Tag: Songwriting

Sara Watkins Wants Us to Ride Along on Watkins Family Hour’s ‘brother sister’

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Sara Watkins is up to something — or at least, there’s a pretty good chance she’s up to something. The singer/songwriter and fiddler first found international recognition with Nickel Creek, but these days she stays busy with a rotating lineup of other creative outlets, from her solo work (three albums and counting) to her harmony-singing supergroup, I’m With Her. Oh, and then there’s the raucous Watkins Family Hour, an act with her brother, Sean, that holds regular residencies at LA’s Largo with a delightfully irregular cast of collaborators liable to join them.

This time, though, they wanted to focus on the core of the group. Their new album, brother sister, marks the first time that the siblings have sat down to write together. “We were both in a place where we wanted to focus on the potential of the Family Hour in a different way, a totally new approach than what we’d done before,” says Sara. “Apart from a few shows every year, we had never really focused on just us — particularly in writing.”

BGS caught up with Sean and Sara individually to hear more about how brother sister came together. Read the interview with Sara below, and take a look at Sean’s interview from earlier this week.

BGS: This is your first album as Watkins Family Hour in five years. What made you decide to prioritize this particular project again?

Sara Watkins: The first record that we did was sort of an accident. We made it when our friend offered us some free studio time, just to document what we’d been doing for a while. That record was very natural arrangements to songs that we’d been playing for a long time, cover songs. It was about a year and a half ago when we started talking about doing this record. We were catching up on what we’d each been up to, and as we were talking — I don’t remember who suggested it first — it became clear that we were both really interested in digging into the potential of the Family Hour, but focusing on the core element that’s always been there, which is my brother and me. This record is the first example of our collaboration as co-writers outside of a band format. Maybe as a reaction to the first Family Hour album, but also as a reaction to being in the projects that we’ve been a part of, we wanted to really focus on the potential of this combination.

Is there something specific about writing with a sibling that is either a positive that can’t be replicated, or an obstacle you don’t face with other people?

I think that any time you can be completely honest or you communicate well, it plays to your advantage. I don’t know if it’s sibling-related. For the first twenty-seven years of my life, which was the first twenty years of my musical existence, we shared our musical experience pretty closely. Sean and I have the advantage of a shared foundation — a shared musical foundation, a shared personal foundation — but I think at this point in our lives, what made writing together intriguing is actually how much time we’ve spent apart.

Instrumental tracks are rarely the ones held up as singles or played on the radio, but they’re a huge part of the bluegrass tradition — and something you and Sean do really well. In the writing and recording process, where do you begin in expressing a feeling without lyrics?

Playing instrumentals scratches a specific itch for me. It’s less guaranteed [with an instrumental song] that someone’s gonna get the gist of what you’re saying, but I don’t know that that matters. Even with lyrics, Sean and I have found that we get different things out of the same song — more cynical for him and more optimistic for me, or vice versa. People might hear a lyric completely differently, and that doesn’t make it a failure of expression. Maybe that’s a success.

When I listen to instrumentals, I really enjoy things that I can grab hold of. I enjoy a melody or a hook that comes back around. And I enjoy feeling like I’m along for the ride as a listener: that the person who’s playing is taking me with them. Sometimes you can sense, when someone’s soloing, that they’re also along for the ride — that maybe they don’t know where it’s going. I think a lot of us get that from like a Dave Rawlings solo. That’s really exciting.

So I think that’s the goal, for me: to take the listener, give them enough to hold onto, and invite them along for the ride. When we’re writing an instrumental, we want to try and take somebody’s hand and bring them with us. Otherwise, they’re just listening to a flurry of notes.

The melody and cadence on “Fake Badge, Real Gun” could be just as at home in a pop song. What were you going for when you sat down to record?

Sean has a real knack for melodies that have a pop sensibility. He has a really great way of blending and marrying that with the foundation and the scope of his bluegrass background. I think he’s uniquely good at that. This song is really hard to sing. [Laughs] It’s probably the most challenging song that I sing. Because of where the melody goes in my register, I’m always just singing it with my fingers crossed.

We were consciously trying to satisfy what the song wanted, which was percussion and some low end, but we wanted to give that to the song in a way that didn’t make it feel detached from the record. We kept the drums tight and to one side, and gave it bass that wasn’t too percussive. Then, when we recorded some of the other songs on the record that are much quieter — like the Warren Zevon song, “Accidentally Like a Martyr” — we recorded to tape, and Clay [Blair], who was our mix engineer, hit the take really hard. That means there’s some distortion on the tape, but it gives it a presence that I think matches the intensity of the songs that have a bigger instrumentation.

“Neighborhood Name,” a song about gentrification by Courtney Hartman and Taylor Ashton, is a newer number that you decided to cover on this album. What drew you to it?

It speaks to what a lot of people are aware of and sensitive to right now, as the world is changing and neighborhoods are changing. Some of us don’t know what our place is in that and others are being pretty directly affected. It’s also something that has happened for generations. This song doesn’t put an ethical stamp on it, to my ear, as much as it just speaks to the relatability of the sadness of being displaced. In addition to that, it speaks to the question of wondering if anybody’s gonna remember you — if you made a mark at all. And that’s something that’s always relatable, to everyone.

The song I’ve listened to the most is “The Cure.” What does that song mean to you, specifically the phrase “I avoided the cure, but it found me anyway”? Does it have any special meaning?

Life has a way of being persistent in the lessons that you need to learn. We might procrastinate on things that we know are going to be valuable for us or to start things that might be beneficial. Life pokes and prods in a way that often will bring you to those places, whether you like it or not. It’s a funny thing that a lot of us are so reluctant to do the thing that we know is going to bring us the outcome we’re looking for. It’s a strange but calming phenomenon that I think a lot of us can relate to.

