‘When we first sang… I could hear magic,’ says David Rawlings on partnership with Gillian Welch

WHEN Gillian Welch and David Rawlings sing together, it feels arsenic if our hectic satellite stops turning.

Their sublime blend of dependable and acoustic guitar belongs to bygone, simpler times.

By drafting connected accepted folk, bluegrass and country, they articulation the dots betwixt old-time Appalachian euphony and the 21st Century.

Their songs person the stamp of authenticity but, astatine the aforesaid time, they are not acrophobic to let successful modern influences from the artists they grew up listening to.

There are echoes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Townes Van Zandt, Grateful Dead and 2 songwriters who became their adjacent friends but are sadly nary longer with us, Guy Clark and John Prine.

Today, Gillian (pronounced with a hard G), 57, and David, 54, are established arsenic 1 of the astir revered acts from that vast, unwieldy pool which we conveniently telephone Americana.

Their caller medium Woodland ranks arsenic a crowning achievement, specified is its grace, power and beauty.

It mightiness conscionable beryllium the cleanable antidote to that noisy, sandy-haired President elect!

Since gathering astatine Berklee College Of Music successful Boston astatine the crook of the Nineties, Welch and Rawlings person ploughed their ain furrow, untroubled by prevailing trends.

Welch good remembers her archetypal encounters with Rawlings, however they bonded implicit aged records by bluegrass trailblazers The Stanley Brothers.

But she insists that determination was nary epiphany, that their imaginable arsenic a philharmonic duo took a portion to uncover itself.

‘Uncanny alignment of likes and dislikes’

“There were small indicators,” she tells maine during our Zoom call. “The sky didn’t unfastened up and a ray of aureate airy radiance down. There were nary bells ringing out.

“But I person a vivid representation that, from the precise beginning, we ever liked the aforesaid things.

“If we were listening to a Stanley Brothers record, we would similar the aforesaid infinitesimal successful the aforesaid song. We would some respond to a peculiar word.

“It was an uncanny and profound alignment of likes and dislikes.”

Welch says their concern started successful earnest erstwhile they decamped to Tennessee’s Music City to further their ambitions.

She says: “We some made the committedness to determination to Nashville successful the summer of ’92.

“I bushed Dave by 2 weeks due to the fact that helium had to springiness announcement to the set helium was playing in.”

Welch continues: “I retrieve going implicit to his small location and we were sitting successful his kitchen.

“We sang and played [country ballad] Long Black Veil, conscionable the 2 of america — the archetypal clip we’d heard ‘the duet’.

“We stopped and we some said, ‘Wow, that was beauteous good.’”

Though I’m speaking to Rawlings connected a abstracted call, his memories chime with Welch, conscionable similar their music.

“I could perceive the magic,” helium says of that fateful two-hour brushwood successful a tiny room successful a rented house.

“We were besides funny successful moving with 2 guitars, similar the member teams of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties, trying to get arsenic overmuch texture arsenic we could.”

Rawlings is referencing the aforementioned Stanley Brothers and different notable acts of the play specified arsenic The Louvin Brothers, The Delmore Brothers and The Blue Sky Boys.

In their aboriginal days, helium noticed that erstwhile helium and Welch played with different people, “we mislaid something”.

He recalls that her debut medium Revival, produced by T Bone Burnett, “had immoderate of the champion players, radical I americium honoured to person worked with”.

“But, astatine the extremity of the day, my favourite chopped is astir apt Annabelle, which is this mono signaling of america doing what we do.

"That gave america thing to thin into for a agelong time.”

Looking backmost implicit the 28 years since Revival appeared, Rawlings adds: “We are precise fortunate that we became a self-contained unit.

“Even with the writing, erstwhile Gill and I enactment connected worldly together, it feels similar we get to a antithetic place.”

This enduring treble enactment has released 5 Gillian Welch albums, 1 David Rawlings medium and 2 by Dave Rawlings Machine.

Welch achieved wider designation successful 2000 erstwhile she sang with Emmylou Harris and Alison Krauss on the wildly palmy and Grammy-winning soundtrack medium for O Brother, Where Art Thou?

But they are not ones to unreserved things. The past Welch medium was 2011’s The Harrow & The Harvest and the past by Rawlings was 2017’s Poor David’s Almanack.

Then, successful 2020 astatine the tallness of Covid, the brace recorded a covers postulation nether BOTH their names, All The Good Times (Are Past & Gone).

It included a smattering of accepted people songs, Prine’s Hello In There and 2 heavy Dylan cuts, Señor and Abandoned Love — and it made them realise that they deserved adjacent billing.

Now we person the beautifully realised Woodland, their archetypal medium of archetypal songs credited to Gillian Welch & David Rawlings.

It is named aft their workplace successful Nashville which was astir destroyed by a devastating tornado successful 2020. It took them much 2 years to rebuild it.

Welch picks up the story: “The tornado deed the gathering successful the mediate of the night.

“It tore the extortion disconnected and past it rained for 8 hours — ohio my goodness!

She says she and Rawlings were fortunate to person been astatine location due to the fact that they “managed to prevention everything”.

“We mightiness person mislaid each our instruments, instrumentality and maestro tapes. Our full career, 30 years of music, would person been gone.”

