Sandra McCracken

11.23.2006 -- Feature by: C. Eric Banister

AR: Where did you grow up?

SM: I grew up in Missouri, in St. Louis and had a big family, still do. All of them are still there in Missouri. I�ve been in Nashville about 11 years.

Were you exposed to a lot of different music growing up was music a big part of your family?

Yeah, it was. I am the only one that is a formal musician, but my Dad probably could have done that had he chose that route. He was much more into the songs and things, so that�s probably his one regret, but that�s probably where I got some of my musical instincts. I was the youngest and everybody kind of had different tastes in music. It�s funny how the term Americana is relatively a new term for something that�s been labeled for a very long time. When I grew up listening to music, one of the primary figures was Johnny Cash. Those records are so nostalgic for me because I remember the record player and those songs and my next oldest brother knew every word (laughs) and it was just so much a part the background of growing up. So, Johnny Cash and I remember the Eagles Greatest Hits record being on all the time and Olivia Newton-John. And a lot of that music, I guess later I came to find out was Country music, I didn�t really know it was Country music, I just thought it was what we listened to. (laughs) So it�s funny that I ended up in Nashville and kind of came back to those roots.

I know what you mean, that�s the way my brother and I grew up, we didn�t realize it was Country music or not, just that it was good music.

Yeah, (laughs) I guess it was, maybe, more of the Pop charts, there was kind of a blur between Pop and Country in a different way than the one we have today, seems like it is much more defined today, Country radio, at least. I think that�s one thing about the title of Americana, it also signifies that it Folk music, it signifies a much more organic, less formulaic, a much different spirit to it and I think the term has been helpful in that regard.

You are leaving on tour tomorrow, sponsored by Paste, how did that come together?

It was pretty organic. I guess, I met Katie Herzig and Jeremy Lister here in town, the Mercy Lounge has a does an �8 off 8th� on Monday nights, where they do, like, three songs from a handful of artists, I met them at a few of those nights and they are both immensely talented. And Matthew Jones and I have been really good friends for about seven years. So the two of them play together a lot and Matthew and I had been in community together for a long time, so it was a really natural fit to put together this tour. Originally, Katie York was going to be a part of this as well, but she had a few other commitments so it wasn�t going to work out, so it will be just the four of us. We just kind of pulled our resources as far as booking and markets. It just seemed like a good way to be supportive of each other and also to get in front of each others crowds.

So you�ve been playing some new places for you?

Yeah, I haven�t been to New York to play and a few of the Northeast markets I�ve only been to a handful of times so I am looking forward to that. And it�s the perfect time of year, I�ll have to dig out all of my sweaters (laughs). My suitcase is twice as big this time of year. But it will be good; we are going to some big songwriter towns, Boston, Pittsburgh. I�m forward to getting out there.

You release your albums independently and your husband [Derek Webb] released his last album for free download, do you feel like that is the way the industry is going?

Yeah, I mean, I think there probably will still be that other model, in some form or another, but I really feel like I�m at home with much more of a grassroots style. I think about the more comfortable I get with who I am as an artist, the more I realize that the tings I gravitate towards are typically not the things that come from the major label machine. I love hearing music that someone passes along to me, you know, something you heard from a friend that is under the radar and it�s just kind of untouched, unfiltered. I really enjoy that, I enjoy making music that way. It�s not necessarily all that difficult, it�s just a different set of parameters, you know? (laughs)

You think about artists like Sufjan Stevens whose record has made some impact on me in the last couple of years and he just kind of came out of nowhere, you know? I went to see him live and there was this huge� I mean, he packed the Ryman and it was this group of real young people that had surprisingly long attention spans to listen to these songs that are not commercial songs at all, yet rally wonderful. And you see things like that and think, �This is amazing.� This is not because someone packaged this and sold it to me. This is because this is truly something special and people will find it if it is. As an artist I guess I just focus on making the best art I can make and just really hoping that that will sustain it and get it out to people, that there will be some energy behind it.

There are days when I wish that I had more help and will be different stages where I will have more help than others (laughs). But as an artist I just have to stay focused on the things I can control about it, which is making music that I�m proud of.

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Has it been a conscious effort to stay independent?

Yeah, it has, it has been. It�s such a relational business. I tend to gravitate to people that I have a strong instinct about, and there have been a number of those people over the last six of seven years since I have been doing this full-time and I�m really fortunate to have had that. But, you know, its little bits at a time, trying to find those people that you connect with either a manager or I�ve worked with a label in London, this guy named Dave Robinson who has been a major player in the UK music business for the last thirty years. I�ve just gained some tremendous experience getting to work with people like that and just kind of see where that goes and where that takes me to the next thing and see where that takes you as an artist.

But it has been intentional. I have… I just don�t think I am suited to just signing everything over to have someone do everything for me. I don�t think it would be healthy for me, even though it is appealing at times (laughs).

Tell us a little about the Square Peg Alliance.

