Tag: real country

Bluegrass, Folk, and Country Communities Made Jobi Riccio

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: This interview first appeared in full on Basic Folk. Listen on BGS or wherever you get podcasts. The following has been lightly edited for flow and clarity.)

Jobi Riccio has only begun to scratch the surface of what they have to offer on their debut album, Whiplash. The songwriting is centered around self discovery and mourning past lives, laid alongside super-smart country and pop melodies. Our hero grew up an outdoor kid amongst the woods of Red Rocks Parks Amphitheatre in Colorado.

A strong bluegrass community encircled her playing from a very young age in a way that encouraged her to pursue music as a career. She spent time in Boston attending Berklee College of Music, nestled in the folk community centered around the historic venue Club Passim. March 2020 hit. Jobi had to leave her newfound community and found herself back in her childhood bedroom.

While wrestling with all the complications of finding herself and her place in the world, they were letting go of their childhood and the sense of grounding that came with it. Eventually, they made their way to Asheville, North Carolina to work on Whiplash.

In the studio, she took her time making the album and discovered that indeed, she had a strong sense of vision for the music. The trust of her collaborators allowed her to trust in herself and create an album that is turning heads and making Jobi Riccio one of the most exciting young songwriters of 2023.

BGS: Thank you so much for being on Basic Folk.

Jobi Riccio: Thank you for having me.

Alright, let’s start. I wanted to talk about identity and give you the opportunity to talk about your identity, like how do you identify pronouns, orientation, any of that stuff that we want to address.

JR: Yeah, I use she/they pronouns. I identify as queer and identity has been something that feels like it’s been important and very complicated for me. It feels like something that I have spoken about and made a part of my career, and now I’m kind of feeling, a little bit, like it’s become too much of a focus in my career, actually.

It’s funny, because I was listening to your other podcast that [you do], I can’t remember–

It’s [Basic Folk Debate Club], an occasional crossover series with Why We Write.

Yes! I was like, you’ll know the person to plug – and I’m so sorry to Why We Write.

It’s based on actually something that Lizzie No was saying. I just really resonated with something that she said, which was it’s about who is asking those questions of me. It can feel like a fine line. It’s kind of “cool” right now to be a queer artist or a Black artist or an artist of color in the folk space.

When you’re with your community, that feels one way, or with people who are truly great. And then when you’re with people who it just seems like they need to check that box. It’s so obvious and it’s so painful and it feels like a betrayal of yourself. And [Lizzie] put it a lot more eloquently than all that, but if we’re really going down the discussion of identity, it’s important to me that I am open with my identity, but I also feel like there have been times where it’s been so hyper-focused on. In a way that it’s like, “Did you even listen to any of my songs or did you know what I mean?”

I really enjoyed that answer. Doing these interviews, sometimes I feel like I’m gonna ask and I think that the interview is gonna go one way or a question is gonna go one way and it goes the complete opposite way. I just get to enjoy the ride.

You are from Morrison, Colorado, which is outside of Denver – the same place as Red Rocks Parks and Amphitheatre. You were an outdoor kid. How do you think your early experience in nature has impacted the person you became?

I think that it’s something that I really value and need and it’s a processing tool for me, being out in nature. It’s almost equivalent to songwriting and writing in my journal. It’s honestly super hard here in Nashville, because I don’t feel like I can get that, in the way that I used to be able to walk to a hiking trail five minutes from my house. I was absolutely supremely spoiled with outdoor access as a kid. [I didn’t] know any better. Like, there’s going to come a time where you’re going to live somewhere the nearest mountains are two and a half hours away. That is rough. It’s something I have to really intentionally build into my life now.

I think that nature heavily informs me as a person. Musically, I feel like it shows up in my lyrics [and] images from home, talking about coyotes and cactus and etc. I feel like it’s so intrinsic to who I am as a person.

So nature ruined you.

For real. The nature ruined me. Colorado ruined me.

There has always been this strong draw to music for you – country radio, your parents and sister’s collection of music, and also making music on your own. Can you set the scene for what music looked like in your house? And when did you get a grasp on your own taste in music?

My parents definitely – we had like a home stereo and a big collection of CDs and I spent a lot of time just sort of putzing around my house as a little kid, opening cabinets, and looking at things and opening the encyclopedia and reading. I don’t know if anyone else feels like a really intrinsic part of childhood was just looking at things.

The CD collection in like, a big wicker basket was definitely a huge one for me. They felt like little gifts. I could open up the CD and then there was this extra thing I could pull out and there were liner notes and lyrics and I could read along. That was really big for me, because I was always really interested in lyrics.

My dad’s a huge Bruce Springsteen fan. We love the Boss and sometimes we can’t understand the Boss. And like, his lyrics are wonderful, too. I really feel like that was pretty formative to me, looking through my parents’ CDs and my sister’s CDs as well. My oldest sister had like a clear, hot pink, very early 2000s lockbox thing that she kept her CDs in. I very vividly remember going into her room and stealing CDs – The Killers, Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head was a big one for me, Sheryl Crow, Tuesday Night Music Club, Yellow Ocean Avenue. Then like Emmylou Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Linda Ronstadt, the Eagles, James Taylor.

There is a strong bluegrass community where you’re from. You found it at an early age, playing mandolin when you were like eight or nine years old. Since then you’ve sought out musical community, so what did you learn from that first musical community? 

