Artist:Charlie Parr Hometown: Duluth, Minnesota Song: “Last of the Better Days Ahead” Album:Last of the Better Days Ahead Release Date: July 30, 2021 Label: Smithsonian Folkways
In Their Words: “Last of the Better Days Ahead is a way for me to refer to the times I’m living in. I’m getting on in years, experiencing a shift in perspective that was once described by my mom as ‘a time when we turn from gazing into the future to gazing back at the past, as if we’re adrift in the current, slowly turning around.’ Some songs came from meditations on the fact that the portion of our brain devoted to memory is also the portion responsible for imagination, and what that entails for the collected experiences that we refer to as our lives. Other songs are cultivated primarily from the imagination, but also contain memories of what may be a real landscape, or at least one inspired by vivid dreaming.” — Charlie Parr
Artist:Carrie Newcomer Hometown: Bloomington, Indiana Latest Album:Until Now (September 10, 2021) Personal Nicknames/Rejected Band Names: My husband calls me “bunky” sometimes. 🙂 My bands have always been just The Carrie Newcomer Band. My first band was called Stone Soup.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I don’t think it happened for me in one moment. It was a slow turning, a claiming and reclaiming, a deepening. My favorite game as a little girl was called “Makin’ Somethin’.” I was always making songs, stories, and pictures; painting, sewing, and hammering together boards; cooking or putting on plays in the backyard. I was drawn to creating just about anything, and all these years later, I’m still inordinately happy when I’m makin’ somethin’. But it took me a while to truly claim calling myself a songwriter and poet. I went to school for visual art, then later got a teacher’s license. Both are honorable vocations, but I believe I chose them because it felt too risky to follow what I loved the most: music.
During that time, I was writing songs and playing music everywhere. When I finished school, music was calling. So I followed, not really knowing where it would lead me. But even as I stepped fully into a life in music, things continued to unfold. Something good happened to my writing when I gave myself permission to sound like a “Hoosier,” to claim my own authentic Midwestern voice. Something also shifted when I stopped following music business and started following what my songs were about — asking good questions, sensing a spiritual thread, our shared human condition, finding something extraordinary in an ordinary day. My life as a musician also shifted when I stopped believing that I had to be the best singer-songwriter and knew that all I needed to do and be was the truest Carrie Newcomer.
Today, I have released 19 albums. Music still continues to be a choice. A life in the arts means you must be willing to step right up to your next growing edge and lean in. So every day — even in this time of great disruption and uncertainty, when hope feels a bit frayed at the edges, I still choose to live like an artist, approach my life as an artist, and stay true, lean in and always keep “makin’ somethin’.”
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
I have always been a passionate reader. Of course, music has always moved me, but I am even more drawn to the way music and lyrics entwine to create something uniquely powerful. Many of my songs are inspired by literature (non-fiction and fiction) and particularly poetry. Songwriters have many ways they go about writing a song — if you ask 11 songwriters to describe their process, you’ll get 15 different ways they approach songwriting. My process often begins with writing essays, poetry, short stories and character studies. I have three books of poetry and essays: A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays & Lyrics and my newest collection Until Now: New Poems that will published as a companion piece with my new album Until Now, on September 10, 2021. I’m also a visual artist (mixed media and small sculpture) and visual imagery is always present in my songwriting. Oh, and I’m a passionate knitter.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I try to find a place to get quiet. I meditate, I find my inner center so that I feel more grounded when I step on stage. I’m not a natural performer. In fact, I’m pretty private by nature, which is not uncommon for performers. But I love people, and I love music, and I love what happens when we connect through music. There is nothing like it. Music, when it’s really flowing, comes up from something deep and centered and true. It reaches into the heart of the listener where the listener is deep and true. I imagine those of you reading might know what I’m talking about.
During COVID, we all had to learn how to do this heart-reaching in new ways. I turned to online streaming, as my husband Robert Meitus is (lucky for me) one of the co-founders of Mandolin, a high-quality concert streaming service that streamed the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and RockyGrass this year. Streaming was an incredibly different performance experience. If a live in-person show is an apple and recording a performance is an orange, streaming is kind of like a kiwi. It has many similar elements, but it’s also entirely different. The exciting thing I learned was that the spirit of music really can reach further and wider than I ever expected.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
If I had a mission statement for my career it would be, “be true.” My work in the world is to express what it means to be authentically human with all its ache and awe, sense and senselessness. It’s to hold fast to the power of simple kindness, to acknowledge its messiness, and to be honest about where I most need to grow. My job is to lean into unabashed delight and to be with uncontainable grief. Music reminds me that working toward a better, kinder world is not a destination as much as an orientation. My job is to put into music and language the things we feel that have no words, to do my own inner work so that I can bring what I find there to my outer calling. My job as an artist is to pay attention and ask good questions — and, as much as possible — to be kind.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Natural imagery is almost always present in my poetry and songwriting. It is where I catch glimpses of something extraordinary (even sacred) in the most ordinary of days. I live out in the wooded hills of southern Indiana where years ago, the glaciers stopped their earth-smoothing slide south, leaving deep ravines and beautiful hills. I have walked these hills for years; these forests, creeks and small lakes have become old friends. On my wide, old-fashioned front porch, I love to sit and watch a big storm come in, to feel the drop in the barometric pressure, a rush of cool air, and then waves of summer rain. I love the quiet of the snowy hills, particularly the ones that are lined with elegant smooth beech trees. In senseless times, I take comfort in what never stops making sense, like trees and songbirds, like how the light changes in autumn and the world quiets in the winter. There is a song on the new album called “I Give Myself To This.” It is a love song about what I choose to release and what I fully embrace out in the natural world.
