Hope DUnbar Bio:
Not much has changed at Hope Dunbar’s house out on the Nebraska plain .
If you look out her window, you see the same thing you saw three years ago: the same
infinite prairie and tantalizing horizon. Her husband still pastors at a nearby church; their
teenage sons still live at home.
But all of that is just one dimension in this singular artist’s world. Another one lives in
her imagination, where through song she transforms the mundane into the magical.
We witnessed this alchemy four years ago, when Dunbar released Three Black Crows.
She conceived its music during the hours when her husband and kids were at work and
school, without any nearby singer/songwriter rounds or club dates or supportive
community. When released in 2017, Three Black Crows inspired positive comparisons
to Springsteen’s Nebraska. One critic cited her references to “dusty roads, endless
fields and massive starry skies,” to which she adds layers of meaning through her
“visceral authenticity and raw honesty.” American Roots host Craig Havighurst extolled
her “incredible language and truth-telling.”
Dunbar’s emergence led to what she remembers now as “a frenzy of activity.” Her
homebound days gave way to touring, interviews, radio appearances. Yet as this door
opened, another one closed, much to her alarm.
“I didn’t skyrocket to fame,” she says. “But I did rocket right into hitting a wall. Things got
so overwhelming because the hustle became more important than the artistry. By the
summer of 2018 I was thinking, ‘I’m not in love with music the way I was prior to my last
record.’ I wasn’t expecting that and it was a little jarring.”
Something had to change. So once the hoopla passed and she was able to come back
home, Dunbar began looking hard at where she was and what had to be done. With
help from a life coach, she found the right questions to ask and then looked for answers.
“I wound up on a new path of taking ownership of my musical journey,” she says. “I’d
been saying yes to every voice giving me advice on what I should do. So I learned not
to listen to those voices. Now I’m not going to do anything anybody tells me to do …
unless I know I really want to.”
With this she kindled the dormant spark that had inspired her to write in the first place.
With her sister-in-law Emily, Dunbar launched a weekly podcast they called “Prompt
Queens.” Each week they would agree on a new “prompt” — a person, a band, a movie,
even just a word. Then each would spend the week writing her own song based on that
prompt, which they would premiere and discuss on the next episode.
“We were trying to model for our listeners … and for ourselves … that you can always
write a song,” Dunbar explains. “The well is never dry. You don’t need an a-ha moment
to write something meaningful. You can mine an idea that’s outside of your inspiration
zone, even if it doesn’t speak to you at the get-go, and still bring truth and integrity to
what you write.”
So Dunbar began to compose again. New songs poured forth, which she brought to
Nashville for her second album, Sweetheartland. With Zack Smith, one-half of the
celebrated duo Smooth Hound Smith, and Jesse Thompson sharing production with
her, she led a carefully selected group of Nashville musicians on a journey through
stories lifted from everyday routine and secret dreams.
Brilliant lyrical snippets abound. “A gift card to a gasoline station is not a valentine,” she
admonishes some dim bulb on “What Were You Thinking?” “I don’t need a cage; I’ve
forgotten how to run,” she mourns on “Dust.” Daring to hope for something beyond
farmland, she sees the highway as “where the wife with a black eye places all of her
chips” on “The Road Is” and insists “‘more’ ain’t a four-letter word” on the last track,
“More.” Even her homage “John Prine” illuminates both his genius and her restless
introspection: “I’m flipping through the pages of a waiting room magazine while the clock
keeps on ticking like a pickaxe steadily chipping away at the vision of who I thought I
could be.”
In its hope and resignation, its candor, craft and vast Midwestern Americana resonance,
certainly in its insight and poetry, Sweetheartland echoes its predecessor. Yet Dunbar
sees two crucial differences between the two albums. “On this record I wanted to bring
all the raw material, the songs I’d written on my own, to Zack and Jesse and then riff on
what they could be. Also, as a small-town preacher’s wife, I had been kind of tentative
with my identity. It just felt unbecoming for me to express feminine, sexual power on a
record. But I’ve always had a sense of rebellion, so this time I just decided to put that
out there along with everything else.”
Even more important in something more ephemeral, hard to pin down but absolutely
real. “I’m really proud of Three Black Crows,” she continues. “But it has the spirit of
asking for permission, a feeling of tentativeness. My intention with Sweetheartland was
to walk in and say, ‘I’m not asking your permission. I’m doing what I want to do. I am
fully empowered and I’m choosing to make this record.’”
It would be wise for us to hear it too. Maybe we don’t live as remotely as Hope Dunbar
— but all of us can draw from the wisdom and empathy honesty of Sweetheartland. Its
message is both regional and, metaphorically at least, universal. In her words, “It’s
important for me as a songwriter to express that small towns are great — provided there’s a road to take you away.”
Press for “Sweetheartland”
https://off-centerviews.blogspot.com/2021/06/hope-dunbar-june-2021-artist-of-month.html
https://off-centerviews.blogspot.com/2021/06/hope-dunbar-june-2021-artist-of-month.html
http://netnebraska.org/interactive-multimedia/other/friday-live-vision-maker-media-hope-dunbar-kearney-symphony-lso-and
https://glidemagazine.com/254087/song-premiere-interview-hope-dunbar-pays-homage-with-soulful-alt-country-reflection-on-john-prine/?fbclid=IwAR0s0k-vqH85giqRhCmgYpQON0DEp34RX8WqEKw_zLj5dcGFWHhEx9XSGps
https://top40-charts.com/news.php?nid=164268&fbclid=IwAR2HpFkUNao5fyBpjaKAidZl5MC0022zTOqY8ZtJoF74W3RrMGOo1qQ6Hb8
https://geoffwilburmusic.com/2021/04/02/hope-dunbar-sweetheartland/
https://www.antimusic.com/news/2021/April/02Singled_Out-_Hope_Dunbars_More.shtml
https://www.hometowncountrymusic.com/interview-with-hope-dunbar/
http://www.elmoremagazine.com/2021/03/music-news/premiere-hope-dunbar-nebraska-sweetheartland
Press for "Three Black Crows"
https://www.axs.com/hope-dunbar-tells-starkly-vivid-stories-on-three-black-crows-123960
http://www.musicstreetjournal.com/index_cdreviews_display.cfm?id=106173
https://off-centerviews.blogspot.com/2017/11/hope-dunbar-neil-nathan-molly-madigan.html