I broaden my musical knowledge in various ways. In the case of Chelsea Crowell, I found out about her music via Twitter. I recently e-mail interviewed Crowell on the eve of her entering the studio to record her second solo effort (she entered the studio on June 8). Her first solo effort, Chelsea Crowell (also available from Amazon and on iTunes), was released last year, while her earlier collaborative band effort, Jane Only (also available from Amazon and on iTunes), was released last month (both from Cleft Music). Before jumping into the interview, here are snippets from her bio: “Chelsea Crowell is an American songwriter, singer, artist and author. She has lived in New York, Baltimore, Memphis, Charleston, Colorado and Nashville. Having grown up in a musical family, she began writing and playing guitar as a teenager … Her real start in music began when she moved back to Nashville in 2004 with guitarist, Stephen Braren. They lived together on the top floor of a now bulldozed, pre war walk up apartment building on 31st Ave called Maberta. It had a clear view of the Nashville skyline at the time. It was there they would shoot fireworks from the window towards the Parthenon but always hitting the neighbors across the street. The two eventually formed the band “Jane Only” with Lincoln Kaufman. The group became Stephen, Chelsea, Marty Linville and Fletcher Bangs Watson the Sixth … In ’08, Chelsea began her first solo project with producer and fellow generational conduit, Loney John Hutchins. … Originally meant to be an experiment while band mate Braren was on tour with band, Cheap Time, by early ’09 a full length record had taken form. It is being released on vinyl, cd, and online through Hutchins’ Cleft Music imprint … She is currently working on an opera as well as her sophomore record.” My thanks to Cleft Music‘s Hutchins for putting me in contact with Crowell, and to Crowell, most importantly, for her valuable time and thoughts.

Tim O’Shea: What was the inspiration for “Where the Hell is Robert E. Lee” (Cut 10 from your solo release)?

Chelsea Crowell: Aside from being from the south and having a bit of an American civil war history fetish, I wanted to write a song that was historically accurate. Aside from the line in the song about Sal T, who was my ancestor Sal Taylor Willoughby, the song can be fact checked. I have a note book of biography songs I wrote that I hope to make an entire record of when I am done with the projects I am working on now. For the sake of my first debut album, there was plenty of love-lorn-lost and low down emotion, so it was between ‘Robert E Lee’ or a song about ‘typhoid Mary’ just to throw off the singular heartbreak. The civil war was a different sort of heartbreak.

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