Jim Lauderdale’s new album Hope has a sound reminiscent of dreamy ‘70s folk rock records and largely centers around themes like perseverance, with much of the music bred from his 15-month hiatus from touring and performing. One of its most eloquent tracks celebrates the legendary Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, a longtime friend and collaborator of Lauderdale’s who died in 2019. As one of the final songs they wrote together, “Memory” arrived on June 22, just one day before what would’ve been Hunter’s 80th birthday. In addition, the album cover and packaging feature paintings by Maureen Hunter, Robert’s wife. About his dear friend, Lauderdale says, “Losing Robert just before the pandemic was so hard, but he left the perfect lyric, to sum up my feelings about him and to honor all the people we’ve lost since.”
In the light of Hunter’s companionship and storied career as a writer and musician, “Memory” is a perfect song to celebrate his life and work. Meanwhile, Hope features a cast of musicians who just get it when it comes to traditional country and folk rock. Chris Scruggs, Russ Pahl, and Kenny Vaughan are just a few who grace the record with their classic sounds. “I wanted to get a musical message out there during this time of what we’ve all been going through, about the hope for better days ahead,” Lauderdale says. “If we can find any glimmers of hope, that really helps get you through another day.”
Artist:Alexa Wildish Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “The Well” Album:Alexa Wildish
In Their Words: “‘The Well’ was originally written years ago, then released in 2020 on my eponymous EP, and it was not until this year that I fully lived its meaning. This video was filmed in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala. The pristine beauty and undeniably loud earth presence helped me to see myself more lucidly than ever before. It seems as if the surrounding volcanic energy erupted from me all that I was unwilling and too afraid to see, and then the water offered me grace in return in its loving reflection. The footage was captured over a few days of adventuring and playing with the elements. We collected video during a torrential downpour, parts of it at 5 in the morning when no one was on the lake other than a few local fishers, and the rest tucked away in the deep parts of the forest. My gratitude for this land and the way it brought me back home to myself will forever be imprinted on my heart.” — Alexa Wildish
In July we put together a playlist of bluegrass songs for summer vacation and once the inspiration was flowing, it was difficult to stop! We thought we should return to the theme, but slightly zoomed out, to include songs from across the roots music landscape. With the summer still shining, enjoy these 17 folk, Americana, and country songs perfect for your road trip playlist.
“Ride Out in the Country” – Yola
Yola was a 2020 Best New Artist nominee at the Grammys and she’s just returned with a new, full-length album on Easy Eye Sound, Stand For Myself. The entire project is lush and resplendent, like the glory days of orchestral, big-sound country-pop in the ‘60s and ‘70s. For this playlist, though, we return to her prior release, Walk Through Fire, and the perfectly country track, “Ride Out in the Country.” Take the scenic byways and crank the volume!
“I Like It When You’re Home” – Della Mae
One of the nicest silver linings of vacation is missing home – and that delicious feeling of returning to your own space and your own bed after being away. And your loved one(s), too! Della Mae captures that sentiment in this jammy, rootsy track from their album, Headlight. Take the day off, drive north, sit by a lake.
“A Little Past Little Rock” – Lee Ann Womack
A truly quintessential driving song. A must-add even if your vacation route comes nowhere near Arkansas. The baritone guitar intro, the shout-along-with-the-lyrics chorus, the whimsically late ‘90s production. A banger. A bop.
“Sunny and Warm” – Keb’ Mo’
Keb’ Mo’ is a master of vibes. His single “Sunny and Warm” showcases the acoustic blues musician in a more traditional R&B light – and the impact and result are simply golden. This track will have you craving your happy place, wherever that warm and sunny locale may be.
“Heavy Traffic Ahead” – Bill Monroe
Look, we’re The Bluegrass Situation! We’ve gotta get our bluegrass kicks in somewhere – bluegrass is roots music, after all. Given that we left this classic by the Big Mon himself off our Bluegrass Songs for Summer Vacation we felt it was worth inclusion here. And worth a mention so that you’ll go check out the entirely bluegrass playlist, too!
