Tag: Texas

LISTEN: Darden Smith, “Western Skies”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Darden Smith
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Western Skies”
Album: Western Skies
Release Date: March 25, 2022

In Their Words: “Sometime in the spring of 2020, I found a set of lyrics in my piano bench. They’d been hiding there for over 10 years and were originally for an album and theater show I was working on called Marathon. The title ‘Western Skies’ had been hanging around for even longer. There was something like 12 verses, which might explain why I never recorded it back then. I scrubbed those down to two verses and a chorus, with a new melody that came out of nowhere. I’d spent years trying to work out the other version. This one came together in about 30 minutes.

“Like the rest of the songs on the album, they were just songs. There wasn’t a unifying theme at first. It was only after the second day of recording out at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas, that it all fell together and the songs made sense. I was watching the sun go down in the desert and it hit me — the songs went together with the photos I’d been taking and essays I’d been working on. It was a book and an album. And the whole thing was Western Skies.” — Darden Smith

Photo Credit: Jeff Fasano

Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival Is About Community

Posted on by Editor

To put it simply, the Fort Worth African American Roots Music Festival is expanding awareness about the Black roots of old-time music. It’s also about representation, visibility, and perhaps most of all, community.

“We have been there since the beginning of this music, yet there is little to no representation in the large music festivals that cater to this genre,” says founder Brandi Waller-Pace. “We aim to change that.”

Also known as FWAAMFest, the event focuses on the genres of old-time, jug band, early blues and jazz music that is Black-led and showcases Black performers. Produced by Decolonizing the Music Room, FWAAMFest takes place on Saturday, March 19, at Southside Preservation Hall. Headliners include Jake Blount, Kaia Kater, and Justin Robinson.

Leading up to FWAAMFest, Brandi Waller-Pace shares how a sense of community shaped this one-of-a-kind event.

BGS: What led to the idea of launching a festival focused on African American roots music?

Brandi Waller-Pace: I started playing old-time music myself by finding the banjo not terribly long ago. Maybe five years ago is when I really turned my attention toward the instrument and began to play, and really quickly connected with one of the few people in my community who plays clawhammer. He convinced me to sing and play guitar in a string band with him and another member. So, I got my chops up and learned a lot and gradually learned a lot about the history.

Finding out how deeply embedded Blackness and Black history – the history of my own ancestors – was, in the case of the banjo and the tradition surrounding the music, felt really affirming to me. Before long I began to meet other Black folks who were deeply involved in the community and the history. We started to connect, and those circles grew.

I remember hearing about the Black Banjo Gathering before I had gotten into the music at all, and not really knowing its significance until later. And then I attended another event that Dr. Dena Jennings, at her farm in Orange, Virginia, called the Affrolachian On-Time Music Gathering — or “The Thang.” It was really the first time I was around a significant amount of Black folks who were engaged in roots music, talking about the history and just engaging with one another.

It wasn’t an exclusively Black event, but it was really the first time I was around a significant amount of Black folks who were engaged in roots music, talking about the history and just engaging with one another. It was really beautiful. It planted a seed, I think. As I engaged more in the community, there were discussions about “How do we work on inclusion in existing spaces? When is it time to create new spaces?” I considered, “You know, I could create something new.” I tend to operate that way. I’ll engage in existing spaces and systems but I love the idea of creating something new. And so I said, “I could do a festival.”

You cover multiple old-time music styles at this festival. How did you curate the lineup?

I have to be honest. I’ve just been really fortunate to know so many wonderful musicians, and to become acquainted with some, and to develop deep friendships with others. And so, the lineup came from asking, “What’s the community that I’m finding myself in? And who are the people that I know about that I don’t get to see as often but are amazing musicians?” As this event grows, I hope to engage with people further and further from my close circle while still making sure to have space for those that were so important to starting my journey into this music and learning the history of it.

A festival like this will bring visibility to the Black roots of old-time music. Why is that important to you?

In part, the visibility is connected to my own journey of discovery and finding myself, and what my Blackness means to me. The Black roots of old-time music are such a huge part of US culture. Enslaved Africans materially and economically and physically and culturally built so much of what we define as US culture.

In my work in music education, and in my scholarly work, and in my clinician work, that is what is so important to me – centering narratives that are so very important but are not broadly treated as such. It makes me happy to think of the idea of Black folks on a broader scale looking at these musical forms and seeing Black identity within that and having that engagement. It brings it back full circle to times when these traditions were seen as common in Black spaces.

