Southeastern Pennsylvania’s Orpheus Supertones mash up with Charlottesville’s Uncle Henry’s Favorites for a Fiddler’s Convention on Duck Mountain. The collective brings more than 50 years of experience to a showcase of fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass playing, blended with vocal harmonies, for a rousing evening steeped in tradition.
While singer-songwriter Devon Sproule’s sound has evolved over time, she continues to write thoughtful and compelling lyrics. This month her eighth album, The Gold String, will be released. The record is themed on the idea of an invisible string connecting all things, and the possibility of finding “spiritual togetherness in everyday life,” Sproule says. For her this also means finding connection to her roots, wherever she is in the world. Lucky for us, she resides in Charlottesville with her husband, Paul Curreri, and daughter, Ray. She spoke with C-VILLE about her craft.
C-VILLE: What is your songwriting process?
Devon Sproule: I don’t write a lot of songs per year—I put out a record every two or three or more years—so my process tends to change with each song I write. Often I will be inspired by somebody else’s chord progression and it’ll kind of perk up my ears and I’ll figure it out…and then if there’s a way to sort of lift it without, you know, ripping it off, I’ll incorporate it into a song.
Being inspired by genres of music that aren’t your own is nice because once you filter it into your own language or sound, it doesn’t really sound like them anymore.
I will play with the chords and often my first thought is kind of boring for melody. And so I’ll play those notes of the boring melody and then I’ll feel around those notes and find the notes that I have forgotten to sing. Because often my voice will run these same sort of scales or patterns of notes that sound sometimes pretty but not very interesting. So I’ll play those notes on the guitar to remind my voice of the notes it’s forgotten.
I do most of it by ear. I can’t read music. So it’s a very intuitive process.
Can you give an example of a song that inspired you?
Kate Bush’s “Nocturn” from her Aerial album. That is one that I studied. There’s something about the melody. And also Amel Larrieux. She’s sort of jazz with R&B simple beats and expressive, decorative singing.
How do you come up with your lyrics?
I have a journal and sometimes it’s the most boring rundown of my day and sometimes it’s more verse. So, say I have a chord progression I’m interested in, sometimes I’ll take my notebook and kind of see if there’s anything in there that can fit with what I’m working with. I’ll have sort of half a lyric line and half a melody line and I’ll be trying to see if they can fit together. So they’re both created on their own and then I’m trying to ease them together and see if they can live together.
And I like to go through my senses…[for] any really distinct smells or tastes or colors or textures in the setting I’ve created for the song and then incorporate those. It’s just another way of—like that melody tool—finding details that don’t always come to you in your first sketch.
How do you decide whether lyrics will be narrative or not?
If it’s a country-sounding song or a really folk-sounding song then it tends to be more of a narrative or a story. And if I’ve been listening to ambient or experimental music it comes out more stream-of-consciousness.
How much do you draw from your life or experience?
Quite a lot. When I write or hear something that somebody else has written that feels unrelated to themselves or unrelated to something they feel strongly about then I feel like I can’t connect to it as well. So when there is that sort of humming emotional energy there, that’s when it feels most real to me.
Lyrical
“You Can Come Home,” a collaboration with Mike O’Neill from the album Colours
When I began this / I ran a fast ship.
Top of the water / I barely scratched it.
But each empty day / I took on the weight.
I lost the wide eye. I lost the wide sky.
Narrative
“If I Can Do This” from I Love You, Go Easy
The back part of the pond belongs
To the pilots and yellow belly sliders.
If you push to that part of the pond
On the mossy dock / and fall in / hang onto your bits.
To that part of the pond / we run—
Hot from the sauna / mud at the bottom.
If you pick the right path from the pond /
You’ll come upon God’s acre, the terra bathers.
Stream-of-consciousness
“Healthy Parents, Happy Couple” from Don’t Hurry for Heaven
Take a book / for instance /
When it’s done / you are let down.
But when it’s smacking in your head /
You go attacking for the end.
Like a good love / too long in bed / besides /
Why should we do like the movies?
