The Back Page – Interesting Links
The Bookstore in Lenox, Ma.
Randall Bramblett
Randall Bramblett
Jesup, Georgia native, multi-instrumentalist Randall Bramblett may be known as Southern Rock Royalty for playing on stage with rock heroes like Bonnie Raitt, The Allman Brothers Band, Steve Winwood (16 years), Widespread Panic. And respected for his songwriting – Bettye LaVette, “The Great Lady of Soul” just released an album of 11 of his songs in June 2023. He also penned the title track for the Grammy nominated Blind Boys of Alabama’s album Going Home, adding to a long catalog of songs covered by Raitt, Gregg Allman, Bonnie Bramlett, Hot Tuna, Delbert McClinton and more. But it’s Bramblett’s own career as frontman, creating 12 albums, where his artistry is in full display.
“One of the South’s most lyrical and literate songwriters.” Rolling Stone
“Randall Bramblett is the William Faulkner of Southern music” Hittin’ the Note
“He’s a soulful, poetic badass if ever there was one.” Marc Cohn
The video featured above is an old one, but a favorite song. (ed.) For more recent video click onto his website below.
Molly Tuttle
Molly Rose Tuttle is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess. Wikipedia
“A female flat picker extraordinaire with agility, speed, and elegance who distinctively brings American roots music into the spotlight.”—NPR
“A vibrant blend of bluegrass with flashes of Old West, anchored by Tuttle’s earthy-yet-angelic vocal and the entire group’s ace musicianship.” —Billboard
Raised in northern California, singer-songwriter and bluegrass musician Molly Tuttle moved to Nashville in 2015. In the years since, she has been nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy and won awards for Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards, Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 International Bluegrass Music Awards, and Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards. She also won consecutive Guitar Player of the Year awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2017 and 2018—and was the first woman to win the award, let alone win it twice.
Tuttle and her band, Golden Highway, released their latest album, City of Gold, in July 2023. The Grammy-winning album followed Tuttle’s acclaimed 2022 record, Crooked Tree, which also won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. Produced by Tuttle and celebrated progressive bluegrass musician Jerry Douglas, City of Gold was inspired by Tuttle’s constant touring with Golden Highway, during which she and the band have grown and cohered as musicians and performers. Musical Instrument Museum
Her song Crooked Tree (video w/Jerry Douglas) also visits the subject of Alopecia Areata (article) and Molly.
Molly Tuttle has ushered in an exciting new chapter in her career by forming an all-female touring band, stepping away from the four-year run with Golden Highway. This change aligns with the release of her new solo album So Long Little Miss Sunshine, set for August 15, 2025. It signals a stylistic expansion beyond bluegrass, blending pop, country, and rock – a direction further emphasized in her all-female backing band choice.
Eilen Jewell
From: Bernard Zuel – Music Journalist
FULL DISCLOSURE: WHY THE RULES HAVE CHANGED FOR EILEN JEWELL
MAYBE IT’S THE MIDWEST UPBRINGING of politeness and reserve that lay behind it. Maybe it’s the natural defence of someone who already was out and exposed as an artist in a corner of Americana that values the personal as much as the historical. Whatever it might be with Eilen Jewell, in about 13 years of interviewing her, she has always shown herself adept at talking about her songs and her life in a way that deflected personal revelations.
It’s not that she didn’t answer questions, but those answers made the generalities of her characters the focal point and gave just enough to let us see how she’d build relationships to them but not be defined by them. It was politely done of course, and was not without things to chew on given a sharp intelligence and an eye on American culture whether it was her love of Loretta Lyn and Howlin’ Wolf, the pay gap between the sexes, or political resistance as something of a progressive island in a state that’s anything but.
Well, things have changed with the coming record, Get Behind The Wheel. Not only has Jewell written an album that came out of the Covid-era breakup of her marriage to long-time drummer, co-manager, and co-parent, Jason Beek, and some deaths in her wider family, but she has been talking openly, frankly, about her circumstances.
