Tag: Richard Thompson

Singing Through Dark Times:
Willi Carlisle Finds Hope in Roaming and Reckoning

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We are in a moment of extreme distress. Especially, but not limited to, the formal politics of America’s dying empire. Living in its wake, it’s easy to collapse into hopelessness. Hopelessness seems reasonable, considering the criminalization of trans voices, or ICE raids, or the tariffs that wipe out hard earned income, or climate change, or any of the other myriad disasters we are in the middle of. There has to be some way forward – a full understanding of how bad the situation currently is, but also that there might be a small amount of hope; that it has been worse than this, but it has also been better.

Willi Carlisle released an album of traditional songs, called The Magnolia Sessions, in December 2024 and will release Winged Victory June 27 via Signature Sounds. Winged Victory includes original songs and covers of Utah Phillips, Richard Thompson, and Patrick Haggerty, among others. These songs are about the delicate negotiation between historical understandings, current realities, and the possibility of a progressive future; about carving out small moments of pleasure against melancholy; of building a small paradise against these impending crises.

I reached Willi Carlisle by phone on Good Friday, the saddest day of the Christian calendar. On the first Good Friday, no one thought Christ would return. I have not been a believer for a while, but I remember sermons in college which warned against racing through Friday to get to the hope of Sunday. So when I call this album a hopeful one, it is hopeful with a full acknowledgement that it might not get better. The work needs to be done with the assumption that there is no intervention, divine or otherwise.

When asking Carlisle about optimism, or about hope, he makes his choices sound purposeful, mentioning that he had been wanting to make this kind of album for more than a decade and that these two albums are “more just like musical moments that continue to say the things I want to say, as opposed to saying the things that I want to get off my chest.” This is not a manifesting energy, or an optimism despite all odds, but one which is well earned after decades of performing.

Those decades of performance tile with decades of listening, each working together mutually. Winged Victory has several moments which cross cosmic time – decades or centuries – looking backwards or seeing what is possible in the futures of our children’s children’s generations. The collection begins, for example, with the Utah Phillips standard, “We Have Fed You All for 1000 Years.” Its chorus states baldly:

Go reckon our dead by the forges red
And the factories where we spin.
If blood be the price of your cursed wealth,
Good God! We have paid it in!

This album is one of reckoning, of refusing the standard moments. In the original song, “The Cottonwood Tree,” a slow waltz, Carlisle talks about a “place where nobody lives, and everyone is free.” He is singing in first person while he plays a concertina, mentioning how he is part of nature now and how he will be part of nature in his own rotting. He is happy to die trusting people, but even after dies, even when he is buried under “the cottonwood trees,” he will be heard.

He concludes the song, believing that he will meet his friends six feet under the cottonwood tree. In a subtle moment, his friends are “the tall grasses rustling between his ears,” or the forget-me-nots in a parking lot, and maybe even other humans. Here time collapses, between the immediacy of the moment and the length it takes a body to absorb fully into those cottonwood trees.

Carlisle’s album of traditional songs, The Magnolia Sessions, has moments of this cosmic time as well – a much eerier version of “Leatherwing Bat” than the one made famous on Peter, Paul and Mary’s children’s album, as well as the last song, a version of “Jubilee,” a moment which reminds us again that the joy will come, after working and waiting.

Conversation between original tracks and new work is central to Carlisle’s practice. His reckoning, which occurs over and over again, is also about the complex matrix of listening and performing other people’s songs. When asked about the covers, he talks about working together – that he had a “strong relationship to the material…”

“I see my whole project in folk music is hearing history with all of its interpretations, its historicity, back to the lives of actual human beings. It’s time to take off the cowboy hat and put on the work gloves.”

The strength of the relationships between material, is partly due to how the original songs on this album work in conjunction with the old songs. For example, how the waltz of “The Cottonwood Tree” leads into the harder, faster waltz of the Patrick Haggerty-penned “Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears.” That Carlisle includes a Patrick Haggerty song at all is remarkable, even more so that he makes it full of joy and he considers it as part of the tradition of folk and country music. It’s a cult song in queer folk circles – the mainstreaming of this work is a foregrounding of queer desire, another tradition and another culture. Carlisle sings it with horns and an accordion which sounds like a circus calliope (between this and Lucy Dacus’ “Calliope Prelude,” the instrument is having a moment).

Collapsing of time can again be seen in his version of Richard Thompson’s “Beeswing.” Also running a little quicker than the original, it’s a song about lovers who cannot be kept and immediacy about “the price you pay for the chains you refuse.” But the next song, “Big Butt Billy” – a comic riff on possibly hooking up with a non-binary server at a diner in the midwest – makes other arguments, models other kinds of hope (for an immediate pleasure).

Other versions of “Beeswing,” meanwhile, take the side of the narrator and have a misogynist tinge against the person who roams. Having these two songs back to back argues in favor of roaming and typifies desire as a kind of roaming – Haggerty wants, the Romany wants, the server wants, and at the risk of thinking he might be a little autobiographical, Willi wants. Throughout these two albums, the hunger is palpable.

Roaming is central to Carlisle’s music, not only on this album, but as a theme. Roaming through time and space, through the cosmos, and on the very real roads of California, Texas, or Wisconsin. The first thing that Carlisle and I talked about was BBQ and about Kansas City, where he is staying on Good Friday when we connect. That could be seen as a kind of metaphor – having strong feelings about a very local meat & three and about the history of a song that is brand new; having thoughts about the place where he is landing and a song that is centuries old.

