Artist: The Gage Brothers
Hometown: Akron, OH
Song: “All You Are”
Album: The Gage Brothers
Release Date: May 5, 2017
In Their Words: “A song about the gradual end to a love full of doubt, fear, and perceived flaws, it touches on the idea of taking more than what is given and the harm that can follow.” — Zach Gage
Photo credit: Ernie Joy
Artist: Three Legged Fox
Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Song: “Another Year”
Album: Watch the World
Release Date: March 31, 2017
In Their Words: “‘Another Year’ was born out of the same questions that most of our songs are: ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘Why is it so hard to remain grounded and simple in what brings us joy?’ So whether it’s our addiction to the smartphone, or the relationships we forge or neglect with each other, we tried to deliver some kind of introspection while keeping the music light and cheery.
As a band, I believe the fundamental message of the song (finding genuine value in our short time here) resonates deeply and equally with all of us.” — Kory Kochersperger
Photo credit: Giorgi Anastasov
State fairs might be one of the greatest long-standing American traditions: the rides, the food, the out-of-control-sized vegetables. It's weird, colorful fun that reminds you of the charm you can find outside of city slickin' life. It's fitting, then, that the also-charming Fairground Saints allude to it in their name. We've got a new tune from the Los Angeles-based trio who, at their shiniest, recall This Side-era Nickel Creek on "All for You." The song is big and sweet, with amibitious male-female vocals that complement each other beautifully.
“I think we’ve always enjoyed melodies that felt magically timeless, and that’s what we were aiming for with this song," says Mason Van Valen, the band's guitarist.
The song will catch you by surprise as it swings from a gently lilting melody into a big, bursting chorus. Later on, the band adds elegant orchestral flourishes — they're swinging for the fences here, and it pays off. Their debut self-titled record comes out August 21.
Five years in the making, Kasey Chambers' Bittersweet marks a change of direction for the Aussie native (who's already won considerable accolades for this record from scribes back in her homeland). It starts at the crossroads where Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska meets Emmylou Harris's '70s sweetness then picks its own path, barrelling down the road with the sincerity of Southern roots music, the veracity of '70s punk, and the shiny-object swankiness of American pop radio.
The opening cut, "Oh Grace," is a perfect archetype of the Harris-in-Nebraska observation, a sparsely populated song of bittersweet love set against a simple guitar strum, brushy drums, and a beautiful fiddle solo by Ashleigh Dallas. But then Chambers unveils "Is God Real" and adds a contemporary chime to the whole affair. It's an urgent appeal of uncomfortable agnosticism over a pulsing electric guitar, delivered in the voice of a lost little girl, with unbounded urban energy. "Wheelbarrow" turns in three directions in a New York minute, evolving from a gospel a cappella tune to a banjo-balanced back porch sing-along to a thrashing rock tune in a matter of about eight bars. Later, Chambers sticks close to the folkie format on "I Would Do," channels her inner Alphabet City punk on "Hell of a Way to Go," plays things a little on the bluesy side on "House on a Hill," then closes the record with the full-on Springsteen harp and hustle of "I'm Alive."
Though the influences here are broad-ranging , all the tunes work together — a testament to Chambers' compositional fortitude and producer Nick DiDia's steady hand. Like some other solid records we've heard this year from Hannah Miller, Laura Marling, and Jessie Baylin, this is what roots music sounds like at the most inventive edges of the genre.
Listen to the record here.
Greensky Bluegrass first got together and started playing music in 2000, and the band has spent the better part of the years since on the stage playing dive bars, living rooms, festivals, or, more recently, sold-out crowds at well-loved venues like Red Rocks and Ryman Auditorium. The Kalamazoo, Michigan, band — which is made up of members Anders Beck on dobro, Michael Arlen Bont on banjo, Dave Bruzza on guitar, Mike Devol on upright bass, and Paul Hoffman on mandolin — has done its part to welcome new fans into the bluegrass fold, too, thanks to funky covers, relentless touring, and an approachable jam band vibe in and out of the studio that is evident on their latest full-length, Shouted, Written Down, and Quoted.
