Henry Jamison & Donovan Woods

Henry Jamison

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Henry Jamison’s 2022 thirdLP The Years was produced by Doug Schadt (Maggie Rogers, Claud)plus long-standing collaborators Thomas Bartlett (Florence & TheMachine, Sufjan Stevens) and Harris Paseltiner of Darlingside. Featuredvocalist Maisie Peters and composer Nico Muhly (Adele, Bjork)round out the cast on what is Jamison’s most dynamic and diverse collection ofsongs to date. 

Since his 2017 debut TheWilds, which was humbly produced with two friends at a sugarbush/apiary inhis native Vermont, Jamison has branched out to become one of the mostinteresting collaborators of his generation. His 2019 follow up GloriaDuplex explored identity, class and masculinity over baroque textures andperformances from Thomas Bartlett, Rob Moose (Phoebe Bridger, Bon Iver,Taylor Swift) and Shazhad Ismaily (Damien Rice, Nils Frahm, Marketa Irglová). In2020 Jamison released Tourism, a five-song folk collection, featuring JOSEPH,Ed Droste, Fenne Lily, Darlingside and Lady Lamb.

Jamison’s uncanny ability to weave folk lyricismand instruments through a popular veneer has led to over 300M streams andwidespread praise, especially from his peers. Adrianne Lenker describes,“Songs that sing me through mazes of my ownsensuality and sadness and help me to feel less alone in the journey tounderstand myself.”

Donovan Woods

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Donovan Woods was in on the joke when he named his latest release. Riffing on a lyric from a Martin Simpson song (“Never Any Good”), Big Hurt Boy is a six-song exploration of how our
failures — and our fixations on them — not only shape but enlighten us.
“I write about them again and again, just hoping people will still be interested,” the acclaimed
Canadian singer-songwriter says. “So the title is poking fun of myself, that I’m theoretically this
big sad guy who keeps getting dumped and writing fucking songs about it.”
Or you could think of it this way: Woods’ deep curiosity about the human condition is why we
so clearly hear our own stories in his. The details differ, the characters change, but at their core,Donovan Woods songs are for and about everyone.That’s particularly apparent on his new EP, which will be released March 18, 2022. Trying tocapture more of an “undone” quality, Woods wanted his latest songs to “get back to the feelingthat my early recordings had.” You hear that in the spare, subtle ache of “No Time Soon,” anacoustic monologue Woods describes as “the story of my whole life.”

I am a frightened rabbit
Running off a map
Only loved you out of habit
I ain’t proud of that
But while I do the dishes
I hum a little tune
Someday, no time soon

“These are smaller, less polished songs than the ones I’ve been putting out recently,” says
Woods, winner of the 2019 Juno Award for contemporary roots album (for Both Ways) and
whose global streams have surpassed 210 million.
Still, Big Hurt Boy brims with some of the luminous production touches Woods has been addingto this repertoire lately. He wrote the album opener, “I Won’t Mention It Again,” on banjo,which fades into a spectral backdrop of electronic textures and layers of lush harmonies.A co-write with Peter Groenwald, “Leave When You Go” simmers with an R&B vibe backed bysensuous vocals from indie-pop artist Ralph. “A Picture of Us Smiling at a Party Five Years Ago,”which reunites Woods with Katie Pruitt (who co-wrote and sang on Woods’ “She Waits for Me
to Come Back Down”), untangles how our memories are often preserved by photos. “It’s aboutnostalgia, which is just a memory that doesn’t have any of the stress or dread or anxiety thatthe real-time experience had,” Woods says.
“I Hope You Change Your Mind,” co-written with David Hodges, is such an understated
tearjerker that you don’t even realize the relationship is over until the last line. “That song isabout that back-end portion of a relationship when everyone knows the score but no one wantsto say it,” Woods says. “It’s loving someone so much that you’re not sure how to be mad atthem, so you twist yourself into knots.”Big Hurt Boy is the follow-up to 2020’s Without People, Woods’ celebrated album he made inisolation at the height of the pandemic. Whereas those songs were recorded in a makeshiftstudio at his Toronto home, with collaborators working remotely, his latest release harnessesthe electricity of a roomful of musicians laying down tracks live in the studio, a first for Woods.Released on Wood’s Meant Well label, Without People was acclaimed as “a nuancedexperience” (American Songwriter) and a thoughtful exploration of “fleeting interpersonalmoments now under the microscope” (NPR/KUTX). So much of that album’s allure was rootedin how Woods connected with his collaborators and imparted the intimacy so many of us cravedduring a global health crisis. It was so successful, in fact, that it led to a deluxe edition of

Without People in 2021.
As an in-demand songwriter whose work has been recorded by the likes of Tim McGraw
(“Portland, Maine”) and Lady A’s Charles Kelley (“Leaving Nashville”), Woods has been venturingbeyond the singer-songwriter scene where he first cut his teeth. Equally at home in folk andcountry, he has worked with songwriters such as Tom Douglas, Lori McKenna, Brandy Clark,Ashley Monroe, Dustin Christensen, Femke Weidema, Steve Robson, and Ed Robertson(Barenaked Ladies).Woods' featured vocals on Dabin & Nurko’s “When This Is Over” veered into anthemic dance
pop, and yet Woods still sounded right at home. On “IOWA,” Woods found a kindred spirit in
Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter Aoife O’Donovan for a pastoral meditation on
dreaming of a place you know doesn’t exist.
Each of these collaborations has highlighted a budding truth about Woods: As respected as he isas a solo artist, he’s evolving and upending our expectations of how his music sounds. His songshave grown more dimensional, emboldened by new sonic landscapes, reminding us that classicsongwriting transcends genre.