Tag: Rounder Records

Artist of the Month: Sarah Jarosz

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The songs of Sarah Jarosz have always been snapshots. Each, whether literally or obliquely, is a tableau – a window into a moment in time, an attempt to capture but never contain the intangible present. Whether demonstrable story songs or abstract, poetic text paintings, Jarosz’s catalog of material shows a ubiquitous skill – a writerly athleticism – for ushering her listeners into the scenes she inhabits or constructs. From her earliest release to her newest, Polaroid Lovers (out January 26 on Rounder Records), Jarosz’s point of view has been confident, relatable, and inviting.

Simultaneously, the expansive body of work she’s produced since her 2009 Sugar Hill debut, Song Up in Her Head, tells a tale as much of uncertainty as of skill and finesse and, within that uncertainty, a commitment to relishing the journey – rather than rushing toward an arbitrary destination.

A teenager when she first gained national notoriety, Jarosz was often compared to her mentor-peer-friend Chris Thile and her contemporary, Sierra Hull. While child bluegrass, Americana, and string band stars – proverbial and oft-mythologized prodigies – have a much more gentle route to adulthood than say, their Hollywood counterparts, it’s still a time hallmarked by experimentation, growing pains, exploration, and a prerequisite amount of floundering. Musically, Jarosz may have “floundered” a bit less than say, Hull or Thile or any kid whose teen years may have had a recorded, audio history. Nevertheless, you can trace a through line of angst, introspection, and finding oneself underlying the precocious self confidence of her early albums.

By the time Jarosz reached 2013’s Build Me Up From Bones, which gained her her first Best Folk Album Grammy nomination, that uncertainty was no longer an undertone, but a focal point in her music. On both Bones and the follow up full-length, Undercurrent, which then won the Grammy for Best Folk Album, Jarosz picks up and runs with those musical expectations, whether overt or projected. She plays with the dichotomy between the public nature of her growing up a heart-on-her-sleeve songwriter and bluegrass picker and the individual, private nature of seeking and finding her own agency within those paradigms. She purposefully built broad and appealing, commercial songs that are both assured in their sincerity and unconcerned with virtuosity or authenticity for their own sakes. She knows exactly what she’s doing, even – if not especially – when she does not.

Needless to say, the following projects World On The Ground and Blue Heron Suite feel like they are both indelible home bases built on the steady foundation of the albums that led to them. Each are distillations of Jarosz’s musical commitment to bringing her audience inside the turmoil and delight, growth and doubt, beauty and bittersweetness of life and song. Jarosz had arrived at her destination, hadn’t she? In her beloved New York City, a Grammy winning artist, picker, and songwriter who knows who she is and why she does what she does.

Ah, but remember, it’s the journey Sarah Jarosz is after and not the destination. Polaroid Lovers is a lens into the new growing pains, the new uncertainty, the new uprooting and, eventually, re-rooting Jarosz finds herself in the middle of now. She recently moved to Nashville, building a life with her new husband, bassist Jeff Picker. Polaroid Lovers, like its predecessors, brings the listener into how living in Nashville has reshaped Jarosz’s songwriting and creative and recording processes.

It may not sound like a Music Row album – it sounds, as all of her work does, exactly like Sarah Jarosz. Whatever that sounds like! – but it’s a collection that has the Row tangled among its roots and certainly in the water. Polaroid Lovers was recorded at Sound Emporium and produced by Daniel Tashian, plus it has many a credited co-writer, a bit of a departure for the songwriter who, besides in her work with Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins in I’m With Her, rarely co-writes material for her own albums, preferring to pen most lyrics and tunes herself. Music Row and Americana hit writers like Ruston Kelly, Natalie Hemby, Jon Randall, Gordie Sampson, Tashian, and others each lent their own fingerprints and touches to this set of song snapshots.

Does Polaroid Lovers sound new? Does it sound like Nashville? Yes, it certainly does, but it doesn’t sound instant or ready-made either, and it always sounds like quintessential Jarosz. This is evidenced nowhere on the record as strongly as one of its lead singles, “Columbus & 89th.” Among more than a few masterworks in Jarosz’s catalog that center on her beloved, transplanted (former) hometown, New York City, “Columbus & 89th” is perhaps the best example of the form. Wistful and hopeful, with a tinge of bittersweetness from the wisdom that comes with age, it paints such a specific picture – of a literal street corner – but, as in all of her snapshots, this polaroid is not confining or finite, it’s resplendent and limitless. Following the photography metaphor one step further, it’s not difficult to see how the perspective Jarosz has gained by moving away from the city might have enabled her to render such a picture perfect homage to New York.

This is a vibrant, animated collection of Polaroid Lovers. This is Sarah Jarosz at her best– for now.

Watch for our Artist of the Month interview feature with Jarosz to come later this month, plus we’ll do a catalog deep dive and showcase plenty more content pulled from the BGS archives. For now, enjoy our Essential Sarah Jarosz Playlist:

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

BGS Class of 2023: Reading Recommendations

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

I call January my reading month. To be clear, I do of course still scan words and decipher syntax throughout the remaining 11 months that fill the calendar, but I always seem to start and finish the most books in the first month of the year. I don’t think it’s because I have a romantic notion of what my new self will be like in this new year – always reading and writing more or doing xyz to “better” myself (though if I’m being honest, that’s probably part of it). Rather, I think it’s more so that in the hangover of the holidays, when the gatherings are over, and there are months of dreary winter to look forward to, I take comfort in the ability to transport myself to another time or place, or simply get lost in someone’s thoughts for hours at a time. 

This community, as much as any, understands the import of passing stories on – allowing a new generation to take the torch and keep honored traditions burning while evolving its culture and extinguishing the shameful parts of its priors. That’s why we at BGS compile notable books that tell the stories by or about these genres’ songs and songwriters and the scenes, places, and events that made them. 

