Mostly MN Music with Katy Vernon & Anna Stine

We had a wonderful show today and I could just cry because I didn’t push record in time. So the best parts of the show – the interviews with Anna Stine and Katy Vernon aren’t on the archive. BUT I have videos of each of them singing. It’s such a treat to have people play music the studio and we were twice blessed today.

My guest cohost was my daughter Aine. That was fun. We started nearly out of the gate with Anna Stine. She released her first album last fall – Company of Now. I think she sounds a little bit like Bobbie Gentry (Ode to Billy Joe). Her voice is so pretty. It was fun to hear about her experience as a musical therapist. She recently quit her day job to pursue music (performance/art) full time. It’s always exciting to meet someone who is taking such a big step and she is right to do it. She’s going to be great. She just finished a tour of the West Coat, she’s playing in town a ton and about to embark on another tour.

Anna is playing Mar 9 at the Troubadour and Mar 10 at the Aster. And she has a big show coming up on March 25 with Lowland Hum at the Moon Palace.

Next we had Katy Vernon, whose CD (Suit of Hearts) is coming out March 23 with a big hurrah at the Parkway Theater. Katy haven’t known each other very long but I am so impressed by her. In the promotional video for her upcoming CD release she has a quote from Alice in Wonderland – I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then. We talked about that line.

First I learned that Lewis Carroll spent in Brighton and so did Katy. She went there for a 9 day writing retreat. She learned about a secret-ish tunnel from Carroll’s to the see and at one point he saw a rabbit (presumably white rabbit!) running into the tunnel. And that fit into her song Undertow, a song I liked before and love now. But it was great to hear from Katy how the quote fits into her own life – how she has recovered from depression and substance addiction to a better place.

I met Katy one night as we both volunteered to interview people experiencing homeless for  three-year survey of a night on the streets in the Twin Cities. She has heard about it from a social post of mine and then there she was – after midnight at the bus transit at the Mall of America. So that’s not much about her singing, but it’s a lot about her songs and her humanity. One of the monikers I love for Katy is “sad songs on a happy instrument” and it’s very true. But we talked about how that’s less true than it once was – it feels some of the sunshine from the ukulele in sneaking into the lyrics! I really enjoy her music – it’s hard not to dance even when the dark tones take over the theme.

Playlist (more planned than actual)