Grace Potter is an American singer, songwriter and musician known for her powerful vocals and versatile musical style. Potter rose to prominence as the frontwoman of the rock band Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, which disbanded in 2015.
Since then, Potter has pursued a successful solo career, releasing albums such as “Midnight” in 2015 and “Daylight” in 2019, showcasing a more diverse range of influences and a willingness to explore. Potter released her latest album, “Mother Road,” in the fall of 2023. The 10-track record delivers with new motifs, messages and music. Potter’s fifth studio album is stacked with country-rock sound from the opening title-track to songs like “Good Time,” and “Ready Set Go.”
Potter noted that her latest venture in the studio was informed by a set of road trips she took in her downtime.
“I didn’t even have the songs fully written yet,” Potter told the Source Weekly. “I had some intros and chords, and a feeling of what a chorus could be like… It was super easy and really was my favorite adventure in a studio that I’ve had.”
The musician also credits the spirit of Waylon Jennings and the living spirit of Dolly Parton for helping to guide her during her songwriting sessions. “Mostly, we would just set a mood with the music and I taped up all my lyrics and notes from my four cross-country trips. That’s really where I pulled from and I let the ghosts do the rest,” she admitted.
The album’s sixth song, “Lady Vagabond,” is an explosion of women empowerment, seeing Potter narrate from the perspective of the femme-deviant. With a raucous backing band complete with brass and rhythm sections, Potter unapologetically leans on the western motif and the power of outlawed femininity to produce a song that easily ranks among the best in modern road-trip rock.
While her ongoing tour, of which every show has sold out so far, is, as she put it, “cooler than the Breakfast Club,” Potter had no difficulty musing on the intricacy of being a woman in a predominantly male industry. “I didn’t mean to lean in any one direction, but it just came out of me. Thinking about the themes I was going to touch on, one of them was shame.” Potter explained, “Being a mom, there’s this thing called mom-shame. And people I met out on the road would question me, and why I was on the road and how I could leave my children. I remember that really pissed me off. There’s nothing defensive about it for me; I just find it intriguing that it is still so confounding that a woman would get in a car and drive cross-country, because all I can think is, ‘why wouldn’t I?'”
Just like her rough-and-tumble character in “Lady Vagabond,” Potter makes it clear that she answers to no one and by extension, hasn’t made this music for anyone other than herself. “When I bring these songs to life, it’s more than just a band that’s playing through the songs. It’s really an experience and it envelops all of the visuals I saw out on the road,” she said. “I’m just trying to enfold the feelings I was having, and the regrets, too, that I was exploring when I was driving alone on the road. There’s a lonely feeling to it but there’s a rich landscape in there if you’re willing to listen. I think those voices came out loud and proud.”
This article appears in Source Weekly February 29, 2024.
MAKE LOCAL JOURNALISM HAPPEN
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