Maybe you’re like me, looking for ideas of books to get lost in this winter, or maybe you are looking for a way to turn the page on the calendar and become your most “badass self” (we’ve got a book for that). You might be here looking for a last minute gift idea for that special music-loving person in your life. In all those cases, you’ve come to the right place! 

We’ve got a book by an esteemed songwriter who waxes poetic on the art form he loves. We’ve got titles about how certain times in certain places scenes have blossomed and sub-genres formed so palpable that listeners can identify a song by its roots. We’ve got biographies of famous musicians, and some of whom have looked back at their own lives and careers. Find all that and more in our list of reading recommendations, organized by categories below: 

Sense of Place

Night Train to Nashville: The Greatest Untold Story of Music City, Paula Blackman

Drawing on stories from her grandfather, E. Gab Blackman, a 30-year radio executive at WLAC, Paula Blackman shares the story of how the Nashville radio station became a pioneering source for Black rhythm and blues music in the 1940s and ‘50s. Seeing the opportunity to reach a more diverse audience – not, as Paula notes, to be a “white savior” – Gab teamed up with disc jockey Gene Nobles to play “race records.” In Night Train, Blackman also profiles William Sousa “Sou” Bridgeforth, the owner of New Era Club, a prominent Black nightclub in Nashville that blossomed as a result of the new artists being spun on WLAC airwaves, many of whom were introduced to Gab by Sou. Fitting that the story of Nashville, in the time leading up to the civil rights era, is told through the music played on the AM radio speakers throughout the city. 

This Must Be the Place: Music, Community and Vanished Spaces in New York City, Jesse Rifkin

Country and Midwestern: Chicago in the History of Country Music and the Folk Revival, Mark Guarino

In Their Own Words

World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music, Jeff Tweedy

Wilco frontman and New York Times bestselling author Jeff Tweedy follows up on Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) and How To Write One Song with a gushing love letter to songs. In it, Tweedy dedicates chapters to many (but clearly not close to all) of the songs that have resonated deeply with him for one reason or another. From Bob Dylan to Billie Eilish, from The Clash to ABBA, Tweedy sheds any and all pretense of what might be considered “cool” in his selections. 

Wayward: Just Another Life to Live, Vashti Bunyan

In Wayward, Vashti Bunyan, an English singer-songwriter, recounts her early career in the mid ’60s leading to her debut release, Just Another Diamond Day, in 1970. Disillusioned by its lack of success (at the time) and the fact that her songs, life, and career were all dictated by men, she left the music industry entirely before re-emerging in the early 2000s. Pick this up for the story of what happened in between, how she reclaimed her life, and is taking her second act in music on her own terms. 

Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir, Lucinda Williams

3-time Grammy award-winning songwriter and now New York Times best-selling author, Lucinda Williams, recounts her upbringing and bumpy ride to fame. Once getting feedback from a record company who said her music was “too country for rock and too rock for country,” Williams stayed the course, and became one of the greatest and most influential songwriters of our time.

On Banjo: Recollections, Licks and Solos, Ben Eldridge

Born in Richmond, VA, Ben Eldridge fell in love with roots music watching WRVA’s Old Dominion Barn Dance. In this memoir-meets-tablature book, he recalls his path from upbringing to moving to D.C. to become a mathematician, and ultimately going from jam sessions to forming a group that would change bluegrass henceforth – the Seldom Scene. This conversational book with pictures that set the scenes even comes with licks and transcriptions for banjo playing fans. 

TransElectric: My Life as a Cosmic Rock Star, Cidny Bullens

This book starts with a bang! And I’m not even talking about the foreword from Elton John. As just a 24-year-old Cidny (then referred to as Cindy) had shown up uninvited to a live recording session for Dr. John at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood, and eventually found himself starting an impromptu jam with Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, and Joe Cocker. This retrospective traces his arc from a backing vocal career in the drug-fueled ’70s for the likes of Elton John and Rod Stewart, and having trouble finding his footing as a solo artist who had expectations of how a woman could behave and perform. Bullens settled into the life of a typical suburban mom, experienced a personal tragedy, and eventually found his true voice. 

Nashville City Blues: My Journey as an American Songwriter, James Talley

Biographies & Histories

Brothers and Sisters: The Allman Brothers Band and the Inside Story of the Album That Defined the ’70s 

George Harrison: The Reluctant Beatle, Philip Norman

Oh, Didn’t They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music, David Menconi

Oh Didn’t They Ramble chronicles the comprehensive history of the quintessential folk record label for the last 50-plus years. With extensive access to Rounder artists, staff, and founders Ken Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy, and Bill Nowlin, BGS contributor David Menconi is able to tell Rounder’s story, from its humble but audacious and idealistic beginnings to becoming one of the most influential record labels in the history of recorded music. 

The Downhome Sound: Diversity and Politics in Americana Music, Mandi Bates Bailey

How-Tos

Light Beams: A Workbook for Being Your Badass Self, Valerie June

Like I mentioned, this workbook/journal might be coming just at the right time as you resolve to become your most “badass self.” But even if you’re reading this well into the new year, then there’s no time like the present! Published on Jack White’s Third Man Books, Valerie June’s Light Beams offers its readers “contracts and agreements, self-healing wishes and spells, and maps and prescriptions in exercises” on a journey to self-love and waking up with a promise of choosing kindness and shining like a “badass.”

Y’all Eat Yet?: Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin’ Kitchen, Miranda Lambert

How To Produce A Record: A Player’s Philosophy For Making A Great Recordings, Pete Anderson

Other

Western Chill, Robert Earl Keen

As a set that features a double sleeve album, a DVD with music videos for every song, a graphic, illustrated novel that explains the writing process, and a songbook with lyrics, notes, and chords so the purchaser can play along, this title certainly belongs in a category of its own. 

