Tag: sisters

When Harmonies Run Deep: An Essential Roots Music Tradition

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Since Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent began singing together as Dailey & Vincent in 2007, they have awed fans in many ways: through their musicality, their sincerity, and their professionalism. But most of all, it’s about their duet singing.

It’s the way their voices blend and weave, so closely it can be hard to distinguish one from another. It’s the way their so-tight harmonies set up a vibration that makes the world tilt a little bit when they reach the high notes. It’s the way we sigh after they stop singing, because all’s right with the world.

Although they aren’t related, Dailey & Vincent do the bluegrass phenomenon of a “brother duet” like nobody’s business. They capture the familial force that Grammy-winning bluegrass artist Laurie Lewis describes as delightfully “making the hair on our arms and legs stand up.”

With Dailey & Vincent as our Artist of the Month, we thought we would peek into the history and tradition of brother duets and other harmony-driven duos that led to this great contemporary partnership.

Two Brothers and Two Instruments

For bluegrass journalist, songwriter, performer, and teacher Jon Weisberger, the term “brother duet” refers to something very specific: “A brother duet is basically a guitar and a mandolin and two guys, and they could be brothers, like the Monroe Brothers or the Blue Sky Boys [Bill and Earl Bolick] or even the Delmore Brothers.”

But many of the early duos later added more musicians. “They became something else, in this sort of organic process … because they wanted to have a fuller sound and they wanted to be competitive on the radio…”

“This brother duet thing existed before bluegrass,” Weisberger continues, “and then it became part of bluegrass. Such that modern folks like Michael Daves and Chris Thile … are doing a lot of the original-style singing, with just two instruments. It says something about the vitality and the attractiveness of that style.”

Weisberger notes that Dailey & Vincent recorded Gillian Welch’s “By the Mark” with just their voices, a guitar, and a mandolin. There are many other similar examples in country, old-time, and other folk formats, but the style is still beloved – and common, thankfully! – in bluegrass today.

Brothers in Tone and Timing

For many, a brother duet has to do with the spine-tingling effect of very tight harmonies, in which every note matches up in every way. Laurie Lewis, who has taught harmony singing extensively and is known for her many duet recordings and performances, talks about it this way.

“It’s easy for brother duets or sisters to blend, because they grew up pronouncing all their words the same way, because they’re from the same place and the same family,” Lewis explains. “So, they’ve got a big leg up that way.

“The shape of a vowel is the most important thing to get right when you’re trying to blend with somebody. And consonants, you know, when you start or end the note. It’s placement, as well – where you place the tone: is it forward in your face? Is it back in your throat, or somewhere in between?”

Members of family bands and sibling duets often have the same vocal timbre – “high and lonesome,” in some cases, or deeper and more mellow in others. But, Lewis said, the brother effect can work even with singers whose voices have different qualities.

“Take Carter and Ralph Stanley, who sang so beautifully together and had really different voices. Carter’s was smooth,” she points out, while Ralph always had that rougher mountain quality.

Insights From Singing Brothers

Eric Gibson remembers when he and his brother Leigh first got the harmony buzz as teenagers. “We were working in the calf barn and I’d been listening to Jim & Jesse sing ‘Are You Missing Me?’ … I started singing it, and Leigh was maybe 10 or 15 feet away from me, when he hits the tenor. And I looked at him, and I just felt it, like, ‘What did we just do?’”

The Gibson Brothers have won national awards for vocal recordings, for songwriting, and for gospel albums. They both love using a horse racing analogy to achieve the brother duet sound. Leigh notes that in many duets and other harmony forms, the lead singer is out front, in volume and style. In contrast, Eric quotes Tim Austin as saying, “Your brother duet is like two racehorses. There’s not a lead horse out there with the harmony back here. They’re both fighting for position.”

Like horse racing, it takes discipline, and keeping the harmonies tight. “You have to stay on the straight and narrow.” The tenor singer has to follow the lead singer, and neither can add too much individual style.

Leigh adds, “You have to give some of yourself. If I wanted to throw our vocal thing into chaos, I’d start singing for myself rather than for the two of us.”

“It’s about really listening and even watching your duet partner,” he says, “how they’re shaping words, how they’re closing off a vocal sound, if it’s happening quickly or it’s a slow close off of that vowel sound.

“Listen and pay attention. I think that’s the best advice I could give anybody.”

Brothers by Birth

For a beautiful collection of brother duets drawn from some of the best and least-known brothers, visit the Gibsons Brothers’ 2015 album, Brotherhood. The liner notes are an engaging mini-history of brother harmonies.

Here are just a few of the other brothers who set the stage for the duets we hear today – and popularized or debuted many of the songs we still sing and love.

The Monroe Brothers

Let’s start with the Monroe Brothers. Bill, the father of bluegrass, began performing with his brothers Birch and Charlie (the uncles of bluegrass?) in the 1920s. Birch left the group when the other two accepted an offer to host their own radio show. The very popular partnership of Charlie on guitar and Bill on mandolin only lasted four years, because they both wanted to be the boss. Charlie continued assembling bands with musicians like Lester Flatt, Ira Louvin, and Curly Seckler. As for Bill, he launched a new genre of music that bears the name of his home state and his band, the Blue Grass Boys.

