I am so happy that these recordings are finally seeing the light of day. Like all records these days, this one has been on quite a journey.
Here is “Sweet to Me,” the first single from my new record, Highways and Rocketships.
I had the honor of interviewing the mighty John Prine once, for a songwriting class I was teaching in 2008. I said to him that the line, “I am and old woman,” always perked up my ears, sung as it is by a young man. He said, “well that’s just songwriting.”
“Sweet to Me” is an elegy to my grandmother, Mary Fuqua, who grew up in Hickman County TN. I tell the story of her life from her point of view, taking from Mr. Prine’s sage maxim license to wade into the territory of the dead.
Here is how the novelist Lorrie Moore describes point of view in her story, “People Like that are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in the Peed Onk”: “The trip and the story of the trip are two different things. The narrator is the one who has stayed home, but then, afterwards, presses her mouth upon the traveler’s mouth, in order to make the mouth say, say, say. One cannot go to a place and speak of it; one cannot both see and say, not really. One can go, and upon returning, make a lot of hand motions and indications with the arms. The mouth itself, working at the speed of light, at the eye’s instructions, is necessarily struck still; so fast, so much to report, it hangs open and dumb as a gutted bell. All that unsayable life! That’s where the narrator comes in. The narrator comes with her kisses and mimicry and tidying up.”
These are my kisses for my grandmother; hers kept me whole in my childhood.
That’s my beautiful sister (wish her a happy birthday today) and gorgeous daughter singing on the outro.
Here’s who made the magic happen:
Jeremy Chatzky: electric and upright bass
Peter Holsapple: guitar, keyboards, and vocals
Will Rigby: drums and percussion
Mark Spencer: guitar, lap steel, and vocals
Katherine Dore: backing vocals, end of “Sweet to Me”
Georgie Rigby: backing vocals, end of “Sweet to Me”
Libby Rodenbough: violin and backing vocals
on “Sweet to Me”
Production
Produced by Don Dixon and Florence Dore
Recorded by Mitch Easter at Fidelitorium Recordings
Mixed by Don Dixon at SPA
Executive Producers: Jay Coyle and Jefferson Holt