Tag: Ruth Moody

Ruth Moody on Canadian Roots Music, Parenthood, and Being a ‘Wanderer’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Ruth Moody has a singular voice, whether she’s joining the soaring three-part harmonies of the Wailin’ Jennys, or carving her own path on her new solo album, Wanderer (released May 17.) The project was almost a decade in the making and finds Moody betting on herself as a songwriter, co-producer, and now-label head for her own Blue Muse Records. The album is parallel to Moody’s own journey at continuing to define herself, with its emphasis on confronting the past and carving away detritus that is no longer needed.

Moody splits her time between Nashville and Vancouver Island. The pull between her sense of place, as well as her identities as artist, wife, and mother, characterize Wanderer. The album was recorded at the legendary Sound Emporium in Nashville and was co-produced with Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Lake Street Dive) and mixed by Tucker Martine (My Morning Jacket, First Aid Kit, The Decemberists).

As discussed below, Moody waited until the time was right to bring her favorite musicians together for the record: her partner Sam Howard, who plays upright bass and provides backing vocals; her older brother Richard Moody; The Wailin’ Jennys’ touring band member Anthony da Costa (guitars); Jason Burger (drums); Kai Welch (keyboards); Russ Pahl (pedal steel); Adrian Dolan (string arrangements); and duet partner Joey Landreth (on “The Spell of the Lilac Bloom”). Moody’s patient commitment to executing Wanderer the way she wanted to shows in its transcendent arrangements.

In our BGS interview, Moody discusses how she establishes her sense of self amidst the competing demands in her life, the factors that give Canadian roots music their own special quality, and the lessons she’s learned from doing Wanderer exactly the way she intended to.

What do you think it is about Canadian roots music in particular? It does have a different feel than roots music in the States.

Ruth Moody: You know, I’ve been asked this question for so long. It’s a very valid question, because I think there is something, but it’s really hard to have a clear answer. In Canada there’s such a range of geography and music culture. You can’t really pin it to one thing.

I grew up in Winnipeg and the winters are so harsh that I think music and art are one of the things that get people through. It’s something you can do in the winter. I also think that there’s something about the landscape and the winter that creates a certain work ethic because you’re so small against the elements, really. So consciously or subconsciously, that enters into the picture for people. And so I think people tend to work hard and really apply themselves. And when it comes to touring, especially if you’re from Winnipeg, it takes some effort to get to the next town. It’s a six-hour drive before you get to the next major town. So I think right from the start, young musicians know they have to go out in the world to tour and get their music out.

We’re pretty diverse and we’re also influenced by so many different cultures and types of music. So I think there is a very exploratory aspect to Canadian music. And a lot of cross-pollination between genres and scenes. We are very lucky to have government support for the arts and I think that helps artists thrive, obviously, but it also helps to create music communities and bring artists together in collaborative situations.

Well, it’s always good to start an interview out by asking you to speak for your entire country! But Wanderer focuses on the idea of home, and I know you’ve lived many different places. Did I read that you grew up in Australia?

I was born in Australia, and my parents are Australian, but they came back to Canada when I was only a year old. I grew up in Winnipeg, but, as an adult, I’ve moved around a ton and that was what inspired the title track. I’ve been touring for over 25 years at this point. “Wanderer” is a love song that I wrote for my partner, because he helped me have that feeling of home for the first time in my adult life.

There are a number of songs about young love and new love on the album. Was there something that was making you reminisce about those times in your life?

These songs were all written across a long time-span – over 10 years really – since my last record. So the songs come from different stages and sides of love, right into motherhood. Some songs deal with heartbreak too and some are more reflective about the past. During the pandemic, I was reflecting a lot about how we internalize the messages we receive from society, how as a woman I took on the expectations of others and how that has affected my life. I was looking back, looking for clues, curious about where fear comes from, where strength and resilience come from. How we learn how to be our authentic selves when there are so many outside pressures and confusing messages. “Seventeen” isn’t about that, at all, but it ended up coming out of that period of reminiscing. It’s a song that came from my own experiences but that is essentially about being in love and not being ready or able to face it or express it, which I think is probably a pretty common experience.

