(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the next several weeks, Basic Folk is digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. Enjoy!)
In 2021, John Hiatt released Leftover Feelings (which is still his latest album, by the way), a collab with bluegrass great Jerry Douglas as producer and his band as backup. Hiatt’s digging into some serious past memories for these songs, which include one about his older brother, Michael. Michael died by suicide when John was only nine and it’s only recently that he chose to write about the experience with the track, “Light of the Burning Sun.” Jerry knew that the material was very serious and approached it lovingly with John and band. On Basic Folk, John expands on his grief and talks about giving himself the time and space to mourn. We also chat about the importance of radio in John’s young life: he would listen to WLAC from Nashville as a kid around 11 years old. There was a gospel show on Sunday night and the station would go to a different Black church every week to broadcast services. As Hiatt has said, “Those gospel shows used to scare the shit out of me.” That opened his world to a completely different way to relate to music, in terms of faith.
Hiatt picked up the guitar at 11 years old, partially to cope with the trauma resulting from being an overweight child. This was especially hard because he was a bigger kid at a time when it was rare for a child to be heavier. He discusses how music and, surprisingly, drugs and alcohol helped him overcome his weight issue. Then, of course, the drugs and alcohol led him to new problems in his adult years, requiring overcoming that addiction to live a sober life. John also talks about his kids, which includes musician Lilly Hiatt. Lilly said in an interview once, “I was crying over the fact that my career seemed stalled and I wasn’t the flavor of the month, and Dad said, ‘Lilly, we will never be hip. We’re just not those people.’”
John Hiatt has been a steadfast songwriter since the ’70s who’s written many well-loved songs such as “Have a Little Faith in Me,” “Cry Love,” and, of course, “Thing Called Love.” The writing on Leftover Feelings spans several decades and confronts some of his most vulnerable feelings. To be able to talk to John Hiatt about this project was a sincere privilege and we hope you enjoy!
Volume 4 is a beginning and end for Kieran Kane & Rayna Gellert. It’s a beginning in that it’s the duo’s newest release, which means new songs, a new tour cycle, and a new round of interviews. It’s an end – “the end of an era,” as they put it – for Dead Reckoning Records, the label Kane and his bandmates in The Dead Reckoners launched 30 years ago. The independent venture grabbed the attention of other artists whose recordings they released, in addition to The Dead Reckoners’ first and only album, A Night of Reckoning, and the band members’ various other projects.
“Over the 30 years, [The Dead Reckoners] drifted into their own worlds, their own lanes,” says Kane. “Tammy Rogers and the late Mike Henderson started doing The SteelDrivers, Harry Stinson has been with Marty Stuart for years, and Kevin Welch is in Australia. For a long time, I was just putting out my solo records on the label, and then Rayna and I put our records out.
“30 years seemed like a nice, round, anniversary number to give everybody their work back, their masters back, and dissolve the company. It’s been great. I’m quite proud of the work we’ve done over the years and that it’s still a functioning label. We’ve managed to survive all kinds of digital flare-ups and breakthroughs and ways of sharing music. The company makes a little bit of money every year, but it seemed like, ‘Yeah, let’s call it a day.’ I called everyone and everybody was like, ‘That’s fine.’”
Bringing Dead Reckoning Records full circle is sweet rather than bittersweet, says Kane, “in that the label was started by an album of mine [Dead Rekoning, 1995] and thirty years later, on the same date [April 11], we released Volume 4. To me, it serves as bookends for the label.”
Gellert and Kane met at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco. Their first collaboration was co-writing for Kane’s Unguarded Moments [2016] and Gellert’s Workin’s Too Hard [2017]. The following year, they released their first duo album, The Ledges, followed by When The Sun Goes Down [2019], and The Flowers That Bloom In Spring [2022]. This year brings Volume 4, which they produced, recorded, and mixed, with Kane on vocals and guitars, Gellert on vocals, guitar, and fiddle, and Kane’s son Lucas on drums.
I thought we’d start by introducing you to readers, but instead of telling us about yourselves, tell us about each other.
Rayna Gellert: Kieran is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter with a long, awesome career doing all kinds of musical things ever since he was a child. The thing that other musicians immediately say about him is they comment on his sense of groove that seems to be a through line in his musical output. And he’s awesome. He’s the funnest person to write and perform with.
Kieran Kane: Musically, we are so much on the same path, and have been on the same path, for both our individual lines. But out of all the people that I’ve ever worked with, Rayna, in the same way she talks about groove when talking about me, I would have to say the same thing about her, in that it’s just so … I want to say reliable, and that sounds sort of pedestrian, but it is.
It’s like having a drummer and a bass player playing the fiddle, in that the pockets and the grooves are so strong and well established that I can drift away and they’re just there. And it’s all been unusually compatible in writing and playing and performing. We genuinely enjoy doing what we do together. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s creatively fulfilling, and all those things.
Rayna, in an interview with WYSO you mentioned there are differences in your songwriting processes. Could you tell us about those differences and how they work as a duo?
RG: Kieran’s the first person I’ve consistently co-written with. I mostly wrote on my own. I occasionally noodled around with a friend on something, but I had no consistent co-writer. I was very much a newbie to actual co-writing when Kieran and I started writing together.
He approaches songwriting from a completely different angle than I do and that makes it extra fun and adventurous. I’ve always started with some bit of lyric and melody that come at the same time together and I go from there. Kieran usually starts with some kind of instrumental riff that becomes the seed of a structure of something. Lyrics come later for him.
The combination of the way we come at a song is very compatible because it’s different. We bring different strengths to the table. I tend to be super verbose when it comes to lyrics. I spill a lot of stuff out, and he’s a great editor. He is really good at finding the key phrases, figuring out the hook, and creating a structure around that.
My background is in old-time music, so the idea of a long ballad where there’s no chorus and it’s just inspiration that goes on and on and on is totally normal to me. For Kieran, it’s like, “What’s the hook? What’s the chorus? What’s the instrumental riff that’s going to tie the thing together?” And it works together very well.
KK: I agree with that. A lot of times what I’m hearing, along with a song, is a record. So much of what we do is based on an intro, in a way, or, as she said, a little musical hook that’ll tie things down. I’ve almost never sat down with an idea about a song. It’s more like I sit down and start playing banjo or mandolin or guitar until something catches my ear and then a lyric will be a free association to get started.
With us, that’s true to some extent, as well. A lot of times we don’t know what the song is going to be about until we wade into the waters and go, “Oh, it could be this.” It seems to work. Whatever the two different approaches are, it comes together.
How is Volume 4 the next step in your journey? You’ve talked about the songwriting process. When it’s time to record, do the arrangements happen organically?
RG: His view of the song tends to be a little more zoomed out than mine. What he’s saying … he is not just thinking about the song, he’s thinking about the record – I think that’s about arrangement. That’s about, “How are the pieces fitting together here?” It does evolve organically. We always have to decide, “What’s the instrumentation? What feels right for this? Am I playing guitar? Am I playing fiddle?” If he comes up with a riff on an instrument, usually it stays on that instrument. But we’re working with so few pieces that we make a lot of use of space, because that’s one of the biggest colors in our palette.
KK: A way for us to build things in terms of arrangements often – since, as Rayna said, there’s so few pieces – is to eliminate something, like, “We’ll drop out here, which will bring the song down,” because if we start off with the two of us singing and playing at the same time, there’s no place to go, other than to start removing things.
As I’m saying this, I realize that my mission, if there is such a thing, in writing and making records has always been about removing things, making it simpler, and cutting off all the fat, anything that’s unnecessary.
RG: One of the things that’s different about this project is, in a way, we approached the whole album sort of like we would approach a song, as in letting it be what it wanted to be.
