Tag: The Byrds

LISTEN: The Mastersons, “Eyes Open Wide”

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Artist: The Mastersons
Hometown: Los Angeles, California
Song: “Eyes Open Wide”
Album: No Time for Love Songs
Release Date: March 6, 2020
Label: Red House Records

In Their Words: “‘Eyes Open Wide’ was one of the first tunes we wrote for the record. It took on a Byrds/Gene Clark feel the moment the Rickenbacker 12 string came out, which seemed apropos for a record cut in LA at Sunset Sound. Once Shooter Jennings had Bonnie Whitmore and Mark Stepro add their harmonies it added a Fleetwood Mac vibe and turned into a pretty fun track. It also feels like a song for the times as we can’t bury our heads in the sand with so much going on in the world. It’s tempting to check out with so much bad news every day, but it’s time for all hands on deck.” — The Mastersons

Photo credit: Curtis Wayne Millard

MIXTAPE: Eric Corne’s California Country

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California country has deep roots and an enduring influence. It’s given us the Bakersfield Sound, country-rock, cosmic country, cow punk, and much more. I love the more raw/less polished sound and how its artists tend to chart their own course. Nashville was a company town; California was where the mavericks went. I have a strong personal connection to California country, stemming from my work as Dusty Wakeman’s engineer at Mad Dog Studios in Los Angeles. Dusty played bass with Buck Owens, engineered Dwight Yoakam’s seminal albums, and co-produced Lucinda Williams’ first two albums. There’s still a strong core of musicians in L.A. with roots stretching back to these earlier generations, and it’s a thrill and an honor to be writing and producing records with such soulful and beautiful people, many of whom populate the selections below. — Eric Corne

Buck Owens — “Streets of Bakersfield”

Buck Owens is, of course, a pillar of California country and a pioneer of the Bakersfield Sound. An iconic harmony guitar riff provides the instrumental theme, with gorgeous vocal harmonies and pedal steel lifting the choruses. This song really encapsulates what California country represents to me — the desire to be oneself.

Merle Haggard — “Working Man”

This is one of my favorite Merle songs. It’s got a great groove and terrific guitar playing with lyrics that clearly represent the blue-collar ethic he embodied.

Lucinda Williams — “Sweet Ole World”

Lucinda really helped broaden the boundaries of country just by doing her own thing. This song has an angelic vocal melody with beautiful harmony and precise responses from the guitar. Immaculately recorded and co-produced by my mentor Dusty Wakeman.

Dwight Yoakam — “It Only Hurts When I Cry”

Dwight and Pete Anderson were real students of classic country music, especially the Bakersfield Sound, and they were at the center of the cow punk movement, along with X, Lone Justice, and others. This is a great song with witty lyrics, perfect production, and top-notch performances.

Jean Shepard — “If Teardrops Were Silver”

Raised in Bakersfield, Jean Shepard was a pioneer for female country singers and one of its first great stars, following on the heels of Kitty Wells’ breakthrough. She had a really pure voice with a lovely vibrato and a great ability to interpret a song.

Bob Wills — “Bubbles in My Beer”

It could be argued that Bob Wills is the godfather of the Bakersfield Sound. He played there regularly and had a strong influence on both Buck and Merle … something I can really hear in this song.

Sam Morrow — “Skinny Elvis” (Featuring Jaime Wyatt)

I’m really proud to work with these two brilliant, young, California country artists who are getting well-deserved national attention. I wrote this one for Sam’s album, Concrete and Mud. It’s a little reminiscent of the Gram/Emmylou song “Ooh, Las Vegas,” so I thought it’d make a great duet with Jaime. I recruited legendary Gram Parsons/Byrds pedal steel player Jay Dee Maness to play on it, which was quite a thrill, as you can imagine.

Guy Clark — “L.A. Freeway”

Guy Clark wasn’t in L.A. for long, and this song is about leaving, but it’s a beautiful farewell song. The song makes reference to another beloved and iconic figure of California country — “Skinny” Dennis Sanchez who played bass with Clark, and ran in circles with the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell, and Steve Earle. There’s also a thriving honkytonk in Brooklyn named after him. It’s an incredible performance, very dynamic, with a sympathetic arrangement including Wurlitzer piano, weepy fiddle, moaning harmonica, and gorgeous chorus harmonies.

Jade Jackson — “Motorcycle”

Here’s another great, young country singer coming out of Cali right now. I love this lyric and vocal performance — intimate with a dark, rebellious under current.

Linda Ronstadt — “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”

Her early career country records are really underrated. This is a killer country-rock version of a Dick Reynolds/Jack Rhodes classic song with strong ties to the Flying Burrito Brothers. I think Ronstadt is also important to include here, due to her work with Neil Young, the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and others in the L.A. country scene of the late ’60s and early ’70s.

The Byrds — “Hickory Wind”

No playlist of California country would be complete without a song from the Byrds’ seminal country album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. My first gig in Los Angeles was assisting Dusty Wakeman on the mixes for the Gram Parsons tribute concert at which Keith Richards did a beautiful heartfelt version of this song by his old pal, Gram.

Sam Outlaw — “Jesus Take the Wheel (And Drive Me to a Bar)”

An instant classic by one of the brightest stars of the current generation of California country singers with outstanding production by Ry Cooder and Bo Koster of My Morning Jacket on keys, who also guests on my new record.

The Flying Burrito Brothers — “Hot Burrito #1”

Even though Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman’s importance is already represented here via the Byrds, I wanted to include this achingly beautiful Burrito song, partly because of Gram’s incredible vocal and melody, and partly due to Bernie Leadon and the link he represented as a member of both the Burritos and the Eagles, the latter heavily influenced by the former.