What is the mission behind your nonprofit, Decolonizing the Music Room?

The mission of Decolonizing the Music Room is to center Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian voices, knowledge, and experiences in music education and related fields. So, we do this with things like FWAAMFest or with presenting to educators and other organizations, or by creating content that puts these narratives out there. We’re engaging with music education and other communities across disciplines to really connect to others and get this work out there as much as possible.

It’s a lot of work to launch a festival, but what have you enjoyed the most about creating this event?

You’re right, it is an immense amount of work to launch a festival, but what has brought me the most joy is doing it with friends. These are not just people I admire, experts in their field, genius performers, scholars, and community activists. They are actual people I know in real life and I still want to pinch myself when I think about the fact that this is actually happening with these people, because I feel like so much of a newbie. Being able to do this has been really amazing.

The second thing has been that it’s been in my community. I taught in public schools here. I taught music, wrote curriculum, and engaged in community advocacy work. I’ve been down here for 13 years now. I feel like I have roots here. I have children who go to school here. I have colleagues that I’ve worked with. I’m an artist in the community. For me personally, I wanted it to be something that feeds diversity into the community where I live, where I’ve taught, and where I’m raising my children. It’s wonderful to be able to do that.

For those music fans coming to check it out, what do you hope will take away from the experience?

I want people to come and understand that this music is Black music. Blackness is all throughout. This music is community music. This music is music that can bring people together, and that one can engage in. One of the things that I love most about learning old-time music is that there’s so much nuance and there are complicated things that you can learn, but also the level of accessibility. It didn’t take me long to be able to engage in a way that felt meaningful for me, even though the way I can play now is light years from the way I could play when I just started.

Seeing all that Blackness represented and understanding the connection. Seeing that it can be participatory and then knowing something like that is in Fort Worth. They’re gonna take away, “I gotta come back to Fort Worth every March because I have to be in this festival.” The folks in the community are gonna say, “You know what? Maybe I want to learn the banjo.” That is something I can do here. We can create more musical community here.

LISTEN: Jon Danforth, “Maybe a Little”

Posted on by Editor

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

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

Photo Credit: Faith Alesia

WATCH: The Suffers, “How Do We Heal”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Suffers
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Song: “How Do We Heal”
Release Date: February 16, 2022
Label: Missing Piece Records

In Their Words: “‘How Do We Heal’ started as a therapy exercise for me. During The Suffers’ first years of hard touring, I found myself immersed in the new trend of black people being murdered by the police on livestreams. One moment, I’d be scrolling through memes and cute puppy videos; next, I’d see the murders of Philando Castile and Eric Garner back to back. No warning. No mercy. Just another black life stolen in front of us in 4K. The impact of watching this was enough to make me sick for days, and I honestly felt unsafe most days on the road. I found myself constantly checking to see if justice for any of these victims would ever be delivered, and in many cases it never was.

“I went back to therapy to try and make sense of the emotions I was feeling, but the trauma I was trying to heal from was exacerbated by the deaths of Korryn Gaines, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor and so many more. ‘How Do We Heal’ isn’t just a song, it’s a question. How are we supposed to heal when the real causes of the pain and abuse are never really addressed? How do we heal when we aren’t being listened to? How do we heal when those that can end the oppression do nothing to stop it? I don’t know, but it hasn’t stopped me from trying to heal anyway.

“This song was written in 2019, on a sunny fall afternoon in New Orleans with my friend John Michael Rouchell. He played a bunch of different beats for me, but as soon as I heard the demo, the words poured out of me. We recorded the entire song part by part in summer 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and it took almost seven months to finish. I knocked out all the choral parts in my bedroom studio that fall, and it was topped off by the final vocal additions of Son Little and a spoken word piece by Bryce The Third. I can honestly say that recording this song was one of the most emotionally intense processes I’ve ever been a part of, and I’ll always be grateful for it. This song is for anyone that has felt helpless after witnessing the loss of so much life. May it comfort you, and encourage you to do more for yourself and others.” — Kam Franklin, The Suffers

Photo Credit: Agave Bloom Photography

LISTEN: Jesse Daniel, “You Asked Me To” (Ft. Jodi Lyford)

