Bluegrass and country: Rhonda Vincent

Rhonda Vincent grew up in the heartland of North America, in Missouri, surrounded by music and diving into it herself as soon as she could..

"Every day when I got home from school, my father and grandfather were waiting, and we'd sing 'til dinner. After dinner other friends came around and we literally played every night of my life while I was growing up," Rhonda Vincent recalls. Though she did sometimes miss taking part in school activities when she got to be a teenager, "music was so important to me -- it really was a way of life. School was just something I did, I had to do, but I'd be thinking okay, now that's over for the day and I can run home and get to the music," she says.

It’s a love that’s lasted, taking Vincent through time playing with her family band, the Sally Mountain Show, to early solo albums in bluegrass, through several years in Nashville working on a career in mainstream country music. It was bluegrass that called her though, back to what has become an award winning career, a joyful embrace of the music she loves, and a commitment to making America’s heartland music in a way that is distinctively her own.

All that comes through on her album Only Me. “There are six bluegrass songs and six country songs on the album, ” she says. The idea of this way to present the songs, and which songs to choose, came together when Vincent was asked to sing at a tribute to country icon George Jones at the Grand Ole Opry. “They asked everyone to sing a George Jones song, so I picked When the Grass Grows Over Me. As I’m singing this, I’m thinking how cool it would be to do a traditional country music project -- I love these old songs and I don’t hear anybody singing them, and I’d love to record them.

“We had already started on a bluegrass project so I thought, maybe we could merge these. You know, it was kind of a gamble,” she continues, “but I felt it was an illustration I’d been wanting to make for some time.” Going back to her days growing up in northern Missouri with the Sally Mountain Show, Vincent was at home with the music of bluegrass musicians including Bill Monroe and Jimmy Martin and equally at home with the songs of country stars such as Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn.

Before that performance at the Opry, Vincent was singing country music classics as part of her appearances on The Country Family Reunion Show, and had been including several in her bluegrass touring gigs. "Beneath Still Waters, just because of that appearance on The Country Family Reunion, became our most requested song --at our shows we‘ve just started doing it no matter what, because if we don’t people will just start yelling it out.” That is one of the songs on the country disc of Only Me, along with with the fast paced Drivin’ Nails and the honky tonk classic Bright Lights & Country Music. “I find that these songs are still new for a lot of people,” Vincent says. She is also finding that these listeners, as well as those who have loved these country standards for decades, are embracing the ways Vincent makes these songs her own.

You might think to find country legend Willie Nelson sitting in on one of the country songs, but instead, Vincent asked him to take a bluegrass turn as her duet partner on the title track of the album. Members of Diamond Rio and singer Daryle Singletary join in as guests, and for each group of six songs, Vincent chose a different set of band members. “My road band, ny regular guys, they could’ve easily played all the country songs,” Vincent says, “but I wanted to make more of a distinction, so I got different musicians for that.” Her road band, including fiddler Hunter Berry, Josh Williams on acoustic guitar and Aaron McDaris on banjo with Vincent herself on mandolin handles the bluegrass side of things . On the country songs, musicians include Carl Jackson on acoustic guitar, Tim Crouch on fiddles, and Catherine Marx on piano.

It is Vincent’s voice and vision which focus the material, though. She sees bluegrass and country both as parts of the music of the heart of America. “When I came back to bluegrass after being in country music for several years, I didn’t know how people would take me,” Vincent says, and at that time she herself was wondering if music was really her future. “We did some shows opening for George Jones,” she says, “and when we came off stage people came up said we love your country music. And I thought --wow! because that’s exactky how I see it.”

That encouragement not only called her on to a career that gives her joy, carries on family tradition, and has seen her and her band members win the recognition of dozens of top level awards, it fanned the spark which would years on turn into the class project that is Only Me. From her early days with the Sally Mountain Show to her current career as an internationally touring musician at the top of her game, Vincent has seen connections between bluegrass and country music, and the things their audiences hold in common. The music Vincent makes is music from the heart and heartland of America. As she was putting together Only Me it seemed the right time and the right way for her to point up and share these connections on record. “This is an illustration I’ve ben wanting to make for some time,” she says again. “Whether I sing with a banjo or with pedal steel, it’s still -- only me.” You couldn’t ask for a better guide to connecting with and celebrating the connections between the soul of country and the heart of bluegrass.

You may also wish to

keep up with Rhonda Vincent’s tour schedule at her web site
and connect with her FaceBook page where she often shares personal notes and thoughts from the road

you may also wish to see
Sunday Mornin Singin’
Rhonda Vincent: Beautiful Star
Julie Fowlis: Every Story

photograph courtesy of the artist

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Linda Ronstadt and Legacy

Word has come that Linda Ronstadt is no longer able to sing. She has Parkinson’s disease. That’s an illness which weakens muscles, including those of the vocal cords. Ronstadt did not know her diagnosis as she was writing her book Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir, so you’ll not find discussion of her health there. What you will find is a bit of the history of a gifted singer who always sought out narrative and story in the music she chose, and a woman who followed that interest through folk, rock, pop, country, big band, Cajun music, and songs honoring her Mexican American heritage.

