For over two decades, Paul Burch's unique interpretation of American rhythms and roots music has attracted fans and collaborators from both the punk to honky tonk fraternity. Burch’s latest album LIGHT SENSITIVE has recently been released on Plowboy Records. It features a dozen parables about living in the modern south. Lonesome Highway recently caught up with him to discuss that album, his career and his thoughts on being a musician and living in these strange and straitened times.

Looking over your career is it panning out pretty much how you thought it would? 

I never thought very far ahead so I feel very fortunate.  Like everyone, I often feel like I slip through a door right before it disappears. I always wanted to make records. My parents and their friends brought home new records with a sense of pageantry. A good album was played over and over again. I heard a lot of jazz growing up. Early rock and roll. Jimmy Cliff’s THE HARDER THEY COME and Steve Wonder’s INNERVISIONS were on all the time. I loved John Lee Hooker. And my grandparents had the same love for music. My grandfather loved opera. My grandmother played good boogie woogie piano and loved Count Basie and Sinatra. In the Washington D.C. area where I grew up, there were two record collectors –Dick Spottswood and Joe Boussard—who had radio shows that featured early blues and country 78s. They’d play songs like I Got Your Ice Cold Nu Grape by the Nu Grape Twins and Terraplane Blues by Robert Johnson. Records that were hard to forget. D.C. had a great jazz scene. Flautist Lloyd McNeil had a group that played a lot. Les McCaan was a family friend. Bands like the Nighthawks and Evan Johns and the H Bombs were in town all the time. Even if I was just sleeping in the car outside, I could hear the music.  

I didn’t have any idea what kind of place Nashville was when I came. But I had friends here who told me it would be a good place for me as a songwriter. I knew it was a recording town. But I didn’t want to be famous, I just wanted to be included. The first artists I met were members of Lambchop and Tom House—a fine poet and songwriter. They were just like me: they wanted to make records. They were very supportive of the way I was trying to blend together a lot of different kinds of music. I had no goals to speak of other than to figure out to how to make a good record. We were also punk rock kids. We grew up with the idea that you should own the fruits of your labor. That single mindedness –and the fact that I wanted to be in charge of my work—insulated me from a lot of risky business decisions. So, I feel very lucky for the way things have turned out so far.   

I’m still fascinated that you can record the same people in the same studio a year apart and the two sessions won’t sound anything alike.  I still daydream about music the same way I did when I was a boy. I mediate on sounds. The birds in the daytime. The crickets at night. The sound the trees make in the wind. I will often look at a photograph and imagine the kind of music that might go with it. I can close my eyes and hear the ocean if I need to. Good actors can do that. They store away sensations. In Nashville, where the caliber of musicianship is very high, the very best hear so fast and feel so deeply that you can almost sense electricity coming off them. I think fiddler Billy Contreras is like that. The one time I did a session with bassist Roy Husky Jr., I wasn’t even in control of my hands. He stood just a few feet from me and taught me what to do intuitively. After the session, I sat in my car trying to remember everything I had learned from watching and listening to him. I wondered if musicians who played with Charlie Christian felt like I did. Roy took my breath away. That was my introduction to Nashville. My pal Dennis Crouch makes that impression on me whenever I hear him. I'm a better musician everytime we play. 

Would you have changed anything with hindsight? 

My regrets are pretty small. Today, I wish more people could see us perform. But I know that if I had been on the road more, I might not have had a home to come home to. I was self-aware enough when I started to know that to improve as a writer, I had to have the peace and security that comes with having a home. Having a family matures you. In comparison, I saw friends of mine come home from the road with a hard shell—a kind of meanness—that just wasn’t my style. And it’s also tough to write if you’re worried about the logistics of the road.   

