Tag: Ryan Adams

BGS Top Books of 2018

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As we turn the page on another year, the Bluegrass Situation has compiled ten music-related books from 2018 that may appeal to fans of bluegrass, roots, classic country, and yes, even alt-country.

A&R Pioneers: Architects of American Roots Music on Record
Authors: Brian Ward and Patrick Huber
Some musicians just have that “it” factor – as true 100 years ago as it is today. This historical volume looks at the men and women who shaped raw talent for record labels as A&R (“artists and repertoire”) scouts. With an emphasis on roots music, the book focuses on important figures like Ralph Peer, Art Satherley, Frank Walker and John Hammond, as well as many less-celebrated figures. It also acknowledges that some of these A&R executives were not exactly virtuous. Authored by two professors, the project is jointly published by Vanderbilt University Press and the Country Music Foundation Press.

Bill Monroe: The Life and Music of the Blue Grass Man
Author: Tom Ewing
In addition to spending 10 years on the road as Bill Monroe’s bandleader and guitarist, author Tom Ewing may be the foremost expert on the Father of Bluegrass. At 656 pages, this biography ties together Monroe’s personal and professional life without glossing over the tougher times. Ewing writes with the knowledgeable bluegrass fan in mind, making this an especially rewarding book for students of bluegrass and those who are familiar with Monroe’s contemporaries. With hundreds of new interviews and rare access to Monroe’s archive, Ewing is able to build a comprehensive narrative that is likely to become the definitive account of an American music legend.

The Blue Sky Boys
Author: Dick Spottswood
Born and raised in North Carolina, the Blue Sky Boys emerged as one of the first and finest brother duos in country music. As teenagers, Bill and Earl Bolick riveted radio listeners in the Southeast with a stunning harmony blend. Earl sang baritone lead and acoustic guitar, while Bill sang tenor vocal and played mandolin, although their music was never fast and high like bluegrass. A deal with RCA Records in 1936 led to appealingly understated recordings such as “The Sunny Side of Life.” Drawing on archived interviews and Bill’s written accounts, this biography also compiles vintage photos and a complete discography.

Bluegrass Generation: A Memoir
Author: Neil V. Rosenberg
Author and historian Neil V. Rosenberg vividly recounts his own experiences with Bill Monroe and many other memorable characters at the Brown County Jamboree and the Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival in the early 1960s. Through these recollections, Rosenberg shows how these seminal concert events helped solidify Bill Monroe as a bluegrass icon. Rosenberg’s scholarly reputation is already well-established, thanks to his prior books and the title of Professor Emeritus of Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Yet this volume is more personal, as it describes how an eager college student in Indiana became entrenched in bluegrass banjo and the festival scene.

Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography
Author: Andrea Warner
In February, Buffy Sainte-Marie will receive the People’s Voice award at Folk Alliance International in Montreal. Presented to an individual who unabashedly embraces social and political commentary in their creative work and public careers, the songwriter known for the poignant 1964 anti-war anthem “Universal Soldier” fits that description neatly. This approved biography portrays the Cree musician as an advocate for Indigenous rights, as well as a woman who endured a traumatic childhood and intimate partner violence. Feminist author Andrea Warner distilled more than sixty hours of original interviews into an insightful story that illuminates Sainte-Marie’s activism and art.

The Cash and Carter Family Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from Johnny and June’s Table
Author: John Carter Cash
John Carter Cash is a foodie and it shows in this lovely cookbook dedicated to his parents, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. Family recipes abound, with the first two recipes being June’s biscuits and Mother Maybelle Carter’s tomato gravy. This isn’t all Southern cooking, however. Johnny and June also liked Asian flavors and vegetarian dishes, including their own veggie burger (a.k.a. Cashburger). The full-color photos are beautiful but the coolest pic is in the front, where the Man in Black presides over a barbecue wearing a white apron and shorts. His famous recipe for Iron-Pot Chili is in here, too.

Dixie Dewdrop: The Uncle Dave Macon Story
Author: Michael D. Dubler
Considered the first superstar of the Grand Ole Opry, Uncle Dave Macon is remembered as one of the finest banjo players of his era. This well-researched biography by his great-grandson, Michael D. Dubler, also captures the entertainer’s complex personality. Pulling from original and archived interviews, the narrative provides a detailed account of Macon’s recording output, as well as crucial personal moments, such as his father’s murder in Nashville. Because Macon’s career didn’t really take off until he was 50, the book also conveys just how much strength – both physical and emotional – it took for Macon to stick with it.

Dylan by Schatzberg
Author: Jerry Schatzberg
Bob Dylan seems the epitome of cool when gazing at the lens of photographer Jerry Schatzberg, who took innumerable pictures of him in the 1960s. Now in his 90s, Schatzberg has compiled personal stories and never-before-seen photos from that era for Dylan by Schatzberg. Inside, the enigmatic subject is documented in recording studios, concert stages, and city streets. For example, Schatzberg snapped the famously blurry Blonde on Blonde album cover in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan. Some believed it was a metaphor for drug use, but Schatzberg says it’s out of focus simply because both men were shaking in the cold.

John Hartford’s Mammoth Collection of Fiddle Tunes
Authors: Matt Combs; Katie Hartford Hogue; Greg Reish (Author), John Hartford (Illustrator)
One of acoustic music’s most treasured talents, John Hartford left behind a brilliant legacy that is ceaselessly resonant. This full-color book goes a long way to explain why generations of bluegrass fans continue to admire him. Co-authored by accomplished fiddler Matt Combs, Hartford’s daughter Katie Hartford Hogue, and musicologist Greg Reish, the volume expands beyond career landmarks like writing “Gentle on My Mind” and recording Aereo-Plane. Readers can also peruse 176 original compositions (some never before published), more than sixty of Hartford’s personal drawings, interviews with musicians who still consider him an essential player of American music, and Hartford’s own ruminations on playing the fiddle.

