-[male narrator 1] This program is brought to you in part by Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Strings.

-[male narrator 2] Also brought to you by Paige Capos and by Peluso Microphone Lab.

Additional support provided by these sponsors.

Hello, and welcome to The Life of a Musician .

Tonight's episode is recorded live from Station West in Nashville, Tennessee.

Let's step inside and listen.

-Welcome to The Life of a Musician .

I'm your host, Brandon Adams, and we're excited today to be coming to you from Station West in Nashville, Tennessee, with the amazing Brianna Harris.

Brianna, howdy.

-Howdy, howdy.

Good to be here.

-Good.

Well, it's good to have you.

It's good to have you sitting here at this big mixing board that I envy yourself, and just excited.

Wow.

You came all the way-- you came all the way from Florida up here to be with us.

-I did.

-Grateful for that.

And brother Carl Jackson, I was talking-- I would just tell the story.

I was sitting back, and I was looking for artists for Season 3.

I remembered that Carl had mentioned your name, and I started checking out some of your music and I was blown away.

It was just different and good at the same time.

It was just the right combination of not what you always hear, but it was still really cool and really good and really--in a good way, left of center, I guess, would be what comes to my mind.

-So different in a good way.

-Different in a good way.

-I'm good with that.

-That's awesome.

Well, tell us a little bit about yourself.

-So for most of my life, I was in a band with my family.

They actually started the band when I was five, so I don't really remember a time before we had abnormal lives I guess you could say.

-[Brandon] Mm-hm.

-They started when I was five.

I started playing the fiddle when I was six, so it got me going pretty quick.

I said I liked the fiddle, and Dad was, like, "In your hands, get it in your hands."

So put me in fiddle lessons, and then, like, the original... band and everything, it was just my sister, my brother, my dad and my mom, until, you know, I got thrown into the mix, and I could actually play an instrument.

And we played for about 14 years.

So I went full time on stage with them when I was 11, and we toured all across the country pretty much year round.

We got a couple of breaks every now and then, but it was almost every weekend for years that we would just-- we'd come home for a few days, go back on the road and, you know, hit festivals, churches, any place that we could play.

And we played our last show in 2021, when I was 19, I think 19.

And, yeah, it was-- it was kind of a hard decision to make, to go from, you know, being a band, and that being like, I mean, that was all I knew.

Being five and like, with that starting, and then they went full time.

Like my parents quit their jobs, we went full time as a band I think, when I was about eight, so--eight or nine.

So I don't really remember a time before I knew how to play, or a time before my family did.

-Right.

-That's just like growing up in that.

I didn't really see a different path for myself outside of that.

So in 2020 when we had that, like fateful conversation and decided that, you know, it was time to-- all of us to go our different ways.

You know, my sister was married and expecting her first kid, and her and her husband were in Tennessee.

My brother got a job opportunity working as, like, the production manager for our local church.

So it was just kind of like, naturally, like we saw that God was just like, taking us into different directions.

Granted, I had no idea what my direction would be.

I was kind of like, "Oh, well, this is what my life was.

What do I do now?"

And in the midst of all of, like-- because it was COVID too.

So, like, COVID shutdowns, all of that.

In the midst of all of that, and, you know, being grounded, basically for the first time in years, not playing with them.

We just--I don't know, we just had a breather, and I just started writing.

Now, not to say like I had never tried to write before-- keyword "try"-- just nothing ever that was good.

But in 2020, for some reason, I guess it was just the year for it all to come out.

I started writing, and wrote my first song during COVID, I think it was like in May sometime, and then "Clyde" came shortly after that and it all just unraveled from there.

You know, everybody is doing their own thing, and now I'm-- I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I can actually be like a singer songwriter."

-All right.

It's pretty awesome what you've done.

And I want to get back to Clyde-- we want to explain who Clyde is here in just a second.

But one thing I remember Carl telling me was, "She's a fabulous guitar player because she doesn't quite know everything that she's doing.

She just finds it."

And when I started listening to what you sent me, I'm like, you're doing fantastic.

It's really great.

And when you told me over the phone, "I just follow my ear," that--that right there is kind of a mark of just brilliance, because you are following your ear, but it's actually landing in good places.

I mean, you can follow your ear and it leads you down "That doesn't sound very good at all."

But what is happening for you is it's landing in the good spots.

And you got these just amazing voicings that, just to be honest, I'm going to try to play Phil's today and not mess you up too bad.

Because it's just so beautiful what you're doing.