Gene Autry — “Mexicali Rose”

Gene Autry’s singing cowboy films were instrumental in bringing country music to a national audience in the 1940s. I was very fortunate to record Glen Campbell on his version of “Mexicali Rose,” but thought I’d include Autry’s version here.

Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young — “Helpless”

I think the Laurel Canyon music scene played an important role in California country and Neil Young, in particular — first with Buffalo Springfield, with songs like “Learning to Fly” and “I Am a Child,” and later with his Nashville-recorded classic, Harvest. “Helpless” to me represents the seeds of Harvest.

Eagles — “Tequila Sunrise”

Not much needs to be said about the first two Eagles’ albums and their role in the popularity of country-rock. Not to include them would seem an oversight. This also represents the beginning of the fruitful Glenn Frey/Don Henley songwriting partnership.

Canon Fodder: The Beau Brummels, ‘Bradley’s Barn’

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Who invented rock ‘n’ roll?

Don’t answer that: It’s a trick question. Rock ‘n’ roll, like most complex sounds and genres and world-conquering forces, wasn’t actually invented. Instead, it germinated and mutated and mushroomed and erupted. It’s not the product of Elvis Presley or Sam Phillips, nor of Jackie Brenston or Louis Jordan. Rather, it is the product of all those people and more — all conduits for larger cultural ideas and desires. Rock wasn’t an invention, not like television or the telephone or the automobile or the atomic bomb. Similarly, its sub-genres and sub-sub-genres in the late 1960s weren’t inventions, more like waves swelling and cresting through pop culture.

The Beau Brummels didn’t invent country-rock in the 1960s, although they did help bring it into being. Long before the San Francisco rock explosion in the late ’60s shot the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane to national prominence, they were gigging around the Bay Area as one of the first American bands to respond to the British Invasion. In 1965, they recorded their breakout hit, “Laugh Laugh,” with a kid named Sly Stewart, later known as Sly Stone. They held their own against Southern California groups like the Byrds, the Standells, and the Electric Prunes (who were marrying their garage rock to liturgical music in one of the most esoteric experiments of the era). While tiny Autumn Records could never fully capitalize on their success, the Beau Brummels did achieve enough notoriety to appear in films and television shows. (The quality of those outlets, however, remains questionable: Village of the Giants, a kiddie flick starring Beau Bridges and Ron Howard, was skewered on Mystery Science Theater 3000.)

They have a full slate of excellent hits, each marked by songwriter/guitarist Ron Elliott’s melancholic lyrics and Sal Valentino’s unusual vibrato, which had a way of turning consonants into vowels and vice versa. The line-up shrunk from a sextet to a trio, which meant fewer harmonies, but a more streamlined sound. Released in 1967, Triangle strips away the electric guitars and, in their place, inserts folky acoustics and chamber-pop flourishes. It’s a song cycle about dreams, simultaneously baroque and austere, and it finds the band stretching in weird directions. For example, they cover “Nine Pound Hammer,” which had been a hit for country singer Merle Travis in 1951. Perhaps more surprising is how well they make it fit into the album’s theme.

In fact, the Beau Brummels had been peppering their sets with country covers since their first shows in San Francisco, and their 1965 debut, Introducing the Beau Brummels, included a cover of Don Gibson’s 1957 hit “Oh Lonesome Me.” They weren’t alone, either. As the “Bakersfield Sound” became more prominent on the West Coast for mixing country music with rock guitars, rock musicians were completing the circle and borrowing from country music. In 1967, Bob Dylan traveled to Nashville to make John Wesley Harding, his own stab at a kind of country-rock.

The trend culminated in 1968, when the Beatles covered Buck Owens on The White Album and the Everly Brothers released Roots. In March, the International Submarine Band released their sole studio album, Safe at Home, and five months later, the Byrds released Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Both were spearheaded by Gram Parsons, a kid out of Florida who was in love with the kind of mainstream country music that most West Coast hipsters had long written off. He is still identified with the country-rock movement, often declared its architect or instigator — and with good cause.

Early in 1968, at the behest of their producer, Lenny Waronker, the Beau Brummels decamped to Nashville — or to rural Wilson County, just outside of Nashville — to record a new album at the headquarters of Owen Bradley. The previous decade, Bradley had helped to define what came to be known as the “Nashville Sound,” a more pop-oriented strain of country music meant to appeal to as wide an audience as possible — not just rural folk, but urban listeners, as well. Even so long after his heyday, he would have been revered for countrypolitan classics by Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, and Conway Twitty.

Although it bears his name, Owen Bradley didn’t produce the Beau Brummels’ Bradley’s Barn. Instead, Waronker remained at the helm. But working in Nashville meant they had access to local session players, including Jerry Reed on guitar and dobro, Kenny Buttrey on drums, and Norbert Putnam on bass. The Beau Brummels had withered down to a trio at the beginning of the sessions and, by the end, bassist Ron Meagher was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam. As a duo, Elliott and Valentino were able to craft a very distinctive sound that’s more than just rock music played on acoustic instruments.

Bradley’s Barn crackles with ideas and possibilities, from the breathless exhortation of “Turn Around” that kicks off the album, to the ramshackle lament of “Jessica” that ushers its close. “An Added Attraction (Come and See Me)” is a loping rumination on love and connection, as casual as a daydream under a shade tree. The picking is deft and acrobatic throughout the album, as playfully ostentatious as any rock guitar solo, and Valentino sings in what might be called an anti-twang, an un-locatable accent that renders “deep water” as “deeeep whoa-ater” and pronounces “the loneliest man in town” with a weeping vibrato.

