Tag: Rosanne Cash

Rodney Crowell’s ‘Triage’ Is All About Love, Mortality, and Making Amends

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Heartbreak songs, political takedowns, pronunciations of judgment — on his 18th album, Triage, Rodney Crowell doesn’t indulge much in any of them, with the possible exception of judging his own foibles as he burrows deep into his psyche, hoping to extract whatever nuggets of wisdom might still be buried there.

To help in the trenches, he enlisted son-in-law Dan Knobler, a rising talent who produced one of Crowell’s current favorite albums: Allison Russell’s Outside Child. “I respect him, and I learn from him,” Crowell says. “I learn from young people around me. You kiddin’? They’re on to things that I’m not on to, and they have information that I need.”

Knobler’s not the only family tie: another young artist, Jakob Leventhal, sings backing vocals on “Hymn #43,” a track that also contains contributions from his parents, John Leventhal and Rosanne Cash — Crowell’s ex-wife and mother of Knobler’s wife, Carrie. And though it’s “aimed more at the universal than the personal,” there is an homage to Joe Henry, who produced three Crowell albums: Sex & Gasoline, Kin: Songs by Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell, and The Traveling Kind, his second collection of duets with Emmylou Harris.

“I have a deep abiding love for Joe,” Crowell says. “I wrote the song ‘Triage’ for and to Joe, because the conversations we had when he was in the darkest part of coming to grips with a pretty shocking [cancer] diagnosis, his vulnerability and his courage and willingness to embrace everything about it inspired me, and I wanted to make a song based on the inspiration that I got from Joe’s courage and truthfulness.”

Courage and truthfulness. Those qualities permeate the entire album; in fact, it’s safe to say they’ve guided Crowell’s entire career.

BGS: Reviews are saying Triage is one of your most personal albums, and you referred to making amends in an NPR interview. But I suspect your use of “triage” has more to do with the global state of affairs than the need to address any personal sort of emergency at this stage of your life. Is that a reasonable assumption?

Crowell: Yeah, that’s most reasonable. I think the conversation with NPR started with the opening song [“Don’t Leave Me Now”], which is basically an attempt at amends, and it went from there. But the broader stroke on the album, and in my contemplation as I was writing the song, was how do I weigh in without dating myself? If you go political, or if you go topical in the moment, six months from now … you know, unless you write “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “This Land is Your Land,” you’re not timeless.

So my overview is that I want to write about, say, climate change, and I want to write about a monotheistic approach to livin’ my life, and instead of writing about boy/girl love, to write about a higher love — as Steve Winwood sang, “Bring me a higher love.” That’s what I had in mind, so I spent a lot of time revising all of the songs, checking and double-checking to make sure that I was grounding the language, because I was reaching into that place that’s very hard to define.

And yet, you do go topical on “It’s All About Love,” referring to Greta Thunberg and others, in that kind of talking-blues list style that you do so well. You often throw in pop-cultural references; how do you choose what works?

Well, when COVID happened, I got to slow down a bit and not try to race to make a release date, which allowed me to go back through the songs … you know the old saying, “Show, don’t tell”? I was able to go back through and say, “Oh, here I’m telling. I need to bounce this out of here,” and to stay in the show part of it, which is whatever metaphorical angle you take or however you ground the language in such a way that you can’t be accused of thinking you know better than everybody else.

It’s tongue in cheek for me to stick Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and Greta Thunberg and Jessica Biel and the devil all in one stanza; honestly, I’m giggling to myself. They might not get it; they may take me literally, but this is humor.

You touch on religion repeatedly, and at one point in “I’m All About Love,” you chant the names of the lord, so to speak, so the sense is acceptance. Yet you mentioned monotheistic love, and the notion that there is one particular God seems to be expressed here, regardless of which one.

My mother was quite religious in the Pentecostal, speaking-in-tongues, emotional religious paradigm, and even as a child, it didn’t serve me. I just sensed something was amiss with it. I’ve always felt that way. Religion, I mistrust; the creator of it all, I do trust. Whether that creator of it all is a team, or whatever that is, I don’t really know. But I feel it. And hopefully, as I’m writing the songs and exploring that, I’m not saying that I really know, because I don’t. I can’t tell you anything about your god, and I really can’t tell you a lot about mine. But I sure do have a feeling.

When you’re writing songs, in some cases, you must have specific people or incidents in mind. But you also want to get them to the point where they have that universal feeling, where the listener can relate it to something in their own life. How do you strike that balance of not revealing too much about what’s going on in your life, while alluding to enough of it that it does personalize the lyric and make it touching?

I learned a long time ago, if it’s coming from my own experience, there’s a good chance I’m a step closer to true. And I can mine my personal truth, but confessional only goes so far. I’ve tried to walk that line; if I can carefully write about my own experience and put it in a broader perspective, then [for] the listener, it becomes their experience. It’s no longer my experience. That’s why I feel like I have to be really careful; if I make it too much about my experience, then I start to tread on the listener’s experience. The goal is to get it in such a way where — and there again, it’s the “show, don’t tell” — if it’s show, you show somebody their emotion, their experience. If you tell, you’re tellin’ ’em about you. And down there somewhere in the gravel of it all, I’m telling you about me.

But you’re actually not revealing that much, even though it comes across that way. I can’t listen to this and guess what’s happening in your life, even though I can sense what has happened, possibly.

Well, there you go. If that’s your experience, then I’ve succeeded, because I don’t want [the song] to be about me. I want it to be about it.

Other songs here, like “One Little Bird” and “Girl on the Street,” seem to be written for your children, or specific children. Am I close?

Yeah, you are, in a way. “Girl on the Street,” it’s something that happened in San Francisco. I met a girl and … however she could get money off me for drugs, she was willing to go there. And she was young and beautiful and reminded me of my own children. That was why the regret that the narrator has in the song is like, “I could have done more.” I could have bought her a room for the night where she could get a shower and a good night’s sleep. Or I could have taken her and bought her something to eat and sent her on her way, but no; I gave her 45 cents. So I really failed as an adult on the street. And that’s what I hope the song says.

Regarding amends, who in your life do you feel you haven’t apologized to that you still need to?

I’ve apologized to everybody that needs to be apologized to. But that doesn’t mean everybody accepted. And I have to live with that. If you look closely, in “One Little Bird,” it’s in there. I’ve been rebuffed.

You hit that one high note in “One Little Bird,” that falsetto, that I don’t think I’ve heard you do before. It’s evident that there’s definitely some change in your vocal style; that it’s actually expanding with age, which is interesting, because one would not expect that. Are you doing more training, or just finding ways to do that yourself?

I’m learning; as a matter of fact, I retired “Shame on the Moon” from my performances for years because Bob Seger sang it so damned well. And I’ve reinstated it into my live shows for the first time since ’84. I got an outro that will stand alongside Bob Seger’s now, as far as I’m concerned. I can ad-lib the outros in a way where I feel like, “OK, this is my song again.”

You took possession back.

Yes. I’ve repossessed “Shame on the Moon.” [Laughs] But I had to grow as a vocalist to where I could legitimately reclaim it. So that’s cool, I mean, from my perspective, to want to grow to become better. If I know that I’m getting better on that front, I’ll keep on writing songs because I’ll want to continue to experiment with what I can do.

I wanted to address the issue of mortality a bit. Let’s face it, we’re not all that young anymore, but it sounds as if you’ve still got a lot of plans. So how do you regard life now that there’s plenty of it in the rearview mirror, but you’re not ready to sign off?

