Video Feature & Web-Exclusive Interview

Musician:  GRACE PETTIS

Video Premiere:  “I TAKE CARE OF ME NOW

 


  

DOWN TO THE LETTER
WITH AMERICANA’S WORKING WOMAN GRACE PETTIS

 

by Rodeo Marie Hanson

An American juvenile cinéma vérité, reminiscent of 1985’s The Breakfast Club, unfolds within every school’s granite and brick corridors, monochromatic carpeted classrooms and institutionalized cafeterias. In this microcosm, young people embark on a quest for their holy grail—self-identity and a way to carve out a place for themselves in the world much like initials etched fervently underneath students’ desks.

Jocks’ muscular bodies wrapped in impervious armor, otherwise known as varsity sweaters, proudly promenade; their victories on the field framed in the main hallway’s trophy case create an inescapable penumbra companion. Valedictorians, draped in academic achievements with the slightest tint of intellectual superiority, wear their laurels like badges of honor. Members of student government, led by the direction of ever-changing political winds, wield influence over their peers—this is the curriculum vitae presented to the youth of America, a steady diet of mixed messages, power-struggles and compulsory conformity resulting in the malnutrition of individuality.

Singer-songwriter Grace Pettis is intimately acquainted with the unforgiving Lord of the Flies’ politics of high school and navigating the horizontal labyrinth of tables reflective of social status in the lunchroom. Describing herself as one of those weird, artsy and nerdy kids, Pettis didn’t enjoy membership in the popular cliques or the privileges associated with them. Utilizing the strength in numbers strategy, Pettis unofficially and loosely aligned herself with kids, who like herself, didn’t neatly fit into a mold, dancing dangerously along the curves and fringes outside of societal norms.

Pettis commits pen to paper crafting personal lyrics within the Americana/folk musical framework for that table of kids in the lunchroom relegated to external points of view; residents of the periphery, eloquently and succinctly captured by the lyrics of Rush’s “Subdivisions”: “In the high school halls / In the shopping malls / Conform or be cast out.”

Acknowledged by several of the nation’s songwriting competitions such as NPR’s Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, and receiving endowments from The Buddy Holly Educational Foundation, Grace Pettis is a woman on a mission, fueled by many intersecting desires on the highway of the music industry to bring her songs and commitment to social-justice awareness to all those non-conformists and souls adrift at the high school lunch table. Down to the Letter, Pettis’ most recent effort and follow up to Working Woman, is a stripped down, unapologetic, unflinching and raw exploration of self-identity and self-worth following the end of a marriage and aftermath of a divorce—a musical diary offering self-help to others in similar romantically complicated and challenging situations.

“I Take Care of Me Now” is Grace’s first single/video from the album Down to the Letter, and is an anthem of self-awareness, self-identity and self-empowerment—breaking the shackles associated with co-dependent relationships.

Untamed tresses ablaze in curls of crimson frame, her youthful face accentuated by soft contours and cherub cheeks, pigmented by the delicate flush of rose. Cream-colored knock around sweater, undiluted blue straight cut jeans, and vegan cherry-red oxblood Doc Martens are Pettis’ fashion ensemble conveying an attractive, yet attainable, girl next door aura. Pouty full lips and a curled up smile suggests there is much more substance bubbling underneath the innocent façade—her body language boldly proclaims enter at your own risk.

“Any Kind of Girl” – Growing Up In Atlanta with a Musical Family

Born into a musical family, Grace’s paternal grandmother went to music school and was an organist and pianist. Pierce Pettis, her father, was a staff writer at Muscle Shoals and PolyGram. Sharing family stories, Pettis explains how she found music and discovered her early influences, “My dad’s mother played piano when she was going to Auburn University, and she was working this waitressing job and she was so good at it. She was so entertaining that the other waitresses pooled their tips and paid her to just play the piano instead of wait tables. My other grandmother got into Juilliard, but didn’t go—she was a really good pianist as well and they both sang and played in church. It’s like a mini-generational thing.”

Pierce Pettis, the patriarch, toured a lot when Grace was a little girl, and other musicians would hang out—so she got to know a lot of songwriters, guitar players and performers. Growing up in Atlanta, Grace was the only white student during four years of elementary school. She attended church with a lot of her friends who were black, and found a lot of black southern gospel, R&B, hip hop and jazz, which became a part of her musical upbringing. Monica, Nelly, Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child and Mary J. Blige coexisted on Pettis’ musical landscape with gospel, country, bluegrass and folk—the latter, a result of Pierce being a folk singer-songwriter.

