Tag: race

A Musical, The Porch on Windy Hill, Tells an Impactful Story with Bluegrass and Old-Time

Posted on by Justin Hiltner
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A fantastic new off-Broadway play, titled The Porch on Windy Hill: A New Play with Old Music, has been performed across the U.S. in Vermont, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, before landing at Urban Stages on West 30th Street in New York City where it’s currently playing until October 12, 2025. Written by Sherry Stregack Lutken, Lisa Helmi Johanson, Morgan Morse, and David M. Lutken, and directed by Sherry Lutken, The Porch on Windy Hill was born during the pandemic, when Sherry Lutken found herself having extensive conversations with one of her closest childhood friends, one who happens to be biracial, about their personal perspective and experiences. Sherry Lutken’s formal idea coalesced around April 2021 and the first full performance took place that September in Ivoryton, Connecticut.

The show centers on Mira, a biracial Korean-American classical violinist, and her boyfriend Beckett, a Ph.D. student passionate about the history and connections of folk music in America, as the couple leave their isolated apartment in Brooklyn and head for the lively pickin’ parties and folk festivals in Atlanta, Georgia. When their navigations and a fussy van engine take them on a detour into the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, a pit stop leads to a run-in with Mira’s estranged white grandfather Edgar, and Mira and Beck both find more than they bargained for. The encounter goes on to change the three characters in incredibly profound ways.

The music serves as a beautiful and powerful reflection of the many emotions that run high throughout the play, as well as a story-rich catalyst that fills in the blanks of who these people are, what they know and don’t know about one another, and, of course, why Mira and her grandfather grew apart after being so close during her childhood.

The boldness of The Porch on Windy Hill comes from its many contrasts and complements. The story unfolds entirely on the front porch of Edgar’s North Carolina home, which sits in the shadow of an unseen Mount Mitchell. David Lutken, Morgan Morse, and Tora Nogami Alexander – who play Edgar, Beckett, and Mira respectively – move in, about, and out of the setting in very natural ways. A tension rises between Mira and Edgar for most of the first half and the confined space only heightens the impact of the actors’ moods on the audience. The discomfort, though, isn’t just social anxiety. The core narrative mysteries and tensions of Porch are tied to its real world relatability around the ways different folks view race, politics, and in this story especially, folk music.

The first half of the play is also music-heavy, with an abundance of different folk tunes showcasing Lutken, Morgan, and Alexander’s skills on a potpourri of instruments from banjo to guitar to violin to the Chinese erhu, to dulcimer – an instrument that’s key to the story and one special aspect of the cross-generational bond between Mira, her mother, and Edgar. Over the course of the show, Edgar’s home becomes part pickin’ stage and part time capsule for Mira and Edgar to rekindle their long-lost connection. This isn’t without its thorny moments, which peak at the revelation that Mira and Edgar’s estrangement comes from trauma she experienced as a child when her cousin cruelly called her a racial slur, only for her grandfather to turn a blind eye to the incident. The subsequent chasm that formed left Mira and Edgar unsure of how to even begin addressing their discomfort, before their musical connection – and a bit of moonshine – helped to clear the air and start to mend decades-old wounds.

The Porch on Windy Hill isn’t about safe spaces. It isn’t about breaking into folk song to comedically cut the tension, and it isn’t about being a modern PSA for Asian-Americans. But what it does do is give its audiences a reminder of what it means to share space with people who don’t hold a carbon copy of one’s own views. It also gives permission to express anger, hurt, and confusion over the unique pain that comes with discrimination and ignorance of others’ lived experiences.

These characters think, react, question, demand, and forgive in wholly believable fashion. The Porch on Windy Hill gets and keeps you invested. From the first time Mira, Beck, and Edgar play “Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” together to the moment Mira walks off saying, “Kamsahamnida” – “thank you” in Korean – to Edgar, before he goes inside to finally call Mira’s parents. It’s everything a stellar musical is: thought provoking, entertaining, emotionally stirring, and something that imparts a feeling of growth. The depth of personal stories that hold The Porch together make this play ideal for partnering with the legacy-laden nature of folk music.

David Lutken, Sherry Lutken, Morgan Morse, and Tora Nogami Alexander jumped on a group call and spoke with BGS about the multi-layered nuance behind The Porch on Windy Hill and how all the aspects of the play, from the conflicts to the specificity of the music utilized – even the story behind one made up fiddle convention! – had meaning and purpose to enhance the impact of the characters and the story.

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What drove the decision to set Porch on the Windy Hill in the mountains of North Carolina, as opposed to another part of Appalachia or even a completely different part of the U.S.?

David M. Lutken: [Porch on The Windy Hill] could be set in many different parts of the United States, but [choosing North Carolina] had to do with several things. The music that I have been most familiar with all my life kind of emanates from a little bit of bottleneck down in the southeastern United States. And also it had to do with the specific instrument – the dulcimer – being something that comes from the Appalachian region, even though its earlier ancestors come from different places as well.

But it had to do with that, with instrumentation, the draw of the entire Appalachian region of the United States, and the metaphor in the show of Mount Mitchell and the highest point in all of the Appalachian region of the United States and all of those things stated there. I have to say, the fact that North Carolina is a decidedly “purple” place these days also has to do with it, particularly Western North Carolina, where you have places like Asheville that are very, very liberal, surrounded by counties that are very conservative, which happens in many other parts of the United States. But all of those things together I would say, pointed me [toward choosing North Carolina as the play’s setting.]

Morgan Morse: I’ll add one last very silly reason that influenced our decision, which is just geography. We have this couple, which is traveling from the East Coast, and they’re on their way to Atlanta, [Georgia], and that’s their next goal. So in general, we were also looking to find a location that sat pretty nicely between those two places.

(L to R) Morgan Morse, Tora Nogami Alexander, and David M. Lutken perform ‘The Porch on Windy Hill.’ Photo by Ben Hider.

When it came to determining how the music of the show would not only link the characters and the scenes together but also keep them together, how did you discern the balance of realism, optimism, idealism, and cynicism in the pickin’ performance scenes – particularly the early ones when Mira hesitates to participate – especially given how uncertain and outright tense the characters’ interactions become over the course of the play?

Tora Nogami Alexander: That is the most difficult part of the play and that is the thing that we focused on the most, with me being sort of the new addition to this version of this play. We practiced a lot of this music before we really dug into how the performance would translate. And so, as we were in the real meat of the rehearsals, [director] Sherry [Lutken] was really, really helpful in crafting the balance of the emotional baggage that Mira has and that everybody has within the play.

For me, what’s awesome about doing this play and what’s really fun for me, is that I do think I discover something new every time I do it. Every night, I really listen to my partners and we all listen to each other. It might change every day – how certain things hit us, how we process things. The bones are there but it’s been really interesting to try and tightrope that every night because it is a little bit different every single night, which is exciting and cool. Working with Sherry, she was so helpful in translating it because she’s watching the play and so she’s able to give us tools to help tell a story in a way that people can understand.

MM: Because there are so many emotions sitting under the surface in the first act, especially the first half of the first act, you want to strike a balance of making sure that it’s coming through without feeling like you’re overselling everything that’s happening underneath. So, throughout the results of that – Tora said “tightrope,” that was a word that we used a lot during rehearsals – especially for the character of Mira, she is figuring out what she wants from this situation and she’s figuring out how comfortable she is, how much she wants to engage. It’s something that Tora [does] so beautifully and it’s so fun to watch every night to see exactly how [the emotions] are hitting her and how she translates that to the way she plays [her violin].

DML: Well, the interesting part to me has been Tora’s ability to convey things musically. We set out to make a musical play where the music is a part of the dialogue and the ability to express vulnerability and frustration and a spectrum of emotions without opening your mouth, just playing violin, or even the erhu, or the other things that we all play. But particularly for Miss Alexander, I think that’s a unique talent of hers, and a unique thing to this show, particularly the first half of the first act. That’s a big part of what is happening with the music; it’s [songs] that certainly [Morse and Alexander] are familiar with, and they’re having to play them in a really weird situation.

You all mention in another interview that you wanted music that was “intrinsic rather than performative.” That the songs “aren’t decorative.” That said, the folk songs selected for Porch On The Windy Hill seem like they aren’t exclusive in their ability to convey or heighten the specific emotions desired in a scene. As such, what is it about the songs in the play that make each of them essential in a way other folk songs are not?

MM: On one hand, I can tell you all the reasons why these particular songs ended up there. And I do think that they work very well and they serve very specific purposes. At the same time, you’re kind of right that there are a billion other folk songs that could also fit into those slots. To me, that’s actually the amazing thing: American folk songs cover so many themes and some of them are universal themes and that’s what was so cool about putting these songs into the show.