Roaming is a way through this mess, through catastrophe and disaster as a way of finding community, against despair while not naively thinking things will get better without labor. This pattern of Carlisle’s interpretive skill is top notch throughout both of these albums, because of that curious hunger, that roaming, and that possibility of a way forward, even in the darkest era.

The last question I asked Carlisle was about theater – he had worked at Fringe shows in his 20s. He said that he wanted to direct or act again, especially Brecht. I keep returning to Brecht’s “Motto,” which reads in its entirety:

In the dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

This poem was the epigraph to a book written when Brecht had moved to Denmark, escaping German fascism.

Winged Victory reveals there is great beauty in darkness, that singing itself is an act of optimism, and that exile creates its own narratives. Therein, Carlisle has found a way of singing through dark times.

All photos: Whit Stone

An AKUS Primer: Alison Krauss and (Mostly) Union Station for Beginners

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

While you know better, there’s a wide swath of the music-listening world in which Alison Krauss is best known as former Led Zeppelin golden god Robert Plant’s duet partner. Yet, Krauss has had a wholly remarkable career going back nearly 40 years, in which she has exhibited profound collaborative instincts and abilities.

On the occasion of the release of Arcadia, her first album with Union Station in 14 years (as well as a reunion with the founders of her former longtime label, Rounder Records), we look back at some of Krauss’ career highlights in and out of Union Station.

“Cluck Old Hen” (traditional; 1992-2007)

We begin with a literal oldie, “Cluck Old Hen,” from the pre-bluegrass era, which demonstrates two things – that Alison Krauss has always revered the history, roots, and traditions of bluegrass; and that Union Station is one incredible ensemble. Recordings of this Appalachian fiddle tune go back more than a century, to country music forefather Fiddlin’ John Carson in the 1920s.

Krauss first released an instrumental version of the tune on 1992’s Everytime You Say Goodbye (her second LP with Union Station), and won a GRAMMY with the onstage version on 2002’s AKUS album, Live. But feast your ears and eyes on this 2007 performance at the Grand Ole Opry, with a pre-teen Sierra Hull sitting in.

1992 studio version: 

2002 live version:

“When You Say Nothing At All” (Paul Overstreet & Don Schlitz; 1994)

After a decade of steadily accelerating momentum, Krauss had her big commercial breakout with this AKUS cover of the late Keith Whitley’s 1988 country chart-topper. Krauss sang it on 1994’s Keith Whitley: A Tribute Album and it served as centerpiece of her own 1995 album, Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection. It reached No. 3 on the country singles chart and went on to win the Country Music Association’s single of the year plus a GRAMMY Award. You can hear why.

Whitley’s version:

“I Can Let Go Now” (Michael McDonald; 1997)

For any interpretive singer, the choice of material is key. And if the singer in question has Krauss’ range and chops and vision, some truly unlikely alchemy is possible. Among the best examples from the AKUS repertoire is “I Can Let Go Now,” a deep cut on Doobie Brothers frontman Michael McDonald’s 1982 solo album, If That’s What It Takes. Another amazing Krauss vocal in a career full of them.

McDonald’s version:

“Man of Constant Sorrow” (traditional; 2000-2002)

Before O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you wouldn’t have called singer-guitarist Dan Tyminski the unheralded “secret weapon” of AKUS. Nevertheless, he didn’t become a star in his own right until serving as movie star George Clooney’s singing voice in the Coen Brothers loopy, Odyssey-inspired farce. “Man of Constant Sorrow” was the hit in the movie and also on the radio, launching Tyminski to solo stardom.

Resonator guitarist Jerry Douglas especially shines on this version from 2002’s Live, recorded in Louisville – you can just tell everyone in the crowd was waiting for the “I bid farewell to old Kentucky” line so they could go nuts. Tyminski would have another unlikely hit in 2013, singing on Swedish deejay Avicii’s “Hey Brother.”

O Brother version:

“New Favorite” (Gillian Welch & David Rawlings; 2001)

Kraus sang on the GRAMMY-winning O Brother soundtrack, too, alongside Gillian Welch. It will come as no surprise that the Welch/Rawlings catalog has been a recurrent favorite song source for her. One of Krauss’ best Welch/Rawlings selections is “New Favorite,” title track of the thrice-GRAMMY-winning 2001 AKUS album. Though it’s edited out in this video, the album-closing version concluded with a rare in-the-studio instrumental flub, followed by sheepish laughter to end the record. Perhaps the AKUS crew is human after all?

“Borderline” (Sidney & Suzanne Cox; 2004)

The story goes that the first time Krauss was on the summer touring circuit, she’d go around knocking on camper doors at bluegrass festivals to ask whoever answered, “Are you the Cox Family?” Once she found them, she didn’t let go, and the Coxes became some of the best of her collaborators and song providers. Along with producing their albums, Krauss covered Cox compositions frequently; “Borderline” appeared on 2004’s Lonely Runs Both Ways, another triple GRAMMY winner.

“Big Log” (Robert Plant, Robbie Blunt, Jezz Woodroffe; 2004)

When Krauss first sang with Robert Plant at a Leadbelly tribute concert in November 2004, it seemed like the unlikeliest of pairings. But here’s proof that they had more in common than you’d expect, with Krauss covering a solo Plant hit from 1983. She sang “Big Log” on her brother Victor Krauss’ album, Far From Enough, which was released earlier in 2004.

This video pairs the Krauss siblings’ version with Plant’s original 1983 video, directed by Storm Thorgerson.

