MusicTalk: An Interview with Gillian Welch

Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings have been holed up in Nashville for the past year, coping with tornadoes, political crises and Covid-19 lockdowns. The tornado in particular turned their lives upside down when it all but destroyed their studio and left them without power for the better part of a month.

How else to get through it all than with music?

We got Gillian on the horn to talk about the two albums they recorded last year, All the Good Times, covers of their favourite folk songs, recorded in their lounge. And a three-volume box set Boots Nos 1, 2 and 3, out-takes and unreleased songs compiled from their enormous archive, which they were forced to sort through while rescuing the tapes from their tornado-ravaged studio.

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Listen to Marty’s conversation with Gillian here, or read a transcript below.

Marty: I’ve been talking to a lot of musicians in Nashville and it seems like a lot of stuff is going on there. You guys have had a rough year with all sort so tornadoes and explosions and politics and all sorts of things, so how are you guys doing?

Gillian: We’re doing OK here. It’s been a slow recovery from the tornado. But our studio is coming back and our neighbourhood is coming back. But it’s hard to see it because everything’s closed cause of the pandemic. But things are OK. Just like everywhere. Everyone trying to figure out, especially all the musicians I know are just like – what do we do?

So, David [her long-time partner Dave Rawlings] and I have just been concentrating on, as you know, sort of tidying up our archives, which was kind of necessitated by being hit by the tornado. And having to deal with all of our tapes and basically every single thing we own as far as our musical lives go. So that’s coming along. And it feels good to have sort of done something with that catastrophic experience. To have actually put some music out into the world because… being hit by a tornado.

Marty: laughs. You talk about your archive. You talk to most people these days and their archive is in a cloud somewhere. It’s all digital. but I’m assuming you still have reels of tape everywhere.

Gillian: We have reels of tape everywhere. A lot of cardboard boxes. And the boxes don’t look so good. They’re all… you wouldn’t like to see the boxes. But… the tapes came through it really fine. They call magnetic tape a hundred year medium, which no digital format is rated at 100 years.

Marty: Interesting.

Gillian: Yes. Tape is more stable than any of the digital formats. So, if you talk to the Smithsonian here, they’ll tell you that too. They’ve already had to redo their digital formats. But anything that’s on tape is just fine.

Marty: I’ve about where they had to ‘recook’ the tapes and all that. For things where the oxide was falling off and things like that.

Gillian: Yeah, we’re no stranger to that. We’ve baked some tape.

Marty: laughs. All good with a little spice.

Gillian: We have a food desiccator for making your own apple chips and stuff like that. It’s perfect. It’s even round and you can just stack the reels up, up, up. And you set the timer and then it goes Ding! and your tapes are done. (laughing wildly)

Marty: Now, you’re about to rerelease the album you released last year, but finally on more physical format. When you do something like that, do you kind of get yourself back into whatever headspace you were in when you were making that record? Are you thinking about what you could have differently, do better, do worse? How to re-present it to people?

Gillian: Well, this project was kind of exempt from all of those questions and all that second guessing. It was such a reaction to the moment. And for us, it just happened at warp speed. It a reaction to our studio being a shambles and being trapped in our house, kind of under lockdown. And kind of… every night we would just sit and play songs, folk songs. Songs I’ve known forever. Just because that’s what humans do. It was such a kind of fundamental, organic way to deal with everything that was going on, which was so overwhelming.

Aside from the fact that we’re professional musicians, I feel like Dave and I, we really just turned to the music as people, for something to do. You know, this is what folk music is for. There’s a reason why it’s persisted and stayed around. And we needed it in that moment. You need to hear stories of other humans who have gone through rough times and come out the other side. The whole reason a song exists is because they made it through and lived to tell the story. And while this is not often spoken of, this is baked into this music. There is this inherent feeling of a continuum. This music is around because people made it through. And I think that’s what we needed. And so that’s really how it happened.

We were singing these songs for our own sanity and suddenly a couple of things happened. You know, it’s almost hard to think back on that time, though it was less than a year ago. Doesn’t it feel like so much has happened in a way? It feels like a whole new world. But I was feeling really non-essential, faced with these issues of survival. It very quickly became a matter of ‘ok, we need food.’ (Laughs)

Marty: That’s number one on the list…

Gillian: Right? And as a musician, and doubly so here in Nashville, where people’s homes had been destroyed. Things were really wacky here. There’s no power on the streets, we had no power in our neighbourhood for a month! So, it was really crazy here. And I felt like art is such a luxury. And I felt like no one’s gonna need what we do. Everyone gonna be struggling to keep a roof over their head and keep body and soul together. They’re not going to need what we do.

And… I very quickly discovered, happily, that was NOT the case. I started hearing from people that, much like Dave and I were turning to these songs, other people were turning to OUR songs. And it would be an understatement to say it made me feel good! It really… I needed to hear that to be consoled in that moment. And so that combined with THIS thing. And a few people said, ‘If you guys are playing hours of music every night. Can you please just roll some tape?’

Marty: (laughs) Fair enough!

Gillian: You know! And so… we did. Left to my own devices I would not have, but Dave is more of a can-do guy and he just came home one day from the studio, with a couple blank reels of tape under his arm. And we started putting up a reel to reel at the house. And we set up one microphone right in between us on the coffee table and started rolling some tape. Trying to not do anything different than we had been doing – which was just playing these folk songs. I don’t know what else to call them. And I’ll roll Dylan into that, as far as the folk music. We were just playing these songs Norman Blake songs, John Prine songs, Bob Dylan songs, Stanley Brothers songs, Monroe Brothers songs, Blue Sky Boys songs, Jimmie Martin songs… and then ALL the other songs that no one has a name to.