“So Far Away” – Pierce Pettis on Tour & Trading CDs

Pierce had a unique way of sharing music before the advent of the internet—he would go on tour and take a full box of CDs, and then swap them out with other musicians. He would come back with a box full of new music from different musicians who weren’t on the radio—underground folk singer-songwriters. Grace reaped the creative rewards, finding before anyone else—yet to be discovered talent, subsequently forging an artistic and special bond with her father.

“Speak Tenderly” – Songwriters, Lyrics & the Beatles

Lots of songwriters and lyric-intensive material were creative fixtures at the Pettis household. Both of Grace’s parents loved the Beatles, so she grew up singing Beatles’ songs. Joni Mitchell’s Blue is Pettis’ mom’s favorite album, and a preteen Grace drowned in it. George, Grace’s brother, spent time harmonizing, playing the piano and singing Beatles’ songs with her. Writers like Paul Simon, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan also occupied young Grace’s ears, adding to her literary aspirations.

“You Are the Cowboy” – Pierce Pettis Staff Writer for PolyGram

Pierce Pettis was a staff writer for PolyGram, which now exists as a publishing arm of Universal Music Group. PolyGram was ahead of its time because they married music with movies in a way that was commercially viable before MTV became part of the mainstream of consciousness. Elaborating on her father’s role at PolyGram, “His first cut was with Joan Baez on a song called ‘The Song at the End of the Movie’—that was his first real cut. Then Dar Williams recorded a song of his called ‘Family.’ He had a couple early cuts that got him into the national co-writing, publishing world and then his real big hit was Garth Brooks’ ‘You Move Me’ which happened in the 90s.”

After signing a publishing or record deal, Pierce experienced some perils associated with the music business when those with whom he made the agreement would be bought out by somebody bigger, “There would be some little record company or outfit that would believe in him like Windham Hill or High Street Records—the bigger the fish got, the less important he seemed to be. There were some tragedies in that. A warehouse where a lot of copies of one of his early records were stored (PolyGram), burned the entire warehouse because it was stock that they couldn’t sell. He had a lot of major successes that helped him maintain a career that he’s been able to live off of for decades now. It’s been an interesting ride for him.”

“Turning Too” – Avoiding the Sophomore Curse with Down to the Letter

Down to the Letter is Pettis’ follow-up to Working Woman. When an artist releases a second record, there’s an added pressure to avoid the dreaded sophomore curse. Pettis demystifies the potential jinx, “I guess there is some pressure because on the first one I felt like it was pretty well received in spite of the fact that we put it out during COVID, which definitely didn’t help in some ways, but in other ways it meant that we had a lot of available, really cool guests: Indigo Girls, Ruthie Foster, Dar Williams, the Watson Twins, and Gina Chavez. All that kind of brought a lot of attention for the record, which was great. It was kind of hard to tour because it was in 2021, so there were pros and cons of putting out a record at that time. This one has been so organic and straight out of life experience. It’s a divorce record. It’s really different from my last record. My last record was big, pandemic, live rock band record, and this one we made it from a home studio. That one (Working Woman) was a big commercial, national studio; this one (Down to the Letter) is a friend’s home studio. I sat around with a couple of friends and we made it in five days.”

Down to the Letter possesses the angst of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and the passion of Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards EcstasyLike Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, its material is introspective and explores the dynamics of relationships turned sour.

“Working Women” – Females Underrepresented In the Music Industry

In the 21st century, women are still underpaid for the same jobs that men perform. Pettis opens up about the importance of female empowerment in the digital/online world, and why women are underrepresented in the music industry, “Well, I think it is sexism and the patriarchy, obviously. Rachael Sage, the head of my label (MPress Records), she’s been doing this since the Lilith Fair days and was involved in some of those tours. She toured with Ani DiFranco, and people have been trying to change this industry for a long time. It’s really hard to be taken seriously—it’s hard to get the opportunities. A lot of women graduate at the same rate as men, when it comes to being sound engineers or producers, and then there’s just this tiny fraction of the work that is out there available in the commercial music world. You really have to try to hear a song produced by a woman. Less than 2% of music is produced by women that you hear on the radio. We’re out there and we’re good at what we do, but the opportunities aren’t always as forthcoming, and there are a lot of reasons for that. When a culture has just been a way that it’s been for a long time, sometimes change can be cumbersome.”

