Tag: Richard Thompson

Richard Thompson, “Banish Misfortune”

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Our artist of the month, iconic English folk rock singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Thompson, is well known for his literary, poetic, and evocative songsmithery. His decades-long career and international recognition were built not only on the deft timelessness of his pen, but on his instrumental chops as well, his ease and aplomb on the guitar paving a clear, direct path of delivery for his lyrics with a strong sense of personality and melodic identity.

We would be remiss, in our month-long celebration of the man and his brand new album, 13 Rivers, if we didn’t dive deep into his discography to showcase his six-string prowess. On his 1981 release, Strict Tempo!, Thompson tracked 12 traditional songs and tune sets and one original number, playing every single instrument on every single tune himself (except the drums). In a modern context, and juxtaposed against 13 Rivers, the record is a beautiful retrospective that showcases the fundamental building blocks of Thompson’s musical worldview: traditional Irish, Scottish, and English tunes played by folk instruments, in live-sounding, raw contexts that let the tunes themselves — and Thompson’s fleet fingers — shine. “Banish Misfortune,” a traditional Irish tune also known as “The Stoat That Ate Me Sandals” and myriad other names, stands out. Thompson allows the jig’s lazy lilt to gently pull his fingerstyle rendition of the late 1800s melody forward, while he embellishes with that classic Irish guitar flair, a dash of Thompson whimsy in every note.

There’s a compelling argument to be made here, that having this sort of “institutional knowledge,” an understanding, appreciation, and working vocabulary of the folk art forms that gave rise to our current genres and formats, is directly correlated to an artist’s longevity and their ability to connect, musically, on a much deeper level — of course, that could just be the magic of Richard Thompson himself.

MIXTAPE: The Brother Brothers, Tunes to Get Us Down the Road

Posted on by Editor

If you’ve looked at our tour schedule recently, you’ll notice that it’s jam-packed, and each place is hours from the next. One of us will be on driving duty and the other on the tunes/podcasts. This is a list of tunes that have found their way onto our speakers in times of natural serenity, boredom, inspiration, or just plain “Ooh, I want to listen to that song.” They consist of friends, heroes, and people we admire — if it were all of them it would go on for hours. Here is a quick list for now, and it may get longer by the day.

“Ditch” – Sam Baker

There are many modern songwriters that can spin a story that makes the listener feel like they’re living it, but Sam is really one of the coolest and relaxed. Every time I hear one of his songs I feel like I’m remembering a dream I’ve just awoken from.

“Dad’s Gonna Kill Me” – Richard Thompson

Needless to say that Richard is one of the most influential songwriters of all, and this is a song that has really hit me hard recently. Songs of fighting war are a common theme in songwriting, and this one is very effective.

“Katie Dear” – The Blue Sky Boys

When you do research to learn harmonies, you stop here.

“Down in a Willow Garden” – The Kossoy Sisters with Erik Darling

Boy is this just good and in the way like not much else.

“Willie O’ Winsbury” – Anne Briggs

I remember the first time I heard this version. I’d listened to many others before and then the clouds parted but the rain kept pouring down and I was in heaven

“If You Ain’t Got Love” – The Revelers

What is there to say about the essence of country? This is where it lies for me. It is kind of the perfect song.

“Tired of Your Tears” – Feufollet

After attending the Black Pot Festival in Lafayette, LA we heard this band. To describe a better time listening to music would be very few and far between. What a great dance band and group of musicians

“Diggin’ Holes” – Brent Cobb

There are very few times that you hear a song and decide it’s time to quit music because you could never be as clever or sincere or capture a feeling to its core as Brent does in this song. I hate how good this song is.

“Fool Me” – Buck Meek

Listening to Terry Allen and Michael Hurley is one thing, and our pal Buck does it so very well with this song. It’s so perfect.

“Jonathan” – Adrianne Lenker

There are times that I sit down to write a song and just can’t because this song haunts me. It is the stars I am shooting for.

“Take Me Back” – Sarah Jarosz

We had the wonderful opportunity to do a bunch of opening shows with Sarah and this is the song that has stuck with me all this time. I wake up with it sometimes and can’t seem to get enough of it.

“Cosmic Doo Doo” – Blaze Foley

What can I say, but how great is this song?

“Real Peach” – Henry Jamison

He doesn’t remember how, but Adam found out about Henry, and we listened to his album every day in the car for weeks. It’s so good.

“Ain’t That Bad” – Timmy the Teeth

This is just a hit and I love the sentiment. His voice and the vibe and the words, it just is the butter that makes you want another.

“Emmylou” – First Aid Kit

We heard three different bands cover this song before we checked out the original. Then we listened to it over and over again. It’s just one of those earworms that gets in both ears.

“The King’s Shilling” – Karan Casey

When you visit Scotland and the UK you just end up falling in love with it all, and this is one of my favorite songs I’ve heard that isn’t twenty minutes long.

Photo credit: Erika Kapin

Richard Thompson Lets the Songs Guide ‘13 Rivers’

Posted on by Editor

Richard Thompson’s new album contains 13 tracks and is called 13 Rivers, which suggests an intriguing metaphor regarding music and bodies of water. These are songs as rushing currents, as tributaries cutting through the landscape with unstoppable force; they can be dammed but not contained, their power harnessed but not diminished. Or perhaps they are obstacles to be crossed, either by swimming against dangerous rapids or by devising elaborate feats of engineering. It is any wonder that songs have bridges?