Bradley’s Barn wasn’t the first, but it was among the first country-rock albums. It was recorded and mixed by March 1968, when the International Submarine Band’s Safe at Home was released, but for some reason, the label shelved it for most of the year. It was finally released in October, perhaps as a means to capitalize on success of the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which hit stores in August. Once leading the way in country-rock, the Beau Brummels were suddenly playing catch-up. And yet, compared to those two Parsons-led projects, Bradley’s Barn feels like much more of a risk, less self-conscious about its country sound. Safe and Sweetheart were primarily covers albums, with only a few of Parsons’ originals and a handful of Dylan compositions. Their purpose was to define a sound, to translate hits by Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, and the Louvin Brothers into the language of rock ‘n’ roll. As such, they’re landmark albums, showing just how malleable rock ‘n’ roll could be — how it could stretch and bend to accommodate new sounds and ideas.

Save for the Randy Newman tune that closes the album (and was recorded in L.A. right before the Beau Brummels went to Tennessee), Bradley’s Barn is all originals, each one penned or co-penned by guitarist Ron Elliott. He has a deceptively straightforward style, evoking complex emotions with simple words. Alienation and isolation are his favorite topics, which lend all of his songs, but especially this album, its distinctive melancholy. “Every so often, the things I need never seem to be around,” Valentino sings on “Deep Water.” “Every so often, I pick up speed. Trouble is, I’m going down.”

On “Long Walking Down to Misery,” Reed’s dobro answers Valentino’s vocals with a jeering riff, turning his yearning for love and comfort into something like a punchline. That sadness and the music’s response to it — alternately bolstering it and undercutting it — is perhaps the most country aspect to this country-rock album. Elliott, in particular, understands how country works, just as much as Parsons does or Dylan does. Every song is a woe-is-me lament, lowdown and troubled, but not without humor or self-awareness. Even “Cherokee Girl” uses the imagery that would be identified with outlaw country in the next decade.

Bradley’s Barn flopped, when it was finally released, overshadowed by the Southern California bands and generally abandoned by the label. In 1969, when “Cherokee Girl” failed to register on the pop charts, the Beau Brummels broke up. They’ve reunited a few times since then, most famously in 1975, but generally they live on in reissues and oldies playlists. “We weren’t trying to do country,” Elliott told rock historian Richie Unterberger in 1999. “We were trying to do Beau Brummels country, which was a totally different thing. But it didn’t really catch on.”

MIXTAPE: Lloyd Green & Jay Dee Maness’s Steely History

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Fifty years ago, the Byrds set out on an ambitious path to deeper explore the country music they had flirted with on previous records with Sweetheart of the Rodeo. In addition to introducing Gram Parsons to a larger audience, it was the first country-rock record to be recorded by an established rock act. The record continues to open the eyes of new generations to country music. Recorded in March of 1968 in Nashville, Tennessee, and April of the same year in Los Angeles, California, the original record utilized the amazing steel guitar talents of Lloyd Green (Nashville) and Jay Dee Maness (L.A.), both established session musicians. The freshness of their playing added not only an authenticity to the sessions, but opened the eyes of a whole new audience to the sound of the pedal steel guitar.

Now, 50 years later, the original steel guitarists have reunited to make a stunning instrumental tribute to this ground-breaking record. Over the intervening decades, the two masters have played on countless songs. Here are some of their favorites.

LLOYD GREEN

Warner Mack — “The Bridge Washed Out”

Owen Bradley, the producer, did not want to use me since he didn’t know me nor my capabilities. He insisted on Pete Drake, who Warner said could not possibly play this new idea and sound I had discovered. Owen reluctantly let me be on the session, and it became Warner Mack’s first and only number one record, for which Owen Bradley then took credit, telling people that he knew they had a hit with my sound on that record. It was my career-launching recording.

Tammy Wynette — “D-I-V-O-R-C-E”

Producer Billy Sherrill heard me doodling with a new sound I had discovered, recognized its uniqueness, and told me that was going to be the signature of the song. It was and quickly became a number one record for Tammy, where I introduced the last remaining missing component of the E9th commercial tuning heard on most records which had remained unknown — the E to F pedal change. It now is part of our tuning on all steel guitars which use the commercial E9th neck.

Freddie Hart — “Easy Loving”

George Richey had gotten in an argument with Freddie about how we should record this song and, wisely, went outside for a smoke and to cool off. So Charlie McCoy, Billy Sanford, and I said, “Let’s cut this damn thing,” which we did in two takes. Richey came back in and asked if we were ready to cut it, but I told him we already had. He listened with a bored look on his face and said, “Sounds okay, next song.” Little did he know we had just cut Freddie’s career song which sold around two million copies and became a number one, and also became one of only three records to ever become the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year two years in a row, in 1971 and 1972.

Gene Watson — “Farewell Party”

We had recorded Gene’s new Capitol album but lacked one more song to complete the music. Having but 10 minutes left in the session, both Gene and his producer, Russ Reeder, came over to me and asked if I would just do an intro and a solo in the middle real quickly so they could finish the album and not have to pay the musicians overtime. I did. We cut the song in one take and left for our next sessions. While not becoming a number one record for Gene, it quickly became his most famous recording and he even named his band Farewell Party. The song became a cult favorite among steel guitar players around the world.

Alan Jackson — “Remember When” 

Keith Stegall, Alan’s producer, called me when he heard I was coming out of a 15-year retirement to again record, asking me to cut with Alan Jackson. It was my first time back in the recording studio. On the session, Alan told me his favorite steel solo of all time was what I played on “Farewell Party.” He asked me to give him another “Farewell Party” solo. The song, of course, went to number one, like all of Alan’s records and, ironically, became the last major country music record with a significant 16-bar solo. Steel is no longer featured on most big recordings.

