Loudon Wainwright III - Loudon’s long and
illustrious career is highlighted by more than two dozen album releases, a
2010 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album for High Wide & Handsome,
and two previous Grammy nominations for I’m Alright (1985) and More Love
Songs (1986). His 2012 recording, Older Than My Old Man Now was named one
of NPR’s Top 10 Albums of the Year. And in 2014, Haven’t Got the Blues
(Yet), marks his the 26th career release to-date. Wainwright is
perhaps best known for the novelty song “Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the
Road)” and for playing Captain Calvin Spalding (the “singing surgeon”) on
the American television show, M*A*S*H. His songs have been recorded by
Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Rufus
Wainwright, and Mose Allison, among others. He has collaborated with
songwriter/producer Joe Henry on the music for Judd Apatow’s hit movie Knocked
Up, written music for the British theatrical adaptation of the Carl
Hiaasen novel Lucky You, composed topical songs for NPR’s Morning Edition
and All Things Considered and ABC’s Nightline, and recorded several songs
for the soundtrack of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. As an actor, Wainwright
has appeared in films directed by Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby, Christopher
Guest, Tim Burton, Cameron Crowe, and Judd Apatow. Loudon’s most recent
project is his one-man play entitled Surviving Twin. A solo piece many
years in the making, Surviving Twin is part concert, part dramatic
reading, part family slide-show, and Loudon III calls a
“posthumous collaboration” with his writer father. Haven’t Got the
Blues (Yet)--or HGTB(Y), for short—is the 26th album in the long and illustrious
career of Loudon Wainwright III. It follows his acclaimed Older Than
My Old Man Now album—“my death n’ decay opus,” as Wainwright calls it,
and 2010’s Grammy-winning High Wide & Handsome.
Nancy And Beth - Emmy Award winning actress
MEGAN MULLALLY (Children's Hospital, Party Down and Will & Grace) met
fellow actress STEPHANIE HUNT (Friday Night Lights, Californication and How To
Live With Your Parents For the Rest of Your Life) while in Austin filming the
independent movie Somebody Up There Likes Me. The minute the two started
singing together they realized they had something special...and those that have
come out to see their new band, NANCY AND BETH, agree! Within just three
months of their inception, N&B had already played such fabulous venues as
Royce Hall in Los Angeles and been featured as a musical guest on CONAN.
Mipso - Chapel Hill’s indie Americana quartet
Mipso are influenced by the contradiction of their progressive home and the
surrounding rural southern landscapes. Currently celebrating the release of their
new album Coming Down The Mountain (April 7, 2017), Mipso
ventures further than ever from their string-band pedigree to discover a
broader Americana where classic folk-rock and modern alt-country sounds mingle
easily with Appalachian tradition. Adding drums and electric instruments
to their intimate four-part harmonies and powerful acoustic meld, Mipso’s music
is lush and forward moving, with words that sear and salve in turn. Hailed as
“hewing surprisingly close to gospel and folk while still sounding modern and
secular.” (Acoustic Guitar), and recently recognized by Rolling Stone as a
favorite 2016 festival performance, Mipso brings a distinctly unique sound-
full of wistful beauty, hopeful undercurrents, and panoramic soundscapes.
