Author: Trevor from WUSB

Mikaela Davis may have been playing with members of her backing band for the better part of a decade, but “And Southern Star” is the first album they’ve recorded as a group. It’s why she named the genre-defying album for them.

Davis, a harp player, brings something special to their blend of sounds. The harp can be beautiful or haunting, or content to be a little of both as it does on “Cinderella.” But it’s always otherworldly when compared to the average mandolin, piano or guitar found on American roots albums. Starting the album off with those plucking sounds was a fantastic decision that lets listeners know they’re in for something different before the first words are spoken.

“It adds some different textures that other instruments can’t,” Davis said of the instrument she’s been playing since age eight. “I can’t really explain what made me want to play this instrument but I felt connected with the harp pretty much right away.”

Davis studied harp classically in college but wields it more fascinatingly in a popular context. Combine that harp with a whining slide guitar and near constant backing harmonies and the whole album feels like a hazy folk-pop dream. Until it doesn’t. “Don’t Stop Now” is a bit too anthemic to be dreamy and “Leave It Alone” is straight up progressive rock with a significant electric guitar solo. 

“It’s not something intentional,” Davis said of the variety of sounds the band blends and explores on the album. “It’s something that happened because our influences are so vast.” 

As intriguing as the band’s sound is, and it certainly is the most apparent and fascinating part of And Southern Star, the lyrics are also thoughtful collaboration. Two themes emerge. The first is that, for better or worse, there are people and places we’re regularly drawn to, usually based on our formative experiences. It’s both beautiful and a curse according to Davis.

“In my experience everything comes back to your childhood; those are your most informative times in life,” Davis said. “Things that I went through in my childhood, you always come back to those moments.” 

That almost gravitational bond to people and places from the past presents as a struggle to overcome in “One of These Days” and takes on a melancholic form in “Far From You,” even if a glimmer of hope is allowed to exist. In “Promise” it’s a bit more frustrating and even comical as an unfulfilling relationship proves hard to shake. 

The second theme is one of future sighted optimism. Davis is rarely declaring that everything is great, but so many lyrics reflect her belief that it will be. “One of these days I’ll be fine.” “The sun is coming out.” “You will find somebody new.” Even “Don’t Stop Now” looks at long odds as no reason to quit. 

“In life, you just have to have hope no matter what’s happening,” Davis said. “You have to believe that there’s something that’s going to change or how are you going to convince yourself that something you’re working on is worth it?” 

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Mikaela Davis and the songs we discussed, starting with Cinderella and those magnificent first harp notes. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Monday at 11am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.mikaeladavis.com for more.

Press Photo by Jamie Goodsell

Brian Kalinec is perhaps as close to the definition of a traditional folk singer as you can get. His songs are earnest and lyrical with sparse accompaniment aside from guitar and a piano. In an increasingly hostile and cynical climate, his reflections on racial progress and his friendship with his neighbor Henry seems downright quaint. But sometimes, especially in these times, it’s nice to hear a thoughtful piece about moving in the right direction.

“I was born into the change, but there was a lot of resistance to that change,” Kalinec said of watching the Civil Rights Act become law. “We’ve come a long way, but there are people who would like to see us go back to what they consider to be the good old days.”

Kalenic doesn’t exactly have his blinders on. He’s well aware of some of the regressive trends in education and muses on another track as to whether it’s possible for this country to become less polarized. He doesn’t answer the question except to say making improvements is worth a try. Speaking with me, a younger millennial, Kalenic indicated that he holds out hope for my generation. 

“My daughter went to school with kids of many different backgrounds and cultures and colors and she doesn’t see herself as special,” Kalinec said. “But when I was a kid, that demarkation was there.”

Much like finding hope in this news cycle, many tracks on The Beauty of it All are about extracting the joy from life, even if it is at times “aspirational.” The title track, in particular, shines with optimism despite recognizing that the singer has lived more of his life than not.

“As I get a little older, I recognize that I need to be a little more aware of everything, especially be more present,” Kalinec said. “I always want to be more present for family and friends, but also appreciate the beauty of the world.” 

In addition to the title track, Fix-It Man provides a particularly endearing look at an older man appreciating life despite some of the hardships that come with age. Big Hearted continues the trend of aspirational thinking and learning from younger, kinder viewpoints. Breakfast at Midnight is, if not the healthiest idea, then certainly a joyful one. 

If most songs deliver those messages in a simple, positive way, Two Roads provides the gut punch. A young woman with big dreams dies young after guiding an alcoholic neighbor to sobriety. Part of making the most of life is understanding it could end at any moment. Kalinec provides narration that he, like most people, aren’t trying to save the world or numb the pain. We’re just managing money and time. 

“We all think when we’re younger that we’re [going to save the world] and I guess some people are a little more successful at that than others,” Kalinec said. “The important thing is that we save our own worlds. That’s probably the most that we can do.” 

If that sort of reminder doesn’t help his listeners live a little more purposefully, I’m not sure what will.

