News

July 5, 2024

Rolling Stone Feature Linda Thompson 'Proxy Music'

Linda Thompson Can’t Sing Anymore. She Still Has Plenty to Say

The grand dame of the British folk scene lost her voice to spasmodic dysphonia, but a new album featuring guest singers keeps her music alive.

By David Browne

Photo: Tom Oldham

On a recent afternoon in a cinderblock-walled rehearsal room in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park neighborhood, a gem of the British folk-rock movement is returning to life. Fronting a small band, Tammy Faye Starlite, a petite blonde with a commanding voice, is throwing herself into Richard and Linda Thompson’s “Hokey Pokey,” jumping up and down during instrumental breaks.

As Starlite sings, a small, thin woman — in khakis, crisp white sneakers, a blue polo shirt and a sky-blue baseball cap, her brown hair pulled back — rises from her seat on the sidelines. Arms folded, she walks to different corners of the room, head down, listening to the music. Every so often, she moves her hands with the rhythm or does the slightest of jigs.

The only thing Linda Thompson isn’t able to do is sing along with a tune she recorded five decades ago. “I can’t,” she says, sitting back down on a folding chair. “I mean, I really wish I could. It’s enough for me to speak.”

Now 76, Thompson is a grand dame of the British folk scene. Although she made records (and sang on British TV commercials) before she met and married Richard, it’s her work with him, in the Seventies and Eighties, for which she’s best known. Although Richard wrote most of their material, Linda took the lead on some of their most haunting songs: “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight,” “Walking on a Wire,” “The Great Valerio,” “Dimming of the Day.” Her delivery was “the clearest, bell-like, unfettered, unencumbered and unpretentious voice,” says their son Teddy Thompson, also a singer and songwriter.

Onstage, many of her Sixties peers are beginning to show the wear and tear on their voices after decades of touring and recording. Thompson, though, didn’t have a choice but to pull back. Starting in the early Seventies, she developed her first case of spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder in which the vocal cords go into spasms.

In Thompson’s case, she says it was caused by trauma. In 1973, when she was pregnant with her and Richard’s first child, he became a Muslim, and the two left the music scene for three years to spend time in the Sufi community. “It was feeling maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she says. “It was my first pregnancy and my first husband, and I was just feeling panicked about being drawn into Sufism, which frightened me a bit. It was kind of a punitive regime, especially for women. That’s what did it for me.”

The condition appeared when the Thompsons were making Hokey Pokey, their first album together after he’d left Fairport Convention. “I found that I couldn’t breathe properly,” she says. “I thought it was my pregnancy. But it was dysphonia. It was quite hard to diagnose, because doctors didn’t know much about it. It was very freaky and scary, because you just don’t know what’s happening.”

Thompson’s condition has receded and returned periodically since but has accelerated in the last few years. With the help of an occasional Botox injection, Thompson can sometimes speak as if nothing’s amiss. But singing is now part of her past. She says her situation isn’t as debilitating as Celine Dion’s “stiff-person syndrome,” also a neurological disorder, but in terms of its impact, Thompson feels they’re similar. “It’s the same thing, although hers is a little more serious,” she says. “But dysphonia is a neurological ailment. But once it’s happened, it’s like Parkinson’s: you can’t switch it off. And it’s just getting worse.”

Just before the pandemic, Thompson had an idea for a song, “Or Nothing at All,” and told her son Teddy that she’d love to hear their friend, the singer Martha Wainwright, perform it. That idea slowly blossomed into Proxy Music, an entire album of new Thompson songs (some co-written with Teddy and other collaborators) sung by others, including Wainwright, her brother Rufus, the Proclaimers, and British folkie Eliza Carthy. “I think everybody would like to write a song,” Thompson says. “Whether you could write a good song or not is a different matter. When I couldn’t sing, I had to do something. So I wrote. And to hear other people sing your songs is fantastic.”

For Teddy, who is also overseeing two tribute concerts to his mother, in New York and London, Proxy Music serves as a way to remind people of her work. “I’m very protective of my mum and her legacy as a musician,” says Teddy. “It irks me a bit to say this, but her legacy will be that she was a really great singer for a very short amount of time. As far as recordings with my dad, that’s only five, seven years. That sort of thing is attractive; it burns so bright for a short amount of time. So I’m hoping that people will remember those two bookends, including her second act as a songwriter.”

Starlite is just one of several guest singers who will arrive at this decidedly no-frills rehearsal space to practice a few of Thompson’s songs for the New York show, scheduled for the following night at City Winery. The lineup will ultimately include Martha Wainwright, Amy Helm, Syd Straw, and the Bangles’ Vicki Peterson. At the studio, Thompson greets them all warmly. The only time she is anywhere near a microphone is when she occasionally walks over to her son and makes suggestions for guitar parts.

“Singing is a fantastic way to express yourself,” she says during a break. “And I miss it a lot. I even miss being able to sing in the shower. But I don’t let it get me down. I can’t. I had it until I was 60-something. So, you know, that will have to do.”

AS AUSTERE AND SOMBER AS HER MUSIC can be, both with her ex-husband and on her own, Thompson is hardly dour in person. During a Zoom chat with RS a week before the show rehearsals, she was chatty and witty, proudly explaining the “Mum” tattoo on her upper right arm: “My mother had just died and I was in New York at three in the morning drunk and I stumbled into a tattoo parlor.” The tattoo artist was about to spell it “mom” before she corrected him.

The cover of Proxy Music — a parody of Roxy Music’s first album, with a tarted-up Thompson in wig and makeup — was an intentional goof. “I just thought it was funny to be an ancient pinup, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up,” she says. “It’s made for a lot of interest. I should have taken notice of album covers before, because I just never bothered. I would say to people, ‘Just do whatever.’ But now I think it’s good to do something controversial on the cover.”