On past albums, we approached it more like we were writing a set list for a show, where it’s, “Have we included different instrumentation? Do we have a balance of lead singers? Do we have uptempo and downtempo?” This album is structured more like the way we write a song, which is, “What does this want to be?” Regardless of instrumentation, regardless of who’s singing, regardless of whether we wrote the songs. It evolved into this little sonic package that feels like you go in there and it’s a room you hang out in for the length of the album. To me, that’s a different experience than our past records.
KK: I’ve never thought of it like that. Yeah. We’ve been writing a lot. We wrote three albums, I did an EP that we had written a couple of songs for, and Rayna did an EP that I helped out on a couple of songs and produced. So we’ve done a lot of work in the last eight years, or however it is, that we’ve been doing this. Before Volume 4, there were three albums and two EPs, which is a lot more work than I’ve ever done in that amount of time.
This record, to me, was a little bit more of a grab-back in a way. Rayna was talking about wanting to do a fiddle album at some point and I was like, “Let’s play more fiddle tunes.” So we did that and pulled some older songs that were, as Rayna was saying, “Let’s just do it.” In my mind, it’s almost cleansing in a way to have taken this “just let it be what it wants to be” approach. Now we can move on to something else … and I don’t know what that is.
Tell us about the recording process and gear choices on this album.
RG: We have a very simple home recording setup that we’ve refined over the years. We got some good mics that we like a lot a couple years ago, Soyuz mics. We use those for everything, for instruments and vocals, the same mics. We have four of those. We have a Zoom R16 board that we can either record directly onto or use as an input into Logic for recording. It’s a very mobile rig. We spend our summers in the Adirondacks at a cabin and we do a lot of recording when we’re up there. Some of this album was recorded there and some of it was recorded here in Nashville, in our house. We can take the board with us and do a nice, clean, digital field recording.
KK: It’s a wonderful piece of gear and shockingly inexpensive. As far as instruments and things like that, this record is a departure for me in terms of guitars, because I’ve basically used the same Guild M-20 on every record and every show I’ve done with Rayna, and before that for the last twenty-five years. For some reason, on this record, I picked up a couple of different guitars that I’ve had lying around the house for years. It was like, “Let me try this song on this guitar. Oh, that’s fun.” Whether or not I would do that again, I don’t know, because the guitar I’ve used all those years I love and it’s so reliable.
There’s three different acoustic guitars for me on this record. One is a Martin 00-16 classic, an early-’60s gut-string guitar that I played on “Keep My Heart in Mind.” The other is an early-’60s D-28 that I played on “The Mansion Above.” The other guitar songs are all on the Guild M-20. Rayna played the same guitar that she’s been using, an early D-28.
Last year, I was listening to a lot of ’60s folk music. I was listening to Gordon Lightfoot, Ian & Sylvia, Bob Dylan, and things like that, and hearing these really simple guitars where there’s no real guitar solos or anything like that. “I Can’t Wait” fits into that mold – as does “Keep My Heart in Mind,” and “Imagine That” – in that there’s no solos, but there’s a repetitive musical vein that goes through it all. It’s just two people playing guitars and singing. It’s that simple, which is something that really appeals to me.
Is it accurate to say there’s a connecting thread of faith in some of these songs?
KK: Yeah, I think that maybe is a thread through it.
RG: Not from that specific angle, but we definitely talked about hoping that people, in listening to the album, felt comforted.
KK: “I Can’t Wait,” to me, is very much is about faith – not in a religious way, but in a general sense of hope. As bad as things are right now, I remain hopeful and I keep looking towards the light. I’m aware of the dark, profoundly aware of the dark, but I don’t think that’s the end. I think there’s light as well and there’ll be more light as time goes by.
There are a couple of songs, specifically “Whatcha Gonna Do About It” and “Short Con,” that people could easily interpret as political – and they are. There’s no doubt about that. “Short Con” we look at as written from the standpoint of the Constitution. It’s like, “Why don’t you believe in me now?” There are other songs we have that certainly people have told us, “We’re not interested in your political views.” There’s a few floating around that just turn out … it’s not like we sit down and try and write about politics, or faith, for that matter. It’s just where our mental space is at the time.
You can look at these new songs as being political, but we’ve started thinking about them as being patriotic. It’s patriotic to stand up and say, “No, you can’t do that. You can’t just pull someone out of their car and throw them in a jail in El Salvador or whatever.” That’s not a political statement to me and I think for us at this point, as much as it is a patriotic statement, it’s our duty as citizens to say something. We’re given that right and we’re taking advantage of it.
And then something like “The Mansion Above,” which I wrote fifty years ago, somehow fits in there. There is a thread between those songs. So yeah, I think to see a line through of faith is good.
You’ve mentioned before that you’re doing what you call “three-day-weekend touring.” What are your upcoming “weekend” plans?
RG: Our approach to touring is very chill. We do two or three dates in a row, sometimes just one-offs. That’s our usual mode. I think the most we’ve ever done in a row is four dates. It’s all compact and it’s all about being humane and kind to ourselves.
KK: We have a good time. We have a comfortable car, I do all the driving and Rayna does all the navigating and mans the phone. I like to get onstage and play, but I don’t think either one of us wants to go, “Let’s book a month.” I look at other people’s schedules sometimes and go, “I remember doing things like that,” but I wouldn’t want to do it again.
We are gentle on ourselves. Our performances– we’ve cut that down in the sense that we don’t use any monitors onstage. We sit as close as humanly possible together and still be able to move the instruments around. Sound people really like us because sound people hate monitors. You say, “No monitors,” they rejoice. Doing it that way, if a soundcheck takes more than 15 minutes, we’re in trouble. Two instrument mics, two vocal mics, no monitors. “Can you hear us? Great. We’re done.” It makes life simpler.
RG: So yes, we do have gigs. There’s some stuff for the summer that will be posted on our website and I’m working on fall right now.
(Editor’s Note: Welcome to our Reissue series! For the next several weeks, Basic Folk is digging back into the archives and reposting some of our favorite episodes alongside new introductions commenting on what it’s like to listen back. Enjoy!)
Listening back, I feel like this 2018 interview with Anaïs Mitchell holds up. Originally published on January 10, 2019, Hadestown was about to debut on Broadway, the pandemic was still over a year away, and we were young and full of autumn. Our Basic Folk interview includes a really interesting discussion about feminism (with just one squeamish reference to fourth-wave being about “non-binary” from yours truly. Eeek!). Anaïs talks about her childhood on a sheep farm in Vermont. She unpacks her love for and loyalty in her collaborations and the mystical way she found her visual artist (Peter Nevins) for Hadestown.
We also talk about Hadestown receiving some “viral” attention in 2016, thanks to a Tr*mp campaign promise to build a wall on the southern border. People latched onto her 2006-penned song, “Why We Build the Wall,” which is one of the pinnacle tracks from the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. Anaïs opens up about how she met her husband, Noah Hahn, and her early musical beginnings in Boston at Club Passim.
This episode was recorded just as Hadestown was set to open at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway in March 2019. This was also a year before her band, Bonny Light Horseman, would release their debut album. I’m proud of our conversation, which includes some chiming in from Anaïs’ guitarist Austin Nevins, who was on tour with her at the time of the recording. We three are old friends and we were trying to record the interview and hang out at the same time. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if we succeeded!
Anne Harris is having a moment. Though many people (this writer included) are just finding out about this Midwestern violin virtuoso this year, she has been making records since 2001. With her new album, I Feel It Once Again (released May 9), Harris decided, in her words, to “bring things up a level.”