Thompson admits he didn’t think too hard about it. “It’s just a convenient title, and I liked the way it sounds,” he says with a chuckle that sounds both self-deprecating and possibly curious about the idea. “I’m not sure how deep it is or if it stands up to intellectual scrutiny. I guess songs and rivers can be fast or slow, straight or meandering. They have a beginning or end. You should make of it as much as you can. The more you make of it, the better I sound.”

He doesn’t need me or anyone else to make him look smart, but let’s go ahead and make too much out of that metaphor. Thompson’s catalog is full of raging rivers, most with rock rapids and treacherous oxbows, some stretching for miles and miles or years and years. He’s been navigating them for more than half a century, ever since he strummed his first notes as the guitarist and occasional songwriter for the famed London outfit Fairport Convention. That band helped to electrify folk music in the late 1960s, adding drums and Stratocaster to centuries-old rural ballads about maidens and knights, before Thompson went solo to emphasize his own songwriting.

For years he was merely a cult artist in the States, his early records available only as imports, at least until 1980’s Shoot Out the Lights—written, performed, and recorded with his then-wife Linda Thompson—established him as an insightful chronicler of the challenges of commitment and contentment, a songwriter who is neither blandly optimistic nor cynically dismissive, but somewhere right between bitter and sweet.

And, of course, he is a guitar player whose resourcefulness somehow dwarfs his technical virtuosity. A teenager in the late 1960s, he was too young to be as enamored with American blues as other players were, which means he was never a contemporary of Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, or Jimi Hendrix. Instead his playing is grounded in folk music, aligned with the experiments and excursions of Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Davy Graham. Like them, he has significant range, incorporating a range of styles and sounds: African desert rock, urban punk, country & western, Indian ragas. His solos change shape constantly; listening to him play, you never know where he’s going but you know he’s going to get there.

While many of the players listed above have either died or all but retired, Thompson continues to make relevant music in the 2010s, both as a songwriter and as an instrumentalist. “The most important thing is the song—the particular batch of songs you find yourself with. That dictates so much about the way the record sounds,” he says. “The songs are going to tell you how they want to be shaped, how they want to sound in the end. They tell you if they want to be acoustic or electric; they tell you if they want to be simple or complex. If you’re listening to what the songs are saying to you, then making the record should be a fairly easy task.”

The batch of songs that comprises 13 Rivers stemmed from what he calls a “difficult time in my life,” although he declines to discuss the specifics of those difficulties. Still, it’s possible to gauge the general nature of them based on songs like “Rattle Within” and “Shaking the Gates,” which suggest a feisty relationship with the idea of mortality. Writing them, however, is not necessarily a conscious effort to address certain events or predicaments. “It’s a semi-conscious process. You’re not always thinking about the big picture. You’re just kind of floating sometimes. You’re almost allowing yourself to switch off some of your critical faculties in order to write. And once you’ve written it, you think, okay, here’s this song, now what does it mean? But you’re not thinking about that meaning while you’re writing it.”

Take the opening track, “The Storm Won’t Come.” A low, brooding number with a worried vocal and a searing solo, it reverses the typical storm metaphor, casting the thunder and rain as something other than destructive. Especially opening the album, it almost sounds like an invocation by an artist waiting for inspiration to strike like lightning. “That’s not what I had in mind, but that sounds great! I was thinking more than sometimes in life, you can feel stymied and you long for change. Sometimes if you try to change it yourself, it doesn’t work. You have to wait for the world to do it to you,” he says.

One storm arrived just after he had assembled this batch of songs: The producer backed out of the project, leaving Thompson to ponder its fate. Thankfully, pragmatism won out. “I thought, well, the studio is booked, the musicians are booked, we’ve got the material, so I’ll just produce it myself. I’ve done it before. It’s always nice to have the contrast of working with other people, but it can be good to do it yourself. You can get more into the nuts and bolts of what you really intended to find in the songs.”

Perhaps that’s why so many songs have a raw-nerve friction to them, lyrically and musically. After a handful of solo acoustic albums, including 2014’s Still, produced by Jeff Tweedy, Thompson put together a very tight, very agile rock and roll combo to give these songs a jittery energy. He’s worked with bassist Taras Prodaniuk and drummer Michael Jerome for years, “so I know them a bit—what they’re likely to come up with.” They worked quickly in the studio, learning the songs just enough to pound them out but not enough to pound them life out of them. “I try to not get too embedded in learning the song. We just give it a couple of listens at rehearsals,” he says. It’s a way to avoid what Thompson calls “overlearning” the song, to allow room for happy accidents and to keep the possibilities wide open.

When the song goes out into the world, those possibilities shrink dramatically. The song becomes settled, more or less. “What the song is now is public domain. It becomes a kind of public property, and the audience won’t let you change it, even if you want to. I’ve got songs where I’ve snuck in the odd word change, but to change a verse or even a line is just asking for trouble.”

Being the song’s creator doesn’t mean he determines that meaning for anyone else. In fact, his interpretation is only one of so many. “It’s always amazing to hear other people’s ideas of what a song is about. I may have written it as a satirical song or a very pointed song, and people will say, ‘Oh that’s about Bob Dylan’ or something. How did they reach these bizarre conclusions? But I’m glad they can find their own meaning in it.”