“Dimming of the Day” (Richard & Linda Thompson; 2011)

Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson is one of the finest instrumentalists of his generation as well as a brilliant songwriter, especially with his former wife and collaborator Linda Thompson. This stately, bittersweet love song dates back to their 1975 duo LP, Pour Down Like Silver, and Linda sets the bar high with a stoic yet emotional vocal. Krauss more than lives up to it on the 2011 AKUS album Paper Airplane, which also offers another great showcase for resonator guitarist Douglas.

Richard & Linda’s version: 

“Your Long Journey” (Doc & Rosa Lee Watson; 2007)

Krauss isn’t just a spectacular lead vocalist, but also an amazing harmony singer, one of the few who can hold a candle to Emmylou Harris. Retitled from the Doc/Rosa Lee Watson original, “Your Lone Journey,” this closing track to 2007’s grand-slam GRAMMY winner Raising Sand has Krauss’ most emotional vocal harmonies with Plant on either of their two albums together.

Doc Watson’s version:

“Heaven’s Bright Shore” (A. Kennedy; 1989, 2015)

All that, and she’s an incredible backup vocalist to boot. “Heaven’s Bright Shore” is a gospel song Krauss first recorded as a teenager on 1989’s Two Highways, her first album billed as Alison Krauss & Union Station (and also her first to receive a GRAMMY nomination). It’s great, but an even better version is this 2015 recording in which she’s backing up bluegrass patriarch Ralph Stanley alongside Judy Marshall.

AKUS version: 

“The Captain’s Daughter” (Johnny Cash & Robert Lee Castleman; 2018)

The late great Johnny Cash left behind a lot of writings after he died in 2003, some of which were turned into songs for the 2018 tribute album, Forever Words: The Music. None of his songs ever had it so good as “The Captain’s Daughter.” This superlative AKUS version fits Cash’s words like a glove.

Continue exploring our Artist of the Month coverage of Alison Krauss & Union Station here.

Alison Krauss & Union Station figure prominently in David Menconi’s book, Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, published in 2023 by University of North Carolina Press and featuring a foreword by Robert Plant.

Photo Credit: Randee St. Nicholas

Guitarist Jackie Venson on Her Instrumental Peer, Yasmin Williams

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

(Editor’s Note: For a special Artist of the Month feature and op-ed, acclaimed guitarist, composer, and improviser Jackie Venson considers the impact, musicality, and originality of her peer Yasmin Williams. Read more about Venson on BGS here. Explore more AOTM content on Williams here.)

As someone who gets pigeonholed as a blues guitarist, I’ve publicly reckoned with what I feel is an othering of blues as no longer really art, but instead what might be seen as a wax museum-ification of a formerly revolutionary genre. Too many established musicians and fans alike don’t want blues to evolve, but to instead be preserved in amber. Yet, its sibling folk music has not only never entirely fallen out of fashion, it has evolved and even prospered specifically because its brightest figures have refused to let tradition and academic codification stagnate the genre. Whether you’re talking about Bob Dylan going electric or Bon Iver collaborating with hip-hop superstars, folk musicians understand that cross pollination and new ideas are vital to growth. To my ears, Yasmin Williams is a proud continuation of that tradition of evolving folk.

To listen to the music of Yasmin Williams is to listen to the thrill of musical mutation in action, to hear and feel playing that is in constant communication, not only with itself, but with myriad styles and personalities. Given how adventurous and playful Williams’ music is, it’s not too surprising that her gateway to music was in fact a video game, specifically Guitar Hero 2.

In a review of Williams’ breakout 2021 album Urban Driftwood for taste-making music site Pitchfork, writer Sam Sodomsky connected Williams’ percussive, tap-heavy fingerpicking style to the mechanics of that game, as well as folk guitar legend John Fahey. Rhythmic intensity and love for the thrill of performance are the unifying elements of Williams’ otherwise impossible-to-pin-down style; this isn’t folk as a study or stuffy examination of tradition, it’s folk as expression at its most pure, music for entertainment, communication, and friendly competition all at once.

Williams’ latest batch of singles from her just-released album, Acadia, impeccably illustrates this eclectic and freewheeling approach to folk. “Hummingbird” is a dazzling collaboration with banjo player Allison de Groot and fiddle phenom Tatiana Hargreaves that recalls Richard Thompson’s lush, melodic picking but marries it to the breakneck intensity of traditional bluegrass.

On the other end of the folk spectrum, “Virga” finds Williams teaming up with Darlingside for a gorgeous and stately slice of indie folk that would fit right in with the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Bibio. Somewhere in the middle is “Dawning,” a bluesy folk number that features Williams dueting on guitar with Aoife O’Donovan of Crooked Still fame, who also provides enchanting, wordless vocals that give the song an almost ambient quality, as if Sigur Rós moved to Appalachia.

Even on songs that are more traditional, Williams playfully inserts pop and experimental elements. Take “Sunshowers,” which opens Urban Driftwood with beautiful fingerpicking that in turn gives way to a simple yet addictive bass-like hook that wouldn’t be out of place on a Post Malone single. Or, consider the album’s title track, which features djembe playing by Amadou Kouaye and adds an almost IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) quality to the song. Or, “Nova to Ba,” a collaboration with Argentine musician Dobrotto that effortlessly transitions from cinematic grandeur to relaxing ambient textures.

As a musician, I can’t help but be entranced by the marvelous skill and tone on display in Williams’ music. But more importantly, as a listener, I’m struck by the immediacy and tunefulness of the songs. Like Williams’ early inspiration, Guitar Hero 2, these songs are hard to put down once you start, and the difficulty never gets in the way of the fun.

