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Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins Discuss the Making and Meaning of ‘All My Friends’

Posted on March 26, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Bearing witness to friends and collaborators Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins in conversation is reminiscent of listening to their frequent musical partnerships, like their trio I’m With Her (with Sarah Jarosz). In moments, they blend perfectly, finishing each other’s sentences. They dance around each other, giving space for thoughtful responses and further questions.

In an artful, deeply reverent, and candid conversation, they delved into the intricacies of creating O’Donovan’s new release, All My Friends. The project originated from a commission by the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra in 2019 and blossomed into what O’Donovan refers to as a “song burst,” inspired by the life and work of American Suffragette, Carrie Chapman Catt, and the centennial of the 19th Amendment.

The project propelled O’Donovan into unfamiliar territory as a songwriter and what emerged is a beautiful elegy to the women of the past who fought for the right to vote. It’s an homage to women of today – and future generations.

Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins Discuss the Making and Meaning of ‘All My Friends’

“What is it that we’re fighting for? You have to put a name on it, try to figure it out. Otherwise you're just stumbling blind.”

— Erin McNally

BGS spoke via Zoom with Artist of the Month O’Donovan from her home in Orlando and with Watkins joining from her home in Los Angeles.

Aoife O’Donovan: Hey! How are you?

Sara Watkins: I’m good. How are you doing?

AO: I’m so good. I love that I’m having an official conversation with one of my best friends. It’s sort of weird.

SW: When they called me to ask if I would be interested in interviewing you, it was an hour after I had just sent you that raving text about how much I adore the album and the music. I’m so blown away by it.

AO: Oh, my gosh! You’re so sweet! I love you!

SW: I’m not sweet, and you know that.

AO: You are. You’re a nice person. You just sometimes don’t hug strangers. That’s like your only quirk.

SW: I’ve been listening to the record since you sent it to me. But this week, I’ve been getting to really dive in and have the fun of trying to get inside your head a little bit. From that opening line, from the opening gesture at the beginning of the album, it’s just this gorgeous way of encompassing the whole record so beautifully. But it’s also so open. It’s not a thesis statement, but it powerfully contains the whole album. And I just wonder, where did that particular thing come from? And when did you know that that was going to be the way to start?

AO: It’s funny, that opening phrase, just the idea of “All my friends, all my friends,” that idea came to me many years ago, like maybe in 2018. I just had the melody and the chords and I kind of sat with it. It never was anything except for that. When I started working on the idea of this record, when Orlando (Philharmonic Orchestra) asked me to write 5 songs to commemorate the centennial of the 19th Amendment, I didn’t even go back to that tiny phrase immediately. I started elsewhere.

I started to write this other music, and then I remember sitting at the piano, actually at Full Sail, in the studio that I worked at here and I remember those words, “All my friends,” that was all that it was. I started thinking about what that meant, as even just a very simple, very kind of trite, almost overused lyric. There are tons of songs called “All My Friends.” There are movies called All My Friends. There’s a book that I just read called All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers. It’s not a very original 3-word statement. But there was something about those words together with those chords, that all of a sudden felt like they belonged in this project. This is about the women who were before and the women who are yet to be born. It felt like this big circle all of a sudden of humanity and womanhood.

SW: It’s powerful on its own and then also with the context of the movement. I don’t often think of movements like that with friends. We think about it for younger generations. Let’s change policies to help younger generations, or to help the American people, but to put the word “friends” on it just makes it so heartbreaking. I just get sisterhood through this whole record in the most powerful way.

In “Daughters,” I have these 2 different visions of what’s happening in that song. With the way the band and the orchestration wrap around your guitar playing – the band does such a great job. You’ve played with Griffin Goldsmith, and with Alan Hampton a ton. The trio entity is so complete and so complementary to the songs and then to add to it, the way that you have the orchestration coming into play and the choir in such supportive ways. I had two images. One was this vision of a battlefield. Like when we were in grade school, where we talked about Gettysburg, or these legendary Revolutionary War battle sites and you see that field where the people are, and then you see these flanks coming in from the sides. That’s how that song feels to me.

AO: That’s like exactly what I was imagining when I wrote it. I’m not joking; that exact image of just being on a battlefield. And then, like the other voices coming in, or like the other people coming in to sort of fill the ranks. That’s exactly what I was envisioning. That’s so funny.

SW: It’s incredible.

AO: I’m so glad that that came across.

SW: It does. And it’s a credit to the arrangement, where you have the choir come in and there’s this rumbling support, or this foundational support from the orchestration before. When that chorus comes in, it just feels like you’re surrounded by kinship or by the sisterhood of support. And then the next verse opens up, and you’re alone again, or like fairly alone and you have to carry this battle by yourself, for yourself. It’s an individual fight. But then, going back to that “all my friends” lyric, it just feels like all of those entities are your friends coming to support you in your time of need.

AO: Exactly. That’s it exactly it. I feel like for me, when I made this record, and even now getting ready to put it out, it’s so specific and it’s so deeply personal. And it’s so not a record of like, “Check out this jam!” It’s just not that kind of record at all. And it’s not meant to be. I’m so glad that you listened to it in this way. This is what my hope for this record is, that people will be able to have the time to sort of process what it is. And these images and that exact thing of going into a battlefield. But then, there are moments when everything is stripped back, and you are sort of alone. But you’re also singing for your friends and for your community and for your mothers and your grandmothers and their mothers and their grandmothers. But also for the daughters of the daughters of the daughters. It just feels like this circle keeps on going.

In that song, specifically having the girl’s chorus, and on the whole record it was such an important thing for me to have the voices of young women, and not necessarily harmony vocals by my peers. I just felt there was something about the innocence of this young voice. The experience of getting to do it live with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and in Massachusetts, and even getting to do it in Glasgow with the girls’ chorus, it’s really powerful. It’s hard not to cry, even as a performer. It’s something about seeing young girls up on a stage, ready to give something. It just feels deeply emotional.

SW: And they are giving to you and you are getting to experience that support literally. Being on stage can feel very alienating and very vulnerable. It is a little bit of a fight sometimes within yourself if nothing else.

I feel like this is just such a powerful statement: grappling with change and growth. And obviously, that’s something that needs to be continually grappled with. It’s not like, “Oh, the change happens, and now we’re done. Check it off the list.” It’s a continual engagement, and it’s hard.

With “America Come,” when you get to that point in the album, it feels like the industrial revolution to me.

AO: Yes. I love that.

SW: Especially because you’re singing the words, “manpower, womanpower.” I feel like the machine is running.

AO: Right. I feel like that song with the, “dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun,” it becomes very steady. It is like the machine is running. That’s one of the songs on the record that really is so much about Carrie Chapman Catt, the suffragist who I was inspired to write about and write from the perspective of. That song is really heavily lifted from an actual speech that she gave. Some of those phrases are verbatim from her speeches.

That idea of this question, “What is this democracy for which the world is battling?” I feel like that’s a question that we can still ask ourselves. What are we doing here? What does this mean? What is America? I feel like that’s just such a deep question, and to be asking that in 1919 or 1918, or whenever that speech was from, and then to still feel it in 2022 – when I was writing this, it felt so relevant I feel like it’s almost eerie. We can’t give up the fight. We can’t stop. You don’t just check something off the list. As you said, it just kind of keeps going.

SW: And in that way, the album encompasses all the humanity, the micro versions of this, where for instance, in the institution of marriage, or a long-term relationship, or friendships, family, or whatever, it is about checking in every so often: “Wait! Life is running away with us. What do we want? What do we want in choosing this city, this school, this town, this job, this house?”

And that happens on individual levels. Like in my own life, I think, “Have I gotten away from this thing that I cared about five years ago? Have I checked in about this?” I feel like with the content of this album, I found myself thinking about the country, and I found myself thinking about me. Especially, with the more introspective song “The Right Time.” That’s the one where she talks to herself a little bit?

AO: Yeah, exactly. She’s like, “Don’t give them anything to laugh about.”

SW: Like a pep talk.

AO: Yeah, exactly that. It is a pep talk. That’s kind of my idea, about what she or anybody in her position would be going through as a woman with so much to offer, such a big brain, and so much potential. But, what do you have to climb over when you’re living in a time where you’re not valued and the only jobs available are to be a teacher in a one-room school house, or to leave the town that you grew up in? And people are going to look at you. People are gonna make fun of you if you’re a smart woman. People still make fun of smart women. It’s so weird.

Sara, we’ve talked about this a lot, being women in music, about how I feel like I’ve been so lucky and so respected throughout my career as a musician. You know I’ve always felt very valued and have very rarely been made to feel “less than” due to my gender. I feel so lucky that I’ve been in a community of musicians who have really supported me. But I know that that’s not the case for many musicians, and across other fields it is absolutely not the case.

SW: Yeah. I feel I have had a similar experience with that support. I can only imagine that in that era, when community really was the people around you – not people somewhere on the internet, in a town across the country that you can kind of connect with. She could physically rally the people in her region by convincing newspapers to publish things.

AO: By like getting up on stage and giving speeches or by writing a letter to the President and getting responses. Obviously, she’s not the only one. There were many women who were powerful and were doing amazing things. They just had to try so much harder, and that is what’s interesting. I think having a daughter in this time of life, in the 2020s, you want to give them the tools to always feel that they have the confidence and awareness to think of themselves as equal and powerful.

SW: Tell me about the research you did for this. So, the idea was presented to you and commissioned by The Orlando Philharmonic. Is that right?