Waiting to Derail: Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown, Alt-Country’s Brilliant Wreck
Author: Thomas O’Keefe
Time has been kind to Whiskeytown’s 1997 album, Strangers Almanac, with country-tinged tracks like “16 Days” and “Yesterday’s News” paving the way for the Americana movement. (Back then it was usually called “alt-country.”) But why didn’t the band have more national success? This candid book written by their former tour manager makes it obvious that Ryan Adams didn’t care about playing nice to fans, venue owners, influential radio programmers or the music industry. Still, there’s an important scene where Adams silences a North Carolina club with “Avenues,” serving as a potent reminder of just how powerful his music can be.

Canon Fodder: Cowboy Junkies, ‘The Trinity Session’

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“Roots” is an impossibly broad term that reasonably encompasses every strain of American music, from folk and country and gospel to bluegrass and blues and rock, from hollers, reels, and jigs to ballads, anthems, and laments. That makes for an incredibly diverse catalog of songs and albums that fall under that heading. Each month Stephen Deusner examines an album that lies either in the center — or more often in the margins — of what might be considered the roots canon … if there even is such a thing.

Let’s get the formalities out of the way first: The Cowboy Junkies’ second album was recorded at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Toronto in November, 1987. The church was initially reluctant to let a secular rock group hold sessions there, so the band broke the ninth commandment and bore false witness: They said they were a gospel act called the Timmins Family Singers and they were recording a holiday radio special. Many of the songs were captured with the band playing around one microphone, with Margo Timmins’ vocals broadcast over the church PA. It took either one day or several days, depending on who’s telling the story.

When fans talk about The Trinity Session, they almost always foreground the circumstances of its recording, as though that setting demonstrates the album’s authenticity — as though authenticity were objectively demonstrable. Overshadowing the music, the story of the album has become the album, and even the band is complicit: In 2007, they celebrated their breakthrough’s 20th anniversary by rebooking the same church, inviting some popular fans inside (including Vic Chesnutt and Ryan Adams), and re-recording the album song for song.

The music gets lost in that tale, so that it becomes easy to ignore the mood that the church itself went so far to create. It obscures the fact that this is an album that dramatically rewrites its folk source material, that conceives of personal and professional troubles (touring, romance, the usual) as the raw material for folk tunes, and considers Elvis Presley and the Velvet Underground to be folk artists. For many listeners (including yours truly), it was their first introduction to the folk process, years before Uncle Tupelo and others were revving up the Appalachian tradition to define alt-country. The Trinity Session is a seminal album, if it can ever escape the church.

The Church of the Holy Trinity did do one important thing: It created a sonic palette for these songs, eschewing the clinical silence of the studio for something with an audible ambience. It’s there in the a cappella opener “Mining for Gold,” a cover of a song by the Canadian folkie James Gordon. As Margo voices the worries of someone whose life is spent underground, you can hear the soft rumble in the background, a thousand small things coalescing into a roomy thrum: distant traffic, footsteps, whispers, birdsong, exhalations and inhalations, the bustle of Toronto just beyond the sanctuary. If you wanted to be romantic, you might say it’s the sound of a ghost in the room, a spectral musician accompanying Margo’s performance. But perhaps it’s something more: The entire world hushed so that the singer can get inside her own head for a few precious moments. That sound is the sound of sanctuary.

Reviewing the album in 1989 for Spin, Erik Davis described it as “a combination of Quaaludes and honey.” In this aural soup, the instruments take on lives of their own. Alan Anton’s bass doesn’t enter through your ear; rather, it already exists in your head. The harmonica leaps out of “I Don’t Get It,” almost like a jump scare in a horror movie. Michael Timmins’ guitar solos seem impossibly delicate, especially on “Dreaming My Dream with You.” His sense of timing makes the music all the more immersive; you lean in to hear his notes. Most of all, it’s the way these sounds collide and combine that reinforce the idea of the Cowboy Junkies as a band, which is crucial. They sway into oncoming traffic on “Walking after Midnight,” they swing delicately on “Blue Moon Revisited,” they jam industrially on “Working on a Building.” The church becomes a place of musical communion.

Margo Timmins sings “Mining for Gold” like the song wasn’t written but passed down through generations, and introduces a compelling strategy the band will deploy on most of the songs that follow: It uses the folk tune as a metaphor for band life. The Cowboy Junkies are miners searching for a rich vein of gold, and they persist despite the dangers such an enterprise entails. She may sing of silicosis (and who else could make that disease sound sing-song-y?), but the travails they face are more spiritual than physical. There is a sly nod to fellow Canadian Neil Young, who famously had “been a miner for a heart of gold,” but there are sly nods to so many performers here: the swaggering sex appeal of Elvis Presley on “Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis),” the horrific isolation of Hank Williams on “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” the heroic stoicism of Patsy Cline on “Walking after Midnight,” even the unexpected compassion of Lou Reed on “Sweet Jane.”

These artists are the veins they’re mining, which inform the handful of originals on The Trinity Session, in particular “200 Miles.” At first, it plays like a rounder’s anthem or a trucker song, but it becomes not only a description of life in a touring band but a declaration of intent — an explication of why the Timminses might choose a life on the road: “I got Willie on the radio, a dozen things on my mind, and number one is fleshing out these dreams of mine.” It’s no coincidence that they follow that song up with Waylon Jennings’ “Dreaming My Dreams with You.” “I hope that I find what I’m reaching for, the way that it is in my mind.”

The Cowboy Junkies are not only running toward some dream they can only vaguely define. They are also running from something. Death stalks every song on The Trinity Session, whether in the form of black lung or a car collision or some unknown fate that befalls every one of us. “I want to make sense of why we live and die … I don’t get it,” Margo sings on “I Don’t Get It.” And, just in case you think this album is without humor, she remarks grimly, “I ask my friends if they understand, but they just laugh at me and watch another band.” Music is one means by which we might understand life and death — or at least the Junkies hope so.

