{"id":2320,"date":"2020-08-19T17:28:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T17:28:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/?p=2320"},"modified":"2020-08-19T18:13:58","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T18:13:58","slug":"stoll-vaughan-is-not-afraid-of-writing-big-truths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/19\/stoll-vaughan-is-not-afraid-of-writing-big-truths\/","title":{"rendered":"“Stoll Vaughan Is Not Afraid Of Writing Big Truths”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Now ain\u2019t the time to act so righteous<\/em><\/div>\n
Stand your ground or get in. the way<\/em><\/div>\n
You and I, we might be different<\/em><\/div>\n
But right now, you know we\u2019re all to blame<\/em><\/div>\n
\u2014\u00a0\u201cSo Righteous\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n

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\"tn-10\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Hepworth<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

by Holly Gleason for American Songwriter.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

HOLLYWOOD (Perfect Music Today0 7\/19\/20\/–Stoll Vaughan is parked somewhere on the side of the road, in an RV with his wife and his dog. The populist songwriter, a secret weapon for both David Lynch and the Allman Betts Band, is thinking about the state of the world, the way disinformation is ripping us apart and the fact that the truth gets so twisted by the soundbites and talking heads. It\u2019s hard to know where to turn, especially when you\u2019re a particularly porous creator.<\/p>\n

At times evoking Springsteen\u2019s\u00a0Nebraska<\/em>\u00a0period, Townes Van Zandt at his most gaunt or the Jeff Buckley of\u00a0Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk<\/em>, the literal and figurative journeyman artist has a way of tumbling details from the rafters and highlighting sentiments often missed. Hemingway direct lyrically, his melodies leave room for listeners to install themselves.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo Righteous,\u201d from\u00a0Desires Shape<\/em>, wasn\u2019t written during the pandemic, but ongoing political realities were the match to its kindling. With a ragged voice, Vaughan isn\u2019t afraid of the big truths.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Up in the air, blowing like the leaves<\/em><\/div>\n
In between the chaos and what we\u2019ve seen<\/em><\/div>\n
No way out and nowhere to hide<\/em><\/div>\n
Only choice is that you don\u2019t decide<\/em><\/div>\n
Born together, we\u2019ve been torn apart<\/em><\/div>\n
Something must break just to change our hearts\u2026\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n
\u2014 \u201cSo Righteous\u2019<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

The video, debuting exclusively on\u00a0AmericanSongwriter.com<\/a>, is equally straightforward. Black and white, looking like a young T-Bone Burnett in sunglasses, pleated pants, a dark shirt, he plays acoustic guitar, emphasizing the beat with his wedding ring. Preternatually cool, Vaughan just is. No explanation, no setting, just a man, a guitar and a song for the ages \u2013\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of always meditating on the other dimension,\u201d he says, watching the day drain from the sky. \u201cI want to recognize the pain, but really I\u2019m trying to highlight the hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An hour or more has melted since the conversation began. Born in Kentucky, sent to the acclaimed arts school Interlochen in Michigan and then heading West to the promise of California, the discussion flowed through Prince, Prine, Waits, Dylan (his personal Mount Rushmore), as well as Rambling Jack Elliott, Van Zandt, Coltrane, Marty Stuart, Bill Withers, Elliott Smith, Ornette Coleman. Aspects of songwriting, dimensions of space on a track, the stain of emotions, the evolution inherent in real artists are all part of the conversation. It\u2019s that earthy piece of creativity that calls him.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a Taurus,\u201d he explains, \u201cso part of my make-up is to be rooted to the ground. A lot of this record was written on the road, came together driving and drifting. You have to find centeredness (in the world). I find freedom in California to explore that I can\u2019t find in the Southeast, but I like that I\u2019m going back to Kentucky. I like being connected to where I\u2019m from. Because that spirit of the universe, I\u2019m always trying to get connected to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving my life being present, those old thoughts or assumptions, the fundamental things that can get you into trouble, they\u2019re easier to lose if you\u2019re moving and open.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Talking about the way America shifts as the miles fall under your wheels, Vaughan recognizes that even the dissonance changes depending upon where you are. Laughing, he recalls, \u201cWhen I pulled out of California and hit Arizona, it\u2019s a free for all \u2013 and I don\u2019t have a problem with all of what they\u2019re just coming off of.\u00a0 California\u2019s too politicized, and I don\u2019t find any love driving\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0of it. When it\u2019s all said and done, we are all equal. Really, we are.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Which sets up \u201cSo Righteous\u201d without even a question. Vaughan is so smart, but also so aligned to his own writing, the themes in his romantic realism move through his conversation like vines.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people hear \u2018Righteous\u2019 and go screaming, \u2018Those<\/em>\u00a0people in Michigan with their guns,\u2019 or \u2018Those<\/em>\u00a0Lefties in California with their liberal politics.\u2019 Wherever you are, there\u2019s \u2018Those\u00a0<\/em>people!\u2019 and\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vaughan lobs zero recrimination as he says this. Flat, an almost quiet observation, the Transcendental Meditation devotee recognizes truth, hopes to raise awareness and perhaps create better action through knowledge. His arranging \u2013 especially on\u00a0Desires Shape,\u00a0<\/em>his fourth album since 2006 \u2013 takes that same exhaling approach: the warmth of that acoustic guitar played as mucb to support his voice as to flex his playing, the wheezing harmonica that echoes the vocal or reinforces the music\u2019s themes.<\/div>\n

