Tag: Randy Newman

BGS 5+5: River Kittens

Posted on by Editor

Artist: River Kittens (Mattie Schell and Allie Vogler)
Hometown: St. Louis, Missouri
Newest Album: Soaking Wet

What’s your favorite memory of being on stage?

Well, I have been performing since I was a kid… and there have certainly been some amazing highlights I’ll never forget as an adult (playing Allman Family Revival at the Beacon Theater for one!), but I think the most special for me was a community theater production of The Music Man when I was probably 11 years old. I played Winthrop (a boy part of course… the bowl cut helped), my mom played Mrs. Paroo, my dad played Marcellus Washburn, even my sister and Aunt Janet were in the show. I look back in those memories and think, “Wow, our family was like half of that musical! How cool!” It was a cool thing to share as a family and really made me fall in love with musical theater, which really shaped so much about the kind of performer I have become. Long live Broadway! 😂 — Mattie

One time we were playing this four-hour gig and we were just kinda getting through our songs. It was hot and we felt like we were background music. I was definitely in an auto pilot state. But this lady in the audience starts laughing. She’s laughing at one of our funnier songs, “Dressing on the Side.” It was her first time hearing it and she was cracking up to our lyrics, while I was just deadpan playing the song trying to get through it. Her hilarious reaction quickly brought me back to reality and had me laughing real hard during the rest of the song, and show. Just by laughing she was able to pull me out of a funk and my song probably pulled her out of one too. It was a really genuine, hilarious moment and a good reminder to enjoy playing my songs that I’ve played a thousand times for the people who haven’t heard them before.

Also gotta mention the time I put a praying mantis on my microphone (Missouri outdoor gig) and I went to sing in it and he charged at my face and tried to get me. That was hilarious. — Allie

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

There is nothing better than playing music outdoors. It just feels right. I think I come from a long line of porch-sitting musicians. I know my great-grandfather used to play and dance on the front porch with my grandma and her nine siblings. I have a huge family and we have a gathering called June Jam every year on some farmland in Illinois. Friends and family come from all over and we camp out and potluck and jam into the wee hours of the morning. It’s my favorite time of year. I bought a kayak a few years ago and paddle the Mississippi River quite often. The Mississippi has influenced a lot of my songwriting. I’ve lost friends to that river, I’ve had some of the most memorable family moments on that river, I’ve had countless jams along that river, but it never ceases to fill me with wonder and awe to be out there in the middle of it. It’s incredibly inspiring. — Mattie

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

This is a hard one, but I’ll have to say Paul McCartney. His melodies have been ingrained in my head since childhood. I’m a huge fan of all of his projects and his personality in general. He is such a prolific musician and everything he writes makes me really feel something. RAM is definitely a favorite album. And he just seems so fun loving from all the interviews I’ve seen on the internet. — Allie

Well, although this is a question I get often, it’s always a tough one to answer. It honestly depends on what year it was. Haha But for the sake of brevity, I’ll say The Band. I really dove into their catalog in my early 20s and haven’t seen music the same since. My Uncle Wayne (another huge influence who happened to give me my first mandolin) lent me a copy of Levon’s book This Wheel’s on Fire and it resonated with me and really inspired me. The Band was a group that had some serious talent and killer songwriting that just grabs you, but they never took themselves too seriously. That mentality is always a goal of mine because music should always be fun, especially when it’s good. — Mattie

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I’m working on something for my grandmother, and I have been for a while. She always wanted me to sing, and I want to write the perfect song for her. I do know that when the words come, they’ll pour. There’s a lot of imaginary walls in songwriting, for me anyway. I gotta either climb them or let them fall down, and honestly the lyrics are better when the walls fall down. They’re more like floodgates. — Allie

I wrote a tune based off of a local legend in the area I’m from on the Mississippi River. There is an old house in Alton, Illinois, that was part of the Underground Railroad and it has a massive widow’s peak. There’s a story of the wife of a river boat captain who watched him sail off and when he never returned, she waited for him in that widow’s peak until the day she died. It took me ten years to write that song, because I wanted it to be a little haunting and do the story justice. But then I thought, “What the hell was she waiting for?” So I changed the story up a bit. I wanted better for this woman, I didn’t want her to wait around, I wanted her to take action. I gave her a much happier, purposeful ending and that’s when I was able to finish writing. — Mattie

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

I’ll go get some street tacos and a beer with just about anybody but if I get to choose, I’m takin’ Randy Newman out for crawfish, oysters, and Sandinistas. Then we’re hitting the piano bars. — Allie

Photo courtesy of Big Hassle

BGS 5+5: Sam Filiatreau

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Sam Filiatreau
Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky
Latest Album: Sam Filiatreau

