Quick Q & A with Jenee Halstead

Jenee Halstead, who grew up in Washington State and now lives in Massachusetts, is a gifted singer-songwriter with a beautiful voice. Her self-released debut album, The River Grace, whose sound is rooted in the past yet beckons the progression of Americana, has received considerable airplay by folk radio DJs across the country in recent months. Halstead’s sound is “fresh and new, yet familiar and timeless,” says the longtime manager of Cambridge, Massachusetts’ famed Club Passim. Visit www.myspace.com/jeneehalstead to hear a few of her songs.

Ethan Baird, a Boston area musician like Jenee, recently posed a few questions to her. More information can be found on her website.

First off, The River Grace is a beautiful album — there is a very distinctive feel to it — a really unique blend of southern and Midwestern regional imagery and sounds. What I really like about the album is its consistency — by which I mean the disc top to bottom really feels like a road trip and the tracks are just legs of the journey. The album really stands on its own as a work of art. Was this a conscious decision on you and Evan Brubaker’s (your producer) part, or is it more reflective of the style [in which] you write and perform?

Thank you. Well, it is funny you ask this question because I think most of the studio work was a great exercise in faith from both Evan and I. I was really putting full trust into Evan and the way he works. Although I didn’t know exactly how this was…I didn’t know Evan that well other than a few great phone conversations and a quick weekend hang out. The conversations were enough for me to know that whatever we ended up doing would be great because our fundamental ideas about how to create music were similar. I wanted to make an album [that was] something with a complete feel from front to back that you could sit down with and go for a ride.

I don’t know if either of us had an exact idea of how we wanted the album to sound. We had talked about making an “old-timey” sounding album inspired by the likes of Welch/Rawlings and some of the music that came from the aftermath of the “Oh Brother” movie. I had sent him about twenty or so songs I was working on via mp3, and when I got to his house I sat down with his wife Megan Peters, who gave me a crash course in songwriting that made my head spin. I worked with her over the eleven-day session honing my songs and getting my butt kicked, while Evan whittled away with ideas and our studio players.

I think what makes the album the most cohesive is the players we chose to have and the way Evan works with them. The best example of this would be keyboardist extraordinaire, Steve Moore, who I absolutely love from his work with songwriter Laura Viers. He was definitely the wild card in the group that would turn the album away from an old-timey sound into something with endless possibilities. When Evan said he was in town for a few days and available to play, I knew in that moment we would be creating something totally different from what I had in my mind’s eye. I was definitely scared, I won’t lie, but it is a great example of how wonderful life can be when we don’t try to control and plan things according to our strict ideas.

So, basically, what Evan does with the studio musicians (without giving his formula away) is to have them play a few warm-up tracks, then lay down about four to five “safe tracks” with clean playing that may not be off the hook, but would be just fine to use. Then he has them end with two or three “a**-hole” tracks where they play the stuff that is crazy and off the cuff. These usually turned out to be the coolest and most experimental tracks. Then we/he listened back and picked the one(s) we/he liked best to use on the song. This way breeds a lot of creativity and fun.

As far as the songs go, I think Megan Peters’ “Reach Up” was the song that brought the entire album together. I needed something that was a little bit bluegrass, old-timey and folky. It is the only cover on the album and when she played it for me one morning I knew I had to sing it.

What is your favorite song to perform? And if you were the author how did it come to you? How did you write it?

I really love “St. Peter.” It was actually my least favorite song on the album. It is always funny the way that works. I wrote that song years and years prior, but was having such a difficult time bringing it to the table because the subject matter was so utterly depressing I just couldn’t give myself permission to play it. Megan (Evan’s wife) helped me re-write the third verse and title it, and because of this it turned into a sad song, but not one that was unlistenable (which is the way I felt about it before). She helped me take it one step away from being too personal to something with universal feel and even some a sense of healing or resolve in the end that it didn’t have before. I love to sing it live. It just turned out to be one of those great live songs.

Was there a single catalyst that made you realize that music was something you wanted to pursue professionally or was it more of a reflection on where and how you grew up?

I definitely think it was a reflection of how I grew up. My father worshiped musicians and songwriters. I spent my earliest years dancing to James Brown, waking up to Zeppelin, listening to Dylan and Joni at the breakfast table. Songs were a world of magic in my life as a child and I had my own personal ipod 🙂 plugged into my brain that I could access anytime. These words saved me during times that made no sense and brought me immeasurable joy in my happiest moments. I just love and live for song. I would contribute this to my father’s passion for sure, although I must have had it inside me as well.

Ethan Baird is a vocalist and guitarist with the Boston Based-band known as Pesky J. Nixon. He also assists with sound for a number of area venues, including the Me and Thee Coffeehouse in Marblehead, Massachusetts, on whose blog this originally appeared.