The Delmore Brothers

Alton and Rabon, the Delmore Brothers, grew up in a tenant farming family in Alabama. Grounded in church music, the Delmores distinguished themselves with their versatile songwriting, leading to membership in the Grand Ole Opry in 1933, extensive touring with Arthur Fiddlin’ Smith, and later with Grandpa Jones and Merle Travis. They are acknowledged as pioneers across country, bluegrass, and rockabilly circles. Songs like “Blues, Stay Away From Me” and “Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar” remain standard bluegrass fare. Alton’s autobiography, Truth is Stranger Than Publicity, is a hoot and a half.

Blue Sky Boys

Bill and Earl Bolick first appeared on radio in 1935, when still in their early 20s. They later chose the name the Blue Sky Boys after Western North Carolina, Land of the Blue Skies. Steeped in gospel, their first recording, “Sunny Side of Life”/”Where the Soul Never Dies,” was such a big hit they earned the name “the New Hillbilly Kings.” They recorded 100 songs, both religious and secular, before joining the service. After the war they found they disliked newer music trends and they stopped playing entirely for a time when their label asked them to add electric guitar. The brothers played on and off, particularly at folk venues, until the late ’60s. Rounder Records pulled them out of retirement in 1975 for a bluegrass and folk tour.

The Lilly Brothers

Bea and Everett Lilly, the Lilly Brothers, performed on mandolin and guitar, influenced by the mountain music they heard in their home state of West Virginia. Their first local radio appearance was in 1938, and they later earned a spot on the venerated WWVA Jamboree. With Tex Logan and Don Stover – a configuration that would last 18 years – they moved to Boston, where they were welcomed in the folk scene. They are credited with bringing bluegrass to the Northeast, influencing musicians like Peter Rowan and Bill Keith. In Country Music: The Rough Guide, author Kurt Wolff quoted Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee Joe Val as saying, “Those guys hit on like a bombshell. Nobody’d ever heard anything like that before.”

The Louvin Brothers

For many, the Louvin Brothers set the standard for brother duets. They began their duet career in the 1940s, continuing until 1963, when Charlie broke off from Ira for a solo career. Their harmonies were stunning, influenced by the shape note singing they grew up with, and their prolific writing and recordings left us with so many of the songs commonly heard in today’s bluegrass world. Their old-time religion permeated their work, as well as the life of the tormented Ira, who professed devotion while battling his demons. Emmylou Harris said, “There was something scary and washed in the blood about the sound of the Louvin Brothers.” The cover of their album Satan is Real is an apt visual representation of that thought. It is also the name of Charlie’s autobiography. Another great source is the Cocaine & Rhinestones episode on the Louvins.

Jim & Jesse

Jim & Jesse McReynolds from Colfax, Virginia are lauded as much for Jesse’s mandolin style as for their duet singing. Many of bluegrass’s most accomplished musicians passed through their band, the Virginia Boys, including Vassar Clements, Allen Shelton, Vic Jordon, Carl Jackson, and Glen Duncan. Their versions of songs like “Are You Missing Me” are mainstays of bluegrass jams, while they ventured into the folk rock world with “Paradise.” Jesse would later host a tribute to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, too. Jim died in 2002 at age 75, ending what Wikipedia calls their 55 years performing together “the longest active professional brother duet in country music history.”

The Everly Brothers

Contemporary musicians from Graham Nash to Paul Simon have cited Don and Phil Everly’s duets as inspirational. Their harmonies were intricate, tight, and gorgeous. Coming from a country music background, they became hit pop stars, with “Bye Bye Love” in 1957. While many of their most popular songs were written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, the brothers were also prolific songwriters. They have been widely recognized by the music industry, from membership in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to a #33 ranking in Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest artists of all time. For an excellent review of their often tumultuous careers and relationships, pick up Blood Harmony: The Everly Brothers Story by Barry Mazor.

Sisters, Mothers and Daughters

Family bands featuring female singers have been popular for decades, even before the Carter Family blasted from radio stations in the 1930s. But sister duets have been less prominent than their brotherly counterparts. We can speculate that’s because, historically, women were less likely to venture out on their own, and because they were less welcome at the front and center of bluegrass and country.

But when these women stepped up, they truly shined.

The Whites

Sisters Sharon and Cheryl performed for decades with their father, Buck White, as the Whites. But it is their duet singing that ranks with the tightest and tingliest of any brother duo. Buck, a mandolinist and piano player, encouraged his daughters to take up music. The three recorded extensively beginning in 1972 and recorded “Keep on the Sunny Side” for the Grammy Award-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. After Buck’s death in 2025, Sharon and Cheryl continue to perform, sometimes with Rosie, another sister, adding a high harmony. They have received highest honors in both the country and bluegrass fields, with more than 40 years as members of the Grand Ole Opry.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle

Kate and Anna McGarrigle were acclaimed Canadian folk singers and songwriters. Often passing the melody back and forth, it could be difficult to tell when one voice ended and the other began. Their harmonies were delicious. Linda Ronstadt had a big hit with the McGarrigles’ song “Heart Like a Wheel,” and Maria Muldaur, Emmylou Harris, and Judy Collins also covered their songs. Kate died in 2010.

The Judds

This mother/daughter duo certainly had the blood-harmony duet thing going big time with perfectly executed, soaring vocals. In a Cinderella-like story line, Naomi and her daughter Wynonna went from living on welfare to auditioning (in terror, as they described it) before a room full of recording executives – who signed them immediately. Within two years of the 1983 audition, they recorded the first of eight consecutive number one singles and received their first of five Grammys. Their family story is both fractious and inspiring.

More Essential Duets

Nowadays, it often seems the most common examples of high quality duet singing come from non-siblings, from chosen family, from lifelong musical partners. Turns out “blood harmony” is possible without the biological ties. (But of course it is.) Some of the best examples of the form are singers unrelated to each other.

