![]() This is their second album working together. It opens with the wistful, straight-ahead country yearner "Make You My Own " gets dreamy with "Cold Waves," a meditation on depression that feels as lackadaisical and cool as the condition it's describing conjures images of her grandfather's Kentucky on his own a capella original "Ern and Zorry's Sneakin' Bitin' Dog " and puts a muscled-up twang behind Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight." That last one is as much about family as the rest of Letters Never Read-Richard not only plays guitar on the cover, but the album was produced by his son and fellow musician Teddy Thompson, who Freeman reached out to with a song over Facebook. For a folk record, it's incredibly diverse, as Freeman's familiarity with structure allows her to incorporate a wonderfully wide range of sounds. While last year's self-titled record gained her heavy praise from the likes of NPR and The New York Times, her newest, Letters Never Read (out October 20), firmly establishes her as part of the musical traditions she comes from. And it's taken me a little while to navigate that and figure out how, but I got on the right path makin' music and writin' songs and trying my best to carry it on." ![]() "I kind of always felt like it was necessary for me to carry on those traditions in one way or another. "My family has set a really good example, and I feel really blessed and lucky every day to have grown up where I did and with the people that I did," Freeman says. And while you can't really call her brand of folk old-time or bluegrass, the influence is inescapable, and she feels honored to be a part of that family and regional tradition. That did happen at home, too-Freeman would wake up in the middle of the night to hear her dad and his friends making music and get up to listen. Following her father and grandfather to folk festivals and fiddler's conventions as a kid, she absorbed her family's tunes as well as traditional songs like "Whiskey Before Breakfast," a spritely, kitchen party sorta number that makes it sound like the whiskey might've come before breakfast because no one's actually been to sleep yet. It's here and in the surrounding area, like her pencil artist grandfather's Kentucky, that Freeman's deep connection to the region's music began. That's since changed along with the changing industrial landscape of the country over the past nearly 60 years, but Galax has remained a hub for certain musical traditions, specifically Appalachian, old-time, and bluegrass music. Historically, Galax was a very industrial town, with six factories alone dedicated to churning out furniture up and running in the town during the 60s. "It's definitely the most adult feeling thing I've done since like, my life," she laughs.
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