Today's review brings us a sweet mix of American, folk with a touch of meditation. I'm talking about
Her style has been compared to Brandi Carlisle and Lucinda Williams. I don't think the comparison is fair. While those ladies have the grit of the genre, I beleive that each one of those women have an individuality all their own, contracted by their personal experiences. Rigby Summer brings her heart and soul to this album.
GEOGRAPHY is eleven tracks of magic.
If you read yesterday's interview with Rigby Summer, then you heard the first track, The Weight (Unrequited). The opening strains are meditative... like a shower of crystals reminiscent of Kitaro. From there, the the strong takes a bit of an uptick as the journey begins.
Seldom do I come across an artist that creates such vivid imagery as Rigby Summer. It isn't about just the pictures she paints with her lyrics but the emotional connection to a road we've all traveled - even if those roads were different for each of us.
Delaware is a peaceful, thought-provoking tune that almost mesmerizes you like a long stretch of highway where as Michigan has a melancholy feel with a hint of Celtic Women.
Two tracks, Gibson Guitar and Buy Me A Piano, carry a Carly Simon breathlessness, adding to the timelessness of GEOGRAPHY.
Overall, this album is soft, yet engaging - just as at home in a New York highrise or a Caribbean beach bar and every destination you want to travel in between.
I'm tipping my hat...
You can find out more about Rigby Summer by clicking on the following links:
Thanks for joining us in KellysCountry today, Rigby!
You’ve been writing and performing for a good number of years. You released an
EP in the fall of 2020. Now you have a full album barely a year later. Was the
EP a teaser of what you had to offer in GEOGRAPHY?
The EP
was a pandemic project. Geography was
ready to send for artwork and print and the plan was to release it in Fall
2020, but then of course, we all went on lock down and after having travelled
so much in the years prior, I didn’t release my debut album at a time that I
couldn’t tour it--I mean, it’s called GEOGRAPHY and I couldn’t travel!
But I
wanted to do something to reach out and build a little momentum so when I
qualified for PUA (pandemic unemployment assistance) at the end of the summer I
decided to invest some of that in my music. I had an idea for a long time that
I wanted to do a “holiday adjacent” album someday with songs that were fit for
the season but not your typical holiday standards, especially for anyone who
might feel a bit melancholy through the holidays.
This seemed
like the perfect time. Kyle (Reid) has this song Dancing Alone that is just
fantastic and in a year when EVERYONE was going to be dancing alone on New
Year’s Eve, it was the perfect anchor for the EP.
That
little project saved my sanity last fall--everything about it was just fun and
low-pressure because these were all covers--my interpretations of other
people’s songs--as opposed to the debut of my own. We spent a couple of days in studio and did
most of the dialing in for final mixes remotely. We even sent the title track
to Montreal to get the tuba and banjo treatment from Les Royal Pickles. The icing on the cake was when the manager of
historic Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa allowed my photographer friend, Sarah Huhn,
and me into the space for an hour to shoot the cover. I still can’t believe how everything came
together in the span of 4-6 weeks...I don’t think that little project could
have been made that way at any other time.
You
took some time off then seems as if you’ve come back with a vengeance. What did
you learn about yourself during that hiatus?
Well,
the hiatus was never really intentional. But there is a sort of dichotomy to
what I learned from that season. On one hand, I look back and understand now
more than ever how important it is to
know yourself and deeply plant your roots there because there will always be
someone ready to tell you where you should or shouldn't belong or how to spend
your days. If you always look to others
to validate your path, you’ll just get blown off track because everyone’s wind
is coming from a different direction.
But on
the other hand, I have gratitude for that time. In that time, there are things
that I learned about life and business and myself that have enabled me to
approach things differently this time around.
That previous version of myself was younger and cuter and skinnier but
she had no idea what she was doing. She was talented, but she didn’t know what
to do with it. She needed to get her mind right. She didn’t yet have the
fortitude to handle resistance when it came her way...so if you see everything
in life as learning, there is no lost time. And if my story can help someone
else get back on their true path, then it’s all happening right on time.
Did
any of that hiatus find its way into this LP and if so, would you point out
specifics?
Your music & style has drawn comparisons with Brandi Carlile and Lucinda
Williams. Those names pack a punch. How do you feel about the comparisons?
Well,
tell me two bigger badasses in Americana music right now! I am honored every time it happens. Vocally, I hear Brandi pretty regularly. But
as much as I love her, I was surprised when I started hearing Lucinda, but that
has happened more often after performances, so yeah, I dig it. If I am developing vocals comparable to
Brandi and performance swagger comparable to Lucinda, I am gonna lean into
that!