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Artist: Jesse Daniel ft. Jodi Lyford
Hometown: Ben Lomond, California, and Austin, Texas
Song: “You Asked Me To” (written by Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver)
Release Date: February 4, 2022
Label: Die True Records

In Their Words: “Everyone has a ‘song’ … A tune that brings them back to the time they met a significant other and fell in love that stays with them through the years. People play these songs at weddings, on anniversaries and to even rekindle that old feeling long after the fire is gone. Love songs bring out such pure human emotion in us and that’s what makes this song special for Jodi and I. It was one that we just had to record at some point and I’m glad we did.” — Jesse Daniel

Photo Credit: Alan Mercer

Texas Songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson Believes Indigenous Music Is Folk Music

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The self-titled country album by East Texan singer-songwriter Vincent Neil Emerson (Choctaw-Apache) oozes of the iconic “Wild West” with honky-tonk sensibilities and bluegrass touches that combine so many favorite textures and styles of country and Americana’s primordial ooze. His personality and identity are forward in every aspect of the project, from the lyrics to the production to the genre fluidity of each individual track – all of which marvelously combine into a cohesive whole.

In Emerson’s exclusive Shout & Shine live session (watch below), he performs two tracks from the album, “High on Gettin’ By” and “The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache,” a song that dutifully tells the story of his grandmother’s community which was impacted by the creation of a man-made lake, the Toledo Bend Reservoir. The flooding of Toledo Bend had a disproportionate impact on impoverished, rural, and marginalized communities – including many Indigenous people – on the Texas-Louisiana border. 

On first listen, “The Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache” feels like many classic country songs telling of injustice and standing in opposition to empire and “the man,” but Emerson’s personal connection to the tale is the entrancing spotlight under which this song shines. As you enjoy Emerson’s performance, take in our interview, when we connected via phone to discuss the album, Emerson’s creative process, and the overarching fact that, as he puts it, “Indigenous music is folk music. Indigenous stories are part of American folklore.”

BGS: I loved listening to the album and something that’s striking to me is that it feels so country, but also combines a lot of different genre aesthetics from different subsets of country in a unique way. I hear bluegrass in it, I hear string band music in it as well as western swing and classic country. How do you approach production and deciding which songs sound like what? There are a lot of different flavors here, but they still sound cohesive as well.

Emerson: With this one I got really lucky having Rodney Crowell producing the album. I think a lot of his ideas were what I was hearing in my head anyways. It matched up very well. As far as instrumentation, song by song we sat down and said, “Here’s what I think the song needs.” We were trying to fit the instrumentation around the song and around the story of the song. As opposed to doing it the other way around. If it sounded bluegrassy, that’s because it probably needed it, I guess! 

To me it sounds like that golden age of country before it was divided into sub-genres and all country was just country. 

I appreciate that! 

What was it like working with Rodney? What was the balancing act like as far as his fingerprints being on the music and yours? 

Nothing was forced, it was kind of like, “We got this song and this is what we’re going to do.” And, “Yeah, that sounds good!” [Chuckles] I wouldn’t say he was very hands-off, he knew exactly what he was doing. I didn’t really question any move that he made. It was kind of surreal getting to work with him. 

A bystander, or a casual listener, when they hear “Ballad of the Choctaw-Apache” might just hear a country & western song, but I know for you it’s not just a classic, archetypical country song tale, it’s much more personal. It tells the iconic story of this country and this continent of the theft of land, culture, and ways of being from natives. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that song and how it’s more than just you writing a “rootsy” song.

I started writing that song after I sat down and talked with my grandmother about her upbringing, what she went through, and how the whole Toledo Bend Reservoir [creation in Texas and Louisiana and the displacement of natives and entire communities] affected her family. As I’ve been learning more about my tribe I felt that it was necessary to write something about that. I haven’t heard any songs written about it – in fact, not a lot of people talk about it. I thought it was needed. 

Sometimes music like yours can get pigeonholed as “time capsule music” or throwback music. Something I love about this collection of songs is that, even though it’s classic and timeless, it doesn’t feel dusty or antiquated or divorced from the present. Can you talk a bit about that? Your music is down to earth, too, but it doesn’t feel like you’re trying to make music that’s retro. 