That�s another thing that, it�s a group of us that just naturally are friends and supportive of each other just trying to build on something that maybe was already there. Just a way of continuing to push each other in front of new people and to kind of band together to either create a new opportunity or awareness, just cross-pollination between our fan bases and the work that we do. It has helped to strengthen both our audiences, like at shows, and you typically find a lot of people that if they like one� even though we are all different artists, there is overlap in what we do. So, it seems to work. Here in Nashville there is a small club called Radio Caf� and we�ve been doing these kind of spontaneous, casual shows there. Just any combination of us will get up and play in the round and it�s been, I guess, the last two months, last two and a half months, we�ve been doing them almost weekly and it�s been so fun. You just never know who�s going to be there, who�s going to play or what songs they�re going to play, so it�s been really great. We may cut that tie back to once a month for a while just because it�s that busy time of year for everybody. They�re free shows; we just kind of do it to enjoy one another and just to generate some energy around what we�re doing. It�s been great.

What kind of songwriter are you: the kind that just writes when inspiration strikes or the disciplined kind that sets a time to concentrate on writing?

I do a little bit of both. Traditionally, I�ve only done songwriting when it hits which I kind of need to be inspired and around the house and I need kind of a clear head for that, so, with all of the traveling that can be kind of hard, because you�re not by yourself very much (laughs). But in the last few years I have started to do more co-writing and that�s been really challenging and rewarding at the same time, just to have a writing appointment and you have no idea what you�re going to� you have no idea whether you are inspired that day at all (laughs). But the combination of two or three people you get in and the ideas start coming and it�s really�a lot of times you walk out with something you didn�t even know was inside of you, because of those people on that day, that�s what brought out the song. So I�m learning more of the discipline songwriting and how to channel that and make the most of that. But these last few months it�s been harder. I think it is seasonal; you just have� like I have a season where I am recording and just pouring into a particular record and then a season where you are excited about those new songs and playing those new songs. And that starts to taper a little bit just being on the road and kind of being worn out from that and then that�s usually when the new songs start coming (laughs). So it is a natural ebb and flow that pushes you forward into new material.

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How did the song �Goodbye George� come about?

That was a writers retreat�well, I was touring and promoting a record produced in London and I meet the Hansons actually, for the first time in London and did some shows together because we had some connection with their manager and it turned out to be really fun. They have a great, really energetic fan base that really embraced me and it was a blast. So I got to know them a little bit and they put together this writers retreat, pretty much annually or whenever they can pull it off, at their ranch in Tulsa. They bring in all of these different artists from all over the place, different kinds of artists and puts people together and for five days everybody just gets together and writes songs and records. That particular arrangement was Zach Hanson, who is the youngest, but he�s not 11 anymore, he�s actually mid-twenties and very talented (laughs) and Blue who�s an artist who was known in Boston at the time, and, man, that was one of those songs that happened very quickly and we recorded it quickly. The version, I mean, I never would have thought we were writing something to go on a record, we were just totally not even thinking about anything like that (laughs), but that particular version had such a spark that Ray Kennedy went back and re-mixed it and put it on analog. It�s actually the demo, after Ray Kennedy�s magic, it�s the demo that�s on the record (laughs). I guess it was just an inspired performance and moment. The three of us were kind of the ones that sang and played everything on that; Blue played a lot of the instruments. And I really enjoy playing it live, it�s such a fun song, it sort of plays itself.

Do you like to write songs that are a little more open to interpretation by the listener?

Yeah, I think, from my very first record I was very intentional to leave space in the songs so that even just selfishly I could continue to put myself into them. You know, you write them about a specific emotion or trying to contain a certain emotion or convey a certain story or feeling, but then if you write enough layers of dimension into it, into the lyrics, and leave enough space in the melody, then I have found that when I come back to those same songs years later they can come alive to me in new ways. So that�s always been, in the back of my mind, one of the goals is to keep the songs open ended enough to where they can be re-interpreted experienced in ways that I didn�t intend or even knew I was doing at the time. That�s a very abstract concept, obviously, and I�ve thought more about that, just in terms of songwriting and as I�ve learned more about songwriting, as a craft, which is sort of an endless teacher (laughs). But there are times when I think, maybe I need to write more specifically, more literally and thought is that a better way to connect with people or to an audience and, again, I think that there�s a balance. I think a song like �Gravity� at the time I was writing it I wasn�t really sure where I was going with it. And I didn�t really know, I mean, it was very stream of consciousness as I was writing the lyric and the melody and the way it all kind of fit together, and then as I stepped back it really seemed it was such a thematic song for the record because it had that idea of the apple that falls from the tree and the imagery of that is� it kind of signifies change, it signifies the apple had to drop in May to produce new trees, the crash to become something else. In this case I thought that song really captured something of becoming and of really figuring out who you are and, again, I really didn�t know, I wasn�t completely mindful of that at the time of writing it (laughs). But it ends up communicating a pretty complete thought, surprisingly. And every song is different, but I think the best songs for me have a very strong emotion that sort of happens without me knowing what�s happening, where I kind of take something that is going on internally and other people can resonate in the same place, that they respond to it.

That was a long answer (laughs) I�m not sure it answered�

No, that was a good answer. Any new projects in the works?

No, just continuing to tour and letting people know about the new record, still really enjoying playing the songs and the response has been really great from that, they seem to immediately connect�they both seem very personal to me and they also seem to immediately really connect with audiences, who are usually hearing these songs for the first time. So I�m enjoying that. And my husband is starting a new album in January, so whenever either of us is working on a record it becomes part of, you know, it takes up some brain space for both of us (laughs), so I�ve just been thinking and spurring him on towards that, which is coming up soon. I think it will probably be Spring before I am ready to start thinking about another project.

More info: www.sandramccracken.com