There’s consideration like, “We need a fast song here.” “We need a slow song here.” “We need a song with this particular mood.” “Okay, we want to break up the flow of things by having an instrumental, what instrumental can we have?” So there’s those kinds of nuts and bolts and there’s the little ways in which, even though these songs were not written for the show, they still managed to reference and inform the action within their lyrics as well, because we’re singing about these universal things like love and loss and family and travel and childhood.

The question is, “What’s going to move these characters in this moment?” Whether that’s moving them emotionally or moving them forward story-wise. And sometimes it’s something like the history or the context of this song that can lead to a really interesting conversation. There’s a couple moments like that in the show, where the history of the song [being played] then becomes a catalyst for conversation between the characters and that leads to explorations of the themes of the show in that discussion because they’re all intertwined: the music, the country, and all those various things.

At a certain point, Beck abruptly recalls from where he recognized Edgar’s name. It was on a specific live recording of the 1972 Charlestown Fiddlers’ Convention, where Edgar is credited as performing with the likes of Roscoe Holcomb, Ola Belle Reed, Lily May Ledford. What was the inspiration behind this fictional recording and why select Holcomb, Reed, and Ledford as the artists meant to be Edgar’s connection to the real world?

DLM: I had met Bascom Lamar Lunsford on a couple of occasions when I was a boy and went to the Asheville Folk Festival regularly in the late 1960s. The others, Roscoe Holcomb and Ola Belle Reed, I will confess they had partly to do with Edgar’s politics. I was trying to keep Edgar a bit ambiguous in his set-in-his-ways old guy [personality] and make him a little bit more open-minded.

The particular selections we chose for the fictional Charlestown Fiddler’s Convention of 1972 were to try to make something that sounded real and give it a little bit of a historical novel perspective, and also to raise Edgar’s banjo playing – elevate it greater than mine could ever be – and to make it so that he would have been in on something like that if it indeed had existed. And with West Virginia being a little bit different from Virginia in its history, and also the history of music there, we just tried to pile on the old-time music references without skewing too much in one direction or the other. In terms of picking for the Bill Monroe Bean Blossom Festival or the Newport Folk Festival, if you know what I mean. So it was really just to put all of that together in a little bit of a historical novel sense and also to paint things with a little bit of an open minded brush.

Over the course of scene five to scene seven, the show moves from the American folk song, “Mole in the Ground,” to the Korean children’s mountain rabbit folk song, “Santokki (산토끼),” and finally the murder ballad “Pretty Polly,” which brings the unique sound of the Chinese erhu from the former into the latter and prompts a conversation about musical traditionalism – which instruments “fit” in a pickin’ party and which don’t.

What are your thoughts on Edgar’s view on the sounds that belong at a pickin’ party or jam? Furthermore, what do each of you think of as the central quality that makes something “folk” music and, in what way do you think people who may share Edgar’s view might be persuaded to consider a wider scope of sonic acceptance?

DLM: Well, I wish you had been at our last post-show hootenanny. Morgan, Tora, Hubby Jenkins of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and a couple other folks were there and we all did a version of [Chappell Roan’s] “Pink Pony Club.”

It’s instrumentation, it’s sonic qualities of what’s going on, and it’s also the people who are doing it that are all part of how music becomes what it is. I personally am all for the erhu and the tuba and the bagpipes at a hootenanny all playing “Pink Pony Club,” because, it’s as Louis Armstrong said, “All music is folk music. I don’t see no horses listening to it.”

MM: I’m very much in the same boat. And it’s a very, for lack of a better term, fiddly question because it’s another one of these moments where it’s like, “Okay, [Edgar’s] got an open-minded streak about him but he still has limitations, you know?” Like, “Don’t bring an electric guitar, don’t play stuff out of your computer.” So there’s that technological line, which I think you could make an interesting argument for in this day and age, that this technological line maybe shouldn’t exist as much as it does.

You can make the argument that the kind of musicians who could really be considered to be making folk music at this point, and who definitely share a lot in common with the evolution of American folk music, are those who write hip-hop and rap. It’s the same kind of communal development where all of these different people are getting together for essentially, jams, where they’re taking things that they know and they’re remixing them, they’re learning from each other, and advancing with each other. So, you know, I’d be curious to have somebody come in with a little turntable to a hootenanny one time – that could be fun!

TNA: Folk music has to do with people and folk music exists everywhere, not just here. So yes, you know, mixing it up doesn’t seem too crazy to me, since organically it’s what would happen as our world gets more globalized.

Tora Nogami Alexander and Morgan Morse perform an intimate moment during ‘The Porch on Windy Hill.’ Photo by Ben Hider.

When Edgar, Beck, and Mira all exchange heated words with each other and Mira eventually picks up her mother’s dulcimer to play “My Horses Ain’t Hungry,” she’s obviously coming down from a tense and vulnerable place. What combination of emotions is Mira leaning into when she turns to the dulcimer and this song for a short reprieve and, as an actor, what kinds of thoughts and/or experiences are you calling upon to bring out the expression Mira is feeling at that moment?

TNA: In that moment, I think a lot about Elmira, [Mira’s grandmother]. I think a lot about her grandmother and the relationship of her grandmother and Mira’s mother. And I think about that relationship a lot during that song. For me, I think that moment is basically when all the shit blows up, it sucks, and Mira’s in this place where she’s finally alone and working through what happened. But [she’s] also realizing, through this song – one that was her mom’s favorite song and that maybe Mira learned from her grandma – that [it] wonderfully encapsulates the whole story. That [Mira’s] mom needed to get out of North Carolina and she chose the life she did for whatever reason. For me, that moment is sort of thinking about the mom-and-grandma relationship, how they got there. That also is why it leads to Mira calling her mom. She’s thinking through this song and then realizing that she needs to tell someone about it, someone who understands, and that would be her mom.

Sherry Lutken: I think for me, sort of what we talked about is that the dulcimer is the embodiment, in some ways, of Elmira – this sort of ghostly figure that hangs over the play and is there and ever present. They keep talking about her, they keep going back to her. That moment is very much about the matriarchy.

Mira’s surrounded by men the entire show and so the dulcimer and that line of women – of her mother, her grandmother, and the women before who are the reason for Mira’s birth – they mean that emotionally. That’s what I think Tora captures so beautifully and what that moment really embodies, that need to reach out to her mother even though she doesn’t really know what to say, even though she’s in a moment of flux, and even though she knows it’s going to be an upsetting thing. Still, she wants to talk. She’s not gonna let her mother evade the subject anymore. And she’s not gonna let Edgar avoid talking about it anymore – it’s time. That’s a wonderful moment of decisiveness. We get to see Mira’s decisiveness and this is a moment of the emotion really informing what she does next and the choices that she makes in the moment.

Given that the polarization of the U.S. has only become more aggravated since Porch On The Windy Hill was first performed in 2021, how much and in what ways would you say the impact of the story’s vision for self-reflection, forgiveness, and understanding has been affected?

DLM: When we were talking on opening night, Lisa’s [Helmi Johanson] husband was there with us at the party and he said it was ironic that what was written in 2021 has now become a period piece in several ways, because things have changed.

SL: Our relationship to the pandemic and to that time has changed. It’s amazing how quickly we forget that when we were in it, we thought we would never get out of it. We would never get to move forward because we were all stuck and it felt like forever. And now everything has changed. I think the thing for me is that, yes, the play rings differently now, but it’s still such a universal story. I think everyone can see themselves in each one of these characters in some small way, if they’re open to it. I think the play lends itself to self-reflection and also what we still want is the idea that there is hope and that there is a possibility of seeing each other’s humanity.

MM: I completely agree. I think it’s very easy right now to feel like there is no hope and that the wounds are just too deep. And whether it’s realistic or not, whether or not you think it’s idealistic or not, I think the thing that’s wonderful about the show is that it does open up a space where reconciliation is possible. Growth is possible. Forgiveness is possible. Owning up to your mistakes is possible, which is something that we’re missing a lot right now.

That and I think being really willing to admit that one is wrong and to take accountability for those things as well. I think stories like Porch on the Windy Hill do exist in the world and also I want more of them to exist in our world. So it’s a wish for how I think the world is in some ways and very much for how I wish the world could be.

The Porch on Windy Hill is showing off-Broadway at Urban Stages through October 12, 2025. Tickets and more information are available here. The official cast recording is available now via Bandcamp.

All photos courtesy of The Porch on Windy Hill and shot by Ben Hider.

LISTEN: Naomi Westwater, “Americana”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Naomi Westwater
Hometown: Brockton, Massachusetts
Song: “Americana”
Album: Feelings
Release Date: September 3, 2021

In Their Words: “‘Americana’ is a song about race and pain. It’s a song about being in the in-between. This is a song for multiracial Americans — for every person who’s been asked, ‘What are you?’ This is for the people who are white, and Black, and brown all at once, and at the same time never white, or Black, or brown enough. This is my love letter to America, I think we need to break up? This song is me asking, post-racial America? For who?” — Naomi Westwater

Photo credit: blahnik x westwater

Chris Pierce Writes an Anthem for the Young, Black, and Beautiful

Posted on by Editor

Chris Pierce has cultivated a significant following in the Los Angeles area and beyond, usually writing soulful and emotional songs that have populated fifteen years’ worth of albums and appeared in TV shows like This Is Us. But in 2020, accompanied by little more than his 1949 Gibson J-45 (“Blondie”) or his 1973 Martin D-18 (“Doriella”), the California native recorded the album American Silence with a mission of social activism against racial disparities.