Absolutely. It’s kind of a hopeful message. What’s one thing that has made you feel hopeful recently?

That’s a hard question, not because I’m devoid of hope, but because you could be so pessimistic in so many ways: The resilience of nature gives me hope, but we’re also being so mean to nature, and maybe it’s not going to be resilient forever. One thing that I have been enjoying is a lot of family time lately. I think digging into relationships and feeling the invaluable place that relationships should have in our lives, remembering that, feeling attached to that in a new way has made me hopeful. I feel that there are a lot of people realizing that again, and I think that’s really good for the world.

(Read our interview with Sean Watkins here.)

Photo credit: Jacob Boll

Louisa Branscomb: The Songwriter Still Chasing Sunshine Round the Bend

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You may not recognize her voice, but you’ve heard her songs.

Louisa Branscomb wrote “Steel Rails,” the song that helped launch Alison Krauss’ career and inspired a new generation of young women to sing bluegrass. She is a talented singer and instrumentalist, with a dozen albums to her name. Yet it’s as a songwriter that she’s had the most influence, both in the industry and among individuals who benefit from her guidance and unique approach to writing.

In Louisa’s words, “The most powerful tool we have to move people, and bring people together, is music. And songwriting is where music begins. The most important skill a songwriter has is not craft or rhyme — it’s empathy, to connect deeply with one’s own soul and to connect to others. Two verses and a little soul can change lives, and when life is changed, the song keeps on going, crossing frontiers in ways we can only imagine.”

Louisa has been writing poetry and stories since she could first hold a pencil. At age 11, she won a composition contest, gaining her a stage performance with the Birmingham Symphony. By the time she finished college, she had written 400 songs and attracted the attention of country star Mel Tillis. He suggested she move to Nashville to work as a songwriter.

But, she told Bluegrass Today, she hated hairspray and couldn’t see herself fitting in with all that 1970s “big hair” in the country music world. Plus, she was “painfully shy.” So, she chose bluegrass over Nashville. In 1971, she played guitar and sang with Bluegrass Liberation, which Murphy Hicks Henry calls “the first modern all-female bluegrass band.” She was one of the earliest women to lead a mixed gender band after switching to banjo. Her band Boot Hill performed her originals, including “Blue Ridge Memories,” a hit in Japan.

Through 1980, Louisa played up to 250 gigs a year. Then a doctorate in psychology, a farm, a passion to teach and later, a daughter, kept her closer to home. She has since become one of the bluegrass industry’s principal advocates for songwriters, a valued mentor and an important contributor to the bluegrass repertoire, having received countless songwriting awards and nominations.

Louisa is as well-known as a teacher as she is for her own writing. She uses her fascination with psychology and her immense compassion to help others express their experiences in words and music. She has founded a number of teaching programs, including the Woodsong Farm Retreat for songwriters on her Georgia farm. Several programs engage elementary school students and foster children. And she has mentored more than a thousand hopeful songwriters.

“Dear Sister,” co-written with Claire Lynch, won Louisa the 2014 IBMA Song of the Year Award. Some of the biggest names in bluegrass have recorded her music. John Denver sang “Steel Rails” on his final album, earning the song’s second Grammy nomination.

A stunning selection of bluegrass musicians joined Louisa for her 2019 album, Gonna Love Anyway. Nearly 50 years after she wrote her most noted song, she recorded a new version of “Steel Rails” on the album. In a tribute to both the enduring appeal of that song and Louisa’s ongoing creativity, Gonna Love Anyway reached #1 on both the bluegrass and folk charts.

Photo courtesy of louisabranscomb.com

Sierra Hull Seizes the Moment in ‘25 Trips’

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Sierra Hull has a well-established reputation as one of the most talented mandolin players and multi-instrumentalists of her generation, and her gripping new album, 25 Trips, is a look at her life as a musician in her mid-twenties.

The lyrics examine the changes she’s experienced in the past few years, such as getting married or watching loved ones age, as well as the attempt to process these changes in real-time. Meanwhile, she reflects the experimentation of her live show with electric guitar, drums, and synths — instruments not commonly associated with someone who’s won three awards for IBMA Mandolin Player of the Year, which she won consecutively after her most recent prior album, 2016’s Weighted Mind.

“What ultimately ended up being really fun about making this record is that it embraces the things that I like about creating music from multiple angles,” she says of 25 Trips. For the first time Hull enlisted producer Shani Gandhi, who helped shape the album’s diverse production styles — from stripped down tracks with just guitar and vocals, to familiar bluegrass arrangements, to songs with fuller production than those found on her first four albums.

Just before beginning her most recent tour, she spoke to BGS by phone from her home in Tennessee.

BGS: Your albums have often showcased a wide range of influences, but this feels a little different sonically. The electric guitars, drums, and arrangements create a really nice ambience for the material. Was it something you planned from the beginning? Or did those choices reveal themselves over the process of recording?

Hull: I think a little bit of both. Part of my choice to use Shani Gandhi as the engineer and co-producer was that I wanted to have a partner in making this record that would be able to help me achieve some of the things I wanted to do sonically. I knew that I wanted to use the studio a little bit more this time around. My past projects were recorded and presented in a way that I could go out and play the exact same thing live. I didn’t want to worry about that this time around.

I just wanted to make a record and be open to experimenting in the studio more and being able to play multiple instruments myself and layer harmonies and do things like that that, you know, I can’t go out and do live. I can’t play three instruments on a song live. I can’t have four of my voices going. But in the studio, that’s part of the fun. So some of it was planned, in that I thought Shani would be a great person to work with for the kind of experimenting in the studio.