The bluegrass community was a big part of feeling supported for me in music. I was always a kid who sang and was like, the girl with a good voice in like my elementary school class or whatever, but I didn’t see myself as a musician until I really started playing mandolin. I had a teacher and he was super supportive and was like, “You’re really great at instruments, too.”

I feel like the bluegrass community in my hometown took me seriously even though I was a little kid running around at RockyGrass – and by “a little kid” I mean 16. I didn’t go to my first bluegrass festival until I was a teenager. I would go and sit and jam with adults and be taken seriously. I really looked up to [those who were] offering their support to me, that was immeasurable to [growing] my own self confidence at that age.

I mean, I was so insecure at like 15, 16. The first year I ever went to RockyGrass, which sort of became my home festival, I didn’t even go out and play with anyone. I just sat in my camper with my mom, because I was so scared and so nervous and having trouble with confidence. The next year, I was out like playing every night ’til like 2 or 3 a.m.

That’s a huge shift!

Yeah. I feel like community and music– I mean, no musician is an island. We’re nothing without the musicians who came before us and those who’ve supported us. Sometimes I look back on that time and wonder if I hadn’t gotten that nod in that jam from that older kid who was really good, who I thought was awesome; or from that artist who I worshipped, who told me I had a beautiful voice; or I had shared one of my songs with them, and they were encouraging of me writing. I wonder if I would have taken it this far?

Then I got to be in a really beautiful community space working at Club Passim in college, too. That also further helped bolster my confidence, especially playing solo. Because – as you know, as also somebody who worked there in a much different capacity – it’s very much like a solo listening room, singer-songwriter space.

I play solo [a lot] now on tour, because I can’t afford to bring out a band. I feel like I really garnered some valuable skills watching other people like Mark Erelli and Lori McKenna play solo at Passim and also having to do that myself, learning how to speak about the songs I had written and not be painfully awkward, but doing that in the loving embrace of that room.

You’ve talked about Sheryl Crow and The Chicks as having a huge impact on you. You picked up the mandolin after you first heard Nickel Creek – can you talk more about the influence Chris Thile and Sara and Sean Watkins had on you?

So, I first heard Nickel Creek on the radio on KBCO, which is like the AAA station.

Hell yeah, that’s a huge station. That’s where AAA was born!

Where AAA was born, famously, yes! That was my local radio station that I listened to as a kid. And they would play “Smoothie Song” by Nickel Creek. This was around the same time that I heard the Home album by The Chicks. I was listening to Top 40 country music and also hearing mandolin here and there. It’s so strange, because I don’t play the mandolin anymore. It’s just something I’m not interested in now – it makes me almost kind of sad to think of how this was such a big part of my life.

Then I really pivoted – and it’s like, I’ll never say never, but yeah, I started playing mandolin when I was 15, I wanted to play mandolin when I was about eight or nine years old, because that was when we got Why Should the Fire Die on CD as a family. When I started opening up the CD and reading the booklet and listening – that album is so cool, because there’s a little bit of almost a pop-punk thing to some of the songs, like “Somebody More Like You.” That was so of-the-time and I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of that.

Being introduced to this new palette of instruments that I really hadn’t heard played in this way. I was familiar with bluegrass to some extent, but it like bluegrass for me and my like angsty little 12-year-old self. And, you know, everybody’s angsty selves at any age. That struck such a chord in me…

The first song I heard by them was that Pavement cover.

And Pavement’s super emo! “Spit On a Stranger,” right?

Yeah, that’s it.

I loved that album, too. They were all older than me, but I didn’t really know that either because, like, they’re pretty young on the CD case. They’re probably [around] my older sister’s age, who is now 28. They’re not that close in age to me, but I did feel a kindred-ness that I feel like a lot of roots artists talk about, hearing them and the Chicks and being like, “Oh, this is cool! This is of the moment.” They’re incorporating sounds that we like from other genres, which is really what I think I’m trying to get with the whole pop-punk thing, though I know that can be kind of a “dirty” word, like pop country. I don’t think it should be, I don’t think any genre word should be.

And I definitely had like a three month period where I was like, “I’m in love with Chris Thile. I’m going to marry him.” That was a little, you know, short lived, but it was strong. His high, angelic voice really spoke to my prepubescent soul.

That’s so sweet.

You’re like, “I don’t know what to say about that!”

Thank you for sharing. No, it turns out it was Sara Watkins the whole time!

Right, yeah! Hiding in plain sight!

Your bluegrass wife.

(Editor’s Note: Listen to the unabridged Basic Folk episode featuring Jobi Riccio here.)

Photo Credit: Monica Murray

Brent Cobb Follows His ‘Southern Star,’ Announces New Album

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

If the rest of Grammy-nominated Brent Cobb’s first self-produced album is like its debut single, “Southern Star,” it’ll be sweet as molasses. To celebrate the upcoming release of the record by the same name, Cobb released the music video for “Southern Star” last week.

The track features Cobb’s honeyed vocals, a vintage tone on the keys, straightforward acoustic strumming, and a light percussion touch. Cobb sings of being a drifter, of feeling lost at sea, but of always having a place to return to — a bright point to move toward no matter what. The video shows Cobb cooking up Southern greens and features shots of the artists who brought the music to life.

“You know how when you’re growing up, you’re told that if you ever get lost out there, look for the northern star to help find direction back home? Well, I’m from Georgia,” Cobb said in a statement. “So, I always look for the southern star. This album, the songs, the sounds… it’s all a product of where I’m from both musically and environmentally.”

