Tag: Americana Music

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Jay Farrar Brings Son Volt — and Hope — to Lafayette’s

Son Volt (photo by Ismael Quintanilla III)

Hearing Son Volt’s latest album, Electro Melodier (Transmit Sound/Thirty Tigers), is a cathartic experience, especially once you learn that it was written and recorded entirely under the conditions of quarantine. In a sense, Farrar, who’s always had a political edge to his lyrics, was the perfect scribe of the times, but this time around, he brings more than his trenchant eye for injustice.

The album’s mix of trepidation and optimism is still with us today, as the pandemic rages on, so it’s even more hopeful to learn that Jay Farrar, Son Volt’s founder, singer and songwriter, will bring the group’s unique blend of folk, country, blues, soul, and rock to Lafayette’s Music Room on Sunday, September 26. And to sweeten the deal, local favorite Shannon McNally will open the show with her latest, sultry-voiced take on the Waylon Jennings catalog, The Waylon Sessions.

I caught up with Farrar as he carried on with the group’s tour, and asked him about the unique experience of creating his latest work.

Memphis Flyer: I was surprised at how hopeful the new album is. It was composed in the quarantine era, so one expects the worst, but it’s surprisingly cathartic.

Jay Farrar: Yeah, the songs were written during the pandemic, so there was a lot of introspection going on. But I also wanted to focus on melodic structures, and I guess at the end of the day, it’s the same concept as singing the blues. You feel better just writing and singing these songs. So I guess there was some hope in there somewhere.

Was it a conscious move on your part to remain hopeful as you created these songs?

It gave me a singular focus, for sure, because live performance was taken off the table. So there was definitely a singular focus on these songs during the writing and recording. There were a few learning experiences along the way. We first tried recording via Zoom and different remote locations in different studios. And we did that song, “These Are the Times,” that way. But eventually we realized that some of the synergy was lost that way, so we eventually got together in the studio. Although Mark Spencer, who has his own studio in Brooklyn, added his parts from there. So there was a mixed approach to this recording. A little bit of the old, a little bit of the new.

What time during the quarantine period last year did you start the project?

Our last gig was a date in February, and I’d already done a fair amount of writing by February and March. And then we started recording in April, I think, digging deeper into recording through the summer. We had to have some heart-to-heart discussions. At that point, we didn’t know if masking up was going to be enough, you know? But we decided we had to do it together, to find that chemistry. But there was an eerie quality to it all. If you walked out onto the street, you’d wonder, “Where are all the people?”

I’m curious what you personally look to to find that optimism. Like when you say, “It’s gonna be all right, the worst will soon be over.”

That’s a good question. I think I was digging deep. In a political sense, I felt like things were changing at that time. They couldn’t go on the way they had been going. And as it turned out, at least from my perspective, the ship is headed in the right direction. I guess that deep introspection makes you think about what’s important. You just have to believe that things are going to get better.

You sing about looking at our times “more in sorrow than anger,” and I think that is telling. Is grieving a way to get beyond the anger?

Yeah, I mean, we’re still in it and there are still difficult decisions to make. Getting back to live performance has been important for Son Volt. We’re out on the road with a more flexible approach. Obviously getting vaxxed and wearing masks is the right thing to do, but maybe there are situations where people can’t get the vaccines or whatever, so we just have a flexible approach.

Obviously the band name itself screams out Memphis history. What does Memphis represent to you?

The list is long! The effects of Memphis music are profound. I think five or six years ago, Son Volt played the Levitt Shell, and just seeing the list of folks who had played there, from Elvis to Big Star, and many more, was amazing. Both Elvis and Big Star are huge, Charlie Rich, and obviously Sun Studio. I even took my kids there. They had zero interest when we went in, and a lot of interest when we walked out. [laughs] So that speaks to the power of Memphis music right there. And certainly I’d been into other really melodic bands, like Badfinger and the Beatles, before I discovered Big Star, but Big Star is someone I turn to for inspiration now, more than those other bands at this point. It’s a perennial favorite.

