Tag: Shelter

WATCH: Alright Alright, “Missouri Calling”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Alright Alright (husband and wife Seth and China Kent)
Hometown: Denver, Colorado
Song: “Missouri Calling”
Album: Crucible
Release Date: October 23, 2020

In Their Words: “‘Missouri Calling’ is an empathetic, compassionate vignette of a woman who leaves Missouri after being kicked out of her unhappy home. She heads to Denver with marijuana-tinted dollar signs in her eyes, and eventually finds herself out on the streets. After working with homeless women at a shelter for several years, Seth and I heard enough stories to understand that people find themselves without homes for countless reasons, and we are all closer to that line between shelter and no shelter than we would like to believe.

“This summer, the reliable network of church-led homeless shelters shut down due to COVID, and as a result, countless homeless camps began popping up all around Denver. Huge city parks and lots were filled with tents and makeshift shelters, laundry hanging on chain link fences, as pop-up bike repair stations appeared on random street corners. I wanted to capture footage of these homeless camps around the city to bring the plight of the unhoused to light in the age of COVID. Our 13-year-old son, Fender, and I took a trip to the capitol building where the largest of these camps was located, and equipped with only a GoPro and iPhones, we walked around and captured the footage that is now in the video.

“After editing the footage together, I wondered if, perhaps, the video would be made stronger by the addition of fact-based context. If, perhaps, we could find out some statistics about homelessness in Denver and maybe understand a little more about why the unhoused were so visible all of a sudden. Our kids attend an amazing school whose mission is to provide students with a racially and economically diverse educational environment, so we asked the social justice teacher at our kids’ school to help. Mx. Saleh was so excited about the prospect that they jumped right on it, and Fender’s 8th grade class researched and wrote all of the facts presented in the video.” — China Kent, Alright Alright

Photo credit: Made Shop

Baylen’s Brit Pick: Olivia Chaney

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Olivia Chaney
Hometown: Florence, Italy but grew up in Oxford, England and now lives in London so we are claiming her.
Latest Album: Shelter

Sounds Like: Eliza Carthy, Joanna Newsom, Johnny Flynn, Laura Marling

Why You Should Listen:

Sometimes you just need to step outside your box, leave your comfort zone, and proactively NOT stay in your lane. Olivia Chaney not only does all those things but she’s made me do them too. I like to think I’m a pretty open minded guy, who loves music, not just genres, but when it was suggested to me that I take a look at Olivia Chaney for this month’s Brit Pick, at first I balked.

Folk isn’t really my wheelhouse, or so I thought. Then I listened to her striking new album, Shelter. Then I listened again. And again. I was no longer sitting in my studio on a busy city street with sirens constantly screaming by, I was roaming around a charming cottage that is older than America on the Yorkshire Moors in the rain without an umbrella or a care in the world.

Knowing that Olivia nestled down in said cottage to work on this album and watching the video for “House on a Hill” that was shot there obviously helped with that vision, I didn’t just conjure it up out of nowhere, but the music certainly fits. With eight original songs, and lovely versions of Purcell’s “O Solitude” as well as “Long Time Gone” made famous by the Everly Brothers, all produced by Thomas Bartlett, this album is a gem whether folk is your thing or not.

By collaborating with The Decemberists, sharing stages with Robert Plant and Zero 7, and citing Edith Piaf AND Sonic Youth as inspiration, Olivia Chaney has no intention of staying in her lane, and we are all better for it. She’s currently on a North American tour through August including dates with Patty Griffin and Bruce Hornsby.

Photo: Nonesuch Records

As a radio and TV host, Baylen Leonard has presented country and Americana shows, specials, and commentary for BBC Radio 2, Chris Country Radio, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 2 Country, BBC Radio 4, BBC Scotland, Monocle 24, and British Airways, as well as promoting artists through his work with the Americana Music Association UK, the Nashville Meets London Festival, and the Long Road (the UK’s newest outdoor country, Americana, and roots festival). Follow him on Twitter: @HeyBaylen