As the frontman of a well-oiled, American roots rock ’n’ roll quartet, Massachusetts native Stephen Kellogg is no stranger to the road.
The singer/songwriter/ guitarist and his sidemen, The Sixers — drummer Brian “Boots” Factor, bassist and pianist Keith “Goose” Karlson and guitarist Chris Soucy — are so at home on the bandstand that they spent exactly nine days recording the tracks to their latest album, “Glassjaw Boxer.” That’s not to say they don’t like being at home, spending time with friends and family, but it just so happens that the group, in recent memory, has traveled the country, and in fact, racked up nearly 300 shows in a year.
Kellogg said his biggest regret is feeling like he hurried through a project that usually takes a bit more time; nonetheless, the result is an untreated collection of songs with a style evoking a kind of musical realism, which is to say most of the songs on the album don’t disappoint when played on stage. The songs’ recorded textures as heard through an iPod or stereo are easily recreated when played live because they don’t stray into a world of slick productions.
It's great to know that a musician as artistic and engaging as singer/songwriter Randy Weeks is a local.
I first discovered Weeks at the downtown Hermosa Beach club Café Boogaloo where he often plays and with the thrilling guitarist Tony Gilkyson. It was around the time Weeks was preparing to go back into the studio with a follow-up work to the marvelous “Sold Out at the Cinema” released in 2003.
Well, the time has finally come as Weeks at the tail end of summer released his new work, “Sugar Finger.” Weeks completed three albums as a solo musician - the first was “Madeline” in 2000 - and soon after began his biweekly residency at the Cinema Bar with Gilkyson and Mike Stinson who have also played on his albums.
“Ollabelle came together because of these musicians' love of this music, without thought of success or career or any of the other trappings of the modern professional music business. It has great value to our culture, adding new life to a tradition that is an important part of who we are. But mostly, they sound great. They sing great and they play great, and they are wonderful people,” said legendary producer and musician T-Bone Burnett of the band Ollabelle.
Named after Ola Belle Reed, a traditional North Carolina Appalachian singer born in 1916, the quintet of New York City transplants (with the exception of singer Amy Helm) all met at the Nine C club in Manhattan's East Village now called Banjo Jim's. One of its members, Tony Leone, a Connecticut native, migrated to the big city of dreams to work as a jazz drummer, and met bassist and former Indiana resident Byron Isaacs; guitarist and singer Fiona McBain, from Sydney, Australia; and keyboardist Glenn Patscha, originally from Winnipeg, Canada, who spent about 10 years living in New Orleans.
Whether it's about a socialite with an expensive drug habit, a movie star crashing his car on the Santa Monica freeway, a woman who commits suicide by jumping off a bridge or a man finding his gal in bed with his best friend, there is no doubt that singer/songwriter Jackie Greene has a penchant for the unlucky, the disenchanted.
Greene's new album “American Myth” released last month on the Verve Forecast label is the latest installment from a musician who has began to make quite a name for himself as a true American troubadour.
“These songs are all intended to paint a picture of America, in sort of a nonspecific way,” said Greene.
Not only does Greene write lyrics that feature many different walks of life but he also expands upon his many influences to create songs with interesting and melodic hooks that have a taste for the blues, rock and country.
“I try and incorporate all of what I like into my songs, I don't try to censor myself,” said Greene on his wide range of influences that sneak into his work. “I only can make the record I am happy with. I do what I can to try and keep it coherent, but I'm not killing myself over it.”
Greene grew up in Cameron Park, a small town 30 miles outside Sacramento where he taught himself music on the piano in the house. Greene then transitioned over to the guitar, one his father left after his parents split.
As a boy, Greene first took notice to bands like Metallica, Nirvana and Pearl Jam but then turned a corner the summer prior to his freshman year in high school when he discovered his parents' LPs of rock, country, blues and R&B like Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Leadbelly and Muddy Waters.
Greene's recent work “American Myth” constitutes his second album with the label and displays a shift in the recording process in that the record has a live, first-take ambiance as opposed to the overdubbed yet still just as superb “Sweet Somewhere Bound” released in 2005.
“The last album, it just wasn't possible for me to play everything at once, and it was a little bit more meticulous,” said Green about “Sweet Somewhere Bound.” “I had to lay down the guitar parts and drum parts and so on. This new album was recorded better in that we had a much bigger budget so we had better musicians, a lot better gear. At this point in my life, I enjoy playing with a group. There is a whole aspect when you have other people in the room playing with you, it's not just one brain, it's four brains working on one song. They bring to the table all these different elements that you wouldn't get by doing yourself.”
For “American Myth,” Greene recorded with a stellar cast of players including Elvis Costello's borrowed rhythm section bassist Davey Faragher and drummer Pete Thomas, along with Val McCallum, who Green said is one of the “best guitar players” he's ever heard “in his life.”
“A lot of the songs, at least half of them if not more, are live vocals, I had this thing about sitting in a room and recording with a band, a lot of my favorite records are done that way,” said Greene. “It's a way to tap into that burst of discovery and energy, and somehow you lose that when you keep going over things. There are benefits to both methods now that I've done it both ways.”
Both albums are packed with soulful renditions of Greene's original compositions in which the lyrics not only focus on the downtrodden but also a discontentment in life, lost love and regret, the kind of issues common to all people from a mayor to a drag queen to a waitress or a sailor - a few of the characters in “American Myth.” “You can find those kind of people anywhere, but in particular like places like Hollywood it seems like they are a little more abundant there, maybe,” said Greene about his song “Hollywood.” “That is just the way it seems to me. I'm not from there so I don't know but as far as down-and-out people, and whatnot, it's more that everybody has a void, and they deserve to be in songs too, I guess.”
Country artist Lucinda Williams once said, “Willie Nile is a great artist. If there was any justice in this world, I'd be opening up for him instead of him for me.”
Nile, who is a favorite among many songwriters, has yet to garner the kind of mainstream commercial recognition as his contemporaries Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, both of whom he is likened to.
Nile's most recent release, “Streets of New York,” has earned him acclaim from the likes of Lou Reed, Bono, Graham Parker, Jesse Malin and Adam Duritz.
Nile was born in 1949 in Buffalo, N.Y., where he grew up in a musical household thanks to his Irish-Catholic family members.
