To hear the culture of the real South, as it emerges, in this very moment, requires listening to the young songwriters who are products of the real South — a place where immigrants from countless traditions add to our culture every day. That’s why we had questions for Memphis’ Liz Brasher.
By Chuck Reece
~ Watch the Video Premiere of “Sad Girl Status” ~
I’ve believed for a long time that the quickest way to get the feel of a place’s culture is to listen to its music. Specifically, its newest music.
Yes, old music is important. Yes, it’s important to document it and its creators, to understand all we can about the worlds they lived in and the history we learn from their songs. Yes to all that. And yes, it’s okay to find comfort in tunes from our region’s veteran writers, because they can offer wisdom of the sort that comes only with age. Yes, to all that, too.
Yes, yes, yes.
But.
Here at The Bitter Southerner, we attempt to interpret and help folks understand the culture of the American South as it unfolds. In the moment, right now. And that’s where every young musician who is a product of the emerging South lives.
Which brings us to Liz Brasher of Memphis, Tennessee. She is a first-generation American, the child of an immigrant mother from the Dominican Republic and a father of Italian descent, raised in the Charlotte, North Carolina, suburb of Matthews. Which, in turn, means she is the product of the South’s gumbo culture. And it’s kinda my job now to listen — and pay strict and respectful attention to — our young musicians like Liz Brasher.
When I heard this new single, “Sad Girl Status,” which we debut here today, and learned more about her background, I had questions. Liz was kind enough to answer.
Chuck Reece: You’ve said, “I'm half Dominican, half Italian, and also Southern," and that you grew up singing Baptist hymns in an all-Spanish church. You are, as you say, “a different type of Southerner.” Your upbringing suggests, though, that you came into Southern music through the same door that so many before you have walked through: the traditional gospel music. What was it about that upbringing that made you want to make music your life?
Liz Brasher: I didn’t come into Southern music through the same door that many before me did. I didn’t grow up with traditional hymns, and they definitely weren’t Southern. The songs that shaped my early years were mixtures between unique Spanish religious songs, Motown records my dad would play at home, and the only secular band I was allowed to listen to: the Beatles. I grew up very detached from my relationship to the South because I come from a family of immigrants, and I am first-generation U.S. I spoke Spanish at home and learned English in school. My uncle, Elias Sosa, played baseball in the MLB, so my grandparents, my mom, and her eight siblings all came over to have a better life. In the Dominican Republic, my family lived around WWII refugees, so the religious songs they learned and taught me were actually Hebrew-based with Spanish lyrics. A lot of those songs are made from a completely different scale than Western music: the same scales that traditional Spanish, Arabic, Iranian and Indian songs frequently use, which are all Phrygian dominant. Lots of minors rather than majors like we use in Western music. I didn’t have a crash course in Southern music or traditional gospel until I moved away from it and realized how important it was to my identity. My mom rehearsed me a lot, I was singing in church three times a week (sometimes more), and from the age of 5, I was taking solos and performing on public access TV. I loved singing because I saw how much joy it brought to other people and ultimately what it did for my soul. That really kick-started my love for music and set the passion for what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
CR: Ultimately, you planted yourself in one of the most iconic cities in Southern music — Memphis. Why Memphis? What force did you feel led you there?
LB: Let’s back up. Before Memphis, I was in Chicago. I got out of the South as quickly as I could because I wanted to see something else and experience something other than the rigid upbringing I had. I moved to a major city and was going to school there. It was only in Chicago when I picked up a guitar and started teaching myself how to play and write that I learned how important the music of the South was, not only to music history, but to me as a Southerner. That’s where I dove into traditional American hymns, the Delta blues, Southern gospel, early rock and roll, and soul music. This is where the sounds of Memphis started to ingrain themselves in my influences. I desperately wanted to be back in the South and experience it in this new framework, so I left Chicago and moved back to the South. I came to Memphis to make a record in the hopes that I would get signed to a label. And that’s what happened. Memphis is where my career officially began. I guess the force that led me here was fate.
CR: You’ve been in Memphis for a few years now. What musical traditions did you find to tap into after you got there?
LB: It’s about three years. It’s interesting because, to me, Memphis doesn’t have musical traditions. Sure, there’s gospel in churches and blues on Beale Street, but what I’ve been able to observe is that Memphis does what Memphis wants to do. It’s the reason why rock and roll, blues, soul, and alternative music have all hit from this city in such unique ways at different times. People like Sam Phillips at Sun, Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton at Stax, producers Doug Easley and Jim Dickinson, they all laid the groundwork for what would influence the rest of the country, and they did that as outliers who weren’t like the rest, and didn’t want to be. Memphis doesn’t conform. It makes the rest of the world pay attention to what it’s doing, not the other way around.
“Sure, there’s gospel in churches and blues on Beale Street, but what I’ve been able to observe is that Memphis does what Memphis wants to do.”
CR: Your debut album, “Painted Image,” the one you hoped would mark your breakout for you, came out on Fat Possum, the longstanding indie label based in Mississippi. Now, you’ve left that label and gone out on your own. You’ve said that “Sad Girl Status” was a song you wrote to work through what you were feeling during that period. Could you tell us a bit about your writing process on this song? Did it feel different or more significant to you?
LB: This song came to me at a really low point in my career and life. After releasing “Painted Image,” I watched everything fall into a stalemate. I was living in a cycle of frustration because I knew what my potential was but I couldn’t get to where I wanted to go. To be sitting still isn’t in my nature so it was pretty hard for me to be doing that. In that low state, I sat at the piano, and this super melancholy but really beautiful song just came out in a few minutes. I usually end up adding more instruments or layering sounds even within my initial early writing process, but this song sounded complete as it was. It was like the musical equivalent to a therapeutic cry that needed to be let out. It felt different for me because of how stripped down and vulnerable it was. From the title, to the content, to even me speaking about it now, I’m not hiding anything or being mysterious about what this song is. It was all of me, in that moment.
CR: Something you said in relation to this song fascinated me: “By nature, I'm mixed. That's been my whole life — having to reconcile two different cultures, or the religious and secular world, or the different genres that have all influenced me. From the time I was born, I realized I was going to be a big mix.” The entire culture of the South these days, in truth, is a big mix. So, arguably, you’re the very picture of a modern Southerner. Given that, my final question is this: Do you believe that, through your musical journey, you’ve come to feel more reconciled, inside yourself, with being a Southerner? And what kind of South do you hope your music is a road toward?
LB: Absolutely. Without my journey through Southern music and quite literally through the South itself, I wouldn’t have understood the impact of this landscape on who I am today. I’m proud to be a Southerner who comes from a backdrop of pain and beauty, who challenges traditional viewpoints, who grew up wanting to see the acceptance of differences that we’re now trying to move towards.
It might sound kind of utopian, but the South that I envision and hope my music leads us toward is one where new legends are born for the greater good of humanity. One where there’s unity in diversity, beauty in imperfections, depth in simplicity, and a passionate drive to succeed in pursuits that will positively influence world history.
