Artist:Sterling Drake Hometown: Philipsburg, Montana Latest Album:The Shape I’m In (out May 2, 2025 via Calusa Music/Missing Piece Records) Personal Nicknames (or rejected band names): “Sterl Haggard”
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Roots country and folk music have a way of bringing people together. These songs carry the stories and wisdom of those who came before us, reminding us of what we share across generations. Music can open hearts, challenge perspectives, and create space for vulnerability. I’m especially grateful for the chance to use my platform to advocate for the land, the people who depend on it, and the importance of mental health both in rural communities and beyond. Whether playing for a small gathering or a big crowd, I see music as a way to keep these stories alive and inspire connection.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do they impact your work?
I live in a small town in Granite County, Montana, where the land is mostly ranches and public wilderness and things are luckily untouched by urban sprawl. The Rockies and the high desert ranges are the place I like to go to in my mind. Although music is my main focus at this time in my life, I spend a lot of time outdoors. Horseback, hiking, camping, skiing, and helping out the neighbor in the branding pen. Being outside is part of my daily life, and it helps keep me grounded.
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
I consider my music “roots” in the broadest sense. It draws from the deep well of American musical traditions: country, folk, Western, bluegrass, Western swing, and even Irish traditional. At times I may lean more on traditional country and honky-tonk and other times I may feel inspired by something else, and I enjoy the creative flexibility. At its core, it’s about storytelling, connection, and carrying forward the sounds and ideas that have shaped generations before me.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
Willie Nelson has influenced me the most. He pulls from so many corners of American music – jazz, blues, folk, Western swing – but no matter what he’s playing, it always feels country, always feels Western, and always feels like Willie. He never let genres box him in, and that’s something I really admire. His approach to songwriting, storytelling, and even the way he plays guitar has shaped how I think about music.
A close runner-up would be Roger Miller. He had this effortless looseness and wit in his writing that made even the simplest songs feel unique. He never took himself too seriously, but was still a master of his craft. That balance between depth and playfulness is something I aspire to carry into my own music.
What’s one question you wish interviewers would stop asking you?
Interviewers will sometimes ask artists the question, “When did you know you were talented, or when you were a musician?” It makes it sound like creating music is something only a few people are born to do, when in reality, it takes years of work, dedication, and a willingness to keep learning. More importantly, it makes artistic expression seem out of reach for most people, when creativity exists in everything we do. Music isn’t about being chosen, it’s about choosing to put in the time and effort to make something meaningful.
Some of more commonly associated marvels of the Badger State are salty cheese curds, verdant farmsteads, and acrimoniously freezing winters – as well as a whole bunch of simple roadside attractions and signature small-town revelries. It’s the adopted home of Harry Houdini and John Muir and the birthplace of a memorable host of charming eccentrics, including Orson Welles and Thornton Wilder.
Soren Staff, lead vocalist of Wisconsin’s homegrown and free-range Them Coulee Boys, was born in the rolling hills of the country. He has spent ample time explaining the sort of commonsensical people and curiously provincial patois that make the state endearing.
“A coulee is a valley with a river in it,” said Staff. “We’ve had to clear up that name every single step of the way.”
Staff hails from just outside of Taylor, Wisconsin, population 400, and he attended high school in Milwaukee. He and his four bandmates now call Eau Claire home, a small city typifying and sharing their Midwest values and sensibilities: an industrious, approachable, and self-effacing kind of existence.
“People in Eau Claire care about art and music and there is a neighborly goodness to life here,” said Staff. “Wisconsin is not a state that people associate with a lot of luminaries coming from, but I like to think we are doing our part, pulling our weight.”
Them Coulee Boys – who are readying a brand new album, their fifth, No Fun in the Chrysalis (set for release February 28 via Some Fun Records), produced by Grammy winner Brian Joseph – are a bunch of small town Wisconsinites who have found a common place to live, where locals have embraced them with joviality and applause. Banjo player Beau Janke comes from Trempealeau, a beautiful village on the Mississippi River. Soren and his brother, Jens Staff, a mandolin player, come from the Taylor area. Bass player Neil Krause was born and raised in Chippewa Falls. Drummer Stas Hable is a native of Eau Claire and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire’s music studies program.
Staff and Janke met at Camp Chetek, a Christian camping ministry in northwestern Wisconsin. The two camp counselors played music all day long, from the time of morning prayer, through the daily worship services in the afternoon, to evenings spent entertaining teenagers around the campfire. The following year, Jens joined Soren and Beau.
“That’s where we cut our teeth and cultivated our chemistry with each other,” said Soren. “We met at that camp and it has blossomed into a whole career.”
A few years later, Them Coulee Boys formed and the forceful folk-Americana band has lasted 11 years, which could be lauded as an eternity in the seemingly short-lived music business. Indeed, the music of Them Coulee Boys is grounded in their friendship and rooted in their desire to express a walloping good time. Such closeness, conviviality, and simple gratitude elevate the music to higher stages.