“My brothers would bring home rock 'n' roll records like the Beatles, Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, the Stones, Dylan and in my home there was a lot of classical music so I was really blessed with a lot of music around,” he said.
His parents observed a policy in which houseguests from all over the world came to stay with the family for extended periods, which had a profound effect on Nile.
Growing up on the East Coast, Nile developed a penchant for the ocean from family vacations (a tradition maintained through the generations beginning with Nile's grandfather) to the coast of New Hampshire.
Ever since the advent of longtime popular expressions, people have managed to transform the original intent of common phrases by using them in a scenario that isn't exactly the most appropriate to its true meaning.
One example is the term "suit yourself," which frequently appears in conversations conveying a tone of disagreement. One person may wish to go, for instance, to a tailgate party before a football game while another doesn't, and might subsequently hear, "OK, suit yourself," which seems to infer that by disagreement one is missing out on something.
The phrase, in all of its proposed meanings, seems the most appropriate when used in the context of neutrality - a statement that someone should accommodate one's self by acting in a manner that best fits one's own disposition exclusive of anyone else's actions.
The term seems to have been used as intended in the case of musician Shelby Lynne. She aptly titled her latest work "Suit Yourself" based on what one can only assume was how she wrote and recorded an album to her liking, which is now out on Capitol Records.
It's always worth a trip into Los Angeles to hear a set of songs that maintain the same spirit as their recorded selves, but within the context of a quartet.
The set of songs belonged to Detroit native Brendan Benson's show at the El Rey Theater this past Tuesday.
Benson's albums carry immense musical charm and that is enough even if you don't get to hear the sound of a school bell in his song "Spit it out Now" - its video I recently saw broadcasting in Nordstrom's juniors department - or the patchwork of vocal patterns at the end of "The Alternative to Love," which is the title track to his new album out on V2 Records.
Benson is currently plowing through the last leg of a long-winded tour promoting his new record.
He played tunes ("Tiny Spark," "Metarie," "You're Quite") off his last album "Lapalco" released in 2002 (StarTime Records). He recorded his major label debut "One Mississippi" in 1996 under the Virgin Records label and was subsequently dropped.
According to legend, Benson used the last of his advance money courtesy of Virgin Records to buy a house in Detroit, turning part of it into a studio and pockets of creative spaces where the keys might stand.
The tiny Benson, wearing a V-neck white T-shirt, reflected off the crowd like a well-tuned jazz man, although not as tuned up on his acoustic guitar - the crowd waited dizzyingly as he fixed it.
The group of men playing bass, keys, two guitars and drums also played "Metarie" - the delicate drumming on the chorus had a little more meat on its bones that the recorded version.
Benson did give a "shout out" to Los Angeles with the line "I know a guy, lives in Los Angeles," and then substituting the next line, "Sometimes his life there makes me so jealous" with "I can't figure out why" on the song "Metarie."
Benson continues with a progressive maturity in the department of love in all different forms - from the demise of a relationship to a friend's betrayal to the delusions of an obsessive fan - with "The Alternative to Love" compared to "Lapalco."
Benson has a talent just like Joni Mitchell for creating a sense of identity between their music and the listener through a brilliant rush of lyrics that voice applicable situations, tendencies and personalities expressed by relatable characters speaking in first-, second- and third-person musical narratives. When Benson stands up in front of a crowd and sings, you can't help but feel compelled to stick around after a show and ask him which tunes are actually autobiographical. He so easily slips into the perspectives of various human creatures with all of their flaws and virtues. Like a good piece of fiction, he evokes sympathy in the unsympathetic.
Aside from the lyrics, Benson has also shown his knack for basic composition, writing songs that are brimming with melody, and as once again evident on the new album, the beauty of a rousing arrangement. Benson, born in 1970, left his birthplace of Detroit with his mother and settled a poor neighborhood in New Orleans. He left for Los Angeles when he was 18 and returned to the Big Easy to record "One Mississippi."
If you like Benson on record then you'll probably dig him live and at the end, only wish he played longer.
The first time The Beach Reporter interviewed musician Paul Brill in January 2004, he'd already embarked on a different kind of musical pilgrimage in the writing of songs for his new album, "New Pagan Love Song."
At the time, Brill attributed his shift in symphonic direction as a departure from his past singer/ songwriter endeavors - "Sisters" and "Halve The Light" - and rooted himself in a solo exploration of the world of electronica, transpiring within the confines of his New York City apartment.
Since then, Brill has released the new album on his label Scarlet Shame Records, which achieves an intriguing and distinctive stylistic palette by incorporating samples, loops and beats from the electronic side with live acoustic instrumentation.
Of course, the method of fusing two stylistic palettes is nothing unique for either listeners or musicians, but the element that sets Brill's work apart from others on the market is his delicate approach to a new sonic medium and his strong footing in live performance. This kind of mindfulness is what creates the sentiment that he built the songs from the bottom up.
Aside from the engaging arrangements and charming melodies, Brill also illustrates his clever knack for writing poignant songs, which stream like miniature stories, augmented with keen imagery as he has demonstrated so impressively in the past on previous songs.
Brill, a native of New York, labored over the songs in his home and eventually recorded them with a group of rather impressive musicians whom he has collaborated with on prior recordings.
Brill this week talked about the new work and some of the stories behind the songs. He will perform at the University of Southern California April 5 and at Spaceland in Silverlake April 6.
I heard you were in the band SF Envelope while living in San Francisco. What ever happened with that group?
We were in California in the mid- to late-1990s and we had some good success in San Francisco. We had a nice following and we started to grab the attention of a lot of labels but we just decided to do it on our own and tour a lot. We were getting a lot of interest and by the end there were a few offers that were getting close but our hearts weren't in it as much. Personally, the music that we were doing didn't jive with what I was listening to and the stuff that I wanted to be doing, and it was hard to try to make that whole band change because it wasn't just me.
What kind of music was it?
It was rock. It was kind of loud and heavy at times, and sometimes it was really soft and ethereal. It was a very important and formative time in terms of getting to know the road and see if it was something that I would want to do, if I could hack it and get a taste for what the business is all about.
Is this time when you got into the whole country and bluegrass scene?
Yeah, pretty much. It wasn't just country but a lot of old-time traditional, American roots music, black and white and western swing and old country blues. But just not the straight-ahead heavy electric guitar with a Marshall stack. I haven't really done a lot of live electric work since then.
