Producer/engineer Gena Johnson is sitting not between two ferns, but between two Dolly Partons. Calling on Zoom alongside Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, it’s the morning before the news of Parton’s death became public. Still, a moment for a little Dolly-worship seems somehow appropriate.
“Does it get any better?” Johnson says, looking up at the two framed black-and-white photos of Parton that hang above her head. Fairchild, sitting by the pool at her home in Nashville, nods in agreement. Fairchild and Johnson, who co-produced Little Big Town’s newest, and arguably best record, It’s a Dying Art, are friends and collaborators well within the Parton tradition: they both have defined their careers by working hard, prioritizing their art, and making space in fields where they’re often one of the few women in the room.
“I don’t know if a lot of people understand how much of a badass Karen is,” Johnson says. “Talk about a brilliant songwriter, singer, mind. Everything in Karen’s life is creative.”
Little Big Town are the kind of band that’s easy to take for granted. The foursome of Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Philip Sweet, and Jimi Westbrook have been together since 1998, Grand Ole Opry members since 2014, and have won their share of CMA and Grammy awards for songs like “Pontoon,” the Taylor Swift-written “Better Man,” and “Girl Crush.” They are an ever-reliable, veritable Nashville institution who always seem to show up and deliver their stellar harmonies when needed. If they wanted to phone it in with a set of middling covers albums for the rest of their career, they’d probably do just fine.
Instead, for their 12th studio album, Little Big Town decided to push themselves. Out Friday, It’s a Dying Art is the band’s most introspective work, with the most ambitious musical choices. On songs like “The Door,” there’s striking space between the harmonies and lyrical guitarwork from Jason Isbell, while “Crickets” manages a Rufus-esque boogie without overfilling the groove. Others, like “We Could Have It All,” feel closer to Crosby, Stills and Nash or Fleetwood Mac than they do traditional country. It’s exciting to hear a band this far into their career be so intent on evolving and challenging their rhythms, or to strip it all back when needed.
Johnson (known for her work with Chris Stapleton, John Prine, Parton, Isbell and many others) and Fairchild got to know each other producing and engineering the Shelby Lynne record Consequences of the Crown, and “had a great working energy,” Fairchild says. They wanted to tap into something for It’s a Dying Art that felt human in a day and age where, with every passing minute, things feel increasingly less so: real voices in all their rawness and imperfections, instruments that are textured, not blurred, and songs that remind us to be hopeful in the face of darkness. “We’re just purists at heart,” Fairchild says.
We spoke to Fairchild and Johnson about their working relationship, the importance of having a stable of female collaborators, and the messages of Little Big Town’s It’s a Dying Art.
Little Big Town in the studio with co-producer Gena Johnson. Photo: Becky Fluke*
On It’s a Dying Art, it was more important to you than ever to stay connected to the human parts of making music, especially as AI is creeping into songwriting rooms. There are a lot of things that feel like a dying art right now.
Fairchild: We’re not going to go out and use AI to come up with rhymes. We’re depending on our human brain for that work. The imperfections of making, whether you want to call it analog records, because obviously we’re using digital equipment, but it’s like that space of getting together in a room and working it out with players and saying, “No, the key doesn’t feel right,” or, “The bass tone is too fat. Let’s tighten it up a little bit and try something else.” And realizing that the harmony stack is better when you let the voices in between be sharp and flat naturally. No human being sings perfectly in tune. Well, maybe Alison Krauss.
Johnson: Every single time a mix is done, a vocal stack is done, it’s like, “Does this make me feel something?” This whole record, we have really led by that and led with our hearts, and just intuitively, does this feel good? Karen would come over and we’d flip shit on its head sometimes.
When you sat down to start working on It’s a Dying Art, what kind of conversations were you having about what direction the album might take?
Fairchild: We would talk about things that we thought were really impactful moments on prior Little Big Town records, and the reasons why those things worked. The thing that Gena is so brilliant at is exploiting the human voice, and the frailties of the voice and the strengths and the vulnerabilities. For a vocal band, being able to work with someone who can get every little nuance out of the throat is important, which, depending on the day, can be very challenging. It’s not like playing an instrument. These two rubber bands in our throat are affected by everything from hormones to psychology to a bad day to a horrible night’s sleep to the sniffles or whatever. A lot of the things we were referencing early on were vocal bands and arrangements and how to create openness in a track to let the vocals breathe, instead of setting everything in the mid-range. But we didn’t need to cover everything up.