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Carla Thomas Receives Americana Inspiration Award

Carla Thomas in the 1960s (Photo courtesy of the Stax Museum of American Soul Music)

Tonight will represent an apotheosis of sorts for one of the most original voices to emerge from Memphis, via that crucible of unique voices, Stax Records. Carla Thomas helped create one of the very first hits for the precursor to that label, Satellite Records, with “Cause I Love You,” which she sang with her father Rufus Thomas in 1960. Now, over 60 years later, she’ll be honored with an Inspiration Award at the 20th Annual Americana Honors & Awards show in Nashville, during a ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium. It’s the hallmark event of the association’s annual Americanafest, taking place Sept. 22-25.

It’s fitting that she’s being recognized as an Americana artist. After Valerie June released her recent track “Call Me A Fool,” she told NPR that her collaborator on the vocal duet, Thomas, “remains a queen and total superstar, Aretha-equivalent.” And for June, that had a very personal dimension. As she told the Memphis Flyer this past spring, “I needed her, because the record is a bunch of songs to inspire dreamers. I think the world needs more dreamers now, and as we look around at all the things that need to change, it’s like a dream journey. You always have to have what I call a fairy godmother, that wise voice. And Carla was the fairy godmother of this record. She might be the Queen of Memphis Soul, but for me, she’s my fairy godmother. She’s the wise voice.”

Of course, “Cause I Love You” was just the beginning of Carla Thomas’s run of recordings for Stax and Atlantic Records through the 1960s, which made her the “Queen of Memphis Soul.” With an effervescent and romantic voice that laid bare her teen and 20-something emotions, Thomas bridged soul, country, and gospel as one of the key artists of a great musical and social movement. 

She practically grew up at the Palace Theater on Beale Street where Rufus was an emcee. Inspired by singers Jackie Wilson and Brenda Lee, Thomas was singing early, joining WDIA’s Teen Town Singers at age 10. After recording “Cause I Love You” with her father, she hit early as a solo artist with the pop and R&B charter “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes).” She’d be popular on the label for more than a decade, appearing on American Bandstand and cutting a full album of duets with Otis Redding months before his death in 1967. She was also a top performer at the influential Wattstax concert of 1972.

In later years, Thomas turned more of her energy to Artists In The Schools, a youth-focused non-profit. The Rhythm & Blues Foundation honored her in 1993 with its exclusive Pioneer Award. The Inspiration Award has been granted only once before, to Thomas’s Stax/Atlantic colleague Mavis Staples.

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DittyTV Steps Up To Major Radio Markets & Beyond

CREDIT: Courtesy DittyTV

Courtesy DittyTV

Local heroes DittyTV, who have steadily grown their online music television streaming presence since 2014, made a major leap forward this week when they announced a new partnership with the New York-based Krantz Media Group/KMG Networks (KMG), which specializes in marketing audio-only content, chiefly in what is still broadly called “radio.”

“DittyTV is the most robust video channel in the world dedicated to the diverse and growing Americana and Roots music categories,” said Gary Krantz, CEO of KMG. “Americana continues to grow exponentially and is the passionate choice for 18-34 and 25-54-year-old adults that are under-served by mainstream media, yet highly desired by brands and advertisers. KMG is very excited to build success with several projects in the works for all forms of radio and podcasts”. And while DittyTV already features a 24/7 Ditty TV audio channel, at www.dittytvradio.com, plans are now being made for daily and weekly podcasts, event and awards show coverage, and more.

I spoke with DittyTV CEO Ronnie Wright to see just what this meant for the company, and what new ways we could expect to hear its content in the future.

Memphis Flyer: So how did this partnership come about?

Ronnie Wright: Gary was pretty persistent, so we double checked with some mentors that we have before we decided to pursue it. It turns out this guy’s been in radio his whole career. It’s all about radio and audio. He reached out to us independently, and a couple people we know actually went to college with him. So they go way back. That gave us a level of comfort. He’s identified this Americana movement and this under-served market. He knows how to monetize audio-specific assets.

What specifically does that mean, in terms of how people will hear your stuff?