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I was around 10 years old sitting in the basement with my dad and brother watching this Bruce Springsteen concert. I remember my dad saying something like, “Look at how much fun he’s having and that’s his job.” I had never really thought about being able to do something you loved and getting paid for it.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Maybe five years ago we threw a big concert on the day of The Kentucky Derby. My friends, The Nude Party, were on the bill too and we had a few days of debauchery leading into it. For the encore, all the bands got on stage to sing “Dead Flowers” and it was the first time for me where everything felt right.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Most of the time when I’m writing songs, they start with me just singing over some chords until a good line sticks out. Most of the time I’m usually writing outside of my own experiences, but there are many moments where I look down and realize that I was accidentally writing about myself.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

John Prine. Aside from being one of the best songwriters ever he’s just been so consistently cool and compassionate throughout his career. I feel like from the moment he started that his success never affected who he was. We didn’t deserve John Prine, but I’m glad we got him.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I spend a lot of time fishing with friends and on my own. I don’t think it necessarily inspires my music, but there’s something about fishing by yourself and playing music that go hand in hand. It becomes meditative at some point just listening to the water and finding some sort of rhythm. And when you finally catch a fish it’s just as exciting as pulling a lyric out of thin air and holding it close for a moment.

Photo credit: Maggie Halfman

BGS 5+5: Lula Wiles

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Lula Wiles
Hometown: Our band sort of has two hometowns: we started the band when we were all living in Boston, but we first played music together as tweens at Maine Fiddle Camp, located in Wabanaki (Penobscot) territory (“Montville, Maine”).
New Album: Shame and Sedition
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Personal nicknames — who’s who should be obvious: Buckles, Burkles, Boms. A rejected bandname that we still joke about… “Monkberry and the Moonlights,” inspired by the Paul McCartney song “Monkberry Moon Delight” off of Mali’s favorite album RAM. We’re so glad we didn’t go with that name… lol.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

Eleanor Buckland: I grew up playing music with my family and looking up to my dad, who is a professional musician, so I’ve sort of had a desire to be a musician as long as I’ve known that was a thing I could be. But, I do remember a specific Crooked Still show in Maine during my freshman or sophomore year of high school that made such an impression on me. During the show I felt almost sick with longing and from then on I knew I was doomed (ha!) for professional musicianship!

Mali Obomsawin: As a little kid I always just wanted to make people happy and make people laugh. I think I always was a performer, and I always loved words, and it just ended up being music that those things came through. I sang and improvised little poems and acted out a lot. When we would play games as kids, I would always come up with little songs and dances… and when we would play fairies or whatever I would always choose to wear this potato sack and be the “troll” character. I liked being the goofy one that got to do mischief and be different. Maybe this is telling… haha. My dad’s a musician too and there have been a lot of musicians in my family for generations… it was just normal to express yourself that way.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Isa Burke: My influences have shifted and cycled in and out constantly throughout my life. I’d say Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings and Joni Mitchell are probably the most long-lasting influences if I really had to narrow it down. But honestly, I think many of the biggest influences on me have also been my friends, family, bandmates, collaborators, and people I’ve shared musical community with. I also tend to go through phases where I’m really devoted to one artist, and this past year I’ve been really inspired by Fiona Apple. She’s so liberated in the way she creates, it makes me feel more liberated, too. When I listen to her music or read interviews with her, it’s like she’s shaking me by the shoulders and reminding me that I can do whatever the hell I want.

Mali: Like Isa I go through phases… some of my biggest influences that might not be obvious from listening to Lula Wiles are Ornette Coleman and Charles Mingus. I got really into “avant garde” and free music at a young age and I think that has shaped my preferences and tendencies as a musician in so many ways. I also think on this album we were able to lean in a little bit more to those sounds that are exciting to me, harsher or more “raw” sounds juxtaposed with atmospheric/gentle/melancholy ones, leaving room in our arrangements for grit and breathability and improvisation. These are all things I associate with Mingus and Ornette — I especially have always been so inspired by Ornette’s gut-wrenching melodies. Just so human. I think Buffy Sainte-Marie had these piercingly honest sounds/qualities in her music too, but I didn’t really dig into her work until more recently. I dunno. These days I’m just loving indie rock, I’m not too proud to admit it!! Really sardonic or sarcastic songwriters like Rufus Wainwright and Randy Newman have been big influences for me. Aaaand, let’s see… Fleetwood Mac?

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

Isa: I’d say my songs definitely draw from fiction and film. I love songs that feel like short stories or films — songs with specific, carefully chosen details that expand in the listener’s mind to create a vivid scene, a feeling, a narrative. I also love dialogue in lyrics — Joni Mitchell is a master of that, obviously. Sometimes when I’m writing, I try to imagine the song as a screenplay, or a film, or a novel. Where would this scene take place, what would the characters say to each other, how would it look and sound and feel? That helps me hone in on which of the various elements at my disposal (description, dialogue, details, images, sounds, melodies) can best tell the story and create the feeling I’m looking for. I also think on a more musical (non-lyrical) level, my sense of rhythm is definitely informed by dance. I’ve always loved dancing and a lot of my most formative musical experiences were based in instrumental fiddle music, which at its root is dance music. I move around a lot when I play and I try to write music that feels embodied, that physically feels good to play.

