Interviews

Sadie Fine is an exciting 18 year old indie-pop artist based in Clarksville, Tennessee. She was born in the UK with American/Palestinian heritage. Sadie began performing live when she was 13 and begin writing her own music at age 14. She has produced two EP’s to date that have generated over 3.5 million streams worldwide. Her music has been played on 63 radio stations across the globe and has been featured on “BBC Introducing” and “KUTX Song Of The Day”. Sadie and I sat down together recently to discuss the beginnings of her career, her earliest days as a song writer, how she landed a record label deal at age 15 and, perhaps most surprisingly, how all the her early success made her relationships in school more difficult with students and teachers alike.

Jesse Winchester could have been the next Jackson Browne or James Taylor. But in 1967 he left the US for Canada to avoid being drafted to the Vietnam war. While in Canada he became known largely through cover versions of his songs by artists such as Tim Hardin, Joan Baez, Emmylou Harris, the Everly Brothers, Tom Rush and Jimmy Buffett. It was also his exile from America that lent a note of poignancy to his best-known songs, many of which were bittersweet recollections of people and places in the American south, where he had grown up. After President Ford’s pardon of the Vietnam war draft evaders Winchester was finally allowed to record and perform in this country. In November 2005, after a performance at the Northampton Academy of Music, Jesse sat down with me for an intimate discussion of his life and his music

If Bill Monroe is the father of bluegrass music many would consider Bowling Green, KY native Sam Bush the father of Newgrass Music. A virtuoso mandolin and fiddle player Sam founded the groundbreaking progressive bluegrass group The Newgrass Revival, has enjoyed a long and successful solo career, has played in the bands of Leon Russell, Emmylou Harris and Lyle Lovett as well as lending his skills to more artist’s records than one could easily count. I sat down with Sam before a show in West Hartford, CT in the fall of 2006 to discuss his career that began as a three time winner of the National Junior Fiddle Championship at ages 15, 16 and 17 to the present day.

Texan Rodney Crowell is the songwriter’s songwriter. Crowell is a multi-Grammy Award-winning troubadour with fifteen number one hits. With more than 40 years of American roots music under his belt, Crowell has been cited as one of the architects of Americana music. His songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Bob Seger, Etta James, the Grateful Dead, John Denver, Johnny Cash, Jimmy Buffett and countless others. A member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Crowell is also the author of the acclaimed memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks. I spoke with Rodney before his performance in Northampton, Mass on October 24, 2008.

Born of country music royalty Rosanne Cash set out on her own musical path in 1978 beginning in country where she achieved both critical acclaim and commercial success. By the early 1990s she began to explore and develop her own deeply personal form of Americana in which she reflected on life; both in general and her own, and the world around us. She has won multiple Grammies and Americana/Roots Music Association awards. In 2006 she released the album Black Cadillac which was a reflection upon the loss of her father Johnny Cash, her mother Vivian Liberto Distin and her stepmother June Carter Cash all within several months of one another. In between promotional dates and performances I had the opportunity to sit down with Rosanne in her Manhattan home and ask her many of the questions I've always asked myself about her music.

Tommy Malone is one of the founding members and co-front men of the long time New Orleans-based roots rock band The Subdudes, is a past member of Tiny Town and has released several solo albums. I had the pleasure of interviewing Tommy prior to The Subdudes show at The Egg in Albany, New York on 11/4/2006.