All Dolly-ed Up with Somewhere to Go

Let it be said that the UCSB Arts & Lectures master plan — which routinely takes care to supply us with serious classical, dance, and other highbrow, worldly content — also tends to the business of American roots music. The 2022-23 season opened with neo-classic country song-slinger hero Charley Crockett, while the current season opened last fall with progressive bluegrassers Nickel Creek.

Coming ‘round the bend on Sunday, March 10, at Campbell Hall, we’ll get a hearty dose of the country/bluegrass/Americana heroine Sierra Farrell, a welcome, late-blooming addition to the seasonal harvest. Farrell’s star keeps rising in the new country scene, off to the hipper and more indie side of today’s slick, mainstream Nashville country sound.

At age 35, the West Virginia–born Ferrell can’t be called a wunderkind who dropped into public acclaim as a young overnight sensation. Rather, she paid dues, lived in her van, and followed the busker’s life, honing her famously bold live show in Seattle, New Orleans, and elsewhere on the endless road before making her splash upon finally landing in Nashville.

Once in Music City — or at least the creative outpost of East Nashville — Ferrell cemented her broader impact as a critically acclaimed new artist only in 2019, with the wondrous and aptly named Long Time Coming. This was her third album, after two humble independent releases, but the point at which she began her meteoric rise, nabbing a coveted opening slot for country star Zach Bryan — collaborating with him on “Holy Roller”— and got Billy Strings to appear on her lissome waltz “Bells of Every Chapel.”

Her new album, Trail of Flowers, officially out on March 22, is well-stocked with such instantly lovable and infectious tunes as the hooky “Dollar Bill Bar,” the boot-stomping “Fox Hunt” and the loping “I Could Drive You Crazy.” The latter tune, which ends with the hum of a crowd’s applause (apparently driven a bit crazy), opens with a fresh take on the timeless theme of love: “Well, I come down here from the mountain top / and I cut down like an autumn crop / My love for you will never stop / but I pulled you over like a small-town cop.”

Ferrell spoke about her intention of bringing a happier temperament to the songs on her new album in a recent Rolling Stone interview: “I’m wired in a way that I’ve had to learn to live in sadness. Learning ways to rewire that is hard, and singing sad stuff all the time is hard. I’ve been trying to write things now as more of a mantra, and manifesting the future. Or, as I like to say, womanfesting. Men always have to get their way in there.”

As one point of cultural reference, Ferrell tosses her cowgirl hat in the direction of Dolly Parton, in terms of her twang patois, her easy pathways back to bluegrassy spirits, and a notably strong songwriting gift. But Ferrell isn’t one to be pigeonholed, as an artist who also injects “gypsy jazz,” and other extra-country flavors into the mix, who has worked in a Grateful Dead tribute band and co-wrote songs with Melody Walker, from the band Grateful Drag. Ferrell’s fashion statements freely mix references to the American South and points European and hippie-operatic.

“Being from West Virginia, people automatically assume I’m all about old-time music and a banjo on the porch,” Ferrell told the Irish magazine/radio show Lonesome Highway. “I often shock people when I tell them that I grew up with mostly radio music around me (from the ’90s) and also a lot of gospel music from going to church and joining in a lot of choirs.

“As I got older, I started traveling, hitchhiking, and hopping trains. A lot of the train kids were listening to all this older music from the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s. I just got really wrapped up in this old music, even listening to Haydn Quartet, who was a harmony group from the early 20th century. I was getting goosebumps from that music because it was so genuine and had so much feeling and purity in it.

“People are trying to smooth out the edges in today’s music, killing its soul.”

Ferrell continues bringing out her own soulful musical recipes and earning wider love as she goes. 

Sierra Ferrell performs at UCSB’s Campbell Hall Sunday, March 10, at 7 p.m. See artsandlectures.ucsb.edu for additional information and tickets.