Illustration by: Zachary Johnson
Photo by: Tom Bejgrowicz

Canon Fodder: Fairport Convention, ‘Liege & Lief’

Posted on by Editor

It was inevitable: If Fairport Convention hadn’t added rock guitars and a rhythm section to centuries-old folk tunes about bedeviled knights and fairy queens, someone else would have invented English folk rock. Released in December 1969, Liege & Lief sounded like a culmination of a scene that had been in resurgence for most of the decade, spilling out of pubs and social halls to offer an alternative to the frivolity of rock and roll as well as a sense of national identity at a time when the idea of British-ness seemed to be changing, even diluting. As such, it was a scene that was extremely guarded about its many centuries of source material and extremely suspicious of any innovation, whether it’s Davy Graham adding raga filigrees to his folk instrumentals or the Pentangle pushing the form into jazzier territory.

Earlier in that fateful year, Fairport Convention had taken a small step toward English folk rock while recording their third album, Unhalfbricking. It’s a varied album, one made by a band only just realizing its power but not yet shedding its American aspirations. It includes three Dylan covers, including a French-language version of “If You Gotta Go, Go Now,” as well as a Cajun number and a stunner called “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” penned by singer Sandy Denny. Side One ends with an eleven-minute track called “A Sailor’s Life,” adapted from a 19th-century broadside and recorded in one take by the band. As Rob Young writes in 2011’s definitive Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music, the song contains “a historic few minutes: the first recorded use of drumsticks and drum kit on a rendition of an English folk song.”

Fairport Convention almost died before the album was even in stores. In May 1969, during a trip back to London from a gig in Birmingham, the band’s tour bus flipped down a ravine, killing drummer Martin Lamble and Jeannie Franklyn, girlfriend of guitarist Richard Thompson. Bass player Ashley Hutchings was thrown from the vehicle and spent a month in the hospital. Guitarist Simon Nicol was nearly crushed by their gear. Thompson suffered broken ribs. How does a band continue after such a tragedy? How do you make musicians when you’ve seen your instruments and your bandmates scattered across the highway?

What should have been the happiest moment of their career—the release of Unhalfbricking, their first charting album—was instead a time of misery and uncertainty, as Fairport Convention nearly went their separate ways. Instead, they retreated to the Hampshire on England’s remote southern shore, where their producer and friend Joe Boyd rented a crumbling manor called Farley House. There they grieved and recovered, played football in the yard, busked at the local cathedral to pay the milk bill, and rehearsed for hours and hours every day.

Given the trauma they had endured, it’s remarkable that Fairport Convention knew exactly what they wanted to do musically. Where once they wanted to be in Britain what the Byrds and the Band were in America, they wanted to build off the experiment of “A Sailor’s Life” and explore the intersections between rock and folk. More generally, they wanted to see what England’s past might have to say to its present and what its present might have to say to its past. Finally released from the hospital, Hutchings threw himself into the project, spending hours at the Cecil Sharp House in London, the famous repository of all things British folk. There he pored over handwritten journals, songbooks, cylinders, records, and documents to uncover songs like the magical-realist Scots ballad “Tam Lin” and the grisly murder ballad “Matty Groves.”

Pounding out the arrangements at Farley House, the band added a few originals, including Denny’s opener “Come All Ye,” which plays as a statement of renewed vigor and purpose. It’s a rousing number, loose and gangly and inviting, with Denny calling out each of the instruments and explaining their roles in this new music. Everyone joins in on the chorus, gregariously inviting the listener to join them on this journey: “Come all ye rolling minstrels and together we will try to rouse the spirit of the earth and move the rolling sky.” The song heralds something different and radical in the music: a new way to play old songs. It’s the drumsticks and drum kit, of course, but something else.

Replacing the sadly departed Martin Lamble in Fairport Convention was Dave Mattacks, whose biggest gig till then had been an Irish dance band. He plays for movement, emphasizing the bounce in his rhythms, making it less about how the stick hits the drum but what happens immediately after: the upswing of the stick, that sense of jubilant motion. He peppers his bright, buoyant beats with unexpected fills and rolls, pushing “Matty Groves” and “Tam Lin” along at a crisp clip. The innovation isn’t simply the introduction of rock drums into a folk context; instead, he’s thinking about how the instrument fits in this new setting, how it interacts with the other instruments, how he can mimics the jigs and reels of Thompson’s guitar and Dave Swarbrick’s fiddle. Somehow on Liege & Lief he makes his drum kit sound like a folk instrument.

And that’s an important aspect of this album’s enduring appeal. These songs are excitedly and boldly conceived, but they’re also beautifully executed: loose, casual, seemingly unrehearsed, messy in places but all the livelier and more spontaneous for it. All are deft and distinctive musicians: Denny a commanding and expressive singer, Hutching a bass player who emphasizes rhythm and melody equally, Thompson already a guitar hero on par with the overblown blues soloists of the era. There is between them a sense of elated and grateful collaboration, a sense of relief that the others are still there to play these songs together.

Ironic for a band that had survived such a tragedy, their greatest success marked a kind of breakup for Fairport Convention. Denny, featuring she would enjoy fewer opportunities to write new songs for the band, left the group for a too-brief solo career, dying in 1978 at the age of 31. Hutchings exited for the opposite reason: He felt Fairport would not continue to explore folk music as deeply and as persistently as he wanted, so he left to form Steeleye Span (whose 1970 debut Hark! The Village Wait picks up where Liege & Lief left off). Fairport soldiered on throughout the 1970s, shedding and absorbing new members, but the Farley House crew is considered the classic lineup.

