The rocker turned country crooner tells Teri Saccone how he’s straddled the divide. With a rich baritone smooth like ‘Tupelo honey,’ singer-songwriter Darius Rucker has tapped into the mainstream twice: initially via 90s platinum pop rockers Hootie & The Blowfish and then in country in 2008, with debut single Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It off his hit album Learn To Live. CMAs followed as have more Grammys, industry accolades and touring. Although the music press hailed it as a major move, on closer inspection the crossover was fairly organic as South Carolinian Darius was raised on Hee-Haw, has listened to country since childhood and Hootie & The Blowfish extolled flavoursome rootsy folk rock. Since his country foray, Rucker’s career has flourished again. He’s collaborated with Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss, Lady Antebellum’s Charles Kelley, Carrie Underwood and Vince Gill among other country elite. And his four albums and ensuing tours have been both commercially and critically embraced. During his 2012 induction into the Grand Ole Opry, Gill described him as someone “everyone adores”. With all the adulation and adoration, CM’s expectations were high when we spoke to Darius on the eve of the C2C 2017 tour. Fortunately, the man with the golden pipes does not disappoint. He is both gracious and humble. Cognisant of his good fortunes, he offers: “I’m so lucky. I wasn’t expecting any of it,” with no mention of the absurdly hard graft involved. As Rucker is about to grace our stages, he is palpably enthused. “I’m more excited about this than I can say. Touring the UK is fantastic, because the fans there are so rabid and they really do love country music. There is a grassroots loyalty with country that does not exist in pop or rock. It’s a different beast.” Rucker grew up venerating soul, rock and the kaleidoscopic musical menu of USA’s once-diverse AM radio. But one of the first country stars he was enamoured with was Kenny Rogers. “Kenny’s music is so real, his songs are great stories, so vivid and cinematic and he drew me in as a young kid. I loved growing up in the 70s because you could hear Kenny, Cheap Trick, Al Green, The Beatles and Buck Owens all on the same channel.” When he appeared on Radney Foster’s 1999 album See What You Want To See it was a watershed moment for him. “I knew then I really wanted to go in that direction. I told the guys in the band (Hootie) that I was gonna make a country album even back then.” When Hootie went on hiatus in 2008 the timing couldn’t have been sweeter and Rucker began forging a country path. “I got lucky going to Nashville and I didn’t think it was necessarily going to work, and neither did my representation. We were not presuming it was gonna explode for me. But luckily we made such a great first record (Learn To Live). We then literally drove around the country,” he adds, “and we did a national country-radio tour to support it. Some people thought I was nuts, but I wanted to prove myself to Nashville. On that radio tour, I had programmers tell me they were unsure if their audience would accept me. But I knew that I had to start with country that way. Having country music accept me made me so happy I do what I do. Okay, it’s not curing cancer, but it made me feel like I am on the right track.” This modest assessment comes despite the fact that H&TB sold in excess of 26 million copies of Cracked Rear View, making it among the most successful US-made albums in history. Yet Rucker is not one who tends to sing his own praises. Given that Nashville can be quite unforgiving to crossover artists, why does he think he was accepted as authentically country? “I think the main reason is because people knew this was not about money or being a superstar. I would have done this in the basement of my house with my friends if that was as far as we got. I was making this music for me.” One of the recurring themes in Rucker’s lyrics is also a country staple: family. The poignant It Won’t Be Like This For Long bears this out. “The personal songs are best for me as a writer. I could try fictional songwriting, but it wouldn’t be honest. I write about what I live both now plus from my past experiences, so the real-life topics are my trademark.” He says his songwriting is unpredictable and ideas often transpire without plotting or provocation. “Melodies and lyrics come to me in a variety of ways. But they often appear simultaneously. One thing he won’t ever do, however, is write a song and then simply ‘countrify’ it in the studio. “I won’t take a pop song, stick fiddles or a banjo on it and call it ‘country’,” he explains emphatically. Since we already know what he is, I probe him about who he is. He takes a few seconds to ponder the question before replying: “Who I really am is a father. That is my number-one purpose. To have contented, healthy children is a privilege for anyone. And I never forget it.” The answer is poignant, because his mother raised him and his siblings pretty much singlehandedly, with their dad absent and only visible to them on Sundays right before church services. “For a time, we lived with cousins and aunts and we were a very close family and we still are now.” Perhaps his familial ties keep him living in his hometown of Charleston, when he could choose to reside anywhere. “Home is truly here, in every way imaginable,” he explains. Not only do his roots in the historic city run deep, he also is a hands-on philanthropist, having set up two charities. His golfing charity (he’s an avid player and a close pal of Tiger Woods) raises funds for

