News and Quotes
Quotes
"Critics agree that rarely has a bluegrass writer demonstrated the breadth of style, poetic beauty, emotion, and range of topics found in Louisa’s work. From simply elegant to complex, country ballad to bluegrass breakdown, Louisa writes it, and writes it well, commanding over 70 recorded songs.
“Some of the finest original bluegrass music has been characterized by the blending of the simple and the complex. It could be argued that this is one of the many things that set apart Bill Monroe’s sound from much of the music of his time. The songs of Louisa Branscomb have the kind of depth that results from such a fusion.”
(Chris Jones, Bluegrass Now)
In the News
“Louisa Branscomb, a true pioneer for women in bluegrass. How many bluegrass writers can offer two tapes worth of very good to excellent self-composed titles in a single year?”
Art Menius, Bluegrass Unlimited Review
“Louisa Branscomb’s career so far, both inside and outside of music, has been guided by a powerful creative force… that has not only brought us a staggering amount of original material, but one that has enabled her to juggle, and effectively synthesize, her love of music, writing, people, and the mountains around her.”
Chris Jones, Bluegrass Now
“Louisa writes songs that go straight to the heart of human emotion”
Lee Taylor, Bluegrass Unlimited
“Great songs are the result of deep feelings, and Louisa is one of the most sensitive writers in bluegrass today.”
Wayne Bledsoe, Bluegrass Now
“Louisa’s talent, aside from her considerable skill as a multi-instrumentalist, lies in her ability to recognize the profound in the ordinary and to often translate what she sees into language that’s easily understood by everyone.”
Julie Kohler, Bluegrass Now
Ray Morgan says of the Daughters of Bluegrass project, “This is one SEBARIFIC CD! The third release on Tom T. and Dixie Hall’s Blue Circle Records label is the second recording conceived from an idea in the early 2000s by Lorraine Jordan of the Carolina Road Band and Gena Britt, who was then traveling with Carolina Road.
………….Longtime SEBA member and acclaimed songwriter Louisa Branscomb penned “Fool’s Gold.” On the recording, Louisa’s song “Steel Rails” holds the record for the most months on the Bluegrass Unlimited charts, with the Alison Krauss recording spending 18 months on the singles chart. Her June 2001 cover article on Vicki Simmons for Bluegrass Now is one of the best and most inspirational articles ever written about a bluegrass artist. The “Georgia melodies are sweet as Muscatine and peach,” and this recording has earned the SEBA Seal of Approval!!”
SEBA Newsletter, August, 2006
“Louisa has really given us a legacy of train songs that is a substantial contribution to our genre. But beyond this, she writes songs that beckon you, like a warm comfy room that you want to linger in. She invites us to experience rural living, love, and the magic of life—especially as carried by trains—through fresh eyes, but the eyes of survival, and from it, wisdom. I consider it a great honor to get to work with her.”
Missy Raines
“Steel Rails was one of my favorite songs to sing as a girl. I fell in love with the song and the imagery it instantly brings to mind. To be a part of this project all these years later with Louisa is such an honor.”
Sierra Hull
"Iconic..., is what the song " Steel Rails" has become in Americana music. One of the desires of "Roots Music" songwriters is to have a song truly become " A folk song". Louisa Branscombe's heartfelt yet genius song Steele Rails is among the most cherished folk songs from the 21st century. It will be that way forever...”
Dale Ann Bradley
“Louisa is a gifted mentor and teacher, but she’s also a thoughtful and giving songwriter, co-writer, and friend.”
Claire Lynch
“Wherever Louisa is, her songs become the focus, drawing listeners in through the heart and soul that Louisa pours into each creation.”
Jeanette Williams
“Louisa Branscomb is different from other writers. Her songs stand out and above. And she’s the best friend a train ever had.”
Dale Ann Bradley
“One of the greatest honors in my 30 years playing bluegrass was being asked to sing an original song by a prolific writer, such as Louisa, on her own project. Louisa can capture every emotion possible in the songs she writes. I hope in some way I was able to deliver her message in such a powerful song by a legendary writer.”
Johnny Williams
"The bewitching combination of Louisa Branscomb’s writing and Alison Krauss’ performance turned “Steel Rails” into a jam standard, baptizing both women with bluegrass immortality. It’s definitely one of the songs that taught me how to write. With that in mind, I'm honored and blessed beyond measure that Louisa invited me collaborate not only on “Steel Rails,” and to play and sing on this lovely album
Becky Buller
"I've always looked up to Louisa and admired her writing. It's an honor to sing and record one of her songs."
Bradley Walker
"Louisa is one of my very favorite top writers. It's an honor to help her produce these incredible songs."
Bradley Walker
"Louisa's writing is extraordinary. It is brilliant, courageous, and raw. When I turned to writing bluegrass, she is the person I listened to."
Si Kahn
Louisa Branscomb: No one else quite sees lovers and others in all their full, flawed, glorious humanity as she does.