Liege & Lief casts a long shadow over the band, however. They never quite topped it in terms of popularity or influence, perhaps because the questions they raise on these songs sounded so new and bold in 1969: How should we treat the past? How does it define us as citizens and as a collective? One of the joys of folk music is how it allows every generation to imprint itself on the music, which means that Fairport Convention might have been looking to the past but they were commenting on the present. The album may seem removed from the pop music of the era, from the end of the Beatles to the beginning of Zeppelin, from the ascension of the Stones to the first notes of heavy metal and prog, from hippies and rebels.

But they are very much a band of their moment. They transform “The Deserter” into a powerful anti-war anthem, and it doesn’t matter that the “Queen” in the lyrics is Victoria instead of Elizabeth. “Matty Groves” is a tale of sexual treachery, about a woman who rejects her husband’s riches to bed a younger, poorer man, but as Denny sings it, the song’s sexual politics are surprisingly progressive. The woman becomes a hero and a sexual martyr, her jealous husband a brutish villain: the establishment, a square, the Man.

Fairport Convention approached folk music from a distinctive generational vantage point, one with new technology, new pop culture, new attitudes toward England. Liege & Lief marks a very specific point in the history of folk music; it sounds deeply rooted in the late 1960s, yet it serves as an evergreen reminder that we are never beholden to history. Rather, the past is the raw material from which we fashion our future.

That Ain’t Bluegrass: The Del McCoury Band

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Artist: The Del McCoury Band
Song: “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” (originally by Richard Thompson)
Album: Del and the Boys

Where did you first hear “1952 Vincent Black Lightning?”

You know, I never heard it before on the radio, but a friend of ours heard this song on the radio in New York City or somewhere. He called Ronnie and said, “You guys ought to think about recording that song.” Like I said, I had never heard it before. Ronnie played it to me and it’s a great story. That’s what attracted me to the song. It was Richard Thompson — the guy from England — he was just playing acoustic guitar on that and he plays with his fingers instead of a pick. He had his own way of doing it, which is unique, too. But really what attracted me to it was the story. I really liked that story and I thought, “Well, you know what? We’ll see what key we can get it in.” I think he did it in Bb, but C kind of suited me better. And I thought, too, it would be good with banjo to tune it down in C and play it. We ran through it, and I didn’t get the melody exactly like he did it, I don’t think, in some spots. Either that or, since I recorded, it I’ve changed it a little. [Laughs] You kinda do that after recording a song: You’ll change little things now and then. But that’s actually the beginning of it right there.

There’s this tradition in bluegrass music of covering songs from outside of bluegrass — it’s kind of been done even since Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs.

Yeah, that’s right.

Why do you think that bluegrass artists like to cover these kind of pop or folk songs?

I’ll tell you what, with me, there’s something in that song that touches me or attracts me to it. It don’t matter where the song comes from, really. I think that’s what it is with most people that record songs from outside the bluegrass realm, I guess you could say. It’s either the story or a different melody that will hit your ear that you like — it’s really a complicated thing, I think. I know, with me, that’s mainly what it is. I either like the story in the song or the melody that’s a little different somehow.

A lot of people ask me, when I do interviews for people that write magazines or have a radio show or whatever, they’ll say, “When you go to record, what kind of songs are you looking for?” And I say, “Well, I never know what I’m looking for.” [Laughs] ‘Til I hear it, you know? I don’t have a certain thing in mind, when I go to record. People send me songs all the time now and they might send a whole CD of maybe 12, 14 songs. Sometimes you might find one in that bunch. And you never know what’s going to attract you, you know? It’s a funny thing.

What do you think makes this song a good bluegrass song?

I don’t even think about that — about it fitting. [Laughs] If I like the tune or the story, I just don’t think about it. I just think, “I could do that song!” I don’t think about where it came from. I know that once I sing it. I may have suggestions of how to do the instrumental parts, but for the most part, I don’t. I just let those guys come up with what they can with the melody. I figure I like for them to be creative, too, and do what they can with the song. I really don’t think about it that way. I just think, “I’d love to sing that.” [Laughs] See what I can do with it, whatever it is.

Now, you know that ain’t bluegrass, right?

That’s true, yeah! [Laughs] It ain’t bluegrass! I tell ya, Justin, I’ve thought about this a lot: All music is related. Somehow there’s a connection in all music. Pop, rock, rock ‘n’ roll, and whatever! In bluegrass, country, or hillbilly, they’re all connected in some way. People think — I used to think myself — for one thing, “Bill Monroe, he come up with this bluegrass music and he didn’t listen to anybody else.” But he listened to a lot of people! He listened to jazz down there in New Orleans and he used to go down there. He’d spend time down there when he was young, because he liked that music. I didn’t find this out, even when I worked for him I did not know that, but I found this out later. For instance, he grew up listening to Jimmie Rodgers. All those yodel things, he got from Jimmie. That was completely different, that was even different than country. I don’t know what you would class that kind of music as. Later in years, once he come to Nashville, he would cover a lot of songs that the country people were doing in those days.

I like that your perspective on it is, if you like it, if there’s something about the song that you like, that’s all it takes.