Mali: So many of my songs have been sparked by specific phrases or ideas in fiction novels and poetry. I get obsessed with the beauty or rhythm or texture of a few words juxtaposed against one another, and I adore word-play, and just sonic patterns or complimentary sounds. Language makes me so excited. It’s nerdy maybe. But sometimes when I read a line in a novel that expresses a specific feeling in a poignant or abstract way, it’s really euphoric. James Baldwin is an example pertinent to this album -– the big inspiration behind “In Dreams” … I’m still working my way through Baldwin’s work now, but I’m also pretty deep in listening to speeches by Black Panthers and other civil rights activists from that time. I think it’s odd how we compartmentalize art/genres sometimes, because these speeches are some of the best pieces of American literature ever created. Anyway, I digress. I think in colors and shapes when I play and compose music, but not specifically in the form of paintings or anything.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Eleanor: “Hometown” on our previous record, What Will We Do, was one of my hardest songs to write. I think this was because the story I was trying to tell in the song is so closely connected to my home and the people I love. I found it harder to get to the truth of the song than ever before, because I was so determined to do the story justice. Mali and Isa were both critical co-writers for this song and helped me more deeply understand and stay true to the heart of what I was trying to say.

Isa: I have a song called “Wild Geese” that has been torturing me since April 18th, 2017. On that day, I sat down and wrote a verse and a guitar riff in about five minutes and thought it was one of the best things I’d ever written, but I’ve never been able to finish it. As soon as I wrote it I knew it had to be the last verse of the song, so I’m working backwards. Every so often I’ll pull the song back out and bang my head against the wall for a while, but I can’t seem to write anything that lives up to that one verse. I’ve even finished and scrapped a couple of full drafts (we actually recorded a rough version of one of them during the sessions for What Will We Do). I’ve always ended up getting rid of everything except that one verse. I can’t let that verse go. It haunts me! Maybe it’s just supposed to be a really short song — hopefully you’ll hear it someday.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Mali: Hmmm… the time Tim O’Brien introduced us as Lula Whales? There was another time we made Ellie eat a hot dog onstage in San Francisco on her birthday.

Eleanor: That was possibly my favorite birthday show ever. Isa and Mali surprised me with a hot dog onstage, since I love hot dogs and I am teased mercilessly for it. That same night, we also got pranked by our drummer, who had the sound guy at the Freight & Salvage play one of our TOP van jams, “Twang” by Mason Ramsey (featured in our playlist) as our walk-on music. It was awesome.

Photo credit: Laura E. Partain

Somewhere Out There, These 9 Songs from Cartoons Stand on Their Own

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Adults who have happened to spend any amount of time watching children’s TV and cartoons – say Winnie the Pooh, or Looney Tunes, or The Amazing World of Gumball – know that plenty of jokes and gags aren’t written for the kids tuning in at all. Certainly the same fact is true of many soundtracks and scores. Originally intended for younger audiences, these nine songs from popular cartoons supersede their animated film origins. Some have gone on to become modern classics, others popular karaoke anthems, Americana covers, and even a drag queen number or two. No matter the context, each of these songs stands on their own.

Bonnie Raitt: “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again,” Home On the Range

A ragtag group of livestock must save their family farm, “Patch of Heaven,” from a thieving-cowboy-would-be-rancher-and-real-estate-magnate. Along their journey, quite a few problems arise for the cows and crew, and right when you realize all hope is lost, Bonnie Raitt’s voice comes wafting on the Western wind. A nearly perfect, succinct package at 2:30 long, “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again” deserves a spot in the modern country canon. Instead, it’s nearly hidden away on this 2004 Disney release.

Linda Ronstadt: “Somewhere Out There,” An American Tail

Immigrant mice find themselves journeying to America in this 1986 Steven Spielberg-produced classic cartoon, which was so popular a sequel was released in 1991. (Hear a track from its soundtrack later in this list.) The main character Fievel’s sister, Tonya, has designs on starhood, singing “Somewhere Out There” exquisitely and mournfully — and apparently poorly by mouse standards. But her family uses the tomatoes flung at her for dinner. Linda Ronstadt reprises the track on the soundtrack, belting the epic arrangement as only she can.

Randy Newman: “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” Toy Story

Randy Newman’s soundtrack offerings for all of the Toy Story movies epitomize the central concept of this list: Songs that are just good, whether they’re from an animated film or not. Other soundtracks from the franchise feature Riders in the Sky, Sarah McLachlan, Judas Priest, and Chris Stapleton. All are fantastic, but “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” is certainly the piece de resistance.

Shelby Flint: “Someone’s Waiting for You,” The Rescuers

A haunting, morose, nightmarish — and hilariously entertaining — tale of an orphan kidnapped by treasure hunters, The Rescuers follows two mice from the Rescue Aid Society as they join an albatross to attempt… well, a rescue. “Someone’s Waiting for You” captures the melancholy of loneliness and isolation so well, with a tinge of solemn hope. The classic Disney animation style and southern bayou setting are simply gorgeous and the Golden Age of Hollywood orchestration is decadently nostalgic.