“Juvenescence,” one of Williams’ most popular songs, is a handy representation of her skills – the impeccable picking, the daredevil runs that would impress even Eddie van Halen, the self-dueting in the finale. But it’s also immensely listenable and never a chore. Equally impressive is “Swift Breeze,” where Williams utilizes her guitar as an organic drum machine, getting a booming kick drum sound out of the body and rim shot-like hits out of other components, all while arpeggiating like she just got off a tour as the lead guitarist for a Midwest emo outfit.

It might seem odd to bring up emo in a feature on a folk musician, but there is a considerable amount of drama and theatricality in Williams’ music, even though most of it is instrumental. “Adrift,” in particular, has just as many emotional pivots and anthemic hooks as a Panic! At The Disco song. Here, the guitar comes in first, then the strings, but the swaggering hooks and melancholic valleys are there. It’s not hard to reimagine “Restless Heart,” from Williams’ debut album, Unwind, as an emo anthem either; it has a killer riff to kick things off followed by a pick slide and some heavy ringing chords. Even the title sounds like something the Get Up Kids would have used. If Dashboard Confessional was ever looking for their own Tim Reynolds to do an acoustic tour with, all I’m saying is Williams’ name should be high up on the list.

Every genre should be so fortunate as to have an artist like Williams, a performer who challenges herself without losing sight of what makes music a pleasure to listen to. A musician who commits to pushing the boundaries of the genre they call home, rather than maintaining a status quo. No genre should be inflexible and we need more musicians like Williams – period – who push themselves musically just as much as they do technically.

(Editor’s Note: Continue your Yasmin Williams Artist of the Month exploration here.)

Photo Credit: Ebru Yildiz

Basic Folk – Richard Thompson

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Richard Thompson’s memoir, Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967 – 1975 (now out in paperback) is a page-turner of a read about a legend at the dawn of British folk rock. Thompson details his early days with Fairport Convention, one of the most influential folk bands of all time. He writes how they strived to be different and sought out then-unknown songwriters like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen while adapting a modern sound for traditional British folk songs, some that were over 500 years old. He recounts tragedy when the band suffered a huge loss: the 1969 car accident that killed their drummer, Martin Lamble and Richard Thompson’s girlfriend of just two weeks, Jeannie Franklyn. He writes about their first experiences in America: rolling around Los Angeles with the likes of John Bonham and Janis Joplin and their triumphant debut at The Philadelphia Folk Festival.

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RT was game to get into anything I threw at him: talk about experiencing such excruciating grief at a young age, what British fortitude means to him, did he ever really get to know his parents, being outwardly calm and inwardly chaotic. There’s a chapter in the book where he details some session work he did in between the time he left Fairport Convention in 1971 and his solo work and work with his then-wife, Linda Thompson. I had a blast looking up all these albums on YouTube, especially Lal and Mike Waterson’s Bright Phoebus from 1972. Very fun music and fun that RT is playing on it! I highly recommend his memoir and hold out my hopes that there may be a part two in his future. I think there is much left to write: his days after the very public breakup with Linda, establishing himself as a solo act and then coming back to work with his extended family in the group Thompson in 2014 on the album Family. Richard’s got a busy summer ahead of him with a couple of cruises and the tenth anniversary of his writing camp, Frets and Refrains. I’m grateful he was able to make some time for us on Basic Folk!

Photo Credit: David Kaptein

MIXTAPE: Dori Freeman’s Waltzes for Dreamers and Losers in Love

Posted on by Editor

Waltzes are my favorite. Can’t explain why, but they touch me in a way that other songs don’t. In honor of my album, Ten Thousand Roses, and its title track, here are twelve of my favorite waltzes — some by dear friends and some by long-gone greats. — Dori Freeman

Erin Rae – “June Bug”

Erin is one of my favorite artists — I just love her voice and the style of her records. This song is so simple (my favorite kind of song), but so sweet and effective lyrically and in the arrangement. The last minute or so of the melody being played on piano is particularly lovely.

Kacy & Clayton – “Down at the Dance Hall”

Kacy and Clayton are dear personal friends and some of the most genuine and truly original people I’ve ever met. This is such a classic-sounding waltz it’s hard to believe it was written only a few years ago. Kacy is also one of my favorite singers *of all time.*

Ric Robertson – “Julie”

Ric is another good friend of mine and easily one of the best songwriters of the time. He writes with a vulnerability and honesty that most people are afraid to share. I also had the privilege of singing harmony on this lovely track with my friend Gina Leslie.

Teddy Thompson – “Over and Over”

I have to include a Teddy song on this playlist since he’s been such a big part of my own music. He produced my first three records and continues to be such a kindred spirit in music making. This song has such a heartbreaking honesty lyrically and a truly haunting arrangement.

Iris Dement – “Sweet Is the Melody”

Iris has one of the most instantly recognizable and unique voices in music. I had this album on cassette tape and used to listen to it driving around in my old Subaru when I was like 19. Such a tender song.

John Hartford/ Tony Rice/ Vassar Clements – “Heavenly Sunlight”

My husband introduced this song to me a few years ago and we’ve been performing it at shows ever since. I never get tired of singing this beautiful song and this is my all-time favorite version. A good gospel waltz is hard to beat.

Linda Ronstadt/ Dolly Parton/ Emmylou Harris – “Hobo’s Meditation”

This song is twofold in its importance to me. First, these are three of the most talented singers ever singing together on one album. All three of these women have had a huge influence on me individually and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find another country singer who wouldn’t say the same. This is also a song that my dad’s band performed and recorded when I was a child. I can vividly remember sitting in the audience listening to them play this song.

The Louvin Brothers – “Blue”

If you want a master class in harmony singing, the Louvin Brothers are it. I love to listen to them dance around each other when they sing, jumping all over the place with grace and finesse. This waltz is a classic heartbreaker with lots of tender swooning falsetto.

