Tag: singer songwriter

Kim Richey Travels the World in Search of ‘Every New Beginning’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

With a voice that shimmers like sunlight on a rippling lake and songs that step deftly through ever-shifting emotional terrain, Kim Richey is the queen of understated finesse. On her latest album, Every New Beginning, she carefully tempers the ache of loss with moments of humor and even optimism. Produced by Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, John Hiatt) and containing collaborations with Don Henry, Mando Saenz, Jay Knowles, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Brian Wright, among others, it provides yet another elegantly nuanced reminder of why other singer-songwriters revere her talents.

Dozens of country and Americana artists have invited her to sing on their albums and/or recorded her songs or ones they co-wrote, including Rodney Crowell, Vince Gill, Martina McBride, Patty Loveless, Will Kimbrough, Chuck Prophet, the Chicks, and Brooks & Dunn. Radney Foster had a No. 2 hit with their co-write, “Nobody Wins;” Richey earned a Grammy nomination for co-writing Trisha Yearwood’s No. 1 song, “Believe Me Baby (I Lied).”

In October, she’ll open the final show of Jason Isbell’s annual Ryman Auditorium residency; last year, she helped celebrate the 10th anniversary of his career-making Southeastern album by reprising her vocal contributions. During Brandi Carlile’s solo-set debut at the 2019 30A Songwriters Festival, she spotted Richey and declared, “Kim Richey has been my hero since I was 16!” Citing the Ohio-born East Nashville resident as a major influence, Carlile beckoned Richey onstage to sing “A Place Called Home.” Turns out that wasn’t the first time — and, as Richey notes in this interview, conducted during her recent U.K. tour, it wouldn’t be the last.

Listening to these songs, one could assume this is a breakup album. But you’ve mentioned that songs like “Take the Cake” aren’t necessarily about a specific person. Are there breakups reflected within these songs?

Kim Richey: People always assume they’re breakup songs. [The “Feel This Way” line], “It hurts like it’s always gonna feel this way” — my mom passed away in November. It can be the loss of a friend, the loss of a family member, or it’s just a lot of looking back. COVID really had an effect on me that way, and maybe a lot of people as well, where I had old friends getting in touch out of the blue, and people taking stock, and that’s stuck with me.

You could hear “Feel This Way” as a song about grief or even generalized depression, which certainly doesn’t have to be precipitated by an event.

Or [the song] “A Way Around,” it’s like, “Oh, man, things are not going my way.” It can be general. That’s a great thing about songs; people can have their own interpretation of them and it can connect with them and help them. Maybe it’s something that they’re going through, which was not necessarily my intention when I wrote it, if that makes any sense. If I’m going through a hard time, it’s just nice to hear a song and think, “They know exactly how I feel.” You don’t feel alone.

I think that’s one of the major functions of songs — giving us something to connect to, even if it’s just to pull the tears out. Sometimes that’s all you have when you’re feeling like that. But let’s talk about something that must have been a really happy time: Brandi’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend in Mexico. Was that the first time you got invited, or the first time it worked out to go?

I actually did get invited a couple of years ago, but I’d already promised my parents I was going somewhere with them. But this was getting organized while my mom was in the hospital and everything, so I went down [in January] not really having any idea what to expect. When I got there, they asked if I could come to the rehearsal for Ladies of the ’80s, so I go to the rehearsal, and there’s Annie Lennox. And that was just the start of me crying the entire weekend.

Then I got to meet Wendy & Lisa, and Wendy was so sweet. And when the four of us — Brandy Clark, Brandi Carlile, Mary Chapin [Carpenter] and myself — were onstage playing songs, the crowd was so overwhelmingly amazing that Chapin and I just sat up there and cried in-between songs. It was absolutely one of the most intense and beautiful musical experiences, really, ever, for me. It’s hard to explain the vibe of it. The feel of the festival is so inclusive, and so kind and fun. I’ve never been to anything like that before.

Brandi’s always been really great to me. Like that year of the Pilgrimage Festival, that’s right outside of Nashville, got rained out [2018], her people called City Winery and said “Hey, can we come there and play?” and they packed it out. I had just gotten home from a tour and she texted and said, “Hey, you want to come and play with me tonight?” and I’m thinking, “Absolutely not. I don’t know who you are. I’m in a bathrobe, and I’m gonna watch TV and do absolutely nothing.” I texted back and said, “Who is this?” And it was Brandi and it’s like, “OK, I’ll be right over!”

I love seeing your Instagram traveling pictures. It seems like you seek out interesting places wherever you go. Is that something you’ve always done?

I always want to explore the places where I go, whether it’s a big famous place or some town nobody’s ever heard of. I don’t want to sit in a hotel. I like to find the local great food or coffee or something. One of my most favorite parts about doing music and playing shows is the touring and getting to go and see all these different places. It doesn’t have to be some really exotic place, because one of the things I love about touring in the states is you get to see some of these smaller towns and out-of-the-way places that you would never go to on purpose, because you don’t even know they’re there. I’ve found some fantastic restaurants and sites and hiking places; there’s all kinds of fantastic places in the states. Like, I love Michigan, the Great Lakes; that’s beautiful.

That brings me to the song about your home state, “Goodbye Ohio,” which you describe as “a leaving song.” Do you still have ties there?

