Quick Q and A with Chelsea Berry
 by Kathy S-B  ·  2 January 2011

Chelsea Berry is a Cape Ann singer-songwriter, formerly of Alaska, who is gathering a fan base in the greater Boston area. She’s got a fantastic new CD called Walk with Me. Check out Chelsea’s website for more information and catch the promotional video that gives you a real taste of what her music is like!

You’ve cited your influences as Joni Mitchell and Sheryl Crow. What is it about those songwriters that has inspired you the most?

Joni Mitchell’s profound lyrics and smooth vocals are the things I most admire about her music. I like to think I draw from those things when I write and perform. Sheryl Crow knows how to rock, although sometimes I get really carried away and people tell me I remind them more of Ani DiFranco. I’ll definitely take that as a compliment.

How long have you been playing live?

I’ve been performing as a singer since I was really little, but the singer/songwriter stuff began in high school. A friend of my mother’s from my hometown in Alaska was a bit of a local celebrity and I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do what she did for a living.

How long have you been living here in Massachusetts?

I studied at Berklee in Boston for a few semesters starting in 2005; I moved to Chicago and then Nashville for a while after quitting school. I decided to move back to MA about two and a half years ago. . . I had spent some time in Gloucester before and knew that the music up there was fantastic.

How similar or how different is the music scene here and in Alaska?

There isn’t a whole lot of a comparison, to be honest. The only similar venues are the small concert halls. Touring musicians go up there to pack halls with folk shows the size of places like me&thee and the Firehouse. Other than that, there are a ton of outdoor bluegrass festivals, and the big, big shows (Elton John, Brooks & Dunn) have to play at the Sullivan Arena — a.k.a. the biggest hockey rink in Anchorage. That was where they held my high school graduation, too.

You’ll be playing at a benefit show for “Turn Up the Peace” at Carnegie Hall later this month. Tell us about that organization! It sounds exciting.

It’s very exciting! You say the words “peace festival” and people start envisioning thousands of hippies getting high and holding signs for world peace. This organization is totally different. It’s more about creating awareness within, finding even ground and coming to terms with yourself.

Achieving an inner harmony which then naturally manifests itself in your surroundings and the people you encounter. That’s my understanding, anyway. Seems like the right way to go about it. I mean, forcing peace is a little backwards, right?

Quick Q and A with Jesse Milnes from The Sweetback Sisters
 by Kathy S-B  ·  5 December 2010

The Sweetback Sisters are one of the most talked about young string-based bands around these days. The sweet sister-like singing of Emily Miller and Zara Bode is accompanied by an extremely tight back-up band which includes the amazing fiddler from West Virginia, Jesse Milnes. The Sweetbacks put on a high-energy show filled with lots of opportunities to highlight their many musical talents.

Here’s a video of the band playing a Jesse original, “Be Back Home Soon.” While you’re on their website, check out more information about the band.

One journalist referred to your music as “girl on girl harmonies with honky tonk melodies.” How would you describe the kind of music that the Sweetback Sisters play?

We play country, swing and honky-tonk . . . but basically the girls are just incredible singers, and we (the backup band) just try not to screw it up.

How did the name “Sweetback Sisters” come about?

When Zara and Emily were starting to sing together they needed a name and they found a page of hobo slang on the internet which included the term “Sweetback” and defined it as “someone just trying out the vagrant life” unfortunately no one else has ever heard that definition.

According to the band’s biography, many of the members of the band have a jazz background, how does this impact and influence your music?

Three of the four backup boys have jazz degrees. (I’m the odd man out.) Things can definitely get really jazzy, particularly when we’re in the fourth hour of a wedding gig and we’ve played everything we actually know. . . . On the other hand, everyone in the band has played a lot of different styles. Ross is a rocker at heart, Stefan grew up playing contra-dance music and singing shape-note songs, Peter has played everything from Classical to Bluegrass to Free Jazz. If anything I think the Jazz training makes us a little bit more willing to tackle some of the 50’s and 60’s era country songs that were really jazz heavy, or some western swing. Nobody freaks out when they hear a diminished chord. As the only person in the band who can’t read music I’ve learned a ton playing with these guys.

Speaking of influences, what musical icons would you say have inspired you the most?

Like I said, our individual influences are all over the map, but for the band I would mention these names: Roger Miller, the Davis Sisters, Patsy Cline, Bob Wills

You’ve had many terrific career highlights, but I imagine being on “Prairie Home Companion” was one of them. What was that experience like?

“A Prairie Home Companion” was a whirlwind. The show is live on the air, and the logistics behind it are incredible. The show we were on included six musical acts, plus the house band getting on and off stage multiple times in the space of an hour. My clearest memory is of standing backstage when the American Public Media theme came over the sound system and thinking “Oh my God, 4 million listeners.”

I understand you have a new CD coming out in 2011, how will it differ from the last one?

We’re just getting to work on the new CD, so it’s a blank page at this point, but I think it will have a lot more original material on it, and my hope is that it will have more of the energy of our live shows than “Chicken Ain’t Chicken” does.

Quick Q and A with Jim Lauderdale
 by Kathy S-B  ·  4 November 2010

Jim Laudedale’s music spans many genres and his musical resume is most impressive. Right on the heels of playing on David Letterman with Elvis Costello, Jim makes his me&thee debut and we couldn’t be more excited!

Jim’s website is full of great music to sample! Here’s a wonderful video of Jim playing “The King of Broken Hearts.”

Your songs have been recorded by the Dixie Chicks, Patty Loveless, Dave Edmunds, Solomon Burke, George Strait, and so many other greats in the music business. Have any of them recorded the song in a way that totally astounded you by its uniqueness — trans­form­ing it into something that you never would heave ever imagined?

Yes, I was so pleased with the way Elvis Costello recorded “I Lost you” for his new album. T-Bone Burnett produced and I couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out

Your newest CD, Patchwork River, is your second collaboration with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter. How did you team up with him?

When I was going to make my first album with Ralph Stanley I tracked him down knowing that he and Jerry Garcia were big Ralph Stanley fans. We wrote a couple for that album and it’s been going ever since

Do you recall the first time you played the Grand Ole Opry? What was that? Had you ever envisioned yourself up on that stage?

It was always a dream of mine to play the Opry and it finally happened when I was a guest with Ralph Stanley after the first record came out. I got to sing with Ralph and the Clinch Mountain Boys. It was a very meaningful experience

Tell us about your involvement with the documentary, ” Awake My Soul: The Story of the Sacred Harp.” Can you briefly tell our readers about this special kind of music?

I was asked to narrate the doc and then also asked to sing a song for it. I teamed up with my friends, a great duo, Jenni & Billy. “Shape note” singing is a very old style of singing hymns acapella.

What’s up next for you? Any new projects in the works?

I have a bluegrass album that I wrote with Robert Hunter that we recorded in August. I have another album almost finished with the “Dream Players” feauring Gary Tallant, James Burton, Ron Tutt and Al Perkins.

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