The irrepressible singer reflects on turning a corner, getting away from it all and climbing a tree, writes Johnny Sharp. “Ha ha ha heeeee!” Is Tift Merritt drunk? Or possibly a little high? In all likelihood, the singer-songwriter is neither of those things, since it’s only 4pm in New York as she answers Country Music’s phone call. But she does sound positively giddy with excitement as she talks about her first solo record for over four years, Stitch Of The World. Peals of shrieking laughter punctuate our chat as she discusses her 15-year recording career, the recent changes in her life and the break from solo performing that helped her regroup, refresh and make arguably her strongest album to date. After complimenting our name, we ask about her own, original moniker. “It’s a family name,” she replies. “They started naming all the other family members Tift, and I’m actually the only female Tift. I’m not sure that’s what they were thinking when I was born – ha ha!” Collaborative Approach Names, like genres, are something you may be able to disown, but it’s hard to shake them off entirely. And while Merritt’s new album draws on blues, folk and singer-songwriter influences, it’s shot through with an unmistakably country feel, whether in the streaks of pedal steel, the Southern twang in her voice or the emotionally upfront lyrical approach. And the woman herself is only too happy to be seen as part of that musical lineage. “I’m proud to be part of the country tradition. I’ve always loved all kinds of roots music, and I love traditional storytelling in song. I don’t like being compared to country pop, though – I identify with the traditional country music people like Kitty Wells and Emmylou Harris – they’re among my heroes along with Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Billie Holliday. But I think genres are usually fingers of the same hand, so you take any of those influences away from me and it’d be like removing a finger. It’s all part of me.” This is a woman who is nothing if not versatile, however, and after she finished touring 2012’s Traveling Alone, her next project was a collaboration with classical pianist Simone Dinnerstein, a collection of small-hours piano and guitar pieces they called Night. It’s a delicately beautiful,intoxicating listen that’s well worth checking out for any Merritt fans. She followed that up by touring with off-kilter singer-songwriter Andrew Bird, a long-term collaborator and friend, as part of his band Hands Of Glory. Was it fun to share the burden with other musicians for once? “Absolutely – I really enjoyed that deeper collaboration,” she says. “I really love being in bands playing with other people in a supporting role, and it also reinforced some of the things I do myself – every time you’re having these experiences with other people, it’s going into your own personal well of things to draw from.” Leaping Off The Map As it turned out, she had plenty of personal food for thought anyway. By the end of 2014 she was about to turn 40, and a year previously she had split with husband and band drummer Zeke Hutchins. She took a few months out to write songs in a cabin in California and a friend’s ranch in Marfa, West Texas. “It was a leap off whatever map I’d written for myself,” she says, “and I think there’s some trial and error in all that. But I had to step away. With all the projects and tour dates, I was turning 40 and my life had taken unexpected turns, and I needed to sort through it without any other distractions.” Retreating to rural solitude to summon the creative muse has become a popular approach for songwriters, and you wonder if the ‘cabin’ of which musicians speak is basically a big fat studio that just happens to be out in the sticks. In Merritt’s case, though, it was part buswoman’s holiday, part artist’s retreat. “I was in Big Sur, a beautiful part of California,” she says. “It was my 40th birthday present to myself! It was definitely a retreat, getting out of the grind of regular life. For me, part of writing is looking at things in a different way, and sometimes the physical experience of doing that can prompt the mental approach to doing that. “California is so beautiful, but there’s also an aspect where I have a writing routine, which I just don’t get while I’m on the road. I was going hiking every afternoon, and that’s how the lyrics for Heartache Is An Uphill Climb came about – because I had had my ass kicked by a real mountain in California! Ha ha!” Walking The Line Merritt’s routine revolved around writing in the mornings and then hiking in the afternoons, or for however long it took to get to the end of the road. “I always find walking is a great way to think,” she says. “Sitting at a desk there’s this self-imposed pressure to do something important, whereas being physical is a great way to free your mind. I’d be singing things into my phone because ideas would be coming to me as I walked. I did a similar thing when I lived in Paris for a while a few years ago, and then I tried it again a few years later after they had installed all the city bikes, and it was such a different experience because the pace of the city bike was so much faster. You can only go so fast when you’re walking and you really can take in your surroundings and really notice. So I think walking and hiking really worked for me – and these were long hikes – I would come home at the end and go to sleep!” Another song that came from that California trip was the title track of the new album, Stitch Of The World. “As it weaves through your heart, try not to