Well my mom’s gone, but my stepdad still lives in Ohio and I’ve got my cousins and auntie. I still have a lot of people in Ohio. I go back up there pretty regularly.

So it’s not bittersweet to go home.

Oh, no, no, no. I got all the time in the world for Ohio. I like the people there. It’s very Midwest, and I like that. It’s interesting, too, because the different parts of Ohio are really different, like Southeastern Ohio has more in common probably with West Virginia. And then when you get further up toward Cleveland and Akron, that’s more Northeast-y vibes. It’s great; it’s got a lot going on.

What are some other destinations you would recommend?

I love Glasgow, that’s always been one of my most favorite places. Mostly these days, I’m not in a [tour] bus, I’m in a car or a van. You actually can see all these places you’re driving through, and then you have the ability to go, “Hey, what’s that weird shop there? Let’s pull in and see what that is.” When you’re on a bus, you’re just [taking] the quickest and easiest way to get from one point to the other. So I’ve really enjoyed that part of traveling in a car.

I’ll tell you someplace I just went that was absolutely amazing. My friend Dean Tidey was playing guitar with me and we had a couple days off on the West Coast, so we went to Sequoia National Park and stayed for a couple days in this Airbnb that was right on this beautiful mountain stream. And since it was still early springtime, there weren’t a lot of people there. There was still snow on the ground. I love doing stuff like that. The more I travel, the more I want to see. And the more I travel, the more I know there’s just so much stuff out there to experience and see.

Gosh, I’ve been all over the place. I love London; I lived here for five years. I love Belfast. I got to go to Croatia last year on a boat trip with the Accidentals, and that was amazing.

I love that band! Tell me how you wound up on a boat trip with them.

Well, they asked me to come along. It was a fan trip, and we played and slept on the boat and went to these different harbors. We docked in a different place every night – it was just a cool trip. There were bike rides; there was a lot of swimmin’. We went to Dubrovnik and toured different cities; we were all over the place. And I had no idea. I didn’t think of that as being a Mediterranean country. The food is fantastic. The people were super, super nice. I really loved being there.

You have such a great body of work, and younger artists who appreciate that, and appreciate you, they’re hooking into you and having you play. It seems so important for that kind of give-and-take to happen, in both directions.

It’s great for me, because I get excited about stuff. I love writing with Aaron Lee. He used to live just across the alley from me, so that’s how I got to know him. He’s definitely one of my favorites and one of the most talented musicians and songwriters. He’s great with lyrics and music, the whole deal, and a brilliant player. So it’s fun for me, too, to find somebody new that I really love writing with. It’s one of my favorite things, to write with other people.

Is there anything else you want to talk about?

Well, I would like to like thank the guys who played on the record, especially Doug Lancio, who did so much great work. He played most every string thing aside from when Aaron Lee played on a couple songs. And we had [bassist/mandolinist] Lex Price, who I’ve been wanting to work with for a long time. And Dan Mitchell and Neilson Hubbard; I’ve been playing with those guys for years. And the Accidentals came and put strings on a couple songs. So I just really want to give a shout out to the musicians, and my songwriting friends.

One song, “The World Is Flat” is an old one that I wrote with Peter Vetesse. He lives in Bristol, [England], and we played and he came and we got to play the song that we wrote together. I just never recorded it because it was so sad. I have a lot of sad songs, but there’s always a little kernel of something [positive]; “The World Is Flat” was like, you’ve just kind of given up. But the demo that he made was so beautiful, I just thought if I never make another record, I want people to hear that song.

You just said, “If I never make another record” – obviously, we hope that’s not true. Do you feel like you’re at a point now where you think in those terms?

A little bit. I do enjoy playing, but [touring is] tough physically. But I love to travel and I have super-close friends over here, in New York, in Washington state. Playing and touring allows me to go and spend time with those people. I do love playing for people and writing songs and making records, so we’ll see. I don’t know how much longer I’ll do it. This could be my last record, but you don’t want to say it is, because you never know.

Photo Credit: Stacie Huckeba

Basic Folk: John Smith

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Originally from Devon, English singer-songwriter John Smith got his start playing bars and clubs in Liverpool, both with his own songs and as a side player for artists like Lianne La Havas, Lisa Hannigan, and David Gray. Growing up with folk music and guitar music influences from Eric Clapton to Maria Callas to Nick Drake, John’s sensitivity as a player is one of the cornerstones of his music, especially when it comes to his live music. It’s earned him a passionate fanbase ever since his first EP release in 2009.

Host Lizzie No got to witness the connection he shares with audiences on a recent month-long tour around the UK. Everywhere they went together, audience members had stories of how important John’s songs were to them and guitar nerds flocked to have a look at his pedal board.

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Beyond his musicianship, John’s music is imbued with an earnestness that invites listeners to look around and feel gratitude: for nature (especially the vistas of rural England), for the wisdom that memory can provide, and for the people close to us. His latest album, The Living Kind, is a meditation on how delicate love and life can be, but also how enduring. It also showcases the creative partnership between Smith and his longtime friend and roots music industry icon, Joe Henry. One of the album’s highlights is “Milestones,” in which John reflects on how parenthood has changed his perspective on the artist’s life.

Photo Credit: Phil Fisk

Basic Folk: Peggy Seeger in Conversation with Dawn Landes

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

(Editor’s note: For this episode, we invited our friend Dawn Landes to interview Peggy Seeger, the perfect choice to interview this feminist folk icon. Landes also recently joined us on a special episode with Aoife O’Donovan to discuss their new feminist-themed albums. We’re thrilled to welcome Dawn back as guest host!)