Hazel Dickens & Alice Gerrard

Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard presented a side of duet singing that was at once sweet and gutsy. Although from very different geographic and social backgrounds, the pair came together through the Baltimore folk community in the 1970s. They sang with intense sincerity, performing older and traditional tunes and presenting Dickens’ heart-rending (and sometimes snarky) originals to the world. They were some of the first women to front a bluegrass act and are widely acknowledged as inspiring groundbreakers.

Ricky Skaggs & Tony Rice

In 1980, Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice released what has become an iconic duet recording, Skaggs & Rice. Its content draws on traditional and pre-bluegrass tunes recorded by earlier brother duets. In fact, Weisberger points out, the album cover illustration, featuring the two men in uncomfortable-looking suits, is modeled after a Lilly Brothers photo. Skaggs and Rice taught us how two voices with starkly different qualities could blend, with sibling-like effect.

Ricky Skaggs & Keith Whitley

Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, both sing in a high range, blending beautifully and adding intensity to everything they sing. And with his piercing tenor, Skaggs has the ability to create a brother sound with just about anyone. His partnership with Keith Whitley was equally natural, as they started singing together as teenagers in Kentucky. They began touring with the Stanley Brothers when they were both 16. In essence, they grew up together, as did their vocal blend.

Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum

Laurie Lewis is another who can turn any duet into sibling-style harmonies. She and Tom Rozum have sung together for decades. Lewis said that in addition to working hard on their timing and pronunciation (the word “yours” was once problematic), they have the advantage of remarkably similar vocal ranges for a male and female. When they are both “in the head voice, you can really hear the tension in our voices,” an exciting aspect of their duets, she said.

Laurie Lewis & Kathie Kallick

Since the earliest configuration of Good Ol’ Persons, Lewis and Kathy Kallick have sung together, including producing two duet albums. Lewis said, “We have really different timbres to our voices. But we sometimes get confused as to who was singing which part on our old recordings. ‘Wait, is that me or is that Kathy?’” Lewis’ duet album, And Laurie Lewis, showcases her skill in joining voices with so many of her old friends.

The Johnson Mountain Boys’ Dudley Connell and David McLaughlin

Eric Gibson remembered terrific harmony singing by Dudley Connell and David McLaughlin in the Johnson Mountain Boys days. That revered group won the very first IBMA Award for Album of the Year (for At the Old Schoolhouse) and were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2020. And since his days in the Johnson Mountain Boys, Connell has shown he, too, raises any duo to the level of glorious sibling sounds. Some examples are with bandmate Lou Reid in the Seldom Scene and his two duet albums with Don Rigsby.

Emmylou Harris & … Almost Everyone

The Gibsons both mentioned Emmylou Harris’ stunning ability to create tension and beauty in sibling duet style with so many. Examples range from her earliest recordings with Gram Parsons through all her singing partners in her band, including Ricky Skaggs and Rodney Crowell, and when she introduced a young country audience to the material of the Louvin Brothers on recordings such as “If I Could Only Win Your Love,” “When I Stop Dreaming,” and “Every Time You Leave.” Her 1990 duet album pairs her with male singers. In 1999, after the success of the Trio albums with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, she and Ronstadt recorded Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions, showing off the perfection of two beautiful singers who love to sing together.

Dailey & Vincent

Jamie Dailey and Darrin Vincent both grew up performing in family bands. Jamie started singing with his family at age 3, and by age 12 had mastered bass and banjo. For nine years, he sang lead vocals with Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, a band noted for their excellent voices and superb harmonies.

An article in Entertainment News said the Vincent children “were practically raised on harmony” from their youngest days in the Sally Mountain Show. For nine years, Vincent sang the baritone parts with Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder. The two men’s early training, the discipline gained from playing with exceptional band leaders, plus their perfect-for-bluegrass voices created a glorious blend of heartfelt harmony and musical excellence.

Their first album, released in 2008, was met with a flurry of enthusiasm. It earned the duo six IBMA Awards – including Album of the Year – plus two other nominations that year. They have continued to receive dozens of awards from bluegrass, country, and gospel organizations, as well as three Grammy nominations as a duo and two wins between them during their time with other acts. Their 10th album, A Beautiful Life, was released earlier this year.

Explore more of our Artist of the Month content on Dailey & Vincent here. Enjoy even more bluegrass duos here and country duos here.

Lead Image: The Louvin Brothers from Pictorial Press.

More Than A Trend

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

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Based in northern Alabama with deep, organic ties to so many sounds and styles of the “Americana Music Triangle,” the Secret Sisters have built a musical brand on a distinct iteration of Southern gothic songwriting steeped in familial harmonies. Their music is grounded, but broad, specific but infinitely relatable.

Over the course of five studio albums released since 2010 – including 2020’s Grammy-nominated Saturn Return, which was produced by Brandi Carlile – the sisters, Laura Rogers and Lydia (Rogers) Slagle, have strayed very little from the sounds that first entranced audiences all across the South and around the country more than 14 years ago. Still, while they occupy a distinct and confident sonic aesthetic, their catalog never reads as tired, weary, or redundant. Mind, Man, Medicine, their latest record, was released on March 29 and while it listens like classic, iconoclastic Secret Sisters, it also registers as brand new, vital, and innovative.