Are these songs receptacles for the dead and the doomed? Do they contain the ghosts of Hank, Patsy, and Elvis, and now Lou and Waylon? Nearly every artist they cover has died, which means that, 30 years after it established them as one of Canada’s most daring rock acts, The Trinity Session isn’t so much an album as it is a séance — a means by which they can contact and interrogate the dead.

3×3: Jade Bird on Boyfriends, Barbies, and the Bluebird

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Artist: Jade Bird
Hometown: London, England
Latest Album: Something American
Personal Nicknames: Jadey … I wish I had something more imaginative … Birdmeister has a ring to it.

If you had to live the life of a character in a song, which song would you choose?

Ooh, great question! Every character seems to have such a bleak ending in the songs I like … I’ve always felt a strange connection to “Look at Miss Ohio.” There’s something about the character’s spirit running from having everything. I suppose any of the girls Ryan Adams or Hank Williams sing about — must be nice to be that doted upon.

Where would you most like to live or visit that you haven’t yet?

Nashville!! Although I’m on my way there soon to play the Bluebird with the incredible Brent Cobb, who I got to know on his tour this side of the Atlantic.

What was the last thing that made you really mad?

If it isn’t a boyfriend … I often get frustrated the most with myself. Generally, not doing the best I can at something really winds me up.

 

Brooklyn First photoshoot of the trip… as you can see it was a serious affair #jazzhands @shervinfoto

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If you had to get a tattoo of someone’s face, who would it be?

Oh wow. I don’t know if I like ANYone that much. If it was do or die, someone with a pretty face, like James Dean or a young Leonardo DiCaprio *swoon*.

Whose career do you admire the most?

Patti Smith or Johnny Cash — both I think are totally authentic through their whole career. The amount of music they put into the world is so inspiring in different ways. Cash’s hundreds of songs and Smith’s real push toward a new sound at that time.

What are you reading right now?

In Cold Blood

 

What a first meal I literally died and went to heaven after this… #newyorknewyork

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Are you an introvert or an extrovert?

Both, I think every artist has a way of being so. I love being on stage more than anything, yet sometimes I very much like to hold up in my room and hide … until food and water is needed … and sunlight. I’m a bit like a plant, really.

What’s your favorite culinary spice?

I can’t cook to save my life, so I’ll go with paprika. On a side note, I don’t like dill .. .or too much coriander — they used to put it on everything in my old school canteen — not good.

What was your favorite childhood toy?

Barbies were definitely leading, at some point, followed closely by a life-sized Siberian husky who I named Shadow. I did used to create an army of my grandma’s ornamental elephants. (You’ve opened a can of worms here!)

Photo credit: Shervin Lainez

3X3: Ryan Harris Brown on Brussel Sprouts, Smoky Mountains, and Soundtracks

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Ryan Harris Brown
Hometown: Scranton, PA
Latest Album: Stranded in the Present Tense
Personal Nicknames: RHB

If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack?

Jimi Hendrix, “Wind Cries Mary”

Ben Folds Five, “One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces”

Ryan Adams, “Come Pick Me Up”

John Mayer, “No Such Thing”

Paul Simon, “Graceland”

How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox?

A big fat ZERO on both fronts.

How many pillows do you sleep with?

Two to three, but the third usually ends up on the floor by morning.

 

New blog post up. Link in bio. #nashville #nashvillemusic #indiemusic #indieartist #tumblr #blog

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How many pairs of shoes do you own?

10

Which mountains are your favorite — Smoky, Blue Ridge, Rocky, Appalachian, or Catskill?

Well, I’ve only seen the Smokies and the Blue Ridge Mountains, so I’m going to go with the Smokies.

What’s your favorite vegetable?

Brussel Sprouts

Fate or free will?

Fate    

Sweet or sour?

Sweet

Sunrise or sunset?

Sunrise

7 Americana Songs That Should Absolutely Not Be Covered By Anyone (Even Bob Dylan)

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We all know that feeling, the one we get when someone does a cover of one of our favorite songs. It's the same mix of excitement and fear we felt as teenagers, when we jumped into the back of Dad's Plymouth Reliant and started working on our 'Night Moves.' Will it be an ecstatic experience or will it completely suck? But just as there are people with whom we'd never endeavor to join in the back of that car, there are songs that are patently untouchable, recordings that should be left alone for posterity, never to be covered by anyone (even Bob Dylan). Here's a list of seven that are sacred.

"Wagon Wheel" — Old Crow Medicine Show

It’s not too farfetched to imagine that somewhere in this great musical land of ours some ‘record guy’ is hatching a plot to have Bob Dylan cover his own co-write, like some evil scientist plotting to destroy the North Carolina transit system. Don’t engage with the dark side, Bob. I gave you a pass on that semi-awful Frank Sinatra thing but, if you dare lay hands on this Americana classic (part owner though you may be), I’ll be compelled to give you a thorough tongue-lashing. Worse than I would’ve given Darius Rucker had I cared enough to talk about it. And don’t get me started on the other versions that are floating around from bands that ought to know better (but apparently don’t). Heck, there's even an entire website devoted to stopping the spread of "Wagon Wheel."

"La Cienega Just Smiled" — Ryan Adams

I have a 15-year old son who’s quite an accomplished musician, who does a pretty nice piano and vocal version of this song. But he’ll never record it or perform it in public, he says, “because the original version is perfect and I’ll never, ever come close.” Others should have such foresight. Out of the mouths of babes, as they say.

"Don’t Think About Her When You’re Trying To Drive" — Little Village

A good friend of mine, once the music editor of a hi-fi magazine, said the demise of Little Village came because there was no one in charge (so everyone thought he was in charge). I’m guessing that dogs like "Solar Sex Panel" had something to do with it, too. But tucked among the mutts was this Westminster Best In Show, a fervently heart-breaking ballad about being on the road to somewhere without someone. The arrangement is beautiful, the twanging Telecasters are glorious and drummer Jim Keltner has more taste in his left foot than most people have in their whole body.