These are all things I’m thinking about a lot now that I have a child, too, because they become very relevant. You’re trying to model behaviors for a young person and it really makes you face yourself. You have to look at why you do and say certain things and what you want to teach and how you want to be.

Speaking of wandering, I read that you split your time between Nashville and Vancouver Island.

I just got back from British Columbia, and I’ll be back in BC in the summer, so yes, I’m back and forth. I tour a lot, so I try to get home to BC when I’m already out traveling. But I work a lot in Nashville and so does my partner, so we’re still figuring that out.

Do you feel you are different when you are in these two different places?

Definitely. That’s been a real theme becoming a mother, really. Suddenly, you’re responsible for another human life. You have to let go of a lot of ways that you used to do things and prioritize what matters. I’m always shifting modes.

When I’m on tour, I operate in a certain way. When I’m in BC, I’m close to my parents and that brings out certain things. When I’m on my own, I have a bit more freedom to maybe be my creative self and when I’m in parenting mode, that goes out the window. Additionally, a partnership requires a lot of work and time, too. There are a lot of different parts of life that I’m juggling. But it keeps it interesting.

This isn’t meant to be a conversation about being a musician and motherhood and “having it all,” but it is a big theme of the record!

It has been a big theme of my life of late. Actually, I wanted to make this record about eight years ago and then I put it on hold, because I wasn’t able to line up all the musicians I wanted involved. I thought, “I’ll do it next year.” And then I had my son and I just didn’t know that motherhood would be such an all-consuming thing. It doesn’t have to be – and everyone’s different!

I really want to do a good job at everything that I do, and so I found it hard [to balance everything.] I felt like I wasn’t doing a good enough job at being a parent and I wasn’t doing a good enough job at performing. That was really hard on me. And I think now, with this new way of looking at things, I’m just being easier on myself and thinking to myself, “Maybe I was enough. Maybe we can’t be perfect at every single thing.” Maybe we don’t have to attempt to be perfect at everything.

First and foremost I think that any woman should have the choice to [balance motherhood and work] in the way she wants to do it. I am still figuring out how to juggle everything – especially since for this record, I decided to put it out on my own label. It’s really exciting and I think will be really rewarding, but it is a ton of work and the learning curve is quite steep.

Wanderer is your fourth solo album. Do you feel this process is different than when you’re working with another artist or with The Wailin’ Jennys?

It is different. The Jennys – I mean, we’ve been together for so long and we have a certain way of working. We’re talking about making a new record, which is really exciting. It’ll be different, because it’s been a while and we’re all changing all the time, you know? That feels like it will be an exciting new experience.

But it is of course different working on my own, especially in this case, because I co-produced this record. When you’re on your own, you draw on a different part of your brain and even your heart. Wanderer is a really personal collection of songs. With the Jennys, we tend to maybe gravitate towards songs that call for three part harmony, so they end up being a bit more anthemic. With these really personal, intimate songs, I connect to them in a different way.

What lessons do you feel like you can take away now that you’ve finished making Wanderer that you want to take with you on your next project?

I’ve learned so much in doing this. Because it took so long to make it and these songs were waiting in the wings for so long, it felt really important for me to make it. The stakes felt high, because it had been so long in the making.

Now that it’s done and I’m putting it out, I am really excited and proud of it. I want to just keep releasing expectations and I’m very excited to dig into creative work again.

Photo Credit: Jacqueline Justice

With Her Banjo and Best Friends, Allison Russell Delivers ‘Outside Child’ (Part 2 of 2)

Posted on by Editor

Allison Russell’s first solo album offers an intimate look into her life, yet it’s far more than just her musical vision that elevates Outside Child to one of the year’s most eloquent albums. Working with Dan Knobler in Nashville, she populated the studio with musicians like Joe Pisapia, Jason Burger, Chris Merrill, Jamie Dick, and Drew Lindsay, as well as exceptional guests such as Yola, Ruth Moody, Erin Rae, and the McCrary Sisters. She describes them as her “chosen family,” accompanying her as she shares stories about other families in her life.