I can’t believe it took me 40 years to come across Peggy Seeger’s music. I’m a little mad about this honestly, and have been trying to make up for lost time by diving deep into her songs and her story. I’ve been a fan of her older brother, Pete Seeger, since I was a kid, but didn’t realize the depth of talent and reach in the Seeger family. They are truly folk royalty! Peggy Seeger is the daughter of a celebrated modernist composer and a musicologist who grew up with people like Alan Lomax and Elizabeth Cotten hanging out in her family home. At 89 years old, she’s released 24 solo recordings and been a part of over 100 more. She’s built her career on wit, incredible musicianship, and unflappable activism.

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On this episode of Basic Folk, I am honored to talk with Seeger about her beginnings in feminism, her decades-long partnership with Scottish singer Ewan MacColl, the creation of the BBC Radio Ballads, the importance of hope, and her dream tattoos! She even sang us a song from memory that I doubt she had sung in many years. Peggy is a repository of traditional songs and continues to tour and play music with her family, as she’s done throughout her whole life. Although she claims that she doesn’t write anthems, Seeger’s songs have become synonymous with women’s rights and environmental activism. Coming from a woman who once sang her defense in a courtroom, we should all take Peggy’s advice: “Something wrong? Make a song!” – Dawn Landes

Photo Credit: Laura Page

The Many Folk Art Threads of Jake Xerxes Fussell’s ‘When I’m Called’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Two weeks before the release of his new folk album, When I’m Called (available today via Fat Possum), Jake Xerxes Fussell’s sister, Coulter, who is a quilter, had a show of her work in Oxford, Mississippi. In this show, Coulter patchworked 24 small quilts with fabric sourced from her friends and fellow quilters. There was one quilt for every hour of the day.

Though Fussell has said that he and his sister do not talk about her work very much, there are some profound resonances between her quilts and his music – the idea of updating tradition by the use of unusual materials and freer forms, for example, or the idea of using old material to make new texts, but also something deeper. The songs and the quilts mark time, but not in conventional ways. Instead, they track time in a looping, stuttering fashion. Time is both abstracted and made concrete, as a quilt can appear like midnight and a song can be both a work song and a travel song; but also how a quilt or a song can be a mark of a 19th century technique using 21st century material.

The sources for these records and quilts are a network of people. They include those as close as their parents or close family friends, but also as wide as academic song catchers from the 1950s and 1960s, the folk revival of the same era, the careful annotaters of 1990s web forums, or 2020s Instagram accounts. In the time I spent talking to Fussell, he was careful to note these networks, where and who he learned from, the songs he picked up, but also the methods.

These methods were not only adapted from family and friends, but also professional contacts and music legends who pursue a similar ambition to extend what “folk” means. They include Blake Mills, who has been a session musician for everyone from Bob Dylan to the Avett Brothers; or Robin Holcomb, the avant garde vocalist and multi-instrumentalist whose estranging 1992 album, Rockabye, provides a conduit from artists like Bill Frissell and John Fahey to contemporaries like Blake Mills or Daniel Bachman.

For Fussell, the creation of a drawing, painting, quilting, or song-making can come from the same geographical site, the same kinship network, or the same historical records. His parents were academics who painted, sang, wrote, and quilted, but he also had friends like Art Rosenbaum, who painted, gathered songs, taught them in and outside of the University of Georgia, and won the 2008 Historical Recordings Grammy.

Rosenbaum died in 2022 and the songs on this album are in his memory, absorbing captured Scottish songs from the 1970s. The track “Feeling Day” is both bright and mournful, moving in the body of Rosenbaum from Georgia to Scotland and back, where it was taught to Fussell and then captured here. The intermingling of technology, memory, curiosity, professional competence, and ancestor work all made contemporary by skill and memory. (Like the quilts.)

Fussell talks about reclaiming and re-interpreting these songs, versions of versions, updated for contemporary listeners. The album includes the work of Rosenbaum, but it can also be seen on the very first track, about the Mexican painter Maestro Garry Gaxiola, whose decades-long (and most likely one-sided) feud with Andy Warhol centered on questions of what populist art is and what folk art is.

It can also be seen in how Fussell sings “When I’m Called,” a song partially composed from a found paper scrap (again, the quilting) containing a child’s to-do list. It reminds me of the folk anthologist Harry Smith, who spent a long time cataloging paper airplanes he found on the street. It can especially be seen on Fussell’s version of “Gone to Hilo.”

Depending on who you ask, the song’s original title is either “Johnny’s Gone to Hilo” or “Tommy’s Gone to Hilo.” For most versions, those who sing “Tommy” think that the song is about Ilo, Peru and those who sing “Johnny” think it is about Hilo, Hawaii. Fussell sings “Johnny.”

The song is not really a sea shanty, because they require a stronger beat to function as a work song; but it was intended as a song for sailors, a kind of lament, and the gap between forms here has deepened as it has moved further from the sea. The work quality dropped, and the lament quality ratcheted up. It has been sung by dozens of people, one of those tracks that criss-crosses the Atlantic with the folk – Peggy Seeger sang it when she was in England with Ewan McColl, for example.

