road trip music: American northwest

The snows of Montana, the mountains of Idaho, mountains and coastal waters of Washington State, and the expanse of the Great Land, Alaska, are the places the Great American Road Trip will travel in January. The soundtrack for this part of our trip ranges from bluegrass to country to classical music.

Stephanie Davis is a woman who really gets Montana, her native state, and the celebrations and struggles that make up life in the contemporary western states, Davis has had success in Nashville, but it wasn’t her place to stay: Montana called her home. Listen to her album Crocus in the Snow and you will learn about the American west, a west you may just have glimpsed around the edges of popular images and books on the subject.

Rosalie Sorrels lives in Idaho, where she’s been writing songs that speak of heart and humanity and justice for decades. For the Idaho part of our trip, though, the soundtrack I suggest is an album she put together in tribute to another songwriter whose writings on social justice have become part of the American songbook. Take a listen to Strangers in Another Country.

Mark O’Connor got his start in Washington State, a start that would take him from bluegrass fiddle championships to rock bands, from being in the top ranks of Nashville sidemen to fronting a jazz ensemble to composing and playing classical music. In the process he’s created a classical genre he thinks of as the new American music, drawing on all those elements. Listen to what he’s talking about on Americana Symphony.

Up in Alaska, there are thriving interests in just about every sort of music. Country Grammy nominee Jewel is an Alaskan, and the bluegrass band Bearfoot was first formed there. You can hear their work on Follow Me.

Two updates of note: Rosalie Sorrels has passed on since this story was first written, and Mark O’Connor has returned to making bluegrass music with his O’Connor Family Band, about whom you will read more here at Music Road.

you may also wish to see
Music Road: road trip music: American west
Music Road: Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone
Music Road: Tish Hinojosa: Our Little Planet



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

One To The Heart, One To The Head


The west is a landscape of transformation and mystery, a place where, if you’re there, your background is transformed, and if you return to the home place, you arrive changed. This is as true, I’ve found, whether the west in question turns out to be the highlands of Scotland, the western counties of Ireland, the Rockies and the Sangre de Cristos and the Llano Estacado of the United States, or the high plains and the northern Rockies of Alberta.

Mystery and transformation are stock in trade in the work of songwriters Gretchen Peters and Tom Russell, so it’s all the more interesting that when they got together for an album of songs about the west, only one -- Russell’s song Guadalupe-- is an original by either of them. Barry Walsh, whose keyboard work illuminates many of the tracks, contributes a fine original track too, and all the rest are covers.

Covers of songs by writers who really know their west it turns out, and know it from differing yet intersecting perspectives. The story opens with Walsh’s reflective instrumental, North Platte. It moves forward with the intriguing triad of Mary McCaslin’s Prairie in the Sky, Bob Dylan’s Billy 4, and Ian Tyson’s Blue Mountains of Mexico. Stephanie Davis’ contemplative song Wolves, about the loneliness and resignation that living in the west sometimes requires, is another outstanding cut. Actually they all are, from Russell's mystic and shadowed tale of pain and longing in Guadalupe, the tinge of bar room wisdom in Sweet and Shiny Eyes, to Rosalie Sorrels My Last Go Round, which could be said to look at the same story as Guadalupe from another place along the journey.

Peters lived in Colorado for some time, and Russell has lived in far west Texas. They each hold the perspective of an artist grounded in American west, along with the perspective of artists who have traveled the world. It’s a project filled with imagination and integrity, which comes through clearly in the song choice, in Peters’ lead singing, and in the collaboration with the musicians who work with her. It’s a collection of songs which will linger with you well after the playing is done, and one to which you’ll want to return.





you may also want to see

Gretchen Peters: Northern Lights

Dakota Lullaby: Albert & Gage

Ian Tyson: Yellowhead to Yellowstone

Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh’s recording of Gerry O Beirne’s song Western Highway is one view of the idea of the west from an Irish perspective that’s worth checking out.

2010 Songwriter's Market: Where & How to Market Your Songs for an interview with Peters.

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.