“We care about each other,” said Staff. “I trust and love these guys, personally and musically. Still, it took me time to trust in bringing an unfinished song to the others and to realize that their influences and skills and personalities will serve the song best.”
Staff was exposed to a wide variety of music in his youth, from classic rock to ’70s disco and pop, but it was the unaffected, everyday-man songs that he heard on COW97 (a Western Wisconsin country channel and his grandfather’s favorite) that created the largest impression. He was struck by the simple yet deep songs of Roger Miller and Tom T. Hall and songwriting prowess of granite and stone immortals such as Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard.
Staff, who works part-time at a local print shop, has a fondness for the contemplative capacities of the singer-songwriter experience. With mirth in his eyes, he still attends open mic night at The Plus in Eau Claire on Tuesdays, which he has done for about 10 years. But one of the most special things about Them Coulee Boys is that within the group there exists a worship of many varieties of music. Janke was raised on the thunder of Led Zeppelin, which pushes the band’s sound to an altogether different space, allowing them to turn it up to the heights of exuberance, to blaze the woods on fire.
“Finding the balance between introspective songwriting and the energy, bombast, and power of a rock and roll band, there is a good tension there. Striking a balance in that tension carves out a sound that we want to make.”
Them Coulee Boys started in a basement and, quite honestly, they never expected to be out of that basement. They played their first gig at a ski lodge in northern Wisconsin, the only ones seated and listening their parents and girlfriends. Then they signed up for the 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. spell at as many bars in the state as possible. Once, the guys played four hours of music in four separate bars in four small towns, for four nights in a row. The total haul was $1,000, split between four musicians. At that time, Staff considered their take a grand success. In 2016, the group started taking its energetic, impulsive brand of Wisconsin-Americana outside the state in earnest.
Virtually all of the group’s songs begin with lyrics, melodies, and chord structures that first arise in Staff’s head. He comes up with something rough and ready, presents it to the others, and they turn it into something utilizable, a playable song.
“My biggest job as a songwriter is to be a gatherer and be open to ideas,” said Staff. “I let images run through my head throughout the day, waiting for the words that make me want to keep writing. I’m seeking a line to build off of. If it is a good line it will stick around. If you are looking all of the time, it becomes easier to draw from that when you sit down to write something.”
Staff is pleased with the results of No Fun in the Chrysalis, the band’s fifth album. Rambunctious, playful, and wonderfully inspired, the recording is submerged in the mystery of transformation; the relentless blitz of change the most dominant theme of the songs.
“There has been massive change in my life and the other guys,” said Staff. “Kids. Marriage. Switching jobs. There is tension in change and eventually there has to be acceptance. … The first song, change is a question. But by the last song, there is an answer to it.”
The album reflects a few of those inner and interpersonal changes within the band, an encapsulation of their growth spurts and plodding development.
“Musically, we’ve embraced that we are not a string band,” Staff continued. “We have drums, electric instruments, banjos, mandolins. We’ve pushed our sound forward into different spaces, but we’ve also accepted that we come from a string band background, and could harken back to older records. There are contemplative jams. But there is also a stomping song about making out.”
No Fun in the Chrysalis reveals not only a tumultuous, change-filled time in the individual and collective lives of the musicians, but it serves as a lively expression from a band somewhere in the middle phase of their journey.
“On one hand, we are still trying to prove ourselves,” said Staff. “Though on the other hand, we have a decade worth of experience, and it shows. We’ve come a long way from the basement and hope to have many miles ahead.”