And I hope the folks back home, you know, when they hear it, they'll just really appreciate that this is all coming from the heart, and it's all coming from the ear, and that's really unique in this business, you know.

-Well, I mean, I—Carl, like he, Carl Jackson, who our mutual friend is, you know, who got us together.

He, you know, when he first heard one of my songs, I didn't really think anything of my writing.

I was just kind of writing to, like, just because I wanted to, and it was coming out.

So I was like, "Okay, this is, this is cool.

I can do this now."

And I sent him one of my songs, and he was like, the first person outside of my family to tell me that what I was doing was good.

And, you know, not that my family doesn't have an ear for music, because obviously they did, but you know, you never like fully trust... -Well, you can't believe them.

-You can't like fully trust family, because there's always that bias there.

And I know that I've known Carl for years, so it wasn't like I, you know, thought there was no bias, but at the same time, I knew that he would never lie to me and tell me something that he didn't 100 percent believe.

So hearing that from him, it was like the first time I went, "Oh, am I actually good at this?"

[laughs] And I just kind of was like, "Oh, maybe this is like, what I'm like, supposed to do."

So it was just--and I try to just follow my ear and not get in my own head about it, and second guess myself at this point.

-Well, and that's a beautiful thing when you can do what you're doing, or in the process of doing.

It turns out uniqueness, and that was the most that stuck out to me, was how unique you're going about things.

And anyways, I don't want to just keep repeating myself on that.

Just unique is kind of the theme for the episode, but talented and unique.

But why don't you tell us a little bit about "Clyde" and this first song, and we'll go right into it, and we'll try to, I'll try to pick it without messing you up too bad.

I might just stick on one note... ♪ ♪ ♪ the whole time.

[chuckles] But tell us a little bit about it.

-It's actually inspired by a movie that I happened to like walk in on when my parents were watching it, and it was, I think, called The Highwaymen .

And it was about the... like, following the highwaymen that caught Bonnie and Clyde.

And just watching that movie, it was just like a completely new perspective on Bonnie and Clyde.

Obviously, like everybody knows who, like Bonnie and Clyde is.

But following that movie, there was a particular scene, I think it was Kevin Costner, think it was his character was talking to Clyde's dad.

And there was that scene where his dad, instead of defending him or anything like that, he was just like, "He won't stop, he won't stop running," like, "You're just gonna have to catch him."

And it just made me think of Bonnie and Clyde in a whole new light, because growing up hearing those names, you think, "Oh, the famous thieves," you know, almost like Robin Hood, like people kind of built them up like a steal from the rich, give to the poor kind of thing.

So, you know their names but I just never thought of it from their, like, their loved ones' perspective.

So after that scene, I just had this different image of them, and I wanted to write just like a song, almost trying to humanize him a little bit, I guess, specifically him.

He was the one I was-- because it was his dad, he was the one that I was drawn to for the song.

And I just ended up doing some research on them.

And I actually got the song inspiration and wrote down some really clunky lyrics the year before, and I wrote it-- I actually wrote the song a year later.

So it was just inspired, technically, by that scene of that movie, but overall, by Clyde of-- Bonnie and Clyde.

-Awesome.

Well, lay it on us.

-All right.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh, Clyde ♪ ♪ Won't you tell me ♪ ♪ What made you fall so far From your tree ♪ ♪ Most will say ♪ ♪ Evil is born ♪ ♪ But you always had a heart ♪ ♪ A little too torn ♪ ♪ Between wrong or right Good or bad ♪ ♪ Wondering which would be Your path ♪ ♪ The choice was made ♪ ♪ When you let her replace ♪ ♪ The angel on your shoulder ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Life of running ♪ ♪ That's your story ♪ ♪ You couldn't trick your fate ♪ ♪ By tearing out a page ♪ ♪ All that running ♪ ♪ Brought you to your knees ♪ ♪ How did it end that way ♪ ♪ Who helped them Dig your grave ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh Clyde ♪ ♪ Please help me see ♪ ♪ Where did they go so wrong ♪ ♪ In your raising ♪ ♪ One taste of sin ♪ ♪ Made you an addict ♪ ♪ Every life you took ♪ ♪ Fueled your habit ♪ ♪ From her locks of hair To your left ear ♪ ♪ Anything they could get For souvenirs ♪ ♪ Justice won And yet they cried ♪ ♪ Ignorance always chooses Their own side ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Life of running ♪ ♪ What a sad story ♪ ♪ You couldn't trick your fate ♪ ♪ By tearing out a page ♪ ♪ All that running ♪ ♪ Brought you to your knees ♪ ♪ How'd you end that way ♪ ♪ Who helped them ♪ ♪ Dig your grave ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -And we end it on that, that note.