"Quits" — Danny O’Keefe

“What will we call it now? It’s not a marriage anymore.” Seriously, I tear up every time I hear this song, probably the most heart-wrenching three minutes and nineteen seconds about divorce ever written. Weeping pedal steel, desolate strings, lonely harmonies (courtesy of Linda Ronstadt), lyrics that are hankie worthy, even for the toughest of tough guys. A couple of country dudes have covered this one and they're still meeting with their therapists to work through their guilt and shame.

"Windfall" — Son Volt

Quite possibly the greatest Americana song ever written, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would try to improve on this example of perfection. It’s all here: moaning vocals, steel guitars (settlin’ down), fabulous fiddles, all night radio stations, hands on the wheel, the wind in your face, troubles, troubles and more troubles at 134 beats per minute. I’ll give ‘Rusty Fender” a pass on his YouTube bass cover (Really? bass cover?) but that’s as far as my forgiveness will extend.

"Big Yellow Taxi" — Joni Mitchell

As much as my boy and I are pretty simpatico when it comes to music, I think about putting him up for adoption every time he cracks open Spotify and plays the isn't-he-cute boyfriend funk version of this song that Counting Crows massacred for the benefit of pop radio. The codpiece caterwaul of the emotive Mr. Durwitz that was somewhat charming when he was hanging with "Mr. Jones" just proves he has no clue what he's singing about. For God sakes, dude, the song isn't about the girl. It's about our collective loss of childhood innocence and appreciation that's leading us to destroy the planet. 

"Tenderness" — Paul Simon

There Goes Rhymin’ Simon was one of Paul Simon’s most popular records and "Tenderness" followed "Kodachrome" so, even by mistake, this song got played a lot back when vinyl and tape were all we had. And why wouldn’t it? It’s New Orleans blues meets New York folk in its finest form, perfectly framed by The Dixie Hummingbirds. And that’s why it should never be covered … ’cuz no one sings like those guys.

BGS Class of 2017: Preview

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This is going to be an exceptional year in roots music with new releases coming later on from Jason Isbell, Lee Ann Womack, Holly Williams, Chris Stapleton, Chuck Berry, and so many more. Here are some albums we’re excited about dropping in the first half of 2017.

Natalie Hemby: Puxico

Ani DiFranco: Binary

Pieta Brown: Postcards

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Alison Krauss: Windy City

Rodney Crowell: Close Ties

Caroline Spence: Spades & Roses

Valerie June: The Order of Time

Noam Pikelny: Universal Favorite

— Kelly McCartney

* * *

Jaime Wyatt: Felony Blues

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Natalie Hemby: Puxico

Alison Krauss: Windy City

Sunny Sweeney: Trophy

Pieta Brown: Postcards

Nikki Lane: Highway Queen

Caroline Spence: Spades & Roses

Rogue + Jaye: Pent Up

— Brittney McKenna

* * *

Mark Eitzel: Hey Mr. Ferryman

Ryan Adams: Prisoner

Alison Krauss: Windy City

Nikki Lane: Highway Queen

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Old 97’s: Graveyard Whistling

Valerie June: The Order of Time

Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator

Various: From Here: English Folk Field Recordings

Bruce Springsteen: TBA

— Stephen Deusner

* * *

Tift Merritt: Stitch of the World

Leif Vollebekk: Twin Solitude

Ryan Adams: Prisoner

Jesca Hoop: Memories Are Now

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Gold Connections: Gold Connections (EP)

Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator

Laura Marling: Semper Femina

Michael Chapman: 50

— Amanda Wicks

* * *

Ryan Adams: Prisoner

Nikki Lane: Highway Queen

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Hurray for the Riff Raff: The Navigator

Valerie June: The Order of Time

Dead Man Winter: Furnace

Laura Marling: Semper Femina

Son Volt: Notes of Blue

Sera Cahoone: From Where I Started

— Desiré Moses

* * *

John Moreland: TBA

Rogue + Jaye: Pent Up

Rhiannon Giddens: Freedom Highway

Nikki Lane: Highway Queen

Little Bandit: Breakfast Alone

Ryan Adams: Prisoner 

— Marissa Moss
 

Nothing to Hide: A Conversation with Dan Layus

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After more than a decade at the heart of Augustana, Dan Layus recently released an official solo album, Dangerous Things. And anyone who thinks they are going to get another bunch of roots-rock anthems out of Layus has another think coming their way. The sparsely drawn, country-tinged singer/songwriter set summons Gram Parsons, Woody Guthrie, and early Tom Waits as its patron saints, and Layus's Rodney Crowell-esque voice feels right at home in the form. There's a fragility to the whole artistic affair, but one which makes it clear that there's strength in being vulnerable, in asking for or offering help.

I dig this record. A lot. And I'll tell you why: It has a serious lack of pretense. It's not trying to be anything that it's not. You're just putting it out there with nothing to hide behind. How's that feeling?

I appreciate that. Without sounding pretentious, ironically, that's exactly what I was going for — to, essentially, go for nothing. [Laughs] It's like Seinfeld; it's a show about nothing. That's probably my favorite compliment about the record. Thank you. That's very intuitive and a little bit left-of-center approach to describe it. And that's absolutely what I was going for.

Let me put it this way: It felt far too predictable to say, “I think I'm gonna make a country record now. That seems like the thing to do.” It felt like that would've been laughed off the map. Being a self-described narcissist, I know that I care a little too much about what people think sometimes, especially music people. So I needed to challenge myself … I'm joking about the narcissism, by the way. [Laughs]

[Laughs] Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.

I hoped you would. I needed to let go of a lot of the practices — the writing practices, sonic habits I had in the past. It's very easy to fall into a pattern of crutches, when it comes to music. You get used to certain elements around you. Even things as simple as “Where do the drums go on this song? What's the bass gonna do?” — assuming that there needs to be these four cornerstones of a record that make the sound of the record. I think what I was able to do — and it was a greater challenge than I thought — was to just not worry about it at all. Just rely on the characters in the songs, let them be themselves.

