Music Monday: The Aptly Named Melody Walker Is A Martinez Musical Tradition

Melody Walker is a Martinez tradition, even though she’s still relatively young. The daughter of Martinez Music Society co-founder Brian Walker, Melody has been playing and singing her songs for local audiences for many years. She and partner Jacob Groopman will be performing a show at Armando’s this Friday, with special guest the Evie Laden Band. Walker is having an “unofficial CD Release Party” Friday to debut her new CD she made with Groopman called “Gold Dust Goddess.” She and Groopman are preparing to depart for an East Coast tour next week. 

We asked Walker some questions about her thriving musical career.

Q: What would you say Americali music is? 

A: "Americali" is a genre I came up with to describe some of the awesome root's based music I see all around me. Music based in American folk and blues tradition but taking a contemporary bent on it, either with the songwriting forms or by bringing in more eclectic elements from other styles or cultures. For my music, the "Cali" part is all about bringing some new-age spirituality and activist consciousness into styles like Bluegrass and Old-Time which, in their traditional forms, tend to be more Christian and passive. Evie is another example of someone who was steeped in Old-Time string band music her whole life, but tends to write modern laid-back California love songs over traditional style banjo playing.

Q: You went off into the world, graduated college and came back to the 94553. Why? 

A: I went up to Humboldt County to get my "country" back (you know, how Stella got her groove back?). Spent seven years in the proverbial "woodshed" up there in the trees and the greenery, and then knew it was time to come on back down to earth. The catalyst was meeting Jacob, who lived in Berkeley at the time, and lured me back down here with promises of music and romance. So far, so good!

Q: Talk a little about your new album. How did that come about? 

A: The new album and the moving-down-here and the new love are all pretty interconnected. I learned a lot about music in Humboldt, not just in school but in multiple bands of a "world-music" variety. I stopped playing solo and writing songs for me and delved into the collaborative experience for a good three or four years. A song would come through every once in a while, but I would just let them simmer on the back burner, dreaming of one day making my "studio debut" LP. 

My last year in Humboldt I was substitute teaching public school music classes in Eureka, teaching private lessons to kids through Humboldt State University and working part-time in a local music instrument shop. I also had started a lady-folk trio with two of my best songwriter friends and we scored a weekly dinner gig at our favorite funky restaurant the "3 Foods Cafe". Our gig was the popular "Times Are Tough Tuesdays" $5 all-you-can-eat spaghetti night and I actually ended up playing upright bass about half the time. We played a mix of originals, traditionals and folkified covers (like a bluegrass version of Beyonce's "Single Ladies") and it really got my juices flowing again. There's nothing like a weekly gig to kick you in the pants to finish songs, and I started writing new stuff. Not all of it fit in with the Vintners' Daughters vibe, so I started saving up songs for my own "someday" album. (by the way, we were called that because each of our fathers made wine in some way: Amanda's dad managed a big Napa winery, Nola's dad worked for Franzia in Manteca for years, and Mr. Walker makes terrible wine in his garage!)

I moved back down here to Martinez (living with the parents for a while till I got back on my feet) and now I live in Richmond. Jacob and I first started playing together casually, and then he agreed to back me up at a couple West Coast Songwriters competitions. We won our very first one at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley with "Gold Rush Goddess" (the title track of the new album) and then won our second one at Armando's with "Black Grace" (also on the album). We started really getting into this duo sound and began cultivating a set. I started dusting off some old songs that had never even seen the light of day and we started playing them out live to very positive reviews. Just over the last six months we've seen some amazing gigs come our way: we got to play with Bruce Cockburn and Tony Furtado.. and literally jam with them on stage.

Things have progressed very rapidly in the past year and it became apparent that I really needed to make a real record to sell at shows and share around the world. I started fundraising online in February 2011, and by the July deadline had raised over $5,000 from friends, family, fans and strangers. The album cost twice that much to make, and it sounds really really good! I want to make it available to my donors and die-hard fans this Friday (and to have it for our East Coast tour next week), but I am giving myself three more months to release it properly and send it off to international radio and press. That is why this show is the "Unofficial CD Release". The CD "Gold Rush Goddess" will be born-again in March 2012 with a big ole CD Release party and hullabaloo. 

Q: Any advice for budding musicians? 

A: I'm still figuring so much out myself right now. For me the most important thing is integrity, sincerity and personal truth. It's all one thing really. "Keep it real" you could say. Whenever I write a song I always look into my heart and ask "is this true?". It's ok to write fictional stories, but they need to have an element of truth to be compelling. A successful song resonates with people. Even if it's just one person outside yourself. 

One major piece of advice I could give is to just take that first step. Get out there and play or sing something in front of people. When I first performed a cover song at the Martinez Jr. High School  "Extravaganza" talent show, I was so nervous. I was one of the only kids who got up there alone with a guitar and no backing track. I sucked pretty bad. There were hiccups in the guitar, extra beats, shaky vocals, my fingers felt frozen stiff, but I powered through and got major street cred for having the cajones to pull it off. Courage is really just being able to tell yourself to move when you feel frozen, and after that first step it gets exponentially easier. The high that I felt after that performance was totally addictive and was a boon for my 13-year-old-girl self esteem deficit. I knew it was going to be the only thing that would keep me positive in this world, so I never stopped.