There are no more cowgirl than once (luckily)

Of all the things of the South of the States that are missing from Julien Baker EA Torres, the food is at the top. Torres, the name of art by Mackenzie Scott, is lucky: his wife, the painter Jenna Gribbon, cook excellent biscuits and a very good gravy sauce. In addition, in Brooklyn, he lives near a good restaurant (specialty: catfish). Baker, who is in Los Angeles, instead cannot find a decent catfish. “It's a great shame,” he says, shaking his head, the indie rocker, as well as a member of the boygenius. Scott says that where she goes the cat fish need it hot and very crunchy, Baker sighs of nostalgia. “Why don't we eat there when we do the tests? Why do we always eat Thai? ». Jokes. But also not.

The fact is that when it comes to the South and what characterizes it, like food, certain ways of saying and music, Baker and Scott know what they talk about. After all, they grew up. The two, authors of the beautiful country disc Send a prayer my way Which will come out tomorrow, they approached the genre very early, but they did it from different perspectives, being original Baker of Memphis, Tennessee and Torres di Macon, Georgia. The first approached music because of the Church and family meetings. The cousins ​​played the guitar and sang together in the Carter Family style during the gatherings officiated by the preacher grandfather. And when he went to Arkansas to find the relatives of his father, he saw them dance on the notes of Copperhead Road by Steve Earle. In the case of Scott, however, the passion was born in the 90s by turning on the streets of Macon with the two older brothers, patrons of the car passages in the car, with the radio tuned on the top 40 of the country artists who dominated the Airplay, Faith Hill, Tim Mcgraw, the Chicks and George Strait.

The passion for catfish, the cities where they were born, the deep bond with the country: all this is important. Because if there is a genre fixed with the idea of ​​identity, that is precisely the country. “When you think of a genre fiercely linked to authenticity, militant punk usually comes to mind,” says Baker. “Well, the country is worse.”

But what does authentic country means? Many in 2025 were asked the same question since two of the greatest stars of the genre, Jelly Roll and Post Malone, started with Hip Hop and Beyoncé won the Grammy for the best country album. If a white antioch rapper can move on to country, why can't two indie queer do not do it? Country music has always evolved on shoulders by those who historically had been excluded and asked to be accepted. So you can consider Scott and Baker two new ones outlawsmodern version of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. Or you don't say anything: just listen. Because what you will hear in Send a prayer my way It is pure country, in the wider sense of the term.

The initial goal of the duo by registering Send a prayer my way It was to recreate Scott's country-pop sounds. “And do a lot of perfect banger for Music Row,” adds Baker. But the album that came out is more in West Texas style than Nashville, plus Uncle Tupelo than Little Big Town. The Alt Country and Outlaw Country proved to be important influences for the duo, as well as artists closest to the American like Lucinda Williams and Linda Ronstadt, who according to Scott “at the time were not even considered country musicians”.

But there are also all the typical elements of a classic mainstream country album. There is the dense plot of Tuesdaya song that speaks of a scandalous love story and of contrary parents and that sounds like a lesbian version and in Southern Gothic sauce of She's in Love With The Boy by Trisha Yearwood. There are pieces on the flowers of the desert and poignant songs on how to drown their sorrows in “A Four Roses river”. There are cheerful love songs like Goodbye baby: When Randy Travis, Mr. Forever and Ever, Amen In person, he will hear it will find himself thinking that he would have liked to write it. There are songs that tell how they fall into the alcohol vice and others that speak of redemption. This is country music: every Sunday you go to Mass, regardless of what happened on Saturday evening.

Each piece of Send a prayer my way It is easy to listen to, indeed decidedly pleasant. There is an authentic heat, as if the album had been recorded during a night session around a bonfire. In fact they engraved in Marfa, Texas, with the help of a series of friends and collaborators. The inimitable Aisha Burns plays the violin that insinuates itself into the fascinating Bottom of a bottlethe omnipresent Pedal Steel Guitar is the work of Jr Bohannon who, with his skill, recalls the precious contributions of Lloyd Green and Jaydee Maness a Sweetheart of the Rodeo of byrds.

Photo: Ebru Yildiz

Overall, the disc is a sincere love letter addressed to the sounds of the childhood of these two artists and a genre who, until recently, had not been very receptive towards queer people. Scott knows it well. After graduating in 2009 from Belmont University of Nashville, he went around the main record labels. He had not yet done coming out, but it was clear to her that “the least acceptable thing I could do was to be a lesbian”. Somehow, in a city full of men who, as Baker says, “put a cowboy hat even to go for sounds in some universal music publishing office”, the most often shocked figure in Music Row was that of lesbian. “They had fun like this, right?” Says Scott, before letting go of a slightly sad laugh. “There is nothing less fun than being a lesbian in those places.”

Yet, in Send a prayer my way There is no trace of hatred. Scott is firmly convinced that the album is not a fuck addressed to a genre from which he felt excluded. Despite everything that happened in Nashville, he says he still wants to “take part in the party”. But she and Baker, however, do not expect the approval of the top of Music Row (the album came out for the Matador Records). They do not count that the main single, Sugar in the tankbecome a top 40 hit in the Radio Country. But they will bring “Country music to the people who already love her,” says Scott, and are about to embark on a five -month tour in their area of ​​origin, touching as many malfamous taverns as possible, in places such as Birmingham, Alabama or Saxapahaw, North Carolina and even Oxford, Mississippi.

“In those places we will have several problems,” says Baker after surprising me to mumble “But really Mississippi?” Between me and me. “But there are not only people who would like the mascot to be Colonel Reb again.”

It is true: the South is not a monolith. And everything in which Baker identifies himself a lot, whose country artists sing, such as making hay bales, going around quad and shooting dairy, not only do people with the cowboy hat who love Toby Keith. If you are one like Baker, the boy who makes bales of hay is your best Matt friend in Skinny jeans and a Fall of Troy shirt. And the people shooting on the dairy down to the Friday stream? “Fuck lesbians,” says Baker. “They had a two -seater pickup with the strapuntini.” And now who laughs, Nashville?

From Rolling Stone Us.