George Jones – “Don’t Stop the Music”

Another one of our greatest singers, George Jones. This is one of my husband’s favorite waltzes and makes the cut for me, too. That jump up to the sixth he sings right in the opening gets me every time.

Rufus Wainwright – “Sally Ann”

Most people familiar with my music know that Rufus Wainwright’s music is very dear to my heart. He has a couple beautiful waltzes to choose from, but I included this one from his first record. A weird thing to note perhaps, but I love that you can hear each breath Rufus takes before singing on his recordings.

Lee Ann Womack – “Prelude: Fly”

This album was on heavy rotation when I met my husband in 2016 so when I hear this song I’m reminded of how sweet a time that was. It’s got a special place in my heart. And Lee Ann is one of those singers who makes me cry every time.

Richard Thompson – “Waltzing’s for Dreamers”

My daughter used to like this song when she was littler so that makes it an especially sweet one for me. It has one of my favorite lines — “waltzing’s for dreamers and losers in love.” So funny, so sad, so true.

Photo credit: Kristen Crigger

WATCH: Teddy and Richard Thompson Swap Songs on ‘Woodstock Sessions’

Posted on by Editor

As we begin to roll into a new year, it is important to remember the important things in life and to be thankful for the goodness around us, like health, family, and music. In this edition of Friends & Neighbors, father and son Teddy Thompson and Richard Thompson grace the camera and perform a lovely set of songs for a Woodstock Sessions crew. With familiarity and comfort that only kinship can produce, the two share laughs, smiles, and charming songs that have decorated each of their respected careers.

The sessions kick off with the title track from Teddy Thompson’s new album, Heartbreaker Please. It’s his first solo release since 2011 and a complete representation of what he describes as a catholic taste in music, enjoying sounds and styles from many eras and genres. In addition, this Woodstock Session includes two of Richard Thompson’s landmark songs, as well as a cover of “Cut Across Shorty.” The fun and joviality this duo has while performing together is enough to warm the heart and kindle the flames of thankfulness and reflection. Watch these British icons share the frame here.

 

Stephen Malkmus of Pavement Ventures Down an Acoustic Road on New Album

Posted on by Editor

Pop and rock performers of mainstream and indie varieties alike, and their promotional teams, tend to make a production out of explaining sudden embraces of stripped-back production. Often, they spin tales of artistic ennoblement — of Justin Timberlake and John Mayer escaping the glossy trappings of their home genres to do soul searching in more pastoral musical settings; of Kesha and Lady Gaga staking their claims to singer/songwriter approaches that seemed slightly more grounded and organic than the club bangers of their pasts.

They temporarily tether themselves to seemingly sturdy, sincere, rooted approaches, and enlist musical guides and collaborators knowledgeable in those lineages. Even Beck, one of the leading postmodern shape-shifters of the alt-rock era, treated venturing closer to folk as a means of trading a reliance on irony for reflection, and Thurston Moore, long associated with the artfully discordant squall of Sonic Youth, consciously personalized his songwriting approach on an acoustic project that Beck produced.

Stephen Malkmus, whose bristly, brainy 1990s indie rock band Pavement was a distant descendant of Sonic Youth and a contemporary of Beck, isn’t at all oblivious to the fact that there are scripts for lending meaningful context to newly cultivated folk leanings. But Malkmus has carried his slouchy, self-deprecating demeanor into his 50s, and it’s his style to be amiably noncommittal. He’s ventured down the acoustic road himself on an album helmed by Chris Funk of the Decemberists and Black Prairie and wryly titled Traditional Techniques. Coming from Malkmus, that’s not meant to come off as any sort of claim to mastery.

He’s used to being interviewed by general interest outlets, not roots-versed ones, so he tries to temper expectations right off the bat when speaking to BGS, describing his knowledge base of folk forms as “sort of a crude appreciation.” He even tries a bit of deflection: “Chris, who I did the record with, he would be able to speak on more levels than me, you know?”

In reality, Malkmus’ catalog with Pavement and his subsequent band the Jicks betrayed flickers of folk interest. He’s admiring of Bert Jansch’s ’60s-era guitar innovations and appreciative of the Nickel Creek cover that introduced his songwriting to the virtuosic string band pop scene in the early 2000s. And he’s playing his 12-string more than ever.

The 10 tracks he recorded with Funk, bolstered by the contributions of guitarist Matt Sweeney and Qais Essar, renowned player of the rabab (an Afghani cousin of the lute), are accomplished and expansive. Malkmus’ sublimely oblique, thoroughly contemporary meanderings easily merge with spry, spindly rhythms and gently psychedelic interplay. It’s an experiment that paid off, and he stepped away from helping with his kids quarantine homeschooling to offer his measured musings on the making of it.

BGS: In the official narrative around this album, you make its origins sound happenstance — as though you were recording a different kind of project with Chris Funk and happened to get distracted by the acoustic instruments he had lying around.

SM: That’s somewhat true. But I did get into the 12-string guitar. I have all these dad images: “If you try one drug and then you try a pure, stronger version of it, you never want to go back.” That’s what it kind of feels like with the 12-string guitar, going back to the 6-string. Once your fingers get used to it, it’s just chiming and you’re hearing all these overtones. During this bunkering, I’ve been playing a lot.

You’ve downplayed your folk literacy, but I can hear at least a general interest sprinkled throughout your catalog in songs like “We Dance,” “Folk Jam,” “Father to Sister of Thought,” and “Pink India.”

Yeah, that’s true.