Though she’s certainly been an icon of pop and rock music, I tend to think of Linda Ronstadt as a country artist. Her early album Silk Purse is filled with work that fits a country playlist, including He Darked the Sun (which would work for blues aficionados too) and Life Is Like a Mountain Railway.

All through her career, you’ll find nuggets of stories well told, stories that last beyond the fashions of arrangement and style, such as the songs Heart Like a Wheel and Adios. Then there are her turns to Spanish language songs, and her collaborations with musical friends Emmylou Harris and Dolly Parton on the Trio albums. To my mind the best of them all, though, is Ronstadt’s work with Harris on Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions.

I had the chance to see Harris and Ronstadt several times as they toured behind Western Wall. The first of those was at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a beautiful night, filled with anticipation and lively appreciation from an audience of people who worked on stage and behind the scenes in music as well as those who had nothing to do with that, but were there because of their love for the voices and stories of these two fine musicians.

In addition to songs from Western Wall, each woman sang several of her own solo hits as well. One of Ronstadt’s choices was Blue Bayou. She had the audience with her from the first notes, and she paused just a beat before heading into the final verse -- which she sang in Spanish. Between Ronstadt’s singing and the roar of appreciation and love from the crowd, it seemed as though the roof might just lift off that historic building.

I am sad that Ronstadt is facing this challenging situation. I am confident, though, that Linda Ronstadt remains an artist, a thinker, an activist and a dreamer who will continue to make her contributions. I had the chance to interview Ronstadt as she was preparing for the Western Wall tour. At that time she spoke of an idea that has stayed with me: that she was happy to have climbed far enough up the mountain of life to be able to look both forward and back.

May it ever be so, Linda.

There’s a drumbeat now that Linda Ronstadt should be named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I agree. I’d suggest that she should be honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame too. Update: Ronstadt was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

you may also wish to see
Ronstadt speaks about her health and her memoir with Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times
Tish Hinojosa is one of the artists who felt the influence of Ronstadt. Later Ronstadt recorded one of Hinojosa's songs
Emmylou Harris: Songbird: disc two

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Music, trust, and faith: Amy Grant: Mosaic

Mosaic works as a descriptive title for Amy Grant's book: there are essays, reflections, stories, poetry, and song lyrics new and old.

It’s not necessary to know anything about Grant’s music, or to like it if you do, to enjoy her often funny vignettes of things she has learned from bringing up her children, or her poignant reflection on connecting with her stepdaughter, or stories of how she learned a lesson from a deer or met an unexpected source of support at the state fair.

Grant’s faith is front and center, but it’s no stained glass or holier than thou belief: it’s the story of hard won lessons, and recognition that she -- and we-- do not know all the answers, and sometimes the only answer is trust. Grant has a gentle, humorous, reflective style that suits this sort of storytelling well. Some sections work better than others, of course.


It would be easy for someone of Grant’s public life and fame to be self indulgent or just skim the surface: she doesn’t. One gets the impression that Grant has too much of a sense of humor for that to happen, for one thing, and she also has along with that a humility born of her faith. At one point she says

“This is trust: doing what you believe you are called to do and trusting that God will provide. But here’s where it gets personal: God provides through people. Am I willing to be connected to the people in my world, the people at work, the people in my house, the people I encounter in the everyday patterns of living? Am I open to the possibility of my gifts touching another life? My life touching another: the domino effect of God’s goodness rippling through so many lives is a far reaching concept.”

All sorts of stuff like that in the book. Well worth the read.

Music to go along with this:
Legacy: Hymns and Faith
and
Behind the Eyes
are the Grant recordings I like best. In many ways they are very different: Behind the Eyes includes a number of songs she wrote while dealing with her divorce; Legacy: Hymns and Faith comprises songs of faith that will be familiar to anyone who grew up in the American south, along with well chosen originals. They both show a woman who
thinks about her faith, and knows that it encompasses both struggle and celebration.



you may also wish to see
music and trust
music, silence, and spiritual journey

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Shania Twain: Why Not?

No question about it, Shania Twain is a star. Though she has released very few albums, she remains one of the top selling artists not just in country music, but in wider ranges of music as well. Though she set part of the country music business on its ear by stretching bounds both musically and in her videos, she won awards in Nashville, too, and whether or not they cared for her choices, many country music fans and insiders agreed that Twain had a major pull in which brought in new listeners to the country music, people who not only listened to her music but stayed to explore the work of other artists as well. She has not, however, given public concerts for seven years.

Twain is the subject of, part of, presenting -- I am not quite sure what to call it -- a series of programs on the OWN Television Network. The shows are called Shania Twain: Why Not? . The programs trace part of her journey to get back to the point where, both personally and with her singing voice, she feels ready to be on stage again. You may wonder why a professional musician who’d been performing for people since she was eight would have problems with this sort of thing, or why, if she did, she couldn’t just get over it on her own. Twain, actually, wondered some of those same things, and that’s one of the things that makes the show engaging. She has the money, the time, and most importantly, the will and the courage to take on sorting that out, and to choose to invite viewers along for parts of the journey.