Artist:JD Clayton Hometown: Fort Smith, Arkansas Latest Album:Long Way From Home (out January 27, 2023) Personal Nicknames: JD
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Jack Johnson has influenced me more than any other artist. I know that might seem like it’s out of left field but it’s the truth. My dad was given a CD in the summer of 2001 by a friend who had just gone out to California. The CD was Brushfire Fairytales, Jack’s first album. From my earliest years, I can remember riding my bike around the backyard as my dad tinkered with projects while Jack’s albums played from a Sony CD/cassette player. I can remember my dad with tab booklets learning Jack’s songs on the back porch. It was my earliest idea of being a singer-songwriter. And I always knew I wanted to make albums and tour like Jack Johnson.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
Typically in the studio I like to light some incense and turn all of the lights out except for a few lamps. This helps me get into a very interesting head space and I can clearly see my vision for the song. When I’m on the road I like to get the boys together before we take the stage to pray and I ask one of the players to say something of encouragement. Then we sing the classroom song that Jack Black sings in School of Rock… “Lawrence is good at piano…” at the top of our lungs which ends with us all pointing to each other and saying “you’re perfect, you’re perfect… no you’re perfect.” If you know, you know.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I was writing my song “Cotton Candy Clouds” which appears on my debut album, Long Way From Home. I had about three different versions of the song and I could not figure out how it needed to work within the parameters of the song’s form. I originally wrote it on piano and rewrote it on acoustic to give it more of an upbeat, swinging feel. I showed it to the producer and he couldn’t follow my vision for the song. So, I came home and went for a long walk around the park. I took my phone out and hummed into my voice memo app what I was hearing in my head. As soon as I walked back to my house, I wrote out the form as you hear it on the record. Thankfully I had hired some great musicians to be in the studio who were patient with me as we learned the song together.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I’d say water has impacted my work the most. My hometown of Fort Smith was founded on the Arkansas River and that region is known as the River Valley. I grew up swimming on the city swim team with my sister so we were constantly at the pool. We would do a two-hour workout in the mornings and then come home to play in our pool at home. I love floating on the Mulberry River in the summertime. It’s the perfect place to unwind for the day. And when I’m not writing or playing shows I try to go fly fishing with my brother and dad. The water is what I know best and I think it has helped shape me into the artist I am today.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
My dream pairing of a meal and a musician would be a peanut butter & jelly sandwich and Paul McCartney. The peanut butter & jelly sandwich is tough because it has to be made correctly. Any variations and you’ve ruined it. It requires two pieces of soft white wheat bread taken from the center of the loaf. The peanut butter has to be Smucker’s Chunky peanut butter. If it isn’t chunky don’t bother coming for lunch. As far as jelly goes, I’m not picky. But I do lean towards strawberry. I haven’t the slightest clue if Paul likes PB&J but I would love to ask him some questions about Sgt. Pepper and Ram.
During COVID, I rediscovered my love for waking up, drinking coffee, and listening to the right music in the mornings. This is a playlist for some of my favorite songs to compliment the most sacred time of the day. — Thomas Csorba
JJ Cale – “Cherry”
This is one of my favorite vibes not just of JJ Cale, but of music in general. He finds his groove and stays put. Why fix it if it ain’t broke?
Michael Hurley – “Lush Green Trees”
I’ve been a big fan of this Michael Hurley record for a little while, and it seems that some of the deep cuts strike me differently on the 100th listen. This is one of those songs — a beautiful, simple song with an earnest spirit to it.
Elizabeth Cotten – “Goin’ Down The Road Feelin Bad”
Elizabeth Cotten is one of those artists who I fell in love with at a pretty young age (thanks to a well-informed older brother). Her voice may not be everyone’s taste, but her singing and playing seem to really shine as the sun is just starting to rise.
Yusuf / Cat Stevens – “Father and Son”
This song has a really special place in my heart because it reminds me of my grandfather and his story as a refugee from Hungary in the ‘50s. It’s a wild picture of a conversation between a father and a son in that situation. This song got me thinking about writing my new song “For You” and pairs really nicely with a front porch morning.
Jerry Garcia, David Grisman – “The Thrill is Gone”
Sometimes I’ll wake up in the morning and listen to this record all the way through. Hearing some of these old songs in a new light has really unlocked something for me. This song in particular has a great vibe to it that really draws you in.
Anaïs Mitchell – “Tailor”
I’m obsessed with Anaïs Mitchell. Plain and simple. Her vocal delivery of these lines, and the lyric congruency throughout the song is as good as it gets.
Willis Alan Ramsey – “Muskrat Love (Muskrat Candlelight)”
Name me a sexier song about rodents — I bet you can’t! This song has the perfect cocktail of interesting lyrics and sonic vibe. The vocals are killer and the chord change right after the chorus just make me so happy.
Gillian Welch – “Winter’s Come and Gone”
This is a deep cut from Gillian’s catalog, but I think it’s one of my favorites. There’s a great quick minor 6 chord change that echoes some old-time songs that I love. It’s my favorite Gillian song to drink coffee to.
Big Bill Broonzy – “Glory of Love”
There’s a soft spot in my heart for Big Bill Broonzy. This song has been cut by a bunch of folks, but Big Bill’s version is by far my favorite. Love that he doesn’t start singing until the minute-thirty mark in the song. Effortless vibe and energy here from Big Bill.
Tony Joe White – “Little Green Apples”
I first heard this version of this song from a buddy this past year and I think it’ll end up being one of my most-played songs of the year. Tony Joe’s delivery of these lyrics helps paint the best scene in these verses. I’ll be holding on to this recording for a very, very long time.
Roger Miller – “Where Have all the Average People Gone”
I love Roger Miller’s voice in the morning. There’s something nostalgic to me about it. There’s no song that speaks to me more in this political and social climate than this one. Perhaps, even though we look at things differently, we can be kind to each other.
