Basic Folk

Antje Duvekot confronts trauma with a newfound wisdom and fierceness on her new record, My New Wild West, her best in her 20 plus year career produced by her friend Mark Erelli. To put it plainly, Antje, who moved to America from Germany at age 13, had a really rough time as a teenager. She was transplanted to a totally new universe with a new language she barely understood with unsupportive and abusive parents. She soothed herself with music, her first love. She sang and played guitar very quietly, which has translated to the musician she has become. Her voice can be soft, child-like and playful, but it can also be strong and deep. The control is incredible. Not to mention, this woman's observation of the world is profound. In each song, she creates worlds that come to life with her poignant lyricism. It's arresting and always unexpected.

This interview was different for me in that Antje and I have known each other for over two decades. That's happened before on Basic Folk, but it feels like our careers started on the exact same day and we've grown together in this messy business. The story is that we met at Club Passim (maybe it was a Gillian Welch tribute night and thanks to Matt Smith) in Cambridge, MA around 2002. It took one song and I was floored. She gave me her CD, I took it and played it over and over on the WERS Coffeehouse (the morning folk show). Every Coffeehouse DJ knew how to spell her name and would expect to field calls every time we played her music. That just doesn't happen anymore; it was right at the end of an era when radio could do that. From there, Antje's career took shape. I'll be forever grateful to her for that experience. It really felt like radio at its best: connecting a community with something really needed in an organic way. It's good to get back together in our conversation. Please excuse me if I'm a little too casual in this one! 

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Your Career vs Your Soul: a debate feat. The Milk Carton Kids (Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan), music journalist and Why Write Host, Kim Ruehl, Isa Burke (Lula Wiles, Aoife O’Donovan), musician and Basic Folk guest host lizzie no and yours truly, Cindy Howes, boss of Basic Folk. It's Folk Debate Club, our occasional crossover series with fellow folk-pod Why We Write!

I’d like to think that the act of “selling out” ebbs and flows with the passing of time. As the earning power of the folk musician changes, so does the allowance of what is perceived as abandoning your principles for the almighty dollar. That doesn’t mean that it always feels great. Choices musicians have to make to further their careers can be exhausting and detrimental to their art. How do you strike that balance at the intersection of art and commerce in the folk music world?

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Podcaster, #1 hit songwriter, human and dog mother, gay icon Jenny Owen Youngs returns with her first full length album since 2012! In the last decade plus, Jenny has experienced a wild ride of changes like divorce, extreme grief, moving across the country, remarrying, etc. Her main project while not writing, recording and tour, she hosts podcasts like the very successful Buffering The Vampire Slayer alongside her ex-wife, Kristin Russo ("A Buffy The Vampire Slayer" rewatch pod, which is now an X-Files rewatch show called The Ex-Files). She also has songwriting credits for Panic! At the Disco, Pitbull, Ingrid Michaelson, and Brett Dennen thanks to her deal with Dan Wilson (Semisonic and epic co-writer) and his publishing company.

JOY's new album Avalanche covers a lot of hard topics (see earlier: divorce, grief, moving, remarrying) and was produced by angel human Josh Kaufman (Taylor Swift, The National, The Hold Steady, Josh Ritter, and so on...). Jenny has always been an artist who is not afraid to show her whole self: good and the bad. Case in point: She described the inspiration for her very first break-through song "Fuck Was I" as "horrible, horrible, horrible decision making," adding it was "just your classic love gone wrong hell." Never one to back down from a fight, Jenny's approaching these songs with honesty, bravery and her biting sense of humor. It's cliche to say that talking to Jenny is a JOY, but it's a cliche for a reason. Thanks Jenny!

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Milwaukee singer-songwriter Buffalo Nichols returns to Basic Folk today to talk about his new album, ‘The Fatalist,’ out September 15 from Fat Possum Records. We picked up where Nichols’ debut album left off, traveling the world hot on the heels of the blues. Following a profound tradition can be just as frustrating as it is romantic. In his years on the road promoting his self-titled debut album, Carl aka Buffalo has witnessed how the blues can be a home base for listeners’ nostalgic, back-in-the-good-old days, artistically stagnant, patriarchal tendencies. He wants none of it. ‘The Fatalist’ is an offering to the gods of change, of self-awareness, of integrity.