Southern Star will be Cobb’s fifth studio album and follows releases like his 2022 debut gospel record, And Now Let’s Turn To Page…. Rolling Stone called him “an enlightened figure, blessed with the gift of finding purpose and meaning in the smallest of details,” and we concur.

The new record is a love letter to Southern roots and the state of Georgia, and drops September 22 via Ol’ Buddy Records/Thirty Tigers.

Photo Credit: Jace Kartye

Better Late Than Never, David “Ferg” Ferguson Debuts ‘Nashville No More’

Posted on by Editor

As the go-to producer for some of Nashville’s most enigmatic roots talents, David Ferguson is what you’d call a behind-the-board legend. The studio savant known simply as “Ferg” started out as a protégé of producer and eccentric tape-splicer Cowboy Jack Clement and went on to become Johnny Cash’s favored engineer during his late-career resurgence. More recently, Ferguson has been imparting his old-school wisdom on tastemakers like Sturgill Simpson and Margo Price, while on his own debut album Nashville No More, he puts decades of knowledge to work once more.

With 10 songs full of classic charm and creative whimsy, it’s a loose-feeling project of tunes Ferg’s been falling in love with (and recording for himself) for years, molded into an album during the pandemic doldrums. A rotating cast of Nashville A-listers like Kenny Vaughan, Sierra Hull, Justin Moses, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, Béla Fleck and Tim O’Brien helped him flesh it out, presenting gruff vocals with tender, honest reverence for the lost art of record-making. In the end, it sounds like a love letter to his life’s work – and maybe the last hurrah of a creative culture.

BGS: So we’ll start with obvious question: Why did you want to make your own record, after so many years of helping others make theirs?

David Ferguson: Well, I’ve really always been a musician at heart. But this one fell into my lap over the pandemic. I had to shut down my studio, the Butcher Shoppe, in Nashville because they sold the buildings. So I set up a control room and an overdub room at my house, then the pandemic came along and there wasn’t much work. I started digging around in my recordings from over the years, got ‘em out and started seeing what I could do. That’s kind of how it came together. I really was just putting it together for family. Like, I was just gonna give it to my mom.

That’s interesting, because I think some people might assume you’ve been wanting to do this your whole life, but it sounds more spur of the moment.

Yeah, it’s a little late in life for me to be launching a solo career. [Laughs] But it’s fun to have one coming out and I’ve got a lot of time on my hands.

It might be late to get started, but you’ve had good teachers. Working with people like Cowboy Jack and Johnny Cash, and more recently Sturgill and Margo, what have you learned about being an artist?

To try to be humble. Even doing interviews, it’s hard to talk about yourself. Somebody who enjoys sitting and talking about themselves, there’s something a little bit wrong with them. I think being humble is a great lesson. Johnny Cash was a very humble man, very humble. So I think that — and trying to be kind to people. And don’t take it for granted, because even if something does happen, it may never happen again. You gotta appreciate what you’ve got.

The people you’ve been known for working with, they’re all artists of very strong vision – ones who didn’t compromise their art. Why are you drawn to people like that?

That’s a good question. I don’t know that I am particularly drawn there, maybe it’s just kind of the way it happened. Stuff comes your way and you have to grab the opportunity if it comes. You’ve gotta be ready to make a fool of yourself if you have to, and learn to grow from mistakes. I made a whole lot of records on a whole lot of people that weren’t any good – tons of them! Not everything you’re gonna do is good. But you do your best for the amount of time or money you have.

I always tried to do my very best. I was a fast engineer and got it going quick, because I didn’t want to waste people’s money. It’s hard to come by, and to get to make a record in a studio is a special thing. It used to be a really special thing. Now anybody can make a record. You can make one in your own house. But back in the day when I started, being able to have the money and resources to go in and record an album was a big deal. I still look at it as a big deal.

I think that comes through on your record.

Thank you, man, I tried not to cut any corners. I could have, and used keyboard strings, things like that. But I had real ones. I tried to do it as real as I could do it.

Did you record this the way you would have back in the day?

Yeah. Everybody’s recording on the Pro Tools format, but I can still fire up a tape machine, I’m not afraid of it. It’s just not economically feasible anymore. And plus, people don’t realize, they always used to say, ‘Oh, tape machines sounded great.’ And it’s true. They did and they still do, but you still wind up with a 16-bit CD. Unless you’re listening to it off the tape machine or on a vinyl record, or some super high resolution format, it’s just not gonna make very much difference.

Tell me about the title you chose. You’re from Nashville and have seen how it’s changed. How did you end up with the title Nashville No More? The whole thing has a kind of weary feel to it.

[Laughs] You know it’s not really a bummer. A lot of them are actually love songs. Like “Chardonnay” is a love song to wine. And then “Looking for Rainbows,” it’s kind of a sad song about love. … Nashville No More means a lot to me, because the Nashville that I used to know is no more. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it’s just that things evolve, and Nashville has really evolved. The music has evolved into an unlistenable thing to me. Modern country music, to me, is really difficult to listen to. Top 10 radio, it’s not for me. And I know some of those people who are on those channels, those singers, and I really like ‘em. I’m not saying anything bad about their music or anything … I’m really happy for their success, but it’s not the kind of stuff I’m gonna listen to.