AO: By the Orlando Phil, yep! So the OPO asked me in 2019. They said, “It’s the centennial of the passage of the 19th Amendment.” A lot of orchestras in the U.S. were asking female composers to write music for concerts they were doing. They were trying to diversify their programming. And when OPO asked me to do a piece, I was sort of like, “Why me?” That’s something I’ve never done before, writing an orchestral piece to be performed as a commission. It just felt like, that’s not how I operate. You know what I mean, I’m a songwriter. But I said, “Yes, that would be a good challenge.”

I didn’t think about it for a while, and then COVID happened, and everything kind of got crazy. I was like, “I’m never gonna write another song again, maybe this is it, maybe I’m done making music.” And then when I got down here to Florida, I started to regain some sense of artistic confidence and inspiration. I started to write a little bit of Age of Apathy that fall and then started to work on this 20- to 25-minute piece of music. So I went into the studio and really started to write it. But without text. I didn’t really even know what the text was going to be about yet. I wrote all the music first, because I had to get it to the orchestrator, Tanner Porter, who orchestrated all the charts for me. That was gonna take a lot of time.

That was November and the concert was supposed to be in May. I needed to get her the music. So I was working, working, working, and didn’t have any text. I wrote all the vocal parts and all the music sketched out to what I wanted it to be. We talked a ton about, “Hey, I want this to open with brass, and I want strings to come in here, and I want this line to be played on cello, and these are the brass lines that I want.” I would make these demos where I would play all that stuff for her, and then she orchestrated it. She also put together all the interludes that sort of stitch the songs together, which are so cool.

It was really fun to have this blank slate without any lyric goal or hesitancy to hold me back. I had simultaneously been doing research, reading, and figuring out what I wanted it to be. “All My Friends” is really just an imagining of the moment when these movements met up in Tennessee to get these votes ratified. And they did march. And they did plead their case and were ultimately successful. But those images are from my own head, like a reimagining of vague historical events.

SW: Let me just jump in really fast just to say that I love how much space you gave for yourself in imagining that imagery. I feel like my own temptation would be to report and do the research and make it rhyme. I feel like you’re the perfect artist for this kind of commission, because of the way that your melodies can float above or without the constraints of rigid time that a lot of us songwriters are tempted to do. The way you carry a line – I don’t think you always realize how extraordinarily unique it is. I think that because of the way that you do music like that, it lends itself to an orchestral project where we’re not dealing with 8-bar phrases and the occasional extra 2 bars and things.

I feel like you are the perfect singer-songwriter to receive this kind of commission. I am so happy that you indulged in that vision of the world, of the people descending into Tennessee, and what the fog was like and what the air was like. Because that is what the feeling was like and that’s the story. It’s not just, “on this date this happened.” I’m glad that you put yourself in the story, because that gave so much room for the arc and the heart of the thing and makes me wanna listen. If I had done this, it would sound like an eighth-grade book report.

AO: No, come on, give yourself more credit, Sara! I don’t have any idea what Carrie Chapman Catt was like personally, because I didn’t know her, but I felt like I could give her dialogue. You can make her personality be whatever it is that you want her to be.

I just read this amazing book called Wolf Hall. I was so fascinated by how the writer, [Hilary Mantel], makes Thomas Cromwell, this character, from the 1500s, feel like this modern, empathetic, shrewd, conniving, and complicated character. That also could have felt like an eighth-grade book report about Thomas Cromwell, but the author injected life into him. That’s the cool thing when you are an artist and when you are a writer, that’s what we do for people who were real or people who we’re making up. You’re taking these embellishments, and you’re telling a story with them.

With the song “Crisis,” [Carrie Chapman Catt] gave a speech called “Crisis” in 1916, and I read that speech and thought, “Oh, my God! This!” Yes, she’s using archaic language, and nobody speaks like this, but how can I imagine her as almost like a bluegrass singer getting up there and saying, “Alright, gather around girls. I’m gonna tell you about what’s going on and what we’re gonna do about it.”

Once I realized I could make it my own because this is my piece, it sort of like set me free into this new creative territory.

SW: And the way that you’re talking about “Crisis,” just the word itself makes you think of ominous minor chords and tension. And with those beautiful horns and flutes, it is just this wonderful, hopeful dawn of a movement. The dawn of a new time is here while you’re singing about the crisis. I love the optimism that’s contained in that and how you acknowledge that everything is all together.

AO: Exactly. One of my favorite things about “Crisis” is I really wanted there to be mandolin on it. It just has that folky feel to it. I had connected with Sierra Hull, who obviously, I’ve known for years and years, but we hadn’t really played that much music together, and I remember being on Cayamo in 2022, and really jamming with her for the first time. And then, you know, fast forward to eight months later I was like, “Oh, I think Sierra would totally kill this song.” I love her playing on it. It just has the right amount of weight to it.

SW: On “War Measure,” I’ve never heard you sing like you do on that chorus. The way you pull down those notes!

AO: It’s hard. It’s actually really hard for me to sing like that. It hurts my voice. But that’s actually my favorite one to do live, because there’s something about singing those lines, “If they pass this amendment to our constitution, we are gonna be talking about revolution.” That’s funny, because I had written that song without the lyrics. And then when I put the lyrics in, I was like, “Oh, this is actually, really rad.” It made it fun.

SW: I bet that was really fun. It makes sense that you wrote the lyrics after a lot of the music, because you get so much in there. It feels like you have room to expand the lines in ways that you might not if you’re writing it down on paper, right? And you get to really chew on certain lines for longer. I feel like there are some lines that get the time that they want to have rather than the time that might have been allotted to them.

AO: Exactly. It was odd, but I’m really glad that it worked out like that.

SW: I love “Over the Finish Line.”

AO: With Anaïs [Mitchell], who is a genius.

SW: And such a wonderful voice to have on here, both in terms of tonality – because you sound amazing together – but also because her songwriting voice has been a voice of movement, a voice of awareness. I love that choice.

AO: The idea kind of came after the fact. I recorded the song and I wanted there to be another voice. I didn’t want it to be me singing harmony with myself. I wanted something starkly different, tonally, from my voice. I’ve known Anaïs for almost 20 years. We’ve been in this same scene and the same world, but we’ve never really done anything together. It worked out so well. I love what she did and how she moves around through the melody and the unison part at the end of the song. I felt connected to her.

SW: I love how it is not the kind of harmony part where you are trying to blend them together. It is very much two individuals choosing to sing together. There are places where your phrasing is different and you’re shortening different lines. It is a perfect example of what you have throughout this record with the children’s choir and the orchestration. To have this lovely duet moment is another version of the sisterhood of letting everyone be themselves rather than needing to have it all looking so pretty and clean and tidy. It is like, “We are existing together, and it’s a beautiful thing.”

AO: Exactly.

SW: It is so well done.

AO: Thank you so much, Sara.

Photo Credit: Sasha Israel

Artist of the Month: Aoife O’Donovan

Posted on March 4, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

There’s a confidence and ease to Aoife O’Donovan‘s music making, brought forward throughout her career by her languid, tender, and emotive voice. Just as striking and crystalline as it is cozy and comforting, her voice is a truly iconic instrument in Americana, bluegrass, and new acoustic music. Still, as she readies her new solo album, All My Friends (out March 22 on Yep Roc), it feels as though O’Donovan is decidedly stepping into a new era of confidence and self-assuredness, devoid of any sense of desperation or flightiness or unfettered ambitions. There’s a steady, intentional march to the blossoming of her catalog and her artistry and it’s on full display on All My Friends.

The album was conceived as a sort of tribute to or reckoning with the cross-generational struggle for women’s rights, highlighting the passage of the 19th Amendment over 100 years ago and picking up that timeless mantle of ever-striding towards justice. It’s a perfect project to highlight during Women’s History Month; the intellectual and political messages within it are softened – though never outright whitewashed, revised, or sanitized – by O’Donovan’s perspective as a mother of a young daughter. With All My Friends, she is continuing her journey with another timeless tradition in string band music: the role of mother-activist-songwriter-composer.

One of the record’s lead singles, “Daughters,” was heralded in a press releases as “a meditation on the eternal quest for women’s rights and equality.” Meditative qualities might be the most tangible and original through line of O’Donovan’s songwriting, song collection, composition, and her vocal affectations – from as far back as her days with Crooked Still, or evidenced by the songs she brought to her supergroup trio, I’m With Her, with Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. As on “Daughters,” O’Donovan more often than not opts for quiet-and-impassioned, subdued-while-soaring vocals. She’ll wrap you in the gauze and glitter of her one of a kind voice and, in doing so, prepare you ever so gently and kindly to receive the messages in her lyrics – however demonstrative or abstract they may be.

O’Donovan’s latest era of confidence is also well marked by her vast and varied resume of musical collaborations. Besides Crooked Still and I’m With Her, she’s released music with Goat Rodeo (Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile), Noam Pikelny, the Milk Carton Kids, Taylor Ashton, Donovan Woods, and so many more. In more recent months and years, she’s featured Allison Russell on a track (on 2022’s Age of Apathy), collaborated with mind-boggling guitarist Yasmin Williams and step-dancer Nic Gareiss on a stunning number entitled “Dawning,” and even “came back” to straight ahead bluegrass with a recent single feature on a Becky Buller track, “Jubilee.”

