Tag: Robert Ellis

MIXTAPE: The Steel Wheels’ Music for Your Community Gathering

Posted on by Editor

Building community is part of what music, and all good art, does. It brings us together. Music is a common rhythm, a poetic notion, an underlying common language for us all. A good mixtape grabs hold of that commonality and builds on it, with a few surprises along the way. As a band, The Steel Wheels curate a music festival each year, and a mixtape, or playlist, is kind of the digital version of that venture. So, let’s stop talking about it, and start building community with a PERFECT mix. – Trent Wagler, The Steel Wheels

Fruit Bats* – “Humbug Mountain Song”

Let’s start with a groove anyone can get behind. It’s accessible for the pop music lovers who wandered into this gathering — they didn’t know they liked the banjo at all until the second half of this intro kicks in. But now they’re engaged. And why can’t the piano, banjo, and drums live together in harmony? Stop closing your mind.

Kristin Andreassen* – “Get Together”

A good mixtape needs to establish that everyone is included. Loading things up with all your favorite new and rare songs isn’t always inviting. A cover song is common language at the very best. A little freshening up of a classic song will get us all swaying together in time. And what better theme than coming together? Now we’ve got everyone in the room in tune and we can introduce more variance in the mix.

The Wood Brothers* – “Sing About It”

The foundation of community is the strength we have together. Nothing better exemplifies this than the tight grooves and sweet harmonies of the Wood Brothers. And their message here is spot on. No matter where we are in our journey of pain, loss, trouble, or fear, singing a song just might help it pass.

Kaia Kater* – “New Colossus”

Now that we’re all in this, let’s tie the knots tighter. This song is like a sweet honey that helps stick us tightly. The way the melody veers and twists through literary verses encourages your conversations to dig a little deeper.

Jerry Garcia & David Grisman – “Russian Lullaby”

I think it’s more than nostalgia that brings me back to these late Garcia recordings, when he teamed up with longtime friend and musical pioneer David Grisman. The loose nature of these recordings makes you want to sit crisscross applesauce and share most embarrassing moments with a new acquaintance. If the ice wasn’t broken earlier, Jerry will rockabye you, baby. Collaborations are community building at their core.

River Whyless* – “All of My Friends”

Now that we’re all floating together in a musical high, don’t pull away. Leave the phones in your pocket. Let’s be here together fully. River Whyless is a band that simultaneously indicts and playfully dances with the information-overwhelmed age we live in.

Cedric Burnside* – “Hard To Stay Cool”

What is more true blue than these dyed in the wool Burnside family blues. Cedric Burnside’s whole album is full of these tasty grooves. It’s not hard for him to stay cool.

Tim O’Brien* & Darrell Scott – “With a Memory Like Mine”

Here’s another one of my favorite collaborations. The album Real Time by Tim and Darrell has had such a musical impact on me. To hear two great songwriters, who sing and play any instrument they pick up with such mastery, is humbling and inspiring.

Bahamas – “No Wrong”

I’m obsessed with Bahamas’ music right now. The guitar, the groove, and the vocals. The presence of this recording is also so immediate and direct. When you’re among your people, it feels like you can do no wrong.

The Steel Wheels* – “Road Never Ends”

I couldn’t help but include one from our new record. The love and joy of the road is bittersweet. This song puts words to the difficulties of transience while acknowledging the beauty of the strange kind of mobile community it creates.

Ana Egge – “Rock Me (Divine Mother)”

There are few songwriters who tap into deep spiritual depths without cliché like Ana Egge. She’s a treasure. And this song has slayed me every single time I’ve ever heard it.

Tinariwen – “Imidiwan Win Sahara” (feat. Tunde Adebimpe)

All music conjures up a sense of place. Tinariwen was introduced to me by our drummer, Kevin Garcia, and I’ve regularly wanted to go to where their sound takes me. As a songwriter and specifically a lyricist, it’s helpful to reset your listening ear and turn off the language centers of your brain by listening to music with lyrical content in a language you do not speak.

Dr. Dog – “Listening In”

A good mixtape has some curveballs. Dr. Dog has been a sonic companion for me since I first saw them live 10 years ago at Bristol Rhythm and Roots. The lyrical tapestry is so full and always connects through some kind of thought-lightning striking through your brain. I love the line, “I can hear the fear in me…talking.”

David Wax Museum – “Time Will Not Track Us Down”

We’re getting towards the end of our little mixtape. Like the Sunday afternoon lazy picnic, we are starting to wind it all down. David Wax is known for his high energy original Latin-inspired masterpieces, but this simple paired down guitar/vocal really calms my spirit and prepares us to part.

Robert Ellis & Courtney Hartman* – “Up On The Hill Where They Do The Boogie”

One more cover song for good measure. Let’s celebrate the most wacky and wonderful souls among us, and let’s boogie like John Hartford.

Josh Ritter – “Homecoming”

Remember that curating music for your gathering is a privilege. You are setting the sonic table for everyone in your presence. It’s also a responsibility. Everyone wants to feel at home at the end of the day. Everyone wants be at their best and be reminded that they are capable of their best. Music replenishes the various ways daily life drags us down. A mixtape is a good refuge and stand-in for when music festival season is slow.

Photo credit: Josh Saul

*2019 Red Wing performers. Red Wing Roots Music Festival takes place in Mt. Solon, Virginia, on July 12-14, and is hosted by The Steel Wheels

Old Settler’s Music Festival 2019 in Photographs

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

We’ve loved Texas’ Old Settler’s Music Festival for years now, with their carefully curated lineups steeped in roots and peppered with bluegrass, folk, and Americana. We even filmed a handful of Sitch Sessions (with Earls of Leicester, Sierra Hull, the Hillbenders, and David Ramirez) on site a few years back. This year, BGS photographer Daniel Jackson was on hand to capture all of the Old Settler’s magic so that you can relive last week’s festival in photographs.

All photos by Daniel Jackson

MIXTAPE: Jared & the Mill’s Overnight Driving Playlist

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“Overnight drives are the lifeblood of developing into a touring band. Leaving the comfort of street lights and neighborhoods and going into the void to get to the next town in time for soundcheck is as thrilling and mysterious as it is exhausting and daunting. It’s a ritual we share with bands all over the country and it teaches us to identify as the road dogs we are. It’s a powerful sympathy that unites us with others like us. Looking out at the nothingness and knowing there are many hours left without comfort is isolating and forces us to look inward.