Born Linda Pettifer in London and partly raised in Scotland, Thompson became part of the British folk-rock scene that also birthed Fairport Convention and its most famous graduates, Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson. For a brief period, Nick Drake was a sorta-boyfriend. “It was a weird thing,” she recalls of the low-key Drake. “He would just show up at my house and play songs and we’d hang out. But it wasn’t — what can I say? — some great passion. It was very dispassionate.  But he was amazing. I wish I’d had recordings of all those songs he sang in my living room.”

She and Richard married in 1972 and soon began making records together. She says she doesn’t have what she calls the “horror stories” that other women in the music business did at the time. “But you did have the condescension and the ‘you can’t possibly know what you’re talking about,’” she recalls. “You couldn’t possibly say, ‘What about a mandolin here?’ They’d go, ‘What?’ But then ten minutes later they’d go, ‘Maybe we should try a mandolin on this.’ It was just the way it was. I became used to circumnavigating.”

When her first case of dysphonia kicked in, Thompson says it was manageable for a while. After a few hours in a studio, she would find that her voice would come back, but it was, she says, “very time consuming and annoying for everyone concerned. I couldn’t do anything quickly anymore.”

In 1982, Thompson left her for another woman he would soon marry, and the couple still had to carry on with a tour — ironically, to promote an album, Shoot Out the Lights, that was their most lauded. In what she calls “a delayed adolescence,” she decided to cope during the trek by drinking and taking antidepressants. (She would also express her anger at Richard by occasionally tripping him as he walked onstage.) The culmination, she says, was the night she passed out in front of an L.A. club and was rescued by Linda Ronstadt, who took her into her home and helped nurse her back to health. Ronstadt’s friend Jane Fonda came by and gave Thompson a copy of her then-ubiquitous workout guide. “She said, ‘Do all the exercises in this book,’” Thompson says, using her fingers to conjure Fonda’s legs on its cover and then making a motion with her hands that she chucked it.

Teddy, who was born in 1976, didn’t learn about his mother’s issues until later in life. “She just put music to one side and went about her life raising us [he and his sister Kami] and being a normal mother,” he says. “There was no sort of announcement of her saying to me, ‘I’m not going to sing anymore.’ It was just a slow petering out.” Looking back now, especially at the records she made, Teddy can hear the onset of her condition. “If you didn’t notice at the time, you can hear certain records now and go, ‘Oh, I can hear how she’s having trouble coming in at that right time.’”

On her own, Thompson made One Clear Moment, her first solo album, in 1985. An overproduced, synth-dominated record, she now calls it “ridiculous” (it’s the only time she sounds irked). But a few years later, Thompson’s bank account was fortified when one of its songs, “Telling Me Lies,” was covered by Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, and Dolly Parton. A follow-up album, recorded in Nashville, was never finished (“There was a kind of slickness to the tracks that didn’t really suit me”), and with that and her vocal issues, Thompson began beating a retreat. She made more money from a jewelry store in London than in music: “It’s crazy, but, you know, I never expected to make money from folk music.”

A few albums followed, including 2002’s more acoustic Fashionably Late, which was instigated by the death of her mother and featured contributions from Richard. “Time heals all wounds once you get old,” Teddy says of the family dynamic. Proxy Music occasionally alludes to this stage of Thompson’s life; one song, “I Used to Be Pretty,” seems especially biting. “Well, I did used to be pretty,” she says matter of factly. “And it’s funny. You don’t realize when you have it when you’re pretty young. And once it’s gone, you’re kind of invisible.” She laughs. “But you know, that’s okay. It’s nice to be pretty.”

Proxy Music is also weighty in the sense that it may be Thompson’s last record of any kind; she knows there isn’t a huge market for Celtic-influenced songs like hers. She also chafes when the word legacy is brought up: “Legacy is a male concept. My kids are my legacy.”

Starlite finishes a run-through of “Hokey Pokey,” and Thompson claps and shouts “woo-hoo!” As she rehears songs from her past, Thompson says a few evoke an unsettling memory or period in her life. “And that’s good, because it means it’s affecting me,” she says. “I thought I was dead inside.”

Luckily, “Hokey Pokey” isn’t one of them. “God, that was 50 years ago!” she says of her marriage to Richard before referencing the song’s sly connection between sex and dessert. “It does make me want to have ice cream, though.”

Full Article

June 26, 2024

Pitchfork Review Linda Thompson 'Proxy Music'

 

LINDA THOMPSON PROXY MUSIC 7.5
Stricken by a disease that left her unable to sing, the British songwriter recruits a cast of guest vocalists for a set of songs that toy with assumptions about authorship and interpretation.

by Andy Cush
photo by Sean James

Linda Thompson is best known as a singer and interpreter of someone else’s songs. A specific someone else: Richard Thompson, her ex-husband, with whom she made a few of the greatest British folk-rock albums ever as a duo in the 1970s and early ’80s, lending dignified poise to his tales of suffering and strife. Linda made one album after they broke up, then began struggling with a condition called spasmodic dysphonia, which causes involuntary contractions of the larynx that can make it difficult to sing or speak. She focused on family life and released no new music until the early 2000s, when treatment with Botox relaxed her vocal cords enough for her to make a careful comeback. The three albums she’s released since then are remarkable not only for the renewed power of her voice, but also for her emergence as a songwriter, a craft she honed when it seemed like she might never sing again.

Thompson’s dysphonia has since worsened. Proxy Music, as its title cheekily suggests, is a collection of songs she wrote for other people to sing, inverting the composer-performer dynamic of her best-known work. With a few exceptions, the music, largely co-written with her and Richard’s son Teddy Thompson, could fit onto any of those classic ’70s records, with stately acoustic instrumentation and melodies that wind patiently without flashy pop hooks. Her sensibility as a lyricist is informed by the folk tradition, and she writes often about the sort of heartbreak and regret that also characterized her songs with Richard.