I love to perform. It’s a vital part of good musicianship. But the touring business is a racket and you have to be careful.  A couple weeks at a time is fine. Your voice loosens up and you start to surprise yourself. After three weeks, you get in a groove and every show is in the A-range. But stay out any longer and real life begins to fade away. Your day revolves around the few hours between waking up and soundcheck. You become like a prowling panther circling its pray, saving up your energy for the kill—getting on stage. You lose track of the arc that people live by.  You call home and nothing anyone says makes any sense.  There’s a line in Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row about getting a letter from home: 
“All these people that you mention, Yes, I know them they’re quite lame,  I had to rearrange their faces , And give them all another name”

Part of being a professional is keeping your hand on what’s important. Some cats fall apart in the real world once they’ve had that high that music brings. I would guess that most composers enjoy a balance of both. 

A friend took me to see the Daniel Fish production of Oklahoma last Christmas on Broadway. The show brought us to tears. We were in the lobby afterwards, just trying to wrap our heads around what we had just seen. Within minutes after the curtain came down all the actors came out in their street clothes, walked straight by us, and blended into the Broadway night. If you can do that, you can make it. My career is more like an expedition—trying to find those people who I feel have hidden gifts they don’t see in themselves. I want to create an environment so they can discover what I see in them.  

You were one of the musicians that helped to revitalize the music scene in Lower Broadway in the early 90s. How do you view that area now? 

It might as well be another planet now. But it was a priceless experience back then. Playing downtown sharpened my musicianship and toughened me up. When you do a four-hour show, you discover where your voice can go, how to handle a crowd, how to put together a set list, and lead a band. But those joints were tough. I did all my work at Tootsies and there were two owners at the time. They were suing each other. One time, one of the owners forged the other’s signature to sell the bar. When the other owner found out, he came to our show, got on the plywood stage, shushed us down, held up a shot gun and said into the mic: “Show’s over. Time for you mother fuckers to go home.”  Man, I didn’t even turn off my amp. I just picked it up and walked out the back. I have quite a few live recordings we made back then and they’re strong. We weren’t a great band, but we were different, we loved what we were doing.  

During the day I was meeting musicians who were secret heroes of mine.  My first session was with Vassar Clements. My second was with Owen Bradley at the Bradley Barn. There was a couch in the main studio and Owen sat there with his sailor’s cap and mahogany cane in front of a giant grey book cabinet that held Patsy Cline session tapes. Our steel guitarist Paul Niehaus was warming up. Paul came with me from Lambchop and helped form the WPA Ballclub.  Owen heard Paul and said: “He sounds like Jerry Byrd! He’s using the same inversions.” I thought: “Ok, I better find out what an inversion is.”  

Every studio, even the tiny places, had a multi-track tape machine.  If you knew the engineer, you could sneak into a studio on the weekend with a reel of tape, record all day, and walk home with an album. The older session musicians were absolute gentleman. Whatever you had in your pocket, they would help you out if you had your act together.  We just cut a session with Charlie McCoy who played on Oh Pretty Woman and BLONDE ON BLONDE and Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer. Records that will last forever. Before we ever played a note, we talked for an hour about his life and how he got started. How he used to hide his Little Walter records from his Mom and Dad. But once the red light was on, he was switch blade serious. And everything he did was dynamite. 

I believe you knew and played with Bucky Baxter who recently passed away? 

I did. Bucky had just left Bob Dylan when we met him. He used to sit in on steel with us at Tootsie’s. Bucky played a 6-string with Bob, but Niehaus played an 8-string. When Bucky came up to play, he took the two “extra” strings off, threw them in the crowd, and re-tuned the steel while playing a solo. At the end of the night, Bucky would take us to the Hermitage Café at 2 in the morning and play Dwight Yoakam’s Fast As You over and over again on the jukebox.  He’d tell us crazy stories like after he quit touring with Steve Earle, he flew planes from Central America with Pablo Escobar’s drugs. He’d say: “Dylan would love you guys.  He wants to be a hillbilly singer so bad.”  And sure enough, Bob took BR549 on the road.  Lucinda Williams and John Prine came to our very first gig at Tootsie’s. Raul Malo of the Mavericks came out and gave me and Paul a lot of encouragement.  