Not only is the disc getting rave reviews, it marks the first-ever violin commission in America between two Black women – Harris and luthier Amanda Ewing. The 10 songs on I Feel It Once Again range from traditionals like “Snowden’s Jig” and the closer “Time Has Made A Change” to originals like “Can’t Find My Way” and the project’s title track. Throughout, Harris remains impressive in both her vocals and her violin playing. The album was produced by Colin Linden who has worked with Bob Dylan, Rhiannon Giddens, Bruce Cockburn, and many others.
Harris is currently based in Chicago, but was actually born in rural Ohio. She took to music at a very young age, inspired by her parents’ record collection. After attending the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Harris moved to Chicago, where she delved into the city’s theater and music scenes. Now, she is about to tour with Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ this summer. BGS had the pleasure of catching up with Anne Harris for a conversation about the new album, her Amanda Ewing-built violin, her influences and inspirations, and more.
To start, tell me where and when I Feel It Once Again was recorded.
Anne Harris: I did the record in Nashville. Coming out of the pandemic, I had been writing and I felt like I had a collection of songs – a pool of things that I wanted to be on my next record. I wanted to work with a producer, [but] I wasn’t sure who to work with. All my prior records had just been basement records, basically. Nothing wrong with that, but I wanted to bring things up a level. A friend of mine, Amy Helm – who is an amazing singer-songwriter in her own right – recommended Colin Linden to me.
Colin is Canadian born and raised. Incredible multi-instrumentalist [and] producer that’s made Nashville his home for many years now. Anyone [Amy] recommends I’m gonna listen to. So I started listening to some of the records he made. I got in touch with Colin and sent him, in really rough form, a big basket of songs I was considering. He really loved them and wanted to work on the record. We got the basic core of the record laid down in about a week of intense recording in Nashville and finished up with a few things remotely after that.
Is it true that you first picked up the violin as a kid after watching Fiddler on the Roof?
Yeah! My Mom took my sister and I to see the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof when we were little; I was around three. I was born and raised in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I remember being at this movie theater in Dayton for a matinee. I remember the picture of the screen – you know, this opening scene where Isaac Stern is in silhouette on a rooftop playing the overture. And [my mother] said I stood up, pointed at the screen, and yelled – as loud as I could – “Mommy! That’s what I wanna do!” She was like, “Okay, you gotta sit down and be quiet.”
She thought [it was] maybe a passing thing and that I was caught up in the drama of the music. [But] I just kept bugging her about it. So she let me do a couple of early violin camp kind of things here and there. I just had this intensity about wanting to really study it. So when I turned eight, I started studying privately with a teacher. Suzuki and classical training was sort of my background.
Tell me about the title track, which is also right in the middle of the album. What inspired “I Feel It Once Again?”
A couple of years ago, [my] friend Dave Hererro – who is a Chicago based blues guitar player. Sometimes he’ll come up with a little riff and send it my way and say, “What do you think of this?” He sent me this guitar riff, which is kind of the through line of that song. I heard it and immediately the whole song and story unfolded in my head. I wrote [it] around that guitar riff in, like, one session. I did a demo and I played it for Dave. I’m like, “Dude! I love this so much.” He’s like, “Well, do whatever you want with it!”
Writing is an interesting thing. I’m not super prolific. I’m not one of those people that’s like, “I journal every day for 13 hours!” [Laughs] You know? [I don’t] have a discipline or method other than trying to stay open to inspiration and committing to it when it happens.
[That] was the case with that song. I had the story and a picture in my mind of what that song about. Somebody musing over a loss. You know, it’s twilight and they’re finishing a bottle of wine and mourning the loss of this great love. One part of you is fine when it’s daytime and you can put on a face and you’re going about your business. But then when the curtain comes down, behind that curtain is this loss and this mourning. That’s what that song is about.
Everything looks different at 4am, doesn’t it? [Laughs]
I [also] wanted to ask you about “Snowden’s Jig.” That’s a type of music I know virtually nothing about. I know it’s a traditional.
Yes. “Snowden’s Jig” is a tune that I learned from the Carolina Chocolate Drops record Genuine Negro Jig. It was my gateway into the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I was doing errands somewhere and I had NPR on and [they] were a feature story. And it was just this mind-blowing thing.
Joe Thompson [has] been deceased for a while now. But he was one of the last living fiddlers in the Black string band tradition. They would go to his porch, learn tunes from him, and learn the history of Black string band tradition. That’s sort of how they started their group. [“Snowden’s Jig”] was on that record and they learned it from Joe.
Part of my mission as an artist is to be a bridge of accessibility through my instrument, the violin, to the Black fiddle tradition. There was a time during slavery days when the fiddle and banjo were the predominant instruments among Black players. Guitars were sort of a rarity. That was when string band music was really at its height. North New Orleans was the sort of center of Black fiddle playing. Often time, enslavers would send their enslaved people down to New Orleans to learn how to play fiddle and then come back to the plantation to entertain for white parties and balls.
You’re based in Chicago. It’s a big music city. How has living in Chicago informed your music?
Chicago is known as a workingman’s city, a working class city. There’s something very grounded about Chicago in general and that’s the reputation it has. I’m a Midwestern person [anyway], from Ohio originally. There’s something about us in the Midwest. You know, we’ll never be as cool as New York or LA! But we work our asses off. I feel that translates into the artists in this town. It’s really a place where it’s about the work.
This album apparently marks the first violin commission between two Black women. Yourself and Amanda Ewing?
Correct. Amanda Ewing. It’s the very first professional violin commission that’s been recognized in an official capacity. Amanda has a certificate from the governor of Tennessee – she’s a Nashville resident – citing her as the first Black woman violin luthier in the country.
When I first saw Amanda, it was online. The algorithm basically brought her to my phone. I saw a picture of this beautiful Black woman in a work coat, holding the violin and I about lost my mind. I was so blown away and inspired. I read her story and got in touch with her and told her, “I have to have you make a violin for me. I have to own a violin that was made by the hands of somebody that looks like me.” It never occurred to me, in all my years of playing, what the hands of the maker of my instrument might look like. That’s not an uncommon thing, but it’s sort of sad! It would never occur to me that a Black woman would be an option.
So as soon as I met her, we embarked on a commission that was funded by GoFundMe. She decided she wanted to make two [violins] so that I would have a choice. They were completed in February, a couple of months ago. [One violin] will make its official debut for a public audience on the 23rd of May. I’m gonna be playing at the Grand Ole Opry with Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’. I’m going on tour with them.
It’s funny, I was gonna ask you next about that tour! I noticed you had some upcoming tour dates with Taj and Keb’. I wanted to ask your thoughts on that and maybe what people can look forward to on this tour.
A friend of mine is Taj Mahal’s manager and she’s also good friends with Keb’. She said that Kevin [Keb’] had approached her looking for a violinist player for this upcoming tour. They have a new record out as TajMo called Room On The Porch. It’s their second under that moniker and it’s an amazing collaboration. Two iconic figures making beautiful music together. So she recommended me and [Keb’] had seen me before – I think when I was touring with Otis Taylor years ago. He called me and you know I’ll keep that voicemail forever!
As far as what to look forward to, it’s gonna be amazing. The opportunity to work with luminaries… I’m gonna be the biggest sponge, soaking up all of the knowledge from these giants. Taj has been influential to just about everyone on some level. He’s one of those people who’s worked with everybody and done so much. I’m just over the moon.
Artist:Adam Chaffins Hometown: Louisa, Kentucky Latest Album:Trailer Trash EP (released May 16, 2025) Personal Nicknames: “Chaffins”
Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?
I’ve considered myself a multi-genre artist from the beginning. While I feel confident identifying as a country artist, that label doesn’t capture the full range of my influences. Growing up, I listened to country alongside Top 40 hits and classic rock – those styles shaped my ear just as much. In high school, I discovered bluegrass and jazz, and during college I really dove deep into those genres and honed my craft within them.