I won't lie: I'm absolutely in love with the few elements, sonically, that are implied and nodded to, as far as pedal steel and fiddle and, of course, the Secret Sisters and the female background vocals. I'm in love with those, but I think the subtleties of them are what make it say, “Yes, this is what you think it is, but I'm not going to stand on top of the building and say, 'I'm a country artist now. Hear me roar!' I'm just going to let it be what it's going to be.”

It seems fitting, too, to leave the band name behind with the big, sweeping melodies and the arena-rock drums fills. Just let that all live in its own world.

Right. Yeah.

Why, for you, was that shift in branding and that shouldering of responsibility important? Because, like I said with the music, there's nothing left to hide behind, brand-wise.

That is true. It was kind of for selfish reasons. Sometimes you forget, at least for me, if I'm a fan of a certain artist or singer that's associated with a band, you forget that they have their own feelings of weight or they're battling with their own self-image in that environment. You forget that. “Oh, I just like the music. I like that band a lot.” You forget there are all these times that, potentially, they don't feel totally comfortable in their own skin underneath that umbrella, that moniker, that brand or band name. It comes with a weight. It comes with an expectation of a certain sound, a certain style, a certain form.

I think what happened was, I put out this last record — the last Augustana record — I made it, essentially, by myself with a few producers. It felt like a desperate plea. I loved the songs, but the album felt completely scattered. I tried my very, very best to be myself in that situation and carry it or be comfortable with it. But it became glaringly obvious, after a few years, that this was done. This was not what it once was. To call it a band and call it what it used to be in 2005 is just silly. I'm lying to myself and to the fans. Times change. Things change. Relationships change. People's careers change. One day you work in a business office and one day you don't want to work there anymore. You need to try something new to feel motivated or excited about something.

So it really is more of a reboot than an evolution, creatively, then?

I think so, yeah. I felt that, creatively and in a career-minded way, Augustana had reached its resting place. I have nothing but wonderful feelings about it. Never felt angry about it. Never felt jealous about other people's standings, maybe people we were coming up with and where they ended up, if they ended up anywhere at all. I was always able to keep that all in perspective.

But I think, for my own benefit and the benefit of my family and our future and definitely my future in music, I felt like, “You know what? Let's live in the current place that we are.” And the current place that I am is that I'm ready to make an album that has my name on it and sounds the way I've always wanted it to sound. And nobody's gonna tell me no, that I can't have pedal steel, that I can't have a fiddle. [Laughs] Nobody's gonna tell me that it sounds too Americana.

[Laughs] And it's a fiddle, damn it. Not a violin.

It's a damn fiddle! [Laughs] Nobody's gonna tell me that this isn't gonna work at alternative radio because it's too alt-country or whatever. I'm just gonna make the damn record sound the way I wanted it to, ever since I heard Gram Parsons or Ryan Adams, when I was 16. That's the record I've always wanted to make, but for whatever reasons, I was never able to fully realize that sound and feel. I feel more at home now, than I ever have.

I think that's going to be reflected in the people who respond to it. I'll be honest, I have a few Augustana songs in my iTunes, but I wasn't that big a fan.

Yeah.

But I seriously love this record. It reminds me of Chely Wright's new one. I was never a commercial country listener, so I knew of her and liked a few of her tunes, but on her new record — it's the same thing — she found her true voice. I feel like that's what you've done.

Awww. Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much.

You're welcome. And I don't say that just to say it.

[Laughs] I can tell! I can tell that you mean it.

[Laughs] Now, you've talked about having to let go of songwriting in order to write these songs. Is that because of the personal nature of the songs — that they were for your album and not for a singer to be named later or for a band?

Yeah, that's part of it, certainly. I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't partially my fault for investing a lot of time in co-writing with other people over the last five or six years. Especially in Nashville over the last two to three years.

That's the way it is here.

That's the way it is here. I learned a lot. I learned a lot of good writing habits and I learned a lot of bad writing habits over the course of a few years. And I already had my own style of writing, which a lot of people do, when they come to town. I was writing with people in L.A., too. It just has its own thing to it. Coming to Nashville and being like, “Alright. I'm going to try to get some cuts. Some BIG country cuts. I need to make some damn money for my family. I need to let go of my whole artistic thing, because it ain't working out.” [Laughs] “If I'm a music guy, if that's what I'm gonna do, then I better find a way to support my family with music because I don't know what the hell else I'd be able to do. I know I can write a song, so let me get in with some writers. Let me try to get some cuts.”

And it didn't really work out. I had a hard time letting go of my own … I don't know what it is … my own method. I couldn't just say, “It's for the money. It's worth it.” I was never able to go to the point where I said, “Yeah, this song is worth barely being able to sleep at night.” [Laughs]

[Laughs] Well, it's putting a price tag on your soul, right?

Yeah, it really felt like it. I think, at the end of the day, I found that there were a few songs that really impacted me with some of these writers who I'd met in town. And they made the record. They were close to being cut by other, larger artists in Nashville who passed on them and I was like, “You know what? Then I'm going to do it because this feels like my song.” So there are a few of those cuts on there.

The rest of the record, I wrote myself, which I hadn't done 70 or 80 percent of a record on my own for seven or eight years, so that was part of letting go of the songwriting process that I was referencing. After driving into Nashville from Franklin every day from, essentially, 9 to 5, coming home to dinner after writing a pop-country song or whatever it was, it becomes this occupation, this lackadaisical, mediocre endeavor, if you let it.

At some point in that process, it became that. It became very mediocre, very uninspired, and I realized that I needed to stop and stay at home for a minute and not try to go get cuts and write my own songs. I had to figure out how to write my own songs again, by myself without another writer. It sounds crazy, but I needed to. I became too reliant on the process where the goal is just to finish a song a day. That was a very convoluted perspective to develop and I felt like, “Man, I don't know how I lost my way on this one.” So I took a step back, stayed home, and … I don't know what song it was, but it just broke open the floodgates. I was so proud that I could write a song that I could feel something about, that I wanted to showcase and go play. That's what happened, as far as writing was concerned.

