Welcome to The Working Songwriter, the show where today’s best songwriters come to talk shop. Each episode we host a distinguished guest and we ask them to go deep on their inspiration, their process, and the general ups and downs of making a life in music. Whether you’re a grizzled veteran picking out custom chrome trim for your tour bus or a scrappy upstart, trying to determine whether your Toyota Tercel can make it through a three thousand mile tour, this is your show. Because, ultimately, it is what every writer seeks most. An ironclad excuse to put off actually writing.
Our guest this week on The Working Songwriter hails from The Woodlands, Texas. Hayes Carll is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller whose sharp wit and plainspoken poetry first broke through with his 2002 debut, Flowers & Liquor. That was followed by 2008’s Trouble in Mind, which delivered the hit “She Left Me for Jesus” and cemented his place among the genre’s most distinctive voices.
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Carll has toured with artists like Old Crow Medicine Show, Todd Snider, and Alison Krauss and his songs have been covered by Miranda Lambert, Lee Ann Womack, and Kenny Chesney. He’s recorded for Lost Highway, Dualtone, and Thirty Tigers and he’s performed on stages from Newport Folk Festival to Austin City Limits and the Grand Ole Opry.
Rolling Stone praises his work for its “razor-sharp wit and lived-in warmth,” while NPR notes his “keen eye for the human condition wrapped in disarming charm.” American Songwriter calls him “one of Americana’s most reliable truth-tellers.”
Photo courtesy of the artist.