All of those influences have filtered into my writing today and I think that’s especially clear on this new EP. Music, like culture, is becoming increasingly interconnected and multi-dimensional. It’s exciting to see more country artists exploring new spaces and I want to make music that is part of that evolution.
Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?
Speaking of multi-genre artists, Willie Nelson is a great place to start. He’s part of the foundation of country songwriting – hell, songwriting in general. His music draws from so many different influences and we wouldn’t have the classic Willie Nelson records without that breadth.
It’s tough to single out just one artist as my biggest influence, but more often than not, when I’m writing a line or delivering a phrase, I catch myself asking, “What would Willie do?” His sound has never felt forced or put on – it’s authentic because he’s lived every word of it. Beyond the music, his lessons in patience and positivity have been a huge influence on me and have played a big part in keeping me grounded and continuing to make music.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
I love the outdoors – it’s essential for my creativity. Whether I’m kayaking on the lake, hiking with my dog, or cycling down country backroads, being outside helps me reset. When I’m feeling bogged down by the ‘business’ side of music, stuck on a lyric, or just need a break from a piece I’m learning, nature gives me the space to clear my mind. It’s like a creative reset button – being in the elements helps me return with energy and perspective.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
Some of my earliest memories are of wanting to be a musician – or at least be around musicians. I had toy guitars and drum sets and would just bang away, trying to get the sounds in my head out long before I had any idea what I was doing.
One moment that really stands out happened before I could even read or write. A local DJ I was obsessed with was doing a promo at a car lot and my mom took me to meet him. I thought he was the gatekeeper to all of music. I remember scribbling on sticky notes – what I explained were the instruments and band members I wanted for my future group. He smiled, folded the notes, and tucked them into his shirt pocket with a wink, just before going back on the air.
Looking back, that moment felt like an early manifestation. Even then, I knew music was where I wanted to be – I just didn’t have the words for it yet.
If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?
I love to cook. When the world shut down during COVID and there were no shows to play, I got a big offset smoker trailer and started smoking whole chickens outside a locally owned grocery store. Honestly, I probably earned fans faster with barbecue than I ever have with music…
That said – it’s tough work. Tending fires inside a steel pit during a Tennessee summer isn’t for the faint of heart. But then again, neither is rolling around the country in a van playing songs for strangers. I guess one just happened to be the dream I had first. I still cook and smoke meat whenever I can and, if I weren’t making music, I could absolutely see myself doing that full-time.
Your weekly dose of brand new roots music is here – You Gotta Hear This!
Our West Coast friends, The Brothers Comatose, kick us off this week with their new single, “Golden Grass.” The title track for their upcoming album, it’s a loping bluegrass number that pays tribute to the special regional string band styles and genre-bending of their home state, California. From the opposite side of the country, Caitlin Canty brings us “Hotter Than Hell,” a nostalgic song about nighttime summer drives, first loves, and first jobs that features fellow Vermonter Matt Lorenz on backing vocals.
We have a couple great new music videos, too, this week. Singer-songwriter Kai Crowe-Getty shares a live performance video of “Dancing on a Razor’s Edge,” a heartfelt original song about grief, loss, that takes inspiration from – as Joni Mitchell would put it – “you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone.” Meanwhile, Hillary Reynolds also comes to us from an Americana space with her new track, “Can’t Turn Off My Mind,” a song about insomnia with an accompanying video that demonstrates how, to Reynolds, sleeplessness can become a familiar friend.
Keep scrolling though, because Nashville-based honky-tonker and picker-singer-songwriter Mose Wilson gives an unexpected flair to traditional country with his song, “Since I Lost You.” Wilson’s friend and sometimes bandmate, award-winning bassist Vickie Vaughn, returns to You Gotta Hear This once again with her latest Mountain Home Music Co. single, a fiery, soulful, and plaintive rendition of Vince Gill’s classic, “Liza Jane.” And, from just up the road across town in Nashville, string duo and old-time aficionados Golden Shoals turn their skills to “dad rock” for their pro-worker, anti-work-week summer anthem, “Five Day Weekend.” Of course, it’s just perfect for entering a long holiday weekend.
Country, bluegrass, folk, Americana, and blends of all of the above are all right here on BGS. You Gotta Hear This!
The Brothers Comatose, “Golden Grass”
Artist:The Brothers Comatose Hometown: San Francisco, California Song: “Golden Grass” Album:Golden Grass Release Date: May 21, 2025 (single); September 12, 2025 (album) Label: Swamp Jam Records.
In Their Words: “We wrote ‘Golden Grass’ about the current wave of string bands coming out of California that are creating a new take on an old style of music. They start with their foundations in traditional bluegrass and incorporate folk, rock, and jam elements to form that Western ‘golden grass’ sound. Lots of great string bands have come out of California, like AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Molly Tuttle, and even going back to Old & In the Way who were trailblazers for this type of sound. It’s about taking the heart and soul of bluegrass and infusing it with everything we love about music today.” – Ben Morrison
Caitlin Canty, “Hotter Than Hell”
Artist:Caitlin Canty Hometown: Danby, Vermont Song: “Hotter Than Hell” Album:Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove Release Date: May 22, 2025 (single); October 2, 2025 (album) Label: Distributed by Tone Tree
In Their Words: “This is the first track I’m sharing from my forthcoming record, Night Owl Envies the Mourning Dove, out October 2. This song grew from the ground in Vermont, where I was born and raised and have recently returned to raise my little kids. On those hot humid nights before we had air conditioning, my folks would pack us all in the truck and we’d drive along mountain roads with the windows down to cool off. ‘Hotter Than Hell’ is a nostalgic summer throwback to first love, first jobs – those ephemeral firsts seared into memory.
“And making this record was my first time partnering with Sam Kassirer, who produced and played keys. I was nearly 8 months pregnant when we cut the record live at his Great North Sound Society in Maine. I just love to hear fellow Vermonter, Matt Lorenz (The Suitcase Junket) singing his blazing backing vocals on this song.” – Caitlin Canty
Track Credits: Caitlin Canty – Vocals, acoustic guitar, songwriting Jeremy Moses Curtis – Bass Rich Hinman – Electric guitar Sam Kassirer – Piano, organ Matt Lorenz – Backing vocals Ray Rizzo – Drums, percussion
Kai Crowe-Getty, “Dancing on a Razor’s Edge”
Artist:Kai Crowe-Getty Hometown: Nelson County, Virginia Song: “Dancing on a Razor’s Edge” Album:The Wreckage Release Date: May 23, 2025 (single); June 27, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “In my life, I’m not one who does a lot of looking backwards or dwelling in the past with much intention. This song, like several on the record, does exactly that. The Joni Mitchell refrain of ‘don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone’ was a lost inspiration here. My mother died when I was young and this collection of memories, some with her, some without, is trying to make sense of the present in one of my more personal writes. Like many things we avoid, tuck away, wait to face another day, it tends to come out in unexpected floods and fissures as we navigate the grief of it, standing on different shores.” – Kai Crowe-Getty
Video Credits: Filmed by Zach Phillips. Edited by Kai Crowe-Getty.
