Artist Interview: Q & A with Annie Mack
Look, you might hear some slanderous rumors about how, when Annie Mack agreed to an interview with me, I shrieked and ran around telling my whole family. You shouldn’t believe everything you hear. Plus, this article isn’t about how loud I squealed or how long I spent telling everyone who would listen the good news. This is about an incredible conversation I had with Mack via Zoom, as she and her family traveled south from Rochester, Minnesota for a vacation on a beautiful almost-spring day.
The following interview has been edited for length, and to minimize my fangurling.
Annie Mach, courtesy of the artist
Carol Roth: First of all, when you start showing up on my Instagram feed, I was like, “Who is this exciting newcomer to the Twin Cities scene?” And then I started digging, and wow, you’re kind of a big deal in blues. I’m such a country- and Americana-focused person that I’m a bit ignorant of other parts of our music scene. So, my apologies!
Annie Mack: No need to apologize! Actually, I’ve been doing this music for a while before I did, like, the big crossover. I’ve always celebrated all styles of American music, roots music, incorporating country and jazz and different genres stylistically, so I thought I’d make a more intentional work to be a part of a little bit broader Americana sound.
CR: What really struck me about this record is that it all goes together but there are so many different influences—each song has a different feel to it. I heard some seventies rock at one point, and then more like Merle Haggard or Waylon Jennings in “Judge and Jury.”
AM: Yeah, that’s what I had in mind when I wrote “Judge and Jury”—those outlaw country artists. There's a sound that was heavier on the bass in the seventies and eighties, that had a little bit more soul, a little bit more of a connection to blues music.
CR: It's a really, really cool record I think is going to appeal to a lot of different people like me, who are narrowly into one genre. You're breaking into, like, six genres here in this record! Like you said, it’s a more intentional evolution, but I listened to the song “Closer” [from an earlier EP] and that was pretty clearly Americana. That was a couple years ago, right?
AM: Yep, that came out about 2017. That EP’s fairly eclectic too, and I liked everything we did, but if I had to go back I would redo those songs to fit more in the vein of that “Closer” style, bring in the organs and everything. I think about that. But it served its purpose.
CR: When did you first connect with country music? Who were your influences in that genre?
AM: Like a lot of people growing up in the eighties, we didn’t have cable television, so we’d watch the Grand Ole Opry. And we’d listen to a lot of classic country that tends to be more melodic, more about the playing, like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Charley Pride, Tammy Wynette, George Jones, Kenny Rogers. Those crossover mainstream artists were very common growing up. And it's kinda funny, but the Black community really took to Dolly Parton! She’s just one of those artists.
CR: Same with Bonnie Raitt, I think. I always thought she was country, but my partner thinks of her as a soul singer. I guess she’s both!
AM: Conway Twitty too; I remember listening to him and he had a really deep voice, very soulful, and he did “Rainy Night in Georgia,” which was originally by Brook Benton, a Black artist. The connection between country and blues is really solid and goes way, way back. All the blues guys back in the day, like Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson, would kind of go back and forth between country and blues sounds. There’s the influence of country on blues, and blues on country. So there's a long history of that connection.
CR: It's something I wasn’t aware of until pretty recently, but I was doing a Jimmie Rodgers song with my buddy that I play guitar with, and he showed me how to do it like a blues song. I hadn't connected the dots before, but it's very intertwined.
AM: Yeah, Jimmie Rodgers is country blues! There's different styles from different regions, like Piedmont, or other parts of Mississippi, where slide guitar came from. It’s really beautiful—there's a whole world out there! Like Doc Watson to me is kind of an anomaly because if you put him in a jazz club, Doc Watson was just fine, but then you put him on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, he was just fine there too. He was able to go in between because of where he was from, and what he created was really beautiful, this distinctive jazz-country sound with these really sophisticated elements.
CR: What do you listen to now? Who are you super into?
AM: I listen to Brittany Howard, the Black Pumas, Elizabeth Cotten. I listen to a lot of progressive jazz like Marcus Miller—kind of bass-heavy jazz. It just depends on the mood. Of course Taj Mahal, Etta James—I go back to the greats. I’m trying to get better about being more open to listening to different types of music.
CR: Same here. I grew up with a pretty narrow focus; anything that wasn't country music, I was skeptical, but I’m becoming a lot more open-minded.
Carol Roth (l) and Annie Mach (r) Zoom interview March 2021
You’ve talked a lot in interviews about how your recording of this album was interrupted and how you decided to go back. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
AM: We started pre-production back in January and February 2020. And obviously March is when everything stopped, so we went into quarantine and waited. And waited. I actually had given up hope. When all my gigs were canceled, when I realized that things were not going to go back immediately, that it wasn’t going to be the same, I kind of let go of this vision of having a music career. I was grieving that, and I had a peace about it. So when Mr. Floyd was murdered on May 25, I—along with the rest of the country—kind of went to a space of just heavy breathing and heavy burden. I just shut down.
Then, on May 28th or 29th, I reached out to my co-producer and said, “I think we need to go back into the studio. I think now is the time.” Floyd’s murder was another attempt to use violence to silence the call for change, to silence justice. Going back to the studio and creating during that time was my very humble effort but very intentional. It was important for me to create something that was Black and strong and beautiful from Minnesota.
There was none of the glory; I knew there wouldn’t be a tour to support it, I knew that there wouldn’t be venues to play at, festivals to perform at. It took on a very different intention. It was important for me to be presented as I am, and not to be fragmented. I think Black women are expected to be fragmented in how we present ourselves, to be palatable to mainstream society, and it was important to present myself wholly—this is who I am, this is what I create, unapologetically.
