With her lovely-from-start-to-finish solo debut Dear Companion (Drag City), Meg Baird takes a break from her duties in the Philadelphia psych-folk collective Espers. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, though. The ten songs here are deeply rooted in traditional song forms (from age-old British Isles ballads to Appalachian laments), as well as the 60s and 70s singer-songwriter era (from Jimmy Webb to New Riders of the Purple Sage). With a few of Baird's own originals mixed in, Dear Companion stands as one of the best all-acoustic records since Gillian Welch's Time (The Revelator). Mostly comprised of Baird's high, pure vocals and intricately picked guitar, the album conjures up the timeless and universal nature of the best folk music. We chatted with Meg about her inspirations, obscure Canadian folksingers and Bob Dylan's amphetamine-fuelled ramblings.

Whether it's performed by the Everly Brothers, Bob Dylan, Norma Waterson, Michael Hurley or by you on Dear Companion, "The Cruelty of Barbary Allen" is one of those songs that always stops me in my tracks. What do you think it is about this 500+-year-old song that gives it such a powerful resonance even today? How did you come to record it for the album?

My version came from an amalgamation of Michael Hurley's version from Sweetkorn and another from a Jean Ritchie recording with a totally different melody — these are my two favorites. I learned this one just for Michael actually. About three years ago, he agreed to try and record a few songs for a few days with Espers during a stop on his spring east coast tour — just to see what happened. This was one of his top recommendations to try so of course I learned it just in case.

Perhaps the resonance of this song is a little bit cumulative? For a contemporary listener, if you've made a decision to actually forgo your healthy cynicism for all the maudlin associations genuinely attached to this sort of material, then you are listening with a pretty well primed imagination. The main storyline here is so straight — two young ones eventually killing themselves over a misunderstanding in a lover's quarrel. But the way each scene unfolds gives us all the vantage point to protest "No, don't do it, it should all work out!" just like we would in any horror film or melodrama. It's a very unifying populist pastime to hope that it will all work out, when we know that it won't. This experience can so easily become twisted into pure manipulation, but here it can feel wonderful — like a chance to just experience a feeling in a spectrum of feelings. The colors in this world seem so vibrant, the perception of history so vibrant. You've made these scenes all yourself, and they seem safe from being diminished by the elements.

Listening to Dear Companion (not to mention your work with Espers) I'm reminded of this old quote from Dylan: "What folk music is... is based on myths and the Bible and plague and famine and all kinds of things like that which are nothing but mystery and you can see it in all the songs … All these songs about roses growing out of people's brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels … and seven years of this and eight years of that and it's all really something that nobody can touch ... (the songs) are not going to die." What do you think – is this an accurate summing up of the so-called folk tradition, or was Bob just blazing on amphetamines when he said that?

Probably your last theory about amphetamines is true, but aside from that, this is a pretty adept description of mystery in folk song. Although it is a really amped up, exceptionally urgent description, it also seems in keeping with a tone used very commonly at that time. His urgency especially makes sense with the last line, about how "(the songs) are not going to die." Maybe I agree with this very believably passionate depiction of being moved by this music, but perhaps I don't get to share in his blazing confidence in its immortality.

What/who was the album/song/artist that really turned you on to folk music? What made you think: "I want to do something like this."

I'm sure it is a really long, ongoing series of events, but one flash moment like the one you describe, particularly in relation to straight traditional music, happened when I was 19 (reasonably well-versed in the college radio canon of the time) and my sister Laura took me to a Sheila Kay Adams performance. I certainly did not ever think that I could do anything quite like that, but it literally opened up a world of possibilities of what music and performance can do, in addition to helping me see ways around some of the obstacles that can come up around identity hang-ups concerning audience, format and other limitations sometimes imposed by self-flattery. I got a chance to meet her a few years ago and tried to thank her and tell her about this experience I'd had, but all I did was burst into tears like a crazy person. Hopefully she understood something good in my maligned attempt to communicate my extreme appreciation.

The spare, uncluttered sound of Dear Companion really makes it stand out from much of the music being released today. Was making such an austere record your intention going into the recording process? Do you imagine that your subsequent recordings will continue in this vein, or do you have string sections and trumpets and backup singers in your future?

Sparsity and warmth were definitely guiding intensions. I used overdubs to add some imagination to the record and save it from being too literal. By the final mix, I thought it would be fun to think of vocal and guitar overdubs as my only allowed effects or "tricks" For this reason, I got a great kick out of selecting only one brief moment of Space Echo-drenched electric. With the rest of the record being so spare, it was a really enjoyable method to try and emphasize this effect to its maximum.

I don't know yet how I'll record the songs I'm writing for the next record. I'm sure that I will want to try something new, but seeing now just how clearly I totally over-thought the sparsity issue, I guess that new approach could really take any shape.

I'm familiar with a few of the artists whose songs you cover here – Jimmy Webb, New Riders of the Purple Sage – but Fraser & Debolt are completely new to me. What can you tell me about them and this fantastic song you've included, "The Waltze of the Tennis Players"?

I know very little about Daisy Debolt, Allan Fraser or Ian Guenther much other than that they are Canadian and they made this completely amazing record together that a good deal of people seem to truly love. (I think that the "hit" was their knockout version of "Don't Let Me Down") "Waltze" in particular must be one of the most imaginative songs on the subject of courtship that I have ever heard. The whole record is incredibly tender, raw and earthy; seemingly fueled by the same kind of human will and warmth that keeps a person alive through the winter. Despite how outwardly folky this record is, it has always reminds me a great deal of Dead Moon. A really nice, in-depth fan Web site is maintained for Fraser & Debolt.

Tell me a bit about the recording process for Dear Companion. What did your Espers band mate Greg Weeks bring to the proceedings? Were there songs that you attempted but that didn't make the final cut?

I recorded this album on a few long, spare afternoons during the recording of [Espers'] II. My plan was to prepare madly for the taping sessions and get everything on tape in very early takes. I had been playing some of these songs for years, some only for a month, but all of them required a great deal of rehearsal for these sessions.

Greg brought his incredibly adept engineering ears, great gear sensibility and some really gutsy approaches to the recording levels that wound up having a pretty interesting effect over the whole record itself. It was also great to have someone so talented to bounce tracking ideas off of and to double check on my performance quality. We work together all the time, so of course Greg was able to really help me keep to this goal of recording these songs very quickly and comfortably with little fuss or ramp up time.

I dropped the bridge from "Waltze" because the original creates a level of blasting off that I truly couldn't pull off to any good effect. Among other missed selections, my version of Peter Hammill's "(On Tuesdays She Used to Do) Yoga" will just have to remain mine for private enjoyment.

Now that the album is soon to be out in stores, what are your plans? Are you going to play any solo shows? What's next for Meg Baird!?

I have lots of plans, unfortunately none of them so well formulated to tell you anything specific. I have a very busy imagination, perhaps too busy, and Espers is quite busy at the moment as well. Despite all of this, I definitely am trying to arrange some public performances timed near the release in late May.

--Photo by Aaron Igler

By Tyler Wilcox.
April 26, 2007