Because if you record that song, you may have to sing that song for 10 years or longer! [Laughs] So you better like what you’re doing! I’ll tell ya, Justin, through the years I have recorded songs that I really didn’t like. The producer would bring them. I needed songs, but usually, when that happens, I don’t sing them in public. [Laughs] I found out another thing, too: Sometimes you gotta think about a song that you put on a record that you don’t like, because there’s going to be somebody that they’ll buy the whole record for that one song that you did that you don’t like. I’ve witnessed that, too. Sometimes there will be a lot of people that like that one song you don’t like, so you might have to learn it and sing it!

Americana’s Complicated, Resonant Relationship with the UK

Posted on by Editor

Defining the special relationship is pretty hard right now. Donald Trump and Theresa May were pictured holding hands on their very first meeting. Two days later, 10,000 Britons protested against Mr. Trump outside the prime minister’s Downing Street residence. The most appropriate Facebook status update would be: “It’s complicated.” It’s 130 years since Oscar Wilde wrote, “We really have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language.” For many Brits, still reeling from our unexpected lurch into Brexit, Trump’s shock election is proof that the two countries still walk a similar path. But to others, our cousins across the pond have never felt more distant and alien.

It was in this context that the UK’s Americana scene celebrated itself last week. A fledgling organization, the Americana Music Association UK was hosting its second-ever awards, as well as a two-day conference that offered a chance to consider not only the future of the music here in Britain, but also its present.

Americana has strong roots (excuse the pun) on this side of the Atlantic. Since Mumford & Sons’ mid-2000s breakout, bands like Fleet Foxes, Foy Vance, the Lumineers, and the Shires have found a ready audience, particularly during festival season. Country music has had its own revival — but it can seem remote to the British sensibility and way of life (and its costumes, frankly, outlandish). There’s something in the understated wistfulness of Americana that resonates with our national character: It’s why so many British households own Simon and Garfunkel albums, and why Bob Dylan has long been treated as one of our own.

The contemporary Americana scene is, however, still finding its identity in the UK — as demonstrated by the festival-cum-conference that preceded the AMA UK’s 2017 awards. The two-day affair took place in Hackney, London’s hipster haven where venues such as a vintage clothing store added to the retro appeal of the music; audiences were neatly split into 30-somethings who had raided their dad’s vinyls and the dads, themselves, many wearing jackets they’d had since the ’70s.

Lewis & Leigh

The acts, showcased simultaneously in three neighbouring venues, were more varied. Performances ranged from the folk-inspired Honey Ants to the bluegrass-pop blend of Cornish band Flats & Sharps, from the wild intensity of Henry Senior, Jr.’s pedal steel instrumentals to the delicate voice duos of Ben Smith & Jimmy Brewer. Robert Vincent, winner of last year’s Emerging Artist award, punctuated his charismatic country rock with an unexpected Merseyside accent. Across the road, Glen Phillips (of Toad the Wet Sprocket fame) suppressed his alt-rock instincts in a solo acoustic set that brought the night to a quiet, almost melancholic close.

Growing a more diverse audience will be key for Americana’s development in the UK, industry insiders were admitting. A panel, convened to discuss the genre’s future in the UK and Europe, noted that until recently the very label caused resistance among musicians and promoters, alike. “What has changed recently is that the whole scene has stopped being defensive,” said Sara Silver, head of UK operations at Thirty Tigers, the Nashville-based company that promotes and distributes artists from Lucinda Williams and Patty Griffin to Jason Isbell and the Avett Brothers. “At the beginning, it felt it had to justify itself, but last year’s awards event made me really proud.”

The instigation of an official Americana chart top 40 — some time before the U.S. began their own — is another example of the genre’s newfound confidence, even if 2017’s best-selling album went to a man who has been making music so long that the other nominees could well have been conceived to one of his records. And if Van Morrison’s appearance to accept his award for Keep Me Singing sprinkled stardust (“You’ve made a happy man very old,” he quipped), a performance by Mary Chapin Carpenter, Americana’s grand dame, gave everyone present a masterclass in expressive storytelling.

There was something gloriously authentic about staging the awards at St. John at Hackney — a dilapidated church where the marks in the ceiling aren’t artfully distressed, just genuine leaks — and a similar lack of pretension throughout the ceremony, including the bare-stage performances by nominees like Danni Nicholls, Yola Carter, and Sam Outlaw (who won International Album of the Year for Angeleno).

Perhaps fittingly, the biggest winners of the night were Lewis & Leigh, whose transatlantic partnership (Alva Leigh is from Mississippi, Al Lewis from Wales) claimed Best UK Album and Song. The gentle duo were celebrating the three-year anniversary of writing their very first number together, and their rendition of their award-winning “The 4:19” was the evening’s musical highlight, one whose romantic yearning would give Nashville’s Gunnar and Scarlett a serious run for their money.

Yola Carter

The event is, at its heart, a chance for what is still very much a family-style musical community to recognize and foster their younger kin — literally so, in the case of Wildwood Kin, the sibling trio from Devon who DJ (and awards host) Bob Harris named his emerging artists of 2017.

Carter, named UK Artist of the Year, pointed out that only 12 months ago she was singing a minor showcase at this same event — “Now, I’m here receiving an award,” she said, acknowledging the “encouragement and community” provided both by her fellow AMA members and by Arts Council-funded organisations like British Underground.

At the end of the night, Richard Thompson was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award, in the year that his band Fairport Convention celebrates its 50th anniversary. It was presented by his friend Harry Shearer, who called him a “craftsman, artist, and visionary” and praised his “absolutely idiosyncratic career.”

“This isn’t a subculture,” said Thompson, when he took to the stage. “It’s a parallel culture. And …” — cue huge applause — “it’s getting better.”