That was pretty dang cool.

A little bit funky for me, because I was like, "Oh crap, I just missed that one note.

"And that's okay, I'll just edit it out later.

I'll just turn my mic all the way down on that one note."

-Edit it out.

Oh, I'm not afraid to admit I mess up.

-Frequently.

-Oh, I mean-- -I just do it.

-Who doesn't?

Who doesn't?

-That was absolutely beautiful.

-And, like, literally, you're just following your ear when you're writing that, putting those chords behind it.

-Pretty much.

I started playing the guitar when I was about--I honestly, I don't have an exact age, because when I first started, I didn't have my own guitar.

We just had like a travel guitar.

And my dad played guitar.

My sister plays guitar.

My brother just somehow, like, one day, he just knew it.

He just--he's like that.

He just knows that.

He just knows every instrument he picks up.

And so I was-- everybody knew what the guitar and even I was like, meeting other fiddle players and people in bluegrass, and just everyone knew how to play the guitar and I was like, "I need to learn how to play the guitar."

So I started just picking it up whenever I could steal Dad's or steal the travel guitar, and just like when I had, like, a few minutes, I just, I'd learn a chord, or I'd try to learn a song, um, but I didn't really, like have consistent practice on it until probably maybe around 2019 or 2018, I started putting a little bit more effort into it.

Even then, though, I was still just getting my bearings with it and just learning as many songs as I could that I wanted to learn.

And a lot of the songs I was being drawn to were finger-- like finger-picking songs, or songs that had, like a vocal over a guitar hook, or like a guitar melody almost.

And those were the songs that I just found myself really pulling a lot of inspiration from and loving listening to.

And I think it was just from learning those different songs, like those different styles.

There was one that I learned... actually, this was the hook of it.

♪ ♪ ♪ That was one of the first songs I learned that you have to sing over that while you're doing that.

And so it's from there that it just kind of like exploded for me and I was like, "Whoa, I love finger-picking."

-That was your eureka moment.

-That wa--yeah.

That was my eureka moment.

-The epiphany.

-Yeah.

So I think when I just started writing, that just translated into how I hear the music I want to write in my head.

I just, I don't hear just like kind of strumming or anything like that.

A lot of it is like a melody under whatever I'm singing.

And, you know, sometimes, like, usually for me, songwriting, I know not everyone's like this, but I almost never have lyrics first.

I mean, of course, I have, like, a list of like 100 notes in my phone of song ideas.

But for me to actually get a song done, it almost always starts with guitar, whether that's just some chords, a little, um, for "Clyde," it was that hook.

I remember I was out in the studio, and I was just playing that hook, and then I did that, and the words just kind of came out.

So it's having that bass line, it's like it--it pulls the words out of me, having that melody.

So usually for me, songwriting, guitar part, melody, all of that usually comes first, and then it kind of inspires the lyrics.

-Awesome.

That's truly cool.

Well, what's the next song you want to put on us?

Tell us a little bit about "Sarah" before we sing it for us.

-So "Sarah"-- I just realized too that the only two originals that I'm doing today are both just people's names.

I didn't really plan it that way, it just--it happened to happen.

"Sarah" is about Sarah Carter, and I pulled my inspiration from not just like, the Carter family, but specifically, again, I just got honed in on that one person.

I was like, "What was in your head?"

kind of thing.

And it's a little bit of a question song, I guess kind of like "Clyde" is.

But I started doing more research about the Carter family and their story, and learning about... how they came to be and their legacy and all of that.

And I got really interested in the part with Sarah and how, you know, while they were still a band like her and AP separated.

And, you know, through that, she ended up, like, actually getting remarried and moving to California and leaving, you know, music behind, and her kids, even though, I think they were grown at the time, like they were still in Virginia with their dad, and he was, you know, running the general store.

So it was really interesting to me that, you know, after like a decade or more of them playing together, she just, like, moved to the other side of the country and just needed something new, I guess.

And so it just-- I think it drew me in because I just was curious about it, and I wanted to ask questions, and I didn't have anyone to ask the questions for.

So I wrote a song.

That's--I guess, that's what I do when I have questions that are unanswered.

And so I ended up just kind of writing this song.