You started out playing in people's living rooms and at open mic nights. What aspects of your beginnings, the first couple of performances that you did, have you retained now that you're playing these huge venues? How did that shape the way you guys perform now?
That is a very interesting question. Congratulations. I think [what remains is] the spirit of what we do and playing for fun and making it fun. We kind of have, for better or worse, this motto that, if you want to be on the line, you've got to be over the line sometimes. There's a lack of fear of mistakes, or a lack of fixation on perfection. We were pretty bad in those early days, but we were just going for it, having fun. I think that spirit of us truly enjoying what we were doing and making music together translates really well with our crowd. The experience of our show and that whole aspect of it is really important to our music. It's one of the things that have kind of been there all long.
Tell me about Shouted, Written Down, and Quoted. What about that lyric stuck out to you for the title? What made you think that would sort of encapsulate the rest of what was on the record?
The whole verse is, "I know everything for all that I know, but there's always two sides to the way both of the stories go. Sometimes things are left unspoken, should be shouted, written down, and quoted." I think, for us, there's kind of a underlying meaning that “Shouted, Written Down, and Quoted” means things better left unspoken.
I don't know — we liked it. Album titles are tough. We threw around a lot of ideas. We debated this one because it's long. Shouted, Written Down, and Quoted … that's wordy. I dig it.
I think that lot of your fans are not necessarily bluegrass fans first: They're not finding your band because they're out looking for the hottest new bluegrass band. Some people may be finding out that they love bluegrass through Greensky. What about your music and the way that you interpret bluegrass do you think is drawing new people into the genre?
I suspect that you are entirely correct. I think its because we came [to bluegrass] that way, too. Most of us found bluegrass through the Grateful Dead, through Jerry Garcia.
In those early years of playing shows, we did all these bizarre covers. “When Doves Cry” was one of the first ones. That was the first off-the-wall thing we did. We'd go to these bars and do these gigs where I'd have to really sell the band to get us in there in the first place, to the manager or whoever is booking the bar, because they're like, "There's no drums? Do people like that?" Then we'd play "When Doves Cry" and it's like, "They know this."
It's the same story you hear about bands all the time playing covers to draw people into their sound. Not only does it draw them into us, it draws them into bluegrass. They’re like, "Maybe I like the banjo."
Maybe there's this preconceived notion before that bluegrass is hillbilly music that they would never be into. We're kind of a jam band and we improvise, so that's something that also drew us to the music — that bluegrass is a real player's music because there is so much soloing. It's like jazz almost. There are these standards. There's a form and a melody: You blow the head and then you improvise on the theme and then you blow the head and the tune's out. It's like what horn players do with be-bop. That attracted us all, as instrumentalists. It’s not like being in a rock band where the guitar player takes all the solos and the keyboard player does a little bit of solo flair, but it's really like the one guy's the lead guy and the rest are all the accompanists. We all do all the jobs. We all accompany each other. We all share the role of the drum kit. We all are soloists.
That brings me to another question I had because I know that you are one of the chief songwriters in the group. There's a big process from the time that you think of a song and when it's a finished song — or who knows if its ever really a finished song. Can you run me through the general process? How does a song go from being in your brain to being something that you're fleshing out with everybody to being something that you're either playing on stage or recording?
It varies from song to song. The typical process for Dave and me is that we write most of the framework of a song and the lyrics, and then the band is more involved in the arranging process. Sometimes we write the instrumental hooks together that go with the songs, which is often described from the melody of the lyrics. Sometimes it's different figuring out different parts, stuff like that, but the degree to which the song is finished can really vary.
There have been songs that I had written that were pretty much done when I brought them to the band and didn't need a lot. Then, there are others that needed parts. The textures and the rhythmic feels are where we can really experiment with our different influences and fusion. If it's a straight-ahead bluegrass tune, it's pretty easy to just figure out who does what and what goes where. When we start getting into different rhythmic textures, we talk about how a lot of our music has these soundscapes, and I think this album is a good example of that. There are moments on there that are spacey melody mood pieces more than a solo flair or something like that. It's not like, "That's so cool what he played." It's this texture that we all create together. For us, that's some of the most fun stuff we do.