Leslie Tom — “Hey Good Lookin'”

“Hey, Good Lookin'” is a Hank Williams song I’ve played since the age of 13 or 14 in the bars and clubs in Mobile, Alabama. I can still play it exactly like Don Helms recorded it back on non-pedal steel guitar in 1951 with Hank. But … I only honored him with some key phrases on this modern Leslie Tom recording. My entire recording career has been built around creating sounds, not imitating others. Leslie’s version, while also honoring Hank, has a bit more swing and sizzle to it, so that’s the direction I went. It is really good, and I am honored to get to record with such a talented, beautiful lady. Leslie sings it with fervor and an obvious love for Hank Williams’ music.

JAY DEE MANESS

Gram Parsons — “Blue Eyes”

I got a call to work on an album called International Submarine Band with Gram Parsons. When I got to the studio, I found out that Glen Campbell would be playing acoustic rhythm guitar. This was my first encounter with both Gram and Glen. In addition to myself on steel, the album had Jon Corneal on drums, Joe Osborn on bass, and Earl Ball on piano. This album was produced by Suzi Jane Hokom. The album was eventually released in 1968, after the group ceased to exist. Some might say this was a precursor to the Sweetheart of the Rodeo album.

Ray Stevens — “Misty”

In 1974, I was lucky enough to record in Nashville on a song called “Misty” with Ray Stevens. Shortly after the session, I moved my family back to Los Angeles. One day, Ray called and said he had been nominated for a Grammy for “Misty,” and asked if I wanted to play on the Grammy Awards. Of course, I said yes. I was thrilled to get to play the Grammys on national TV with Ray Stevens. During rehearsal, all went well. Once it was our turn to be on stage — live — and it came time for my “solo,” I broke the third string on my steel guitar. This string is very important to the sound of the solo so, on national TV, and I had to “fake” it. This was a very embarrassing moment.

Eddie Rabbit — “Every Which Way but Loose”

In 1978, I received a call to do the soundtrack and had a bit part in the movie Every Which Way but Loose, which was produced by Clint Eastwood. All the bar scenes were being filmed at the Palomino Club, so Clint decided to use the house band in the movie. I had already received the call to do the soundtrack and to play with Eddie Rabbit on the title song and to play on Mel Tillis’s “Send Me Down to Tucson.” Soon enough, I was called to do the Any Which Way You Can soundtrack, too. In addition to the soundtrack, I was able to play with Shelly West and David Frizzell on “You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma.” I also had the opportunity to work on “Bar Room Buddies,” sung by Clint Eastwood and Fats Domino.

Anne Murray — “Could I Have This Dance”

I had the privilege of working with Anne Murray on her hit song “Could I Have This Dance” which was produced by Jim Ed Norman. “Could I Have This Dance” was also in the Urban Cowboy movie and soundtrack. Later on, I got a call late one evening from Jim Ed Norman asking if I could come over to his studio after my gig at the world famous Palomino Club. He said, “I have a record for you.” I thought it was a copy of the album which had the tune on it. When I got to the studio, he presented me with a platinum record of “Could I Have This Dance” from the Let’s Keep It That Way album to hang on my wall. This was the first of many albums from various artists that I now have on my wall.

Eric Clapton — “Tears in Heaven”

When I got to the studio to record with Eric Clapton, I was told Eric was not feeling well and could I come back the next day. The next day, I came back and started recording. We took all day to record Eric’s song called “Tears in Heaven.” I was packing up my steel guitar, when Eric came out into the studio and said, “I would like you to play the solo.” That’s when I got scared. I played the solo (melody) on the steel and, after I left, Eric put the harmony part on top of my melody. “Tears in Heaven” became a number one hit for him. I feel very privileged to have played on it.

Photo credit: John Macy

Counsel of Elders: Chris Hillman on Looking Across Time

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Chris Hillman — he of the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers fame — has returned with a new solo project, Bidin’ My Time, after more than a decade away. As he’s said in countless other interviews, he was resigned to living out the concluding chapter of his musical career. He’d all but packed up any ideas about recording another album, but he knew enough not to turn down an opportunity to work with Tom Petty, when it unexpectedly came calling. Petty produced Bidin’ My Time before his untimely death in October. The LP was originally supposed to be acoustic, but once the pair got in the studio, Petty’s ear for rock ‘n’ roll opened up Hillman’s songs. All 12 tracks, an array of original and covers, retain their originally imagined acoustic structure by sitting heavily in the folk and bluegrass traditions, but they’re expansive, grander realizations.

As the title suggests, the album finds the legendary folk artist concerned with time — lifetimes, past times, and “the times.” (Though the project was released before Petty’s death, that, too, has imbued the album with added meaning, but it’s not a point Hillman wants to exploit. He holds tight to the memories he made recording with the equally iconic musician, and only sometimes loosens his grip enough to let a rose-colored anecdote slip through.) On Bidin’ My Time, Hillman collected his career in songs new and old. He covered Pete Seeger’s “Bells of Rhymney” with former Byrds bandmate David Crosby and executive producer Herb Pedersen singing harmony. He also re-recorded Byrds co-founder Gene Clark’s “She Don’t Care About Time”; the song he co-wrote with Roger McGuinn, “Here She Comes Again”; and, of course, a tip of the hat to Petty with “Wildflowers.” Then there’s the title track and “Restless,” both of which reveal a presence of mind that knows more endings loom on the horizon than beginnings. If Bidin’ My Time ends up being Hillman’s last solo album, it only means he’s come full circle. Turn, turn, turn.