Margo Price is featured on “Chardonnay,” and that has such a lovely sway to it. Where did that track come from?

That was written by my friend Roger Cook, and some years ago I made a demo of him doing the song, and I found it like ‘Jeez, where has this song been? I love this!’ … I finished it up with some real players on it, re-sung a couple of lines here and there and then sent it to Margo, and she said, ‘God, I love that song so much.’ She graciously came over and hung out for the afternoon and sung on that and “Looking for Rainbows.” Margo’s a real sweetheart and she doesn’t live far from me. The other person on there is Harry Stinson. He sings harmony, too, and Harry is in the Fabulous Superlatives. Harry’s singing on “Four Strong Winds,” too. He can blend right in there.

I love that you start off with “Four Strong Winds,” which is such a tender song. The first thing you hear is this gentle piano and a loping drum beat. Why start with that sound?

The album was totally sequenced … and it started off just exactly the opposite of what it is now. It started off with number six being number one, and we swapped the A side and B side.

Really?

That’s an old record trick I learned from Jack Clement and Johnny Cash.

What’s the benefit there?

It just kind of takes the obvious away, and that’s good. I’ve done that on more than one record for the years, and I’ve seen Jack Clement do it a few times. It’s a strange thing, but I mentioned to the guys, “Jack used to sequence it out A and B, then a couple of days later he’d be like, ‘You know, B oughta be A, I think.'” And it works!

You end on “Hard Times Come Again No More.” What’s the message in that ending?

Like I said before, that would have been number five, and we swapped it around. But it just seemed like a natural song to go out with. Sierra and Justin were kind enough to show up on that, and I think she’s just a major talent. Probably one of the most talented people I’ve ever met. She’s got the touch, and she’s not one to nitpick stuff. If you say you’re happy, she says, “OK, let’s move on.” She won’t just wear you out with it.

What was it like trying to produce your own songs, though? Is it hard to be critical of yourself?

It’s nearly impossible. Anybody you talk to who sings or even talks for a living, there’s hardly anything more painful than listening to yourself back. It’s as painful to a singer and artist as it is to anybody — unless they have an ego the size of [spreads his arms wide]. But you get in a situation where you have to be critical, so I learned how to do it on this record. I figured it out.

Photo credit: Scott Simontacchi

WATCH: Charley Crockett, “I Won’t Cry”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Charley Crockett
Hometown: San Benito, Texas
Single: “I Won’t Cry”
Album: Music City USA
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Label: Son of Davy/Thirty Tigers

In Their Words: “This is a soul ballad I wrote about five years ago and forgot about. I was writing for the new record at Mark Neill’s studio in South Georgia one night and I just decided to look way back in my voice memos. I don’t write anything down pretty much at all. I played a recording from 2016 and this was the song. It was just a rough three verses, but I liked it and finished it up right there in the back lounge that night. I’d say it’s the best number on the album. Maybe.” — Charley Crockett

Photo credit: Bobby Cochran

Sam Williams Carries His Country Music Legacy to Late Night Debut

Posted on by Editor

On his primetime television debut, Sam Williams makes a powerful statement. Grandson of the legendary Hank Williams and son of Hank Williams Jr., the rising recording artist previewed his debut album, Glasshouse Children with a riveting performance from his grandfather’s old house in Franklin, Tennessee. In an extended one-shot capture, Sam Williams does his name proud with a beautifully-written song called “You Can’t Fool Your Own Blood.” Out of a less-than-usual childhood and recent family tragedy, he has emerged with a style that is both poetic and hard-hitting, pulling no punches in his blend of honesty and vulnerability.

With an undoubtedly heavy burden of expectation, Williams blossoms in this realm of singer-songwriters who are more forlorn than raucous, standing with the likes of artists such as Donovan Woods and Ruston Kelly. Although his television debut was one for the books, perhaps the more exciting news is of the debut full-length record, set for a release later this summer on UMG Nashville. Music from Sam Williams has undoubtedly been a long time in the making, but the good news for us is that it’s almost here. Watch his performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert below.

Photo credit: Claire Joyce

LISTEN: Jon Byrd, “I’ll Be Her Only One” (Feat. Paul Niehaus)

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jon Byrd (Feat. Paul Niehaus)
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “I’ll Be Her Only One”
Album: Me and Paul
Release Date: July 16, 2021

In Their Words: “Me and Paul is dedicated to and a reflection of the people that came to see me and Paul over the years in little watering holes and honky-tonks here in Music City. They are small but mighty, as Billy Block used to say. It’s also dedicated to venues that let us take over their ‘happy hour’ to play the saddest, darkest, most pitiful and tragic songs ever penned. This co-write with Kevin Gordon put me in mind of his longtime music collaborator Joe McMahan. While known mostly as a guitarist/sideman, he’s had a studio for years and produced great work with Kevin and many others. He and Kevin are more on the rockin’ side of things but I was very keen to know what he’d bring to a project like this, so stripped down. And so country. But the Kevin connection is what sent me down this road.” — Jon Byrd

Photo credit: Susan English

On ‘The Marfa Tapes,’ Miranda Lambert Finds “Tin Man” in West Texas

Posted on by Editor

Country fans already knew that “Tin Man” is a powerful song; it earned the Academy of Country Music’s Song of the Year award in 2017. In this new live video, Miranda Lambert reminds us how moving a simple performance can be. The solo acoustic version of “Tin Man” comes from a new album and film that Lambert and fellow songwriters (and proud Texas natives) Jack Ingram and Jon Randall have crafted. Titled The Marfa Tapes, the album features the recordings that are shown in The Marfa Tapes Film. Watch the trailer.