We definitely didn’t go into making this record knowing exactly what it was going to be from the beginning. When we first recorded songs like “Escape,” there were no drums at all. And then we decided to add them at the end and it changed the vibe in a way that I really loved. We did try to be deliberate about things though because adding something like drums can really take something to a different place.

I do feel like we were very cautious about the way in which we presented them alongside the songs that didn’t have drums, because I didn’t want that on everything. We definitely felt like some of the songs could be lifted to a different place that would be really rewarding with that element. But, you know, something like “25 Trips,” adding drums to that, we really went back and forth on like what the vibe of that should be.

Did making this record feel different than your previous records?

Yes, this is the first time with, well, a couple of different things. This was my first time co-producing with a peer, with Shani, you know, someone so close to my own age, but also working alongside a woman. In general, the whole experience felt quite different than the making of my previous albums just based on that. All the people that I’ve worked with on my previous albums have been really wonderful people to work with and have always really respected what I’m trying to say and accomplished as an artist. But in this case, it really felt like there was more room to take the reins in a different way, which is also a little bit scarier.

When you’re working alongside somebody like Béla [Fleck, who produced Weighted Mind] there’s a comfort in knowing, “Cool, Béla likes this, so let’s do that.” There’s a confidence in being able to rely on somebody that you have that kind of respect for. And Shani and I had equal respect for one another. But it also felt like we weren’t leaning on some iconic person to give us the thumbs up, you know what I mean?

There is a certain amount of trusting yourself and trusting your own instincts, which takes a little extra confidence to do. And that’s kind of scary but there was a freedom in that, too. With Shani, I know she’s got amazing ears and I know that we seem to work really great together. So I had to trust my instincts a little more. The whole experience was just really fun and pretty laid-back in a way that I really loved.

How did you end up deciding to work with Shani?

I had been considering a lot of different people but the more I started thinking about it the easier it was to make that decision because it felt like we connected so much from the beginning and she’s such a great personality in addition to just being a great engineer. I knew it would be a fun atmosphere to make a record in and that’s important when you’re trying to take on something that is a lot of work.

Plus, it felt like it would be a different experience to actually work with a young woman who is totally awesome at what she does. There was something really exciting about that. I’ve had wonderful experiences making all of my records but the female hang is just different.

One theme of this record seems to be the idea of time passing. Was that part of the inspiration for the album?

I think most people can relate to the feeling of time passing quickly. When you think, “Wow, this is an amazing moment! I really want to be able to enjoy this.” A song like “25 Trips” is kind of about that and that feeling of, “If I blink, I’m gonna miss this and I don’t want that to happen. I want to be in the moment and be present and really enjoy it.” But a song like “Less” relates more to the feeling during the times where you’re going through a particularly frustrating moment and you’re kind of looking ahead to whatever’s next.

As a mandolin player myself, I was naturally drawn to the great mandolin playing on this record. But I think these songs do a great job of highlighting your talents as an instrumentalist, a vocalist, and a songwriter. Was that balance deliberate or just a natural expression of your musical identity?

I love being an instrumentalist and it’s a huge part of who I am as a musician, but singing and songwriting has really been at the forefront of what I’ve connected to a lot in recent years as an artist. When I think about going in and making my own albums, I’m not really trying to put in a sort of virtuosic musicianship at the forefront of it. I’m just trying to play songs that I feel connected to, and figure out how can we present those in a way that really feels like it’s about embodying all the things that I am as an artist.

Sometimes that might be something really simple like “Ceiling to the Floor” or “Everybody’s Talking.” I think, from a songwriting perspective, because I like to write both instrumental music and lyrics, sometimes those two things collide. A natural balance occurs sometimes. But I don’t think there is a deliberate balance while writing the song. I’m always just trying to honor the song and play what seems appropriate.

However, I wrote a bunch more songs than what we ended up being able to put on this record. So the more deliberate balancing came from taking all the songs I’ve written over the past few years and trying to put together a collection that hopefully shines light on all those different facets of who I am musically.

Photo credit: Gina Binkley

With Debut Album, The Panhandlers Take Pride in West Texas

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The Panhandlers are carrying on a West Texas songwriting tradition that’s both witty and wistful, and their self-titled debut album will almost certainly appeal to anyone who’s fond of the Lubbock life. With 10 original songs about their home turf, the four artists — Josh Abbott, Josh Baumann, Cleto Cordero, and William Clark Green — teamed up with producer Bruce Robison, who somehow makes the task of balancing four lead singers look like a breeze.

By email, all four of the Panhandlers fielded questions from BGS about working together, writing about each other, and not quite being able to leave West Texas behind.

BGS: I’m sure you guys all knew each other before this project, but when did you all first get into a room together?

John Baumann: Other than music festivals or late-night gatherings after shows on buses, the first time we sat down and talked about this project as a group was at The Next Waltz office in Austin, Texas. I think Josh was still mispronouncing my last name at the time. Needless to say, the group was all on good terms and friendly, but I think this project really bonded us as musicians, songwriters, business partners and made us become friends.

William Clark Green: I have written with Josh and John previously, but it was my first time writing with Cleto. It was a lot of fun getting to see his thought process. Obviously I have a lot of respect for everyone. I knew we wouldn’t be writing any trash songs.

There are several references on this album about leaving West Texas behind. Is that common for people to insist they’re going to move on, but never actually do? And what compels them to stay, do you think?

Josh Abbott: Well it’s twofold: 1) Yes, I think it’s common for people to desire a change and never seek it, and 2) There are a lot of folks who have to move away and reflect on their time there with nostalgia and a fondness. This isn’t exclusively unique to being from that region of Texas by any means, but it’s the lens from how we approached this album.

