I don’t know exactly why or how it happened, but for the past several months I’ve been unusually absorbed by pretty much everything that Adrianne Lenker and Buck Meek have ever recorded. I don’t know much about Buck other than that’s he’s from Texas, but here’s some part of Adrianne’s story in a nutshell: born into something like a religious cult, her parents leave the religious community they’re a part of when she’s a child, she moves around the midwest a bit before settling in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area, proceeds to have an unconventional but musically rich childhood with lots of encouragement and coaching from her father. At 17, she decides wants to have a college experience–mostly to be around peers for a while and focus on music. She ends up auditioning for the director of admissions at the Berklee School of Music and plays her an original song. He’s impressed, and ultimately arranges for her to attend the school on a scholarship sponsored by legendary guitarist Susan Tedeschi. She’s one of just a handful of female guitarists at Berklee–she makes music while she’s honing her craft there and ends up recording a solo record, Hours Were the Birds, shortly after finishing school.

Not long after graduating, she moves to New York City and almost immediately meets Buck Meek, who she recognized from the Boston days (I think he was a Berklee School musician himself). They start making music together, buy a big white conversion van and start touring as ‘Buck & Anne’. After a couple of EPs, they decide to form a full band, which they call Big Thief, adding Max Oleartchik (an Israeli) on bass and James Krivchenia on drums. Two friends make a DIY video for their song “Masterpiece” and the band ends up signing with Saddle Creek, who puts out their first full record, Masterpiece. A couple months later they record their second record, Capacity, and keep touring. Earlier this week, their tour brought them to the High Noon Saloon in Madison, where I saw them play with my friend Julia. It was my first live show in well over a year, and it felt so good to get out and see live music again after such a long time. They played a looooooong set, something like 38 songs and over 3 hours of music–pretty much their whole Big Thief catalogue plus a handful of Buck & Anne songs. Almost no between song banter, just tune after tune after tune–from quiet to raucous to quiet again–covering a full sonic spectrum. It was a real gift.

I think Adrianne is the best under-3o songwriter I can think of–and she’s also a terrific guitarist and has a really stunning voice. Buck’s harmonies are perfect, and he’s a lovely guitarist in his own right. They seem like open, generous, deeply sincere people who love their music and love touring. I’m hoping for many many more years of great Big Thief music.

I put together a little playlist (about 2 hours) of my favorite songs from the available stuff that Adrianne and Buck have recorded in the past 3-4 years. Enjoy!