But she’s also funny—sharper and daffier than she ever got to be as her ex’s melancholy mouthpiece. In “Or Nothing at All,” a piano ballad about unrequited affection performed tenderly by Martha Wainwright, Thompson describes true love’s deliverance not in terms of high passion, but absurd clinical precision: “A hundred men in their white coats/Would check you with their stethoscopes/And hand you straight to me.” “Shores of America,” sung by Dori Freeman from the perspective of a pioneer woman leaving a lousy partner behind in the old world, contains a zinger so good it’s hard to believe no one’s gotten to it before: “And if it’s true/That only the good die young/Lucky old you/’Cause you’ll be around until kingdom come.”

Perhaps inspired by the unusual rotating-singer format or her years spent inflecting someone else’s words and melodies with her own personality, Thompson is playful and probing with notions of authorship and authenticity of voice that many other songwriters take for granted. She is especially attuned to the gradations of difference in perspective between a song’s writer, its singer, and the constructed character of its narrator. Proxy Music opens with “The Solitary Traveler,” an emotionally complex waltz whose lyrics, about a “wicked” woman who has lost her voice and the love of her child’s father, seem drawn from Thompson’s biography. But they also gesture in the direction of a folk-song stock role she was occasionally asked to play earlier in her career: the fallen woman, undone by her own bad choices, an object of both pity and scorn. By the end of the song, Thompson has turned this misogynistic archetype on its head. “I’m alone now, you’d think I’d be sad,” sings Kami Thompson, Linda and Richard’s daughter, brassy and assured. “No voice, no son, no man to be had/You’re wrong as can be boys, I’m solvent and free boys/All my troubles are gone.”

“John Grant,” delivered by former Czars frontman John Grant, has a narrator whose heart has been stolen by a man named John Grant. It is both a Being John Malkovich-style metafictional hall of mirrors and a sweet portrait of the mutual quirks that develop in long relationships. “A moment on the lips/A lifetime on the hips” is how Thompson recounts the couple’s shared love of sweets. Later, we learn that they’re tree-huggers, an identity they take literally. “It chafes the arms a bit,” Grant sings with a sort of auditory suppressed smile, “And we don’t know if they’re into it.” He also contributes some pleasantly noodly electronic keyboard lines, sounding a bit like Jerry Garcia when he used MIDI to turn his guitar into a synth in the late ’80s and ’90s. It’s a strange incursion on an album otherwise committed to rustic instrumental textures, but a welcome one, heightening the uncanny aspect of the song’s premise.

Proxy Music’s other experiments with relatively contemporary accents aren’t always as successful. The reverb-enhanced stomps, shouts, and claps of “That’s the Way the Polka Goes” serve to make its asymmetrical rhythm seem much more generic than it actually is, bringing an otherwise fine song dangerously close to Lumineers territory. “Three Shaky Ships” also has too much reverb, its cathedral-sized echoes and Rachel Unthank’s quietly portentous delivery evoking another mid-2010s musical cliche: It sounds like one of those spooky covers of famous pop songs you used to hear all the time in trailers for blockbuster movies.

The album’s stunning closer is “Those Damn Roches,” a tribute to the titular singing sisters and various other famous musical clans, with lead vocals from Teddy Thompson. The delicate arcs of lead guitar sound a lot like Richard’s own, which may not be coincidental. The guitarist is Zak Hobbs, Richard and Linda’s grandson, son of their eldest daughter, Muna. Richard himself, who has contributed in various ways to all but one of Linda’s post-comeback albums, sings backup. (He also plays guitar on “I Used to Be So Pretty” and co-wrote “Three Shaky Ships.”) Inevitably, the subject turns to their own family in the final verse. “Faraway Thompsons tug at my heart/Can’t get along ’cept when we’re apart,” Teddy sings. “Is it life, or is it art?/One and the same.”

Life and art have long been entwined with unusual intensity for Thompson. Shoot Out the Lights, her final album as a duo with Richard, was filled with songs about bitterly dissolving relationships, many of them apparently written while things were still happy between them, and released just as their real-life breakup was bringing their collaboration to an end. Proxy Music entwines them again. Turning Linda’s absence as a singer into a flickering subject of the music, rather than just an unfortunate circumstance of its creation, it is a strange and sometimes brilliant album—one that only Linda Thompson could have made, whether or not you can hear her singing.

Full Review HERE

June 22, 2024

Linda Thompson Proxy Music Heralded in UK Press

June 20, 2024

New York Times Feature Linda Thompson 'Proxy Music"

By Jim Farber

For years, the singer Linda Thompson faced a problem that, for someone in her line of work, seemed insurmountable.

Slowly over time, and then suddenly all at once, she lost the ability to hold a note surely enough to sustain even the simplest tune. “I first noticed something wrong back in 1972 when I got pregnant for the first time,” she recalled recently. “My voice became precarious — in and out.”

Consultations with doctors eventually brought a brutal diagnosis: spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder in which the muscles in the larynx tighten or lapse into spasms, strangulating speech while making singing a significant challenge. (It’s an entirely different diagnosis from stiff person syndrome, which Celine Dion announced she has in 2022.) “It’s a progressive disease,” Thompson said of her condition. “So, for the first 20 years or so I could live with it. Up until my 60s, I could still sing in the studio, at least on good days.”

Now, at 76, that ability has withered entirely for Thompson, one of the most vaunted artists to rise from the British folk-rock scene of the ’60s and ’70s that brought the world Sandy Denny, John Martyn and Nick Drake. Between 1974 and ’82, she released six albums in tandem with her ex-husband, the master guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson, culminating in “Shoot Out the Lights,” a work consecrated by critics, in part because of its forensic dissection of the couple’s own crumbling marriage. Thompson’s advancing dysphonia made her subsequent solo career fraught and sporadic, though she did manage to release four LPs before falling silent 11 years ago.