Cleto Cordero: There’s not much to see or do in West Texas that isn’t related to oil and gas or farming and after a while the sometimes bleak landscape can lend one to ponder what [it would be like] to live in a big city or any other place with topography that isn’t flat or covered in mesquite bush! Oh, and water… jumping into a body of West Texas water only occurs in one’s dream. Most folks entertain the idea of leaving for greener pastures (which is why I believe creatives flourish there, always exercising their dreaming muscles), but end up sticking around because although life there is simple, it is a great place to raise a family. The land is home to many good-hearted, hard-working people — traits that come through persistence and faithfulness.

JB: Ironically, all four of us have left the region at some time or another, but it always calls us back. Mostly for opportunities to perform, but sometimes just to see people you have gotten to know. I have become such close friends with some people in the region that sometimes it feels like I have a second life there when I go back, and I just pick right back up where I left off. I think it’s common for people to want to leave the area, and explore bigger and more developed cities, but there is something about it that always calls you back. I think people also feel compelled to stay. They love the sunsets, and dry air, and the four seasons — one of those only regions in Texas that actually gets four seasons. And seriously Lubbock is one of the friendliest cities in the U.S. Not just because the billboards say it, but because it really feels true.

WCG: I think the Mac Davis song says it best: “Happiness was Lubbock, Texas in my rearview mirror.” The song eventually turns around and tells the story of how much you miss the country and the people

“This Is My Life” captures the life of a touring musician in Texas — brisket for lunch, pizza at night. And you’re sharing it with friends — “a rowdy group of dreamers, drinkers, and has-beens.” Josh, how hard (or easy) was it to kind of distill these guys’ personalities to just a few lines?

JA: Honestly, it flowed pretty naturally. I wrote it in less than an hour at my house the night before our last studio day. Bruce encouraged me to write a feature song where I could have a voice on the album since the other three guys all have features. I originally just wanted to blend in the background on this album, but Bruce said I needed a feature too. So I went home and just wrote a song about the group and the life we live. The only line I debated was “William’s loud but he’s a good hang” mostly because I didn’t want it to seem like a shot at him. But that’s his personality and that’s why everyone loves him. So I kept it in there.

CC: I love how fun and simple that song is. I think Josh captured each of us pretty well.

I like the dry humor on this record, like on “No Handle.” It’s funny without being corny, which is tricky. As songwriters, how do you strike that balance of being lighthearted without going into novelty song territory?

JA: I’m not sure I’ve figured out that balance! But John Baumann sure has!

JB: I just tried to be as plainspoken about it as possible. I just found humor in the fact that there is a guy who is openly unhappy about where he is. I think it is a delicate balance, but I think it’s important for voices in songs, or narrators, to have personality — be it sad, or ironic, or subtly jabbing. It just gives the lyric and the story more truth.

WCG: I think you just have to believe in what you are saying and the rest comes with it.

CC: I heard Carlos Santana say during a video something along the lines of “You should play, write, sing, and perform being led by your Spirit. If you want to be funny or make a joke of everything, you should be a comedian.” I think John (who wrote that song) is a clever man, but he knows the difference between clever and being a jester. I believe he is the former.

“Caprockin’” shows a bittersweet portrait of life in and around Lubbock. What sets that city apart from other places you’ve been in Texas? What do you wish people understood better about it?

JA: I think my biggest frustration with people about Lubbock is [when they say] that it’s in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing to do. And I just don’t agree with that, especially in the era we live in now. You can fly to Lubbock from the major cities in Texas in less than two hours. And there hasn’t been a city that has transformed as much in a per capita manner than Lubbock has. Businesses are developing constantly, the city is expanding south at a rapid pace, and Texas Tech has grown into an enormous institution. All Lubbock lacks is professional sports teams, high property taxes, and congested traffic. Lubbock is great! I’m glad John wrote this song with a sense of endearment. This song channels Jimmie Dale Gilmore so much to me.

JB: The friendliness of it. People will take the shirt off their back for you at every corner. They treat strangers like friends. They support you when nobody else will. They rarely have a bad word to say about anyone. I wish people understood that it’s more than just a flat desert panhandle town. It has a real community, and it’s a wonderful place to raise a family.

CC: Many towns in West Texas just don’t have the infrastructure that allow artists to flourish. Lubbock seems to be a mecca for artists and musicians of West Texas because it has just about everything you’d need to get a musical dream to take flight: a continuous stream of young, potential listeners (via Texas Tech University), a legendary watering hole and stage to play your original songs (via the Bluelight Live), and various local radio stations that promote and play local artists (via Red Dirt Rebel). I don’t think folks outside of West Texas understand how we find it so beautiful a place, despite it being dry, dusty Flatland.

WCG: I wish people understood how laid-back and nice the people are in West Texas. In all my travels they are my favorite.

Photo credit: Charlie Stout

BGS 5+5: Taylor Ashton

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Artist: Taylor Ashton
Hometown: Brooklyn via Toronto via Winnipeg via Victoria via Vancouver
Latest album: The Romantic
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Roger

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Paintings, drawings, movies, dancing … all of those things give me feelings that I want to express through music, and that’s a big part of what inspires me, to see if that’s possible. For a little while I was obsessed with the idea of trying to write songs the way David Lynch directs movies. That idea floated around in my head for a couple years and then I realized David Lynch sort of directs movies in a way that is kind of like songwriting — you don’t always understand the literal connection between all the elements but they give you a really emotionally affecting end result that feels personal.

I’ve been into visual art a lot longer than I’ve been into music — as a kid I used to draw constantly no matter what else was going on. I discovered music in my teens and the drawing took a backseat for a while. Then, a few years ago, after my old band Fish & Bird stopped being on the road all the time, I moved to New York and stayed still for a while. I took a few years off of touring and releasing music, and in that time I got back into making visual art in a big way and it was such a huge relief. Right now those two halves of me feel pretty balanced. Music and visual art work well for me because if I’m stuck in a rut with one of them, I can usually turn to the other for relief, and actually I sometimes use one medium to directly process my frustration with the other. And then the cycle continues!

