 Courtesy of the Artist
Christopher K. Doyle graduated with a MFA from the University of Baltimore and has since written about the origins of country music in Purchase, a novel set in the 1930's and based around the Carter family. In addition to the novel, Doyle recently released the companion cd, Harlequin Road. Today, on what would be A.P. Carter's birthday, Doyle answers his Essential 8 and discusses his inspiration for the album, relates the story behind the album's title, and much more!
With "In Your Hallway Again," what was the “a-ha” moment when you knew the song was completed and perfect? For the song “In Your Hallway Again” I knew it needed something, a higher more lyrical sound to round out the almost revival-like religious feel of the tune. When the talented Mimi Cukier agreed to play viola fiddle on the track—and then when I heard what she came up with—the complementary lines to my vocal, I was blown away. It helped the song retain that rough, live, playing-in-a-prayer-tent feel, but also catapulted the melody into the stratosphere, and I knew it was done. We’d gotten it. What’s the story behind your album’s title? Harlequin Road is a name I came up as a stand-in for Music Row in Nashville. A novel I just published titled Purchase is based on the Carter Family of country music fame. Without giving too much away, the main characters finally make it to Nashville, but have to compete with a host of other musicians/characters for their own shot at stardom. Hence all the characters in the song “Harlequin Road” as well as the song’s theme of stardom but at what cost. Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? Currently, with writing my novel Purchase, based on the Carter Family, I’ve drawn my inspiration from the Appalachian Mountains and from the Potomac River and all the natural beauty I grew up with in western Maryland. I’m also inspired by the lives that the Carter Family found tucked away in all the little towns and hollows strung throughout the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia and West Virginia and parts of Tennessee. All the songs they tracked down and remade as their own had their own stories to tell way back when. I like to think of the singers/artists who wrote those old songs and sang them just for their own daily sanity. They weren’t trying to sell records or perform on any stage or make it in any music business or anything. Music was and is essential for living and surviving and that’s the path I’m following.
What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
The best advice you can give to any artist in any creative field is to just be themselves and not to force it. I don’t know much about art, but I do know that if you are forcing something it isn’t going to come off and you’re left playing something or creating something that isn’t true to who you are and people can sense that and it doesn’t work. You don’t get too many chances when you’re looking for inspiration, so when you do get inspired, you have to follow it and not force it where you want it to go. You’ve got to go with that inspiration wherever it leads. What are your “must have” albums for the road? The Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music is kind of like my bible of music and I bring it with me wherever I go and constantly draw inspiration from the artists and voices and music it captured. Lately I’ve been listening to Washington Phillips, an old Texas preacher who I think only recorded 18 tracks, but all of them are ethereal and inflected with a spiritual quality that is hard to describe in words. He played on an instrument he made himself, something like a zither, so the strings tumbling beneath his voice are so lovely and lilting, that you kind of just float along with the melody. What do you love most about being on the road? The best part about being on the road is seeing the world in all its many phases. There is so much that is interesting and new out there, it’s easy to get addicted to keep seeing newer and newer things, sights, places, experiencing all the world has to offer and using that energy and those images to inspire you when creating your art. Now it’s not all good stuff, for sure, but it certainly is interesting and far from the routine we all kind of fall into at home. Who would you love to collaborate with? I think collaborating with Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings would be about as surreal and artistically-affirming as anything. Their musicianship, song craft, emotional depth—it all blows me away every time I hear them. I’ve written lots of songs where I think, if only Gillian and Dave and I could play this . . . Another artist I would love to collaborate with might sound odd at first, but stay with me—Rod Stewart. His voice gets me and I think it works for just about any style of song he sings. I love to write country, blues, and lately some jazz/American songbook type stuff. A few years ago I even put together an album that I thought traced Rod’s career quite well: from his early Faces days, through his pop stage, into his later jazzy twilight offerings. I won’t hold my breath though. Do you have a favorite gift from a fan? I mentioned once between songs how much the next song I was going to play was inspired by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys—one of my all-time favorites. And after I played and I was signing some books, because I had my novel there as well as album (as they kind of speak/talk together, the two works), an old friend I hadn’t seen in years happens to hand me a T-shirt with Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys on it! I couldn’t believe it. It was almost as if I’d written a script and we were just following along to it, but sure enough my friend said to keep it. I don’t know if he’d literally given me the shirt off his back (I didn’t check), but it sure felt like it and I haven’t forgotten it since. For more information Website Purchase
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