In November 2020, the three accomplished songwriters gathered in the desert of Marfa, Texas, as they have done together for years, and captured some incredibly beautiful, raw material over a five-day stretch. Some songs on the new record are familiar, but most of the music is new, only heard in Marfa until now. The trio took pains to not overdo the music; all of the tracks were captured in the Texas wilderness with only a couple of microphones.

On a Facebook Live video, Lambert explained, “The idea for the Marfa film came about because we wanted to do this organic record, where we go into the desert of Marfa, Texas, and record these songs we’ve written over the last six years. Jack Ingram, Jon Randall, and myself sort of found this little haven in Marfa in 2015 and have gone back several times over the years to write songs. We just thought, ‘Why don’t we put these out for the fans just how they are in their raw state?’ To go along with the sound of the cows and the wind, and everything that that tumbleweed country has to offer. We wanted to show the vastness and the beauty of something that we’re so proud of, that’s part of our state.”

Enjoy the new video for “Tin Man” below.

Photo credit: Jim and Ilde Cook of CookHouseMedia

After Nearly Dying, John Anderson Adds ‘Years’ to His Life

Posted on by Editor

Over the past few years, country crooner John Anderson’s inimitable voice escaped him after suffering health issues and brushes with death. Through the creation of his new album, Years, he found it again.

In the album’s opening song, he opines, “There were people placing bets that I’d be dead and gone/But I’m still hanging on.” Although he does not disclose details, he does concede that the illness affected his hearing and, in his words, “I had nearly died a couple of times.” Listening through the album produced by Dan Auerbach and David Ferguson, it is clear that now Anderson is doing more than just hanging on; he’s creatively thriving. He tells BGS what it was like getting back in the studio, how he’s spending his time amidst the pandemic, and his feelings about making music these days.

BGS: Tell me a little bit about how Dan Auerbach came into your life.

Anderson: Actually we were introduced through a mutual friend by the name of Jeremy Tepper. He does a lot of work for Sirius/XM Radio. We’ve been friends a long time and he called me one morning and said, “I was with this guy the other day and we were talking about you and I would really like you to get together.” I said, “Well sure, I’m really not doing much these days.”

He asked if he could give Dan my number and I said, “By all means, give it to him!” The next day or so I got a call from Dan and we ended up setting up a meeting to get together and talk. Originally mainly just to talk about writing some songs together. At the time he was busy producing some other acts. I thought they might need some material and I thought I might help them write some.

What was your writing process like for this record? I’ve read you had some surprise co-creators on this one. What was that like?

We did. It was great. Looking back, I have to thank Dan and Dave Ferguson (aka Fergie). They were both involved in setting up the writing appointments. As it turned out, I got to write not only with some heroes, but some great old friends. It was really a joy. Writing these songs was a real pleasure for me. And it was at a time when I really needed to do some writing and get some music out of me. I’d been sick for a couple of years and hadn’t been able to do much writing or performing. At this point, I was recovering and really wanting to get back into my music.

This was all really good for me as far as writing the songs. We wrote for a couple of days, then the recording part came up. I remember saying, “Boys, I don’t know. That’d be great, but I’m really not sure I can do it.” I think it was Fergie who said, “We think you can.” I looked at him real serious and said, “Really?” And they both nodded. There wasn’t a lot said. It was a pretty solemn time there. I remember saying, “Well, if I do it, I’m going to treat it like it is the last one I’ll ever do.” Just because I was in that frame of mind at the time, mostly due to physical health reasons.

What was the moment like when you stepped up to the mic for the first time?

For me, singing is really something I’ve, thank the Lord, never really had to think about it, when it is time to step up to the mic. I do spend a lot of time thinking about singing, mind you. Most of my life I’ve walked around humming a tune. And maybe humming it a different little way. But when it is time to go into the studio or when I step up to the mic, I’m kind of on autopilot. I’m mainly trying to deliver the song, whatever the song is.

That certainly comes across in your singing.

Well, thank you. I want it to be real, in every kind of way. I’ve been a real stickler for that through my career. Sometimes you pay a price for that and sometimes it doesn’t turn out as good as you thought. On the other hand, when it is all over you can be proud of doing your own thing.

When you had those songs together, what was the recording process like? Did you cut them all at once or piecemeal?

We went in like three or four days one week and then we took a little break. I don’t even think we took a week break. We cut Monday through Thursday it seems and then took the weekend off and showed back up Monday. We had about 20 songs to choose from that we’d written over the previous months. I’ll always recall that as a really good time in my life. It really helped me to heal up. Even to the point today, I almost forget I was ever sick.

That’s so great.

It’s a blessing, is was it is. It took a lot of praying to get it. And now I am, and have been, well enough long enough that now the music is back on autopilot. I just do it all the time.

There’s a heaviness on this record as it deals so pointedly with mortality. On the flip side, it explores the simple pleasures in life and these elements really balance the record. Can you tell us some of the simple pleasures you are finding in life in these strange times?

I kind of found them a bit earlier through the songs and doing this record in a time when yeah, I had nearly died a couple of times. So, mortality is certainly in some of these songs, as far as my influence on them. Now there again, I can’t take the credit for any single song on the record because we had a lot of great help writing them. But my influence is a lot about mortality and the part in the songs about being thankful. That was kind of where I was at the time.

