Americana artist and songwriter Cheley Tackett premiered her “Good for Me” lyric video exclusively on Digital Journal, and she chatted about her music.
What motivated you to decide to record your performance at Douglas Corner Café in Nashville, one of the city’s most beloved songwriter and performance stages?
As an independent artist, the majority of the time I play solo acoustic. Sometimes, when I play Nashville, I get the luxury of playing with my band, but the margins are too tight right now to take them on the road. A number of fans started asking if I had an album of acoustic material that was more reflective of what I typically perform.
I realized all of my studio albums were full productions and decided to not only record an acoustic album but to record one live that is as true as possible to what I typically do on stage.
When the pandemic hit you had to alter release plans, but when did you discover that you had captured the very last recording in the venue?
When Mervin (Douglas Corner’s owner) announced that he was closing the venue, I called him to see if I could help put together a crowd-fundraiser to try and save it. We had a lengthy discussion, and for a variety of reasons, the crowd fund didn’t happen, but in that conversation, he told me that I had the last recorded project that would ever come out of Douglas Corner.
Describe that night and how you developed the set list for the performance.
It’s an understatement to say that I don’t love putting together set lists. Much of the time, for longer shows especially, I go in with a loose list of what I want to play and just try to feel and read the room and adjust the order as I play. For this particular night, I decided to let fate decide the order. So, I wrote down all of the songs on strips of paper and threw them in a bag. My wife walked around the room and randomly picked people from the audience to draw songs out of the bag.
I played whatever song was drawn each time. If that meant the opening song was the slowest, saddest song (and, of course it was haha) then I decided to trust that that’s what was right for the night. If I got a seemingly endless stretch of ballads, so be it. I would never have chosen to open with the first song drawn, but in some inexplicable way, it worked, and the last song drawn couldn’t have been more right.
You have some incredible songs featured on this project including selections you co-wrote with Ashley McBryde, Lisa Carver, and many other successful writers. How have you continued to expand and connect with your network of co-writers?
Thanks. I’ve been writing with Lisa Carver for almost two decades and Ashley McBryde for about 15 years. It’s certainly become harder to write with both of them as Carver has moved 1,000 miles away, and with Ash’s success as an artist, her schedule has become incredibly busy. They’re also two of my best friends though and I communicate with each of them at least every other week or so, and we find time to write, just not as frequently as in times past. I’ve also lost a couple of my long favorite co-writers, Rob Wolf and Randall Clay. I miss them and writing with them so much. I’ve had a longstanding friendship with my co-writer Nicole Witt.
Unexpectedly, it became easier for us to connect and write through FaceTime. So, we’ve actually been writing more together than before. I’ve also started writing with some frequency with Erin Enderlin and have written with Brandy Clark as well. I’ve known them both for a long time but just never sat in a room with either of them to write a song.
I’ve also been invited on a few writing retreats including one in Montana where I wrote with Barrett Baber and Dan Smalley, and we’ve continued to write now that we’re back in town. Those retreats also paired me with Noah Smith and the Wilson Brothers and the songs we wrote ended up on their projects (or will). I played a songwriters’ festival in Hendersonville, Kentucky and played around with Liz Hengber. We got together shortly thereafter and wrote.
Those types of events and retreats are great for expanding co-write networks. Since the pandemic though, it’s been difficult to expand my co-write network unless somebody I already wrote with wanted to bring in another writer.
I do write with newer artists and writers too like Candi Carpenter, Lockwood Barr, Jordyn Jackson, and Payton Taylor to try and keep growing my network with fresh relationships. But, since the beginning of 2020, there haven’t been many new co-writers in the mix. Plus, since I’ve been mostly relying on FaceTime through the last 15 months or so for writes, it seemed better to not try to write with anyone new in such a foreign format. It’s better to have the energy of the room, especially in an initial write. You never know who you’re going to hit it off with until you get to writing.
Now that things are opening up and more folks are getting vaccinated, I have a couple of upcoming in-person writes on the books that will be new co-writers for me, some up-and-comers and some hit writers, and I’m excited to see how we pair.
Tell us about the story behind the focus track “Good For Me.”
“Good For Me” is the fastest write I think I’ve ever had. The bulk of it poured out of me in about 15 minutes. I went back and did a very slight edit here or there but, for the most part, 15 minutes & there was this song. My pen almost couldn’t keep up with my brain on writing the lyrics out. I had just come out of a serious, long-term relationship and was hurt, drained, and I couldn’t move past it. I often say when I play live that as a songwriter, I’m an observer and storyteller of the world around me. My friends know that it’s entirely possible their lives may end up influencing a song. Unfortunately, though, in this case, sometimes the song has to derive from my experience and my truth.
Female songwriters and performers like Loretta Lynn, Reba McEntire, and Martina McBride have always been a leader in tackling hard topics and it’s impossible to listen to this project and not mention the story of “My Best Dress.” How did you muster the courage to pen that song and storyline?
None of the three writers on this song (me, Ashley McBryde, and Randall Clay) have ever been known to not write a song because the topic was too challenging or so controversial that it might never get cut. All three of us tried to write this for the sake of the song and let the song lead us where it wanted to go. For a variety of reasons, I really try to not write to bend to the arc of what is acceptable or commercial on Music Row necessarily.
For one thing, the parameters of that are constantly shifting and that’s true of commerciality, too. There came a point in the middle where one of the three of us toyed with going bigger with the melody to make it more “commercial” and we gave it a try but all of us returned to the conclusion that it kind of ruined the impact of the song. Trying to mold it to make it “marketable” made it less haunting and took away the very thing that audiences respond to. So, we let it be the song it wanted to be. It may never land on a major label recording as a result but it’s a much stronger song for that decision.
If you could cut a duet with anyone across any genre, who would you choose and why?
Jason Isbell. I believe him when he sings.
To learn more about Cheley Tackett, check out her official website and her Facebook page.