It follows that two women proud to be Southerners and proud to be from Alabama would not feel limited by maintaining a stylistic brand that is rooted in one particular vein. At times, their songs remind of the Civil Wars but without affectation, of Shovels & Rope but with a more quiet and genuine anger, and of so many other Americana duos – Gillian & Dave, the Milk Carton Kids, War & Pierce – where the focal point is two voices and creatives in dialogue, collective music. But the indelible throughline, that centering “vein,” is simply being true to themselves.

Mind, Man, Medicine, among the siblings’ handful of releases, all at once feels like a comforting and cozy continuation of everything we love about the Secret Sisters rooted in northern Alabama, while also demonstrating the dawn of a new era. In our conversation with Laura and Lydia, we chat about the distinctions between style and redundancies, about compassion and community, about grounding and intention. Throughout, it’s clear that the Secret Sisters know exactly who they are, how they sound, and why they do what they do – even, if not especially, when each of those truths becomes clouded by the intricacies and complications of life.

I wanted to start by asking you about your specific brand of country and Americana. You have always made music that’s mindful, connected to the earth, and connected to your community. It often feels a little witchy and a little gothic, but it also feels like musically wandering down a winding garden path.

That style, that y’all have had present in all of your albums, it feels like it’s so “in” right now. From the new Kacey Musgraves album, Deeper Well, to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, there are so many touches in country today that seem like something y’all have been doing for more than a decade. I wanted to see how you felt about this current landscape of Americana and country and how you feel your music relates to or fits into the constellation of this ongoing trend?

Laura Rogers: I have noticed that trend in a lot of ways. It seems like there are artists who are even more successful than we are who reach this point where, like you said, they reground or they just tap into something that’s maybe [been] suppressed by the other music that they’ve made. I don’t necessarily think that that’s a bad thing. I think that every artist has his or her own evolution, as far as what inspires them, whether it’s what they’re listening to or what they’re feeling or just what they want to sing. Some people don’t want to [tap] into their history or their community or their roots in any way.

I can understand that and sympathize with that, it’s just that’s who we are. It isn’t a trend for us. There’s no marketing scheme behind what we’re doing. I’m not implying that other artists who are doing that are just doing it for the moment, but for us, it’s always been [that] we don’t really know any other kind of music to play other than what you hear.

I don’t even know if it’s an intentional mindset. We want to be grounded and rooted and pay tribute to where we’re from. I don’t know if that’s like a conscious decision that we make. I think it just kind of happens naturally for us.

I know what it’s like to go through a journey of growing up and reconnecting to where you’re from and appreciating your history. I think it takes a minute sometimes, as an artist and a writer, to go back to that and see it as a good thing. Maybe other artists who are doing that, it’s probably a sincere moment in their life where they’ve reached a point of, “Hey, I want to go back to something that feels a little more like me.” I love that chapter of certain artists’ careers as much as I love the ones that maybe aren’t as rootsy and connected.

Lydia Slagle: I feel like some of that might be due to the pandemic. I might be taking liberties by saying that, but we were just home for so long and I think that probably grounded a lot of people in that way and made people get more in touch with their roots, musically.

I think you’re right. And you’ve both immediately grabbed onto the thread that I was pulling here, which is that there’s this trajectory that artists really enjoy bringing into their own art of “going back to basics.”

From the beginning of y’all’s career, from the first album, it seems like you always started “back” at the basics. I think what’s so interesting about that is how it never seems limiting to y’all. It feels like there’s always an entire universe for you to explore, even while you’re still remaining so close to that home base. You continue to showcase this sense of grounding and rootedness, highlighting where you’re from and who you are, but there’s still so much to explore.

LS: I think we can’t take credit for a lot of that, because we have had a lot of really great collaborators over the years.

We’ve had really good co-writers and great producers who are willing to stretch our limits of what we knew we were capable of. I think some of it is just our general involvement as artists, but a lot of it is who we work with and the people who play the instruments on the records and who produces them.

LR: I don’t know how Lydia feels, I’m sure she probably feels this to a degree, but it’s an insecurity of mine. I listen to other artists and I think, “Oh, if I could just write a song like that one.” I’m constantly doing that terrible thing that humans do, where I compare what I’m capable of producing to what everyone else is currently producing.

I’m so hard on myself about just wishing that I were better, you know? It’s nice to hear that, even after five records of writing music, that what we [make] is still the essence of who we are, but it isn’t overdone. I think that the fear of mine is like, how many more albums can we do before we have to venture into a crazy genre that we’ve never done before to keep people interested? [Laughs]

Thankfully, five albums in, it seems like people are not weary of what we do. But that is a total insecurity of mine, I hear so many songs and I think, “Man, I’m never going to be able to do that…” But then I also realize that there are people who hear our songs and think that they are works of art in ways that I think that was just a Tuesday afternoon!

LS: It’s also a struggle for me, but when I think of my favorite artists, I don’t get weary of the same stuff. I think of Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, they don’t really deviate from their original sound and it is just as fresh and exciting for me. Hopefully some people can see our music in the same way.

I think that if we were to just derail and do something completely different, I’m sure that would be exciting, but I’m also sure there would be a part of us that would be like, “What are we doing? What are we trying to prove?” I don’t even know how to describe it, but it would be very hard for us. So, we do what we know and what we like and hopefully people stay on board.

LR: I do think a huge part of it [is that] we’ve had multiple people who have produced things for us and songwriters that we’ve worked with kind of reassure us in this. But, any time we decide to do anything that’s maybe a little bit out of the box for us and that kind of pushes our limits, they always remind us, “What you are is not the sound that you work within, it’s your harmonies together and it’s the way that your voices blend.”