Louisa Branscomb’s Songs In The Key Of Life
By David McGee
I’LL TAKE LOVE: FROM THE PEN OF LOUISA BRANSCOMB Various Artists Compass Records
One of the most recorded songwriters in contemporary bluegrass, Louisa Branscomb’s examinations of love and loss get a powerful showcase in this collection of various artists’ interpretations of her tunes. Other than the opening two tracks, all the songs are solo Branscomb copyrights; the aforementioned pair were co-written with the singers who do magnificent jobs rendering them on the disc: Claire Lynch (who opens the festivities with a bright, soaring number about an eagerly awaited homecoming, “I’m Gonna Love You”) and Dale Ann Bradley, who does justice to a poignant end-of-life testimony, “I’ll Take Love,” which features not only Bradley’s sensitive vocal, but haunting harmonies by Alison Krauss and Steve Gulley, about whom it can fairly be said that harmony singing don’t get much better than theirs. In addition to some of the best roots music singers around--including Josh Williams, John Cowan, Sharon and Cheryl White, Becky Schlegel, Jim Hurst and Dave Peterson--the band assembled here is strictly top drawer: Alison Brown on banjo, Rob Ickes on dobro, Missy Raines on bass, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Alan Bibey on mandolin, Buck White sitting in on piano, Mike Witcher on resophonic guitar and lap steel, Ben Branscomb on harmonica, among others.
The song that put Louisa Branscomb on the map: Alison Krauss + Union Station perform ‘Steel Rails’ Branscomb’s 1991 SPBGMA song of the year and still the longest running chart hit in bluegrass history.
Though their themes are familiar, the songs from Branscomb’s pen don’t take the usual routes to their conclusions. In the somber “Your Amazing Grace,” Lynch, with Jim Hurst adding a plaintive vocal harmony, puts the load right on herself for being too overbearing and driving away a fellow she was smitten with (guys complain about this all the time, but we don’t hear many songs--make that zero--about it), while confessing that her inexperience in matters of the heart was her undoing--and in that admission comes a suggestion that things can change (“I swear it was an innocent transgression”), which is exactly where Branscomb’s songs separate themselves from so many others’ in seeing the bigger picture rather than focusing on that “single transgression” as the telling fact about a person’s character. In the quiet country ballad “Closin’ Nashville Down,” Steve Gulley offers a sensitive take on a story centered on a couples’ meeting at a Music City bar but being unable to make something deeper of it owing to their respective defense mechanisms--her verbosity, his shyness. At the end, as Witcher’s lap steel and Shad Cobb’s fiddle mourn softly, Gulley holds onto the hope of his next meeting with the gal in question producing something more substantive. Clearly, this is not your run-of-the-mill barroom pickup scenario. What happens when folks don’t exercise the innate caution of the characters in “Closin’ Nashville Down”? The answer comes later in the album, in the haunting “Silence Broken Beyond Repair,” with Dale Ann Bradley and Steve Gulley re-teaming in an epic, mournful ballad of dying love that started in a fever (“Way back then our love hit like lightning in the sky”) and dissipated as quickly as falling snow, the metaphor Branscomb poetically employs to explain the failed romance.
Louisa Branscomb sings her song ‘This Side of Heaven,’ April 28, 2011, the day following the devastating tornadoes in Alabama. On I’ll Take Love: From the Pen of Louisa Branscomb, this song is performed by The Whites. Accompanying Louisa on banjo is Joe Zauner.
In the infectious strut of “Wearin’ the Blues,” Branscomb considers personal conduct in the aftermath of a breakup, and Josh Williams is on hand with a lively confession of breaking on the inside while presenting a sanguine demeanor on the outside, with Brown and Duncan enhancing the upbeat mood with their energetic banjo and fiddle support, respectively. In the country blues of “State Line,” Dave Peterson, with keening harmony assistance from John Cowan, offers another post-breakup scenario, figuring his healing balm is simply coming home to Carolina (“I’ll be better when I reach that state line,” he drawls), and in addition to Cowan’s distinctive holler, his journey gets some extra forward propulsion thanks to the low-down soloing of harmonica man Ben Branscomb, Ickes on acoustic slide and some honky-tonkin’ piano by Buck White.
Becky Schlegel
The chemistry of attraction and what it can do to a person inform two of Branscomb’s finest songs, the back-to-back beauties “Extra Blue” and “Stormy Night.” A tender ballad Becky Schlegel sings with affecting vulnerability with a harmony assist from Jim Hurst as Mike Witcher sends up a haunting cry on lap steel and Alan Bibey adds rustic mandolin fills, “Extra Blue” is a bald-faced admission of a woman’s physical desire for a certain azure-eyed gent that features one of Branscomb’s classic lines: “I would go through wrong all the way to right if I could get to you.” Which is how you wind up “Wearin’ the Blues,” come to think of it. The hard driving bluegrass of “Stormy Night” finds John Cowan unburdening himself of a high flying vocal like only John Cowan can deliver in a plea for forgiveness from his beloved on the theory that her affection is the cure for what ails him now. Add to the buoyant arrangement the eager, rolling banjo soloing by Alison Brown and Rob Ickes’s cheery resophonic guitar swoops, and you have something to write home about. All we ask of Louisa Branscomb is that she keep writing, to home or elsewhere (read: to us), because no one else quite sees lovers and others in all their complexity and in their full, flawed but glorious humanity as she does. In service to those songs, the singers and pickers assembled here have produced a nuanced, beautiful tribute to a treasured American poet, indeed, a great natural resource.