Enjoy the second half of our BGS Artist of the Month interview with Allison Russell. (Editor’s note: Read the first half of our AOTM feature here.)

BGS: You can feel that sense of community between the musicians on this record. Can you talk a little bit about what it felt like while you were tracking?

Allison Russell: These songs were recorded in four days. Everything that you are hearing, I sang live with the band. We did it at Sound Emporium Studio A. There’s a lovely, big room with glass doors that you can open up. Everyone was in a semi-circle. It was a magical experience. We would gather in the center of the room and work out an arrangement together and then we would record the song. Most of what you are hearing is the second take. That was sort of when it magically coalesced, when everyone was communing and free flowing.

Dan [Knobler] shares my deep conviction that it is not about perfection. It is about capturing the communication in as honest and as true of a way as you can. That has been my approach ever since working with Joe Henry four or five years ago on a record called Real Midnight. So what you are hearing is a community choosing to come together to uplift these songs. I will be grateful for that for the rest of my life, even if no one ever heard the record. That experience of getting to record that way with chosen family. I can’t imagine a more healing, supportive environment than I experienced.

This is your first solo record and though you’ve made many records with groups, I’m wondering if the feeling of picking the songs and the sounds was different for you as a solo artist?

I don’t know that I really picked them. I think that the songs just poured out. So much of the sound is my community of artists. I would never dream of telling any of those artists what to play. I trust their ears and I trusted Dan Knobler’s ears, who produced the record. And I trusted my own ears too, of course, but really what we did was cast the room with people who we love and trust. What was different is that I’d never worked with Dan before and I trusted him bringing in two of his brothers, Joe Pisapia and Jason Burger to join the family of musical kindred that I’ve been part of. A lot of the artists who played on the record were artists that I’d met over my many years and different projects. …

And then since I moved to Nashville in 2017, I’ve been going to hear the McCrary Sisters and loving them. I really got to know them through Yola, because they formed a friendship at a festival in Scotland and I got to know them through her. I’m a huge admirer of them and their work and their harmonies. I reached out to them thinking I wouldn’t be able to afford them and they were so generous. They came and sang for way less than they are worth and worked within my budget. I was honored that they came. So it was really a matter of casting the room and then letting people shine the way they do.

I read your speech from the [2020] Women’s March [in Nashville]. It is really gorgeous, thought- and emotion-provoking. In it you mention that you are the hero of your own story which is wildly inspiring and important for us all to remember – that there are some things we can save ourselves from. Can you talk a bit about ways in which you save yourself?

I feel like connection with a loving community is what saves me every day. Art and music save me every day. I’ve been a book worm my entire life and I can’t emphasize enough, I don’t think I would have survived my childhood if I hadn’t had the escape of literature. Being able to go into other worlds and other imaginings and literally inside of someone else’s mind and take refuge and find inspiration and comfort and strength. Disappearing into books was the first kind of way that I learned how to try to be brave. It was reading about brave protagonists and people in situations worse than I could imagine. I got very obsessed in my tweens with reading first person accounts of survival of the Holocaust. It put into context what was happening to me, that if people could survive that, then I could survive what I was experiencing.

Being in a community with people that uplift you and see you and value you and you do the same for them, that is life-changing. I have that with my partner J.T. I have that with my sisters in Our Native Daughters. We wrote a whole record together, uplifting each other and bringing forward the perspective of Black women within the diaspora and within the historical record. Our particular demographic is so often left out of any kind of historical record in any kind of first-person way, with agency and lived experience. That has been a source of great strength and resilience.

And then to connect with my ancestors. To delve into all of the history. With all of the intergenerational trauma and abuse, there is also incredible intergenerational strength and resilience and transcendence. The ability to overcome circumstances I cannot even dream of. My many-times-great-great-grandmother Quasheba survived being enslaved. She survived being ripped away from everything she knew, her family and language and home. She survived the horrible Middle Passage. She survived multiple plantations and having her children taken. If she can survive all that, I can get through this.