“After conversation about the show earlier that night or what we miss back home diminishes, we’re left with the stars, the dashboard, and the radio to keep us company as we try to stay awake through the hypnotic rhythm of yellow lines passing beneath us. These are some of the songs that keep us going as we pass through the voids in between towns, we hope you enjoy.” — Jared & the Mill

Gregory Alan Isakov – “Stable Song”

The sonic qualities of this song are absolutely perfect for lonely nights away from home, and the lyrics inspire wanderlust just enough that I forget my homesickness and reinvigorate my excitement for adventure. It’s a godsend on long overnight drives.

James Taylor – “Sweet Baby James”

I was raised on ‘60s/’70s singer-songwriter music for a lot of my childhood, and this song brought my worlds together when I realized its subject matter covers the spirit of chasing a dream away from home and into the void. I come from a cowboying family and really love the idea of the traveling musician being the last of the cowboys.

–Jared Kolesar (vocals, acoustic guitar)

Feist – “Graveyard”
Feist’s “Graveyard” is a slow build that’s always worth it. Lyrically I feel like it dances around the topic of death, the dead, our memories, and our relation to our past, and our past relatives. Great for a long pondering drive. What a wonderful and beautiful chance it is, to be alive and experiencing anything.

Ennio Morricone – “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – Main Title”

If this song doesn’t make you want to trip back to your previous life, strap on your shooting irons, and gallop down a dry arroyo to avenge your lovers death, then I don’t know what will.

–Michael Carter (banjo, mandolin)

Glen Campbell – “Wichita Lineman”

Glen is an amazing guitarist and the glittery arrangement of this great Jimmy Webb song always makes me long for home.

Jackson Browne – “These Days”

Sometimes thoughts of regret can creep in on those late-night drives. This song has an awesome way of acknowledging past mistakes while moving on from them.

–Larry Gast III (electric guitar)

The Wallflowers – “One Headlight”

Pretty sure this song that was scientifically created to make you feel like you’re in a driving montage in a movie. Maybe one of the best rhythm section grooves in the history of Americana to boot.

Kacey Musgraves – “Space Cowboy”

Kacey makes a stronger case for modern country music with every record she puts out. This is a perfect song for looking out the van window into the darkness of night and wondering why you are the way that you are.

–Chuck Morriss III (bass)

Fleet Foxes – “Helplessness Blues”

Lots of times on overnight drives you wonder if you have chosen the right path, or if a standard 9-5 could be more fulfilling. This song is a good way to consider the possibilities of that life, while the driving acoustic guitar keeps you alert at the wheel after an arduous day.

Robert Ellis – “Elephant”

I love the intricate plucking rhythms in this song, while the lyrics tackle relationship complications of being in a touring band.

Josh Morin (drums)

Photo credit: Cole Cameron

A Harmonic Convergence: An Interview with Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman

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There’s a strangely specific conversation that takes place between two guitars. Long-time friends Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman know the very kind. They’ve been playing music together for some time now, but they partnered in a new way when they set about to record a selection of folk singer John Hartford’s songs for their collaborative tribute album, Dear John. The musicians — solo artists in their own respect (with Hartman also playing in Americana group Della Mae) — paired their guitars, as well as their voices for a harmonically infused update on Hartford’s work, both known and obscure.

While their voices ebb and flow like the river that runs central to Hartford’s songwriting, it’s their stunning guitar work that elevates the 10-track LP into a conversation within a conversation. The slow, building guitars of “Delta Queen Waltz” trickle like a stream, widening at the first verse’s start to allow Ellis’s and Hartman’s voices space to enter. Then, of course, there’s their take on one of Hartford’s most famous songs, “Gentle on My Mind.” As the song winds down, their guitars spend nearly two minutes in a tête-à-tête that is as evocative as their harmonies at the beginning. Dear John is a winsome nod to the “weird” writing of Hartford told not through his traditional banjo and fiddle, but two very talkative, beguiling guitars.

What was it about this opportunity to sing together that felt so enticing?

Robert Ellis: We’ve been friends for a long time. We’ve been taking every opportunity to play together ever since we met. I think the tour and the record are products of that vibe of enjoying each other’s company.

Courtney Hartman: Exactly. And, actually, the record had been made before we toured.

What about Hartford’s songwriting feels modern or timeless to you, and how do you feel his subject matter still resonating?

CH: John Hartford writes really specifically and really poignantly, and I think those lyrics will always feel timeless. He would also write some really specific cultural or political or environmental songs, and I think they’re still very relevant today.

RE: Yeah, I think that’s a strength of his style. I was explaining to a student the other day — we were talking about writing — I think, when we’re young, all of our instinct as writers is to want to be profound, to search for this way to say something meaningful that no one has said, or just say something in this unique or profound way. I think, as we get older, we figure out that the most profundity there is in the universe is in the little details of, you know, ironing your shirt or the weird interaction you had with a lover at a coffee shop. There’s something about the very specific narrative nature of that tradition that makes these profound things happen. I think, for John Hartford’s stuff, they’re specific ideas about a specific thing happening, and that says something about this much larger, more important thing.

Speaking about his political songs, “Old Time River Man” comes to mind because I couldn’t help drawing parallels to, let’s say, “Peg and Awl,” and the plight of the laborer. Even that feels relevant still.

CH: I think his songs about interactions, people’s interactions, are imminently relatable, and I think it’s the same specific details that he gives that make you go, “Oh, I know that feeling.” Those are still and always will be relevant.

He once described his compositions as “weird songs.” Where do you see them fitting in the greater tradition of folk?

RE: Especially in the context of the world he was in, he’s very weird. I guess everyone’s odd in some way, but he definitely embraced his eccentricities. Rather than shy away from something that’s really nuanced and John Hartford-y, he would embrace it. “Down on the River,” from an arrangement perspective, you have these weird, old-time fiddle lines, and it sounds like he overdubbed 20 tracks of them. It’s a huge section of fiddles. His instinct was to really be himself regardless of the context. I think that’s what drew both of us to him.

As far as themes, one thing I really like about his meaning and motive for writing songs is that he’s really careful to highlight beauty in the world rather than to call out specific things. You catch more flies with honey. Instead of going out and saying, “This is messed up! This is messed up!” he really shows someone how poignant a day of labor can be. A song like “Tall Building,” it’s not necessarily about how the city sucks. There’s this depth to everything he’s saying that’s much more fair and real-life to me, it’s not so preachy.