Pierce gained a love of language from his mother, an English teacher who taught at-risk youth. She introduced him to the lyrical writings of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss, as well as essential writers like Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. The economy of words in all of those authors is immediately evident in original compositions like “American Silence” and “It’s Been Burning for a While,” where Pierce gets his point across directly, and with power. His convictions are never more optimistically presented than in the album’s closing anthem, “Young, Black and Beautiful,” which details the experience of maturing from a cute little kid to a perceived threat.

Calling from Los Angeles, he had a lot to say about American Silence, which is poised to become one of the most resounding folk albums of 2021.

BGS: To me, “American Silence” is like a message from a folksinger to an audience. What was on your mind when you wrote the song?

Pierce: History and resilience, and that cycle of bad things happening and people becoming aware of those things. Jumping on the train of, “Let’s try to end this,” and doing what we can to create awareness about a problem. And then kind of fading away. That song, for me, I was thinking about being young and cuffed on the streets, and stopped for things, and how being a Black kid – and now a Black man – can sometimes feel like a crime in itself, just walking around.

I wanted to write a song that addressed complacency, and remind people like myself, and Black people, and anybody’s been oppressed, to never give up. And also, to remind songwriters and artists that it’s important to not give up on reaching out to people, even though it’s sometimes hard. It’s important to keep that fight going in whatever way you can. And it asks those folks: “Hey, you come to my shows, you say you support, but if something were actually happening to me and you saw it, would you do something? And are you willing to do something in your everyday life that would create a more positive experience for people who aren’t like you?” That’s the short answer. [Laughs]

What has been the response so far?

It’s been getting good response from folks who have had my albums through the years. I’ve been getting emails and notes, and I’ve gotten to speak for a couple of schools, which is great. I’ve been invited to speak at events and play songs, and I think it’s doing a little bit of what I wanted it to do — which is to open up the continued conversation. And through a song, let it be another reminder to not let this moment, and these horrific things that happen, and how appalled you are by them, fade into the distance.

Does it change the vibe in the room when you walk in with a guitar?

Yeah, you know, I’m not a petite individual. I’m 6’4” and I’m a big man! And I’m a Black man, and I think walking into a room with a guitar raises a few eyebrows, to where folks will want to listen to a few lines and open their hearts, and to hear what I have to say. It’s being a gentle giant — a man of stature and size, and having this sensitive heart. In a lot of ways, the core of who I am is somebody who really wants to make music and make a difference and spread love. To get into a room with a guitar and sing about our history, and some of the ways I think we could change for the better, is thrilling for me. I’m really looking forward to walking into more rooms soon to play live. I miss it so much!

“Sound All the Bells” is a call to action, too, but it’s also very personal. What’s that like for you to put those experiences in a song and then share it with people?

All of the songs from this album came out of me last year, and for me it was a moment of clarity. Here I was, at home, trying to be safe and responsible, and in a lot of ways being still forced my heart to open to some of these compartmentalized feelings that I tucked away over the years to survive – and face them in a way that I’ve never faced them before. …

“Sound All the Bells” is almost like a timeline through different experiences that I’ve personally gone through, but it also offers the message of, “You know, I consider myself one of the lucky ones, for getting broken ribs and thrown in jail and stabbed and shot at – I’m still here, to sing songs.” So, I want people to really consider that perspective, in hope that it encourages them to do something about it.

One of the lyrics is about seeing a cross burning in your yard when you were 5 years old. That’s a powerful image.

Yeah, throughout the years I’ve had little flashes of memories about that. And a couple of years ago, I was sitting at lunch with my mom, in the town where that happened. We were talking about how things have changed over the years, and she started walking me through exactly what happened, and what she and my late father felt, being the first interracial couple in the neighborhood and the pushback from that. That wasn’t the only instance of hate that they encountered. And once I came along, there was this protectiveness from both of them, having a young child.

When that happened, from my mother’s perspective, it was something that [told them] they had a choice. And their choice was to be strong and to carry on and stay in the house, and try to be an example of love and acceptance. And that’s what they did. I’m so proud of them. It’s one thing to go through that when you’re a kid, but it’s another thing to imagine young parents having that happen. I feel like, in a lot of way, that example of their strength and resilience carries on into who I am, and the kind of music I make. And just the fact that I keep going is part of that moment.

On this record, it’s essentially just you and the guitar. Why did you choose that approach?

A big part of it was the pandemic and wanting to be safe and responsible, and not add to the problem of people getting sick and dying. It made me want to set up a session like this. And the other thing was, I wanted the listeners to not have anything in the way, and to let the words sink in. I have some extremely talented friends and folks that I’m around that are incredible at their instruments, but instead of picking up the phone and calling them, which was very tempting, I just said, you know, let me sit down with a guitar and sing these truths. Sing them in a way that means something to me and see if that translates.

“Young, Black and Beautiful,” feels like an encore to me. You’re closing the album with a message of encouragement, and I think the strength of your voice is part of that, too. Why did you want to end the album with that song?

The song in general was inspired by reading a friend’s Instagram post. She was talking about her Black son and how he was getting to the age that instead of folks on the street saying, “He’s so cute,” it’s turning into folks feeling threatened by him. That got me thinking about my own history, and what happens in that pivotal moment as a Black child that people are starting to look at you differently. You start hearing doors lock and you see purses clenched, and people walking to the other side of the street.

I wanted to offer something that went along the lines of the old term from the ‘60s, that Black is beautiful. It doesn’t mean that other things are not beautiful! It’s just a reminder that Black is beautiful. It’s about Black self-love, and I feel like it’s a song that I have benefitted from hearing when I was that age. I also wanted it to feel like an anthem that people could sing along to.

And at the end, I wanted to hold the word “Black” as long as I could, to give an example that you should never be ashamed of your Blackness. Sing it loud! And give folks as many examples as you can of your authentic self. And walk on through all these things that you’ve experienced, and that I’ve experienced, and find a new purpose in each days, knowing that your authenticity makes you beautiful.

Photo credit: Mathieu Bitton

WATCH: Amythyst Kiah, “Black Myself”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Amythyst Kiah
Hometown: Johnson City, Tennessee
Single: “Black Myself”
Release Date: February 19, 2021
Label: Rounder Records

In Their Words: “‘Black Myself’ is the first song I’ve written that was confrontational. I’d always made it a point to sing songs that anybody could relate to, but this was something that had been welling up inside me for a long time. The reception of the song so far has given me hope that there are people out there who are ready to confront the shared trauma of racism, to look within ourselves and see how we might be perpetuating racist beliefs, and to do what is needed to create equality for all people.” — Amythyst Kiah

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

On These 10 Recordings, Willie Nelson and Black Musicians Share a Creative Vision

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Willie Nelson has long been not just an American musical treasure, but an iconic figure with far more appeal across racial and generational lines than often recognized. At 87, he’s achieved a perfect marriage of artistry and commercial success few have in any idiom. While certainly a country legend, and the only person in the genre to ever achieve a Top 10 hit in seven different decades, he’s also collaborated with an astonishing number of artists across a wide swath of musical styles and approaches. He’s penned numerous anthems that have been covered by jazz, blues, R&B, soul, rock and pop vocalists, and this month he released his 70th studio album, First Rose of Spring.

Nelson’s never been afraid to stand up for social justice, even when those words weren’t part of the popular vernacular. Early in Charley Pride’s career, Nelson actually gave him a kiss on stage in Louisiana, quieting an audience that was allowing some of its more verbally racist louts to heckle Pride on stage. He’s always included Black musicians in Farm Aid concerts, had one of his biggest albums ever (Stardust) produced by a Black man (Booker T. Jones, who raved about Nelson in his autobiography) and has maintained a friendship with Snoop Dogg since long before Lil Nas X appeared on the scene. He also enjoyed a very close relationship with Ray Charles, who Nelson lamented he could never beat at chess.

He’s in the same company with people like Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Bill Monroe, whose output, personality and consistent brilliance has endured despite changes in production, audience preferences, and many other variables that can negatively affect the careers of popular musicians. Part of the reason for that longevity is Nelson’s undeniable skill in multiple areas. He’s penned a host of songs that are every bit as epic as those from the pre-rock canon he often samples. Had he only written “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away,” or “On the Road Again,” that would have been enough for one lifetime. He’s also a very credible singer, highly effective in pacing and telling a story.