I am not usually one to like the sort of quasi documentary that focuses deeply on people’s personal lives, I’ve never watched the Oprah show (OWN is the Oprah Winfrey Television Network) and also do not enjoy the somewhat related genre of reality shows. I like Twain’s music, though (that always comes as a shock to many who know my own work in music ) and I had always known her to discuss her personal life, which had its share of hard knocks, with dignity and reserve. So I was interested to see what these programs would be like.

It is proving an interesting and creative journey. Twain is having trouble with her voice -- feeling choked, as she describes it. Even if you are not involved with music you’ll know what she means, and if you are a musician you’ll hear it both when she speaks and when she sings. She also feels that she is not comfortable performing in front of people again, though she loves singing and needs to sing.

These may seem, in some ways, fairly high class problems, and Twain knows that. They are also basic ones: an artist struggling with how to make her art, how to live her life, when that life has been knocked apart by personal circumstance . That’s one thing - and another is finding out that the personal resources and strengths one has relied on to get through hard times just don’t work any more. That’s a whole other aspect to wrestle with. Been there, done that, and it is, among other things, disorienting.



The precipitating event in Twain’s life for all these changes was the end of her fourteen year marriage, and the discovery that her husband and her best friend were having an affair. Early in her life, Twain had learned to handle quite a few tough circumstances, growing up poor, and with hard family situations. Then when she was a young woman her parents were killed in a car accident, and she had to provide for and parent her siblings.

Twain and her younger sister, Carrie, both now in their forties, revisit two of the houses they lived in as young children during the show’s early episodes, and this is thoughtfully presented. The conversations between them there, and later at their parents’ grave site. seem natural and unforced, as do most of the conversations in the programs. It’s a nice balance between being aware of the camera, being aware that what everyone says is going to a wider audience, and making a real story out of real events without going over the top into personal experiences and emotions. As someone who has worked behind the scenes in both television and music, props to all those involved, including especially the editors. Thus far, the shows and the story line are working well.

As I write this, I’ve seen four episodes of the show. A few things that stand out: Twain’s visit to her songwriting cabin in Ontario, where she used to go when she was first beginning to make it in country music, her standing on the stage at Caesar's Place, where she’s been offered a gig, and scenes in the first show of her playing and singing with just her sister, her cousin, and one of her long time band mates. Twain’s comment, at the songwriting cabin, that growing up as she did, making it big didn’t mean having a big lifestyle, it meant just being able to eat well, and her comment later on, in conversation with Gladys Knight, about not giving up on the gift one has been graciously given. The fact that she wants sharing her journey to healing to help others, but that she’s not being hokey about it. Her well honed sense of humor.

That sense of humor is one thing I’ve always enjoyed about Shania Twain. I’ve had the chance to see her in concert several times, and it’s been clear that she takes her work and her professionalism and her music seriously, but she does not take herself too seriously. That is part of Twain’s gift in connecting with audiences. As a songwriter, she distills things down to create accessible catchy hooks. They may not be the most complex songs I’ve heard or written about, but in mainstream popular music, being able to use that sort of gift, and choosing to use it, in service of writing songs that are uplifting and engaging at the same time is no small thing, and Twain has done that well. Her album The Woman in Me is, to my way of thinking a gathering of many her best songs thus far. She has also had the excellent taste to perform with Alison Krauss, and to choose the Canadian Celtic band Leahy to open for her during several tours.

That, and she can surely sing. She has the gift of a fine voice, and it is one she is determined to use again. Shania Twain: Why Not? is proving an engaging look at her journey to doing that.



you may also wish to see

if I were going to suggest an album for Shania to listen to on her journey, it’d be this one. graceful songs about living through changes, especially when the way is less than clear Carrie Newcomer: Before & After

and

if you enjoy reading about television, film, and dvds check out Reel Life With Jane

Twain’s autobiography
From This Moment On

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Music Road Trip in North Dakota & South Dakota

Plains, grasslands, rugged hills, wide open spaces -- North Dakota and South Dakota are both all of that, each in their own way. As the Great American Road Trip winds through these states which are both Northern and Western, take a listen to three albums by artists connected to this land.

Celeste Krenz hails from North Dakota. Though her musical career has taken her to Colorado, Nashville, and points beyond, to a partnership in a record company and to a duo project called The Rhythm Angels, it was to North Dakota that her thoughts returned while working on the music for what would become her album My Mother and Me. Her mother, who has made a career in business, had written lyrics years ago and brought them along on a visit to her daughter. At Celeste’s kitchen table, they worked out a batch of songs that contains elements of country, blues, folk, and swing. A tinge of that western sky and wide open prairie thread through he songs, too.