Do you remember what prompted you to pick up a banjo for the first time?

I was in a band called Po Girl, that was my first baby band and the woman I started the band with, Trish Klein, played the banjo. She taught me my first few chords and I just kept playing from there. I met Rhiannon Giddens in 2006 at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and I was so excited to meet another Black woman that played banjo, because I was the only one that I knew. She told me about the Black Banjo Gathering, which I never got to attend. I’ve met so many dear friends who were a part of that, like Valerie June. All of us in Our Native Daughters play banjo and that has been a deep communion for us.

I think Rhiannon’s minstrel banjo is one of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. I’ve adapted my little Americana Goodtime banjo to sound as much like that as I can by adding gut strings and a fiber skin head. I’ve modified the bridge a bit to give it that deeper resonance. For me the banjo has allowed me to access my songwriting in a different way. I’ve noticed this over time as I’ve picked up more instruments. Different songs come through on different instruments and now for me, the banjo has become my primary songwriting instrument.

This album is coming out hopefully at the tail end of the pandemic so I’m guessing some of the songs have not been performed in front of an audience yet. Are there songs you are particularly excited about presenting on stage and on the flip side are there songs you are nervous or trepidatious about presenting to an audience?

Basically none of them. Of course I’ve done some virtual performances here and there of a couple of them. But they have not been played live. I am always nervous about everything. I’m just a very anxious person most of the time. But where that stops, usually, is on stage, when I get to be in communion with my fellow artists and with the people who have come to listen. That is very much a two-way exchange. The answer is, I’ll be nervous about all of it right up until the moment we are playing and then I will be in the happiest place I know.

(Editor’s note: Read part one of our Artist of the Month interview with Allison Russell here.)

Photo credit: Marc Baptiste (top); Laura E. Partain (in story)

Artist of the Month: Allison Russell

Posted on by Editor

Allison Russell has already made an exceptional impression in roots music — first in the duo Birds of Chicago, then as a member of Our Native Daughters. Now with her new album Outside Child, she’s putting her own story front and center. Whether she’s singing in English or French, Russell’s voice feels like satin, comfortable and cool. Yet she weaves some of the most painful memories of her formative years in Montréal into the fabric of her Fantasy Recordings debut.

Special guests on the album include the McCrary Sisters, Ruth Moody, Erin Rae, and Yola. Upon revealing the project, Russell wrote, “This is my first solo album. It is acutely personal. It was hard for me to write, harder still to sing, play, and share. Also a relief. Like sucking the poison from a snake bite. Thanks to the supreme empathy, musicality, kindness, sensitivity, and humour of each artist who brought these songs to life with me, the recording process became — by some mystical alchemy –joyous and empowering…. Eased by loving communal laughter as much as shared tears.”

Specifically pulling from the childhood trauma she experienced at the hands of her stepfather, she adds, “This is my attempt at truth and reconciliation and forgiveness — a reckoning and a remembrance. This is my attempt to be the hero of my own history, despite the shame that has been my closest and constant companion all these years.”

We are proud to present Allison Russell as our BGS Artist of the Month for May. In the days ahead, look for a new performance video, an exclusive interview (read part one here)(read part two here), and a sleek style shoot with this singular artist, who now calls Nashville home alongside her partner JT Nero and their young daughter. Discover more of her musical journey with our BGS Essentials playlist.

Photo credit: Marc Baptiste

WATCH: Anthony da Costa, “Shadow Love”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Anthony da Costa
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Shadow Love” (Acoustic)
Album: Shadow Love EP
Release Date: Single – May 31st; EP – June 14th

In Their Words: “This is a song that has followed me around for years. I first wrote this song back in 2015 and have performed it live with my band many times… I always had fun playing it, but never felt like it was all the way there. My friend Ruth Moody (of The Wailin’ Jennys) and I had recently been discussing the possibility of writing songs together. While working on the EP, I decided to send ‘Shadow Love’ to Ruth and asked her to write another verse. She sent me that second verse while on the road, and it haunted me for days afterwards. ‘Maybe I knew you long before I met you / a hologram, a winter mist / Not everything can last forever / Not everything can feel like this.’ The song was done. What was once a loud Weezer-rock shredder became a duet between two loves, two ghosts. I wanted to share this live, acoustic version of the song (featuring Ruth as well as Sam Howard on bass) as a capture of friends sharing a feeling in real time. Enjoy!” — Anthony da Costa

