Rodney Crowell

With more than 40 years of American roots music under his belt, Texas native RODNEY CROWELL is a two-time Grammy Award winner who has written fifteen #1 hits with five Number One hits of his own and a legacy of songwriting excellence which has made him an icon among giants. With strong roots in country music, Crowell has written chart-topping hits for the likes of Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Keith Urban and more. But owing to the distinctly universal, literary quality of his writing, has also penned beloved songs for artists as diverse as Bob Seger, Etta James, the Grateful Dead, John Denver, Jimmy Buffett and countless others. A member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Crowell is also the author of the acclaimed memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, and teamed up with New York Times best-selling author Mary Karr for Kin: Songs by Mary Karr & Rodney Crowell in 2012, with Karr saying of her collaborator, “Like Hank Williams or Townes Van Zandt or Miss Lucinda, he writes and croons with a poet’s economy and a well digger’s deep heart.” Crowell was honored with ASCAP’s prestigious Founder’s Award in 2017, and that same year released the album Close Ties, which spawned another Grammy nomination for “It Ain’t Over Yet” with Rosanne Cash and John Paul White in the category of Best Americana Song. In 2018, he opened his own record label, RC1 Records, and released Acoustic Classics in 2018 and TEXAS in 2019. Also in 2019, Crowell received the Academy of Country Music’s Poet’s Award. His latest album, Triage, was released last July to much critical acclaim.

John Hiatt

John Robert Hiatt is an American singer-songwriter. He has played a variety of musical styles on his albums, including new wave, blues, and country. Hiatt has been nominated for nine Grammy Awards and has been awarded a variety of other distinctions in the music industry.

Hiatt was working as a songwriter for Tree International, a record label in Nashville, Tennessee when his song “Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here” was covered by Three Dog Night. The song became a Top 40 hit, earning Hiatt a recording contract with Epic Records. Since then he has released 22 studio albums, two compilation albums, and one live album.

A variety of artists in multiple genres have covered his songs, including Rosanne Cash, Aaron Neville, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Chaka Khan, Albert Lee, Dave Edmunds, Delbert McClinton, Desert Rose Band, Emmylou Harris, Eric Clapton, Iggy Pop, I’m with Her, Jeff Healey, Jewel, Jimmy Buffett, Joan Baez, Joe Bonamassa, Joe Cocker, Keith Urban, Linda Ronstadt, Mandy Moore, Maria Muldaur, Marti Jones, Nick Lowe, Paula Abdul, Paulini, Rodney Crowell, Marshall Crenshaw, Ry Cooder, Suzy Bogguss, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, The Searchers, Three Dog Night, Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, Don Henley, and Willy DeVille. The Dutch singer-songwriter Ilse DeLange recorded the album Dear John with nine of his songs.

Peter Asher

Peter Asher, is an English guitarist, singer, manager and record producer. He came to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the pop music vocal duo Peter and Gordon before going on to a successful career as a manager and record producer, helping to foster the recording careers of James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt among others. As of 2018, he tours alongside Jeremy Clyde of Chad and Jeremy in a new duo entitled Peter and Jeremy, where they perform hits from both of their respective catalogues. In 2019, Asher published a book The Beatles from A to Zed about his personal reminiscences about the band.

Beth Nielsen Chapman

Beth Nielsen Chapman has taught worldwide in many venues, including the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, and Berklee College of Music. In October 2016, she was inducted into the Nashville Songwriting Hall of Fame

A Nashville-based artist and successful Grammy-nominated songwriter with many hits and 14 solo albums, Beth Nielsen Chapman has always been passionate about teaching. Her creative expression has navigated deep life-changing experiences including the loss of her husband to cancer in 1994, her own bout with breast cancer in 2000, and a brain tumor in 2009. Coming through all this she would say that she ‘wrote her way through it’ and that creativity was her superpower.

Beth has a unique and inspiring teaching style that springs from her thirty years of experiences dancing with the creative flow. She has collected and designed many ways to teach others how to open up to this place within where the possibility and the power of creative spirit begin. Instead of using our energy trying to get rid of fear, doubt, inertia, and all the cast of characters putting those voices in our heads, Beth’s method instead invites them along for the ride, accepting that we can’t be free of them but we can sure pour them a cup of tea and give them a magazine and go ahead and write that song in the midst!