Louisa Branscomb – I’ll Take Love
Richard Thompson | April 14, 2011 | BLUEGRASS TODAY
Noted bluegrass/Americana songwriter Louisa Branscomb is set to release her 9th album on April 26 for Compass Records. I’ll Take Love combines Lousia’s compositions with some of the finest vocalists in bluegrass (Dale Ann Bradley, Claire Lynch, Steve Gulley, Josh Williams, John Cowan), in a perfect pairing of singers and songs.
You can hear samples from all 13 tracks on the Compass web site.
Louisa spent some time with us recently to discuss the album, the tunes, and all the talented people who assisted in bringing I’ll Take Love to light.
How did the deal with Compass records come about?
The dialogue with Compass began in 2009 when I realized I wanted to do another songwriter album, my 9th with original music, and I really wanted to pair the best singers I know to each song–including some friends I had known since the 1970s. I had already spoken with Dale Ann and Claire Lynch, who were excited about it, and everyone surprisingly just kept saying “yes!” I knew I could not do the distribution that such a project would deserve, so I contacted Alison Brown to see if Compass might be interested in a songwriter project like this.
One reason I contacted Compass, besides the respect I have for Compass as a label, is that this CD is a coming full circle for me in many ways. It represents coming around to where I am now as a musician after 40 years in bluegrass, it represents working with some of my incredible peers and old friends who have dedicated themselves to this music (Missy Raines, Alison Krauss, Alison Brown, Alan Bibey, and others). Alison Brown was on the original version of Steel Rails, as well. I also felt that Compass represents an open approach to good acoustic music and that they really support anything they take on. I felt that musically speaking, it would be a good match if I could be so lucky.
Then, my father is playing blues harp on the project, and he is heading toward 90, and we’ve played since I was a child so I wanted to take advantage of the chance to have him play– and he jumped in right up to riding the Greyhound from Birmingham to Nashville to play the blues on the harmonica (because it saved gas!!!). I didn’t know Mom would leave us during the project, and that was the final event that made this CD feel “meant to be”, a full circle. I’m ready to do the next one, mind you! But this one definitely felt like, well, sort of like wrapping history up with love.
Tell me a bit about the songs on the CD; over how long were they written?
There are only one or two older songs — Stormy Night was recorded by Dale Ann about 20 years ago, but we turned John Cowan loose to arrange it to his power house singing. Wearin’ the Blues is also about that age and we selected it for a straight ahead bluegrass song for Josh Williams. But most of the rest of the songs I’ve written since moving to Nashville two years ago, and one of them, That’s What Texas Was For, was written the week it was recorded by the Whites! – we were still working on it when they came in. I had to really be nice to Missy because we had way too many songs on our list, and here I was writing another one! She didn’t pull all her hair out, though!
Surrender is another example of what can happen when writer and performers work together and you stay open to the song finding its way, up to the last minute. I wrote that song about a veteran who was having a difficult time coming “home” after war, but its really about anyone who has a broken heart that makes it hard for those they love to reach them.
I’d asked Dale Ann to help with co-writing on the melody. Well, it was time for them to come downstairs and do the track and I had to go find her and Steve Gulley. There they were, upstairs, singing, and Dale said, “How do you like this?” She and Steve had tweaked the lyrics so that the man and his wife were singing back and forth to each other. I don’t cry much, but the way they had re-arranged the song, with the husband and wife talking directly to each other, got to me. So we went downstairs, and the song took shape in a way that made it ever so much more powerful – with an arrangement still being created when Dale Ann stepped up to the mic.
Which songs are the most pleasing to you and why?
Each one represents a mood, or side of me – so it’s kind of like with your kids – you can’t pick a favorite. I think Texas is the best ballad I have written, because of how touched I was watching my Dad pack all my Mom’s things — but my friendship with Buck and the Whites came into that song too, because Buck is from Texas — plays that style of piano– and he too has lost his wife. Buck is one of my earliest friends in bluegrass. So I knew they were coming in to record, and somehow all those elements — loss of two “moms,” the idea that waltzing across Texas was really a dance into forever more, the role of the fiddle in our lives and music (Stuart Duncan was amazing on the song), all came into the song. Then I wrote the song in a way I thought the Whites might like to sing it. So I wrote it the same week they were coming in, and it was a great honor that they did like the song and worked with it so quickly. Sharon suggested a chord change on the chorus that really raised the song a notch too.
So once we matched songs with singers, there were situations where I actually was writing or editing the songs to match that particular singer’s style, voice, and approach.
The lyrics and negative space in Extra Blue, to me capture an edge that I hope to continue to develop and have continued into newer writing. Musically, the dialogue between the players on the swing song, State Line, with Dave Peterson’s singing, is great, and super fun – with Buck White on piano, Dad on harmonica, Dave on guitar, Rob on slide, and Robert (Crawford) on drums – it’s totally cool. I wanted Missy to take a bass break but the whole song is like her bass break — just amazing.
