Kyshona Armstrong was a music therapist before she shifted her focus to pursuing a career in songwriting. Drawing from her background experience of using music as a healing force in people’s lives, the songwriting on Armstrong’s latest album, Listen., is heavy on transcendence and empowerment. During this year’s 30A Songwriters Festival, we talked with Armstrong about all of this and more. Tune in and discover one of Nashville’s finest up-and-coming singer-songwriters.

by Kim Ruehl (@kimruehl), Folk Alley

Kyshona Armstrong was a music therapist before she shifted her focus to pursuing a career in songwriting. Drawing from her background experience of using music as a healing force in people’s lives, the songwriting on Armstrong’s latest album, Listen., is heavy on transcendence and empowerment. “Fear,” for example, digs deep into one of the emotions so many people tend to run from, encouraging folks to “call it by its name” rather than giving in to its pull. And that’s just the beginning of Armstrong’s fearless approach to intensely emotional lyricism.

During this year’s 30A Songwriters Festival, we talked with Armstrong about all of this and more. Tune in and discover one of Nashville’s finest up-and-coming singer-songwriters.

During the 2020 30A Songwriters Festival, we chatted with the Secret Sisters - Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle - about their latest album, Saturn Return, as they performed some of the album’s finest songs at the Folk Alley beach house.

by Kim Ruehl (@kimruehl), Folk Alley

The Secret Sisters have been through a lot in the last few years, from losing major label support to welcoming new babies into their families, along with other personal and professional landmarks. It’s par for the course around one’s Saturn Return—an occurrence during the end of your 20s, when the trajectory of Saturn returns to the same position it was in when you were born. According to astrology, this is a period of great change in one’s personal life and the duo—Laura Rogers and Lydia Slagle—felt this was an appropriate phenomenon after which to name their new, emotionally stirring, Brandi Carlile-produced album.

During the 2020 30A Songwriters Festival, we chatted with the sisters about all of this and more, as they performed some of the album’s finest songs at the Folk Alley beach house.

By the time I spoke with Allison Moorer at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida this January, she had been touring in support of her memoir and accompanying full-length album, 'Blood' for several months and had become accustomed to the way her audiences were inclined to bond with her, across their own traumas. In this Folk Alley Session, we discussed all of this and more, and Moorer also gifted us with some excellent performances of songs from the album.

by Kim Ruehl (@kimruehl), Folk Alley

In her first book, Blood, which released last fall, Allison Moorer dug into deep wounds from her childhood, exploring both her experience and her process of healing. To accompany the book, she originally intended to release an EP of songs that explored the same themes. That project quickly grew into a remarkably stirring full-length album, which she also titled Blood.

By the time I spoke with her at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida this January, Moorer had been touring in support of the double project for several months and had become accustomed to the way her audiences were inclined to bond with her, across their own traumas. In this session, we discussed all of this and more, and Moorer also gifted us with some excellent performances of songs from the album.

It’s hard not to throw around words like “prodigious” when talking about someone like Sierra Hull. At just 28 years old, she has already released five albums, worked with many of the biggest names in Nashville, taken home a half-dozen IBMA awards, and earned a Grammy nomination for her sparsely arranged mandolin-and-bass 2017 singer-songwriter album Weighted Mind. So, when one hears her sing about wanting to slow down for a bit after “25 trips around the sun” on the title track of her new album, 25 Trips, one might understand the impulse. Lucky for fans, the new album doesn’t actually slow the gifted mandolinist and songwriter down a bit.

During a Folk Alley Session at the 30A Songwriters Festival, we sat down with Hull for a conversation about all of this and more.

by Kim Ruehl (@kimruehl), Folk Alley

It’s hard not to throw around words like “prodigious” when talking about someone like Sierra Hull. At just 28 years old, she has already released five albums, worked with many of the biggest names in Nashville, taken home a half-dozen IBMA awards, and earned a Grammy nomination for her sparsely arranged mandolin-and-bass 2017 singer-songwriter album Weighted Mind. So, when one hears her sing about wanting to slow down for a bit after “25 trips around the sun” on the title track of her new album, 25 Trips, one might understand the impulse. Lucky for fans, the new album doesn’t actually slow the gifted mandolinist and songwriter down a bit.

During a Folk Alley Session at the 30A Songwriters Festival, we sat down with Hull for a conversation about all of this and more.

Fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and banjo player Allison de Groot first started their collaboration over the term “old-time music” and realized, pretty quickly, that their definition of the term was very similar. We like the same kinds of music, they say, and so it was easy to become musical partners and share that love with other music fans. The duo put out a self-titled album in 2019 and they came to Beehive Productions Studios in Saranac Lake, NY to talk about it and about their musical partnership.

(originally posted June, 2019)

So, what does “old-time music” really mean? If you think about it, you start to realize that it’s one of those incredibly broad terms, the kind of term that could mean anything from traditional 17th century English ballads and fantasies (or, phantasies) to the kinds of music that Bob Dylan and Joan Baez made popular in the 60s and 70s.

Fiddler Tatiana Hargreaves and banjo player Allison de Groot first started their collaboration over the term “old-time music” and realized, pretty quickly, that their definition of the term was very similar. We like the same kinds of music, they say, and so it was easy to become musical partners and share that love with other music fans.

The duo put out a self-titled album in 2019 and they came to Beehive Productions Studios in Saranac Lake, NY to talk about it and about their musical partnership.