Kiki Cavazos has the kind of mythological musical backstory that is becoming rarer in a world that is, mostly, easier to travel. That’s a strange paradox – but few are the musicians who can claim to have done what she’s done. Born in Montana, the songwriter spent summers traveling the northwest with her dad cutting down trees. At 16, she ran away from home to Alaska before drifting down to Mexico, where her grandfather was from. She played banjo in a Mexican drum band that performed on buses and on the street. Arriving in New Orleans, she formed a band called Sundown, writing and playing guitar with Alynda Lee Segarra (of Hurray for the Riff Raff) and Sam Doores (of The Deslondes), among others. Doores produced Cavazos’ debut album Goodbye Blues, coming out April 24th on Jalopy Records via digital and a limited vinyl run.
Hawthorne and Heartache is a sparse song that embodies Cavazos’ music – it sounds like it has come echoing down the ages, and in the recorded form has the feel of being played in some kind of lonesome homestead, a hundred miles from anywhere and meant to be heard by a handful of passers-by or family: or by no-one at all. If you’re looking for that haunted music, well here it is.