And some of the best “moments” — when everything sits around a word or note just right… and the silence sets that note, or that word off — some of those moments happen in I’ll Take Love. The interpretation by Dale Ann and Alison Krauss, and the playing, are exquisite to me, and all I’d hoped for. Same thing in Your Amazing Grace — Claire is a perfect match for a song that achingly revealing. I write in many different styles so the songs are different, and hopefully represent their style well. A favorite is Closin’ Nashville Down, (Steve Gulley) which is a style of bluegrass that’s also straight ahead country. But since it’s an album, the flow is also important so every song has a very important place, and I love them equally.
What about the recording session(s) …. who is the producer, and did he/she select the musicians etc?
After I started evolving the idea and had spoke with a couple of the artists, I met with Missy Raines and asked if she would co-produce the project with me. I felt Missy would be perfect to help coordinate and select the artists for each song, and she was! Missy has known me for 30 years and she herself is extremely careful about the sound she wishes to create, and I knew she would make it about the “songs,” and go for a clean, powerful sound. She helped select the musicians – we discussed that together for each song, and she was the studio producer — as she put it, she wanted to capture the “love affair between the singer and the song.” All of the musicians were so gracious and enthusiastic, it made our work easy.
Ben Surratt was the perfect engineer for the project as well, since he knows how to put up with a lot of crazy girls at once!!! lol! And also because he is patient, and extremely skilled and focused, and this was a big project in terms of number of tracks and players. We had the challenge of having diversity but also wanting a consistent flow. We recorded mostly at Ben’s studio, the Rec Room, and also at Compass.
What was so pleasing about working with these musicians in the studio?
The studio becomes a magical place when the musicians are playing from their heart — even though these guys do this day in, day out. And I felt so honored at the level of excitement and positive energy each musician brought in — everyone we asked was enthusiastic and seemed to love the songs we matched them with. It is a joy to watch each musician want to figure out how to compliment the vocals, and the other musicians, to make the song its best. Alison Brown was a wizard — we kept throwing unexpected tracks and instruments her way — guitar on this, banjo on this, and she just sort of glides through it all like breathing. But the biggest thrill for me as a songwriter to see a song take shape in the hands of musicians in the studio–to let go of the song and surrender to that process. I just tried to stay out of the way! and not go “awesome!” before Ben stopped rolling the tracks!
Bringing Songwriters into the IBMA Community
Cliff Abbott | October 3, 2011 | Bluegrass Today
Louisa Branscomb remembers the feeling of a different IBMA world. Walking along the banks of the Ohio river at a past World of Bluegrass celebration (then held in Owensboro, Kentucky), she reflected on the honors bestowed upon groups, vocalists, instrumentalists, and broadcast personalities. There were even awards for designers of album art, and writers of liner notes for those albums. But, there was nary a mention of the people who craft the songs that are sung, and played, and written about.
Branscomb would have liked to commiserate with other composers. After all, there were surely others who felt as she did. She scanned the conference materials; maybe there was a class or meeting where she might find other songwriters, or perhaps a listing of those who shared her craft. She found nothing. She recognized that efforts to include songwriters in the IBMA community were lacking, and she determined to do something about it. “It was really strange to be walking in the midst of this international effort to promote bluegrass music, feeling absolutely lonely,” she said.
A glance at the list of IBMA Hall of Fame inductees shows that Branscomb’s conclusions were warranted. In addition to the many bands and individuals that performed bluegrass music, you’ll find names such as these: Peter Kuykendall, Carlton Haney, Lance LeRoy, David Freeman, Bill Vernon, Syd Nathan, Charles Wolfe, Louise Scruggs. Managers, promoters, organizers, founders of festivals and publications; all made contributions to Bluegrass music that were deemed hall-of-fame worthy. Pete Goble is not listed. Neither is Carl Jackson. Randall Hylton’s name doesn’t appear; nor Tom T. Hall’s. A few of the listed performers penned some of the material they recorded, but their songwriting, if mentioned at all, is a veritable footnote to their performing.
Branscomb approached the IBMA Board of Directors. “Songwriters need three things from IBMA,” she told them, “education, networking, and recognition.” She pointed out that these are the same needs the organization routinely addresses for musicians. A committee was created, and rooms were made available for “song circles,” allowing Branscomb and a few others to attempt to fill the gaps. Later, songwriter showcases were scheduled. Still, enthusiasm was slow to build and participation grew at a snail’s pace. It was almost as if the IBMA was permitting, rather than promoting, the songwriting program. Other writers, like Mark “Brink” Brinkman, John Pennell and Rick Lang, worked tirelessly along with Branscomb to get the board’s backing for the fledgling effort.
2011 may be remembered as the year their efforts reached the IBMA tipping point. At the World of Bluegrass event, songwriter circles were a daily occurrence. There were workshop events on the subjects of songwriting, co-writing, song-pitching, and even one featuring the music of The Beatles. Song Demo listening sessions were conducted where songwriters received critiques of their works from industry professionals. Branscomb, Brinkman and Pennell were joined by bluegrass great Larry Cordle to showcase some of their music, with Jeanette and Johnny Williams assisting on some of the vocals. A special highlight was the Songwriter Networking Reception that brought songwriters face-to-face with artists, producers, publishers and record label executives.
