Best described as a roots or Americana artist, Austin, Texas’ Bonnie Whitmore is a veteran musician who has trod the boards throughout North America as an in-demand session and stage bassist for more than two decades. But she has also developed a unique musical compositional style all her own – one that combines many elements of the music she loves, regardless of genre, and a lyrical directness and powerful honestly that makes for a truly compelling listening experience.
Whitmore releases her latest album, Last Will & Testament on Oct. 2, through her own label, and Whitmore herself co-produced the 10-song release alongside Scott Davis, working out of the Ramble Creek Recording Studio. Although the word eclectic can sometimes be over-used or mis-used, it is rather appropriate for Last Will & Testament, as Whitmore is unafraid to mix and meld styles and genres to suit the emotional and lyrical tapestry she weaves with each individual song.
“To me as an artist, it’s about the creation of whatever it’s going to be, and not to make it form into something that’s supposed to be more marketable, which I know goes against everything you’re supposed to be doing in music if music is your livelihood,” she said, from her home in Austin, where she is doing her best to stay busy writing new material and promoting the album during the Covid-19 lockdown.
“I think I have a very eclectic taste, so I am not surprised that my music is eclectic within itself. I do like to take things that are sort of polar opposites of each other and mix them together. As a bass player, my influences are [legendary session player] Carol Kaye and Kim Deal of the Pixies – very different bass players, but both are integral parts of where I come at it musically. Americana is just sort of the all-encompassing, ‘everybody’s welcome,’ kind of genre, because they accept everybody into it.”
This interview was conducted not long after the tragic death of the brilliant, highly influential, well-respected but troubled Nashville singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle, someone whom Whitmore was well acquainted. She spoke of his life, loss and legacy.
“He and I definitely had a history together. And although we haven’t been in touch with each other for a long time, it was unfortunately not something anybody was surprised about hearing. But, like any time when something like this happens, it’s heartbreaking. It’s just one of those awful things. I think of Amy Winehouse too as a good example of how no one’s surprised that it happened, but no one also did a lot to try and save her. The only one who could really save her was herself. And I am deliberately choosing to think of her situation rather than trying to assimilate Justin’s in that regard,” said Whitmore, the thoughtfulness and sense of reflection evident in her voice.
“That struggle with addiction, it’s something that we still don’t fully understand, or give enough attention or caring to. It’s just not discussed. We praise the artist for what they create, but don’t understand the amount of just drama it takes and how painful the process can be. For some of us, me especially, writing has always been therapeutic. I do think it is a practice of trying to exorcize your demons, and some of us had demons that are more brutal that others. And we also spend a lot of time focussing on the fact that they did have this addiction and their struggle, but we don’t actually give credence to how difficult it is to live with day to day, and to deal with it all the time, even though the behaviour may change the person and make it so you aren’t able to recognize them as we know them when they’re sober. It really is something that I really wish we could spend more time discussing.
“A lot of what this record is for me, personally, is encouraging these discussions and to create a space for people to have difficult conversations, because we really do need a better understanding of that part of mental health. Justin is so loved in the community, and I have met so many people though him. And that’s the main thing. I think a lot of us are extremely sad under the circumstances, but there’s also the fact that he’s not having to deal with the struggle anymore either. It’s a loss for us, for music, for our culture, but in some way it’s a blessing that he doesn’t have to fight it anymore. The title track and much of the album came about because we’re all trying to understand. So many of us react to something like suicide or death by overdose with anger, which is understandable. But it’s been happening a lot more and for me that means we need to spend more time focussing on why it happens. I want to have a better understanding of the human condition. Listen, I have had depression all my life, whereas I think some people are experiencing depression for the first time with the pandemic, and it can be extremely overwhelming when you don’t know what it is.”
The intent behind Last Will & Testament was to dig deep into similar issues – ones that are taboo, or ones that are seen as to provocative or controversial, especially within the roots/Americana genre. But Whitmore is unbowed in her mission to explore these topics, both for her own personal reasons, but also, as stated above, that they need to be brought out from the shadows and into the light of revelatory truth.
“My first record came out in 2010 and it was a record that I wrote about my break-up. I needed to get all those things out of me because I was in a really dark place. I don’t think that I’d gone through heartbreak like that before. It was cathartic and healing for me to create that album, and that’s definitely been my way of processing a lot of things in my past and still to this day, in order to get through those feelings, I need to be able to write them down. More specifically with this record, I am not trying to do it just for myself. A lot of these songs I am writing specifically with them being therapeutic in mind. I have been going to a therapist for the last couple of years and it’s really helped me understand and work on my thoughts and to realize that I am not alone in what I am going through,” she explained.
