But it's so much more than what should have come from a 15-year-old. The house itself is embedded in the pairs latest albums, Waxahatchees Saint Cloud and Morbys Sundowner, which sound like the beginnings of contemplative new phases in their musical lives. My email is steve@kcur.org. These two musicians had met early in 2017 during the time of their spring tour. 1 In February 2020, Katie Crutchfield and Jess Williamson saw the revered Texas singer-songwriter and artistic outlaw Terry Allen perform in Los Angeles, unaware of the worldly unraveling that. There was the lo-fi rock of American Weekend, her 2012 debut under the Waxahatchee moniker (named after a creek in Crutchfield's home state of Alabama). I was just in a bad mood. Cloud, and Williamsons enchanting Sorceress but were unsure when theyd be able to tour. For years, Crutchfield says her excuse not to get sober was because of how substances influenced her writing. How Much Is Katie Crutchfield's Net Worth? Crutchfield says the outdoor shows, which helped launch her and Morby's new tours, held a special status as their first in-person performances since the pandemic. It's a gorgeous piece of work featuring her sister Allison, Katie Harkin (Sleater-Kinney, Flock of . Its just a different pace of life and it gave me so much room to focus and spread out and take my time and exhale and all these things I really needed to do. All rights reserved. // photo by Molly Matalon Musician Katie Crutchfield has created music under several different identities, be it the pop-punk band she founded with her sister Allison, P.S. Crutchfield began her career in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, where she and her sister formed the feminist punk band P.S. I was like, Oh, like Im singing this so different now, and I was completely unaware. Accuracy and availability may vary. Search instead in. Rounding up our favorite funny videos of the month. My hope with Plains was to tap into something Universal. But Saint Cloud has taken on new resonances in quarantine. Summer Sun 2. That I can take joy in simplicity, that I can have these moments. It almost feels like Ive taken my bra off.. Bellafatima 7. TYLER-AMEEN: Hamilton took The Ackleys under his wing, helping them record and release their music on his own small label. They shared their frustrations and creative aspirations over long telephone calls during walks in the early months of the pandemic, and one day Crutchfield blurted out, This is making me want to start a band. Simple as that, Plains was born. I really feel like I came back to the person I was before I started drinking, she says. Copyright 2013 NPR. TYLER-AMEEN: She'd gone through a couple of bad breakups. A little tip from me to you., Crutchfield fell into an easier working groove when she began jamming with Bobby Colombo and Bill Lennox of Detroit indie-rock band Bonny Doon. Millions of high-quality images, video, and music options are waiting for you. (Crutchfield, home during Morbys album rollout, starred in multiple music videos and sang backup on lead single Campfire.) It felt good to offer something that might be comforting to people, he says. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Tap into Getty Images' global scale, data-driven insights, and network of more than 340,000 creators to create content exclusively for your brand. The 70s country sounds of Plains one hears on their album, I Walked with You a Ways, are something different for Crutchfield, but the honest and open lyrical content will be readily familiar to anyone who has followed her musical journey over the years. The album is a collaboration between Katie Crutchfield, who writes and records as Waxahatchee, and Jess Williamson. I had been avoiding looking at my substance issues in a direct way for a long time. She spent six months trying to recalibrateroaming the country, considering a move back to Alabama, wanting to write but finding herself blocked. Rooted and easy, the eleven songs, which have earned Crutchfield comparisons to Lucinda Williams and early Dylan, warm listeners with hard-won sunlight and unexpected peace. CRUTCHFIELD: We sat them both down basically, and said that, you know, if you want to pursue your music and work, that's fine. But she was also finding breakthroughs. So, in that sense, I feel like Ive picked up a sounding board in Jess. And we just, every day, got home from school, we would like eat a snack and go downstairs and practice until my mom was like, OK, no more. Their street is a row of homogeneous one-story ranch homes with SUVs in the driveways and piles of leaves gathering out front. In spring 2020, both musicians released piercingly introspective albums Williamsons enchanting Sorceress and Waxahatchees cleareyed St. LINDSAY ZOLADZ: It was absolutely one of my favorite things I had heard, probably in years. But as they grew older and matured as artists, both found themselves reconnecting with their country roots and trying to make sense of their contradictory feelings about their Southern heritage, finding kindred spirits in elders like the individualistic outlaw songwriters Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams. As many teenagers do, they later rebelled by getting into punk and indie-rock. CRUTCHFIELD: (Singing) And I'll fish for compliments. It was well-received by critics and named a top album of the year by Dusted magazine. Katie Crutchfield is known for Waxahatchee: Fire (2020), Runaways (2017) and Shithouse (2020). Jess Williamson and Katie Crutchfield of Plains, a project born in the pandemic during long phone calls between the two musicians. 