Buddy Miller

This week’s voice to hear is Buddy Miller. Buddy calls Nashville home and is an in demand session player and producer as well as a superb songwriter and singer. He also records with his wife Julie. Besides country music Buddy considers himself a Christian singer, though it might not be quite the church music you’re used to.

Buddy started out playing in a bluegrass band in high school. After traveling the country playing his guitar he ended up in New York with the Buddy Miller Band with a young Shawn Colvin singing and playing guitar. After a few years of this he ended up moving to Nashville. Along the way he met and fell in love and eventually married Julie.

Buddy is the leader of Emmylou Harris’ band and has helped produce her more recent albums. She has called Buddy one of the best guitar players of all time. He has gained fame as a songwriter, with artists such as the Dixie Chicks, Lee Ann Womack and Brooks and Dunn covering his songs.

Buddy is not just a behind the scenes person though. He has stepped out front to write and sing his own songs, as a solo act and with his wife Julie. He has released 7 albums between his solo career and with Julie.

His most recent disc is Universal United House of Prayer. It’s a country album that rocks, a protest album, a gospel album…there are many things this album could be called, among them I would call it great. This is a theme album and the theme is the soul. He writes of the problems the word is facing today and their impact it has on the soul. The centerpiece of the album is his covering the Bob Dylan classic “With God on Our Side.”

Even more recent Buddy has produced a new album for soul great Solomon Burke called Nashville. His album Universal United House of Prayer won the 2005 Album of the Year award from the Americana Music Awards.

Buddy is widely sought after for his musical skills and knowledge, both as a guitar player and a producer in Nashville. He continues to tour with Emmylou Harris and record with others as well as put out his own music and record with his wife Julie. It’s been a few years since he put out his last album so hopefully he has something new coming out soon.

Marah

This week’s voice to hear is a departure from what we’ve done so far. Instead of a single voice, we’re going to talk about a group. The group is called Marah and they hail from Philadelphia. Basically the group is two brothers, Dave and Serge Bielanko and whoever else they let in. Over the years they have had quite a few players come and go in the band, while they remained the constant. They’ve recorded six albums and one of them was a Christmas album.

On their MySpace page they call their music “technicolor folk-punk-rock” and I think that’s about a good definition of it as I could come up. How many rock bands use a banjo?

Besides making great music the band also comes up some of the best song and album titles ever. Their first album was called Let’s Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later On Tonight. Their most recent album is called If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry. One of their early songs was titled “The History of Where Someone Was Killed.”

Early in their career Marah was labeled in with the alt-country crowd and it wasn’t exactly a place they wanted to find themselves in. The presences of the banjo made people think they had to be alt-country. Which they weren’t. What they are is rock n roll, or as they put it “Technicolor folk-punk-rock.”

Marah has self produced five of their six releases. They’ve worked with artists like Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen. Stephen King called If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry the best album of the year upon its release.

Marah has also given me one of the most fun concerts I have ever been to. Last year they performed at the Parish Room at the House of Blues. This is the upstairs smaller room, for artists that can’t open in the main room of the HOB. I don’t think there were more than 100 people, and if there were that many I’m being generous, there that night. But it didn’t stop the group from putting on a great show.

Towards the end of the show Dave jumped down from the stage onto the floor. He called all the people in the audience to him and had us all sit on the floor around him as he talked and sang. It was one of the most unique concert experiences I have ever had.

I’ve always read about groups like R.E.M. and the Police that started out playing clubs they said with fifty people in the audience. I always thought that would be really cool to see a concert like that, for someone that later became big and you can say I saw them when. I really feel like I had that experience with Marah. Marah is a band filled with excitement and that excitement translates onto the album and in concert. They sing about people trying to live their lives with all the problems that come with that; money and faith and love and the occasional beer and party in there. This is a band to watch out for.