Got it. “You Can Have Mine” … it might be my favorite cut. I'm not sure. There's some competition there.

Ohhhh, wonderful!

It reminds me of that old parable of a friend jumping down in a hole with someone because they know the way out. So I wonder if that is that a role you've played for someone … or had someone play for you? Or if music plays that role for you?

You know what? A little bit of everything. That's one of those songs. Two of these songs are written with a wonderful writer named Emily Wright — “You Can Have Mine” and “Call Me When You Get There.” There was a stretch of a few weeks when we were getting together and writing a bunch. It was a wonderful connection, as far as writing was concerned. We saw things in a similar way. Both of those songs kind of just shot right out and felt really great right away.

“You Can Have Mine” — the title just popped into my head and we just started writing it. So I don't know where it came from, specifically, but it came out of something. It definitely came from experience. At that time, either myself or my wife was battling a pretty heavy bout of stock seasonal depression, I think. Which, living down here, as you know, can be very impactful when January, February come around and money's running low and you're feeling tired and estranged from any feeling of inspiration and kind of a little lost or down. That's something my wife and I, and probably most people, go through — just feeling like you've got someone there to go through it with you, you have somebody to call or go home to or get up for the next day. That's something that I don't think I address as often as I should, these bouts of depression that I feel or that my wife feels.

It is something you explore, though, on this record.

Absolutely.

Like on “Only Gets Darker.” For you, it's not a passive state with a big “Time Heals” light at the end of the tunnel. You have to be an active participant in your own healing, right?

Yes. Yes. That was how I felt about it, and still feel about it. This is a long life. Just because I've been sober for five-plus years doesn't mean that's it. [Laughs] It's a constant struggle for anyone to get out of their own way, essentially. That's the battle every day that I feel I'm fighting. It's not just booze or whatever. It's anything. Just trying to move yourself out of your own way and find a way to appreciate the moment that you have, what's happening around and in front of you, people who love you, people you love. That's a challenge. It's easier to see the things you're not getting or that aren't being given to you.

That song, in particular, I never felt as if … and this is just my perspective, everyone feels differently … but my experience is, seeing yourself out of a dark place or having a hand to help you like in “You Can Have Mine,” that feels like the only way. Not only is it empowering to give you confidence for the next time, but it also just feels like the truth. I mean, I've never just woken up one day and said, “Oh, shit. I feel better.” [Laughs] It's a conscious effort. It's a thought process. It's your actions. It's your choices that help you wind up in a better place, mentally and emotionally. But I don't know. That's just me.

 

For another folk-country songwriter's perspective, read Kelly's interview with Lori McKenna.

Photo credit: Justin Clough

MIXTAPE: WDVX’s Radio Un-Friendly Favorites

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As Music Director at WDVX, a large part of my job deals with previewing new releases and selecting which songs will receive airplay at the station. We broadcast on the FM band and are obliged to adhere to FCC guidelines regarding language and decency. In my position, there’s nothing worse than getting a couple of minutes into an amazing new song and having one four-letter word completely derail any chances of that song ever making it on the air. What follows is a list of some of my favorite songs that I can never share with you on the radio. — Nelson Gullett

Lydia Loveless — “Longer”

This song from Lydia’s new album is the one that started me down the path of putting this list together. I first heard the album version of it a few hours before I was scheduled to host a new music show on WDVX. I immediately loved the song and was heartbroken when I came to the lyric that raised the FCC flag. Fortunately, Bloodshot Records always sends radio stations a “clean” version of all of Lydia’s records, and this song — a version of it, at least — is currently spinning at the station.

Lucinda Williams — “Essence”

I should state that I am not personally offended by any of the songs on this list. To the contrary, I applaud any artist who has the conviction to use the precise language in a song that will carry their message and get their point across … regardless of what that does to their radio prospects. Lucinda Williams is a master of conveying emotion and desperation in her songs. Any phrase other than the one she uses here, would have robbed this song of a certain degree of power behind those emotions. There is no need for Lucinda to pull any punches.

Kathleen Edwards — “What Are You Waiting For?”

In many ways, Kathleen Edwards is a very similar artist to Lucinda. There’s often an edge to her writing that feels very earnest and genuine. Here, Kathleen’s exasperation leads her to a point where her exclamation feels fully earned. Like Lucinda, any phrase other than the one she uses would dull the impact of the song.

Greensky Bluegrass — “Windshield”

In contrast to the previous two songs, I do sometimes get a little peeved when I feel like the language that excludes a song from airplay could have just as easily been left out. This is the opening track (and lead single) on Greensky Bluegrass’ 2014 album, If Sorrows Could Swim. The first verse contains a usage of the f-bomb that seems as though it was just wedged into the lyric to add a couple of beats in order to fit the words to the measure. I’ll admit that it did sour my initial impressions of the band and the album. Fortunately, we found plenty of other songs from the album that worked for our station, and the band has done very well on our airwaves.

Todd Snider — “In the Beginning”

Rule number one with any new Todd Snider record that comes to the station: “Read the lyric sheet before playing on the radio.” Todd is a noted offender of offensive language rules and generally requires a little extra screening. When it came our way in 2012, six of the ten songs off Todd’s Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables album were deemed too hot for WDVX for various reasons. This is one of them.

Hayes Carll — “She Left Me for Jesus”

It isn’t always explicit language that keeps a song off our airwaves. Sometimes content comes into play, as well. Knoxville is squarely located in the Bible Belt, and we do typically try to stay away from polarizing political or religious topics. Hayes Carll’s tone in this tune is fully tongue-in-cheek, but given the controversy surrounding this song upon its release — and having a feel for how portions of our audience might react to it — we left it off our playlist. Incidentally, this song was named Song of the Year at the 2008 Americana Music Awards. I voted for it.

James McMurtry — “We Can’t Make It Here”

The other Song of the Year winner to never make it to air at WDVX is this 2006 winner from James McMurtry. (I voted for it, too.) This one falls a bit into the polarizing political statement category, having been released squarely in the middle of President George W. Bush’s final term. Ultimately, though, it was language usage rather than legislative leanings that kept us away from this one.

