Greetings, from Mary

POEMS FROM EARTH

Mary Scholz - October 16, 2023

TRACK TWO: Montana • Certain songs remind me of Montana… We’ve talked a bit about the song, since it’s release as the first Poems single, and you’ve seen some images from its origin in the lyric video. But have we talked about which certain songs?

Back in 2014, I hit the road for a three month record release tour, Sarah Ault and I sharing stages, meals, pull-out-couches, hotel rooms, guest bedrooms, and thousands of miles of driving. From load in to rest stops to gas stations to scenic overlooks, all in my little Mazda3, with everything we could fit in it. When I say that we drove off on day one as acquaintances, and arrived back in Los Angeles best friends, I am not exaggerating. In April of 2020, having the opportunity (demanded or not) to sit still for a moment, I realized that every time certain songs came on (cue Hozier’s Take Me To Church), or the breeze felt a certain way, that time in my life felt exceptionally, and viscerally, close by. The memory of having planned three days in Montana to camp in Yellowstone, only to be met with snow inside the park (but summer outside of it), we instead took the days to explore the town of Livingston, and the surrounding area. Riding bicycles and singing “knock three times on the ceiling if you waaaant me…” (how could we not?) or getting lost in the whole Take Me To Church EP on a drive to Billings, after a friend of Sarah’s sent it to us. I don’t know if it was my own catalog shuffling through, or a radio programmer, but I heard that title track and sat down to write “Montana.” (Which is musically nothing like it…just a memory jumping off point. So thanks, Hozier, for that 🧡)

Montana can be found on POEMS FROM EARTH, available now, on all streaming platforms. 🌱

POEMS FROM EARTH

Mary Scholz - October 13, 2023

You’ve had POEMS FROM EARTH for one week, so I’m going to go through, song by song, and talk about each one a little. Thanks for coming along for the ride 🧡
TRACK ONE: The Evergreen • Do not despair, my Love, I will be here…this song was truly written as a lullaby for all those I Love. For grown Loves - my partner, my siblings, my friends, my parents, my stepkids. For young Loves - my nieces and nephews, biological and otherwise. I started singing it in the shower, at my home in Los Angeles, during the first winter of the pandemic. It was a step-out-dripping to record it to my phone situation. I finished the song in South Carolina, at my sister’s house; the first travel I did after getting vaccinated, as she prepared to have her first baby.

I’m singing it to you now, this love song lullaby, so that you know that there is someone out there holding space for you.

If it finds its way into your rotation of hummed or sung lullabies to those you love, well that is truly an honor.

The Evergreen can be heard on POEMS FROM EARTH, available now, on all streaming platforms 🌱

FOR YOUR GRAMMY CONSIDERATION
Mary Scholz - October 12, 2023

For Your GRAMMY® Consideration! I’m very pleased to have my song, “Streetlights,” eligible for the upcoming Grammy Awards, for Best Americana Performance. In addition, the Begin Again record package, as designed by my amazing partner and husband Zachary Ross, is also eligible. If you have the vinyl, you know…it’s magic ✨ Thank you to all of the members of the Recording Academy for their consideration! 🧡

Lonesome, Live in Joshua Tree - Blog

Mary Scholz - 12.20.22

It’s funny how close to the intensity of the early pandemic we are, but how far away it all feels. Or is it the opposite? I can’t decide, it changes day to day. 

How tired are you of the intros that read “back in 2020,” or “during the pandemic” ?

I certainly could go without ever hearing the phrase “now more than ever,” ever, ever again. 

But it’s been nice to think back on what transpired to bring us to Joshua Tree in October of that year. How hard everyone worked to make sure we could pull it off in a swift and safe fashion. How many people had to cooperate in order to bring their talents and skills together to create something that, at the time, felt even more magical than a nighttime desert concert already does. 

It was the early days of KZZ Music, where Kirk Pasich, Zachary Ross and Zackary Darling were cooking up ideas and producing beautiful music from their own isolated spaces. 

Bob Gentry, a good friend and artist at Blue Elan Records brought up the idea of performing outdoors, and filming for folks to see. Kirk loved the idea, invited Blue Elan artist Chelsea Williams to join the lineup, and asked me, with my Blue Elan offer on the table, to come be the special guest. 

So Zachary Ross did what he always does. He took a great idea and fleshed it out into a beautiful, well crafted reality. With rehearsals and film crews and Covid tests, oh my. (Plus a lot of crossed fingers that everyone set to perform or capture the moment would be cleared to attend. Somehow…we all were.) 

We rehearsed in our back yard two days before our trek to the desert - a handful of incredible musicians clicking in with fantastic songwriters, helicopters circling overhead, wanting to get in on the noise making celebration. 

We held our breaths (figuratively, but sometimes literally), and drove to Joshua Tree, setting up at the beautiful Rimrock Ranch. I had forgotten, until writing this, how one of Zach’s close friends, Scott Chernis, drove in from San Francisco to photograph the event, and how we realized that, all tested and cleared, we could all hug one another. It felt dangerous but so exuberant.  

October 27 was a day of creative collaboration, and even more than enjoying getting to perform again, I enjoyed being a fan of music. Seeing the songs come to life in real time. Appreciating the motion of a camera on a crane, swooping above the bands as they performed or rehearsed. 

The weather was perfect. Well, until the sun went down, it was incredibly cold and windy. But hey, the wind was blowing in just the right direction, and we all looked like Beyonce with our hair wild and free, blowing back from our faces. 

We only did two takes of Lonesome, Chelsea having performed first, Bob’s full set twice through after me (two times through for camera!) 

I can still feel the excitement and relief in my chest when I think about that night. (And also my very numb fingers and toes…)
it was an exceptional feat to pull off at the time, and I am so happy to finally share Lonesome, live in the desert, with you all.