“Some of the newer songs I’ve written since I finished the record are like that. I wrote a song about the importance of breathing. Meditation is something that I have also been doing and I have learned that when you are emotionally charged, your breathing changes. So the more you can pay attention of focus on your breath, the clearer you end up thinking, the better you are at processing the emotion you’re going through, and you’re able to slow down to catch up to where that anxiety is pushing you. In a way, what I am doing with this record is trying to look at the big picture. And although right now everything is really terrible and disheartening, we have to go through these things in order to be able to fix what’s wrong. And music has always been a conduit in terms of being able to point a finger in the direction of something, to lift somebody up, spiritually speaking, or just being able to tell a story that someone else can relate to. There’s just so many facets to music that can be really helpful in bringing people together. I have always personally subscribed to the Woody Guthrie quote that says that the job of the folk singer is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.”
For her forthrightness and honesty in taking on some tough issues and tough questions, Whitmore has sometimes fallen prey to the same ignorant, misogynistic and sinister taunts of being told to ‘shut up and sing’ as famously happened to The Dixie Chicks when they criticized the U.S. government’s continued warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s. Like the Chicks, Whitmore is unperturbed and unbowed.
“To me, what happened to the Dixie Chicks was the nail in the coffin to the feminist uprising. In the 1990s we had so much ‘girl power’; we had so many beautiful and powerful songwriters and singers and there was this community and real love for women in that regard. And then we watched it be dismantled in real time. We watched as each one of them was replaced by a Britney Spears. For me to witness that was gutting; it was a heartbreaking thing to witness, and especially being a female singer/songwriter in Texas, I was told a number of times to ‘not play that f***ing Dixie Chicks cover song,’ or something along those lines,” she said.
“During my upbringing, my mother was always very outspoken. She knew exactly how she felt and was very much someone I admired for her ability to be strong within herself and her beliefs. I consider myself to be very lucky for that. I have never been one to play nice, especially if I feel there is something happening that I don’t agree with and think shouldn’t be happening. I can’t back bullying behaviour, that’s just something I am never going to do. The one way I know that I can get around having the argument is that I don’t have to say anything into the microphone about my personal political beliefs, but I can definitely write a song about something that maybe people don’t want to hear about. That’s why I have a song like Asked For It on this album, which is about the prevalence of rape culture in this country. And the song Time to Shoot was my way of being able to have a discussion through song about gun reform.
“I am not much for being a preacher. I am not going to tell people what to think or what they should do, but I definitely am up for having the conversation and asking the question, which is the approach a lot of these songs [on Last Will & Testament] have. Even the first single, Right/Wrong was based of three specific questions. Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go? And, what do you want to say? I think in our heart of hearts we have so much more in common than we do have in conflict, and I would love to see us focussing more on the commonality and wanting to reach out to each other, rather than finding ways to divide us further. It’s not about winning over everybody. It’s about winning over enough to have us not basing our lives off of fear and all this toxic masculinity and bullying behaviour. Yes, it’s always going to be there, it’s never going to be completely dissolved. But I believe more of us truly want love and kindness and compassion and empathy for each other – and we do outnumber the other side, so it’s possible.”
It was important to do a deeper dive on Asked For It, since it is not only an incredibly powerful and compelling song, but it is a subject matter that strikes to the heart of one of the biggest social upheavals in many years – the rise of the #MeToo movement and the battle for women who have been intimidated, pressured, assaulted and otherwise violated by men in positions of power and control to not only be heard, but understood and for there to be consequences for the misbehaviour and criminality of the perpetrators.
“The inspiration actually first came to me back around 2012. It was an American congressman, Rep. Todd Akins who publicly talked about the ‘fact’ that a woman couldn’t get pregnant if she was legitimately raped; that somehow here body would be able to reject it. It was so infuriating, and such a complete non-understanding of a woman and how her body functions. There were and continue to be so many things like that happening and it just infuriated me. And, as I tend to do when I get upset, I write songs,” Whitmore said.
“When I first wrote the song, I remember trying to play it out in public and it was like the air got sucked out of the room – people were not ready for it. Whereas now with the #MeToo movement, this discussion has been brought to the public forum. It’s no longer something we can just push back into the darkness anymore. We’re allowing it to be really listened to and heard. It’s been a really good therapy experiment for myself, because now I have been playing this song live for the past year and I make it an audience participation song. I am asking people to do a call and response with me. What I found a lot of the time is that people are really enthusiastic at the beginning, but they don’t want to sing along with it by the end. I kind of see that as the point. It’s one thing to think something, it’s another thing to say it out loud, but it becomes something different when it becomes an action where you’re being heard to say it by your friends and colleagues. That helps me get my message across.
“I have seen how the song allows people to feel that they can at least come and talk to me or open up top someone else about it. There’s too much shame that’s wrapped around that and too much fear about someone’s reputation. This is a problem we can’t ignore any more.”
For more information on Bonnie Whitmore, Last Will & Testament and any possible tour dates, visit www.facebook.com/bonniewhitmore, @bonniewhitmore on Twitter, or www.bonniewhitmore.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for nearly 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