CH: I don’t know if he would have said it was protest songwriting.

Not exclusively, but I do think protest comes up in a rather sneaky way.

CH: Mmhmm, and I think it comes with a sense of tenderness.

RE: Exactly. It’s not that he’s softer; I just think he’s more honest. Life is this really nuanced, gray area most of the time, and I think songwriting has a bad habit of not allowing that. Instead of being the gray, uncomfortable feeling we all feel, songwriting tries to be very pointed and very one-sided. Writers like Hartford were comfortable being nuanced.

CH: And he wasn’t afraid to use humor and just be a weirdo in the way that he wrote. His ability to make people dance and his deep rhythmic groove and integrity … when people are dancing, you can’t help but listen to what someone’s playing, so songs like “Up on the Hill Where They Do the Boogie,” who knows what that’s about really. I think there are a lot of things that song can be about. Part of the gift of getting to play it for generations is to go, “Oh, maybe it’s about this. Maybe it’s about the hippies on the hill. Maybe it’s about the White House.”

RE: We were playing it the other day, and I thought, “Oh, maybe it’s about Capitol Hill, and you were like, ‘Well, yeah.’”

CH: I was like, “Duh.”

RE: That had never occurred to me. I had never heard it that way.

CH: The whole time I’m like, “This is such a political song.”

Hartford brought together banjo and fiddle for his compositions, whereas you’ve partnered your two guitars. How did you want to cultivate that particular sound while paying homage to Hartford?

CH: My first introduction to learning Hartford material was his fiddle tunes. I think one of the strongest components of his songs is to shape melodies, and to write really memorable melodies. Coming from playing fiddle tunes on guitar was a bonding place for both Robert and me, when we both came to this material. The first tune we learned together was “Delta Queen Waltz.” We thought it sounded really good; we had a lot of fun playing it.

RE: A lot of it, for me at least, was really intuitive.

It does seem that way watching you two play, but that makes sense, if it’s born of this friendship.

CH: We had two days to rehearse this material, but rehearse meant play it over and over again and learn it, and then we had two days to record, so it was all done in four days. We kept being like, “Dang, this is pretty easy,” because we both had similar instincts, so we didn’t have to talk about nuanced arrangement parts of dynamic because there was a deeper level of understanding, musically.

RE: It was really easy. All of it’s been really easy.

It’s nice when it works out that way. This is a weird question, I admit, but besides sounding beautiful, what did you hope your harmonies would achieve?

RE: I think there’s definitely a tension in the harmony thing that we’re doing on this record; I think we went for more of a conversation within the harmony itself because we are doing this thing as a duo. I don’t know. This is all subconscious. I think when musicians do interviews, a lot of the time they do things because it feels right and they do them naturally.

Right, and then they’re asked to think about them more critically.

RE: And then they have these grandiose explanations as to why. The harmony is having a conversation while the two of us are having a conversation, and I think it accidentally — in a good way — reinforces the lyrics of a song. If it’s a love song, then the harmony tends to be really sweet and beautiful and then, if it’s a song about tension in a relationship, we kind of leaned on dark harmony. I think it’s entirely natural that it happened that way. A lot of it is taking cues from the writing. Hartford already did a lot of the work in the writing.

Robert Ellis & Courtney Hartman, ‘Gentle on My Mind’

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Sometimes, songs become so imbedded in our minds, and our culture, that their essential nature makes us forget how unusual they may actually be. And one like “Gentle on My Mind,” written by John Hartford and made iconic by Glen Campbell, is no exception. Hartford, himself, admitted that it actually broke all the musical rules, in terms of what should work commercially — it’s layered thick with his signature newgrass banjo instrumentals, it’s more poetry than traditional verse-chorus-verse (in fact, there is no proper chorus), and it was written in just 20 minutes. Now, it feels like a traditional, and a priceless one at that. Still, Hartford’s not a household name. Though years after his death in 2001, he’s up there amongst the treasured gods in the eyes of so many modern working artists, particularly in the folk, Americana, and country realms.

He’s certainly an influence on Robert Ellis and Courtney Hartman, who toured together and developed an artistic symbiosis on the road before recording Dear John, their tribute to the work of Hartford that will be released on December 8 through Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae’s Refuge Foundation for the Arts. And this version of “Gentle on My Mind” from the collection showcases the kinship Ellis and Hartman carry with the Grammy winner. Together, their voices meld into a soft, harmonious coo, and a luscious, complex interplay of guitar gives the song new life despite its classic status, particularly as the last minute dissolves into just instruments alone when these two incredibly gifted players add what feels like a hidden last verse with no vocals to be found. Utilizing the bones of the past to pave way to the future, they prove that timeless and gentle can still cut just as deep.

Finding Refuge at the Edge: A Conversation with Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae

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On a weekday afternoon in September, Cory Chisel and Adriel Denae are at home in Appleton, Wisconsin. It’s been a busy summer. Several weeks earlier, the couple brought 225 bands to town for Mile of Music, the citywide festival that Chisel helped launch in 2013. Not long before that, they hosted the recording sessions for a handful of upcoming albums — including Erin Rae’s newest, Putting on Airs, as well as the debut release from Traveller, Chisel’s trio with Robert Ellis and Jonny Fritz — at the Refuge, the 33,000-square-foot building that once served as a monastery and now pulls triple duty as an art studio, live music venue, and Chisel’s headquarters.

“We used to live at the Refuge, too,” he says. “Now, we have a house as nearby as we could possibly be, without being on the grounds. It wound up being good for us to have a little bit of distance, and not be at ground zero all the time.”

A little bit of distance … Chisel has been working on adding some sort of space — a buffer zone between his current environment and the one he once inhabited — to much of his daily life. Once a roots-rock road warrior who spent eight months of every year on tour, he’s since grown more attached to the home, and the family, he’s built alongside Denae in Appleton. It’s easy to see why. The two have a son, Rhodes, as well as a new album, Tell Me True. Years ago, they would’ve promoted Tell Me True by hitting the highway and gigging relentlessly, but things are different these days. Priorities have shifted. And with those shifting priorities comes a deeper appreciation for the things that matter: family, roots, the gigs that do find a way onto the couple’s schedule, and the downtime that elapses between those shows.

You spent years living in a van, but this year has been different. What pushed you to stay home and plant deeper roots in Appleton?

