Sunday Supper Club: Courtney Patton, Jason Eady, Scott Miller

Singer/songwriter Courtney Patton has flown a little under the radar in recent years, far from a household name but a welcome discovery for listeners who’ve found their way to her sweet, soulful, and subtle approach to classic country music. Her first full-length record, "Triggering A Flood", was released in May 2013. Her expansive voice, laced with deep Texas twang but bearing the influence of favorite songwriters from the ‘70s folk-rock scene all the way through the present day, gives new life to old themes of finding love and freedom where you can and trying to hold yourself together when it slips away. She’s already a favorite of some of the scene’s brightest artists, having collaborated and played with the likes of Mike McClure, The Trishas, and new husband Jason Eady. With new material in the pipeline and a renewed interest in taking her music to a larger audience, she’s becoming not only a peer in talent but an indispensable part of the regional independent country music world herself.

"I suppose realism is what I look for in new music. I want to believe a new song. That happens when I hear Courtney's music. Her voice is rich and unique and that's something that's been a dormant quality in the "woman's world" of country music for a long, long time!" - Adam Hood

"Over the years I've watched CP grow into a singer/songwriter to be reckoned with. Top shelf." - Mike McClure


"There has always been pop music, but country music was always the avenue out of adolescence and into the grown up world with grown up issues like responsibilities and family. Someone's got to keep it alive, to preserve that kind of sound. That was our aim with this record."

Jason Eady's extensive background in "grown up issues" is what explains why the word "poet" is so frequently associated with his name. A six-year stint in the US Air Force as a translator placed him in a slew of foreign cultures giving him a universal look into the nature of human beings and a good jumping off point for his comprehensive lyrical translations. The Mississippi native and Texas transplant has spent the last seven years in an incubation period undergoing a musical metamorphosis that has led him through lonesome delta blues, inspirational church house harmonies, poetically spun tales of Americana and into the naked and honest regions of good ole' country music.

His three previous record releases have laid an impressive foundation starting with his 2005 debut FROM UNDERNEATH THE OLD (produced by Walt Wilkins and Tim Lorsch). That was followed by his 2007 sophomore release, WILD EYED SERENADE (produced by Eady), which was tagged as the Top 50 Albums of the Year by the No Depression reader's poll and reached #14 on the Americana Music Chart. WHEN THE MONEY'S ALL GONE (produced by Kevin Welch) is the last anyone has heard from Eady, until now.

AM COUNTRY HEAVEN, Eady's fourth record release, originated as a side project with friend (and producer) Kevin Welch. The plan was to lay down some old school authentic country music out of sheer self-indulgence and as a labor of love. As the recordings got underway more and more people appeared in the studio contributing their ideas and adding their personal touches until their side project evolved into what is the highly anticipated album everyone is talking about. Eady says, "I love that old school country music so much. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of artists doing it these days. It's almost the opposite…like people are running away from it. I admit that this record is a drastic departure from anything I have done before, but this is where my heart is."

AM COUNTRY HEAVEN features Redd Volkaert on guitar, Earl Poole Ball on piano, Tom Lewis on drums and Kevin Smith on acoustic bass - all members of Austin's all-star team of country music players called Heybale. Combined, they have recorded and toured with artists such as Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Junior Brown, Dale Watson, Connie Smith and Johnny Bush. They're responsible for the southern swagger on this album's tunes like "AM Country Heaven" and "I'll Sure Be Glad When I'm Wrong." Add legendary pedal steel player Lloyd Maines on the soulful "Longer Walk In The Rain" and "Lying To Myself" and a special vocal appearance from the incomparable Patty Loveless on "Man On A Mountain" and Eady's rich baritone timber, and what you have is a pure honky-tonk affair in the tradition of all the great troubadours that came before him.

In addition to his own albums, his talent for prose has been embraced by his peers landing him two cuts on Micky and The Motorcars' latest record RAISE MY GLASS, one cut on Eleven Hundred Springs' forthcoming record and two co-written cuts on The Trishas' forthcoming record. Eady also co-penned The Trishas' latest single "Drive." Although the radical departure that is AM COUNTRY HEAVEN is sure to strike fans like a storm without warning, it seems that Eady is merely living up to his reputation for the element of surprise as perfectly stated by USA Today who said, "This Mississippi native's blues-rocker creeps up like gathering thunderheads."


"Growing up, my family was isolated just by mere location. Turns out that doesn't insulate you from any of the troubles all of us have. Then, a writing space I rented in Knoxville was a dingy basement apartment with one window. That window looked out into a parking lot in the back of a convenience store. Listen, what I saw…Trust me. It's a big big world." – Scott Miller



What does the term "big big world" mean for artist Scott Miller? For starters, you could assume that the epicenter of that "big big world" is the two-hundred acre cattle farm Miller grew up on and now works in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. And the gifted songwriter/performer's "big big world" recently stretched to include the aforementioned writing space in Knoxville, as well as the city block between the Nashville apartment of friend Patty Griffin to producer Doug Lancio's Studio G! in East Nashville, where most of the work for Miller's new project was done.



But after listening to the new CD, BIG BIG WORLD (F.A.Y. Recordings), Miller's avid fans will realize that the phrase points to the artist's new musical horizons, which have stretched beyond the sphere of any of his previous work.