2023 Cond Nast. Singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield has gone from punk rocker to indie artist, but the next step in her musical metamorphosis involved embracing a part of herself that she'd previously shied. With Jude Law and Jim Gaffigan as Captain Hook and Mr. Smee. Ive been telling everyone Phil Cook played 80% of the instruments on the album. She settled in Kansas City and pushed herself to render the story she wanted to tell into lyrics. Crutchfield wrote Fire, a folky slow-burner, while she and her partner, musician Kevin Morby, were driving from Birmingham to their home in Kansas City, a route that goes directly through Memphis. Its just a full circle thing. Obviously, now Ive been writing songs and touring and being a musician for over half my life. She was born in the 60s, but 70s and 80s, really. Waxahatchees Katie Crutchfield performs at Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, June 2018. Ive picked up a songwriting person I trust and whose ideas I really like. And everyone was like, there's a Joni Mitchell album called "Blue," Katie. Both singer-songwriters came of age in the South and started out in indie-rock. 7:19. The D.I.Y. Things you buy through our links may earnNew Yorka commission. Maybe Jennifer would have more support if she werent wrong so often. Eliot. The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time And at 24 years old, she's already had multiple careers as a musician. Reach me at mackenzie@kcur.org or find me on Twitter @_macmartin. (This story originally aired on Weekend Edition Sunday on June 23, 2013.). This project just feels really fun and celebratory. With acoustic guitar flourishes, billowing drums, and her trademark intimate approach to songwriting, the record leans into stripped-back Americana and country. When singer Jess Williamson and Waxahatchee leader Katie Crutchfield had to cancel their respective tours in the spring of 2020, the friends spent a lot of time talking to each other on the phone. Its so natural right now for everyone to just immediately put a positive spin on whatever theyre going through. It feels universal, in a way.. For now, theyre open to all the possibilities of their new life, with a caveat. I am learning how to be alone TYLER-AMEEN: She called her new project Waxahatchee, the name of a nearby creek. In the pandemic, these two love birds were captured and quarantined together. CRUTCHFIELD: (Singing) It's late. Yeah. Menu. Password must be at least 8 characters and contain: As part of your account, youll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime. I had really good melodies, but lyrics were so hard for me. Almost every song that you hear on the album was like his first idea. On the track Fire, she sings: Tomorrow could feel like a hundred years laterIm wiser and slow and attunedAnd I am down on my knees, Im a bird in the treesI can learn to see with a partial view. Alabama-born singer-songwriter Katie Crutchfield broke through to a bigger audience last year by releasing an aching, bare-bones solo album. His partner, Katie Crutchfield, sits perched on his right, pulling down her plaid mask every so often for a sip of coffee. Eliot, she and Allison also recorded music as Bad Banana. Cloud, though, courses through I Walked With You a Ways as well. Katie Crutchfield, of Waxahatchee, is the most celebrated musician in a burgeoning Philadelphia scene. Crutchfield has been reading a lot too, currently trying to conquer Infinite Jest. Heres why its working. TYLER-AMEEN: And whatever Katie Crutchfield is writing about, she'll probably find a way to keep living the way she and her sister grew up: with a community of musical friends and a basement where they can be as honest and as loud as they want. Katie Crutchfield. Rosala Is Ready to Let Loose and Hit the Dance Floor on 'Despech', Rina Sawayama Turns a Therapy Epiphany Into Powerful Single 'Hold the Girl', Tove Lo Goes From 'Disco Tits' to Disco Dildo in '2 Die 4' Video. Yeah. Ive felt a connection to Jesss songwriting and a kinship with her since we met years ago, Crutchfield said in a statement. But you might findit interesting that even without spending a penny and having a meaningful full verse in the lyrics you can have the best-selling album recorded in your noisy bedroom. Privacy Policy and Her longtime favorite album, Williamss Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, was speaking to her in a way that felt new. There were a lot of firsts, she told me recently, over the phone, from the house in Kansas City that she shares with her boyfriend, the musician Kevin Morby. That show is sold out. Katie Crutchfield recently read a diary entry from when she was 17 years old. CRUTCHFIELD: (Singing) I'm not a whipper in the wind or solace laying at the bottom of a bottle, or your thick skin TYLER-AMEEN: Katie says, unlike "American Weekend," this album was a team effort. The suit alleges that producers offered no support for the crews anxiety and PTSD symptoms in the aftermath of the shooting. And I'll drink until I'm happy. That process was really fun and cool and I really enjoyed doing that with her on her songs, too. Almost exactly a year ago, Katie . Together, the two songwriters craft stories of heartbreak, empathy and self-knowledge, bolstered by a wry wisdom and rooted in their shared love of classic country sounds. "I wanted to step into that power a little bit.. We finished that album and have had it mixed and stuff for over a year. Its penultimate track, Ruby Falls, tells of a friend who died after overdosing, and its final track, the titular one, calls back to her fathers home town, in Florida, and to lonely rides on the M train in New York City. TRACY CRUTCHFIELD: I've been amazed that they've been basically doing shows and going on the road since they were 16, 17 years old. But you're going to work to support yourselves and make it work. