‘Made in Oklahoma’
Margo Price returns to OKC with honest, heavy-hearted sophomore record.
Margo Price was watching a heard of third-graders sing “This Land Is Your Land.”
The Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s son was among the voices at a holiday program, which was obviously cute, but Price also was impressed by the bulk of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics and verses. She said she was amazed at how youngsters could have the capacity to learn the nearly 80-year-old song. And then the performance sunk deeper.
“What we have going on with people trying to redevelop national parks, especially in Utah, hit me hard
that day,” she told The Oklahoman in a December phone interview. “There’s such a disregard for beauty in the world.”
Price has a knack for turning pain into poetry. In her music and on the phone, she doesn’t shy away from sticking to her guns. Like Guthrie, music doesn’t go out of style if the message sticks.
“Playing music and making art is one way to cheat mortality,” she said. “At least for a couple centuries.”
Her 2016 breakthrough album “Midwest Farmers Daughter” detailed divorce, death and a drunken driving incident that led to a weekend in county jail. Her honesty, paired with a push from Jack White’s Third Man Records, netted a modest commercial win — and a huge critical hit — which is all the more impressive when you consider how relatively unknown Price was just two years ago.
On Price’s 2017 follow-up “All American Made,” her stories peered less inward and painted a modern portrait of a country that’s far from great again.
The title’s less patriotic than the surface suggests. The sophomore effort never settles on a single mood but starts with a bang, offers plenty of clever turns of phrases, a TexMex protest song about equal wages and a somber closing ballad. Price slyly draws critiques rather than simply pointing fingers — making the most out of the worst.
She’ll return to Oklahoma on Jan. 24. Here are a few highlights from our phone conversation.
Q: Two of my favorite songs on your new record, the title track and “Pay Gap,” also ended up being the most political cuts on “All American Made.” I like how clever and direct they were. Do you consider yourself a protest singer?
Price: That’s a good question. No one’s ever asked me that. I just consider myself to be an honest songwriter. I’ve been influenced by people like Bob Dylan, people who’ve had something to say. I don’t plan on doing it forever, but I think that we’re at a very unique moment in history. It’s important to say what’s on my mind.
Q: When you’re writing, do you need solitude or are you able to write on the road?
Price: I enjoy both environments, but it depends on how grueling the travel is. I try to write a little bit here and there during flights or when I’m watching TV and I hear an interesting story. I try to soak up those little bits of wisdom. I’ve had a really bad ear infection the last couple of weeks. I was taking a lot of flights, and it was not helpful.
Q: I’m sorry to hear that. How have you been dealing with balancing such a busy album cycle and staying healthy?
Price: I shut down when I get home. I tend to not go out anymore. I try to make time for it, but I wanna relax, rest and watch TV. I’ll sit on the couch,
fold laundry, try to get back into being domestic and being a mother.
Q: I sometimes forget the people I talk to are just normal people. It shouldn’t surprise me, but I was surprised to hear that you picked up your son from school.
Price: Exactly! It was my first day back home, and so it was important that I go get him. My husband was actually in the studio working on an album of his own that I’ve been helping produce. He’s busy doing that, too. I had to go get my son and make dinner. It’s been fun to be back home.
Q: What’s it like collaborating with your husband?
Price: He’s helped coproduce “All American Made” with me . ... It was fun to go in and work on a bunch of songs he’d written by himself and songs I helped co-write. We did a lot of harmonies, and I told him which songs to put on there. I enjoy being in the studio.
It’s something I hope to do more of over the next few years, but you gotta make your money touring. People don’t buy records like they used to. Where we make our money is being on the road. I’d love to be able to stay home more and have more of an output. Most people want to do these 18-month album cycles. I want to put out a new record or two every year.
Q: Your solo debut was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis. What made you move down the street to Sam Phillips Recording for the follow-up?
Price: As soon as I saw Sam Phillips Recording, I knew I wanted to make something in there. It’s an amazing space. After Sam Phillips made his millions at Sun, he made his dream studio.
Sun might be more famous, but when it comes to space and having all the bells and whistles, Sam Phillips is a lot bigger and more high-tech. He had a jukebox built into his desk, which is still in his office. He could play 45’s at the touch of a button.
We had so much fun in there. They’ve kept it to the specifications when it started. It’s the same pink colors. Same carpet. Everything looks like it did back in the day.
Q: I enjoyed your duet with Willie Nelson on “Learning to Lose.” Did you write that track specifically with him in mind?
Price: My husband and I wrote that song. We were in our bedroom, and we’d been listening to loads of Willie Nelson records. I hadn’t even met Willie at that point. After he invited me to play at a couple of his events, like the Fourth of July Picnic and Farm Aid, we asked him for real if he wanted to sing and play on it. We went to his studio in Spicewood, Texas. He was so sweet and complimentary.
Q: How was Willie Nelson in the studio setting?
Price: He went through “Learning to Lose” so many times. We had all these different guitar solos of his to pick from. It was really hard when we listened back to everything later to decide what the guitar solo was going to be because every single one of them was thoughtful and unique.
Q: I read you had to sell your car and pawn your wedding ring to finance “Midwest Farmers Daughter.” Was it a huge comfort recording with more time and money?
Price: It was definitely stressful to have the financial constraints on the first album. I ran out of money. I was running into problems left and right. It definitively felt good to go in there and stay in Memphis for 11 days. Me and the boys went back home, and I kept working on the record on my own in Nashville at a couple of studios. We took our time mixing. We had Bob Ludwig master it. It doesn’t get any better than that.”