Perhaps the saddest version of the song is by Paul Clayton. I think maybe three people in the world care about Paul Clayton, and Fussell is one of them. Clayton grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and collected songs about that town’s whaling history since before he was 20. He went to UVA and studied under the legendary song collector Arthur Kyle Davis, traipsing through Appalchia finding songs and then moving to the East Village, integrating himself with Van Ronk and especially Dylan. Fussell claims that his version of “Hilo” is directly in the tradition of Clayton – that how he weaves a song is how Fussell weaves a song.

Between 1954 and his too early death in 1967, Clayton made almost a dozen records of revolutionary war songs, sea shanties, timber shanties, songs of marital discord, songs which Dylan ripped off, and songs which are only remembered by enthusiasts. Fussell is an enthusiast, his version is the lament that Clayton created from the work song and the interweaving of the lament and the work song – the doubling down on the historical memory, the absorbing of a technique renewed in the knowledge of history – is key to the whole enterprise.

Listen to how Clayton emphasizes certain words – for example, “bully boy” – but also listen to how it’s just Clayton; a clarion voice, and a melancholy one. Listening to Fussell’s, with Robyn Holcolmb singing harmony, the sadness is still there, but the tradition is too. The tightness of the version traps tradition, that it is in the middle of the album, that it’s a single, marks a network of relation, an aesthetic about public choices, and a wrestling with tradition.

Folk music asks again and again, “Why are we making these choices?” and, “Whose choices are we making?” Fussell, at his best, makes choices that are smart, open, generous, and mark a time and place – be it Georgia or Hilo or Oxford, Mississippi or a room where Clayton and he can have a conversation with all those 19th century sailors.

Thinking again of Coulter’s quilts, they both mark time in an abstract sense – the idea of what noon or midnight looks like – but they also mark the time it takes to create a work. There is this idea that time is linear, that it marches forward relentlessly. The quilts mark the history of their creation, the actual moments that Coulter made them, but they also weave together the stories of those who gave her their scraps, the interlacing of decades of commercial and domestic enterprises intended to make an object which shows its sources/seams.

Everytime someone sings a traditional song, this kind of citational practice renews the song, the text, the material. Like a quilt, when Jake sings, time bends and loops, inviting other people’s time, other people’s lives. In a worst-case world, this could be greedy, or wolfish, consuming without respect; in Jake’s work, a much better world, this is a kind of kinship network, sharing and consuming mutually.

Photo Credit: Kate Medley

Basic Folk: Ana Egge

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Folk singer Ana Egge’s 13th album, Sharing in the Spirit, came out of the musician one song at a time. She didn’t even think about moving onto a new song before the writing and production of each song was complete. Working with her friend and collaborator Lorenzo Wolff, the songwriting process and music arrangement plan was to just work on a handful of songs. Their creative partnership manifested an entire record’s worth of indie folk, acoustic, and new folk music. The record includes eight originals and two covers: one by Biloxi songwriter Ted Hawkins and one by Irish musician Sinead O’Connor.

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Ana gives a huge songwriting credit to her dreams, which started getting more and more intense when she began her sobriety journey four years ago. Since then, she’s recorded her dreams, especially those with music segments and full songs, on her voice memos app. We go through the new album track by track, addressing themes in the songs like not sleeping through the revolution, the importance of telling the truth, feelings on mortality and how we’re gonna feel when Bob Dylan dies. Also: Ana was the VERY first guest on Basic Folk! I can’t go back and listen to myself four years ago, but I encourage you to check it out and then dive into her great new album.

Photo Credit: Lorenzo Wolff

BGS 5+5: Rose Gerber

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Rose Gerber
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
Latest Album: Untraveled Highway

Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?

I like to describe my music as rock meets country, though I have some ’90s alternative and pop influences in there. To mash all those up into one genre, I settle on calling it alt-country.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me?”

All the time. It’s almost impossible to exclusively divorce my own emotions and experience when creating a character. It’s very freeing, though, and I like to weave in and out of not just the character’s perspective, but the perspectives of other people I know, too, as well as mine.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I wrote a song called “Back of My Mind,” which is about my father who passed away when I was young. I cried my way through writing it and relived a lot of the grief I hadn’t felt in years.

What is a genre, album, artist, musician, or song that you adore that would surprise people?

I love Enya. I put it on when I am super stressed, need to fall asleep, or just want to feel some mystical vibes. Last time I visited Ireland, I fulfilled a dream and put it on full blast as I drove along the Irish west coast taking in the scenery.

Does pineapple really belong on pizza?

I fought it for so long and one day I was high and hungry enough to be talked into it. It was an instant love affair. I’ve since branched out into being open to other fruits on a pizza. Fig, pear… though I might draw the line at watermelon.

Photo Credit: Whitney Lyons Photography.

Alisa Amador’s New Album Contains ‘Multitudes’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

After getting a preview of Alisa Amador’s new album, Multitudes, I was excited to catch up with her and hear more about it. The production and strings on songs like “Nudo de raíces” and “Extraño” reminded me of the work of Brazilian artist Tim Bernades, someone I have recently been addicted to. When I brought that up in our interview, Alisa got very excited and showed me a playlist she had made on which Bernardes was the first featured artist – as it happens, she is also a huge fan!