Now that time is compressed? [Laughs]

Yes.

As a younger artist, quote/unquote, I was quite comfortable with broad-stroke; I wrote “Please Remember Me” and “Making Memories of Us” and those broad-stroke love songs because I was experiencing life in a way that I was trying to express myself outward, to understand how I fit into that world out there. And now as I age and become a septuagenarian, I made Triage as the kind of record it is because I am facing mortality. As you realize that the time out in front of you is a lot shorter than the time behind you, rather than going for those broad-stroke love songs to send out there into the world to find out who you are, I’m writing about my interior life, because I think, to prepare myself to leave this planet, I have to have a better understanding of my interior self.

What would you still like to achieve that you haven’t yet?

Mmmm, that’s interesting. Well, I’m working on achieving certain things as a singer that continue to reveal themselves to me. I’ve become a better singer and I’m continuing to develop as a vocalist. That makes me happy, because for a long time, I was very unhappy on that front. As I age, the more singular my sensibility becomes about my interior experience; I’m also arrogant enough to think that’s worth sharing out there with these records that I make. But I may yet open up onto another plateau where I’ve examined mortality enough that, hey, it’s time to celebrate a little bit, and I’m gonna make a blues record, or I want to make a honky-tonk record that sounds like 1954. Who knows? I’m pretty much free to do exactly what I want to do.

Photo credit: Sam Esty Rayner Photography

’70s Music Meets the White House in ‘Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President’

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In 1978, during a concert on the White House lawn, legendary jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie put the leader of the free world on the spot. President Jimmy Carter, formerly a peanut farmer in his home state of Georgia, had requested “Salt Peanuts,” a rambunctious tune that had been a hit for Gillespie back in the 1940s, but the musician said he’d only play it if Carter himself sang the lyrics. That’s not a hard job: There are only two words, “Salt peanuts,” repeated over and over, in a fast, staccato exclamation.

Carter gamely obliged and took his place onstage among the jazz greats, wearing not an official suit but a more casual outfit of unbelted slacks and a shirt-sleeve shirt. No musician himself, the President gave it his best shot, but could barely keep up with the veteran players. The song ended in laughter, but it was no joke. Instead, it revealed not only Carter’s sense of humor about himself—a rarity among politicians—but also his abiding love of music. Even as he’s flubbing such a basic vocal, he looks like he’s having the time of his life up there.

That impromptu performance is a key scene in the persuasive and often joyous new documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President, which redeems the 39th President by examining his accomplishments in office through his relationship to music. The words stagflation and malaise are never mentioned, nor is there any appearance by an angry rabbit — all issues that have long obscured Carter’s legacy. A naval submarine officer turned politician who farmed peanuts on the side, he served in the Georgia State Senate through the 1960s before running successfully for governor in 1970.

Six years later he ran for president, right at the heyday of southern rock and outlaw country, when the entire nation seemed to be fascinated by the South. Artists like Gregg Allman, Ronnie Van Zant, and Willie Nelson saw in Carter more than a little of themselves: Southern men who didn’t fit the old hick stereotype, who might have called themselves rednecks, but rejected the hostilities and prejudices and buzzcuts associated with that figure.

And Carter was a real fan of the music they were making at that time. They not only befriended but endorsed him, playing fundraisers along the campaign trail and later visiting him in Washington, DC. Willie Nelson was famous for sneaking up to the roof of the White House to smoke pot and Rock & Roll President reveals that it was Carter’s son Chip and not some security guard who joined him. These were not family-friendly pop stars like the Osmonds or the Partridge Family, but countercultural figures who could very easily have hindered a candidate by tying him to drugs or sex or rebellion. Rather than undercut Carter’s gravity or mission, they helped portray him as an outsider who could clean up the mess made by Nixon and Watergate.

As the documentary makes clear, however, this wasn’t just politics as usual. There was no strategy behind Carter’s partnership with these southern musicians. Instead, it came about more organically, a happy accident stemming from his clear love for the music. He and several other talking heads say as much in the film, but the most convincing evidence is visual. Rock & Roll President is filled with archival footage of the President watching and listening to a wide array of music — not just rock, but folk, jazz, gospel, and country — and at every concert he’s there singing along and smiling his big, toothy smile. Rather than playing up a focus-group-approved reaction, he lets his guard down and projects something resembling pure joy. At 95, Carter remains an imposing and presidential presence. Yet, especially when he’s recalling a particular concert or simply putting a Dylan record on the turntable, that unselfconscious smile returns, its hint of mischief intact.

Rock & Roll President includes interviews with a range of artists, some of whom are still identified as progressives (Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan) and others who have swayed further right over the years (Larry Gatlin). But they all respond to Carter’s calls for bipartisanship, his moral leadership, his steady demeanor in office, and of course his musical knowledge. Over time many of his accomplishments have been dismissed, undone, or simply swept under the rug, but the documentary connects some of them — his handling of the historic peace treaty between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, for example — to Carter’s Christian faith and the principles he found in music.

There are, of course, holes in the story Rock & Roll President presents, but Carter’s idealism is refreshing especially at a moment when politics has become ugly, divisive, and cynical to the point of nihilism. He comes across as a folk hero: embraced by the people and too honest for politics. “There was so much about the story that is timeless, in terms of messaging,” says director Mary Wharton. “During filming and production, there were all these things that would happen in the news that resonated with the stories that were being told in the film. Things like Carter’s role in the Civil Rights movement continue to be more and more relevant.”

She and producer Chris Farrell spent three years researching and filming the documentary, which included two trips down to Plains, Georgia, to speak to the former peanut farmer himself. For our latest Roots on Screen column, BGS spoke to the duo while they were in Massachusetts for the Berkshire International Film Festival, where Rock & Roll President played at a drive-in theater — just like it was ’76 all over again.

BGS: In the film, Carter seems to be very unselfconsciously enjoying himself around this music whenever there’s live footage. What was he like to deal with?

Chris Farrell: He’s in his mid-90s, first of all. He’s a former President. He’s a naval guy. He’s pretty stern, and even in his advanced age, he’s still pretty imposing. He shows up to the interview and sits down and he’s very serious. But within the first three to four minutes, he realizes this is not the typical interview. We want to talk about his love for music, what music meant to him, and how he used music in his personal and political life. I’ll never forget — that smile just showed up, and you can see it in the interview.

Mary Wharton: We were told that President Carter was a very punctual man and that we needed to be ready when he walked in the door. They said he’s not very patient in terms of waiting around for you to get ready for him. He’s a very exacting person who does not suffer fools. And why should he? But it was obvious that he had enjoyed talking about this stuff, and that he had a lot of fun with it. I think he genuinely enjoyed sharing this part of his life that he had never really been asked about before.

Was he the first president to use music this way? How unprecedented was it to have endorsements from this kind of countercultural creative class?

MW: JFK got the endorsement of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack. I don’t know if they were doing campaign benefits for JFK or not — I never researched that — and the only other thing I could point to is Nixon inviting Elvis to the White House, because Elvis wanted to be made a sheriff or something along those lines. But that didn’t seem like anybody endorsing anything…

CF: And Johnny Cash, remember? Nixon tried to co-opt Johnny Cash and it didn’t work. Again, the interesting thing was: This was not marketing necessarily for them. As the film shows, from his very early childhood, music was massive in Carter’s life. It was very, very important to him, and that’s why it made a natural component to his campaign. It wasn’t like some campaign manager said, “Hey, listen, boss, just trust us on this. You know, if you hang out with these guys, you’re gonna get endorsements and people are going to like you.” He genuinely loves music, all music, and he really, really felt a strong relationship and bond with these guys, and that’s what made them willing to endorse him.

Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Jimmy Carter

And these weren’t just any old musicians either. They were Southern musicians who seemed to be redefining how the South was being depicted. The Allmans and Skynyrd were popular right when you’re having movies like Walking Tall and Deliverance, and suddenly there are new ways of thinking about the South.

CF: Mary and I are both from the South — and not terribly far away from where Jimmy Carter is from. We’re both from North Florida. Even though we were young when he was elected — I was ten, Mary is slightly younger than me — we spent the ’70s in the South and we remember that it was changing. As Chuck Leavell says very well in the film, and Rosanne Cash says extremely well, things were going in the right direction, and Carter personified that attempt to move us along not only in the South but the country as a whole. Unfortunately, a lot of those issues we were making progress on then, it feels like we’ve gone backwards on, whether that’s civil rights, women’s rights, a whole host of issues.

Looking back, many of the artists associated with that movement are now seen to be very conservative, while Carter was and remains very progressive. It’s interesting to see footage of him sharing a stage with Charlie Daniels.

MW: Charlie Daniels [became] very conservative. But he was more affiliated with Carter and was onstage at his campaign rallies. He did a lot to support Carter at the time, then had a bit of a change of heart during the Reagan administration. Larry Gatlin is another one who’s in our film who is now very conservative. At the time, though, he did support Carter. He saw that Carter was a good man, and he believed in him. The country was a little less polarized back then. As John Wayne says in that clip in the film, he’s a staunch Republican and was known for being “the opposition.” But he makes clear he’s a member of the “loyal opposition.” He saw that Carter was president and said he would support him as best he could. We as Americans may not always agree on every issue, but we need to figure out how we can work together to come up with some kind of compromise that we can all live with. We’ve gotten to a point where that doesn’t even exist anymore.

CF: That’s ultimately the point of the movie: that Carter was able to use music to bring people together. We have so many examples of how music broke down barriers and brought people together, unified people — and would it be nice to think that, somehow, that can happen again.

MW: We had an early screening of a rough cut in New York, just some friends of mine and the editor. We just needed to get some feedback from some outsiders, and there was this one woman in the group who had a very visceral reaction to the Charlie Daniels piece of music in the film. Charlie Daniels is playing at this campaign rally in 1980 where the Ku Klux Klan showed up and were counter-protesting and demonstrating outside the rally. Carter stood up to them and essentially called them cowards for hiding behind white sheets. Charlie Daniels got up on the stage and performed, and that was why we wanted to play that music. This woman so associated the music of Charlie Daniels with many of the beliefs that the KKK espouses. She saw Southerners as automatically racist, and that’s a common misperception. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, you’re from the South, but you’re not a racist. What made you change your mind?”

CW: One of the most beautiful examples of that is the jazz on the White House lawn. There’s the sheer brilliance of those musicians and how Carter brought them all together and how he honored the genre. Carter said part of the reason that jazz had not been recognized over the years was racism. He was able to talk about racism in a way that eludes so many politicians. They find it a difficult topic to deal with, but he tackled it head on. That’s one of those scenes where you really get the essence of Jimmy Carter, where he really shows moral courage and moral leadership.

What I find remarkable is that he’s able to connect that to his Christian faith, which is another issue that people seem to have misperceptions about. Christianity is usually associated with a very specific political stance.

CF: The best example of that in our movie, I think, is the Gregg Allman story, because, to me, that’s the essence of Carter. He didn’t judge Gregg Allman, and he didn’t think he needed to forgive Gregg for something, because he knew it wasn’t his place to forgive him. It was his place to be compassionate and be there for his friend in his time of need. I consider myself Christian. I’m an Episcopalian, and to me that’s what Christianity is all about. It’s about love. It’s about compassion. And I think that he really does exhibit those attributes.

Carter seems to be thought of as a failed president who really came into his own after he left the White House. But the film argues that the traits we associate with his humanitarian efforts were the same traits that guided his presidency and the same traits he found in the music he loved.

MW: The thing we wanted to do with Carter was look at him through this different lens of his relationship with music, and perhaps that might make people reconsider their ideas about his presidency. Jim Free [formerly special assistant on congressional affairs], who’s so great in the film, got angry when he talked about how people saw Carter as a bad president. On both sides of the aisle, people will say, “He was a terrible president, but I love what he’s done post-presidency.” And that would just make Jim angry. He said, “If you like what he’s done post-presidency, then take another look at what he accomplished during his administration because he was about the same things. He wasn’t always successful, because the presidency is not a dictatorship. It’s not a monarchy. You can’t just decide what you want to happen and then, lo and behold, it happens. You have to work with Congress. What Carter was able to accomplish puts him on the right side of history.

CW: If people would go back and look at the record — and we could have done this with the movie, but we decided not to go down this path, because Stu Eizenstat wrote a 900-page book about this — they’d see that Carter had an enormous amount of legislation, some really groundbreaking legislation. He’s one of the most efficient and effective presidents in history, in that regard. Nile Rodgers rightly says that Carter got the short end of the stick somehow. Hopefully, upon further reflection and examination, people will hold him in higher stead. And he loves music and understands that it has this incredible power to bring us joy, to bring us together, and to remind us that we’re more alike than we are different. We all want to dance to a good song.

Lede photo, Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter photo, Jimmy Carter on stage photo, and Jimmy Carter interview photo: courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment; Photos with Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris, and photo with Dolly Parton, from Carter Presidential Library.

Americanafest Prepares Thriving Roots: A Virtual Community Music Conference

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Although in-person plans for Americanafest are on hold this year, fans of roots music can still take part in celebrating the music, no matter where they are.

From September 16th to the 18th, Thriving Roots: A Virtual Community Music Conference will host intimate conversations between pairings you won’t find anywhere else.

In August, the Americana Music Association Foundation (AMAF) revealed programming featuring director Judd Apatow in conversation with The Avett Brothers; Bob Weir with Oteil Burbridge; Béla Fleck with Sierra Hull; and Sarah Jarosz with John Leventhal and Chris Thile. The latest programming information also includes talks on empowering today’s creatives, developing streaming strategies and musicians in recovery.

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Apatow will sit down with The Avett Brothers to discuss the intersection of film and music, as well as the fine line between fine art and commerce. In 2017, Apatow co-directed the band’s critically acclaimed documentary, May It Last: A Portrait of The Avett Brothers. Since then, The Avett Brothers have released their new album, The Third Gleam.

The music that fans know and love from their favorite artists simply wouldn’t exist without the innovative musicians who came before them. Weir will sit down with fellow Dead & Company member Burbridge as they explore the inspirations and influence Black musicians have had on the Grateful Dead.

Now more than ever, musicians continue to push and blur the confines of genres to create the art they want to make. Fleck and Hull will speak to how roots music transcends and connects with a wide range of audiences during “Music Without Boundaries.” When it comes to creating that art in the studio, a producer’s ability to understand an artist’s vision is an integral part of the creative process. Moderated by Thile, Jarosz and Leventhal will delve into the connections forged between the artist and producer evident on her latest project, World on the Ground.

Additional new programming includes “Independent Control: The Power of Collaboration,” an inside look into how Americana industry professionals are empowering their independent artists to retain full creative control and the benefits of assembling a hand-picked team. Moderated by Jessica Nicholls (Metropolitan Groove Merchants), this discussion will include Blair Clark (Brooklyn Basement Records), Maria Ivey (IVPR) and Michelle Szeto (Paquin Entertainment Group).

