Out folk/blues singer-songwriter Jesse Lafser may be a St. Louis native, but on her latest album, “Raised on the Plains,” her heart and soul found their creative muse in a recent cross-country trip that took her through the Southwest.
“There’s nothing like that landscape out there,” she said. “It’s super-extreme and the contrast is incredible to me. Driving through there was a moment where I took this vast mountain highway in New Mexico and the scenery was changing every 30 minutes. I was the only person on the highway and had no cell service. I had to pull the car over at one point. There was a herd of buffalo on my left and mountains shooting up on my right. I stood there and realized I wanted to make sounds that looked like my trip out there.”
(Great, now we want to drive through the desert and meet our spirit animal too.)
Lafser said fans of her first album, 2012’s “Land in Sight,” might not notice the stylistic changes she’s made as an artist on her new album.
“I’m not sure my fans would notice but I definitely think it’s very different,” she said. “It’s more produced in a certain way. We thought out the parts and arranged everything more. ‘Raised on the Plains’ was recorded completely live so I just wanted to capture that raw energy. I think vocally I’m different too. The songs on ‘Raised on the Plains’ are more heady and the songs from ‘Land in Sight’ were more from the heart.”
Lafser recorded “Raised on the Plains” in her current hometown, Nashville, Tenn. She said the country music mecca is a great place for artists and musicians to live, as the city is more focused on talent and creativity than the gender and sexuality of the performers.
“People here really respect a woman who can really play her instrument, and I’m still working on that every day,” she said. “Usually, a female is known for a great voice or something like that. I think here the songwriting and the craft and the way you play your instrument is respected. It’s more about being a woman versus a man over being gay or not, which is nice. I’m glad that that’s kind of irrelevant because it should be. Nashville is a very progressive town but we are still in the South. The history of Nashville is still present in a certain way. Even the female artists back in the 1950s, they were the singers but the men were the songwriters. There’s still a struggle with that. Even though it’s improved and people are more open-minded, I still think it’s a little bit harder. The men sometimes get opportunities a little bit easier and that has been a frustration.”
Lafser will be spending less and less time in Nashville in the near future. After a short tour of live dates, she’ll be calling a number of other places home for a while.
“I’m going to be living in New Mexico for the month of August and doing some residency shows there,” she said. “I was offered a writing residency at one of the hostels there. In September, I’ll be living in New York and playing some residency shows there as well. I’m trying to immerse myself in certain markets for a little bit longer and trying to build an audience in each place.”
Jesse Lafser performs 8 p.m. July 15 at World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. For more information or tickets, call 215-222-1400 or visit http://www.jesselafser.com.