 

LISTEN: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, “High and Lonesome”

Posted on by Editor

Artists: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Song: “High and Lonesome” (written by Robert Plant and T Bone Burnett)
Album: Raise the Roof
Release Date: November 19, 2021
Label: Rounder Records

In Their Words: “It’s such a far cry from everything I’ve done before. I love the whole kaleidoscope of music that I’ve explored, but this is a place where you can think within the song, you can decide how to bring home an emotion. It’s another blend that we’ve got, and long may we have more of them.” — Robert Plant

“One of my favorite parts of this is the songs and songwriters that I had never heard of. Working with Robert, and with T Bone, is always a great education in music history.” — Alison Krauss

Editor’s Note: Plant and Krauss’ 2007 album, Raising Sand, won six Grammy Awards. Like its predecessor, Raise the Roof was produced by T Bone Burnett, and features twelve new recordings of songs by legends and unsung heroes such as Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, Geeshie Wiley, Bert Jansch, and more. The collection also includes “Can’t Let Go,” written by Randy Weeks and first recorded by Lucinda Williams.

Photo credit: David McClister

Billy Strings and Del McCoury Team Up for “Midnight on the Stormy Deep”

Posted on by Editor

Simple and strong, this live performance of “Midnight on the Stormy Deep” encapsulates so much of what we love about bluegrass. A style-defining voice and top-shelf front man, Del McCoury sings tenor and strums his signature rhythm guitar on the tune as Billy Strings leads from behind a mandolin — a lesser-known instrument for the fiery flatpicker whose name and music have become synonymous with modern bluegrass.

A timeless bluegrass standard, McCoury and Strings’ fresh take on “Midnight on the Stormy Deep” is reverent and quietly respectful of the music’s traditions. The breaks and fills are baked into the sound of bluegrass while the forward, bright vocal tones of the two friends could be the textbook definition of traditional harmonies. Some might say that McCoury and Strings could hardly be any more different as artists, but their mutual respect and appreciation is evident in this figurative, bluegrass passing of the baton. Don’t miss their in-studio performance of “Midnight on the Stormy Deep.”

Photo courtesy of Rounder Records

With These Women Inducted Into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, Who Should Be Next?

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

For the first time in the thirty year history of the International Bluegrass Music Association a class of Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame inductees includes a woman in every act. The Hall of Fame, helmed by the IBMA and housed inside the Bluegrass Music Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky, infamously lacks women. Before this year’s class it included ten women, total, and only one woman — Louise Scruggs — had ever been inducted as an individual. All others had been inducted as members of bands, duos, or organizations. 

This year Alison Krauss and Lynn Morris join the rarest rank of individual female inductees, alongside influential manager Louise Scruggs. The Stonemans — including Patti, Donna, and Roni — join the likes of songwriter Dixie Hall, who was inducted with her husband, Tom T.; Polly, Miggie, and Janis of the Lewis Family; Marion Leighton Levy of the Rounder Records founders; Sara and Maybelle of the Carter Family; and Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard.

To mark the occasion, we’re celebrating women in bluegrass who certainly deserve induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, beginning with this year’s inductees. The point is, there is no dearth of women in bluegrass, from way back in its earliest days before the genre even had a name to the big-tent-bluegrass present, and many of whom are more than qualified for inclusion in this hall of honor — as innovators, ambassadors, creators, pickers, and forebears, all.

Alison Krauss 

Arguably the most well-known bluegrass musician to achieve mainstream success, Alison Krauss is a no-brainer addition to the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame. With her stellar collaborations — with Robert Plant, James Taylor, T Bone Burnett, and so many others — her bluegrass bona fides, her technical prowess as a fiddler, her crystalline and influential vocals, and her unparalleled skill for song interpretation she’s the perfect multi-hyphenate bluegrasser to demonstrate to veteran fans or the uninitiated passers-by what the Hall of Fame is all about. Because, no matter how far Alison Krauss may stray from bluegrass, everything she does remains firmly rooted in her ‘grassy foundations.

Lynn Morris

Lynn Morris remains a criminally underappreciated figure in bluegrass, partly due to her career being prematurely ended by a near-fatal stroke in the late 1990s. In the decades prior, this IBMA Award winner was a powerful and influential banjo player, bandleader, and community-builder, carving out a pathway to success in roots music for herself — given that no pathways were being made available to women like her. Morris’ brand of bluegrass was unflinching, driving, and gritty, and to this day it continues to defy stereotypes about what women can contribute to a music that often holds up maleness and horse race-style competition as currency. While at the same time, she retained a level of tenderness and openness rare in masculine-centered bluegrass. Hopefully this induction will spotlight Morris’ important role in bluegrass’ golden age during the ‘80s and ‘90s. “Love Grown Cold,” a semi-viral hit for Morris on many a bluegrass social media page, is merely the tip of the iceberg of what will be this Hall of Famer’s long-lasting legacy in this music.

The Stoneman Family

Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, father and figurehead of country’s legendary Stoneman family, was the man who started it all. No, literally. Pop is credited with being a keystone picker, performer, and pseudo-producer of 1927’s Bristol sessions, which later came to be considered as the “big bang of country music,” the beginning of the genre’s commercial fortunes. His family of pickers, including Donna, Roni, and Patti, became stars of stage and screen thanks to their showmanship, homespun vibes, and blistering-fast picking. The impact of this musical family on country, bluegrass, and Americana music — as a unit and as individuals — can simply not be overstated. From Hee Haw to the Grand Ole Opry to winning a CMA Award to international tours with their own group and as side musicians, the fingerprints of the Stoneman Family are all over American roots music across the globe.

Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper

At one point, Wilma Lee & Stoney Cooper were perhaps the most famous bluegrass act in the world, landing several singles and tracks in Billboard’s Hot Country Chart in the ‘50s and ‘60s — notably landing four songs in the Top 10. Not on a bluegrass chart, because such a thing did not yet exist, but on the country chart! Granted, at that time bluegrass was still considered simply a subgenre of country and hillbilly music, but imagine not just one “Wagon Wheel”-level hit to their name, but a handful! And somehow, in modern times, Wilma Lee & Stoney are at best relegated to footnotes and asides. Bluegrass has always been a commercial genre and the commercial success of this pair is alone worth induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, all their other achievements and accolades notwithstanding.

Ola Belle Reed

Ola Belle Reed is more than “I’ve Endured” and more than “High on the Mountain.” A Western North Carolina songwriter and picker, Reed typified the politically- and environmentally-conscious, subversive, and grounded style of musicmaking by Appalachian women who lived through the many upheavals and uncertainties within the region and around the world during the twentieth century. Her songs, like “Tear Down the Fences,” highlight that the south, Appalachia, and the people who live there are not monoliths. Just as Reed’s catalog of influential music is not a monolith, either. Truly a glaring omission from Bluegrass’s hall of honor.

Sally Ann Forrester

Born Wilene Russell, “Sally Ann” or “Billie” Forrester — wife of fiddler Howdy Forrester — was one of only two women to have ever been members of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. (The other being Bessie Lee Maudlin, another prime candidate for Hall of Fame induction and inclusion in this list.) With the band, Forrester played accordion and sang as well as “keeping the books.” Inducting the women who were Blue Grass Boys, members of THE titular band of bluegrass, just makes sense! But with Forrester, it also represents an all-too-rare opportunity to canonize a bluegrass accordionist for the ages. Why wouldn’t we want to do that!? Take a listen to her accordion fills on “Rocky Road Blues” and just try to come up with a reason why bluegrass accordion isn’t more popular nowadays. Besides the obvious reasons.

Rose Maddox

Rose Maddox is traditionally credited as the first woman to cut a bluegrass album, recording Rose Maddox Sings Bluegrass in 1962 for Capitol Records and including many a bluegrass hit, like “Footprints in the Snow.” Maddox also marked the beginning of a series of women vocalists and musicians in bluegrass who could accomplish the high lonesome sound for which men like Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Osborne Brothers, and others were famous. Women who sang old-time and country up to this point often had rounder, more full, resonant, and rich voices, where men in bluegrass were seemingly attempting to shout tenor to dog whistles. Sexists weren’t sure women could replicate that testicles-in-a-vise-grip sound, but Maddox’s powerful voice immediately commands the same attention – and respect – of the highest and most lonesome. To think there used to be a time when people actually thought (or pretended to think) women couldn’t sing bluegrass!

Elizabeth Cotten

A pillar of American folk music, Elizabeth Cotten’s influence and impact knows no bounds, reaching far from downhome blues, ragtime, and old-time and into bluegrass, folk, Americana, rock, pop, and beyond. Her songs and her playing style continue to influence bluegrass today, but Cotten’s true legacy, one that will stretch on into infinity, is that her existence stands as permission for the Other – for marginalized folks like herself, a Black, working class artisan and musician from the South – to exist and to take up space within these historically white and often forbidding and exclusive roots music communities. Elizabeth Cotten is proof positive that the contributions of Black folks to American roots musics, including if not especially bluegrass, were truly seminal, essential, and vital to the music growing and developing into the entity we all love today. Elizabeth Cotten would be an excellent and unimpeachable first Black and African American inductee into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. Let’s make it happen.

Buffalo Gals

In the 1970s the group considered to be the first bluegrass lineup of all women was Buffalo Gals, including Martha Trachtenberg, Susie Monick, Carol Siegel, Sue Raines, and Nancy Josephson. Their first and only record, First Borne, is finally available digitally and via online streaming platforms, but up until recently was largely forgotten. We featured First Borne in our list of the 50 Greatest Bluegrass Albums by women and retold a now-infamous story about the Buffalo Gals performing in their sleeping bags when a festival promoter gave them a set early in the morning because, you guessed it, who would want to see women perform bluegrass!? Hearing this whimsical, zany mash-up of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” and “Loco-motion” we’d make this group headline. Just sayin’. With bands like Della Mae and Sister Sadie enjoying success and acclaim at all levels of the IBMA, perhaps it’s time to pay tribute to the all-women lineups like the Buffalo Gals who came before and blazed the trail.

Gloria Belle

A woman for a Sunny Mountain Boy! Gloria Belle is most famous as a member of Jimmy Martin’s backing band, but it would almost be an insult to reduce her career to having spent time in the shadow of the King of Bluegrass. She was a fantastic picker, multi-instrumentalist, and singer and the first woman to ever release an album on longtime bluegrass label Rebel Records. In 1999 she received IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award after a handful of decades of nonstop recording, touring, and performing in bluegrass. She even made an appearance on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s fantastically popular Will the Circle Be Unbroken album. Another case of an underrated woman who is constantly referred to on the back end of an ampersand after a man or men, Gloria Belle is a perfect example of a woman who deserves induction into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame on her own merits first and foremost.

Dolly Parton

Though she’ll often refer to it simply as “mountain music,” Dolly Parton is as bluegrass as they come. Albums like The Grass Is Blue, Heartsongs, and Trio demonstrate this fact to an obvious degree, but it’s worth pointing out — especially within the context of the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame — that Parton’s bluegrass runs deeper than just being an offshoot of her musical expression. With the shows and festivals at Dollywood, her collaborations with artists like the Grascals, Rhonda Vincent, and Alison Krauss, and her longtime commitment to philanthropy in her home region of East Tennessee and abroad, Dolly is the perfect example the Hall of Fame could utilize to communicate the importance and value of taking bluegrass ideals and spreading them around the world. Plus, who wouldn’t want a ticket to the IBMA Awards show at which Dolly Parton would be inducted? (Pro tip: Dolly has actually attended the IBMA Awards and performed once before, when The Grass Is Blue was nominated in 2000 and Marty Stuart hosted. Let’s please recreate that show. Please.)