Thus, our conversation started off with a bang of enthusiasm for Bernardes’ Mil Cosas Invisíveis – while it turns out Amador’s Multitudes string parts had been recorded before she ever heard the Bernardes record – and we continued by talking about her life as the child of touring musicians, her guitar inspirations, and how she interacts with songwriting as a bilingual musician.

Multitudes is full of wide, spacious arrangements with lyrics that shoot straight to the point: “I love my life/ But I hate it sometimes,” she sings on “Love Hate Song.” On “Milonga Accidental” she sings, “Cuando miro el agua / Cuando miro el cielo / Cuando miro el agua otra vez…” Roughly translated, this means: “When I look at the water / When I look at the sky / When I look at the water, once again.”

Through our chat, I learned the reasoning behind these direct and simple lyrics – and how her reasoning differs depending on the language she’s working in. Amador is an artist that has found a rare confidence in the way she makes music. I couldn’t help but feel inspired by her calm demeanor and rooted presence. I soon learned that she had been on a long journey to reaching that place for herself.

I want to ask you about your time growing up playing with your parents, who are folk musicians in the band Sol y Canto – what did you take from those experiences and what did you want to do differently?

Alisa Amador: My parents are Latin folk musicians who are touring to this day. They are amazing, and I would not be the musician I am without that primary education. It’s interesting to think about what I’d want to do different, I am always wondering that without being conscious of it I think.

The big thing is just trying to take care of myself better. I think the culture of the music industry is that of completely running yourself into the ground and then some. It seems that being an artist and being a human are often at odds with each other…

I just witnessed my family work so hard, and not have a lot of breaks or self care or healing factored in, we were always [in] survival mode and worrying about money constantly. Although, at the time, that part didn’t traumatize me at all, I don’t know why.

As a kid we just had such a rich life; traveling everywhere, seeing live music, being around people who really care. Getting to experience that much art from such a young age, while really taking touring life in stride, it was a fantastic way to grow up. But I do look back and realize how exhausted and how stressed my parents were and I don’t want that for myself.

So is this something that you realized more recently? Given that as a kid you didn’t feel affected by it?

I think there was a moment – because what my bio says about winning NPR Tiny Desk contest, that just at the moment I was going to give up, that is really true. I was going through the logistics of leaving music, it was terrifying and really painful, but I was at a point in my career that I had done everything for everyone else and had no idea how to advocate for myself. It had ruined me; I was playing gigs where I didn’t feel safe and not being paid wages that were sustainable. … Consequently, I felt like a life in music was not feasible for me.

When I got that call that day from NPR, I almost told them to call someone else. Eventually I decided to say yes, but I had to treat that “yes” as a total reset, a complete reimagining, almost a starting over, and this time I had to take care of myself.

With this reset, did the actual music you were making change at all, or was it only your intentions with how it would be made?

I had been in a period of writers block for two years and I didn’t come out of that for another year after winning the Tiny Desk Contest. I felt like an imposter, I was like, “Little do these people know that I don’t write songs anymore…” But I chose to relearn how to write songs and to try to meet myself where I was, instead of trying to making something perfect or good.

I just had to remember, how did I start writing? I was 15 and struggling, I didn’t know how to coexist with painful things, and I started writing because it helped me get through it. I didn’t write because it needed to be good or I needed to sell it. At that time, I had all these other creative practices, [like] journaling and dancing around my room, and I had let go of all of them during that period, and I felt like I couldn’t make anything. I wasn’t ready to process what I had been through.

When I did starting writing again, it had to come from this place of childlike curiosity and wonder and I had to tell myself every time I wrote, “It will probably be bad.” And letting it be bad is what allowed me to write anything at all.

As a bilingual writer, you have access to another tool – choice of language – that many of us don’t have. How and why do you approach your songs in one language or the other, and how does it color them?

I heard Allison Russell talk about this in an interview. I’m paraphrasing, but I think she said something like, “Writing in different languages is like accessing different channels of the unconscious …” and similarly, I feel like I don’t make a conscious choice about what language I write in, but it could come from a different place.

I have noticed that writing in English, it tends to be more conversational. I just tell what I’m feeling, literally, and try to trust that the feelings will reach people, as long I’m being honest.

When I’m writing in Spanish, even though it’s my native language, I’ve always lived in the U.S., so I just have a limited vocabulary. There was a period of time where I was only speaking Spanish at home, it was the strict language at home, so I think it’s my childlike language, but it gets used in new and poetic ways. Whatever words can capture that feeling are the ones that I’m gonna stick to, because I don’t have that many to choose from! I don’t have trick phrases or literary devices, and maybe I have a little less judgement in Spanish as well. Limitation is really a gift in that way.

That’s really interesting! So with that in mind, how do you feel about language translation with songs? Is it helpful or harmful to the meaning?

I actually love translating and when the first album review came out from No Depression about Multitudes, the headline was “…Alisa Amador is Found in Translation.” I was so happy about that. Because really, my best language is Spanglish, switching in between is where I’m most comfortable, and that in-between-ness is where I’m always existing.

In my parent’s band, they would often give a translation of the song for an English speaking audience; my dad would play the progression of the song and my mom would stand there dramatically, looking fabulous, telling the lyrics in a beautiful way, always within the frame of the chord progression.

So I really enjoy giving a translation before singing the songs now as well, and so many people have come up to tell me they love it. The translation being in time with the song makes it possible for them to even follow along while I sing it in Spanish.