“Country Radio” – Indigo Girls
Finally a country song about country radio – and cruising around aimlessly listening to it – that is enjoyable and free of the guilt associated with the false nostalgia, conservative politics, authenticity signalling, and post-2000s country. Especially the kind most often played on the radio! This Indigo Girls track is testament to all the folks out there who love country music, even if it doesn’t always love them back. Don’t worry, it will. Eventually! (Read the BGS interview.)
“White Noise, White Lines” – Kelsey Waldon
If you catch yourself daydreaming, in a dissociative or meditative trance as you keep it between the lines, Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Kelsey Waldon has the exact soundtrack for you. “Whie Noise, White Lines,” the title track of her most recent album, speaks to that near-trope-ish phenomenon of losing oneself amid the countless miles traveled while living the life of a traveling musician. Waldon, as in most of her music, accomplishes this motif without stereotypes or clichés, and the result is a song that will be a staple on vacation playlists for decades to come.
“Table For One” – Courtney Marie Andrews
A variation on the same theme, this time from Courtney Marie Andrews, “Table For One” is gauzy and lonesomely trippy. “You don’t wanna be like me / this life ain’t free,” the singer pleads, seeking a sense of reality in a life almost entirely abided within liminal spaces. Find peace in the redwoods, but try to hold on to it. You might lose it twenty miles later.
“Two Roads” – Valerie June
Cosmic and longing, Valerie June distills Kermit the Frog’s “the lovers, the dreamers, and me” into album form with her latest outing, The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers. Whatever bug you’ve been bitten by – rambling, restlessness, cabin fever, listlessness – let this song and this album scratch that itch. And as you let the miles fade behind you, on whichever of the two roads you take, don’t forget to look up… at the moon and stars and beyond.
“Christine” – Lucy Dacus
Whether or not you’ve experienced the beautiful, transcendent, and heart-rending forbidden love of being queer — on the outside looking in on love that society has constructed to which you’ll never have access — Lucy Dacus’ fantastic, alt/indie roots pop universe will give you a crystalline window into this very particular iteration of unrequited love on “Christine.” The song feels almost as though you’ve woken from a warm, sunny, time-halting afternoon nap in the back seat of a car yourself.
“It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” – Darrell Scott
Darrell Scott goes two for two, landing on both our bluegrass summer vacation round-up and our rootsy list, too! “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive” is THE song for the moment you realize you’re out of the office, away from your chores, without a care in the world — whether you have rice cooking in your microwave or not.
“Hometown” – Lula Wiles
For those summers when all you can muster is a trip home. Lula Wiles don’t just trade in nostalgia and hometown praise, though, they take on the subject with a genuine, measured perspective that picks up paradoxes, turns them over, and places them back down for listeners. It’s a subtly charming earworm, too.
“Heavenly Day” – Patty Griffin
“Oh heavenly day / All the clouds blew away / Got no trouble today…” The exact intention to be channeling during vacation! Don’t let your summer getaway be one of those vacations from which you end up needing a vacation. Leave your troubles behind, have a heavenly day.
“Midnight in Harlem” – Tedeschi Trucks Band
Your travels may not bring you even within the same state as Harlem, but this song had still better be on your road trip playlist. There’s almost no song better to put on at midnight, wherever you may be roaming, than Tedeschi Trucks’ “Midnight in Harlem.”
“Outbound Plane” – Suzy Bogguss
Every time I step into an airport my anxiety seems to sing, “I don’t want to be standing here with this ticket for an outbound plane.” It’s always true. This writer has not yet returned to the jetways post-COVID, so we’ll see how that goes. At least there will be the security and comfort of this jam (composed by Nanci Griffith and Tom Russell) from Suzy Bogguss’ heyday.
“455 Rocket” – Kathy Mattea
There are plenty of modern versions of muscle cars available and on the road today, but not a single one is an Oldsmobile 455 Rocket! Kathy Mattea represents the rockabilly/Americana tradition of paeans to automobiles and gearhead culture with this loping tribute to a 455 Rocket, an early cut for Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. If you happen to take your country drives in a muscle car, regardless of brand, this track is for you.
“Take the Journey” – Molly Tuttle
What better way to conclude our playlist than with this always-timely reminder from Molly Tuttle? It might be a cliché, though it really is true: It’s about the journey, not the destination. So take the journey! Enjoy its twists, turns, and be in the moment. And take some clawhammer guitar along with you.