There are a lot of bands out there that sort of play dress-up. There’s nothing wrong with that! I respect that and I’ve done it, too, but they’re trying really hard to be a certain era. I love all that music from the old school — I love Bob Wills — it’s just a personal choice. I don’t feel the need to “dress up” or try really hard to make the music sound like it was from back then. I’m so heavily influenced by the people around me and what’s going on around me constantly. 

One guy who really had a good mix of that, too, was Justin Townes Earle. He had the old-time thing going on, then he could bust out “Rogers Park,” a piano ballad, and move in and out of [many different styles]. A personal style of songwriting should be a melting pot, it should be all eras – past and present. 

Music is so subjective, I’m a firm believer in the idea that however you hear it is what it is. Whether that’s a positive thing or a negative thing to someone, I think it’s their right. I can’t tell anybody they’re wrong for forming their own opinion about my music – or anybody’s music. 

It sounds like the process of letting a song have a life of its own is a big part of the process for you and that you understand an audience is always going to project onto or perceive meaning maybe where you didn’t yourself. 

I don’t like to bounce my stuff off of people that much, because I’m going to write what I’m going to write. I don’t want to let people influence me too much in that way. But it is a really good feeling whenever you write something and you get a positive reaction or positive feedback. I think I’m more focused on the songwriting. As long as I’m being one hundred percent honest with myself in the song then I feel like it’s a tool for me to express myself completely. I feel that’s good enough. 

A point that I always try to make about country, Americana – especially “country & western” specifically – Texas swing, and western swing traditions is that none of these genres would exist without the contributions of Indigenous folks. Especially when you think about Indigenous folks living in the occupied “Wild West” before any other folks did. And there were Black and brown folks who were cowboys before white folks ever were. I feel like that’s always missed, forest-for-the-trees style, by the roots music establishment these days. Country wouldn’t exist without Indigenous folks. Do you have thoughts on that? Have you thought about how your music draws on that legacy? 

That’s something I’m still trying to understand myself and really learn about. I think you definitely have a great point there. If you think about it, the settlers came over and they didn’t know how to work the land, they didn’t know how to hunt over here. Natives taught them all that and the settlers took that information and they thrived with it. Our society would not exist in the U.S. if it weren’t for the people who were here before. And it applies to the music as well, yeah.

The album feels so western. Like rhinestones and cactuses and false-fronted buildings. It feels so “authentic,” but it’s not just about the nationalism of settling the Wild West and it’s not about these white supremacist myths about cowboys and western culture. Could you talk a bit about that aesthetic? How Texas and the West and something like cowboy poetry and storytelling come through your songwriting? 

I never really set out to try to write about these things, it’s just the things I’ve been surrounded by. I worked on a ranch for a little while. “High on the Mountain,” that song came to me while I was literally on the top of a mountain – well, it was more of a hill – while I was in Palo Duro Canyon. Growing up in Texas, seeing all that stuff, it kinda [left an impression]. A lot of it, as far as stylistically, comes from listening to people like Bob Wills and Townes Van Zandt and Blaze Foley. Anyone that I’ve been influenced by, their influence creeps into it. It’s definitely not just a brand, it’s more my life. [Laughs] I never really thought about it, actually! 

I grew up between a horse ranch and a cow pasture in East Texas. I grew up in the middle of nowhere. When you get into cities like Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, these bigger cities, there’s a lot more to the area I’m from than just little podunk country towns. I learned that when I was 19. I moved over here [to the Fort Worth area] and was like, “Holy shit!” There was a lot going on. There’s a lot of rich, cultural, musical history. I’d like to dive more into that on the next record. I want to try to put some Tejano music in the blender. Maybe some polka and western swing. See what happens! If you go down around the Hill Country there’s a lot of German music, German immigrants, there are entire communities that still speak German over there. 

Maybe this is a good way to wrap up our conversation: Who’s inspiring you right now? Who are you listening to? 

As far as Indigenous artists go, I think folks really need to listen to Leo Rondeau. He is one of the baddest motherfuckers out there doing it right now. Really, really great music. In the realm of music I play, there’s not a whole lot of Indigenous people doing it. Of course, I think there are a lot of people with Indigenous heritage, but as far as being able to immediately trace your roots back like my grandmother who is Choctaw-Apache from Ebarb, Louisiana, there’s not a lot of that. It’s kind of a shame. And I’m not the end-all be-all on the subject! I’m not the most up to date on things. I’m sure there are a lot more, I’d love to learn more and hear more. It’s a good thing to bring up and a good question to ask, because it’s something people should be thinking about. 