Did your opinion of the heavy stuff change for good?
No, I definitely love it still and I'll always lean back to that period. There was so much good music made then and a lot of stuff that is still being done now that I love. I'm still a sucker for a great pop rock song in an AC Newman kind of way, Fountains of Wayne, even.
Did this change in music alter your approach to songwriting?
Kind of. I think I pretty much have the same approach to songwriting initially up until this last record actually. I would still sit down with an acoustic guitar or piano, write a song, work out the words and come up with its structure. If I was in a professional studio environment there was always that limitation that I'm rushing through because of time and budgetary restraints, and we'd end up recording it very literally according to the way it was written. This last record, which I recorded myself, I had afforded myself a much broader and greater length of time and freedom to experiment.
The idea of telling a story in the context of a song has always been really important to you just like in many old country songs.
Yeah, especially on this record. I've always attempted to tell a story in a song and I think some of my earlier stuff was a little bit more oblique in the writing. I made a conscious effort on this record to try to be a little bit more literal and more direct with the narrative. Sometimes, I think it worked (laughs), it still has its oblique moments. I still got to keep a little mystery in it.
You're from New York City and live there now, but you have lived in the woods of Vermont for a couple of years, too. What do you think living in the city versus living in the country does for your creativity?
It's tough to say. I think I was too young to know any kind of difference in the inspiration or creativity. At this point, I think I'm a little too wedded to the lifestyle, buzz and rush of the city and its cultural assimilation. You walk down the street and you're bombarded with all of these images of culture and language, and it's overwhelming. It's also inspirational, eye-opening and mind-boggling - it's every emotion mixed into one. It's kind of a natural environment for me. There was a time when I was going to try and move back to Vermont and live that life, and I just don't think I could do it now. It's a little too homogenous, but there are elements of that life I do still miss. It was so bucolic and ideal, but that is the continual urge to get away from where you are, the grass-is-greener notion.
The last time we spoke, you mentioned how much time you were spending alone making music in the comfort and solitude in your own home. Did you ever find when working alone that you kind of got sucked into a space in which after a while you had some challenges in determining what was good, decent or something considered a dead end?
Sure, that's a great point. That's exactly what happens. I feel terrible for writers, it's just so much harder and a far nobler pursuit in my mind. Generally, when you do a record in a collaborative situation, there are people around you who are going to give you your feedback along the way and you do get a sense that you are accomplishing what you set out to accomplish. But when you're sitting at home for eight months laboring over tempos and moving things around - I was doing stuff that I had never done before with this record - and I remember thinking that people might not like this. I just thought that was where my heart was since I was listening to a lot of electronic music. I was reaching for something and I still am but I just had to try because I couldn't do another singer/songwriter record. It was killing me.
With this album, I think I was most impressed with the synthesis you've created between electronic textures and acoustic instrumentation. They blend so well together and it's nice to hear that kind of continuum.
A lot of it is happy accident. I really did think that I was going to be doing more of an electronic record, to me it was an electronic record, but then I listened back and it was my version of an electronic record. I didn't want to abandon songwriting or the organic side of what I do. I thought it would be interesting and fresh if I could somehow mix what I had been doing in the past, and bring in instruments and sounds that could elevate it and give it a distinctive voice. Each time you've got to step into the breach and just say, 'To hell with it," and go with what sounds good at the moment.
The song 'Weekday Bender' sounds like it was written on the beach somewhere about you and friends back in the day.
Yeah, that's way true, definitely. That's when I was living in San Francisco and it was a great time. I had just gotten there and my friends and I, none of us had jobs, and we would tour and rent out our apartments and hit the road for two months. We'd come back, live off the little money we made off the road and then go back out. We'd go on these trips during the week and let it rip. Those are some of my greatest memories and I made a conscious effort to capture that dusty California feeling in the song.
From this song you transition to a song like 'Power Lines' which I don't know if it was written in the winter but it definitely feels like a winter song.
Yes, it was and it is a wintry tale. It is a very autobiographical song, probably the most I've ever written. It was really satisfying to record and I struggled with it because I didn't want it to be a sappy acoustic guitar ballad. No disrespect to anyone who does that, I've done plenty myself. I feel like I hit something new with myself.
One of my favorite songs is 'Everything I Believe In' which has a beautiful sound to it but with some sad lyrics.
That song is loosely based on a friend of mine who was killed. It's just a horrible story. He called me to say that he was moving to New York, he had just got a job here and the first day he was here, he went out with his sister. They came home really late and a little drunk, and he and his friend went to an ATM to get money for the cab. They were held up and details are pretty sketchy, but the story his friend tells is that he was going to fight the muggers and they just shot him, but there was a big investigation and they actually arrested the friend on suspicion. It's still an open case.
If you're someone who's satisfied with the policies of the current administration, support the war in Iraq and voted for George W. Bush this past November, chances are you skipped Texan native and rock veteran Steve Earle and his band The Dukes performing Friday night at the Henry Fonda Theater.
Earle, from a small town outside San Antonio, played most of his songs off his new album "The Revolution Starts ... Now," a collection of musical stories that personify his disdain for the current political climate in America and his stance against the invasion of Iraq. The album interestingly weaves his personal opinions by telling the tales of an array of personalities (including himself and his family's history), some based in fiction and some in reality, who observe war from varying perspectives.
During the recording process, Earle and The Dukes - drummer Will Rigby, bassist Kelly Looney, guitarist Eric "Roscoe" Ambel, percussionist Patrick Earle and several others - worked 12- to 14-hour days inside a studio in Tennessee. In between breaks, they would talk about "the war, the election, baseball and women, in precisely that order," he said. The album was recorded in the spring of 2004 since it was Earle's goal to put out a record that would weigh on issues affecting the country before the presidential election took place last fall.
"The Revolution Starts ... Now" is dedicated to the late Johnny Cash and Warren Zevon and released on Artemis Records. It's the 16th album of Earle's career that spans 30 years.
The work just earned Earle a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album at Sunday's 47th annual awards ceremony. Earle has been nominated for nine Grammys throughout his career.