Becky Schlegel grew up on a a farm, but she also spent much of her young years traveling across South Dakota playing in her family band. The love of music stayed with her, as she followed her musical path into bluegrass and a move to Minnesota. She’s won just about every bluegrass and country award the northern plains are have to offer, and is beginning to make her mark on the national scene, both as a songwriter and and singer. Her latest album is called Dandelion. If you enjoy the way Alison Krauss and Lee Ann Womack approach their music, you will want to give Schlegel a listen. Dandelion is a fine place to start, and it’s a good soundtrack for South Dakota, too, as Schlegel opens with Anna, a song inspired by her grandmother, and includes songs such as Colorado Line and I Never Loved You Cowboy.


Tom Peterson puts eloquent words and melody to the landscape and lives lived in the northern plains, as well. He doesn’t sing on Dakota Lullaby: Christine Albert and Chris Gage do that, and a fine job they make of it. Gage grew up in South Dakota and got to know Peterson’s songs, and carried a few of them with him as his music took him on many paths. He’s a fine songwriter himself, as is his wife and duo partner, Christine. When someone gave them an old tape of Peterson’s songs, “I felt as though I’d found gold in the Black Hills,” Christine says. They recorded a whole album Peterson’s songs. The songs range from the funny to the somber to the passionate, all grounded in the heart of the northern plains and yet universal in meaning.


you may also wish to see:
Music Road: now playing: Christine Albert: Paris, Texafrance
Music Road: Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone
more music from the road trip

This is part of The Great American Road Trip, in which I originally partnered up with A Traveler’s Library to add musical ideas to the book and film suggestions for journeys through the regions of the United States which you’d find there. The Library is closed now, but I think you will still find the journeys through music interesting.

For more about the road trip (and a look at some great road songs) see Great American Road Trip: Music begins

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Lead and harmony

A year ago on 29 May, Suzy Bogguss, Gretchen Peters, and Matraca Berg were on tour in England, and they recorded this song on that day. Just listen.



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Music Road: Road Trip Music in Tennessee

Music Road: Gretchen Peters: One to the Heart, One to the Head

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Mary Chapin Carpenter: Come Darkness, Come Light

Come Darkness, Come Light



Carpenter does recognize both darkness and light in her songs here, many of them ones that she’s written herself. She opens with a familiar song, however, Once in Royal David’s City. It holds memories for the singer. “ For years, I have tuned in on Christmas Eve to the live broadcast from Cambridge, England, of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. I have my own tradition of wrapping presents while listening to it, and singing along as well. They have always begun the service with Once in Royal David’s City, and it is one of my favorite carols,” she says.

That sort of connection between public and private aspects of the holiday season is apparent in the songs Carpenter has made for this holiday, as well. Christmas Time in the City, sees things from the point of view a musician busking along the holiday street, while The Longest Night of the Year invokes connection, hope and survival, and the light and dark sides of winter days. Bells Are Ringing was inspired by a trip to the Balkans at Christmas time. “I was moved by the spirit of fellowship and kindness in this dark place,” she says. Carpenter brings the collection to a close with the spiritual Children Go Where I Send Thee, invoking the continuing joy and hope of the holiday and sending it on.

Through the album Carpenter sings quietly, inviting the listener in to join her considerations of darkness, light and the varied facets of the season. Like most really good holiday albums, however it’s one that needn’t be put away when the season turns. Joining Carpenter are long time musical friends John Jennings on guitar, backing vocals, and other instruments, and Jon Carroll on piano.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

Music Road: now playing: Albert & Gage: One More Christmas

Music Road: listening to Christmas

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now playing: Souls of the Sea

Souls of the Sea




The sea has its own music, both the music of the waters themselves and of those who live and work along its borders. Gloucester, Massachusetts, is a town whose heart beats with the sea. Allen Estes and Frank Tedesco have heard that beat and transformed it into song (and more recently, a stage play as well). Those who work out on the waters, those who wait for them, those who face the sea's challenges and dangers and survive, those who don’t, and those who wait for them, love them, sometimes lose them, and survive, are all part of the music here. Not With Your Hands is hearty and optimistic, for example, while Anchor Blues is funny and sarcastic, and East of the Sunrise is graceful and thoughtful. Souls of the Sea comprises a dozen original songs which draw from country, folk, and blues sounds and always, the work, and the life, and the love of the sea. Part of the proceeds from the project go to organizations which assist fishermen and their families. If you are planning to go down to the seas this summer, this is one to listen to, before and after.