MIXTAPE: Kelly Jones and Teddy Thompson’s Favorite Duets

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Hey everybody! Teddy and I had ball writing and recording our album of duets, Little Windows. While preparing for the sessions, we couldn’t help but reflect on our favorite duets from our contemporaries and heroes/heroines of the past. Here is a list of tracks that stand out to both of us as examples of how irresistible the male-female collaboration can be. Enjoy!

xo Kelly and Teddy

KELLY’S PICKS

Meryl Haggard & Bonnie Owens — “Just Between the Two of Us”
I love how so many classic country songs will take a cliché or a well-worn phrase and turn it on its ear. This song does that so well. It also addresses a very real phase while falling out of love — the dreaded malaise of indifference. What an appropriate theme for both a man and woman to sing together.

Buckingham Nicks — “Frozen Love”
This is the one and only song co-written by both Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks on their self-titled duo album from 1973. The entire album is GREAT. It’s filled to the brim with sweet melodic nuggets in both the vocals and the guitars, but this song, in particular, showcases both to great effect.

Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell — “Keep on Lovin’ Me Honey”
This song from 1968 is an example of some of the finest singing, arranging, and playing in the history of American music. Marvin and Tammi trade lines, harmonize, and sing in unison alongside the accompaniment of expert musicians performing excellent arrangements. My heart skips a beat every time the bridge comes around and Marvin exclaims, “Oh Tammi!” … It’s the little things, I guess.

The Mastersons — “If I Wanted To”
Even if these guys weren’t my friends, I’d still dig their music. This song is so infectious, it always fills me with pure joy as I drive down the highway, windows down, speakers blaring … It’s a great song to add to your “Wow, I’m falling in love with someone” playlist.

John Travolta & Olivia Newton John — “You’re the One That I Want”
"Oo, Oo, Oo, honey!" Watching the movie Grease was the first time I heard and saw the power of the boy-girl duet. John was so cute in his blue jeans and black leather, and Olivia could not be stopped in those spandex. After June 1978, every good girl would try to go bad singing along to this one — me included.

Buddy & Julie Miller — “Keep Your Distance”
Americana at its finest. Buddy and Julie are the king and queen of this kind of Texas country-rock, as far as I’m concerned. Their voices are a match made in music heaven; Buddy’s guitar playing is some of the best you’ll hear; and this song (coincidentally written by Teddy’s dad, Richard Thompson) is fantastic songwriting — clever, coherent, and emotionally accessible.

TEDDY’S PICKS

Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty — "After the Fire Is Gone"
A great contrast in styles here that works a charm. Loretta is so keening and righteous, and Conway is the most laid-back dude in the world. I like to imagine him sitting on the edge of a stool singing this, possibly eating a ham sandwich between lines. Why is no one named Conway anymore? Such a great name.

Allison Krauss and Robert Plant — "Gone Gone Gone"
A modern take on an Everly’s classic. It’s a vocal pairing that shouldn’t work, really, isn’t it? Somehow they glue together gloriously, though. I think a great deal of the credit for this track goes to producer T Bone Burnett. Whatever he did in the studio to get these sounds, especially the vocal sounds, justifies his place as one of the great modern-day producers.

Richard and Linda Thompson — "A Heart Needs a Home"
Mum and dad killing it on a song that breaks the hearts of all who hear it. It is a tremendous song, and they are at their peak here as a duo. It’s something of an anomaly for them, too, as it’s a positive sentiment. Shock horror!

George Jones and Tammy Wynette — "Someone I Used to Know"
One of my all-time favorite songs and one that Kelly and I sang together early on in our relationship. A top-notch, classic country song. Reminds me a bit of "She Thinks I Still Care." I love that conceit, "Oh her/him? I barely remember them. They mean nothing to me." Ha!

Linda Rondstadt and Aaron Neville — "Don’t Know Much"
You’ll have to excuse the guitar solo — it was the '80s. Linda is a monster of a singer. It’s a great loss that she can no longer do it due to a Parkinson's diagnosis. But she left us with hundreds of great records. This is another case of two very different voices combining to make something extraordinary. Linda is such a strong singer and very straight whereas Aaron Neville is the king of the soft and melismatic. Heavenly stuff.

Roy Orbison and k.d. lang — "Crying"
This was the first version of "Crying" I ever heard. It was quite a hit when it came out in the late '80s. It was on Top of The Pops in the UK! Roy was the greatest. Top five singers of all time for me, and there aren’t many that can hang with him, but k.d. holds her own and then some.

Photo credit: Sean James

Canadian Cousins Exploring Strange Countries: A Conversation with Kacy & Clayton

Posted on by Editor

Cousins Kacy Anderson and Clayton Linthicum may hail from Canada — specifically the isolated Wood Mountain Uplands in Saskatchewan — but their music is by no means limited to that geographical region. Fans of older sounds than what they heard playing on the radio growing up, they sought out British folk and American roots music that broadened their horizons and went on to influence their own take on these classic traditions.

Their new album, Strange Country, contains darker subject matter that belies the pair’s young age: Kacy at 19 and Clayton at 21 write music far beyond their years. With Clayton’s clear, articulate guitar guiding the songs along and Kacy’s woeful, emotionally laden vocals — sliding from soprano to a weighted alto and back again — the pair have penned an album that feels woozy at times for the heights it soars and the depths it reaches, all dealing with tragedies in one way or another. Strange Country feels solemn and especially grave, both figuratively and literally. The album’s last song, “Dyin’ Bed Maker,” is a murder ballad Kacy wrote from the point of view of a female. The sheer desire that arises from the song’s melody and lyricism feels overwhelming: “I know he loved me best. I know he loved me best,” Kacy sings, her voice edging on provocation against Clayton’s mournful guitar.

