MELISSA CARPE

I dont think you can get this sound unless its borned in ya, said bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley, when asked about what he called old-time mountain music. When Melissa Carper heard those words, something jumped inside her. While staying in the country with a friend, she found an old DVD of Down From the Mountain, the documentary and concert film of the O, Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack that featured this particular Stanley interview. She immediately jotted down borned in ya on a piece of paper. I knew I had to write that song, she recalls.In the Spring of 2023, Carper went back to East Nashvilles Bomb Shelter the same analog wonderland where shed recorded Ramblin Soul and its predecessor, Daddys Country Gold, and enlisted the help of her trusted co-producers Dennis Crouch and Andrija Tokic. Borned In Ya would become the title track of the new album, out July 19th via Mae Music/Thirty Tigers.Like much of her writing, the song applies a homespun sensibility and a bit of humor to questions about lifes journeys. I was turning over in my mind what it means to have something borned in ya, she said. The song evolved as I was writing it to be more about having your soul borned it ya, and the more life experience you have, you hopefully grow to embody the highest version of yourself that you can be. Borned In Ya could certainly stand as a reflection on Carpers life in music. Authentic might be an overused word to describe an artists appeal, but theres something so natural and true about Carpers musicality that she must have been born with it: An easy sway to her singing, a precise, but laid back sense of timing. A feel. And, lyrically, she has an instinctive sense for storytelling, both observant and intuitive.As with the message of Borned In Ya, these traits have been sharpened by life experiences including read more