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

I’m fluid with this… some of my songs are very biographical in that they accurately express my actual feelings toward one specific other person, and only use details that are from my life. Then there are others where the characters in the song are amalgamations of different people, or exaggerations, or sung by a healthier version of me, or by a stupider version of me. Different stories call for different angles.

Sometimes if somebody has told me about something hard that is going on between them and another person, I’ll find myself walking away from that conversation chewing on the situation in my mind. Some stories, after you hear them, just seem to roll around in your brain, and you can’t help but imagine yourself in the shoes of the people involved. So, let’s say somebody has told me about a new relationship they are in, where they really like the person but they’re not feeling connected to them and they can’t figure out why. I might subconsciously imagine that I am them or that I’m the other person, and I’ll wonder how that would make me feel.

Of course, to imagine how you would feel in somebody else’s shoes you have to draw on your own experience, so I have a number of these songs where the “I” or the “you” character is sort of a combination of myself and somebody else I know or that I’ve read about. In “Anyway” for example, I think I’m the “I”, the “You”, AND the implied third person, at different times. And certain lines really make me think of specific people when I sing them, but it might just be that one line in a song and then I’m me again for the rest of the song.

But I don’t know if it’s “hiding” exactly because distancing yourself slightly the “I” you’re singing from can let you be more fearless in exploring vulnerable spaces that might feel off-limits if you thought people were going to assume you were always singing about yourself. OK, maybe it is hiding.

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

Usually the hardest songs to write are the ones I don’t end up liking very much. For me, writing songs needs to be basically enjoyable. If it’s not, I’m afraid my resentment toward the process will come out in the finished product and infect all who hear it. I have songs that I’ve labored over for months, joylessly chasing some idea I felt like it was important to express, and then once I finally put the finishing touches on it I felt completely unmoved to share it with anybody.

So, if the writing is “tough,” I try to just set it down, especially if it’s something I really like. “If You Can Hear Me” was one that was like that … I came up with the seed and got really excited about it, but then I just couldn’t finish it. I tried to fit so many things into the empty space and everything just made it worse. In that case I just had to stop fussing and trust that I just wasn’t ready to write the rest of that song yet. Sure enough, months later in the shower, I thought I was having a completely new song idea, until I realised it was the other half of “If You Can Hear Me.” I really wanted to finish that song, but I kind of had to trick myself into stopping wanting it so bad in order for it to happen.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

MISSION STATEMENT: To make art that inspires people to be honest, true to themselves, and compassionate toward all people and their natural world; to help little girls know they can do anything; to help little boys know they can have feelings and ask for help; to cause all to laugh and cry.

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

I would love to go to the Mermaid Café and have 1971 Joni Mitchell buy me a bottle of wine … y’know, laugh and toast to nothing, and smash our empty glasses down. (Does wine count as food?)

Photo credit: Jonno Rattman

John Moreland Figures Out How to Love Music Again

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Turns out there are drawbacks to any career – even when it’s your dream job – and you can confirm that with dark-folk favorite John Moreland.

After winning widespread acclaim on the strength of his devastatingly direct songcraft, often by casting an unflinching eye toward himself, it’s a truth the prolific writer and soul-mining vocalist has been forced to accept in recent years. Almost a decade into his solo career, rising expectations and a grueling tour schedule weighed so heavily on him Moreland even admits he “fell out of love with music” for a while. But the Oklahoma talent has fought his way back with his fifth solo album, LP5.

“It’s just that when you go from music being your passion and your hobby … to the point where it’s your job now, there’s an adjustment period where you have to figure out, ‘How do I do this?’” Moreland explains. “So I think that’s what the past five or six or years have been for me.”

Moreland feels like he finally has some of it figured out now — or at least is on the right path. He accomplished that partially by exploring new sonic territory with the help of producer Matt Pence (the first time he’s entrusted someone else with his songs), and also through hard-won personal growth, eventually deciding to treat himself a little better. Building off that foundation with tasteful drums, quirky synth embellishments, and whirring beds of B3 organ, what emerged on LP5 preserves the thought-provoking beauty of his stark songwriting, but adds a layer of intrigue … and perhaps, hope.

BGS: Music is such an outlet for you. How much did it bother you that you basically didn’t enjoy it anymore?

Moreland: Well, it was definitely a bummer. Writing music has always been the way I express myself, but it started to become harder and harder to do. It was like, if it’s just me sitting down with an acoustic guitar, there’s only so much I can do before it starts to feel like “OK, I’ve written this song 10 times already.” So it took messing around with some other instruments to get the creativity flowing again.

Did that feeling creep up on you, or come all at once?

I think it kind of crept up gradually. It just got more and more difficult to write and be creative, and then all of a sudden one day it was like, “Wow, I hate everything I’m coming up with.” I just needed a new context to see it in.

For LP5, you ultimately teamed up with a producer for the first time, and the textures and layers you and Matt Pence created are really interesting, but they don’t overwhelm the songs. What was the approach going in?

When I was writing the songs, like I said it got to the point where I needed to mess around with some other instruments in order to give the acoustic guitar and my voice a new context to live in. I was messing around with different drum machines and samplers, different pedals, getting different sounds at home, and that’s how we did the demos. … [Then in the studio] it was all pretty intuitive. We didn’t really talk about anything. We recorded the basic tracks like guitar, bass and drums together, and then we had a few days where me and Matt and John Calvin went crazy on overdubs. It was just flying by the seat of our pants, like “You wanna play synth on this song?” Or “You wanna put the Wurlitzer on this?”

Have you always played a lot of different instruments? If so, why haven’t we heard it in your previous work?

