[Cover photo credit to Meredeth Mashburn]
Arkansas-based Folk-Americana duo March To August will be releasing a new album, Songs Inspired by Witness, in November. Consisting of Jody Mears and Derrick Mears, March To August built their new album around a concept from a book that they found meaningful, and the album was 8 years in the making.
The duo read the novel Witness by Karen Hesse and felt compelled to write songs inspired by the work. The book is historical fiction that tells the story of a small town in Vermont during prohibition that is infiltrated by the Ku Klux Klan, led by clergyman Johnny Reeves. March To August were intrigued by “the resiliency of the characters” and plot, along with “their own imaginings of backstories of each individual.” Those backstories became the basis of the new songs.
Today, we’re very pleased to premier the video for “Running Booze”, which was the first single released from the new album. It tells a particular character’s story, that of a woman who finds herself running booze during the prohibition era in the hopes of building a better future for herself. Something that’s particularly notable about the song is that it conjures and reveals the details of our character’s life, but also creates an internal, emotional landscape that audiences can connect with. Sadly, women feeling undervalued and underestimated is still something that we struggle with in modern society, so our narrator’s emotions feel fresh and relatable. We also get a cinematic sense of the compromises that she is willing to make, and the danger she’s willing to experience, in order to hold onto a dream of something brighter in her future. Her wiliness and wits also clearly make her an underdog protagonist for this concept album. March to August capture the pace of her adventures in a compelling way, as if tied to the motion of her booze-running vehicle, a Packard.
This leads into the video for “Running Booze” since, amazingly, March to August were able to get up close to a surviving Packard and even ride in it to experience the pace of our underdog’s lifestyle. We also get to see March to August performing and therefore experience their storytelling style in the new video. Casting the video in black and white further takes us back to the world of early cinema and the days of silent film to blend into the Prohibition era subject matter. Something that’s particularly engaging is how much enthusiasm Jodi and Derrick clearly feel for their story, inhabiting it as songwriters and performers, and then encountering this vehicle that takes them more fully into the world of Witness. Their enthusiasm is infectious. It’s easy to stylize the past and forget the tactile realities and excitement that people in previous generations felt as they engaged with life, and this video helps bring that home as we discover the world of the story with Jodi and Derrick Mears.
They share about the track:
The song “Running Booze“ is inspired by a character named Iris Weaver from the fiction novel Witness by Karen Hesse. The book is set during prohibition in a small town in Vermont and Iris was the owner of a local diner by day and at night she would load up her Packard and run illegal liquor to underground speakeasies up and down the East coast.
Of course with our Arkansas Ozark Mountain roots, our version of the story had to be that Iris was running moonshine made in backwoods stills, bribing police officers with a little flirting and offers of a swig or two and keeping the secrets of the individuals visiting the brothels and speakeasies as leverage to keep her out of jail and rolling down the backroads. The song is her story.
They add about the song and video credits:
“Running Booze” is the first release from the upcoming album Songs Inspired by Witness which is set to release in November. The Heart of Route 66 Museum in Sapulpa, Oklahoma was so gracious to take us for a ride in their 1922 Packard which is where we took the photos and clips that were used in the music video. The studio performance and audio were recorded by Darren Crisp of Crisp Studios in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
On “Running Booze”, Derrick Mears provides vocals and banjo, and Jodi Mears supplies harmony vocals, bass, and stompbox.
The songs on the upcoming concept album are written from the perspective of Reynard Alexander, who appears in three short pieces throughout the album referred to as “The Scribbler,” a term used for journalists during the period. Alexander was the town newspaper editor in the book.
Additionally, songs introduce listeners to the evil Johnny Reeves (Perfect Son, his backstory, Johnny, and Hellbound), 12-year-old Leonora Sutter (Leonora’s Dance, Leonora’s Dance-reprise and Every Girl), Diner Owner, Iris Weaver (Running Booze), General Store owners, Viola, and Harvey Pettibone (Viola) and also give a voice to an unnamed character who appeared very early in the book (Only The River).
Each character’s struggle is expressed as they combat racism, injustice, and pure evil combined with March To August’s own reckoning of how the community attempts to rid the town of Johnny Reeves and all he represents.
March to August feel that “the songs on this record bring to light many of the issues we still face today as The Scribbler-Part III leaves us with the notion of ‘what will we learn, learn from our sins.’”
Hailing from diverse musical backgrounds, Derrick and Jodi Mears bring a blend of influences to their work. Their lyrics “often empower the voices of those silenced by circumstance, allowing each character’s narrative to be heard,” while they meld their Ozark Mountain sound with indie Bluegrass, Roots and Americana music.
