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Emily Saliers: Back to Her Roots
It was 30 years ago that Emily Saliers and Amy Ray released their debut album, Strange Fire, as the Indigo Girls. They\’d been playing music together for a few years, at that point, and Saliers for much longer, on her own. The daughter of a theologian, Saliers grew up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in…
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The Urgency of History: A Conversation with Rhiannon Giddens
Every now and then, a voice comes along that is so thoroughly in tune with the times that it can\’t — and shouldn\’t — be ignored. This year, that voice belongs to Rhiannon Giddens. Her latest album, Freedom Highway , takes its cues from the warriors of justice who came before her … Joan Baez,…
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There Will Be Dancing: Emily Saliers in Conversation with Chastity Brown
To be a great songwriter is to, necessarily, wear your heart on your sleeve. Whether you want to or not, you must summon the courage to lay it all on the line — the heartache and the hope, the virtues and the vices. The same necessity could be applied to being a queer woman in…
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The Orphan Brigade: Heart of the Cave
The opening strains of the Orphan Brigade\’s Heart of the Cave album feel ancient, sacred, and tribal. A drum beat. A shaker. A howling choir. Voices rise up in unison, chanting, \”We ain\’t leaving but a pile of bones. We ain\’t leaving no more.\” The story begins at the end because, no matter which road…
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Deb Talan: “Joshua Tree in the Headphones”
Few things recall an era as quickly and clearly as citing “wood panel walls and shag carpet,” as Deb Talan does in “Joshua Tree in the Headphones.” She does so to set the scene of a very specific memory of being at her best friend\’s house, stoned and immersed in U2\’s “Where the Streets Have…
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Squared Roots: Pieta Brown x Rickie Lee Jones
There are some artists who defy every convention and expectation we attempt to impose upon them. Rickie Lee Jones is one of them. Right out of the gate, she played by her own rules and danced to her own very groovy drum. Her eponymous debut in 1979 — with stunning songs like “The Last Chance…
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Five Questions: Tift Merritt
On her seventh studio album in 15 years, Stitch of the World, singer/songwriter Tift Merritt has churned out another solid set of roots-infused tunes that reach backward, forward, and side to side. You see, Merritt has a lot of musical ground to cover and she does just that, from the throwback folk-country of “Dusty Old…
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Five Questions: John Craigie
Singer/songwriter John Craigie grew up in Southern California, which easily explains his breezy, bright folk-rock sensibilities. After graduating with a degree in mathematics from UC Santa Cruz, Craigie took to the road and the recording studio, which readily explains his existential musical explorations. Craigie\’s latest release — No Rain, No Rose — finds him folding…
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Valerie June: The Order of Time
One of the best things about modern roots music is its conflation and innovation, of traditions and of visions. And many of the artists making the greatest strides in that regard are Black artists, including Alabama Shakes, Rhiannon Giddens, Son Little, and Valerie June. Each brings an inimitable style and an indelible spirit to their…
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The Turns of Humor and Terms of Happy: A Conversation with Aimee Mann
In an age of rampant anti-intellectualism, it\’s imperative that we cling to the brainiacs among us, be they scholars or scientists, pundits or poets. One of the smartest of the songwriter smarty pants has long been Aimee Mann and, thankfully, she\’s back with a new album to get us through 2017, the more-than-aptly titled Mental…