Folk Alley Sessions

Another intimate performance and interview captured at the 2017 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida. Singer/songwriter Caroline Spence returned with songs from her new collection, 'Spades and Roses.' The album was assembled around the power that a simple arrangement - focused on voice and guitar - has to highlight the strength of a song.

After releasing her album 'All or Nothin'' and being nominated for Emerging Artist of the Year by the Americana Music Association in 2015, Nashville based country rock outlaw Nikki Lane and her band spent most of their time on the road, playing for ever-increasing crowds, working to expand their fan base, and just generally ripping things up. No surprise, then, that she got tired. So when she went...

Like many artists labeled "Americana," a single title is too limiting for singer/songwriter Robert Ellis. Recorded at Florida's 30A Songwriters Festival, Ellis performed a few songs off of his third and eponymous CD - which he describes as a collection of songs about the intricacies of relationships (good ones and bad ones). Watch performance videos about life on the road and at home.

Session Americana started life as actual sessions, onstage in Boston. At a certain point, the stage in Boston turned into writing original music and a trip to Kimon Kirk's home studio to discover their full potential. As Jefferson Hamer says, bands don't need formal studios to create great music anymore " a fact that has opened the door to a freer, less-formal recording style. For this Session Ame...

The collection of songs on 'Magic Fire,' the 2016 release from The Stray Birds, owes a lot to their work with the legendary Larry Campbell. As he was producing the band's album, he helped them expand their sound by adding drums and being more collaborative (including a song written with Nashville neighbor Lindsay Lou). The string-band trio originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is now tou...

David Bromberg has had two successful careers. One as an in-demand blues guitarist and master sideman for acts from the Eagles to Link Wray to Phoebe Snow, his crowd included Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Jerry Garcia. Then, in 1990, he stepped back " way back " and became a violin expert (he still has a thriving business selling and repairing instruments). He couldn't stay away for long and retu...

Bands in the world of folk and roots music often find their line-ups to be fluid. Fine players make friends in a variety of combinations " and sometimes this movement can be tricky to follow. The string and vocal ensemble Low Lily started its life as Annalivia. A personnel shift led to a name change, but the core of the group is still tied to a contemporary take on traditional string music and voc...

Richard Shindell is back with a new CD of original songs " and that in itself is remarkable. 'Careless' is a project that stretched out over three year, between his work on The Pine Hill Project with Lucy Kaplansky and his life in Buenos Aires, Argentina (where he lives with his family). Shindell calls his new songs "ambitious and lush" and they stretch his musical sound into a place that is a lit...

Miss Tess and The Talkbacks rock an old-school rock-a-billy vibe that is the natural cross of her upbringing in a family fond of American folk and '30s swing band sounds. Although she started in Maryland, migrating to Boston and NYC, Miss Tess and the band are now calling Nashville home. Her music is upbeat and dance-worthy, with a contemporary and relatable feel. Tess and her able bandmates stopp...

Ana Egge was a born collaborator. Her parents, back-to-the-land hippies, built a community of friends based on a newspaper ad listing song lyrics and suggesting a 20th century meet-up. Her childhood in North Dakota and New Mexico was filled with experiences with the ability to make her adventurous and self-reliant. As a songwriter, she seeks out artists she admires " like Steve James, Asleep at th...

Twenty-four-year-old singer/songwriter Dori Freeman is truly from Galax, Virginia. She grew up there, currently lives in the community and her music is intrinsically shaped by the spirit of Appalachia and Southwest Virginia. She was raised in a house filled with music and artistic endeavors. Her father wanted her to be a musician and her songs reflect a comfortable reverence for Old Country, Blueg...

Maybe it’s the cold winters that lock people inside, balanced by true natural beauty to pull them out again, but Minnesota has born powerful songwriters including Bob Dylan and Prince. Austin Plaine’s musical poetry comes out of that bracing cold that embraces introspection. His songs have the rare ability to add meaningful and thought-provoking lyrics to tunes with the potential of 100 earworms....

Gretchen Peters didn't set out to write an album centered on death and mortality, but the songs on "Blackbirds" told her that's where they needed to go. It was a time in her life when she noticed the ratio of weddings to funerals shift from gaining to loss. Peters performed songs from her the CD and talked about the songwriting process when she visited BeeHive Productions and Folk Alley at Florida...