Hearing Beth talk about the creative process, growing and healing through life with art, learning to trust the path of “not knowing” and connecting to the limitlessness of intuition is an inspiration to those who want to open up fully into their most creative self.

“Anytime we create from that deep place of connection in the truth of our experience, it has the potential to resonate far beyond the time of its creation in the same way that all great art transcends generations. No one is born without the ability to do this. That I believe with all my heart.”

Jon Estes

Born and raised in the musical world of Nashville, 39 year old Jon Estes has slowly become one of the most respected musicians in the city as a musician, producer, composer, and arranger.

His contributions on stage and in the studio have supported a wide range of artists: from instrumental surf rock group Steelism, to British psychedelic legend Robyn Hitchcock, Americana artists such as John Paul White, Abigail Washburn, Peter Bradley Adams, Rodney Crowell and Langhorne Slim, jazz artists such as Jeff Coffin and Béla Fleck, multi-platinum pop artist Kesha, guitar legend Duane Eddy, rocker Brendan Benson, powerhouse singer Joss Stone, pop icon Kacey Musgraves, a Grammy-nominated recording with Dolly Parton, performances with the Nashville Symphony, and many many more.

He works on over 200 hundred sessions a year, constantly shifting roles from producer to bassist to string arranger to engineer, bringing deep experience, creativity, and taste in every role.

In the TV/Film world, Jon has worked on projects for DreamWorks, Disney, HBO, NBC, and most recently composed the main title theme for NBC News NOW.

These days, he lives with his wife, violinist Elizabeth Estes, and their 7 year old daughter, Ivy, in Nashville.

Joe Henry

Joe Henry is a songwriter’s songwriter who is an eclectic tunesmith, who has written cuts, which span rock, folk, country, jazz and soul. Henry, who is an in-demand producer, has refined a number of artist’s projects. Aimee Mann, the late Solomon Burke and John Doe are some of the musicians, who have hired Henry to produce.

Lera Lynn

With her album On My Own, Lera Lynn has emerged not only with a clear vision of herself, but with an entirely self-propelled breakthrough: Lynn wrote, sang, produced and recorded On My Own alone. She also played every single instrument on the record. It is a magnificent album, haunting and wild. It is also a record that no one else could make, because no one else is Lera Lynn. “I think there is something special about a singular vision,” Lynn says. “That’s not to say there’s not something special about a shared vision, a collaborative vision. But I would be so thrilled to hear records made in isolation by my favorite artists, just to know what their uninfluenced vision of their music is.” She pauses, then adds, “I guess I just wanted to hear what my own imagination sounded like.” 
 Lynn has earned a loyal following, critical acclaim and the admiration of peers and heroes. She first came to international attention through her writing and performances on HBO’s True Detective. Throughout her career, nearly a decade-long run filled with four album releases and hundreds of shows on both sides of the Atlantic, Lynn has maintained her fierce independence and dedication to her fans. Her latest release “Free Again” (from SEGA’s Endless Dungeon to be released 2023) is out now. Lera also recently composed and produced the theme song for The Mantawauk Caves, a fiction podcast for Blumhouse TV, iHeartRadio, and Psychopia Pictures. She is currently on a national tour with Penny and Sparrow in advance of her new record to be released in July.

Bill Payne

Blues and roots rock & roll keyboardist and composer Bill Payne released his first solo album, Bill Payne, in 2005 on Hot Tomato Records. Some would say it was long overdue, but for this multifaceted musician, it felt like the time was right. In a career that began in the late 1960s, Payne has accompanied and recorded with Little Feat, Jimmy Buffett, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, the Doobie Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Robert Palmer, Bob Seger, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Rod Stewart, among other arena-filling musicians.