One of my favorite songs on the latest albums is “More of Me.” Where did that song come from and what might it mean to you or what do you think it might mean to other people?
That's a good one for that soundscapey kind of thing that happens in the middle of that tune — just that bereft moment. I think it's very much resolved of what our lifestyles are like: touring and having other desires, maybe someone else, or maybe just other things in life that you don't have time to do because you're busy doing whatever you need to be doing. It’s about the idea of wishing that there was more of you to do all the other things. It's kind of creepy. [Laughs] I wrote it with the intention of being sort of romantic, wishing somehow that I could have more of me to leave you when I go. It comes off as a little creepy I've discovered, plus the melody and the general vibe of the tune is so dark. I joke around with Yoda, "More of me, keep you when I go, I will."
That's funny.
I think there's just some darkness in those lyrics that maybe I fell a little short on the romance. I think the concept is sort of romantic or lofty or idealistic or something like that.
Speaking of being in a couple of different places at once: Y’all recorded this in two different places, and I think I saw that this was the longest time that you've spent in the studio for any of your records. What effect do you think that had on the final product, and why did you choose to do it that way?
If you go back and read any of the bios of any of our records, we've said that every time, because that's what we do. That's how we increase our budget: We just take more time. Taking more time allows us to be a little bit more experimental. This time we came into the studio a little less prepared. We had played none of the tunes live. We had some really serious arranging and learning to do. We did it intentionally to let more of a creative process happen in the studio. With the earlier albums, spending less money and having a smaller budget, you want to be more prepared so you're not wasting your time, but also wasting your time can be really artistic.
We'd go down the rabbit hole of chasing some tone on an instrument or on a microphone for hours at times and maybe were aware the whole time that we weren't even going to use it. We just wanted to see if we could do it, challenge ourselves. "Let's try this tune like this." And then everyone being like, "I don't know if we're going to be able to do it or if it's going to be a good idea, but let's try it to see if we can accomplish it." Then, if we tried it and we didn't think it worked, we’d try harder to make it work, even though we might not use it. Having the opportunity to do that is, one, fun as hell. Two, it creates more of a creative process than just us going in there and playing the music.
We recorded in two places, which we've never done before, and we took a longer break than we've ever taken before between spots. When we recorded the last record, we took two days to just watch the Super Bowl and take a break, which was nice. This time, we had a couple of months off. As I mentioned, we were sort of composing the songs and figuring out what to do with them as we recorded them. We laid almost everything down in Nashville and then we had these really rough mixes of everything mostly done to sit on and reflect on and figure out what they needed and what they lacked and if they were working and how so and such.
You guys are on your own label and you've always been independent. Now that you've gotten to know the music industry a little bit better, do you think that's affected the band's trajectory at all? Is there anything that you particularly like about it or that has been an obstacle for you guys in doing that?
It's certainly presented some challenges and some unique development. Not to discredit record labels and what they do either, but I don't know if some gigantic budget to expose us to a wider audience would have made us like Mumford and Sons or something. I like that band, too, just so you know. But I get the concept that the record label now sort of stands for this thing that's like a million dollar loan: If you have enough money to invest, you can turn your money into a lot of money.
But we’ve self-funded our albums and stuff, and you know we're reaching a wider audience everyday and we're doing it one fan at a time. I have this theory that a lot of that stuff that the media of the music industry blows up can sometimes create hype for a band that the band's not ready for. If that had happened to us a couple of years ago, I don't know if we'd be as prepared as we are now. We keep taking a step up — steps up — into bigger rooms, and because those steps are somewhat gradual, we're learning a lot as we go. We're ready to carry the weight, so to speak.