Ryan Adams — “Come Pick Me Up”

This is my favorite Ryan Adams song. Always has been. I don’t know if it’s the loping banjo, or Kim Richey’s backing vocals, or just the sheer languidness of it all … but something about this song has always spoken to me. It certainly can’t be the profanity-laced chorus. Nah … that can’t be it at all.

Gillian Welch — “Revelator”

Full disclosure: I have played this song on the radio many, many times. I listened to it over and over before I ever realized that Gillian slipped in the word she slips in about four minutes into the tune. It wasn’t until I saw Chris Thile and Nickel Creek sing this live a couple years after its release that I actually heard what was always there. I don’t know if Chris enunciated better than Gillian or if I just didn’t want to believe that Gillian says what she says. It sounds completely obvious to me now, but back then …

The Baseball Project — “Ted Fucking Williams”

I love baseball. I love Scott McCaughey, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck. Ted Williams is the “Greatest Hitter that Ever Lived.” I love this song. I can’t play this song for obvious reasons.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus — “I Bet You They Won’t Play This Song on the Radio”

Just for fun … This song from Monty Python and Eric Idle has been running through my head ever since I agreed to write this.

Sweaty and Covered in Confetti: A Conversation with Butch Walker

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Butch Walker has never been an artist you could pick out of a song or a record based upon a particular sound. The Georgia native and Grammy Award-nominated songwriter, performer, and producer has stamped his name in the liner notes of albums from Weezer and Taylor Swift to P!nk and Fall Out Boy. But Walker’s range as an artist (and, in many cases, a producer) is most evident in his own catalog, where he’s as liable to show up and rock the hell out as he is to deliver a quiet, introspective folk gem. His latest effort, Stay Gold, is a rock album that shows its country tendencies from time to time, oozing with nostalgia and railing through the kinds of lyrics you might find yourself doodling on notebooks.

I have to say, especially being from Atlanta, I love “Stay Gold,” the song. There’s a ton of imagery in there that seems like it must transcend the specifics, though, and kind of mean something to everyone.

Thank you. I think it was probably one of the first songs I put together for the record. The whole thing was this almost Outsiders thing that I just felt like I related to as a kid. I was definitely not the popular kid in school. I was the long-haired derelict that all the yuppies looked at funny. When I saw that movie, when I was young, it made a lot of sense to me. I appreciated the kids that came from nothing, that had more substance almost than any of the gifted and the popular ones. I guess I just really started running with that. Also, growing up in [what was] then kind of a boring, deadbeat, Christian conservative Bible belt town, where hardly anybody played or cared about rock 'n' roll, because I think their parents scared them away from it.

I had a couple of friends that I could relate to. They didn’t come from the best homes. There were definitely problems there, no dads around and whatever. I wrote a lot of “Stay Gold” about one of my buddies when I was young, that I used to hang out with all the time and listen to rock 'n' roll records. We’d dream and fantasize about being in a metal band together and stuff. I think a lot of people can relate, that come from a small town, to the mentality there of disenfranchisement.

I saw a quote from you recently where you said that the songs are half-true on this record. I was wondering what you mean by that. Is that something that’s common, or the way you feel about a lot of your songs … what do you mean when you say that?

I think so. I think a song will start with something that is something I’ve related to or that has happened in my life, or to somebody else’s life that I grew up with or whatever. A lot of times, to complete the picture, I’ll start thinking in broader terms — almost, like I said, in a cinematic kind of a way. "Why does this happen to the character? Who says this has to always be fucking true?"

I don’t believe that it’s inauthentic if it isn’t true. Half my favorite singers and songwriters growing up, I think, wrote fiction. It’s about entertaining and making people enjoy what’s being talked about and relate to it however, or feel something from it.

One of the lyrics on the record that really hit me hard was, “I just hope you worry about me every once in a while,” from “Descending” with Ashley Monroe. I find myself thinking back to that line a lot. Is there something specific that made you think about it that way? It’s a very different take on “I hope you miss me,” or “I hope you wish we had never …”

That line stood out in the back of my mind. Who knows? I could have just been driving down the road or something. I could have been thinking about love and how hard it is to hold onto it, and how hard it is to constantly be in love and feel for someone.

I’m not saying that I’m the one necessarily saying that [line]. It could be the other person. “I wonder if that person thinks I never worry about them anymore — that I never check in on them because I just don’t care anymore.” That’s a fucked-up way to think, but at the same time, it’s a reality. The candle burns out for a lot of people. It’s really sad. I really wanted to write that song with Ashley: “What’s one of the saddest things you can say in a plea of desperation — wanting someone to still love you when you think they don’t anymore?”

I sent that to Ashley. She was on a plane texting, coming to L.A. We wanted to get together and talk about a song. I said, “Yeah, I’d love to do that.” We got to talking about relationships, and blah, blah, blah. We weren’t even talking about the songwriting anymore, we were just talking about having relationship struggles and being in love.

She said, “We’re descending.”

I said, “Your relationship or the plane?”

She said, “Oh no, the plane. I’m sorry.” I wrote her back like 10 minutes later: “I think we have our song.” I wrote this chorus and texted it to her right in the middle while she was still flying. We got together and she helped write the rest of the verses and we finished it in 10 minutes.

Wow, that’s a cool story. You work with a lot of other artists on other records, and I don’t think I could tag what sound to expect from a record with you in the credits. I was wondering, what is it about a project that will draw you to it?

I think you’re right. I consider that to be a good thing … that you never know.

Absolutely.

It’s weird. You come to [music], growing up on rock and metal and stuff like that — I was producing rock and metal bands in my mom and dad’s garage in my 20s. Then, you go from that to having kind of an out-of-nowhere fluke hit for a teenage pop girl and then, all of a sudden, everybody’s like, “Oh yeah, he’s the teeny pop girl.” You’re like, “No, I’m not really. I didn’t know this was even going to happen. It just happened.”