While opportunities for songwriter education and networking abounded at the 2011 WOB, the third leg of the songwriter committee’s mission statement, recognition, was still lacking. The Awards program featured no songwriter-specific awards. According to an exited Louisa Branscomb, that will change in 2012. “For the first time,” she said, “There will be a ‘Songwriter of the Year’ award!” She makes clear that selection criteria still need to be set, but she sees the addition of the category as a victory for songwriters. “We’re part of the community, too,” she points out.
Branscomb and the rest of the committee aren’t done yet. “There’s a lot of catching up to do,” she says. “We’ll be working with the board to recognize past songwriters through the Distinguished Awards program.” Brinkman agrees. “It’s an absolute shame that Pete Goble isn’t in the Hall of Fame, “he said. “Some of the stars performing here this week have been honored in the past for playing his music. You can’t walk the halls without hearing someone jamming to a Pete Goble song.” Like Branscomb, Brinkman plans to continue his efforts to include songwriters in the IBMA community.
There’s a good possibility that a future recipient of the IBMA Songwriter of the Year award is presently serving on the Songwriter Committee. However, any one of them will quickly tell you that their efforts are on behalf of all bluegrass songwriters. “We’re part of the community,” Branscomb points out. At IBMA, it’s coming true as she and others continue to craft that community.
Working with Louisa, among others, are:
Louisa Branscomb has seen her songs recorded by dozens of artists, including Alison Krauss, John Denver, Dale Ann Bradley, Frances Mooney & Fontana Sunset, and the McPeak Brothers. Steel Rails is the most well-known of her compositions, recorded by numerous artists including Denver, Krauss, and an unreleased version by Mel Tillis.
Mark “Brink” Brinkman, the current chair of the IBMA songwriter committee. His songs have been recorded by Larry Sparks, Grasstowne, Lou Reid & Carolina, Don Rigsby & Midnight Call, Lonesome River Band, Kenny & Amanda Smith, Larry Stephenson and dozens of others.
Rick Lang’s creations have been recorded and performed by IIIrd Tyme Out (Just Call on Him, On the Lonely Side of Town); The Lonesome River Band (Listen to the Word of God); Front Range(various, including 1995 IBMA Gospel Song of the Year, Sing Praises to the King) and many others.
John Pennell composed music (and played upright bass) for Alison Krauss’ early albums. Gina Jeffries, Alecia Nugent, and Sam Bush have also recorded his music. Krauss’ 2007 recording of Pennell co-write Jacobs Dream is one of his best-known.
Addendum to Bringing Songwriters into the IBMA Community
In a follow-up interview after initial publication, Louisa wanted to make it clear that she has a deep respect and a true appreciation for the IBMA.“I didn’t feel lonely in IBMA as a person or musician,” she stated. “I have always been very involved, and have considered the IBMA a dear friend from the beginning.”
She clarified that the “loneliness” she felt in Owensboro was for what she envisioned as an organized songwriter community. In her words: “I saw it as an opportunity, as much as anything lacking. I envisioned a cohesive vibrant inter-supportive community as other professions do, and especially since songwriters tend to be introverted.”
Branscomb also points out that her IBMA efforts on behalf of songwriters were not the first, as there have been other songwriter initiatives in the past. She believes, however, that the cumulative efforts are forming songwriters into a cohesive group; the community she has long dreamed of. Judging from the 2011 WOB experience, it appears that Branscomb’s vision is becoming a reality.
She also pointed out that the IBMA has recognized songwriters in the past via the Distinguished Service Award, including Pete Goble in 2002 and Tom T. & Dixie Hall in 2004. She celebrates the new Songwriter of the Year award as a gesture of increased songwriter inclusion in the overall bluegrass community.
Louisa Branscomb picks up the pieces
David Morris | May 12, 2011
After a tornado tore through her north Georgia farm in late April, it’s no surprise songwriter Louisa Branscomb turned to music to help her cope. What did come as a surprise, she realized, is that she had already written the song that would get her through the darkest days in the wake of the devastation. The song is This Side of Heaven, on the recently released I’ll Take Love (From the Pen of Louisa Branscomb). She wrote it last year, inspired by an old log barn at her beloved Woodsong Farm and a Zen proverb: “If your building just burned down, there is more room to see the stars.”
In the song, God tells the farmer who watches the barn burn, “Without hard times, there’s no miracle for me to do.” Then comes a chorus so vivid and powerful I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck as Louisa recited it to me the other night:
This side of heaven there is heartache, This side of heaven there is pain, Sometimes you just can’t see The rainbow for the rain. So if heaven sends down lightning And burns your building down There’s just more room to see The stars in heaven’s crown.
When she made it back from Tennessee, she found the shed roof had been sheared off by the wind, but the notched-log walls were still standing. The roof of the house was gone, too. And majestic, towering oaks had been tossed around like giant matchsticks. She remembers hugging her daughter and telling her, “We just need to concentrate on how great the view is.”
Weeks after the storm left its mark, Louisa admitted, “If I hadn’t written that song, I would not have known how to cope.”