I do think that anytime I feel nervous about new territory or repetitive territory, I just remind myself we are two sisters who grew up singing together, who harmonize together, and for some reason, people really love the way that our voices blend. That seems to be the crux of it. It’s great if that’s framed with interesting sonic landscapes or up-tempo, energetic songs, or sad minor chords. All of those things are interesting, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have that two-part sibling harmony that we are known for– I do think our sound hinges on that, to me.

I don’t ever foresee us having a record where only one of us sings. Period. There’s always going to be both of us, even if we’re both singing in unison together. There’s just something about that. And it’s so much more than what you hear, it’s an energetic thing. You can hear the shared chemistry and energy that happens when two voices that are really, really connected blend together. It doesn’t have to be people who are related to one another, but I think that there’s some unidentifiable, intangible sauce that comes over everything. It’s almost like hypnosis or something.

I think probably every artist that we admire would be like, “Yeah, I have days where I really don’t know what my sound is. I don’t know what my genre is. I don’t know what my style is. I just make it.”

I’m glad that you mention singing in unison, because it was something that really jumped out at me from this record. There’s some tasty ass unison singing on this record! What’s so interesting to me is that you can hear the space in the room between your mouths and the mics – and you can hear that space almost more than the space between your voices, since you’re singing in unison.

LR: Yeah, unison’s hard. I would say for me unison is harder than harmony, getting that blend and making sure that your voices are not rubbing against each other in a way that’s kind of cringy.

LS: We get some of that on the road, I feel like. When we’re performing live and we do unison, there are times when one of us is just maybe a tad sharp or a tad flat and it does not sound like good tasty unison. So finding that perfect sweet spot is a little trickier than you might think.

Shifting gears, I love how y’all always have such a strong sense of place in your music, drawing from Muscle Shoals, drawing from the “Americana Music Triangle.” And I have been obsessed recently with the idea that music always exists in a space, in relationship with place. It feels a bit “forest for the trees” to say it, but without air we wouldn’t have music – without sound waves, without air, without space.

I thought it was so perfect that you start the album with “Space,” it feels like a beautiful, spiritual moment where you’re asking folks to enter a space with you. You’re holding this space with your voices and with your songs, and inviting all of us to enter that space with you.

So I wanted to ask you about that song, writing it, but also deciding that it would be the first in the sequence.

LR: I didn’t even think about that at all! This is what I love about making records, there are always things that you discover about it after it’s out and you’re like, “Oh, I didn’t even consciously decide to do that.”

But it makes so much sense. I never thought about having that song as the opening track of the record and it being an invitation of, “This is a space for you to enter and and it’s a safe place for you to feel.” I never thought about that and I love that you discovered that for us.

LS: I don’t feel like that was so much a conscious decision to frame it as this invitation into our record, but I love that perspective.

As far as sequencing, I think that it was more the production of that song and the sound that we approached it with that was pretty different for us. So we loved starting the record with a completely different sound for us. To let people know this is a little bit different from what you’ve heard in the past.

LR: We wrote that song with Jessie Baylin and Daniel Tashian, so when we got to Daniel’s studio to write with him, I just remember there being instruments all over the floor, all over the walls. It literally was like, come in and pick what you want to use. I’m not an adventurous instrumentalist at all, but he picked up this little tiny guitar that we plugged into this amp and we put this crazy effect on it. We just started strumming on it, and that was kind of the beginning of the song. I don’t even really remember what started the inspiration for that song, but I really feel like, timing-wise, where it landed was just after we had started writing with people after the pandemic. It was finally safe enough to sit in a co-writing situation in person. Coming from that place of the weird and divisive time of COVID, two songs, “Space” and “If The World Was a House,” were really just trying to capture that feeling that we gotta start being better to each other.

I think that there’s a quality in this album that you’re opening a space, you’re inviting folks into it, and then you’re kind of pointing out, “Hey, if the world was a house and that house was on fire, we would all do something about it, right?” I’m not sure if that message would feel as compassionate or as kind or as open if it didn’t come after this sense that you’re inviting us in, we’re on the same level, we’re in this space together. Then you can talk about these ideas and these songs that are challenging us to be in community, to be with each other, to make a better world. It doesn’t feel like you’re preaching.

LS: I hope people listen from that viewpoint. When we wrote that song with Ruston Kelly in Nashville, I think it was the beginning of 2022 when it was just starting to die down a little bit, but people were still very divided on COVID. It was ever present in our minds, so whenever we started writing “If The World Was a House” that day, it just came out. We could not get the words out quickly enough. I think it could have been a 10 minute song if we let it.

LR: “If The World Was a House,” now that I listen to it and process it as a finished product, I just keep thinking about how if you were passing by a neighborhood and there was a literal home on fire, it would not matter to you if they were Republican or Democrat or gay or straight or Christian or atheist or man or woman. It would not matter, you would do something! You would run in, you would call for help. You would make an effort, right?

When I feel the most dismal and depressed about humankind, I keep coming back to the thought that, if it’s really a matter of life and death, you’re going to step up for people. I do truly believe that most people have that sense of, “I got to do something.” I try to remember that it doesn’t matter that we have differences. The differences are always going to be there, but at the end of the day, would you fight for someone? Would you fight for someone who is different from you?