Born in Virginia where his father was stationed as an air traffic controller, Earle relocated to Texas with his family, grew up in a small town about 17 miles north of San Antonio and received his first guitar at the age of 11. At the age of 19, Earle left Texas for Nashville. Since then, he has been married six times to five different women and hit rock bottom as a junkie when he was arrested and sent to prison for possession of narcotics. He was paroled in 1994 and finally resurfaced as an alt-country legend.
On Friday, Earle, who is no stranger to writing socially and politically significant tunes, pontificated on the power of the working class, his fondness for Marxism and his beloved state of Texas.
Just as the recorded version of the song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron faded out, Earle opened the show with the new album's title track. Its chorus is one which stays in the head because of its unique emphasis on certain syllables (Yeah, The Rev-O-Lution Starts Now.)
Earle then shifted gears and sang the country "Home to Houston" with a vocal twang that fits the character he becomes - a Texan soldier who seems disillusioned with the war and prays for home. Earle's tone captures the naivete of a young man questioning the Iraq war who then adopts a new appreciation for life and swears he'll do different if he can safely return to his country - "And I offered this prayer to my lord/I said, "God get me back home to Houston alive/And I won't drive a truck anymore."
Just in the same way Michael Moore's documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" argues those without resources to attain upward mobility join the Armed Forces, sometimes become soldiers of war and inevitably pawns of white rich men, so does Earle's song "Rich Man's War."
"I have a lot of money for a borderline Marxist," said Earle. "This war was started by white rich men who are not going and their kids aren't going." Earle touched on the issue of the draft and said as long as there are young poor men who want a job or an education, there will be an endless supply of fire for the Bush administration. He then dedicated the song to the troops overseas.
Earle also performed the spoken-word lines of "Warrior" in a gritty tone on matters like the lack of media coverage of those who have died in Iraq. His verbal syncopation makes one think he's an avid listener of Tom Waits' "Nighthawks at the Dinner." Sitting underneath the loaded poetic lines came an opening and continuous guitar line reminiscent of The Doors' "The End," a drum pattern on the snare that one can't help but think of something from a military song and an instrumental hook line. Rigby appears to appreciate both the delicacy of a shaker and the boldness of his base and floor tom drums, the latter sounds especially on tunes that have a heavier rock groove like "Ashes to Ashes" that seem to cushion Earle's singing. The song comes from Earle's 2002 release "Jerusalem," which critics also consider a political album.
Rigby also possesses a delicate touch on the brushes that he used on his kit with melodic care and precision for the acoustic "The Gringo's Tale" as Earle's guitar picking slipped beautifully in between.
The crowd - a notably eclectic one ranging from cowboys, to soldiers to indie rock folks - attempted to softly sing the chorus to the ode to Woody Guthrie called "Christmas in Washington" off Earle's 1997 "El Corazon."
Earle invited opening act Alison Moorer whose voice blows most recent Grammy winners out of the water. Moorer, originally from Alabama, is a country singer who has incredible range, pitch and a strong pulse on the emotion behind every word she belts out.
He returned to the stage for four encores and singing two Rolling Stones covers including "Time," the Beatles' "Revolution" and "New Companion" by Townes Van Zandt.
Over the years, the renowned Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tenn., has been the recording home to many musicians since its establishment 38 years ago by John Fry.
The studio's early projects laid down such hits as "Soul Man" and "I'll Take You There" for Staxx Records. Over the years, the studio has become the recording ground for bands like Booker T and the MGs, Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers Band, Big Star, R.E.M. and solo musicians such as Bob Dylan, Al Green, Steve Earle, B.B. King, Waylon Jennings, Stevie Ray Vaughn and James Taylor.
For Cody and Luther Dickinson, members of the North Mississippi Allstars, spending time in Ardent Studios was just another day of hanging out with their old man at work. It was in this creative space where the well-known and local producer Jim Dickinson documented some of his milestone sessions with groups as varied and diverse as Spin Doctors, the Re-placements and Spiritualized.
"Recording studios can be a sterile environment especially compared to a rock 'n' roll club with a bunch of drunkards and cigarette smoke," said North Mississippi Allstars drummer Cody Dickinson. "So, I think some musicians go into a studio and think they are at the dentist office, but that was never really the case with me. I'm just as comfortable if not more comfortable than I am, say, on stage. I don't walk in with any sort of culture shock, I guess you could say. Not only are we comfortable in the studio but we understand the process of making a record."
Jim would drive to the studios with his children in tow where the Dickinson brothers witnessed hundreds of sessions. It was during this time that music stirred their little minds and souls, and the boys began to dream about being in a band. Cody notes California studio session drummer Jim Keltner (John Lennon, Arlo Guthrie, Mick Jagger, John Lee Hooker, Roy Orbison, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Brian Wilson, Neil Diamond and Elvis Costello, just to name a few) as one of his biggest influences.
"As a kid, I remember the first time I realized I had an instinct for music," recalled Cody. "I was riding with my dad in the car and I was about 4 or 5 years old. I asked him, 'Dad, you know how you can be listening to a song and you know what's going to happen next? What if you're wrong?' He said, 'You get fired.' I always thought that was a great answer."
As teen-agers, the boys (Cody on drums, and Luther on vocals and guitar) formed a punk trio called DDT with Paul Taylor, and toured as opening acts for the Replacements, Jakob Dylan and Ice-T.
"As a drummer, I learned to really progress it takes a lot of practice and focus," said Cody. "Anyone can sit behind a kit, bash out a drum beat and have a blast, it's a fun instrument to play. I was about 18 when I started practicing three to four hours a day and I noticed my progress. Any parent out there, who is worried about their kids playing music, has the wrong idea. When my friends were out there bashing mailboxes, stealing from the fireworks stand or whatever, I was at home practicing and here I am, I've made a career out of it.
"For me, keeping tempo is the most challenging. For me, when I listen to a band, if the drummer hasn't put in their time practicing, I can tell. There are things that you can't hide, not that that's a bad thing. Take Meg White from the White Stripes. She's brilliant, every gig she plays it sounds like it's the first time she's played the drums. I'm not taking away from that sort of innocent approach but for the most part, I would rather hear someone who has practiced."
Gutbucket was the acoustic adaptation of the Dickinson brothers that focused more on their musical heritage as Southerners. For one particular gig, the brothers performed as guest players with solo musician and bassist Chris Chew at his high school homecoming dance. Many different styles merged that fateful night and out of it came the North Mississippi Allstars.