Tom Petty has covered the Byrds and you’ve covered Petty. What was it like getting in the studio together after you’ve both danced around each other’s music in the past?

He had subtle ideas and he guided me in a way. Originally, when we were talking, before we started the record, I said, “You haven’t heard my songs.” He said, “Oh, I’m not worried. Believe me. If I hear something that doesn’t quite fit, I’ll let you know. We’ll work it out.” Which he did. It was a joy. Everybody had a good time, and nothing was planned, in that sense. It really started as an acoustic album, but then we had the Heartbreakers come in and overdub some stuff. It worked out great.

Your styles are different, but you obviously found a way to blend them. What did that process of compromise come to look like?

Well, I don’t know if I would ever stop to analyze it. Tom started out with a great love of the Byrds; he said the Byrds were so influential. But he took it 10 steps up the ladder, musically. There’s one song, “Listen to Her Heart,” that sounds so much like a Byrds song, but it’s highly evolved Byrds, and then he just took it off. As we all do, you start out — even as an actor or a painter or as a musician, of course — you start out really imitating, and then you seek to innovate. You take the best parts of what you’re learning as a young person and then you develop your own style — your signature style — which he did, and which I did to some degree. There’s a close proximity of musical styles all coming out. For me, for the Byrds, we all came out of folk music until we plugged in. And, of course, I came out of bluegrass. I must admit, I was a little nervous. I didn’t know if Tom would like my songs. As you know, I had no intention of making another record. I was done.

I know, and that’s what makes the timing so interesting to me. And, on top of that, there’s a theme of time throughout all the songs.

Well, I’m sitting there thinking, “I’m done.” Not out of bitterness. I said, “I’ve had a great time. I really don’t want to make any more records.” And this came along, and how can you say no? Toward the end, I started to say, “This is almost a conceptual record.” It’s touching on early acoustic, semi-bluegrass things that I started out with and then, through the Byrds, covering one Gene Clark song and redoing “Old John Robertson.” It sort of touched on different decades of what I did.

Right, even though Petty fleshed out the sound, it definitely holds to an acoustic structure between the folk and bluegrass elements.

That’s where I came from. The Byrds were very acoustic-oriented.

Speaking to that folk element, I’ve always associated the genre with containing really important messages. The song you covered, “When I Get a Little Money” — written by your friend — has such a beautiful message that it seems plucked from the ‘60s folk movement.

Well, I get handed songs a lot. Usually, you don’t take them. But this is the first time in probably 50 years where I get this CD — and, really, it’s a favor to my wife’s cousin who knew this young man and he’s a school teacher — and I hear this song, and I think “Well, that’s fantastic.” It had so many different little nuances to it, and I asked him if I could record it. He flipped out; he was so happy. It came out great.

And you’re right about the folk music and the message. Our first manager in the Byrds really drilled it into our heads. He said, “You guys go for substance or depth in your lyric, whether you’re writing the song or whether you’re finding the song, because you want to make a record you’ll be proud of 40 or 50 years down the road.” “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” well, Roger had remembered Pete Seeger doing that, and how Pete had put the melody to Ecclesiastes. That was a real nice tune to cut, as was “Bells of Rhymney,” another song where Pete put melody to a Welsh poem. You could dance to these songs, but they were in the folk tradition. There was a deeper message to each song; they were story songs. “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is almost an owner’s manual on how to live.

Right? That is, if you’re paying attention.

Yeah, but as Solomon wrote it, it’s all in black and white. There’s no gray area there, which is fine. I think we all, having come out of folk music, had that sense of story or some depth to the lyric. We tried to. We didn’t always — we cut some stupid songs. At the time, you think it’s the hippest thing in the world, and you listen back and think, “Why did I record that?”

So your former manager’s advice stands true, then.

Well, I’ve lived by that rule. Like I said, what I think is really brilliant at the time doesn’t always stand up over the years.

How do you see folk music impacting listeners today as opposed to what you were trying to convey back in the ‘60s and ‘70s?

I don’t see it any different. As you get older — and here I’m very happily married for 38 years, and I’ve got two grown children, I’ve got a granddaughter; the greatest blessing in my life — if I sit down and write a song, it’s going to be something closer to a mini short story. There’s a song on the album, “Such Is the World That We Live In,” and it was a tiny jab, in a political sense, but it was also how I felt about how things had so rapidly changed. I wasn’t trying to tell anybody how to live. It’s the grandfather telling the young people things are acceptable now that never were acceptable, in the sense of relationships and this and that.

I grew up, as did everybody my age, with a sense of civility and manners. We were taught manners, we were taught responsibility, we were taught, if we got in trouble at school, we’d get in trouble at home. It was never a case of the parent suing the school because the school teacher yelled. There was a sense of order and structure. It’s not as I see it anymore. Am I going to be able to do anything about that? No. What keeps civilization on an even keel is laws: moral laws, ethical laws. And we seem to have strayed away from that all over the world. I don’t think it’s a matter of evolving. So you’re accepting it in the song.

But it wasn’t always an ideal time. Out of folk music — this high, moral tradition — came Altamont, rampant drug use, and this degeneration into chaos.

You’re absolutely right. Okay, I played Monterey Pop, a beautiful festival. It was the true peace and love thing. And then, within a matter of two or three years, there was Altamont, which I played, too, which was the darkest, most frightening day I’ve ever spent in music. The minute I got off of that stage, I took off. It was dreadful. Then it started to slide into this chaos. The ‘70s were one of the darkest decades.