What music were you acquainted with in a British folk-rock or psychedelic folk vein that felt relevant to what you wanted to do?

Richard Thompson and the Fairport Convention, the whole British world, and also Bert Jansch that was a huge influence on Led Zeppelin and Fairport Convention. The English tradition, those kinds of spartan arrangements that were kinda catchy too. I guess I like catchy things. I was coming from a Beatles world, like, “Fuck, that’s getting in my head, that melody.” I also felt with the pickers of England, Richard and Sandy Denny, I would hear something catchy in there and grooving. There was, like, a groove.

In some other interviews you’ve mentioned Gordon Lightfoot as a vocal touchstone.

Oh, I love him.

But there were a couple of performances on Traditional Techniques that made me think less of Lightfoot and more of Beck’s Sea Change, like the calm, composed way you sing “Flowin’ Robes.” It made me wonder whether you learned anything from acoustic forays by your alt-rock peers.

Even the first song, “ACC Kirtan,” I thought it back on that one, just because it’s kind of slow and probing. It might be [Beck’s] Mutations instead of Sea Change or something. On all his acoustic albums, he had big world music vibes to it that I could see him jamming out, like throwing a sitar on there or something. Those albums by him, they’re super rich and high fidelity and beautifully recorded by Nigel Godrich. But I guess I don’t really think of those contemporaries when you’re making music at the same time.

How do you relate to the ways that rock or pop musicians’ excursion into folk-leaning forms are presented as personally significant moves, like they’re stripping away the noise and gloss and baring their souls, getting in touch with their roots?

That’s a classic way to see it, right? And also it goes with the sounds; it’s quieter, more direct, versus just naked or whatever.

Everything sort of happens quickly with me. I’ve said a couple times in some interviews, in the back of my mind I always wanted to play an acoustic record of some sort. I just didn’t know how or what to do. I wanted to do it because I thought people would like it too. It wasn’t only just ‘cause I was dying to do it. I also think about what I wanna release and what people might be interested in, and what I think I might be good at, of course. There’s no doubt that I’d think that most people have already heard me that are gonna buy the record. They would like to hear, “What would Steve do in an acoustic environment?”

And of course, we wanna surprise people and do it differently. If you imagined it in your mind, you might not have thought that it would have standup bass and Afghani-American guys playing eastern instruments. We’re sort of aware, or at least I am, of having a little bit of a risk, something gambled, besides not only that you’re just playing quietly. Putting yourself where you’re in a position with people you don’t know; we don’t really know how it’s gonna sound, a little more like a jazz situation in some ways. I didn’t really know what people were gonna play, but I had some rules for Chris and I, which were that we were gonna play it all live in the studio, and the drums were gonna be real quiet, and the bass too.

How much of the album would you say reflects you adapting to or embracing different musical forms and how much is you just framing the thing you do differently?

In the end, for better or worse, I feel like it’s just me putting a version on what I do. Because if you’re just self-aware, what is it really but that? When you’re writing the songs, you can imitate other people in your mind. There’s a lot of that going on. As you run through different ways to approach a riff, you’re usually thinking of not of yourself at first: “This kinda sounds like Led Zeppelin or PJ Harvey,” real basic broad strokes. Then I riff off that. I try to think of the best way. And also in the communal [setting], listen to other people; it’s really important to not have stuck to your own thing.

I’ve gotten the sense that people coming to this music with a working knowledge of your catalog with Pavement and the Jicks find some of these songs, like “What Kind of Person,” to be softer or more sentimental by comparison. Did you think at all about the kinds of tones that people tend to associate with singer-songwriters and folk songs?

Well, I would be thinking that there’s some really deadly serious lyrics about not only “my heart was broken,” but “I’m a poor man that died tragically or whatever and it sucked.” Most of the English ballads are really sad material. You can look at them in a Marxist way or something and say these people were screwed from the outset. I think of folk songs like that, but I also think of Michael Hurley and freaky geniuses like him playing acoustic music in a small bar to stoned people, and it’s not really deadly serious. Sometimes it is for a second, and then it’s funny, or we’re just being together making music, lower stakes. When I say low stakes, the stakes are as simple as just playing with some people in a room, like conjuring up music together, lyrics. Maybe you’re doing them to make the guitarist to your right laugh for a second, rather than make a song for a mother who lost her child young. You know what I mean? [laughs]

You’re talking about the tragic ballad tradition, the stuff that people think of coming over from the British Isles. The modern folk singer-songwriter movement has its own set of expectations in terms of tone and perspective.

Newer stuff, I don’t listen super closely to lyrics or what people are singing about, but it’s usually about love gone wrong.

Wait, you don’t listen that closely to lyrics in general?

Yeah, not really. Sometimes. It really depends. Most things I only listen to once or twice, for better or worse. Of course, other things I dig into super deeply. It’s probably to the detriment of my songwriting or people that like super-tight stuff. A line pops out and I’m like, “That was fuckin’ awesome.” It has to be set up by other things in the song. It’s not like you can just say that line with absolutely nothing around it. I’m more like I hear it in a song, or the way a person sings it, and I love it, rather than looking at it on the written page or thinking of it as just lyrics.

You seem to have a healthy amount of self-awareness about being a musician known for one thing, moving into a different lane.