Golden Shoals, “Five Day Weekend”
Artist:Golden Shoals Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Song: “Five Day Weekend” Album:The Dream and The Hunger Release Date: May 23, 2025
In Their Words: “We live in a world where we’re pushed to our limits of productivity while being sold tons of garbage that we don’t need. At the same time, we could be harnessing AI to do the work that allows humans more leisure time, but Big Tech seems intent on replacing meaningful human work instead. The song just kind of manifested with a dad rock vibe. It details my dream for a world that I think is possible – where we all spend a significant, but not overwhelming, amount of time doing the hard work that a society needs to thrive and the rest of the time taking care of ourselves making the world a great place to live in.” – Mark Kilianski
Track Credits: Mark Kilianski – Electric guitar, vocals, songwriting Amy Alvey – Fiddle, vocals Chris Sartori – Electric bass Alex Bice – Drum kit, cowbell
Hillary Reynolds, “Can’t Turn Off My Mind”
Artist:Hillary Reynolds Hometown: Appleton, Wisconsin (for the summer) and Los Angeles, California (for the winter) Song: “Can’t Turn Off My Mind” Album:Changing Seasons Release Date: May 22, 2025 (single); August 8, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “‘Can’t Turn Off My Mind’ ended up being the first song I wrote for my album. It came in stages. I wrote the first half by myself and when I felt like it needed fresh energy, I turned to my dear friend and fellow artist, Madison Malone, for a little nudge. Simply put, ‘Can’t Turn Off My Mind’ is a song about insomnia. I love how the narrative has evolved over time. Since finishing this song, Madison and I have become mothers and insomnia has taken on a new meaning, becoming a familiar friend – whether it was breast feeding and watching Schitt’s Creek in the wee hours of the morning or having an endless to-do list running through my brain at 3 a.m., I love that this song is the first single, setting the tone of my forthcoming morning album, Changing Seasons.” – Hillary Reynolds
Track Credits: Hillary Reynolds – Vocals, piano, songwriting Madison Malone – Background vocals Benjamin Kopf – Acoustic guitar, bass, singing bowl Tom Shewmake – Octave mandolin Matt Musty – Percussion Jim Frink – Drums
Video Credit: Directed and filmed by New Normal Studios.
Vickie Vaughn, “Liza Jane”
Artist:Vickie Vaughn Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Liza Jane” Release Date: May 23, 2025 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “I’ve loved Vince Gill’s ‘Liza Jane’ since I heard it on local country radio when I was little. His version is so iconic and playful and the groove is intoxicating. I wanted to take to the song and add some serious drama, giving it a little bit of a darker vibe and instead of just singing about Liza Jane, I wanted to be pleading and angry and desperate about her.” – Vickie Vaughn
Track Credits: Vickie Vaughn – Upright bass, lead vocal Cody Kilby – Guitar Casey Campbell – Mandolin Wes Corbett – Banjo Dave Racine – Drums Deanie Richardson – Fiddle Lillie Mae Rische – Harmony vocal Frank Rische – Harmony vocal
Mose Wilson, “Since I Lost You”
Artist:Mose Wilson Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Since I Lost You” Album:That’s Love Release Date: May 28, 2025 (single); July 17, 2025 (album)
In Their Words: “‘Since I Lost You’ is unlike anything I’ve released before. It’s a bridge between worlds – a song that could invite listeners from outside the traditional country audience to experience something new and unexpected. It’s a story of love lost told with a groove that’s both timeless and entirely my own.” – Mose Wilson
Track Credits: Henry Long – Keyboards Norbert McGettigan – Bass John Papageourgiou – Drums Will Johnson – Electric guitar Stephen “Tebbs” Kearney – Dobro Mose Wilson – Vocals, acoustic guitar
Photo Credit: Brothers Comatose by Jessie McCall; Caitlin Canty by Laura Partain.
Ever since she was a child in Arizona, Kassi Valazza has battled crippling stage fright. While that fear has lingered in the years that have followed, on her journeys touring, and living in Portland, then New Orleans, and (soon) Nashville, she’s been able to conquer it with intention, introspection, and consistency.
“I need to be alone for at least 10 minutes before I go out [on stage] so I can relax and do my breathing exercises,” Valazza tells Good Country. “More than anything, just getting into the groove of playing shows helps, because eventually your brain does turn it off a little bit. The nerves never fully go away, but at a certain point things just start to become muscle memory and you’re able to tune the other noise or inner thoughts out.”
Those three pillars also make up the foundation of her third album, From Newman Street, released May 2. On it Valazza spins her most personal web of songs yet, her vintage and Emmylou-esque warble taking listeners on a cosmic Americana journey that pulls back the curtain on vulnerability and universal struggle, forging a soundtrack of triumphant growth.
Songs like “Roll On” and “Your Heart’s A Tin Box” are ripe with melancholy, wisdom, and a bit of hindsight – plus bed-ridden humor – all of which is also reflected in the album’s artwork. It depicts a pensive Valazza in a staring contest with a breakfast-in-bed platter captured by friend and longtime photographer, Kait De Angelis.
“I wanted to capture exactly what I was going through when I was writing this album – I was really depressed, I was in bed, and I wasn’t getting up or going out a lot,” explains Valazza. “There’s also a funny and comedic side to that too where depression and anxiety are very real feelings that a lot of people have that I wanted to present in a playful, but still real way.”
Ahead of the release of From Newman Street, Good Country spoke with Valazza about the solitary environment the songs within it were born from, nature’s influence on her work, how she’s poised for a move to Nashville, and more.
Like the previous installments in your catalog, From Newman Street was self-produced. What’s your motivation behind that?
Kassi Valazza: It started out more from necessity, because then – and even now – I don’t have a ton of money, I’ve just been working with friends. I’m also a little bit of a control freak, too, though. Ultimately, I really trust the people I work with and think we’ve been able to make some great stuff without having to bring in an extra person. It’s made just as much sense to do things that way financially as it has from a creative sense.
Maybe not as much a financial decision, but certainly one that benefited on a creative level, was the move to record in Portland despite leaving there for New Orleans a couple years ago. What was it that took you down to the bayou?
I’d just been to New Orleans a lot and had a solid community of people I knew out there. I spent a lot of the summer on tour before I moved and was seeing a lot of those people, which gave me the idea of giving life in New Orleans a go before trying out Nashville. I’ve really enjoyed my time here, but funny enough I’m actually moving to Nashville in November. I had my little moment here and loved every minute of it, but Nashville is where I see myself ending up.
Why is that?
The thing I like about Nashville is that it’s so open genre-wise. There’s not just country, there’s also a ton of indie artists doing everything from psychedelia to jazz. I also have my booking agent and a lot of good friends there. New Orleans has been really fun but I’m just gone all the time, so I needed a home base that’s a bit more calm and easier to wind down in.
There’s also a bunch of nature [around Nashville]. I really love to hike and be outside, but in New Orleans you’re kind of just stuck there – there’s not a lot of space to leave. There’s a lot more diversity in both landscape and music in Nashville. It makes New Orleans feel like an island by comparison.
Speaking of nature, how does it inform your music and creative process?
On [2023’s Kassi ValazzaKnows Nothing] nature was a major influence, because when I was living in Portland I was always outside. I even lived out in the country for a while in a yurt house and wrote a lot of songs there. But on this new album a lot of it was written from my bedroom – or at least somewhere inside – and I think it shows in the lyrics. There’s just not a lot of imagery of the outdoors, which is what makes this project stand out against my others. That being said, I miss having nature as a reference, so it’ll be nice to get back to hiking and camping again soon.
You just mentioned From Newman Street being mostly written in isolation, from your bedroom. Does that mean this is a pandemic record or were these songs born more recently than that?
It’s actually not related to that at all. It’s all pretty recent from the past two years. I went through a weird phase where I was a little bit depressed and shut in and wasn’t going out as much, because my mental health had hit a low. These songs are a reflection of where I was physically and mentally during that time.
With that in mind, tell me about the song “Your Heart’s A Tin Box,” which seems to be a rumination on the sacrifices of being a working musician. Was there a specific moment that inspired the song, or rather an accumulation of many?
It’s a mix of both and definitely a wrap up of my last year. The opening line (“Walking through the airport/ With no money I can spend…”) was written in the airport when I was walking around after just getting back from my European tour. There’s this thing that happens when you play overseas where they don’t pay you right away, because they have to go through all the venues and booking agents first. I had been there for almost two months and had no money, not even enough to buy water in the airport after I landed.