Marty: Yeah yeah… There’s a few of those…

Gillian: They’re the songs that nobody wrote. The songs that everybody wrote.

Marty: I’m glad you mentioned Dylan. Because his album came, kind of out in the blue, back around the same time and got a lot of people realising how important that was. He’s of course, one of the survivors. He, like I assume, you guys, is very much a student of this old music that goes back a ways. And you of course, cover two of his songs on it. One of my favourites is Abandoned Love. I was wondering if you guys were familiar with the Everly Brothers version of that song.

Gillian: No!

Marty: Oh! You need to hear it! (laughs…)

Gillian: No… we’ve always liked that song. It’s so funny, I had no idea this sort of secret love existed for that song all over the place. So many people have said, ‘Man, I’ve loved that song for so long!’ There was no plan for this record. We just sort of played the songs that popped into our heads. It’ just worked out that way that there were two Dylan songs. Of course, Dylan is a very bright (laughs) north star in our sky here. And the John Prine song. I never sing that song, partly because it moves me too much.

Marty: Right

Gillian: I never think I can possibly get through it without breaking down. And in fact, on the tape, right before I sing it, we were thinking about John because we’d JUST lost him. And right before, Dave says, with the tape rolling, why don’t you sing Hello in There. And I say, ‘Oh, there’s no way I could get through it.’ And he says ‘Yeah, just try it.’ And that’s the take.

Marty: It’s amazing the vibe that you guys establish, especially in the middle of the record when you go, I think around track 5 or 6 with Poor Ellen Smith and All the Good Times are Past and Gone. You just feel like you’re sitting on the couch with you, just listening to you guys play. It’s amazing.

Gillian: Thanks, man! That’s one of the things I like about the record. There is actually something different about it than our studio records. Besides the fact that we didn’t write these songs. There is this intimacy and unselfconsciousness. And I guess because we’re just sitting… I don’t know… Whatever making a record is, we didn’t think we were really making a record. We were just recording. It was more of a document of what we were doing. And it’s so funny because so much history isn’t there in the folk world of the ‘document’. You don’t have to do all that much. People just sang the songs into tape machines. And that’s just what we did.

Marty: So, the recording of this album was a year ago now and as you noted, none of your songs are on there. The obvious question is, ‘are there new songs? What have you been doing since then? No pressure.

Marty: Well, we did that and we literally manufactured the record ourselves. What first went out into the world was a cottage industry release that was made on kitchen tables around town. Because… all the supply chains were down. We called around and we pieced it together and then we literally put the thing together. I think I glued like 2000 record sleeves myself. So that was the first release. So, this release is the same thing, but not glued by me. (Laughs) It’s absolutely manufactured!

Marty: The first release sold out in like 48 hours, didn’t it?

Gillian: Yeah! Yeah! There were like 4000 copies or something like that. Which was the maximum we thought we could make. We literally sat and were like, ‘okay, how many of these things to we think we can make?’ And that’s where we legitimately thought where we would top out. And it’s true. It about killed us, but we did it.

And after that, as far as what the rest of the year was – it was dealing with the lost songs and making that box set, which took some doing. And once we got into it, Dave said, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we made a songbook with it?” And so… I spent part of the year transcribing all 48 songs and making the companion songbook, which is a bunch of photographs and whatnot. It’s a book! Basically, I made a book. And then I felt we kind of cleared the decks somewhat. We’d actually released a new record. We dealt with these tapes and then we started working on new material.

Marty: That’s good.

Gillian: And that’s where we are. I’d say if our studio was back together, we’d probably be recording by now. But as it is, we’re just on the cusp.

Marty: Well, I’m talking to you from a record store down the street from me, and when I told them I was speaking to you, they insisted that I say, “When are we going to get some actual hard copy, physical copies of this stuff?” Cos down in New Zealand it’s the last place it comes, so we’re all looking forward to looking at your book and thumbing through it and actually holding some of this stuff.

Gillian: Well, you know, all the vinyl is just so held up. They’re having a hell of a time. They’re really trying, but they keeping having to shut down because of Covid outbreaks and it’s just so backed out. But the vinyl for All the Good Times and the vinyl for the Box set – everything’s in the pipeline. And I think if they hadn’t of had another shut-down, like we’re due to go up on all the presses for All the Good Times. We’re kind of like – any hour!

Marty: Fantastic!

Gillian: So… we’ll see. It’s kind of out of our hands now. And that’s okay. We’ve done all of our work and it’s all turned in and now it’s in the world’s hands. Dave and I are just trying to work on this new stuff.

Marty: Are you missing performing and being in front of people and seeing other musicians and things like that.

Gillian: Yes and no. I don’t mean to sound callous. I love being on the road. I love performing so much. It’s all I know; it’s how I spend my life! So much so that this time at home has been such a crazy revelation. It’s been so novel. Dave and I haven’t at home in Nashville so much since 1996, when we put out our first record and started to tour really nationally. And internationally. You know – it’s a BIG planet! It takes a while to get around.

Marty: Laughs! I’ve seen you twice in Auckland here and people talk about both of those shows still to this day, so it IS worth it. And we do hope we’ll get to see you again sometime in the near future.

Gillian: I hope so too. There’s gonna be quite a… these tours… when we can tour again… there’s gonna be a lot of ground to cover. For the moment, it’s mandatory focussing on the writing and the recording. And that’s okay. In our lives we’ve done too little of that. And possibly too much touring, though not in your neck of the woods. We’ve never played enough here. So hopefully there’ll be more records there soon.

Marty: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. I really appreciate it. Hopefully things will settle down in Nashville a bit and the country overall.

Gillian: Yeah. Fingers crossed.

Marty: It’s looking better.

Gillian: Good to talk to you! You guys take care.