Caught in the Carousel

DELIGHTED BY VOICES: An Interview with Red Molly

As legend has it, New York musicians Abbie Gardner, Laurie MacAllister and Carolann Solebello first sang together around a campfire at the 2004 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. That fateful summer night was filled with dulcet three-part harmonies as Abbie, Laurie and Carolann sang some of their favorite bluegrass, folk and gospel songs, along with a few Iris DeMent and Gillian Welch compositions. The following year, the trio released their debut EP, Red Molly, which featured an original song by Abbie, “Long Island Cowboy,” and a cover of “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” In 2006, in a triumphant return to Falcon Ridge, Red Molly performed in the festival’s Emerging Artist Showcase.

In July of last year, Red Molly released Never Been to Vegas, a collection of 14 songs recorded in front of a live studio audience. Never Been To Vegas features songs from Ryan Adams (“Oh My Sweet Carolina”), Gillian Welch (“Caleb Meyer,” “Annabelle”), and Hank Williams (“Long Gone Lonesome Blues”), along with two original Abbie Gardner compositions, “Ohio” and “Seven Years.” In July the band played all four days at Falcon Ridge; other festival performers included Marshall Crenshaw, John Gorka, Arlo Guthrie, Lowen & Navarro and Dar Williams (www.falconridgefolk.com).

Each member of Red Molly brings a stellar resume and discography to the group. Abbie (vocals, Dobro, guitar) studied classical flute as a child and directed a cappella singing while a student at Boston University. Abbie’s father, jazz pianist Herb Gardner, joined her for the recording of her first solo album, My Craziest Dream, released in 2004. In 2006, Abbie released her second solo album, Honey on My Grave. Laurie (vocals, guitar, banjo) spent a number of years as a backing vocalist, and she has released two solo albums, These Old Clothes in 1999 and The Things I Choose to Do in 2004. Carolann (vocals, guitar, bass, mandolin) was a professional theater actress prior to the 2000 release of her first and only solo album, Just Across the Water. She has also performed and released two albums with power folk quartet CC Railroad, Smile Whatever (2001) and Black Horse Motel (2004).

The Dobro, currently manufactured and marketed by Gibson, is a wood-body guitar with a single cone and a spider-bridge base. The Dobro was designed in the late Twenties to sound louder and stronger than a guitar or banjo, so audiences could hear it amongst the horns and percussion of the popular music of that era. Abbie Gardner’s Dobro is chiming and forceful, providing a honeyed and sometimes haunting accompaniment to Red Molly’s powerful solo vocals and seamless harmonies.

Red Molly will be busy touring up and down the East Coast for the remainder of the summer, with shows scheduled for Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA (August 8th), the Somerset County Concert Series in Bridgewater, NJ (August 19th), the Strawberry Park Folk Festival in Preston, CT (September 14th) and the Boston Folk Festival (September 16th). For a complete list of upcoming performances, please visit the band’s Web site, www.redmolly.com.

As fatigued as the women of Red Molly must be, they were kind enough to respond to the stack of questions we sent them in July:

Caught In The Carousel: Mary Chapin Carpenter remarked, “When I got a record deal out of Nashville, the question I was asked most often was, ‘how did a girl who grew up in New Jersey end up playing Country music?’” How did three women from New York end up in a country music trio? What drew each of you to country, as opposed to rock, soul or jazz?

Red Molly: As “Yankees” we get that question from fans on a regular basis. Each of us took a different path to the music we play now: Laurie grew up listening to Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, and her parents’ records by Sixties folk groups like The Mamas and The Papas and Peter Paul and Mary; Abbie was raised on the standards her jazz-musician father played with his combos, and the bluegrass festivals her mother toted her to every summer since she was three; I (Carolann) was introduced to traditional music as a theatre actor performing in locales like rural East Tennessee and Wichita, Kansas, where I met plenty of amateur bluegrass musicians who knocked my socks off with their skills.

