Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
One Woman, One Vote
Aoife O’Donovan celebrates 19th Amendment
Aoife O’Donovan admits that stepping up as a composer was a scary move. As lead singer for Crooked Still and the co-founder of the Grammy Award-winning trio, I’m With Her, she’s used to singing alongside bluegrass and Americana greats like Alison Krauss, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and even classical cellist YoYo Ma. She’s released three critically acclaimed albums on her own in addition to being a regular voice on “Live From Here” (formerly “Prairie Home Companion”) with Chris Thile and serving as a guest vocalist to a number of her famous friends.
However, in 2019 she challenged herself by accepting a commission from the Orlando Philharmonic to write a piece celebrating the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. She didn’t consider herself a composer, though, and knew it would be hard work.
“I stuck with it, and I’m really glad I did because it got me to think outside the box,” she says. Eventually she not only composed a full song cycle for orchestra, she also had an album’s worth of material.
In March of this year she independently released “All of My Friends” featuring guest musicians Anaïs Mitchell, Sierra Hull, Noam Pikelny, The Knights, The Westerlies, The San Francisco Girls Chorus, Alan Hampton, Griffin Goldsmith and more.
For many of the songs she wrote for the song cycle, O’Donovan studied the letters and speeches of suffragist Carrie Chapman Catt (18591947), who founded the National League of Women Voters and is credited with saying: “Everybody counts in applying democracy. And there will never be a true democracy until every responsible and law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race, sex, color or creed, has his or her own inalienable and unpurchaseable voice in government.”
“I think what stood out to me about her was her practicality and her unwavering commitment to the cause and the fact that there were so many so many texts that she had written that resonated with me because they just felt so modern and timeless,” O’Donovan says. “Her pleas and her queries to her fellow women and her politicians, to me, had this strong sense of common sense — like ‘let’s get this done because it is so obvious this is so much better for the world and for the country.’”
O’Donovan wrote the majority of the album during pandemic lockdown and the political unrest of 2020, and she says that the songs are still relevant and shape-shifting.
“It’s funny that it’s now almost four years later, and parts of the music feel like they’re hitting different now than they did even when I wrote them.”
She closes the album with a cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” which she considers a coda to the album — a conclusion of one chapter and a reminder that the fight for equality didn’t end with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
“It jumps 40 years into the future, and you are dealing with a different type of injustice, but one that is still resonant and still very timely,” she explains.
The song is about the real-life Black barmaid, Hattie Carroll of Baltimore, who was murdered by a drunken, wealthy 24-yearold white man. He served just six months in the county jail for assault in 1962.
“It’s a commentary on another era of American injustice,” O’Donovan says. The song is a mournful and quiet conclusion to the big symphonic sounds on the album.
For O’Donovan’s performance during the FreshGrass Festival, she will be joined by the supergroup Hawktail featuring Brittany Haas of Crooked Still on fiddle, Paul Kowert of Punch Brothers on double bass, guitarist Jordan Tice and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. The University of Arkansas Children’s Choir will join in for a few songs too.
In addition to her new album, the concert will feature favorites by O’Donovan and Hawktail, plus a few covers.
“It’ll be a full set of awesome music, and people should be really stoked for it,” she says.
And I’m With Her fans should keep an ear out too.
“We do have some stuff brewing — nothing to reveal to the public quite yet,” she says. “We’re getting together, and we’re making music. I’m looking forward to sharing that news with the fans pretty soon.”