1. My admiration of Bruce Robison is well documented. He has a very natural way of songwriting — one that makes every line seem like an adage from an experienced, trusted elder. His latest record, a duets record (at last) with wife Kelly Willis, is his most natural record yet. Loose and fun, the record listens like a hazy night at the Broken Spoke. I could probably write something about every song on this half-covers-half-originals record, but the standout is “Leavin’”, an uptempo romp that shows Bruce at his best.

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Holly Williams took a few minutes huddled in the corner of a hotel room with poor cell service to talk songwriting, the South, and her new record The Highway.

I grew up with my mom in Nashville. It was a musical household, but very different. My mom was classically trained, and grew up in the church singing. She said when she came to Nashville she wanted to be a singer, or a background singer. Every night we would sing around the piano downstairs. We were going to Amy Grant and Sandi Patty concerts. Those were my first memories of seeing music in an arena — my dad didn’t want us at his shows. He would say “I’m not Bocephus to you, I’m Daddy.” It was musical, but in a different way than most people think. We did not grow up around guitars or people dropping by. My time with my dad was much more about hunting and fishing than music.

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Thad Cockrell has made a lot of music in his time — from the early country of Stack of Dreams to the modern pop of his latest project Leagues — but with excellent songwriting the entire way. I got to talk to him about the journey of songwriting, inspiration, and an ever-evolving process.

I was born in Kansas City and moved to Tampa, Florida when I was 9. I grew up in a non musical household — I don’t know if I have ever walked into my house and heard my parents playing music because they wanted to hear music. There was no secular music in the house either.

How did you get introduced to music? What was influential early on?

Church was my earliest exposure. I have always been completely obsessed with music. I have an older brother, and he would listen to some stuff, but it wasn’t like “this is the Beatles”. It was primarily Kenny Rogers, country music stuff. Country was my first love, but I grew up listening to absolutely everything. Even from age 7 or 8, I would go up and down the radio dial not caring about genres, just looking for songs. From the outside, my musical journey looks like a crazy departure from where I started, but it really reflects me growing up, pushing my car down the street so my parents couldn’t hear my start it and listen to country late into the night. I loved Merle Haggard and Alabama, but I would dance with my friends at dance clubs in predominantly black clubs, then I would listen to The Cure on the way home. Looking back it seems crazy, but it seems to be most people’s story.

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Kenny Chesney cut this song on his 2012 album Welcome to the Fishbowl. Touching on the familiar feeling of late-night desperation, McAnally hits all the right details — the ceiling fan, the clock, the TV on and off. Chesney also took McAnally’s “Somewhere With You” to number one in 2010. (see Shane play that here).

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1. Brandy Clark is country. No doubt about it. Clark, who has a cowrite on Miranda Lambert’s latest single “Mama’s Broken Heart“, as well as on the Band Perry’s latest chart-topper “Better Dig Two“, has an upcoming record with no current street date. Filled with gems about smoking weed, taking pills, going to jail, and a hell of a cheating song, this blend of wit and realism is one of the reasons I am looking forward to the next year. Clark writes from the seedy underbelly of country folk, topping it with a clear, Patty Loveless-like vocal that almost belies the subject matter underneath.

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