Episode 23: Michaela Anne

We spend this episode with Nashville based singer/songwriter Michaela Anne, who released her third full length album (her first with label Yep Roc Records), the wonderful “Desert Dove”, in 2019.  We discuss the diverse arrangements and songwriting styles on the record, which, while a country record at its core, integrates a variety of sounds and influences.  Michaela has an interesting background, moving around a lot as she grew up; we discuss how this has impacted her creative style.  Michaela also provides two helpful public service announcements (everyone keep singing!), and we spend some time deconstructing Chopin’s Nocturne #72 and Donnie Osmond’s “Puppy Love”, finding their shared musical core.

Produced jointly by Sam Outlaw and Delta Spirit’s Kelly Winrich and recorded with an all-star band that included guitarist Brian Whelan (Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale), fiddler Kristin Weber (Kacey Musgraves, Margo Price), and drummers Mark Stepro (Ben Kweller, Butch Walker) and Daniel Bailey (Everest, Father John Misty), ‘Desert Dove’ is an achingly beautiful collection, with songs that frequently find themselves balancing optimism and fatalism in the very same breath.   Recently, Michaela has graced NPR’s World Cafe and Live Sessions, Mountain Stage Radio Show, and headlined a U.S. and EU tour. Michaela has been featured in the New York Times, Refinery 29, and NPR’s All Things Considered.