Scottish folk singer Neev’s debut album “Katherine” is guided by clearly expressed deep thought. Many songs are reflections on relationships and the self. In most cases, those relationships or the character in the song aren’t in the healthiest of states. In some cases, the reflections aren’t the healthiest either.

“Fast Patterns” sees the a character struggling with a friend growing more distant. Instead of making some effort to reconcile, the song is a full on attack and a promise to make that friend change. It’s a last ditch overreaction that seems destined to doom whatever remains between the two.

“When I wrote that song, it was coming from a really ignorant and self centered voice,” Neev explained. “Every single line in the verse starts with ‘I think.’ If anyone’s coming from that point of view, there’s no agreement to be had. It’s me criticizing that voice. You’re never going to hold that person accountable because you’re not even thinking of them.” 

“Fast Patterns” isn’t the only time Neev criticizes unhealthy thoughts by expressing them, though it’s certainly the most effective. Other songs find effectiveness through more earnest expression and analysis. 

“The House” captures a relationship in a place where home no longer feels like a haven e and it seems like every move either party makes is just digging that metaphorical hole deeper and deeper. Neev imagined the central character as a 60s housewife (she’s from the UK; perhaps think 50s for American context) in search of liberation. 

“The character no longer feels home to be a safe place because they now feel it’s a place of repression,” Neev said. “It’s almost too small for them.”

Her observation is quite accurate. Nothing makes a space feel smaller than being trapped in it or sharing it with someone you’re uneasy around.

Neev’s voice is earthy and tender, something her instrumental arrangements match quite well. Both soft strumming and soaring strings work, though the understated sounds are much more common and hypnotic.

One song, “Without Warmth,” is truly special in terms of capturing healthy, rational, but emotional thoughts from the end of a relationship. The vulnerability and reflections on what’s failed are there, but the central character is able to frame the breakup as a gift and easing of burdens to the person their in a relationship with, and perhaps themselves. 

“The baggage that comes with spending time and having experiences with a person is that you feel like you have to hold onto those things in really petulant way even if the way you’re holding onto them might not be useful,” Neev said. “Bottom line, kindness and love are the most important things here, so how do we move forward knowing that?”

The fact that much of the album comes from a less healthy perspective makes gems like this and “Out of the Blue” mean even more. Moments of clarity somehow seem more valuable than clarity itself. Ending the relationship on kind, appreciative terms with well wishes and acknowledgment of the difficulties is the perfect way to end the album. It may be more of a dream breakup than a realistic one, but it’s incredible to experience something so nourishing, even if it may only be possible through well-written songs like these.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Neev and the songs we discussed, starting with Fast Patterns, which toxically describes how another person has become toxic. The interview begins afterward. You can hear the show live every Monday at 11am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://neev1.bandcamp.com for more.

In setting out to tell the story of Newton County, Arkansas, Aaron Smith consulted books, historians, and local legends. In 13 songs, he introduces listeners to generations of colorful characters, historical atrocities on large and small scales, and a folk opera about a man trying to find his lost sister. 

“Newton County seemed like a magical place where big things could happen, a rough place where tough people settled,” Smith said, “As I started to hear stories, they just started to resonate with me.”

Sam Davis’ story was especially prominent. The Legend of Sam Davis plays out over the album’s final six songs and presents most of the story from the viewpoint of the titular character. There are moments of brilliance, like Davis’ desperate scramble to find “Bent Twigs and Hoof Prints” in tracking his sister after her possible kidnapping, and moments that are somewhat difficult to stomach, like Davis’ viewpoint that the Native American tribe took his sister “in the flower of her innocence.” The truth, Smith said, is likely more complicated.

“There’s a lot of reasons to doubt whether that’s a fact or not. There were people who left white society to live among Native Americans and that may have been what Sam Davis’ sister did and maybe it was an effort to save face that they framed that as her being abducted.” 

Smith, a man of mostly white but some Native American descent, said he didn’t feel comfortable appropriating the story of Native Americans during the era his album was set. But he does convey the horrors of the Trail of Tears by singing about Henri Martain, a Frenchman who settled in Arkansas and married a Cherokee chief’s sister. 

“He has Cherokee family and he sees what they were put through as very unjust,” Smith explained. “His family, from the time they settled in Newton County, made every effort to live as white people and be perceived as white as possible.”

While Smith uses terms like “half-breed,” it seems clear that he’s speaking as people then would have and not personally expressing those views. That’s further substantiated by “Looky There,” a song that allows Davis to speak but also contextualizes him as someone viewed as somewhat problematic even in his day. Still, Smith told me he has qualms about the way Native Americans are portrayed in the Sam Davis story even if he did eventually use a version of the story that Davis would’ve likely endorsed.

“It’s not about whether his sister was willingly or unwillingly taken into that life, but it’s really about how Sam deals with a world he can’t control,” Smith said.

Smith also had some worries about the role women played on his album, but he was able to write a couple of extra songs to make their story more complete.