We could continue this list into infinity, and that’s exactly the point. Artists and bands like Alison Brown, Laurie Lewis, Missy Raines, Kathy Kallick, Blue Rose, Emmylou Harris, The Whites, Patty Loveless, and so many others are waiting in the wings, qualified, ready, and willing to step up and thrive under the mantle of Bluegrass Hall of Fame induction. And plenty of young women, femmes, and non-binary folks are waiting to have examples to look up to, to signal to them that bluegrass can be a place where they can also make a home. The concept of a Hall of Fame may seem like an unimportant or inconsequential or self-serving enterprise at times, but it can be so much more than that! We can supply those examples. Let’s do it.

Amythyst Kiah Ends Her Shut-Up-and-Sing Policy on ‘Wary + Strange’ (Part 1 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Amythyst Kiah took great pains to get Wary + Strange just right. After studying banjo and old-time music at East Tennessee State University in her twenties, she gained a reputation as an intense live performer, so much so that she was asked to join the roots supergroup Our Native Daughters, where she played alongside Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, and Leyla McCalla. The group recorded Kiah’s bluesy anthem “Black Myself” as the opening cut on their 2019 album, Songs of Our Native Daughters.

The experience of working directly with her contemporaries — even the idea of considering them as her contemporaries — was a profound experience, one that stirred her to write songs that took bigger risks and told bigger truths about herself. She’d been struggling to make this record for several years by then, booking sessions with various producers, but never feeling satisfied with the results. She didn’t hear herself in the music.

That changed when she began working with producer Tony Berg (Aimee Mann, Phoebe Bridgers), and together they devised a way to combine all of Kiah’s influences rather than compartmentalize them. Wary + Strange is a headphones album, one that listeners will pore over intently. “It feels good to make music that helps people get through hard times,” Kiah tells the Bluegrass Situation.

Editor’s Note: Read the second half of our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Amythyst Kiah here.

BGS: Are you surprised by the response this record has gotten?

Kiah: This is my label debut. So it’s really the first time that I’ve worked with a giant team of people helping me get my music out into the world. So the whole experience has been completely new. My focus was really tol make this album where I’m excited about it and happy with it, so I felt pretty confident about it. Then I started promoting it and things started coming in, and I didn’t realize how much was going to come in because I’d never done it before. So now I have the craziest workload that I’ve had in a long time. I’m just drinking a lot of caffeine and hanging on as long as I can, because I’m getting an opportunity that a lot of artists don’t get.

And add to that the fact that you can actually play live shows again, if only for a little while. What has the audience reaction been like?

People are really excited to get back to playing or get back to just seeing live music. All of us that were doing virtual gigs for a year and a half. Any time I’ve played a virtual gig, I’ve made a point to say that we’re all in this weird situation together, so let’s make the best of it. The audience is just looking at me through a camera lens, and I’m looking at them through a camera lens, but we’re doing our best to share our energy with one another. I can’t tell you how many times over the past several shows that I’ve gone out to the merch table and people have told me, “This is the first show I’ve seen since quarantine.” They are so excited, so the energy has been more intense than I can remember.

You mentioned something a minute ago about wanting to make sure you were happy with this record. You recorded these songs several times trying to get to that point, and I wondered if you could talk about that process. What was missing from those early songs?

The first time I made the record, it was with Dirk Powell in Louisiana, and it was right before the sessions for Our Native Daughters. But I didn’t really have a strong idea of what I wanted. I was dealing with some writer’s block at the time, and I was putting pressure on myself to put out another record. So I was recording a lot of songs that I didn’t really play anymore, and it felt like I was just trying to fill out an album.

At the end of the recording process, it sounded like a record that was very safe. It sounded good but it was safe. It wasn’t showing any real musical growth from me as an artist. I felt like I was compartmentalizing a lot of my folk stuff and the stuff I played with my backing band. I had this folk side of me and this rock version of me, and it just slapped me in the face that all of those songs needed to be on the record.

What was the nature of your writer’s block? How did you get through it?

There was a period when I wasn’t really writing songs that much. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was repressing a lot of emotions regarding my mother’s suicide. For twelve years I would do anything I could to avoid getting in touch with those feelings. I was in survival mode, and when you’re in survival mode it’s really hard to think deeply about some of your choices. I was just trying to ignore it all. By the time I got to Our Native Daughters, I’d written a handful of songs over the course of two or three years. That was my second year going into therapy, and I’d made a couple of breakthroughs in understanding how my grief was affecting other aspects of my life.

Being around Rhiannon and Leyla and Allison and writing songs with them, I started to understand something important about myself. We all had this similar background of being the token Black person in a genre that has some very obvious African influences. But that history and those identities had been removed and the music had been segregated. We were able to share stories about being confused with other people, stuff like that. Just to be able to have that conversation with other people who understood where I was coming from was wonderful. Being in that environment gave me the courage to write about the things I was talking about. I’d been afraid to put those experiences into songs because I have this shut-up-and-sing policy for a long time. So that was an important moment for me.

We’re telling stories of our ancestors who were able to survive the transatlantic ship voyage. They survived the Civil War. Reconstruction. Segregation. Civil Rights. We’re standing on the shoulders of so many people who survived, and we’re here because of their survival. Once you start to make those big spiritual connections beyond what you’ve read in a history book, suddenly there’s nothing to be afraid of. If they can survive, then I can survive writing a song about how I feel. There was a new sense of empowerment to really write about myself. So after that project, I wrote more songs. I wrote “Soapbox.” I wrote “Opaque.” I wrote “Firewater.”

Did that change how you approached recording the album?