Helen Reddy & Sean Marshall: “It’s Not Easy,” Pete’s Dragon

A groundbreaking film for its time, 1977’s Pete’s Dragon combined live action and animation — so we’re sneaking it onto this list on that technicality. Another song from the film, “Candle on the Water,” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, but “It’s Not Easy” might be the movie’s best. Helen Reddy, who passed away in September of 2020, had multiple Top 10 hits in adult contemporary and pop. Her performance — on this song and throughout the film — certainly sell it.

Bryan Adams: “Get Off of My Back,” Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron was one of the first feature-length animated films to effectively and seamlessly combine traditional animation with more modern, computer-generated 3D animation. It’s a hugely popular film, but somehow still grossly underrated, and Bryan Adams’ deliciously early 2000s soundtrack is still impeccable. Several songs could’ve made the cut for this list, but we’ve gone with the high-energy, joyfully defiant “Get Off of My Back.”

Lea Salonga: “Reflection,” Mulan

A ballad and anthem that’s something of a queer rite of passage for Disney millennials: “If I were truly to be myself / I would break my family’s heart….” This rendition of “Reflection” is a rare instance of the score version being better than the credits version. (No shade to Christina Aguilera.) Lea Salonga so relatably embodies Mulan’s longing to live her truth. Just try not to sob-shout along.

Whitney Houston & Mariah Carey: “When You Believe,” The Prince of Egypt

All epic cartoon powerhouse ballad duets must be second to this one, a smash hit from Dreamworks Picture’s The Prince of Egypt. How blessed are we to have Whitney and Mariah trading runs on this loosely Bible-themed melodrama-via-song? If you didn’t start out at the beginning of the song as a believer in miracles, by the end you will. “When You Believe” reached number 13 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and was released by Carey on her Number 1’s compilation album.

Linda Ronstadt: “Dreams to Dream,” An American Tail: Fievel Goes West

We simply had to include Linda Ronstadt — and the An American Tail franchise — twice. “Dreams to Dream,” another credits reprise by Ronstadt, nearly blows the doors off “Somewhere Out There” with its soaring modulations and Ronstadt pulling out all of the stops. How one voice, one woman, could out-power an entire orchestra and rock band combined defies reason. Except, with Linda, that level of energy, charisma, and raw presence is the norm rather than the exception. Try to listen through to this song just once. It almost begs being played on repeat.

BGS 5+5: Jillette Johnson

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jillette Johnson
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest Album: It’s a Beautiful Day and I Love You
Personal nicknames: JJ

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

It’s so hard to pick one, but Randy Newman has greatly impacted me as a songwriter and performer. I heard my first Randy Newman song when I was a toddler, watching the movie Beaches with my parents. Bette Midler sings his song, “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” at the end of the movie, and it cut right into me. I didn’t know he wrote that song until by accident, I got to see him play and essentially lead a lecture in Los Angeles when I was 16. He completely transfixed me.

His musical sophistication and ear for beauty, coupled with his cutting, hilarious, and deeply empathetic storytelling was like nothing else I had ever heard. He’s so prolific, and so unchained to whatever the world expects of a singer-songwriter. He takes risks, tells the truth, and lets his humanity lead the charge in every song. And he’s still doing it, to the highest level, which inspires the hell out of me. I’ve said often that I want to be Randy Newman when I grow up, meaning that I want to keep making exciting music that matters for the rest of my life, just like him.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

This wasn’t exactly a stage, but it sure felt like one. When I was 17, I was invited to go to Liza Minnelli’s apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan to play songs for her on her beautiful grand piano overlooking Central Park. She greeted me at the door with those big bright eyes, no makeup, wearing sweatpants and a giant smile. Her apartment was under construction, but the “piano room,” was perfectly intact — a room of only mirrors, windows, one couch, and the piano where I played. We sat there for hours while I performed songs I had written, and she sat next to me, asking me to replay certain parts of each song so she could really let them sink it.

She made me feel like what I was making mattered, and like I belonged. I’ll never forget that feeling, or her kindness. Towards the end of the visit, she told me I reminded her of Laura Nyro, whom I’d never heard before then, and she insisted I go to her bedroom with her while she crawled on the floor of her closet looking for a Laura Nyro record to give me. She never found the record, but I still relish the image in my mind of her in a pile of clothes scouring for it and swearing under her breath.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

It happened before I can remember. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that I wanted to be a musician. I was the kid wandering around the edge of the sandbox making up songs and singing them to myself out loud. My grandmother asked me when I was like 4 or 5 what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said a rock star. She asked what my second choice would be, and I said I didn’t have one. And I still feel that way. Music has been with me before everything. I’d be an entirely different person without it.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

It’s really helpful for me to find some time to be quiet and center before a show. I always warm up my voice first, usually an hour or so before I go on, while I get changed and do my hair and makeup. But then, in that half hour before I go on, I really like to be alone. I’ll often take that time to meditate first, and then move my body in ways that energize me and make me feel powerful. The sweet spot for me is to go on stage feeling calm and in control, but still full of vigor and excitement. It’s a hard line to walk sometimes, and my nerves have been getting harder to control as I’ve gotten older. That’s why the meditation part is so important.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Often! It’s a fun way to have a little therapy session without having to leave my house or pay anybody. And in writing land, it can lead to songs that speak more clearly and feel more inclusive. When I need guidance or am feeling insecure, I like to ask myself what I would tell someone that I loved if they came to me for help with the same issues. And when I’m writing a song that starts to sound like a pity party, or I get lost in what I’m trying to say, I often do the same thing. It’s so much easier to find clarity and compassion for others than it is for yourself, at least in my experience. Flipping the “I” to “you” or “her” is a tool I like to use in both art and life.

