OT TO KITSINGER
NOISE SONGBIRDS AND WORRIED MINDS
Eilen Jewell discusses Idaho, daughter, new album BEN SCHULTZ “Songbird,” the last track on Eilen Jewell’s new album, Sundown Over Ghost Town (Signature Sounds, 2015), features a surprise guest vocalist. If you listen closely, at around the 2:08 mark, you’ll hear Jewell’s infant daughter, Mavis— whose name comes from the Old French word for a small bird called the song thrush—crying in the background. Jewell and her husband, drummer Jason Beek, loved the happy accident, but they worried listen- thoughts on Idaho are complex. On the bluesy ballad “My Hometown,” Jewell looks back ers wouldn’t hear it. fondly on the summer days and friendly neigh“And then we thought, ‘Well, if they can hear bors of her childhood. By contrast, songs like it, would it be distracting? Should we do another take?’” Jewell said. “But we really felt like that was “Half-Broke Horse” and “Green Hills” meditate on the negative impact of development and the one. So we decided to keep it and give her industrialization. On “Needle & Thread,” Jewell guest-vocal credit on the album.” honors how Idaho City has helped shape her The unplanned cameo suits both the song—a while describing a place full of decaying buildtender tribute to Mavis—and the album as a ings and broken-down people. whole. Written in Idaho City and McCall and Jewell, who moved back to Boise with Beek in recorded at Audio Lab Recording Studio in 2012, admitted having mixed feelings about how Garden City, Sundown draws inspiration from the city has changed over the years. Jewell’s experiences in her home state of Idaho. “I really feel like the progress that Boise has Signature Sounds released the album on May 26, but Entertainment Weekly premiered the album on made has been a double-edged sword,” she said. “And it’s been pretty bittersweet its website on May 20, declaring to return to that—to return to Jewell’s “Americana-driven brand SUNDOWN OVER GHOST TOWN this place that is my hometown of country music sounds tailor(Signature Sounds, 2015) and yet I have to get to know made for sweltering, stagnant Available online at amazon.com it all over again because it has summer nights.” and itunes.com; and locally at changed so much.” While Jewell didn’t plan The Record Exchange, therecordTouring has also changed to make a Gem State-centric exchange.com. drastically now that Mavis acalbum, the focus for Sundown companies her parents. sharpened when she started “Sometimes, we’ll go to writing. bed—the earliest we can manage is at midnight— “Whenever I set out to write a new album and she’ll wake up randomly in the middle of the or even just a new song, I don’t go into it with night at 1,” Jewell said. “And then it’ll take awhile any expectations or any particular motive,” she for her to get back to bed. So it’s a lot of sleepless said. “I let the songs do their thing. And it just nights.” turned out this way: That everything that I was Still, they appreciate having their daughter writing seemed to be about—if not Idaho, then with them on the road. somewhere out West here—but mostly Idaho. “It’s really, really, really hard, but then I supThat’s really where my thoughts have been for the pose leaving her at daycare would be really, really past… well, forever, really.” hard too,” Jewell said. “So at least this way, we get Judging from Sundown’s lyrics, Jewell’s 18 | MAY 27 – JUNE 2, 2015 | BOISEweekly
Singer-songwriter Eilen Jewell is a true Idaho gem.
to bring her with us. We get to be close to her all the time and not have to leave her behind.” Jewell is also grateful for the support that Boise has given her and Beek. In August 2014, the couple’s promotion company, Mess Around Music, held its first show, a concert at Cinder Winery featuring Zoe Muth and Miss Tess. Jewell considered the show “a total success.” “Local fans really seemed to have a great time,” she said. “I think there were quite a few people who weren’t familiar with their music, or maybe they knew of one of the bands but not the other. So there were quite a few people who walked out of there saying, ‘Wow, I hadn’t heard these people before and now I’m a big fan.’” Jewell’s own music got some love recently, too. On April 11, Visual Arts Collective hosted a tribute show for Jewell as part of the new We Got You Covered series. The concert featured Bill Coffey, Rocci Johnson and other well-known local musicians performing her songs. “It was really great to see how much thought people put into these songs. Most people bothered to learn all the lyrics,” Jewell said. “That’s something I don’t even do with my own songs at first. It takes me awhile to learn the lyrics of my own songs.” For now, Jewell’s big plan is to learn how to balance her professional and her family life. She looks forward to seeing how her relationship with Idaho evolves, too. “I think any great love—of anywhere or anybody or anything—tends to be a mixed bag, at least for me,” she said. “But that’s part of what makes it so deep.” BOISE WEEKLY.COM