Artist:Bill and the Belles Hometown: Johnson City, Tennessee Latest Album:Happy Again Personal Nicknames: I renamed myself Spike (inspired by the bulldog with a spiked collar in Heathcliff) in the first grade and all the kids called me Spike for a few months. That was a big win. — Kris Truelsen
My name can be tricky for people (it’s like Kahlúa, but “kuh-LEE-uh”) and nicknames weren’t much of a thing until Game of Thrones came out and Khaleesi happened. — Kalia Yeagle
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
It’s a no brainer: Jimmie Rodgers. He’s been one of our main inspirations for years. His effortless skill in combining the sounds of the blues, jazz, and country will forever be inspiring. My favorite songs from Jimmie are the syrupy love ballads with strings and horns that lean towards being straight pop music of the time like “The Hills of Tennessee” or “Miss the Mississippi and You.” Brilliant stuff. Though I still sing many of his songs, more than ever I use his music as inspiration to break rules and to find the courage to make something unique, not tied to genre or emulating somebody else, but rather trying to be original. — Kris
Jimmie Rodgers was a huge influence on this band. More broadly, that big field of “early country music” (or whatever else you want to call it) is so full of genre-busting sounds and earnest musical experiments. Forming this band, we were very inspired by the folks that used what they had in creative ways, and worked with real fervor. — Kalia
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
A little over six years ago at the opening of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Virginia, we shot the pilot episode of Farm and Fun Time, the PBS television show we host. At sound check I stood at the side of the stage and watched Ralph Stanley sing the entirety of “O Death” in an empty theater. It was literally just me, the sound engineer Josh, and Ralph Stanley in this tiny 100-seat theater. It was absolute magic. — Kris
Similarly, another impactful not-quite-on-stage moment for me was when we shot an audience-less Farm and Fun Time from Kris’s front porch during the pandemic. This was early on enough that folks were still figuring out how to get the most out of livestreams, but late enough that we were all feeling scared about what the pandemic meant for our families and communities, and what it meant for our relationship with live music. Sitting on Kris’s front porch listening to local legend Ed Snodderly sing his songs smacked me good, right in the heart. It had been months since I’d experienced live music, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so grateful and moved. — Kalia
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
I’m informed by art that says what it means, and simple, impactful works that don’t feel overwrought. That’s because my head’s a pretty busy place, and I sometimes struggle to distill my thoughts and emotions. I also think that artists can see art everywhere, so yes of course a beautiful piece of writing or gut-wrenching brushstroke can stir up the feels. And so can the chalk drawings neighbor kids make, the way this lampshade shoots light up the wall, or the angles this broom maker created when they gathered the bristles. I’m a pretty emotion-full person, but there have been periods of time when making music was just a motion and not emotion. I’m working on treating music-making more like those little moments of surprising beauty, by staying present and approaching things more playfully. — Kalia
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
Well, a lot of songs end up in the trash after being reworked to death, but I’m getting better at knowing when to move on and putting less pressure on myself to produce, which inevitably makes the work I do finish stronger. The toughest song I’ve ever written that successfully saw the light of day was probably a jingle I wrote for the regionally beloved soda pop company Dr. Enuf. It’s an herbal, lemon-lime sort of thing like Kentucky’s Ale-8. People in East Tennessee lose their minds for “the Dr.” Not to mention it’s got vitamins. It took me ages to get the jingle honed in just right, but when I did I really nailed it. The hook goes “It’s the lemon-in’, lime-a-nin’, rich in vitamin, original pick me up.” I’ve written over 50 jingles and this one is undoubtedly my favorite. — Kris
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Write songs that defy boundaries, keep evolving, have faith, and quit working so damn hard all the time. — Kris
Ask, “How is your work serving others? How is it serving you?” And always celebrate growth and abundance. — Kalia
Artist:Bill Kirchen Hometown: Austin, Texas Latest album:The Proper Years (July 24, 2020) Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): First band name, 1965: The Who Knows Pickers, an acoustic jug band. One gig only, we shared stage with The Iguanas, Jim “Iggy” Osterberg on drums.
Which artist has influenced you the most… and how?
I have to go all the way back to Pete Seeger. I learned my first string instrument, the 5-string banjo, from his instructional book and record, and had lots of his recordings from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s. He was an ecstatic singer, very successful and influential songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Soft-spoken on stage, he was most definitely outspoken politically his entire career, always for racial equality, workers rights, and freedom of speech. In the early 1950s McCarthy era, he went up against the powerful but later utterly disgraced House Un-American Activity Committee. He earned himself a career-hijacking blacklist that lasted years by asserting his constitutional rights and refusing to name names and implicate others. He never backed down. His performing career spanned nearly 70 years. I saw him in the mid-’60s many times, then again in the ’90s.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I wanted to be a musician as soon as I figured I could sing a song. I have early memories of being a toddler lumbering around, singing along with my cardboard record (yep, they existed!) of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.” At 8 I learned trombone, then played it in orchestras and bands until the mid-’60s folk scare lured me away. As for wanting to be a professional musician, I guess getting my first paying gig in ’64 or ’65 cemented that desire. I certainly never thought, “I’ll just do this for a bit then quit and get a job.”
