I love early shows?). Merch table mayhem at 9. Cocktail at 10. In bed by 11:30, sleep until 8. Drive, fly, etc. to the next town, repeat.
At home, I’m an early bird. Up by 6:30 or 7, coffee, eggs, journal, write, attempting to avoid technology for a few hours. 11 a.m. workout. Afternoon – back to work – emails galore, phone calls, Zooms, everything. I wear a lot of hats (artist, writer, producer, occasional teacher), so there’s a lot of juggling to do. By 7 p.m. I force myself to stop working; my darling fiancé, by this point has probably created a ridiculously beautiful meal for us. I used to think I was a good cook until I met her. She blows me away every time she prepares a meal for us. It’s the best. And I’m a great dishwasher. Watch a little TV after dinner (okay sometimes during), and hit the sack by 10 p.m., otherwise I turn into a pumpkin on the couch.
Why do you create music? And what’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
The process is exhilarating – as a writer, the actual singing and playing in a small room, making music and hearing it travel through a space is one of my favorite things. No audience, just the song in a room. Hearing your thoughts as you’re framing them in melodic form is a bit of a head trip that has its own immediate reward. In the studio, there’s a whole other bag of satisfying tricks to uncover and of course performing live has its own rewards as well, mostly connecting with other people who feel what you feel. And, on the road I’m able to focus more on the enjoyment of singing; pushing my voice to try new things on the fly is incredibly fun. Up until that moment of live-show-exhilaration, I’m so focused on the writing and producing, but by the time I take it to the stage, I can really let go and dig back in to the music itself.
Could you tell us about your single that came out today?
Ah, my new single! “Only So Much You Can Do” is about chasing joy in the company of another person. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that New York Times article about the secret to happiness – and how relationships are the key to it. We are pack people; we need each other; we need other human beings around us in order to be our best, happiest selves. Friends plus community plus honesty equals joy. I wrote this song with my dear friend, Bill Demain, during the pandemic over Zoom; we craved connection again, waited eagerly for it to return. Now that we’re out from under it, the song is a nice reminder to spend time – actual face time – with your people; it sure does a lot of good.
Who are your favorite LGBTQ+ artists and bands?
Rufus Wainwright, The Indigo Girls, Brandi Carlile, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Jobi Riccio, Liv Greene.
What does it mean to you to be an LGBTQ+ musician?
Well, I’m a person who is a songwriter and artist who is also bisexual living in a world that, at the moment, likes to extend a great to deal of judgment, disdain, disapproval, and harm to people in the LGBTQ+ family. Most of the time I feel as happy as the next person, then I’m reminded of the threats to our community, to my own family, and I remember how important it is to speak my experience, write through my own pain, and sing about the things that break my heart.
I think every human being deserves to tell their story, express their feelings, and be heard. If I can do that – tell my own story of coming out, leaning in to love while experiencing deep, simultaneous loss, then reclaiming joy and autonomy – maybe some additional jolt of kindness, empathy, and love will be injected into the world.
In 2021, you moved from Nashville to New York City to pursue a Master of Arts in Songwriting and Production at Berklee NYC. How did this educational pursuit impact your creative process and the way you approach your work today?
It’s funny – getting a masters degree might suggest you’re taking your work very seriously, going deeper on process and theoretical approaches to your craft. While I did very much feel that way during the program, by the end of it I felt a newfound sense of taking myself less seriously. I wanted to reconnect with a sense of lightness, play, curiosity, remembering that songs are a gift, that humans have so much in common, and we all just need to be acknowledging those commonalities more frequently and willfully. The more I can get to the heart of those feelings, and sharing them, the better.
Also, at the end of my thesis defense, one of my professors said to me, “Remember who you are.” It was such a nice thing to hear, because I do know who I am, what I stand for, and what I want to do with my life. All I have to do when I get distracted, spin out, or lose track of my focus is remember who I am.
Your latest album addresses the universal themes of self-love, acceptance, discovery, loss, beauty, and pain. How did you personally grapple with these concepts during your own transformative journey, especially in the context of your relationships and coming out to your family?