CR: On a somewhat related note, lately mainstream country music is having its own kind of gentler reckoning, confronting its own racism and especially exclusion of Black women. I feel like there's maybe a little more introspection right now in that industry. Do you feel like this is a real moment? Do you think there's going to be any lasting progress from it?
AM: I think there are people who have been called to activism and to use the platform that they have. You can tell the difference between those who’ve kind of jumped on because it's popular or looks good and those who are really able to understand history and do the work.
The bluegrass community to me is one of the leading voices, because they understand the connection of bluegrass music to African Americans as well as other cultures. We brought that instrumentation and training with us from Africa, like the fiddle, like the banjo. This is a part of our cultural heritage, but we've been removed by mainstream society because we don't look a certain way, even though we have just as much property and stake in it.
Back in the day, everybody played that way. That's why people like the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dom Flemons and Rhiannon Giddens brought that back. There were so many Black American artists that are part of Americana history. To remove us from that history is really insulting and extremely tragic.
The Bill Monroes and the Earl Scruggs and all those elders of country, they knew the connection to the Black influence. There's a major connection there that does not get acknowledged by mainstream country. I think now they're getting hip; I think it shows respect. I think that's important, but there's a lot of work to do.
When I made my EP, the creation of it was really just to honor the gift of what I believe was given to me. It was about creating a beautiful legacy and saying “I’m not going to be silenced.” Call it therapy—there were so many things as a Black woman that I wanted to say.
CR: It really was so powerful to hear those lyrics intertwined with those musical influences. With that kind of sound, you’re usually listening to white dudes talk about white dude stuff.
AM: Yeah, they talk about drinking and womanizing and all that. It's interesting because a lot of the women in their lives were not treated very well. Their mothers and grandmothers lived very hard lives, you know; they were sharecroppers or they were not treated well by society, so it's kind of interesting when you hear them talk about all that. It’s like, you know how your mama raised you. But it makes money, right?
CR: Right, exactly. It's that kind of phony swagger, so to hear that sound replaced with lyrics that are demanding respect and talking about empowerment, it was a really cool contrast.
Carol Roth (l) and Annie Mach (r) Zoom interview March 2021
So speaking of how you weren't really thinking about touring and performing, now that the world is starting to show some signs of life, are you thinking about a tour, about playing out?
AM: Oh yeah! I’m just having more intention, and being safe. I can honestly say that every gig I’ve been presented with has a really beautiful intention behind it. I’m doing a Read Brave gig on April 9 that’s part of an amazing series that celebrates authors of color and LGBTQ authors. It's really wonderful to be a part of that. That's where I’m at—I’m not saying yes because it’s offered; it has to fit in alignment with my spirit. Things have changed—it’s really quality over quantity.
CR: So many people were acting out of fear and desperation this past year, but others have started taking this time to say, “I’m gonna make sure I live the way that matters to me.” It's interesting that's the path you’ve taken.
Now for some silly questions. What do you like doing in your downtime, with or without the pandemic?
AM: I like to make homemade cheese, beer and wine.
CR: Whoa!
AM: No. No I don’t. [Laughs.] I just thought, “What would it be like if I actually had good hobbies?” I like to drink wine and beer and eat cheese.
I’m one of those people that likes to pretend like I’m gonna go learn how to do beading or something like that. I always want to be like “yeah, I have bees that I tend to.” One of these days I’m just gonna lie so I can make it seem like I have standards or something!
I think mentally I’ve just been tapped for a while. I like to watch TV, I like to be outside in nature. And I’ve got kids, and they’re sweeties. I do love to read so I try to get a little bit of that in. I’m into understanding chakras, and crystals, burning sage and junk like that, but I’m still looking into—
Mack’s son, from the back seat: She burned a piece of paper this morning!
AM: Yeah, I burn paper. I don't wanna pay taxes so I burned a tax form. I just burn everything I don’t want to deal with! But I need to get back to doing some creative and really beautiful things. I think I’m slowly starting to wake up. You know, it's been pretty tough. Weather like this helps so much.
CR: I wasn't trying to put pressure on you! Being outside and playing with kids are great hobbies. OK, what’s a weird or surprising fact about you that the general public might not know?
AM: I have useless pop culture knowledge. I was born in the seventies, but I feel like an old soul. I love the original Twilight Zone, and The Carol Burnett Show. Pop culture is really fun; the eighties, and movies; I love kung fu movies. I know, I’m not very exciting; I’m pretty lame.
CR: What?! No way.
Annie Mack, courtesy of the artist
All right, is there a question that you wish interviewers would ask more often, but they don't?
AM: I don't know—good question! Maybe like, How come you don't have a Grammy by now? No…that's a really good one; see, I’m not used to good questions.
CR: Now, next time you get interviewed you can put them on the spot, like “You know what you should have asked…” Because you'll have had time to think about it.
Mack’s partner, from the driver’s seat: If there was any place in the world you could travel to, what would it be? I think that kind of exposes a person and what they’re about.
AM: Okay, all right. I want to travel to Italy. It seems like it would be so beautiful and I like to pretend that I’m rich, or at least stylish. Both, if I’m feeling really good. I love the history, I love the fashion…they just seem like such beautiful people. Good fresh food, the wine, the history. Yeah, that'd be lovely.
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Listen to “Walking Around” from Annie Mack’s new EP, Testify
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the main music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym @taberkeley!