Nelson has consistently embraced and operated in other genres by neither sacrificing his musical individuality and integrity, nor seeming to pander or simply attempting to seem hip. Actually, he’s the epitome of that term, though in a vastly different way from someone like Miles Davis, who was known as much for fashion and fine cars as musical innovation. The fact that Nelson has appeared in more than 30 films just adds weight to his universal appeal.

Trying to pick the best of Nelson’s numerous collaborations with great Black singers and musicians is a tricky thing. One could easily select 10 one day, then come back and tab a different 10 another time. But these are some (far from all) personal favorites. They are ranked in order only by year, nothing more. We picked a mix of singles and LPs, but it’s just a small sample of the many wonderful things he’s done. By no means would we claim this is the definitive list for Willie Nelson’s collaborations with African American artists, but it’s a good sampler and an indicator of how widespread his impact and willingness to work with various musicians actually extends.

SINGLES AND ALBUM CUTS

“Man With The Blues” with Buckwheat Zydeco
From Five Card Stud (1994)

The greatest zydeco master since Clifton Chenier teams with Nelson for a smoky, delightful romp that sees Buckwheat Zydeco also find a comfort zone vocally and instrumentally. As is always the case, Nelson easily works himself into the arrangement, and the two sound right at home in this setting.

“Night Life” with B.B. King
From Deuces Wild (1997)

The King of the Blues sounds happy and engaged on one of Nelson’s earliest compositions, providing some taut guitar licks and outstanding lead and harmony vocals while Nelson doesn’t try to match the improvisational edge, instead easing into a nice zone that’s part complimentary, part quite different in style and sound, but ideal for the situation.

“Still Is Still Moving to Me” with Toots & the Maytals
From True Love (2004)

Toots brings some Jamaican soul and lots of energy to this collaboration, while Willie seems a bit more energetic as the song works its way through. This is one of many performances that earned this LP the Reggae Grammy, and Nelson had such a great time he made a follow-up of his own and paid Toots and company back by having them guest on it.

“Busted” with Ray Charles
From Genius & Friends (2004)

I know “Seven Spanish Angels” was a number 1 hit and more people remember it fondly, but this late redo of an early Charles hit has equal doses of warmth, reflection and edge in both voices. Charles was certainly not at his vocal peak, but he found a way to make his treatment effective, while Willie as always proves the ideal partner in multiple ways.

“Family Bible” with The Blind Boys of Alabama
From Take the High Road (2011)

The album title indicates precisely what Nelson does here, singing with verve and fire while the Blind Boys bring some of their characteristic Golden Age gospel energy and intensity to this rendition that’s alternately wistful, memorable and poignant. This composition dates back to Nelson’s late ’50s catalog, while he was trying to get heard as a songwriter.

“Grandma’s Hands” with Mavis Staples
From To All the Girls (2013)

Mavis Staples has one foot in the church and the other in the street with her customarily powerhouse voice setting the tone. Nelson manages not to get overridden or canceled out in the process as they do their own special version of the Bill Withers hit, which the Staples Singers cut for their 1973 Stax LP, Be What You Are.

“Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream” with Charles Lloyd and the Marvels
From I Long to See You (2015)

The great Memphis jazz man Charles Lloyd and his newest group provide the backing for what comes off as a cross between a nightmarish vision and a marvelous revelation, sung in emphatic fashion by Nelson and punctuated by Lloyd adding some nifty licks underneath and the Marvels adding some musical punch.

ALBUMS

Country Man (2005)

A follow-up to his appearance on Toots’ LP the year before, Nelson goes full bore into reggae territory. Some of it works, some of it doesn’t, but all of it is performed with enthusiasm and joy. Nelson vocally handles the skittering reggae rhythms well, and on the disc’s best songs surpasses what he did on True Love.

Two Men and the Blues (2008)

Wynton Marsalis as a youthful prodigy had a lot of negative things to say about a lot of things back in the ’70s and early ’80s, and country music wasn’t spared in his broadsides. But fast forward all these years later and his gorgeous trumpet solos (both full and muted) made a great musical partner and support system for Nelson, who by now was so familiar with pre-rock, blues, and even traditional jazz tunes and rhythms that it was super smooth sailing from first note to the end. Also recommended: the DVDs Live From Jazz at Lincoln Center with Wynton Marsalis (2008) and Willie Nelson & Wynton Marsalis Play the Music of Ray Charles (2009).

Here We Go Again: Celebrating the Genius of Ray Charles (2011)

Marsalis and Norah Jones joined Nelson to pay homage to his friend Ray Charles, doing wonderful renditions of both hits and more obscure Charles tunes before a rousing audience. Nelson sounded especially energetic throughout, while Marsalis, who’s often been accused of being more technically expert than emotionally powerful, delivered crushing solos and accompaniment, and Jones was equal parts alluring and engaging. As always, Nelson comes across as sincere and genuine, a marvelous mix of down-home sensibility and attitude.

Photos: Pamela Springsteen

Indigo Girls Expand “Country Radio” With Black, Brown and Queer Musicians

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Hollywood, the 2020 Netflix series from director-screenwriter Ryan Murphy, is a resplendent show dripping in Art Deco that does not wholly reimagine Los Angeles’ golden era, but rather subtly inserts a quintessential question: “What if?”

What if Hollywood hadn’t been as… ___-ist? (Sexist, racist, misogynist, ageist, etc.) If one happens to be born into a region, a folkway, a culture, an art form that doesn’t include you, or that doesn’t quite love you back, one often doesn’t realize it until it’s too late. And then what? Do we, the rural, country-loving queers, wait around for our Ryan Murphy to reimagine the world to better include us? Not quite.

For Emily Saliers and Amy Ray of Indigo Girls — and, for that matter, almost each and every queer who has ever loved roots music — that “What if?” question is existential, but it also doesn’t matter. What if country music loved LGBTQ+ folks? The lyrics of “Country Radio,” a track off the duo’s sixteenth studio album, Look Long, tell it plainly: “But as far as these songs will take me/ Is as far as I’ll go/ I’m just a gay kid in a small town/ Who loves country radio.”

While curating the following playlist of their favorites from country music airwaves and songs they wish were included there, Saliers and Ray offer a quite simple solution actionable in each present moment: Be who you are, listen to the music that brings you joy, love who you love — and be anti-racist.

Emily Saliers: [I began with the idea:] What are the songs that I listened to that I latched onto, that sort of gave me a feeling of “I can’t get into this song [because of its heteronormativity], but I love this song so much”? One of the first songs that came to mind is “Mama’s Song” by Carrie Underwood. 

I should preface this by saying, I don’t expect that there can’t be heteronormative country songs, or that queer life has to be explicitly represented in songs, it’s not that. It’s the feeling of the way a song moves me emotionally, but then it stops me a little bit short of being able to fully experience it because of the language or the obvious implications of man and woman.

I love Carrie Underwood’s voice and she’s taken more of a harder, pop direction since “Mama’s Song,” but she sings this so beautifully. She’s talking to her mother, “He is good… he treats me like a real man should,” and yet the beauty of her song [is in] her telling her mom that’s she’s going to be okay. 

Amy Ray: For me it’s a little different because I never had the experience of feeling like I wish I could put myself in a song. I think it’s because, gender-wise, I always just related to the male singers. I kinda have that gender dysphoria, you know? [Chuckles] I have these filters that sort of make it my own — probably out of necessity, from growing up loving the Allman Brothers, Pure Prairie League, and Randy Travis so much. [Sings] “Amie, whatcha gonna do?” Pure Prairie League!

It’s very odd — Emily’s perspective on this is something I can understand, and I agree that it’s this weird disconnect with country music. We have to kind of acclimate it to ourselves, in some way, using some kind of trick in our minds. But I’ve always had that internal translator…

ES: Another example is Brett Young’s “In Case You Didn’t Know.” Now this is a song that you can listen to and fit your own queer life into it — as far as I remember it doesn’t have any gender pronouns. Then I watched the video and of course he’s singing to a woman who comes into the audience and he plays to her, alone. It’s a love song to his girlfriend — or wife or partner or whatever — so I could live in that song and think back to relationships and apply it in my own life, but then I watched the video and that door shut a little bit.

AR: I love Angaleena Presley, the Pistol Annies. Presley is such a great writer. “Better Off Red” is one of my favorite songs that she’s written… Honestly, if I hear songs, if I like it, I just put myself in it. I don’t really think about it or worry about it. It’s a survival mechanism from my youth, not that it’s the right thing to do. It’s built inside me.

…I thought you couldn’t be a country singer if you were gay and left-wing and a complete dyke. That made me feel more alienated than the songs themselves, that idea of its inaccessibility. Or, if you went to a show and you were sitting there in that audience, in the early days before it all kind of busted open, you would feel scared. Or judged. Or uncomfortable.