I didn't want to be... disrespectful or anything of like what happened, or what she chose to do, or anything that came to be.

But I just thought it was really interesting, because in music, I guess not just in music, but I feel like when someone hits a certain level of fame, everybody is quick to forget that they're a person and forget that they're a human.

And just because they're famous, just because they're, you know, good at singing, or just because, you know, they have a lot of people that love them, doesn't mean that they just become a robot that can perform whenever someone snaps their fingers, or that they just suddenly don't have, you know, emotions like everyone else does, or struggles or things in life that have to change.

So I really just kind of wanted, again, I just wanted this song to humanize her a little bit, I guess, and ask those questions without any kind of, like, malice, or anything like that behind it.

It's just--like I said, I-- I feel like it just makes her a person, as opposed to Sarah Carter, part of the great Carter family.

It's, you know, remembering that, yeah, they're fantastic, and their legacy is amazing, and what they did, but they had, like, struggles, like everybody does, and life just doesn't always go to plan, even if you're traveling in your band and you're doing what you love, so.

-So you're humanizing it?

-Humanizing it.

Yeah, I think that's like the word of the day, -humanizing.

-Humanizing.

Well, humanize it for us little bit there.

♪ ♪ ♪ -My hair is not in the mic, is it?

Just making sure.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ What's it like In California?

♪ ♪ I heard it's sunny every day ♪ ♪ Is it true, if so ♪ ♪ Do you ever miss the rain?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Was it too loud By the ocean?

♪ ♪ For it's in the hills You remain ♪ ♪ Could it be You needed one thing ♪ ♪ To stay the same?

♪ ♪ California ♪ ♪ California ♪ New life, new love ♪ ♪ A clean slate ♪ ♪ But Sarah ♪ ♪ Oh, Sarah ♪ ♪ I wonder if the music Calls your name ♪ ♪ From many miles away ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ When you go back to Virginia ♪ ♪ Sing the old songs From before ♪ ♪ Is it bittersweet ♪ ♪ Do you leave Longing for more?

♪ ♪ Oh, Virginia ♪ ♪ Virginia ♪ Old life, old love ♪ ♪ A familiar ache ♪ ♪ But Sarah ♪ ♪ Oh, Sarah ♪ ♪ Can you hear the music Calling your name?

♪ ♪ Are you too many miles away ♪ ♪ Can you hear ♪ ♪ The rain?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ -That was pretty.

-[Brianna chuckles] That was really, really pretty.

And that just summed it all up.

It was so pretty that I was like, "You know, I don't think I want to try to clash these chords with my own voice [indistinct]."

♪ ♪ ♪ That was really beautiful.

Thank you very much for playing that for us.

-Thank you.

I got-- honestly, even though it's one of my most recents, it's probably one of my favorites that I've written so far.

I just--it really felt like-- when I was writing it, I was like, "Okay, I feel like this is good."

-Yeah, it moves you-- if nothing else, if it moves you personally as an artist, it was worth it.

You know, that's how I've always felt about it: "Man, I've got a song that makes me happy."

But I just want to say thank you very, very much for coming all the way to Florida, here to Nashville, to do all of this with us.

And let me thank the folks back home.

Just be right back one second.

Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of The Life Of A Musician with Briana Harris and Station West in Nashville, Tennessee.

And well, I just want to, you know, this is one of the times that in my head, you know, the producer kind of kicked in and said, "I want to take the episode out on this last song."

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Yesterday, I woke up crying ♪ ♪ My pillow stained with tears ♪ ♪ It's somewhat mystifying ♪ ♪ After all these years ♪ ♪ But the proof laying On the cotton ♪ ♪ Can't pretend that I've Forgotten you and me ♪ ♪ It hit me out of nowhere ♪ ♪ You're like A brand new old memory ♪ ♪ Today, I started dialing ♪ ♪ Your number by mistake ♪ ♪ Made it through The seventh number ♪ ♪ Old habits hard to break So instead of... ♪ -[male narrator 2] Thank you for being a part of our show.

We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of The Life of a Musician .

♪ How it hits you Out of nowhere ♪ ♪ A brand new old memory ♪ ♪ Like a sudden bolt Of lightning ♪ ♪ It can cut you Like a knife... ♪ -[male narrator 1] This program is brought to you in part by Santa Cruz Guitar Company and Santa Cruz Parabolic Tension Strings.

-[male narrator 2] Also brought to you by Paige Capos and by Peluso Microphone Lab.

Additional support provided by these sponsors.