From struggling songwriter to country superstar to veteran outsider, Rodney Crowell has followed his muse on a 45 year journey that has finally led him to a place where he feels like he’s doing his best work. Of the 700,000 people living in Nashville in 1972, probably a good 7,000 were songwriters, most of them looking for a break. So, when a 22-year old kid from Crosby, Texas, named Rodney Crowell made it 7,001, no one took much notice. Crowell believed that he was hitting Music City with his ticket already stamped. “I came to town thinking I had a record deal and the opening slot on a Kenny Rogers and First Edition tour,” he tells Country Music. “None of which turned out to be true. That’s a long story. So, in the beginning, I was sleepwalking. As I started to wake up to the songwriting thing inside myself, the ambition wasn’t anything but to write a song good enough that Guy Clark or Townes Van Zandt would think was okay. They were already there, close to the street. I had access to a gathering of songwriters at a house on Acklen Avenue that I shared with Richard Dobbs and a guy named Skinny Dennis. So I was getting educated.” Eight months later, Crowell caught his first break, courtesy of guitar picker extraordinaire and country star Jerry Reed. “Jerry and his manager heard a song I wrote and played at a happy hour at the Jolly Ox, and they recorded it the next morning,” Crowell recalls with a smile. “Jerry paid me 100 dollars a week to write songs in 1973. That’s all I needed. I could keep a roof over my head, and have something to eat, and spend all my time writing. He had a studio and an office where I would go to hang around. I would just watch him and Chet Atkins show each other guitar licks. Chet was there all the time, along with the likes of Paul Yandell, Buddy Spicher and Vassar Clements. I was a kid and I’d just sit quietly and observe all these incredible musicians. That was a gift. “I remember when I went to the studio to teach the first song to Jerry and the musicians,” Crowell continues, “I walk in and there was nobody there but Chet Atkins. I sat with Chet for 20 minutes while he explained the console to me. He said, ‘Did you write this song we’re recording?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ What I wanted to do was sneak out and find a pay phone and call everybody I knew!” Drink Your Fill & Blow U All Away A lot of the romance and wonder of Crowell’s early days is lovingly documented on the walls of his home studio in Franklin, Tennessee, where we meet for our conversation on an unseasonably warm February day. There’s one photo of Rodney’s daughter Caitlin at 11 months, sitting on the lap of her grandfather Johnny Cash, and a wedding day snap with Rosanne Cash. Another photograph shows Rodney in 1977 with Hot Band drummer John Ware, at the Rembrandt Museum, and there is also a beautiful vintage poster of the Ryman Auditorium. His storied history also finds its way into many of the songs on his latest album Close Ties, especially Nashville 1972, I Don’t Care Anymore and the poignant Life Without Susanna. The latter is about Susanna Clark, one of the most important women in Crowell’s creative life. He says: “Susanna was a muse – a poet, and a really great songwriter and painter. She embodied the goddess as artist. So, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clarke, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Richard Leigh, Dick Feller and myself all, in one way or another, played to Susanna as an audience of one. Townes probably came closer than any of us to dreaming those songs the way that Susanna would receive them. Your songs had to be really poetic for her to receive them. She really saw it as poetry. Whenever she received a song that I had written kindly, there had to be some truth to it and it had to resonate as poetry.” Emmy the Great By the mid-’70s, Crowell was making more connections.He was invited to join Emmylou Harris’ famous Hot Band, playing rhythm guitar alongside Albert Lee, Glen D. Hardin and John Ware. He also became one of Harris’ favourite songwriters, with her cutting definitive versions of early Crowell classics like Bluebird Wine and Till I Gain Control Again. “Emmylou started recording my songs and shortly thereafter, a lot of other people did, too,” says Crowell. “People were listening to Emmy’s records and then saying, ‘Well, who’s this guy writing this stuff?’ – Emmy changed my life.” A hidden gem that Crowell wrote for Harris in 1979 was Here We Are, a duet she recorded with George Jones. With its spare, direct language and elegant melody, it seems a world away from the more dense lyrical songs he’s writing today. But it illustrates his influences and the depth of his songwriting toolbox. Crowell says: “I cut my teeth on Hank Williams, and that kind of very simple language. That was back in the day when all of these things were new. Hank was writing ‘Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you…’ which is still a great line, no matter what time in the existence of mankind. “It was so very simple, and those very simple, almost Hallmark card sentiments were so new then that it was a primer for how to do it. Then The Beatles came along and scrambled it up. Then Bob Dylan introduced Rimbaud to songwriting. Suddenly the paradigm had shifted into this broader verbiage. To write with that kind of simplicity became harder because it had been done so well. “I wrote Here We Are with a purpose. I was having an extra-marital affair during my first marriage and it was kind of about that. It was easy to write,