Americana musicians in recovery
Life clean and sober feels ‘All. Right. Now.’ for Drew McManus of Satsang
Courtesy of Greyson Christian Plate Drew McManus is living proof that not all of those recovery cliches, the signs hanging on the walls in 12 Step meetings around the world, are a one-size-fits-all guide to sobriety. The co-founder, songwriter and vocalist for the Montana-based band Satsang, McManus went to rehab in 2010, stumbled briefly and…
Read MoreOn new song, duo The FBR paints a stark portrait of alcohol’s ferocious grip
Before he met his musical partner Malarie McConaha with whom he founded the roots music group The FBR, Tim Hunter was in a relationship that almost cost him his sanity. In many ways, he told The Ties That Bind Us this week, it felt like being a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, except that the woman…
Read MoreAlt-country songwriter Kenny Roby dynamites ‘The Reservoir’ of reservations
When singer-songwriter Kenny Roby first got sober back in 2004, it was a 12 Step self-help group that put him on a path of personal and artistic renewal. Two years later, he released the most critically acclaimed album of his solo career, “The Mercy Filter,” a record that detailed his sober journey in cryptic ponderings…
Read MoreGrant Glad of Soo Line Loons embraces lost dreams and new possibilities
Soo Line Loons is, from left, Erik Loftsgaarden, Kristi Hatterschide, Grant Glad, Matthew Fox and Robin Hatterschide. Back in 1994, bluesman and music critic Tony Glover wrote a set of liner notes for “Tomorrow the Green Grass” by The Jayhawks that included a line that could just as easily be cut-and-pasted to describe the new…
Read MoreJohn Henry vs. alcohol: St. Louis singer-songwriter lays his hammer down
Courtesy of Tim Gebauer John Henry, the St. Louis-based singer-songwriter who traffics in the sort of workingman’s Americana that’s fitting for an artist who bears his name, has enormous respect for those who battle an addiction to alcohol and drugs. As a guy who’s spent most of his adult life in a business where substances…
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