And you know what? As far as the situation right now and playing shows. … That’s been probably the biggest part of my life ever outside of my family has been going and playing the music to the fans. That’s pretty much all I have dealt with for the last fifteen years. As I’ve not been actively in the recording business, my live shows are what mean the most to me. It is a little bit difficult not knowing if or when or how we’ll be playing again to crowds. That’s been on my mind.

On the other hand, I feel very blessed to still feel healthy and have a great outlook. I’m still trying to write and sing most every day and doing a lot of gardening work and doing a lot of fishing. Fishing and gardening is what I’ve been doing and trying to play with my grandchildren. You have to save up energy to go do that.

How did the collaboration with Blake Shelton come about?

Blake is an old friend. I was a fan of Blake’s when I first heard him and then come to find out, he’s told people I was one of his biggest inspirations. At the time, when we were recording this record, low and behold we got a call from Blake’s people asking if we’d be interested in going on tour with him. For me, I did have to cancel tours previously on account of my hearing was nearly gone at the time. I didn’t have a working band. I hadn’t been on the road in a while.

I told them I didn’t have all that together and they said it was just for a few songs a night and his band will back you up. I said, “Really? That’d be a real treat. That’s like chocolate cake.” So it did work out and about the time the tour worked out we were finishing some of the tracks on this record and I said, “I’d love it if Blake could come in and sing with me on this.” We asked him and he was very gracious and did. Not only that, he invited me on the tour the next year also. Blake Shelton is a true hero of mine at this point. The tour was called Heroes and Friends and he’ll always be one of my heroes.

Do you ever revisit your old records? With all you’ve been through, do you view those songs in a different light?

Oh, I do. And I have been lately. That’s part of what I’ve been doing in this solitary time. What’s really been going through my mind lately are some of the songs that I thought were just as good as anything that I had ever written but really nobody got to hear them. Maybe I have twenty of them. I’ve been thinking about going in. It’s strange that you’d mention old stuff, and I’m talking about even from the time I was a teenager. Just things that I might go in and work on. Mainly just to pull it together and have that piece of work together, those songs. I’m thinking about that lately.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

The String – Jaime Wyatt and Jesse Daniel

Posted on by Chris Jacobs

The timing was right to split the hour between two exceptional emerging artists making hard country music in the outlaw tradition.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS

As you’ll hear, Jesse Daniel and Jaime Wyatt have lived the life, paid the price and processed their pain and redemption in song. Both are products of the West Coast and both have dug deep into their own stories. Many are sizing up Daniel’s ‘Rollin’ On’ and Wyatt’s ‘Neon Cross’ (produced by Shooter Jennings) as among the cream of 2020. These are candid, complimentary conversations.

An Incomparable Album, ‘White Noise/White Lines’ Is the Kelsey Waldon Experience

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I’ve had the good fortune of knowing Kentuckian country queen-in-waiting Kelsey Waldon for almost the entire time I’ve lived in Nashville — more than eight years at the time of this writing. I’ve stood over her unfathomably enormous cast iron skillet, filled to the brim with bubbling, sizzling battered fish. I’ve sung harmony on one too many choruses of “Smoky Mountain Memories” after perhaps one too many slugs of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey with her, too. 

And yet, in listening to her brand new album, White Noise/White Lines, I still found myself picking up fresh tidbits of her extraordinary yet downright ordinary approach to musicmaking, songwriting, self-expression, and artistic exploration. Waldon, despite limitless comparisons to almost every female country forebear to ever growl through a lyric, remains a paragon unto herself, a true singularity in realms of American roots music. 

White Noise/White Lines cements the fact (which has always been plain as day to those who dug deep enough) that Waldon will refuse tidy, one-for-one comparisons to any/all other country stars and writers who have come before her or who count themselves among her contemporaries. Except perhaps two: Loretta Lynn — whose “Coal Miner’s Daughter” inspired Waldon’s own “Kentucky, 1988” — and John Prine. The latter is fitting, in so many ways, now that Waldon makes her label home with Oh Boy Records, label of the denizen of Kentucky songs, meat and threes, and plain spoken oracle-like wisdom through lyrics. 

A brief album by many measures, White Noise/White Lines captures technicolor moments of Waldon’s life, her joys, her musings, and her homeplace, encouraging listeners to lean into the record’s brevity and engage wholly with each constituent moment therein. Because truth needs no more than a moment.

For BGS I made the trek out to Waldon’s cabin outside of Nashville and after a quick stroll around the vegetable gardens and a tour of the many Kentucky-themed decor items imported from one state north, we settled in the kitchen, sipping water out of mason jars, to talk.

People routinely refer to you as being similar to Loretta, similar to Tammy Wynette, Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline. People are constantly making these comparisons to these kind of foremothers of country and I wonder how that makes you feel, to be a bookend against someone like Loretta or Tammy Wynette?

Kelsey Waldon: Honestly, I think that’s an incredible compliment. Those are all, you know, my sisters that have gone before me, women that I’ve looked up to quite a bit. Especially in the country music realm. However, I also kind of feel like, especially with this new record, I think it’s apparent that hopefully I’m also finding quite a bit of my own thing. 

