On the heels of her brilliant fourth album, Alice Wallace will perform twice in Bozeman
by Skip Anderson
Six years ago, California-based singer songwriter Alice Wallace walked away from a career in journalism to pursue her passion for music. Her influences include Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, traces of whom can be heard throughout the four albums she’s released to date. Wallace’s singing voice is stunningly beautiful and every bit as powerful as her voice for gender-equality advocacy – a notable theme that she incorporates into her music from time to time. She is an award-winning rising star in Americana and country music genres who is making waves nationally with her new album Into the Blue (2019, Rebelle Road).
Wallace will perform two don’t-miss shows in Bozeman with acclaimed fiddler Xander Hitzig. They’ll appear as a duo in the intimate studio of Live from the Divide June 5th, for a taping that will later air on the syndicated radio show by the same name, and at the Emerson June 6th, as part of the kickoff celebration for the BZN International Film Festival. She recently spoke with the Rolling Zone by phone from her home in Los Angeles.
Rolling Zone: The song “The Blue,” from your new album Into the Blue, is about mustering the courage to take risks and to follow your passion. Six years ago, you quit a job to pursue music full time. Did doing so inform “The Blue?”
Alice Wallace: It really did. I wrote that song on a New Year’s Eve, which is a great time to sit and reflect on what has been and what might be. And I was thinking about the decision that I had finally made to quit my job and do music full time – it took me a while to get up the courage to actually do it. But I knew I would always wonder what might have been if I didn’t give music a real shot, because this is what I love to do more than anything. I was also thinking about all the people who come up to me at shows and they tell me how lucky I am to be living my dream. And I wanted to tell people that I hope they can find a way to do that, too. Life is so short, and if you spend the whole time doing something you’re not enjoying, you’re going to regret it.
RZ: What job did you quit?
AW: Well, I have a degree in journalism from University of Florida, and I wrote for newspapers in Florida. When my parents moved out to Los Angeles, I decided to follow them because I’d always wanted to focus more on music. So, when I came out to California, I didn’t get another journalism job. Instead, I worked at a desk and was always thinking about the shows I’d get to play on the weekend. So, I started making plans and saved money to make it possible to make music full-time.
RZ: Folks will have two opportunities to see you perform while you’re here in Bozeman in June. You’re doing a live taping at Live from the Divide June 5th, and you’ll perform as part of the opening of the 2019 BZN International Film Festival at the Emerson the next night. Will you have accompaniment, or will these be solo shows?
AW: It’s going to be great! I’m coming up there along a fantastic fiddle player named Xander Hitzig. He and I are going to be doing a Pacific Northwest run together. Xander is one of the best fiddle players I’ve ever heard. He’s such a treat to do shows with. Plus, I’ve never been to Bozeman – I’ve never even been to Montana, so I’m very excited to play in Big Sky Country.
RZ: For people not familiar with your music, what kind of show should people expect?
AW: These shows will be stripped down and intimate. I love getting the chance to do shows like these in Bozeman where I can really share the inspiration and the stories behind the songs. I grew up on Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt – the country rock of the ’70s. So, there may be some tributes to them in these shows, as well. I also throw in at least one yodeling song – it’s kind of a lost art and not that many people do these days. It’s a pretty cool vocal technique that we need to resurrect.
RZ: A high school friend of mine in Nashville is the stepdaughter of country music artist Margo Smith. She was known as “The Tennessee Yodeler.”
AW: I’ve listened to a lot of Margo Smith – she yodels so high! My voice isn’t high enough to stay in the kind of register that she was using. Yodeling these days catches people off guard and it’s just a such a fun thing to throw into a show – we always have a really good time at my live shows. I do a modern take on a yodeling song from my new album. In [the song titled “Echo Canyon”], I use a yodeling technique to mimic the cries of a coyote. Modern country artists do these vocal breaks all the time, which is a yodeling technique. They just don’t take it into a full yodel.
RZ: One of the themes of the BZN International Film Festival this year is “women in film.” And the label you’re on now, Rebelle Road, is owned by three women who are steadfastly dedicated to helping advance women in music – an industry that’s largely dominated by male artists on terrestrial and satellite radio. Did that philosophy draw you to Rebelle Road?
AW: Absolutely. The women behind Rebelle Road are great champions of mine. They are so driven and ambitious – it helps to have other women beside me who are looking at the same inequalities and just trying to level the playing field and give everybody an equal shot.
RZ: Do you see that change coming in the country music industry soon?
AW: Not immediately, no. But there are people calling attention to the inequalities, and at some point the industry will be forced to respond if we just keep proving that we are equal and every bit as talented as the men. Just six months ago we were talking so much about “me too,” and how women are mistreated in all sorts of different industries. But once the headlines fall away, you wonder whether anybody’s still thinking about it. So, we have to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds. We have to keep the conversation going. We have to keep things moving forward.
RZ: There are several songs in your repertoire that speak to inequalities, especially in regards to women.
AW: The song “Elephants” on Into the Blue comes to mind. I didn’t write that particular one, but it’s an incredible empowerment anthem.
RZ: And in “Desert Rose” you write about a mother’s struggle to bring a better life for her baby by crossing the border from Mexico. Were you mindful of immigration as a politically charged issue when you wrote that?
AW: It’s funny, it’s on my new album, but I wrote it three years ago – well before we were talking about the current immigration struggles. I was traveling through El Paso and a friend of mine is an EMT. We were talking after a show and he told me about an emergency call they’d gotten that week to help a woman who had come across the border in the night and she had her baby on the floor of the gas station bathroom. I just kept turning that story over in my head for the next few days. I couldn’t help but wonder what her story was, what brought her to that point where having a baby on the floor of a gas station bathroom was a better option than what she was facing. I can’t imagine that I would ever have to face something like that. Even if everything in my life went completely wrong, I don’t think I would ever find myself in a situation as dire as that. As one woman to another woman, I wanted to write a song and give her a story and humanize this issue. It’s not political to me; it feels much more like just a human story.
Alice Wallace will perform at Live from the Divide at 9pm on Wednesday, June 5th, and in the Emerson Ballroom at the opening reception for the BZN International Film Festival on Thursday, June 6th from 5:30–7pm. The festival will run June 6th–9th in locations throughout Bozeman. For more information, visit www.alicewallacemusic.com, www.livefromthedivide.com, and www.bozemanfilmcelebration.com.
Skip Anderson is an award-winning music journalist who relocated to Bozeman from Nashville in 2016. •
