Old-time chills

Gillian Welch connects with the past

by Meredith Ochs

As Gillian Welch talks about her life, the path that led her from a sunny, Southern California childhood to a fascination with Appalachian murder ballads unfolds, it's clear that she was meant to play this style of music from the very beginning. Listening to her unadorned, acoustic second album, Hell Among the Yearlings (Almo), you can hear strains of an eight-year-old Welch wrapping her fingers around a guitar for the first time to learn Woody Guthrie songs, or the sound of a shy teenager strumming and singing quietly in her bedroom.

Her subject matter, though, is hardly kids' stuff. The opening "Caleb Meyer" tells of a farmer's wife who slits the throat of her would-be rapist with a broken bottle. On "My Morphine," Welch's drowsy yodel sounds as if she were nodding off into drugged bliss. Hell Among the Yearlings is inhabited by devils, drunks, and murderers, stained with blood and coal dust, and shadowed by the promise (or threat) of the afterlife. It's old-time mountain music delivered with chilling beauty. Even Welch's lyric vocabulary evokes the past as she sings of button shoes, hollering pines, and the butcher's boy. That her recordings sound contemporary is a testament not only to her skill and that of musical partner David Rawlings and producer T-Bone Burnett, but also to the timelessness and emotional power of this music.

What draws an otherwise happy, healthy 31-year-old to such dark themes? "It's totally visceral," says Welch. "I don't have any control over it. I don't even pick what I'm going to write about; stuff just comes out of my head. People think it's some kind of preservationist or museum thing, but it's much less thoughtful than that. I love traditional music and all the hardcore subject matter, like girlfriends getting poisoned, but not in a campy way. I think it's honestly beautiful that people were able to put such gritty stuff into music in such straightforward way. It's just as gritty as the toughest rap or punk."

Welch's interest in spooky old folk tunes is matched by a pliant, country-hollow voice. "I was lucky to wind my way to this music. But I didn't look at all of my prospects and decide between R&B, rock, or traditional American roots music. The first time I heard the Stanley Brothers [one-third of bluegrass's holy trinity, along with Bill Monroe and Flatt & Scruggs], the power of my reaction to it was a realization that this is how I sing."

The adopted child of Hollywood writers, Welch found her interest in folk songs sparked at the Westland School. "It was up in hills between Los Angeles and the Valley, and it had an `alternative' curriculum. We ran around barefoot and sang songs, but I never heard the actual records until years later." It was as a student at University of California at Santa Cruz that she began delving into the music of Ralph and Carter Stanley, the Delmore Brothers, and the Carter Family.

She moved from Santa Cruz to attend Boston's Berklee College of Music, where she met David Rawlings. "We were both auditioning for the only country band in school, and we both got in." The two didn't really collaborate, though, until they relocated to Nashville. "We played bluegrass recreationally, but we didn't do much playing out or going out. I was in school and working a part-time job, so essentially I was poor and had no time. I was pretty much a hermit."

Welch's early years may have been inauspicious, but once she and Rawlings began making the rounds at Nashville's ubiquitous songwriter showcases, it didn't take them long to get noticed. Her "Orphan Girl" was covered by Emmylou Harris, which led to a deal with Almo Sounds and her debut, Revival. Produced by T-Bone Burnett, Revival was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Folk Record" category, going up against such heavyweights as Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. To top it off, Welch was invited to record a song with one of her heroes, Ralph Stanley, for his Clinch Mountain Country album. Not bad for a girl who, according to her own accounts, moved to Music City with only four songs under her belt.

Given the success Welch has enjoyed over the last year, it seems odd that Hell Among the Yearlings would end up such a somber album, except that Roy Husky Jr., the legendary Nashville session bassist who played on Revival and the only other musician she and Rawlings planned to work with, had passed away. "There were a number of tragedies this year -- nothing I set out to address, but that stuff affects you even if it doesn't consciously enter into the writing process. I actually did write some happy songs, but they didn't fit in once the record started going in the other direction. The same thing happened with Revival, so we've got all these songs left over. Maybe our next record will be completely happy."

Gillian Welch performs with David Rawlings this Friday, September 11, at the Common Fence Point Community Hall in Portsmouth. Call 683-5085.