Then, you’re getting hit at left and right to produce and write for every teeny pop girl in existence. It’s like, “Wait a minute: I don’t know if I want to be pigeonholed for one thing. That doesn’t make any sense to me.” I grew up in so many different kinds of music, and I love so many different things, that it’s not fair to myself just to take [projects] because the money’s good.

I just wanted to do something interesting. I’m obviously doing something I’ve never really tapped into before, but I’m familiar with. That always is intriguing to me. I think someone like Rick Rubin has had a great career of doing that, too, where he might not be as hands-on, musically, as I am, but all producer roles are different. His is just as important, which is kind of being the moderator for the bands, or being a shrink for the artists, or being a big-picture kind of a Yoda character.

That’s awesome, because he can go from making the best Dixie Chicks record of their career, to making the best Johnny Cash record, to making the best Slayer record. That rules. I love all that shit. I love all three of those artists. For anybody to tell me that, “No, you’re just a pop/punk guy,” or “No, you can’t do that. Don’t change up the ingredients to the Egg McMuffin on me.” I don’t like it when people try to do that — try to tell you that you’re one thing. How can that be, when I grew up on everything from Duran Duran to Willie Nelson to Celtic Frost and fucking Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi? It was everything. It was whatever was on the radio I listened to. Back then, there was no separation. You could hear every kind of music over the course of two stations.

That’s all I knew, growing up in a small town. It was before there was the Internet, and pretty much a lot of it was before there was MTV — which, I’m dating myself, but that just made it more interesting. I was soaking up music like a sponge. The most fun thing about being an artist and a producer now, and having this day job that I have, is being able to exercise all those influences.

Definitely. You’ve been in the producer’s role a lot, self-producing this record, as well, but you haven’t chosen to self-produce all of your records. Ryan Adams produced your last full-length. What pushed you toward the producer’s role this time around?

The thing is, I definitely didn’t know, on the previous record, what I wanted. I didn’t really know what I wanted, just because I was kind of emotionally numb from my dad dying. I had all these strong lyrics — more importantly just lyrics — for songs that I thought would be really great songs, but I didn’t know how to do them. I didn’t really have any confidence, because the wind was let out of my sails, to go in and try to spearhead it myself.

Ryan, at the time, was just the best timing in the world to have somebody come in and go, “I know what this needs to be.” I think he nailed it, and I think it’s exactly what it should have been. If it had been some big, bombastic, rock 'n' roll record with lyrics about my dead dad, I think that would have been stupid. It wouldn’t have worked. It needed to be this thing that was delicate. It needed to be fragile. It needed to be treated with kid gloves, and I don’t know if I would have done that, if left to my own devices. I needed to have somebody steer the ship and keep the music at bay and let the lyrics and vocals be what mattered the most on that album.

Then, I came out from that tour [that followed], which was a great tour and very cathartic. I processed and medicated a lot on that tour about his death, from the stage and the microphone, off stage, with other fans. A lot of people, after the shows, would come up and be crying because they’d just lost their dad or mom or something. I would see these fans that had been coming to see me play for 10 to 15 years or more, crying on my shoulder afterward. It was super-cathartic and super-medicating. I felt great after that tour because everybody got to get something out of it other than just getting drunk and fucking and screaming and partying. It was like a different kind of therapy.

I love the shows where it’s the other end of the spectrum of therapy, too. Let’s just fucking have a laugh and have a scream and leave sweaty and covered in confetti. That’s awesome. At the same time, this needed to happen in my life, and I’m glad it did. When I came out from that, the songs I started writing for Stay Gold were anything but Afraid of Ghosts. They were very celebratory and kind of anthemic and nostalgic. It just triggered a lot of memories for me that were good memories, after coming out from that, of my youth.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I had a vision for this record. It made sense for me to produce it, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do on this one. We both [Walker and Adams] actually kind of conceptualized this record together. I guess, in a way, he executive produced it, because he knew exactly what I needed to do, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. It just made sense for me to do it myself.

 

For more on thoughtful, genre-blurring singer/songwriter/producers, check out our conversation with M. Ward.

Photo credit: Noah Abrams

3×3: Anthony D’Amato on Biopics, Bungholes, and the Perfection of Ryan Adams

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Artist: Anthony D'Amato
Hometown: Blairstown, NJ
Latest Album: Cold Snap
Personal Nicknames: Twaan

What was the first record you ever bought with your own money? 
I can’t remember if it was the very first, but I vividly remember buying Pete Yorn's musicforthemorningafter at Jack's in Red Bank, New Jersey, very early on, and it's part of the reason I'm here now.

How many unread emails or texts currently fill your inbox?
0. Obsessive compulsions require me to maintain a clean inbox at all times. If you've got thousands of bold emails in your inbox, just give me a call and I'll come over and delete them all. It'll be therapeutic for both of us. 

If your life were a movie, which songs would be on the soundtrack?
Ryan Adams has done a pretty good job of having a song for every occasion and mood I've ever encountered. He knocks out albums so quickly maybe we could even get him to score my biopic — 90 minutes of me anxiously trying to decide where to stop for lunch on tour and then realizing it's now dinner time.

 

Fog rolling in on #PemaquidPoint #Lighthouse on the #Maine coast

A photo posted by Anthony D'Amato (@anthdamatomusic) on

What brand of jeans do you wear?
Topman had a clearance rack in my size one day, and I’ve been set ever since.

What's your favorite word? 
Nap. I find out there’s time for a nap before/after any event and my whole face lights up.

If you were a liquor, what would you be? 
Hard to say, but it would definitely be a brand for sale at the Bunghole Liquors shop, which Stephen Kellogg and I recently discovered is a real place on tour in Massachusetts.

Fate or free will?
Free will when things are going well, fate when they’re not.

Cake or pie? 
Cake when things are going well, pie when they’re not. 

Sunrise or sunset? 
I've heard nice things about the sunrise, but until I wake up early enough to actually see it with my own eyes I'm going to stick with sunsets.