Singer-songwriter Brody Price recalls trying to “do the Todd Snider/Guy Clark thing” by playing their old rooms like the Cactus Cafe and Old Quarter, and shares the three rules he and his band maintain.
Leon Majcen on Record Release Strategies and the Downside of Truck Leases
Leon Majcen recalls getting overpaid at his first gig at 13, describes his old day job at a Nashville tree company, and explains why he tailors every show to the room that he’s playing.
Clayton Nile Young on Working at the Mayo Clinic and Learning to Talk While Tuning
Singer-songwriter Clayton Nile Young talks about his tour meal strategy — since he doesn’t hit the road often, he treats touring like a vacation and eats accordingly. He recalls the 2023 house show in Jacksonville that became his first gig, which left him instantly hooked. Young also shares the story behind his first song, “Heart vs Mind,” written while he was in radiation therapy school.
Drivin N Cryin: Still Writing the Story
Several days after speaking with Kevn Kinney, I watched a storm roll across the mesas outside Taos, New Mexico. Purple lightning split the sky, eventually forcing Drivin N Cryin’s scheduled outdoor performance indoors. The band adjusted. Instead of the full-throttle rock show one might expect from a group that has spent nearly four decades making […]
Futurebirds’ Carter King on Gas-Station Chicken Tenders and 401(k) Plans
Carter King, singer-guitarist for Athens, Georgia’s Futurebirds, talks about the sea of part-time odds-n-ends he’s taken over the years to fill the music gaps and how Howie Mandel inspired the first song he ever wrote.
Norwegian-Americana: Nashville on Her Mind, Norway in Her Bones
Before there was Tennessee, there was Stavanger. Before the highways, honky-tonks and imagined horizons of America, there was the Norwegian coastline—cold water, hard wind, immense mountains and a young girl searching for where she belonged. Maren Davidsen’s music exists in that distance between two worlds. A Norwegian singer-songwriter drawn to the emotional honesty of Americana, […]
Admiral Radio on a Crab Bake-Inspired First Song and the Value of Cover Gigs
Admiral Radio’s Coty Hoover and Becca Smith, a husband-and-wife Americana duo from South Carolina, share their trick for eating well on tour, recall a scare that nearly totaled the band’s touring van outside St. Louis, and talk about the philosophy that’s guided their career since day one.
Lisa Bouchelle on a Big Tour Mistake and Exercising Her ‘Poetic License’
Singer-songwriter Lisa Bouchelle recalls winning a talent contest at just four years old, dressed as an American flag at a family campground — a moment that showed music could bring people together. She shares how a friendship with Blues Traveler’s John Popper began, when he worried about her driving solo while opening for the band on her first tour. Bouchelle also talks about why it’s good to set a goal that’s just beyond the horizon.
Ruthie Foster: The Long Road to Saying Yes
Photo Courtesy Big Feat PR For Ruthie Foster, the road to music began with a child’s stubborn curiosity: sitting close to the television, trying to convince her siblings that the Grammy Awards mattered. She watched singers like Janis Ian and Roberta Flack step into the light and sensed something larger than fame. Music was not […]
Alicia Blue on Tour Salads and Her Painful First Gig
Singer-songwriter Alicia Blue talks about the inspiration behind the first song she ever wrote, the shift from indirectly paying to play to getting paid for it, and the Bob Dylan quote about destiny that shaped how she guards her own focus.