It seems like the younger generations are largely interested in the past in an ironic sense. How do you keep your engagement more genuine?

Kacy: I think you can kind of stray away from clichés. If you know about certain song topics or things that have been overdone, in different periods or over time, then you can kind of be aware of that and draw from lesser-known influences. Yeah, just go for a more uncommon influence, I guess.

Clayton: Wow, that is so true. I did not realize that. [Laughs] This is educational for me, too. Keep ‘em coming, Kacy. That was genuine tone and it came off as sarcastic.

How do you avoid appropriating a musical tradition?

Clayton: I think not dressing like pioneers.

Kacy: Yeah, I think that’s actually the main thing. And not having press photos that show us churning butter and riding on wagons with a team of horses.

Clayton: That is one thing that we’ve really been striving for, is to take influence from that older world but not try and put on a theatre production.

Kacy: It’s cool if it’s done really well, but I don’t think I’m capable of being … like there are certain people, like Frank Fairfield, he’s just — I don’t know how to say this in a non-cheesy way because everything that’s come to mind is a total mom phrase — so authentic and he doesn’t try, but that’s where all of his interests are. He has no regards for the current world. There are certain people like that who can do it real well. Personally, I don’t think I can, so I’m not going to wear suspenders and little old timey shoes. That does not make sense for me, because I don’t want to spend all my time trying to find woven pants and stuff. That’s a whole new level of hard work.

Clayton: And hard work to wear them.

Especially in the Summer.

Clayton: Oh, yeah.

Kacy: I do also love pioneer clothes and acting in pioneer dramas that my Aunt Thelma writes.

Obviously, you’re both very young, but there’s a weighted solemnity about your music that suggests someone much older and experienced. Where does that sensibility come from?

Kacy: I think that it mostly just comes from listening to traditional music from certain areas where it’s so dark, and you are consumed by tragedy and death and music relating to hard parts of life, experiences you haven’t really had. I don’t know anyone that’s been murdered or anything. But you can listen to a murder ballad and get a sense for it and relate to it and try and make your own stories or work off of things that you heard. I think just talking about kind of heavy subject matter makes the music seem a little more mature.

Do you find that since you’re singing about characters that you almost inhabit characters?

Kacy: Yeah, I think when there’s a strong character in a song or a good story or something, you feel attached to it. You put yourself in the situation. I guess that’s the fun thing about singing songs: It’s getting to sing from other people’s perspective. With folk music, for sure. It’s not as fun to sing your own songs, because you know yourself. It’s boring.

You hail from the prairie provinces, but some of your songs, especially “Down at the Dance Hall,” have an Acadiana feel. What interests you about that sound?

Clayton: Well, if you’re wondering about where that influence came from, we were both listening to a lot to the Balfa Brothers around the time we recorded the album. Kacy had been playing around with the fiddle and I thought, "Who do we know that could play button accordion?" And the answer was not really anyone, so then I tried to learn the accordion and learned about two songs, and played it briefly on that song. That’s about all the progress I’ve made. It happened in about a month and then stopped.

Are you going to pick up the accordion again?

Clayton: You know, I think I will. I would like to take some lessons. I had a couple homespun Dirk Powell DVDs, which are great. I just need to motivate myself a little more. And someone gave us a negative review. They called it "unnecessary accordion," so that was a bit of a blow.

Kacy: Yeah, that’s a major blow.

I can see how that’s a set back, but don’t let it derail any future accordion plans.

Clayton: I won’t. I was just fishing for some pity. I think I was successful in that, so thank you.

Take me through your recording process. How did the frozen wilderness surrounding the recording studio eke its way into the record?

Kacy: It definitely made everything a little bit more urgent. When I was singing, I felt kind of tense and the studio furnace kicked out at a certain point. We had to wear mittens and coats when we could. When I heard the album, I was surprised by how fast all the songs were. I think it was just because it was cold. I would like to make a record in the Summer. I feel like you get a definitely laidback sound.

Yeah, it would languish a bit.

Clayton: We’ve made all of our albums in the Winter.

Kacy: Yeah, or even just record in a warmer climate during the Winter.

Are there any modern artists you admire?

Clayton: We definitely like Jason Molina. Is that what you were going to say Kacy? Did I steal that from you?

Kacy: No, I just said Jason Molina’s dead, so that’s not current.

Clayton: Well, I know that he’s dead but he’s …

Right, like artists in the past 20 years or so.

Clayton: I really like Ryley Walker and Daniel Bachman. I like what they did on the guitar a lot.

Clayton, do you tend to listen to instrumental songwriters or narrative songwriters?

Clayton: I tend to listen to mostly old country music these days, like Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and that kind of songwriting. I think Kacy and I both are pretty influenced by that style of country imagery and country storytelling. We try to bring that into our British folk influences, as well, which is kind of what Richard Thompson was doing back in the Richard and Linda days. He was really into Buck Owens and Merle Haggard, but he’s also got the traditional British stuff.

That’s the interesting thing about watching artists develop. Once they introduce listeners to their own sound, they can begin stretching themselves by incorporating influences more heavily.