Even so, losing her voice didn’t mean forsaking her songwriting, a talent that led to a resourceful strategy for a comeback. Because almost everyone in Thompson’s extended circle of family and friends is a gifted vocalist, she thought, why not engage them to perform the songs and make an album from that? “It wasn’t exactly a brilliant idea,” Thompson said. “It was the only idea.”

What clinched it for her was the pun-y name she devised for the result: “Proxy Music.”

READ the FULL STORY

May 21, 2024

Linda Thompson's 'Proxy Music' in New York Magazine's "Albums We Can't Wait To Hear This Summer"

39 Albums We Can’t Wait to Hear This Summer

From Johnny Cash rarities to Normani (finally).

By Dan Reilly, a freelance writer covering entertainment, business, and sports

Many of the artists on this summer’s release calendar seem to be driven by a simple goal — to put their most authentic selves on record. Sure, fans have heard “it’s my most personal album yet” a billion times, but this season’s slate goes beyond that and into “this is who I am right now — take it or leave it.” BTS leader RM and Glass Animals write about staying present after feeling unmoored; Polo G and Nick Cave confront pain and mortality with clarity; DIIV and Ani DiFranco rage with anger at the societal systems that harm us; and upstarts like Ice Spice and Remi Wolf indulge in stylistic leaps that they’d previously considered too bold. Simply put, few of them, if any, have time for bullshit this summer, and perhaps we should all follow suit. If that’s the warm-weather vibe you’re after between now and Labor Day, then there’s an album (or five) coming for you this summer.

Linda Thompson, Proxy Music (June 21)

A chronic vocal-cord condition may have robbed Thompson of her ability to sing, but she most certainly can still write. Undaunted by her malady, the 76-year-old kept writing songs and tapped a bunch of friends and family — including Martha and Rufus Wainwright, the Proclaimers, and John Grant — to record them, with ex-husband Richard providing guitar on several tracks. And if the album cover looks oddly familiar, that’s Thompson putting a cheeky spin on the photo from Roxy Music’s self-titled 1972 debut.

Read the full article HERE

May 16, 2024

ALBUM REVIEW: On ‘Sharing in the Spirit,’ Ana Egge Stirs the Recipe for Hope

April 9, 2024

Linda Thompson Announces Proxy Music, Her First Album in Over a Decade, Out June 21

Eleven New Songs Written by Linda and Featuring Guest Vocals by Teddy and Kami Thompson, Rufus and Martha Wainwright,  The Proclaimers, John Grant, Dori Freeman, The Unthanks, Ren Havieu, The Rails, and Eliza Carthy

Album Release Show Set For June 30th at City Winery in NYC

Listen to Lead Single “Solitary Traveller” Featuring Kami Thompson HERE

Today, English folk-rock icon Linda Thompson announces her first new album in over ten years, Proxy Music, set for release on June 21st via StorySound Records. The 11-track collection introduces a unique concept, as Thompson's new original songs are brought to life and performed by a handpicked ensemble of her closest family, friends and admirers. Noteworthy among these collaborators are The Proclaimers, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, John Grant, Dori Freeman, The Unthanks, Ren Havieu, Eliza Carthy, and Thompson's children, Kami Thompson and Teddy Thompson.

Alongside the album announcement, Linda Thompson releases lead single “Solitary Traveller,” featuring the vocals of her daughter, Kami. Reflecting on the essence of the song, Linda muses, “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been one. But, if you have a lot of people in your life, you sometimes yearn for solitude. Conversely, solitary people often crave company. It is a bit of a dichotomy.”

Listen to “Solitary Traveller” HERE

Despite vocal limitations caused by a rare condition known as spasmodic dysphonia, Thompson—praised by Rolling Stone for possessing "one of rock and roll’s finest voices"—demonstrates her enduring songwriting prowess and versatility throughout Proxy Music. Songs like “Bonnie Lass” and “Mudlark” evoke traditional English folk ballads, while “Darling This Will Never Do” channels early 20th-century cabaret. Standout track “John Grant” features Grant himself singing wittily about a real-life encounter with Linda. “Those Damn Roches” humorously portrays folk music familial dynasties, including the Thompsons. The album's "proxy" theme extends seamlessly to its artwork, where Linda Thompson dons the iconic outfit from Roxy Music's debut cover, showcasing not only her musical depth and poignant compositions, but also her often-overlooked sense of humor.

Linda Thompson entered the London Folk scene in the late ‘60s, initially releasing singles under her maiden name, Linda Peters. However, it was her marriage with Richard Thompson that propelled her to wider acclaim, beginning with their landmark album, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. Their collaboration continued with a series of lauded releases, culminating in the iconic Shoot Out The Lights in 1982. Since then, Linda Thompson has released four solo albums, including Dreams Fly Away, Fashionably Late, Versatile Heart, and Won’t Be Long Now, before her vocal condition hindered further projects.

To celebrate the release of Proxy Music, album collaborators Teddy Thompson, Martha Wainwright, and John Grant, along with friends Loudon Wainwright, Jill Sobule, and Syd Straw will perform at City Winery in New York City on June 30th, with Linda Thompson in attendance. Find more information here.

Proxy Music Track Listing

1. The Solitary Traveller - Kami Thompson

2. Or Nothing at All - Martha Wainwright

3. Bonnie Lass - The Proclaimers

4. Darling This Will Never Do - Rufus Wainwright

5. I Used To Be So Pretty - Ren Harvieu

6. John Grant - John Grant

7. Mudlark - The Rails

8. Shores of America - Dori Freeman

9. That’s the Way the Polka Goes - Eliza Carthy

10. Three Shaky Ships - The Unthanks

11. Those Damn Roches - Teddy Thompson

April 5, 2024

The Bluegrass Situation Premiere Roundup features Ana Egge's "Door Won't Close"

You Gotta Hear This: New Music From Ana Egge, Jaelee Roberts, and More

In the words of Chris Stapleton, “What are you listening to?” This week, our premiere round up is full of music we’re very excited to bring to your speakers and earphones.