Her output is ceaseless, her art is prolific, but here – as in the new album, and across her discography – the hallmark of O’Donovan’s work isn’t volume, but intention. This is not breakneck, music industry ladder climbing, this is an artist deliberately expanding the universe of her music bit by bit, voice by voice, collaboration by collaboration. It’s part of why she’s such an effective voice and influence in control rooms, too. (Though her production credits are relatively few, they are mighty.) And it’s part of why, as you scroll through our Essential Aoife O’Donovan playlist, you’ll find as many surprising and eyebrow-raising selections as you will her mighty, familiar modern classics.

All My Friends – with appearances by The Knights, The Westerlies, Anaïs Mitchell, Sierra Hull, Pikelny, and more – is yet another demonstration of O’Donovan’s community, her central role within it, and her confidence in inhabiting that role wholly and completely. This is meditation without stagnation, orchestration without machinations, softness and tenderness, but with a steel spine. These are challenges to the status quo while knowing real progress is made with one foot placed in front of the other – and with many other footsteps following her own.

Throughout the month of March, as we highlight Women’s History Month, we’ll be celebrating the new album, All My Friends, and Aoife O’Donovan as our Artist of the Month. Stay tuned for a special “In Conversation” Artist of the Month feature to come later in March featuring an amazing artist and collaborator of O’Donovan, and we’ll also be dipping back into the BGS archives to resurface so many amazing songs, videos, articles, and stories that highlight the incredible music of Aoife O’Donovan.

Photo Credit: Sasha Israel

Chatham County Line Say Goodbye to Bluegrass, ‘Hiyo’ to Synth-grass

Posted on January 30, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

For nearly a quarter century, North Carolina-based Chatham County Line have pushed the boundaries of American roots music, but with their new album, Hiyo, they’ve finally knocked them down.

Released January 26, the album contains some of the band’s most far-flung soundscapes to date, as they introduce synths, drums, and other sonic elements to their repertoire for the first time ever. The resulting creations sound more like synth-grass than bluegrass, with everything from drum machines to stretched out harmonicas, harmoniums, and other oddities guiding the way. According to guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and founding member Dave Wilson, the drastic shift in direction stems in part from the departure of banjo player Chandler Holt, who stepped away from the band following 2020’s Strange Fascination to spend more time with family.

“We listen to all kinds of music so I wanted to make an album that reflected that,” Wilson tells BGS. “We knew when Chandler left that we didn’t want to just do the same thing we’d always done with a different person on banjo. That’s not how artists grow in the world. You instead look at something as a springboard for change, which is exactly what we did in moving toward a sound that more closely resembles the music we enjoy playing when nobody’s watching.”

The experimentation on Hiyo was further encouraged by its producer, Rachael Moore, who the band met during their time portraying George Jones’ backing band on the Showtime series, George & Tammy. Both the opportunity to be a part of that show — which manifested itself through a friend of a friend — and meeting Moore were complete happenstance, with the latter seeing the two parties build an instant rapport.

“Anybody that works in the studio with T. Bone Burnett that many times and has been a part of records like [Robert Plant & Alison Krauss’ Raise the Roof] is alright by me,” praises Wilson. “That’s the kind of music I listen to, so us making that connection to Rachael made us realize how hard a worker she is and how much she understood the sound we were going for. We knew then she was who we wanted to record our next album with.”

Speaking with BGS from his home near Raleigh, Wilson further touched on the band’s connection to George & Tammy, the similarities between the recording process and being on a film set, Phoebe Bridgers’ influence on one of Hiyo’s songs and more.

Who are some of the bands you’ve been listening to that helped inspire the sonic shift of Hiyo?

Dave Wilson: That last Sarah Jarosz record really blew me away. She’s just a phenom. There’s also two radio stations that I listened to religiously throughout the writing process for this album. Whenever I’m messing around with a guitar or building a tube amp in my basement I listen to the radio, and one of the stations I tune into is called “That Station” here in Raleigh. They play everything from us to Mipso – and a bunch of other local acts – in addition to bigger Americana artists making waves. That’s where I heard the Sarah Jarosz stuff.

Being tuned into what people are doing today is very important to me, because I’m a part of this too. If I’m asking people to listen to me instead of Led Zeppelin then I need to listen to Sarah Jarosz instead of Led Zeppelin, because she’s a living, breathing artist that deserves that respect. I take a lot of joy out of not only buying modern albums, but listening to radio that supports those artists as well.

On the flip side, I love WWOZ 90.7 FM in New Orleans. That’s on constantly and is full of crazy, disparate sounds, old songs, funny blues stuff and more. I never get bored of DJ Black Mold down there.

How did the rapport working with Rachael Moore on George & Tammy translate to the studio with these songs?

I’ve listened to a million records and I really wanted this one to sound like the ones in my head. In the studio we tracked three or four songs per day, then at night I’d lay in bed in disbelief at the way the music sounded better than I had ever imagined us doing. We demoed the songs, so we had an idea of what it was going to sound like, but with the additions of [Jamie Dick and John Mailander] there was a huge leap forward that outpaced my wildest imagination. I’m so glad we were able to capture that, and it wouldn’t have happened without Rachael’s knowledge and connections.

Did you notice any similarities between your experience recording this album and time on set for George & Tammy?

It was really about seeing how hard all these people work, plus the whole concept of down time vs. on time, where you have to deliver an emotional performance before sitting around for 20 minutes as the cameras get moved around before jumping right back into your role like you didn’t miss a beat. It shows you that that is the job. It’s more about sitting around mentally preparing yourself and managing your emotions between those two extremes.

That rubbed off, because in the studio it’s a lot like that, too. In most cases the songs are written long before you go to record them, so when the time comes to get in front of the microphone you’ve got to deliver it with an intensity like it’s still brand new. That’s how George Jones delivered a vocal. He left no doubt that he was the character in his songs, not just the person singing them. That’s the approach we’re trying to take so we can deliver the goods when it matters most.

One of my favorite songs on Hiyo is “Heaven,” which I understand is somewhat inspired by Phoebe Bridgers, of all people. How’d that come about?

I live about three hours from Charlotte, which is where I grew up. My father, who’s in his early 90s, started going through some Alzheimer’s stuff during COVID that had me driving back and forth often to take care of him with my mom. During those trips I got to listening to Phoebe Bridgers to the point I’d have one [album] on repeat each way of the drive. I really dig her style of writing and think some of that influence rubbed off when piecing together “Heaven.”

The song was actually more of a country shuffle in the beginning, so in the weeks prior going to the studio I got my drum machine out of the basement to make some demos for Jamie, so he’d have a template of it to reference. One day I decided to try the Fender VI on it, hit the drum machine, and got playing. Something about those sonic elements, how the words came out and the harmonica completely shifted my perspective of it.

That’s another way we approached this record when we added a drummer. We went back through our catalog and redid a bunch of old songs entirely different as if we were covering ourselves. So with this album, I approached it as if I were covering these songs and how we could change them up, because my favorite cover songs are completely different from the originals except for the story and melody.

You mentioned earlier the influence of New Orleans’ WWOZ on this record and I feel like no song better embodies that than “B S R.” Would you agree with that assessment?

It was a huge part of that song. I actually also play banjo on it in open G tuning. One day I also tuned my Stratocaster to it and began playing the opening riff, which isn’t necessarily what the song is built around, but did help it to pop when we first brought it to the studio. Since then, I began playing Stratocaster in open G with super heavy, flat line strings on it and it’s become one of our favorite songs to play.

I also have family in Mississippi and my mom’s from Alexandria, Louisiana, so I traveled there a lot as a kid and have a general knowledge of the area. To be honest, New Orleans is the coolest city in America. It’s the one that’s got soul. There’s other towns with soul, but none that can match New Orleans. There’s live music in literally 40 places every night!

I’m also fond of the change of pace provided by the instrumental “Under the Willow Tree.” How does your approach change when writing songs with lyrics vs. composing an instrumental piece like this one?

I think some songs just lend themselves to having a story told over them and some, instrumentally, can tell a story from their melody alone. When Chandler left the band it was a sign to me to up my game and dig in a little harder, because until then I’d deferred to banjo and mandolin for most of the solos and heavy lifting. I’m a huge fan of Leo Kottke and other guitar virtuosos, so “Under the Willow Tree” is my homage to players like him.

Despite not being an instrumental, another song that gives me the same feel of “Under the Willow Tree” is “Stone,” both for the wisdom it imparts and its ballad-like feel. What was the motivation behind it?

That is the one song that I wrote during the pandemic. It was informed by all of the protests that were going on and the idea that when it comes down to it, you have the ability to change not only yourself, but you can change those around you with whatever power you have at hand. That can come from a deep conversation and from exchange of ideas and respect for the other person’s opinion, but in this case it comes from our music.

Music has a way of bringing people together in a way that few other things can match — just ask Taylor Swift fans! At the end of the day, we’re all gonna be a piece of dirt that a tree grows out of, so just relax. “Stone” was born out of a simple riff and that idea questioning what is permanent in this world, because all want something positive to persevere when you’re done and your story is getting told.

One thing that I regret about the advent of recorded music is the families that used to sit around, everyone playing an instrument and singing. There’s a therapy in that that went long overlooked. It’s just really positive and healthy for everyone included to sing a bit and let the world go for a minute.