Another original and very different look at the sea through music
now playing: Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra

now playing: Eleven Hundred Springs: Country Jam

Country Jam


Even if you’ve never been to Texas, you can just about see the couples two stepping around the floor at Gruene Hall or The Broken Spoke, and taste the the barbecue at Stubbs. and the migas at El Sol y La Luna. And of course, if you know Texas, the music on this latest release from Eleven Hundred Springs is going to sound a lot like home. Laid back and rowdy, gentle and strong, funny and sad, country and western and folk, all the things that go to make up the lonestar state and the heart of the American southwest. Eight of the twelve tracks are originals, too, written by Matt Hillyer, who plays electric guitar and sings with the band. Steven F. Berg plays a just right bass, Danny Crelin adds that country and southwestern touch on pedal steel, Jordan W. Hendrix knows his way around fiddling, and Mark Reznicek keeps the back beat going on percussion. Lloyd Mi Maines produced the project and throws in some guitar and banjo lines; heather Mules and Nick Curran are also among the guests.

now playing: Rhonda Vincent: Good Thing Going

Good Thing Going

Hope, resilience, humor, a bit of swing, a dash of country, and all kinds of bluegrass -- that’s all to be found on Rhonda Vincent’s latest album Good Thing Going. Not to mention, of course, that Vincent is one of the best singers around, in bluegrass or any genre. There’s a classic country tearjerker with The Scorn of a Lover, and a gospel tinged hope filled story filled story on I Will See You Again. Lover’s Hit parade is straight up bluegrass, both fun and substance. I’m Leavin’ is a bit of the resilience, a driving Vincent original that’d be at home on a country or bluegrass playlist. A different and slightly wry take on that situation, maybe, is the story in World's Biggest Fool, which is set to a fine country swing melody. Just One of a Kind and I Gotta Start Somewhere are, in their different ways, heartfelt songs of the possibilities of love and the possibilities of change.

That's just part of the fine stuff on this collection -- and then there’s Keith Urban.

The country superstar joins Vincent for quiet, understated, and quite lovely take on the folk song The Water Is Wide. Mention must made too, of the excellent group of backing musicians who support Vincent on the project, including Hunter Berry, Ron Stewart, and Rhonda’s brother, Darrin Vincent, who also co produced the project with her.


You may also want to see this post
now playing: Rhonda Vincent: Beautiful Star

Kathy Mattea: Coal

Coal

“It’s got to come from the heart if you want it work” is a line Kathy Mattea sings in one her country hits. Mattea has always been good at that, whether she’s singing about the love of an elderly couple in Where’ve You Been, talking about the changes of moving on in Leaving West Virginia, or the changes of life, friends, and time in Roses. Drawing on folk and bluegrass as her way into the country music mainstream, she’s always remained a bit of a maverick in that world, holding out for and holding on to songs of substance, songs of the heart.

In her latest project, Coal, they are songs which come also from the landscape and the land where Mattea grew up. She’s from West Virginia; both her grandfathers were coal miners, and her mother worked for the miner’s union, the UMWA. Though she heard the music of such mountain musicians as Hazel Dickens, it wasn’t the sort of style she felt she could do, or was called to do. Nevertheless, the power of the songs struck her, and she began to take note of them. One of the songs on this album, Dark as a Dungeon, Mattea first heard when she was nineteen.

Then, in 2006, twelve miners lost their lives in at the Sago Mines in West Virginia. “When I was about nine, 78 miners were killed in The Farmington Disaster, near Fairmont in 1968. When Sago happened, I got catapulted back to that moment in my life and I thought, ‘I need to do something with this emotion, and maybe this album is the place to channel it’. And so I knew the time was right,” she says.

Coal mining is a tapestry of hard work, family, beloved yet harsh landscape, facing death every day, facing life everyday, hard choices, hard times, and good times and hope and love as well. All these find their places in the songs Mattea chose, and in the ways she chooses to sing them. Coal camp childhood turning into adult reality moves through the opener, The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore, which is framed in a fast driving bluegrass sound. Red Winged Blackbird is a piece of poetry and vivid visual imagery about death and the mines; Green Rolling Hills, though it’s about West Virginia, reminds too of the green hills of Ireland and Scotland to which many miners trace their family ties. Family ties and ties to the mine form the bedrock of You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive, a song that’s bound to haunt you long after it’s done. The other songs on the disc are equally varied, and equally strong.

Mattea is an artist in service to the song, one who uses her gifts to further the connecting and spiritual aspects of music. It’d be easy to go over top with some of these songs, or not to go deeply enough into them. No worries about that with Mattea and the musicians she’s invited along on this journey, who include producer Marty Stuart, fiddler Stuart Duncan, and guitarist Bill Cooley. Tim O’Brien, Molly O’Brien, and Patty Loveless add background vocals.

It’s Mattea’s vision, voice, and emotion which center this powerful music, however. An artist who’s always been open to dimensions of music beyond what’s on the surface, she knows she had help with that, that her work is part of a continuing story. “I think there’s a mystery there: that somewhere in me, in my DNA, there’s my great grandmother singing, and my grandmother, and my people, singing through me, with me,” she says. “Maybe that’s why it didn’t feel like work.”

Just another thought: quite probably, the electricity by which you are reading this was generated, in part, by coal.

you may also want to see these posts
Music Road: now playing: Kathy Mattea: Black Lung: video
Music Road: ten songs
Music Road: listening to Christmas

If you find these ideas helpful

I'd appreciate it of you'd Thank you for considering.

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now playing: Kathy Mattea: Black Lung: video

Just the woman, her voice, and a song with a powerful idea



video recorded at Joe's Pub, in New York City.