Right, so then, if you look at history’s cyclical nature, we’re seeing a similar pattern as what took place nearly half a century ago.

Then you have to look back thousands of years. There’s some validity to the story of Genesis — that man is determined to destroy each other in some way, shape, or form. I don’t hold the ‘60s up as some wonderful time. A few years were great. I think my generation were trampling on all those things I told you about that kept our civilization pretty much in order — the values and things. But we’re not going to talk about that. We’ll talk about music. Music never dies.

When it was confirmed to me on that Monday that Tom passed away, I was so much in shock that I said to the guys, “We’re going to cancel the next four shows and go home.” Roger McGuinn called me — I hadn’t spoken to him in a year or two — he called me up to talk about Tom. I said, “I’m going to cancel and go home.” He said, “No, you’re not. Tom wouldn’t want you to cancel your shows.” Tom and Roger were very close friends for years and years. Roger laid it out to me in a gentle way. I said, “You’re absolutely right.” We continued on and finished the shows in Tom’s honor.

So then how did the album’s significance change in light of his passing?

Here’s the fine line: I am not using this as an opportunity. I’d rather have that album in the trashcan and him alive. It’s a very touchy subject for me. Here was a man who was an incredibly big rock star, but he had more of a grip on humility than any of us can aspire to, and I’m a Christian. We aspire to have that virtue of humility. He had it. Every morning, he would come into the studio with a tray of coffee. He didn’t have one of his employees bring it. One time, I drove up and I was getting stuff out of the car, and he said, “Let me take that for you.”

I can see why you’d want to be protective of that.

Tom’s death shocked everybody in the world. The thing he possessed besides humility, he was so accessible as an artist. His music affected everybody in a positive way — 40 years, an incredible catalog of work. Everyone could relate to Tom Petty. He was everyman. The absolute best rock guy we had, post-Beatles. I didn’t see any health issues with him. He had something with his knee or his hip that is common territory, when you get into your late 60s.

It was so unexpected. In that spirit, then, what you were able to accomplish on this record …

I wanted to do a great album. The opportunity coming along when I wasn’t going to record anymore … One of the last conversations I had with Tom — the album was about wrapping up — I said, “Tom, I can’t thank you enough. This exceeded my expectations.” He said, “It exceeded my expectations.” I said, “It’s a wonderful way to end my career.” He said, “What are you talking about? I’m not done with you. I’ve got other plans for you. We’re going to get to do some more stuff.” I thought, “Wow.” That was nice to hear. If anybody could’ve put the Byrds back together — Roger, David, and me — it would’ve been Tom. He knew us all so well. It didn’t happen, but that’s okay. We all loved him. If you didn’t know Petty, you loved him.

Ruby’s Smoky Okra & Tomato Preserves

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s fall, y’all. It’s cashmere and comfort. It’s long hikes on crunchy leaves and drives through the scenic routes where colors do, in fact, burst forth from the trees. It’s also the exiting of stability in nature and the timid welcoming of something far more fragile and rapidly changing. It’s the time to be wide awake and appreciate every moment because, before we know it, it’ll be gone. Take a farm’s crops, for example. Tomatoes, strawberries, and okra come to mind. I go to Green Door Gourmet Farm every summer to pick strawberries. Now it’s October, and there’s not a fresh strawberry to be found in those fields. (Strawberry fields are, in fact, not forever.)

Last year in Tennessee, I noticed that a lot of trees lost their leaves far too soon for my taste. I walked outside on a Monday and noticed that the maple tree by my driveway had turned from green to red to barren of leaves in under seven days. Not gonna lie: It startled my psyche. Gone so soon? But, but, but … it was JUST here! No, Mama Nature! No!

After I stopped pouting about it, I put on “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds and I made a decision to spend more time outside the next time fall came around. I realized a profound truth that day: There is a season for everything in this life. Nothing stays the same forever. It’s all about savoring the moment because it’s simply not going to last. So I besiege you, dear friends … observe all of the beauty … enjoy every moment … and eat all the okra.

Ingredients

Smoky Okra
1 Tbsp ghee
2 lbs okra, cut length wise with heads still on
1 Tbs safflower oil
1 Tbsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste*

Tomato Preserves
28 oz can fire roasted tomatoes (not low sodium)
1 small yellow onion or 1/2 large yellow onion, coarsely chopped
2 large garlic cloves
1/2 cup turbinado cane sugar or the like
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp salt (kosher preferred)
1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

* I mean that literally: Season it, taste the raw okra, then add more salt and pepper, if it doesn’t taste good. What a concept, eh?

Directions

Tomato Preserves
Place tomatoes, onions, and garlic in food processor and pulse until it’s the texture of preserves (not quite pureed). Pour tomato mixture into a sauce pot and add all of the other ingredients. Stir and cook on medium until mixture is reduced to half.

Skim off tomato juice that forms on the top and reserve for a delicious salad dressing. 

Once tomato mixture is reduced to the consistency of preserves, turn off heat and transfer to jar and let cool.

Okra
Place a flat baking sheet pan into the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Toss okra with safflower oil in a bowl. Pull out hot sheet pan from oven and add ghee to pan. As the ghee melts, pour out the okra onto the pan and toss it in the ghee. Spread okra evenly out onto the pan and add smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and coat okra evenly. Place back in oven and toss every five minutes until okra is crispy.

Lightning Bolt Writing: A Conversation with Yola Carter

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Yola Carter had planned to start her solo career slowly. Play some shows, work up some songs, settle in with a band. Make an EP. Take her time with an album. Build up an audience gradually and carefully.

It’s not going that way at all.