In the lifespan of our band, a really awesome thing has been happening where bands like the Lumineers, the Avett Brothers, and the Head and the Heart, Mumford and Sons — these acoustic-esque bands that you guys cover a lot of and who write their own material — have come into the mainstream. A lot of that is really encouraging for us. There's this duality of successful music, and the very produced pop music and pop country that's succeeding is sort of creating this thirst for the opposite. I want something that sounds real, and it’s good to see a record just blow up because it’s real. I think that that's really cool, very encouraging.
Photo credit: J VanBuhler
I didn't go into this week thinking that, by 11 pm Tuesday night, I would once again be looking toward music as catharsis. I thought, rather naïvely I suppose, that we would be queuing up some suitably celebratory tunes — maybe a little Kool and The Gang, maybe a little drunken Katy Perry — as we raised our glasses of boxed red wine and toasted to the first female president-elect. But instead, the house was silent, save for the low hum of MSNBC on in the background, turned down so we didn't have to hear the chirp of talking heads confirming that our worst fears had come true. There was no music. At 2 am, I woke up screaming, grabbing my baby daughter; I heard her whimper in the bassinet next to me in my half-conscious state, and had thought she was in danger. In a way, she is. It took me an hour to get her back to sleep, and I couldn't even muster myself to put on a lullaby: Instead, I played white noise.
The morning after, it was still quiet. Eerily so, as I dropped off my kids at daycare and went to get coffee. I didn't put on the radio; I left the television off. At my desk, speakers remained silent. It was all too fresh — even though I knew, like pouring peroxide on a wound, that turning to music would ultimately set me in the direction toward healing, once I got past the sting.
At around noon yesterday, I decided I was ready, and turned on Luke Roberts' new LP, Sunlit Cross. For most of the day, I found myself stuck on the second track, "American Music," a song anchored by slow and sticky plucks of the acoustic guitar that progresses into lush territory as his voice echoes and the keys kick in. "The gates are always open," he sings, "when you make them smile. We're going to put American music in the heart of every child." In this moment, he seems both earnest and critical: In America, we've often been in the strange place of encouraging our youth (and youth abroad) with our ideals as much as we over-enforce them — listen to us, follow us, be us. This is about to get a whole lot worse, especially as those gates close tight and a wall arises.
Roberts' voice is as soft as it is broken, the melody as traditional as it is off-kilter. And, breathing in and out with those subdued strums, I felt a little calmer — something no op-ed, no talking head, no Facebook post had yet been able to make me do. Calm for the beauty of the song; calm for knowing the ability to create will still exist; calm to remember the power and grace of American music. I finally felt brave enough to let it guide my emotions, and it reminded me that there's always a safe place within those notes and bars. And that, no matter how much easier it might be, white noise is never the answer.
Artist: Claire Lynch
Hometown: Huntsville, AL
Album: North by South
Release Date: September 16
Label: Compass Records
In Their Words: "Canada was first on my radar when I was a kid growing up in central New York state. My mother claimed 'everything from Canada' was 'better.' A few years ago, I met and developed a friendship with a fan from over the border, listened to the music of his country, and was delighted by all the songs and songwriters who subsequently became a part of this project. I’m told it's the best album I’ve done to date and, though the jury might still be out on that notion, I can say with all sincerity I'm 'powerful proud' of North by South. Oh, and with my mother's words ringing in my ears, I took such a liking to that Canadian fan I married the guy!" — Claire Lynch
In the wake of tragedy, like the senseless killing of 49 people at the Orlando LGBTQ nightclub Pulse on June 12, music is often one of the best sources of comfort and understanding. In songs, we can find hope; we can vent anger; we can be moved to tears. Perhaps most importantly, though, we can find a much-needed sense of community with the simple push of a button.
What happened in Orlando was a direct attack on a gay safe space, a place where people could go to be themselves and be with those they love without fear of judgment or hatred. That the attack took place during Pride month sought to further unravel the very fabric of the gay community, but, as seen in the many vigils, benefits, and gatherings hosted in honor of the attack’s victims over the last week, it accomplished anything but.
