Hayes Carll • Caroline Spence

15711 Waterloo Rd,Cleveland OH 44110

10 November, 2021

Description

Hayes Carll • Caroline Spence ALL AGES Hayes Carll Caroline Spence Hayes Carll performs at the Beachland Ballroom on Wednesday, November 10 @ 8pm. PLEASE NOTE, COVID POLICY IN PLACE. SEE OUR SAFETY PAGE FOR MORE INFORMATION. This Way Out, our vintage and record store, will be open during the show. You do not need a show ticket to shop at This Way Out. $20 = Advance; $23 = Day of Show $100 = VIP Includes: one GA ticketVIP early entry into the venue – 1 hour before doorsExclusive meet & greet with Hayes CarllPersonal Photograph with Hayes CarllAccess to a private pre-show soundcheck performanceExclusive tour poster – signed by Hayes CarllMeet & Greet LaminateMerch Shopping before doors Hayes CarllThe chorus to the title track on the new Hayes Carll album, What It Is, is a manifesto. What it was is gone forever / What it could be God only knows. What it is is right here in front of me / and I’m not letting go. He’s embracing the moment. Leaving the past where it belongs, accepting there’s no way to know what’s ahead, and challenging himself to be present in both love and life. It’s heady stuff. It also rocks. With a career full of critical acclaim and popular success, Carll could’ve played it safe on this, his sixth record, but he didn’t. The result is a musically ambitious and lyrically deep statement of an artist in his creative prime. Hayes Carll’s list of accomplishments is long. His third album, 2008’s Trouble In Mind, earned him an Americana Music Association Award for  Song of the Year (for “She Left Me for Jesus”). The follow-up, KMAG YOYO was the most played album on the Americana Chart in 2011 and spawned covers by artists as varied as Hard Working Americans and Lee Ann Womack, whose version of "Chances Are" garnered Carll a Grammy nomination for Best Country Song. 2016’s Lovers and Leavers swept the Austin Music Awards, and was his fourth record in a row to reach #1 on the Americana Airplay chart.  Kelly Willis and Kenny Chesney have chosen to record his songs and his television appearances include The Tonight Show, Austin City Limits, and Later w/Jools Holland. Carll is the rare artist who can rock a packed dancehall one night and hold a listening room at rapt attention the next. “Repeating myself creatively would ultimately leave me empty. Covering new ground, exploring, and taking chances gives me juice and keeps me interested.” He knew he wanted to find the next level. On What It Is, he clearly has. It wasn’t necessarily easy to get there. Carll’s last release, 2016’s Lovers and Leavers was an artistic and commercial risk — a bold move which eschewed the tempo and humor of much of his previous work. The record revealed a more serious singer-songwriter dealing with more serious subjects — divorce, new love in the middle of life, parenting, the worth of work. What It Is finds him now on the other side, revived and happy, but resolute — no longer under the impression that any of it comes for free. “I want to dig in so this life doesn’t just pass me by. The more engaged I am the more meaning it all has. I want that to be reflected in the work.” And meaning there is. Carll sings “but I try because I want to,” on the album’s opening track, “None’Ya.” He’s not looking back lamenting love lost, rather, finding joy and purpose in the one he’s got and hanging on to the woman who sometimes leaves him delightedly scratching his head. “If I May Be So Bold,” finds him standing on similar ground — lyrically taking on the challenge of participating fully in life rather than discontentedly letting life happen. Bold enough to not surrender bold enough to give a damn Bold enough to keep on going or to stay right where I am There’s a whole world out there waiting full of stories to be told I’ll heed the call and tell’em all if I may be so bold There’s no wishy washy here and he’s not on the sidelines. In fact, he’s neck-deep in life. On the rambunctious, fiddle-punctuated, “Times Like These,” he laments political division in America while delivering a rapid-fire plea to “do my labor, love my girl, and help my neighbor, while keeping all my joie de vivre.” Carll’s signature cleverness and aptitude for so-personal-you-might-miss-it political commentary is as strong as ever. The stark, “Fragile Men,” co-written with singer-songwriter Lolo, uses humor and dripping sarcasm to examine his gender’s resistance to change in less than three minutes of string-laden, almost Jacques Brel invoking drama. It’s new musical territory for Carll, and the result is powerful. His voice is strong and resonant on these songs, and it’s thrilling to hear him use it with a new authority. He is alternately commanding and tender, yet