There were a lot less people downtown back then…

Oh yes. Downtown was very funky. And during the week it was dead quiet. You could stand on Lower Broadway late at night and hear the creak of the Ernest Tubb Record Store sign as it turned ‘round and ‘round. I felt like ET was looking right at me. “Go home kid!”  I worked for a while stocking records there and found a box of sheet music for Walking the Floor Over You in the basement from 1941. Up the street there was a junk shop on 2nd avenue that had piles of acetates—funerals, sermons, and record booth recordings of fiddle players and carnival barkers who just wanted to hear their voice on vinyl. 

Back then Bill Monroe played every week at a little club outside of town called the Bell Cove.  If he was in a good mood, he’d talk about DeFord Bailey. If he was in a bad mood, he’d pretend he couldn’t hear you. One time he wasn’t feeling well so I got up and sang I’m Blue, I’m Lonesome in B, a pretty high key. He wrote that with Hank. I didn’t think he was listening. But when I came back the next week, I was sitting at a round table and he came from the other side, took my hand and pulled me across the table—he was very strong. “I sure appreciate you helping me out last week, boy. That was mighty fine.”  

I was backstage once at the Opry and his fiddle player was showing off an old Martin D-28 he had just bought. Bill stopped him and said: “Come here boy…that’s Hank Williams’ guitar isn’t it? I’ve been looking for that guitar. I always wondered what happened to it.”  Bill pulled out a piece of paper in his wallet with a serial number in pencil and sure enough, it was the same guitar. Now this was 1994 and Hank had been dead since New Year’s Eve 1952. No one cared about these crazy fellows but for us, they were like the first generation of daredevil pilots. 

There’s no doubt these are strange time for musicians, so how have the changes that have come around in regards to selling albums, performing and keeping your name out there affected you?

Every time I put out a record, the business has changed a little more. When the pandemic begins to fade, there’s going to be a lot of people who won’t come back to the card game. For now, I’m content with trying to make the best records I can and to perform anywhere I’m asked to go. The only complaint I have about Nashville is that musicians get a little overheated about their career and forget that what an audience wants is a great performance. If people are willing to meet you halfway—get a date, go to dinner, pay the door, buy a beer, and take a seat—then you have to make them feel welcome. People assume that if you’re on stage, you want to be there, you’re rehearsed, and you’ve got something to say. So, make them feel good about giving you a chance. Today, the business is like a game of 3-card Monte. The game was never meant to be played fairly. The only way you can win is if you don’t play.  

It’s a good while since you toured in Ireland and Europe. Is that a financial consideration or has they been other reasons why you can’t tour as much as you did?

The only reason I haven’t played overseas in a few years is because the shows haven’t been there. I miss traveling. But I’m philosophical about it. There are many artists I admire who have gone years without a full calendar and all of a sudden, they will be in demand again. Often the smallest changes in your life can make a great difference in how you perform and how you’re perceived. Success is rarely logical or convenient. So, you just have to be ready and be present every day. Which is how you’d want to be anyway.

What decides your choice of direction when you set out to make an album?

Most of the time when I call a session together, I’m not thinking about a new album. What seems to work for me is to first focus on recording three or four new songs that feel good. When I listen back to what we’ve done, the strongest songs will stand out and from there, I’ll try to lean in that direction. If one of the musicians is playing a new instrument, I’ll encourage them to bring it to the session. New sounds will influence how we play off one another.  

Originally, I was hoping the new album, LIGHT SENSITIVE would be built around loops—repeating rhythms and phrases. That’s an idea I’ve had for a long time. But then in the middle of my writing, I was asked to write songs based on Eugene Walter for the Southern Foodways Alliance conference in Oxford, Mississippi.  Eugene was a fascinating character who was a writer, poet, theater director, and cook who wrote about the history of southern food culture. He also lived in Paris and Rome in the 1950s and acted in a few of Fellini’s films. I had lived in Oxford for a short time, so it was a good trip for me. My favorite songs from that project seemed to fall right into the sound I was originally hoping for. In the end, LIGHT SENSITIVE turned out quite rich, like a series of small film scores.  So, to answer your question, I can plan ahead about what I’d like to do, but I don’t really know what will work until I hear the playback. Whatever feels good to me and everyone else usually sets the direction.  