In the streaming era, an abundance of digital resources can be found at the fingertips of industry and artist professionals, but how does one optimize those helpful tools? Led by Mike Fabio (New West Records), “Building a Streaming Strategy in 2020” rounds up Charles Alexander (Systemic), Margaret Hart (YouTube), Margaret Jacobi Lee (AMFM Management), Laura Ohls (Spotify) and Amy Wright (DittyTV) for a talk on developing real-world strategies that lead to increasing listenership and growing a solid fanbase.

Presented by Promises Behavioral Health, “The Show Must Go On: Musicians in Recovery” will find artists Phil Bogard and Jaime Wyatt in conversation with Shireen Janti (MusiCares) and Shane Ramer (That Sober Guy Podcast) about the road to recovery while offering how to find treatment and how others can take practical steps toward becoming a sober creator.

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Previously announced Thriving Roots programming includes intimate conversations between Brandi Carlile and Yola; Emmylou Harris and Ken Burns; and Jackson Browne and Mavis Staples. Rosanne Cash will bring together Ry Cooder, Angela Davis, Bonnie Raitt and Alice Randall for “Love and Vigilance,” a look at the history of protest music.

Moreover, RIAA Chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier and COO Michele Ballalynte will share an update on the music industry during “Record Setting” while looking at current trends and sharing their outlook. There will also be artist-friendly songwriting workshops and case studies like Mary Gauthier’s “Accessing the Universal in Your Songs: Mercy Now,” Taj Mahal’s “Music Is the Healing Voice” and an artist development breakdown with Black Pumas.

With over 50 panel discussions and more than 40 special events filled with music, Thriving Roots will bring the Americana music community together from across the world for three full days of engaging insight from its top industry professionals and leading artists.

Adding to the slate of artist conversations music fans won’t want to miss is Linda Ronstadt offering a behind-the-scenes look at Linda and the Mockingbirds, a new documentary that chronicles her 2019 journey with Jackson Browne and Mexican-American song and dance troupe Los Cenzontles to her grandfather’s hometown in Mexico, resulting in a tale of immigration, family and music. Moderated by esteemed journalist Randy Lewis, attendees will be able to watch the film screening and hear insight from the musical icon alongside the doc’s producer/director James Keach and Los Cenzontles founder Eugene Rodriguez.

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The Lumineers’ Jeremiah Fraites and Wesley Schultz will sit down with renowned filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan for an engaging discussion on the importance of retaining creative control of your art. In addition, Kathleen Edwards will speak with acclaimed Program Director Rita Houston (WFUV) about her new album Total Freedom, which marks her triumphant return to music after an eight-year hiatus from the business.

The common threads and differences of the Americana and country music worlds will be explored during “Ladies, Your Roots Are Showing,” presented by Change the Conversation. Moderated by CTC co-founder Tracy Gershon with freelance music journalist Marissa Moss, this panel session rounds up Brandy Clark, Tanya Tucker and Lee Ann Womack to share how they’ve been able to successfully navigate both worlds while maintaining their artistic integrity. They’ll also reveal the challenges and memorable moments they’ve experienced during their respective careers.

Reigning Legacy of Americana Award (co-presented by the Americana Music Association and the National Museum of African American Music) recipient Rhiannon Giddens joins NPR’s Ann Powers and the legendary Taj Mahal to discuss the theme of “Music is the Healing Voice.”

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Music buffs should also tune into a special virtual edition of “Songlines Music Meeting,” an Americanafest fan-favorite. Sean Coakley and Leslie Rouffé will once again invite listeners to hear mostly unreleased tunes and score them during the live session, leading to a discussion on how music programmers in various media formats select the songs they feature.

Aside from plenty of educational and networking opportunities, Thriving Roots attendees will have a chance to unwind and recharge with immersive virtual events and lifestyle breaks. Valerie June will walk folks through a guided meditation that explores how to center oneself using ancient teachings. Big Machine Label Group will spotlight The Cadillac Three, Sheryl Crow and Ray Wylie Hubbard with some must-see musical performances.

During “Aw Heck: An Oh Boy Music Break,” join the late John Prine’s own record label Oh Boy Records for a celebration of their talented roster which includes Tré Burt, Arlo McKinley, Dan Reeder and Kelsey Waldon. For “Come Hear NC,” experience the rich music of North Carolina featuring Hiss Golden Messenger, Jim Lauderdale, Mandolin Orange, Steep Canyon Rangers and more.

Pictured above in composite: Top Row (L-R): Judd Apatow, The Avett Brothers, Oteil Burbridge; Middle Row: Béla Fleck, Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz; Bottom Row: John Leventhal, Chris Thile, Bob Weir

June Carter Cash Connects the Classic Eras of Country Music

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You can’t tell the story of country music without June Carter Cash.

Her mother, Maybelle Carter, helped usher in the era of commercial country music through the 1927 Bristol Sessions as a member of The Carter Family. When that group disbanded, Maybelle eventually gathered her three daughters – June, Anita, and Helen – and started performing radio shows, with June playing autoharp and cracking jokes. (They even had Chet Atkins in their band.)

In time June teamed up with comedians Homer & Jethro for a corny duet of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” which charted for one week in 1949, and by 1950, the Carter Sisters debuted at the Opry just a month before June’s 21st birthday. The ensemble opened shows for Elvis Presley in 1956 and 1957. June also stepped out as a duet partner with her first husband, Carl Smith, on the eye-rolling (but quite hilarious) “Love Oh Crazy Love,” from 1954.

If your entry point to country music is the 1960s, June Carter is all over it. Still married to Smith, she shared the stage with Johnny Cash for the first time in 1961 as part of his touring package. Two years later Cash scored a major hit with “Ring of Fire,” which Carter co-wrote after seeing the phrase “love’s burning ring of fire” underlined in a book of Elizabethan poetry owned by her uncle, the Carter Family’s A.P. Carter.

By 1967, she and Cash landed a major hit (and soon their first Grammy) with “Jackson,” then got hitched in 1968. It’s important to remember June’s role on Cash’s landmark 1968 album, At Folsom Prison, performing a lively rendition of “Jackson” that got the captive audience hollering. They encored the performance for Cash’s 1969 album, At San Quentin.

June Carter Cash did pretty well for herself in the next decade, too, having her own 1971 country hit with a song she wrote, “A Good Man.” Johnny Cash produced her sole album of that era, 1975’s Appalachian Pride, even as they dug periodically into the folk canon for duet recordings and she won her second Grammy for the Cash/Carter duet, “If I Had a Hammer.”

She appeared regularly on the groundbreaking series The Johnny Cash Show, sang on Cash’s records, and almost always toured with him. Considered more of a comedian than a vocalist, June nonetheless charmed audiences around the world. In the rarely-seen 1979 performance of “Rabbit in the Log” below, she steals the spotlight with a banjo on her knee, cracking jokes and sharing her talent with a Century 21 real estate convention in Las Vegas.

Even listeners who came into country music in the ‘80s and ‘90s can find a tie to June. She harmonizes with her sisters, as well as Johnny Cash, on “Life’s Railway to Heaven” on Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s seminal 1989 album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two. Around this same time Carlene Carter, her daughter with Smith, emerged as a force in country and rock, and later paid homage to Mother Maybelle as well as June’s stepdaughter, Rosie Nix (from June’s second marriage), on the sweet song, “Me and the Wildwood Rose.” Carlene also wrote one of that era’s most enduring compositions, “Easy From Now On,” and charted multiple singles like “I Fell in Love” and “Every Little Thing.”