Photo credit: Melissa Payne

Inspired by Black Culture Overseas, Buffalo Nichols Makes His Blues Debut

Posted on by Editor

As the first solo blues artist signed to Fat Possum Records in 20 years, Buffalo Nichols faces high expectations. But on his self-titled debut, the musician (whose given name is Carl Nichols) more than meets them, stitching Black history and musical traditions with current events and experiences to craft the sonic equivalent of a quilt. And the story it tells is an important one.

Nichols was born in Houston and raised in Milwaukee, but when he got the urge to roam and the money to do it, he took off, immersing himself in creative scenes across Europe and West Africa. Although he’s been based in Austin since the fall of 2020, Nichols channels the Delta, North Mississippi and Chicago through his nimble fingers or resonator slide while wrapping his warm voice around words that cut to the core of oppression, and the many forms of heartbreak it causes. While the poetic lyrics in songs such as the sad, beautiful “These Things” might be open to interpretation, there’s no mistaking the point of “Another Man,” adapted from the chain-gang lament, “Another Man Done Gone”:

When my grandpa was young
He had to hold his tongue
‘Cause they’d hang you from a bridge downtown
Now they call it ‘stand your ground’
Another man is dead.…

No need to hide behind a white hood
When a badge works just as good
Another man is dead…

It’s a protest song for today — clearly connecting the dots that for Black people in America, as the song says, “it might as well be 1910, killing women and killing men.”

BGS: Do you remember when you discovered blues music?

Nichols: I guess I discovered it as a genre when I was 12 or 13, through my mom’s music collection. She had the stuff that everybody had in the ’90s: Robert Cray, Strong Persuader, and that Jonny Lang album (Lie to Me); stuff like that. For the most part, I skipped the blues-rock thing. That was never of much interest to me; I went from contemporary blues straight to country blues and folk blues.

So how did you get from Milwaukee to West Africa and Europe?

Airplane.

Thanks for the smart-ass Greenland answer.

(Both laugh.) I didn’t travel much as a kid or into my teens. When I finally had the money and independence to do it, I decided to go as far as I could. That’s where I ended up.

And how did your travels help you find this path you sought to connect the Black experience, as expressed in early blues, to Black lives today?

I just saw a respect for Black art and Black culture that didn’t exist, and still doesn’t exist, here. And it is upsetting, but I just felt like, if there’s something that can be done about it, even if it’s futile, it’s still worth trying. I saw so many people in Europe making a living off of (music), and in Africa, really living and dying for it. So I felt like I could contribute in my own way.

The lyrics in “Another Man” are particularly chilling, and quite effective, I think. Listeners tend to assume lyrics are autobiographical even when they’re not, but the lines “Police pulled a gun on me. I was only 17” sure sound like they come from actual experience, especially in a place like Milwaukee. Is that a fair assumption?

Yeah. That is fair. “Another Man” is an older song that came from a time when I mostly wrote autobiographically, when I was deeply immersed in — or at least trying to be immersed in — the folk and Americana world. Ironically, the reason why I felt like leaving that and going to the blues is because I got really tired of this sort of outsider perspective, like trying to explain my humanity to a bunch of white people. That’s what Americana was, and still is, to me. So I stopped talking about myself so much, because I felt like my experience should be valid enough without the trauma. They really love that stuff in Americana. In the blues, it’s not much better, but now I make more of an effort to write stories and not always write about myself.

I’m sorry that you felt invalidated in those genres. Country and Americana … a lot of these genres are trying to be more inclusive, but sometimes it feels like they’re forcing it. Where’s the balance, and how do we find it?

As far as I can tell, so much work has been done to keep it this sort of white-boys club, that any effort for inclusivity is naturally going to be forced. Until there’s this real structural change, the same people who made it what it is are just going to be cherry-picking which voices they allow to break through every once in a while. It doesn’t feel natural; it feels … like it’s all been sort of orchestrated from behind the scenes.

I guess if it feels forced now, maybe one day it won’t. Going back to the music, there’s a really elemental sound to these songs. A lot of them are just your vocals and resonator. When I saw you live, I noticed a lot of effects being added that aren’t on the album. What’s the decision behind that?

I had a more ambitious idea of what I wanted to sound like, and I didn’t get to do it on the record, so I try really hard to be more creative live.

