Interview with Singer-Songwriter Courtney Hartman

            Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Courtney Hartman started playing guitar at the young age of eight, after having already spent several years on the fiddle and mandlin. Her early years were spent steeped in American Roots music, and today she has fused a diverse range of influences from Norman Blake to Bill Frisell, creating music that acknowledges and pays homage to her roots, while pushing beyond its defined boundaries.

Courtney left her native Colorado for Boston, where she studied in the American Roots Music program at Berklee College of Music. It was there that she joined Della Mae, and began to grow as a songwriter, contributing songs to the group’s second and third albums. Her solid rhythm playing and melodic improvisations has brought her accolades from the guitar oriented press. She appeared on the cover of Acoustic Guitar’s 2014 30 under 30 issue where her flatpicking prowess was lauded as “Staggeringly good” by the editors and the Fretboard Journal heralded Courtney as “...easily one of the greatest flatpicking guitarist performing today.”

Courtney now lives in Brooklyn and tours frequently, playing some two-hundred days a year, both at home in the states, and in countries as far off as Pakistan and Vietnam as part of the US State Department’s Music Exchange program; an experience that has had a profound impact not only on her music, but her world view. Her literary songwriting is filled with stories about changing relationships, life on the road, and—implausibly enough—a song that finds beauty and longing in jet lag. In addition to her solo work and touring with Della Mae, Courtney has worked with a range of musicians including Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s Mike Campbell, Buffy St. Marie and Hot Rize’s Bryan Sutton. Her solo project, Nothing We Say, was just released on Sept 30. 


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

Goodness, that's a big question. I haven't been here, doing this, for all that long, but it still feels like a big question. I feel so grateful to do what I do. I love it. I love making and playing and learning music, I love seeing our country and the world. 

What I have been learning lately is this... to observe and absorb, to put in the work and the diligence to create. It may feel foolish or frivolous or frustrating or frightening, maybe all of those things at once, but if it feels necessary, than it is. Those feelings will grow and fade and grow again. But you can find ways to work with them, to let them fuel what you do. 

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?

My parents started taking me to violin lessons when I was three years old. I had two older sisters who started at the same time, they were six and eight years older than me. It didn't matter what they were doing, I wanted to be like them, wanted to keep up with them. In some sense, that may have motivated me as much as anything at the time. We always had  instruments around the house, I picked up mandolin, and then guitar along the way. All of my siblings played and my parents did what they could to put us in musical places, be it festivals or concerts or friend circles. 

When I was about fifteen, I saw Doc Watson play. I sat right in the front row, he made me cry during his set but I didn't know why. Doc had a way of making each person in the audience feel as if there were a dear friend, as if he really cared about them. I think he did.  

Sitting there afterward, I remember thinking that somehow, someway I wanted to try to do that, to make people feel the way Doc made me feel when he played and sang that day. 


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

I wrote little songs as a kid, my mom taught us that. Everything we learned growing up had a song to go along with it. I could still sing you our "skip-counting" and geography songs. When I was twelve, I wrote a song and afterward I remember thinking, "I just wrote a real song!" I it was a love song (t's funny thinking back on my twelve-year old self) and I know the last line was "leave it just like it seems, even if it is a dream."  

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

Of course, there are so many. A few albums that I've held close over the years are, 
Bonnie Raitt/Self-Titled Abum, 
Bill Frisell/Good Dog, Happy Man, 
Sarah Siskind/Say It Louder, 
John Prine/Fair and Square, 
Norman Blake and Tony Rice/Blake and Rice

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?

I have no idea. Maybe you can't call it good song, bad song. Maybe the question is, did the song say what you wanted it to say, portray what it needed to portray, be it lyrical or instrumental. Yes, there are plenty of ways to analyze and break down a song. But there are some songs that I adore, and had I written them myself, I may have tossed them out as being "bad". In the end, those songs portray an emotion or image that I connected with, we all know the feeling. Those are the great songs. They're the ones that show a new side of themselves with every listen. 

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?

Absolutely, music is language without words, the perfect vehicle for emotion. Maybe it's too much to ask a song to be transformative, you can only write it, put the love and diligence into it, and then if it somehow heals or moves you maybe it will also heal or move the person who hears it. There are a few times I have experienced the rare moment of feeling like a vessel for a song, when it happens through you; in spite of you, not because of you. 


AHC: You've been to a lot of different countries as part of the US State Department’s Music Exchange program, what has that experience been like?

I've now been to 15 countries with the US State Department. Those experiences have been formative of who I am now. To describe the experience in one vast sweep of a statement is impossible. However, I can say this... to see the power of music open doors and conversations and create connections, in places where people have rarely, if ever, interacted with Americans, and most likely have reason to dislike us, that shifts your worldview in a life-altering way. The world is so big, and yet, we're all human and similar in more ways than we know. I would highly encourage anyone considering the program to do it, we have so much to learn from the world, so much to share. 


AHC: When you set out to write 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?

As artists, be it writers or musicians or poets or painters, our job is to observe the world and pour it into our work. Georgia O'Keefe, looked closely at flowers, closer and longer than almost any of us have. And then she showed them to us, and the world is better because of her. 

John Prine sees the small details, the nooks and crannies of life and brings them to our attention, tears well up then we laugh as we listen. He's talking about simple things, be it dark or light, things we all relate to. 

We have a responsibility to hear and feel the darkness in the world, but also to show that the small beautiful things are still small and beautiful. When it comes down to it, all my favorite artists turn the mundane into the profound. 


AHC: I read this beautiful quote once which reads "music is not only the art of harmonious sounds; it is the expression of the world before representation", I wonder do you experience music in this way, as you create, write and compose your songs, do you have the feeling that there is something in the music that jumps ahead of you, so to speak, some ineffable mystery that you try to put your finger to the pulse of? That the song is a translation of a deep inner experience that is sometimes, maybe not always, hard to name or recognize outright?

That is a beautiful quote. And absolutely, yes. That can be a hard thing to articulate. Sometimes you can't see the arch of an album or a song, even the underlying themes, until you are nearly finished with it. And there have been times when I don't realize what a song is really about until long after I've written. 


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

Some of my favorite touring memories have been in foreign countries playing for children, whether that be in music schools or playgrounds or run-down coal-heated orphanages. There's really nothing like the purity of joy that music can put on a child's face. 


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

Put your music out into the world, but not for validation. Don't seek the opinions or attention of your audience in order to understand if your work is true and good. No one can do that for you. Only you know the answers to those questions. We are the only ones who know if we've put in the hours, if we've dug deeply enough into ourselves. Do the work. No one else can do it for you. If you have an urge to write or play, it probably means you have something that needs saying, and the world won't be the same if you don't say it. 

Read (and re-read) these books at some point in your next few years:
Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

We have such an insanely vast wealth of knowledge available to us on the internet. Use youtube to learn from, set up skype or in-person lessons with your heroes. Find out who your heroes' heroes are and go listen to them. And lastly, play with people. Find friends to make music with. 


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

A couple months ago I released an EP "Nothing We Say", my first solo project. There will be more to come (soon), God-willing. 

​This winter, I am focused on writing for my next album and collaborating with folks in NYC. I am also working on a project to connect and learn from refugees here in the city. If you read this and have thoughts about how music can build and foster community, I am very interested in exploring that these days. 

Goes without saying, but you can keep up with my sounds and whereabouts at www.courtneyhartman.com.



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