It’s hard to imagine that was a comfortable transition, not least because growing up in Idaho you kept your business to yourself, but you have to wonder if it has been dragged out of her, or did she feel it was inevitable and stopped fighting.
“It is really new for me to talk about anything having to do with my personal life,” the Boise-based Jewell says. “But this time around it seemed like it would be wrong to not discuss it because this album is so, so directly influenced by everything that I’ve gone through in the past couple of years. I just feel like I would be lying if I said ‘oh, I don’t know, it’s just about people and things’ [she laughs].
“Also the pandemic taught me that that there’s something really important about sharing parts of ourselves. That’s what sharing my music is [and] I guess it dawned on me this actually could be a good thing for me, it could open me up to my fans and there’s a chance there could be some cathartic sharing on both sides.”
There probably won’t be any problems getting her fans to share their thoughts next month when she will spend several weeks in Australia (heaven knows we’re not a quiet bunch), but when you put these things out like Jewell is now doing, not only are you exposing yourself but you are setting the agenda for how things are interpreted. And this is before even considering that Beek is still playing in her band and will be on the tour.
How people interpret your songs and your album, and inevitably yourself, will be shaped by these revelations and explanations. Is that a good thing? Was it even planned?
“The label was saying you’ve got to figure out how to talk about this new album, so I was like, yeah, shoot, I’ve gotta decide how much do I want to disclose? How much do I want to set the stage for these songs?,” she says. “Because, yeah, in the past I’ve not done that and thought that the songs should stand on their own and people can interpret them how they want. People are still free to interpret them however, obviously, but this album really did occur at a particular point in time for me. It was a disaster of a moment in my life this album was born out of, beyond anything else I’ve ever experienced, and I felt this album deserved an exception to my normal rule.” It was time? At 43, maybe it’s as simple as that.
“I guess I do want to talk about this stuff, this stuff being the pandemic, the divorce that came out of that, or coincided with it, and then family losses, people near and dear to me – not even Covid-related, but just one after another,” Jewell says. “For the first time in my life it feels cathartic to talk about what was going on behind the scenes. I don’t think it’s necessary information to appreciate the album, but there’s a few Neil Young albums where I gleaned he was going through a particular thing in his life and then read later that in fact, yes that’s happening, and something about that makes me appreciate the album just a little bit more. I have a sense of who he is more.”
From a long low base of knowledge about the album so far – it’s not yet available to media, let alone the public, though we will hear some songs from it at her March shows – a title like Get Behind The Wheel suggests maybe taking control of her life, or at least setting the direction. How did she handle this resetting and reclaiming of control?
“It’s really been a mixed bag,” she confesses. “I think when I wrote that song – the song that contains that phrase ‘get behind the wheel’ is called Alive – I felt so inspired to take control and have agency, it was all very new. I was like, well, so much is crashing down around me but this is an opportunity to just up inside my life in a really authentic way. And that’s still present, but I’m also realising that it’s much harder than it sounds, and sometimes [she laughs ruefully] it’s awful.” No one would blame her for looking away.
“There’s part of me that would just love to drift around and say ‘I don’t know, someone else take the wheel: I’m getting tired already’,” says Jewell. “But I was guilty of some of that for many years, going with the flow with my career, and my personal life too … being cooperative, and they really comes at a cost eventually. You can’t keep whittling your life away like that. Eventually you realise that your heart is not fully in it, and there’s always a reckoning with that.” When she looks at who she was, even three years ago, and who she is now, how does she judge that person?
“I … think … that … person … was … somewhat,” she says slowly, before a long pause. “Somewhat overeager to find distractions. The old me really didn’t want to look at life just as it is. The old me was always kind of looking into the future, thinking about how things will be better or should be better, or the past. The here and now was something that I tended to avoid. “But all we really have is the here and now. The past is gone and the future is a fantasy.”
On the Bookshelf – Recent Reads
On the Bookshelf – Recent Reads
Authors, many without websites or first-time published, from and about locations around the world.