I think it’s a great album, but I can understand if it doesn’t express your artistic desires, why that might be frustrating.

That certainly ties into my gripes with Americana. Everything is like, “Oh, this is great progress.” But at the end of the day, the people who orchestrated it are the same people who kept us out of it.

When it comes to authenticity in blues, do you believe race makes a difference?

I think it does. I mean, I’ve been hearing that word a lot, authenticity, and I don’t even know what it means anymore. Obviously, it’s complicated, but … there’s so much about the blues that I don’t even understand, being born in 1991 and being raised in the Midwest. And it takes me a lot of conscious effort to — you know, part of it is this real ancestral connection that I feel, and part of it is stuff that I have to learn like everybody else. But I really think that white people are so far from the actual music and the culture of it that I just don’t understand; I mean, it’s great music, but white people can do whatever they want and be anything they want. I don’t know why you would want to be a depressed Black person. (Both laugh.)

A blues scholar I really respect told me that one reason it seemed like Black people gravitated away from the blues is because it was the music of a depressed culture, a time of oppression, and hip-hop is music of aspiration.

I think that’s a myth. Hip-hop and the blues both cover the entire — I mean, I jokingly say it’s depressing, but both cover every aspect of Black existence, the joy and the darkness. There are a lot of theories on why Black people moved away from the blues. But I think a pretty good example is somebody like Elvis, where the music industry found a way to make the music without the people, and when people don’t see themselves in it, they look for something else. I think that’s really what it is. You can even see it in real time. When things get commodified, regardless of race, the people who create the culture feel like, “OK, now we have to move on because it’s not ours anymore.”

Well, how do you respond to that? Is there any way that makes sense?

I really don’t know. Some of my peers are a little further ahead of me, but Kingfish (Christone Ingram), Adia Victoria and Jontavious Willis, everybody’s doing their part. But we’re also scrambling around, figuring out how do we, in this limited time on this earth that we have, carry on this tradition that these people dedicated their lives to and went through hell to preserve, this little piece of culture that we are able to make a living off of. I think the best thing we can do is just keep creating, because each one of us is going to inspire one or two or three artists to take on that burden and turn it into something that we’re all proud of.

Every time somebody says the blues is dead, there are always people who seem to be picking it up. Maybe it goes in and out of popularity, but it doesn’t feel like it’s going away; at least, I think people who want to find it are still always going to find it.

It does kind of go in and out of fashion — and people make a bigger deal out of it than they should, because this music predates the music industry. It doesn’t have to be profitable; it doesn’t always have to be in vogue. It is a genre, and there is an industry surrounding it, but it also is a cultural art form. It doesn’t need anybody’s attention to be valid.

Photo Credit: Merrick Ales

The Show On The Road – Hayes Carll

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we get on the horn with renowned Texas-born singer and deeply observational songwriter Hayes Carll, who is celebrating the release of his seventh LP, the atmospheric country-tinted You Get It All.

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While some may just be discovering Hayes’ lived-in songs which are often spun with dark humor (he admits John Prine and Jimmy Buffett were early inspirations), next year marks the twentieth anniversary of his first album Flowers and Liquor, which he wrote while still in college in Arkansas. His acclaimed follow-up Little Rock (2005) remains one of the only self-released albums to make to #1 on the Americana chart.

Hard-charging years on the road and humble years before, getting by working long nights at Chili’s, Red Lobster and more, made Hayes truly appreciate when his star in the roots circuit began rising. His tongue-and-cheek country kiss off “She Left Me For Jesus” off his breakout major label debut Trouble In Mind (2008) might have shocked mainstream radio programmers, but it brought in a whole new wave of fans who have been diligently following him across the world ever since. KMAG YOYO & Other American Stories came in 2011 and pulled even fewer punches – showing his knack for a devastating hook. “KMAG YOYO” is army-speak for “Kiss my ass, guys, you’re on your own.”

Some artists may bring their wives into the studio as a cute cameo now and again, but Carll is lucky enough to have artist and sought-after producer Allison Moorer on the home team. Together with Kenny Greenberg, she helped bring out a softer, deeper side of Carll on the newest You Get It All – with the standout heartbreaker “Help Me Remember” centering on his experience watching his grandfather in Texas drift away with dementia.