When a specific community is attacked, as was the case with the gay community in Orlando, it becomes especially important to honor that community's cultural touchstones, which is why we put together this playlist of songs that we feel exemplify what it means to celebrate Pride. The playlist shows not only a wide range of takes on what it can mean to make roots music, but also how diversity has become an integral part of roots culture itself. The artists below represent some of the most important LGBTQ voices in roots music, past and present, and we couldn’t be prouder to have them as part of our community here at BGS.
Listen to our Pride playlist below. Support victims of the Orlando attack here.
Photo credit: tedeytan via Foter.com / CC BY-SA
What do you get when you cross a bunch of roots-minded female singers with a bunch of bluegrass-adjacent male musicians? Why Ladies & Gentlemen, of course the new release from the Infamous Stringdusters which features appearances by Joan Osborne, Lee Ann Womack, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Abigail Washburn, and eight more of the finest voices roots music has to offer. It's the sixth record in nine years for the band — which is comprised of co-founders Chris Pandolfi (banjo) and Andy Hall (dobro), along with Andy Falco (guitar), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle), and Travis Book (bass) — and it showcases why the Stringdusters are considered one of the most innovative groups currently on the circuit.
First off, kudos on some great guests. [Joan] Osborne and [Lee Ann] Womack are two of my all-time favorite voices. So, did you guys just put a bunch of singers' names on a dart board and start throwing? How'd you figure out who you wanted?
Chris Pandolfi: The concept for this thing was two-fold: On the one hand, we wanted to do something different, as far as an album goes, just to mix it up. But a big part of it was also that we had made a lot of great friends along the way and we thought, “Who could we utilize, in terms of special guests?” And this concept evolved out of that — “What if we call on some of these awesome lady singers that we've met over the years?”
As the process started, the list was mainly comprised of people who were more in our community, in our musical scene. But, then, of course, some of those names were not, necessarily, people that we knew before the advent of this project — like Joan Osborne. The list was a combination of the two and, as the material evolved and we were getting a feel for the aesthetic of these different songs, we just did the best we could. Once the list was close to what we thought it would be and we got some confirmations from people, we — along with our producer — just did our best to match up what songs we thought would be best for each lady.
To me, that's one of the awesome successes of this album: It really uses these artists, I think, in a context that works for them. Look at the Joss Stone track or the Lee Ann Womack track … or Celia Woodsmith, who had the perfect voice for that song. All the ladies, in their own ways, brought their thing to the project and I think, in the process, they helped us take these songs and make them something that we couldn't have necessarily done on our own. They helped us make the most of all these unique and different sounds and styles that they have. It really came together that way. Certain people weren't able to do it, and the list filled out from there. But where we ended up, as far as the guests and what songs they were on, I think that's one of the cool successes of the album. The song “Have a Little Faith” was actually written for Joss Stone, with her in mind. I know that.
I was going to ask … considering that the span does run from Joss Stone to Sarah Jarosz, which came first — the singers or the songs? Did you write for specific voices or was that the only one?
Andy Hall: Yes, I believe so. Aside from that, we all write individually or co-write or whatever and bring songs to the band. So we all had songs, individually, that we were ready to bring to the next project. But I think that was the only one that was written for the singer. In other instances, say for Aoife O'Donovan, hearing that song “Run to Heaven,” it sort of reminded us of Crooked Still, just the way that sounded. In that instance, that became clear that would work that way. Each song just triggered a little something … an idea. That was one of the fun, creative parts — who would sound good on what song.
So how'd you figure out that Joss likes a little bluegrass in her soul?
AH: [Laughs] Andy Falco was hired to play in her band for a Rock in Rio festival a number of years ago. That's how that connection came about. Our connection with Joss was one of the things that inspired this record because Joss came to the States, and we opened up for her in Kansas City. She wanted to do a video of us and her playing together, during the day. She sang our song “Fork in the Road” with us backing her up for this video project she was doing, and it just sounded so cool. That was one of the sparks for this project. But that's also how that connection came about.
Interesting. Who was the first to say yes? And who was the biggest long-shot you can't believe you landed?