Following a brief UK tour this Summer, she made her U.S. debut at AmericanaFest in September, which was rapturously received and put her in touch with numerous labels along Music Row. Suddenly everything sped up. That EP wouldn’t wait, and Carter released Orphan Offering in November. She is set to sign with a label and launch more tours in 2017, with a full-length debut not too far off on the horizon. She is one of the grassroots success stories of 2016.

“I had planned to do a small thing and put it out on Bandcamp or TuneCore,” she says. “Just something to say, 'This is what I’m about. I’m here.' Then I got to Nashville, and it did not check out like that. So this whole slow thing I was doing — it’s over. It’s a real blessing, but it does make you hectic.”

Hers is an inevitable, but still somewhat unlikely, rise. Carter possesses a voice that is at once powerful and gentle, exuberant and melancholy, with a subtle, soulful drawl bending her vowels. She might be an even better songwriter, though, breathing new life into familiar country and gospel conventions and making them sound fresh and urgent. And yet, at a time when Beyoncé’s foray into Dixieland jazz and Nashville twang stirred up a controversy about what is and isn’t country music, this “Black chick from the UK” is intent not so much to break new ground, but to show that the ground she’s standing on is historically solid.

“All of the things that fall under the umbrella of Americana are so intrinsically linked,” she says. “I think that’s why I love it so much. I think that’s why I connect to country of the past. I love how closely connected everything was — gospel and country and soul and everything.”

Growing up as one of very few Black children in a predominantly white seaside town near Bristol, Carter gravitated toward country music — the Byrds and Dolly Parton — feeling a connection to these stories of poverty and struggle, of determination and self-definition. But the market for a Black, English country singer was nonexistent, and Carter felt her only outlets were with other genres. So she toured with Massive Attack and West London DJ collective Bugz in the Attic before forming a band called Phantom Limb, which released two solid country-rock albums.

Carter spent years building up to a solo career, but the struggle has been worthwhile, if only because it gives her perspective now that everything is speeding up. “I’m not a spring chicken,” she says with a laugh. “Maybe if I was in my late teens, I would be bricking it, as we say in the UK. If you don’t know what you want from a scenario, it’s scary for sure. But I’m not here to date. I’m a marriage kind of artist.”

Orphan Offering is, of course, an extremely important record for you. What did you want to get across to people on your first solo release?

This record was very much like the tip of the iceberg for me. At the time I came up with a collection of songs, I had a small setup — cello and fiddle and acoustic and electric. I was just calling people up to see how the songs would turn out and, when I realized they were going to turn out, I thought I should get some of them down. So these songs were the beginning of a bigger story that’s going to be told over the next two records, one of which I’ve already written and the other I’m almost finished writing. The EP is part of a greater thought. Everything I’m writing is very autobiographical.

But I also want to get across my love of country and Southern soul and the Staple Singers. I understand that country means different things to different people. Some people are more on the bro side of things, and some people think the Byrds are country. That’s the crowd I sit in. Hey, I’m just a Black chick from the UK, but Sweetheart of the Rodeo is a big record for me. I have this conversation with people all the time. They ask me, "How country are you?" And I’m like, "I’m country. Cooouuunnntrryyy." As opposed to the kind of rock music country that we have nowadays. So it’s important for me to express my love for that ‘60s country and that ‘60s gospel, Stax and Muscle Shoals and stuff like that. I think it’s country of an era more than it’s country of a particular place.

Some people in the States wouldn’t consider a lot of that music to be country, but it all definitely comes from the same place and, in some cases, from the same people.

I’ve been having this conversation with myself. Is it through the prism of my blackness that the music becomes something other than country? If I don’t sing it with exactly the same lilt as someone else would, does it then turn back into something else? Are we going to racialize music forever and ever? And, if we are, what do we say about hip-hop when white people do it? What do we call that? We don’t have another name for it. And we shouldn’t have another name for it. Music should be judged by your ears. It is what you think it is. Whatever gets you off.

Have you noticed a difference between UK and U.S. audiences? Do they respond differently to your music?

It’s still the early days with this project and, really, the only tour we did was this Summer. But my experience of that tour in the UK was really great, really well received, and really enthusiastic. I got the same thing when I was in Nashville [for AmericanaFest]. The distinction that I make is that American audiences might be more expressive in one way and British audiences might be expressive in another way. It’s more about language than enthusiasm.

There really is a massive appetite for American music over here, and the entire infrastructure has expanded to compensate for it. You’ve got to understand: We didn’t have an Americana chart or an awards show or radio shows dedicated to playing roots or country or whatever you want to call it. But over the past five years or so, it’s just grown and grown. It’s changed our perception of what we’ve been able to do with the genre in this country, which is encouraging to me because I’ve been trying to peddle it for such a long time. So it’s a really wonderful thing that’s happening over here right now. It’s exciting.

Do you think you could have gotten such an enthusiastic response at an earlier moment?

It’s definitely good timing. The environment has changed for the genre. The infrastructure has changed. That whole process of spending your radio time explaining to people what your genre is, what your connection to it is as a Black woman … that conversation is getting shorter. The upside is that you can move along to actually promoting your record instead of leading a class in American Music 101. People don’t want to feel like they’re going to school when they’re just trying to enjoy themselves and connect with something.

But we still have people with a selective memory, when it comes to the origins of rock 'n' roll or the influence it had on the genesis of country music as it transformed out of mountain music. We’re still having a conversation about Beyoncé and how appropriate that is for the CMAs. That’s not surprising over here, but it does seem like we’re having a lot less of them. So that’s great. And it’s good that we’re talking about it and people are writing about it. It’s important to have that conversation about American music, because it’s a rich, amazing history.