ES: Think about what a splash that song by Little Big Town, “Girl Crush,” had. Just the implication of a lesbian relationship or feelings! That song was a big hit, but it got people talking. [Probably] the majority of the people in this world lean more heteronormative, so they’re representing themselves in these songs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

I wouldn’t want to listen to just albums that are for and by queer people, oh my god. No way! But we have to have them as part. I think about what an influence Ferron was, how much Amy and I love Ferron. When her first album came out, it was like, “Oh my gosh this is one of the best songwriters in the country and she’s queer!” I can’t describe how important it was to have an artist like that.

Even Lil Nas X, who had the number one hit forever-ever-ever with Billy Ray Cyrus. It’s awesome to know that he’s queer! And a guy like Young Thug, a rapper out of Atlanta, who’s not gender normative by any stretch, to me. It’s interesting. It’s good to have a mish mosh! It’s not that the majority of songwriters out there can’t be represented in their own songwriting, we just have to have ours, as well.

AR: [We] should add Amythyst Kiah. Amythyst is amazing.

[Racism] is the pivotal struggle of the Americana scene and the roots scene. How do you honor Black and Brown folks who want to be in this scene — and maybe some of them don’t even want to be in this scene because even Americana is rooted in questionable legacy. How much do people of color want to be immersed in that scene when it still feels so racist? Even the best parts of it. It’s a huge question to unwrap and it has to do with such a long history of where country music came from.

We stole the banjo and put it in our hillbilly music in the mountains and called it our own. We forgot all the stuff we learned from “our slaves,” you know? It’s crazy to me, if you think about the racist roots of where a lot of this comes from. Merging this racist legacy with this incredible populist music — music for the people, like Woody Guthrie, like the Carter Family. You get those two things bumping up against each other constantly, how do you entangle that and make this a space where it doesn’t matter what color you are? Where it doesn’t matter what your religious persuasion, or your political party, or your gender, or your sexual preference, or anything.

I think the way we deal with it is by all of us thinking all the time and being mindful of [that racist history]. And including [Black artists] in our playlists and touring with them. Some people are like, “What does it mean if you’re forcing this integration? Is it just going through the motions?” No! No, no, no.

ES: I’ll [echo] the things that Amy said, practically: Tour with Black musicians or Brown musicians or musicians who have not been able to feel that they’re welcome and make everybody welcome. Like Amythyst or Chastity Brown. Those are artists of color who have been discriminated against, who feel other-than in the world of their genres.

I think, first, we all — we white people, we people “of no color,” we “colorless” people — should dig deep, identify our own racism and how far it goes, how much we use it. Break it down, talk about it, identify it in each other. Really start from the core of things and hopefully act outwardly as a result of what we’ve dug through, inwardly. Try to heal and fix, you know? We’ve got to ask artists of color what their experience is like and why it’s like that. I’ve got to assume that there must be some Black artists, who if they hear a song from a white, country, roots singer about the freedom of driving down a dark, country road, they’re not going to feel the same way about the history of Black people down dark country roads. A lot of it is context and, as Amy says, there’s so much to be unraveled. But we are at a tipping point.

AR: Sister Rosetta Tharpe, I feel like there’s a lot of crossover, to me from that and the beginnings of early rock ‘n’ roll. That’s kind of what Elvis Presley was doing and borrowing from. I think about that sometimes, that territory. I like old recordings, like field recordings almost, of all the Alan Lomax type stuff he would collect. Field songs, prison songs. I think a lot of country writers have taken from that stuff, you know? 

I remember an interview with Kathleen Hanna that really resonated with me. She said, when they ask you who your favorite artists are, most of us name all these male artists. That’s who we can think of, because that’s who’s archived the best. Straight men, bands, and writers. If you sit down and really think about who you love and make a list of the women and the queer folks — this is what she was talking about, she wasn’t talking about color at the time or race or the social construct of race — and you take that list to your interviews and rattle off those names, you’ll be more honest, because you’ll be talking about who you really listen to and not just trying to remember [anyone] off the top of your head. 

People are so out of the habit — and so in the habit — of white supremacy that we don’t even know how to do the right things, just in our instincts. We have to learn, write it down, so we remember to do it.

Photo credit: Jeremy Cowart

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Canon Fodder: Randy Newman, ‘Good Old Boys’

Posted on by Editor

Red Mountain in Birmingham, Alabama, is one of the largest metaphors for race and class in the American South. Part of a range that cuts a diagonal southwest-northeast line through the state, it provided the ore that fed the region’s iron mills in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and more crucially it divided the city into two neat halves: downtown and over the mountain. The former has historically been the province of the poor and in particular the black, while the wealthy and the white lived over the mountain. It became a convenient barrier between the races and the classes, blocking the fumes billowing from the furnaces and largely removing the well-heeled residents of the suburbs from the ugly realities of the city.

At the top of this mountain is Vulcan Park, home of the state’s most famous landmark – a 50-ton, 56-foot statue of the Roman god of the forge, cast in local iron. This is the setting for “Rednecks,” the opening track on Randy Newman’s 1974 album Good Old Boys, a squirrelly collection about race and masculinity in the South that 40 years later still has the power to provoke. The song opens with a 29-year-old millworker named Johnny Cutler sitting on a bench in the shadow of Vulcan and thinking about the governor of Georgia:

Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart-ass New York Jew
And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too.

In this short introduction Cutler is referring to an episode of The Dick Cavett Show, which did not have a “New York Jew” as its host but did book a range of guests including politicians, writers, musicians, and sports figures. In December 1970, his guests included actor Jim Brown, author Truman Capote, and Lester Maddox, who had campaigned on a flagrantly segregationist platform. Cavett barely disguised his contempt for the Southern politician and even dismissed Maddox’s constituents as “bigots.” After an argument in which Cavett failed to apologize to his guest’s satisfaction, Maddox walked off the set and refused to return. Because the show was filmed the day before it actually aired, newspapers reported the incident and viewership skyrocketed.

Once the song settles into its breezy ragtime swing, Cutler doesn’t defend Maddox as much as he embraces every insult ever hurled at Southerners. He proclaims himself an ig’nant redneck, a degenerate drunkard, an uneducated rabble-rouser. “We’re too dumb to make it in no Northern town,” he laughs, then gets to the heart of the matter: People like him are oppressing the country’s African American population. Except he doesn’t say “oppress.” He says they’re keeping them down. And of course he doesn’t use “African Americans.”

The word he uses is so blunt and ugly coming from both the narrator and the writer, such a jolt in the song—almost like a punchline, as if the whole point is that Cutler and his brethren are so dub they think other races are below them—that we should take a step back for a minute. Newman of course is singing in character, but still his use of that word teeters on the knife blade of irony: The singer gets some good distance on it, but the narrator wants no distance at all.

 

By 1974 Newman was well-known for this kind of risky satire, having already raised eyebrows with “Sail Away,” about a slave trader advertising the glories of America. There is purpose to such provocations, and by the time “Rednecks” reaches the bridge, Newman his narrator are holding a mirror up to America. Embracing the worst aspects of the Southern character allows Cutler to turn those accusations back on his accusers. Speaking of African Americans, he sings:

He’s free to be put in a cage in Harlem, New York City
He’s free to be put in a cage in the south side of Chicago and the west side
He’s free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis
And they put him in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And they put him in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And they put him in a cage in Roxbury in Boston

Listeners may not recognize those neighborhoods—and Newman admits his character wouldn’t have known them either—but in the 1960s and 1970s, they housed segregated ghettos, neighborhoods ravaged by poverty and violence. In 1964, just two weeks after the Civil Rights Act became law, a black teenager was shot by a white cop in Harlem, resulting in six days of riots in Manhattan and Brooklyn. In July 1966, a riot broke out in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland when a white bar owner began turning away black patrons and patrolling the sidewalk with a shotgun. In September of that same year, San Francisco police shot and killed a black youth suspected of stealing a car, sparking a neighborhood demonstration that soon erupted into a riot. Chicago alone had multiple race riots throughout the 1960s.

The point is clear: Birmingham was no more or less racially segregated than any other American city, but was being scapegoated for the sins of the entire country. It’s a tricky point to make, and Newman reinforces it with the music. Rather than setting the song in a regionally specific style, such as country, blues, hillbilly, or Southern rock, he writes in a more broadly American mode, rooting “Rednecks” in popular jazz, ragtime, and Tin Pan Alley.

No doubt Cutler would have been familiar with these sounds, even if he didn’t claim them as his own. And certainly it reveals the album’s foundation in musical theater and possibly in minstrel shows of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These flourishes of horns and strings underscore the song’s pointed view on race, refusing to distinguish the South as a place separate from the rest of the nation. Despite its history of thwarted secession, the American South remains American. Its racism, therefore, is America’s racism.

 

This is the main point of Good Old Boys, and the idea from which nearly every song stems. Newman conceived the album as something like a musical, which he explains in the infamous bootleg Johnny Cutler’s Birthday, a rough outline of the narrative with Newman singing, playing piano, and introducing the songs. (The bootleg was officially released as a bonus disc on the 2002 reissue of Good Old Boys.)