David Childers - Throughout
his 20-year career as a singer, songwriter and bandleader, Childers has written
about the tension between secular and religious impulses. His albums have
always included songs of wild hedonism and uplifting faith but, as his new
album, Serpents of Reformation,evolved, he found himself drawn to themes
of salvation and repentance. “I wrote a few new gospel-type songs and the music
took on a life of its own. The songs all look at the forgiveness that’s at the
heart of Christian philosophy, even though you don’t see a lot (of forgiveness)
in the world today.” Childers usually tracks his records live, with minimal
overdubs. This time, he let his son Robert and co-producer Neal Harper control
the creative process. “I didn’t set out to make a gospel album,” David Childers
says, “I wanted to make a hip-hop record. I’d been listening to a lot of
the stuff RL Burnside recorded late in his career. He had a lot of hip hop
beats and electronic rhythms in the background. I told my son Robert, who knows
a lot about recording technology that I wanted to do a record like that. We
started by recording ‘Life of Jesus,’ a song I did with The Gospel Playboys in
the 90s, and took off from there. “Sometimes I’d do a basic track singing with
a drummer or my acoustic guitar,” Childers continued. “Mostly, I was just
brought in to do my vocals. I didn’t hang out in the studio. I just let them do
what they wanted to do.” The result is a hybrid that blends Childers’ roots in
folk, country and blues, with the atmospheric textures generated by Harper and
his son Robert, a mix of acoustic and electronic sounds that span the entire
history of American music. “God Is God” is a traditional tune, an a cappella
tour de force that’s half jubilee gospel and half chain gang moan, delivered with
deep guttural harmonies and hand claps. Childers learned “Woman at the Well”
from the singing of Mahalia Jackson, but this bass heavy arrangement is full of
the grating sounds of industrial decay, with Childers’ lead vocal crying for a
hint of solace. On “Don’t Be Scared,” Childers sings the praises of love’s
healing power, while acoustic banjo, fiddle and stand up bass offset the
processed Johnny Cash thump of the backing track. “This song is about merging
the physical and spiritual in a positive way,” Childers explains. “If there’s a
touch of Cash in it, that’s cool. He was a redneck singing about societies ills
and all God’s children ain’t free, which was not popular with Southern white
people, and still isn’t.” Layers of sampled percussion give “Gospel Plow” a
West African feel, while Jim Avett sings and plays acoustic guitar on a
bluegrass flavored take on the old hymn “Jericho.” Andy The Doorbum adds
spectral organ and baritone harmonies to the sinister rumble of “Sodom and
Gomorrah,” giving Childers’ vocal an apocalyptic aura. Like many of the album’s
songs, “How ‘Bout You” balances traditional vocal harmonies, sanctified
baritone trumpet and handclaps with murky, processed rhythms and shadowy howls
of grief. “This is an accidental gospel record,” Childers says. “It’s a
contemplation of my beliefs and people can react as they see fit. I’ve had
experiences that let me know there’s a positive force in my life that’s carried
me through some hard times. Maybe its just good luck, but to me, it’s beyond
explanation, although I do know it gets better when I open myself up to the
positive things in the world.” David Childers is a musician, poet, historian,
painter, father and champion of people who get tangled up in the bureaucratic
legal system; he specializes in helping people navigate the maze of the Social
Security system to obtain their benefits. He grew up in the cotton mill country
of North Carolina and started playing banjo when he was 14. “I didn’t have the
confidence to be a musician,” he says. “I sang in the church choir so I could
get close to the good looking girls I knew.” He started playing guitar in
college, but he was a 37-year-old practicing lawyer before he got serious about
his songwriting. His first album, Godzilla! He Done Broke Out!, was
released in 1994. It marked the beginning of 13 years of relentless touring,
while working 60 hours a week as a lawyer. He made nine more albums before he
burned out and stopped performing in 2007. “I ran into a brick wall, burned out
from the touring, drinking, staying out late and my work schedule.” Childers
sat in a chair for a few months before having a spiritual awakening. “I wanted
to investigate God. I dove into the Quran, but I grew up with the Bible and
began reading. It helped me understand the spiritual consequences of the things
I was doing. I became happier and more at peace. Now, I try to set an example
with my life and be decent to other people.” He started playing music again in
2010, recording two albums, Glorious Day (2010) and Next Best
Thing (2013) with the Overmountain Men, a band that Avett Brother bassist
Bob Crawford – a huge fan and close friend of Childers’ - helped produce.
“David is the most prolific North Carolina songwriter alive,” Crawford
said. “Everywhere I go, people ask about him. It’s great to see
people constantly discovering this man and his massive body of work.” He’ll
be doing local dates with an acoustic trio or a full band to support Serpents
of Reformation.