always soulful. Carll returned to trusted producer Brad Jones (producer of 2008’s Trouble in Mind and 2011’s KMAG YOYO) and Alex the Great Studio in Nashville, Tennessee, to record What It Is, and recruited singer-songwriter, author, and fiancee Allison Moorer as co-producer. The production is adventurous while keeping the focus on the singer and his songs and providing a path for him to go where he wants to go. Where that is, is forward. That’s evident in the songwriting. Carll continues to hone his singular voice, but is also a flexible co-writer. Matraca Berg, Charlie Mars, Adam Landry, and Moorer have co-writing credits here, but it was Moorer’s inspiration that provided the largest impact. “On the songwriting front she’s just a pro. She helps me cut through the noise and she does it with wit and style.” Carll’s own wit and style has never been more evident. Whether it’s with the put-you-in-picture detail of, “Beautiful Thing,” the not quite sheepish enough, dude-esque defense of dishonesty in, “Things You Don’t Wanna Know,” or the strong as a tree trunk declaration of love on, “I Will Stay,” he displays an increasing command of his poetic lexicon. 
Writers most often wrestle with experience and expectations, either romanticizing the past or telling us how good it’s going to be when they get where they’re going. What It Is is a record that is rooted solidly in the present, revealing an artist in the emotional and intellectual here and now. hayescarll.com • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter Caroline SpenceThe third full-length from Caroline Spence, Mint Condition is an album narrated by people in various states of searching: alone on faraway highways, restless on rooftops in glamorous cities, stubbornly chasing their deepest dreams against all better judgment. With her poetic clarity and precision of detail, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter reveals the risk in setting out on an unconventional path, and subtly makes the case for living your own truth without compromise or fear. For Spence, the making of Mint Condition was an act of both self-reckoning and discovery. “People tell you to write about what you know, but a lot of the time I write about what I don’t know,” she says. “For me songs are a way to ask questions, and sometimes you end up figuring out the answers.” Despite some moments of self-doubt, Spence telegraphs a quiet self-assurance, a faith that she’ll someday embody the essence of the album’s title phrase—something weathered and delicate yet miraculously intact. “A lot of these songs come from a very tired-and-worn place,” says Spence, lifting a phrase from the title track. “There’s a sense of things not going my way and feeling rattled by that, but knowing deep down that it’s all part of getting to where you need to be.” Having won numerous songwriting awards from industry mainstays like the Kerrville Folk Festival, Spence has long been regarded as a best-kept secret in her scene, earning admiration from esteemed artists like Miranda Lambert and from her own fellow writers in the Nashville underground. Her debut for Rounder Records, Mint Condition follows Spades and Roses—a 2017 release praised by American Songwriter as “an album of stunning beauty and lasting impact.” In bringing Mint Condition to life, Spence worked with producer Dan Knobler (Lake Street Dive, Erin Rae) and recorded at his Nashville studio Goosehead Palace, landing a guest appearance from Emmylou Harris and enlisting musicians from Spence’s previous projects and live band. “It’s wonderful to step into a room full of people who already know me,” says Spence. “They have this unspoken understanding of my instincts, so it made the whole process really comfortable and collaborative.” The kinetic energy of that collaboration infuses all of Mint Condition, an album centered on Spence’s crystalline vocals and finespun melodies that soar and drift and sometimes gallop. One of the most anthemic tracks on the record, the sharp-edged yet swinging “Long Haul” delineates the many demands of the musician’s life, including the self-sabotage often required in sustaining passion (“I keep breaking everything I’m fixing, so I can be fixing to do it tomorrow night”). “That song is equal parts pep talk and confession, where I’m so determined to keep going with this way of life but I’m also recognizing how insane that is,” Spence notes. The sole co-written track on Mint Condition, “Song About a City,” written with Nashville artist Ashley Ray, illuminates the troubles brought on by a romantic temperament. “Anytime I see a song with a city or a state in the title I’m so drawn to it—I wish I could write a song about some great old town, but I always end up writing about relationships,” she