Interview with Singer-Songwriter Anna Tivel 

            Let's talk voices. The moment that you hear certain ones, you know them almost immediately. Emmylou, Stevie Nicks, Baez or Linda Perry, strong female voices that are singularly, hauntingly one of a kind. Anna Tivel is one of those voices. Strung with urgency, vocal dynamite, sometimes a whisper turning suddenly into a rumble from beneath the bottom of the ocean floor, singing every single word as if it contained the whole story, and it probably does. "I ran to the apple trees to bury what I know... but I don't need a savior or a lesson on a stone, to dig a hole and lay down in the night" Anna's voice matches these words, which is to say there is no separation between her poetry and her execution, it's all there, palpably surrounding every story she pens and performs. It's the kind of music you want to believe in, doubt never even enters your mind. "Even the hunger you've been holding, it's gotta let up some time soon". To approach these songs hungry, in an existential sense, and, after the listening, to walk away understood and transformed, accompanied by a voice that has been "there", that place where magic lingers through the embers of the song, marking a clear path to that endless, winding road where in "the yellow light of morning you forget the darker things you done".



AHC: What has this journey, this life in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way?

Anna: Music has been a constant saving grace in my life. I learned to play the fiddle as a kid, but came to songwriting much later. I floundered around for quite awhile after college, trying to figure myself out, waiting tables, playing some fiddle in bands and entertaining dreams of being a writer/musician full-time. A roommate of mine let me plunk around on her guitar and I fell deep in love with the way a chord can draw certain images and emotions to mind. It became the best part of my day and I started doing it as much as possible. 

I love the work of trying to craft an image or a story in words set to a verse and chorus. It’s the only way I’ve ever really felt like I can communicate something meaningful. 

I’m a pretty quiet person, so the performance aspect of making a life as a songwriter has always been the hard part. There can be a lot of doubt about the worth of the thing. Should I be doing social work instead, something more concrete and immediately helpful in a community? But I guess at the end of the day I always come back to the artists and authors that have meant so much to me, and to how affecting a song can be when it tells a story that feels honest.

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?

Anna: My family has always been musical and music-loving. My grandpa lived with us for awhile and he played the violin and I remember laying at his feet and listening and wanting to play like he did. He had this beautiful shaky-handed vibrato that sounded like an old victrola. My parents listened to a lot of folk and bluegrass, Simon & Garfunkel, Joan Baez, the Kingston Trio, and Dylan. My sister and I went through our pop radio phase, Mariah Carey, Smash Mouth, Blink 1-82, and Train. I remember hearing that song ‘Traveling Soldier,’ (written by Bruce Robison and sung by the Dixie Chicks), on the country station in the car with my dad. I was totally struck by the story, how simple and heartbreaking. I remember waiting forever for it to come on my little boom box so I could record it on cassette. 

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote?

Anna: Sort of. It was something about whales and it was truly terrible. I also sort of remember the second and third and fourth songs. They were also terrible.

AHC: Who are some of your musical inspirations? Are there certain songs or albums that you couldn't live without?

Anna: So many and more all the time. I’m a big lyric-lover, the music could just be one note over and over and if the lyrics hit me, it sounds so full. Gillian Welch has always been a huge inspiration, the simplicity of her voice and her complex but seemingly plain-spoken stories. I couldn’t live without her album ‘Time (The Revalator).’ Anais Mitchell’s album ‘Young Man in America’ really lit a fire in me too. Also Tift Merrit, Tom Waits, Patty Griffin, Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Blaze Foley, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, so many good ones. 

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak?

Anna: Hmm, there are a million ways to come at a good song I think. The story is what makes it a lot of times, letting a story stand unadorned, that one is hard for me, but the times I’ve gotten close, those are the songs that stick around and feel the most true. I can tell when I get sucked down the hole of just playing with words, loving the way they sound together. I call this the pretty-talker effect and I battle it constantly. There are times when a string of images creates just the feeling you’re trying to relay, and there are times when a real story needs to stand plain to be effective. I don’t know. I mess it all up over and over and sometimes write things that feel more true to me than others and I love the struggle of getting there. When you play a new song for an audience for the first time, that’s when you feel it the most, wether other people feel that story or wether you just wrote it because you needed to. 