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Not clear on the concept here, but it sounds interesting and I’ll give it a try. I certainly never had a mission statement, rather I just got in the canoe and now here I am and where I’ll be next, I don’t know. So here are my suggestions to the young me: Bill! You know you love listening to, singing, whistling music all the time. That’s super important, don’t let go. Learn to play an instrument as soon as they’ll let you, then learn some others. Play with folks, preferably better than you. Take any opportunity you can to go hear live music. Now don’t blow this one: you liked the 1963 Blues at Newport record and Mississippi John Hurt. Well, you are within hitchhiking distance of the ’64 Newport Folk Festival, he’s gonna be there, Dylan too, go do it. Sleep on the beach, whatever, it’ll all work out. Then do the same in ’65, trust me. Many of the extraordinary people you will see will be gone less than 10 years later. Then before the ’60s are over, move away from your Ann Arbor hometown. Try San Francisco. Travel everywhere and play as much you can. Pull up roots and move across country a couple more times, find more kindred spirits and play with them. Just get in the canoe. You’ll be surprised.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
The toughest time I always have writing is making myself sit down and do it. I love the process when I get rolling, but I don’t have a burning desire to bare my soul in verse and melody, then buttonhole folks and make ‘em listen. But I enjoy making up my own songs, lots of perspiration plus a little inspiration. Then again I wouldn’t mind just singing Haggard and Dylan songs all day. Couldn’t really ask people to pay for that, I know. As the great Roger Miller said writing a hit song is just like taking candy from a gorilla.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
I hid behind characters a lot early on. Wrote a lot of truck-driving songs, though I’m not and don’t want to be a truck driver. It was a legitimate sub-genre when I discovered country music, and I do come by a love of the road and travel honestly. As for finger-pointing songs, I’m usually not a big fan. And you know what they say, when I point my finger there are three more pointing back at me. Oops.
I didn’t let myself write songs that were more personal and closer to the bone until I started making records under my own name in the ’90s. When I went to England to record my first record for Proper, Hammer of The Honky-Tonk Gods, it was with Nick Lowe and the band with which we’d recorded and toured the world several years before. Nick is one of my favorite songwriters and I remember thinking, dang, I can’t just show up with a bunch of I’m A Burly Truck Driver songs. I’ve got to get closer to the bone and try a little harder.
Artist:Paul Burch Hometown: Currently Nashville, Tennessee. I was born in Washington, D.C. Latest album:Light Sensitive Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): The members of Lambchop call me WP
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
Bob Dylan and Hank Williams were the twin Apollos of songwriting in my youth. And I loved the fearlessness of Roger Miller. Elvis Presley — when inspired — gave his audience his soul. But the four writers who most echo my temperament and drove me to compose are Chuck Berry, Smokey Robinson, John Prine, and Sam Cooke.
Smokey has a gift for literacy. “I Second That Emotion.” John, like Hank Williams, had the gift for sincerity. The taller the tale, the greater the parable. John was seldom at the center of his songs so much as caught up in the center. He could be both in the story and above it. Sam was easy on the ears. “Cupid.” “Having a Party.” “A Change Is Gonna Come.” A Sam Cooke title was exactly what the song was about. By all accounts he was a man of sharp intelligence, a true believer in decency, a hater of bullshit, and a fan of all kinds of music. Chuck could make the past contemporary and the here-and-now heroic. “Johnny B. Goode” is like a film coming into focus — so much detail delivered in less than 20 seconds. “Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans / way back up in the woods among the evergreens / there stood a log cabin made of earth and wood / where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode.”
All of these writers feel like my relatives. Something bubbles inside me when I hear them. All four had a touch of melancholy which they employed to remind you to keep having that party. Chuck is the poet of rock ‘n’ roll. Smokey is the poet of time and place. John was Jimmie Rodgers crossed with Mark Twain and inspired Sam Phillips to come out of retirement. And Sam — well — Sam was Mr. Soul.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I was playing on my own in a bar in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, one Saturday night. It was about 90 degrees at midnight. All I had was a microphone and an electric guitar and a little 15-watt amp. To try to keep the show dynamic, I kept a tick-tack rhythm on the bass strings when I sang and then added loud accents in between the verses. There were about 10 couples or so dancing in front of me and I could hear the scrape of their shoes on the dance floor.
I thought to myself: “This must have been what Charley Patton heard when he played a dance — the sound of the dancer’s shoes on the floor.” It was so wonderful to think I was doing well enough with what little I had that I could keep them dancing. It made me appreciate that audiences are willing to meet you more than halfway. The intensity of what you’re doing is more important than volume.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
I get dreamy over paintings and great photography. I love the photography that Sheila Sachs and Catie Baumer Schwalb took for Light Sensitive.