Kathy Mattea has recorded this song as the final track on her album Coal

Emmylou Harris chosen to join Country Music Hall of Fame

It was announced today that Emmylou Harris, along with Tom T. Hall, Pop Stoneman, and the Statler Brothers, will be the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Here's what Harris had to say about that in a press release from the Hall. and below that, a look back at a post on the recent box set release Songbird.


Tom T. Hall said that induction is almost a spiritual experience. Has it been for you as well?

It will now. It's still got to sink in a little bit. There's that aspect of it, where you feel honored. What an amazing thing it is to be a part of that tradition, especially for somebody who didn't come to it naturally. I wasn't raised in Country Music, even though I'm from the South. We moved around a lot, and music wasn't a big part of my life until I discovered folk music. That's where my musical passion was until I started working with Gram [Parsons], and then I became this almost obnoxious convert.

Everything about Country Music, there is a certain reverence, so I would use that word as well as what he said, "spiritual." There's a reverence about the music because to me it's not just music that was played a long time ago. The good stuff is always resonant. For me, it always fuels my passion for Country Music moving forward, obviously not trying to just recreate what the early artists did. But you're infused with it, and you go on to hopefully add something to it.

How do you feel about being part of this Class of '08, with all that it reflects about Country Music?

Oh, well, it's great. Of course, I never met Pop Stoneman, but he's a part of that education for me. Also, the D.C. area, there's that connection, even though we were there at different times.

I was telling the Statlers that in that arrogant period of my youth, when I disdained Country Music, my brother was a huge Country Music fan way before it was cool in certain circles. I loved the Statler Brothers in spite of myself. You can't but smile when you hear "counting flowers on the wall."

And, of course, Tom T. Yes, you had the songwriting of Bob Dylan, which infused me and still does. But Tom T., cutting to the chase with simplicity of lyrics and storytelling that goes back to folk and the best of Country. So, I'm a huge fan of Tom T. Hall. When the original Hot Band was out, our motto was: "Faster Horses!" Rodney and I used to warm up with "Negatory Romance." And now, of course, Buddy Miller has recorded "That's How I Got to Memphis" with Solomon Burke. It's great to be a part of this class.




Songbird

Rodney Crowell, George Jones, Mark Knopfler, Patty Griffin, Linda Ronstadt, and John Starling are duet partners who show up with Harris here. It’s a fitting range of voices and connections for the adventurous singer, who is known to love to sing harmonies and to look for newer writers and singers, which both Crowell and Griffin were when first she knew them. Her harmony work doesn’t show up much here, by Harris’ choice: she felt it was important to include material on the project where her voice was the leading one. Makes these collaborations all the more interesting, both in themselves and in the reminders of other collaborative projects in which she’s participated.

Six of the seventeen cuts on this disc see their first release here, and there’s a live version of The Pearl, as well. Highway of Heartache and Snowin’ on the Raton, and First in Line, the duet with Starling, are three of the unreleased tracks.

Harris takes a bluegrass/country turn with Randy Scruggs and Iris DeMent on Wildwood Flower, and her song with George Jones, Here We Are, marked the first time she’d recorded with a singer who’d been a longtime inspiration for her own work. The last song of this seventy eight track trip finds Harris again with her friends Ronstadt and Parton, singing When We’re Gone, Long, Gone.

The ten cuts on the dvd span Harris’performing career from Together Again with the Hot Band through Love Hurts with Elvis Costello. I Ain’t Living Long Like This, with Spyboy, is especially notable. It’d have been nice to see some of Harris’ Austin City Limits performances, or her gigs at Merlefest; with nine cuts to span forty years, what is there are varied choices. The tenth video is Harris making a plea for a cause she believes in strongly, animal rescue.

She believes strongly in music, too. “The possibility of one song gets me out of bed in the morning,” she says.

All things considered, it’s as interesting see what Harris chose to include in this package as it is to hear the music.

more about Songbird There's a series of posts about the music on Songbird. Follow the links at the bottom of each post to see the others, as well as related material.

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now playing: will the circle be unbroken?

Will the Circle be Unbroken?

This is is a now reading selection, actually.

Country Music in America is the subtitle, and this 300 page plus book, published by the Country Music Hall of Fame in partnership with Dorling Kindersly Publishers, is a very interesting treatment of such a massive and in some ways controversial subject. As it’s from the CMHF, you know the scholarship is sound, and as it’s from Dorling Kindersley, you know the visual aspect is likely to be terrific. Both of those ae true.

Editors Alanna Nash and Paul Kingsbury drew on the talents and interests of a wide range of writers to create the work, and that said, some sections of the material read better than others. It’s book that works, though, whether you read it straight through, dip into it for reference or special interest, or mainly look at the pictures. There’s not nearly enough space to handle the whole history of country music in America, of course, but they’ve done a really good job of hitting the highlights, some of the sidelights, and a few of the low lights, to give a balanced idea of how this music got where it is today, both commercially an artistically, and to open up avenues and ideas for more exploration.There are timelines, sidebars, loads of photographs and very well done layout and graphics, to go along with the text.If you only buy one book about country music this year, this should be it -- but be forewarned, it’ll send you on explorations to read and listen and learn more.