Meanwhile, Rosanne Cash (June’s stepdaughter) placed 11 No. 1 singles on the country chart, including the modern classic, “Seven Year Ache,” and she’s now a cornerstone of the Americana community. John Carter Cash, the only child born to Johnny and June, continues to carry on the brilliant legacy of his parents, through books, museum presentations, and reissues. He also produced Loretta Lynn’s past three albums at the Cash Cabin recording studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Johnny Cash, incidentally, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980. A.P. Carter joined the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, “Ring of Fire” co-writer Merle Kilgore followed in 1998, and Rosanne Cash entered in 2015. However, June Carter Cash is not yet a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame or the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame — omissions that deserve reconsideration. A spiritual and religious woman, she shared the stories of her life in two memoirs: 1979’s Among My Klediments and 1987’s From the Heart.

Always a natural on stage, June actually trained at the Actors Studio in New York City after being spotted by Elia Kazan at the Grand Ole Opry in 1955. In the late ‘90s, she drew upon those thespian skills with roles on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman and the acclaimed film The Apostle. Not to be overlooked is her heartbreaking role in Johnny Cash’s 2002 video, “Hurt,” where the viewers sees the devastation of an American music legend through her shocked and tearful eyes.

Carter remained a legendary presence in the final years of her life — and beyond. Her 1999 collection, Press On, won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album, while the Carter Family classic “Keep on the Sunny Side” resurfaced in a major way due to its inclusion on the O Brother, Where Are Thou? soundtrack in 2000, as sung by The Whites.

Following June’s death in 2003, she was awarded two more Grammys – one for her own performance of “Keep on the Sunny Side,” and the other for the folk album, Wildwood Flower. Nashville native Reese Witherspoon collected an Oscar for portraying her in the 2005 film, Walk the Line. A two-disc compilation released that same year surveyed her remarkable career. She is buried next to Johnny Cash in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Photo credit: Don Hunstein, Sony Music Archives

LISTEN: Rosanne Cash, “Time” (Tom Waits Tribute)

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Artist: Rosanne Cash
Hometown: New York City
Song: “Time” (Tom Waits tribute)
Album: Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits
Release Date: November 22, 2019
Label: Dualtone Records

In Their Words: “What an honor to sing a song like ‘Time.’ Many years ago, I recorded it just for myself, just for the pleasure of singing those words. Maybe I seeded the notion in the deepest part of the creative ether, the place from where these songs travel through Tom. For whatever reason and from whatever source, I’m just thrilled to be a part of this album. There is no other songwriter in the world, past or future, like Tom Waits.” — Rosanne Cash

Photo credit: Michael Lavine

Darin & Brooke Aldridge’s ‘Inner Journey’ Always Leads Back to Bluegrass

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The first time they ever sang together, Darin and Brooke Aldridge harmonized on “The Prettiest Flower,” an old hymn familiar to any Baptist church. They’ve scarcely stopped since then, with their latest album Inner Journey placing their stunning musical blend at its center on classics like “Teach Your Children Well” as well as songs written by the likes of Kasey Chambers, First Aid Kit, and Nanci Griffith.

“Brooke and I have always been trying to develop our sound. On this one, we stayed true to our bluegrass roots in some of the material,” Darin says. “We’re more of a vocal band. We can base things around Brooke’s singing and our duet style and harmonies, and we want our songs to send a message out that speaks to us.”

Versatile enough to sing a Louvin Brothers song one minute and a Bryan Adams song the next, the married couple commands a musical vocabulary that nonetheless lends itself to bluegrass. Darin Aldridge co-produced the project — their first for Rounder Records and sixth overall — with Mark Fain. And on the afternoon following this interview, Brooke Aldridge picked up her third consecutive IBMA female vocalist trophy, indicating that their audience is on this journey too.

BGS: This album begins with “I Found Love,” which has a tie to Earl Scruggs, right?

Darin: It does. I listened to that on a plane ride back from somewhere in New England and I had my iPod with me and the Earl Scruggs and Friends record was on there, with Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash singing it. I just thought, “Man, that would be a good grass-up number right there for us.” It’s a pretty good tempo and a duet and it speaks to what I was just saying – about what I want to get out there, in our life and in our history, and what we want to go forward with. Then I got to looking at the writing credits and it was Earl and Randy Scruggs and our buddy Vince. That was perfect. That’s all we needed.

Brooke: It’s one of those positive songs that we set out to do a long time ago when we first started making records. We talked about how we wanted to have a positive and uplifting message in most everything that we ever recorded. Some people have told us down through the years that we weren’t going to do very well doing that kind of thing. But I think that’s not the case at all! We’ve done very well sticking true to what we love and what we believe in, in each other.

But when you hear a good heartbreak song like “Every Time You Leave,” how do you respond?

Brooke: Oh, gosh, you just realize how true those words are. Because just like “Every Time You Leave,” we’ve all been through hard relationships or hard times in our families where we’ve lost loved ones or things haven’t worked out quite the way we wanted. I think that really speaks measures to me when we’re listening to songs like that and trying to decide what’s going to affect somebody out there listening.

Darin: The harmony speaks to us as well. We got to do that song with our buddy Jimmy Fortune. We got to tour a lot with Jimmy in the last couple of years and wanted to get a good song that represented that out there on the road for our singing together, and it just comes perfectly.

I want to ask you about “Your Lone Journey.” I learned that from a Doc Watson record.

Darin: Yeah, we did, too.

Why did you choose to include that song on here?

Darin: We got to visit Doc and become friends with him through MerleFest, through him being in North Carolina. A friend of mine took me up to visit him at his house about a year before he died. We’d been featured in Bluegrass Unlimited maybe a couple months before, and Rosa Lee brought the magazine to us when we got there. She said, “I’ve been reading about you all and glad that you all are here.”

She got to telling us the story of how she wrote that song. She was just sweeping in her kitchen, wasn’t she, Brooke?

Brooke: Yeah. And I think the words just came to her. She was sweeping and her and Doc arranged it, I guess, and made it theirs. What a great-sounding song.

Darin: Yeah, we sat there with them in the living room and talked about that, and he got to talking about Merle, and when he couldn’t wait to see him in heaven with his own eyes again. It is powerful, man. We just wanted to include that and it’s got an old-timey feel to it. Brooke’s got a really good mountain voice as well. It really fits.

Brooke: What Doc and Rosa Lee had brought to the music over the years and what they mean to us — we definitely wanted to include one by them. And it was funny because Doc kept saying that a lot of people title this song, “Your Long Journey.” And he’s like, “That’s not how Rosa Lee wrote it. It’s ‘Your Lone Journey.’” We made sure to get that right on this record.

Darin, have you been playing guitar your whole life?

Darin: I started probably 12, 13, something like that.

Never put it down?

Darin: Nah, I picked up the mandolin when I was 15 or 16. My brother and his baseball buddies had a little basement band. They’d all get around — he was a drummer – and pick on rock music and stuff like that, so I slowly learned that. I’d listen to the tunes after they’d quit playing and I’d start figuring them out, so I could sit in with them. Then the next week or two, I’d learned the tunes better than they had. Then their guitar player would ask me, “How’s that really go?”

