Tag: singer songwriter

LISTEN: The Lied To’s, “Winter of the Winter”

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Artist: The Lied To’s
Hometown: Newburyport, Massachusetts
Song: “Winter of the Winter”
Album: The Worst Kind of New
Release Date: March 11, 2022
Label: Hollow Body Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Winter of the Winter’ almost exactly a year ago. Winter in New England can feel endless and bleak in the best of times, but during the COVID lockdown it felt brutal. People were either terribly isolated and lonely, or climbing the walls trying to balance kids, spouses, working from home, and remote school. There was a sense of collective grief, but there also was a real meanness out there given the political divide. I wrote ‘Winter of the Winter’ to try to process all of it. I really wanted the whole ordeal to mean something. I wanted us to learn something from the experience, for us to end up a little kinder, a little better as a society. The song asks: ‘When the spring comes and everything is growing/Will we remember how it was snowing/And will we be better for the knowing?’ I think, unfortunately, the verdict is still out.” — Susan Levine

Photo Credit: Doug Kwartler

WATCH: Katie Cole, “Dreams of Mine”

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Artist: Katie Cole
Hometown: Nashville, but born in Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Dreams of Mine”
Release Date: February 18, 2022

In Their Words: “This song was crafted during the heart of 2021. Lockdown and limited ability to plan brought about an ocean of anxieties for most of us. So it was easy to mine the current emotional experience out of myself to add to this song about my upbringing. No matter where you come from, we all have dreams and they don’t always live up to our expectations. But we still strive and hope for more. The concept for the video was really just trying to capture the balance between inner struggle where all the shots are inside and mixed with wandering in the wilderness. At any given time people are wired to be composed externally but often feel something very different internally. And this song is all about striving to be more than your current circumstances. So I liked the idea of juxtaposing the video shots between inside and outside to mirror that struggle.” — Katie Cole

Photo credit: Dire Image

LISTEN: Fort Frances, “If You Look Hard Enough”

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Artist: Fort Frances
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Song: “If You Look Hard Enough”
Album: Look at What Tomorrow Brought Us
Release Date: February 25, 2022
Label: Roadblock Records

In Their Words: “This is the happiest song I have ever written, which is an oddity for a time marked by headlines of a global pandemic, the failings of democracy and a battered and bruised planet. I used to regularly fall into the trap of focusing on the bad side of everything, but I’m digging my way out of it now. This album is about a new focus to choose optimism over despair, dig a little deeper for a bigger sense of purpose and find more reasons to smile. We haven’t played a show since the end of 2019, and this is the song I cannot wait to close a show with when we get to do it again. I have been dreaming of the feeling of an audience joining in the countdown of the bridge and helping us take out that final chorus. It hasn’t happened yet, and it already gives me chills.” — David McMillin

Photo Credit: Alec Basse

LISTEN: Jon Danforth, “Maybe a Little”

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Artist: Jon Danforth
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
Song: Maybe a Little
Album: Beginning and End
Release Date: February 18, 2022

In Their Words: “Most people have been in that situation where you want to be in a relationship with someone, but that person is already in a relationship. Many people have also had the experience of learning that the person you want to be with just broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. When you find this out, there is that spark of hope that ‘maybe we can be together now.’ This song is about that specific in-between or transition time. You have hope that you can finally be with this person that you’ve been in love with, but you also don’t want to screw it up in your excitement and so you tell yourself that you’re going to take it slow. It’s a funny, thrilling, and downright human experience that I enjoyed putting into a song.” — Jon Danforth

Photo Credit: Faith Alesia

LISTEN: Harley Kimbro Lewis, “Creepin’ Charlie”

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Artist: Harley Kimbro Lewis (Martin Harley, Daniel Kimbro and Sam Lewis)
Hometown: Hertfordshire (UK); Knoxville, Tenn.; Nashville
Song: “Creepin’ Charlie”
Album: Harley Kimbro Lewis
Release Date: February 22, 2022
Label: HKL Records

In Their Words: “Murder ballads are a common thread in folk music, especially here in Appalachia. This song is more of a suggestion that there might be some killing done. An old song I thought would never see the light of day that sprouted while weeding the wife’s garden…I was asking my wife why I couldn’t seem to get rid of two plants in particular, especially in the margins of the garden; between the sidewalk cracks and amongst the plants we intended to cultivate. She said, ‘That’s Creeping Charlie and Devil Vine.’ I grew up in a small town called Morristown, where news travels fast. For some reason my frustration while weeding manifested as a song about a brokenhearted man tending to his own unrequited love.” — Daniel Kimbro