Film noir is great for a sense of place and for the dialogue. So much had to be conveyed by gesture or innuendo. It was years before I realized that when Ilsa goes to see Rick in Casablanca for the letters of transit, the spotlight tells you they made love one last time. Every time I see it, the ending feels different. I used to think he gave her away. But then you remember Rick said he doesn’t deal in buying and selling people — and that extended to love, too. Now I see that Ilsa was always going to be trouble. She was right for Paris, just nowhere else. And life can never just be about Paris. Even if you live in Paris.
Also, in a film — like in songs — everybody has a job. The cab driver is important when you need that cab. Lately, I’ve been paying close attention to plays and musicals, listening for the rhythm and syncopation in dialogue. Frank Loesser’s songs for Guys and Dolls are spectacular. “I got horse right here / his name is Paul Revere…can do!” Louis Jordan’s songs sounds like musicals to my ear. I’m always on the hunt for an idea. I’m a flint and life is a white-tipped match.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
If I’m recording, I love walking into a studio with a fresh reel of tape under my arm, knowing that when I walk out the door, we will have created something that didn’t exist on Earth a few hours before. When I perform, I take time to walk all around the venue to get an idea of what the show will feel like from every vantage point. I like to talk to the sound engineer — usually someone I’ve never met — to get an idea what their job is like, if it’s a hard venue to deal with.
I ask them if they think the sound in the venue will respond to the kind of show I want to do. I try to make them feel like it’s our performance, not mine. Before the show, I think about my favorite people and my favorite performers. I’ll often write old friends just before a show — “How ya doin?” — just to demystify the whole thing. Other than having a new song in your pocket, there are few better feelings than walking on a stage at the beginning of a show.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I often imagine a perfect day of music would be some kind of outdoor event with a pile of fried catfish, margaritas, and then a show at twilight with a great lineup of the WPA Ballclub. In reality, outdoor shows are usually a drag. Bugs, bad sound, the drummer falls into the generator. I do think loud guitars and BBQ go together pretty well.
I used to stare at a photo of Little Richard playing at Wrigley Field with his band in the ’50s and thought it was the perfect gig. It must have been hot because the band were all wearing plaid shorts. Now that I’m older, I realize they were probably miserable — with an out-of-tune piano, distorted amps, and a lousy PA. But you know that first beer and smoke after the show must have been delicious.
As for a particular musician and food pairing, I hear that in the 1930s, all the jazz joints served Chinese food. If I could have seen Charlie Christian play guitar or heard Billie Holiday sing in a little joint with Teddy Wilson on piano over a hot plate of home-cooked crispy duck, I would have been very happy.
What can be said about Christmas music? It’s so ingrained in us as Americans, most of all during these two months of the year when music of the Great American Songbook and golden eras of popular music once again reign over the flavors of the week. In Southwest Louisiana, which is predominantly Catholic, Christmas is as intertwined with its history as Mardi Gras.
Many of these songs you’ll recognize. I think it’s revealing to hear songs we know well reinterpreted by Cajuns — it helps to make the idiosyncrasies of the genre stand out. Others are pretty generic-sounding Cajun songs (waltzes and two steps) that are tangentially about Christmas or take place with Christmas as a backdrop. You might not be able to translate “Christmas on the Bayou” but you probably have a pretty good idea what Vin Bruce is singing about. And “Christmas Blues” has many common Cajun tropes — the protagonist is imprisoned by a love of the past, he’s crying, the children are singing, and it’s Christmas Day… Cheery!
Some highlights:
We kick things off with Belton Richard, “the Cajun Elvis.” This cover might have helped to earn him that title. So, so good we had to include a few, spanning both Cajun and Swamp Pop (“Please Come Home for Christmas” is a great example of the latter).
Many of these tracks come from an album from the late ’80s called Merry Cajun Christmas. Check out that full record if you want a deep dive into Cajun culture and some of its enduring stereotypes (complete with spoken word Christmas poems!), but we selected some of the less cheesy numbers for this playlist.
We included a few classics that aren’t strictly Cajun, but fall under “Revelers influences” — Roy Orbison, Buck Owens. After all, Cajun and country have always borrowed from one another. And a shout out to honorary Cajun Dirk Powell (Balfa Toujours) and Bahamian guitarist Joseph Spence. — Chris Miller of The Revelers
Sum up the importance of John Hartford in one sentence?
That’s the challenge given to Skip Heller.
Five minutes later, after a stream-of-consciousness run of superlatives, analogies and tangents — songwriter, entertainer, transitional figure and simply great are among the terms employed, as is the declaration that Hartford was a “gateway drug to bluegrass music” — Heller finally sighs.
“You are talking with someone who, with money he got on his fourth birthday, bought a John Hartford record,” he says.
In other words, Heller is just too deep into all things of Hartford’s life and music to boil it down to one line. While that worked against coming up with a neat summary, it served him very well as compiler and producer of the new Backroads, Rivers & Memories album.