Below, check out new videos from Ana Egge, Ordinary Elephant, and our brand new Rootsy Summer Session featuring Jim Lauderdale performing at a cute music shop in Falkenberg, Sweden. Plus, we’ve got new tracks from Jaelee Roberts, Parker Smith, Wyndham Baird, and Will Kimbrough. To top it all off, Phillip Lammonds performs “Forever Ain’t That Far Away” with his pal, the legendary Pam Tillis.

There’s so much to enjoy in our latest premiere round up, and if we do say so ourselves – You Gotta Hear This!

WATCH HERE

Artist: Ana Egge
Hometown: Ambrose, North Dakota
Song: “Door Won’t Close”
Album: Sharing in the Spirit
Release Date: May 17, 2024
Label: StorySound Records

In Their Words:“‘Door Won’t Close’ is about confronting an abusive person. One of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. I stood up to him on behalf of my sister and nephew. I opened the door to what he’d done by telling the truth and not allowing myself to be shut down by fear. Then I left the door open by telling his wife and friends about it. The song is mostly in conversation with his wife — her denial of his abuse and her support of him.” – Ana Egge

Track Credits:

Ana Egge – Vocals, acoustic guitar, harmony vocals
Michael “Squeaky” Robinson – Pedal steel
Alex Hargreaves – Fiddle
Rob Heath – Drums
Lorenzo Wolff – Bass
Devon Yesberger – Organ, Wurlitzer

Video Credits: Directed, filmed and edited by Haoyan of America.
Special thanks Alden Harris-McCoy and Cole-Berry Miller.

 

March 13, 2024

Ana Egge Spring Tour Dates Announced

Spring Headlining Tour + Dates with Iris DeMent and Bella White Announced

4/5    Pinecone Concerts, Raleigh, NC *

4/7    Village Concerts, Lynchburg, VA

5/16  NAC Opera House, Ottawa, Canada

5/17  Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY

5/18  The Local, Saugerties, NY

5/19  Littlefield, Brooklyn, NY

5/21  Tower Theater, Oklahoma City, OK +

5/23  The Kessler, Dallas, TX +

5/24  The Heights Theater, Houston, TX +

5/25  Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville, TX ++

6/1    Lippe HC, Seattle, WA

6/2    Showbar, Portland, OR

6/5    Old Steeple, CA

6/6    Little Saint, Healdsburg, CA

6/7    Lost Church, San Francisco, CA

6/8    Sandbox, Sand City, CA 

6/26 Bearsville Theater, Woodstock, NY +

6/28 Stone Mt. Arts Center, Brownfield, ME +

6/29  Park Theater, Peterborough, NH +

6/30  Wilco's Solid Sound Festival, North Adams, MA ++

8/13  The Ark, Ann Arbor, MI +

8/14  Buskirk Chumley, Bloomington, IN +

8/16  The Bijou, Knoxville, TN +

8/17  The City Winery, Nashville, TN +

8/18  Gunter Theater/Peace Theater, Greenville, SC +

* Support for Bella White

+ Support for Iris DeMent

++ in Iris DeMent's band 

March 5, 2024

Ana Egge New Album 'Sharing in the Spirit' Coming May 17th

Ana Egge Embraces the Mystical and the Mundane On New Album Sharing in the Spirit, Out May 17th via StorySound Records

Listen to Lead single “Where Berries Grow” HERE

Today, indie folk singer-songwriter Ana Egge announces her new album Sharing in the Spirit out May 17th via StorySound Records. The 10-track album which combines 8 original compositions with covers of songs by Ted Hawkins and Sinéad O'Connor is a mix of politics, addiction, sex, and love. It promises listeners a bold and honest ride, beginning with the album cover, which is an image of a young Ana captured in her childhood town of Ambrose, North Dakota, now a ghost town reclaimed by prairie grass.

Alongside the album announcement, Egge shares "Where Berries Grow," a near-biblical, bluegrass beauty. In each line, Egge explores metaphors representing loved ones, such as a "drink divine," a "stand of trees," and a "dark angel," allowing for deeply personal and spiritual expression. Listen to “Where The Berries Grow” HERE.

Egge reflects on the genesis of the track, sharing:

“I started thinking of each person's name in a new way. I got curious about the meanings of all their names and was inspired by the imagery and poetic connections that arose. All of their earth-body-spirit-stories became, 'Where Berries Grow'.”

Throughout what NPR describes as a “rich career,” Ana has collaborated with esteemed artists such as Billy Strings, Rob Moose (known for his work with Paul Simon, Phoebe Bridgers, and yMusic), Buck Meek (of Big Thief), Steve Earle and has toured extensively with Iris DeMent. Coming out as gay during her teenage years, Ana has navigated hazards stemming from physical, cultural, and political sources. It's through these challenges that she discovered the transformative power of music and its ability to uplift and connect people in seemingly magical ways, leading her to be described as having an “ever-interesting mastery over music” (No Depression). 

Sharing in the Spirit is fueled by Egge’s creative momentum and collaboration with longtime producer and friend, Lorenzo Wolff (Taylor Swift, Bartees Strange, Teddy Thompson). Despite each single maintaining its unique energy, Egge’s distinctive voice as both a writer and singer ensures that they come together beautifully. The opener, "Don’t You Sleep,” is sexy folk slipping into determined noisy garage rock. Meanwhile, "Mission Bells Moan" and her take on Ted Hawkins’ "Sorry You're Sick" delve into themes of alcoholism and sobriety. Throughout the album, Egge's multifaceted talents and diverse musical interests are on full display, showcasing her versatility across genres.

