Coming off the relatively recent success as a collaborator on the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" film soundtrack, singer-songwriter Gillian Welch just completed work on her fourth album "Soul Journey" produced by David Rawlings. The work incorporates hints of many styles like bluegrass, folk and country with spontaneous solo, duo and band sessions. Welch used many of those first takes that almost always capture the emotional depth of the lyrics, singing and instrumentation (organ, drums, banjo, fiddle, harmonica, bass and guitar) for this work.
Wy this week talked with the Grammy winner about the process in making what she considers to be her most personal and impromptu recording to date.
Welch: I think people grow in different ways to express one's self. This record was all about opening up my head and dumping out the contents. It was less edited, and more extemporaneous and organic. I see it as a health food record mixed with soul food. Perhaps it's because that's all we ate when making the record.
The words to your lyrics in both the chorus and verse seem to have a consistent meter and in terms of the number of syllables similar to that of many poems. What is your writing process like? Do you think of a melody and find words that fit or do you start with the words first and move onto a melody?
It depends, but usually they come at the same time. Once I have the first verse and the chorus, the second and third verses are much easier to write because I have the music and I can write it because the melody already exists. Sometimes a song will transform itself into something else and even if a song changes, I just go along with it.
You have a really nice vocal range that's very subtle and soft. Some singers tend to get louder when hitting the high notes and softer when sustaining the low notes. Is it hard to remain consistently soft when hitting both those high and low notes? Is this something you practice?
I wish I could say yes, but I'm pretty much a natural singer. I try to avoid studying voice because I think it messes me up and there's nothing worse than technique screwing up my style. I think if you go that route, you have to be really committed to go all the way and learn all of the tools to become so proficient you can forget those tools, and it just becomes something you can do. I never did that with the singing. Most of the time people just put on a record, sing along and learn by emulation of that work.
This album seems to have what I call a 'first take' vibe in that it seems as though once certain elements like rhythm or instrumentation were locked down, then you or the group just played. Did you use many of those first takes on the album? What were the studio sessions like for this project?
I think of this album as a really spontaneous record. So that makes it easier to be direct in a performance because I haven't shifted brain space from when I wrote the songs. We had some good times in the studio. With 10, 20 or 30 takes you get numb, and you get further and further away from the simple idea that first started the song. Yes, most of the takes on the album are first takes; they turned out to be the best. Even if those first takes have some mistakes, they are honest mistakes and those honest mistakes are fine. We rolled tape for four days and never listened to the playbacks, we just listened to what we had at the end. Some of the guys cranked out so much and said it was the most playing they had ever done. It was a really fun way to burn a lot of tape as a way of making a record.
If I'm not mistaken, the song 'No One Knows My Name' is something related to not knowing your father or being adopted. Is this an accurate interpretation?
Yes, I think that song has tones of bluegrass music in the sense that the actual music is very happy-sounding but when you listen to the words it's about something really depressing. It is probably the most plain-spoken and personal song on the record. When I wrote some of these songs, I didn't think I was writing them to put on a record, I was just writing songs for myself. I think I say things about myself straight out to the listener. I put the subject of me being adopted right out there. I wanted to go to a place and write a song that dealt with me wondering who my dad was.
I love the last song 'Wrecking Ball' (no relation to Neil Young's version) because there are so many things going on as far as the arrangement and the instrumentation, but it never feels cluttered and I think that's partly due to your vocal style. It seems like the most improvised song on the album. Did you guys just let it roll on this tune?
Yes, we just started to play the music. It's the most organic jam on the record. We weren't ever officially tracking it, we just said, 'Let's just jam.' We played it once and that was it. No one was taking it seriously, we were just having a good time and I think it comes across as that way. The rest of the record is plenty serious and it's great in both ways because there are different feelings from music that come up throughout, and that's kind of all you want for an album.
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