“I realized all the women on this album so far have been kidnapped or murdered and we need to have some other stories,” Smith said.

Granny Brisco more than fit the bill as a strong woman, though Smith had to venture into the 1900s to tell her story.  Brisco was a midwife who travelled on horseback to her clients and worked into her eighties. He also credits another song, “The Snow Child” to having reached out to a local historian for better stories about women.

“Women like [Brisco] have held it together for us for a long time, and she played a really important role and was a respected person in her area,” Smith said.

There’s no shortage of drama to be found in Newton County. “Ab Clayborn” tells the story of a man whose plan to commit a murder of revenge was foiled by the intended victim already having committed suicide. That didn’t stop him from unloading his gun into the body and setting fire to it. “Dead Man’s Hollow” shows a colder side to the community as a noticeably diseased man traveling through town was given no aid and ultimately left to die in the elements. Brothers “Curly and Tom” commit a murder, causing their family to flee to Colorado. 

Each of these accounts are told beautifully. Contemporaneous viewpoints and values are woven into the songs while modern commentary exists in the narration. Even the music aids in the storytelling. “Ab Clayborn” benefits from hard strumming as gunshots. When Curly and Tom are revealed to have grown up rotten, the guitar strikes a decidedly sour note. 

The album as a whole serves as one of the most enthusiastic and thorough local history lessons in existence. Though “Ab Clayborn” may have to be left out, it would be easy to imagine local schools calling Smith in to perform and share some of the rich context he learned in his research. It’s a wasted opportunity if he doesn’t.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Aaron Smith and the songs we discussed, starting with Henri Martain, which came along with a book about the Martain family. The interview begins afterward. You can hear the show live every Monday at 11am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://aaronsmithsongs.com for more.

On her standout song “She Don’t Know What To Sing About Anymore,” Rachel Baiman presents a bright musical character overcome by the weight of the world around her. It weaves autobiographical details into a story with a volcanic apocalypse that captures all the anxiety of the post-pandemic world.

“It came to me in a dream, the idea of the volcanoes, so I’m not sure why that happened but I can interpret it to mean that everything is going on at once,” Baiman said. “That was the summer when there were huge protests regarding racial justice and police shootings and it felt a little apocalyptic with the pandemic. But a lot of the disillusionment also comes with the current state of trying to be an independent artist.”

Unlike the character in her song, Baiman certainly seems to know how to write songs under the weight of a depressing world. Her new album “Common Nation of Sorrow” is another masterclass in political songwriting, a topic Baiman teaches to other songwriters.

“I’m always coming back in in my music stories of how people end up with hateful beliefs or stories of how people are affected by these systems,” Baiman said. “I teach political songwriting classes and a lot of times people get frustrated with me because I think they come to the class wanting to use it as a place to rant about their beliefs and what I’m trying to teach is how to convey something emotionally.” 

“Some Strange Notion,” effectively the title track, describes a world not unlike ours in which people have begun to notice the inequities around them and want to make a change.

“The notion that I’m trying to present is the shared experience of hardship,” Baiman said. “The idea that if you’re just sitting there alone and things are a little bit too hard, you don’t feel like there’s anything you can do with that feeling. But once you realize that everyone around you is feeling the same, then not only do you feel seen and more comforted, there’s also something to be gained from that. If everyone’s going through this together, then that’s an opportunity to make change.”

Baiman admits that perhaps we aren’t there yet as culture wars and tribal politics have distracted many people from realizing that the folks with the power and motivation to oppose their financial interests are the ones holding all the wealth.

“There hasn’t been an across the aisle realization of the way the majority of us are being taken advantage of economically. That feeds into everything. It feeds into anger and racism and misogyny. If people felt that they had opportunity and could build the life they wanted, I don’t think they would need to spend as much time on anger. 

Some of Baiman’s sharpest political songwriting comes on “Self-Made Man,” which effectively asks how many people need to suffer for one to become extremely successful. In the song, Baiman takes aim at the type of woman who’d marry a man who’s proven to be selfish and unconcerned with others. In reality, she sees a slightly more complicated picture.

“I don’t know that it would be as conscious,” Baiman explained. “It would be more that the way that the system are set up, if you have some money it would be very easy to make money. If you have no money, you’re constantly in debt and it’s really hard to catch up. So I think there’s such a thing as a well-meaning billionaire but there’s not a such thing as a system that maintains any fairness, at least in this country. 

One of the later songs on the album captures Baiman’s connection with music and, by extension, the relationship some of her fans have with her best work. Among the lyrics of “Old Songs Never Die” are “you can’t claim and you can’t own/ these songs that live inside our soul/let the money man try to gauge its worth.” Much like the music Baiman makes and sings about, it’s going to take an appeal to higher values to overcome the rules written by the men with money.

Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Rachel Baiman and the songs we discussed, starting with “She Don’t Know What To Sing About Anymore,” which certainly resonated with some of the darker periods of my life. The interview begins afterward. You can hear the show live every Monday at 11am on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.rachelbaiman.com for more.