Praised as a “bold new writer” and with ten books to his credit, he goes on this page after reading just one – Charlie Donlea – Long Time Gone
As we expect to read many others, and will build him his own post once we add a few more to our book list, this thriller grabbed us from page one. The story and main character explore the emerging field of forensic genealogy and the link that her own DNA reveals.
You hear about “Walking the Camino.” You may know people who have done it. Read this – Suzanne Redfearn – Call of the Camino
We don’t often place an author with their own Roaming the Arts post on this list, but we are making an exception. This is an inspiring story about so many things, one of which is the level of effort that most people don’t imagine they are capable of. The author was able to walk the walk and has written a terrific character-driven novel.
Story of a great film director making a late career movie – Jonathan Coe – Mr. Wilder and Me
Billy Wilder made some of the most iconic movies of his time, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Front Page, The Fortune Cookie, to name just a few. This historical fiction piece is told through the eyes of a young Greek woman who meets Wilder and his team and winds up working on the 1977 production of the film Fedora.
Irish family saga over decades up to 2008 recession – Paul Murray – The Bee Sting
Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart. Told by four family members, father, mother, daughter, son, each a voice in conflict with the moment. Over 500 pages. Stay the course.
Another first book makes lasting impression – Amanda Peters – The Berry Pickers
An amazingly perfect use of the device where the reader is shown where the story will go, but is often brought near tears on the way. The story of two families, two cultures, and both love and heartbreak throughout a lifetime. An especially good read.
What happened when Dorothy returned to Kansas? – Gordon McAlpine – After Oz
With the release of “Wicked” on film, Dorothy is once again topical and Oz again a fantasy destination. This novel, the author’s last before his untimely passing, suggests what may have happened in the days and months after the tornado that whisked the young girl away and back again.
Fantasy author delivers a terrific crime thriller – Dave Dobson – What Grows From the Dead
North Carolina college professor, improv comic, and writer provides an ensemble cast supporting an unlikely hero who has hit bottom in life and career, only to find he had inherited little from his mom except trouble.
New book about an old city – Ruth Reichl – The Paris Novel
Novelist and food writer takes us to Paris in the 1980’s with a young woman needing to find herself (not a cliche, but a charming rendition and tour guide). Book Club book, gourmet treat, and travel instigator, and already looking at flights.
American Literary Icon who passed away in 2023 – Russell Banks – American Spirits
An American treasure whose stories focus on the locales and people in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Check out this recent PBS video tribute and a 1995 feature on CBS Sunday Morning which gives an interesting perspective on what young people cared about…30 years ago.
From the 1990’s – Henning Mankell – Faceless Killers
Terrific series taking place in Southern Sweden and featuring Wallender, a main character played deftly on the PBS series by Kenneth Branagh.
New book from old favorite – Tim O’Brien — America Fantastica
An American Master returns: the author of The Things They Carried and In the Lake of the Woods delivers his first new novel in two decades.
First-time author – Nilima Roa — A Disappearance in Fiji
What is told as a mystery is really an amazing history lesson of British colonialism, and Indian and native culture in the Fiji Islands off the coast of Australia in 1914.
Robert Galbraith
Location – London and elsewhere in Great Britain
Robert Galbraith a.k.a. J.K. Rowling
When you browse Roaming the Arts you may note that the mission is to drive web traffic to known artists who may be familiar, but not “household names.” Thus you won’t find Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, or authors whose reach is worldwide such as James Patterson or, in this case, J.K. Rowling. They don’t need this post to send fans to their web presence.
You will also note the Word and Film connection, where it is found to be exciting when a great book has been turned into good film or television. That, in our opinion, is not easy, and is a bit rare and extremely exciting when located.
Ms. Rowling, writing as Robert Galbraith, had ducked under our radar, and in all honesty was found by taking note of the HBO series C.B. Strike, where the first four books in the series have been presented with book five, Troubled Blood, in production. Whether looking for a good read or the next show to stream, Galbraith has created characters in Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott who will live in your consciousness for some time.
Good news for fans : Book six in the series, The Ink Black Heart, available August 30, 2022
