GALO: What’s the new record called?

JL: We don’t have a title for it yet. It’s a bit of a concept record; we’ll see what happens. It’s about the South; songs about the South. It’s hopefully going to sound old and new at the same time.

GALO: The production on The List (Rosanne’s album of songs which her father Johnny Cash suggested) is Spartan and classic in many ways. It seems to perfectly highlight Rosanne’s vocals. Was that your intention?

JL: Absolutely. Every record I do is designed to highlight the vocal. That’s why I don’t like listening to my early records because I don’t think I fully embraced that aesthetic early on. I was too involved being interesting musically. My aesthetic about record making is completely and utterly about how to frame the singer and still have the track be interesting, and not neutral or linear. I’m trying to have the track have some sparseness to it, still hold your interest, and not be predictable. I love doing that. It’s one of the great challenges of arranging, producing and engineering, but I love it. I do.

GALO: When you have guest artists like Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Costello come in to record with Rosanne like on The List do they sing live with her or do you overdub?

JL: We overdubbed them all. I’ll tell you the truth; you can look behind the curtain, to know they were all overdubs. In fact, I never saw Bruce; he just did it at his house and sent us the files, pretty simple.

GALO: So you don’t have a Bruce Springsteen story?

JL: I don’t have a Bruce Springsteen story except that he was incredibly sweet and generous to do it. [Springsteen sings on the “Sea of Heartbreak” track with Rosanne.]

GALO: How do you usually approach a cover version?

JL: I never, ever see the point in duplicating somebody else’s version of a great song. Many times in cover records, people will mimic the original version. The challenge is how do you make it unexpected and interesting and still have it sound organic. Then there are times when people will rearrange classic songs and utterly change them, just for the purpose of doing that. I’m always trying to find the middle ground where it’s like, ‘well it could have been recorded like this originally as well.’ I really loved the original version of “Sea of Heartbreak,” so it was challenging to figure out how to do it.

GALO: So you play drums, piano, bass and guitar?

JL: Yeah, I’m an OK piano player and an OK drummer/percussionist, but bass and guitar are really my instruments.

GALO: Do you have a big collection of guitars?

JL: I do. I do.

GALO: When I saw you, Rosanne and the band performing songs from The List at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, one of the songs that was so impressive was “Long Black Veil.”

JL: Well, that’s a great song. It’s a ridiculously well written song with an incredible story, great melody, and great hook. That song sounds like it should have been an Appalachian mountain song passed down, but it’s not. [The song was written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin in 1959.] People love that song. Like “500 Miles,” we play “Long Black Veil” and they love it in the UK and in Barcelona as well as in Pennsylvania and Los Angeles. The story is compelling. That someone would choose to die rather than to betray their lover. We like those songs that have an element of tragedy lurking beneath the surface. As Americans, we really like those songs.

GALO: Folk songs often seem to go there.

JL: There is something about the elemental aspect of great folk music that I think does touch some deep DNA in us. I think that’s for real. Do you know about the Louvin brothers?

GALO: I do not.

JL: Go online. You’ll go, “oh man, how could I have not known about this?” They were songwriters. They were an act from the ’50s and ’60s who had a deep profound influence on country music, particularly the Everly Brothers, Emmylou Harris, and Gram Parsons. One of their best known records is called The Tragic Songs of Life. They came from rural Alabama.

GALO: You mention Gram Parsons, who I think definitely helped shine a light on country music.

JL: I admire Gram Parsons because, on a personal level, he was a conduit to me to a deep well of phenomenally great music that I didn’t have access to directly growing up in New York City, which was great country music. I found out about Merle Haggard, George Jones, and the Louvin Brothers through The Byrds, Gram Parsons, and The Flying Burrito Brothers. The albums Sweetheart of the Rodeo, and The Flying Burrito Brother’s first album (The Gilded Palace of Sin), and Gram’s two solo albums were huge for me. They opened up the door to that world of music I didn’t have access to. Not only that, but there was a sensibility to those records that have, in that way we talked about because I was 18, seeped into my DNA, so that conglomerate of records stayed in me and has shaped whatever aesthetic I have. I’m grateful to Gram Parsons for opening that world to me, even though I never met the guy.

GALO: To me artists from that period did their homework; like the Stones looked at the blues and The Beatles looked at everything.

JL: People are still doing it. It’s just now the playing field is so crowded, it’s hard to get a sense of what it all means. There has been such an exponential explosion of product, artists, and releases that it’s hard to make sense out of everything. Back then, thankfully for us, there were so many fewer people doing it that each individual statement seemed to be larger and resonated more. But you’re right, people did look back. And then there’s The Band and The Band doing “Long Black Veil” on their first album, which was incredible, so they also were a conduit for me to that music, for which I am eternally grateful.

The way I’m wired is that it was more stuff to put in my little internal musical computer. The way I’m wired: Ray Charles, The Beatles, Merle Haggard, Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, Wes Montgomery, Igor Stravinsky, Charles Ives and Johann Sebastian Bach, are all the same thing. The whole thing with genres and Americana, this, that and the other; I mean, I guess I understand there’s some need for it somehow, but it doesn’t even register on my radar. It’s all the same to me.

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