CP: Hmmm … Who was the first to say yes?
AH: The first person who recorded with us was, I believe, Jen Hartswick who didn't sing, but played trumpet on a number of songs. Then Mary-Chapin Carpenter was the first vocalist to put her track down. She was in Nashville while we were tracking. But, as far as asking, I don't remember.
How free were the reins when it came time to let them do their thing? Was it, “Have at it, gals!”
CP: Our producer was on hand for every session, I think, except for one or two. He did a really great job with this project — Chris Goldsmith — just in terms of staying true to his vision, which a lot of it was sonic, and he got a really cool, consistent sound across the record, although there is a real variety of styles there. I think that vision extended into how these songs would sound best. But, then again, there were cases — Joss is a great example … that track, by design, was made to let her do her thing which is to cut loose and almost improvise a lot of the phrasing. In cases where that would make the music come to life, that's what happened. In other cases, probably Goldsmith had a clearer vision of how it was supposed to sound. To some extent, every song was about letting these ladies do their thing.
The Sara Watkins track jumps to mind. She has such a compelling vocal on there and it's all because she does her thing. There's a moment where she really goes for it, and she's such an awesome singer and performer that the idea of getting her to do her thing, that's the whole point. So, to some extent, I think that was going on with everyone.
Obviously, all the guest vocalists aren't on the road with you, so how are you touring this record?
AH: We have Nicki Bluhm on the road with us for this whole tour and she is really helping. She's singing a lot of the Ladies & Gentleman songs that we do. Sometimes we'll do a few just on our own, but Nicki's on every show for the whole Spring tour so she's singing a lot of it. We also had Della Mae opening for it on a bunch of it, and Celia Woodsmith would come up and sing her song.
It's amazing how you cross paths with musicians on the road and that's, initially, how we made a lot of these contacts. We ran into Aoife O'Donovan — she was in L.A. when we were there recently, so she came and sang with us, and did a Jam in the Van session with us. We've designed part of the tour to have female bands supporting us, so we have Paper Bird coming out to open some shows and, hopefully, they're going to be able to help share some of the vocal duties. We have a lot of guests, but Nicki is anchoring all that.
More broadly speaking, you guys are very invested in being innovators within “bluegrass.” That's often a very subtle thing, though, right? So break it down … what are some of the things you guys do to open it up a bit and set yourselves apart while still honoring the traditions?
CP: One big thing that we're really focused on, consciously, is playing our own original music. The process of crafting original music is the thing that, simultaneously, helps us develop our sound as a band. We have a lot of co-writing going on, but mostly we arrange the music together. And we just try to figure out new ways to make all these instruments go together and distill all the different styles and influences into one sound that makes sense. We're pretty conscious about that.
We're really conscious about our live show. We're pretty committed to making the live experience really different every night. Of course, we're not the first band to ever do that, but we just try really hard to do our own version of that. And our fan base has come to expect a lot of variation and innovation, as far as on a night-to-night basis. They expect to see something different, and we're playing almost three hours a night, so we have to mix it up for our own sakes, too. Those are two big ones: playing our own stuff and focusing on having that live show be something that is really predicated on being different every night.
AH: One thing, specifically, that I know we've worked on a lot in the past few years is that we don't have a mandolin, which a lot of bluegrass-type bands have. The mandolin is a key rhythmic thing. Since we don't have that, we've had to get really creative with how we play rhythm and play rhythms that are not, say, bluegrass. Like on the Ladies & Gentlemen record, there are a lot of songs that don't have a traditional bluegrass beat. We've consciously spent a lot of time developing unique ways to play our instruments that you wouldn't necessarily expect or hear in other string band contexts. Myself being a dobro player, I take a lot of the rhythmic responsibilities, which is not a common thing. Not having a mandolin, we've had to get somewhat innovative with how we create rhythm and play grooves that aren't necessarily bluegrass. To me, that's something unique that we do.