says. “I think it’s because that’s the thing I don’t understand, the thing that makes me pick up the guitar every time: trying to figure out my place in the world with other people.” On “Angels or Los Angeles,” meanwhile, Spence offers up a cinematic piece of storytelling. With several lyrics mined from church signs and freeway warnings from a solo trip to Joshua Tree, the slow-building story-song puts its own spin on the classic runaway narrative (“It’s like a line in someone else’s love song/Her life, like some cowboy’s cliché”). “It’s not necessarily my story, but it’s not not my story,” Spence points out. “In a way I think that can be said for the entire record.” An especially personal song, “Sit Here and Love Me” elegantly uncovers the nuances of a very specific emotional experience. “I’m dating someone with an incredibly sunny disposition, and as a person who deals with depression and anxiety, I’ve had to explain all that to him while knowing he might never fully understand it,” says Spence. “That song is my way of saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s okay—you don’t have to try and fix anything for me. Just be exactly how you are.’” With its graceful piano melodies, “Sit Here and Love Me” gently unfolds in flashes of wisdom and insight (“Please recognize my shadow/This is the same place from where I love you deeply”). Mint Condition closes out with its breathtaking title track, a song with an enchanted history. “I remember sitting on the floor of my bedroom in 2013, at a point when I’d been writing a lot of woe-is-me breakup songs,” Spence recalls. “I gave myself a writing prompt that was something like, ‘Let’s write the opposite of all that; let’s think about the type of life you’d like to look back on when you’re older. Let’s write something good enough for Emmylou Harris to sing.’” Drawing inspiration from her grandmother, Spence then came up with “Mint Condition,” a moment of beautifully bittersweet reflection. Through a few serendipitous twists and turns, Spence eventually recorded the song with Harris herself, their two distinctly textured voices blending to spellbinding effect. “We lost my grandmother recently, and it was really meaningful to me to have her hear that version with Emmylou singing,” says Spence. “Everything came full-circle in this amazing way.” Spence’s affinity for Harris traces back to when her aunt worked at Asylum Records around the time that Harris recorded Wrecking Ball—an essential part of the soundtrack to Spence’s childhood. Born into an exceptionally music-loving family, the Charlottesville native started writing her own songs at age six and playing out in her hometown at 15. In 2015 she made her full-length debut with Somehow, a self-released effort featuring appearances by Anderson East, Erin Rae, and Andrew Combs (who later recorded one of Spence’s songs). With her debut winning the attention of Miranda Lambert (who posted about Somehow on her social media), Spence went on to deliver Spades and Roses and gain acclaim from outlets like NPR (who noted that the album “occupies that Nashville sound equally at home in honky-tonks and bedrooms”). In 2018—after working as a decidedly independent artist her whole career—Spence shared the early mixes for Mint Condition with Rounder Records, and soon signed with the label. “It feels really natural to come to them with this record, which is such a complete expression of who I am,” says Spence. Throughout Mint Condition, Spence shows the ever-expanding depth of her musicality, with the album encompassing everything from the full-tilt jangle-pop of “What You Don’t Know” to the stark atmospherics of “Sometimes a Woman Is an Island” to the ghostly folk of “Who Are You.” And on the heart-walloping “Wait on the Wine,” her tender vocals take on an entirely new power. “I wrote that one a few years ago, not ever thinking my voice could pull it off,” says Spence. “But the voice is a muscle, and I’ve put this muscle to work singing all around the country. Now I have that confidence and strength to belt the way I don’t think I could have when I was 23.” For Spence, that growth comes not only from spending countless hours on the road, but from purposefully preserving her truest intentions as a musician and artist. “At the end of the day, songwriting is what matters most to me and brings me the most joy,” she says. “I’ve worked hard to try to keep that fire going, and to protect that thing that made me want to write in the first place. I’m always just thinking about my 16-year-old self alone in the bedroom, because she knew what she was doing without anyone having to tell her. She’s the one who got me to where I am now.” carolinespencemusic.com • Facebook • Instagram • Twitter Hayes Carll Caroline Spence