Cory Chisel: As an artist who tours, you know how you feel like you’re constantly chasing something? You’re chasing the crowds. You’re chasing the people who like you. That’s what the majority of our careers have been. I’ve always felt like I’ve showed up to the party one year after the party ended. Our approach now is to invert that system, if only just to try it. We’re at a point where we’re looking inward and creating our own environment that has pieces of all those things we’ve seen elsewhere, rather than running to those places.

Adriel Denae: Finding out I was pregnant really shifted everything, too. I’d been living on the road since I was 21, and I enjoyed the gypsy lifestyle. I think I had this delusion that I was gonna have a baby and strap him on my back and keep doing it, but when our son arrived, I felt an immediate shift and started craving a deeper connection to the place I was living.

As artists, what are the benefits of spending more time in one place?

AD: It can really help you, in a creative context, to sink down a little deeper into life and a community. I enjoy interacting with artists who’ve lived this way for a long time, and never got on the industry boat the way we did. There are fascinating artists all over the world who’ve never played the game we started playing. I’m finding it really inspiring to interact with them. That’s something that’s fun about moving outside of the music mecca parts of the country.

Let’s compare your current situation with your busiest days as touring musicians. Which album kept you on the road the longest?

CC: That would be Old Believers. And I’m not complaining at all. I needed that experience.

AD: We did have a blast.

CC: We did. But I did have a nervous breakdown, too, where I felt like my soul was always two towns behind me. I showed up to the Letterman stage, and I’d be lying to you if I said I felt anything. This would happen a lot: I’d get to this place I thought I wanted to reach, and either it didn’t feel nearly as momentous as I had expected it to feel or the comedown was so strange that I’m not sure it was worth coming up. We traveled the world as bodiless ghosts for years. For most artists, that’s how you survive. You’re just trying to pick up the next $100 in the next town. But the thing is, that $100 is exactly the price it takes takes to get to the next $100. And at some point, you ask, “What are we doing, exactly? What’s next on this journey as an artist?” After years of touring nonstop, I was ready to try something new.

AD: We hit a season, right around the time we moved to Nashville, where we were only home for a few days a month for the whole year. We’d say hi to friends, do laundry, and then get going again. I liked the lifestyle. I honestly may have enjoyed it a bit more than Cory …

CC: Because I was in charge of the thing. When you’re in front of the boat, you’re taking the full waves, too. Nothing was wrong with it; I was just done with it for awhile. So that’s why I wanted to create a context where I could still be an artist, but reorganize.

And part of that organization included transforming the Refuge’s chapel into a recording studio. You made Tell Me True there. Is the studio a reaction to the more expensive studios you’ve seen elsewhere?

AD: When you’re a young musician, you spend a lot of time dreaming and anticipating the moment where you’re in the studio for the first time. You think it’s gonna be a certain way. But in reality, I was unprepared for the amount of anxiety and awkwardness that a professional studio environment can create. At first, I thought it was a problem with me. Then I read this interview with Elliot Smith, where he was comparing the process of home recording to the experience you get in a big studio. You know what it’s like in a big studio: There’s an artist sitting in a booth with headphones on and cords everywhere, and you get into this headspace where you’re ready to create your song, and suddenly there’s a buzz in some line somewhere, and everything has to stop, and everyone starts running around, and you have to sit there and maintain some space for yourself while they fix it. There’s a lot stacked against you, before you even consider the financial constraints. I can really understand the draw to recording in non-traditional spaces, whether it’s someone’s home or someplace else. A lot of my favorite recordings were done that way. We hit a point in our journey where we were really longing for that.

When did the songs for Tell Me True begin to arrive?

AD: During those months of our son, Rhodes, being a newborn.

CC: It arrived either as a way to soothe our little baby or immediately after he went to bed, in those weird half-awake, half-asleep moments you have as a new parent, where you’ve got a tiny amount of time to do something other than grapple with a new life. It was in those little, tiny spaces. I used to have all the time in the world to do God knows what. That time vanished, but the songs didn’t. I worried that if I added more to my life, the music would go away. But the music just accompanies life. It’s a way of digesting or processing what’s happening to you.

AD: I remember once, when Rhodes was just a few weeks old, I woke up in the middle of the night and Cory wasn’t in bed with us. I could hear a guitar from the other room and, around sunrise, Rhodes woke up and we both went to find Cory, and he was sitting on the floor in Rhodes’s room, which our son never actually moved into. He had that crazed look you get when you’ve been writing all night, and he’d completed a song. It came out through the night like that. There were other songs, like “Tell Me True,” that were refrains we’d been singing for weeks. A lot of the music on the record was something that had been floating around us in that three-month period. I feel like Rhodes brought a lot to us with his life, and that record is part of what he helped to create when he came.

You haven’t entirely stopped touring, though.

CC: We haven’t, but touring is different now. I don’t go out with Traveller for more than 10 days at a time. Our upcoming tour to Australia and New Zealand is a good example. We might have continued that run, but I just couldn’t do it. So Robert [Ellis] is going to Japan afterward to play solo shows. I have things now that matter more to me than going everywhere during a tour. Being present in this life, here, is my number one treasure. When I say to an audience now, “I’m so glad you’re here, and I’m so glad I’m here,” I’m definitely not lying. I love having so much truth to that exchange.

I visited Appleton for the first time this year as a Mile of Music performer. The town is great, but the festival … that festival is fantastic.

CC: Thank you. That festival was born out of one question: Could this thing be done differently? Could we have a festival that was really for the benefit of the people attending, as well as the artists playing? We weren’t asking ourselves, “How much money can we squeeze out of these people involved?” For me, it feels different than other festivals. So we thought, “If that’s possible, why can’t everything be changed?”

You mean, if a festival like Mile of Music can be successful, why can’t a recording studio like the Refuge be equally successful? Or a homemade album like Tell Me True?

CC: Sure. The music industry isn’t that old. We think of it as this unchangeable thing, but it hasn’t been around long enough to earn that kind of respect. I think it’s necessary to disrespect it a bit and see what can be changed.

Meanwhile, Adriel has been working on her new record, too.

AD: Cory and I are in different places in our careers. I’m just beginning the process of releasing my own songs and couldn’t be more excited to do it.

Norah Jones produced it. She’s been a friend and fan for years, right?

AD: I was a fan of hers first. Norah took Cory out on the road in 2012, and she wanted it to be a stripped-down opener. He brought me and a guitar player along, and we wound up finishing the tour just the two of us. I was so star struck. I could hardly even talk to her. I was just a huge fan and have been since her first record.