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture, hope lost and regained? As a listener of music I have this impression, I wonder, as the artist, the creator, do you have this feeling about the transformative power of song? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?

Anna: Yes. There’s something so deep-down-mysterious about the way certain music can move you at certain times. It’s taking a walk at night in a city vs. taking a walk at night in a city with Tom Waits playing in your headphones. I’m terrible at watching suspenseful movies because the music does such a thing to your body, puts your guts all in knots, even when some lady is just standing in her kitchen. 

I worked for a few years serving meals in a retirement home. Sometimes people would come in and play old big band songs for the residents and it meant the entire world to them. There’s such a strong connection between music and emotion and memory, the song your dad hummed when you were a kid, the first song you danced to with someone you loved, the music you played on the stereo when you drove across the country, when your friend passed away, when the sun came out after a long winter. 

Writing songs to me is incredibly healing. As someone who isn’t so great at communicating a coherent thought in conversation, music provides this way to take color and sound and visceral images and gather them together to communicate something.

AHC: In a world that is moving faster and faster, for better or worse, I think that really good, tried and true music helps orient us to our times, slows us down and brings us back to ourselves, folk music is such a great example of this. When you set out to write and compose an album of songs, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?

Anna: I think part of the work of being a songwriter is just being open to the world, traveling around and watching people and listening to their stories and listening to the news and trying to put yourself in all different types of shoes. Some of my favorite artists tell stories so seamlessly, so honestly, that you’ll never know whether it’s their story or just something they heard or dreamed up. John Prine can sing “Angel from Montgomery” from the eyes of an old southern woman and I believe every word and it’s such a moving song. 

I have yet to really consciously set out to write an album of songs with a specific theme in mind, but I’d love to someday. So far, it’s more like just setting out to be a sponge, a collector of people’s stories and facial expressions, the look of a restaurant in a certain light. I’ve just gotten into writing straightforward story-songs in the past few years and hope to do more and more of it. Sometimes I’ll write a certain story a few different ways and nothing feels true and then I try a fourth way and it comes out feeling more honest somehow.

AHC: What are your favorite on-tour, on-the-road memories?

Anna: I love sleeping in the van in some random parking lot on tour, walking around unfamiliar towns, watching people, eating at the grocery store or some greasy diner, playing for strangers who may or may not care. Sometimes all these things are more romantic than other times:) Lately I’ve been sharing some tours with my boyfriend, who’s an amazing songwriter. Touring alone can be freeing and magical, but it sure feels good to share the ups and downs of the road with someone. We’ll sleep in the humid heat in a walmart parking lot one night and get put up by a venue in a nice hotel the next night. I have a great memory of driving through UT with him and stopping for the night to find a backroad spot to sleep in Moab and watching the sun go down and listening to coyotes howling in the canyons. We’re both at a place in our careers where we sometimes play to two drunk people in a gritty bar with sports on the tv in the background, and sometimes we play great little listening rooms to people who get excited about lyrics and buy albums. The former makes you extremely grateful for the latter. 


AHC: What would be your dream gig, if you were asked to go on tour and open up for one of your musical heroes or heroines? 

Anna: Oh man, that’s a hard one. I just love playing to people who are into wordy, slightly depressing folk songs. I’d be so excited to open for Josh Ritter or Joe Henry or Patty Griffin. Maybe the greatest thing in the world to me would be to open for John Prine. 

AHC: Do you have any words of advice for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world?

Anna: Work as hard as you can to make art that you believe in. It’s easy to get caught up in all the work of booking and promoting, especially when you’re just starting out and doing everything yourself and trying to make a living. All of that stuff is good to learn and good to work hard at, but if writing and playing songs is the thing you love and the reason you’re doing any of it, do that thing the most and do it as much as you can. 

AHC: Do you have any new projects in motion you'd like to tell people about?

Anna: I released a new album in May and am hoping to start recording the next one this winter sometime, hopefully it’ll be done by summer. Besides that, I’m just trying to write my face off and tour and maybe start this interview/story project I’ve been dreaming of doing for awhile now.



For more information visit www.annativel.com/

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