Photo credit: Betsy Phillips

BGS 5+5: Kirby Brown

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Kirby Brown
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee (by way of New York City; Dallas; Sulphur Springs, Texas; and Damascus, Arkansas).
Latest album: Uncommon Prayer + new EP, Dream Songs out June 7, 2019
Personal nicknames: Kirbs, KB, Corbin Biscuits (hi, Matty!)

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I could never narrow it down that far, so [I’ll] touch on a few here. Joni Mitchell, for her ability to be raw and personal while simultaneously touching on something emotionally universal. Townes Van Zandt, because nobody else could make plain language sound so sacred. I love Randy Newman for the juxtaposition of his complex sense of character development with the simple familiarity of his melodies. John Prine is the master of using levity to disarm you in one line, only to jab the dagger through your heart in the next. All of these have made a lasting impact on my approach to the song craft, but I could go on and on. Of course, I probably can’t escape the influence of my musical surroundings growing up: country gospel, ‘90s alternative, the radio.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My friend Dylan LeBlanc took me as solo support on his European tour in Fall 2017. There were several “wow” moments on that tour, but I specifically remember a show at Pustervik in Gothenburg, Sweden. The venue was perfect, the sound was on point, and the audience and I just felt like we had something special going on. It was one of many magical moments on that run. There’s something to be said for European audiences’ capacity to tune in and really “go there” with you. I’m so thankful for that, and I’m looking for any excuse or opportunity to go back.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

After my parents split up, I’d only see my father every so often. He’d gone back to college as an English major and (I think) rediscovered a lost interest in literature, specifically poetry. For that reason, many of our visits would come back to whatever he was reading at that time. He gave me Norton’s Anthology of Poetry when I was nine years old, and so began a lifelong journey with language and how we use it. I’m still walking down that road — this year’s focus has been Maxine Kumin, Donald Hall, and Anna Karenina. Film-wise, I once went through a period when I was trying to learn a second language and watched only Spanish-language films for a year. I found one of the songs I recorded on my new EP in an Almodóvar film, and it has haunted me ever since. Lately it’s been Westerns by John Ford. I digress… I guess we’ll save painters for our second date.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Aren’t they all tough? Not really, I guess they do come fast and easy sometimes. Still, the longer I do this the more pressingly I feel the need to filter myself. This is for the best I’m sure, but it does make the writing slower and more arduous. I carried around the phrase “a Playboy for the interviews, a Bible for the maps” for the last three or four years. I don’t even know why, maybe I thought it was funny? Anyway, it only recently found a home in “Little Miss” from the new Dream Songs EP. I don’t even know if it works. Either way, at least I’m not toting it around anymore.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

All the time, honestly. I approach most everything I write like it’s fiction: made-up characters and stories, some conversation I heard in passing, etc. But somewhere along the way it almost always ends up being me or someone I know or some synthesis of all the above. Still, I don’t think it’s hiding, maybe it’s just a very effective trick I keep playing on myself. Mark Twain has a quote attributed to him about “not letting the truth get in the way of a good story.” I tend to believe that it’s best to not let a little fiction stand in the way of the truth — even if it’s the hard truth about yourself you weren’t ready to hear.

Photo credit: Jacqueline Justice

BGS 5+5: Rebecca Loebe

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Rebecca Loebe
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Latest album: Give Up Your Ghosts
Personal nicknames: Becca

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

Ooh, great question! I think this happens in cycles. I’ve gone through periods of writing songs inspired by fiction, or using the stories of people I meet on the road. This tends to happen when my own life doesn’t feel inspiring, if I’m not in the mood to share or, honestly, if I’m just not in touch with my own emotional state.

For me, it’s often more a case of co-opting someone else’s story and then posing it as a first person “me” song! Rather than hiding behind a “you,” I tend to do the opposite – write a song using someone else’s story (or making one up) and then singing it in the first person as if it’s my own… I did that recently with the songs “Lake Louise,” “Tattoo,” “Flying” … and in a bunch of my older songs, like “Lie,” “Marguerita” and “The Chicago Kid” all fall into that category.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Ooh, that’s hard to say, I’ve struggled with some many of them! I guess you could say I’m a laborious writer. Occasionally a song will spill out (“Ghosts” came out in a single sitting, almost stream-of-consciousness) but often I will labor over a song for weeks, months, and sometimes years.