What denotes a WPA Ballclub album from a Paul Burch album?

It’s a bit arbitrary. But the WPAB is with me on everything and they are never anything less than invaluable. Sometimes the artwork just looks better to have the full name on the cover. The new album feels a bit more like a “band” album to me. MERIDIAN RISING required me to play the role of Jimmie Rodgers—or at least be a spokesman for his imaginary journal. The songs were small soliloquies. The words had to push the music. I felt I had to be a little more out front. In contrast, LIGHT SENSITIVE is a bit more modern. And it’s about a region rather than a person. All the rhythms are based on grooves you’d hear in New Orleans or southern Mississippi. The music and the lyrics push and pull together. Jean Garrigue required us to do some careful arranging together compared to –say—Fast Fuse Blues which was pretty much roll tape and play. I love both styles. 

Even when you are recoding under your own name you have a lot of the same musicians working with you. Do you feel most comfortable with these players and do you like to throw in the occasional wild card into the mix?

I put the band together based on musicianship but also around people I like, people who share my outlook about music. The WPAB are all very interesting, uniquely gifted people who could be producers themselves if they chose to be. As a band leader, it’s up to me to provide a place where they can relax and just play out. Sometimes to make it in Nashville you have to hide away what you love the most. If you get a reputation for just playing R&B, you might not get called to a pop session even though you can play both.  In contrast, I try to focus on what musicians love to do.  For instance, when I was making STILL YOUR MAN, our longtime bassist and co-producer Dennis Crouch had been listening to a lot of Duck Dunn from Booker T & the MGs.  We were working on a song called Lead Me On. I asked Dennis how Duck Dunn would play the melody and he came up with the bass line that starts the song. That’s my favourite part of the tune now. Fats Kaplin and I have also played together for 25 years. During the pandemic crisis he’s been playing a lot of Hawaiian steel guitar so I invited him to work on some Sol Hoopi classics we can record with ukulele—for the hell of it. It’s a great sound. Maybe we’ll write something together. So, on one hand they are my band. But I’m also their rhythm guitar player. We make a powerful sound together. And we’re just as surprised at the racket we can make as anybody. As for adding a wild card, I think every band should. Whether it’s Roy Agee from Prince’s band or Charlie, I’m always eager to bring in great people. Someday, all of them are going to show up and there will be 20 people on stage. 

You once said that recoding with Ralph Stanley was a highlight of your career. Can you define what why and what other outstanding memories have there been? 

Recording with Ralph was a wonderful opportunity that came about because Laura Cantrell and I had done a short tour with him. We talked quite a bit about the Stanley Brothers on that trip.  Little Glass of Wine was a favourite of mine and it was the first record he made with his brother Carter. Our session was a nice way to acknowledge that we had become friends. It was a great honor for me, but he treated me like a colleague. He was very prepared—easy going, very focused. From a singer’s point of view, I felt the tone in my voice wasn’t too far off from Carter’s so I gambled we would make a good record. And it worked. He told my wife he thought my tone reminded him of Carter which was very kind of him. It’s a big responsibility to produce Ralph. I wanted people to hear him how he hears himself. He sings mountain music, not bluegrass.

Part of getting better is narrowing the distance between what you hear in your imagination and what you can actually do. When you’re up against someone who sings so beautifully, all you can do is try to be yourself. Singing harmony is fascinating. You’re naturally inclined to find a place where you and the other person can make a unique, third sound.  If you find it, it’s beautiful.  And it only belongs to you and the other singer.  As for other guests, I mostly vibe on it. I’m drawn to people who are unique. I think the first person I admired from afar that we brought in was Ranger Doug of Riders in the Sky. Ranger Doug is a great rhythm guitar player. We play similar roles in our groups. For me, his presence was also special because I knew his musicianship was informed by people he had worked with like Herb Jeffries and the Sons of the Pioneers—both heroes of mine. Everyone I meet has added something to my musicianship. To them it might not have been a big deal but to me, it was impactful.  