"We are a jamband and I wear that label with pride because basically what that means, in my opinion, is bands that can play," said Cody. "We don't go out there because we look good or because we have a hit single, and people don't come to our shows to watch us shake our ass. People come to hear music and I think that if a jamband doesn't come with it, then (fans) don't give a damn about you.
"For example, The Strokes go out on stage and play a 45-minute set whereas we go out and play for two hours." In 1996, the band played its first gig with several famed southern musicians like blues great R.L. Burnside. From then on, Burnside, along with other old-school players of the past, shaped and cultivated the band's passion for the musical styles born out of the South. It was what influenced the band's studio works "Shake Hands with Shorty" in 2000 and "51 Phantom" in 2001. Both albums garnered Grammy nominations. The band completed 2003's "Polaris," a work that showcases Cody's talents as a drummer, and his first crack at songwriting as the writer of several tunes and a co-collaborator with his brother.
Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher heard one of the early demos of "One to Grow On" and sang on the track that made its way onto the album. The brothers first met Gallagher in 2001 while on tour in London where Gallagher and his Oasis band mates caught a few of the Allstars shows. Cody returned to London six months later for vacation and Gallagher invited him over to the studio where Oasis was recording, which became an experience that later became inspiration for a song on "Polaris." Coincidentally, the band recorded the album at Ardent Studios. Its yet-to-be-released work is due out in February 2005.
"In the past, we've done all of our CDs when we were off tour like a weekend here and a weekend there, but we just finished our most recent studio album called 'Electric Blue Watermelon' and we took a month off our touring to do it," said Cody. "It's a real cohesive piece of work and it's hard to make a real cohesive record with us not so much in terms of the stylistic differences. It has more to do with sporadic time frame. I think this new one is hands down our best one, I'm real excited about it."
With four studio projects under its belt, the Allstars also decided to put out a live album and what better stage than one from the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. The recently released "Hill Country Revue" is a snapshot from the three-day festival over the summer. Among the musicians playing with the Allstars are Burnside and Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson.
"Actually the hardest song to play was 'Boomer's Story' because I play guitar and sing on it, and I usually play the drums," remembered Cody. "I also had to sing with Chris Robinson so my knees were buckling. I was nervous as hell."
North Mississippi Allstars' new live disc, "Hill Country Revue," is out now.
Singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith is back. It's not like he really went anywhere but he's back as far as new albums are concerned and many are dubbing his latest, "Retriever," his best work yet.
Sexsmith recorded the album last August in London during Europe's record-setting heat wave and recalls, "...that much of (singer/ songwriter) Ed Harcourt's excellent piano playing was recorded while in his underwear."
Aside from Harcourt, who lives about a block from the studio and frequently dropped by during the sessions, Sexsmith also invited two members of the band Travis. One of them is Neil Primrose who plays the drums on a couple of tunes which are part of a collection of songs that are faster in tempo and more electric than the songs on all of Sexsmith's previous releases.
Sexsmith once again teamed up with producer Martine Terefe who beautifully plays the electric guitar on a few tracks, particularly his melody on the song "Hard Bargain." Aside from the standard lineup - bass, drums and guitar - Sexsmith and Terefe also incorporate the use of strings on many of the songs.
Sexsmith's lyrical content ranges from his admission of sympathetic tendencies for someone who is usually to blame in a situation (I feel for the driver/In the aftermath/Of a child who chased a ball/Across his path) on "For the Driver" to his musical journal of sorts about finding love again in songs like "Happiness" and "Tomorrow in her Eyes."
Sexsmith also remembers a past love with fond memories on "Dandelion Wine" (a personal favorite) and how his not-so-nice treatment of this girl's love for him has shaped his present perspective on what it means to be in love.
Sexsmith, a soft-spoken man who keeps company with musicians like Daniel Lanios (responsible for the album's photos) and the members of Coldplay, sat down with The Beach Reporter this week to talk about his new effort.
The Beach Reporter: The song 'For the Driver,' I like the perspective you take which is different from the usual perspective. How did this develop?
Sexsmith : I guess you could say it's different, yeah. I foresee a lot of people who can see different sides of a situation. I find that it's hard to make a judgment on things because there is another side or another story. It started with one thing and my mind went on to a few different subjects as well. I remember there was someone I knew as a teen-ager who was in his car and there were a couple of girls sitting on the back of it. For a joke, he decided to hit the gas pedal. The car shifted and one of the girls fell off and died. I always thought that's such a terrible thing to happen to him. I was thinking that could have been anybody; it was just an innocent little joke that ended tragically. Obviously it was very bad for her and her family and everything, and it changed his life as well. But that's oftentimes where my sympathy lies and how awful that must be to live with that. I was trying to write a song about having compassion for the other story that exists.
Do you tend to intertwine fiction with reality?
I do. There is always a bit of both going on. I mean, I've written songs that were out-and-out fictional songs. Those aren't always possible to write because there is too much perhaps going on in my personal life. On this record, for example, there are a lot of songs that kind of reflect where I'm at right now. There are a few kind of state-of-the-world songs. So, I try to reach that balance where it's not like a diary for everyone to read but sometimes it's unavoidable that a song is going to be really personal and I just let that happen if that's the case.
Do you think you find it harder to write the personal ones as opposed to fictitious ones?
Well, they each kind of present their own little challenges. Sometimes the personal ones are a little easier to write lyrically because there is just stuff that is coming to the forefront and it just pours out of you in a way. Those can be hard, too, because I don't want myself to be so personal that nobody understands them or they become claustrophobic or something. So, I try to remember it's a song and that you want to write it in a way that is going to resonate with other people, too.
So something like 'Tomorrow in her Eyes,' is that where you are right now?
Yes, basically. I've always been a fan of real love songs and it's been great to write happy love songs because some of my other albums were a bit tainted with the end of a relationship so they had a melancholy tone to them. After a while, I escaped from it and there was a time when I had to tiptoe around things lyrically because I didn't want to hurt anybody. Now, it's more of an open book, I guess.
Did it pose a challenge to write faster tempo songs compared to your previous albums?
Well, I had written a bunch of songs that were very accessible that maybe we could get on the radio and break out to a larger audience, so we didn't want to sabotage the song by overthinking them. I sang as good as I could and I tried to give each song what it needed.
