FEATURE: Spotlight: Courtney Marie Andrews

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Courtney Marie Andrews

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WHILST this year has seen some…

incredible albums arrive from some of music’s best-known names, I think it is the albums made by those who are slightly less-well-known that really resonate – to me, at least. I am a fan of Courtney Marie Andrews and her latest album, Old Flowers, was released back in July. It was the seventh studio album from the twenty-nine-year-old Andrews – who must be one of the most prolific and productive young artists in music. Straddling Americana and Folk, the album has been met with universal acclaim, and one does not need to be steeped in those genres to bond with the album. The songwriting is so strong, and the vocal performances are stunning! It really is an album that will get into the heart and inspire the mind. I will talk about that album towards the end, but I want to bring in a few interviews that give more detail and depth regarding Andrews and her beginning. In this interview from The Times from this year, we learn more about her early years:

“As a solo female artist travelling around the US from her teens onward, Andrews also had to learn how to be tough. Born on the fringes of Phoenix to a roofer father and a mother who worked in the local branch of the budget retail store Target, she started singing aged two. From the age of five she was begging her mother to take her to a Phoenix store that sold CDs for karaoke sessions.

“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” she says of her calling. “My parents weren’t musical. I think it started because I loved musicals and I liked writing stories, and when I realised you could do both music and stories in the form of a song I was hooked. Mum was very much a ‘be your own person’ type of parent, so that helped too, and my actual career came from a strong desire to get out of Phoenix. Growing up in the desert feels like being on an island. It is so far from everything”.

It is quite amazing that Andrews did get into music, and it doesn’t seem like there was any great support and encouragement from her family. Not that this was deliberate at all: they had different passions, and Andrews’ parents’ upbringings must have been very different. In any case, it is wonderful that Andrews got into music. Although she has been putting out albums for a decade, her breakthrough was 2016’s Honest Life. Since then, Andrews has been putting out music quite regularly, and she has grown and developed between each album. It has been a strange year for her and all artists but, as The Times’ interview also revealed, she has experienced some personal upheaval and disruption:

“There is a kind of dark irony to it. For the first time since leaving her family home in Phoenix, Arizona, aged 16 for the wandering life of a hard-touring musician, in 2019 the country rock singer Courtney Marie Andrews found a home of her own in Nashville, Tennessee. Then in early March this year, tornados ripped the city apart. Then coronavirus hit. Then the city’s mayor, John Cooper, declared a state of emergency, as protests against the death of George Floyd led to riots that culminated in the torching of Nashville’s courthouse.

“It’s been a crazy few months,” says Andrews, 29, speaking from her (still standing) home in East Nashville. “The tornado left parts of the city looking like war zones. My friend’s house was actually lifted off the ground. The musicians were locked down first because we saw the seriousness of [coronavirus] out on tour, but the common working man in Nashville still doesn’t believe it’s true. I feel like if you just focus on the bad during a state of crisis it can become overwhelming very quickly, however, so you have to find silver linings. I’ve certainly been hearing the birds singing in Nashville a lot more”.

I would urge people to go onto Spotify and listen to as many Courtney Marie Andrews records as possible, and buy the ones that you really like. I think her latest album is her finest, and many other people agree. I often listen to albums and wonder what happened in that artist’s life before they started writing the songs; what were the catalysts for the tracks, and how much of their personal experiences and trials are considered. For Old Flowers, I think a lot of the songs’ D.N.A. can be traced back to 2019 and a relationship break-up Andrews faced. When Andrews spoke with The Independent this year, she talked about that 2019 break-up and the impact it had:

“When Courtney Marie Andrews’ nine-year relationship ended, a few hours into 2019, the American musician got busy being heartbroken. She drove to the Smoky Mountains just to drive back. She danced with a Portuguese boxer and cried on his shoulder in a Fado cafe. She read Mary Oliver poetry. She didn’t listen to music – “it hurt too much” – but she did write it. And she was repulsed by every song she came out with

“I was just so disgusted with the way I felt that I couldn’t listen back to them,” says the 29-year-old, speaking over the phone from Nashville, Tennessee. “I was embarrassed to play them for people. I was embarrassed by my vulnerability. Maybe I didn’t like who I was in those songs. But the thing is that they were really me in that moment.”

Every one of those songs made it on to Andrews’ new album, Old Flowers, a rich country-folk record full of catharsis and contradiction. Written alone late at night – in Arizona, Lisbon, Nashville and London – it feels designed to be listened to that way, too”.

The title of the album, Old Flowers, does suggest a love that has soured and died. Although the songs on the album are not hugely heavy and downcast, there is a lot of emotion and honesty that comes through; a very personal record where Andrews commits to every moment in every song. It must have been a tough process to write and record the songs. Andrews chatted with Americana UK about the process and what it was like reflecting on a tough period on Old Flowers:

“Given these songs and this album document a hugely emotional time in your life how hard were these songs to write? Did they come easy, or was it hard to find the right words and music to reflect the situation. I mean, did they take on their own life as the emotive input came out?

These songs came very quickly to me– some under fifteen minutes. I was acting as my own therapist in some of these narratives, so writing this record came as a relief. It felt like I could finally reckon with these truths, enabling me to finally let go.

It feels such a personal record, do you think you were writing it solely for yourself or is there always an eye, as a songwriter, to somehow be aware as to connect universal themes? Or is our input as a listener in this case just that, we listen?

Personal records generally end up being the most universal in a lot of ways because if you have felt something deeply, with matters of the heart, most likely the listener has as well. I think heartbreak is one of the most universal themes of all. It’s age-old, that thing… love”.

If you have not bought Old Flowers, then make sure you do, as it is one of this year’s best releases, and I wonder – with a bit of distance behind her past relationship break-up and some catharsis on the record – where Andrews goes from here. Will the next album be one where she reacts to new love and an exciting new stage in life? She would have turned thirty by that time, so maybe that will provide her with something to ponder. Whatever she releases, you just know that it is going to be stunning! I just want to bring in a review of Old Flowers from the Evening Standard, just to give you a sense of what the critics thought, and how this extraordinary record has connected with people:

“The latest album from Phoenix singer-songwriter Courtney Marie Andrews is the nicest kind: it’s quiet and still and unbearably sad, but somehow leaves the listener feeling better. No flowerpots hurled or suits scissored in half: it’s a soft closing of the door on her nine-year relationship and a firm stride towards whatever’s next. “Hope your days are even better than the ones that we shared,” she concludes over the muted organ of the closing song, Ships in the Night. Oh that we could all be so magnanimous.

It was recorded with just two other musicians — multi-instrumentalist Matthew Davidson and Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia — so there’s less going on behind her songbird vocals than on previous albums, such as her 2016 breakthrough Honest Life. It makes the times she edges away from classic Laurel Canyon-style balladry stand out more: the gradual distorting of the drums at the close of Carnival Dream, or the twinkling percussion that floats by during How You Get Hurt. The slow-building If I Told is among her finest compositions.

While it may have been written with an audience of one in mind — her ex — the power and grace of its sentiment is universal”.

It is the universality of Old Flowers that means anyone can appreciate the songs, but there is that deeply personal aspect that means every song carries such weight and importance. I hope Courtney Marie Andrews gets to come to the U.K. next year to tour, as it would be great to see her play and, hopefully, many people will have an appetite to see Old Flowers’ songs on the stage. I think the past few months would have given Andrews inspiration regarding songs. In any case, make sure you check her out and follow her music – as she is primed for the big leagues very soon and, judging Old Flowers, it sounds like she is ready. I was eager to show some respect and tip my cap to…