Really I was still figuring myself out and how I wanted to be defined as a musician. It was a lot of self-exploration. I recorded the album again at Echo Mountain Studios in Asheville, North Carolina. But the third time’s the charm, as they say. I met Tony Berg, and he was able to help me encapsulate the inherent wariness and strangeness of all of these songs. We were also able to keep that essence of roots music while adding in these different textures and sounds. He actually told me once while we were recording, “I don’t think I’ve heard a record that sounds quite like this one.” He’s obviously listened to way more music than I ever have, so I knew we had something special at that point. I knew that would be the final time recording the album.

It sounds like you had to go through those first two versions of the album to get to that point.

Yes. I definitely don’t want to say that those first two didn’t sound good or weren’t worthy. And I’m appreciative of anybody who spent time in any capacity working on them with me. It took all of those moments to get where we are now. But something was always missing, and you shouldn’t be too afraid to explore that and figure out what’s missing. Unless you’re 100 percent excited about your record, it’s going to be hard to go out and play those songs.

There’s a malleable quality to your songs. I’m thinking about the two versions of “Soapbox” on the record, or the solo version of “Black Myself” and the Our Native Daughters version. You talked about learning not to compartmentalize your music, but the songs seem like they could fit so many different settings. “Black Myself” in particular sounds very different when you’ve got several people singing as opposed to just one person singing.

I think that’s a recurring theme that’s always going to be part of my creative process. I spent a good amount of time in my twenties focusing on reinterpreting songs that already existed and learning about the different ways to make it your own. Or at least give it another perspective. It made me hyperaware of, “OK, what am I saying? What if I deliver this particular line this way or what if I go to a minor chord here instead of a major chord. How does that change the meaning?” I’ve always been fascinated with that kind of thing.

That’s just as valuable as writing new songs, because that’s the way most of us learn music. We learn other people’s music, and within that we find our own voice. Reimagining certain songs — even if they’re your own songs — is a valid way to express yourself. Balancing that can be a little tricky. With the various incarnations of this album, I was rehashing a lot of songs that I’d already done. I was taking songs I’d already recorded and rerecording them in a different way. So I had to make myself write new material. I didn’t want to stop moving forward.

As for “Black Myself,” I remember thinking, “Man, I wish I could have some people singing with me on this song.” It’s not even just from a production standpoint. It was more personal. So it was good to record with Rhiannon and Allison and Leyla sticking up for me, you know? It’s different without them. For the version on my record I was doing my own background vocals, which is really enjoyable and helps me dig into a song in a different way. But I definitely missed singing with them. But I was really excited to record that song by myself, because it’s a way to continue that conversation about white supremacy and anti-racism. It was a good opportunity to bring the song forward.

Editor’s Note: Read the second half of our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Amythyst Kiah here.

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 216

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week, David Crosby and Sarah Jarosz join up for a Joni Mitchell number, husband-and-wife duo Darin and Brooke Aldridge bring us some beautiful bluegrass harmonies, LA’s own Los Lobos share their rendition of a favorite Jackson Browne tune, and much more.

APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY

The Wallflowers – “Maybe Your Heart’s Not In It Anymore”

25 years after their breakout hit and almost a decade after their most recent release, The Wallflowers are back with a new album, Exit Wounds. In our interview with Jakob Dylan we talk about the project, singing with Shelby Lynne, the documentary Dylan executive produced, Echo in the Canyon, and more.

Ric Robertson – “Carolina Child”

We spoke with Ric Robertson about playing a popcorn kernel in a musical as a kid, his kite surfing aspirations, his new album Carolina Child, and more in a recent edition of 5+5.

Amy Ray Band – “Chuck Will’s Widow”

Amy Ray of The Indigo Girls finds herself often haunted by the song of the nocturnal songbird, the Chuck-will’s-widow: “I find that I witness the most profound moments in the midst of their songs, when everyone else is asleep. While I am often in need of rest, the respite I find in being awake under a miraculous and melodic night sky is too tempting for me to sleep. It’s a conundrum that inspires me, but also leaves me bleary-eyed.”

Darin and Brooke Aldridge – “Once In A While”

Bluegrass husband-and-wife duo Darin & Brooke Aldridge hope that every aspect of their music makes you smile — even more than “Once in a While!”

Matt the Electrician – “Home Again”

Folk singer-songwriter Matt The Electrician will return with a new album called We Imagined an Ending in November. A new track, “Home Again,” takes inspiration from the point of view of his teenage daughter. “The conundrum of parenthood, that as you finally start to figure some things out, and try to pass along some of that hard won wisdom, you’re greeted with your own teenage face staring balefully back at you.”

Tobacco City – “AA Blues”

Says Chris Coleslaw of Tobacco City’s latest single, “The character in the song is trapped between working in a brewery and staring at beers all day and trying to walk a sober line. I think regardless of your sobriety status we can all relate to those kind of blues.”

Jesse Daniel – “Clayton Was A Cowboy”

Jesse Daniel spoke with us about his new album, Beyond These Walls, about growing up catching crawdads and fishing, the chills-inducing feeling when a crowd sings along with his lyrics, and more in a recent 5+5.

Joy Oladokun – “Judas”

Joy Oladokun is able to do more with just an acoustic guitar and her voice than many artists can in an entire discography of work. And going from Arizona to L.A. then across country to Nashville with a new outlook and perspective, her music stands on a plane with a unique vantage point.

Luke LeBlanc – “Same Blues”

A new video for Luke LeBlanc’s co-written tune with Roy August, “Same Blues,” attempts to capture what the song is about: the tug of war between the status quo and what you’re currently doing versus that thing you really want to do.

Midnight North – “Silent Lonely Drifter”

“Silent Lonely Drifter” is an original folk melody reminiscent of timeless Appalachian string band music. Each verse references a different full moon, speaking to the natural balance that exists in the universe.