Woof, the grappling was tough, but my gut was clear: I knew who I loved, what that meant for my place in a world that is obsessed with classifications, and how hard it would be for some people that I love deeply to accept.
I was raised in a huge, very conservative Christian family in South Georgia and coming out to them was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. I love them so much, they love me so much, but many of them feel quite strongly that I’m, you name it, “living in sin,” “going to hell,” “choosing a ‘lifestyle’ that is wrong.” What I know in my bones is that none of that is true. The love I have for my partner and soon-to-be wife is as real and deep as any hetero relationship I’ve ever had or witnessed. Standing firm in that belief while also trying to hold on to relationships in my family that I don’t want to lose is pretty tough, but I’m grateful that my gut speaks very loudly and I have no interest in tamping it down.
Julia Cannon is one of a kind. Energetic. Witty. Sparkly. Bold. Creative. Unapologetically and fully herself. Her energy is captivating, outfits intriguing – she sometimes shows up in a full ball gown on stage – and her music is catchy and relatable. With a magnetic presence and unapologetic authenticity, Julia brings a fresh and vibrant energy to the music scene. In addition to being a songwriter, instrumentalist, vocalist, and performer, she also produces and mixes her music.
Julia has played many Queerfest showcases and was part of Queerfest 2023, taking the stage at The Basement East. In this interview we talk about her dedication and the hard work required to pursue her career in music, her experience as an LGBTQ+ artist, and her pursuits as both an artist and producer.
What’s your ideal vision for your future?
Julia Cannon: It would include a lot more peace and a lot more freedom. I’ve been working since I was 12, sometimes two jobs trying to get to college or help my mom with her alterations shop or pay off my private student loans. I just want to be able to fully invest more time and more of the money that I make into my craft.
What is your greatest fear?
Not reaching my full potential and never being able to invest fully in myself.
What is your current state of mind?
I’ve been in the grind mindset my entire adulthood. I’m 30 now, and I’m finally starting to be able to do some of the things that I want to do. I just finished my first little tour and had a blast. I’m transitioning as I pay off my private loans in the next year or so.
What would a “perfect day” look like for you?
I’d sleep in until 10 a.m., go and have some tea with my cat, and then start playing guitar. Hopefully I’d end up making music somehow, and then a shitty rom-com and I fall asleep on the couch. Can you tell I’m an introvert?
Why do you create music? What’s more satisfying to you, the process or the outcome?
It’s the first way that I learned how to process and communicate my feelings and thoughts. And it’s still the best way to root around in there. And then I get to share it and that’s magical.
Do you create music primarily for yourself or for others?
It’s selfish. And I’m not even motivated by external validation, which is hell. But it’s also freeing. But sometimes my inner critic is a dick.
What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
Recently I was freaking out about god-knows-what and my Uncle Vic said, “Just go where the joy is,” and I was like… damn, it is that simple.
For anyone reading this who might not be out of the closet, were there any specific people, musicians, or resources that helped you find yourself as a queer individual?
Find your people and go where the joy is. And also therapy.
What does it mean to you to be an LGBTQ+ musician?
Queerness in general just means freedom from following the norm. Life outside of the box. I think that translates to the art that we make as well.
What are your release and touring plans for the next year?
I have no idea. While I’m still working full time to pay off my loans, I’m taking it day by day. I’d love to release some EPs and keep playing in new cities. I had so much fun on tour.
Your album, How Many, came out this year. What was the process like for you to write, record, and release this collection of songs?
It was really fun and fulfilling. I want to keep growing as a producer and a mix engineer and I feel like I did that with this album. I got to see where I need to continue growing and have new goals for future projects. I crowdfunded How Many, so I was able to hire and work with a lot of people that elevated the project as well. It made me so happy.
You’ve collaborated with other LGBTQ+ artists like Purser. What is it like for you to work with other artists in the community?
My inner child is so stoked about it. I grew up in such a small town in Alaska. Being able to collaborate with inspiring artists who are also queer is incredibly healing.
What has your experience been as a queer woman of color in Nashville?
Mixed bag honestly lol. I feel tokenized sometimes and sometimes I’m happy to be representation for younger generations. I think, in general, things are trending upward. I feel safe and supported.
Photo courtesy of Julia Cannon
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