Moving doesn’t need a pattern.
Wooing matters / not the captain.
Related C-VILLE coverage: Singer-songwriter Devon Sproule comes home
The Front Porch’s Emily Morrison wants artists of all backgrounds to find peace at the roots music school she founded in 2015. With help from friends, Morrison began the school in a back room in her home and soon moved into a space at Mountaintop Montessori. Last June the nonprofit moved into the old Michie Theater space on Water Street East. Morrison says the school offers a service she couldn’t find locally as a burgeoning banjo player—a space to host jams, performances and lessons in genres ranging from bluegrass to African dance.
“The essence of what we’re trying to do at The Front Porch is encourage people to sit together and share inspiration, stories from their background and what moves them—to bring the songs they want to learn to the table and play with other people,” she says.
Since childhood, Morrison has felt drawn to the Appalachian sound and language of roots music. That’s not what excites her most about music-making, though—it’s the merging and blending of genres that happens over time as cultural pasts converge.
“There’s a source of music here that’s worth exploring,” Morrison says. “But, there are many other cultural groups with musical histories that are valid, important and should be celebrated.”
Friday 3/3
An Evening with the Darrell Rose Power Trio
Saturday 3/4
Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer concert and workshops
Monday 3/6
Songwriting class with Jesse Harper of Love Canon
Thursday 3/9
West African dance class
Friday 3/10
Starry Mountain Singers
Saturday 3/11
Sunny Mountain Serenaders
Morrison sees an increasing need for artists to have a peaceful place to communicate through the language of art, especially since words in today’s world can be so divisive, she says. Devon Sproule, a guitar and songwriting teacher who recently joined The Front Porch, describes her methodology as “musical mentoring.” Sproule sees music as therapeutic, and says she helps students process life’s joys and pains through creative writing.
“The Front Porch’s path is the same as that: It’s about connecting people and people enjoying music for the experience, not for competition,” Sproule says.
Pete Vigour has taught music for 30 years, tours internationally and teaches clawhammer banjo, fiddle, mandolin and guitar at The Front Porch.
“The philosophy to be inclusive of people of different backgrounds, ages and socio-economic background is quite exciting,” Vigour says.
To make The Front Porch more inclusive and accessible, executive director Morrison and board chair Angel Gunn plan to increase funding for student scholarships and strengthen partnerships with organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters and International Neighbors, a nonprofit providing support for refugees and immigrants.
A number of “champions,” Gunn says, have been instrumental in the move to the downtown location. They began full-scale renovations by creating a large multi-purpose room that connects to classrooms and installed new dance floors, though Gunn says there’s still much to be done.
“We were given a raw space and we’re so grateful for it, but it was a puppet theater,” Gunn says. “There was a little stage and miniature bench seats for 4-year-olds. …We said, ‘Okay, we can fit 10 people in this space.’” Gunn says acoustic improvements and other renovations will continue in order to match the caliber of The Front Porch’s performers and teachers.
Fitting the bill for that quality are Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, who perform and host ukulele and guitar workshops. After meeting in 1980 at a Toronto folk festival, and receiving mentorship from musicians such as Pete Seeger and Tom Paxton, Fink and Marxer went on to play at hundreds of festivals and garnered two Grammys for their style of music that they call “well-rounded Americana.” The duo married in 2012, “pretty much as soon as we could,” Fink says. At their wedding, Fink, Marxer and Paxton performed Paxton’s “You Are Love” together, and Marxer says there was not one dry eye in the room.
“Roots music and activism have always gone hand in hand,” Fink says. “What we do as artists is distill the world’s complication and make it feel like we can do something positive with it—to make good music that inspires people.”
Their new album, Get Up and Do Right, aligns with The Front Porch’s mission to celebrate cultural exchange and tradition. They look forward to performing and teaching in Charlottesville, where Marxer says she sees a tremendous amount of talent and musicality.
“The list is long in how we’ve received support,” says Morrison. “It’s really been a beautiful experience.”