Liz Longley - Listening
to Liz Longley is like diving into a vivid dream, moody and somehow both
familiar and strange. At first, the dream belongs exclusively to Longley. But
as she sings what she’s trying to know––her lovers, her place, herself––her
fierce candor shatters any walls that may have separated us, and the dream
we’re swimming in becomes more than just Longley’s. It becomes ours .“I’ve found
that people respond most to the songs I’ve been most open and honest in,”
Longley says. “When I write, I want to put my own story in it and make sure
others hear their own in it, too.” That winning transformation of the personal
into the universal plays brilliantly on Weightless, the highly anticipated
follow-up to Longley’s eponymous 2015 Sugar Hill Records debut, which garnered
praise from American Songwriter, Huffington Post, CMT Edge, and more. Weightless
luxuriates in bold, thick pop with rock-and-roll edges. Crunchy, percussive
guitars cushion the defiant songbird melodies Longley uses to deliver her
bittersweet punches that explore the complexities and even dysfunction of
relationships rather than the fairytale. “I grew up listening to music of the
90s, and this record feels more like the Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morissette in
me,” Longley says. “All those powerful chick singer-songwriters I grew up
loving.” The Pennsylvania native attended the prestigious Berklee College of
Music and gained her first national traction in television, which recognized
her ability to frame a scene early. Longley’s “This is Not the End” was
featured in the 2012 season finale of Lifetime’s Army Wives, while “Rescue My
Heart”––re-recorded for Weightless ––made its way onto ABC’s Switched at Birth
and MTV’s Scream: The TV Series. A growing audience noticed and began following
Longley’s career, craving more. Weightless delivers the more everyone has
been waiting for. Longley recorded the 10-song collection in Nashville with
Bill Reynolds, the bassist and producer of Band of Horses as well as acclaimed
projects from the Avett Brothers, Lissie, and others. Reynolds and Longley took
their time in the studio, stretching the process out over three months. “It was
such an amazing feeling to work with someone who was so invested in the
record,” Longley says of Reynolds’ production. “Bill encouraged the exploration
of different sounds and approaches until each song found its way. We never
settled. Making this record was a creative process. It wasn’t made overnight.” While
the new album’s triumphant embrace of lush pop-rock marks a musical evolution
for Longley, the starkly personal lyrics and clear vignettes that have defined
her songwriting to date remain. “The songs I am drawn to singing every night
are the ones that carry the most truth, the ones that I relate to no matter
where I am in my life,” she explains. “This record is made up of those kinds of
songs.” “What’s the Matter” saunters into dicey relationship questions with
confidence, crackling with electric guitar and vocals that are somehow angelic
and menacing at the same time. “It’s just a matter of time till what’s
the matter with me is what’s the matter with you,” Longley cries, pointing to
the challenges of perspective and timing that arise even––or maybe
especially––when partners are in sync. “I’m usually inspired by the darker
moments,” she says with a laugh. “It’s something I can’t seem to get away
from.” Longley is exceptionally good at describing feelings and situations in
new ways that only enhance our understanding. Songs “Weightless” and “Swing”
capture two distinct yearnings for freedom. Longley wrote “Weightless” in her head
while driving around in LA, longing to cut ties with a love that had soured.
“I’d just gotten out of a relationship, and we’d been arguing about who was
going to get what when we parted ways,” she says. “I just wanted to feel free
and light again. And as soon as I wrote that song, I did. It helped me realize
that there are so many important things in life, but none of them are the couch
or the diamond ring.” One of three tracks written with Ian Keaggy, album opener
“Swing” delights in refusing to settle down. The chorus soars like the pendulum
it praises, with layered instrumentation that helps create an ambrosial ode to
moving and self-reliance. “Never Really Mine” lets Longley’s supple voice do
the heavy lifting. She relies on sparse keys and guitar as punctuation as she
hauntingly conveys the abject heartbreak of realizing you never had what you
just lost in the first place. Longley finished the forlorn “You Haunt Me” alone
in a dodgy hotel room with a paranormal vibe. “The song is about what was an unresolved
situation in my life,” she says. “Someone from my past just kept appearing in
my dreams. It was almost like my mind was saying, ‘You need to figure this
out.’” She pauses then adds, “It’s resolved… now all that’s left is a song
about it.” Rolling “Say Anything” delights in following a chosen path, no
matter what detractors say, while “Electricity” explores love’s invigorating
and maddening buzz. Delivered over plaintive piano, “Rescue My Heart” pleads
for a savior. “This song leaves the listener to decide a lot of things,”
Longley says of the intentionally ambiguous snapshot of a desperate soul
reaching up for either human or divine help. Written from the point of view of
someone “crossing over to the other side,” “Only Love” imagines the different
choices we’d make if we could give life another go, acknowledging brokenness
alongside newness and hope. Album closer “Oxygen”––written with Sarah
Siskind––celebrates the resuscitative quality of a budding relationship over
heartbeat percussion. “When you meet someone new and you feel like you’re
taking in a breath of fresh air, like you’re brand new again ––I just felt
brand new again,” Longley says. “The song came out of Sarah and I talking about
new love and how it can almost bring you back to life.” By vulnerably digging
into her own stories, Longley keeps giving the rest of us the words and
melodies to share what we feel but struggle to express. “In the process of
writing these songs, I felt empowered and re-focused on what is important in
life,” she says. “Songwriting is the cheapest form of therapy. It helps make
sense of situations and emotions that aren’t yet understood. Then the hope is
that it helps someone else, cause everything feels better when you can sing
about it.”