Today on the show I get to chat with Amber Rubarth! Amber left home at 17 years old to become a chainsaw sculptor in Nevada. At 21, she quit and decided to begin writing songs and teaching herself guitar. One of her early originals was awarded Grand Prize in NPR’s Mountain Stage New Song contest. She has performed hundreds of stages around the world, from the early days opening for a flea circus at a Texas theme park, to performing an original duet with Jason Mraz at Carnegie Hall, to full orchestral arrangements of her songs with the Ithaca Chamber Orchestra woven into classical works. She moves fluidly between genres, creating a unique palette of instrumentation for what best serves the song.
After many years of solo touring, Amber lights up these days with collaborations in both film and music. She has written original songs and score for numerous films including Sundance festival winner ‘Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work’ and the super-marathon documentary ‘Desert Runners.’ She co-founded ‘The Paper Raincoat,’ a Brooklyn-based iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight band featured in Disney’s ‘The Last Song,’ the CW’s ‘One Tree Hill,’ and Paste Magazine who said “We think the world might be a little better if everyone heard this record.” In 2016 she recorded a live-to-tape single microphone album with her folk trio ‘Applewood Road’ which the London Sunday Times gave 5 stars, calling it “a flawless set that has to be the most haunting release of the past year” which led to performances at Glastonbury Music Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, a UK tour supporting Mary Chapin Carpenter, and her original arrangement and performance featured in the ‘BBC Sisters in Country’ documentary with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.
Her most recent album, Cover Crop, is 15 reinterpreted songs exploring the disconnection and remembrance of our interconnectivity with nature. Self-produced and performed by Amber Rubarth in the woods of the Hudson Valley, New York.
Today Amber shares with us how she went from chainsaw sculpture to musician, what’s different about her musical work then and now, how she takes care of herself (with her Matcha ritual), why and how she made the Cover Crop album, and plays a few songs for us too!
Amber on Instagram
Here’s the Tarot Reading from Nikki Fogerty for those who want to revisit. The Emperor and The Ace of Swords… Perfectly timed to fold into our discussion of the masculine. “With great clarity and purpose, I become the leader I am meant to be.”
Get tickets to the Gail Ann Dorsey and Amber Rubarth benefit concert this Saturday, September 14th.
Here’s the playlist with associated songs for today’s show.
Today’s show was engineered by Ian Seda from Radiokingston.org.
Our show music is from Shana Falana!
Feel free to email me, say hello: she@iwantwhatshehas.org
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