It’s one of those things where I don’t know whose fault it is, but it’s not set up to benefit the musicians at all, which has been really hard to cope with. A lot of friends have been dealing with it, too, because in general there’s not many people or organizations out there protecting musicians these days – it’s kind of like the Wild West.
Nobody should have to beg for money they earned. Due to the touring associated with my work I have all kinds of expenses – from plane tickets for my band and I to hotels, gas money, rental cars, and more – that quickly pile up. You end up having to put it all on a credit card hoping you can pay it off when you’re all done and the timing of it just never quite adds up.
The repetitive cycles and costs associated with touring that you touched on there remind me of another song, “Roll On,” which I understand is about repeating patterns, but in the context of a relationship rather than the music business?
Yes! I had been in a relationship that wasn’t working for me, but kept trying and trying to fix it. It felt like I tried 13 times to put a Band-Aid on it, which led to the song coming along very easily almost as soon as I sat down to write it. It was a scenario where I loved the person so much and wanted to make it work before realizing that I just had to let it go.
Listening to it and “Time Is Round” – which directly precedes “Roll On” on the album – I couldn’t help but think of the two as sister songs where you’re trying to chase time only to realize what’s meant for you will come back around eventually?
I’ve never thought about it like that, although they are both about different relationships with people and myself. “Roll On” was about a relationship that wasn’t working and “Time Is Round” is one I wrote at the start of a new relationship and trying to gauge the situation to assess whether I was repeating the same mistakes. Now that you mention it, maybe there is some kind of correlation there.
Glad I could be of service!
One last song I wanted to ask you about was “Birds Fly.” I love everything from the trance-like arrangements on it to the lyrics, which seem to be about sitting around and marinating in your own thoughts as the world moves around you. Is that what you were trying to convey there?
A lot of that song is just me disassociating from my feelings, which is captured in the vibe of the music. It just reflects me laying in bed and avoiding conflict and the various issues in my life.
Erik [Clampitt], who played pedal steel on the album, really leaned into that with the bird sounds he created with the pedal steel. Then you’ve got Sydney Nash playing vibraphone, which is such a calming, comfortable instrument to listen to. Then Tobias [Berblinger] is doing all the synths behind her. I wanted to create a little pad for somebody to lay down on and listen.
Well, mission accomplished! What’s your songwriting process look like – from what I understand you almost exclusively write on your own?
I do, but the process definitely gets changed up a lot. Oftentimes I’ll find something that works and keep doing it until it eventually runs its course before finding something else. Lately it started a lot with the melody first and struggling to find lyrics to put with it. A lot of Knows Nothing – and this record too – came from poems I’d written down in my journal and added a melody on top of. When I hiked a lot they’d sometimes come up at the same time, and other times they’d pop into my head unexpectedly. It’s always different – I’m not capable of relying on one specific process.
Whether it’s sitting with your thoughts in bed, journaling them, or putting them to song, what’s something that music has taught you about yourself?
I have a lot of big feelings and go through waves of depression and anxiety, which can make it hard to know what’s real and focus on the present. The beautiful thing about art and songwriting is that you get to capture a moment that you can look back on later. Sometimes things aren’t very clear, whether it’s confusing relationships or not being your best self.
I try to write as honestly as I can, even if it makes me look bad. The ability to do that, look back on it, and learn something about yourself so that you can grow is such a huge privilege and something that’s been wildly beneficial to my mental and physical health. If I wasn’t making art I’d be a much unhappier person, that’s for sure.
Circles have played a huge role in fiddler and singer Morgan Toney‘s life thus far: from drum circles, to talking circles, to the Earth itself (a circle!). In our Basic Folk conversation, Morgan talks about his L’nu (also known as Mi’kmaq) heritage and growing up on what’s now called Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where his ancestors have lived since time immemorial. He elaborates on the significance of the terms ‘Mi’kmaq’ and ‘Nu,’ explaining the shift in terminology among his people. As a teenager, he discovered his Indigenous heritage and cultural roots from his elders after he moved to Wagmatcook (a First Nations reserve) and learned about how the power of music could shape his life. He shares the story of first hearing Phil Collins at his uncle’s house after school, which inspired him to take up the drums. He soon discovered First Nations drumming by directly learning the songs from elders in talking circles. Morgan also talks about his transition from a shy teenager to a confident musician deeply immersed in both Mi’kmaq and Celtic musical traditions, creating a unique fusion which Morgan calls “Mi’kmaltic.”
We also talk about Morgan’s emotional connection to his community and the importance of music in rediscovering and celebrating his Indigenous heritage. He recounts how his exposure to traditional Mi’kmaq songs and ceremonies as a teenager was a transformative experience that reignited his cultural pride. In music and in our conversation Morgan pays homage to his family members, especially his elders, who played pivotal roles in nurturing his musical talents and helping him embrace his cultural identity. Finally, Morgan reflects on his musical collaborations, including his close partnership with producer Keith Mullins, and the creation of his new album, Heal The Divide. He further explains the innovative process of blending Mi’kmaq and Celtic musical elements, the album’s thematic focus on community and healing, and his aspirations to inspire the younger generation of his community. This was truly an inspiring conversation exploring the intersections of culture, history, and music with a very special musician!
As an artist who believes the sad songs of the world could be a little sadder, of course there’s a haunting beauty to the work of Ken Pomeroy.
With her debut album, Cruel Joke, the 22-year-old Oklahoma-born Cherokee Nation member gives fans a gorgeous tribute to inner unease rooted in the wisdom of her own hard times. Pairing a feathery, lilting vocal with an earthy folk sound – plus metaphoric themes filled with animals and the lessons of nature – she looks back on a difficult upbringing, turning tears into sonic transcendence.
Pomeroy’s “Wall of Death” was featured in the 2024 film Twisters, and she’s been on the road with everyone from Lukas Nelson and Iron & Wine to American Aquarium and John Moreland. Good Country even featured the track “Cicadas” back in 2024. But with Cruel Joke, the world finally gets a full look at a “deep feeling” talent on the rise.
Speaking from her home in Tulsa, Pomeroy fills us in on the making of her debut album and an origin story with no punch line.
For folks who don’t know, tell us a little bit about where you’re coming from. You grew up in Oklahoma and you’re part of the Cherokee Nation, right? Does that show up in the tunes?
Ken Pomeroy: Oh, yeah. I never really tried to put it in anywhere. I think it just fits in naturally with how I write music in general. There are a lot of themes of nature and traditional storytelling elements that I include – animals and things of that sort – that I think carry through just naturally. And storytelling is such a huge part of pretty much every tribe, and specifically the Cherokees are huge storytellers. So I don’t think it’s a coincidence I’m writing songs and telling stories.
No, I bet not. I love the way you’re able to use animals. It seems like a great way to talk about yourself or other people, but through metaphor. Does [the use of animals] make that a little bit easier?
Absolutely, yes. I think kind of assigning someone something, it makes it 10 times easier, not so direct.
Like an artful way of saying something that’s hard to say?
Yes, absolutely.
Tell me a little about where your sound comes from. So many moments on Cruel Joke are hushed and haunting. What did you grow up listening to? Where did you pick up music?
Well, honestly, I’ve been playing music and writing for longer than I haven’t been. I really got started from hearing John Denver when I was 6 or 7 years old. That was the start. I wanted to do that and I wanted to make people feel like he made me feel at that moment. It was like a third eye opening about maybe I could do this. And the album, when I sit down and write a song, I am not thinking about production really. I just kind of write the song, me and my guitar, and then that’s the song. My partner, Dakota McDaniel, produced most of the record. It’s such a natural working. … It’s been so easy getting to the right final form of the song with Dakota and I’m really thankful that that worked out. For the record, we were listening to Big Thief and Buck Meek and Jake Xerxes Fussell. Jake was a huge inspiration with the instrumentation we used. It was a very steel-heavy approach.