Clayton: It takes a while to get comfortable enough to try and mimic a style that you’re not really known for or what people expect. But I think that it’s kind of good for a longer career, if you’re able to do that.

And also for your own personal growth. I want to turn to murder ballads. I noticed that you composed “Dyin’ Bed Maker” from the perspective of a female. What provoked you to explore that subject matter in that way?

Kacy: I took influence from “Henry Lee,” where it’s just a lady and she’s very rancid. She does some dirty deeds. Basically, that one lacks a lot of detail — the storyline — I think, but I kind of liked that about it. There are no real characters introduced or anything.

Speaking of writing, how does the composition process work?

Kacy: We write back and forth, and then work together — try and come up with something good.

Clayton: It’s kind of a filtering process, you know? We both trust each other’s opinions and sometimes it’s kind of frustrating if something is rejected by the other person, but in the end, it’s kind of rewarding because you feel that much better about the songs if they pass through two minds. I think that’s something unique that you don’t get just working on songs by yourself.

Kacy: Yeah, having a person that you trust as much or more than yourself that can give just an opinion or change something or tell you what they think. Like things that I might be unsure about and then Clayton might think is really great, or maybe I’m really confident in it and Clayton thinks it’s awful and tries to cover it up by saying, "It’s fine, but …"

Is that how conversations usually go? There’s no nitty gritty critique?

Clayton: I say Kacy usually gives me the nitty gritty, and I have to dance around my point a lot.

Kacy: Well, your songs are really annoying.

Clayton: My songs are really annoying? Sheesh, I didn’t expect to get that on this interview call. I think what Kacy was saying is that she doesn’t really hold back with me, and I think what I’m saying is that’s just the way it is.

Photo credit: Dane Roy

AMERICANA MUSIC AWARD NOMINATIONS 2013

Posted on by Editor

BY Z.N. LUPETIN

Though the ceremony was brief, there was a festive and electric atmosphere in the Clive Davis Theater in LA Live yesterday. AXS TV was filming the proceedings and as usual Jim Lauderdale was the grinning ringleader, joining his long time partner in crime Buddy Miller and their house band in a galloping version of the late George Jones’ “The Race Is On” to open the show. Honoring Mr. Jones was a fitting way to start, as it seems much of the AMA’s main mission is to honor and bring respect to roots, acoustic and folk artists and traditions, not merely hype them.

T-Bone Burnett was in the house in a stylishly funereal black suit and called Americana music our nation’s “greatest cultural export”, with men like Louis Armstrong being our greatest ambassadors imaginable. He was particularly impressed with the newest crop of young musicians making a name for themselves while subtly sampling specific traditions of the last century. He then introduced the skinny-tied, close-harmony experts The Milk Carton Kids who, if you haven’t seen them, really do live up the hype they’ve been accruing on a near constant touring schedule of theaters and festivals. While some may criticize the whispery, choir-boy similarities to early Simon and Garfunkel (think “Wednesday Morning: 3AM”), really they seem to be exemplifying precisely the something-old-and-something-new dynamic that T-Bone was referencing. One can’t help but lean forward in your seat when they play. Plus they are quite funny chaps – noting that since T-Bone Burnett had introduced them on live TV, they must suddenly be famous.

Of course, being famous and overexposed in a main stream sense is not something The AMA community seems all that interested in. Authenticity, skill and artistry rule the roost. As the Milk Carton Kids wrapped up with a deliciously deconstructed version of “Swing Low”, they noted the most important thing about Americana fans is that they cut the bullshit and actually listen. Jed Hilly, executive director of the AMAs followed the lads at the podium, noting that the awards were about showcasing the community as a whole.

Lauderdale and Miller thundered through “Lost The Job Of Loving You” and the Flatt & Scruggs favorite “The Train To Carry My Gal From Town” before introducing the day’s surprise guest – Lisa Marie Presley. She seemed tiny next to the lanky Lauderdale and T-bone as the men backed her on a sad, low-drawled ballad, but her voice was in prime form: soulful, weary, deep. Americana? It’s the shit the masses ignored, Presley remarked, with just a hint of edge in her voice…as if to say: what is their problem anyway?

Next up, Elizabeth Cook brought a bit of her twang and sunshiny humor into the room – plugging her new gospel album while also wondering if someone like her should be doing religious music at all – “I might burst into flames at any moment” she cracked, sending out one of her tunes to Buddha, Allah…whoever! Actually she brings up a good point. If Americana involves the whole spectrum of American song-craft, one must add gospel as perhaps the deepest root of the tree – and the genre maybe most available for evolution and transformation.

After 45 minutes of stories and songs, Presley and Cook got together behind the podium to read the nominations. Among the recurring stand-outs this year were old favorites Emmylou Harris, Richard Thompson and Buddy and Jim but none seemed to get more love than Charleston, SC-based duo Shovels and Rope, who AMA members voted for early and often: tapping them in the Emerging Artist category as well as Song Of The Year, Duo or Group of The Year and Album of The Year for their release “O’ Be Joyful” (Dualtone). It was almost surprising but welcome to see a rare mainstream hit single, “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers also be included. See? There is money in it!

Emerging artists like fellow Oklahomans John Fullbright and JD McPherson, the aforementioned Milk Carton Kids and Shovels and Rope show that the future of the Americana and roots community is in good hands.

For a full list of nominees and more information about the Americana Music Association, visit http://americanamusic.org