“Mean Something” – Defining the Elusive Genre of Americana

There are three music genres that defy definition: garage rock, heavy metal and Americana. Although there are artists that fit those genres, no one can effectively deconstruct what those genres are. Grace interprets what Americana means to her, “Well, I think the reason that nobody can articulate what Americana is because Americana is just whatever isn’t. It’s whatever isn’t country, or pop or whatever. Americana is everything from blues to rock to bluegrass.”

“And the Cradle Will Rock…” – Upcoming Gig at the Iconic Cafe Wha?

Currently on tour in support of Down to the Letter on the Numbers & Letters tourGrace is scheduled to play at Cafe Wha? in New York City, which was founded by Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth’s uncle Manny Roth. Jimi Hendrix, Bruce Springsteen, Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor all performed at Cafe Wha? before they were known. Pettis shares her thoughts about doing a gig at such an iconic spot with an intriguing history, “It sounds awesome! I love traveling. I love getting to see parts of the country that other people don’t get to see. People spend their whole lives saving for retirement so they can travel just a little bit, and I get to travel all the time! Yes, a lot of what I see are gas stations, but every now and then I get to play a show somewhere like that—a place that’s iconic and has real history. I’m so interested in that history. The stuff that’s not necessarily the broad strokes of history but the details that every town has that are so interesting. I’m actually going to be playing with Robby Hecht. He has a brand new record that just came out as well, and it’s called Not a Number, and my record is Down to the Letter—so we’re calling the tour Numbers & Letters. It’s been really fun and we both made divorce records around the same time.”

“Don’t You Worry None” – Advice for a Thick Skin & Open Heart

Grace offers her advice to the next generation who want to pursue music as a career, “Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned from other musicians and experiences include trying to be collaborative and not competitive. When you first start out, you have this American Idol mindset—I need to beat everybody—and yes, it’s good to practice your instrument every day and try to be the best you can be. If you’re competing against anybody, just compete against yourself and past versions of yourself. Find other musicians, find other writers, find other people who understand the work that you’re trying to do, who have different life experiences. You have to have a combination of a thick skin and an open heart. You have to be able to handle rejection, not take it personally when people don’t get what you do, or like what you do, which is so hard because we’re all so sensitive. At the same time, as a songwriter, as an artist, you have to keep your heart open to the world. You have to be tender-hearted. You have to care about other people’s experiences and be empathetic. Music is worth doing because music is worth doing, period. Whatever way that you do it in your life, that feels sustainable and enriching to you, is the right way to do it.”

Review: Down to the Letter:

Down to the Letter possesses the angst of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill and the passion of Sarah McLachlan’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy. Like Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, its material is introspective and explores the dynamics of relationships turned sour.

“The Better and the Worst” could be the flip side to Sarah McLachlan’s song “Ice Cream,” the symbolism of matrimonial vows are highly overt—a romance that once blossomed has veered off the rails and is now acidic and remorseful in nature.

“I Take Care of Me Now” is Grace’s first single/video from the album and is an anthem of self-awareness, self-identity and self-empowerment—breaking the shackles associated with co-dependent relationships.

“Rain,” “I Didn’t Break This,” and “Sobering Up” progress the album’s narrative in a linear format and are successful in conveying Pettis’ pain due to her expressive and authentic vocal interpretations of the material.

Pettis offers confessions from the studio while making Down to the Letter, “It’s personal—I had to get it out of my system when I was going through my divorce, which is a really complicated and hard experience. I left the studio crying and sobbed in my car after recording sessions on multiple days. It was a really raw experience for me. My job was to show up and be an artist, and be a human and experience the song on tape for other people.”

Thematic elements on Down to the Letter include: loss, betrayal and self-empowerment. The song lyrics are based on real life and was both a cathartic and painful experience for Pettis who cried in the guest room at her mom’s house every day for half a year—and then the other half in other people’s guest rooms.

When she first left her marriage, Pettis was devastated and wasn’t going to use the experience as subject matter for songs, choosing instead to keep her personal life private. After a lot of conversations with her therapist, Pettis wrote 27 songs about all of it.

Waking up every day, Pettis just started writing and crying, lying around the house and being miserable and just getting it all out. It was time to make another record and Pettis’ therapist encouraged her to make something useful out of that pain. Pettis viewed the creative process as a privilege, a gift to be able to tell her own story and have that suffering be useful in some way, “As much as I’m able to give to the audience, I want to because that’s them giving it back to me.”

https://www.gracepettis.com
https://www.facebook.com/gracepettismusic
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https://www.mpressrecords.com/
https://open.spotify.com/artist/27KvaH85g9IRIFX3KGGvu7
https://www.tiktok.com/@gracepettis?lang=en
https://www.YouTube.com/@GracePettisVideos

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