Now playing: Kathy Mattea: Mary Did You Know? video

Kathy Mattea's album Good News is a spare yet elegant Christmas album which could serve as a soundtrack for the reflective season of Advent.

Mary Did You Know? a contemporary Christmas song, marks that place of humanity contemplating God in a way which will reach anyone who is a parent, certainly, and also anyone who has ever held or helped a small child. It's a strong, unsentimental song yet one filled with wonder, a duality which Mattea gets right to the heart of in her rendering of the song.

If you find these ideas useful

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now playing: Rhonda Vincent: Beautiful Star

Rhonda Vincent
Beautiful Star

Bluegrass artist Rhonda Vincent starts off with this collection with her sole original tune, Christmas Time at Home, a warm review of holiday memories. She then flips the pages of a musical holiday album from The Christmas Song (that’s the one about chestnuts roasting) to Silent Night, to the bluegrass favorite Beautiful Star of Bethlehem, and a very engaging and grassy take on Oh Christmas Tree, and a funny but entirely musical reworking of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Rockin’ Round the Christmas Tree takes on a new shine in Vincent’s version, and Christmas Time’s A -Comin’ is another old favorite done up with warmth and straight ahead appreciation of the fellowship of the season. There’s a lot of very fine instrumental work going on too, Vincent herself on mandolin, her brother Darrin on acoustic bass and guitar, Luke Bulla on fiddle, Bryan Sutton also on guitar, Adam Steffey on mandolin among those who contribute. A good soundtrack to a holiday gathering, it’ll repay closer listening as well.

now playing: Kathy Mattea: Good News

Kathy Mattea’s Good News could be a soundtrack for Advent, the season of preparation and anticipation What a Wonderful Beginning is the first of ten traditional and contemporary songs of faith, trust, reverence and joy. In Mary Did You Know? the singer wonders about the mother’s thoughts as Jesus was a baby child, what he’d grow up to do, to be, and to suffer, and where he had come from. In The Star we are each held to examination in the star’s light and guided home by it. Somebody Talkin’ About Jesus brings all this into the rhythm of daily conversation, and The Brightest and Best and Christ Child’s Lullabye recognize the king and comfort the child.

It’s a gorgeously sung album, too, at once creative and in deep service to the music. It’s also not a new recording: this will be the fourteenth Advent in which it has formed part of my listening, and I’m not done with it yet.


Mattea has another holiday record called Joy for Christmas Day. It’s just as good, and there will be more about it to come.

Perhaps you'd consider supporting Music Road, as you think about the holidays. One way to do this:

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Voices: Vince Gill

Vince Gill is a dedicated musician, a down to earth guy, and a man of open spirit who is easily moved to tears. Stars of the music business including his former boss, Emmylou Harris, co-writer Bill Anderson, and wife Amy Grant gathered to celebrate with Gill on October 28th when he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, at ceremonies held at the Hall in Nashville. Just in his fiftieth year, Gill was recognized with this honor for both his music and his far reaching goodwill and generosity. Here, he talks about his most recent recording project.

"When you make a record, you try to load it up with the ten best sides you can find, every song that could be a hit," Vince Gill said. "With this it was the same thing, but not every song had to be a hit song." At least one of them, so far, has been. Gill won a Grammy for country male vocal performance for the song The Reason Why, taken from his latest release, the box set These Days.

The set comprises forty three songs, divided into four CDs, one focusing on groove, one on rockabilly sound, one on country, and another on the acoustic sounds of folk and bluegrass. Gill wrote or co-wrote all of the songs, and sings and plays on all, as well. It was a project that evolved, rather than one started with a commercial plan.

"I had this idea," Gill said, "that I wanted to record a song a day, and finish it as much as we could, just spend the whole day on one song. When we got to the end of the week, I thought gee, I have so many songs that I just wonder what they could be, what they could sound like. The band was available, in various configurations, and so we just kept going. By the time we were done, we had thirty one songs and I said, oh boy, I've done it now," Gill recalled, laughing.

"As I started going through the songs,"he continued,"I realized I had material for three different records, and I thought that might be a a way to go outside the box of how things are done in country music, to release three different records close together, and it would also be a thank you for the fans who have stuck with me over the years."After his garage band days growing up on Oklahoma, Gill played in bluegrass bands in Kentucky and in California, until a recording contract brought him to Nashville in 1982. It would be seven sometimes frustrating years until he hit major mainstream country success with when I Call Your Name in 1989, years in which he played on sessions and cemented musical friendships that come into play on These Days, as a range of guests from Guy Clark to Rodney Crowell, to Patty Loveless, Emmylou Harris, and Bekka Bramlett appear, as do not so country artists Diana Krall and Bonnie Raitt, nwere faces such as Gretchen Wilson, and Gill's daughter Jenny. All the guests have meaning and presence to Gill, but his daughter's work stands out. "I think I've been waiting all my life to hear that blood harmony," he said.