Photo credit: Jacqueline Justice

Covering Milestones: A Conversation with the Wailin’ Jennys

Posted on by Editor

When the Wailin’ Jennys got back in the studio to record their new album, Fifteen, which celebrates the group’s anniversary together, Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody, and Heather Masse didn’t have much time. Five days, to be exact. Between the fact that all three women are mothers now and live in different cities, planning and preparation have given over to spontaneity and trust. But their approach on this latest LP — a set of covers — doesn’t sacrifice any of the considerate care that has always infused their siren-song harmonies. If anything, they’ve used the studio to capture the magic they radiate during their live shows.

There’s a confidence brimming from every song, whether it’s their reverent, respectful, or resplendent
takes on Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” Emmylou Harris’s “Boulder to Birmingham,” and Tom Petty’s “Wildflower,” respectively. The trio seems poised and ready to create original music at some point — schedules permitting — but in the meantime, they’ve jumped back into the waters, and are enjoying the stirring act of raising their voices at a time when the messages they’ve come to deliver need sharing more than ever.

What it is about this creative relationship that keeps bringing you all back together?

Nicky Mehta: It’s sort of never been discussed that we would ever take a break and not keep working together. I think it’s always been assumed that we would continue on as long as it felt satisfying to all of us. I think this is a type of project that none of us have access to outside of what we’re doing, so it’s a unique thing for all of us to be doing. That’s what keeps us coming back. We also have such an amazing audience that are really faithful and have seen us through a lot of hiatuses, and I think we want to come back to them, as well.

Heather Masse: I think people have been as receptive. I feel like the live shows, people are there with you and fully present and still really excited about it.

Ruth Moody: I agree. I think we’ve been so lucky with our fanbase. We have taken three hiatuses. Each time it was for each of us to have babies, procreate. [Laughs] And each time our agent was like, “It’s too long to be off the road,” and every time we came back, our audiences have been there and continued to grow over the last 10 years — 15, but specifically 10 since Heather joined the band. Who knows why, but we have been lucky in that way.

As you ebb and flow from this project, how do you see yourself fitting within the growing number of female trios in North America? There are many more names on that list now, beyond folk even.

NM: I think that’s something that I’ve observed, as well. It’s crazy how many trios are out there now, which is great, and everybody’s doing something different. What they focus on, in terms of style of music, is different. We’ve always made decisions about breaks in the road from a place that’s really necessary for each of us, personally. I don’t think we’ve ever worried too much about that because there are things we have to do and so we’ll see what happens after. Once you’ve taken one break and things successfully resume, there’s less trepidation about that. It sort of feels as though there are a lot of trios out there, but it hasn’t felt like there’s some huge competition.

Your harmonies have a touch of the familial about them, and yet you’re not related by blood. How do you explain that magic?

RM: We’ve been really lucky with our blend. We all grew up singing and singing harmonies, and so it’s something we do instinctively — blending with other voices — so that helps to have the ability to listen and blend. But even then it’s not always a slam dunk, so I think we’ve been really lucky that our voices do blend and the ranges are compatible. We switch around depending on who’s singing lead, but we’ve been lucky that that’s been the natural fit.

HM: When I first met the ladies, they were playing in Philadelphia at World Café, and I was sort of auditioning, and the only place that we could sing was in a handicapped women’s bathroom that we found. I was astonished when we all started singing together that it felt like I was singing with my sisters. We just got lucky. It is like we’re sisters, so it’s nice.

I can’t even imagine what the echo would’ve sounded like in that bathroom!

HM: It was really special. I think it was a particularly flattering echo.

You covered Dolly Parton’s “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” for the Canadian film The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom some years back. Her version has a praise and worship style about it, but yours feels more hymnal. How did you strike upon that interpretation?

