Under 21 with Guardian

Sean McConnell
Sean McConnell is a man unafraid of asking questions of the situations in his life. It manifests itself from the moment he wakes each day, on a small farm outside Franklin, Tenn., a very different environment than his upbringing in Massachusetts.

      “No, I didn’t grow up like that at all,” McConnell laughs. “But my wife grew up on a farm. She’s more used to it than I am.

“We’ve got pigs and chickens and some acreage.We are growing a garden and such.The older we get, the more we want to just kind of be self-sufficient. We enjoy getting our hands dirty and getting out into the woods and taking care of animals. It brings us a lot of joy and grounds us.”

      A central feature of the small, well-appointed house is a wood-burning stove that provides much of the heat to the structure. There is both beauty and function in the process of maintaining the stove’s output in the colder months, something that parallels McConnell’s work in his studio a stone’s throw away, asking questions of both his own work and those with which he collaborates.

      “Time seems to breed creativity, especially when there’s very little else going on,” McConnell says of the stillness brought about by the events of 2020. “Other than this record of mine, I’ve produced records for four other artists out of my studio.

      “This period has forced everybody, internally and externally, globally and socially, to take a good look at our lives and examine it,” he continues. “Everything from our marriages to our workout routines,social injustice to planet politics and religion, spirituality and our internal environment…everything has come to the surface. It’s been the tipping point of so many things right now, so obviously that bleeds over into art and music.”

 

If there’s an overworked word surrounding the previous year, it’s been “uncertain.” (“Unprecedented” might run a close second.)

There comes a moment we must admit to ourselves that we don’t have a clear picture of what’s happening around us. It’s the thread that not only ties the entirety of A Horrible Beautiful Dream, but also one of the standout tracks, “Nothing Anymore.”

https://www.seanmcconnell.com/


Garrison Starr
Garrison Starr thought she was done playing music. A lifetime of trauma, from her upbringing in a fundamentalist Christian household in Mississippi to more than two decades navigating the music industry, left her spirit broken. With her days as a major-label artist behind her, the Grammy nominated singer, songwriter, and producer was ready to pack it in.

"I felt that what I had to say didn't matter to anybody. That I was a failure," says Starr. "I'm just gonna stop trying. So I did."

"Then I realized I am the artist in the room. I still have a lot to say," Starr recalls. "That was a great gift. I thought that part of my life was over. I thought I was too old, too outspoken, too this, too that. I'm not good enough for this industry."

"I used to be that girl trying so hard to please everybody, to do the right thing in everybody else's eyes," Starr says. "But I can't be that anymore. I know what you want me to be, but I'm not that person. I can't do it. I'm dying inside. I can't hold back."

Starr's singing is both warm and bold, her words softened by the perspective gained from her cohorts without losing the fire of her convictions. She mixes compassion with a sense of purpose that hearkens back to the message-forward spirit of the 1960s folk movement. It's a matter, she says, of being pointed without being angry. "One of the things I've learned is that, if you want to communicate something to somebody, you have to do it in a way that they can hear you," Starr says.

https://www.garrisonstarr.com/