Maybe the most fun on the new record comes from the rollicking opener “Nice Things” – which reveals why Carll may not be getting on right-leaning pop-country radio anytime soon, while still winning legions of listeners anyway: it’s a countrified conversation between God and her screwed up human subjects on earth … and God is a frustrated (and rightly so) lady.

Photo credit: David McClister

LISTEN: The Whitmore Sisters, “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Whitmore Sisters
Hometown: residing in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California; from Denton, Texas
Song: “The Ballad of Sissy & Porter”
Album: Ghost Stories
Release Date: January 21, 2022
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “Several of the songs on Ghost Stories were inspired from the loss of friends. I penned this tune with Bonnie Montgomery via The House of Songs and it was inspired by the love and close friendship of Chris Porter, a singer-songwriter who died tragically on tour in 2016. Porter was many things to a lot of people, but his humor and his ability to spin a yarn was pretty remarkable. Even when you were present in the events of the story, Porter had a way of telling it that always seemed more interesting than what my mind could recall. The tall tales of Porter live on in the song that is dressed in Cajun fiddle from my sister Eleanor and accordion from Dirk Powell.” – Bonnie Whitmore

Photo Credit: Vanessa Dingwell

BGS 5+5: Matt the Electrician

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Matt The Electrician
Latest Album: We Imagined an Ending
Hometown: Austin, Texas

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

As a songwriter, I have to go with two, often copacetic, though possibly somewhat diametrically opposed forces, Paul Simon and Rickie Lee Jones. The way they both use language in their storytelling has always been inebriating to me, and feels very much like home. They both often stuff words into spaces that feel, all at once, both incongruous and at the same time, absolutely perfect in their placement. It encompasses for me the way I aspire to be as a writer. And musically, they both have a lot of influences in their own songs from early ’50s rock ‘n’ roll and doo wop, which I’ve always felt speaks to me as well. I think that hearing artists that seemed unafraid to change or break whatever rules around the ways you’re allowed to use words and language in a song was always very liberating to me, and made me not feel not quite as weird writing about whatever I wanted to. And all of that freedom, couched in the confines of the pop rock idioms, feels comforting to me, like a cartoon Tasmanian devil wrapped up tightly in a cozy blanket.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

As much as I’m a bit of a planner, I also love it when plans fail, and as a performer, I think I’m often better when I’m improvising. Once when playing a showcase at the Folk Alliance conference, the sound system went out in the room I was playing. It was a smallish room, but was very full of people. The sound guys were gonna go get some more equipment, but knowing I only had a short set time, I stopped them, and did the show unplugged. Everyone gathered in tighter. A friend in the crowd came up on a couple songs and sang backup, unrehearsed. The community vibes were in full effect and the warmth of that particular room is how I wish all shows always felt. I’ve played giant festival stages in front of thousands, and none of it compares to being huddled in a small room with people singing along with you.

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

I’m a voracious reader and a film buff. I’d say that both inform my music a great deal. It never feels super linear, like I rarely sit down to write a song while directly referencing a movie or book, but I know in retrospect, that quite a lot of both filter into the process all the time. I think I tend not to like looking directly at any of my influences per se, but rather, hope to allow them to seep in sideways, when I’m not paying attention. That being said, book-wise, I’m currently reading John Lurie’s memoir, The History of Bones, and watching lots of 1950s film noir.

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

Watching my dad play rhythm 12-string electric guitar in a ’60s rock cover band at a pizza joint in Rogue River, Oregon, when I was 4 or 5 years old. A few of us kids were allowed to watch the first set, and then we were relegated to a camper in the parking lot for the rest of the night. There was a sax player in the band named Willie, and although I don’t remember watching him play the trumpet, he had one in a case at his feet, and I decided then and there that I wanted to be a trumpet player. Soon after, my parents found a $5 trumpet at a garage sale and gave it to me for Christmas. I played that same trumpet through sophomore year of high school before getting a new one and went on to study trumpet in college.

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

I married into a backpacking family, so we spend a good chunk of time every summer in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and I love those wooded forests, always have. But my main draw is the Pacific Ocean. I grew up alongside it, in California and Oregon, and even being in Texas for the last 25 years, I manage to get back to it at least a couple times a year, every year. The overwhelming power of it absolutely hypnotizes me. I think it is literally the rhythm of my thoughts, and I aspire to my actions falling under its spell someday as well.

Photo Credit: Allison Narro