The song “Growing Up” was very difficult to write. I started it at an off-the-grid writing retreat in the West Texas desert. The chorus came together quickly, and it felt like the start of some sort of empowering anthem. Then I left the retreat and my phone started to blow up; it was October of 2017, and while I was out of town the Harvey Weinstein scandal had broken. Suddenly many thousands of horrible, important stories were being dragged from the shadows to the mainstream narrative of our culture. It was a desperately needed, incredibly important step but it also knocked the wind out of me and muted my desire to write an empowerment anthem.

A month or so later, I was at another retreat and decided to give the song another try. This time, I played it for a friend who pointed out that sometimes growing up isn’t empowering. Sometimes it’s just a bummer–the punches keep on coming and we have to pull ourselves up and dust ourselves off over and over and over again, because it’s the only option. That friend is the wonderful Megan Burtt, who became a co-writer on the song for, as she puts it, “bringing the bummer.”

For the month prior to that moment of clarity, I had really agonized over this song; it was so hard to reconcile the message I wanted to share about strength and resolve with the more painful realities of the world. Once we decided that it’s ok to not be ok, the song clicked together pretty quickly.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Ha! My ideal pre-show ritual includes a delicious meal with lots of fresh local veggies, a thorough, full-body stretch, twenty minutes of Metta meditation and about twenty minutes of vocal warm-ups. Doesn’t that sound nice? In reality, I usually end up doing lip trills backstage while I put on my makeup and eat dinner out of a to-go carton in my lap. If I’m really lucky, I can get through the whole vocal warmup routine in an app I like called Vocal Ease.

Whenever possible, I try to sit with my set list and think through what I’ve come to say and why. I work to make my show about the audience and to give them the experience that they need, whether it’s humor, catharsis, or a mix of both (usually a mix). It might sound corny, but when I started thinking of my show as a service for the audience, rather than being solely about my own creative expression, it totally changed my approach and made me feel a much deeper connection to the work and to the audience. I certainly haven’t cracked the code, but it’s fun to try.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

“Be Nice, Dammit!” I’m half-kidding…but not really. Before I was able to do music full-time, I worked a ton of different customer service jobs. As a bank teller, waitress, and grocery store clerk, I saw over and over again how someone in a bad mood could say something surly and ruin my day. One unkind customer could throw me off and leave me in a worse mood for everyone else I interacted with that day (side note: I might be too wimpy for customer service!).

On the flip side, I saw over and over how someone who took the time to look me in the eye and speak with kindness could immediately improve the quality of my day. A nice interaction could wipe the slate clean, and leave me in a much better place for everyone else I talked to that day.

I decided during that time to make a deliberate practice of being as nice as possible to every single person I meet for the rest of my life. It’s been about 15 years and I still work at sticking to it every day. The way I see it, it takes about as much energy to be kind to someone as it does to be neutral, and the potential impact is worth it. If I give someone some good energy and that helps turn their day around, then perhaps it will positively impact other people they deal with later in the day, and maybe those people can positively impact other people…. Maybe not, but there’s no harm in trying, right?

I know this all makes me sound like some saccharine-y sweet Pollyanna-ish wannabe do-gooder, and I promise I’m not that. I’m a cynical optimist; I know that there are dark, sad truths about the world that we can’t change, but I think that making a habit of being extra kind to people and expecting nothing in return is a cheap and painless way of attempting to improve the world in which I live even slightly.

Anyhow, that mantra has become my mission statement for life, and it’s definitely impacted my career. I make a point to work with people who value kindness. There’s no way of knowing for sure, but I think there have probably been some doors that have opened for me because of someone liking my vibe. And I’ve sold a ton of t-shirts and tank tops (and even panties) that have my little mantra on them. Right on top of a beautiful illustration of a human heart, it says “Be Nice Dammit!” So if nothing else, it’s put food on the table that way.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I love to read. I think of it like fertilizer for my brain. When I’m reading a good book, it seems like all of my writing improves — songs, yes, but everything else I write too. Emails… essays… even my Facebook posts sound smarter!

I love to read epic, immersive fiction (recent favorites have included Shantaram, Life After Life, Simon Vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, Cutting for Stone…a bunch more…) and I’m also a sucker for a wry memoir. I’ve probably listened to Tina Fey’s Bossypants a dozen times, and I could read any chapter of any David Sedaris book anytime, anywhere.

Photo credit: Velvet Cartel

The Garden of Gospel Music: A Conversation with Phil Cook

Posted on by Editor

The motivation for Phil Cook’s unapologetically familiar gospel sound is simple: he LOVES that style of music and the people he’s learned it from. At times he veers into Appalachian instrumentation, reflecting his current North Carolina surroundings, and there’s individuality and innovation aplenty. But this Wisconsin kid and his band never stray far from a black gospel blueprint, incorporating backing choirs, tinkling piano stabs, organ that’s more Booker T. than Benmont T., and a vocal delivery that’s loose and expressive.

