Dave Rawlings is anything but ‘Obsolete’

Songwriting machine on what folk means to him

By the time Dave Rawlings released an album with his name on the cover, he’d already written, produced, and performed on six albums with partner Gillian Welch. He’d co-written songs with Ryan Adams, produced Old Crow Medicine Show’s 2004 debut, and contributed vocals, instrumentals, words, and compositions to dozens of roots and folk records. He didn’t exactly have much to prove, but it was exactly that expansive résumé and unbridled desire to keep making music that brought about A Friend of a Friend, his first album as Dave Rawlings Machine. “We took some of that co-written material and a couple of covers that came up in an impromptu way during the session, and wrote some new songs,” Rawlings says. “That album was a little bit like a collection to me. It wasn’t conceived the same way that we generally make records. It was just trying to look at a large time period and pick out some stuff that seemed like fun.”

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In the nearly six years that have elapsed between Friend of a Friend and Dave Rawlings Machine’s latest album, Nashville Obsolete, Rawlings’ work has followed the fun, too. Continuing to work with Welch — who also performs and writes with Dave Rawlings Machine — on her 2011 album, The Harrow & the Harvest, as well as contributing to records by folks such as Damien Rice, Norah Jones, Willie Watson, and Dawes, Rawlings was ready to take a more focused approach to his own work when he settled down to record again. “When we came around to start working on Nashville Obsolete, we had written a song or two that it seemed like we wanted to have me sing,” Rawlings says.

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Much of the distinction between songs for Welch’s albums and songs for the Machine begin with who’s singing lead. “As soon as we had a couple of them, we thought, ‘Well, let’s dig into this and try to finish a whole record that has kind of this feeling or deals with these themes,’” he says.

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The result is a more cohesive album from a lyrical standpoint. Nashville Obsolete bounces between stories about long trips and tight-knit families, whirling classic motifs like trains and boots and idyllic views without feeling campy or contrived. “Pilgrim” touches on these themes lyrically and employs heavy vocal harmonies to add emotion, while the rambling 11-minute “The Trip” ambles through an idyllic journey over primarily soothing acoustic guitar.

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“Folk music in general, and our music as part of that, is driven by the stories in the largest part,” Rawlings says. “There’s some element of tradition in there. I mean, even though all music is sort of derivative of other music, in the folk tradition sometimes you have multiple songs that are written on similar melodies, and it’s just part of keeping the focus on the story.”

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Rawlings’ definition of folk music is a fluid one, and he’s enthusiastic about the way the genre has begun to claim artists and work that may not fit the stereotypical fiddle-wielding mold. “It’s been nice to see folk music take on a slightly larger mantle, or a slightly larger umbrella,” he says.

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Rawlings goes on to cite the songwriting of former collaborator Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, as well as the electric stylings of Australian singer/songwriter and guitarist Courtney Barnett. “I remember what it was last year when I bumped into Courtney Barnett’s music,” Rawlings says. “In a lot of ways, she’s a folk artist. But the fact that she plays electric guitar in a little rock trio, what do you call that? Is she an electric singer/songwriter? I don’t know. I know I like listening to it. It’s surprising what stuff you can throw on a folk festival and you wouldn’t get any argument from me.”

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While Rawlings’ work itself, both with Dave Rawlings Machine and with Gillian Welch, fits the long-established mold set by folk traditionalists, his appreciation for those on the genre’s fringes reveals itself in the jubilant way he performs and the myriad of collaborations he continuously instigates, both in the studio and on stage at festivals.

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“I think most musicians who do this for a living have really broad musical tastes,” he says. “If you’re passionate enough about music to think about it all the time and make it your living, you’re generally not very narrow with what you listen to.”

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In the case of Dave Rawlings Machine, that kind of expansive musical palette has facilitated an inclusive live performance atmosphere, one that is more rooted in positivity and good nature than it is in rigid guidelines or genre expectations. To see Rawlings and Welch perform together, with or without their rotating cast of collaborators, is to see music at its most joyful, and it’s a sound that the Machine is sure to keep tinkering with for years to come.