Los Lobos – “Jamaica Say You Will”

The Jackson Browne tune “Jamaica Say You Will” always resonated for the fellas of Los Lobos and the narrative and storytelling were attractive, too. So, they recorded their own rendition of the track on their latest project, Native Sons.

Aoife O’Donovan ft. Milk Carton Kids – “More Than We Know”

New music from Aoife O’Donovan is here and we’re loving it! Hear tracks created with Joe Henry and the Milk Carton Kids — one inspired by the modern classic re-telling of Peter Pan, the movie Hook.

John R. Miller – “Shenandoah Shakedown”

Depreciated, the new Rounder Records release from singer-songwriter John R. Miller, combines many of his string band and bluegrass influences with a satisfyingly melancholy and dark mood — plus plenty of fiddle.

David Crosby ft. Sarah Jarosz – “For Free”

Legendary singer, guitar picker, and songwriter David Crosby keeps his love for collaboration alive on his new album, For Free, which features guests and co-writers such as Sarah Jarosz, Michael McDonald, his son James Raymond, and more.

Photos: (L to R) Joy Oladokun by Nolan Knight; Aoife O’Donovan courtesy of Shorefire Media; David Crosby by Anna Webber

LISTEN: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, “Can’t Let Go”

Posted on by Editor

Artists: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Song: “Can’t Let Go”
Album: Raise the Roof
Release Date: November 19, 2021
Label: Rounder Records

In Their Words: “We wanted it to move. We brought other people in, other personalities within the band, and coming back together again in the studio brought a new intimacy to the harmonies.” — Alison Krauss

“You hear something and you go ‘Man, listen to that song, we got to sing that song!’ It’s a vacation, really — the perfect place to go that you least expected to find.” — Robert Plant

Editor’s Note: Plant and Krauss’ 2007 album, Raising Sand, won six Grammy Awards. Like its predecessor, Raise The Roof was produced by T Bone Burnett, and features twelve new recordings of songs by legends and unsung heroes including Merle Haggard, Allen Toussaint, The Everly Brothers, Anne Briggs, Geeshie Wiley, Bert Jansch and more. The collection also includes a Plant-Burnett original, “High and Lonesome,” and “Can’t Let Go,” written by Randy Weeks and first recorded by Lucinda Williams.

Photo credit: Frank Melfi

Artist of the Month: Amythyst Kiah

Posted on by Editor

Amythyst Kiah is having a moment with Wary + Strange, an album that positions her among today’s most compelling singer-songwriters. Although she is an East Tennessee native, her personal lyrics somehow feel universal — this isn’t an album about rivers and mountains, but instead touches on identity (“Black Myself”), grief (“Wild Turkey”), and unsolicited advice (“Soapbox”). Written from a place of questioning and reckoning, a gently-played song like “Firewater” would satisfy anyone who enjoys an acoustic aesthetic, as well as those who draw confidence from the music of others.

“A lot of these songs come from a moment in my 20s when I was grappling with trauma while also trying to navigate the experience of being a Black and LGBT woman in a white suburban area in a Bible Belt town,” says Kiah, who moved to Johnson City after growing up in Chattanooga. “I’ve had moments of feeling othered in certain aspects of my life, and it took me a long time to figure out who I wanted to be and how to move through this world.”

With that perspective and a guitar in hand, she’s been sharing her music on stages ranging from the Grand Ole Opry to Newport Folk Festival to Jimmy Kimmel Live, where she performed “Black Myself.”

Upon announcing the record, she noted, “‘Black Myself’ is the first song I’ve written that was confrontational. I’d always made it a point to sing songs that anybody could relate to, but this was something that had been welling up inside me for a long time, and working with three other Black women in Our Native Daughters put me in the position where I finally had the courage to put those words out. The reception of the song so far has given me hope that there are people out there who are ready to confront the shared trauma of racism, to look within ourselves and see how we might be perpetuating racist beliefs, and to do what is needed to create equality for all people.”

Next month, Kiah (pronounced “KEE-uh”) is in the running in multiple categories for the Americana Music Honors & Awards. (As a solo artist, she’ll compete for Emerging Act of the Year, while “Black Myself” is up for Song of the Year. Our Native Daughters is also up for Duo/Group of the Year.) With this incredible career momentum, she’s criss-crossing the country in the months ahead: After a gig with Brandi Carlile and Sheryl Crow at the Gorge in Washington, she’ll be everywhere from Maine to Mexico, with a MerleFest gig in the mix too. Enjoy new music and some crowd favorites in our BGS Essentials Playlist with Amythyst Kiah below. And don’t miss our two-part Artist of the Month interview. Read part one here. Read part two here.

Photo credit: Sandlin Gaither

Shaped by String Bands and Bluegrass, John R. Miller Delivers ‘Depreciated’

Posted on by Editor

On his new album Depreciated, John R. Miller shows a true appreciation for traditional country songwriting and progressive bluegrass musicianship, even though his music isn’t neatly defined by either one. A West Virginia native who now lives in Madison, Tennessee, Miller unveiled the material at a club show in Nashville just a few days after the album’s release on Rounder Records. His original songs are rich in detail and humor, although his lyrics can get moody enough to satisfy anybody who’s looking for the darker side of acoustic music. Delivered in his rough-hewn baritone, his songs somehow feel like familiar stories that you want to hear again.

Before returning to the road, Miller caught up with BGS at an East Nashville coffee shop to talk about his acoustic heroes, where he found his first guitar, and why he puts a fiddle in a rock ‘n’ roll band.

BGS: You announced this record by releasing “Lookin’ Over My Shoulder,” which is not exactly a happy song, but it does makes me laugh. What was on your mind as that song was taking shape?

Miller: I wrote that after I moved away from the town I’d lived in for a while. It’s a small-town scenario. When you go back after being away, you’re in the mode of trying to avoid some people. It can be tricky to navigate but I thought it was a funny little song that I didn’t think we would end up recording. Then we rearranged it a little bit and turned it into what it is now – and it’s the first song on the record. You just never know, I guess.