There’s something so metaphorically perfect about that, because when you’re living in between you feel like you’re always missing something, but there’s something gained from that, too, because it makes it possible to give grace when someone isn’t understanding, or bring them in when they aren’t feeling heard. And that is what I’m able to do when I give a translation.

Can you tell me about your guitar style? It’s really beautiful. Who or what influences the way you play? And how did you learn?

I started because I idolized my dad. He is a classical guitarist and he’s trained in flamenco. As a kid I studied flamenco dance, too, so I used to dance while he would play. He gave me one of his old foot stools and I played nylon-string guitar for a long time, that was my first instrument. I just studied folk songs like “Monster Mash” and “Blackbird” and “American Pie.” My dad was super technical, but I didn’t study with him, and I knew I wanted to become a better guitarist.

Then in college, I saw a musician just playing solo electric guitar and singing and I had no idea an electric could sound like that. I love electric – but nylon-string acoustic will always be the origin of my playing, so I approach the electric guitar that way. Resonance is really important to me and noticing how chords feel. A lot of my writing is just simple chords and adding and taking away notes. I’m very much still learning guitar, I’m in this stage of guitar learning where I get lost in self doubt, so I practice whatever I play live so much in order to feel confident performing.

I’m sure there’s a lot of Spanish language folk music that folks in the “Americana” scene are really missing out on, myself included. What are some other artists that sing in Spanish or in other languages, that you think folks should know about?

One of my big inspirations for the overall sonic work of Multitudes was the album Domus by Sílvia Pérez Cruz. I listened to it obsessively seven years ago without realizing it was the soundtrack of a film, Circa de Tu Casa, which is about the real housing crisis in Spain. [Pérez Cruz also stars in this film.]

Something I thought Cruz did so well on this record is that she is so feelings-oriented. What she feels is what dictates how she sings the song, which is a philosophy that I share. But she also has this riveting voice, so it’s all about telling a story. The production on the record completely holds what she’s singing, but it is also musically and technically beautiful. You want to have a record you can turn to again and again and notice new things to love.

Is there anything else you want readers to know before we end?

I guess I’d like to give a gentle reminder to human listeners, to the people listening and reading, that you really matter to independent artists. Every listener is the life force behind our careers. When someone comes to a show, and then comes back with a friend or presses play on a record they’ve not heard before, those things are what make my job possible, so thank you to the individuals of the world who press play and pay attention!

Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro

Basic Folk: Chris Smither & Peter Mulvey

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

Chris Smither has been Peter Mulvey’s mentor since back in 1993, when a young Mulvey opened for the already seasoned Smither. The blues and folk legend liked what he heard and enjoyed their similarities in creativity and quirks; he took that young man on the road with him. Their musical partnership has survived the digital age, the pandemic, parenthood, and the indictment of a former president. Along the way each has worked to influence their best habits and life lessons on the other. As far as mentor-mentee relationships go, this one is for the history books.

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In this rare joint interview on Basic Folk, we address the important questions: Why do they delight in calling each other by their last names? Smither shares that he was first called by his last name in Paris when he was in school. The two debate who has the better hometown, Milwaukee or New Orleans. Actually, it’s not so much a debate as a reflection on New Orleans music, since that is clearly the better spot to grow up as a musician.

Mulvey reflects on their musical differences, citing some of his main inspirations to be Kendrick Lamar and Ani DiFranco, versus Smither’s affinity for Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. There are nods to David “Goody” Goodrich, Jeffrey Foucault, Kris Delmhorst and the woman behind it all, Carol Young (AKA Smither’s long-time manager, AKA his wife). We break down how each feels about fatherhood and try to get Smither to spill his secret to longevity. Spoiler alert: It’s not from remaining still.

Smither’s 20th album, All About the Bones, is out now. Peter Mulvey’s latest is the acoustic retrospective, More Notes From Elsewhere.

Photo Credit: Chris Smither by Jo Chattman; Peter Mulvey by Paul Reitano.

BGS 5+5: JEMS

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: JEMS
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Latest Album: Back Around
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Wild Valley Dream Weavers, lots of others!

Which artist has influenced you the most – and how?

I grew up with Joni Mitchell. For every season of life, her music feels like the soundtrack. I find myself returning to songs and finding new meanings as my scope continues to broaden and deepen. Her voice is unapologetically her own and I am so inspired by her journey. – Emily

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When my dad played me the song “Eleanor Rigby” I had a major lightbulb moment. I don’t think I had realized how powerful music as storytelling was until then. I must’ve been 8 or 9 and my imagination burst wide open. – Jess

Probably when I started playing the songs I was writing as a kid for my Dad. He was both kind and critical in ways that confirmed that I wanted to work on and share my songs with not just him, but everyone. – Sarah Margaret

Genre is dead (long live genre!), but how would you describe the genres and styles your music inhabits?

We each have distinct vocal timbres and have been influenced by the genres we grew up listening to, from jazz and soul to indie rock to classical and film scores to folk and Americana. That diversity adds a richness to our blend and has influenced how we approach melody, harmony, and storytelling. As a trio, we live in the folk world, but lean into many other lanes depending on the instrumentation and production of each song.

If you didn’t work in music, what would you do instead?

