Heidi Newfield

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Heidi Newfield’s New Album is a Fresh Start From a Familiar Hitmaker

BY LEE VALENTINE SMITH

SINGER-SONGWRITER-HARPIST Heidi Newfield may be best known as a founding member of country hitmakers Trick Pony. But her new solo album The Barfly Sessions Volume 1 is destined to change her direction from major-label favorite to soulful indie artist. Released last month, the genre-defying album, co-produced with Jim “Moose” Brown of Bob Seger’s Silver Bullet Band takes traditional country, Texas swing, roadhouse blues and Memphis soul and filters them through her distinctive style. Just before the album dropped, Newfield spoke with INsite by phone from her Heidaway studio in Nashville.

Releasing an album is always a hectic time, but now that you’re an independent artist, your to-do list must be twice as long as usual. I’m a list person and in the past I’ve always been on a major label. It’s busy enough then, but since this is my first album as an indie artist, it’s been a blessing and a curse. It’s a wonderful experience on so many levels and then there are sometimes I just wanna tear my hair out! So I made this list and it is intense. I finally had to step back and go, ‘You know what, this is supposed to be fun.’ Now I’m trying to take things as they go but it’s still intense. We’re trying to get this record out to over 200 roots and Americana stations. It’s all a new thing for me but I’m trying to embrace it and I’m certainly learning a lot as we go along.

But with all that work comes complete artistic freedom. That definitely comes under the blessing category. I’ve worked for the major labels with some wonderful people who are still my friends. But when you’re on a major, they do tend to sort of put their fingers in the pie. Especially when there’s been some success. You have some sales and things start to fly. Sometimes they may mean well but they’ll come in with a song that is so hideous it’s like, ‘Do you even know what I do?’ So now it’s my turn. It’s like emancipation in some ways and to jump into the co-producing seat, it’s just been very intense.

Tell us a little bit about working with Moose. He’s just such a nice guy and he’s been a friend for a long time so we have such a great chemistry together. I never felt stifled and delegating who will do what has been a

lot of fun. Like when we cut the track “Blues Is My Business,” I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could get Delbert McClinton on this?’ So it was fun to be able to just make a call and make those kind of things happen. He’s a busy guy - or he was I should say, back when there was a music business, he was on the road with Bob Seger as his bandleader. Until this pandemic started, he was really heavy on the road with Bob doing that long farewell tour as we were making the record. He’s one of those guys that no idea is too weird. With him it’s like the weirder the better, let’s try it!

Going back to the first Trick Pony record, you’re always surrounded by heavy hitters. Well thank you and it’s always such a pleasure to work with phenomenal musicians and to get to know them. You know, when you’re making a record like this one of the challenges is to find just the right player for just the right song. I wanted to be surrounded by great musicians who could swing and have that intuitive knowledge of the blues. For some songs I really needed that twang sensibility as well. We had a lot of fun just surrounding the songs with all these great players. Like, there’s probably no style of music that [bassist and Joe Bonamassa bandmember] Michael Rhodes for example hasn’t played. Everybody on this record knows where to play and where not to play and it turned into a real band. When we first started the project, the idea was to create this as a band and find our place within the music.

Some artists have a great batch of tunes and a great batch of players but the whole thing seems forced. Right! I didn’t want it to sound canned. I didn’t want that over-polished sound I just wanted to sound like a tight band and I think we did it. Some of the songs come to such a together point that at the end it sounds like the perfect train-wreck, you know what I mean? I love playing with guys that really get it. to the entire album, is that it’s a really heavy-hitting roadhouse blues band. Well thank you. It makes me feel good and that’s one of the things about a successful record, one person can hear more of the honkytonk stuff or the Bakersfield sound and then another person can really pick up on the blues and the Texas feeling. For me, I kind of look at it as a little bit of all of the above. I had really been wanting to make a more bluesy record and so I incorporated that into this one as well. The good thing about Americana is that it welcomes so many different types of music. One thing I really like about putting out a record these days is that in the old days you’d put out one single and then you’d work your ass off on that one song. You could spend a whole year promoting one song and that was the life or death of the entire record. But now, with all these formats you can release one song to each format. That way everybody gets a taste of the album and you can have several songs to appeal to really different audiences. Some formats might not play “Wrong Side Of The Bottle,” but they would totally play “Three Things” or “Blues Is My Business” so I’m really excited about all the possibilities. I think the record will have several different lives because of it. It’s a big ol’ huge record and I think it’ll make more people excited about the whole project this way.

In a way, this big step is almost like starting over. That is exactly true! You know, Americana doesn’t care that I’ve had any sort of success in country and sometimes it can even be a mark against you. I’ve had people ask me right off the bat, ‘Are you prepared to go back to square one and kind of be a new artist again?’ I think it’s exciting because I want longevity. I wanna get better and better. I wanna career like Lucinda Williams or Emmylou Harris. I think back on the Guy Clarks of the world or the John Prines and it reminds me that really is all about the song. I mean whether you’re Willie Nelson or Ray Charles it’s not about what label they were on our how their music was labeled. It’s all about the song. I’m super excited about the songwriting to come as I am about this album. It’s so thrilling to be thinking WE’RE TRYING TO GET THIS RECORD OUT TO OVER 200 ROOTS AND AMERICANA STATIONS. IT’S ALL A NEW THING FOR ME BUT I’M TRYING TO EMBRACE IT AND I’M CERTAINLY LEARNING A LOT AS WE GO ALONG.

forward to the next one and the next one after that. To put out these songs that hopefully will speak to people. It’s just about finding the song the song that connects and then after you’ve made that connection, then you have to keep the music coming.

You’ve worked with and interviewed a ton of legendary people over the years. Is there ever a point where they become peers and not legends anymore? When you’re working with people it does sort of even the playing field a bit but I’ve had my nervous moments. It all depends. Like working with Willie Nelson, he’s just so engaging, we were like peas and carrots. But these people, these legends, they’ve been everywhere they’ve done everything and to be included by them and then to find them so chill, it’s amazing. They don’t act any different around you, so why should you be scared? There’s just a feeling of being welcomed. So it’s more a feeling of family and camaraderie then being nervous or apprehensive. But you know, in the back of your mind, you’re still going, ‘Wow this is cool.’

Were you nervous when you first worked with Johnny Cash? I was young and I was nervous that time. When he walked into the studio, I was sitting with my back to the door just reading a book. It’s funny, they say you could feel Johnny Cash before you saw him, that you could feel his presence before you actually laid eyes on him. Well I was sitting there and I could feel him. It was this aura that he was in the room. I turned around - and there he stood by himself in normal clothes! He was just reaching over grabbing some M&Ms from a bowl on the table and popping them in his mouth. He stretched out his hand. He almost said, ‘Hello, I’m Johnny Cash.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘I’m Heidi Newfield and it’s a pleasure to finally meet and work with you.’ He pulled me in and gave me a big hug. I was like, ‘Ok, I’ve got this. I’m good.’