I actually started making hip-hop music when I was a teenager, so I’ve always done that as a secondary creative outlet. Then I stopped doing it for a few years when I started touring more and was busier with my career, and I got back into it when I needed that extra creative outlet. In the past, there were times I thought I’d like to incorporate it into what I was doing with my songwriting stuff, but maybe I wasn’t sure how to do it yet. I think because I feel a lot more comfortable with myself now I’m more open to whatever. If I like it, then it’s good enough to go on the song.

Is any of that hip-hop stuff out there?

No, not really. It’s just kinda my little home-studio hobby that I do.

I’d love to hear what kind of flow you’ve got, John.

[Laughs] Well, I’ve never actually rapped. I just make beats.

You say you’re feeling more comfortable with yourself, and I know these songs were written during a time when you were trying to be kinder to yourself. What does that look like in your everyday life?

I think it’s just in your thoughts and how you see yourself. I think there’s ways that we’re taught to be cruel to ourselves when we’re kids, and we just do it and think it’s normal. So I feel like I’ve been gaining more of an awareness of that and being able to catch it when I’m doing it, just being more careful and more mindful of how I talk to myself in my head. So it’s not like a big, visible change in my life I guess, but privately I’m in a better headspace because of it.

In “A Thought’s Just a Passing Train,” the central line begins with “I had a thought about darkness.” What were you going through at the time?

That just goes back to being kind to yourself and how it’s all in your thoughts and the way you talk to yourself. I think we place a lot of importance on our thoughts, but they’re not necessarily that important – they’re always just kind of coming and going. I wanted to try to talk about that.

I love the idea of a train as a metaphor for this, since that’s such a part of the country and folk canon. But you’re using it in a very modern setting.

Yeah, thanks. It’s funny, I don’t know if would feel comfortable doing a train-type song unless it was kind of a weird one, you know? [Laughs] I think it would feel a little too traditional to me otherwise.

“I’m Learning How to Tell Myself the Truth” is another interesting one, because to me, your songs have always been about exploring the truth around you. But maybe that’s different than telling yourself the truth?

You know, I think songwriting has always been my attempt to tell myself the truth — or to uncover the truth. So I guess I meant it in more of a personal, everyday life kind of a way. Like, I want to see things the way they are and not delude myself.

Are you getting better at that?

Yeah, I think so, and I think that’s another thing that comes with age and maturity. Hopefully you begin to see things as they are more, and not let things be as colored by your emotions.

The album ends with “Let Me Be Understood,” and that seems important. Why was that the way you chose to go out?

That’s a song that when I wrote it, it just felt like, “Yeah, that should be the last song.” And again, kind of like “Learning How to Tell Myself the Truth,” I think “Let Me Be Understood” is just what the impulse to do this is for me. I just want to understand myself and I want to be understood in the larger context.

To that end, I think this album is at least asking the right questions.

Thank you, that’s all I want to do.

It seems like you’ve learned something about life over these five albums …

Maybe. [Laughs] I don’t know what it is, but maybe I have.

What do you want listeners to get out of this project?

Whatever they can take from it is fine with me. I think I made it because it made me feel good, so I hope it can make somebody else feel good in whatever way they need.

Photos: Crackerfarm

BGS 5+5: Aaron Espe

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Artist: Aaron Espe
Hometown: Roseau, Minnesota
Latest album: Wonder
Nickname: ‘Spe, Espe, Aar-bear (Mom)

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

I used to fear (still do) that nobody would come to my show. But you want to know what’s actually worse than nobody coming to your show? Let me tell you. One person coming to your show. One. If nobody comes, you’ll feel embarrassed and ashamed, but it will be your embarrassment and shame to keep. If, however, one person comes to your show, you will find yourself sharing that awkwardness with a stranger. It’s a bit of a pickle, to tell you the truth.

And that’s what happened on a cold December night in Lewiston, Maine. The reason I’m calling this my favorite memory is because I’m still alive and that makes me happy. I can still remember his silhouette, backlit by the streetlight coming through the venue window.

After two songs, I finally just sat on the edge of the wooden stage.

“Hi, what’s your name?” I asked.

“Paul,” he said.

“Hi Paul, I’m Aaron. Thanks for coming to my show.”

“Sure, good music.”

“Thanks, you don’t need to clap after each song if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s ok. It’s good. I like it.”

One person clapping in a venue is how you think it sounds. Echoey. Strangely sad for an otherwise happy activity. Ask yourself when was the last time you heard someone clap at a sad event? You can’t think of one, can you.

For your sake and mine, I want this story to end like this:

…and when the light’s came up I saw Paul was actually Paul McCartney. Paul and I rode off into the sunset and never looked back.

Due to the truth of the matter, I can’t actually end this story that way, but I can tell you that Paul bought my CD and I learned a little about how he was feeling lonely and looking for something to do on a cold night. A traveling businessman, missing his wife. We had that in common.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Actually, I’m surprised when writers and artist don’t have mission statements for their careers. As much as I know a lot of this business is serendipitous and out of my control, there’s still a lot within my control.

Knowing the mission makes it easier to say yes to things and, more importantly, no. Because I don’t know about you, but time becomes increasingly scarce and valuable the older I get. It could have something to do with having three kids and another on the way, but… still, FOMO is real and you often feel like you need to say yes to everything in the music business.

So, I find mission statements pretty much a must-have. Nothing fancy. Just, what do you offer the world and what’s at stake if you don’t?

Anyway, my mission statement for Aaron Espe Music is to share openly and honestly about my life experience so that others don’t feel alone.

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

If what I’m doing is actually songwriting, then it’s always tough. Sometimes (once in blue moon) there’s a slight chance I might be song-channeling. Getting a gift from the song gods or whatever. That’s hardly work. That’s also hardly songwriting. It’s something else.

