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Laura Benitez and the Heartache
LauraBenitez sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about her new album California Centuries by Laura Benitez and the Heartache. Depending on where you are on the ideology spectrum you may find yourself cheering this album on or in various degrees of disagreement with the lyrics and tone, but the one thing you should all agree on is these are well crafted songs, played and sung superbly. Full disclosure by this writer that he is firmly encamped in the section cheering this album on.
The opening song “Bad Things,” sets the tone for the album, each verse
its own story drawn from real life.
“The first verse was inspired by my partner Brian’s family, his mom,
sister and stepdad all lived in Paradise California and they lost
everything in the wildfire. His sister was driving to escape the flames
and she got caught in a traffic jam and she had to just run. The first
verse is a true story about his sister running for her life. You don’t
think that
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Carla Olson - Triple Threat
The seeds for Americana Railroad, the album, began to take
root in the early 1990s with Carla Olson, Gene Clark and Saul Davis,
Carla’s manager and husband.
Carla Olson says, “It was a nice idea to be a vehicle for a couple of
Gene’s songs, one of which is “I Remember the Railroad,” and not many
people know about it unless you are a big Gene Clark fan. Also, his
songs, “Train Leaves Here This Morning,” and “Kansas City Southern.”
Gene was a railroad guy. I remember buying a package of shirt patches
that they used to sell in train stations and train shops and I bought
four or five of the Rock Island Line. I gave a couple of them to Gene
when we were first hanging around together in the eighties. He said this
is so cool I am going to sew them on my jean jacket as soon as I can. He
was a huge reason why we tried to cobble this together. The other song
was The Long Ryders’ song that Stephen McCarthy wrote called “Here Comes
That Train Again.”
Those were the songs that started the ball rolling.” |
Heidi Newfield
She explains why, “The light is still on and
those of us who are still here, are still looking for great music.
Regardless of if I get to tour it or not, I feel it is my duty to put (The
Barfly Sessions) out. Putting a record
out like this has been such a labor of love, with so much time and
effort by a multitude of people, not just myself. To make a record like
this and without having put music out for a while and then boom you go
okay I am going to jump. I am going to put this thing out and then this
happens. I had to search my
heart and ask am I prepared for what may or may not happen when you put
a record out and you cannot tour around it? That is a whole new world
for all of us when we are putting music out. It is like stepping off a
cliff and you don’t know if you are going to fly or not. I pray that is
the case. I hope that is the case. I hope it catches on and if it is a
slow burn that is fantastic. If it catches on fire that is great too.
The world of uncertainty that we live in right now is very difficult. We
are calling it the year that never happened.”
We pointed out to Heidi Newfield there have been many Country music
artists who embarked on their careers without ever having set foot on a
ranch or a farm, but how her story really
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October 1993 A Magic Evening
Jamie James who had a band called the Kingbees and who also had played
with Dennis Quaid and the Sharks, explains how this album, which was
never intended to become an album, was born.
“My sister called me and said, Jaime I saw a picture of you online that
I have never seen before. Where and when is it from? She sent me the
link and I looked at it. I told her that is a band that Harry and I had
for about six months back in 1993. It was called Harry Stanton with the
Cheap Dates.
I
remembered that Slim Jim Phantom had been digitizing music from
cassettes. We had recorded four songs in Paramount Studios on Santa
Monica Boulevard, back in ’93. He sent me a track, but I couldn’t find
it. I called him and I said, could you resend that to me? I listened to
it again and it was the Bob Dylan song “Baby Tonight.” I liked it.
I
thought I like this, and I wonder if other people would enjoy it. I
called “Slim” back and he had four songs, but it wasn’t enough to do (an
album). |
Gary Nicholson
“I am still writing songs about what is still
going on in our culture. I am going to make another record that speaks
to this situation that we are in. I want to temper that with the Whitey
Johnson music that offers some fun and humor and some rocking Blues
music that can go along with the Folk music of the
Great Divide (one
of the new albums). I think the two things work well together and
that is why I chose to put out the two records at the same time.
Thankfully Blue Corn Music was agreeable to releasing both records,”
says Nicholson referencing the other album
More Days Like This released
under his other moniker Whitey Johnson. So, just before we
get into the main part of our conversation we thought we would tell you
how Gary Nicholson, singer, songwriter and guitarist also acquired the
name Whitey Johnson. “The Whitey Johnson persona started when I wrote a short story about
Whitey Johnson who was a composite character from my youth. He was a
guitar hero of mine. He was black, but he was albino, so his family
called him Whitey and that short story appeared in a book called
Guitar in a Tent. A lot of
songwriters wrote short stories for this book. (Kris) Kristofferson and
John Hiatt and others wrote stories. That is how the Whitey Johnson
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Pam Tillis
“Looking
for a Feeling, is as personal as anything that I have done, maybe
ever. I am in a lot of ways a really private person, which kind of runs
counter to what an artist is supposed to be. You know cut a vein and
bleed on the page. I am very private and so it takes a lot for me to do
that. I think in some ways I am understated with my feelings. In a lot
of songs I am just trying to process the craziness that is life and the
craziness that is our world and I am trying to put it into context. I
(want) to understand it. There is an underpinning and in some ways it is
a little bit philosophical. If you listen long enough you will hear it
in there,” says Pam Tillis. As for why she co-wrote the title song with Waylon Payne she says,
“Because it said write me (she
laughs lightly). You don’t always get a choice. Some days you pick
up the guitar and you get out your laptop or your yellow legal pad and
you might as well be digging a ditch. Some days you pick up the guitar
and it talks and the words are just coming through you. That’s what
happened that day. It was kind of a moody gray day. |
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