I like to believe that most people would. Once all the dust settles, of all the things that we bicker and separate ourselves over, I really like to think that everybody has a general sense of kindness that they could tap into. Maybe that’s a little naively optimistic, but…

I think that that message is so impactful coming from y’all, knowing that you place yourselves purposefully in your community in Alabama and in these parts of the country that people tend to write off as being “backwards” and not being capable of nuance. The South and rural places are always a scapegoat for the entire country and all of its problems. So, I think that it makes the message in your music so much more impactful, knowing that. You don’t see yourselves as outliers in the place that you’re from, you don’t see yourselves as exceptions to the rule or like you’re the only ones who think like this, who are “enlightened.”

LS: I think there’s more of us than people realize, there’s a lot of us in Alabama and Tennessee and Mississippi – we’re not the only ones. Hopefully we can represent that community of people a little bit better.

Another song I wanted to ask you about before we close is “Planted.” I love birdwatching, I love gardening and I feel like a lesson I learned – and so many of us learned – from COVID is that we need to have roots. We need to have nourishment and we need to be grounded, planted. I hear that song and I hear the love in it – the romantic partnership and the life partnership – but I also hear so much more. I love that I had already written down in my notes that this album is so “rooted” and then I got to “Planted” and I was like, literally!

LS: I think I wrote Planted in like 2015, a while back, and it had been sitting in my GarageBand for years and years. I think that when I first wrote it, it was about a year after I got married and my husband and I were going through a season where we were both traveling a lot, we’re both in artistic careers. So we were sort of rubbing up against each other, being like, “Whose job is more important? Which is more impactful?” I don’t know, we finally ended up in a place where we were like, it doesn’t matter. We’re in this together. We’re rooted together. It doesn’t matter if somebody is on a different trajectory, we’re in this thing together. I sort of tried to approach that song with that perspective, but yeah, I never thought that it would make it onto the record eight years later.

LR: There are songs you have for years and years that you think maybe there’s just not a place for it, and then all of a sudden it’s like, “This is the place!”

I feel like that song is very true to this record, even though it was written years ago about a romantic relationship, you’re completely right about it fitting into the narrative of this record, because I think so much of this record is about finally reaching a place in your life where you’re at peace with what you are and who you are and where you’re from. And, what your history is and what your sound is.

We have reached this point, hallelujah, where we are like, “What you see is what you get.” We are who we are and all we can really offer the world is a healthy, whole, self-satisfied version of ourselves.

We did the thing in our twenties where we said yes to every show opportunity, every appearance we could make, we said yes to everything. It was good in a lot of ways, but it was also just soul sucking, you know? I think one thing that I’ve really struggled with over the years is how I never thought that I was gonna be a professional musician. I’ve always just loved music for its therapy purposes. So it’s been hard for me to have my favorite hobby become a livelihood, because it feels like a lot of times the magic strips away and the comfort mechanism isn’t there anymore, because it’s your job. It’s like, “Well, this is what I do every day. This is how I keep the lights on.” And then it’s not what I want to do after hours. That’s been a hard thing for me to process.

I think that this record, in a nutshell for me, is about coming to a place of still loving what I do. I still want to make art that matters to me and that people respond to, but I do not have to kill myself in the process.

If I want to be home for someone’s birthday, I can say no to [an opportunity] for that. And, I’m finally at a place where I know I can always make money. I can always find a way to make money. But if I am going to sacrifice being home to watch my kid walk across his pre-k graduation stage, that’s not a fair trade for me anymore. Whereas years ago, in my youth – and I guess you would call it maybe ignorance or just immaturity – I would trade those for things that really mattered. Now I realize what I’m going to look back on in my life when I’m an old lady is not, “Did I play every show? Did I fall in bed exhausted? Did I come home and completely dissociate from everything around me, because I was so overstimulated by life on the road?”

I feel so happy to be in a place where music feels healthy again, because sometimes I think it’s easy for it to not feel healthy.

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Photo Credit: David McClister

MIXTAPE: Call Me Spinster’s LadyVox Crock-Pot

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As sisters, our deepest musical influences come from the shared “Crock-Pot” of our household. Our mom is a classical singer and choral director, and daughter of an eccentric music-savant with an encyclopedic knowledge of Gilbert and Sullivan. Our Amish-born dad was raised in the shape note choral tradition, but flew the coop and became a guitar-plucking singer-songwriter in the vein of Paul Simon and Dan Fogelberg. We were raised on music with an emphasis on voice — Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Ella Fitzgerald and loads of art songs and choral music from all over the world.

We began playing together as a cover band, dipping into our teen favorites, from TLC to the Andrews Sisters, Sparks to ’90’s boy bands. Now that we’re writing our own music we’re pulling from an even broader scope, from the Brazilian and West African percussion Rachel studied in college to Amelia’s obsession with ’80s French pop to Rosie’s deep love of classic rock radio hits.

This playlist is a sampling of vocal-centric artists that straddle the line between various types of pop and folk music that are either currently playing on our speakers, or artists whose DNA flows through the music we make. — Call Me Spinster

Pinc Louds – “Soul in My Body”

I stumbled across this band only recently and am obsessed. The power and vulnerability of Claudi’s voice is mesmerizing, and I love their use of raw percussive sounds like the kalimba, held together with synthy glue. – Amelia

DakhaBrakha – “Baby”

DakhaBrakha formed as an avant-garde theater phenomenon in Kiev, and pulls together folk traditions and soul/pop in a way I’ve never heard before. I love the combination of acoustic instruments like harmonica, glockenspiel and bowed cello/bass with some electric twangs throughout. – Amelia

Call Me Spinster – “Morning”