I’d be a hairdresser. I cut and color hair for fun/therapy and I truly love it. Although I don’t know if I’d love it as much if I had to do it…  – Jess

I’d be a private chef. I love going to farmer’s markets, learning from local farmers and artisans, and expressing myself through food. Maybe it’s the French in me! – Emily

A marine biologist, or boat captain, or something that lets me be in and around the ocean all the time. – Sarah Margaret

If you were a color, what shade would you be – and why?

Gold! I’d don’t know why, but I’ve just always felt like the sunshine. – Jess

Olive green. I’d like to be as warm, relaxing, and grounded as that color! – Sarah Margaret

Photo Credit: Jayden Becker

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Rose Cousins, Reckless Kelly, and More

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

It’s a serendipitously Canada-filled day on You Gotta Hear This, where singer-songwriter Rose Cousins brings us a brand new track, “Forget Me Not,” with a beautiful accompanying visualizer, plus Alex Mason impressively performs “Broken Bottles” live from a canoe, and Bob Sumner and posse line-dance it up in a new video for “Motel Room.”

That’s not all, though, as we’ve got alt-country, bluegrass, and more from the southern side of that border, too. Don’t miss Reckless Kelly performing “Keep Lookin’ Down The Road” in a brand new, self-shot video that features gorgeous landscapes and stunning drone footage. Derek Vanderhorst brings us the title track to his upcoming album, Be Kind, as well, with a ringer cast of collaborators including Steve Poltz.

To round out our collection this week, we’re re-sharing two premieres from earlier in the week on the site. The Doohickeys brought us zombie-fied Good Country with “Rein It In Cowboy” and virtuosic pickers Steven Moore and Jed Clark paid tribute to what would have been Frank Wakefield’s 90th birthday with their rendition of “New Camptown Races.”

It’s all right here on BGS and, to be perfectly honest, You Gotta Hear This!

Rose Cousins, “Forget Me Not”

Artist: Rose Cousins
Hometown: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Song: “Forget Me Not”
Release Date: June 28, 2024 (single)
Label: Nettwerk Music Group

In Their Words: “‘Forget Me Not’ is the romance of spring unfolding into summer as it pulls us into its presence. Nature asking us to pay attention and come along. Spring is my favourite season and I’ve now gotten to see it four times in a row in the same place which touring kept me from doing for years. It’s been like falling in love in a new way with an old flame.” – Rose Cousins

Reckless Kelly, “Keep Lookin’ Down The Road”

Artist: Reckless Kelly
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Keep Lookin’ Down The Road”
Album: The Last Frontier
Release Date: September 13, 2024 (album)
Label: No Big Deal Records

In Their Words: “‘Keep Lookin’ Down The Road’ is a reflection of the past and an appreciation for the present, but most importantly, it’s an optimistic look ahead. I wrote it with my brother Gary and our buddy Jeff Crosby during our annual songwriting retreat that we jokingly refer to as the ‘hitscation.’ I came up with the line on the way there. sang a few lines into my voice recorder, and we worked out the rest over the next couple of days. Once we were in the studio, I chopped up a couple of verses and used the best lines to shorten it up a bit to match the theme of the record, which is, in a nutshell, ‘Don’t bore us, get to the chorus.’

“As technology advances by the second, I’ve wondered for a while how close to a pro-shot music video I could film using just an iPhone and a drone. Since the expense of filming a music video can sometimes outweigh its visibility, I decided to find out. Using the limited videography and editing skills I’d picked up filming the pandemic-inspired ‘Music from the Mountains’ and ‘Quarantine Kitchen’ shows, I set up time lapses of sunsets, sent the drone up to capture areal views of the mountains in my high desert backyard, and tried to time sunrises and sunsets for the cringiest part – standing in a field of sagebrush all alone, Uncle Rico style, filming myself singing and playing the song in front of a tripod. Luckily, my locations were so remote that nobody drove by and saw this old man making selfie videos like some 14-year-old influencer.

“I shot a lot of B roll road scenes, filmed at an old junkyard in the woods, waterfalls, national monuments, and in huge valleys surrounded by mountains on all sides. I tried to use the scenery as the main focus and also borrowed my brother Gary’s old Dodge truck to match the timeless vibe I was going for. It was a lot of work and took a lot more time than I thought it would, but it was fun and it turned out pretty cool, and I have a newfound appreciation for why these things cost so much. I’m not sure if I matched the quality of a high-end production, but for the cost of a tank of gas or two it’s close enough for RK!” – Willy Braun

Track Credits: Written by Willy Braun, Gary Braun (Micky & The Motorcars) and Jeff Crosby.

Wily Braun – Lead vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica, percussion
Cody Braun – Fiddle, harmony vocals, mandolin, tenor guitar, synth, percussion
Jay Nazz – Drums, percussion
Joe Miller – Bass guitar
Geoff Queen – Lead electric guitar, pedal steel guitar
Bukka Allen – Hammond B3 organ, piano, harmonium
Kelley Mickwee – Harmony vocals

Produced by Jonathan Tyler, Cody Braun, Willy Braun.
Engineered by Joseph Holguin.
Mixed by Jacob Sciba, Cody Braun, Jonathan Tyler.
Mastered by Jacob Sciba.
Recorded at Arlyn Studios, Austin, Texas.
Additional recording at Clyde’s VIP Room, Austin, Texas.

Video Credit: Produced, directed, filmed, and edited by Willy Braun. Filmed on location in Idaho.