Photo Credit: York Wilson

Strings of Support: Sarah Jarosz’s Mentors and Co-Writing Magic

Posted on January 25, 2024June 20, 2025 by Shelby Williamson

Sarah Jarosz is what happens when young women are taken seriously. A huge part of the mandolinist’s story is that she had supportive male mentors and that has added to her confidence. We all know the age old story of “Young woman shows promise, gets exploited by the patriarchy and it affects her work.” We need to hear stories like this. Starting in her hometown of Wimberley, Texas, just 45 minutes outside of Austin – the live music capital of the world – Sarah found the mandolin at 10 years old. Labeled a prodigy, and thanks to the encouraging spirit of folk music, she found mentorship with seasoned professionals like David Grisman, Ricky Skaggs, Tim O’Brien and Béla Fleck. Following her time at The New England Conservatory of Music, she moved to New York and would go on to collaborate with people like Chris Thile in the Live From Here House Band and her trio I’m With Her, featuring Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, and won four Grammys.

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After making the move to Nashville, on her latest album, the very impressive and sonically expansive Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz collaborated with producer Daniel Tashian, which originally was just a low-stakes co-writing project. The success of her first co-writing experience with Daniel led her to pursue other songwriting sessions with Ruston Kelly and Natalie Hemby. The collaboration found on the record has opened Sarah up to new sounds and new experiences. In our conversation, we talk about Sarah stepping into her own voice with confidence on this record and knowing her musical self enough at this point in her life. She describes her experience with confidence using the Dunning–Kruger effect, in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. AKA “fake it till you make it,” AKA “leap and the net will appear.” She also talks about her parents’ influence on her early musicality and how her mom is doing with her cancer remission. An overall theme of this conversation is that Sarah never lost sight of her goal: Keep it all about the music and don’t let noise get in the way of your important work.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Explore the Essential Songs of Sarah Jarosz’s Discography

Posted on January 22, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Stripping away convention, honing in on narrative, and keeping complex melodies afloat with her ethereal vocals, Sarah Jarosz is a superlative presence in the roots music landscape. The daughter of two schoolteachers hailing from Wimberley, Texas, she began learning to play the mandolin at age 9. By the time she turned 12, Sarah was already gracing stages alongside the likes of musical giants David Grisman and Ricky Skaggs.

Her multi-instrumentalist capabilities and songwriting proficiency only grew from there; at the age of 16, Jarosz signed a deal with Sugar Hill Records and released her first album, Song Up in Her Head, in 2009. This critically acclaimed record would be the first of what now surmounts to seven full-length, tremendously lauded projects. Polaroid Lovers, Jarosz’s latest and the muse of her current tour, is set to be released on January 26, 2024.

Over the span of nearly two decades spent recording and touring, Sarah Jarosz has established herself as a foundational thread in the tapestry of modern roots music. From impeccable collaborations (with Punch Brothers, David Grisman, Sierra Ferrell), to forming a supergroup alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Watkins (I’m With Her), to a whopping 5 hours and 45 minutes of music published under her name, Jarosz stands firmly in her power. As she forges ahead, she only continues to outdo herself.

While her entire catalog is sure to edify any listener, this compilation showcases some of Jarosz’s most essential tracks. Tracing the arc of her musicianship from adolescence to adulthood, the following 17 songs demonstrate the particular sonic maturity, lyrical astuteness, and emotional evocation that span all she creates.

“Mansinneedof”

From Jarosz’s first album, Song Up in Her Head, this indelible instrumental boldly answers the question, “Can a mandolin be a lead instrument?” with a resounding, “Of course!” The first of many Grammy nominations acquired throughout her career, this tune was considered for Best Country Instrumental in 2009. Impossibly advanced beyond her years, Jarosz’s nimble and articulate melody is akin to a sonic coast through star-studded galaxies.

“Come On Up To The House”

In a clear demonstration of the range of her musical influences, the most-streamed song from Sarah’s inaugural album is a cover of Tom Waits’s “Come On Up To The House.” Her cool, slippery voice lends a new angle to the iconic tune. Paired with astute backing vocals from Tim O’Brien and a slick fiddle solo by Alex Hargreaves, this song grooves right along – an ingenious, albeit unlikely, bluegrass cover.

“Annabelle Lee”

Jarosz’s sophomore album, Follow Me Down, is latent with a mystical quality that reaches towards the ethers, shepherded into expansiveness by a creative spectrum of influences. The third track, “Annabelle Lee,” features lyrics adapted from the illustrious Edgar Allen Poe poem of the same name. Jarosz sets the eerie tale against a conglomerate of haunting textures – the heightened pace and drums evoke a sense of urgency while Jerry Douglas makes his lap steel wail, a somber cello moans, and Dan Tyminski’s backing vocals lend fullness to the ravenous depths of this dark tune. It is also worth noting that Jarosz performed and recorded this tune, very fittingly filmed in an old hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands, for the Transatlantic Sessions in 2011. (Watch above.)

“The Tourist”

Sarah sure knows how to pick a cover. From Prince to the Decemberists to Joanna Newsom, she can masterfully braid her grace and artistry into anything. “The Tourist” offers Jarosz’s take on Radiohead, an influence cited among many of Jarosz’s contemporaries, including Madison Cunningham and Chris Thile. In fact, Punch Brothers provide the musical backdrop on this track, their syncopated rhythms and blustery fills meeting Jarosz and Thile’s airtight harmonies to create a sense of whirling, palpable, delicate angst.

“Build Me Up From Bones”

Off of her Grammy-nominated third album, this titular track received an additional nom for Best American Roots Song of 2014. This song is SJ’s most popular of all time, having racked up a total of 70.7M streams on Spotify. Here, Jarosz’s songwriting forges into new territory; her lyrics are both poetic and measured, imbued with textures of velvety longing. The form matches the content, from Aoife O’Donovan’s dewy harmonies to the pizzicato string section to the gorgeous cello solo. Effectively, listeners are bathed in a most intimate listening experience that beckons infinite re-listens.

“1,000 Things”

In another track off of Build Me Up From Bones, here SJ shares songwriting credits with the legendary Darrell Scott. The result? Pure synastry. Underscored by pulsating Celtic rhythms, this uptempo earworm says 1,000 things despite its brevity.

“House of Mercy”

This tune, along with the album carrying it – Undercurrent – won Sarah her first two Grammys in one night. “House of Mercy” was crowned Best American Roots Performance of 2017, and it was indubitably worthy. Jarosz shares songwriting credits with Australian singer-songwriter Jedd Hughes, and together they achieve a dark story arc as the encumbered narrator addresses an unwanted visitor. Jarosz opens up her sound into cutting, fierce Americana twang – effectively offering audiences a new layer to her multitudes of sound.

“Jacqueline”

The closing track of Undercurrent is stark, honest, and bewildering. The song is named after the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in New York City where Jarosz, who once lived nearby, would often do her pondering. Accompanied solely by an electric guitar, Jarosz’s voice is agile and glimmering as liquid silver. She muses over the reflective surface and projected companion while disclosing her own state of unease, immersing listeners in an intimate, unyielding pensiveness.

“Your Water” (with Parker Millsap)

The first of a two-single release titled the Luck Mansion Sessions (2017), SJ here collaborates with fellow singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Parker Millsap. The track, written and originally released by Millsap, is delivered as a duet. The groove opens up into a soul-type feel, allowing for Sarah to showcase a more raw, bluesy, unmeasured latitude of her voice.

“See You Around”

“See You Around” is the title track off of supergroup I’m With Her’s first and – to every listener’s chagrin – only full-length album. In 2018, Jarosz linked up with two of the most astounding women in roots music, Aoife O’Donovan and Sara Watkins, to form a trio of unadulterated excellence (it should be noted that that group won Americana Music Association’s Music Duo/Group of the Year). The album waffles between the three songwriters’ contributions, with each vocalist singing lead on an approximately even number of tracks. “See You Around” is driven by Jarosz’s signature poetic lyrics and fluttery melody, elevated to new horizons by the pristine, angelic blend of harmonies from Watkins and O’Donovan. The musical chemistry these women share evokes the divine; every single song on this album delivers listeners into the sublime.

“Johnny”

For her also Grammy-winning fifth studio album, World on the Ground (2020), Sarah Jarosz invites listeners to experience an array of vignettes; her songs on this album, more than ever, become vehicles for potent storytelling.“Johnny” is the second of three tracks on the album named, presumably, for a character the song aims to illustrate. Jarosz has said that during this album, she “[Tried] to take a step back and look out at the world in my songwriting, rather than looking inward,” and spent much time constructing the album as a patchwork of memories from her hometown in Texas, both faithful and fictionalized.

“Johnny” conveys the psychological landscape of a slightly drunk, slightly disillusioned man who is “just waitin’ on the stars/ that will never align.” It’s all slightly devastating, yet the melody latches onto an unforgettable earworm of a hook uplifted by its folk-pop flavor. Jarosz incorporates a strings section alongside drums, electric guitar, and mandolin, seamlessly using the nuances of sound to bolster the complex mundanities of Johnny’s life.

“Pay It No Mind”

Jarosz shares the songwriting credits on “Pay It No Mind” (also off of World on the Ground) with the renowned John Leventhal, who also produced the album and plays a slew of instruments sprinkled throughout. The song begins with just Sarah and a pensive guitar riff, musing upon a bird and her ponderings. The song then builds in dynamics, layering percussion and eventually a full orchestration of instruments and vocals. It’s slick, it’s sly, and it looks at the world with a cool sense of distance.