It’s an illuminating and lively collection of previously unreleased early- and mid-1960s recordings that pre-date and pre-sage Hartford’s soon-to-come impact as a major songwriter (the 1967 Glen Campbell hit “Gentle on My Mind”), a “newgrass” pioneer (the much-beloved, still-unique Aereo-Plain album), and a solo banjoist, fiddler, foot-stomper, noted wit and colorful chronicler of life on Mississippi (a St. Louis native, he piloted the steamboat Julia Belle Swain every summer for much of his life).
And it comes as the presence and adoration of Hartford, who died in 2001 at 63 of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, has had a resurgence, with a new legion of young fans discovering his music and prominent posthumous places on the soundtracks to the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? and 2017’s Lady Bird. For the latter his melancholy “This Eve of Parting” underscores a key scene, his sad baritone conveying the distress of the mother, Laurie Metcalf’s character.
But the genesis of the set can be traced to a fateful ’68 evening in Heller’s family’s Philadelphia living room, the TV tuned to CBS. It was a moment for the then-tyke comparable for him to what many experienced a few years prior watching the same network when the Beatles made their American TV debut on Ed Sullivan’s show.
On the screen was The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and Hartford, a regular on the show picking banjo and appearing in some sketches, was duetting with Glen Campbell on “Gentle on My Mind.” That appearance essentially previewed Campbell’s own variety show that would be inaugurated soon as the Smothers’ summer replacement, with Hartford a major presence on it as well — that was him each week standing up in the audience to pluck the same song’s intro on banjo to start the show.
“If you were inclined toward music and you were going to spend your money on a record, it was going to be that or a Monkees record,” he says, allowing that perhaps Campbell would have been the attraction here for most, “but my parents already had those records.”
The album in question was either 1967’s Earthwords & Music (which included the version of “Gentle on My Mind” that caught Glen Campbell’s ear) or the next year’s Gentle on My Mind & Other Originals (piggybacking on Campbell’s massive hit with the song). He had them both, one that he bought, the other given to him by his “cool uncle,” but he’s not sure which was which. Regardless, the boy’s path in life was set.
So let’s — pardon the expression — skip ahead to the present. Heller, an accomplished and respected roots-and-far-beyond musician based in the Los Angeles area, stands as perhaps the foremost authority on his hero’s life and music, and this new album came from that and from the close relationship he developed with Hartford (opening for him at a Philadelphia concert in 1996 remains a personal highlight) and with his family. The family, including Hartford’s son Jamie, a guitar ace and singer who has carried on some of his dad’s traditions, had already released some archival material and talked with Heller about other possibilities. Ultimately, Heller was sent an extensive digital library and set to assessing, quite the task as Hartford was an obsessive taper.
“He had a tape of pretty much any show he played,” Heller says. “He also had a tape of every jam session.”
After contemplating a compilation of live recordings, Heller hit on the notion of building an album from Hartford’s ‘60s songwriting demos, adding to that some airchecks from his regular radio show on WHOW in Clinton, Illinois (near St. Louis) and — a real treat for fans — the entire eight-song output of his early Ozark Mountain Trio, pretty straight bluegrass.
Overall, it shows an evolution of a singular figure, someone who took traditions and made them his own, infused them with his distinctive talents and personality, and in turn shaped sensibilities of others to come. Along the way there are demos of “Gentle on My Mind,” “Eve of Multiplication,” “This Eve of Parting,” and other songs he would record for his late-‘60s run of albums on RCA. And, as a tantalizing if brief and ephemeral bonus, there’s a 30-second excerpt from a rehearsal with a band of Nashville pros of what would become “Steam Powered Aereo Plane,” which a couple of years later would become a centerpiece of that forward-thinking album he made with fiddler Vassar Clements, guitarist Norman Blake, Dobro master Tut Taylor, and bassist Randy Scruggs.
“The Ozark Trio and radio things, those are the makings of John Hartford,” Heller says. “And you can hear how when he starts finding his own voice through this, Pete Seeger was the transitional figure who was around. He really gets clearer about who he’s going to be. His batting average as a songwriter gets much better, a combination of Pete Seeger and Roger Miller. He gets his elliptical words stuff from Miller.”
Heller found a lot of epiphanies and revelations in the course of putting this all together. One that may strike many is in the Ozark recordings.
“If you didn’t know that was John on banjo, you’d go, ‘Who is that?’” he says. “He’s amazing. Not doing anything J.D. Crowe or other of the ‘real’ guys would be doing, and you can hear Earl [Scruggs] on it, and maybe also Doug Dillard’s influence. One of the things in this album for me was to show how incredibly grounded he was in traditional bluegrass. He could have gone on and just done that, could have made a life of that, just be a banjo player. And on those radio airchecks, he is one of those old-time country guys. To hear that professionalism before he even got to Nashville was an epiphany.”