Brooke: A little Van Halen? (laughs)

Darin: Yeah, all that stuff — ‘80s hair band stuff, I was big on [that]! Then I got to singing more in church as I grew and got into a gospel band through some buddies in the marching band. They went to church somewhere and said, “You play and sing — you got a banjo?” I actually had a banjo at the time but really hadn’t learned how to play it. I was like, “Oh, yeah, I can play banjo.” So I learned real quick, just so I could be in the band and start picking and singing. And I quickly moved to the mandolin after that. One of the guys could just play in a certain amount of keys, A and D maybe.

Ricky Skaggs has always been a huge influence and I wanted to do something I saw him do on the Opry, which was a quartet with a mandolin and guitar. Since we were singing in churches a lot, I wanted to do some of that material like Bill Monroe did. I recorded [the Opry] on a VHS tape, so I went upstairs with the mandolin and watched it. This song was in G, so I sat down and figured out the notes on the mandolin. I come down there to show it to him so he could play it, because I was the guitar player in the band. He said, “No, man, you just play mandolin.” [All laugh] So I just started playing mandolin from then on.

Brooke, did you start singing when you were around 12 or 13, too?

Brooke: Probably from the time I could talk, I started singing. My mom, my sisters and I used to sing in church. As I was getting a little bit older, my parents realized at an early age that I could pick up lyrics to a song just by hearing at one time. They started putting me in singing competitions. The school system where I was, in Avery County, used to have a yearly talent show. It would start out in the elementary schools, and if you placed first, second, or third you went onto the county-wide talent show and got to showcase your talent in front of everybody.

Those kinds of things, and doing community events and competitions all throughout my childhood, really prepared me for loving this more so when I got to adulthood. And so it’s been a neat journey. After Darin and I met, I had goals and dreams, of course, just like everybody in the music business does. We still talk about how we never imagined we’d get to do some of this stuff we’ve gotten to do. It’s been really cool to see those things become reality.

What are you looking forward to the most with this record coming out?

Darin: It’s been a few years since we put one out. I think we’ve grown a lot in those two years, and everything that’s followed, with what we’ve been doing, recording, trying to say as artists. We have grown maturely, too, in our music. And I think this record reflects that.

Brooke: I think that’s why we chose the title that we did, Inner Journey, because as kids, you imagine or dream about things that you can be when you grow up. And then, when you come into adulthood, you stop and think about where you came from, and what you’ve gotten to do, and if your heart really followed that path from a child to now. And I feel like ours definitely has. It’s been our inner journey. God has put us exactly where we needed to be at that exact moment.

 

BGS Presents 30 Years of ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two’ at Americanafest

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What started as a music video concept for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band evolved into a 1989 full-length film documenting the all-star recording sessions for Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band co-founder Jeff Hanna will present a rare screening of clips from The Making of Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Volume Two at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on September 11 at 11 a.m., during AmericanaFest.

Hanna will be joined by bluegrass virtuoso Sam Bush, who appears in the film and on the album with New Grass Revival. Craig Shelburne, managing editor of the Bluegrass Situation, will moderate.

Produced by Joanne Gardner Lowell and Rosanne Cash, the film captures the band in the studio recording their groundbreaking project. Select clips will show performances by Johnny and June Carter Cash; Jerry Douglas; Emmylou Harris; Bruce Hornsby; Jimmy Martin; New Grass Revival; John Prine; Earl Scruggs; Randy Scruggs; Ricky Skaggs; and others. Will the Circle be Unbroken, Volume Two won three Grammy Awards as well as the 1989 CMA award for the Album of the Year.

Three decades after its release, Joanne Gardner Lowell offered some keen perspective on the film through an email interview with the Bluegrass Situation.

BGS: What was it about the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and this project that made it a compelling film subject for you?

JGL: ACME Pictures was contracted to make a video for the title track. This is pretty common. We signed the contract and when I asked what day during the multi-week schedule this song would be done, Jeff said, “All of them.” When I realized we would need to go to the studio every day for weeks to get this song, it seemed obvious we should shoot the whole experience — so we did.

How would you describe the mood, or the vibe, in the room during these sessions?

It was joyful in the studio. Each day the musicians came so ready to create and collaborate. We were honored to be in the room with it all. Being live made everyone really stay on top of their game. It felt like a family reunion on many days, and there was always a lot of humor and laughter. Our primary director, Bill Pope, captured so much of the mood with his amazing camera work.

It was also shot during the holiday season, so people were in a happy mood. Emmylou brought a handmade Christmas ornament you can see hanging in some of the shots. And my partner Rosanne Cash came into the studio with her newborn Carrie. I don’t think she was even two weeks old. Rose handed her to me and I held her tight while running sound for the track Rose and John Hiatt did together. Carrie never made a peep!

It was crucial to capture the acoustic nature of these sessions. What was your audio setup like?

I had a simple Nagra tape recorder just to have an edit track to work from and to record interviews. I had a single mic that I would place in the room to catch all the conversation, as some of that was obviously not recorded for the album and we wanted it for the film. Although, during our interview with Emmylou Harris, the band loved what she said so much that those comments ended up on the album.

Do you remember any particularly fun encounters with the legendary musicians in the film?

We caught some great moments and they’re in the film. The ending of a fast-paced “Valley Road” with Bruce Hornsby was a favorite. The band all stops for a second to look at each other — then they realize they got it and they all start shouting and cheering.

After Jimmy Martin’s session one day, he went out for some cocktails and came back into the studio while Ricky Skaggs was working. We captured Jimmy (feeling no pain and wearing a coonskin cap) as he and Ricky ripped into a spontaneous version of “The Old Crossroads.”

This film was Mr. Acuff’s last filmed appearance and that was special. I have to say — each time the song “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” was performed, it was magic. Every single time.

The Dirt Band did a masterful job of keeping things upbeat and fun for everyone. Every one of them was so engaged in each song — and brought individual songs or artists to the project. They were like marathon runners, giving their all each day and then coming back the next day to do it again.

What were some of the hurdles you faced in the film’s creation and release?

The very existence of this film was due to a California record company exec telling me that we would be in breach of contract if we didn’t deliver this video for the agreed-upon budget. When I explained this “song” was going to require us to shoot for several weeks, this delightful woman didn’t seem to care. I think it was meant to be — we HAD to make it work.

Bill couldn’t figure out how to light the dimly lit studio without a pile of light stands in every shot — and in everyone’s way. So, he created a giant light box and hung it from the ceiling. You don’t see a single light stand.

We didn’t have any money to sync up the video with electronic slates or fancy editing gear. I moved a cuts only 3/4″ video editing system into my office and had to sync the shots up by eye more than once… if we didn’t have an audio track running. Watching Mark O’Connor’s fingers or Earl Scruggs’ fingers to make sure you lock each note made for some very long nights. Those fingers were flying!

Rosanne and I sold 50 percent of the film rights to a company who released it on home video. Unbeknownst to us, the entire archive of that company was acquired by another company that isn’t interested in letting us buy the remaining rights, so we remain in limbo.

What do you hope a modern viewer will experience when watching these clips 30 years later?

This is a piece of living history. The first Circle album influenced every single musician I know. Watching the creation of the second — especially thirty years on — reminds you what kind of power music has.

It makes me sad to count off how many artists from this project are gone now: Johnny Cash, all of the Carter Sisters, Earl and Randy Scruggs, Vassar Clements, Chet Atkins, Levon Helm, John Denver, Roy Acuff, and dear Roy Huskey, Jr. In this world of instant technology, I think this 30-year-old film puts the viewer right into the studio for a front row seat at this amazing recording. I’m very proud of it.

