Honky–Tonk Heroine Eilen Jewell

by Peter Aaron

With a voice as gorgeously warm and arid as the West Texas desert and a crack band that’s among the best in the business, Eilen Jewell is speeding to the top of the Americana movement with the same velocity as the horizon–heading freight trains that fill her magnificent songs. Her self–released 2005 debut, Boundary County, swells for mile after lonesome mile with aching tracks of barren beauty and sweet, desolate sadness. Last year’s follow–up, Letters from Sinners and Strangers (Signature Sounds), kicks things into hotter climes by adding more elements of jazz, blues, rockabilly, and western swing to Jewell’s heartbroken honky–tonk sound. After playing storming shows to packed rooms at the Rosendale Cafe and The Pig in Saugerties earlier this year, Jewell and her quartet return to favorite haunt Club Helsinki in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on May 31. www.eilenjewell.com.

You’re originally from Boise, Idaho, which isn’t particularly known as a musical or cultural hotspot. What was it like growing up there? How did you get exposed to the types of real American roots music you ended up playing?

Boise was a great place to grow up. If you love the mountains and countryside, like I do, there’s plenty of that to keep you busy. Although there are a few musicians from Idaho out there—such as Rosalie Sorrels, Josh Ritter, and Pinto Bennett—it’s really not known for its music scene. Most of my musical exposure was from my dad. He had old Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, and Bob Dylan records that I dug out of the garage and got curious about. Once that curiosity started, it just led me to discover more and more of those early artists: Woody Guthrie, the Carter Family, Hank Williams…they’re all linked up in a big musical family tree so it didn’t take much to go from one branch to the next.

Most young artists pursuing a career in country–based music head to Nashville, but instead you lived and performed in New Mexico and California before finally ending up in Massachusetts (the Berkshires and now Boston). Did you ever consider moving to Music City? What drew you to New England?

I have considered moving to Nashville. For a while, I was convinced it was going to be my next home. But it’s proven harder to leave Boston than I ever thought it would. There’s lots of good music and lots of good people here, which is essentially why I moved here in the first place, so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me too much. I came from Idaho to the Berkshires because I was having a heck of a time finding gainful employment in Boise after moving back from California. I had friends living in Great Barrington and they said I could move in with them and that jobs were easy to come by, which turned out to be true. The leap from there to Boston was, again, because of friends, but by that time (2003), performing music had become important to me, too. Everyone said Boston was a great town for music, and I had met a couple of friends there, (Jewell’s drummer) Jason Beek being one of them, so it was a logical, though circuitous, series of steps that led me to Boston.

Your music and voice have such an incredibly timeless sound. What other artists, past and present, have most deeply resonated with you?

The artists that have been influencing me for a long time, and probably will continue to shape me for the rest of my life, are Billie Holiday, Hank Williams, Lucinda Williams, Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, and Bessie Smith. There are countless others, but these are the heavy hitters.

Speaking of Loretta Lynn, you recently played with her. What was that experience like?

We opened up for her at the Calvin Theater in Northampton [Massachusetts] one night—Sept. 13 of last year. But what a great night it was! I got to meet her very briefly backstage, and she was just as charming and sweet as could be. She signed my guitar, so hopefully that will prove to be a good luck charm for me and the band.

Your rhythm section (bassist Johnny Sciascia and drummer Jason Beek) are fantastic players in their own right, but your guitarist Jerry Miller is so darn great that watching him play is at times almost impossible for the mind to process. How did you hook up with him and the rest of the band?

I met Jason first, at an old–time country music jam that a mutual friend of ours was hosting every week. Jason was instrumental in convincing me to move to Boston. When I did, a couple of months later, we decided we wanted to start a band. There were a couple of [previous] formations of this band, always with myself and Jason as the common threads. When it came time to record Boundary County, the first record, we were without a steady band. So Jason suggested Johnny and Jerry to record with us. He’s been a big fan of their other projects for a long time (The Spurs, The Cranktones, and The Coachmen). Of course, when I heard these bands I became a big fan, too. They agreed to record with us, and then somehow or other we just kept on playing together. Now I can’t imagine playing without them, they’re as much a part of the sound as I am.

You and several members of your band also have a side project called the Sacred Shakers. Tell us about that group.

It was Jason’s brainchild. He came up with the concept of doing a country gospel brunch every Sunday at a local bar. The bar would serve up the brunch and we would provide the gospel music in a country/bluegrass style. We had musical guests every week to help draw people. It was fun, but it was hard to find just the right place for the project. And when we started touring a lot, we just couldn’t commit to it every Sunday anymore. We did a couple of shows outside of the brunch format, including one in a little country church near Northampton. That’s when Jim Olsen from Signature Sounds, our record label, heard us. Eventually, we all decided we should record with Jim’s help. Nowadays, the band is composed of an ever–shifting cast of my band, [plus] Eric Royer, Daniel Fram, Greg Glassman, and Daniel Kellar—all Boston–based musicians.

As a songwriter and as someone who’s obviously deeply passionate about music, to you, what makes a great song great?

It’s hard to put your finger on what makes a great song. I really don’t think there’s a formula, for me. But I do feel like there are a few qualities that all great songs have in common. To be great, a song has to be sincere. The lyrics have to strike a nerve somehow. They have to be true words. A lot of what makes a great song great, I think, is the delivery of it. If the artist comes across as imitative or insincere, if they don’t really mean what they’re saying, or if they’re more focused on looking like someone who means what they’re saying, it will be schlock. If they mean every word of it and it feels like they were put on this Earth to tell the story of that song, then that sincerity will come across. And, to me, that’s what music is all about—telling your story, or someone else’s story as if it were your own. Not aping or imitating the storyteller.

What do you hope people feel and experience when they hear your music or come to one of your gigs?

I hope they enjoy themselves. If they don’t have a good time, what’s the point? And I hope that, for that night, they’re carried away from their daily struggles and routines to some other place. That’s how I feel when I’m playing music. Everything else just disappears.

The Eilen Jewell Band plays Club Helsinki, Great Barrington MA on Sa 5/31, 9 PM