Payne was raised in Virginia and Omaha, Nebraska and became interested in music during his pre-teen years. When he was 14 his family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he attended a private military school. His father gave him a baritone ukulele, and Payne began playing the instrument, inspired by the guitar songs he heard on the radio. He traded in his old clarinet for an electric guitar and began playing in a band with some friends while still in his teens. Payne’s band, the Fabulous Furies, opened for the Beach Boys in the mid-’60s, and then split up to go to various colleges. Payne attended the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and worked with various bands around there until the late 1960s. He quit playing music for a time and held down a day job to support his growing family. He had started writing songs in high school and continued to do so for the next four decades. His original songs are heavily inspired by his earliest influences, which include classic R&B musicians like Bo Diddley, early Stevie Wonder, and Sam Cooke. In the 1960s, he took his cues from Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, and Harry Chapin, among others. By the late ’60s and early ’70s, he was paying attention to the likes of Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, and other female songwriters. Their songs motivated Payne to write more and better songs of his own.

Payne is best known to rock & roll fans as the longtime keyboardist with the roots rock and rockin’ blues band Little Feat. Partly because he’s been such a sought-after studio musician all these years, it wasn’t until 2005 that he finally cut a record under his own name. Payne co-founded the band with Roy Estrada, Richie Hayward, and the late Lowell George in 1969. He had a role in writing or singing most of the band’s major, now classic tunes, including “Oh Atlanta,” “Day or Night,” “Time Loves a Hero,” and “Gringo.” He’s also got a sessionography as a keyboardist that amounts to literally hundreds of recordings. Working with engineer Gil Morales in a studio in Montana, Payne recorded his self-titled debut album and started touring with other members of Little Feat. In 2008, they released Join the Band. Payne came up with the idea for an album that included many of their friends from the worlds of rock and pop, and they’ve been joined by the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews, Emmylou Harris, Bob Seger, Béla Fleck, Brooks & Dunn, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, Vince Gill, and Inara George, daughter of the late Lowell George. Payne, who left Los Angeles for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, continues to play solo shows when he’s not on the road with Little Feat.

Gretchen Peters

For over two decades, Gretchen Peters has been one of Nashville’s most beloved and respected artists. “If Peters never delivers another tune as achingly beautiful as ‘On A Bus To St. Cloud,’” People Magazine wrote, “she has already earned herself a spot among country’s upper echelon of contemporary composers.” Inducted into the Nash- ville Songwriters Hall of Fame in October 2014 by singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell, who called her “both a songwriter and a poet (who) sings as beautifully as she writes,” and said her song “The Matador”, “moved me so greatly, I cried from the soles of my feet”, Peters has accumulated accolades as a songwriter for artists as diverse as Etta James, Bonnie Raitt, The Neville Brothers, Patty Loveless, George Strait, Bryan Adams and Faith Hill. Her song “Independence Day”, recorded by Martina McBride, won a CMA Song of the Year award in 1995. She has been nominated for 2 Grammys (“Indepen- dence Day/Martina McBride, “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am”/Patty Loveless), a Gold- en Globe (“Here I Am”/Bryan Adams), and numerous other awards. Her 2015 album, Blackbirds was awarded International Album of the Year and Song of the Year by the UK Americana Association. In 2015, The Telegraph named her one of the greatest 60 fe- male singer-songwriters of all time. In 2021 she was awarded The Poets Award by the Academy of Country Music. This year Peters is releasing a live album, recorded while on tour in the UK in 2019 with her band and an all-female Scottish string quartet. The Show: Live from the UK will be released 19 August 2022.

John Paul White

With The Hurting Kind, John Paul White has crafted a stunning album that draws on the lush, orchestrated music made in Nashville in the early 1960s. Yet these songs retain a modern feel, whether he’s writing about overwhelming love, unraveling relationships, or the fading memory of a loved one.

White grew up in tiny Loretto, Tennessee, and now lives in Florence, Alabama, not far from Muscle Shoals. He has cultivated his career in Nashville for two decades, first as a songwriter for a major publisher, then as half of The Civil Wars – a groundbreaking duo that won four Grammy Awards before disbanding in 2012.

Because The Civil Wars were so hard to categorize, White has earned a fan base among indie rock listeners, folk audiences, Americana outlets, and AAA radio. So, what will happen if people hear The Hurting Kind and call it country? “Well, that doesn’t scare me in the least,” he says. “As a matter of fact, it kind of thrills me.”

