Artist: Abbie Gardner
Hometown: Jersey City, New Jersey
Song: “Born in the City”
Album: DobroSinger
Release Date: May 13, 2022
In Their Words: “This song started with the lick — a slinky little chromatic pattern I’d been messing around with on Dobro. I brought it to Will Kimbrough and we built the song around it. He had just warmed up some rice & beans for lunch when I’d arrived. We got to talking about our mutual love of Ry Cooder and other influences. I told him how I grew up near NYC, in a community that celebrated cultural differences as something special. All of these things ended up in the song, happily! I like that this song brings together a back-porch vibe with some big-city chromatic slide guitar licks. The contrasting combination is kind of like me — playing this traditionally male bluegrass instrument, but doing it as a woman, in Jersey City within view of the Empire State Building.” — Abbie Gardner
Photo Credit: Neale Eckstein