The traumatic lawsuit not lone impacted connected their lives but besides connected their songwriting and the instauration of the Woodland album, arsenic Welch explains.

“What truly made the grounds was our effect to the tornado. The thought of losing everything lodged successful our brains.

“We were thinking, ‘What is this each for? Maybe the things you deliberation are permanent, are not.’”

Rawlings describes what it was similar moving successful the aftermath of the storm.

“The gathering was successful specified a horrible authorities that we could lone negociate to play for an hr oregon truthful successful the day,” helium says. “The remainder of the clip was harm control.”

He adds that enactment connected signaling the medium adjacent “stopped astatine a definite point. Rebuilding the country became an all-consuming thing.”

‘Learned the ropes from Guy Clark’

But there’s nary doubting that Woodland is worthy the wait.

A glimpse down the tracklist finds a opus rubric which stands out, Hashtag, a remarkably modern-sounding summation for purveyors of specified timeless music.

Sung tenderly by Rawlings, it serves arsenic a touching tribute to their precocious person and mentor, Guy Clark, the Texan vocalist known for masterful songs similar LA Freeway and Desperados Waiting For A Train.

Welch says Hashtag was inspired by the infinitesimal connected the greeting of May 17, 2016, that she realised Clark had died.

“I checked my phone, arsenic we bash successful this time and age, and I saw #guyclark. My tummy turned implicit and I felt sick due to the fact that I knew it meant lone 1 thing.”

The opus explores the transitory quality of beingness successful the discourse of losing idiosyncratic beloved and includes the telling line, “Singers similar you and I are lone news erstwhile we die.”

Welch says of Clark: “He was our mentor. Two years earlier we had our archetypal record, erstwhile we were conscionable kids, helium took america connected the road, opening his show.

“We learned the ropes from him. It was similar troubadour school. He could beryllium prickly but besides precise generous. It meant a batch to america due to the fact that helium didn’t abide fools astatine all.”

Welch recalls that Clark would bent retired with her and Rawlings aft the shows, “giving america that small spot of assurance erstwhile we needed it”.

Rawlings besides has fond memories of Clark, who brought a poet’s interaction to his songwriting and good craftsmanship to making his ain guitars. Guy had a wry outlook connected beingness and music,” helium says. “But helium had large committedness to his work.”

As it was her idea, helium expected Welch to sing Hashtag but someway his enactment tape, which he’d sung into his phone, deed the people perfectly.

“At 1 point, you tin adjacent perceive Gill doing the laundry successful the different room,” helium laughs.

Though written earlier the pandemic, the enactment successful Hashtag, “Caught it similar a caller signifier of the flu”, brings to Rawlings’ caput different departed friend, John Prine, who died from Covid.

“It was crushing,” helium says. “We were truthful adjacent to John, 1 of those radical you conscionable privation to unrecorded up to.

“Maybe done the tornado, done Covid and done being older yourself, you commencement to admit themes of mortality, the transitory quality of everything you do.”

Before I decorativeness talking to Welch and Rawlings, we rattle done immoderate of the different treasures to beryllium recovered connected their Woodland album.

Of the yearning, scene-setting opening track, Empty Trainload Of Sky, Welch says: “I was taking a locomotion down by the large aged trestle [bridge] that goes implicit the Cumberland River, close by my house.”

As the day freight bid rumbled across, she had a “weird vision”.

“For a moment, I couldn’t archer if the bid oregon the entity was moving. Maybe it was a instrumentality of the airy and an bare boxcar but it was precise arresting.

“I sat down connected a parkland seat close determination and didn’t get up until I had the archetypal verse. The opus became the cornerstone of the album.”

Lawman is 1 of the album’s older efforts, marked retired by Rawlings’ gorgeous guitar lick and Welch’s richly atmospheric vocals.

“We adjacent performed it erstwhile astatine the Newport Folk Festival galore years ago,” says Welch. “Same opus rubric but wholly different.

“We were ne'er satisfied with it truthful we acceptable it speech for years until we yet figured it out.”

Turf The Gambler evokes the sparse storytelling vibe of Bob Dylan’s 1967 medium John Wesley Harding.

Rawlings says: “I’ve ever loved those small three-verse, other cryptic communicative songs.”

He senses that fewer radical are penning them these days but, astatine his age, helium thought: “Why not?”

“Earlier successful life, I astir apt wouldn’t person fiddled astir with this benignant of happening but it’s a beauteous signifier truthful I decided to enactment the opus together.”

‘Absurd to effort to abstracted us’

There’s a rawness to Here Stands A Woman which benefits from 1 of Welch’s astir affecting deliveries and references Dylan’s Just Like A Woman.

“It’s a bittersweet opus astir beingness experiences, bully oregon bad,” she affirms. “That is what makes america arsenic people.

“In my experience, I’d alternatively beryllium a pistillate than a girl.”

If astir of the songs find either Welch oregon Rawlings singing pb and the different harmonising, 2 are notable for some taking the lead, the nostalgic What We Had, which harks backmost to Seventies soft-rock, and the intimate finale, Howdy Howdy.

“That’s wherefore the medium has to beryllium nether some our names,” says Welch. “It seemed absurd to effort to abstracted us.”

I conjecture she’s saying what we already know. That Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are agreed successful euphony — forever.

GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS

Woodland

★★★★★