One of the major achievements of this collection of eight songs is the seemingly effortless sonic collage that comes second nature to hip hop but is less discussed in roots and americana. From a Charley Patton sample to “Ali Farka” Touré-influenced fingerpicking to tasty 808s to contemporary songwriting that wrestles with what it means to be a good man in 2023, ‘The Fatalist’ tells a story about the present, while keeping the past close and eschewing sentimentality. This sense of being in conversation with storytellers of the past is a pillar of what I would call the Black Art Tradition, and it is part of what makes Buffalo Nichols one of the most exciting artists in blues music right now.

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Sisters Leah Song & Chloe Smith grew up in Urban Atlanta, they also lived in New Orleans and outside of Asheville. The pair are deeply rooted in their Southern identity as evidenced in their band, Rising Appalachia. Although their parents are not professional musicians, music was a constant part of the family. Their parents were dedicated students of early Appalachian music. The sisters played music everyday, were classically trained, attended fiddle camps and music festivals among other musical activities. The sisters developed their own taste in Atlanta’s 90s rap underground scene. There was a time when the two didn’t want anything to do with their parents' music, however, eventually they came back to it and decided to pursue Appalachian music thanks to some time spent away living in Mexico.

Aside from music, activism and purpose remain very important to Rising Appalachia. Leah's idea for "The Slow Music Movement" came out of the desire to sustain the troubadour lifestyle over participating in the traditional touring musician industrial complex. While touring, the band requests local food in their rider, invite tabling from non-profits, and work to create relationships with the local community. They also will seek out alternative methods of transportation: trains or smaller vehicles that use non-fossil fuels. Rising Appalachia has been known to do hub shows where they stay for a few days and create relationships with the community. This past July, they hosted Catalyst, their first annual music art and education festival in Asheville. Leah and I dug into how being musicians helped them create a space where artists felt welcome and taken care of. We also talk about Chloe's new baby and how touring might be looking different this fall. Check them out and their latest album, Live At Preservation Hall.

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Lancaster-born, Nashville-based Nina de Vitry‘s debut album, What You Feel is Real, shines while showcasing her passion for jazz and folk music. de Vitry’s name may sound familiar, as she comes from a musical family and is the youngest sister of folk superstar Maya de Vitry (formerly of The Stray Birds). She grew up fiddling around the campfire, while being classically trained on the violin and (her true love) the piano. She started writing songs very young, became enchanted with foreign languages and found herself studying at Temple University. Part-way through her freshman year, something felt wrong and she decided to take a gap year in order to operate outside of a system and find out what she wanted to do. After attending the beloved Miles of Music camp in New Hampshire, Nina was inspired to fully lean into her musicality. She recorded an EP in 2017 and started dabbling in music as a profession.

During the pandemic, she was in the creating process of What You Feel is Real. At the time, Nina experienced a return to self in several ways including reconnecting with the piano. A theme of the record is the making the choice believing yourself: You say “What we feel is real. What we love is real. And I think the more we all trust these inner voices, the closer we will get to both knowing ourselves and knowing a more loving and peaceful society.” Her new record is a fabulously strong debut that feels like a classic songwriter album playing with different styles of jazz. It is a pure delight to talk to Nina!

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Ben Harper has a deep connection to music through his family, who own a a very special music store in the Inland Empire of California. The legacy of the store is founded on ensuring its community always has access to music. That legacy has deeply impacted the type of person Ben Harper continues to be throughout his artistic life. He’s been a musician who has given so many artists their start (very notably Jack Johnson), and has been a gateway into roots music for many of his listeners. 