I can hear that for sure.
It’s called Cruel Joke. What do people need to know about this album from your perspective?
I think from the beginning, with any of my music in general, I just don’t want people to feel alone in anything. I am a real deep feeler, so sometimes I feel like it’s just the tip of the iceberg with sad songs in the mainstream. I feel like they’re not as sad as they could be. I try to make people not feel so alone in those really deep feelings, just because I’ve kind of had to feel that.
Your songs definitely cut pretty deep, emotionally. Have you always been the type of person to root around inside yourself and stir things up?
Oh, yeah. Yes. I grew up very quickly and I had a lot of adult-sized feelings as a kid that I didn’t really know how to deal with. And dealing with these unresolved childhood feelings later on is not for the weak. I feel like everyone goes through it, and I’ve really always tried to stay in touch with just how I’m feeling, or what goes on in my head. Songwriting is how I feel like I do that.
You’ve had some big things happening, like with Twisters and being on the road with John Moreland. How do you feel about today’s appetite for the music you make? Are we ready for another folk revival?
That’s a great question. I really think we are in for a new wave of music, just because I feel like going country is as popular as anything right now. Everybody is going country, which can be a little disheartening. It’s not super genuine on some fronts, but I’m really excited for people to explore the genre and I hope people who explore the genre take a deep dive on where it comes from and who were the pioneers, because it has so much history. I feel like country and bluegrass and folk music have so much history.
I read that you wrote one of these songs at 13, right? Does it still speak to you or still feel true?
Yeah, totally. It’s “Grey Skies.” I remember that being the first song I was ever proud of and I think that’s really special to have still around. Even though I might get tired of it, I have to remember my 13-year-old self was proud of it. But yeah, that was also the first time I feel like I really found “my thing” with writing. I included a lot of imagery with nature and animals and that was the first time I was like, “Maybe this is kind of my vein.”
Tell me about “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes.” This one is a love song, but which person is the hidden wolf?
Oh, gosh. … Everyone laughs, because I say it’s a love song and then it’s called “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothes.” So it’s kind of like, “Well, is it?” But it definitely is. The person I’m writing to is a protector of some sorts, can see through all of the bullshit in the world that maybe I can’t see sometimes, and has my best interest. Whenever this wolf, whoever or whatever it may be, when the dark parts of life come around, this person can kind of clear through it and say, “You’re just a dog. Just get out of here, shoo.”
That’s interesting. How about “Coyote” with John Moreland? You guys toured together and I love the idea of looking at yourself like a coyote, sort of scared of the world. Why do you feel that?
I actually asked John to be a part of this before we started touring together and it was a huge deal for me, because I’ve been a fan of him for so long. I went out on a limb and texted him like, “Hey, I have this song and totally chill if you don’t want to do it, but I figured I would just stick my arm out and ask if you wanted to be a part of it?” And I think that he just said, “Yeah.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” So that was a really cool thing.
That song was– so, my mamaw gave me the name [ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ], which means Little Wolf, but she called me Coyote. That was a big thing, because coyotes are not the greatest omen at all. They’re kind of like the trickster. So I grew up a little bit and remembered that that was my nickname and I was not happy with myself at that point. I think it was two or three years ago. I was just like, “Man, I need to do something different, because this is not who I want to start being or get on this path. I just don’t feel comfortable in my skin.” So I wrote a song. I wrote the song “Coyote” kind of being all right that I can be the coyote and also be the person I wanted to be.
Did it help?
Yeah, absolutely. I think so.
That’s good. How about “Cicadas.” This is one of the most energetic songs, in my opinion, and it’s got this line in there about the cicadas crying out to you. Why were they crying to you?
“Cicadas” was actually the first song that we recorded when we started the record. We weren’t even sure if we were going to do a record, but after that song, [we knew]. It was such an experience, because the ending of the song, when it kind of goes back and forth, that was a total accident. I did not mean to do that, but beautiful things kept happening in this song just completely by accident, so it was a really great sign of reassurance that we were doing something in the right direction. I was so, so worried. I had been working on my music for a bit, and I was like, “Man, I really hope this is the one.” … I wrote that song as I was about to turn 20 years old, and cicadas were always a constant in my childhood. That was one of the only constants that I just knew 100 percent they were going to be there every summer. And I wanted a reminder of that a little bit, just to maybe prove to myself, that there was something stable.
“Innocent Eyes” is such a beautiful track about, I guess, looking back on life with clarity. When you look back, what does the story look like?
Yeah, so “Innocent Eyes” is totally about taking off the rose-colored glasses. Looking back at some of the things you had gone through growing up, or even looking at your parents in a different way. Growing up, it’s really difficult to just see parents as people. “Innocent Eyes” is when you’re a kid, you think your parents can do no wrong and they’re there for you and that they want everything the best for you. And then you grow up and you realize they’re just people. They’re just people that had a kid. And in my case, I was a complete accident and kind of a product of something very quick, and so I was not necessarily meant to be here. And the two people that brought me here did not love each other whatsoever. And so I looked back at that wondering how that shaped me a little bit. And I think that’s where the song started.
Growing up in Oklahoma, Choctaw singer-songwriter Samantha Crain found solace and calm in mid-20th-century film noir, Westerns, and Broderbund Software, Inc.’s cult Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? media franchise. Along the way, she developed a soft spot for the vernacular term for a private detective, “gumshoe.”
“I’d always write it in my notebooks, thinking I’d use it one day,” she says.
During her teenage years, Crain taught herself how to play guitar and began writing songs before embarking on a lifestyle on the road as a singer-songwriter, performer, and recording artist as she entered adulthood. Over the last seventeen years, she’s released seven albums and a bevy of EPs, singles, and collaborations, while evading any sense of hard stylistic classification. “Honestly, I don’t know that I have a lot of understanding of genre,” she explains. “I write the songs and then I think about what will serve them best.”
When she was in the early stages of writing her recently released seventh album, Gumshoe, Crain watched American film director John Huston’s storied 1941 mystery thriller, The Maltese Falcon. Afterwards, when she was scribbling down some ideas, she found herself returning to Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of Sam Spade. “He’s the quintessential, emotionally detached private investigator,” she says. “I can see a lot of that personality in myself.”
From there, Crain felt compelled to write a song about two people with that disposition falling in love. “I immediately thought, maybe this is where I finally get to use gumshoe,” she says. “It became a song about the mystery of trying to solve interpersonal relationships.” Rendered through a dreamy concoction of guitar, percussion, strings, eerie sound design, and her yearning tones, that fact-meets-fiction scenario became the titular track on Crain’s new album.
From using the dragonfly as a metaphor for flexibility and resilience (“Dragonfly”) to exploring her relationship with the natural world (“B-Attitudes”) and revisiting memories that still haunt her, Gumshoe reveals itself as a mercurial blend of alt-country, Americana, breezy psychedelic rock, and close, bedsit folk. It’s one of those records that feels perfectly designed for the introspection of late-night drives, solo walks, or wherever else you find your moments of reflection.
Co-produced with Brine Webb and Taylor Johnson at Lunar Manor Recording Studio in Oklahoma City, the album documents a period of profound transformation within Crain’s personal life and how she relates to those closest to her. In late April, BGS spoke with Samantha Crain about all of the above and more.
How are you doing?
Samantha Crain: Good, yeah. The town I live in has a big free music festival going on right now. It’s always interesting maneuvering your way around town when it’s happening. I’ve spent my morning trying to get things done. This happens every year. I should really know better by now.