Sharing in the Spirit Track List

Don’t You Sleep 

Door Won’t Close

Sharing In The Spirit

If It Were Up To Me

Mission Bells Moan

Sorry You’re Sick

Where Berries Grow

Ready For The Darkness

Ending We Need

Last Day Of Our Acquaintance

February 8, 2024

NPR Fresh Air Review: Jim Kweskin and Maria Muldaur Duet from the Album 'Never Too Late'

Music Reviews

New songs by Brittany Howard, Jim Kweskin and Colby T. Helms crackle with energy

Heard on Fresh Air

Fresh Air's rock critic recommends three songs that transcend age and genre: Howard's "Another Day," Kweskin's duet with Maria Muldaur, "Let's Get Happy Together," and Helms' "Leanne."

Stream the piece HERE

January 9, 2024

Jim Kweskin Video Debuts on The Bluegrass Situation

Home

Jim Kweskin’s “You’re Just In Love,” New Single and Video Featuring His Granddaughter Fiona Kweskin Debuts on The Bluegrass Situation.

The track serves as the final preview of his upcoming duets album Never Too Late, slated for release on January 26th via StorySound Records. Celebrating the timeless magic of love, the track puts a folk spin on a classic Irving Berlin penned Broadway melody.

Watch the duo navigate and create new memory lanes in Nashville in the touching video HERE, shot less than a month ago when Jim visited Fiona at her home in Nashville.

December 13, 2023

Jim Kweskin Extravaganza Career Celebration Concert February 4th in Arlington, MA

Ezzie Films and StorySound Records are pleased to announce The Jim Kweskin Extravaganza at the Regent Theatre located at 7 Medford Street, Arlington, Massachusetts on February 4, 2024 at 2:00 PM.

The Jim Kweskin Extravaganza, a live concert that will honor and celebrate Jim’s legacy and his contributions to the music industry over the past 60 plus years.

The concert will feature songs from Jim’s soon to be released record, on StorySound Records, Never Too Late: Duets with My Friends, which will be released on Friday, January 26, 2024.  The show will also feature artists and songs from Jim’s storied career including the renowned and influential Jim Kweskin Jug Band.  Scheduled to appear as of today’s date along with Jim Kweskin, are Geoff Muldaur, Samoa Wilson, Maria Muldaur, Annie Raines, Paul Rishell, Juli Crockett, Suzy Thompson, and Matthew Berlin.  Additional artists appearing will be announced soon.

Buy Tickets

November 30, 2023

Barbaro Featured in Minnesota Star Tribune

Out of the bluegrass: Minnesota band Barbaro crafts ethereal new LP with Bon Iver associate

"About the Winter" features a warm new sound from the band, using the same fiddle and banjo as before. 
By Chris Riemenschneider Star Tribune
Their primary instruments are acoustic guitar, fiddle, banjo and stand-up bass. They've played bluegrass festivals and toured with bluegrass acts. Almost all of their prior press write-ups have the word "bluegrass" in the headline or somewhere high up.

So why did the members of Barbaro have such a hard time answering the seemingly simple question: Are you still a bluegrass band? "If you have to ask …" fiddler/co-vocalist Rachel Calvert humorously offered, breaking a few seconds of awkward silence near the start of an interview in early November. Calvert and her bandmates got stuck on the question because they clearly did not stick within the confines of traditional bluegrass on Barbaro's warm new album, "About the Winter."

Produced by Bon Iver cohort Brian Joseph at his barn studio outside Eau Claire, Wis., the second full-length record by the Minnesota/Wisconsin string band puts an ethereal, elegant and at times experimental spin on what a bluegrass group might sound like.

New songs like the trouble-shrugging opening track "Apples to Apples" and knitters' anthem "The Lil Sweaters" come off like a cross between Bright Eyes and Nickel Creek, with an indie-folk sensibility and poetic approach but also a rootsy, all-acoustic flavor. There's as much earnestness as there is banjo on the LP, which is being issued by New York folk label StorySound Records, home to Loudon Wainwright III.

After Calvert broke the ice in our interview, singer/guitarist Kyle Shelstad dove in trying to describe their sonic approach on the new record, which they're celebrating with a Minneapolis show Friday at the Cedar Cultural Center. "Our goal has always been to utilize the instruments you typically see in a bluegrass group and try to elaborate on that format in different ways," Shelstad said. "I always liked how acoustic instruments can create rhythm and texture and replicate different sounds of a drum kit, with the banjo being the high-hat, the bass being the kick drum, and so on. So we just tried to do something different with all that." "I don't know what you call it, though," he flatly added.

A fan of such Minnesota-born bluegrass-rooted acts as Trampled by Turtles and Pert Near Sandstone  — Shelstad moved to Minnesota from Montana by way of Wisconsin specifically to start a rootsy Americana band.

Using the name of a Kentucky Derby-winning horse that met an early demise, he formed Barbaro in 2017 with banjoist Isaac Sammis, who played on the new record and will be at Friday's Cedar show. However, with two young kids at home, Sammis has bowed out of the band full-time.

That leaves Calvert and bassist Jason Wells as Shelstad's core bandmates, both of whom came to the group with more classical and jazz training than bluegrass experience. Wells also plays with the Des Moines Symphony and other classical organizations. "I think the bluegrass elements are still there, where there are still moments of bluegrass-style improvisation," the bassist offered in the what-to-call-us debate. "And we still have a bluegrass attitude. If you go back and listen to our older stuff to how we got here from there, I think it all makes sense."

There was certainly a bluegrass-like scenario when it came to the initial writing of these new songs: "About the Winter" literally could be called back-porch music, since the members first began working on them during the COVID pandemic, when they were still afraid to gather indoors. "We all lived in a five- or-six block radius of each other in Northeast," recalled Shelstad, who recently moved to Milwaukee for love. "So we'd get together and work out arrangements together during the pandemic. "These songs had a lot of time to sit and marinate. We tried to not play them a lot live before we recorded them. We wanted to go into the studio with things sort of open-ended — allow the studio environment and Brian Joseph to help bring some new life and creativity to the group that we weren't finding in the backyard."

