A Conversation with Sarah Hawker (continued)

PM: On the other hand, is somebody taking the more predictable channels, getting you on satellite radio and stuff like that? I hope somebody is covering that end of the waterfront.

SH: Well, honestly, when this last CD hit, I mean, we're still overwhelmed. We just can't believe how many people want it.

PM: Wow.

SH: So we're just keeping up, barely.

PM: You're getting tons of dates and you're selling lots of records.

SH: We're selling lots of records. We haven't gotten tons of dates.

PM: Who's booking the act?

SH: Maria Camillo does it, and last year we traveled a lot. We did a lot of gigs. And then we sat down at the end and said, "Okay, so we tried that. Is that a happy life for you?" Both said, "No."

PM: Ah.

SH: I mean, we didn't have time to write things. We didn't have time to live. You know how it is, it's like you're just running.

PM: You spend most of your life driving, after all.

SH: [laughs] So in the end, basically, we're just really--I don't want to say protective, but we try to honor what we need to do in order to just make the music, because that's the most important thing.

PM: Right.

SH: And so we love to take jobs and we totally are into it, but we don't take everything, basically, because we just can't live like that.

PM: That's smart. It's a very unusual approach, especially at this stage.

SH: Yeah, and it could be the stupidest thing ever, I have no idea, but it's how I have to live. And my goal isn't to be rich and famous, although, please, if you want to hand me money, that's fine. But my goal is to have a complete, beautiful life. And I've got to do whatever I've got to do to be in balance. So we're kind of in that space with it, where we love especially small places. Last year we just did too much. It was too much. And I think we suffered as people. I think we could give more and do more and be better musicians if we pace it and take our time.

PM: Right. And it's easier to do that when there's two of you and not five of you, like you're not a band.

SH: Exactly, exactly.

PM: You're two grownup people and can say, "Okay, hang on, now, how do I want to do this?"

SH: Yes. And we have a very good partnership, a really honest, honest partnership, in terms of that.

PM: Right.

SH: So that's great.

PM: Now, both of you Lonesome Sisters are really solid guitar players, even though you're newer at it than Debra is. You're both really solid and really good rhythm people. Are either or both of you also into fingerstyle guitar or country blues, or stuff like that, or?

SH: Not that much. Debra comes out of bluegrass, and she played mandolin in that.

PM: Oh, she was a mandolinist in the bluegrass band.

SH: Yeah. And so guitar, though, we do a lot of old-time, and that's rhythm.

PM: Right, that's rhythm.

SH: And it's a few bass runs, but it's really just a rhythmic thing. And we like that. And so, no, we haven't really gone in that direction. I'm hoping to explore a little more--I'd like to explore some blues a little bit more. There's some specific kinds of blues that I'd like to work on that just have to do with rhythms and spacing and things like that that I'm interested in. I don't know how it would fuse into Lonesome Sisters, but--

PM: Right, right. The blues can really mess up the old-time thing, too.

SH: Exactly.

PM: It can mess up all kinds of things. It can mess up country.

SH: Yeah, yeah. So no, we like to keep it pretty straightforward.

PM: Yeah. And when you get into the fingerstyle thing, then all of a sudden people start calling you singer songwriters. [laughs]

SH: Right, exactly. And it's a totally different animal. And also, I mean, it's kind of like, "Well, what do you like to listen to?" And I just say, "I love the Stanley Brothers." I mean, there's not a whole lot of fingerpicking going on. It's all about the harmony, and then people jump in, and they do their thing with their mandolin, and their fiddle, and then they jump out. [laughs] It's like you think they just popped out of the closet of the recording studio.

PM: So would you agree that there seems to be a really palpable and unexplainable resurgence or revitalization of old-time and mountain music in recent years?

SH: Oh, my God, absolutely. A lot of people being open to what we're doing, I think, is because of that groundwork. And I don't know, I can't even say why.

PM: Running in those circles the way that you do, what is that generally attributed to in old-time circles, that resurgence, or what do you attribute it to?