This song began as a sort of call and response, a cappella lullaby. We toyed around with the idea of keeping it that way, using only body percussion. As we started building it, though, Rachel started hearing a samba-style bateria. As layers quickly snowballed, we started calling it our “Lion King song,” including elements like strings and cymbals that aren’t elsewhere on our EP — but still built around that simple vocal call and response. – Amelia

Fiona Apple – “Hot Knife”

I first listened to this song when a friend told us to cover it — but we didn’t dare touch it, because it is perfect. Fiona Apple’s frenzied energy building in layers and countermelody, on top of a rumbling drum and dissonant keys makes me feel like a sleepless night after a killer date when you feel like your heart might shake down the walls of the apartment. – Rosie

Zap Mama – “W’happy Mama”

Zap Mama was a staple of our combined middle/high school CD collection and one of the most memorable groups we’ve seen live. It’s a group of badass women led by “Zap Mama” Marie Daulne who mix pop, jazz, and folk. They’re living proof that voices can be anything and all other instruments are extra party. That party brings in elements of funk and hip-hop throughout the song, but goes back to a cappella sounds at the end, reminding you what the true elements are. “Chante, chante, she say, she say.” – Rosie

Rubblebucket – “On the Ground”

I have listened to this album on repeat over the past few years. It makes me dance and cry. Kalmia Traver’s honest and unfettered vocals feel like a best friend reminding me to look around once in a while and stop taking things so f-ing seriously. – Amelia

Cocteau Twins – “Iceblink Luck”

Heaven or Las Vegas is one of my favorite complete albums of all time. Elizabeth Fraser’s uber-melodic, acrobatic vocals were the obvious draw for me, but as we incorporate more electronic elements into the songs we’re working on for our first full-length record, I am paying closer attention to their perfect cocktail of dreamy distortion. – Amelia

Les Rita Mitsouko – “Marcia Baïla”

Catherine Ringer is one of the most balls-to-the-wall performers ever, not only in her vocal style, but [also] the weird visual worlds that she and Fred Chichin created over the years. If you haven’t seen the music video for this song or for “Andy” do yourself a favor. We are often drawn to artists whose visual aesthetic seems inextricable from their music: Kate Bush, Tyler the Creator, FKA Twigs, etc. – Amelia

Lim Kim – “Awoo”

One of the driving forces for finding new music is making playlists for my yoga classes. “Awoo” has a way of wiggling into many — it has the perfect blend of joyful yet meditative vocals and groovy yet simple rhythm. I love when the voice can be a percussion instrument without sounding like an a cappella group. Janelle Monae and Kimbra also nail this vibe. Lim Kim just hits right every time. – Rachel

Alabama Shakes – “Gimme All Your Love”

This album took us by storm as it did so many — and we keep coming back to it again and again, particularly as we began our recording journey. Brittany Howard has the rare ability to harness the raw energy of her live performance in the studio, and the pacing and build of her songwriting is so unusual and satisfying, like the turn in the middle of this song and the build towards the end. – Amelia

Björk – “Hyperballad”

Björk gives us all permission to feel epic feels with few words and ear-dazzling, diverse orchestration. She has been hugely influential for us and so many artists across genres for multiple decades, probably even in bluegrass. I would love to hear a banjo choir re-make of her album Post — just sayin’. – Rachel

Juana Molina – “Al oeste”

Juana Molina has this super sexy and intimate way of singing that feels almost like the microphone is lodged inside of her. Her songwriting always has a trance quality, with a wink. It lulls you into a dream and then adds a tickle to make sure you’re really listening. – Rachel

Judee Sill – “The Lamb Ran Away with the Crown” (Remastered)

We had to include at least one of the great earnest singer-songwriters of the ’60s/’70s, and who better than the enigmatic, bank robber-theosophist-composer Judee Sill? One of our own songwriting tendencies is writing singable songs that have something sneaky lurking underneath — a disjointed rhythm, an odd structure, an unusual chord progression… perhaps this is the ghost of Judee. – Rachel

Lucy Michelle – “Heart Race”

We grew up falling asleep to our dad picking guitar in the living room and this pattern mixed with Lucy’s lilting and beautifully raw voice is everything that is home. – Rosie

The Roches – “Hammond Song”

I also play in a band called Holy Sheboygan and our first gig ever was in Hammond, Wisconsin’s (pop. 2000) Earth Day Celebration. The lady who hired us pleaded for us to cover “Hammond Song.” We haven’t yet, but we did fall in love with The Roches. The shout-singing style is very reminiscent of our Amish family’s shape-note vocal production, the cascading almost choral songwriting, shameless unisons (#sistergoals), and the drone all fit right in to our sisterhood of sounds. – Rachel

Photo credit: Our Ampersand Photography

The Secret Sisters’ Laura Rogers: From Separation to ‘Saturn Return’ (Part 1 of 2)

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Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle are best known for doing things together. As sisters, they’ve celebrated birthdays, graduations, and many more of life’s big milestones together. As the Secret Sisters, they’ve made a name for themselves singing together, with intuitive harmonies that lend a honeyed sheen to folk tunes, country anthems, and the occasional murder ballad, too. But for their latest album, Saturn Return, the duo tried things a little differently.

At the suggestion of Brandi Carlile (who co-produced Saturn Return with twins Tim and Phil Hanseroth), Laura and Lydia recorded their vocals separately for the first time, integrating lengthy solo segments in addition to their trademark harmonies. The resulting record reveals two women at the top of their crafts, reveling in their independence while cherishing the inimitable depth of their voices together.