Photo Credit: Harley Kimbro Lewis

BGS 5+5: Sophie & the Broken Things

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Artist: Sophie & the Broken Things
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Latest Album: Delusions of Grandeur

Answers by: Sophie Gault

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

Lucinda Williams. In high school, I had the 1998 Austin City Limits DVD with the Car Wheels band, and every night I’d stay up for hours playing my guitar with it on repeat. It was like this world I could escape to and I learned a lot from it, from guitar playing to singing to songwriting. That was the most formative thing ever for me, musically.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

My fondest memory of being on stage is getting to play at Americanafest last year where I got to sing with Logan Ledger and trade guitar licks with Jules Belmont.

What inspired your new single, “Golden Rule”?

I got home late one night from my mail sorting job and came up with the melody. Then I kept working on the words on my drives from Nashville to La Vergne where my job was. I really wanted to write a song for working-class people. And I mentioned DC because it’s a really nostalgic place for me. My mom used to work at a healthcare nonprofit there and I went to preschool there. They used to take us on day trips to the free museums, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and other landmarks. I remember one of the preschool teachers writing the Golden Rule on a chalkboard and teaching what it meant. That’s a vivid memory. I really love the wind chime percussion on this. Lemmy Hayes makes all his own percussion so it’s always exciting to see what he’s going to choose.

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

When I was 12 I had a crush on this guy who liked Linkin Park. I wanted to impress him so I decided to learn the guitar. I don’t think it ever worked but I stuck with it anyway, haha.

Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

A bowl of Tom Yum soup and Shovels & Rope.

Photo Credit: Laura Partain

WATCH: Kate Klim, “Lines”

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Artist: Kate Klim
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Lines”
Album: Something Green
Release Date: March 4, 2022

In Their Words: “This song is about finding yourself in a life that feels suddenly unfamiliar. The song was half-done when I learned a tornado was ripping its way through my neighborhood. My kids and my home were fine, but many of the places we went to and passed every day were gone — my hometown was now unfamiliar, too. That night, I stayed up watching the news and finishing the song, which we recorded the very next day in the studio.” — Kate Klim

Photo Credit: Laura Schneider

LISTEN: Bailey Bigger, “You, Somehow”

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Artist: Bailey Bigger
Hometown: Marion, Arkansas
Song: “You, Somehow”
Album: Coyote Red
Release Date: March 25, 2022
Label: Madjack Records

In Their Words: “‘You, Somehow’ is not only my story of finding something for the first time that healed me, and helped me on the road to understanding what it feels like to be loved genuinely, but it’s a love song for all the people who have also struggled to find that, and the ones who still haven’t yet. It’s out there, and you deserve it.” — Bailey Bigger

MADJACK Records · Bailey Bigger – You, Somehow

Photo Credit: Bethany Reid Visuals

WATCH: The HawtThorns, “On the Way” (Live)

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Artist: The HawtThorns
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “On the Way”
Album: Tarot Cards & Shooting Stars
Release Date: February 25, 2022

In Their Words: “We wrote this song at home in Nashville while we were waiting on the world to open up; thinking about everything we had planned when we started our band and how it didn’t quite go as we thought. Even though we had a detour, the stuff that we went through on that alternate route made us look at things in life a little differently. It is about being able to enjoy the journey and to let go of exactly where you are headed. The track was super fun to make. When we had drummer Matt Lucich come in for the session we asked him to take the groove away from a traditional ‘train beat’ or a country ‘2/4 feel’ and try something different with the tom-toms. The result is this feel that the song could go off the rails at any time, just like the lyrics suggest. Johnny Hawthorn did his best Jerry Reed impression and took the opportunity to play every country lick in the book as fast as he could on his Telecaster. We doubled the vocals and layered harmonies for a real big-sounding chorus on this one.” — KP Hawthorn

Photo Credit: Michael Becker

WATCH: JOHNNYSWIM, “Heaven Is Everywhere”

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Artist: JOHNNYSWIM
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Single: “Heaven Is Everywhere”
Album: JOHNNYSWIM
Release Date: April 8, 2022

In Their Words: “When I started singing this chorus in the shower, I felt like what was inside of me was bigger than the whole world and I wanted to share it. I find, whether it’s in church or in politics, that people get so obsessed with right and wrong and their certainty of it. If we experience the beauty of this life, even though the drudgery and the misery, there’s glimpses of heaven around us at all times. My hope with this song is that people can feel that when they hear it and sing it.” — Abner Ramirez, JOHNNYSWIM

Photo Credit: Chloe Eno