Down in the North Carolina countryside, the young, indefatigable blues woman Heidi Holton keeps the acoustic roots traditions going. Originally from Gainesville, Florida, she grew up in Murphy, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where she still resides. The songwriter and guitarist sings acoustic and old blues, with elements of folk and America. She is a protégée of Rory Block, who produced two albums for her, and she was heavily influenced by Jorma Kaukonen. Her original compositions are exceptionally expressive– intimate, compelling and insightful, American roots music at its finest. “I’m writing from a perspective of a woman in 2020,” she explained. She can hold her own on fingerpicking and slide guitar on her trusted Gibson and she sings with gusto, a committed purveyor of both the traditional blues and her own refreshingly original compositions. The affable Holton packs more than a punch of charisma and charm, and her good looks won’t hurt in the entertainment business, but that only gets you so far. When she takes the stage, and puts it all on the line, they will want to see power and grace. Let’s face it, women have it harder. The predominately male blues world is more critical of women and they need to be even better to get the same level of acceptance as men. Expectations are higher, and Holton more than measures up. She will stun an audience into silence with her captivating musicianship. She’s got the chops, and she has something to say. She is at once lovely and sweet, yet powerfully expressive, deserving of wider recognition.
thecountryblues.com caught up with the singer/songwriter via telephone on May 30, 2020 to let her tell her own story.
HH: “I was born in the ‘80s, and back then parents didn’t all get sonograms to determine the gender of their babies. When my mom was pregnant with me she just had a feeling that I was a boy. My name was going to be William Joseph. When I made my debut in the world, it was very surprising that I was a girl. They didn’t have a female name picked out for the baby – they just didn’t have a backup. When my mom looked at me she said I looked like a Heidi.
I’ve always been interested in playing blues music ever since I started playing guitar when I was a teenager. But, when I was in my early 20s, I played in a punk rock and heavy metal band. It wasn’t until I turned 27 and met Jorma Kaukonen, who became my guitar mentor and teacher, that I started getting heavily into acoustic blues. After he became my teacher, within a couple of years I had changed genres and was playing shows, doing lots of acoustic solo shows by myself.
I’ve been playing music for about 25 years. After Jorma was my teacher for a few years, he suggested that I connect with Rory Block. I signed up to take a guitar workshop with her at the Fur Peace Ranch in Pomeroy, Ohio, and we just really hit it off. Our personalities clicked, we loved the same music – very similar styles. She took an interest in me and my playing. We started corresponding over email, and a couple of months later I went up to New York and took some private guitar lessons with her one-on-one, and we just had such a great rapport that I figured I would ask if she would be interested in producing an album for me. She said yes. So, we produced an album called Mockingbird Blues in 2018 together, and then the next year she helped me get some shows over in Europe. She set up a tour for me in Italy.
When I came back, we decided to record another album together, which is the album which I’m currently releasing titled Let Me Bleed. I think it’s very beautiful. I’m really excited about it. We worked together for about a month, on and off, because we were traveling and playing shows together at the same time up in Canada and Indiana, and we went to Memphis together. During that time, we recorded this album. The idea was to do half originals and half country blues standards. The originals that I wrote seemed to sparkle a little bit more, and so Rory encouraged me to write more songs while we were on the road, and it ended up being an album of mostly original music. We recorded it at her home studio in Kentucky, and spent some time together recording. She played all of the back-up instruments for me. She played bass and percussion. She put beautiful slide guitar in there as well and some harmony vocals. It was just a really magical experience, working with your mentor, working with someone whose music you’ve idolized since you were a little girl. It’s pretty inspiring. The pressure was on, because you’ve got it good and you got to make it worth her time.
We had a great time together. I learned so much from her about recording, performing, being honest as an artist and a lyricist. It was just overall a great experience.
When I write a song, I tend to start with the music. I come up with a chord progression, something that I think is moving sonically and then from there I start to develop. From the feel of the music comes a feel for the vocals. I tend to write the melody before I write the lyrics. Once I start writing lyrics, I write from the heart. I write about things that I see in the world, about experiences that I had, people that I’ve met. I try to tell stories that are universally appealing. I try to talk about issues that people are going through currently. It’s a little bit different every time. Sometimes you can write a song in one sitting, and sometimes it takes months. I have lyrics that I’ve held on to for years in notebooks that eventually make it into songs. But it’s a little bit different other times, but I tend to start with music first, melody second, and lyrics third.
The lyrics just sort of come to me. I try to create very visual stories, ones that people can see unfolding. When I was younger I always thought that it was best when you wrote lyrics to of cloak them in mystery and make them poetic and hard to decipher and understand. The older I’ve gotten, the more I realize that people connect to honest, heartfelt, straightforward stories. I gained the confidence over the years to tell those stories without feeling insecure or embarrassed or thinking people aren’t going to understand. I think when you’re honest, people naturally connect. I’m writing from a perspective of a woman in 2020. For me writing blues lyrics it’s hard for me to write from the perspective of someone who lived in the ‘30s, even though it is the time period of music that I really love. I try to make things relevant to the time that we’re living in as opposed to trying to emulate what people back then were doing, because life now is totally different than it was in the 1930s.
From my experience as a woman on the road, as a solo artist, I travel by myself. I play shows by myself. I’m really independent. I’ve never married. I’m single. I think in the times now, the world for women has opened up so much over the past few decades. It’s not like it was in the ‘30s when you had to be married, because otherwise you couldn’t have a bank account or own property or do things on your own. Now women can be independent and we have to rely on ourselves more than relying on other people. For me, when I’m writing songs, I think a lot of that comes through.
I tour all over the Southeast. That’s my main region that I tour in – North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina. I’ve also toured on the West Coast, in Northern California. I do tours in Europe as well. I’ve done tours in Italy and the U.K.
I tour in a Honda CRV. It’s a small SUV and I pack up my gear and I just hit the road. Luckily, for me, in the Southeast I know enough people that I usually have a place to stay when I’m traveling. If I don’t, I’m a Motel 6 kind of girl. For me, traveling with a travel trailer is difficult. I haven’t really thought about that as an option, just because it seems like – I don’t know, it’s a big commitment to invest in that. So, yeah, I’m a motel or a stay with people I know kind of girl.
I listen to so much old music that I don’t keep up the way that I should with current music. I will say that one of my favorite acts that’s touring right now is a group called Larkin Poe. They’re two sisters who play together, and they’re absolutely wonderful. I feel like they take the old style of music and they interpret it in a way that’s very modern and very relevant to younger people. I feel like in terms of carrying on the tradition, for me Larkin Poe is where it’s at.
I love this music so much and that it speaks to my heart and my soul. I want to share that with other people. I want other people who might not necessarily come across someone like Robert Johnson or Son House to hear that music, because that’s not always on the radio. I want them to hear my music, and maybe dig a little bit deeper the way that I did when I heard Led Zeppelin and fell in love with their music and saw who they were emulating and went back and listened to that music as well. Perhaps in the way that I heard Jorma Kaukonen play Reverend Gary Davis’s music, and then I discovered who Reverend Gary Davis was. I hope that’s the one thing that I can leave as an acoustic blues player playing in a more modern setting. I hope that people will listen to my music and go back and listen to the masters.
Jorma Kaukonen is my biggest influence. He’s the reason that I bought a guitar when I was 14 years old. I heard him play Embryonic Journey on one of my dad’s old records, and I begged for a guitar. I had to play like Jorma. Through him I discovered a lot of the Piedmont acoustic players. I would say he’s definitely been the one who has set me on this path – in addition to being the first person in my life to encourage me to play music professionally.”
She will surely make a big impact for years to come.