How did the tour lead to an offer to produce your record?

AD: She started asking me if I’d been writing my own songs, and she asked that I send them to her. I sent her some demos, and she was so encouraging and affirming. She had built out a home studio at her house and she offered to produce, and that was just the biggest dream come true. So I went to New York in January of that year, and I found out I was pregnant 48 hours before getting on the plane. That threw a huge curveball into the equation.

CC: Norah was pregnant, too, so the producer and the musician were both making a record and a baby at the same time.

AD: It was a very sober recording experience! We were in our pajamas and slippers the whole time. I kept seeing her as a painter, more than a producer. It felt like she was helping me find my colors and helping me paint this picture around my ideas. It was really fun to experience record-making with that kind of feminine sensibility and energy to it.

Where was Cory during this?

AD: He was watching Game of Thrones in Nashville.

CC: I told her not to make a record while Game of Thrones was on!

Do you look back and regret that you weren’t there, Cory?

CC: This was Adriel’s art, with Norah in the producer’s role. Now I get to enjoy it as one of my favorite records, and I don’t have that weird feeling of … you know when you work on an album, you can’t hear it the way other people hear it? It’s almost as though, if you participate in it, you can’t be a fan the way others can. So I’m glad to have that record in my collection, where it can be one of my favorites.

Is there a title?

AD: There’s still time to figure that out, but I’ve always thought of it as being called The Edge of Things, which is a song on the record. I like to start some of my sets with that song because, for me, it’s a kick in the pants to not be afraid to jump into the unknown. But I guess we’ll decide before February, which is when it’s coming out.

What about the Traveller record?

CC: If all of this pans out, it would be fun to time it together, so Traveller’s record and Adriel’s record both come out at the same time, and we’re all touring at once. Because then we’ll be a tribe, and everyone’s traveling all together. And suddenly, Gary, Indiana, becomes a lot more fun to be in.

Photo credit: Justus Poehls

Nicole Atkins and the Last-Call Lullabye

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She knew the session would be worth documenting, but at the time, Nicole Atkins didn’t realize that the cover of Goodnight, Rhonda Lee would be a shot of her soaking up one of the most difficult songs she’s ever written.

On the night they recorded the string parts for “Colors,” Atkins invited Griffin Lotz — a longtime friend of the Jersey native and a Rolling Stone photographer — to hang around the studio and take a few pictures of her and the guys in action. At one point, Lotz trained his lens on Atkins listening back to the somber strings that accompany her dusky voice and Robert Ellis on the piano. Atkins’s eyes recall the Atlantic waves that wash upon the shore that shaped her, a stunning aquamarine of mirthful reflection that turns tempestuous when the climate calls for it. In Lotz’s photo, the tide is calm: Captivated, and with eyes as big as her headphones, Atkins considers the parts she sang for the string players on the sad ballad that states, in simple, certain terms, that drinking had consumed her life.

“I can see exactly where I was when I wrote that song,” she says of “Colors,” which she and Ellis had recorded in one take in the fitting gloom of a lightless studio. Atkins had just left New Jersey for Nashville with her tour manager husband, Ryan; she had been struggling with sobriety and had gone through a rough relapse when she found herself lonely in their new city and he told her he was heading out to work a two-month jaunt. On top of that, she’d hit a wall on the creative front, and the combination of unlucky breaks had her steeping in despondence. “I was writing tons of songs,” she says. “We were shopping around demos, because we had no money to make a record, and I just had no idea what we were gonna do, you know? It was just months and months of not getting any phone calls, at all, about songs that I thought were good, and a record I thought was, you know, cohesive.”

She decided to go to New York for a few days, as her old friends from college and frequent tour buddies, the Avett Brothers, invited her to their gig at Madison Square Garden, and Margo Price had encouraged her to come along for her Saturday Night Live performance that same weekend. “I just thought, ‘Dude, everybody has stuff to do except for me,’” she recalls. “I was like, ‘I’M QUITTING MUSIC.’ And then I drank a bottle of dark rum and called everyone I knew, and I was like, ‘I’m just gonna write a musical. Fuck this.’”

One of those calls was to Jim Sclavunos, drummer of the Bad Seeds, who stepped out from a photo shoot with Nick Cave to answer the phone and assure her that quitting simply wasn’t something she was “allowed” to do. Another was to Ryan. “I obviously had to tell my husband the next day that we couldn’t have booze in the house, and it was just freaking me out,” she says. The melody for “Colors” came later, when she was sad, tired, and singing lines of the song into her phone on a train platform on her way to the airport in Newark: “Everywhere I go, the only things I see are glowing brown and green. The bottle’s gonna kill me.” That’s when she set the backbone for Goodnight, Rhonda Lee, an album named for Atkins’s drunk alter-ego: This is her sober record, one that thrives off hard-won clarity throughout, but “Colors” is a breakthrough so simple, painful, and pure that it serves as the album’s anchor. It’s a reminder that the toughest trouble can teach us things, though its lessons — to pour out the poison; to wean off a person or substance you can’t quit — are difficult to learn or even discuss.

“I think there’s a lot of shame that comes with being a woman, and being a musician, and being an alcoholic,” she says. “There’s a lot of embarrassment to feel; it’s not pretty or cute to talk about. There are a lot of sober women in music, but I don’t know if a lot talk of them about it — the only one I can think of is Bonnie Raitt. I write about my life on every record. This was just what was going on, and I couldn’t really write about anything else. Being in and out of sobriety for two years was just totally taking over my life. It was all I could think about. It’s weird: You know when they’re like, ‘It gets better, it gets easier, and you’ll have a day when you don’t even think about booze.’ I couldn’t imagine that because, even in long stretches of sobriety, it was like, ‘I’ll just have one.’” She did get there — at Bonnaroo, where she didn’t even think about the open bar, of all places — and reaching that internal summit was illuminating. “I thought, ‘Now, I have all this room in my brain just to think of music and my husband when he comes home.’ It was such a good feeling, that I wasn’t constantly like, ‘I’m so fucked. How am I going to be unfucked?’”