You have recorded and been located in Nashville for quite some time. Is that how you prefer to create?  

I’m not sure I’d call it a preference. It’s my home and the world does seem to come to Nashville eventually. There is nothing quite like being in an environment where there are so many good people. But I don’t think I have to be in Nashville to be creative. The city has turned into an outdoor mall with a very large parking lot. The studios—and the musicians—can’t really afford to be here any longer. And neither can the small clubs and bars and funky little shops that a music community thrives on. I think the world crisis will affect the city in ways we can’t see yet. But the diversity is much, much better. Still has a long way to go, though.

You have your own studio. Is that still where you record and tell me a little about why you like it?

I do still use my studio. It’s a funky spot. If you get too loud, the room fights back. But it has a unique presence and a unique sound. And for all its limitations it does accurately represent the band.  If we’re having a good day, it will show up on tape. To some degree, my favourite engineers like Sam Phillips from Sun Records and Tom Dowd from Atlantic were like good cooks. They made use of everything.  You couldn’t record a lot of drums or bass at Sun Records.  But Sam found a way to compensate. A lot of the great records on Atlantic—John Coltrane, Ray Charles—were recorded in an office. At night, they would just push the desks and couches against the wall and set up some mics.  My studio is a bit informal, too. You can get very close together without wearing headphones and just play. That influences our performance quite a bit. As long as I remember to plug the mics in, we can usually make a good sounding record. 

How would you define your own music?

As strange as you might think this answer is, I call it rock and roll. If I’m listening to the Staple Singers, you’ll hear some Pops Staples in my guitar sound. If I’m listening to Leon Russell, I’ll encourage Jen Gunderman or Heather Moulder to lead us on piano. If Fats is playing tenor banjo, I’ll ask him to work it into whatever I’m writing. My favourite artists are stylists who would sing anything they liked. Sam Cooke. Charlie Rich. Ray Charles described himself as a ball player. He can catch. He can throw. He can bat. Chuck Berry played Hawaiian music, blues, rock and roll, and Calypso. I mainly draw my inspiration from rhythm. Playing rhythm guitar or drums is probably the best way I can contribute to a group. I’m happy to sing, but I’m even more inclined to help set the feel. The WPA’s drummer Justin Amaral intuitively plays what I would want to play so I get the best of both worlds. I learn a lot from hearing everyone play their part. 

Where you happy LIGHT SENSITIVE in all its facets?

I am, thank you. I thought the band played beautifully and some of the songs I think are among the best sessions we’ve ever had. Dennis Crouch and I worked very well together. It was Heather Moulder’s first album and she played wonderful piano. Jen Gunderman became Fats Domino on Boogie Back.  But as with most of our albums, every tune was cut in one or two takes. We have a good time. As Charlie says, when the red light is on, then it’s serious. But in between takes, we’re just trying to figure the tune out. I relish the camaraderie as much as I do the music. Even if I wrote the song, I have to learn it, too. 

What is the future of roots/county music now? Do you think that people are looking for something more authentic?

It wouldn’t surprise me if roots and country music became even harder to pin down as the best musicians start blending different kinds of styles together. I think there’s more appreciation today for the true roots of country music which is—and always has been—the blues.  The record business is a bit of a mess so it wouldn’t hurt if we spend the next year getting acquainted with audiences again before we go back in the studio. I think authenticity is a fool’s errand. What is authenticity? I grew up on a farm and I know what horse manure smells like—as Hank Williams once said—but that doesn’t give me any special credentials to sing country music. I would say I’m a rock and roll singer who loves good country music. But I’m sure what I call “good” might not be the same artists that you like. And that’s the way it should be. 