What do you feel is the one song that underwent the most drastic changes in terms of arrangement?
Well, on the last album there were quite a few but on this album the songs all pretty much went the way we intended. "Dandelion Wine" I think was the most work. We recorded that one initially just guitar and voice, and then all the other stuff (bass and drums) was added afterward. Neil from Travis came in and played drums, and it's kind of hard to play drums to a song that's already been put down without drums because my tempo is going to be maybe not as even. So, that was kind of tricky.
'Dandelion Wine' precedes the song 'Happiness' and it's interesting to kind of hear where you were and where you are now in terms of love.
Yeah, and they actually changed in the sequence. "Dandelion Wine" originally came after "Tomorrow in her Eyes." There are some people who felt it didn't belong on the record because of that, too. I was really proud of the song and kind of fought for it. I'm happy where it is now, though, since I think it's a nice break between "Whatever it Takes" which is a joyful love song and "Happiness." I'm quite happy with a sequence because it's always a bit of a puzzle to try and figure out, and because it's like a movie for me. I still think people are going to sit and listen to the record from start to finish. You always make your records with that idea in mind and whether a person listens to it that way or not is out of your control.
Is there maybe one particular genre that you'd like to get more into as far as recording?
I'm not sure. The only kind of thread for me in terms of the music that I love is I prefer music that is melodic, so that's kind of what I do. I don't know if I'd ever say I'm going to do an album of old R&B kind of stuff. Right now, I'm working on an album that is a little more folk or country and that was mainly because of the songs I managed to have kicking around. I'm doing them as duets with my drummer who has this beautiful high voice and we've been recording them kind of like the Everly Brothers or something.
What are your top-five desert-island records?
Bob Dylan, "New Morning"
The Kinks, "The Village Green Preservation Society"
Best of Bill Withers
I do like that June Carter Cash, "Wildwood Flower" record a lot.
Beach Boys, "Pet Sounds"
Appropriately named "Use Your Voice," singer/songwriter Mason Jennings' latest work is what one might consider a throwback to a simpler time when musicians used to record albums in a matter of days or weeks without the use of computers or overdubs.
Just in the same tone and spirit caught on Van Morrison's stunning and timeless record "Astral Weeks" or Bob Dylan's heartwrenching and confessional recording "Blood on the Tracks," Jennings puts together a series of 10 acoustic guitar-driven songs.
The pieces range in lyrical content from the experience of becoming a parent, the issue of breaking up with the end of a once-strong love, and the tragic death of Sen. Paul Wellstone and Wellstone's wife, Sheila.
Jennings played all of the tracks live in the studio accompanied by bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Brian McLeod with a total of three overdubs throughout the entire record, which is somewhat of a rarity these days.
The 28-year-old married man who is now a father wanted to record a raw and intimate experience for the listener. The work was partially inspired from his love for Morrison and Dylan's aforementioned masterpieces, along with another favorite by famed jazz singer Nina Simone recorded in 1969 called "Nina Simone and Piano!"
The Beach Reporter sat down with Jennings, who first picked up a guitar 14 years ago, this week to talk about his new work, the stories that inspired it, and his own voice that varies from song to song and has an intonation that sometimes resembles Dylan while other times is reminiscent of someone as contrasting as Jack Johnson.
You make reference to the city Minneapolis several times on your new album. Are you from there originally?
No, I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I've lived in Minneapolis for the last 10 years.
What prompted your move there?
I did a little traveling around the country after high school and I really loved it, and a couple of my favorite bands - The Replacements and Jayhawks - are from there. I went to visit and thought to myself, 'Man, this is a great city.' So I decided to stay.
Is there a thriving music scene there?
Yeah, and there are a lot of bars where you can play original music, which is great.
I had a chance to read the album's liner notes written by Jim Walsh, which I actually found really inspiring. How do you know this person?
He's a music writer for a paper called City Pages in Minneapolis and he's done a lot of national work, too. He's a friend of mine.
In the liner notes it mentions you have a son and the song 'Southern Cross' seems to be a tune about the way your priorities have shifted a bit since becoming a parent. How do you think being a parent has affected your attitude toward touring and making music?
I think with music it's been a really positive thing because I feel like it just expands your horizons so much more as far as what love can mean which helps me as a songwriter, I think. As far as touring, I can still do it but I think I'll go out for shorter runs at a time. I used to go out for two months at a time whereas now I'll go out for 2-1/2 weeks, take a break and then go out for 2-1/2 weeks again. It will be the same amount of time but it will just be broken up a little more.
You make reference to Bondi Beach in 'Southern Cross,' which is in Australia. I assume you spent time there?
Yeah, I spent the month of May. We toured over there this year, last year and we were over there in Tasmania over New Year's. We try to go back there at least once or twice a year.
Do you surf while you're over there?
I try, but I can't surf that well.
What was the hanging-out-in-Australia experience like?
It's just great. Australia is neat because they are so appreciative of acoustic guitar music and there is a really good radio format there where there is a lot of underground stuff on the stations, so they're really receptive to my music.
The second song on the record, 'The Light (Part II),' does feel like a second part of another song and maybe it's because I think you begin with the conjunction 'And.' Where is the first part of this song?
Part I is the last song on my second record called "Birds Flying Away." It was two parts where the first part is about the beginning of a relationship and the second part on this record is about the end of a relationship.
Did you write it all at once?
Yeah, pretty much over a period of a couple of months. For me, I just felt like the idea wasn't finished so I kept writing.
This song, 'Crown" and 'Fourteen Pictures' remind me of Bob Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks.' Knowing what he went through while making that record with the divorce of his longtime wife, he wrote a series of bittersweet songs about love gone wrong. You do the same with these three tunes. In your opinion, do you think you have to experience a certain piece of life whether good or bad to actually write about it?
That's cool since it's one of my favorite records. I think so. I think it's definitely the kind of thing that's like a hole in your spirit. If you feel something really deeply then I think there is a deeper hole to fill up with really powerful stuff in the form of songs. But I also think there are other ways to feel it. I think you can be really moved by a song, book or movie. I think it's just about being really open and receptive to emotions.
So being that 'Blood on the Tracks' is one of your favorite records, were these songs kind of inspired from this work?
When I wrote these songs on this record I wasn't really thinking about anything except my own life but then when I listen to "Blood on the Tracks" it's definitely something I aspire to as far as craftwork. I think it's some of the best writing ever.