Roughly the first half of the record follows Cutler as he descends Red Mountain. “Birmingham” not only touts his hometown as “the greatest city in Alabam’” but provides Johnny’s working-class backstory, revealing just how thoroughly Newman had sketched out his narrator. Much less satirical, “Marie” and “Guilty” locate the character’s bruised heart through his marriage to a woman, both as gentle in their melody and as tough in their self-loathing as anything Newman has written. “I’m drunk right now, baby, but I’ve got to be,” he sings, “or I could never tell you what you mean to me.”

As the album proceeds, Cutler becomes less and less the main character, but rather one in a full choir of Southern eccentrics and roustabouts, who may not have the most sympathetic politics but earn Newman’s grudging respect for their determined self-definition. “Kingfish” is a barbed stump speech about former Louisiana governor Huey Long, the subject likewise of Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men and a figure who recalls a certain you-know-who in his deployment of base racism as a campaign platform. Newman may be too jaded to be horrified by Long’s aggressively divisive politics, but he’s amused that the governor, eventually assassinated in the state capitol, had the chutzpah to keep his promises to the rural voters who elected him: “Who took on the Standard Oil men and whooped their ass?” he asks as the strings trill triumphantly. “Just like he said he’d do.”

“Back on My Feet Again” is a tale of woe presented as a weirdly elaborate complaint to a doctor (“Get me back on my feet again”), and “A Wedding in Cherokee County” is a monologue from a man in love with what he describes as a wild woman: “If she knew how, she’d be unfaithful to me,” he laments… or maybe boasts. “I think she’d kill me if she could.” Newman allows the man his dignity, even as he sullies himself for love, at least until the song’s end, a bridge to nowhere that serves as the album’s culmination despite the fact that there are two songs left to go: Dreaming of his wedding to this woman and then of their wedding night, he confesses, “She will laugh at my mighty sword. Why must everybody laugh at my mighty sword?”

During a decade when pop culture was presenting new exemplars of tough, moralistic Southern masculinity—think Burt Reynolds in Deliverance, Joe Don Baker in Walking Tall, or even Ronnie Van Zant fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd—Newman’s depiction of these sons of the South was subversive in its satire. These characters invite our scorn and laughter, but Newman also provokes something sympathy for them as well. He presents them as relentlessly human, if not always humane, their shortcomings reflecting the worst failings of America in general and the South in particular.

The Urgency of History: A Conversation with Rhiannon Giddens

Posted on by Editor

Every now and then, a voice comes along that is so thoroughly in tune with the times that it can’t — and shouldn’t — be ignored. This year, that voice belongs to Rhiannon Giddens. Her latest album, Freedom Highway , takes its cues from the warriors of justice who came before her … Joan Baez, Odetta, the Staples Singers, and others. And it takes its stories from the victims of injustice that suffer throughout history … slaves, children, Black men, and more.

Of course, Giddens couldn’t have known that, in the middle of her album cycle, Nazis would march and Confederate statues would fall. But march and fall they have, all while she uses her voice to speak truth to the powers that be and the masses that care. And, in case anyone dare challenge her assertions, the ever-curious student of history brings all the proverbial receipts to back up her truth.

The more this year rolls along, the more important and potent your record and voice become. How’s it feel, at this moment in time, to hold up a mirror of the racial injustices upon which this country is founded?

Somebody said, at the show yesterday, “Your album is more timely every day!” I was like, “Yeah. Isn’t that depressing?”

Isn’t it?

Isn’t that freaking depressing? I wrote and recorded this record last year, and I remember thinking, before the election, “I don’t even know how urgent this is going to feel to people.” [Laughs] Little did I know. Holy moly! I mean, it’s always urgent to me, because I see it there. It’s always there, but for it to be so on the surface …

The thing is, the record’s always going to be timely because we’re talking about things that are part of the fabric of America — completely systemic issues here. It’s just, now, it’s really on the surface. Now it’s really exposed whereas, if the election had gone differently, these issues would still be here; they would just be covered up, underground a little bit more.

So, on the one hand, I’m like, “Oh, God. I can’t believe this is going on.” On the other, it’s, “Yeah.” But it’s great that people can see it. There’s a population of us that have known this stuff was there, and now everybody else can see it. I have to stay positive. We’re in the middle of what people are going to look back on, like in the ’60s. That’s what we’re in, right now. It’s a little freaky.

It is weird to be discussing the cause of the Civil War in 2017. And having to argue about what the cause was …

Oh my God. I know! The book I’m in right now is Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 16–whatever through the Stono Rebellion and, when you get into the beginning of the country — like the very beginning, the settlements in South Carolina and Virginia and New England — African-Americans are completely intertwined with how the country came into being. Culture-wise, music-wise, economics … for the numbers, the impact was enormous. And when you also look at the primary sources and how the European-Americans, soon to be called “white,” talk about African-Americans, it’s a pretty negative, horrible thing.

To have that be the basis of a country … to have the genocide of natives be the basis of a country … to have racial discrimination be how the country has operated for however long … I mean, sure, of course it’s still an issue, of course this is deep-seated stuff. We’ve had a lot of surface progress and we have had some deep progress. I witness the number of white folks that are like, “Whoa! What?! This is wrong!” And that’s progress to me because, when you look at the numbers for how long it took Abolitionists to get a stronghold, how long it took the religious movement to get a stronghold … when you look at the overall thing, that’s a really positive development to me. And that’s what gives me hope, that there has been a lot of change in people. It’s just the system and the people in power are operating from this old thing. Of course! Why wouldn’t they? They benefit from it!

And they were taught — and continue to teach — a false narrative about how the country was founded.

Yes. Exactly! That’s a problem. When people with an open mind learn the actual history, they are horrified. But, if that’s not what you’re taught … My empathy only goes so far, though, because there’s an Internet and there are lots of books. There are just people who don’t want to dig. I get it: There’s a lot of stuff to watch on TV or whatever.

But there are books out there. There’s all this amazing, scrupulously researched documentation that’s coming out. I just got a book a couple weeks ago. It’s called The Other Slavery and it’s all about the slavery of Native Americans. It just came out last year and it’s thick and it’s footnoted to within an inch of its life. It’s all primary-sourced material that he’s gathered and is writing about. You start reading and it’s like, “Oh my God!” But it’s out there in the book store. Pick it up.

I don’t know. I’m in between, sometimes. I understand if you think the narrative is this, but that only goes so far because you hit human decency. Even if your knowledge of American history is flawed, there’s still, “Don’t be a Nazi.” You know what I mean? I can go only so far with sympathy. It’s like, “Cool. Yeah. You have a swastika? I’m done.” It’s a weird place to be.

As an artist of color and a woman, do you feel any internal or external pressure to meet certain expectations with this stuff … because you don’t have the luxury of mediocrity, like so many white guys with guitars have?

[Laughs] Oh, boy! You don’t hear that very often! Right?

[Laughs] But it’s true. It’s not fair, but it’s true.

It is true. But it can swing the other way a little bit. I’ll be honest: Chocolate Drops, when we started, we weren’t very good. I mean, we were very enthusiastic. [Laughs] There was a novelty aspect that brought some people to the show, but what we had was a connection to tradition. And that is what got us over the beginning of not being that great.

But what you’re saying is … there are two different ways to look at it: There are systemic issues that affect everybody, and then there are issues that anybody has. Right? Everybody has a particular set of obstacles to overcome in their life and then there are these systemic things. So I try to approach my professional life by trying to look at it as this specific set of obstacles that I’ve been given as a human being and not looking at it from the systemic point of view because I think, especially when it comes to me, I have a lot of advantages: I’m light-skinned and all of that kind of stuff.

I remember having a conversation with Sharon Jones, when we were on the set of The Great Debaters. We were part of a music scene in the movie for a split-second. I had never met her before and listening to her talk about how hard her life had been primarily because of her skin color and going, “Wow. I had no idea how bad it could be.” I just shut up and listened to her talk because this was a woman a generation older than me and she had a lot of shit she needed to say, and I needed to hear it. Having that experience, I took that into myself and felt like, “I’m going to use my advantages and I’m going to not really think about what may not be happening for me because of who I am.” I have to stay focused on that because I do have advantages and I do have privileges. And I’m going to use that to try to tell these stories.

I’ve been very, very blessed. The Chocolate Drops were blessed. We stayed focused on Joe [Thompson] and the mission. I think that overcame lots of things. Yeah, we had our share of stupid remarks and what not. But, come on: I read the autobiographies of Black musicians who were out in the ’20s and ’30s and it was nothing, nothing, NOTHING, not even a fraction of what they went through. So I considered us blessed and I used that to try to tell these stories of people who are less fortunate.