Where is your hometown?

The place where I grew up is just off the highway in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. It has historically been pretty rural. There’s a lot of development around the highway, so it’s turned into a strip mall highway town. Just over the mountain, it gets real country real quick. But for most of my 20s I lived in a river town called Shepherdstown. It’s small, just a couple of bars in town and everybody knows everybody. That was home for a long time, but I felt like I needed a fresh start, so I moved down here. I spent so much time traveling and felt untethered in the first place. A lot of my friends started getting older and moving away. A few of them actually came down here. This was the next place, where I knew the most people and the most couches to crash on for a little while. I decided to give it a shot and I’m still here.

When did you gravitate toward playing guitar?

I was about 14 when I picked up guitar. My dad had a nylon string guitar in the closet that I never saw him play. I was starting to get into music more, and into punk bands that I found out about from my friends. Basically I was trying to learn power chords on this classical nylon string guitar classical guitar. Eventually I wrote that out and got a Stratocaster and tried to do garage bands in high school.

Were you and your friends listening to acoustic music too?

Maybe not when I was a teenager. We were mostly into indie rock and punk rock growing up, like skater kids. It probably wasn’t until I was 19 that my musical interests expanded a little bit. I started getting into songwriters. The real gateway for me was that Steve Earle and Del McCoury Band album, [1999’s The Mountain], which is one of the best out there. I had already found my way into Steve Earle’s music and then that dovetailed nicely with bluegrass and old-time music with that record. That was a big one for me.

Are you a bluegrass fan?

Oh yeah. I’ve lived in the bluegrass world a little bit and during times in my life a whole lot. I used to play in a string band too. It was more like a fiddle-centric string band, but we did some bluegrass stuff as well and got on that circuit for a little while. There were a couple of guys in the string band that were ahead of me in terms of what they knew about and what they liked, so they helped me learn about a whole lot of stuff.

Who were some of your influences in bluegrass?

I’m a huge Jimmy Martin fan. That stuff’s so cool and just kind of ragged in all the right ways. The Stanley Brothers, of course. There are some modern bluegrass bands that I’ve grown to love a whole lot. Town Mountain is one of the best out there. We crossed paths with them a little bit back in the day and it’s cool to see them still doing it. The Seldom Scene’s Live at the Cellar Door record is a classic too. I really love that. I also really love that early newgrass stuff, like Old & In the Way and John Hartford. That Old & In the Way record was a constant in the van.

Speaking of that, how did you get the idea for “Half Ton Van“?

That song in particular, I spent months looking for an old van to get the band moving. I was on Craigslist and Marketplace a whole lot. I feel like I was seeing a lot of the same tricks, you know? I went to look at a lot of terrible vans. It was a few years ago and I had already been through a few vans with other bands, and it always feels like I’m trying to find one at the last minute. I ended up getting one that was full of rust holes and leaking oil and everything like that. So the song is an amalgam of all those experiences of people trying to sell their junk to you.

At your show, the crowd really responded to “Shenandoah Shakedown,” which surprised me. It has that gothic feel, and seems to be the sleeper on the record.

That one seems to be doing pretty good. I wouldn’t have expected that either because it’s kind of different. It doesn’t strike me as an accessible song necessarily. That one is heavily inspired by living on the river out there. It’s more of a collection of vignettes of time spent up there, and some mushrooms and whatnot involved, you know? Some of the characters are composites but there are specific people in it, for sure.

There’s a lot of fiddle on this record too. Why do you like having that in the mix?

I love fiddle tunes and fiddle music and I spend a lot of time at fiddlers conventions, like the Clifftop Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia, or in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It’s been a constant in my life for a really long time now. I’ve got a lot of buddies in that world and I play a little fiddle myself too. It’s a great way to just sit down and play tunes with people. The communal feeling and the non-commerciality of it is really cool. So I’m a little obsessive about it. Putting fiddle in a full rock ‘n’ roll band sounds good to my ears, and I also feel like if it wasn’t there, I would miss it — the presence of it.

Why did you want to include a guitar instrumental, “What’s Left of the Valley,” on here?

I’ve definitely written a couple of guitar pieces, but my partner Chloe really liked that one. I played it for her and it was her idea to just try it in the studio. We took a break from doing the stuff we had on the docket and gave that a try. It ended up feeling so nice, I thought it would be a good way to break up the songs on the record. I like that kind of stuff too, like an instrumental interlude.

At your show I was happy to hear you cover a Gary Stewart song, “Single Again.” What is it about that honky-tonk sound that appeals to you?

Man, it just sounds so cool to me. There’s a really wide range of it but that Gary Stewart stuff is so cool and so nuanced. A really high level of musicianship playing pretty accessible music is pretty awesome. I love country music very much. That’s been my soul food. Early to mid ‘70s is the sweet spot for me.

As a songwriter going into a music career, did you always want to have a full-band sound?

I don’t mind playing by myself — it’s kind of its own thing — but I’ve always played in bands and I love that connection. It’s so much fun. I prefer to be making music with my buddies and I’m fortunate to be playing with the band I’ve got now. They’re easygoing folks and great musicians. We’ve been on the road for a little over a week now and this is the first long tour that we’ve gotten to take together. We’re all getting used to it again.

Listening back to this record now, what goes through your mind?

I’m really proud of the work we did and what I love most about it is that I got to actually sit and play the songs live in a room with some of my close friends. Adam Meisterhans, who played guitar with us the other night, co-produced the record. He and I played in bands in West Virginia. I know him from Shepherdstown too. He’s like a brother to me. So it’s been cool to very intentionally work on a project and have it get finished and work out, you know? It’s nice to know that we did it the way we wanted to.

Photo credit: David McClister