But even more so, Heller was astounded by how meticulous Hartford was in the songwriting process.
“The revelations to me were often how he would evolve a piece of material in the process of writing before he ever played it,” he says. “There are songs for which we had four, five, six versions. He really could get in the weeds. Any really good songwriters can.”
The biggest questions may revolve around the “Aereo Plane” clip. Why just 30 seconds? And what can we learn from that short passage?
“The whole rehearsal of ‘Aereo Plane’ is like 40 minutes,” he says. “You hear the band that’s on the RCA records rehearsing it — and not quite getting it.”
These are ace musicians, Heller notes, some of the top that Nashville had to offer. But Hartford’s vision has moved in a way that they couldn’t quite follow.
“Once he hits [the album] Aereo-Plain it’s all going to change,” he says, citing that later album’s fusion of old-timey string band gospel and progressive flights of fancy, spiked by touches of both heartfelt tenderness and witty Dada-hippie absurdities (including the two spellings of plane/plain) only hinted at in his earlier works.
“To me that feels like the natural cut-off point, the end of the RCA years. Why? The band he has can’t quite play the next thing he had in mind.”
No matter where you may stand on the Lil Nas X viral sensation “Old Town Road” and the associated media firestorm, Twitter debates, and raging country-purity authenticity signalling, we should all be able to agree on one thing: country music has always been a welcoming home to musical memes. Sure, that term may be more recent, a product of the internet age, but ever since the dawn of country as a format silly, tongue-in-cheek, self-deprecating, hilarious, and downright foolish songs have been just as integral a part of the genre as heartbreak, cheatin’, booze, and trucks.
We thought it’s high time we celebrate the knee-slappin’, gut-bustin’ history of country music’s meme-ready songs from across the decades. Here are fourteen of our favorites — yes, just fourteen. We can assure you there are dozens and dozens more where these came from.
“A Boy Named Sue” – Johnny Cash
The man in black, one of the most iconic personas in the history of country music, famous for his grit, his stoicism, and his rough-hewn voice wasn’t even “above” recording a song steeped in satire. Hopefully in 2019 life is getting easier for boys named Sue.
“What a Waste of Good Corn Liquor” – Tennessee Mafia Jug Band
Originally recorded by Country Music Hall of Fame and Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Mac Wiseman, this disconcertingly happy-sounding song tells a story with a moral: moonshine will melt you. Don’t spoil the moonshine.
“The King Is Gone (So Are You)” – George Jones
A song about Elvis, Fred Flintstone, drinking, and heartbreak. This one ticks all of the boxes. Even the “use yabadabadoo in a song” box.
“Did I Shave My Legs For This?” – Deana Carter
Country, after all, is all about the relatability of the human condition. Jilted would-be lovers everywhere have felt your pain, Deana. We truly have.
“Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyeballs” – Homer & Jethro
The original Weird Al Yankovics of country and bluegrass, Homer & Jethro wrote (and re-wrote) scores of songs with wacky, eye roll-inducing, laugh-out-loud funny lyrics, ad libs, and arrangements. Check that steel solo!
“I’ll Oilwells Love You” – Dolly Parton
No, Whitney Houston did not cover this one. But that would have been magnificent.
“You Can’t Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd” – Roger Miller
One of country’s humorous kings, Roger Miller recorded a host of silly songs over the course of his career. We chose this particular number because of its evergreen wisdom. Of course.
“You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly” – Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty
But you know what? Looks ain’t everything. And money ain’t everything.
“I’m My Own Grandpa” – Willie Nelson
Get out a piece of scratch paper and sketch this family tree as you go. Does it seem a little… circular? Yeah… that’s the problem.
“Would Jesus Wear A Rolex” – Ray Stevens
A modern country parable. Again, an artist with plenty of silly and sarcastic songs to choose from — and Ray Stevens is being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame this year. Sounds pretty country to us…
“Cleopatra, Queen Of Denial” – Pam Tillis
Yes. More country songs with outright puns as their hooks, please. And of course, we’ve all been there, Pam. Denial is a popular destination.
“Illegal Smile” – John Prine
On the opening track of his debut album Prine immediately set the tone for his entire career with some of the most nonsensical and witty lyrics ever set to song. “Well done, hot dog bun, my sister’s a nun.”
“I’ll Think Of A Reason Later” – Lee Ann Womack
If you’ve never driven down the road shouting along with this one, we highly recommend that you do — as soon as possible. The song’s main character has a remarkable sense of self-awareness for being so viscerally incensed. If you really hate someone — who may or may not have ended up with your former significant other — it may be your family’s redneck nature.
“My Give A Damn’s Busted” – Jo Dee Messina
Look, if you’ve gotten to the end of this list and you haven’t enjoyed yourself, or maybe you don’t get the point, or maybe you think this is just useless clickbait… whatever the case may be, this song counts as our response. “Nah, man. Sorry.” (Isn’t country the best?)
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