Breaking through and breaking bread. Beth Goodfellow feeds inner artist.
Photo by Anna Azarov
Beth Goodfellow is very familiar with what the inside of a green room looks like. She’s spent hours in them, all across the world, touring and playing with various groups of musicians—but it was this past March in the dressing room at the Arizona Arts Live Centennial Hall when Beth experienced something different.
“In that moment I thought, wow, this is the first time where I’m going to walk out of this dressing room and I’m not following somebody else,” she said. “It took 39 years to get there, but I got there, and if I could do it once, I can do it again.”
After a beautiful performance in the Hall, the curators presented Beth with a chocolate cupcake, and she felt happy.
“I didn’t tell anyone how nervous I was or that it was my first time [performing alone],” Beth said. “I proved to myself that I have this skill set and that I’m not afraid of it anymore.”
When you meet Beth, it quickly becomes apparent that she is driven purely by passion and a deep respect for the art. She seems to always be in motion, leaning into the wind, taking on new challenges and nurturing the thing she loves.
When the pandemic hit and gigs were no longer, Beth was faced with the notion that she’d need to create her own momentum. She found herself asking how she would move forward.
“It felt like the sand was sifting beneath my feet and I needed to find solid ground,” Beth said. “Whenever I feel that way, music is what saves me.”
So, in Sept. ‘20, she left L.A. for Tucson, Arizona, where she spent two and a half weeks, writing songs in complete solitude amongst the city’s awe-inspiring landscape.
A look into Beth’s Tuscon escape:
“The best thing about the place I was staying in was the shutters. They were made by the original owner and are peppered with glass marbles that catch and refract the sunrise as it comes over the mountains. … It was so hot every day I had to stay inside and write when the sun was out. Sitting outside was exhausting. The owner of the Air BnB hadn’t been there in weeks and the drip irrigation had become unhooked. The garden was dead except for a few tenacious plants. It felt very deserted which is exactly what I needed it to feel like.”
“I was pushing myself to go into singer songwriter territory,” Beth said. “It’s a silver lining from the pandemic, if there is one, to have listened to my inner voice and write.”
And it’s not as if she has nothing to show for it—Beth has released two projects in the last three months:
The first is the Bandcamp-only album of songs called Hunting the Silence. Each song on the album was written and recorded all in one day and chronicle a shift from overdubbed marimba counterpoint and vocal layers, to four-mallet live vocal performances with no overdubs.
The second project is the 7-inch vinyl single "Terror And Trust," a song written in September 2019 at Sea Ranch, CA, and completed during the pandemic at Beth’s apartment in LA. Side A features bassist, Kaveh Rastegar and Dina Maccabee on strings. Side B is just Beth on marimba and vocals. Beth also shot and produced her own music video for the song with an old mill as the backdrop.
For “Terror And Trust,” Beth says she didn’t have a clue what to do for the artwork, so she reached out to her friend and great photographer, Anna Azarov.
“The first verse is about bread,” said Beth. “So Anna listened and said, ‘tell me if I’m wrong but I’m sensing some humor in these lyrics.’ I hadn’t intended it to be funny, but I was so glad that she pulled that from it because I’ve been dying for a sense of humor in my music.”
Photo by Anna Azarov
Anna came up with the idea of hanging baguettes from fish line and having Beth pose amongst them.
“I love that it turned out that way, because it goes way back,” said Beth. “Everyone breaks bread with each other, everyone has a bread story…There’ve been so many times on the road, particularly with Iron and Wine where we’ve enjoyed a good loaf of bread.”
Center label artwork by Corey Morgan Strange
For the center label of the 7-inch, Beth called on another friend and talented illustrator, Corey Morgan Strange, who said: ‘Since the cover has to do with bread, let’s make the label have something to do with butter!’
The final product/packaging is simply spectacular.
Aside from these new releases, Beth has become ingrained in a community of musicians that exists primarily in Tucson: Joey Burns and John Convertino of the band Calexico were primary forces pulling Beth out to Tucson in the first place. Other artists who associate with the area, such as Gabriel Naïm Amor, have been influential for Beth, and the two have even worked together producing the song “Winter Flowers,” written on a snowy morning in Tucson. John Convertino is featured on drums.
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Coming back from a recent recording session at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, with artist Lisa Morales and producer David Garza, Beth reflected on what it means to work with peers who have such fluency in musicality.
“It helps me be a more spontaneous player, and a freer drummer, with groups of musicians where there’s a culture of letting go of your inhibitions, and saying yes.”
The next thing Beth is hoping to say yes to is an opportunity to perform solo in L.A., maybe opening for someone. She also mentions a potential full-length album in the works.
“I find a lot of joy in putting together a full album,” Beth said. “I’d love to have it be centered around the marimba, with more electronic elements and a bit of a folk edge.”
When Beth walked onstage to perform by herself for the first time last March, she felt affirmed in her choice to secure her own oxygen mask first before assisting others; able to breathe again after taking time to be alone and write, and then, being able to bring new energy to her collaborators.
In the dressing room at Arizona Arts Live, curator & producer Sophie Gibson-Rush asked Beth if she needed anything, which made Beth smile, because she realized she didn’t need anything at all.
“I’m starting to realize that having an abundance mindset is really important,” said Beth. “What if everything you need is what you already have?”
Beth’s recs:
Another group of musicians who has been inspiring me is the band XIXA from Tucson. They just released a new album and I really like this song. I had the pleasure of guesting on a song at XIXA's Arizona Arts Live performance back in November. It was a socially distanced show with COVID precautions being taken.
I've been listening to L.A.-based band Las Cafeteras' track "Si Puede Presidente." Sergio Mendoza, bandleader of Orkesta Mendoza, called me in to sing some backing vocals & play timbales on their remake of "Georgia On My Mind" that was released by New Georgia Project back in Jan. to get out the vote for the Senate runoffs.
… All of these talented friends and artists have been inspiring me immensely. I hope you enjoy and I hope this brings a little more context to why I have been loving spending some time in Tucson and building some new connections out that way. I could go on and on about Tucson!