I’m not even saying I song-channel well, ha. The song fairies probably tap me, give me a chance, and then say, “Um… nope, we’re going to move on to someone else, thank you, goodbye.”

The reason I think actual writing is so hard is because the rush of serotonin leaves after you’ve completed the first verse and chorus. After that it’s mostly work ethic. Avoiding lunch, or watching Netflix, or falling asleep. Those are song graveyards. I bet a billion songs have died around lunchtime.

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

Imagine me with my two cousins, Karl and Erik. I am 15. We ditch the wedding reception of our older cousin to hang out in the parking lot. We’re listening to music in my uncle Ed’s Lincoln Town Car. It’s got a CD player and a great sound system. Erik says, “You gotta hear this.” He slides a black disc into the player and skips to Track 02.

Out of those state of the art speakers come warm, bassy picked notes on an acoustic guitar. Rhythmic slaps in between the phrasing. A smoky baritone voice. Within 30 seconds of Martin Sexton’s “Glory Bound” I am convinced this what I need to do for the rest of my life.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

Before a gig, I’m in the habit of pacing in circles until it looks like a golden retriever’s been left alone in the room for days.

As for the studio, I turn off the WiFi. I put my phone in a drawer or facing down. I place my instruments and gear as accessible and ready-to-go as possible. I don’t want laziness to thank for an unrecorded part or an idea forgotten.

One thing I will say is that I try to never make important editing decisions after 2 p.m. I’ve learned that I don’t like myself or my art very much around that time. That’s right around the time I’m thinking of asking my father in-law if he’ll hire me as an insurance salesman.

The feeling goes away, so I just need to hold steady. It’s part of the process. But I used to make major changes, delete recordings, slash and burn. Now I know that I need to go on a walk and probably quit for an hour or so. Return to it in the evening or the next day.

Photo credit: Heidi Lin

BGS 5+5: Catherine MacLellan

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Artist: Catherine MacLellan
Hometown: Baie-Egmont, Prince Edward Island, Canada
Latest album: Coyote

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

If I couldn’t include my dad, then I would say Joni Mitchell. But truly, the artist that has influenced me the most is my father, Gene MacLellan. He wrote such songs as “Snowbird” and “Put Your Hand in The Hand.” He died when I was 14. Learning his songs and sharing his life story over these last few years has taught me so much about him, but also about the art of songwriting. As a kid I would watch him constantly with guitar, pen and paper — always editing, jotting down ideas, working out songs. That work ethic plus the singability and melodic structures of his songs have taught me all I need to know.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

It’s hard to choose one favourite moment, there have been so many. From unexpected collaborations to beautiful settings or amazing connections with audiences. But if I have to choose one… I remember my first tour to the UK. It was my first trip that far from home and I had left my young daughter, Isabel, with my mom. I was feeling very homesick and far away from Isabel. I was touring with two other artists and when we entered the Bell Pub in Bath it was noisy and chaotic.

I felt depressed and frustrated that we had to play a loud bar. I really just wanted to go home. I offered to play first, so I could just get it over with. But then, as soon as I hit my first chord on the guitar, the entire crowd turned towards me and you could hear a pin drop. They were one of the most attentive audiences I have ever experienced and very forthright with their love for the music we were playing. It was such a switch of gears for my head and heart, it reminded me to have faith in hard times.

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

I remember being in high school and everyone always asking “What are you going to do with your life?” I tried so many times to pick a practical career that also included creativity. Nothing ever seemed to stick. Music, though, was a constant companion and songwriting (as a severely shy kid) was my voice to the world. Music seemed to pick me, rather than me deciding. As far as a career choice, I did have to make a decision when I was still a fledgling artist and about to become a single mother. I decided to keep going with my music career, despite knowing it would be challenging to do both well. My daughter is now 14 and I feel like it was all worth it; she is amazing and I am still making a living at music as well as making a life at home.

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

I recently promised a young girl that I would write her a song for her birthday. What should have been an easy project turned into painstaking research and a “try, try again” approach. By the time it was finished, and I shared it with her, I was happy with the song. Part of the problem for me was the pressure of doing a good job, as I knew how much it meant to her. It created a real roadblock for my creativity.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I live rurally, so nature influences just about every one of my songs. Where I write I can look out over a big field that leads to a river, and if I’m outside I can hear the sounds of the ocean, birds, and the wind through the grass or over the snow. These elements seep into everything I write.

Photo credit: Millefiore Clarkes

Sean McConnell: Just One Song That Came the Quickest

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Editor’s Note: Sean McConnell will take part in the Bluegrass Situation Takeover at The Long Road festival, to be held September 6-8 in Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, England.

“The quickest song I’ve ever written is the title track off of my newest record, Secondhand Smoke. For me, my favorite songs, and the ones I feel are my best, happen very quickly. They tend to be the ones that come out of nowhere, like they are already finished and are just trying to birth themselves into this world.

“‘Secondhand Smoke’ came to me while I was driving. I had just had an intense reunion with my father who I hadn’t seen in many years. I was thinking about our time together that day as well as our time together when I was a kid. The lyrics just started coming and coming and coming. I heard the chords that belonged underneath them and everything.

“By the time the idea entered my brain and I had arrived at my hotel, pulled out my guitar, and recorded a voice memo of it I think maybe 45 minutes had passed. Structure-wise and lyrically speaking, that voice memo sounds pretty much exactly like what you hear on the record. I’m grateful for it. It’s a song I know I’ll play for the rest of my life.” — Sean McConnell

Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

The Ever-Shifting Dance of Shovels & Rope

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On an unseasonably cool summer afternoon in Los Angeles, something very interesting happens as Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent chat with a third person at a cafe patio table, though it takes a few minutes to unfold.

