We have the pleasure in sharing this song premiere from Coty Hogue‘s new album Flight released 26 May 2016. She shared this with us on the song Poor Ellen Smith.
In addition to writing my own songs, I’m also very rooted in the traditional music world, particularly those songs rooted in Appalachia. Whenever I’m drawn to any of these songs, there is always some core essence of it that I’m drawn to and then I like to listen to a lot of different versions and explore the things that really make the song tick for me. With Poor Ellen Smith, there’s so many different versions out there, but what I wanted to really bring to the front was not only the haunting element there is to the song but also the drive and confict that is presented by just having the narrative be from the perspective of Ellen’s murderer.
One funny thing about recording this song is it was originally the only song that we recorded in Nashville that we were not going to have Missy Raines lay down a bass part. And then when we got everything recorded, it was just so obvious that that was a terrible choice! I’m glad she was willing to come back in and put down a bass track, because now I think that bass is the central drive of the song. I don’t know what we were thinking, but I’m glad we changed our mind about that choice!
Every winter, flocks of yellowthroat warblers are pulled south, feathers beaten by the winds of instinct, beaks opened in songs of self-discovery. In Pacific Northwest songwriter Coty Hogue’s new album, Flight, released May 26th, there’s a similar impulse; a delicious affinity for transcendence through movement, understanding through the oneness of nature.
This affinity took her on a remarkable cross-country bicycle trip, during which Hogue pedaled 4000 miles between her home in Bellingham, WA to the American South. She brings forth Flight as the fruits of that labor– as her physical and psychological search for answers. Recorded in Nashville, TN at Rec Room Studio, Flight also highlights the often-made pilgrimage between more rural outposts and Nashville, the nest of American roots music. Some of the best acoustic musicians, like guitarists Molly Tuttle and bass player Missy Raines, fiddler Kat Bula, and mandolinist John Mailander, finalize Flight into a beautifully articulate album of truths that mixes tinges of Northwest melancholy with Appalachian balladry.
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