These days find Louisa shuttling between her therapy practice in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and the farm. Spare minutes are spent maneuvering through the maze of red tape with insurance companies, contractors and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“We haven’t even begun to deal with the devastation,” she says. “I think there will still be a Woodsong Farm. There’s just a lot to do to get there.” One of the biggest challenges is getting a green light for the work that needs to be done. “I’m trying to save this 150-year-old farmhouse,” she told me. “The insurance company wants me to tear it down.” Insurance won’t cover all the costs, so friends have started to raise money through a PayPal link on her web site.
Woodsong Farm is a special place because, Louisa notes, “this is where my music was anchored.” It’s also a place where songwriters gather for highly regarded workshops. The most recent one was held just over a week before the storm ripped through. Some of the participants, among the last people to see the farm intact, were among the first to return to help Louisa pick up the pieces. They worked all day, but saved a little time for a little picking some tunes at night.
To clear a little space during that last workshop, Louisa turned one of her prized possessions, her great-grandfather’s piano table, away from the wall. She forgot to put it back. Days later, the wall of the room was blown out by the storm. The out-of-position table was spared.
She knows she is luckier than many others, who lost loved ones and all of their possessions in the series of tornadoes that lashed across the region. And she knows much hard work lies ahead. “It feels like reality is setting in,” she said.
For now, she is focused on the little miracles, like the birds. On her first day back at the farm, she discovered an eerie silence. There were no birds. But on the second day, she was cheered to find bluebirds starting to build a new nest in the wreckage of her porch. And on the third day, the birds were singing again.
Surrounded by devastation, Louisa Branscomb is enchanted by nature’s music – and she’s trying to enjoy the view.
Louisa sent along this video of she and Joe Zauner offering a rendition of This Side of Heaven shot amidst the devastation on April 28, the day after the tornado hit.
This Side of Heaven © 2010 Millwheel Music From I’ll Take Love (From the Pen of Louisa Branscomb) (as recorded by the Whites on Compass records)
She also shared these images taken just two weeks before the storm.
Tags: Louisa Branscomb
Category: Bluegrass Songwriting News, Bluegrass Videos
Winston-Salem Daily Journal Covers MerleFest Winners
4/27/12
Louisa Branscomb, who took first place in the bluegrass category, played her song on the one-year anniversary of the April 27, 2011, tornado outbreak that killed more than 300 people in the South and leveled her north Georgia home.
"So it's ironic to say I'm playing 'Stormy Night,' " she said. "I'm dedicating this to all the tornado victims."
"Stormy night, I'm on my own now," she sang. "But I know I can go on / If you say that you will meet me / At the first light of the dawn."
Stormy Night, by Louisa Branscomb, c Millwheel Music 1982
TAPPING HER ROOTS, TOUCHING OUR HEARTS
by Chris Jones (Bluegrass Now)
Some of the finest original bluegrass music has been characterized by the blending of the simple and the complex. It could be argued that this is one of the many things that set apart Bill Monroe’s sound from much of the music of his time. The songs of Louisa Branscomb have the kind of depth that results from such a fusion. She has lived a broad and unique life, which has contributed to her wisdom and complexity as a person, and her music reflects those qualities as well as her love for the simple heart of traditional music.
Those of us who have followed bluegrass music closely over the past few decades will remember the various musical partnerships in which Louisa has been involved, most notably the North Carolina-based Boot Hill, which played full-time throughout the 1970s. Newer and younger fans, however, would be more likely to identify Louisa with her song, “Steel Rails,” which was a bona fide hit for Alison Krauss from her Grammy-winning CD, I’ve Got That Old Feeling. John Denver also recorded it on what would be his final release, another Grammy winner.
Songwriting came early to Louisa Branscomb. Her parents recall her creating melodies on the piano at the age of 4, and Louisa says that the first song she clearly remembers writing was at age 6 while at a Methodist summer camp in Alabama.
“A kid on the other side of the cabin had a ukulele,” she relates. “It was the first stringed instrument I remember seeing up close and I fell in love with it. Only problem was, she wouldn’t let anyone play it. So when canoe time came, I said I was sick every day, and while everyone was gone canoeing, I got out her ukulele and played it and wrote songs. I was very careful, at least!”
Her first ukulele-accompanied original was a love song called “I’d Climb the Highest Mountain.” She devised her own written music notation at the time, using stair-steps to depict the movement of the melody, then wrote it down on the stationery her parents had given to her on which to write home from camp.
Though she was born in the Adirondack region of upstate New York, Louisa was raised in Alabama after a few years of living in Nashville. Although Louisa’s father eventually recovered from tuberculosis, he was struggling with the disease at the time of her birth so she was born in a T.B. sanatorium. In addition to her early ukulele experience, her piano teacher saw her tremendous creative talent and entered her in a statewide classical music composition contest at age 12, which she won with a piece bearing the colorful title, “Fantasy of the Trolls.” She then had the terrifying experience of playing the piece with the Birmingham Symphony in front of an audience of several thousand at the Birmingham Civic auditorium.