“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” / “my future”

In the midst of quarantine, Sarah Jarosz committed to staying connected with fans by using Garageband and her home microphone to record one cover each week from July to October of 2020. In January 2021, she released two of the covers, U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and Billie Eilish’s “my future,” on streaming services. These barebones covers are a time capsule of a moment drenched in emotion, isolation, and fear. Catharsis swells through the minimalistic recordings – Jarosz cradles her whole soul into these songs, and the results are absolutely astounding.

“Mama”

For her sixth full-length studio album, Blue Heron Suite (2021), Sarah Jarosz released a song cycle that she first premiered at Freshgrass in 2017, whereupon she was awarded with the Freshgrass Composition Commission. At the time, Sarah was reckoning with her mother’s cancer diagnosis and reflecting upon childhood trips to the town of Port Aransas, Texas, which at that time had recently been severely affected by Hurricane Harvey. Named for the Great Blue Herons she and her mother used to observe along the town’s shore, this album is imbued with love and hope in its deepest forms. “Mama,” the opening track, is an utterly gorgeous, pared-down arrangement of voice and guitar – a most gentle and tender ode to Jarosz’s mother, who is thankfully now in remission.

“For Free” (with David Crosby)

An astonishing songwriter and pioneer of three-part harmony in American roots/folk music as we know it, David Crosby was a long time supporter of Sarah Jarosz’s work up until his passing last January. Sarah graced the title track of Crosby’s final full-length solo album, For Free (2021). The two sing the entirety of this Joni Mitchell cover in tight harmony, their voices mirroring one another perfectly. The pared back solo piano accompaniment highlights the duo’s vocal finesse; every riff is intertwined with precision and elegance.

“Jealous Moon”

“Jealous Moon” was the first of four singles SJ released from her upcoming album, Polaroid Lovers (out this Friday). Co-written alongside Daniel Tashian, the record’s producer, Sarah remarks of the song, “I’m always seeking to push myself into new sonic territory, and this song gave me permission to not hold back.” In this track, she boldly steps away from her traditional acoustic tethers and moves towards a more pop-rock-twang fusion. Jarosz successfully elicits a sense of novelty while still embodying the sense of fullness and depth she puts into all she creates – reminding us that we still have yet to see the full bloom of her artistry.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

New Sounds and New Perspectives Combine on Sarah Jarosz’s ‘Polaroid Lovers’

Posted on January 19, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Perspective. A universal concept, but also something which bears the potential to be entirely different from one person to the next. How one person views a setting, an experience – or even something as simple and innocent as a Polaroid picture – can set the tone for how they come to hold onto and look back on an entire memory.

The 11 songs on Polaroid Lovers, the seventh album from multi-Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz, not only presents the bulk of its musical subjects from a variety of vantage points, but the very making of this record is a story built on a shift in perspective for Jarosz herself.

“World on the Ground was my first traversing into really working on songwriting as more of a storyteller and not necessarily always writing from my own perspective or writing my own story. Or, maybe a better way to say it would be, from a confessional kind of point of view,” says Jarosz. “I think that really carried over into [Polaroid Lovers] and was very much assisted by the people that I was co-writing with,” she adds. “And so I think by co-writing all the songs and by not being in a solitary mindset, I was able to more easily slip into trying to write the songs from a more universal perspective.”

Jarosz is nowhere near a newcomer to the concept of collaboration, both in live performance and in songwriting for studio records. Just ask mandolinist and songwriter Chris Thile, former host of the iconic live performance/radio show Live From Here, or Sara Watkins and Aoife O’Donovan, Jarosz’s creative cohorts in the Grammy-winning roots supergroup I’m With Her. The New York-to-Nashville transplant carved out her place in the musical landscape with an indubitable gift for solo songwriting. This gift propelled Jarosz forward for a host of years, a slew of awards, and an ever-growing body of recorded work. However, staying a self-contained songwriter wasn’t without constraint – a state of affairs Jarosz admits was largely self-imposed through much of her early career, for the sake of her own artistic voice.

“I was very closed off to co-writing especially for my first couple records,” she says. “I had managers and label people always trying to set me up on co-writes and I did a couple, but I just don’t think I knew my voice well enough and I hadn’t had long enough writing on my own, performing on my own, and figuring out my sound. I think I was just worried that my voice would get lost in those [writer] rooms.”

Jarosz’s deliberate decision to not only include co-writing, but make it a dominant pillar of Polaroid Lovers seems entirely understandable as a way to push her own creative boundaries. She isn’t shy about sharing the burst of confidence that also arose within her while writing songs for the album. “I really don’t think I could have made this record even five years ago,” she says. “There were so many moments in the studio that I mean, if I’m being honest, kind of – I hate to use the word scared – but challenged me.”

If it feels strange to envision a creative powerhouse of Jarosz’s caliber struggling to embrace new musical ideas, there are plenty of specific sonic snapshots in the songs of Polaroid Lovers that Jarosz can look at through the lens of her past self and know just how differently things could have gone.

“For instance, the beginning of ‘Jealous Moon’ – when the guitar and the drums come in like right at the top – I was like, ‘Whoa, this is on a new playing field for me and a stretch from what I’ve done before,’ but I loved it,” she says. “At the end of the day, my barometer [is about] if the music is moving me, if I believe in it, and if I can proudly sing every lyric with a stamp of approval. And so I think something like that [style of introduction] – I might have just shut it down. Like, it would have scared me a little too much maybe five or 10 years ago and I would have said, ‘No, that’s not me. So we’re not going to do that.’”

Though “Jealous Moon” starts the music of Polaroid Lovers with an adventurous hook, Jarosz actually made the shift to disregard fear and connect with her inner co-writer in her mind from the very first day she met producer Daniel Tashian, while the two co-wrote “Take the High Road” – an upbeat song about staying true to oneself and not shying back from what feels right. “The thing that’s so refreshing and cool about Daniel [Tashian] is that he’s just so open and so endlessly curious about all things music and I think [he] would just be creating all the time if it were up to him,” Jarosz admits.

A seasoned songwriter and collaborator known for his work on Kacey Musgraves’ Golden Hour, Tashian brought Jarosz out of her comfort zone, often literally, in providing many changes of scenery for their writing sessions. “I met [Daniel] in March of 2022, which was when I started writing for this record, and… he just kind of welcomed me in to his family,” Jarosz says. “I wound up going on these kinds of writing retreats… and that was cool to just, get out of Nashville, shift our perspective, be in a different place, and just be really open to to the muse and to what would come.”

Other times Tashian’s sharing of simple but impactful thoughts and his own decisive opinions helped to nurtured a spirit of open possibility regarding what Jarosz would be able to write, but also ideally what she would find joy in playing for herself, as well.

“Daniel said something when we were in the studio that really resonated [with me]: ‘Why would you just want to make the same record over and over again?’ I love that, because I think you try to find your voice and hone your voice over the course of a career but the fun is in exploration – at least for me. I mean, maybe some people find comfort and repetition and that’s fine but I really love exploring and ultimately seeking what serves the song. I mean, that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.”

Running parallel to this expanding circle of people, ideas, song forms, and stories that Jarosz was inspired to put into Polaroid Lovers are her personal tools of the trade – particularly her octave mandolin. An instrument Jarosz has grown to appreciate over the years alongside her artistry and proficiency with the mandolin, guitar, and banjo, the octave mandolin is another meaningful element of creative expanse, change, and consistency that’s become integral to who Jarosz is as a musician and what she wants to sound like.

“[Polaroid Lovers] feels more like me than ever before. Even though there might technically be some differences, I feel that it’s very strongly my voice and my sound. I think a huge part of that is my octave mandolin being a prominent texture,” she says. “I’ve gotten to this place where the octave mandolin feels like my sound in a way and I really sort of gravitated towards that instrument over the course of the years.”

A derivation of the mandolin, the octave mandolin is a fitting instrument to feature on an album that reflects new and familiar points of view. “Whenever I play octave [mandolin], I feel like, ‘This is me.’”

Beyond its presence being a defining musical attribute, for this album especially Jarosz says the octave mandolin was also a tool of creative focus amidst everything new and sometimes daunting. “Having [the octave mandolin] sort of be the through-line on this album helped me in those moments where I felt challenged by a sonic thing that felt new,” she says. “The octave mandolin would kind of make me feel like I was grounded.”

Though grounded, one need not mistake Jarosz’s sense of musical stability with any kind of fixation on genre. While there’s almost no escaping others’ archetyping of Jarosz’s work, Polaroid Lovers is neither a show of rebellion against her musical foundations, nor a calculated attempt to partition an exact ratio of familiar stylization with ideas new to her writing process.

“I personally don’t like to think of myself in terms of genre and I never really have,” she says. “It can be frustrating for me when people say, ‘Oh, you’re this, you’re that’ and I feel like, ‘Well, no…’ I think about [music] in terms of if I like it or not.” She adds, “I’ve just always felt that way and I’ve always listened to so many different types of music. It just feels too narrow, too limiting, to have to fit too squarely into a box.”

Despite the fact that the general public can launch a barrage of staunch opinions about the style of Jarosz’s work or what they may perceive is “right” about it, Jarosz says there’s a whole other dimension to Polaroid Lovers yet to be unveiled that won’t come into view until she’s out on the road, playing live, and connecting directly with everyone who’s listening. “The difference between performing a song in the studio versus performing it live in front of an audience is that I think songs sort of start to take their own journey.”