Johnson: The coolest thing that I learned during this whole record, and that has changed my ear forever, is really finding that Little Big Town buzz that happens between the four of them. Because that Little Big Town sound is so special.
Was it challenging, Gena, coming into a band dynamic where everyone knows each other so well? They’ve been together for over two decades.
Johnson: I did a lot of observing on the first song that we did together, just to see where my place was, and where I could fit and be most helpful. That’s the biggest thing when I’m producing any record: Where’s the energy here? And they quickly embraced me, I feel like, as the fifth member. It wasn’t really challenging. There were challenging parts, but not in a way where it was anything that I wouldn’t do ten times over. They are all so brilliant as songwriters, singers, and people who take care of each other. And, outside of the music part of it, that was the coolest thing to see, just how much of a chosen family they are, and how they do actually show up for each other. It’s hard to do after 26 years.
That’s a long time to be in any job, let alone music. How do you keep pushing yourself as a band, Karen?
Fairchild: I feel like it’s that thing that is just inside of you, where you wonder what magic can happen on the other side of making a record. When you find something that connects with people in a deep, deep way, and you’re singing someone’s story, you’re making them want to dream bigger, you’re making them want to heal, you’re commiserating with them. That’s pretty powerful because we don’t have a lot of outlets these days that bring people together, and music is one of the few. It’s like soccer and music. I can sit and watch the Foo Fighters and think, “God, almost 30 years of Foo Fighters and loving these records, and the joy that band has brought to so many people.” It’s a great reminder that the gift of music is incredible, but for me, it’s a chase. I love chasing down the idea, executing it from the moment it’s written to envisioning what it could be like on a record and how it could be styled and communicated in a visual. I love the entire process of that.
This is the first time Little Big Town has ever recruited features for an album. In addition to Jason Isbell, you also have Ashley Monroe and Kelsea Ballerini. What made you want to bring them into the Little Big Town universe?
Fairchild: Well, I count all three of those as some of the most prolific songwriters in this town. I mean, Jason, I could not be more of a fan. That was Gena going, “If we want this broken-down moment for ‘The Door,’ who could be playing?” And she instantly thought of Jason.
Johnson: I love him, and he loves Little Big Town so much. He always surprises me in what he says yes to, because he doesn’t have to say yes to anything, right? I just heard Jason’s playing on this, and Jason, much like a [Chris] Stapleton, has a voice in his instrument just as much as he does in his actual singing voice, and it’s so distinct. Jason even thought deeper before he came in, because he brought this ’40s Martin and with a rattlesnake tail in it. So once in a while, when he moves a certain way, you’ll hear that. It was perfect.
I love “Sucker for a Sad Song,” and what Ashley Monroe brings to it.
Fairchild: That song, it could have gone in so many different directions production-wise. We could have left it very porch-y or very singer-songwriter-y, but it started taking on this swagger in the studio. Ashley came in and was laying some harmonies down as ideas, and we were like, “We can’t have her not in this. It feels like such an integral part of the blend now.”
And then you have Kelsea Ballerini, on “Closing Time.”
Fairchild: Kelsea. Oh my gosh. She’s one of my nearest and dearest. Talk about a gifted songwriter, an entertainer and singer. We wrote “Closing Time” a couple of years ago when we were working on her record Patterns and we were with Jessie Jo Dillon and Alysa Vanderheym and Hillary Lindsey. Not a bad group of female powerhouses. And Kelsea has very distinct ideas. I think we were in the mountains when we wrote this, and she just wanted it to be this sexy ditty, no inhibitions. It didn’t seem to fit her record. And so it kept lying around in our group chat of girls. I think I played it for Philip first on an airplane and he goes, “Well, that’s a no-brainer. We’ve got to cut that.”
Johnson: She’s so impressive, Kelsea is. I was blown away by her in the studio. She wasn’t there for long and she’s stacking harmonies so fast, maybe faster than anybody I’ve ever seen. I was a fan before, but I have such mad respect for her now. Damn, girl.
One of my favorites is “It’s Coming Around.” It makes me think of Crosby, Stills and Nash, which I love, in your own very unique way. Talk to me about some of the sonic references that you brought into the studio to inspire and shape the record.