In our conversation, we really dig into Ben’s new album Wide Open Light, which takes him back to his acoustic and slide-heavy roots. It walks that beautiful line between singer-songwriter, country and soul that his fans have loved for decades. The record shows him being vulnerable, talking about spirituality and, of course, flexing his impressive guitar chops and his intimate vocal delivery. We also got to talk about Harry Styles, who Harper has recently gone on tour with and where he’s met a whole new generation of fans. It was very cool to discuss not only his beginnings, but where he is now as an artist and how he's shaping his legacy with the next generation of musical listeners.

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Canadian-born, New York based banjo person Taylor Ashton’s second solo album, Stranger to the Feeling, was recorded on a coast to coast road trip during 2021. These were the two weeks post-vaccine where we thought everything was A-OK, so Ashton and producer Jacob Blumberg set out on a recording adventure that included collaborations with friends new and old. Ashton, who’s since become a new parent with wife Rachael Price (Lake Street Dive), wanted to create an album that “meditates on the meaning of closeness and connection in an age of increasing isolation.” The energy of the new album is just that and it is palpable alongside its use of space and natural sound (gotta love those birds and room noise).

In our conversation, Taylor expands on the making of the album while addressing questions of the difficulty of reconnecting after the pandemic and how the music helped break that barrier of social isolation. We also go through a lot of the album’s songs and get to topics like crying while playing your own song, struggling with expressing feelings and not being and being cool. Taylor also graciously shares their thoughts on gender expression and walking the line of benefiting from the patriarchy and not feeling exactly like they embody the male gender all of the time. Being 6’2 and crying while listening to your own song maybe sums it all up? Or maybe you can’t summarize Taylor Ashton? I’m very grateful to welcome him back to Basic Folk!

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The headline for Los Angeles-based Raye Zaragoza's new album Hold That Spirit is that after she broke off her engagement, she used her wedding budget to fund the recording. She wrote the songs the year she turned 30 while she was thinking of the expectations placed on women in society to have everything together at a certain age: marriage, kids, career, etc. She's decided to let those expectations go and live in the joy that life offers and explores her newfound freedom and indigenous identity in these new songs. She's moving forward as a role model in Los Angeles' indigenous community, which she has been a part of since she was 14 years old.

We go through the album track by track covering topics of social justice, eating disorders and perfectionism. She worked exclusively with female collaborators on Hold That Spirit, which allowed Raye a vulnerability in her writing sessions and studio time that she had yet to experience. She found co-writing with other women an easy space to feel emotionally safe. Working with like-minded feminists and activists fueled this album, which has allowed Raye to begin to break through those unfair expectations society places on women. In our conversation, Raye is thoughtful and serious, yet fun and playful even with such heavy topics addressed. Thank you, Raye! Don't sleep on our first interview with Raye from episode 107!

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It’s been ten years since Boston-area Meg Hutchinson has released an album and she did it super quietly, so no shade if you didn’t realize that your favorite middle sister is back with some seriously devastating songs. Meg grew up just outside of Great Barrington, MA where she had an idyllic childhood surrounded by woods and framed by her desire to become a folk singer. That dream was realized after she graduated college, quit her organic lettuce farm job and moved to Boston in the early 2000’s. There, she wove herself into its vibrant folk community gigging around New England, performing in the subway and getting signed to the prestigious Red House Records, where she released three albums.

Throughout her life she has suffered from several mental illness, experiencing her first major bout of depression at age 19. Not understanding, she felt ashamed and hid her illness for nine years. After a huge whirlwind 2006 tour in England where she experienced a high never felt before, Meg came home and felt mania and severe depression all at once. She called her family to help and it was her younger sister, Tessa, who eventually got Meg professional help. After a long road stabilizing and healing, Meg has a grasp on her bi-polar disorder, which she calls by its former name: manic depression. She’s discovered her calling as a palliative care hospital chaplain and hospice worker. She’s no longer working music. She’s playing music and that’s how she approached this new album: All The Wonder All The Beauty, an album she says “is about things we don’t want to talk about.” She writes about her mental illness, midlife and death. This is an intense discussion with one of my favorite people! I’m so happy she’s released this album and excited for you to get to know Meg Hutchinson.

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