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. She was between jobs. I have a feeling that thats probably how Plains is, too. Getting to lean into the influence of the music we both grew up with while also making something that feels very current and fresh to me was a great experience, and Im so happy to finally share it., Making this record with Katie was a deeply expansive experience for me as a songwriter, Williamson added. I'm David Greene. "It was a real honor to get to sort of usher people back into that live music sort of thing," she says. You know, probably, but Ill say thisby being a performer, you spend time with the record and then you stop spending time with the record. I mean, all of that 90s pop country just ruled the radio down there and thats just what I grew up listening to, hearing all the time so its sort of imprinted on me in this way that I resisted or rejected for many years. Then, as tightly in unison as they are on their record, they laughed. Crutchfield, 32, had spent years searching for a place that felt right for her base, jumping among Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Long Island, and her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Rihanna Is Pregnant, Rep Confirms Following Super Bowl Halftime Show Dave Hollis, Former Disney Distribution Chief, Dies at 47 . She has been active in the field of music since 2010 and still loves to follow her passion and dream. Thats the meat of the song. If I could love you unconditionally, I/Could iron out the edges of the darkest sky, she sings. I really trust her ear and sensibilities, and she encouraged me to explore aspects of my songwriting that in the past Ive shied away from. You develop your voice and chip away at what its really supposed to see. We just have to live in this weird groundlessness, to accept that theres no way to know whento try to be certain that we will get to play these songs, even if its two years from now. In the meantime, quarantine has tested, and possibly changed, her restless nature. I love all of it, but I knew [that sound] wasnt going to be super-sustainable for me because its so loud and abrasive. ASTRO will continue on as a five member K-Pop group. So it's no surprise she has a whooping sum of networth. The two share the same passion for music and their career. In 2019, Lewis was immortalized in an Archie Comic that featured a cartoon version of the singer surrounded by other . I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the days most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. (Witches, a track on Saint Cloud, name-checks a few of Crutchfields fellow-travellers in the project of navigating music-industry vagaries and expectations, including her sister, her friend and collaborator Marlee Grace, and Lindsey Jordan, of Snail Mail.). Ad Choices. She has been trying to give herself permission to feel shitty about the situation, she told meabout not getting to bring the story she tells on the album full circle, on tour, not getting to experience it in the presence of other people. We have to keep that.. She was born in Alabama, America where she and her twin sister Allison Crutchfield grew together and played their music fin the street of Waxahatchee Creek. That a breakup happened somewhere amid this elegant . Through all of my personal growth and the path that Ive been on, you have these days where you slip back into bad behavior and patterns of thought. Since starting Waxahatchee in 2010 (following P.S. TYLER-AMEEN: It's mid-morning at Katie and Allison's new place in Philly, where they moved together last fall, and nearly every occupant of the house has crowded into the kitchen for breakfast. Katie is a singer and songwriter solely focused on her band 'Waxahatchee' which has been in the industry for a while now. Thats what folks hope for from a side project of any musicianthat its going to be something new and different, and a chance to hear the voices that you enjoy trying something different, but its not canon. I had all this frustrating creative energy. Eliot, featured her twin sister, Allison, on drums) and a stint for Morby in Brooklyn bands Woods and the Babies, they both landed on a similar folk-inflected rock style in their solo work, more folk or rock depending on the album. It isnt like living in New York or LA or Nashville or theres a million musicians around, all of our peers are around. Cloud was a really big record for me in so many ways, she said. Kansas City's independent source for news and culture, Rose Marshack on life with Poster Children and her new book, Photos: Greensky Bluegrass bring their Dead-influenced sound to the Uptown, Premiere: Catty Cline is 'Leading You' to pop heaven. We are not awake. So I think that just trying to relax a bit has helped me a lot. She let out a deep sigh. Its sad, I listen to the affectation on some of my earlier records and Im like, Im really trying hard to cover that up., The palpable sense of self-acceptance and hard-won confidence that attracted listeners to St. You can hear references to her settling in here on the album. 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