Alex Mason, “Broken Bottles”

Artist: Alex Mason
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Song: “Broken Bottles”

In Their Words: “‘Broken Bottles’ is a song about how when memories form, especially when we’re younger, they can take on an almost mythical quality in our imaginations and dreams. Then as we grow older and that spell of innocence is broken, we leave them behind, only to return to them again later when they likely don’t resemble anything like what they originally looked like. After losing my mom, writing songs became a way to preserve memories, even painful ones from when I was a kid. Sometimes even difficult memories can sweeten and soften with time. I was exploring a lot of open tunings with this new album, and felt a bit like Dylan on Blood On The Tracks – something about playing in open D on this Martin opened up a new space and new ideas for me and reminded me of being a teenager exploring the same tunings. It’s funny how things make their way back around.” – Alex Mason

Video Credit: Bradley Pearson, Don River Music

Bob Sumner, “Motel Room”

Artist: Bob Sumner
Hometown: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Song: “Motel Room”
Album: Some Place to Rest Easy
Release Date: September 6, 2024
Label: Fluff and Gravy Records

In Their Words: “There is a rapper/DJ named Channel Tres. Everything Channel does is cool. He drips cool. I’m a big fan of his music, his aesthetic, and his videos. He has a video for a tune called ‘Weedman.’ It’s Channel and his homies hanging out in a home ordering weed from their dealer. Throughout the video they break into dance routines. It’s chill af. It’s funny. It’s joyous. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. I wanted that for ‘Motel Room.’

“I wrangled two of my close friends, Logan Wolff & Matty Beans. I knew they’d be down. My partner Mica Kayde choreographed a dance routine for us. With my director Dana Bontempo and his partner Zara, we loaded into my pickup truck, brought Endo my tripod dog (and best friend), and spent three days on a road trip messing around. We danced in front of a motel called El Rancho in the interior of B.C. We went to the Armstrong Fair & Rodeo. We laughed a lot, mostly at ourselves, and we had the time of our lives doing it. It’s no Channel Tres, but I think we did what we set out to do. The video turned out to be a joy. It’s fun. It’s funny. It encapsulates those magical carefree years I spent with my friend. At the end of the video the character ends up alone in a motel room wantonly gazing out the window. We felt that was a part of the story we couldn’t leave out.” – Bob Sumner

Derek Vanderhorst, “Be Kind” (featuring Steve Poltz)

Artist: Derek Vanderhorst
Hometown: Golden, Colorado but moving to Nice, France in September
Song: “Be Kind”
Album: Be Kind
Release Date: July 12, 2024

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Be Kind’ in a fun, humorous way to address serious issues that are dividing friends and family and loved ones. Racism and intolerance are making their way into our everyday experience and becoming somewhat normalized. The divisiveness is becoming so overwhelming that it’s now hard to have these serious conversations and I wanted to send the simple message of acceptance, love, and kindness – as well as [pointing out] differences are what makes life so great and worth living.

“As Gen Xers, we need to be open, aware, and embrace all the progress and change, not forgetting our generation’s great changes. We sometimes need to remember that we need change to have stagnant waters.” – Derek Vanderhorst

Track Credits:
Derek Vanderhorst – Music, lyrics, guitar, vocals
Steve Poltz – Vocals, guitar
John Mailander – Fiddle, mandolin
Frank Evans – Banjo
Brook Sutton – Bass
Jamie Dick – Percussion

The Doohickeys, “Rein It In Cowboy”

Artist: The Doohickeys
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Rein It In Cowboy”
Album: All Hat No Cattle
Release Date: January 24, 2025
Label: Forty Below Records

In Their Words: “We wrote ‘Rein It In Cowboy’ after Haley got her butt grabbed in a bar… He copped a feel and we copped a song. The unsettling vibe you get from a creepy guy groping you is eerily similar to the feeling zombies evoke, which is why our video draws inspiration from our love of classic zombie films like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. We had a blast coming up with t-shirt pick-up lines and other visual jokes throughout the video. With the help of our friends, we crafted a visual narrative we’re truly proud of and can stand behind (and grab).” – Jack Hackett, The Doohickeys

More here.

Steven Moore & Jed Clark, “New Camptown Races”

Artist: Steven Moore & Jed Clark
Hometown: Jed Clark lives in Nashville, Tennessee, originally from Searcy, Arkansas; Steven Moore lives in Saint Clairsville, Ohio, originally from Bethesda, Ohio.
Song: “New Camptown Races” (by Frank Wakefield)
Release Date: June 26, 2024

In Their Words: “We are very excited to share our music video of ‘New Camptown Races,’ a tune by the late Frank Wakefield (June 26, 1934 – April 26, 2024) that has become a bluegrass standard. The idea for this video began at SPBGMA 2023, when we jammed to ‘New Camptown Races’ with both of us playing it in B-flat without using capos. We laughed and agreed that we needed to record it and maybe do a video shoot of it someday. It wasn’t until a year later at SPBGMA 2024, when we met up again, that we really solidified plans to make the video happen. Our hopes were to record the video and put it out on June 26, 2024 in honor of Frank’s 90th birthday. Unfortunately, the world lost Frank two months before he turned 90, but we decided to still aim to put out the video on what would have been Frank’s 90th birthday, in his memory…” – Steven Moore

More here.

Photo Credit: Rose Cousins by Lindsay Duncan; Reckless Kelly by Cassy Weyandt.