RM: That was a good example of being pushed a little bit to do something. The director of the film really wanted us to do that song because the whole soundtrack is Dolly Parton. She wanted us to do it and she wanted it to be a cappella. Who knows if we would’ve gravitated in that direction, but that was cool that we got those instructions, and it really set our focus in that way. I think the best way of making something effective — if you’re going to do a cover — is to approach it in a different way. Especially in the beginning, before it gets into the groove, it does have a more plaintive, hymnal feeling. I think that did make it different from the original.

You triple the vocals on the line “Everything’s gonna be alright,” before going back into harmonies. To me, as a female listener, it feels so necessary to hear that from other women, especially with everything going on these days. What kind of message do you hope to be offering still?

NM: I think we all share the wish to heal and comfort people with what we do, and I think that we all do our own thing, in terms of staying on top of what’s going on in the world and addressing it in different ways. But in terms of what the band does is to reach out to people and support and have the music give people relief and hope and the feeling like, eventually, things will be okay. A lot of our audience, they work in fields where they’re addressing a lot of these issues all the time, and I think it’s nice for them to be able to come to a concert and feel that there’s understanding and there’s still love out there and there’s still hope.

The Tom Petty cover feels apt, although I realize you recorded before his passing. Why “Wildflowers,” in particular, besides the fact that it’s a great song?

HM: I think there’s a way in which, when we hear a song or we bring a song to the band, we sort of know if it’s going to be a Jennys song or not, if it’ll work with our configuration and the way we arrange things. I can’t remember if I brought it up — it felt like something that was on all of our lists of songs to cover — I know that, in my mind, I always thought of it as being a great Jennys cover. It’s hard to describe what the qualifications would be for a Jennys song, but it has a lot of openness and the message is really beautiful, and the melody is very beautiful.

RM: A lot of tenderness, too. It leads itself so well to harmony, which is always a factor for us.

True, you wouldn’t want to pursue a song that doesn’t give you that space.

RM: Yeah, exactly.

It’s a beautiful rendition. So I know recording this album happened quickly because of your differing schedules, but oddly enough, it feels like one of your most grounded albums. What contributed to that sense of confidence?

HM: We only had five days, but we have years of being together and working together that kind of went into it. Even though we knew it would be a bit frantic with a lot of challenges, we knew that we had the foundation. This album was, essentially, for the fans, because they have waited so long for a new record, and so, in spite of not having a lot of time and being mothers, we wanted to make this happen. We thought an appropriate way to approach the album would be to do it live off the floor, and to do a more pared-down recording that mirrors our live performances. That probably helped us feel comfortable and confident in the studio because we’re doing what we, essentially, do on stage.

RM: I think becoming a mother, also, you just have such a different perspective on everything. We didn’t have a lot of time, and normally I feel we can get a little up tight and be perfectionists about stuff. And we were able to let some of that go a little. It’s the perfect album for feeling more grounded and more natural, because we didn’t have time to go back and redo things or try new things out. We just kinda did it and had to be okay with whatever happened, because we didn’t have the time to do anything else. Sometimes there’s a real magic to that.

Photo credit: Art Turner

LISTEN: The Wailin’ Jennys, ‘Boulder to Birmingham’

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Artist: The Wailin’ Jennys
Hometown: Winnipeg, MB / Accord, NY / Victoria, BC
Song: “Boulder to Birmingham” 
Album: Fifteen
Release Date: October 27, 2017
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “I have loved this song for as long as I’ve loved songs — it’s such a poignant and heartbreaking tribute to a lost love. The fact that Emmylou [Harris] wrote it after Gram Parson’s death makes it all the more meaningful. I’ve always wanted to try it with the Jennys, but the melody really weaves around, which can be challenging for creating harmonies. I love what we ended up with. The high part, in particular, ventures way out of Nicky’s normal range, but she nailed it. This was one that felt magical when it was going down — we performed it a few times, but in the end we chose the first take.” — Ruth Moody

Photo credit: Morten Fog