More People Really Should Know About: Melody Walker

The first two things you need to know about Melody Walker are that she is a Grammy award-winning songwriter and has an amazing and versatile voice to boot, one that she has proven can adjust to virtually any style of music. There may be several reasons why she is not a household name –  her musical style has changed chameleon-like over the fourteen years since her first release in 2011 (from somewhat gospelly Appalachian to very contemporary bluegrass to rather pop-infused protest bluegrass to a more soulful sound on her recent singles recordings);  her promising band Front Country broke up at the beginning of COVID, a world event that left her with a kind of writer’s block after ‘coming out’ in 2020, and, despite the aforementioned singles her focus has very much been on songwriting, at which she is clearly very adept (check her Grammy-winning songwriting contributions to Molly Tuttle’s “Crooked Tree”  album, and Sierra Ferrell’s “Trail of Flowers”). She also now hosts a writers-in-the-round weekly Writer’s Kitchen (a la Bluebird Café) at Jane’s Hideaway in East Nashville.

Walker hails from the Bay Area in northern California and grew up in a home of varied musical sounds, learned piano then guitar before studying classical voice and world percussion, which was enhanced by studies in India and Brazil. She was part of a short-lived all-female band, Akabella, before partnering with multi-stringed instrument wizard Jacob Groopman, which was the beginning of the making of her modern bluegrass band Front Country. Before the release of that band’s official first album, she released a highly acclaimed solo debut, “Gold Rush Goddess” (2012), with a varied palette of largely acoustic sounds of indie-bluegrass persuasion (ballads and blues, a cover of Blondie’s ‘Dreamin’‘ and the brilliant gospel song ‘Black Grace’), largely supported by the future Front Company musicians, Adam Roskiewicz on mandolin and banjo and Leif Karlstrom on violin, but with a few horns and drums on a couple of tracks. This album showed the early signs of Walker’s protest writing with the issue of the downtrodden woman in the 1850s on the title track.

A duet with Groopman followed in 2013 (“We Made It Home”, produced by Laurie Lewis), an album dominated by Walker’s songs and her powerful voice underpinned by Groopman’s outstanding acoustic guitar and mandolin playing. A new slower, more nuanced and emotional version of ‘Black Grace’ appeared with an even more gospel feel – “No you don’t have to wait ’till you stumble and die /’Cause heaven is right here if you’re doin’ it right”. Other outstanding tracks included the moody ‘Oh Heartbreaker’ about learning to love oneself after a breakup and a great bluegrassy take on Paul Simon’s ‘Graceland’.

Front Country’s “Sake of the Sound” appeared in 2014, and it kicked off with the wonderful traditional ‘Gospel Train‘, which demonstrated significant progress in the power and emotional depth of Walker’s voice, which was obvious throughout the album. Despite the fact that the band played well under the radar, the variety in musical styles encompassed on the album and the virtuosity of the musicians suggest that this could have been the album that has driven the move away from the tried and tested bluegrass format into the more modern progressive style of bluegrass album exemplified by the likes of Molly Tuttle (of whom more later) and Golden Highway, Billy Strings and The Steeldrivers. Take a listen to the title track for evidence and to ‘Colorado’ for Walker’s truly expressive vocal gymnastics.

“Other Love Songs” followed in 2017, this time dominated by Walker’s solo writes, including an updated and more wistful version of ‘Oh Heartbeaker’, to fit in with a more modern-sounding album but using the same instruments. “Break-down toxic romantic fairy tales” is how Walker describes this very soulful album, which kicks off with the brilliant ‘If Something Breaks’, which, as well as highlighting Walker’s songwriting and singing skills, once again demonstrates the extremely talented musicians in the band. The Carter Family’s version of ‘Storms on the Ocean‘ is turned on its head and into a bluesy romp.

In 2020, Front Country released “Impossible World” to more acclaim, generally a protest album released just before the 2020 US election with the spectre of another Trump victory hanging over it. The album continued with the lyrical abilities of Walker and its bluegrass sensitivities, but as the first track, ‘Miracle’, burst out of the speakers, the music sounded more like Fleetwood Mac than a bluegrass band. The instrumentalists, as talented as ever, now included drums, keyboards and electric guitars. ‘Amerikan Dream’ was a scorching protest about the imbalance between the wealthy and American ideals. ‘Broken Record’ was an exhortation to get out and vote, ‘The Reckoning’ addressed truth and reconciliation. The soulful ‘Make it Now‘ encapsulates the album perfectly – outstanding singing of a plea for change: “The children all hungry and the women cry / People break their bodies just to barely get by / Young boy fights a war like a rich man’s hound / Lord, if there is a heaven, can we make it now?” The band is amazing, and background vocals are haunting. The album is outstanding and, upon reflection, probably a better vehicle for Walker’s soulful vocals. It was a very fine album.

But then began a time of immense change for Walker. As COVID struck, the band members could see no real future for it, and they each left to follow solo careers, leaving the band with an indefinite hiatus. And, of course, COVID prevented any touring and live shows. Battling with her sexuality, Walker ‘came out’ and simultaneously developed a kind of evolving epiphany, asking herself, “Who am I now?” more than a decade after her first solo record – “I had to realize that it was up to me to decide what kind of musical life I really wanted to have, and what was making me happy,” she noted, as she spent more time on the creative writing process. Having always written alone, she accepted an approach from Molly Tuttle to write a few tunes together, one of which was the groundbreaking ‘Crooked Tree’, which was particularly relevant to both Tuttle (who has alopecia areata) and Walker (who is gay) insofar as it describes being ‘different’ but living freely with it. The album had four Walker/Tuttle co-writes, and both the song and the album won Grammys. Similarly, ‘American Dreaming,’ co-written with Sierra Ferrell for her “Trail of Flowers” album, also won a Grammy. Happier now with writing with others, often with those from an LGBTQ background, Walker has released a few singles since 2022, which clearly show a move into more soulful music – ‘Listen Sister’ is a powerful polemic about the status of women, especially gay women.

Since August 2022, Walker has also hosted the above-mentioned in-the-round Writers Kitchen at Jane’s Hideaway in East Nashville, that she started inviting writers of all persuasions to participate in a weekly songfest.

Wherever Walker’s musical stylings will take her, whether in the current more soulful style or maybe with more music with Silo Sisters, a collaboration with Bonnie Sims and Phoebe Hunt (who have yet to record any music but appear on YouTube videos with songs such as her stunning  ‘The Missing Stair’, about child abuse), hers is a talent that deserves, indeed, needs to be heard.