We’re not giving her back. Now that Eilen Jewell has settled in Massachusetts, she’s one of ours.
The singer/songwriter has now lived in the Commonwealth for the better part of the last decade after a spate of roaming, and she’s carved out a nice career for herself and found a great band in Boston, as well the perfect fit for a label, Signature Sounds Recordings in Whately.
The artist (whose first name is pronounced “eee-lynn”) has already released a slew of albums that wander effortlessly through genres and musical traditions, untethered by time or place. She’s braided together folk, rock, blues and a healthy dose of country, unencumbered by trends or faddish recording techniques.
This past summer she released Butcher Holler, an album of covers of songs by one of her heroes, Loretta Lynn. Recently she returned from a triumphant overseas tour.
Jewell performs with her long-running band—Jerry Miller on electric guitar, Johnny Sciascia on upright bass, Jason Beek on drums and backing vocals—and special guests The Sweetback Sisters Nov. 12 at Shelburne Falls’ Memorial Hall.
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Eilen Jewell grew up in Boise, Idaho, in a family she says wasn’t a particularly musical one. Yet her parents always encouraged her when it came to music, beginning with classes in piano—an instrument she calls her first love—at the age of seven, and violin lessons a few years later.
At 15, she received a guitar for her birthday, but couldn’t seem to muster the discipline to study it intensively. She loved simply strumming along to the radio, trying to pick out chords. She says she certainly didn’t entertain thoughts of performing in front of people, never mind one day opening up for an idol like Loretta Lynn (more on this later).
“I never saw myself as a performer, because I was so shy,” she says. “That just happened gradually and accidentally. In college I had some friends who enjoyed playing music together for fun. I sat in on a few of their gigs and slowly it dawned on me that performing music just had to be part of my life or else something would always be missing.”
After college and a period of busking around Los Angeles and Sante Fe, Jewell joined a friend living in the Berkshires in an attempt to put down some roots.
“I just felt like a tumbleweed,” Jewell says. “So I let the wind send me packing, and I’m glad I did.”
She’s glad because that stint in Western Mass. ultimately led her to Boston. Everyone told her there was a great music scene in the city, so she started making trips in to see for herself. On one of those fateful trips she met future drummer—and husband—Beeks, who convinced her that the Hub was the place to be.
In 2003, she moved there permanently to find a band and start performing in earnest.
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Jewell has earned a heap of critical praise for her songwriting, including recently winning The Boston Phoenix‘s Best National Singer-Songwriter Award, where she beat out the likes of Joanna Newsom, Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) and Roseanne Cash. She calls her craft “part heaven, part hell.”
“When I come up with something I like, something that excites me, it’s an exhilarating feeling,” she says. “But when the opposite happens, when I have writer’s block or when something that looks good on paper refuses to become a song… well, I try not to let it get to me, but it’s pretty hellish.”
Idaho features prominently in her tunes. “Idaho is a huge source of inspiration for me, and it definitely becomes more important with every year that passes,” says Jewell. “I go there to write songs as often as I can. It’s the place where everything makes sense to me. It’s my muse.”
Jewell is partial to covering songs, both live and on record. She’s tackled tunes by Eric Anderson, Charlie Rich, Bob Dylan and, of course, Loretta Lynn.
Does she feel part of any particular lineage?
“Yes. I feel like my work is part of a tradition, though it’s not traditional,” she says. “I think just about every artist who’s ever lived has stood on the shoulders of artists who came before, learned from them, been inspired by them. Even the most revolutionary artists have teachers and influences. I would even go so far as to say that all musicians are part of the same lineage, leaves on the same old family tree, and that too much is made of genres and classifications of music. You can trace each one of us back to that ancestor in the cave who hit her hand on the drum and liked the sound of it.”
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In 2006, a friend of Jewell’s suggested that Jim Olsen and his team at Signature Sounds give her first record, Boundary County, a listen. They obviously liked what they heard, signing her up for two albums just a scant few months later.
“Eilen is one of those rare musicians who seem to appear out of nowhere as a fully mature and unique artist,” says Olsen. “I was impressed by her artistic maturity and singular voice. She immediately struck me as an old soul with a refreshing sound that taps into a wide range of American roots music.”
Olsen says he went to see her perform at the old Club Helsinki, expecting a “polite singer/songwriter show,” but was instead met by an incredibly tight and rocking five-piece ripping through covers by Bessie Smith, Charlie Rich and Bob Dylan alongside Eilen’s originals.
“I knew right away that I wanted to work with her,” he says.
Two records followed, Letters from Sinners and Strangers and Sea of Tears. Signature recently re-upped for two more.
Olsen states that Jewell has a great deal in common with her heroes Lucinda Williams, Loretta Lynn and Billie Holiday.
“Like those great artists, she shares an uncompromising artistic vision and a timeless quality to the music,” he says. “Eilen wouldn’t have sounded out of place in 1955, and I doubt she will in 2055.”
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In addition to their work in gospel-tinged side project The Sacred Shakers, Jewell and company formed yet another band in an effort to anonymously play some of the smaller clubs they’d outgrown with their main project’s success. Inspired by incessant Loretta Lynn listening sessions in the tour van, they decided to form a cover band they dubbed Butcher Holler after the small Kentucky town where Lynn was raised. Shortly after forming the group, they were offered a chance to open for the real deal—as the Eilen Jewell Band—at Northampton’s Calvin Theater.
“We got to meet Loretta briefly and were stunned by how humble and sweet she was to us,” says Jewell. “This just fueled the fire, and I became even more of a diehard fan. When [Olsen] heard us perform as Butcher Holler last year, he asked us if we would like to make a record, and we figured it would be a fun way to say thank you to Loretta for being so awesome.”
Next up is an album of original material, though Jewell cannot rule out another cover sneaking its way into the track listing. The goal is to have a new release out by summer of next year.
Jewell says she’s eager to get back into songwriting after a string of “distractions.” She feels that she’s grown as both a writer and a performer since her arrival in Massachusetts.
“As a writer, I’m less afraid to throw stuff out,” she says. “I’m zeroing in on what I want out of a song and leaving less of it up to chance or stream-of-consciousness. As a performer, I’m less afraid—no, I guess that’s not true. I’m just as afraid as ever, but I’ve learned how to thrive on that fear. It’s what makes performing dynamic and interesting to me.”
She’ll bring that fear and a whole lot of rollicking sounds to the Memorial Hall stage in Shelburne Falls on Friday, Nov. 12. The show commences at 7:30 p.m. with country swing band The Sweetback Sisters.
For tickets and information on Eilen Jewell and her projects, visit www.eilenjewell.com and www.signaturesounds.com.
