On her new album, “All The Light,” Lucy Isabel steps firmly and confidently into Americana and folk territory fully, with plenty of pedal steel and fiddle to accompany her gorgeous, lilting vocals. Becoming a parent and the loss of her father gave her topics to ponder and explore, as she sorted through emotions – coping with the grief of her loss and relishing the joy of parenthood – and she found solace and strength in songwriting. A lyricist with beautiful insight and clarity, her songs are gifts from the heart. Isabel took the time to chat with us recently about the making of “All The Light,” her inspirations, and more.
Hi, Lucy! You have a terrific new album that just came out in October called “All The Light.” How did these songs come together and what broad strokes can you tell us about the collection?
Thanks so much! Almost all of the songs were written specifically for the album, and they’re a lot more autobiographical than I usually write. I wrote them over the span of about a year and a half, drawing inspiration from some of my experiences over the last five years.
One of the songs on your new album, “My Memory,” is really great and stood out to me. What can you tell us about this song? What inspired you to write it and what is it about?
I started writing “My Memory” when I was thinking about parental relationships. In the midst of writing the song, I became pregnant with my second daughter and my dad unexpectedly passed away. Both of those experiences provided me with a frankly overwhelming amount of life knowledge to apply to the song. I spent a lot of time thinking about the fact that we can’t really control how our kids will remember us, and I think that’s for the best. My biggest hope is that my daughters remember that I love them.
What was it like recording this album overall? What was the vibe in the studio overall, and how did this song, in particular, come together?
I really enjoyed the recording process for this album. I mostly worked on it one-on-one with my producer, Jared Anderson. We then brought some folks in to track and did a couple days in another studio to record drums/percussion. It was a really different experience from recording my first album, “Rambling Stranger.” For that we spent two days in the studio tracking live takes with a full band. And I think that was the right move for that album, but “All The Light” has a more intimate vibe, and we were able to be really deliberate in our choices by recording the way we did. In the recording of “My Memory,” we spent a good deal of time deciding how much fiddle we wanted and where we wanted it. The choices we made help to convey the warmth that I wanted in the song.
What do you hope this album’s message to those who listen to it?
My hope for this album is that it reassures the audience that things are going to work out. I’ve learned a lot by relinquishing my attempts to control the world around me. I don’t expect or encourage folks to detach from their lives. I’ve actually found that I’m able to be much more engaged once I take a step back and allow things to play out as they’re meant to.
If you look back over your career, you probably feel like quite a different artist now than when you began for a number of reasons – life experience, industry experience, and studio and performing experience all factoring into that. Do different things inspire you now? Where do you tend to get your biggest inspiration from these days?
For the first several years of my career I think I kept one foot out the door. I didn’t really have a backup plan or something different that I was interested in doing, but it still felt possible that things would go that way. Once I had a child and still felt like I wanted this career, I realized I was really in it for the long haul. I’m 100% committed to a career in the music industry, for better or worse, and that renewed commitment has made it a lot easier to move through the industry. My hesitancy in the early days was definitely attached to some imposter syndrome, but I’ve reached a point where I believe this is what I’m meant to do. So, in a way, you could say that my biggest inspiration these days is my kids. I want to care for them, provide for them, and I want them to believe that art is a valuable and necessary part of life.
Songwriting can be a really personal endeavor, yet when you release a song or an album or an EP, you share the music with so many people. How does this make you feel, and is it ever difficult to share songs widely like that? What kind of feedback do you get from fans who have connected with the music or had a song impact them in a deep and meaningful way?
A few months ago I met a woman who told me that she was a painter but that she had never attempted to share her work with other people because she didn’t want to lose her attachment to the paintings. Art is a deeply personal thing, but that can manifest itself in a couple different ways. For that painter, it’s a means of releasing something without having to specifically express whatever she was thinking or feeling with another person. For me, I’ve never really struggled with sharing my music with folks because I know that my song will always mean something to me that it can never mean to someone else. And likewise, it will always mean something to a listener that it could never mean to me. So it’s really special for me when someone wants to convey to me how or why one of my songs matters to them. I like that my music gets to live infinite lives based on which person is listening to it.
What has been the most exciting thing to happen for you this year?
I’ve gotten to meet and get to know some folks in my community that I’ve admired for a long time. My favorite part of being a musician is getting to spend time with people who love music as much as I do. And not just other musicians. Music is for everyone, so when I meet someone who’s enamored of music even though they don’t sing or play an instrument, that’s especially fun for me.
Got any tour plans? Where can fans see you on the road?
Yes! I’ll be playing shows in North Carolina, in Winston-Salem, and Durham. And then I’ve got some shows in Nelson County, VA. I’ll likely be adding some dates later in the fall in the Northeast, so folks can keep an eye out for that!