In tribute to their recording individually for the first time, BGS spoke to each sister separately, too. In part one of our Artist of the Month interviews, Laura talks about the influence of her hometown, self-inflicted career pressure, and how Carlile introduced the sisters to new sides of themselves — both individually and as a group.

BGS: You sang separately from your sister on this album for the first time. What did that feel like at first, and how did your feelings about it evolve?

Laura Rogers: I was very uncomfortable about it at first. I play off of Lydia, and I choose my notes based on what Lydia chooses. We read each other so closely when we sing together. Singing without her felt like driving a car for the first time without your parent in there. But when Lydia sang by herself, even though I know she was uncomfortable, I sat there listening to her and thinking, She is so good. She’s so good. I remember thinking about how glad I was that her voice was finally going to get a chance to be heard without mine, because her voice has so much beauty to it.

I thought, It’s time for people to hear what Lydia sounds like without me distracting them. But I was super scared to sing by my self, just because I … Well, I just don’t feel like I sing as well without Lydia. I’m more critical of myself, and I don’t have her to kind of pick up the slack that I need. [Laughs] So in the moment, I remember thinking, I don’t know if this is the right thing. How are we going to pull it off live? But then of course, after the record was done, we would listen back to it, and Brandi’s theory about it was so… right. And so beautiful.

How so?

While we were recording, Lydia and I really were in really separate places for the first time in our lives. I was pregnant and Lydia was trying to get pregnant. We felt this chasm, the two of us. We felt like we were in different places. Brandi could see that, in her bird’s-eye view of our circle. She knew that she needed to capture that moment.

Lo and behold, a few months later, we found out that Lydia was pregnant too, and we were back on another path together. We had been separate for only a moment. So I’m really thankful. I feel like Brandi is a really good photographer who caught the perfect moment with the perfect light and the perfect ambiance — this really special moment that will never come again.

You’ve recorded murder ballads and darker songs, and “Cabin” on this record — which you’ve said grew out of coverage on the Kavanaugh hearings — touches on a crime that was never brought to justice. What are the challenges and nuances you have to consider when broaching topics like those?

That’s a good question. “Cabin” can really be about a pretty broad range of crime. But we were specifically writing about sexual crime: abuse, harassment, and mistreatment of people by those in places of power. We had a message that we wanted to convey, but it felt like we had to tiptoe around some things to try to avoid any sort of heavy political slant.

Lydia and I are not political songwriters. We just aren’t, and don’t want to be. But there are certain elements of that that do come up in our writing that we feel like we have to kind of carefully craft in order to express ourselves, but not isolate. That’s also true with murder ballads. It is a sensitive subject matter, and our protection — up until we wrote “Cabin” — was the fact that those songs that we had written were mostly fiction.

When [our songs] talk about getting your heart broken, or going through bankruptcy, or being done wrong by someone who is supposed to be your friend, those are actually based in truth. We would never specifically mention anyone by name, but if they hear the song, they’ll know that we’re talking to them. If you feel like we’re singing to you, we are.

That’s the way that we view our music — as therapy. The murder ballads have always been about us challenging ourselves to write songs about things that we didn’t experience. On the flip side of that coin, there are a lot of songs that we went through firsthand and had to process through writing.

You sing about the push-pull of success in “Nowhere Baby.” What does that song mean to you, and how do you fight back against the low moments?

I hope that people can find their own story in a song like that. For us, “Nowhere Baby” is about constantly feeling like we’re arm wrestling the music industry; feeling the need to say yes to everything that comes along, because you’re afraid that if you say no you’re going to set yourself back or miss an opportunity; feeling like you need to prove yourself. As artists, creative souls, and women, sometimes we put that on ourselves. We make these ridiculous schedules that we think we have to stick to. “If we don’t go do this show, what’s gonna happen? Are we gonna miss something that could be really important, could get us to the next level?”

We are so hard on ourselves about our careers. We love music, and we love that we’ve gotten to make a lifestyle of playing our songs on the road, but it’s a hard life. You sacrifice more than people on the outside ever realize. You miss the birthday celebrations and the holiday events. Through experience in the ten years that we’ve been on the road, we’ve learned that it’s OK if you need to just be a person for a minute. It’s OK if you want to just sit at home for a few weeks. Nobody’s gonna forget about you, you’re not going to lose your edge.

You’re from just outside of Florence, Alabama, and started singing harmonies with your sister at church. Did your hometown have any impact on the artist you are today?

Oh yes, 100 percent. We grew up pretty close to Muscle Shoals, which is obviously a legendary place for music. But we weren’t exposed to the music of Muscle Shoals as much as you might think. We listened to more folk music, bluegrass, gospel, and country. And where we are geographically had influence on us as musicians — I mean, it’s this weird little place that’s so perfectly located. It’s close to Nashville, so you get the country music influence. It’s close to Memphis, so you get a little bit of the blues. It’s close to the mountains, so you get some Appalachian music. You get gospel music, because we’re in the middle of the Bible Belt. It’s this perfect spot where these little genres of roots music all began.

I think living in a rural place, and growing up where there isn’t a lot to do other than hang out with your family or do sports or play music, is why we are the way that we are, and why we’ve become the musicians that we’ve become. We are so spiritually tied to our hometown. When I leave, I become a different person, and it’s almost like I have to go back to regroup and establish myself again. I come home and I’m like, oh, that’s who I am. [Laughs] I may get to go to all these great places, but when I come back, I’ve still got to scoop up chicken poop off my porch.

Read our interview with Lydia Slagle here.

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen