Anna Vogelzang, Courtney Harman, Coyote Brother (album release)

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Paul Mitch

Coyote Brother (left to right): John Hardin and Hayward Williams.

Former Madison resident Vogelzang (back in the Midwest after a couple of years in Los Angeles) and the half-local duo Coyote Brother (pictured) celebrate their new folk record releases on the same night. On Vogelzang’s latest, Beacon, she shares intimate portraits of people and memories on tracks like “Taurus.” On Coyote Brother’s self-titled debut album, the pair creates homages to gospel and country with miles of emotional depth. With Courtney Harman.

press release: Folk duo Coyote Brother is playing a show celebrating the release of their forthcoming eponymous record, (out Sept 27) at The Winnebago on October 12 with Anna Vogelzang, and Courtney Hartman.

Coyote Brother is John Hardin and Hayward Williams, two musicians with distinguished solo careers lasting over a decade before coming together as a duo. Drawn together by the profound impact that mental illness had on their ability to create, Coyote Brother speaks to the collaborative work that can be achieved by taking a step back and re-entering the current with a strong support system. 

Hardin is a Madison-based artist. From 2005 to 2013, his music appeared in numerous television spots, and he shared the stage with Gregory Alan Isakov, Over The Rhine, Sara Watkins, Jeffrey Foucault, and more. He released two records during this period, Fools & Thinkers and Visions of the Sea; touring extensively behind both before deciding to take time off to engage with and work on his “personal and mental maladjustments”.

Williams is based in Milwaukee and, like Hardin, he took time off after years of extensive touring to tend to his mental health and gain control of persisting anxieties. As a solo artist, Williams has released seven records, toured across three continents, and has shared the stage with artists such as Jose Gonzalez, Sturgill Simpson, and the Secret Sisters.

Los Angeles singer-songwriter Anna Vogelzang has released the second single, “Icarus,”  from her upcoming new album Beacon, due out October 4, 2019 and available to pre-order now. Premiering the song with The Bluegrass Situation, “Icarus” is available now on all digital service providers. Vogelzang kicks off her fall album release tour on Beacon’s release date at Los Angeles’ Hot Shot Muffler, before heading across the Midwest and North East with stops in Milwaukee, New York, Boston, and others, with additional dates to be announced soon. Visit www.theanna.com for more information on all upcoming tour dates.

In conjunction with the release of “Icarus,” Vogelzang revealed the song’s official video via an in-depth conversation with Femme Riot. The video was written, directed, and shot by youth campers at The Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in Los Angeles, a program that Vogelzang has been actively working with for several years. The Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls is a social justice non-profit dedicated to empowering girls through music. Vogelzang first got involved with the program in Madison, WI teaching voice and coaching bands, before continuing her work with the organization’s Los Angeles branch, where she teaches songwriting, guitar, voice, and coaches aspiring young musicians.

Each year, Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls attendees participate in the camp’s “Music Video Program,” where they review songs via a blind submission process and choose one to make a video for.  2019 campers selected Vogelzang’s “Icarus”– and alongside a team of female filmmakers brought their vision for the song to life. Vogelzang explains, “Knowing that my music connects with kids is a different kind of special. This was the third year I submitted, and it felt amazing to be chosen. Working with the campers was just… so rewarding. We shot all day, and they had totally come up with their own vision for the song, lyric by lyric. I absolutely love the direction they took with the video. I’m so proud of the amazing piece they created!” 

An anthem for self-acceptance, “Icarus” proved to be the perfect inspiration for these young artists exploring their own creative expression. With a melodic punchiness that drives the song’s storyline, Vogelzang’s effortlessly vibrant vocals reveal an ease in knowing that at any given moment, where you’re at is where you’re meant to be. “We can spend so much of our lives looking outward – this song felt like it was showing up as a celebration of acceptance,” she says. “This is where you’re at, this is it, right now – why not celebrate it?”  

Vogelzang recently released the first single and title track from Beacon, which was born from a place of searching – a theme found throughout Vogelzang’s life and career. Born in Boston, spending a decade in Madison, WI, and touring to every corner of the country in-between, Vogelzang has built her community from coast to coast, with her home on her fingertips, her music peppered with flavors of nostalgia and perpetual motion. After spending the last decade in Madison, WI, Vogelzang made the move to Los Angeles, where she has co-founded LA’s weekly songwriting group, “Song Salon,” with Adam Levy. This collective became the foundation of her journey into the West Coast’s music scene, and shortly after its formation, Vogelzang became pregnant with her first child. It was with this new sense of community in Los Angeles and the news of her pregnancy that Vogelzang decided to record an album throughout the deeply transitional phase, despite – and because of – the uncertainty of what was on the other side.

This feeling of living within a transient physical state while experiencing life in a new place was the origin and inspiration for the album. Beacon was co-produced by Tyler Chester (Andrew Bird, Joan Baez) and found the pulse of the West Coast infused into the songs. “These songs have California in their blood. All of them written in this new city, on a new journey, climate, home, community. They were written written to process these huge transitions – transitions of place, and into motherhood,” Vogelzang states. Beacon is Vogelzang’s seventh studio release.