I read that you play fiddle. Are you playing on the EP?

No, I’m not playing on the EP, but I used to play fiddle. My bow hand is still alright. It hasn’t got all heavy and clunky and confused. It’s still good. I can hold a melody. That was me growing up. I got attached to things in bluegrass because of the fiddle. I love double-stop fiddles and I think that was one of my gateway drugs into Americana music — CSN to start with and Neil Young. I was very much on the alt side of things when I came in, and then I slowly centered on Dolly and the Byrds. It was all very piecemeal, which is what you got in this country. It’s like you’re just bumping into things over and over and, every time you bump into something, you get a greater understanding of what it speaks to in you.

As a kid, it was Dolly and the fact that she was a woman writing about her life. That really got me because of my own environment. I wanted to write like her and sing like her. Then I bumped into other people. I had a lot of Gene Clark for a while, just for song structure, and I had my time with Joni [Mitchell] — maybe less than I should have. I started getting into the Dillards and just all the way across American music. The Staple Singers landed about that time, and Mavis is still one of my greatest heroes, musically. Soul Folk in Action changed me. We all know Ray Charles did what he did with that amazing country record, but I needed to hear someone with a similar vocal timbre doing things that I was reaching for. As female singer/songwriters, we need matriarchs sometimes.

Before she passed, my mum told me that she had a Staples' record that she used to play in the house when I was really small. It was the only one of that kind of music she had, so she wouldn’t let me touch it. So I never touched it and never knew it was there until she told she’d had the thing the whole time. Are you kidding me? I‘d been trying to reach for something, but didn’t know what it was. My mum was really into music and had a sizable record collection that was pretty diverse. She used to be a hospital DJ. She was a psychiatric nurse, and she’d play mostly disco, but sometimes soul music for the mentally infirm. That was her job.

Orphan Offering seems to be addressing some aspects of your youth.

“Orphan Country” is very much about me growing up in that seaside town. There’s a show in the UK called Keeping Up Appearances, and the title says everything. It’s about the working class in the UK trying to deny where they’re at and trying to be socially mobile. Where I grew up was very much like that. It was people buying just outside of what they could afford and either keeping their shit together or going into debt. I grew up in that kind of insular environment. There was nothing there. It was a very conservative and pretty racist environment, so music was a real escape and a way to express myself without acting out. “Orphan Country” is about growing up in that place, being from a broken home, being from a place that doesn’t accept you one bit. All the things that are going on now are things that I grew up with.

People are talking about how surprised they are that this is still happening, but it’s not surprising if you grew up with it and lived with it. "Oh surprise, I was really racist." Yeah, we got the memo about 20 years ago. You can pretend you’re not racist, but we’ve got good Spidey sense for that institutional stuff and we know it’s just a matter of time before it rears its ugly head again. It goes in cycles, like ‘70s fashion. "Oh, flares are back? Great!" We won’t talk about these issues for a while, but then people will feel like they can punch a Black person again.

You mentioned that your next two albums will continue the narrative you started on Orphan Offering. It sounds like you’re writing with some very specific themes and stories in mind.

I’m dealing with a lot of personal issues that have been going on in my life, and I’m never going to get all of that onto just one record. These are the things that have been happening in my life and that are happening politically at the moment, which have to do with the perception of race. If you’re a Black woman, people automatically assume that the prefix “strong” can be applied to you, regardless of how you’re feeling at the time. I’m dealing with that. In this solo environment, I have new opportunities to express myself in less general ways than I have in the past. I don’t have to write about everyone. I can be personal. Freedom isn’t something that I’m used to, because I’ve never gone solo before. But I’ve got a lot to stay about these issues and about life, in general, especially coming out of a really awful, awful relationship.

It’s obviously cathartic, but I think it’s essential that I don’t just write in a woe-is-me way all the time. I’m writing to make people aware of situations or to be a mouthpiece for something that happens to my particular demographic or to us in the West on a grander scale. So this little EP — bless it — is the tip of a slightly angry iceberg. I do a little venting, but there’s a lot of hope and love and kindness. And a lot of "What the fuck?!" People always ask me, "What are your themes? What are you working with?" I’m working with "What the fuck?!" A lot of people are working with that sentiment right now. I think it’s appropriate.

I know I’m not going to save the world with a song, but I am going to be able to process things. And that’s enough. People are starting to feel a need for a little bit of protest. Not too much. We need to have fun, too. It can’t all be serious all the time, but I’m going to try to keep the tradition alive that’s been going on since the ‘50s and ‘60s: uptempo music with a happy melody and sad subject matter. There’s a song that will be on the album, I hope, when I find the producer I want. It’s called “Free to Roam,” and you listen to it and you swear it’s the greatest party you’ve ever been to. But then you read the words — it’s not exactly joyful. You have to put a little sugar with the medicine.

It’s the Woody Guthrie approach. You add a little humor and humanity to the anger and the outrage.

That’s the balance I’m after. I wrote about 50 songs. They just appeared out of nowhere in a very short space of time. I had been backed up, creatively, so I had a big old purge. And it hasn’t stopped. My writing process involves a lot of waking up with an idea. I call it lightning bolt writing. It just arrives. I’m just waiting. I’m dousing for it. I’m always trying to get myself into the right headspace for a song to turn up, and I’ve started getting very good at creating a good environment for that process. So I’m hoping that some of the songs are quite immediate, that they really get you. I go to shows and I see people mouthing the words. The band just learned the song, and people are already singing along!

 

For more on the intersection of race and country music, read our Squared Roots interview with Rhiannon Giddens about Dolly Parton.

Photos courtesy of the artist.