At age 14, this experienced classical music performer took up the guitar, and later, while in college, began applying these skills to her growing love of country music. A cousin in Texas gave Louisa her first guitar, a Martin 00-21, and a friend in college taught her how to flatpick. She and her friend then moved to Winston-Salem and formed Bluegrass Liberation, an all-female band. While there, Louisa continued what would become an impressive academic career, earning an M.A. in film production and a faculty position at Bowman Gray School of Medicine.
Winston-Salem was also the place that Boot Hill was formed. Co-founder Sam Sanger was a guitar player, so Louisa switched to banjo. “Once I bought my RB 250-Ronnie Stoneman had pawned it before Hee Haw-I was in love! Everybody in those days said women couldn’t play lead bluegrass, especially banjo. It didn’t really matter to me that people said that, except perhaps making me want to do it more!”
She also was a woman who was fronting the band, another rarity in those days. Boot Hill became an ideal vehicle not only for Louisa’s instrumental ability but also for her songwriting, with three albums eventually being recorded which prominently featured her songs. It also marked the beginning of the life of “Steel Rails” and some of the connections that occurred as a result, including a publishing deal with Mel Tillis. (Tillis also recorded an unreleased version of “Steel Rails.”)
“I wrote ‘Steel Rails’ in 1971,” she recalls, “and it was the title cut of Boot Hill’s first album.” However, she stresses that the song is not the beginning and end of her range as a writer. “I think I have lots of better songs, but I think [‘Steel Rails’] has had such a life of its own that it has defined me as a songwriter in a lot of ways, most of which have been positive, but some restricting.” Reflecting on some possible reasons for its appeal, though, she adds, “One thing I think ‘Steel Rails’ does do is leave a lot of negative space. It says less, in a way, than most of my songs, and I wonder if that gives the listener a lot of elbow room to go with the images wherever they personally need to.”
After most of a decade on the road with Boot Hill, Louisa was ready for a change of direction. She played briefly with another all-female bluegrass band called Cherokee Rose, then relocated to Atlanta where she continued the academic side of her life. Continuing to pursue her interest in psychotherapy, she received a Ph.D. from Georgia State. Therapy and music were not aspects of her life that she wanted to keep separate, however, and she began a path that would eventually bring them closer together. This included recording an album that was distributed within the world of professional therapists, consisting of original music and poetry meant to be a celebration of hope and the human spirit.
There was plenty of music and recordings to come out of Louisa’s time in Atlanta: She formed the band Gypsy Heart, with whom she recorded an all-original album. At this time, she was playing mandolin as well as banjo. In 1994, she recorded It’s Time to Write a Song, an album that featured the broad spectrum of her material. It brought together a number of talented guest players and singers, including Scott Vestal and Randy Howard. The CD included a new recording of “Steel Rails” and other great examples of her writing, including the hard-driving “Stormy Night” (also recorded by the New Coon Creek Girls), and the poignant “Hold Me Gently in Your Dreams.” Two years later, she recorded an album of original children’s songs while a contracted writer for a publisher of children’s books. It was a project that held a lot of meaning for her.
“I became a mom at the same time,” she explains, “so the timing was perfect, and I think in some ways those songs are some of my deepest work.” This album earned a national award, the “Parents’ Seal of Excellence Award.”
In 1997, Louisa Branscomb made another bold move, leaving her life of balancing music with her work as a psychologist and relocating with her family to Port Townsend, Wash., on the Olympic Peninsula.
“The goal was to downsize and live a simpler life,” she explains, “closer to nature and friends, and take two years just to write. I felt I’d become unbalanced in the upwardly mobile, aggressive, urban lifestyle.” Though she only stayed a couple of years, it gave her just the kind of breathing room that she needed. “I knew it would wipe the slate clean and make room for something. It challenged me, and made space for a deeper creativity.”
She has since returned once again to the east, to the mountains of north Georgia, and is living full-time at Woodsong, the 125-acre farm that she’s owned for the last ten years. It’s a place where she has led retreats in the past, and she has restored an old farmhouse as a B&B and a musician’s and writer’s retreat, with regular workshops held there as well.
At this point, having worn lots of hats, Louisa feels that her writing is the part that reaches closest to the heart of who she is.
“I love playing in a band,” she explains. “There has never been anything to compare to that musical connection when a band is really in a groove, so I hope to continue that. But my deepest identity is as a writer.” And, as evidenced by her early work, it’s an identity she’s been aware of from an early age. “Writing was not just something I did for fun as a child,” she remembers. “It was a very basic way of being in the world, of coping with thoughts and feelings.”
She is very much an inspirational writer, and she respects the inspiration as a gift. “I don’t feel I’m gifted,” she modestly offers, “I feel a gift is given to me to pass on, if I can do justice to the inspiration or idea. I would go so far as to say it is a form of prayer.”
Like other prolific songwriters, though, she understands the need to be receptive and to let the ideas come and take shape, even if she doesn’t schedule times to write.
“When I think I might have a song,” she adds, “it’s my job to sit up and listen, because I truly believe that what I’m tuning in to is bigger than me.” From that point, the craft is important to her, too. “I take it as a responsibility to work on the craft,” she adds, “and become as good a carpenter of the song as possible.”