Is the song 'Lemon Grove Avenue' a first take? It just has that feeling of being one.
Yeah, my band was a little nervous about that song because it's really raw and feels really loose. I really like the feel of it because it is a first take. There are more lyrics to it, but when I first did the take I flushed out the second verse so it has all of the same lyrics all the way through the whole song. I ended up keeping it anyway because the feel of it was what I was looking for.
Are a lot of these songs first takes?
About half of them. The songs were all done live in the studio so there are about three overdubs on the whole record. Sometimes with records you piecemeal it all together and fix it with computers, but I just left everything on there. The goal was to get a good feel rather than perfection, so to speak.
The lyrics and meter of 'Lemon Grove Avenue' has a very simple tone to it like something you'd read in a Robert Frost poem. I think of simple rural living when I hear that song. Is that street in the country somewhere?
It's actually in San Diego. I was driving past the street and thought to myself, 'This is so great here.' I played the song in the city live and people told me it's like the worst street in the whole city.
The song sounds like a homecoming of sorts?
Yeah, I guess you could say my songs are fictional to some extent. I try to become a different character in my songs and write them in first person, and with that, I definitely bend the facts, so to speak.
How did you hook up with bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Brian McLeod?
This is their first record with me. I found them through auditions I did over the last year and we've been playing together exactly one year this week. It's been awesome and they've been really great. I was really looking for a person who could play upright bass really well, along with electric bass, so that was my first priority. I also wanted someone who could sing backup and Chris can also do that. Brian, I first heard about him while living in Pittsburgh. We went to the same high school.
The song 'Ballad of Paul and Sheila,' you don't know it's about someone who's died until you pause and then say the word 'lived.' This song is about Sen. Paul Wellstone who died in a plane crash with his wife, Sheila. What about this incident struck you enough where you wanted to write a story about it?
Well, I just felt his life was so inspiring. He was a college professor at a small college outside Minneapolis called Carleton College and he just decided he was going to get more involved with the things he believed in so he decided to go into politics. He stayed true to himself and fought for the things he believed in, and I just thought that was so amazing and so rare. With the way I've sort of structured my music career, and the way I've tried to stay independent and just develop as an artist, I thought of him as a kindred spirit. I just felt it was a big loss when he and his wife died. He's a really big figure in Minneapolis.
'Drinking as Religion' is a song about how things can get better out of something bad just in the same way things can get worse out of something good. What inspired this concept?
It's that idea of after a breakup when you look around and everything is moving forward and people are continuing with their lives but you. You've just gone through a horrible thing and you expect there to be thunderclouds or something. So I wanted to write a song with this kind of juxtaposition and if things are all happening at once then light can come from darkness and darkness can come from light.
You make reference to the novel 'Ulysses' written by James Joyce in the song 'Ulysses.' Have you read the book?
I'm trying right now, but it's a hard one. I'm 350 pages deep into it, and I don't think I've absorbed any of it.
When compared to artists splattered across magazine covers or appearing in mainstream music videos, not very many people have heard of the musician Paul Brill. Recently named as my top new discovery of 2003, Brill is one of those songwriters who seemed to have appeared out of thin air and furnished enthusiastic listeners with the kind of music never lacking emotion.
Brill, 32, lives in his hometown of New York City and is what many would define as the quintessential autonomous artist as the founder of Scarlet Shame Records, an independent record label.
Brill's fascination with music first surfaced as a young kid. He comes from a breed of self-taught artists known for writing songs in their bedrooms on four-track recording devices.
As a young adult, Brill moved to Vermont, then to California, specifically Los Angeles and then San Francisco, before returning to New York. He released a solo record, "Halve the Light," in 2001, and released the 2003 LP and EP both entitled "Sisters."
The music of "Sisters" is best described as pop, country rock, although it's evident Brill's sonic tastes encompass numerous genres such as jazz, classical and world music. He recruited some very proficient players for the project, and incorporated string arrangements and horn lines with the standard instrumentation - drums, bass and guitar - of any average band.
Brill's lyrical prowess is wonderfully thought-provoking and the musical compositions beautifully complement his knack for songwriting.
He recorded the "Sisters" EP in four days in a studio in Portland, Ore., and followed the session with the "Sisters" LP, which is essentially a well-constructed interpretation of 12 songs he has played live over the past year.
Aside from the woodwind and brass sections, Brill also used the steel pedal guitar, a piano, an accordion and something called a Tibetan singing bowl.
The Beach Reporter recently sat down with Brill and talked to him about his new recording project, the songs on the "Sisters" LP and the cover art for it.
The Beach Reporter: How are the recording sessions for the new record going so far?
Ah, it's pretty out there. I'm kind of making some big departures and I'm doing a lot of it myself, incorporating a lot of samples and beats. You sometimes hit a wall and figure, "What are you doing? You've got to do something else." The last record I did was such a fast process just because we were doing all of it in the studio from start to finish. We were kind of approaching it as a representation of what our live show is about, so we kind of just played the songs straight ahead as we'd been doing them live. The songs I've written, I'm kind of deconstructing them and approaching them with different attitudes or different ideas, building different elements into them. I'm experimenting as I go along so it's not as rigid, I guess, which is good and bad because you can spend a million years doing this stuff. I'm doing a lot of editing at home, so I'm not worried about the studio costs. Usually you're going into the studio and you're paying your $50 an hour or whatever and all you want to do is finish, so this is good ... good and bad, not good for my sanity.
I understand you enlisted the talent of some members of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and the Tin Hat Trio. How did this collaboration develop?
It happened pretty organically. The Tin Hat Trio is just an amazing group. I met Rob Burger who is the extraordinare of the group. He plays tons of different types of organs and accordions. I met him through some friends, just asked him to play and he did. He was there in the studio for literally about an hour and a half, and just absolutely killed everything he did. It was all first takes. He's an extraordinary musician. The horn guys, again some friends, I knew the trumpet player James Zollar who's just ridiculous. He's one of the greatest living trumpet players. I actually know the trombone player, Stafford Hunter, as well. I asked them both and they really did me a favor. I also got another guy, Brad Leali, who played saxophone and clarinet. They knew it was a shoestring budget so they just volunteered their services. They totally hooked me up which is a real treat to have people of that caliber playing on the record.