She adds, “I know my story, or I know my part of it. But sometimes, if you can be vague enough, you can almost keep it secret a little bit, where it’s like my story and my feeling about it is my own and then other people get to find their story in it as well. I think something that will be fun in singing these songs over the next however many years is discovering new perspectives with [audiences]. The perspective will really come singing [the songs] over the course of the next year on tour. I’m very excited about getting to do that.”

Ironically, all the talk of a growing compendium of artistic styles, of new collaborators, of new musical techniques, and of new ways to tell new stories truly hammers home the notion that Jarosz’s musical world is an ever transforming space – rather than one made up of experiential snapshots, as Polaroid Lovers is aptly described. Still, Jarosz came up a solo writer and one of the biggest curiosities around potential changes ushered in by this record would be how she views the dynamic of writing music alone versus writing her music with others. Not surprisingly, Jarosz doesn’t see an inner conflict on the horizon. It’s all “the more the merrier.”

“If anything, this [album] just expanded my community, which is a wonderful thing,” Jarosz says. “Especially now living here in Nashville, I think it’s made me feel more a part of this great community. Whereas when I was 18, I think I felt like there was something to lose in writing with people – that being, losing my voice or like kind of losing my way a little bit. Now I don’t feel like that and I think that there’s nothing to lose by sitting down and trying to be creative with with someone else. I think I will always do that from here on out, but it definitely will be simultaneous to me also writing by myself. That’s something that I don’t ever want to lose and that I want to keep doing for as long as I can.”

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

WATCH: Sarah Jarosz Performs on CBS Saturday Morning

Posted on January 5, 2024June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

In December, our current Artist of the Month, Sarah Jarosz, appeared on CBS Saturday Morning with her band to perform three tracks from her upcoming album, Polaroid Lovers (out January 26). Watch all three performances right here, on BGS.

The octave mandolin in her arms is the most “traditional” touch of each of these songs. The full band sound, which is ripe with influences from Jarosz’ new home base of Nashville, Tennessee, shines under the stage lights – vibey electric guitars mingling with energetic keys and the low-end, buzzy hum of her mando.

From “Jealous Moon” to her subtle, love-laden paean to New York, “Columbus & 89th,” to the slow burning and erotic “When the Lights Go Out,” Jarosz demonstrates an ease at this point in her career, a sly smile that says she knows exactly what she’s doing, even when she’s out on a limb. It’s a confidence born of living her entire adult life in the spotlight – after all, she won her first Grammy Award when she was merely eighteen.

As NYC did on past albums, Nashville certainly oozes from the songs on Polaroid Lovers, but never in pedestrian or predictable ways, as evidenced by these gorgeous performances from CBS’ Saturday Sessions. Jarosz uses Music Row sounds, textures, and professionals – Daniel Tashian produced the album and quite a few in-demand Music Row songwriters have co-write credits on the project – not as molds in which she fits her music, but each as springboards launching her into new sonic territory, which still hearkens back to songs and tracks we now view as classic Jarosz.

Enjoy these three performances while you look forward to Polaroid Lovers’ release on January 26th – and to our upcoming Artist of the Month feature, coming later in the month. Read more about our AOTM and explore our Essential Sarah Jarosz Playlist here.

Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez

Artist of the Month: Sarah Jarosz

Posted on January 4, 2024June 20, 2025 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: Our Year-End Favorites

Posted on December 13, 2023June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Year-end lists can be so problematic – pitting distinct sounds and music against each other, peddling absolutes, attempting objectivity in a demonstrably subjective field. Each year, as we consider the music that impacted us over the course of twelve months, we try to challenge ourselves and each other, as BGS contributors, to think outside the year-end round up “box.”

For the BGS Class of 2023, our intention is to highlight music, songs, albums, and performances that have stuck with us, or that we know will continue to stick with us into the future. We wanted to deliberately look beyond the music and creators that merely have the resources, networks, and access to reach us; we wanted to utilize genre as a checkpoint or touchstone, but never as a blanket criterion; we wanted to broaden what forms of media or formats are included; and overall, we wanted to attempt a holistic look at what a year of listening, learning, watching, and hearing can look like to this particular group of people.

You’ll find ravishing and large indie folk, earnest and literary – and raucous and silly – bluegrass, legendary legacy artists and brand new lineups, soundtracks and live shows, and more. Ultimately, whatever the year, we always want our retrospective lists to be a starting point, a springboard, for our readers, followers, and for roots music fans. This is not the end-all, be-all “Best of 2023” list. Instead, it’s a reminder of the music that scored a year absolutely filled to bursting with excellent, exemplary, ecstatic roots songs, albums, and shows.

boygenius in Pittsburgh, June 2023

When I saw boygenius this summer, I was milktoast about the whole thing going into it. As soon as I arrived, I realized I was surrounded by young people – and not just any young people: All the beautiful freaks were out for Lucy, Julien, and Phoebe. The energy was palpable and something that I have not experienced in over 20 years. Everyone knew every word. They were FaceTiming friends who cried and sang along remotely with these heroes on stage. It was inspiring!

boygenius feels like an important band. I so wish they had been around when I was an outcast teenager feeling such confusing, wild emotions. Music has a way of helping the world make sense. boygenius radiates communion and it felt like an honor to be a part of their world. – Cindy Howes

Caitlin Canty, Quiet Flame

My favorite bluegrass album of the year is often an album that, through no fault of its own, ends up receiving little to no bluegrass radio airplay or IBMA Awards recognition, and as I listened to Caitlin Canty’s Quiet Flame over and over this year, I couldn’t help but expect it would end up criminally underrated by the general bluegrass community. It’s made by bluegrass pickers – Canty assembled Chris Eldridge (who also was the project’s producer), her husband Noam Pikelny, Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert, Sarah Jarosz, and Andrew Marlin for her band – and as a result Quiet Flame, more often than not, is just an unencumbered string band album that’s as much bluegrass as it is Americana and singer-songwriter folk. But while Mighty Poplar, with a similar lineup of folks, takes off in bluegrass circles, it raises an eyebrow that this impeccable, heartfelt, and complicated set of songs hasn’t seen the same trajectory. Not that that was Canty’s goal – it’s obvious her priorities in music making are grounded and community-minded, part of why this album is such a stunner. “Odds of Getting Even,” co-written with another BGS favorite, Maya de Vitry, is one of the year’s best songs, bar none. – Justin Hiltner

A Homeplace Pilgrimage to Earl Scruggs Music Festival, August 2023

L: Nina Simone’s homeplace in Tryon, NC. R: Earl Scruggs’ homeplace in Boiling Springs, NC. Both photos by Justin Hiltner.

BGS once again co-presented the Earl Scruggs Revue tribute set hosted by Tony Trischka at Earl Scruggs Music Festival, held just outside of Shelby, North Carolina at the Tryon International Equestrian Center in August. On my drive to the festival grounds, I made stops in Tryon proper, to visit Nina Simone’s childhood home, and also in Shelby, to visit the Earl Scruggs Center and to drive by both of the Scruggs homeplaces just outside of Boiling Springs, North Carolina. It was stunning to visit both homes on the same day, to realize the interconnectedness of so much of American popular music. Simone grew up with a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains from her front porch nestled in one of their hollers, yet we place Scruggs as an Appalachian musician and not Simone?

The festival and Scruggs Center, for their parts, did an excellent job of demonstrating how broad, varied, and intricate American roots music is, even while focusing closely on bluegrass, string band, and Americana music. Listeners of our podcast, Carolina Calling, will know how much BGS loves North Carolina music history – the show features episodes on both Scruggs and Simone. Seeing that history in person, while heading to a first-class, banjo-heavy festival was a favorite musical moment of this year, for sure. – Justin Hiltner

East Nash Grass, Last Chance to Win

East Nash Grass seems to be all the buzz on the bluegrass circuit these days and those who have ventured to Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge on any Monday night since 2017 can certainly understand why. The band’s long-standing residency at the Madison, Tennessee dive bar has taken them from a weekly pick-up band to performing at the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Auditorium, and at bluegrass festivals across the U.S. Their sophomore album, Last Chance to Win, captures the band at their very best (albeit, without their lovable stage antics). Following a 2023 IBMA nomination for Best New Artist, it won’t be a surprise if we see this record, and these musicians, sweeping awards in 2024 and beyond. – Thomas Cassell

Alejandro Escovedo at Cat’s Cradle Backroom, Carrboro, NC, November 2023

There are countless good reasons why you should make a point of seeing the Texas punk/soul godfather if he’s ever playing anywhere near you. But what might be the best reason of all is it’s a lead-pipe cinch that everyone in your town worth hanging out with will be there, too – onstage as well as in the crowd. Escovedo was among a dozen stars drawn to the North Carolina Triangle for an all-star “Nuggets” tribute show overseen by Lenny Kaye in November. So, he came a night early and played a solo show, too, ably supported by local luminaries Lynn Blakey and Pinetops/The Right Profile guitarist Jeffrey Dean Foster. The love in the room was palpable on deeply moving originals like “Sister Lost Soul” and “Wave Goodbye.” And when Kaye and R.E.M.’s Peter Buck came on for a closing Velvet Underground cameo of “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Sweet Jane,” the circle was complete. – David Menconi

Ben Garnett, “Open Your Books” (featuring Brittany Haas and Paul Kowert)

Before I’d listened to the complete #BGSClassof2023 Spotify playlist and realized this track was one of our first additions, the app kept recommending “Open Your Books” to me – and it’s not hard to see why. From guitarist and composer Ben Garnett’s debut album, Imitation Fields, the track features bassist Paul Kowert and fiddler Brittnay Haas and is an example of what bluegrass music can be, and what traditionally bluegrass instruments can do.