Who
do you consider to be your biggest musical influences in your life?
Well, if
you mean formative people in my life, that’s easy: my brother and my mom’s best friend Mary.
They helped inform my musical taste early on.
I went through this phase as a tween where I only listened to the oldies
station. All my peers were learning dances to pop music at recess but was going
home to sing along with the Shirelles and the Rolling Stones. I was a weird kid! Mary tuned into that and
started feeding me music pretty early on.
She taped off all her Mary Chapin Carpenter CDs for me and I absorbed
every note. I studied those songs and
wanted to be her. Then my brother loved
music and we went to a lot of great concerts together growing up. Because of him, my first real concert was
Paul McCartney at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Between the two of us, we
knew almost every lyric to every song on the 70s rock station.
Of
those folks, what would you say had the biggest effect on who you are as an
artist now?
I’m
going to dodge this a little bit and focus on the “who I am as an artist now” end of this question, because I
don’t think I really ever realized how attainable it actually is to set on out
on this path and do the dang thing when I was younger. For sure, it is more possible now because
there are fewer gatekeepers in the music industry these days. So the biggest influences on me becoming the
artist I am now are the performers who were willing to come share the stage
with me at my concert series in Stillwater.
That event became my school when music came back to me in 2017. For the
first year or so I was for sure playing WAY out of my league! I had no business sharing the stage with a
lot of those performers. But they were
so gracious and I learned something every month, either just from observation
or sometimes things that they would directly tell me. A turning point for me was when, after a
while, I had a few hosting experiences where some artists showed me who I didn’t want to be as a guest and an
artist. Haha..thats’ when I realized I had slowly been growing into my
own.
I will
say that one of the hosting experiences that was most positively formative was
when Belle Plaine and Blake Berglund came down from Saskatchewan and we ended
up playing about a week of shows together after a week of radio and
rehearsals. I had only been back at it
about a year and while I had a certain level of confidence in myself as an
artist, working with them was a considerable uplevel from where I was at that
time. Most of the week I felt like I had maybe dove in to the deep end a little
too quickly!
But
working with them and their guitar player those two weeks, getting to know
them, I got to see the stage persona versus who they are as people and I saw
just how connected they were--on stage they lean in to the best parts of their
values, their personalities and their relationships with each other. It was really special to watch. I saw first hand how they worked together as
a band behind the scenes, taking care of one another and getting the work done
together. And I think I came away
feeling permission to bring my own swagger to the stage. I know my performance and stagecraft was
heavily influenced from working with
them.
I
love the album cover. Geography in itself is more than just a place, it’s what
gives us peace wherever we are. What brings you peace?
I’ve
been revisiting the audiobook of Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness on the
road lately. It’s been a good reminder
of this idea of belonging everywhere by belonging nowhere--by belonging first
to myself. My entire childhood I dreamed
of travel. And then I took my first trip
abroad when I was nineteen. I can safely
say that every place I have lived or traveled since then has felt a little like
home, so in terms of physical geography, I have often felt an attachment or
sense of belonging everywhere I go. But
it can at times feel lonely, not feeling fully rooted in any of those places.
When that loneliness or anxiety builds up, I try to come back to those things
that center and ground me: going for a walk--bonus if I can really get out in
nature for a hike--sitting in stillness, focusing on my breathing...gosh, even
re-engaging with the road.
If
you could offer one tip to artists trying to find their vibe in this business,
what would that tip be?
Know yourself and be that, unabashedly. Your
story, your message and your music are a gift and there are people who need to
hear it. If you are trying to be
someone else, you aren’t going to find your
audience. It’s an ongoing process, learning to love and
trust yourself, but when you set on that path, the right people will find you.
I'll be back tomorrow with a review of GEOGRAPHY. In the mean time, here's the first track from her YouTube channel:
You can find out more about Rigby Summer by clicking on the following links:
I'm almost caught up with everything. I have Q & A out to Broken Jukebox Media for Rigby Summer. I think you're really going to like her. Also still working on the Q & A with Kristian and Winterkill Band. They have a new album coming out that is smooth southern rock at it's finest.
I'll be working all day tomorrow on The Party List post so that goes up on Thursday. Everything else will fall in to place.
November is dedicated to writing the first draft of a new book. I'm working hard on Book 2 of my Planned to Perfection series and determined to get that finished above all else. Hoping to write the bulk in this first 17 days that Bob is gone.