As the founder of a record label, how does that work out being you are the founder but also a touring musician, too. How do you balance it all?
It's hard. The record label is not as big as I'm hoping it to be, so that doesn't take up too much time, but it does take up a lot of energy with each release. You've got to put packages together. Fortunately, I hooked up with a really good distribution company. In all honesty, the balancing of that and making money and everything else, it can get a little wearisome but I do have a nice little stable of interns who have volunteered along the way.
So are you actively looking for acts to sign to your label?
I am now. In the past it's mostly been my stuff and some friends, and I recently put out a children's album with this group that I work with called Little Kids Rock that was started by a friend of mine. It's a nonprofit organization that brings musical instruments and classes to disadvantaged kids. The effort teaches these kids to write their own music. The CD is of these kids' songs that they wrote and recorded, so I just put it out on the label. I'm now actively looking for about two or three new groups. I'm kind of picky when it comes to the right thing to get behind because it does take a lot of work.
I like the arrangement of 'Barefoot in the Snow' because of how the percussion drops in on the vocals, guitar and the shaker. It seems like a song that was first developed on the guitar and it kind of expanded from there. Is this what happened? Do you write most of your songs like this?
Yeah, that song was a demo when I first wrote it. It changed a little bit when I brought it to the band. I remember I was really into the demo when I did it. It turned out pretty close to the way we do it live except for the string arrangements. The producers of the record threw up an arrangement pretty much on the spot when we were recording it. They charted the strings, which is pretty basic stuff and I had this idea of a kind of rolling guitar. We actually got this cool 12-string Rickenbacher for the choruses. Most of the time I'll have a song I've written on guitar, track it and think about how I want to interpret it, but now I'm getting into starting from scratch without the guitar. Maybe I'll have a beat, or a rhythmic element or I'll twist it around and tweak everything. It ends up sounding a lot different than it did.
Lyrics like, 'Take all the swords, take all the wounding words and throw them on the fire, turn them into vaccines for all the wasted days. And someone left the light on in the shed. It's throwing amber shadows on the ivory linen hanging from the bed' are really wonderful. How do you come up with your stuff? Are you an avid reader?
I do, I read a ton, but, I don't know, I don't want to be pretentious and say like "I'm a poet" (laughs). It's pop music. I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world and I'm not the greatest singer in the world, but what I try to do is, I don't know how to say it without sounding egotistical, but I care a lot about lyrics, they mean a lot to me. Lou Barlow from Sebadoh once said, "There's not much more you can do..." I'm probably butchering what he said, but "There's not much more you can do than really give your fullest attention and care for the lyrics." Or something like that, and I totally agree. I try not to have too many throwaway words or anything. With that song, I had this image of an illuminating light coming from an outdoor shed. When I write songs I try to tell stories, but in little fragments or visions or little encapsulated moments. I'm experimenting more these days with songwriting, doing a little more of a narrative approach - direct storytelling as opposed to the more oblique stuff I've done in the past.
You have some recurring metaphors in your songs like the 'underground,' the 'hallway' and the 'highway.'
Yes, there are recurring themes in both records. I called the record "Sisters" because it's actually two albums I put out at the same time. I called both of them "Sisters" for obvious reason that there are two records, but it was more a play on the fact that the songs were largely about conflict, and women and conflict. For some reason, I just wrote a bunch of songs about women and characters about women in general and the conflicts they go through. Conflict is kind of the root of songwriting, writing in general, I guess, right?
The bass line to the song 'Begin at the End' is one that reminds me of a rhythm from Eastern Europe or something. You include a lot of different and unique instrumentation on the record whether it is the singing bowl, woodwind, tuba, cello and violin. How did you figure out you wanted all of these instruments on the album?
Yeah, the bass line is like an oompah and the singing bowl was a nice little discovery. I can't take credit for that one. One of the best parts of that record was I had like 15 people come in to play at different times which is really great. If I had my druthers, I'd have a gigantic orchestra playing with me at every show, but I'm afraid that can't happen for financial reasons. So it was really great having all these people come in. The new record will also sound big like "Sisters" (LP) but won't be quite as eclectic with as many guest musicians on it. It will be more centered on a nucleus of people doing crazier sounds.
What have you listened to over the years?
I listen to a lot of stuff. I started with regular rock music and then went through huge jazz and country periods, old-time stuff. I listen to a lot of Pakistani Kweli music, North African and Middle Eastern stuff, a lot of Islamic devotional music, and now and over the last few years, I've been really into a lot of electronic music and it's inspiring me. The goal now is to bring in these new sounds without completely surrendering and becoming something else. I want to stay true to my vision but it's also about change, too, at the same time. I'm at an interesting point right now where I'm a little bit out there and I'm not sure where this next album is ending up but it's pretty cool.
I love the song 'Blue Blanket.' I can't stop listening to it and I wanted to know whom that song is about?
It's kind of a conflation of different people and different ideas. I was never quite happy with the way that song came out. It's a personal thing. It's a song I did a lot live and it's really kind of a strong song. When we did it live, it stopped things because it was very spare. So it was hard for me to record it, I don't know why but people do seem to like it. It's kind of the song about having your moments when you're in the city where you're just kind of too loud and things are disturbing your well-being - too much concrete.
The cover art of the album, where did you find this picture?
It's a picture by a well-known photographer named Mary Ellen Mark. She is just amazing, she's incredible and I've actually been haunted by that photo for several years. I approached her people about using it on a different record, which was a project of an old band, and they pretty much rejected us by pricing us out of the market. When I started putting the "Sisters" records together with what the songs were about and the images that kept going through my head, I just kept going back to that photograph and it just seemed like the perfect thing. As luck would have it, I approached them and they were very generous and lowered the price significantly to a point where it was affordable. It never fails to get some sort of polar extreme response from everyone who sees it. People either absolutely hugely love it or are completely freaked out and won't even look at it. It's a picture of blind orphan girls in Russia. It has a timeless look to it. I'm pretty honored, actually, to have it as the record cover.
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.
Wy: The lyrical content on this album is autobiographical like your past works, but it seems more direct and less abstract. What changed in the writing process this time around?
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.
As the frontman of a well-oiled, American roots rock ’n’ roll quartet, Massachusetts native Stephen Kellogg is no stranger to the road.