Sometimes when people say things like that to me it’s like, well maybe their scope of country music isn’t that wide. When someone would be like, “You sound like Patsy Cline!” I’d be like, “Uh, no I don’t.” [Laughs] I mean, I love Patsy Cline and I hold her up as something sacred, I wouldn’t ever even sing Patsy just because nothing touches that. 

I think it can kind of be, dare I say, a lazy comparison to just kind of name [some popular woman country star.] It’s definitely there. Even sonically, I was so inspired by them. Especially Loretta, absolutely.

I hope the new record showcases that with the years we’ve spent on the road — just using even my own touring band. It starts at country with me, I can’t just flip off a light switch and say, “Oh, it’s not country!” I guess some people can do that, but I don’t see it that way. Country is just so much embedded in me. No matter what form my artistic expression comes out, that’s still gonna be there. It just may not be cookie cutter, it may not be formulated. It may not even sound exactly like that. One thing that I think the growth of this record shows, hopefully, is that these are my songs, I’m not a throwback artist. I’m not a retro artist. I am an artist making music in 2019.

I did want to talk about your band, I think it’s remarkable. It’s getting more and more rare that folks tour with the folks who played on the record, because — and it’s not the fault of anybody — they’re trying to make money on the road. So if they stack their record, of course they aren’t bringing those people on tour. Why is it a priority for you to have the same band?

There are obviously all of these amazing musicians out there who are session musicians and a lot of people I’ve been fortunate enough to play with myself. I’ve learned a lot from [them]. This time around, this was always a goal of mine, to have a record that had a band I wanted on it. I worked really hard to find the band to really fit those pieces together. It took me a while…  just trying to figure out really what I wanted. My last record, I’ve Got A Way, caused the right people to gravitate towards my music. I mean, I eventually found the band that I have now because they heard those earlier records and they were like, “I would love to be a part of this.”

The band I have now, which is Mike Khalil, Nate Felty, and Alec Newnam — and Brett Resnick played on the record, but he doesn’t get to play with us a lot anymore, he plays with Kacey Musgraves, which is wonderful. But with the band I have now I just knew it. I was like, “I think this is it.” We all knew it. Even Brett. People were like, “We think this is the right combination.”

In that way, too, there’s nothing wrong at all with using session players, I just think, honestly — and I might be a little biased — my band is just as good as any. I think they could, and they will be one day, they will be those session players. They care so much about their craft and they work hard. I’m very lucky. 

One of the things that excites me most about this record is that I’ve always heard the bluegrass influences in your music, but they’re really forward in this record. Especially in your rhythm playing, in your rhetorical style in your writing, in your vocal phrasing, even in the arrangements with the twin fiddles and there are a couple of “fast waltzes” on the record. I love that “Lived and Let Go” really could be played on bluegrass radio. 

I think that is such a huge compliment, thank you.

It’s bluegrass! I wanted to ask, and not just because we’re The Bluegrass Situation, but in general, because this is a huge part of the canon of music you reference and that you listen to. Who in the bluegrass sphere influences you now and who has in the past — and I’m gathering Ola Belle Reed is at least one of them. 

I love Ola Belle, obviously, we did an Ola Belle song on the record. Well, I love that you can pick that out. To me, I feel like it’s plain as day that there’s a bluegrass influence all over it. To some people it’s not as apparent, I guess. I’ve had some people just be like, “What is this thing that you’re doing?” It’s because they don’t listen to bluegrass. I’m like, “I STOLE that!” [Laughs]

I guess I understand now why they don’t put those two together, if you’re talking about mainstream country, because that’s clearly not. But to me, I’m always like, “Of course bluegrass is country.” It’s also bluegrass, but it’s also country.  It’s like the OG country music. 

I would say one of my favorite influences, one of my favorite singers ever, is Dale Ann Bradley. She’s up there for me. I really think Dale Ann should be a legend, honestly. And Ralph Stanley, and obviously I love Bill [Monroe], and Jim & Jesse, and all those groups. And early Keith Whitley, I’ve been obsessed with that for a long time. 

I think it’s interesting that you mention both Ralph and Keith back to back like that, because you can hear elements of both of their vocal phrasing and vocal techniques, in what you do singing-wise. 

The same thing with Dale Ann. They have such unique registers of their voices and it’s something that I really relate to. Sometimes I didn’t really know what it was that I was doing. I could kind of hear my own voice in [their vocals]. If that makes sense? I could really relate to that. It’s so soulful. 

I feel like Keith could sing on anything. [Laughs] He sounded exactly like Keith. That’s the beautiful thing about a country singer to me, he could sing on an R&B track and it would be sexy as hell. It’s like George Jones — and Dolly can sing on anything, as far as I’m concerned. That’s a great singer, to me. Ralph, I’ve always said that he is like the Pop Staples of mountain music. It’s like he doesn’t even have to be loud, but he is so loud. He’s barely singing. He’s just projecting. I love Flatt & Scruggs as well. 

New artists… Molly Tuttle, I love what she’s doing. That new record. She’s really taking a genre and making it her own. Something that’s not worn out or tired. Doing something fresh. She has accomplished making this new for people. In my own way, I hope to do that as well. 

I don’t guess there’s anybody else completely new, besides like Sister Sadie, and Dale Ann! [Laughs] They are some BAD girls!! Dale Ann, man. The mark of a true artist is that she can sing all of the covers she does. Like I said, I think Dale Ann should be a legend. 