So he took the idea of a three album release to his record company -- and they came back with the idea of making it four. "We were still in there finishing things up, and Luke Lewis said, why don't you go in and record enough to make a bluegrass record too? and we'll put them all out together, a four record set of all original songs. That was like throwing gasoline on a fire!" Gill said. The fourth record includes as much folk material as it does bluegrass, and it is a side of his music that Gill has not often put on record, so he especially welcomed the chance to add that aspect to the project.

The forty three songs range from a jazz duet with Krall called Faint of Heart to a stone country rock anthem with John Anderson, Take this Country Back, from a haunting on the road ballad with Lee Ann Womack called if I Can Make Mississippi to full tilt high speed bluegrass gospel on a song called All Prayed Up.Some are newly written and some have been on the back burner for a while. Its a set worth hearing both for the individual songs which may appeal, and for the breadth of the project. Whichever genre of his focus, Gill is able to inhabit it as an authentic part of his musical personality. He's clearly having fun with the rockabilly guitar playing, the many moods of stone country are like second nature to his high tenor voice, the groove based songs extend that country to a varied range of pop influences, and the bluegrass and folk are where his roots are and a place he can still be at at home.

"With this much material, there's always the fear that people will say, oh, ten songs would have been enough," Gill said, laughing. It's certainly true that some songs work better than others, and some work better for different listeners than others. Gill is prepared for that. "I really love seeing people's different reactions to the different songs,"he said."And I just wanted to be creative at every turn."

The Reason Why was co written by Gill and Gary Nicholson, with backing vocals from Alison Krauss. The box set These Days will be eligible for the Grammy Awards in 2008.

now playing: Emmylou Harris: Songbird: disc four and the dvd

Songbird

Rodney Crowell, George Jones, Mark Knopfler, Patty Griffin, Linda Ronstadt, and John Starling are duet partners who show up with Harris here. It’s a fitting range of voices and connections for the adventurous singer, who is known to love to sing harmonies and to look for newer writers and singers, which both Crowell and Griffin were when first she knew them. Her harmony work doesn’t show up much here, by Harris’ choice: she felt it was important to include material on the project where her voice was the leading one. Makes these collaborations all the more interesting, both in themselves and in the reminders of other collaborative projects in which she’s participated.

Six of the seventeen cuts on this disc see their first release here, and there’s a live version of The Pearl, as well. Highway of Heartache, Snowin’ on the Raton, and First in Lne, the duet with Starling, are three of the unreleased tracks.

Harris takes a bluegrass/country turn with Randy Scruggs and Iris DeMent on Wildwood Flower, and her song with George Jones, Here We Are, marked the first time she’d recorded with a singer who’d been a longtime inspiration her own work. The last song of this seventy eight track trip finds Harris again with her friends Ronstadt and Parton, singing When We’re Gone, Long, Gone.

The ten cuts on the dvd span Harris’performing career from Together Again with the Hot Band through Love Hurts with Elvis Costello. I Ain’t Living Long Like This, with Spyboy, is especially notable. It’d have been nice to see some of Harris’ Austin City Limits performances, or her gigs at Merlefest; with nine cuts to span forty years, what is there are interesting choices. The tenth video is Harris making a plea for a cause she believes in strongly, animal rescue.

She believes strongly in music, too. “The possibility of one song gets me out of bed in the morning,” she says.

All things considered, it’s as interesting see what Harris chose to include in this package as it is to hear the music.

more about Songbird

now playing: Emmylou Harris: Songbird: back to disc one

Songbird


For Emmylou Harris, the roots of music run deep into folk tradition, and the branches stretch out to country, Americana, bluegrass, and a range of singer and songwriter ideas and other genres. It’s the folk and country sides which are the focus of the twenty one tracks on the first disc of this box set. It’s Harris’ own view of these sounds, of course, and her choice of highlights from the many such songs she has recorded.

Among other things that means there’s as much from songwriters like Rodney Crowell, Gram Parsons, and Dolly Parton as there is material from any historic source. The disc opens with an alternate take from her first album Gliding Bird, showing Harris in the early days of developing her vocal style, and her song writing chops too. A studio track and a live cut with Gram Parsons give a good look at their collaboration in just the space of two songs. Sorrow in the Wind evokes the Appalachians as well as western spaces, while Rough and Rocky walks a line between lullaby and lament.

The box set’s title track, My Songbird, is here, and so is Ashes By Now, which its writer, Rodney Crowell, and country star Lee Ann Womack have both taken to well deserved chart status. Harris puts yet another spin on the song. There’s a Springsteen song, Racing in the Streets, in which Harris keeps both the folk and rock sides of the Boss in evidence. The Green Rolling Hills is, Harris remarks in the liner notes, “a direct line back to displacement, people leaving, longing for home...we all feel that way in different situations. That sense of longing has always been the thing that pulls me into songs.”

photograph by Kerry Dexter

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more about Songbird