It’s not only what I think, but also when I played it to other people before I put it out, I listen to others who say, “I like that one.” Or, “Why do you want to release that?” So it’s not only self-awareness but being self-aware enough to ask other people what they think. I think for all musicians, there are certain songs we make that we really like that other people like less. [Laughs]

All photos: Samuel Gehrke

BGS 5+5: Vance Gilbert

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Vance Gilbert
Hometown: Born in the Philadelphia area, but Boston has been home for the last 40 years
Latest album: Good Good Man
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Bentfield Hucks

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

I see much of my songwriting as writing a great script for a movie. I’m most often intent on telling a story and making it as visual as I can muster. However, literature plays a great role too, as word usage and wordplay get the tongue’s mind involved. I remember reading Louis de Bernières’ Corelli’s Mandolin, and wanting to sing the whole thing when I was done, like some slightly overweight Black Homer.

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

My freshman year, while I was at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut, a crew of us piled into a classmate’s yellow tonneau-topped Pontiac Sunbird and drove the 2 hours to Boston. We parked at another classmate’s house and took the MTA into town. At one of the stops on the “Red Line,” there was a guy playing jazz standards on a vibraphone, and I simply don’t remember the rest of my stay there (save for the lo mein in Chinatown). From that moment on, I wanted to be in Boston playing music.

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

That would be writing “The Day Before November,” the closing piece to my new album, Good Good Man. OK, you asked — the tough part was fear. I had a storyline in mind, like a Rod Serling sci-fi movie about a neighborhood “spooky-old-man-in-that-house” and a loving prank a small, parentally-abused little boy plays on him at the urging of his group of friends. It has ended up as a spoken word piece, but I was afraid to even begin the thing for fear of screwing it up. Isn’t that something? To not even begin to create something for fear of doing it badly? The storybones of the piece existed in notebook after notebook and in my head for about 12 years. Yes, 12 years. Once I rolled it out in some kind of pentameter it took about 2 weeks to write and 2 1/2 months to memorize.

My poor dogs. Memorization repeats happened during late evening walks in the fall of 2016. Now that I think of it, neighborhood windows were open — maybe I should be apologizing to some neighbors too…

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

Never mind the calendar. Things happen when they happen. If it takes 40+ years to figure out how to sing with nuance instead of bluster, write to tell the story rather than to just spit out alliteration, and to stop comparing myself to others that seem to have the whole package together at 23 years old, then that’s how long it takes.

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

It would most certainly be chicken wings with some sort of awesome sauce/rub, a root beer, sweet potato fries with just a little heat, and Richard Thompson just hanging out and playing tunes at the table. I’d even share my wings with him. Do you know how far out of my zone that would be? Particularly the sharing the wings part? NO ONE, not even Richard Thompson, better reach across that plate uninvited. NO ONE. …What fool would do that to a brother anyway?

Best of: Live at Ear Trumpet Labs

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Since 2011 Portland, Oregon-based Ear Trumpet Labs has been blessing the music world with their finely crafted microphones, with their clean, natural sound and designs reminiscent of the styles of the 1930s and 40s. And for the past three years, they’ve been gifting us listeners with beautiful examples of their high quality equipment through their Workshop Sessions, pairing exquisite videography with master musicianship. We’re looking back at some of our favorites from 2019 as we move into the new year, when BGS + ETL will be partnering to bring you more content live at Ear Trumpet Labs!

Jerry Douglas & Tommy Emmanuel – “Choctaw Hayride”

We’re not alone in our love for this session: it was one of our BGS readers’ favorite stories of the year. But really how could it not be? It doesn’t get much better than two masters of their crafts getting together in a workshop and just letting it rip.

Both are using Edwina microphones, and there’s also a stereo pair of Delphinas as room mics.

The Local Honeys – “The Redhead Yodel no. 1 [Mainliner]”

In their unfortunately rare ode to the female traveller amidst a plethora of hobo songs in American folk music, the Local Honeys bring us what they call “a lovey-dovey, yodelly-wodelly one.” Is there anything better than a yodelly-wodelly love song from the perspective of a female hobo? No. Is there anything better than the Local Honeys? No.

Anthony D’Amato – “Party’s Over”

Anyone else still recovering from all those holiday parties?

Anna Tivel – “Minneapolis”

Once the holiday cheer has passed, this time of year can be heavy. Tivel tells BGS this song is about “that stagnant winter sadness that can take over everything until you have to physically move yourself to shake it loose.” This stirring string arrangement may envelop you in those depths of winter, but it just might give you the hope to get yourself un-stuck.

Rachel Sermanni – “Farewell, Farewell”

Scottish folk musician Sermanni’s gentle delivery and sparse accompaniment of this Richard Thompson tune draws out the influence of the British folk ballad even more than the original Fairport Convention release in the late ‘60s. We dare you to not be completely drawn in by this breathtaking rendition.

Jefferson Hamer – “Alameda”

Hamer’s 2018 release Alameda is a collection of “road stories,” its stunning title track a tale of a traveling worker and a lost love.

The Brother Brothers – “Angel Island”

Adam and David Moss’s arrangement of this devastating Peter Rowan-penned story of a Chinese immigrant couple separated and detained at San Francisco’s Angel Island, a regrettably common occurrence during the years of the immigration station’s operation from 1910-1940, is almost unbearably haunting, and for good reason. This is a story that we as a culture shouldn’t soon forget.

Claire Hitchins – Emma

Aside from the beautiful lyrics painting the picture of our leading lady, and the easy, light vocal delivery, the look of pure peace on Hitchins’ face might just be the cherry on top of this session. “We’ll rise with love, my love, I believe we are worthy.”

Greg Blake – “Say Won’t You Be Mine”

Greg Blake brings some bluegrass from Colorado to the Ear Trumpet Labs with this Stanley Brothers classic.

The Lasses & Kathryn Claire – “Here Now”

Amsterdam folk duo The Lasses team up with Portland singer-songwriter Kathryn Claire to create this captivating session featuring violin, guitar, bodhrán, and trio vocals that could warm any lonely heart this cold winter.