Your writing often stems from a real situation or place. Do you research a story once you have decided to write a song about it?

Every tune seems to be different. I think when I wrote Gunter Hotel Blues, I had no idea the hotel was haunted or that a famous murder had occurred there in addition to the Robert Johnson sessions. I knew Jimmie Rodgers had kept a room there. Most of the other details were based on just riffs that came into my head. My uncle told me his grandmother, Lena, died in their home when he was a child, so she found her way into the song. 23rd Artillery Punch on the new album was based on Eugene Walter’s drink recipe. I had to add some other ingredients. You wouldn’t normally put avocado in a drink. But I found out that in the deep south, some people call them “alligator pears” and I wanted to have that in the lyric. The best songs seem to come all at once and I barely have time to write them down. If I’m writing about a place or person and I don’t know a specific detail, I will go back and try to find a detail that might fit. When I’m not in the mood to write, I’m always reading or listening to music. Names, places, and odd details find their way into my imagination.  

You mostly write solo but do you enjoy working with other writers?

I love writing with other people but like great friendship, it either blooms or it doesn’t. Writing with a partner requires a love for theatre and for the absurd—for making a show out of nothing. Dennis Crouch and I only recently started writing music together after 25 years playing nose to nose. And we have a great time. Jon Langford and I wrote “Great Chicago Fire” in about 15 minutes—just passing a notebook back and forth. I’d love to write with Amy Rigby or Amy Allison. They are two of the great writers of our day. I love Kevin Gordon and I hope we can write sometime. Friends of mine come up with lines and ideas all the time. There are lots of classics by writers who didn’t think of themselves as writers. Al Bell who ran Stax Records wrote one song—I’ll Take You There—for the Staples Singers. Can you imagine a better song? Having a good experience writing with someone gives you the confidence to put the pen down when you’re stuck. But sometimes you just have to solve it yourself. Every tune is different and seems to have its own code. 

Do you keep notice of your contemporaries and can you recommend any who have made an impact on you?

I have a DJ show on WXNA in Nashville so I get to hear a lot of good new music.  The band Longneck I quite like. Jr. Thomas and the Volcanoes. My neighbors Tommy Womack and Will Kimbrough are making good records. Robyn Hitchcock and Emma Swift live nearby and they’re always making new music. Jessie Antonick recorded my tune “Last of My Kind” and did a beautiful job—lovely voice. My old friend Phil Lee has been working with Crazy Horse. On the big stage, Kendrick Lamar put on one of the best shows I’ve seen in a big arena. I’ve seen Guided by Voices several times and I always hear a 2-minute song that sounds like the best thing I’ve ever heard. Thanks to your introduction, I’ve seen Elvis Costello every time he’s come to town and he’s always taking chances.

Aside from music what other interests do you have? 

I draw quite a bit. My son wants to be a film director, so we are working our way through the Criterion Collection. I’d love to visit Cuba. I’d like to see more of America and write for other artistic mediums like the stage or film. LIGHT SENSITIVE and MERIDIAN RISING gave me the chance to expand my horizons and move a little farther away from familiar sounds.     

What’s next? Are there any musicians and singers who you would like to work with?

I think I’d learn a lot from working with Luther Dickinson. I love his musicianship and we always have a good time together. I’d love to make a record with Booker T. Rhiannon Giddens is wonderful. The composer Paola Prestini—she’s very far out. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, who is a young cellist. I’d love to put Dennis and Christian McBride together on dual upright basses. I recently started an education program called Catfish & Onion with my friend Catie Baumer Schwalb who is a chef and photographer. We want to introduce kids to food and music traditions and show how they are connected.  It’s a combination of history and current events. After making Light Sensitive, I feel the band is entering a new phase—more open, more experimental, more cheeky.  As time goes on, we get closer to “beyond category” as Duke Ellington called his music. That would be a nice place be.

Interview by Stephen Rapid