BIG BIG WORLD was recorded, mixed and produced by Doug Lancio, with Lancio and Miller playing the parts of what would normally have been Miller's backing band, The Commonwealth. Miller and Lancio met back in 2007 when Scott opened for Patty Griffin's CHILDREN RUNNING THROUGH tour while Doug was bandleader and playing guitar for Griffin. Miller and Lancio struck up a friendship and started working on Miller's 2009 release FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, but when Lancio took thegig playing guitar for John Hiatt, the record was finished with producer/keyboardist Michael Webb.



Miller wrote BIG BIG WORLD to bits and pieces of music that Lancio recorded when he wasn't touring with Hiatt, and when Miller wasn't out on the road himself. For two working musicians this was not an easy task: "When we could get our schedules to match we would work at forging both kinds of music: adult AND contemporary!" Miller pointed out.



Over the course of a year the two would get together in Nashville: Lancio in the studio and Miller across the street in the empty condo owned by Patty Griffin. "There was no TV and no Internet since Patty wasn't using it much, so it was a sensory deprivation chamber," Miller explained. "I don't do well alone with my thoughts, so I set up a typewriter in an office in Doug's studio and wrote to what I heard him working on down the hall.



As a result, BIG BIG WORLD is a ten-song offering that melds Miller and Lancio's respective gifts of words and music. Highlights include the pulsating title track "Big Big World" and the straight-from-the-shoulder "How Am I Ever Gonna Be Me?" that Miller brought to the project already written. Their mutual influences of southern rock, country and bluegrass can be heard on "I Gave You the Power" and "Why Won't You Give Me Your Love?" while interpretations of Tuareg music from the southern Sahara can be discovered on "Freight Train Heart/Stone Wall Love" and "You Got Love." There's even a wink and a nod to the sound of 70's songwriters like Neil Young or Terry Jacks ("Heavy on My Mind.") Finish it off with a cover of The Country Gentlemen's "Goin' Home" - backed up by Knoxville's Black Lillies - and BIG BIG WORLD wraps right back around to East Tennessee where Miller started all those years ago.



Each song comes with its history, its own story. "Some songs I just write and don't think about while I'm doing it. Sometimes I think as I write 'I shouldn't be writing this' or 'I won't ever let anyone hear this, I'll just make this an exercise'– and 'How Am I Ever Gonna Be Me' is one of those songs," said Miller. "I wrote that song the summer before I hit what some people call 'bottom,' but I like to think of as my 'moment of clarity.' "



"We all wear different hats, that's part of life, but for some it becomes overwhelming, especially if you don't have any kind of foundation, spiritual or otherwise," Miller explained. "This song is just talking about it. Maybe whining about it too."
"Freight Train Heart/Stone Wall Love" is also a cornerstone moment on the project: "This song represents the entire record to me," said Miller. "So much of the writing on this record is wordplay, which I truly enjoy but I worried that it didn't mean anything. So the first version of this song had SO MANY WORDS and the melody I sang had SO MANY NOTES. But we took the time so that I could listen back and hear what worked and what didn't. A few days before we finished up I wrote these three verses to that very simple melody. And it turns out it DOES say something to me," Miller finished, with a final, "So there."



Ever since Steve Earle declared Miller a "world class" songwriter - signing him and his former band The V-Roys to his record label E-Squared and producing their two bedrock Americana albums JUST ADD ICE and ALL ABOUT TOWN with Twangtrust partner Ray Kennedy - Miller has been known as a writer's writer. Even on the next four albums Miller recorded and releasedon Sugar Hill Records from 2001 to 2008, Miller's songwriting remained genuinely thoughtful, for the most part regional and history based-- but always cloaked in what one New York Times reviewer called an "epic vernacular." In other words, he wrote big.



The last two years have seen big changes for the malapert Miller. "Like many with elderly parents I heard the call: Now is the time for all sons to return to the land of their raising, smother their parents with a pillow and collect their social security," Miller deadpanned. Moving home to take over the family cattle farm and establishing a new base from which to tour in Staunton, VA - all while embracing a new life of sobriety - has been challenging and time consuming. "Most of my touring the last couple of years has been in spurts, not like I used to do. I can't leave my cows for that long. I need their guidance."



During this time of transition and scaled down touring Miller was often on the road as a solo performer. It was then that he happened to meet old-timefiddle maven, Rayna Gellert, and the two began performing together and incorporating Gellert's old time fiddle style with Miller's rock sensibilities, ultimately releasing an EP, CODEPENDENTS (F.A.Y.Recordings). Gellert's fiddle now adds another sonic layer to BIG BIG WORLD.
BIG BIG WORLD is the third release on Miller's record label F.A.Y. Recordings. Previous releases include FOR CRYING OUT LOUD (2009), CHRISTMAS GIFT (2011), and CO-DEPENDENTS (2012). "I really was ahead of the curve by starting my own label years ago."

However, it seems like working and co-writing with Doug Lancio might prove to be one of Miller's smartest moves yet. The two men have made a big, big record-- a collaboration that proves Scott Miller hasn't stopped growing in this BIG BIG WORLD.