 

The Rails Meld Folk Roots, Rock ‘n’ Roll Cred

Posted on by Editor

Couples don’t get more folk-rock than The Rails. On one side of the hyphen you have Kami Thompson, whose parents are Richard and Linda, one of the most famous couples on the British folk scene in the 1970s. On the other, you have James Walbourne, who has been guitarist to rock ‘n’ rollers from Jerry Lee Lewis to Shane McGowan to Chrissie Hynde. They have been playing together ever since first becoming an item, and the now-married couple brought out their first album, Fair Warning, in 2014. Now Cancel the Sun, their new record, is showing their fans exactly who they are.

BGS: Your latest album couldn’t be more different from your first. That one was stripped back, bare, traditional — this one’s absolutely rocking out! What’s behind the evolution in your sound?

Kami Thompson: With Fair Warning we set out to make a folk record within certain parameters, because we really liked the ‘70s folk sound. We were writing to that, and using traditional songs…

James Walbourne: My rock ’n’ roll background and Kami’s folk backgrounds have melded together on this one. All our influences came together and this time we weren’t trying to be anything — it was just a true representation of what we are.

Kami: I think of it as us at our noisy best, playing the music we like to listen to.

So what kind of music do you listen to together?

Kami: Well, we don’t listen together. We’ve got quite different tastes. But we both grew up with the same music around us as teenagers, that inescapable ‘90s alt rock and Americana and Britpop. I listen to mainstream pop — PJ Harvey and Elliott Smith were my faves growing up. James is more the tastemakers’ tastemaker…

James: I don’t know why she keeps saying that! I was just a music fanatic really.

Kami: His dad took him to see Link Wray when he was, like, 8.

James: He’d take me to see everyone from Frank Sinatra to Johnny Cash and Miles Davis and Jerry Lee Lewis. That was the biggest influence for me, and his huge record collection. My big hero was Elvis and that’s who I wanted to be. Who doesn’t? So I never thought about doing anything else but be a musician. And now I’m screwed because I can’t…

Kami, your biological parents are Richard and Linda Thompson – were you always destined to express yourself musically?

Kami: My father left my mother when she was pregnant with me, and they didn’t speak to each other until I was much older. So I was raised by my mum and a fantastic stepfather and our house was actually music-free. I would go to festivals with my father when I saw him on holidays and on the odd weekend. That was where I experienced live music, but it was the ‘80s and folk was so uncool to me then. My stepfather is an old-school Hollywood agent from Beverly Hills who used to represent Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif and Richard Harris, so as a kid I went to film sets and I thought that was the coolest part of show business.

Talking of cool… James, you’ve played with Jerry Lee Lewis, The Pogues, and you’re currently Chrissie Hynde’s lead guitarist in the Pretenders. Which of those gigs has been the wildest ride?

They were all wild in their different ways. The Pogues was probably the wildest because you never knew what was going to happen, ever. But I feel very lucky to have been able to play with all these legends.

And the pair of you owe a debt to novelist and music critic Nick Hornby, for introducing you…

Kami: We have to make sure we send him our records whenever one comes out as due deference!

Did you feel any nervousness about making music together?

Kami: Not really. When we were in the early days of going out we’d drink too much and get our guitars out and noodle. It just seemed an obvious thing to do. We were both looking for a creative partner as well as a romantic partner so those two fell into place simultaneously really well.

James, you previously had a band with your brother – who’s it easier working with, a brother or a wife?

That’s a good question! My brother lives in Connecticut but he’s visiting the UK right now so I’ve got to be careful… but it’s pretty similar. You learn what to say and what to leave out. When to shut your mouth, really. Being in a touring band is like that – it can be hard to not fight. We’ve come up with a solution for now, we have to separate the work from the relationship to a point. Otherwise it takes over. We did that with the songwriting as well… we had to figure out a way to make it work, we weren’t very good at it before.

Kami: The last record we made we weren’t getting on professionally and relationships were frayed. We had to find a different way to work this time and we thought and talked about it a lot. James quit drinking a year and a half ago which has had an incredibly beneficial effect on how we get on. We found a way of writing lyrics and tunes independently from each other, then hashing out what we had in properly delineated office hours.

Are you ever tempted to take holidays alone?

Kami: Oh god yes! We’re both difficult to live with, if we take a big step back and a truth pill. We have to work at finding time apart the way other couples have to put work into spend time together.

James: She just went to New Orleans only this year! And I’ve been away with the Pretenders a hell of a lot in the last three years, a couple of months at a time.

What about the mood of this album? There’s a common theme to a lot of your writing, a world weariness, a pessimism…

Kami: Yeah, we’re a right laugh to go to the pub with! James is more of a storyteller, more of a narrative writer, but I can have a dark view of things. It’s not my only view but my positive thoughts don’t always make for good music, it’s so hard to write a cheerful song that doesn’t sound trite. It’s easier to be grumpy.

James: The same things irritate us, I think. We have a kinship over the world’s irritating stuff! But our singing together, too, is telepathic now. We don’t even have to think about it, which makes things a lot easier.

And which of the songs on the album are you current favourites?

Kami: I love “Cancel the Sun” because it’s that tip towards the psychedelic rock and James’s wigged-out guitar solo at the end makes me really happy.

James: I think it hints towards a different direction, a bit chamber pop Beatles. It points to more possibilities down the road. The other song I really like is “Ball and Chain” because it was one that came straight down from the heavens. It was very quick to write and to finish, and that’s always a good feeling.

Photo credit: Jill Furmanovsky