The actual recording took place near the end of last winter, though the "winter" in the title also reflects on the hibernation effect caused by the pandemic.

Along the way, Calvert started singing more. Shelstad still does most of the writing but welcomed the way her rich, serene voice balanced out with his tender-folkie voice in such new songs as "One X One.""We were running through one song, and Jason suggested, 'Hey, it might sound good to have Rachel singing this,'" Shelstad recalled. "It worked so well, and from there I just started writing more and more tunes that I thought would be nice delivered in her voice."

The album still ends on a thoroughly bluegrass note with "Ike's Farewell," an all-instrumental jam that shows off the interplay between Sammis' banjo and Calvert's fiddle. With Sammis no longer in the band, the group learned to adapt with other instrumentalists filling in. "Knowing he wasn't going to be around, Isaac wrote some of his parts thinking about how other instruments could play those melodies," Shelstad said. "He wrote a lot of parts that aren't banjo parts at all. We've actually been playing some of the songs with flute, and his parts can even be played on that."

A flute, you say? That settles it then: Barbaro is definitely no longer a bluegrass band.

FULL Article

November 27, 2023

Barbaro Performance and Interview On WNYC New Sounds

Minneapolis-Based Progressive Bluegrass Band Barbaro, In-Studio

The Minneapolis trio Barbaro grows out of the American bluegrass tradition, but the key words there might be “out of”, as Barbaro doesn’t race through banjo breakdowns and flashy fiddle solos, although they can do those things. The band is something of progressive version of bluegrass – using traditional instrumentation like fiddle and banjo, but drawing inspiration from electronic music and writing songs that may sound pastoral and folky but which often carry a bit of a bite. Barbaro plays new songs from their rootsy chamber music album, About The Winter, and chats about horse racing, in-studio.

Set list: "Subtle Hints", "Gardens", "All My Friends"

Check out the interview and performances HERE

 

November 14, 2023

Jim Kweskin Announces New Album of Duets 'Never Too Late'

Never Too Late: Jim Kweskin's Timeless Music Continues To Shine On New Album of Duets, Out January 26th via StorySound Records.

Listen To “Let's Get Happy Together,” Lead Single Featuring Longtime Collaborator Maria Muldaur: HERE

Album Release Party Set For February 4th in Home State of Massachusetts

Today, six decades after his first release, folk legend Jim Kweskin announces his new album Never Too Late, out January 26th through StorySound Records. The album features captivating duets with some of his favorite female singers, while simultaneously spotlighting the genre- and generation-hopping nature of Kweskin’s musical interests. Across 18 tracks, Never Too Late suggests a Great American Songbook where Leadbelly’s “Relax Your Mind” precedes the Tin Pan Alley tune “Sheik of Araby,” which leads into 1940’s country hit, “Remember Me.”

To accompany the announcement of Never Too Late, Kweskin shares the bouncy, conversation-like “Let's Get Happy Together” with Maria Muldaur, who first collaborated with him in the 1960s as part of Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band.

Listen to “Let's Get Happy Together” HERE

When discussing the background of the song, Kweskin shares: “I learned this song from Maria Muldaur. We were going to record it together in New Orleans on the album she did with that wonderful New Orleans street band Tuba Skinny. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make the session. While I was putting together the songs and singers for this album, I asked Maria if she would record it with me now. She graciously agreed. The song was written and recorded in 1938 by Lil Hardin Armstrong, who, back in the 1920s, was Louis Armstrong's wife. The funny thing is, it's called ‘Let's Get Happy Together,’ but nowhere in the song do we sing ‘Let's get happy together’—we sing ‘Let's be happy together.’ Lil did too but since she titled it ‘Let's Get Happy Together,’ we did the same.”

In addition to Maria Muldaur, Never Too Late features duets with longtime collaborators Samoa Wilson and Meredith Axelrod, who have released full-length albums with Jim Kweskin. Meanwhile, Rose Guerin and Juli Crockett have been frequent performers at his concerts on both the East and West coasts, and Fiona Kweskin, his granddaughter, lends her vocals to several tracks and has been a recent addition to his live shows.

On several tracks, Kweskin also steps aside from lead vocals, allowing his guests to take center stage. Samoa Wilson delivers a soulful rendition of "Honey in the Rock," and Rose Guerin masterfully interprets Memphis Slim's "Mother Earth." In a particularly poignant moment, "The Lone Pilgrim" showcases the stirring voice of Nell Foote, a dear friend of Kweskin who had never ventured into a recording studio before.

Jim Kweskin recorded Never Too Late in early 2023 at Dimension Sound Studios in Jamaica Plain, MA, near his Boston home base. According to Kweskin, “almost every song on Never Too Late was either the first or second take because everyone was so good and prepared.” Joining Kweskin on this album are fiddler Suzy Thompson, dobro & steel guitar player Cindy Cashdollar, harmonicist Annie Raines, and his regular bassist/producer Matthew Berlin.

Jim Kweskin's music career took off in 1963 when Maynard Solomon, Vanguard Records co-founder, saw him play at Club 47 in Cambridge, MA. Suitably impressed, Solomon offered to record Kweskin, leading him to assemble the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, featuring key members Geoff Muldaur and Fritz Richmond. This unconventional group gained fame with their spontaneous and unscripted performances, in contrast to the formal folk groups of the early 60s. Despite only lasting five years and releasing four studio albums, they left an enduring impact on the music scene. Esteemed critic Ed Ward ranked them among the most important bands of the early 60s, and their influence can be seen in the likes of the Lovin' Spoonful, the Grateful Dead, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks.