On his new album, People Are My Drug, Cook invites us to marvel gratefully and joyfully at the greatness of so many people whose creativity and communal originality have flourished under oppression, as well as those who hold the weight of the world within their silence.

There is a definite space that People Are My Drug lives in. I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. 

I’m lucky. If I’ve learned anything, it’s to surround yourself with people that know what they’re doing, have a lot of experience, and have something to say. I can possess those things, not all at the same damn time, but if I’m surrounded by other people, I feel safer to be that multiplicity. So my circle starts with my brother, as a producer who knows me better than any other and helps me deliver the most honest statement that I can make. He knows when I’m hiding and helps me stand up tall and be who I have to be to do the thing.

From there, all the musicians in the band – we essentially made the record in two days. Most everything was made in a studio in Wisconsin, which happens to be owned and operated by my old friend Justin Vernon. So we brought the whole crew up, and we holed up in a live room, the four of us – drums, bass, keys, and me. We played for two straight days and didn’t leave the room. We trusted the people across the house were doing their job.

And that’s where this record starts: trust. I am surrounded by musicians that I trust more than anyone else in that moment on stage or in the studio, and we made that a bubble. Then after we were done we had a nice dinner and went into the control room and listened to the record that we’d just made. We were laughing and smiling at each other. There are little moments that happen all over the place. We start out “He Gives Us All His Love,” and I was like, “Bass, I love ya.” And when we listened back to it, that’s exactly what the vibe of the entire record is, that fraternal kind of vibe.

Speaking of fraternity, “He Gives Us All His Love” stirs me to feel universally connected to humankind, more brotherhood of man than fatherhood of God. Is that what you were going for?

Yeah! It’s my favorite Randy Newman song off of Sail Away because it’s the one time he lets his sardonic humor-guard down for a very simple song about gratefulness and generosity, and I like that a lot. Funny story, we sang our version of that song for the first time and halfway through it a woman in the front row looks up at me with a little smile and goes, “How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” and immediately switched the entire perspective of the song. And the rest of the song we sang “She gives us all her love.” I was like, “Well, this is how we’re gonna perform it from now on!”

And that’s the kind of spontaneous moment that you have to pay attention to as a musician, to be open when something passes by and be like, “That’s it! Cool! Switch directions. Let’s hit this.” And you trust. It made for a really beautiful moment at a hometown show. So yeah, I do feel that the fraternity, the brotherhood of man, is the heart and soul of how gospel music plays a role in my life. It’s much more of a family, a community. That’s the togetherness of space that I think the center of this record is.

What I ultimately got out of a childhood in church was this great community that was really supportive of me being who I was. They saw a little kid with glasses in Wisconsin, and they told me to keep being who I want to be. That’s what every kid deserves. And as much as I walked away from church, when something is a part of you in your childhood, you can’t just walk away from it. It’s going to be a part of you for the rest of your life, even if you don’t have a weekly interaction with it.

And I think gospel music in general has been a part of me having this continual, ongoing dialogue with my faith and my questions in a deeper way that feels really real, that feels like a real practice, nothing about dogma, nothing about a system. It’s not gonna work for everybody, but I was able to dial back my anxiety medication after two or three years pretty much listening to quartet black gospel music and getting into it until I started to feel it.

What is it about gospel music that connects you to that human moment?

Well, gospel music is the original garden of all music that comes out of America. On one side you’ve got the blues, which way more people in the white community are familiar with. That’s ubiquitous. A lot of people know who Robert Johnson is, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, even someone more eclipsing, like Jimi Hendrix. A lot of those artists were torn their whole lives between what they were doing for money and what they were doing on Sunday morning.

Religion never left them either. Religion gave them so much. So even blues artists weren’t free of that spiritual paradox. If you look at some of the greatest singers, they all came out of this garden of the church. Aretha, Curtis Mayfield, Sam Cooke, all the Staples Singers – a vast number that were able to have a safe space as they were growing up. The safest space they could find was church, the place where they were able to seed and plant their art and their voice.

The church was also the source of this friendly competition with players raised up there. You’ve got young kids in the wings watching every single move that you’re doing, and they’re going home and practicing. It creates a whole circle of virtuosity and innovation. It was the only place for it to thrive, and, damnit, it thrived. It changed the entire world. Most of those artists went on to big careers in soul music and left the church in some ways. The church didn’t leave them though. That was with them the entire way.

I appreciate the way in this album you direct attention toward others and away from yourself. I’ve cried twice this morning listening to “Another Mother’s Son.”

It’s heavy. I had my own experience with almost losing my youngest son when he was born to some complications with respiratory stuff. You get close to almost losing the thing that you hold most precious, even though you just met him. Your family is forced to grip with the possibility that things aren’t gonna turn out ok. I don’t know who isn’t gonna be affected by a situation like that in a way that’s gonna crack your heart wide open. And what happens after that is really important.