You’re in a unique position to bridge a few different gaps, particularly doing the keynote at the IBMA Awards this year. How do you address a crowd that is, notably, not diverse? Some of them may well be allies, some may not. So how do you frame your message to a crowd like that for the biggest impact?

This is where growing up mixed comes in handy. You just walk the line and be unapologetic about it: “Look, man, this is where I’m coming from.” We’ve been shunned by white family members. We’ve been treated not great, so I know that experience. But you can’t hate people. Because I’ve also seen the progress that the white side of my family has made. My grandmother became a bastion of love. She treated us the same as all her other grandchildren. She led that charge so the immediate family could see, over the years, how that love warmed things. So I’ve seen how people can change.

That’s why I get frustrated when people on the Left talk about “those rednecks” and are really dismissive of people I’m related to. You have to give people an opportunity to change. My grandmother’s a great example: She was poor, white, Southern, always looking out for survival, just very simple, straight-ahead, North Carolina, out in the country … her husband built their house, that kind of thing. Her first-born son goes to the big city metropolis of Greensboro and finds a Black woman and becomes a hippie. She had two choices. She was not like, “Oh, that’s great! Bring the Black woman home!” because that wasn’t her experience. In her life, they were the “other.” When my sister was born, she was like, “That’s my grandchild.” She was worried and wasn’t sure what they were going to do, but, then my sister was born, and she was like, “I don’t really care. I’m going to love this child.” She was always really nice to my mom. There were others who weren’t, but she stood fast. That, to me, is so inspiring. That’s where true change happens — when people fall in love and they bring people in. I come from that place.

It takes the “other” out of the equation because the “other” is now part of your family and are no longer an “other.” Like you said, you have to get on board or step all the way off, I guess.

That’s it. That’s absolutely it. It’s interesting. I come prepared knowing the history, so there’s a calmness. I know what happened.

You have truth on your side.

Yeah. You can say whatever you want, but …

Is it tiring or rejuvenating to sing these songs night after night? Is your next project going to be light-hearted kids’ songs or are you going to keep tugging this thread?

[Laughs] Good question!

I hope you keep tugging the thread until the whole thing unravels, but if you need a break, you do your self-care, Gids.

I go back and forth. I’m figuring out ways of not depleting myself. I emailed Joan Baez and asked, “How do you do this? You’ve been doing this for 50 years!” She had some really smart things to say. You have to figure out a way to tap into it without going all the way. You can’t go all the way every night. You’re supposed to be a channel, not provide all of it. So I’m getting better at it.

Every time I think, “Oh, yeah, I’m going to do a love album next,” I keep reading and I’m like, “No way!” [Laughs] There are too many things to say, too many things to write about.

Tug, tug.

Yeah.

Is there anything you feel that’s gotten lost in the conversation around this record that you want to make sure to point out? Or are people really getting it in the right way?

I gotta say, people are getting it. They’re getting the record and they’re getting the show. I’m just kind of stunned, sometimes, when I read the responses and what people have to say. It’s really great. I feel really good about it. It’s been pretty amazing.

Photo credit: John Peets

There Will Be Dancing: Erin McKeown in Conversation with Chastity Brown

Posted on by Editor

It’s a wonder that we journalists ever get away with describing an artist as a singer/songwriter and leaving it at that, as though the meaning of the categorization is so simple, stable, and straightforward as to be universally self-evident. Singer/songwriters, themselves, conceive of what they do in vastly different and ever-evolving ways.

Chastity Brown and Erin McKeown exemplify just how dynamic the role can be. Last week, Brown announced her signing to the folk label Red House Records and McKeown recently released her EP, According to Us, but both are at least a decade into the process of responding to their changing understandings of themselves and the world around them through their music. Along the way, they’ve recalibrated how they want to communicate in, around, and between songs. They were both up for a bracingly honest conversation about what their work requires of them.

Have you two ever crossed paths before now?

Erin McKeown: We haven’t, no. I spent a little time this afternoon perusing Chastity’s website, listening to some music. And I see that you’re on the road with Ani DiFranco right now, which I’ve done before. So I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths.

Chastity Brown: But I’m glad to cross paths today.

I didn’t consider the Ani overlap when I asked you both to do this interview.

CB: No pun at all, because that’s one of Ani’s songs — “Overlap.” People think that women are constantly trying to compete against each other. There have been several possible opportunities of me opening for other people — other women — and managers have been real quick to be like, “No, we don’t want two women on the bill.” Ani’s ethos is really about locking arms and supporting each other, even if we do such different shit [musically]. It makes sense that we would cross paths today, in my opinion. For me, and probably for the both of us, it’s really about locking arms. The music business is difficult enough without trying to compete with your comrades.

EM: I totally agree. Some number of years ago I was like, “I’m just going to play shows and make records with people that make me happy.” Just remove the, like, “Could this person advance my career?” Any of that stuff, in my experience, nine times out of 10, it doesn’t. And in the meantime, I would just rather have a more interesting experience that arouses my curiosity, rather than just punching a clock toward some goal that may or may not materialize.

It seems to me that both of you have evolved in how you think about a particular aspect of being singer/songwriters — whether, why, and how to say things of social and political significance in your music. Erin, you sort of poked at traditional notions of gender and relationships on your album Grand, but your writing on more recent projects, including your new EP, has a different sort of directness and urgency. Chastity, the sound of your music, in itself, makes a statement about how country, soul, and R&B traditions are intertwined, but up until recently, your lyric writing hasn’t been explicitly political in nature. Could you both speak to how your priorities have changed, in terms of what you seek to express?

EM: I appreciate you pointing to what was happening on Grand. Such a long time ago, by the way. At that time, I was definitely knee-deep in trying to advance my career, and I was working with a big — not huge — but big record label at the time. … I was trying to advance my career by a blueprint that was laid out by more or less the label and a more traditional path of the people that had come before me. It’s not that I didn’t know about Ani, of course, but I was sort of trying out this thing and hoping it would work for me. I was definitely exploring politics and relationships in my music, but it was quite cautiously. Some of that was my own personal journey about my internalized homophobia and my internalized misogyny. That’s been a long journey for me of becoming more accepting and open about myself for myself, and that naturally gets reflected in songs. But, at the time, I was very sure that, if I spoke out more clearly or openly or in a less coded way in my songs, there would be some sort of commercial consequence. … Now I’m just looking for an effective song to connect with people. For me, that has been more effective, if I have been more clear about stuff.

CB: I’ve always just sung whatever’s on my mind. And in the beginning, on stuff that wasn’t properly released, it was very hippie-dippy: I love the trees. And I still do — I still fuckin’ love trees.

[All Laugh]

CB: It centered around, “What is this song about? And how can I exhaust this story but not exhaust the listener — like, get the full story out?” It wasn’t ever specifically political. But 10 years later, what I’ve realized is that the personal is political. Just by me being a bi-racial, half-Black, half-white woman living in the world in America right now is political. My focus, as far as this last record, I guess it’s really been psychological. I’m really intrigued by the perseverance of the human spirit and the complexities and contradictions that we embody as human beings. At my live shows, I use the time between songs to dig a little deeper with the folks that are listening about where these things are coming from, whether it’s a blues song that I wrote about Detroit, Michigan, going bankrupt and people losing their retirement. That song is essentially about putting your trust in something that you later realize you shouldn’t have. But if someone doesn’t know that, they might just think it’s a love song, that I’m saying “Fuck you” to somebody.

That rang true for me — what you said, Erin, about trying to be as clear as possible. But because we’re making art, there’s this room, this ambiguity. What happens when you release art to the public is, no matter what narrative I give you, you still may extract pieces of that narrative. People will make it their own and make it applicable to their own spheres. But that’s one huge realization for me as a 34-year-old woman and what’s been happening in Minneapolis — Philando Castile’s murder and last year with Jamar Clark. Just being a person of color, a queer woman of color, for that matter, is freaking political. I don’t even have to say anything; I just leave my house, and that’s a statement. I practice good eating habits and I exercise; radically loving myself is also political. I see that now, and my hope is that that comes out in my work. There are other stories to tell other than just the specifics of politics or my stances on things.

It sounds like those are realizations you’ve come to and priorities you’ve embraced over time.

CB: An author I love, Octavia Butler, she’s freakin’ blowing my mind. Such imaginative writing. She was the first Black woman to write sci-fi. I was geeking out yesterday and watching these YouTube clips of interviews with her. The interviewer asked her about her stance on current politics, and she was just like, “There’s so much that Black people can write about other than just being hated.” There’s so much more to life experience other than just constantly defending your queer self and your queer and transgender brothers and sisters. I love the way that Octavia put it: There’s far more vast creativity within us.

EM: I love that. I also love the reminder that art gets at things in oblique ways that are often just as useful as clear ways.

Erin, on your new EP, you play with the power of a person claiming an identity for herself. You noted in an interview a few years ago that, when first you began to get attention for one aspect of your identity — being queer — it wasn’t because you’d decided that you wanted to start writing or talking about it, but because a blog labeled you that way. Once there was the expectation that you’d be speaking from that identity, what’d you do with that?

