Bluegrass connects a socially distant world

With a tour on hold, Kristen Grainger & True North release studio album “Ghost Tattoo” 

Now that live musical performances are all but gone for the duration of this pandemic, True North’s latest album, “Ghost Tattoo,” connects the digital/Corona divide by telling simple human stories.

Singer Kristen Grainger has penned a collection of songs that tell stories both personal and imagined, about love, social issues, and triumph. Backed by lushly recorded mandolins, violins, and bass, Kristen’s songs are greater than the sum of their parts, especially when listening to the album in order. True North had 38 live shows canceled or postponed over the summer, but “Ghost Tattoo” connects.

Socially distanced, masked, and sipping a decaf iced latte in front of the Wild Pear in downtown Salem, Kristen explained the varied subject matter of her songs. Her husband and True North’s guitar player, Dan Wetzel, sat by her side sipping a ginger beer on the warm mid-August evening.

Twist in the Wind

Their website features front and center one of their past songs, “Twist in the Wind,” and a handful of tunes off the new album. Kristen said they selected those songs so bookers could get a feel for their live performance in the post-pandemic world.

“Twist in the Wind” tells the story of a couple whose love is fading. Once a dreamy time of carving initials in the willow tree, one of the lovers is left twisting in the wind, her affections not being returned.

“If love is a two-way street, there’s just more traffic on one side, and that’s what the song’s about,” Kristen said. “It was mostly about modern-day relationships — the complications that have always been connected to relationships.” 

Tattooed Love Song

“Tattooed Love Song” counters “Twist in the Wind.” A woman gets her broken-down car serviced by a mechanic in a Texaco station — and you can see where this is going. 

“I also tend to write introspective songs about longing. I tend to write, you know, sad songs, so I decided to write a love song, where there’s a happy ending. And it’s really a kind of a ‘How I Met Your Mother’ song.”  

When the car’s service light comes on, the song asks the question as to who is rescuing whom. 

“He rescues in a way, but really, she rescues him. I mean they rescue each other. Yeah, she’s got a broken-down car, he’s got a broken-down heart,” Kristen said. “She mentions his tattoo and is charmed by it.”

“They find more in common than just the tattoo and a broken down car and they have this longer relationship,” she said. “The chorus says the world can be cruel and the world can be cold and love belongs to the innocent and rewards the bold. And so he is. So he’s being bold there by trying to make something happen.”

The song also highlights how the band matches their music and lyrics. “That’s the one that’s got twin octave mandolins. The two-octave mandolins have very different voices. And you can hear one is a brighter sound and one is a warmer sound and Dan (Wetzel) is playing one and Martin (Stevens), our mandolin and fiddle player, playing the other. And I wrote this song specifically so that I can get that sound because I love those two-octave mandolins together,” Kristen said.

The band tries to make every song a little different, adds Dan. “A lot of times we’ll be doing the arranging and just trying to figure out how we can voice this. It’s always the goal to have the voice out front and the story be the thing.”

The mandolins and guitar parts complement the lyrics.

“If it’s a cheerful story like ‘Tattooed’ is, we’re trying to make it light and bouncy, and the energy of trading back and forth kind of helps do that,” Dan said. “If it’s a very dark haunting story and it will make the solos follow that kind of a mood.”

“We don’t want every song to sound the same. So we break up who takes us over,” he said.

The Ghost of Abuelito 

True North is not an overtly political band, but some songs are informed by a deep sense of social justice.

Kristen based the characters Miguel and Alma in “The Ghost of Abuelito” on real children who were separated from their parents at the US Mexico border. The song is a mix of stories based on testimonies found on project-amplify.org, an advocacy site for children. Kristen hopes to illustrate for someone listening to a three-and-a-half minute song what these children were going through.

“You’re basically in cages. They’re basically in a holding tank, at best, and a cage at worst, so that’s what I was trying to convey,” she said.

“No matter what side of the political spectrum you’re on I think you’d agree that children should be safe and healthy, in whatever setting they’re in,” she said. “You can only imagine what those children have endured just to get to the border and then once they get to the border to be separated from their parents, nothing explained to them.”

“They were surrounded 24 hours a day by crying,” Kristen continued. “Some of the conditions were extremely harsh, the children got very sick and they died.”

“I think that’s what artists are supposed to do. They’re supposed to make observations about the world — not necessarily judgment. They’re supposed to make observations and share those observations as they see them with other people and let them decide what they mean and what they want to do about it. So that’s what I did. I wrote a song that I hoped would be compelling, that people would be moved by it, and they’d be motivated to to work for change.” 

She Flies With Her Own Wings

Previously, Kristen worked as Governor Kate Brown’s communication’s director and wrote “She Flies With Her Own Wings” about her former boss. The phrase is also Oregon’s state motto.

“She’s a collaborative person, she’s a consultative leader. And some people see that as being weak or some people see that as not being forceful. And the fact is it’s that kind of thing, that kind of thinking and leadership, that got the feds to withdraw from Portland. It’s that kind of leadership that passed school funding,” Kristen said. “It’s those kinds of things that she doesn’t take credit for because she helped facilitate it and she helped lead the effort.”

“So I wrote it for her as a recognition of that, and the effectiveness of it, and because I — I think the world of her. She’s a great boss.” 

The human condition

When It comes down to it, Kristen said she writes about the human condition.

“…just by being born, your trajectory through your life is going to have certain elements, it’s our essential humanity that all of us share so we all have grief, we all have happiness. We suffer, we celebrate,” she said. “I’m just writing about it in ways that are story-driven.”

“That’s what I’m trying to get at — that within everybody’s ordinary narrative are these extraordinary moments, and that’s what I’m trying to capture.”

Connect with Kristen Grainger & True North at www.truenorthband.com.