He came home from the hospital and I put him to bed; we’d had an incredible family day. I felt like, “Oh, my family is so strong. I’m so thankful for this family. We’re gonna get through this life together and it’s gonna be ok.” And then I checked Instagram and saw the video that Philando Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond, took of the police officer after [the officer] shot him multiple times with her daughter in the back seat of the car. In that moment it was the juxtaposition of how safe I was feeling, how strong my family felt, to seeing a young man who was such a giving soul ripped so violently from his own mother, who called him her miracle child.

She wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids and she had a son, Philando Castile. And then this broken-ass justice system completely stole him away from her and everyone else that loved him. And it just hit me way harder than it normally would have because of what I went through. Often times you go through something and then maybe days, months, years down the line, something else will happen that will give you a whole new perspective on what you experienced initially.

The second fold was one of my bandmates, a phenomenally gifted musician and gregarious, incredible human being, Brevan [Hampden], who came over one night to meet [my son] Amos. Brevan was raised by his mother, who had three boys, all black men in America growing up. We sat on the porch drinking beers, and the talk turned to all this stuff. I love Brevan with all my heart. We’ve gone through a lot in our lives as musicians together in just a few years. And I think that moment just a few days after Philando Castile’s death really delivered home the two worlds that are so separate in this country. What some mothers don’t have to worry about. And what some mothers have to live in fear of every single day. And no matter how hard they sandbag and prepare against the terrible reality that could happen, their black son is walking out the door every day with a target on his chest. There’s no guarantees.

Brevan was raised sternly about how to interact with police, body language, tone of voice, every single thing. It was so foreign to me to listen to that, growing up in northern Wisconsin, the diversity-free capitol of the world. I knew all the police officers in Chippewa Falls. They all knew my mom and dad. I don’t know how many benefits of a doubt I got because of that. I can’t ignore that. I’m gonna go through the rest of my life grateful that it’s never happened to me. It’s a poisonous system, and I moved south to get away from indifference, so I could be in more of an interactive dialogue with communities that didn’t look, think, and act like me.

Photo credit: Josh Wool (Top); Graham Tolbert (Middle)

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.

MIXTAPE: David Wilcox’s Character Study

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

I love songs that have interesting characters in them. One of my favorite questions to ask, when I’m investigating a lyric is, “Who is speaking to whom, and why?” I love it when a song contains a complex idea that changes the way I see the world. — David Wilcox

Paul Simon — “Train in the Distance”

The narrator watches a couple who have the best of intentions, as they try to make a relationship work, but the chorus keeps coming back with this haunting restlessness.

Susannah McCorkle — “The Waters of March”

I think my favorite song is probably the Susannah McCorkle version of “The Waters of March.” How can such a simple song communicate such complexity of how we miss the beauty that is all around us?

Joni Mitchell — “Paprika Plains”

This song contrasts the small scale pursuits of us humans with a giant desert landscape, communicated so beautifully with orchestral music.

James Taylor — “Sugar Trade”

I love the big view of the song “Sugar Trade” which was written by James Taylor and Jimmy Buffett. Start with a specific question about that guy in the boat, as you’re walking the beach. How deep do you want to go to understand the workings of the world?

Randy Newman — “Dixie Flyer”

The Randy Newman song “Dixie Flyer” describes his earliest memories in a way that explains why he has worked his whole life to sing about the issues of race and justice.

Donald Fagen — “The Goodbye Look”

Speaking of childhood memories, the Donald Fagen album The Nightfly is full of thoughts he had as a kid. There are some great characters in the song “The Goodbye Look.” He does a detailed character description of the man with the motor launch for hire — a skinny man with two-tone shoes.

Peter Case — “Blue Distance”

Peter Case made a record called Flying Saucer Blues that has lots of lovely characters. On that CD, there’s a song called “Blue Distance.” Indescribable longing frustratingly pursued in carnal relationships … Hey! My favorite theme.

Annie Gallup — “West Memphis Arkansas”

Another in this category is Annie Gallup’s song “West Memphis Arkansas.” We get the whole story, but the characters are described sparingly with the most meticulous details.

Justin Farren — “Little Blue Dirtbike”

It’s the details that describe the characters so beautifully, as he thinks about his grandfather’s adventures and the mutual shyness that kept them from ever talking.

Peter Mayer — “The Birthday Party”

Bravely communicating across our cultural and religious differences is the subject of this song. I like the version that’s on his live album.

Andy Gullahorn — “Holy Ground”

Andy Gullahorn has a song about Shane Claiborne that’s called “Holy Ground.” I learned how to play it and, after a few days of practice, I could sing it without being moved to tears.

XTC — “Harvest Festival”

The XTC album called Apple Venus is one of my favorite records of all time. Lots of beautiful characters. “Fruit Nut” is a great song, but my favorite for this mix would have to be the song “Harvest Festival.”

Ana Egge — “Dreamer”

Next is Ana Egge with her song “Dreamer” from the album Bright Shadow.

Robinson & Rohe — “The Longest Winter”

And for the last song on this mixtape, Jean Rohe and her husband Liam Robinson singing “The Longest Winter.”

Photo credit: Stuart Dahne