The tune opens slowly, with guitar and mandola – provided by Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway’s own Dominick Leslie. Fiddle swells, orchestral arrangements, and dreamy acoustic production make for a piece that feels distinctly intellectual. It’s chambergrass, but it’s also highly listen-able. While there’s a strong melodic thread throughout, the surrounding instruments and their players are allowed to wander off up the guitar neck, throwing in trill-y banjo licks, and detouring outside traditional fills and solo styles. The record was produced by Chris Eldridge and also features Matthew Davis on banjo and additional guitar from Billy Contreras. I’d recommend this tune to low-fi lovers, roots music fans, and anyone looking for a chilled out moment. It’s perfect for an introspective drive or a rainy winter day spent drinking hot tea at the window. – Lonnie Lee Hood

Alice Gerrard, Sun to Sun

Never, over the course of her lifelong career in music, has Alice Gerrard stopped, having reached her musical destination. She has challenged herself, time and time again, not simply for reinvention’s sake, but because she is a consummate old-time and bluegrass musician, someone so solidly bitten by the string band bug that making music requires that constant movement, that aspirational looking into the future, girded by songs of the past. But Sun to Sun, her latest – and perhaps final – album, features songs decidedly of the present. A synthesizer of traditional art forms, Gerrard takes textures and colors we relate to “authenticity” and leverages them to serve the messages in these tracks. Aging, mortality, justice, apartheid, gun violence, community are all woven into this collection. Alice is their nexus point, around which the entire project revolves and reflects the cosmic light she continues to shine on all of us – and on roots music subjects too often hidden in the shadows. – Justin Hiltner

A Good Year for Soundtracks – Asteroid City, The Holdovers, and More

Between the Writers Guild and Screen Actors’ strikes, 2023 was a weird year for the entertainment industry. But for those releases that did make it to the screen, it was a great year for movie soundtracks, especially for roots music fans.

First up, Wes Anderson’s western sci-fi Asteroid City. In addition to the usual cadre of Anderson’s cast, the film was peppered with classic country and bluegrass recordings from the likes of Tex Ritter, Slim Whitman, Bill Monroe, and Johnny Duncan & the Blue Grass Boys (you read that right). That’s to say nothing of the incredibly catchy original ear worm, “Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” which felt as classic as those twentieth century tunes of the frontier written decades ago.

Capping off the year was Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, a beautiful ode to a particular style of 1970s filmmaking that stars Paul Giamatti. Set in snowy western Massachusetts over a lonely winter break in 1970, the soundtrack plays like an old, soft blanket – familiar and warming. Newer tracks from Damian Jurado and Khruangbin weave seamlessly alongside ‘70s AM gold and Mark Orton’s pensive, folksy score. But the real standout of this soundtrack is a rediscovery of British folk artist Labi Siffre. His music has been shamefully overlooked in U.S. folk canon. Hopefully this movie can help start to rectify that.

Finally, it would be criminal if I didn’t mention the key placement of Indigo Girls’ “Closer to Fine” in the biggest hit of the year, Barbie. Here’s to another generation of young women finding themselves in Amy and Emily’s music. Thanks, Greta Gerwig. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs

Kristen Grainger & True North, “Extraordinary Grace”

Take the anvil from my chest…

I am gasping for breath at this opening line. In her extraordinary, intimate voice, Kristen Grainger is pleading, letting us know she has lost hope. And we are right there with her. Whether we believed salvation came from the church or the Voting Rights Act, we believe no more. We are a fractured world, and it seems there is no bringing us together. Kristen’s melodies pull you in as much as her words, and I sometimes wake with this haunting song emerging from my dreams. Her bandmates’ graceful harmonies and instrumental accompaniment support the stunning words.

I once believed in extraordinary grace
I put my faith in saints and saviors
In the mirror, I can’t bear to see my heroine
Killing time until time returns the favor.

Still, there is cause for hope: the promise of more music from True North. – Claire Levine

Angélique Kidjo at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 2023

“We can’t hear! We can’t hear!” Not what a performer wants to hear an audience chanting – though Angélique Kidjo didn’t hear it for a couple of songs at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April. She was giving it all, singing and dancing with vigor and verve, as she does. But the Benin-born star’s voice and all but the drums and percussion from her band were not reaching the crowd, that had already waited out a 45-minute rain delay. Finally, the stage crew got the message, but it still took some time to get things working. When they did, Kidjo betrayed no frustration – just pure, joyful release as she packed a full set’s worth of spirit into the handful of songs she could squeeze in the remaining time slot, including a few highlights from her re-infusion of Talking Heads’ Remain in Light album. Closing with her idol/mentor Mariam Makeba’s signature “Pata Pata,” she was radiant, as was everyone who stuck around to see and hear her. – Steve Hochman

The Lemon Twigs, Everything Harmony

This album is, without reservation or exaggeration, one of the most beautiful records I have heard in my entire life. Building on inspiration from ‘60s/’70s pop-rock (think the Byrds,Todd Rundgren, the Beach Boys, the Flamin’ Groovies), the Lemon Twigs achieve a layered delicacy of nostalgia and innovation. Their creative impulses are so detailed, articulate, and inspired that the entire album feels unfathomable; how could music reach such timelessness that it tickles at the preterhuman? Brothers Michael and Brian D’addario share the songwriting credits for pieces that feel distinctly matured from much of their earlier work. They’ve pared down the theatrics, tightened the sprawling lyrics, and created from a place that strikes a quintessential balance of self and influence. Their result is something oceanic – music that calls upon its ancestry in a way that is pervasive, striking, and sublimates the query of eternity. – Oriana Mack

Ronnie Milsap’s Final Nashville Concert, October 2023

Ronnie Milsap’s final Nashville concert will resonate with me for many years to come, both because of the multiple memorable performances and because it represented the best of country music from the standpoint of diversity and inclusion. Various performers from across the musical spectrum covered Milsap hits, with songs from every arena – honky-tonk and straight country tearjerkers, reworked doo-wop, R&B, and pop classics, love songs, and slice of life retrospectives. The roster of artists who displayed their love and affection for Milsap’s music crossed racial, gender, and sexual orientation lines, and it was also great to see the legend himself conclude the proceedings. While the Nashville audience and community will miss Milsap’s performances, this last outing provided plenty of wonderful moments and lots of great music that will never be forgotten. – Ron Wynn

New Dangerfield’s Debut at IBMA Bluegrass Live!, September 2023

For years a growing number of Black musicians have entered the trad scene and reclaimed Black traditions key to its development and evolution. Their work has run the gamut from preservation to experimentation. Audiences at this year’s IBMA Bluegrass Live! were introduced to a new Black string band that does it all: New Dangerfield. Made up of powerhouses Tray Wellington, Kaïa Kater, Jake Blount, and Nelson Williams, New Dangerfield has, in their own words, “risen to carry the torch.” In their premiere performance the band delivered an eclectic set of early jazz, early blues — and even a cover of R&B musician H.E.R’s “Hard Place,” led by Kater’s deliciously lush vocals. Each member, proficient instrumentalists in their own right, also showed off their technical chops and drew whoops from the crowd. Their set was something historic, and I’m excited to see what comes next from New Dangerfield. – Brandi Waller-Pace

Railbird Festival, June 2023

Set in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky, under a deep-red Strawberry Moon, the 2023 Railbird Festival was an under-the-radar masterstroke, highlighting the confluence of roots music and the mainstream. Held June 3 and 4 on the spacious lawn of The Infield at Red Mile, a sold-out crowd of 40,000+ enjoyed a non-stop lineup of performers from across the “Americana” pantheon, expertly curated and spread out over three stages. With 32 acts in total, country, rock, folk, bluegrass and more were all represented, as headliners Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan topped a bill including Charley Crockett, Whiskey Myers, Morgan Wade, Nickel Creek, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway – even Weezer and Sheryl Crow. Combine all that with a well-thought out fan experience and an off-the-beaten path vibe, and the weekend was an ideal kickoff to festival season. – Chris Parton

Sam Shackleton at the Horseshoe Tavern, October 2023

Country fandom has always been ideological, but in the last few years the genre’s politics have felt plainer – clear villains and clear heroes, but also messy interior politics. Through this time, I’ve mostly been listening to folk music far away from the fighting at home, from musicians like Sam Shackleton, a genius singer and banjo player from Scotland. He was supporting the Mary Wallopers, the radical Irish party band, in Toronto in October. Shackleton was great, working the audience, singing his songs, and classic folk tracks. The crowd was restless, the beer he was offered on stage seemed pro forma, but he tried. There was a version of “All You Fascists (Are Bound To Lose)” that gave me hope for a few minutes. We step out for a smoke, and Shackelton is on the patio, nursing a lager. I tell him I loved the show and that I wanted vinyl. He hugs me and thanks me. Walking back in, the room is filled with Irish expats who are singing along to the Wallopers in ways that feel a little hostile. I leave early, going for Chinese food. These couple of hours were country/folk in 2023 for me – inclusive, exclusive, hand shakes, hugs, and isolation – plus enough physical/emotional distance from the world that I didn’t ask exactly how the fascists would lose. – Steacy Easton

