The creative process is so interesting to me, finally to take to heart the concept that to everything there is indeed a season. To soak up, to craft, to work toward a goal, to make something happen out of thin air. For me, that is the magic to keeping it interesting, to getting somewhere meaningful, to using one's time well on this planet. Being engaged is the goal, so really, the goal is not the goal at all. I flew back from San Francisco on a full plane, to find a teeming airport awaiting in Austin. The world comes to Austin's doorstep a couple of times a year, and this is one of them. Austin City Limits Music Festival is this week, and the parties and buzz have already started. It is so cool to get to be in a roomful, a city-ful really, of people that are equally excited, that get to live the American dream of doing what they love. Music. Or as Joni Mitchell astutely wrote, "Stoking the star maker machinery behind the popular song."
The Be Good Tanyas were a band out of Canada that we played on X Country at XM, seemingly eons ago. They released three albums and it has since taken four years, but Frazey Ford is back with a solo record released in July called Obadiah. Of it she says, “I get to have the elements of solo-ness in terms of fully directing the direction, but then I'm also able to incorporate other people's visions when it feels right.” This album combines the Be Good Tanyas' folk centeredness with the other thing she loves, soul and gospel. Her voice is simply impossible to believe, that it could be as fragile as fine bone china, yet still retain the tensile strength for a moon shot in a space capsule. Frazey takes you on a ride. And not just any ride, exactly where she wants you to go. There is a ghostliness, as if just maybe her voice could unlock the mystery of the universe, the genome project and win a Nobel Peace Prize as people unite to celebrate it. It is a voice whereby everything is possible.
Frazey came by our Sweet Suite studio at the Sheraton a couple of weeks back during the Americana Fest in Nashville. Let's light this firecracker!
- Jessie Scott