Artist:Del Barber Hometown: Inglis, Manitoba Song: “Nothing Left to Find” Album:Stray Dogs: Collected B-Sides Volume One Release Date: August 20, 2021 Label: acronym Records
In Their Words: “Stray Dogs is a result of over 10 years of writing and recording music. When the pandemic began I was lost, scared about the future and in the depths of an unprecedented creative slump. I built a studio out of an old shed on my farm in an attempt to force myself to try and write songs. Every day I’d go out there in the mornings and struggle to get one line that I liked or one chord progression that was inspired. I wasn’t getting anywhere and it was my first taste of the fabled ‘writer’s block.’ Instead of writing new material like I had intended, I began to delight in the process of looking back. ‘Nothing Left To Find’ was one song I kept coming back to. I had so many versions of it in my files, it begged to be finished. After cutting a dozen of the verses I had written, it’s now a short and sweet song that really ties the tonal landscape of Stray Dogs together.” — Del Barber
Artist:Claire Hawkins Hometown: New York City Song: “Small Doses” Release Date: June 18, 2021
In Their Words: “‘Small Doses’ was the last song I wrote before the pandemic, when I was still performing in youth hostels across Europe on the Foreign Voices Travelers Tour. It was a weird, wonderful time that was brought to an abrupt end in March 2020. It wasn’t until several months later that I revisited the song. I reached out to some artist friends, and suddenly we had this fantastic collaborative project to work on together during lockdown. The track was produced by Katie Buchanan, who produced my first-ever single when I was 17; the music video, which will be out later this month, was shot and directed by Florence Bradish, who created the music video for my song ‘Dublin.’ After so many months of staying apart, the opportunity to make art with my friends has made this release all the more special.” — Claire Hawkins
Artist:Jesse Lynn Madera Hometown: LA and Nashville Song: “Revel” Release Date: July 23, 2021
In Their Words: “Writing ‘Revel’ changed the way I approach songwriting. It made me understand more about the opportunity we have as artists to positively impact a person’s day. I’ve written a lot of sad, emotional songs, and I’ve seen that those can be therapeutic. Knowing someone is getting cheered up, cheered on, inspired, by listening to one of my songs is pretty mind-blowing. I try to be a source of light for the people close to me, and this is the first time I’ve really been able to tap into that with my songwriting. ‘Revel’ was written around the holidays in 2020, in a living room that was still vibrating with all the good times we’ve had. I needed ‘Revel.’ I needed a reminder of all the light that follows darkness. Being human is rollercoaster enough without a pandemic to further complicate the experience. We’ve all suffered through our share, and hopefully we’ve all experienced the sun coming up over the horizon of despair. This will be no exception. The glow shall return, and we’ll all be reveling in it.” — Jesse Lynn Madera
Artist:Tobacco City Hometown: Chicago, Illinois Song: “AA Blues” Album:Tobacco City, USA Release Date: July 30, 2021 Label: Scissor Tail Records
In Their Words: “‘AA Blues’ is one of those songs that writes itself. My ex was having to go to AA meetings because of a brush with the law. It was cutting into our plans and I wrote her this ditty to make her feel better. The character in the song is trapped between working in a brewery and staring at beers all day and trying to walk a sober line. I think regardless of your sobriety status we can all relate to those kind of blues.” — Chris Coleslaw, Tobacco City
In Their Words: “The guitar, harmonica and fiddle-based song ‘Pretty Mama’ closes the album. I think of ‘Pretty Mama’ as really a prayer to my mom. I wrote it just before she died, I played and sang it at her memorial service, and while she was still physically with us at the time, due to how her condition had worked so slowly over time, I had long been imagining that her spirit had been leaving this world in these sort of waves or pieces, and it made me happy to imagine that she was then constituting herself in a sort of beautiful afterlife place, bit by bit, and maybe waiting there in peace to become whole as the rest of her that was still grounded with us in this world, wrapped up and passed on.
“As I was thinking or praying in this way, I thought, well I am operating out of a very dark place right now, and she taught me better — so while I do hope her spirit is with me somehow, I also kinda hope she didn’t see these latest round of life choices! At this time, I was by myself a lot, without a partner, I didn’t live near my family, and I had just quit my job; I was feeling very alone. I drank too much, I didn’t treat myself with a lot of self-love. So in this song I thought and prayed: Mom, if you are there, and if there is any guidance and protection you can give, please show me that — ‘let me know,’ as the final verse says!
“Of all the album’s songs, ‘Pretty Mama’ was clearest in my mind in terms of arrangement. Along with the bass and acoustic guitar, it would have two instruments in conversation with one another: cello, an instrument my mom adored and I which think reflected her warm and grounded personality, and then violin — a miniature of the cello, beautiful also but less calm, a bit more frantic. In other words, me! And then there would be the very important harmonica solo, which sounds as lonely as I felt at the time writing the song. The beautiful minimal backing vocals bring a little warmth and hope at the end, and this along with the song’s placement at the end of the project is meant to give my listeners and myself a sigh of relief — after the journey, a deep, calming breath. And then we keep on.” — Leah Shaw
Photo credit: Rodgers Dameron
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