Sleeping in the Woods Festival, May 2023

At a time when money in the music industry is at an all time low, and expenses are at an all time high, I have immense gratitude for anyone starting new community projects to showcase and uplift musicians and songwriters. I was lucky enough to get to be a part of Nicholas Jamerson’s Sleeping in the Woods Festival in Cumberland, Kentucky in May of 2023, and this event makes my best-of list. The festival bills itself as songwriter specific and showcases many lesser known Kentucky songwriters and bands. The strategy is to create a listening environment and bring together a Southern audience hungry for more straight-shooting roots music and hard hitting lyrics after becoming fans of Tyler Childers, Sturgill Simpson, and of course, Jamerson himself. After a successful first year, the festival is poised to grow exponentially and become a beloved annual event for all of those involved. – Rachel Baiman

Billy Strings at Bourbon and Beyond, September 2023

After five years of programming the BGS stage at Bourbon & Beyond, the Louisville-based festival has become something of a homecoming for our whole team. But nothing was more special than this year, when we got to see Billy Strings headline the main stage in front of over 50,000 people. It seems like just yesterday (in reality it was more like 2018) that Billy played our own stage inside the Bourbon Tent, a memory made all the sweeter by his surprise appearance this year on our stage during Michael Cleveland’s set. Hopefully it’s one of many happy returns to B&B for Billy, his fans, and BGS for years to come. – Amy Reitnouer Jacobs

Sunny War, Anarchist Gospel

Nobody sounds like Sunny War. As her profile has risen over the past decade, Sunny has held onto her punk rock politics and direct lyricism, grounding her artistry in the blues. Listening to one of her songs is like looking at a diorama of a nearby planet, similar to our own, but with none of human society’s bullshit. 2023’s Anarchist Gospel features Americana heavyweights David Rawlings, Jim James, Allison Russell, and Chris Pierce, but always sounds exactly like Sunny. Her hypnotic guitar work and precise songcraft shine. Her vocals walk a fine line between eerie and inviting. And at the end of a year when riot grrl aesthetics have gone mainstream, Sunny War is a rare reminder of what the real thing sounds like. – Lizzie No

Photo Credit: Angélique Kidjo by Fabrice Mabillot; Billy Strings by Christopher Morley; boygenius by Matt Grubb.

On ‘Quiet Flame,’ Caitlin Canty Finds Truth and Hope in the Middle

Posted on June 27, 2023June 20, 2025 by Justin Hiltner

Caitlin Canty is in the middle — in the middle of moving houses (behind her when we connected on Zoom this spring is a Jenga tower of bankers boxes) and in the middle of prepping an album release, which we’re in the middle of talking about when she isn’t in the middle of pushing a pair of overeager dogs from her lap (“These dogs!”), all of which is taking place in the middle of her toddler’s nap.

The moving, the music, and the motherhood are taking place in the middle of her life (Canty turned forty-one in January) and the middle of her career: Quiet Flame, her latest record, is her fourth.

Oceans of ink have been spilled on beginnings and endings, on best new artists, and lifetime achievements. We rarely think about the middle, write about it, or sing about it. But Caitlin Canty does.

Quiet Flame is a dispatch from — and a celebration of — the middle; it is a testament to the in-between, to the precious spaces between day and night, birth and death, here and home. It is also a rallying cry, a call not to run from middle moments, but to revel in them. “Breakneck boy goes speeding by / In a hell-bent race to some finish line,” Canty sings on the album’s opening track, “Blue Sky Moon.” “I ain’t going with him… Gonna take my time in the middle of the road.”

This is a new message for Canty, one that asks the listener not to “get up before the road pulls you under,” as Canty sang on 2015’s Reckless Skyline, but to accept the road as it is, accept that it may pull us under, and enjoy the ride. “If the pandemic and [2020 Nashville] tornado taught me anything,” Canty says, “It’s all the things I thought I could control are out of my control. The natural world is beautiful. It’s also terrifying,” she exclaims with a half laugh, “it can just crush you in a second.” (That tornado missed her house by thirty feet.)

This new vision, however, hasn’t diminished Canty’s optimism. With a heightened sense of all that is lost and lose-able, Canty offers not less hope, but more. “Let it roll, let it ride / Let your sweet heart open wide,” she sings on “Pull the Moon.”

“I let go of a lot of things I thought were my fault, or my responsibility, things I thought I could do everything about, or take care of, or succeed at,” she explains. “And what I found was an ability to be happy in devastating moments in time. Even when it gets dark and troubled, to find a way not to ignore that — to address it — but to stay buoyant.”

It is this clear-sighted courage — what amounts to Canty’s profound musical and lyrical authenticity — that not only sets Canty apart, but draws so many of the acoustic world’s greatest artists into her corner. “Caitlin just has such a magnificent view of the world,” Grammy Award-winning guitarist and Quiet Flame producer Chris Eldridge says. “It’s so strong and true and clear and honest. You just believe it.”

Among those drawn to Canty’s vision — to her clarity, honesty, believability — are some of the greatest artists in contemporary music, making the Quiet Flame band a bona-fide acoustic supergroup: on banjo, mandolin, and harmony vocals you have singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz (another Grammy winner); on bass, Paul Kowert of Punch Brothers and Hawktail (yet another Grammy winner); and on fiddle, Brittany Haas (also of Hawktail and the newest member of Punch Brothers), who is widely considered the greatest fiddler of her generation.

“Every artist has a vision,” Kowert says, “But I specifically would say I believe Caitlin. I believe her about what she’s seeing in the songs.”

“There’s such conviction,” Haas adds. “It’s so clearly from the heart.”

For Jarosz, Canty’s super-distinction is the totality of her authenticity and an unusual ability for Canty to “sound like herself” in every domain of her artistry. “Her ability to be herself within her songs has always been very obvious to me, before I even knew her,” Jarosz says. “My favorite singers sound like themselves when they’re talking — their singing voice is a genuine extension of them, their personality. Tim O’Brien has that, Gillian Welch has that, Caitlin has that. It’s almost like Caitlin’s voice is so true —it’s like it’s not an option for her to be anyone but herself. And the songs are also that way.”

The songs of Quiet Flame mark not only a musical achievement, but an achievement of spirit. “It takes a very self-assured, fully realized human being to be able to make a record that’s this exposed,” Jarosz continues. “The record takes its time. It takes a very mature musician — and person — to have the courage to let these songs unfold the way they do.”

It is no small feat that Canty manages to make this deliberately slow journey, this taking our time in the middle of the road, so arresting. Such is a testament, of course, to the music as music; to Canty’s voice (“Caitlin, in her way, is as good a singer as exists,” Eldridge says); to her effortless melodic sensibility; to what Haas calls the unusual “variety and diversity of what [her] songs are like, what they allow and make room for texturally.” It is also a testament to the production vision of Eldridge, who Canty calls the perfect “co-pilot,” and to his attention to the “big picture.”

Each member of Canty’s band offers a tour de force on their instruments. In Canty’s words, Kowert is a “Multi-instrumentalist on his instrument… essential, the strongest foundation… my favorite bass player I’ve ever played with”; Haas is a “Flamethrower! Her fiddle is an electric guitar! It’s grit and mournfulness — not sad, defiant; not sorrowful, defiant”; Jarosz is “Just insanely good — insanely good singer, insanely beautiful instrumentalist — the most solid partner; she held it down!”

In turn, the band is quick to praise the rare musical freedom Canty affords them. “She makes so much space for other musicians in her music,” Haas says. “She’s really good at being like, ‘I hired you to be you,’ instead of, ‘I want you to do this very specific thing that involves only playing these four notes.’”

The result? The band gets to see their true selves in the work — even their best selves. “‘Odds of Getting Even’ is one of my favorite performances I’ve ever played,” Kowert remarks. “My playing on that song is really exemplary of something that I am uniquely able to do, which is bowing the bass that way, driving the rhythm with the bow.” Multi-instrumentalist Noam Pikelny (still another Grammy winner), who is featured on “I Don’t Think of You,” says much the same: “[It’s] easily one of my favorite examples of my playing captured on record.”

Most of all, however, the success of Quiet Flame’s slow burn is owed to the trust Canty engenders in her audience. It is a trust natural to Canty, but made all the more affecting by her decision, for the first time in her career, to make an entirely acoustic record. “Intimacy is just kind of baked into the nature of acoustic music,” Eldridge explains. “You just intuitively understand that what you’re hearing is what can happen in somebody’s living room. So when you commit to doing a string band record, you’re committing to a certain kind of intimacy. It casts the artist, and the songs, in a different light—in a light that asks the listener to lean in a little bit more, asks the listener to be a part of a moment.”

It is with the listener leaning in close, grounded in the moment with Quiet Flame, that Canty offers a vision both audacious and convincing, that she shares the unmistakable and unshakeable sense that all will be well; that even in the face of so many black holes, we too will be okay; that we, like Canty, will arrive “by the highway home” – a lyric after Robert Frost.

“They all told me love could feel this way,” she sings. “I never thought I would see the day.”

It is the peculiar gift of Caitlin Canty that when she says love can feel “this way” – or even that “nothing’s gone, only changed” – one can’t help but think she’s right.

LISTEN: APPLE • SPOTIFY • STITCHER • AMAZON • MP3

(See our full post on Caitlin Canty’s episode of Basic Folk here.)

Photo Credit: David McClister

“What ​is ​it that we’re ​fighting ​for? You ​have ​to ​put ​a ​name ​on ​it, ​try ​to ​figure ​it ​out. ​Otherwise ​you're ​just stumbling ​blind.”

“What is it that we’re fighting for? You have to put a name on it, try to figure it out. Otherwise you're just stumbling blind.”