Virginia native Caroline Spence began writing songs at an early age and was quickly successful with her music. After she won three songwriting contests " Kerrville Folk Fest, Rocky Mountain Folks Fest and American Songwriter magazine's lyric contest " Caroline decided to dive into the deep end and focus on a career in music. Still in the early days of her journey and living and working in Nashvill...

Although Grammy Award-winner Jim Lauderdale is talented songwriter and solo artist, he is probably best known for his many collaborations with Ralph Stanley, Buddy Miller, Donna the Buffalo and others. The man himself met up with Folk Alley and the folks from BeeHive Productions at Florida's 30A Songwriters Festival to share some songs and record video performances. He offered selections from his...

It was perfect timing when San Francisco-based Maria Quiles and Rory Cloud met and formed a musical partnership. The pair immediately began writing and performing as they traveled the country " driving from gig to gig in a tiny Volkswagen Gulf. Their experience on the road (playing everything from festival stages and clubs to house concerts and church basements) has inspired Quiles and Cloud to ex...

Bluegrass has always been a mix of musical inspirations. Perhaps that's why young bands, like Old Salt Union , continue to embrace the genre. The members of the band (based near St. Louis, Missouri) come from a variety of backgrounds " classical, alternative, jazz " and they find themselves playing an updated form of the music Bill Monroe made famous in the mid-20th century. Old Salt Union played...

Folk music is all about roots. Ashleigh Flynn started with the basics, listening to Bluegrass while she was growing up in Kentucky. Her songs are inspired by the stories of real people - like coal miners, two cowgirls riding the outlaw trails and her grandfather, an Irish musician she never met. Folk Alley caught up with Ashleigh, joined by Kathryn Claire (fiddle, harmony vocals) at Florida's 30A...

When you don't put out an album for five years, the new songs have the chance to cover a lot of ground. Hayes Carll (and guest vocalist Allison Moorer) sat down with Folk Alley and our friends at Beehive Productions at the 30A Songwriters Festival -- beginning with a performance of his 2015 Grammy-nominated "Chances Are," which also earned a nomination for singer Lee Ann Womack. Hayes' new songs f...

JT Nero (of JT and the Clouds) and Allison Russell (of Po'Girl) " now Birds of Chicago - had been friends and mutual admirers of each other's work for years before that friendship evolved into a musical and life partnership. They released their first studio album as a duo in 2012, and then followed up quickly with a live recording in 2013. Now, they've just put out their sophomore studio recording...

The Cactus Blossoms are made of conundrums. The duo is from Minneapolis - states away from the nearest cactus. Page Burkum and Jack Torrey are brothers - only with different last names. And, even though their songs are young and fresh, their tight harmonies and rockabilly guitar would sound just as at home 60 years ago. The pair took time out at the 2016 30A Songwriters Festival to talk to Folk Al...

Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Shawn Mullins has been thinking a lot about love. All of the songs on 'My Stupid Heart' have something to do with some kind of love - of one person, of one country, of one another. While at the 2016 30A Songwriters Festival, Mullins took some time to tell Folk Alley about the new collection and play a few songs for BeeHive Productions' cameras.

Brooke Annibale is very goal directed. She learned to play guitar as a girl so that she could write songs. She studied music business. Her songs have been placed on popular TV shows like 'Vampire Diaries' and 'Pretty Little Liars.' And, even though Brooke has recorded CDs in Nashville, she is still a Pittsburgh girl. There's grit in the upper Midwest. She stopped by Beehive Studios in Saranac Lake...

It helps for a songwriter to love music and language. Kevin Gordon lives for that collision. For his 2015 collection, 'Long Gone Time,' Gordon returns to his native Louisiana for inspiration - and that feeling that you can go home, but change is inevitable. Listen to performances and conversations captured at Beehive Studios in Saranac Lake, New York to learn more about how a poetry-writing punk r...

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers grew up loving both music and writing. These two passions led Rodgers to become a songwriter, as well as helping to launch 'Acoustic Guitar' magazine and writing a variety of music commentary. While writing articles and books, he has kept active as a singer-songwriter, now in the Syracuse, New York area. Having a variety of skills has been very handy in an age where musician...