Those “other things” flooding her grey matter include intricate arrangements and some of the most challenging compositions she’s written yet, as Goodnight, Rhonda Lee is as much an instrumental triumph as it is a lyrical one. In addition to Ellis and Sclavuno, Atkins sat down with a number of esteemed pals — including Chris Isaak and Binky Griptite of the Dap-Kings — to hone in on exactly what she wanted to sing and how she wanted to sing it. Thanks to these collaborations and the brassy guidance of Nile City Sound, the Fort Worth-based production team behind the timeless quality of Leon Bridges’s Coming Home, the result capitalizes on the wry grit of her New York-honed chops; her unadulterated adoration of Lee Hazelwood, Roy Orbison, and classic soul; and the alt-country framework that informed her first forays into songwriting. Though her marriage is wonderful and she’s open to compulsively unpacking her relationship with alcohol in songs like “Colors” and the album’s title track, Atkins found inspiration in painful memories of broken romance, the kind of stuff most people are eager to leave in the haze of a blackout-peppered past. One instance took the shape of “A Little Crazy,” the grand, lonely cowgirl call Atkins and Isaak wrote in an hour after he suggested that she revisit a relationship that went wrong instead of the one going right.

“He was like, ‘You’re happily married — but remember the guy you dated when we toured? Let’s write about that,’” she says. “A lot of [Goodnight, Rhonda Lee] was written about a past relationship. I wanted to own a lot of things instead of saying, ‘This is terrible and I’m a victim.’ After that one particular breakup, I was fucking nuts. I had no control of my emotions whatsoever. I was willing to degrade everything I believed in just to have that comfort back.”

And thus we have Goodnight, Rhonda Lee instead of Goodbye. By dusting off the conversations, opening heartwounds of the past, and keeping those tidal eyes of hers open, Atkins is able to mine the hurt, humiliation, and disappointment they caused for musical gold, just as she does while working through her sobriety with the tape rolling.

“There are aspects of Rhonda Lee that are still kind of there that I’m kind of grateful for. I didn’t get sober and become a giant square,” she laughs. “It’s more so being in a place where you feel confident and better about yourself, that you’re able to hold certain situations that were painful and have some empathy for the people involved in those situations — including yourself.”

BGS Class of 2016: Songs

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Any given year is damn well over-run with great music — far too much for any one list to encompass. So, for our year-end songs round up, the BGS writers each picked tunes they loved that were not on any of our year-end albums. Maybe we loved the whole record; maybe we didn't. But we sure do love these tunes.

Aaron Lee Tasjan, Silver Tears, "Little Movies"

Aaron Lee Tasjan has a long, varied resumé. A founding member of glam-rock band Semi Precious Weapons and an ex-guitarist for the New York Dolls, Tasjan is now making some of the most interesting country music currently coming out of Nashville. Silver Tears track "Little Movies" is a perfect little slice of what Tasjan has to offer: soaring harmonies, unorthodox arrangements, and smart, compelling songwriting. — Brittney McKenna

Adia Victoria, Beyond the Bloodhounds, “Stuck in the South”

“I don’t know nothing ‘bout Southern belles, but I can tell you something ‘bout Southern hell,” Adia Victoria exclaims on this swampy burner that anchors her debut album, Beyond the Bloodhounds. Giving form to her experience as a Black woman raised in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in the South, she tackles the complexities of southern identity with equal parts grace and grit. Her arresting vocals and hypnotizing guitar make for a sound that’s unapologetically haunting: It’ll stick with you long after the final notes ring out. — Desiré Moses

Andy Shauf, The Party, "Quite Like You"

If Andy Shauf’s The Party is the overarching Saturday night hang, this intensely rhythmic song details a corner of the party through a story of being friend-zoned. We’ve all been there, and you can hear the vulnerability in Shauf’s voice as he lays it out, atop distorted piano riffs. — Josephine Wood

Beyoncé featuring the Dixie Chicks, "Daddy Lessons"

One of the only bright moments in the absolute garbage fire of a year that has been 2016 was the "surprise" performance of "Daddy Lessons" from Beyoncé and the Dixie Chicks at the 50th annual CMA Awards. To some, it may have seemed like an unexpected pairing, but given both the Dixie Chicks' reverence for the twangy Lemonade track (they performed it on their 2016 world tour), the Texas connection, and the two artists' shared histories as "controversial" figures, it shouldn't have been. Less surprising than the performance itself was the new controversy that quickly followed — a coded "Was that really country?" debate that, in some ways, mirrored the troubling dialogue occurring around the soon-to-be-determined presidential election. The performance was a victory for diversity on a stage that greatly needed it, as well as the best "fuck you" to the industry that unceremoniously excommunicated them over a decade prior that the Dixie Chicks, who were invited to perform at the insistence of Queen Bey herself, could have possibly imagined. — BMc

Dori Freeman, Dori Freeman, “You Say”

To call Freeman’s “You Say” simple would do a disservice to the intricacies she weaves with her lyricism and arrangement. Quiet, yes; simple, no. The higher register that marks her vocals on the verses dips down into growling pain on the chorus. “Darling I can’t stop thinking of you/ Like a dog in the hot night, I’m howling for you,” Freeman sings, her pronunciation striking the consonants of “darling” and “dog” in affective ways that create an expansive longing. — Amanda Wicks

Dylan LeBlanc, Cautionary Tale, "Easy Way Out"

Honestly, there's a case to be made for every one of the 10 tunes on this Dylan LeBlanc record to be cited for its greatness. They are all just that finely crafted and fantastically rendered. On this cut, he turns his very pointed gaze inward to explore his own struggles with depression and addiction. "Thorazine dreams are thundering in dangerous weather where, in my head, I'll soon be dead or soon feeling better." Having come out the on the latter side of that equation, LeBlanc knows of what he speaks (and sings) in regard to cautionary tales. — Kelly McCartney

Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam, I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, "Peaceful Morning"

Former Vampire Weekend multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij and the Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser seem, on paper, like two of the unlikeliest musicians to make a thoughtful folk-rock album, but that's exactly what they've done with I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, their debut album as a duo. Standout track "Peaceful Morning" opens with a gentle banjo over an acoustic drum kit and simple piano chords, before opening with a lyric ("I thought I heard the angels, Lord") that could have been plucked right out of a bluegrass song. The song, like the album, is unlike anything else released this year, a vital piece of work from supposed outsiders breathing new life into the increasingly exhausted genre that is Americana. — BMc

Hayes Carll, Lovers & Leavers, "The Love That We Need"

Hayes Carll's dissection of a marriage that slowly falls from passion to plain is the exact opposite of a manufactured Music Row truck song — it may not be manly to admit that (gasp!) men and women both crave stability and partnership to a fault, but it works as a perfect confession on "The Love That We Need." Most love songs paint romance as ending with a dramatic bang, but Carll knows that the metaphor of two lovers, side by side in bed with bodies that never touch, is one that hits most of us where it hurts. It's a moment to help realize that the pain of letting go is better than the paralysis of holding on to something broken. — Marissa Moss