Fairchild: “It’s Coming Around,” I wrote with Madi Diaz and Sean McConnell, two of the most creative, daring, bold artists in this town, not afraid to say or do anything. I love that it’s kind of a social commentary, in the way that things feel like they need to change and that the tide is turning. And for me personally, it feels very anthemic to say it’s coming around, and hopefully sooner than later. The harmony structure of that song is just built for that call and answer. No matter what you believe, there’s something in the air that needs to change, things need to get better for people. And I think that reckoning is felt in the song.
Johnson: There are a lot of intentional messages throughout all of the songs.
Fairchild: That’s the reason why the first song out was “Hey There Sunshine,” because it felt very, very important in a world of what seems like a lot of despair. And we’ve also said goodbye to friends and family members and the older we get, the more that comes and the more challenging it becomes. It just felt like the right message right off the bat.
Johnson: I have a friend battling cancer right now, and that is her favorite song. She wakes up to that song and continues to listen to it because it gives her hope. She’s sharing it with her community, and other people that are surviving right now.
That must be powerful to hear, Karen.
Fairchild: Oh, it’s the best thing. Music is meant to disrupt and shake things up and make us think. I love a ditty and a levity song, but I do love those moments where you’re like, “What if we believed enough to really change things?”
Gena, you’ve gotten to know Karen now as not just a vocalist but as a producer, a writer, a songwriter. You called her a “badass.” Tell me a little bit more about what you meant.
Johnson: Karen has one of the biggest hearts ever, and she makes sure that everybody in the room feels seen. She is a powerhouse. She commands respect in the room without having any sort of negative connotation with it at all. I don’t think people really know how much of a badass she is, and I wish the whole world would know. When Karen stands behind the microphone, she’s in fighting mode. She’s ready and she delivers. There’s so many layers, but the world of Karen feels very intentional to me. It feels intentional the way she shows up for her people. Karen is a leader, and she shows up and she’s really no bullshit.
Fairchild: And I’m so not surprised to see Gena’s success. I feel like every time a Grammy ballot comes around, she’s going to end up on it somehow because her work is that level good, and it’s wonderful to see a woman having that success. She’s a champion of women, and she’s done the work. She sat in all those boys rooms with engineers. She studied. She clawed her way up to get the right to sit behind that desk on her own, and she has great female mentors that have done the same thing. I think it’s just really important, especially for Nashville, that we continue to celebrate women like Gena. I adore her like a sister, and we have a great synergy together. I hate saying it, but there’s a lot of lazy people out there right now that just depend on compressors and things they’ve always used, or, “Oh, this person sounds good on this mic, and you kind of sound like that person, so I’ll throw you on that mic.” She’s never going to do that. She’s going to figure out what mic is best for Kimberly, for that pure tone, high soprano singing, that mountain soul, and she’s going to work to make it intimate and beautiful.
You’ve been in Nashville for so long, Karen. Do you think about the Little Big Town’s place in Nashville right now and how it has evolved alongside it?
Fairchild: Sure. I think about it, and I feel really grateful for the incredible things that we’ve been able to do, more than awards or things like that. I think about all the collaborations and the friendships and standing next to icons that we grew up loving. I think making incredible music doesn’t have to be defined by age, and thank God for watching Tina Turner and her career at her age, and all the beautiful music she gave us. We’re living in a town obsessed with youth, but I know the younger artists, they are desperate for encouragement and mentorship and community. I don’t know what I would do without the Miranda Lamberts in my life, the Kelsea Ballerinis, the Liz Roses, the Hillary Lindseys, the Lori McKennas, the Ashley Monroes. Those are gold for me. They’re all friends and we’ve traveled the world together and done extraordinary things, but it’s that late night phone call of “I’m sinking” or “I’m scared” or “I don’t know if this is going to work.” I just wouldn’t trade that for anything.
Speaking of hanging with amazing women, I have to ask, how was Taylor and Travis’ wedding?
Fairchild: I already loved her so much, but the warmth and the kindness and the down-to-earthness, the fun, the joy, the humor was something I’ll never forget. It was just really a good time. And not having your phone and just being there together with all these people that love the two of them and their families, it was really special to watch and to be a part of. I’m grateful for her friendship through the years, and we love her so much. She found her better man.