To paraphrase the late, great Sharon Jones, some of us have to learn the hard way.
Yeah. That’s probably a good example of most things in my life.
Do you have a philosophical stance that underpins what you do as a songwriter?
I don’t think of what I do as a songwriter as being separate from how I live my life. I’ve spent so much of my life being a lone wolf, very hyper-independent. Lately, I’ve started to explore the ideas of vulnerability and reciprocity within my personal relationships with my friends and family members. I’m trying to embody that there is no “is” and we can change by the minute.
In my ancestor’s language, the Choctaw language, there are no words for “is” or “are.” That speaks to their value. You can’t ever describe anything with certainty. You can only pair something with descriptors that describe it as it appears in a moment. Living in a less defined way feels more mentally and spiritually sustainable. It’s also more sustainable for me as an artist to embody that flexibility and impermanence.
At this point, you’ve been a musician for over half your life, right?
Yeah. Honestly, I have a pretty poor memory of growing up. I’ve got a bad memory in general. I don’t remember much about my life apart from what I’m doing currently.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a bit more about the relationship between someone’s lifestyle and the music they make.
Sometimes I’m very aware that even if I didn’t have this desire and ability to write songs and make records, I’d probably still be living pretty close to how I am now. I have this very deep curiosity in me to experience as much of life as possible while I’m still on this mortal coil. I don’t know that everybody has that same curiosity or desire, and that’s completely fine. I just think I’m lucky to have an outlet and an instigator to justify how I go about living through music and songwriting.
When you think about making Gumshoe, what are some of the first experiences that come to mind?
The first memory I have from this album is having to set an alarm really early in the morning, so I could have quiet time alone and try to be a lightning rod for whatever was awaiting me. I did that every morning for three or four months to make sure I could get the active writing part in. I remember sitting at the kitchen table in the wee hours of the morning with my iPad and my guitar, trying to make demos and get these songs out.
At the same time, I was working forty hours a week at another job and dealing with all these stressful things that kept happening. I’m still slightly surprised that I was even able to make this album, because over the last two or three years of my life, I’ve had a lot of really difficult things going on. I’ve been dealing with health, interpersonal relationships and family stuff. Amidst all that, I had to find a way to answer the call of active writing time, which felt impossible.
I always get fairly offended whenever it’s been a year or two between records and people want to talk about how long it’s been since I’ve had a record. It’s like, “Excuse me, I’ve just been living my life.” I don’t know what to tell you. It hasn’t felt that long to me. I’ve felt like everything is moving right on time.
There can be a level of cross-cultural confusion around what time even means.
Western societies run on capitalism’s watch. What good are you to those societies if you’re not producing something? It’s just not a value I have in my life, so I find it hard to match that energy.
I like that you made the distinction around active writing time earlier. You’ve got to have space for yourself as well. You can’t give everything away.
Not only can you not give everything away, but you can’t constantly be in bloom. Flowers are not constantly in bloom; there’s a good reason for that. There’s energy that has to be sustained through the seasons of life. If you can’t close up and protect that periodically, you’re never going to make anything for anyone else or yourself.
Can you talk a bit more about what you were exploring across the album?
The songs I was writing were me trying to wrap my head around what it means to be in really close relationships with people. This was something I hadn’t really let myself do before. I thought it would be really strange if I wrote all these songs about how I’m trying to get better at connecting, or allowing myself to be vulnerable with other people, and then I went and made it how I usually make records – which is a lot of single tracking, or people that are isolated in their own booths. That led us to all recording together in one big live room. That also led me to bring co-producers in, rather than being the main driver of all the ideas. It was really important for me to have the experience of being able to lean on other people. I just felt like I needed to match what was going on with me personally with the recording process as well.
After listening to the album and talking to you, it sounds like you’ve had a heavy few years.
Nobody can tell you about these experiences ahead of time. There are things you have to live through to understand. You can’t tell an eighteen-year-old that their sense of invincibility is an illusion. You can’t talk someone into having that knowledge. It’s just something they have to live long enough to understand.
Imagine how paralyzing it would be to understand these things at a young age?
I think if I’d had a full idea of what this life path – being a singer-songwriter and musician – would look like at the age I started, I don’t know if I would have done it. Now, I don’t regret any of it. I still wake up every day and choose to keep doing this because I love it, but I think the naivety, greenness, and blind confidence of younger people is a massive help in pushing us off in any sort of direction at all.
What do you think have been the significant turning points in your journey through all of this?
There’s an experience I’ve had that happened many times over the last twenty years. As an artist, you get to a point where you have a set of people helping you: labels, booking agents, managers, etc. Inevitably, people end up moving in a different direction. Every time somebody like that has to leave my circle, I feel like I’m being abandoned in some way. What has always somehow happened afterwards is that I’ve always been able to link up with someone else who helps me keep carrying on.
I am forever in awe of that pattern of feeling that I am in the right place, doing the right thing. I don’t just mean this with business people. I really mean this in life as well. A lot of times, the people who end up helping me in my journey as a songwriter and a musician also play a huge part in my life as friends, mentors or things like that. It really gives me a sense of comfort and trust in myself. If you’ve run out of gas and you’re on the side of the interstate with your thumb out, someone is going to come and help you quicker if you have a smile on your face and a positive attitude about it all.
Some people evoke the idea that you shouldn’t go into business without already having an exit strategy in place. Obviously, not many of them are musicians.
I never have an exit strategy. I’m just forced into the next thing.
It’s worth noting that in recent years you’ve been working on film and television soundtrack projects, such as scoring for Fancy Dance and Winding Path.
When you’re working in film and television, the amount of collaboration you have to do is so intense. It’s beyond any level of collaboration I’ve ever done with my own records. A big portion of making my records occurs in solitude. When you’re scoring films, the number of people you have to pass ideas through, or get the OK from, is massive.
Also, all the films I’ve scored for are about community and family in a way. They’re about connection and reciprocity. So far, they haven’t been about the lone wolf character, which I find good. If my first dip into scoring films had been for a detached, lone wolf character nobody understands, I think I could have gotten a bit too emo for my own good. So, I think it’s good that the projects I’ve been brought into so far have been more about connection.
What does it mean to come from Oklahoma at this point in your journey?
It is to exist somewhere you both can’t live without and can’t wait to return to. At the same time, you want to get as far away from it as possible. That dichotomy is the thing that got me on the road as a young person. I don’t want to only understand this one existence, but it’s also one of the only places where I feel like I make sense. If I were going to grow out of the ground somewhere, this is the only place I could envision myself sprouting out of. Unfortunately, being here reminds me of how hard it has become to be in nature. When I say, be in nature, I don’t mean trying to connect with something outside of myself. I feel like I’m a part of the planet’s ecosystem.
Growing up, I spent a lot of time in southeastern Oklahoma, in the Kayami Street River Valley with my cousins. Even as kids, we were living in a respectful communion. We knew if you saw a diamondback rattlesnake, you don’t mess with that rattlesnake. We were taught to walk softly through the forest and disrupt as little as possible, because we were passing through. I’m still in those same physical spaces, but as I’ve gotten older, knowing I’m becoming more and more disconnected from the natural world feels really strange. I haven’t thought about this much, but maybe this is why I feel this pull to remain here. Maybe it is because I haven’t resolved that, or gotten back to a place that feels right in that aspect of my life.
It sounds like there’s a bigger set of questions at work here. I will say this, though: there’s not much that’s more grounding than walking barefoot on the grass or dirt.
It is. I do it every weekend when I do Tai Chi at the park across from my house.
That’s great. Well, thank you for your time.
Of course. Thank you for yours.
Photo Credit: Sequoia Ziff
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