What was on your mind leading up to the sessions for The Hurting Kind?

I wanted The Hurting Kind to be a much more complex record than I’ve made before. I wanted it to be a more thought-about, arranged record. I had been burying my head in ‘countrypolitan’ stuff like Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline and early Roy Orbison, and a lot of Chet Atkins and Bill Porter records. I think I was doing that because I was looking for that style of music in today’s world, and for any artist doing that type of thing. Then I decided to make the kind of record that I wanted to sit down and listen to – one that I’ve been looking for and can’t find. Where did you record it?

I have a little studio next to my house called Sun Drop Sound, and this is one of the first things we recorded in it. We converted an old, turn-of-the-century home next to mine in the historic district of Florence, Alabama. It has high ceilings and big rooms. We were able to cater the space to what we wanted this record to sound like, and then captured it the way we heard it in our heads. It was a lot of work and a lot of head-scratching at times, too, because of the complexity of the songs.

What makes the songwriting on The Hurting Kind different from your past work?

I approached this album differently on the songwriting side before I ever got into the studio. I really wanted there to be a torch song quality to it, the classic, timeless quality. To not be afraid of the big note, and not be afraid of the drama. A lot of times, without even thinking about it, I pull back the reins, especially when the lyric is pretty sad. When the lyric is pretty heavy, I’m a little more careful about taking it too far. After conversations with people I’ve met on the road – talking to them about songs that I’ve written and how they say my songs have helped them – I felt like I could say what I wanted to say on this record. And not worry that it was too maudlin or too heavy-handed. I thought, “I’m just going to go there.”

So I had this idea. My publisher, BMG, had been very kind and patient waiting for songs from me. I knew I wanted to write some new songs and I thought, “You know what? I’m going to use their Rolodex and find my heroes and see what they’re doing. See if they’re still writing songs – and see if they’re willing to write songs with me.” One of the first phone numbers I got was for Whisperin’ Bill Anderson. He’s a huge hero of mine. He has this boundless energy, this excitement! It was inspiring to see his eyes light up when a great line would come out or a melody would happen. I just ate it up and fed off it.

Why was it important for you to seek out those classic writers?

It played into the type of record I wanted to make. Bill is definitely from that era – writing and recording songs like “The Tips of My Fingers” and “Still” – and for me it’s canon. I thought, “Well, if he’ll answer the phone, let’s see who else will.” So I called Bobby Braddock and he was up for it. He told me a million amazing stories about writing songs like “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Golden Ring,” but also his time playing piano with Marty Robbins. It was the best! We wrote a song in maybe an hour.

It was so rewarding in other ways, too, because I got immediate feedback from them on whether I was writing country classic songs or not. I told them right off the bat, I really want to make a record that isn’t dated. I don’t want it to be retro. I don’t want to make it sound sonically like those classic records, but I do want it to have that same aesthetic. I do want it to have that same thought process and to be as deliberate as those records were. Coming out of each and every one of these situations, I got a resounding thumbs-up that I was on that right track. I didn’t need anybody else’s approval after that.

You built a sizable international audience with The Civil Wars. What do you hope those fans will hear in The Hurting Kind?

I’ve always had the same mentality with everything

I’ve been a part of – just writing something that moves me. If it moves me, then I think it will move others. Then we’ll try to get the subject matter down to a specific moment in time and really dissect that moment instead of trying to write an epic. To get at the heart of something that’s bothering me, or makes me happy, or confuses me – I feel like I’m still doing that same thing. At the heart of all this, it’s me and a guitar. There are other things going on, but at the heart of it, it’s really about the song, more than anything else. That’s always been the case, with my solo stuff, or with the Civil Wars, or with anything that I’ve written for the Nashville market. The core is always the most important part.

What made you choose “The Hurting Kind” as the title track for this album?

I titled this album The Hurting Kind because these are typically the types of emotions and ideas and songs that I deal in. The things that consistently come to the front of my brain every time I sit down to write a song. Every time that I listen to records, the songs that I gravitate toward are the hurting kind. Those are the emotions that I think are the most powerful. They’re the ones that are the most lasting. They cut deeper and they stay with us.