John Paul White Captures the Countrypolitan Era

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John Paul White, who rose to prominence as half of The Civil Wars, has just delivered his most fully-realized solo set, The Hurting Kind. When he couldn’t find a modern album that gave him the feeling of his favorite countrypolitan recordings of the ‘50s and ‘60s (think Patsy Cline and early Roy Orbison), White set out to make an album that would capture the aesthetic of that era without going full-on retro. He wrote with some legendary songwriters of those decades still working in Nashville, including Country Music Hall of Fame members Bill Anderson and Bobby Braddock. One of those Braddock collaborations, “This Isn’t Gonna End Well,” is included here as a duet with Lee Ann Womack.

Recorded at his own Sun Drop Sound studio in Florence, Alabama, with producer Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes) behind the console, The Hurting Kind finds John Paul White going for broke as a vocalist, flexing his creative muscle as a country songwriter, and speaking his mind about what it means to live and work in Alabama in 2019.

BGS: When you were growing up, your father’s record collection contained a lot of classic country albums, but you didn’t gravitate towards those sounds back then?

White: When I was growing up, I hated those records. It was not my cup of tea. I was more of a rock ‘n’ roll guy. I was listening to Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin and AC/DC — stuff like that that. When I got to college I started listening to Steve Earle and Rosanne Cash and Emmylou Harris. I realized the reason I was digging those records so much is because of all those country records I grew up with. That’s what they grew up with, too, so we had a common DNA. So, I dug back into all those records that I knew by heart and realized how much I loved them. They influenced my decisions musically all the time whether I knew it or not. I finally just fully embraced it.

Over the last few years, you’ve been drawn to music from the countrypolitan era. Why did you want to tap into that for The Hurting Kind?

I think it was just a huge hole in that part of my discography that I was listening to. I was looking for that stuff everywhere. I’d worn those records out, and I knew them backwards and forwards. I was trying to find something in a modern setting that was doing that thing, because that’s just what I craved and what I wanted to listen to.

I then went out and made the record that I was looking for. I decided, “Well, I’m going to find the guys that wrote a lot of those songs.” So I got to write with Whisperin’ Bill Anderson and Bobby Braddock for this album. I got the seal of approval from them that I was on the right track. That’s huge.

You wanted to capture that countrypolitan aesthetic, but you didn’t want The Hurting Kind to sound retro. How did you achieve that?

I didn’t actively do anything to keep it from sounding retro. I wanted it to sound like a modern record, but with those same sensibilities of the string arrangements, vocal harmonies and that country-jazz Chet Atkins-type guitar style. But I wanted to capture it in the way you capture sounds today and not feel like you have to use all old ribbon mics and old RCA microphones that they were forced to use. We have lots more tools at our disposal. If we had finished this record and were just following our guts and it sounded like an old record, then so be it. But I’m glad it sounds like its own thing.

The aesthetic I was going for was really captured in the songwriting process. I arranged all these songs in my head the way that I thought they should sound, and the way they should progress dynamically, before I ever walked into the studio.

“You Lost Me” is such a great cheating song, and one of the most devastating on an album full of heartbreak songs. How are you so good at writing these sad songs?

I’m not meant to write songs to cheer you up. I’d fail miserably because they don’t move me. They don’t make me feel something. My songs aren’t necessarily sad as much as they’ll stir up an emotion. It might be longing or it might be love, but at an angle. Like, “I love you and you’re so horrible for me.” That’s more interesting to me, ‘cause just the straight up love songs, it’s been done. I come at it from a completely different perspective.

Doomed love is also the topic of “This Isn’t Gonna End Well,” a duet with Lee Ann Womack. Why was she the right fit for that song?

I needed a timeless voice — a voice that could straddle genre, but also, I won’t lie, I wanted a voice that would be recognizable. Lee Ann was every one of those boxes checked. She’s really made strides towards creating true, traditional music and sort of separating herself from the typical Music Row stuff. We’ve known each other for a while and have talked about collaborating and never have. I knew, because of Bobby writing it with me, I could be confident enough to walk in the room and ask her out, as it were. She said yes.

You’re singing with a lot of emotion and vulnerability on this album, which isn’t common for a man to do in 2019. Why is that?

Because it’s ain’t cool, I guess. I love Roy Orbison and Marty Robbins — the guys that just put their heart on their sleeve and are not afraid of the drama and bowl you over with it. They make sure you know exactly what they’re feeling with those big notes and the trills and stuff. I think ever since Nirvana came along, so many wonderful things about that whole movement, but it also became so much shoe-gazing. That’s fine, and I like some of that music, but what I really like is a guy up front with confidence putting it all out there and letting you know exactly how he feels and not giving a shit what you think about it.

It’s not easy to pull that singing style off, either. Your voice has really evolved on this album.

I appreciate you saying that. I think it was a confidence thing, too. I think it was a conscious decision to step forward and be counted and give people what I have and not hold back. Not give them 80 or 90 percent. I honestly feel like I’m singing better now than I ever have. I feel like every time I get in front of a microphone or get onstage or am in the studio, I figure something out. I tweak something that makes it a little less hard, a little more comfortable or easier to project — a little better tone, and that’s exciting.

Being an Alabama native like yourself, I’ve found a lot of meaning in the album’s opening song, “The Good Old Days,” with the news coming out of the Alabama state legislature. You’re now performing that song all across the country and overseas and in some ways representing the state to your audience. I have to say, it’s complicated to be from Alabama these days.

It most certainly is. I get it left and right. I’m proud to be known as an Alabamian. I don’t take that lightly. I don’t tend to want to be the preachy guy around here, because I’ve never gravitated towards those sorts of people anyway. The whole proselytizing thing of, “This is what you should believe and this is what you should not believe” does not sit well with me. But at some point around here, it just gets to a fever pitch to where you can’t keep your mouth shut.

That song was definitely a big middle finger to the idea of “Making America Great Again,” because for most people in this country that aren’t white, straight dudes, it wasn’t great. It hasn’t been great. I’m trying every day to teach my children about tolerance and compassion and making sure they know this country was really, really hard on a lot of people that didn’t fit what people considered the norm.

I don’t ever want to see that shit happen again. I don’t want it on their watch. I want to make sure they’ve got their eyes open and that they change things and don’t ever say we should have it back like it used to be. No. I don’t want that for a minute. I want it like it says in the song, “Our best days are in front of us.” I have to believe in that. There are days when I wonder, but I have to have that hope.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Americana Honors & Awards 2019 Nominees Revealed

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Lori McKenna, John Prine, The War and Treaty, and Yola are among the artists nominated in multiple categories for the 18th annual Americana Honors & Awards, to be held on September 11 in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Dave Cobb produced three of the four albums in the Album of the Year category. In addition, Rhiannon Gidden received nominations for Artist of the Year, while her ensemble Our Native Daughters earned a Duo/Group of the Year nod.