To celebrate the release of Never Too Late, The Jim Kweskin Extravaganza will take place at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, MA on February 4, 2024. Find more details here.

Pre-Order Never Too Late HERE

Never Too Late Tracklist

  1. Let’s Get Happy Together - with Maria Muldaur
  2. You’re Just In Love - with Fiona Kweskin
  3. Honey In The Rock - with Samoa Wilson
  4. Mother Earth - with Rose Guerin & Group
  5. Leaving Home (Frankie and Johnny) - with Meredith Axelrod  
  6. Side By Side - with Fiona Kweskin
  7. Sally Don’t You Grieve - with Meredith Axelrod
  8. Never Too Late - with Juli Crockett
  9. Engine 143 - with Samoa Wilson
  10. The Lone Pilgrim - with Nell Foote & Group Choir
  11. Moby Dick - with Juli Crockett
  12. Relax Your Mind - with Rose Guerin
  13. The Sheik Of Araby - with Maria Muldaur
  14. Remember Me - with Samoa Wilson
  15. What Does The Deep Sea Say - with Fiona Kweskin
  16. Live And Let Live - with Juli Crockett
  17. I Ain’t Never Been Satisfied - with Rose, Samoa, & Fiona
  18. The Cuckoo - with Jessie Benton
October 19, 2023

No Depression Review Barbaro's 'About the Winter'

ALBUM REVIEW: Across ‘About the Winter,’ Barbaro Weaves Big Messages From Small Details
Tom Williams

Minneapolis-based Barbaro mines life’s most intimate and seemingly mundane moments in an attempt to extrapolate larger lessons about life itself and the nature of our fragile existence. Songs like “The Lil Sweaters” and “Apples to Apples,” from their newest album, About the Winter, are illuminated by minutiae like red, swollen fingers; fleeting moments of physical intimacy; and leaving mugs of coffee in the attic.

About the Winter is described in press materials as a “coming-of-age” story. This is apparent on a song like “Apples to Apples,” which details a college dorm argument, but it’s more subtly evident throughout. A sense of characteristically adolescent wide-eyed wonder and curiosity animates some of the LP’s most compelling moments. On “One X One,” fiddle player and vocalist Rachel Calvert asks “If time’s so simple, how’s it so fickle and hazy?” The simplicity and plainspoken nature of the query suggest someone newly emerging from the fog of youthful innocence, learning to confront the starkest realities of this world.

The band’s lyrics depict growing thematic ambition and confidence, as does the leveling-up of their sound from their previous effort, 2020’s Dressed in Roses. Stepping off from their more straightforward bluegrass arrangements, they’ve now added sweeping strings, synths, and electric guitars. It’s a move that invites comparisons to some of indie-folk and folk-rock’s most compelling 21st century artists, Bon Iver and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst among them.

Across About the Winter, a lot of questions are asked without offering answers. The impact of this is a quietly growing sense of unease that draws contrasts to the reliably lovely soundscapes that the band creates. Testament to this is the LP’s obvious centerpiece, the 7-minute “Subpoena Colada.” The song begins modestly, with finger-picked banjos and evocative and sensory imagery (“Holding this green earth under your thumb”), but darker detours occur throughout. At times, the music dissipates almost entirely, as guitarist and vocalist Kyle Shelstad asks “could it be lost?”, his words delivered with weighty significance. The soundscape alternates between plucky banjo sections a la Buck Meek or Taylor Ashton and desolate string-led passages. The song’s progression, much like life’s, is ever-changing and unpredictable. Maybe our primary task, then, is to learn to roll with the punches and find value in the journey itself.

READ the full review HERE

October 18, 2023

"Monsters" Essay by Loudon Wainwright III Comes to Life in Short Film

Loudon Wainwright III wrote his essay “Monsters” in 2021 and has been performing it in his live shows for about a year. His friend and longtime music producer Dick Connette felt that the piece should be captured on film and throughout this September and October with the help of Ross Mayfield and Alex Venguer the video “Monsters” was brought to life. It’s a ten minute audio/visual examination of Wainwright’s obsession with monster movies, in particular the classic black and white Universal horror films made in Hollywood in the 1930s and those produced in color in England by Hammer Ltd. in the late 1950s. Wainwright considers these movies a sort of cinematic touchstone that helped him “grapple with his prepubescent psycho-sexual fixations”. He also examines the enhanced humanity that movie monsters paradoxically possess. In addition to Loudon’s serio-comic performance “Monsters” features archival photos and posters, film clips, as well as orchestral music and sound effects.

"Monsters" written and performed by Loudon Wainwright III.

Directed by Dick Connette.
Director of Photography/Editor - Ross Mayfield
Sound Design - Alex Venguer
Mastered by Oscar Zambrano
Assistant Videographer - Samantha Dagnino
Audio Engineer - Colin Mohnacs
Hair and Makeup - Faye Lauren
Filmed and Recorded at GB's Juke Joint. 

Watch the film HERE

August 22, 2023

Bluegrass Situation Premiere Barbaro's "Gardens" Video. First Single from the Forthcoming Album 'About the Winter'

 “Gardens,” a song that pairs Shelstad’s vulnerable and urgent vocal with the refined, slow-blooming instrumental interplay of his bandmates. Shelstad says: “This tune is one of those that was written quite easily in one sitting about 3 years ago. The goal for the song was for it to be a long crescendo from start to finish.” With his band gathering momentum amid a steady lead instrumental melody, Shelstad takes aim at the powers that reinforce an acquisition-centric, colonial mindset: “The empire is seen, edge of their lawns / hoping all their gardens grow."

Barbaro’s adventurous and expansive vision of pastoral Americana comes into focus on 'About the Winter' out October 20th.

The music video for “Gardens” was created by Lewis Klahr, a Los Angeles-based collage artist who uses found images and sound to explore the intersection of memory and history.

Watch the video at Bluegrass Situation

Pages

Archive