Jonny Fritz, Sweet Creep, "Stadium Inn"

Is there anyone out there with an imagination like Jonny Fritz? You can point out the humor and weird wit in Sweep Creep's songs all you want, but perhaps Fritz's most notable talent is the wild ways he's able to warp his mind to tell stories using building blocks no one else would ever think of or see scenarios that would take anyone else a handful of magic mushrooms to ever access. Case in point: "Stadium Inn," which imagines life beyond the mysteriously stained, always-open drapes of a seedy Nashville motel, set to a honky-tonk-meets-"Superstition" vamp and spatters of down-on the-farm fiddle. Horney honeymooners, hookers, and philandering husbands: It's all here for the taking. And no one serves it up like Fritz. — MM

Joseph, I'm Alone, No You're Not, “White Flag”

You could cherry pick a few songs from Joseph’s full-length debut and manage to come away confused about their designation as roots music. But catch this trio of sisters from Portland, Oregon, performing together on a stage, and you’ll see the rich folk tradition that inspired the bulk of their harmony-driven catalog. “White Flag” is Joseph drawing from the best of both worlds: a rhythmic, chant-like intro, crisp lyrics, strong vocal harmonies, and an upbeat chorus that will seep into your brain and refuse to leave. With its accessible sound and traditional roots, “White Flag” is the perfect gateway song — drawing pop fans into more authentic, traditional sounds and, likewise, bringing traditionalists out of their comfort zones. — Dacey Orr

Levon Henry, Sinker, "Skin of the Lion"

Upon pressing play, you’ll be in an instantly altered state of mind, as Levon Henry sings about releasing a tiger with the song building a musical haze from there. Henry’s sultry vocals combine with repetitive guitar riffs and distorted vocals to create a jazzed-up Tame Impala-esque sound. — JW

Lewis & Leigh, Ghost, "The 4:19"

Some duos sound superfluous — like a person adorned in one too many pieces of jewelry — and others fit together so intensely that it's impossible to imagine on without the other. The latter is the case with Lewis & Leigh's harmonies on their debut LP, Ghost, that always sound like a casual conversation within a complex psyche. It's at its best on tracks like "The 4:19" which is, in some ways, more Elliot Smith than Civil Wars, a work of languorous beauty about finding a place to belong when we're always in motion in the exact opposite direction of our expectations. — MM

LP, Death Valley, "Muddy Waters" & "Lost on You"

These two fantastic tracks tether LP's Death Valley EP to a rootsier sound than she employed on her last record and, MAN, do they do it right. The purposely plodding groove of "Muddy Waters" evokes exactly what it's meant to: a defiant, burdened body slogging through an emotional swamp … but slogging through nonetheless. The wispier cowboy swagger of "Lost on You" — replete with a cattle rustler's whistle — lightens things up, but still stands brazenly indignant in response to a broken heart. — KMc

Lucy Dacus, No Burden, “Troublemaker Doppelganger”

The second track on Lucy Dacus’s debut album (which bears the sharpness of a veteran work) is a bluesy jaunt that deals in dualities. “Is that a hearse or a limousine?” the Virginia native asks in the opening line before declaring, “I saw a girl that looked like you, and I wanted to tell everyone to run away from her.” Expanding beneath Dacus’s honey-dipped vocals is a propulsive riff brimming with so much swagger that you can’t help but nod along. — DM

Mandolin Orange, Blindfaller, “Take This Heart of Gold”

“Take This Heart of Gold” is a pledge — the kind of assurance lovers offer one another when they see that settling down isn’t settling. An electric guitar offers a shimmery rumination to start, and that contemplation only grows with Andrew Marlin’s staid vocals. The focus, as always with this duo, is the harmonies. Emily Frantz’s voice adds a punctuating note on the verses and swells with Marlin’s on the chorus. It’s soft and sweet without the daydream of idealism. This is reality shining through. — AW

Marisa Anderson, Into the Light, "He Is Without His Guns"

While it was a bad year for just about everything else, 2016 was a great year for guitar players. Everyone from William Tyler and Ryley Walker to Bryan Sutton and Billy Strings released strong albums that reinforced the instrument’s place at the forefront of roots music. Arguably the best and most wide-ranging was Marisa Anderson’s Into the Light, which she described as the soundtrack to a sci-fi Western. If that’s the case, then “He Is Without His Guns” scores the high-noon showdown between gunslingers, evoking the dusty ambience of Ennio Morricone and Wild West grandeur of John Ford. — Stephen Deusner

Michael Kiwanuka, Love & Hate, "Black Man in a White World"

Soul singer Michael Kiwanuka brings his rightful lineage and legacy to bear on this standout track from his fantastic Love & Hate LP. Propulsed by hand claps, the song lays out in stark emotional relief the toil it takes walking through the white world as a Black man with lines like "I'm in love, but I'm still sad. I've found peace, but I'm not glad." That's because even the small wins come with far too many losses for people of color. Even so, Kiwanuka takes the wind righout out of the clichéd sails of the "angry Black man" trope by proclaiming, "I've lost everything I had and I'm not angry and I'm not mad." Clear eyes, full heart, can't lose. — KMc

Miranda Lambert, The Weight of These Wings, "Pushin' Time"

A lot of the songs on Miranda Lambert's The Weight of These Wings are only partially and/or questionably autobiographical. This tune, though, is one that fully, unflinchingly is, as it details the beginnings of her relationship with Anderson East (who lends captivatingly tender harmony vocals to the track). It's one of the most beautiful love songs of the year, mostly because it never crosses the line into overly dreamy sentimentality, choosing rather to stay grounded in its appropriately hopeful romanticism. Who doesn't resonate with a line like "I didn't know I could be kissed like that," if not in experience then, at the very least, in expectation? This song is what dreams are made of. And, sometimes, it seems, those dreams really do come true. — KMc

The Raconteurs, Jack White Acoustic Recordings 1998 – 2016, “Carolina Drama (Acoustic Mix)”

This iteration of the Raconteurs’ “Carolina Drama” is a stripped-down, eerie acoustic murder ballad on string-infused steroids, with the guitar more twangy, strings more prominent, and drums notably missing. — JW

Robert Ellis, Robert Ellis, “California”