SH: Well, O Brother Where Art Thou? was a huge thing.

PM: But I mean, that's what popular culture kind of listens to.

SH: Right, right.

PM: That's kind of too weird to swallow. I mean, it can't have all been caused by a movie, can it?

SH: No, it can't. I mean, I really don't know. Somebody told me Will Oldham is singing and doing shows with Hazel Dickens.

PM: Wow!

SH: You know? Somebody said, "He's doing a concert with somebody named Hazel." And I was like, "Hazel Dickens?" I mean, I don't know if that's true. I wanted to go check it, because I feel that connection. I don't know where it's headed, but I was hoping something like that would happen.

PM: Wow.

SH: But I don't know. What do I know?

PM: But I mean, obviously, the resurgence of old-time and Appalachian music and stuff, it can't be linked to a movie. That was a coincidence. That was something bubbling up in the culture that the Coen Brothers also picked up on, maybe. But it was going on anyway, right?

SH: Yeah, yeah. Especially like country in the city. I mean, I was shocked. And there's more and more all the time.

PM: It seems to me that part of it has to be some kind of an unspoken reaction to the hip-hop culture.

SH: Or if not that, I wonder if it isn't the stripped-down simplicity of acoustic music and coming out of American historical space with that. But more about the stripped-down quality, and the bareness, and that people are feeling some desire to move towards that.

PM: As a reaction, you mean, against the progressively technological aspect to everybody's life. Like everybody owns computers now. A lot of us who are at them all day long now certainly never expected to be.

SH: Exactly, exactly. I feel that it's just a response to some of that stuff. And I don't know exactly how. But it seems like a lot of people, when they say that they like our stuff, they emphasize the simplicity and the starkness, and the fact that we don't have a lot going on.

PM: Right. That's it. That's the thing. How do you like the duo of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings?

SH: Oh, I love them. I love them. I think they're wonderful.

PM: You know what I like is how out there they get sometimes, especially on Time (the Revelator).

SH: Yes. And some of that guitar stuff is just--oh, my God, it is so heart felt.

PM: Oh, Rawlings, he's the one.

SH: Yeah.

PM: I mean, nobody goes where he goes. And I've seen him so many times. And the way we spends all night painting himself in and out of corners, it's great. [If you haven't yet had the pleasure, check out our Gillian Welch profile by Alec Wilkinson, here.]

SH: Yeah, and seeing if he can get himself in and out. It's like watching somebody on a tightrope.

PM: Yeah, "Can I get around this corner with the pedal to the metal?"

SH: Yeah.

PM: And he doesn't even put the brakes on. [laughs] He just steps on the gas, and he gets around the curve.

SH: I know. And I like their unapologetic drones that they get into. I like that they take the time that they need to take. It's like they're not interested in becoming anybody. When you see them and when you listen to them, I always feel like they're doing what they're supposed to be doing for themselves. And they are an inspiration in that way, absolutely.

PM: In old-time circles--if such a thing exists, and I imagine it does— they must be kind of--I mean, the way that that duo has marketed itself is astounding in a world where hip-hop rules. And I think one of the things that set them apart is that they'll get so far out there with their material.

SH: Yeah, absolutely. And they don't even stop to ask, "Well, are people going to buy this?" Because you just know--when you listen to them, you just know that's probably never even entered their mind. [laughs] At least as far as I feel when I listen.

PM: And I think they've made it clear that if you make the right sound, you can write any damn song you want, if it's good. You just have to make the right sound, and you got to play good. You don't have to play "Omie Wise."

SH: Right.

PM: As long as you're making the right sound.

SH: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Singing has come back into the old-time circles, which wasn't there for a song lime. And that's also recent in that world.

PM: Oh, right, because it was about the string band thing.

SH: Yeah. It was total string band. And now people are singing. And some people are singing Gillian Welch songs. I mean, it's just cool. And then they do a tune. And in the old days, that's what old-time music was. It wasn't all fiddle tunes. It was a fiddle tune, and then a song, back and forth.   continue

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