Words are clearly your priority in your songwriting. You’re prioritizing what you’re meaning to say first and foremost, then making the melody and music and everything work around what you’re trying to say. It sounds effortless when you listen to it, but I wonder what kind of intention goes into that?

Songwriting is kind of interesting to me in that way. I’ve actually heard a couple people be like, “It sounds effortless.” Sometimes, it is effortless and you’re just like, “Wow that kind of poured out of me. I didn’t realize it was in there but it poured out of me in like five to ten minutes.” With this record, though, there were definitely a couple of things I had to go back to. I had the meat and taters, but there were a couple of things I rewrote and made sure made exactly the sense I wanted them to make. There’s a balance there, too. You don’t want to kind of go too far, over-analyzing the whole thing.

With “Kentucky, 1988,” I think your songwriting up to this point has felt so personal, and so tightly intertwined with who you are, that I almost didn’t realize that you hadn’t written this exact kind of song, yet. What brought you to the point of wanting to be that direct with telling your origin story? Was it more intuitive or more purposeful?

That was definitely purposeful. That is awesome that you’ve observed that, because I’ve felt the exact same way. I was writing new songs and I felt like, “You know, I haven’t written my ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter.’” I don’t really have something that is kind of like this definitive origin story. I just set out to write it. The title was actually kind of inspired by someone I forgot to mention, Larry Sparks — one of my favorite singers. 

Oh my gosh!! “Tennessee, 1949!!” 

Yeah! Yeah, it was inspired by that. That and a Tom T. Hall song that has Kentucky and a year in the title, with the comma and everything. In my head all of that sounded so cool. Everything about it, the rhythmic feel, it all rolled right off my tongue great. I just had to write it. People always [say], “That’s very vulnerable and transparent.” Well yeah, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? [Laughs]

I know a lot of artists say this, but I definitely think this is the most personal thing I’ve done so far. I think all of it has been very transparent, in a way. I want to completely embrace that. I want to be as much of a freak as I want to be. It’s not like I was afraid to before, I just don’t think that I was ready. My mom always said I was a late bloomer, but she said, “When you bloom, baby, you’ll bloom!”  

I did want to ask you about the significance of the Chickasaw Nation members singing on the record. We hear them at the end of “White Noise, White Lines.” What’s the personal significance of that for you? And are you a tribal member? Is anybody in your family a tribal member? 

No. All of the Rollins side of my family, which is my granny’s side, they were all of French and Native American descent, but I never claimed anything like that. I just think it’s been something that’s been such a part of where I grew up, culturally. Even just hunting for points [arrowheads] and having such a respect for that way of life and culture. 

It’s always really hard to keep this story short, when people ask me about the song, because I wrote it right after this amazing experience I had back home in Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky, my hometown. When I went back to watch a ceremonial dance that the Chickasaw from Ada, Oklahoma [performed]. They came to re-bless the Wickliffe Mounds. They ended up lodging at my Dad’s that night, for free, [he was] cooking the food, doing the catering and stuff. I ended up staying down there and visiting.

We just became friends with the members of the tribe. We had so much fun. They’ve kept in touch… My dad took them arrowhead hunting for the first time, and they were doing ceremonial dances out on my dad’s land as well. I think he really really was appreciative of that. We were kind of the only people who ever lived down there in those river bottoms, maybe besides [the Chickasaw]. I mean, it’s the river bottoms. That’s why we find all these artifacts. No one has been down there except us. 

I just remember thinking about how awesome the weekend had been and the radio had been on white noise for literally fifteen minutes and I had no idea. I was just in this tranquil moment. The song is just a detail of all these things. The solar eclipse had also blown my mind that weekend. Just realizing how small we actually are, compared to what is even going on in this universe. 

Naturally, I included the details. “Chickasaw man got a buffalo skin drum,” because Ace — Ace Greenwood and Jesse Lindsey, that’s who’s on the song — actually did have a buffalo skin drum. It was pretty badass. My dad asked them to sing some songs on the porch. I love Ace’s voice, it reminds me of Ralph Stanley. It’s a voice that just feels like it’s been there for a long time. It’s so pure. I just loved it, I was really touched.

He sang a song that had been in his family for generations. The message of the song was basically, “Though I’m far away I’m still near you. No matter where I am. We are together.” In that moment that really was something I needed to hear. I put that [on the record] not only because I thought it was beautiful, and I wanted people to experience what I felt, but I also wanted the record to feel like an experience. 

Ace told me one time when we were down there that the media likes to tell his people who they are and that’s not who they are. I think in a way, perhaps it’s also why I thought it would be really beautiful to have that at the end as well. I hope it doesn’t seem like it was for my own reasons, I guess. I was just writing about that weekend and I felt like it was so beautiful to me I wanted it to be documented. 

I think it makes a lot of sense. And I’m not saying it’s not a complicated thing to talk about, or that it doesn’t trip into some territory that we as settlers will never fully understand, but I do think that it follows perfectly with you bringing your whole entire self to your music. So much of what you do is tied to place and is tied to coming from Kentucky. 

That was another part of it, showcasing where I’m from. And the cultural background of it. 

And not just the colonial background of where you’re from? 

No. I mean absolutely not. To me, that’s exactly how I saw it. Nail on the head. It might cause a little bit of question, but I think that’s good. ‘Cause then I’ll get asked about it. And then I’ll tell ‘em. [Laughs] 

Photos by Laura Partain for BGS. See the entire photo story.