I suppose the short answer is we all love the raw beauty of traditional music. All the genres we dip our brush into have lyrics dealing with universal human truths like death, love, heartbreak, and the possibility of salvation. The music that supports these truths must be simple and uncluttered to bear the weight of all that emotion. We like the way that musical simplicity allows us to lift each song using as little as possible to let the vocals tell the story.

CITC: Who are your heroes and greatest influences, in and out of country, and why?

RM: Well, we don’t really see ourselves as a “country” band, since we perform material from the pools of bluegrass, blues, Appalachian folk, Southern gospel, and even jazz. We don’t like to limit ourselves. We just like to choose great American songs--no matter the genre--and interpret them in a way that appeals to our musical sensibilities.

We all came to the band with different musical experiences, but collectively, I’d say we agree on a handful of heroes/influences: Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas (mostly Abbie, of course), Patty Griffin, Iris DeMent, and Gillian Welch. Individually, I happen to think Ella Fitzgerald was the greatest singer who ever lived, and Abbie has a deep admiration for Aretha Franklin.

CITC: It seems there’s been a real florescence in traditional music since O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? Springsteen has been in and out of folk and country since Nebraska, most recently with We Shall Overcome, and artists like Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch seem to be at the peak of their popularity. How do you feel about the current state of country music? In addition to Gillian Welch and Ryan Adams, what other contemporary and alternative country musicians do you admire?

RM: I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that what most people define as “country” music these days--meaning what contemporary commercial country stations play--is far closer to straight-ahead rock than what earlier generations called country music. Contemporary country has strayed pretty far from the roots of the tree. Those we term “Alt-Country” or “Traditional” seem far closer to that original ideal. In addition to those artists you mentioned, we admire Iris DeMent, Mary Gautier, Mark Erelli, and, of course, the queen of Alt-Country, Lucinda Williams.

I wish contemporary country radio would trust its audience enough to play some artists who draw from earlier sensibilities. I think neo-traditionalists like Iris DeMent or Gillian Welch might really speak to the broader “country” audience.

CITC: Does each of you have a favorite era of country music?

RM: Not really--we draw from the whole big pool when choosing material. Some of the songs we play are hundreds of years old, others brand new.

CITC: Is there a difference between country and folk music?

RM: Ah, the eternal question… We like to think of folk as the broader category, under which genres like country, old-time, bluegrass, blues, and gospel fall. Folk simply means music “of the people,” and those categories are different musical ways of expressing similar human sentiments.

CITC: Randy Travis has said, “country music can touch, say, a 12 year-old kid and his dad at the same time…country music is storytelling, basically.” Why are country songs such outstanding vehicles (as opposed to other forms of popular music) for telling stories?

RM: Simplicity. The uncomplicated nature of folk music--as Bob Dylan said, “three chords and the truth”--allows the story to take center stage. And we all love to hear a good story, don’t we?

CITC: You’ve covered Gillian Welch, Hank Williams, Ryan Adams, Patty Griffin, Patsy Cline (Hank Cochran) and Elvis (Lou Handman & Roy Turk), among other writers and artists. Are there other artists you’d like to cover? Is it daunting to cover a song made famous by a singer like Patsy Cline or Elvis? How do you approach the interpretations and arrangements of your covers?

RM: There are plenty of songwriters whose songs we’d like to cover, and some of them are friends of ours whom we feel should be better known. It’s definitely scarier to cover songs that are well known for one reason or another, since people have certain expectations of those tunes. We try to shatter those expectations--in a good way--by putting our own spin on that type of material.

We approach each song as a new entity, and each of us brings ideas to the table about how to best serve the song. We love arranging each one to allow the story to shine through as clearly as possible. Sometimes, that means taking elements away rather than imposing anything new on the skeleton of the song. The lead singer generally gets to decide the key, but beyond that, it’s everyone’s game.

CITC: In the foreword to Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Willie Nelson writes, “when country artists open their hearts to an audience, they’re sharing their deepest feelings…country music gets people to feeling good.” From the performances, and from the chatting and jokes between songs, it seems like Red Molly thrives on stage--you’ve got your audiences pretty charmed. Can you describe your experience when you play live?