It seems like there has to be a lot of trust between the band and the fans. You have to trust that they're going to follow you wherever you go, musically. And they have to trust that you're not going to do some crazy, way out of left field thing. Do you ever worry about splitting the difference in such a way that you isolate them … or any part of them?
AH: Well, yeah. The scene of traditional bluegrass and, say, the broader music scene that we're playing more in now, there is quite a difference there. We've chosen to be part of a music scene that is broader, where we play in festivals that are not just bluegrass festivals. I think, in that context, it's not quite as strange to have music that is slightly more creative, record to record. A lot of the fans we're appealing to are a little more used to that. But this is the first time we've ever done a record like this that is a very different, specific vision. Sure, you certainly wonder, “What are people going to think?” [Laughs]
CP: And we have, over the course of our career, definitely alienated people. That's part of the natural course of things. What we do is our thing. We decide where the music goes. That's one of the cool upsides of not being in what most people would perceive as a more popular style of music: You're not really beholden to any record label or anything like that. In the grassroots scene, there is some idea that your fans are going to follow you wherever you will go. Obviously, there's an extreme there and there are anomalies to that rule. But, for the most part, we're lucky: We have these great fans who want to check out all the different voices.
I have a side project that involves electronic elements and it's clearly not for the hardcore bluegrass people of the world. But there are plenty of people in our fan base who, though they don't listen to anything like that, they are excited for that to be their introduction to this musical world. I think that's a good glimpse into the way they think. They're like, “We love this band. We want to see what they're going to do. If this particular thing is not my cup of tea, then there's always going to be another album that comes out.” I think they are getting used to the fact that there are a lot of variations between projects and between songs and the live show, so it's almost part of the whole thing. So, for me, I'm not ever too worried that they're not going to dig it. As long as we make music that we believe in, I think our fans will get behind it.
Photo credit: McCormick Photos & Design, LLC
Getting a coveted performance slot on a late-night TV show is no easy task. Unless you have a Billboard hit or the last name Bieber, odds are you won't make it onto what's become some of television's most prime musical real estate. For roots musicians, that means fewer shots at late-night stardom and fewer chances to reach the wide audiences such performances award. But luckily, The Late Show's Stephen Colbert is changing the game, championing up-andcoming roots musicians and introducing their music to his legions of loyal fans.
We've rounded up some of our favorite roots performances from The Late Show below. Check 'em out!
Kacey Musgraves, "Late to the Party"
Kacey Musgraves is no small star, so it's not as much of a surprise that Colbert would invite her to the stage to perform "Late to the Party," one of the standout tracks from her sophomore album Pageant Material.
John Moreland, "Break My Heart Sweetly"
John Moreland, however, is a surprise — Colbert gave the talented Oklahoma singer/songwriter his network television debut when he invited him to perform this track from 2013's In the Throes (despite Moreland releasing High on Tulsa Heat last year) earlier this month.
Lake Street Dive, "Call Off Your Dogs"
Lake Street Dive is a big name in the roots community, but their reach doesn't extend far beyond the genre's boundaries. Colbert had them over anyway, and the Brooklyn quartet got to wow the audience with this tune from Side Pony.
Margo Price, "Hurtin' (On the Bottle)"
The first country signee to Jack White's famed Third Man Records, Margo Price may not be a household name yet, but it's only a matter of time before she is. This performance of her debut single on The Late Show is sure to be part of what seals that deal.
Aubrie Sellers, "Light of Day"
Daughter of Lee Ann Womack, Aubrie Sellers is no stranger to the late-night circuit, although this performance on Colbert was the first time she was the one gracing the stage, performing a cut from her debut album New City Blues.
Wilco, "Random Name Generator"
Okay, so maybe a band as big as Wilco doesn't exactly need a television champion, but it's great to see them hit the stage to perform this tune from 2015's Star Wars nonetheless.
Lucinda Williams, "Dust"
Finally, don't miss this stunning performance from Lucinda Williams of a poem by her father (the late poet Miller Williams) that she reinterpeted and set to music to serve as the opening track for her stellar new album The Ghosts of Highway 20.