\u201cThe feelings don\u2019t live inside us, but we live inside the feelings,\u201d he offers of the existential suspension of these recordings. \u201cI\u2019m okay with the loneliness and the beauty of it; that\u2019s how I lean into the beauty.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder, \u2018If I was this person, I shouldn\u2019t be angry, because you hold a different idea.\u2019 It\u2019s a lot of going back and trying to get better, to understand or accept (the opposing reality) in trying to go forward. Sometimes just to think about what people are feeling on both sides\u2026<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m willing to change my mind or learn something new to see the humanity.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Whether the stomp\u2019n\u2019shuck hand-clapped passion of \u201cMaria,\u201d desolation \u00a0over a few piano notes and organ pads of the forgotten man\/small town in \u201cOklahoma,\u201d the striding finger-picked guitar \u00a0reassurance to a battered woman on the run \u201cRosie\u201d or the elegiac \u201cDesires of Despair,\u201d Vaughan creates vastness out of minimalism as well as imbuing Dorothea Lange despondency with the photographer\u2019s same dignity.<\/p>\n

The title track of sorts fixes in amber a friend, a Midwestern kid caught in the jaws of the opioid crisis who ultimately wouldn\u2019t make it. \u201cI thought about the mother, who\u2019d grown up kind of troubled, and it\u2019s my heart for her, too. You know if you don\u2019t change your life drastically, you\u2019re going to lose. It\u2019s inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

=Pausing to consider the larger arc, he confesses it\u2019s the humanity that matters most. \u201cI was writing with the big hand, without judgement, but more the despair guiding me. My favorite line in the song is when the dog comes up every hour and a half to get a pat on the back. The dog doesn\u2019t judge, doesn\u2019t want anything but kindness, which (the kid)\u2019s still capable of giving.<\/div>\n

\u201cThat human touch? That\u2019s what\u2019s important. The homeless problem in LA is terrible, as well. So that narrator is a lot of other people, too: the father, the guy, you, me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woody Guthrie understood the power of songs, and he weaponized them. Dylan, too, embraced wielding big truths as calls to action. Vaughan worries the white noise and tv news\/social media cycle-created Tower of Babel makes it harder for these truths to cut through. But he\u2019s undeterred.<\/p>\n

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\u2018These writers we talked about, they can all make time stand still \u2013 and it feels like traveling. They put you there, make you feel these things.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cTime is not so constraining as we make it,\u201d he continues, unwinding a larger truth that shoots through his writing. \u201cYour fears and the little b.s. things don\u2019t have quite the power we give them; they\u2019re what hold you back. When you\u2019re \u2018there,\u2019 really present, those things fall away and. these truths emerge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was at Interlochen, I had a teacher who recognized (the cocoon safety of the school\u2019s creative environment). He said, \u2018When you leave here, don\u2019t look back. You go out and have as many experiences as possible. You go\u00a0be<\/em>\u00a0somebody, don\u2019t follow the crowd and really see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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The details, the echoes, the warmth. All the subtle things define people in ways screaming or Pavlovian responses never will. He knows that, laughs that he\u2019s been spotted for the nuance inside his songs.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cMaybe I can\u2019t sing crazy melodies, but there\u2019s a humanness to my voice that rattles (the listeners) inside themselves \u2013 and makes them feel things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this day and age, you have to\u00a0really listen<\/em>\u00a0to the record,\u201d he admits. \u201cAnd getting people to listen, it\u2019s difficult. But that doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t go there.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe rivers are rising<\/em><\/div>\n
It won\u2019t be long<\/em><\/div>\n
The damage-weakened\u2019ll<\/em><\/div>\n
Be dead and gone<\/em><\/div>\n
Night\u2019s falling and the lines are blurred<\/em><\/div>\n
The right to be living we all deserve\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"tn-10\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Michael Hepworth<\/p>\n

287 S.Robertson Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211<\/p>\n

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Now ain\u2019t the time to act so righteous Stand your ground or get in. the way You and I, we might be different But right now, you know we\u2019re all to blame \u2014\u00a0\u201cSo Righteous\u201d  … <\/p>\n

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