EM: Basically, what happened was, I did an interview with a lesbian website. Up to that point I had never come out, and that had been on purpose. We never talked about it in the interview. Then when the article was published, the headline was “lesbian singer/songwriter.”

CB: Oh, damn!

EM: I know! I started getting these emails from people that said, “Oh my God! You’re a lesbian! That’s so great! Thank you for coming out. That means so much to me.” Besides the functional piece of I wasn’t really ready and it wasn’t on my terms, I also felt the responsibility to those folks to say, “Right on! You’re okay as you are!” Because that’s the underlying message that I would hope to give anyone. I just felt like I didn’t have any choice but to just jump off the deep end and accept that it happened and try to work on my own fear about it and try to be a kind and loving example for other folks who could identify with me in that way. I don’t identify as lesbian; I’ve always identified as queer. But I think 10 years ago that was a conversation that wasn’t as nuanced as it is now, which I’m really glad to see.

I played on sports teams in high school — I still play on sports teams — but I always hate putting on the same shirt as somebody else. I think my journey has been to try to recognize that impulse in myself and put it aside and kind of work with the identities that get foisted on me, even though they’re not always my choice or the timing is not my choice.

Once that happened, how did you make creative use of it?

EM: I ignored it. I ignored it in my writing for a while. So much of this work happens, like Chastity said, in between songs. And I’ve always been someone that likes to go out and meet folks after the show and talk. So much of this work in those spaces, as well. I just found, in those interactions, that I could make better use of these identities, if I just gave people space to put their own into the conversation with me.

Chastity, in an interview you gave a few years back you reflected that making political music had become a more isolating practice than it might’ve been for previous generations. At that time, political songwriting didn’t really seem attached to a movement. So much has happened since then. Have your feelings about that changed? Do you feel musically connected to the Black Lives Matter movement?

CB: I’ve never been so specific on stage about current events than I have as of late, on these last few tours. I think it’s this realization that my personal life is political and that I have the fortune to be elevated and amplified night after night; I’m the loudest thing in the room. And what am I gonna do with that type of power?

I came home after the mass demonstration that we did for Jamar Clark through the streets of Minneapolis and wrote this song called “Hey You.” It’s very gentle. Initially, the song was more like, “Fuck you.” [Chuckles] But what I realized was that that changed the focus. If I’m saying, “Fuck you,” that means that I’m on such high guard that I’m also not celebrating. Alice Walker says, “Where there are tears, there will be dancing.” I wanted to write a song in solidarity that sets up these different scenes of brown folk culture and is celebrating it, and then give the listener an opportunity to think about that. The song closes with a bridge saying, “I was wanting you to see me to show you that I exist, but I put that down when I raised my fist.” I would’ve never written a song like that had I not participated in these protests where we’re all crying and then moments later thousands of us are jumping in the streets, dancing to Kendrick Lamar.

I just finished watching the Nina Simone documentary. She was doing her thing; she was rocking it; she was blowing up all over the world. And then the Civil Rights movement happened, and she couldn’t help herself. I felt a kinship to that feeling: I cannot help myself. I talk about Black Lives Matter at ever single concert, and I often will follow it with a Nina Simone song, because she’s such an eloquent woman. I lean on her in that moment, and say, “If I can’t be eloquent enough, let Nina Simone do it.”

Erin, I love what you were saying about the folks who come up to you, because I also have that, especially with little mixed girls. Those of us who grew up in a small town with an afro, you’re really, really aware. And I’m not even dark-skinned, you know? But there were all these nuances that I didn’t have a language for, until I started seeking out images of myself. And there’s nothing more powerful than that sentiment. Even if I’m playing a show in front of a thousand people and I sure as hell know there are only eight people of color there, those eight people of color are definitely gonna link up after the show and just be each other’s echo or be each other’s mirror.

Because I play Americana, it’s been interesting reminding even the Black community that the banjo is an African instrument: “We’re so diverse. We’re so capable of everything.” I end up, in certain ways, educating both sides of me, the white side of me and the white audience and the Black side of me and the Black audience.

I’m glad you brought up the Black banjo tradition. You said that your very existence is political — so is your musical imagination. You have a song called “Banjo Blues” on a recent album where you’re singing over an abstract programmed loop. You’ve incorporated loops in earlier tracks, too, like “House Been Burning.” That album, Back-Road Highways, opens with a very laid-back loop that could work just as well for you if you were a rapper rather than a singer.

CB: Oh, I wish I could rap.

You incorporate hip-hop production elements and myriad rooted musical traditions, including soul, gospel, and country, into what you do. What possibilities do you see for expanding our notions of rooted musical traditions to include hip-hop?

CB: One thing I’ve always said to my band is, “If I don’t feel the kick drum, it ain’t a fuckin’ song.” There’s just something with Black folk music — the beat is essential to everything. What I layer on top of the beat just so happens to be the acoustic guitar.

Since I’ve been playing publicly, people have always questioned me about my genre-blurring. I never had the language for it until this past year. It’s truly, I am both things; I am just as much one as the other. I love Dolly Parton just as much as I love Beyoncé, but for different reasons — or as much as I love Mavis Staples or Van Morrison or Ryan Adams. I grew up listening to Americana and old-school country, and I grew up listening to R&B and gospel, and Irish music. This is just me. If you can’t get it by now, I’m putting out my sixth album and I’ve been pretty consistent. I am soulful, and I’m country. That’s just what’s up. I feel like I’m better able to articulate that this whole duality that people are seeing is, in fact, me. It’s not a duality to me because it’s the life that I live.

EM: Chastity, I appreciate hearing your experience with the assumptions that people make and the way that you don’t even consider having to reconcile those things in yourself. There’s nothing to reconcile. It’s just you. … In the second or third season of Orange Is the New Black, it seemed like there was a tiny little theme running through the whole season where anything any of the characters had a chance to talk about what music they liked, it was never …

CB: … what the stereotype would suggest.

EM: The, I think, racist assumption that, if you’re Latina, you have to listen to Latin music, or if you’re African-American, you have to listen to soul music. I was thinking, “In what ways do I have my own version of answering these questions in my own work?” Obviously, as a white woman, I come with a different set of privileges to unpack and participate in this conversation in a different way than you do. Something that’s been important to me to do in my work is to notice these assumptions and to try to make a space to undo them with actual songs.

CB: I like that. Hell, yeah.

Musically speaking, Erin, you’ve created a lot of space for yourself to maneuver and experiment. In a previous interview, you said that rhythm is often the engine for your songwriting .

EM: Yeah. That’s always been my deal. I don’t know why or where that came from for me, but it’s always been rhythm is the most important thing to me. Then I found Garage Band 10 years ago; the premade loops in Garage Band are the canvas that I start everything on. Stuff evolves or takes left turns, but that’s been my main way of writing of for a long time now.

You’ve expanded into the producer role on your more recent projects. It has to be empowering to have the tools at your disposal to explore these rhythmic ideas and build tracks like you did for “Where Did I Go” and “Histories.”

EM: I could definitely relate to Chastity when you said, if you can’t feel the kick drum, it’s not a song. … For me, that sense of propulsion and directness and body has to be there for me to be interested in music.

I wanna throw something in here. This is something I’m thinking about for the first time as I’m listening to this conversation. It’s making me realize no one has ever asked me, as a white person, to reconcile the different types of genres that have been in my music. No one’s ever asked me that. And I think that there’s something there. There’s a dominant paradigm of “it’s not that interesting if a white person loves soul music.” People don’t question it. It sounds like, from the experience you’re talking about, Chastity, people ask you that question — "These genre that are unexpected from a person of color, why is that in your music?" People don’t ask me that.

CB: Almost every interview I’ve ever had. … That’s crazy that no one’s ever asked you. That blows my mind.

EM: They’ve never asked it to me in the context of me being white. I’ve been asked that in the context of, “Isn’t it unusual for jazz to sit next to rock in your songs?” But I think it actually is an explicitly racial question. No one’s asking me that because I’m white and there’s a long history of it being ”okay” for white people — I’m going to use this word on purpose — to dabble in the music of people who are not like them.

CB: I appreciate you recognizing that.

Erin, I’m surprised that no one’s asked you about some of your global sources, things like borrowing West African blues sounds for “The Jailer.” So that’s not a conversation you’ve ever had?

EM: I have spent lots of time with African music and love it, and it comes through in my writing because of my love of it. I always think about [the fact] that I’m a white person working with those texts, for lack of a better word. I think about that stuff and I try to be as responsible as I can. I certainly have conversations with other musicians about it. But my point was, I’ve never been asked that, in terms of people trying to make sense of my music. And I think that that’s relevant to what we’re talking about.

 

For more on race, politics, and community in music, read Jewly's conversation with Heather McEntire and Sweet Honey in the Rock.