There’s a couple things he’s gonna help us with, which is getting a radio, or audio-only version of DittyTV on something like Sirius XM or iHeart Radio. It would be its own channel where you could listen to Ditty on some other platforms, other than our own. And then there’ll be a revenue split on advertising that they sell. That’s one thing he does. And another thing that’s growing are podcasts. Basically, what he does is bridge the licensing agreements, and then he has the advertising connections and machine to connect advertisers with our content. And we’ve already created a lot of our content, and we’re sitting on it. So we have a 24 hour broadcast, and we already have an audio version of it, where I just strip out the video. If you go to dittytvradio.com, it’s already live. You’ll see all of our podcasts, and you can just listen to the audio. So Gary thinks we can get on other platforms and make some money out of licensing, and or selling advertising. And ironically, he says on the radio market, there’s still people listening and people making money. Even on traditional terrestrial radio, AM and FM. They’re still buying content. So what we’re talking about putting together is a weekly Americana & Roots wrap up or countdown, something like that. And we’ll produce a two or three hour show that we then syndicate to all these radio stations.

Courtesy DittyTV

It sounds like this will be a big move for you all in the domestic market. I know you’re already pretty big internationally.

Yeah. And from our standpoint, it’s just building general brand awareness. The more places we can get, whether it’s on an app or a radio station, or iHeart radio, the better. Gary thinks there’s a lot of opportunity with the audio-only part of our thing that we really have to explore. I’ve always been more interested in the television part of this. But he’s right. All our teleprogramming is very easily turned into podcasts or radio programming. And since audio is cheaper to produce, there’s so many more opportunities that we can create. So we’re expanding our footprint into the radio podcast world, be it satellite or terrestrial. And we’re thinking about specifically producing a radio show, which we’ve never really done before. But we have all the rights to the music. So there’s no reason we couldn’t just put together an audio version of what we’re already doing.

What is KMG bringing to the table in this partnership?

Gary’s got a lot of connections in the industry, with larger names in the Americana Roots world. He thinks we could get guest hosts and guest DJ’s. Kinda like XM shows that have celebrity co-hosts. And since we’re  a lot better at producing content than selling, he can help us with that. So it could open some doors. He’s gonna do this whole market analysis. And our first goal is to get on a high profile radio network, like Sirius or iHeart. Just to raise visibility. And once we turn that corner, other things will come more easily. And it would be the same broadcast that we’re already doing.

Will DittyTV continue to stick with Americana and roots music?

With satellite channels, it’s usually genre driven. When it comes to Americana-Roots, whatever you want to call it, I think what Gary is realizing, which is what we realized, is there’s a big smart global group that likes this stuff. They like the fact that it’s not mainstream country. They like the fact that it’s not pop music or electronica. There’s a place for what we’re curating on more platforms, so more people can get to it. If you like it on your television, why not stream it in your car? Or on your XM radio? Or on your iHeart app? And with DittyTV, the goal is not necessarily to make a lot of money, the goal is to be sustainable, self sustainable, and be a real resource and help emerging artists. If we grow, we can make a bigger impact. It would be great to triple the staff. Or to have an RV on the road, covering festivals, with a whole other camera crew.

I know you’ve recently opened a retail shop as well, Vibe & Dime, on South Main Street. What other new projects are cooking at Ditty?

We also formed a non profit, called the Ditty Foundation. Everything we produce goes back to the artist. We give them all the media for free, we promote the albums and the tours.

And we also just released DittyTV 2.0. We have a brand new app for all the set-top boxes like Apple TV, Fire TV, Roku, Tivo, and now you can watch all the shows on demand, which is new. We’ll always have the live 24/7 broadcast, but now you’ll be able to pick your favorite shows. And we have so many episodes! You can also get daily news segments. And by the end of next week, we’re gonna have our mobile apps. So you’ll have all those same capabilities in an iPhone app and an Android app. The radio only, the on demand, the live broadcast. We’re super excited about that.

And we’re super excited about partnering with KMG. I think Gary really appreciates the entrepreneurship that’s gone into DItty so far, the challenges that we’ve had to overcome. So hopefully DittyTV will be coming to a radio dial near you soon.