She tends to write at the time that she’s moved, and then the process moves quickly. “The words and the music come pretty much together,” she says,” and I write very quickly-thirty minutes, an hour-but sometimes I might need another verse or line. I don’t edit much after that. It’s not that they don’t need it, it’s more that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about form, so a lot of that is autopilot while I’m writing now, and I throw ideas out very fast.”
Though she is putting a lot of effort into her new retreat center, Louisa Branscomb will definitely continue to be active as a performer and as a recording artist. She has half of a new CD finished of all original material, recorded while she was out in Washington. She’s also featured on Mark Newton’s new Tribute to Women in Bluegrass CD, a project that’s a testament to some of the changes that have taken place in the music for women, changes for which Louisa helped break the ground. She modestly sees this as a continuation of a positive trend.
“What I love about bluegrass is it transcends so many things to unite people in the love of the music, and I’d like to see it continue to focus on looking past individual differences to what’s important: the purity of the music, with room for individual expression and creativity.”
Louisa Branscomb’s career so far, both inside and outside of music, has been guided by a powerful creative force. It’s a force that has not only brought us a staggering amount of original recorded music, but one that has enabled her to juggle, and effectively synthesize, her love of music, writing, people, and the mountains around her.
HALL OF FAME TALENT
Cartersville Daily Tribune
December 1, 2006
By MARIE NESMITH
For Louisa Branscomb, the creation of a hit song is an evolutionary process that often takes form on scrap pieces of paper. Inspiration can strike her in the midst of chaos, such as filing her taxes, or as a random thought while driving.
Currently a work in progress, her latest bluegrass song emerged from a line in her acceptance speech at the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame ceremony Nov. 25 — “When things get harder, fly higher.”
Branscomb, who was honored for writing and playing bluegrass music in Georgia for 25 years, was one of four Bartow County residents inducted into the Hall of Fame.
“All of my songs come from personal experience or from putting myself in someone else’s shoes,” said Branscomb, who started writing songs at age 5. “As a songwriter, I feel like I am more of a channel for energy. It is an inspirational process and a spiritual process.
“Wherever I am, I can get inspiration. When I get an idea on the road, I write it down on whatever I can find, like receipts or checkbook slips. I use to say it was the best use of my speeding tickets. Coming home from Nashville two weeks ago, I pulled over at a rest stop to write two songs.”
Since 1969, Branscomb’s pioneer spirit and songwriting abilities have helped shape the landscape of bluegrass music. In the early 1970s, when there were few women musicians on the scene, Branscomb co-founded one of the first modern all-female bluegrass bands with Bluegrass Liberation at the age of 21, then became one of the first females to front a band and play banjo with Boot Hill from 1972 to 1980.
“The music was played by men with some notable exceptions as far as young women in the 1970s,” she said. “I have a pioneer personality. I decided to do it, and I did it. I assumed I was an equal, I approached it that way, and I was treated well in the industry.
“My goal was to make good music and reach people with my songs. I have been blessed with everything that has come along with that.”
While Branscomb has performed lead vocals and played the guitar, banjo, and mandolin throughout her career, it is her gift for songwriting that sets her apart. More than 70 of her songs have been recorded, leading to two Grammy cuts. Penned in 1971, Branscomb’s song “Steel Rails,” appeared on artist Alison Krauss’ Grammy-winning album, “I’ve Got That Old Feeling” in 1991. With Krauss. “Steel Rails” became the longest-running No. 1 song on the bluegrass charts, staying at the helm for 18 months.
“People write songs for different reasons: a place you love, a thought or idea,” Branscomb said. “That song was more about images and feelings. The image of the train track chasing sunshine around the bend, leaving the past and going to the future which is laid out before you. It’s about making a shift from a relationship that has ended to the future. When I wrote it I had only written 170 songs. I had no idea it would become what it has.”
Branscomb’s Hall of Fame entry followed her September International Bluegrass Music Association Recorded Event of the Year award for her contribution to the Daughters of Bluegrass‚ album “Back to the Well.” The project featured 18 female artists, including Branscomb.
“It was a phenomenal experience,” Branscomb said about being a part of “Back to the Well.” “It showed that women were no longer a subset of bluegrass. It was really inspirational to be around that creative energy and supportive atmosphere. Everyone had the desire to make each other look good.
“It is incredible how far women have come. It points out that things are equal, but there still aren’t as many women and there still are some situations where the conditions have room for growth. People say I had a hand in [drawing women to bluegrass]. Alison singing “Steel Rails” turned a whole new generation on to bluegrass.”
While Branscomb — the mother of a 13-year-old daughter and a practicing clinical psychologist in Cartersville — still enjoys writing and performing occasionally, she has long since retired from touring full time.
“I have reached a point in my career where I still love to perform, but my emphasis has shifted to promoting songwriting and giving back to the profession, mentoring others,” she said. “As part of that, my biggest project this past year has been the founding of the Bluegrass Songwriting Association.”
When asked what accolade or experience she treasured the most, Branscomb sidestepped her list of bluegrass accomplishments and said, watching her daughter play the Dobro and knowing her songs have “meant something to somebody.”