Terri Hendrix turns her attention to gospel, blues on ‘Slaughterhouse’
SAN MARCOS — Last year, Terri Hendrix’s Hays County farm flooded during rains that devastated the Hill Country.
Floods don’t just wash away precious belongings, they can also wash in unwanted debris. Fastforward a few months to spring 2016. Hendrix was smoothing some topsoil in her garden when she ended up with a rusty nail sticking through her finger, nail and all.
The wound kept her more than an arm’s length from her guitar. And that injury — which followed a debilitating bout of bronchitis — delayed the most ambitious project in the singer-songwriter’s 20-year career.
“You could call it a monkey wrench thrown into the project,” says the musician, who will play McGonigel’s Mucky Duck Saturday. “And I think I still could’ve finished everything this year. But that little break allowed me some additional time to think about what I’m doing.”
Hendrix last week released “Slaughterhouse Sessions,” the second work — listed as 5.2 — in her Project 5 series. The idea was to release four recordings and a book in a calendar year. The 5 part of Project 5 will continue, though it won’t see completion this year as Hendrix moves it forward with more measured paces into 2017.
“The injury threw off her writing for the second album, but that ended up being a painful blessing,” says Lloyd Maines, Hendrix’s longtime guitarist and producer. “It really gave her time to home in on the lyrics.”
Where the 5.1 album “Love You Strong,” which Hendrix released in February, was a folk album contemplating various facets of love, “Slaughterhouse Sessions” is a topical album focused on gospel and blues. Fittingly, then, the album touches on endurance and grace that arise from despair. Hendrix wrote some of the songs but also threaded in some from writers older (the Carter Family) and newer (Slaid Cleaves).
“There are a few themes that run through it, but the one that stands out to me is that of getting to a better place,” Hendrix says.
For her, that process applies to more than the songs on the album.
‘A difficult balance’
Hendrix released “Two Dollar Shoes” 20 years ago independently. One wouldn’t say the album made ripples immediately because it was an unassuming singer-songwriter record with beautifully told but understated stories.
But some of those songs — perhaps “The Sister’s Song” most of all — began to make connections to listeners on the coffeehouse and listening-room circuit. The earnest transparency may have been the initial attraction in Hendrix’s early songs, but she also exhibited an intelligent diligence in the writing.
She was an exacting lyricist who showed a clear gift for projecting little life stories into three minute narratives. This became further evident on “Wilory Farm,” a 1998 album whose title was a tribute to a friend and mentor in matters of music and life.
By 2000, Hendrix could have found a boutique roots label to put out her music, but she decided to own her own universe. That phrase, in fact, became a mantra: Own Your Own Universe.
Perhaps a deal with a folk-friendly label would have furthered her reach, but Hendrix found her business financially viable, and her fans seemed further connected because of the personal touch.
“It confused some people,” she says, “but it made sense to me at the time.”
Hendrix’s writing further sharpened, especially with “The Art of Removing Wallpaper” in 2004. A restlessness and anxiety crept into the songs. Unbeknownst to fans, she’d suffered two grand mal seizures after a gig in Friendswood in 2003. She had been diagnosed with epilepsy in 1989, but Hendrix was slow to comply with treatment and kept it to herself. Even her touring partner, Maines, didn’t know until he found her midseizure after the show.
“The day’s going to come when you have to face what’s underneath it all,” goes one line on that album.
“I’m still not out of the woods with the condition,” Hendrix says. “But I’m smarter about it now.”
Hendrix’s music and business and health became intertwined. She emerged from what could’ve been a fatal ordeal with a new view on life and work.
“I reached a point where I wondered about whether I was chasing carrots,” Hendrix says. “It’s a difficult balance. Ideally, you want to get to a point of security, where you can make art without thinking about the business side of art.”
Playing ‘The News’
“Do you play guitar?” Maines asks me.
The query is comical coming from Maines, whose work on stringed instruments has graced hundreds of recordings.
The Lubbock native is one of the most important figures in Texas music made over the past halfcentury. His musical fingerprints are everywhere, as a producer and player (guitar, pedal steel, dobro, mandolin — anything with strings). Maines has played with, recorded with or done production for Terry Allen, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, the list could go on for days.
His daughter is Dixie Chicks’ singer Natalie Maines, and he produced their Grammy-winning album “Home.” His résumé is formidable.
And though he’s protective of Hendrix, Maines isn’t one to let middling pass muster. He’s worked with some of the best songwriters the state has produced, so he knows the rudiments of a good song.
He thought Hendrix returned from the thumb injury with something special.
“We were almost done, and she came up with ‘The News,’ ” he says. “That just summed up everything. That song blows me away.”
“The News” opens the album with weary resilience and the refrain “take your bad news away.”
To their credit, Hendrix and Maines emulsify the folk, blues and gospel parts to where the borrowed licks and the originals are almost indistinguishable.
“That’s the great thing about folk,” Hendrix says, “you can borrow great things and you can alter great things.”
“Slaughterhouse Sessions” isn’t shrill with its politics, but it does ask its listener to look inward for empathy and a more interactive discourse.
“I’m tired of people talking over each other politically,” she says.
Discussing this election season causes her to wince repeatedly. Fittingly, Hendrix ends the album with “Sun of the Soul,” an under-circulated Carter Family song. In it, A.P. Carter suggests getting one’s spirit in better standing before his sun sets the last time. It’s a hopeful song, in the longest, most winding way.
It fits where Hendrix is today. Project 5 has proven taxing as well as invigorating. The third volume will be an album of electronic music due next spring.
“I’m ready to move forward and see where ever it goes,” she says. “You can’t do the same old thing over and over. I thought I knew this business, but the business is changing. And I’m also not the woman I used to be when ‘Two Dollar Shoes’ came out. I wanted to be that musician, and I was. But I think even the fans then knew they were going along for a ride. And I don’t want to disappoint. I want to go out and work with a profound purpose.”