A full list of categories and nominees for the Americana Music Association’s 18th annual Americana Honors & Awards is below:

ALBUM OF THE YEAR:
To the Sunset, Amanda Shires, produced by Dave Cobb
The Tree, Lori McKenna, produced by Dave Cobb
The Tree of Forgiveness, John Prine, produced by Dave Cobb
Walk Through Fire, Yola, produced by Dan Auerbach

ARTIST OF THE YEAR:
Brandi Carlile
Rhiannon Giddens
Kacey Musgraves
Mavis Staples

DUO/GROUP OF THE YEAR:
I’m With Her
Our Native Daughters
Tedeschi Trucks Band
The War and Treaty

EMERGING ACT OF THE YEAR:
Jade Bird
J.S. Ondara
Erin Rae
The War and Treaty
Yola

INSTRUMENTALIST OF THE YEAR:
Chris Eldridge
Eamon McLoughlin
Chris Powell
Michael Rinne

SONG OF THE YEAR:
“By Degrees,” Mark Erelli, Rosanne Cash, Sheryl Crow, Lori McKenna, Anais Mitchell & Josh Ritter, written by Mark Erelli
“Mockingbird,” Ruston Kelly, written by Ruston Kelly
“People Get Old,” Lori McKenna, written by Lori McKenna
“Summer’s End,” John Prine, written by Pat McLaughlin and John Prine

In addition, the Americana Music Association honors distinguished members of the music community with six member-voted annual awards and with Lifetime Achievement Awards, which will be announced leading up to the event. The Milk Carton Kids and Mavis Staples unveiled this year’s nominations in Nashville.

The winners of each category will be announced during the Americana Honors & Awards at the historic Ryman Auditorium. Americanafest runs from Sept. 10-15. Tickets for the Americana Honors & Awards are currently only available for purchase by Americanafest conference registrants.

Photo credit for John Prine: Danny Clinch

Rosanne Cash Brings Urgency, Courage to ‘She Remembers Everything’ (2 of 2)

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On her new album, She Remembers Everything, Rosanne Cash keeps watching the clock. It’s an album about time slipping away, about the bittersweet realization that you have more time behind you than ahead. “It just wasn’t long enough,” she sings on the hymn-like “Everyone But Me.” “Still it seems too long.” And on “Many Miles to Go” she puts her affairs in order, itemizing the artifacts and inside jokes she shares with John Leventhal, her frequent collaborator, longtime producer, and husband of twenty-three years. With its rambling, almost anxious upbeat tempo, the song celebrates their relationship more than it commiserates its inevitable end: “There aren’t many miles to go and just one promise left to keep.”

However, she didn’t record that song with Leventhal, who produced roughly half the tracks on She Remembers Everything. He was, she says, shy about the song. Instead Cash traveled about as far from her home as she could, all the way from Manhattan to Portland, Oregon, to record with the album’s other producer, Tucker Martine. By disrupting her creative process, she says, “It did break something open in me.”

(Editor’s Note: Read Part 1 of the Bluegrass Situation’s interview with Rosanne Cash here.)

You’ve mentioned that these songs are very autobiographical. How does your relationship with these personal songs change over time? What is it like to revisit them onstage?

I played some of these songs for the first time just recently, and it felt good. I felt very relaxed with them. You know how the truth can unsettle you and scare you, but the truth can also allow you to let your guard down and relax? That’s how I felt. But it’s different every night. Every audience is going to bring something different to what they hear, and hopefully they will bring their own lives to it. They’re not coming to hear about my feelings or about my life. They’re coming to experience their own lives and their own feelings. They’re coming to have things reflected back to them that will be revealing or inspiring or whatever.

That’s the function of art. It’s that kind of service industry. We help you access your life and feelings. It’s not about narcissism. It’s not about me. That takes the fear out of it. These aren’t diaries; they’re songs. There’s craft that went into them. There’s music. There’s a beat and a melody. So I’m not going to be up there naked.

That leads me to another song I wanted to ask about, “Not Many Miles to Go,” which almost sounds like a letter you wrote to your husband.

I have a very tender feeling about that song because I really did write it for John — and to John. When you’re in a long-term relationship, it’s inevitable that one of you is going to leave the other. It’s sad, but it’s worth acknowledging the artifacts of your life together, even if it’s just a Telecaster. So you know when we’re gone, that Telecaster will still be here. Our son will probably play it. I wanted to document those things for us.

I like the idea we keep the beat for each other.

That’s a beautiful idea, and a close couple will do that for each other. When I wrote that line, I was thinking about the actual tempo when I play rhythm guitar for him. We have to remind each other to stay in time. I’ll tell him he’s too slow, or he’ll tell me my timing is off. He used to complain about my meter a lot, and then we did a gig with some other people a few years ago. When he came offstage, John said, “I’m never complaining about your timing again!”

How does he feel about the song? It’s really an intimate conversation in front of the audience.

I think John felt a little shyer about it than I did, but I think he’s gotten past that. And his guitar solo just kills me, especially that real Telecaster sound that he pulls off. It sounds like Clarence White or James Burton. When I wrote the song, it had more of a folk vibe, and then Tucker took it to this really intense place with a lot of energy to the arrangement. That was a bit of genius on Tucker’s part. It’s funny, I couldn’t have done that song with John. I had to do it with Tucker, and then we flew John’s solo into the track.

How did you end up working with Tucker Martine?

I’m a huge Decemberists fan, and he works with them. Then I heard the case/lang/veirs record he produced and I just loved it so much. I’d been thinking that I wanted to break away from John a little bit, because I felt I’d grown so dependent on him. He has very forceful opinions and it’s easy for me to acquiesce to his sensibilities because he’s such a gifted musician. I started thinking, you know, I need to be making those decisions, even if the choices are “wrong.” I need to do that. I called Tucker out of the blue and asked if he’d be interested in working with me. I truly didn’t know what he would say. Maybe I wasn’t his kind of thing.

But he said he’d love to and it was a matter of getting our schedules together. I was nervous, he was nervous — we didn’t know how it was going to work out. But it was this incredible experience, start to finish. I teared up many times, feeling so grateful to be working with him. It did break something open in me. After doing five tracks with Tucker, I came back to work with John and I felt fresh. We wrote some of the best songs I think we’ve ever written, like “Crossing to Jerusalem” and “Everyone But Me.” I had most of the lyrics for “The Undiscovered Country” and he wrote the music for it.

And you got The Decemberists frontman, Colin Meloy, on the record, too.

That was through Tucker. I was really shy about asking him and one day I just asked Tucker if he thought Colin would sing on the record. He thought he might, so he called him and Colin came down to sing on “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For.” While he was there, we snookered him into singing on “Rabbit Hole.”

Overall, on these songs, I get the sense of time running out. This seems to be an album about realizing that time is short and that creates a sense of urgency.

Well, time is running out. It’s an hourglass. It’s less than half-full now, and I feel an urgency about saying whatever else I have left to say. It’s really quite emotional to me. The regrets I have at the end of my life — except for the regrets I have about hurting anyone or mistakes I made as a mother — are going to be about what I didn’t say in my work, in my life. What I held back. So there is some urgency to get that out there, but I feel more liberated than ever because now my thinking is, what’s the point of not doing it or not saying it? This is the life I’ve chosen, to live in a public sphere and to be in this service industry of songwriting and performing. I don’t want to hedge my bets anymore.

Most people would rather not think about the time they have left and what to do with it. I know I’m guilty of that a lot of the time.

It’s painful, so that’s what we do: We push away what we don’t want to consider. Buddhists say death is certain, so how will you live? We push out the first part, and then we push out the second part to the extent that we default on our choices every day. We put the blinders on and think we have forever. I do not exempt myself from that. I do it, too. I say, “I’m going to wait to do that.” No. Can’t do it anymore.

When I heard Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker, that gave me a little more courage. Even the title of that Paul McCartney album from a few years ago, Memory Almost Full, struck me too. Paul and Leonard are obviously older than me, but they were signposts in that direction. I notice those things when they’re out in the world. I notice those pieces of poetry and music. I find myself responding to it more and feeling somewhat comforted by the fact that other people my age are doing it as well.

Photo of Rosanne Cash: Michael Lavine
Illustration: Zachary Johnson