In March 2020, when a lethal twister tore through East Nashville just days before an even more devastating pandemic, the storied Woodland Sound Studios — home to the likes of Tammy Wynette’s Soft Touch, Indigo Girls’ Swamp Ophelia, Jimmy Buffett’s A1A, and scores of cherished others — stood tall in the eye of the storm. Its roof was blown clear off, yet its foundation was preserved as if in the protection of divine powers. On hand to pick up the pieces were its owners, the Grammy-winning folk duo, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.
There, the prolific singer-songwriters and longtime collaborators hadn’t just stored all of their master recordings and equipment — valuables that were nearly destroyed by the tornado — but created a vast catalog of tender, transcendent truth-telling. And for the better part of the last four years, they’ve paid for the hell Mother Nature hath wrought in the form of a partial rebuild, and the production of a resonant new album, Woodland, named in the studio’s reverence. It’s the first co-authored by the duo in seven years.
Rich with melancholic vocals and storytelling that plucks at one’s heartstrings just so — from the melodiously mournful “What We Had” to a profoundly affecting acknowledgment of aging, “Here Stands a Woman” — the result is a record that sounds sonically, but thematically, like, well, two people taking stock after a less literal squall. On the latter track, for instance, Welch sings resolutely: “You told me that you loved me/And that would never change/But I’m looking in the mirror/ I know I’m not the same.”
“For all the loss and the sorrow and the destruction in this album, there’s a tremendous amount of joy and relief to be working and making another record in our beloved studio that was nearly destroyed,” Welch says during a phone interview with Rolling Stone. “That runs through all the songs…this feeling of, ‘Maybe I was taking some stuff for granted and didn’t realize it could be gone.’”
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Much has already been written about damage done by the 2020 storm. But it’s a different one that Welch recalls during the conversation. In 1998, a cyclone stretching a mile wide ravaged the studio, claiming significant parts of its structure and, once again, a portion of its roof. By 2001, the derelict studio was condemned, not to mention the site of particularly contentious litigation. This is what Welch remembered as Woodland’s most perilous moment — the first one that prompted her and Rawlings to ensure it would endure.
“The only people looking to buy it were major national chains who were looking at the city block and the location to tear it down and make it a drugstore,” she says. Two loans later, Welch and Rawlings purchased the studio that same year to maintain it as audio engineer Glenn Snoddy intended back in 1968.“We were the crazy people who bought it to keep it a studio, which made absolutely no sense. I am really happy that Dave and I, though it is absurd, were able to do it.”
One gets the notion that Woodland’s evolution is a convenient metaphor for Welch and Rawlings’ own — creative and otherwise. Now in their mid-fifties, they’re thinking more than ever about the passage of time. Neither are intoxicated by nostalgia, but they’re not entirely immune to sentimentality either, especially for where they stand right now. Thus, it’s no surprise that where much of the Americana genre bemoans what’s gone, Woodland plays like a humble offering on the altar of what remains; a poesy to the inherent poignancy of preservation. For every glance back, another lingers on what lies ahead. And for each loss, a new discovery.
On “Hashtag,” an homage to the late Guy Clark, a mentor and friend of Welch and Rawlings, it’s through the clever use of social media symbolism: “You laughed and said the news would be bad/If I ever saw your name with a hashtag,” Rawlings croons. “Singers like you and I/Are only news when we die.”
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“All of the songs that were chosen had two sides held together by the lyrics,” Rawlings tells Rolling Stone. “I mean, certainly very overtly in something like ‘Bells and the Birds,’” he adds, before quoting a lyric from the record’s fourth track. “‘Some hear a song and some hear a warning.’ It’s like, ‘Which is it?’ It’s both.”
“I definitely feel like the album is full of contrast, even contrast within one song,” Welch echoes. “There’s a lot of change, there’s a lot of conflict, but there’s also a stillness.”
Longtime fans of Welch and Rawlings know that when it comes to their creative process, “good enough,” isn’t among the strident perfectionists’ vocabulary. “That’s never been our experience. I wish it was…it sounds fun,” Rawlings jokes when asked whether satisfaction has ever come easily. Similarly, Welch compares the deluge of writing, recording, improvisations, then rewriting and re-recording to Peter Jackson’s exhaustive editing on Lord of the Rings. Rawlings, for instance, did so much writing — about 100 songs worth — that he initially considered a double record. It was Woodland’s undeniable narrative thread and the way the tracks flowed in easy succession that gave him pause.
In these moments of abundance, one would imagine it’s difficult to know when to stop. Given how adept it seems Welch and Rawlings are with the passage of time, how do they know when each story has reached its end? Though Rawlings initially answers with an exasperated “I don’t know,” they both ultimately agree it comes down to instincts and an innate trust established over the last few decades.
Currently, the pair are preparing for a 34-date tour, crisscrossing from La Vista, Nebraska, to the Evanston Folk Festival to Tysons, Virginia. When we talked, they’re both heartened by a recent performance — a live debut of much of Woodland. Last month, they played eight of the new songs at the Newport Folk Festival to warm reception. Even Zach Bryan commented on the festival account’s post: “My queen, my hero, we love you and pray you always make music.”
Rawlings recalled playing the first line of “What We Had,” only to see several people in the crowd greet it like an old friend and begin singing along as if they’d already been listening to it for years.
“It felt like, ‘Here we are,’” he says, noting all the years they’ve played Newport. “I don’t feel any different.”
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“The people in the audience are just astounded we’re still us,” Welch says. They hope all those listening will feel similarly. More than anything though, Welch said she wishes it will prompt people to develop a comfort with all of life’s nuances — to take the wrinkles and the wisdom with gratitude, to savor the bitter with the sweet, and to really hear both the song and the warning.
“You know…a painful experience is just an experience,” Welch says. “That’s where the real sort of growth and transcendence happens. Maybe you wish it wasn’t, but why even wish? I mean, do you not want the spectrum of life? I think you do.”