The topic, at first, is how much real life is in the songs Hearst and Trent make as the sweetly rackety, Charleston, South Carolina-based duo Shovels & Rope. Does it reflect their decade’s worth of experiences as a married couple and, now, their experiences with two small kids? The material, after all, gets kind of dark at some turns.

“Yes and no,” Trent says. “I mean, we’ve always kind of been character writers. That’s just the type of writing that’s been interesting to us. And also, we’re, you know, generally happy people. We don’t need the suffering to…”

“I hate suffering,” Hearst interjects cheerfully.

“Some people feel they need to experience firsthand some kind of suffering to make art,” Trent continues. “And I’ve never really subscribed to that. We just make up the world and make up the character thing and write about it.”

Then, as it does, the subject turns to murder ballads. They’ve done a few in the course of their time together. There’s “Evil,” a song they wrote on the 2014 album Swimmin’ Time. And their new album By Blood features “Pretty Polly,” their reinterpretation of the staple of the British-Appalachian folk canon.

“We’ve got a song like ‘Evil,’ right?” Trent says. “So we didn’t have two kids at the time. And we’ve definitely never abused them. And Cary’s still alive. So that’s obviously just a made-up story.”

“And ‘Pretty Polly,’” Hearst notes. “We’ve never gotten anyone pregnant and killed her by the river.”

But then things take an intriguing turn. They get talking about the whole nature of murder ballads, the enduring place of them in music and culture. Hearst wonders about the clearly misogynistic violence of the form still having a place in our supposedly enlightened culture: “Why is it OK in this day and age that the murder ballad is this weird, sacred musical thing that we aren’t like, ‘Cancel! Hashtag cancel’?”

As they discuss this, though, they focus on each other. They lock eyes, talk only to each other, and it’s as if the rest of the world has gone away. He defends the form, noting the relationship to and appeal of crime drama and horror stories.

“You’re right,” she concedes. “I never thought of it that way. It just feels closer to home and personal because these are songs. Maybe it’s like, ‘What are you singing this song for? Did you do that? Is that what you think?’”

Trent shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Just occurred to me that you might have the answer,” Hearst says.

“Oh, like I’ve got some dark secrets?” Trent wonders.

And so it goes for a few minutes.

If you’ve seen them in concert, you’ve seen this. In a small L.A. club the night before this conversation, it seemed they spent the first several songs hardly looking at the audience at all, just staring into each other’s eyes as they performed before later turning things more outward.

They laugh at this notion. The truth is, they say, on stage that behavior tends to be more pragmatic than romantic.

“I think we were trying to figure out what this was,” Trent says. “We check in with each other a lot. This was a bit of a weird show in a weird place. And we also do a lot of musical communication on stage, just checking in with each other. A lot of people mistake that for us, like, lovingly looking at each other. And it’s really like, ‘Oh. I know you missed your cue…’”

“‘Are you going to miss it again?’” Hearst interjects.

Their 2008 debut, self-titled album, they say, preceded them becoming a real item in life and music. Since that time, they’ve figured out the ever-shifting dance of the personal vs. the professional, art vs. life. They’ve figured out how to put them together when necessary and keep them apart when demanded. After making 2016’s Little Seeds as new parents, they added a buffer between work and family space.

“After Little Seeds, when our first kid was born, we were like, ‘This is insane,’” Trent says. “We need a place that’s not in the house. So we just built a utilitarian building in the backyard. Now we have a place that we can separate the work by at least a few feet.”

“Being parents for the first time, everything was insane,” Hearst says. “We would have somebody come over to hold the baby while we went upstairs to record, and you can hear it, the baby’s screaming downstairs. It’s just so much better now. It’s saved everything. It felt like it was a smart move to make.”

And, touring now for the first time with two kids, they’re spending part of the summer as the opening act on fairly big shows with Tedeschi Trucks Band and Blackberry Smoke.

“First of three acts at big sheds,” Hearst says. “Great catering! On early, like around 7.”

“We’ll be able to put our kids to bed at night and then have our jammies on by 8:30,” Trent adds.

Still, they allow, there are some deeply personal things that, pardon the expression, bled through on By Blood. The opening song, “I’m Coming Out,” with its very specific birth references and their second child now having been born a mere five months ago? That’s just the start.

“There’s some pretty personal things on this record for sure,” Trent says. “Like ‘Carry Me Home.’ Is it a pretty confessional song? Yeah, that’s true, like leaning on the other person.”

And there’s “The Wire,” which opens with the line, “I’ve been a disappointment at times.”

“‘The Wire’ is very much about how nobody is the perfect partner that you want to be,” Hearst says. “If you’re accountable, and they want accounts, good enough. This whole record is people who are jussssst good enough, but want to be a little bit better.”

Then there’s the title song, about the light and shadows of being in each other’s space all the time, of never having to be alone but never getting to be alone. Not only does the song close the album, but they put the lyrics of it in clear, can’t-miss type right on the front cover. That, and the whole album, per Hearst, serves as something of a marker in their lives and career.

“I think that we have many years of records in us,” she says. “But if this were to be the last stand, you know, of our creative output, there is a kind of timestamp with By Blood. We’re like this little baby that’s grown from making our first homemade record in the most rudimentary situation, and we got a little better at our instruments, a little better at record-making.”

But it goes deeper than that.

“I feel like we’ve become adults on records,” she continues. “Definitely we got adulted by Little Seeds. I mean, that time period after Swimmin’ Time and before Little Seeds was like, ‘Oh, you mean we’re growing older? We’re not gonna live forever? And our parents are getting old and babies are coming? Oh my God, we have to have life insurance and how come we can’t be just like, you know, freewheeling children for the rest of our lives?’ It kind of turned inward and now we’re kind of on the other side looking out and moving forward.”

Photo credit: Curtis Millard