“California” begins tranquilly enough, with Robert Ellis softly plucking electric guitar and crooning in his juke joint style. But, by the chorus, the whole thing damn near explodes into the kind of haughty indifference one feigns after a breakup. “Maybe I’ll move to California with the unbroken part of heart I still have left,” he sings of the main character’s decision to leave behind shattered promises. The drums enter the conversation at the chorus as pounding echoes and the guitar’s pacing becomes more frantic. Ellis has mined the California hills and discovered gold. — AW

Shirley Collins, Lodestar, "Awake Awake / The Split Ash Tree/ May Carol / Southover"

On her first album in nearly 40 years, Shirley Collins reintroduces herself with this 11-minute medley of traditional tunes that may date back centuries but still feel startling, unnervingly current. “Awake Awake” was originally written in the late 1500s, but it could have been a response to Brexit, shaming a nation for its hubris. “May Carol,” on the other hand, hopes for a better future for us all. That’s what makes Lodestar the comeback of the year: It reveals an artist who loses herself humbly in her songs, allowing history to speak to the present. — SD

Shovels & Rope, Little Seeds, “Buffalo Nickel”

Shovels & Rope are the rowdiest and, arguably, most adventurous roots band around, capable of clangorous punk conflagration, as well as gentle country musings about life and loss. “Buffalo Nickel” is most definitely the former. The song crashes through a brick wall, opening with a pummeling drumbeat and a barbed guitar riff, like a shotgun wedding of “Be My Baby” and “99 Problems.” But even when they’re trying to “shake the noise out of the rattle,” Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst are disarmingly candid about the nature of their collaboration, both musically and romantically, and this boisterous song paints them as bandits on the run, a folk-punk Bonnie & Clyde, playing each note like they’re pulling a Brinks heist. — SD

Sierra Hull, Weighted Mind, “Black River”

Weighted Mind is far from the first time bluegrass fans are hearing from mandolin savant Sierra Hull, but the January full-length from the 25-year-old finds her more confident in her own voice than ever before. “Black River” takes the thick, messy mascara tears familiar to plenty of 20-somethings and transforms them to the stuff of poetry. “A thousand years is but a day, they say. And maybe in a thousand more I will find my way,” she sings at the close of the chorus. One can only hope she will continue to chronicle every step with the honesty and musical integrity of Weighted Mind. — DO

Wilco, Schmilco, “Normal American Kids”

The opening track of Wilco’s 10th album, Schmilco, has all the makings of an instant classic. In this anthem for misfits, Jeff Tweedy quietly croons about his days as a teenage stoner who “always hated those normal American kids” over low-strummed guitar. At a time when the definition of what it means to be American is just as elastic as the definition of “normal,” Tweedy questions it all using wholly American songwriting tropes: malaise, rebellion, and nostalgia. — DM

The Wild Reeds, Best Wishes, “What I Had In Mind”

It’s one thing to have a bandleader with a killer voice. It’s another to have members in the group capable of backing that one standout singer with precise harmonies. But what happens when you have three singers capable of taking the lead? Look no further than Los Angeles band the Wild Reeds for the answer to that question. On “What I Had in Mind,” a gut-wrencher from this year’s three-song release Best Wishes, things start out low-key enough: steady strumming behind a lone, sweet vocal. But, by three minutes into the song, these robust three-part harmonies will have successfully worked even the most stoic listeners into a full-on emotional frenzy. The ebb and flow they foster makes the parting line feel all the more lonely, whether you relate to the lyric or the sound itself: “My hope was strong, but overpowered by a boy whose faith was swallowed by his doubt.” — DO

A Minute in Houston with Robert Ellis

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Welcome to "A Minute In …" — a BGS feature that turns our favorite artists into hometown reporters. In our latest column, Houston's Robert Ellis takes us on a tour of his favorite haunts for tasty queso, heavy pours, and incredible art.

I have heard a lot of people say a lot of bad things about Houston. Mostly, it's from friends who are in bands and spent one night there five years ago while on tour. When you are running around and playing a new city every day, there just isn't a lot of time. Most of what you know of a city is directly related to what places are near the venue or the hotel. Maybe, if you get lucky, you can Yelp a good coffee shop before leaving in the morning and it won't be too far out of the way. 

Houston is huge and sprawling. People visit once and, because they aren't in the right part of town, they remember the city by what the area around their airport hotel was like. This is not a complete picture. I want to try and help. If you happen to pop into Houston for a day, here are some things I would recommend doing. 


Photo credit: drewtarvin via Foter.com / CC BY

Eat at El Tiempo. This is my absolute favorite restaurant on the planet. Order the beef fajitas and a margarita. Queso, too, if you have time to take a nap. I prefer the Washington location, but you really can't go wrong. 

Bars. Warren's Inn and La Carafe downtown are great hangs, across the street from one another. Both are very old. Warren's Inn has heavy pours and a good jukebox. 

Photo courtesy of Captain Foxheart's

Captain Foxheart's Bad News Bar & Spirit Lodge is a place to get a really great cocktail, as well as tons of different kinds of fancy or hard to find liquor. Let the bartenders just make you something they think is good. Be careful: I've gotten very sloppy on these drinks accidentally. Double Trouble also has a great scene and Tacos a Go-Go has some great tacos right across the street. 

Photo courtesy of Mai's

Go dancing at Barbarella or Arlos, once you are good and liquified. Dance all night. Make friends. Try and find a pool at someone's house to go swimming in or end up at Mai's for more food. Get the salt-toasted tofu. They are open pretty late and it's quite a scene when the bars close. 

Wake up hungover and go to Catalina Coffee. The taco truck outside has really good tacos. Down the road is Laredo Taqueria, as well, or bahn mi at Les Givral's. If you go there, get a fried egg on whatever you order. 


Photo credit: dr vaxon via Foter.com / CC BY

Visit the Menil Collection and Rothko Chapel before you leave town. I used to live right behind this place. The park outside of the museum is where some members of my band and I first met playing guitars in the park. It's a free, private collection full of some of my favorite stuff in the world. Mark Rothko also built an incredible meditation room adjacent to the museum with some of his big black canvasses. If you have time, take some drugs (or not) and walk around the whole place. Make sure not to miss the Cy Twombly building and the Dan Flavin light installation on Richmond.

This is just one path of many you could take in a city as large as H-town. There are lots of great places I didn't mention, so please come back … and let me know when you do. 

Lede photo courtesy of the artist