RM: We all thrive on performance and, as Willie said, we certainly try to make people feel good. There’s a certain kind of energy that develops between performer and audience at any type of live show that you can’t experience anywhere else. It’s almost palpable. An audience is definitely a central part of the character of any show. That’s why we chose to record our first full-length CD, Never Been to Vegas in front of a live audience. The experience was exhausting in many ways, but if we had it to do over again, I think we’d do it just that way.

CITC: What are your favorite venues and festivals, and why?

RM: I’d say, beyond all others, we love the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, New York. It’s where we got together as a band three years ago. We found ourselves the only three people awake at our campsite in the middle of the night, and we whiled away a few hours singing and playing tunes from Abbie’s bluegrass fake book. Before the sun came up, we knew we had hit upon something special, and we wondered why we hadn’t sung together earlier. It’s very special to us that we were selected to play at that very festival this year.

CITC: You produced your EP and Never Been to Vegas yourselves. Do you want to continue producing your albums yourselves, or are there any particular producers with whom you’d like to work on your upcoming albums? Guest musicians?

RM: As a matter of fact, we’re in the planning stages for our next album right now. This time, we’re hiring a producer, but we’re not sure who that person is just yet. Guest musicians are also a definite possibility for the new record.

CITC: How did the experience each of you had as a solo artist differ from your experience in Red Molly? Do you select songs as a group, or does each of you come to the other two and say, “I’m in love with this, we have to do this song!” How do you work together as a band?

RM: Laurie: The main difference between my solo career and my career in Red Molly is that the band has a much bigger sound. We've got three voices and three instruments. That bigger sound makes the show much more interesting and exciting than a solo show. For me, it's much more fun to make music with others than to do it alone.

Abbie: In my previous bands and solo projects I was the one doing all the work, from writing and picking the songs to booking and promoting the shows and even doing all the talking on stage. Now I share those roles equally with my band mates. Spreading out the work helps me to concentrate on my own strengths on the business side of things (like Web promotion and merchandising), as well as the artistic side (playing Dobro and writing songs).

Carolann: Usually, one of us finds a song and shares it with the others at a rehearsal. Arranging the song is a very communal process, as I mentioned, but things don’t always turn out the way we envision them. Sometimes, a song just clicks into place instantly, and we add it to the repertoire. Other times, we work it up and it just doesn’t fit. We’ve got a whole graveyard of songs we’ve tried out and rejected for one reason or another.

CITC: Can you talk about the provenance of “Long Island Cowboy?” Are you thinking about recording and performing more originals? Is Abbie the only songwriter in Red Molly?

RM: Hmmm… Abbie used to go to lots of open mics in her pre-Molly days, and she met a few Long Island cowboys in her travels.

Although we’ve mostly used Abbie’s tunes, she’s definitely not the only songwriter in the band. We all write, and we are currently in the process of adding more originals to our set. Recently, we added Laurie’s “This Farm Needs a Man” to our live show, and we hope to add others by each one of us as they become ready. Still, we’ll probably continue down the road we’ve been traveling as far as the mix of songs goes--some original, some traditional, some classic songwriters, and some contemporary songwriters. We like as much variety in our set as possible.

CITC: Can you talk about the Dobro and how you came to learn it? What do you like about the sound and texture the Dobro brings to your music?

RM: Abbie: I grew up going to bluegrass festivals with my family in upstate New York. The sliding sound of the Dobro had always been in my head, but I didn't even think about taking it up until I started having problems with tendonitis from playing guitar. Once I started playing Dobro in the spring of 2004, I became obsessed and haven't looked back since!

Laurie: The Dobro is simply a great-sounding instrument! It adds warmth and texture to our songs, and audiences really respond to it. It is one of the most common questions we get: what is that instrument? The Dobro really helps to distinguish us from other bands.

CITC: Where do you see Red Molly two years from now? Five years from now?

RM: World domination. Definitely. Either that or we’ll be playing Holiday Inn lounges from here to Des Moines.