Betsey Long

Nashville musician/songwriter Betsey Long is on the show! We chat about growing up in an industry town, her grandfather playing with Dolly Parton, transitioning from "bubble gum pop" songs to more confessional writing, going thru depression and dealing with abuse thru song, the pitfalls that women in music face, making her first full-length album, and more! - Nick Flora

Epiphone artist Betsey Long has some exciting news. After lending her vocal talents to projects with major country artists like Charlie McCoy and Miranda Lambert in years past, Betsey's long-awaited solo project is now in the final mixing stages. Look for the first single in early November. Betsey is a big fan of the Epiphone PRO-1 Ultra and used the guitar on her new project. (As well as her recent promo photo shoot.) "The retro look, 'Pro' build, and effortless playing abilities make the PRO-1 ULTRA a sure fit for my particular musical stylings," Long told epiphone.com. "I'm proud to be a part of the Epiphone family!"

Find out more about Betsey Long at facebook.com/betseylongmusic. - Epiphone Guitars

GOSHEN — From Music City to the Maple City, Betsey Long is working on the album that she hopes will define her.
The daughter of musicians Jim Long and Cherrill Long, Betsey grew up surrounded by sound in Nashville, Tenn. She spent her summers in Goshen, where her dad grew up and grandparents, Bill and Lucy Long, still live.
Despite some success that included being a featured background vocalist on Miranda Lambert’s Grammy award winning record, “Fastest Girl In Town” and having her songs appear on various TV shows, Long was dealing with both personal and professional challenges.
Living in Los Angeles for a time, Long, 26, was ready to move back to Nashville when she decided to change things up. While her grandparents retreated south for the fall and winter, Long holed up in their California-style home in Goshen’s Gorham Woods to work on songs for her next album.
The story mirrors that of indie-rock darling and grammy-award winner Justin Vernon, who, performing as Bon Iver, took to his parents cabin in Wisconsin for the winter. What came of it was the haunting “For Emma, Forever Ago.”
Though Long is still working to make that perfect album (expected to be released this winter), she has completed several songs. In the piano-driven, Norah Jones-tinged ballad “That’s The World I’ve Been In,” Long touches on heartbreak, “Tell me who to stop this heart from wanting him.” In the haunting “Gypsy Lover” she sings “I’m a gypsy lover but you stole my heart away.”
Home to inspiration
“A lot of my best songs came out of Goshen,” Long said in a phone interview with The Goshen News Tuesday afternoon.
During her time of self-imposed solitude in her grandparents home, Long said she drew inspiration from everything to the woods that surrounded the home to the vintage furniture.“I’d just sit there and play piano — sometimes with a glass of Jameson — and just create,” Long said.
Long said she has a lot of songs for her new album ready but may head back to her grandparent’s home again.
“I’m considering another month of solitude.”
Even before her time spent writing for her new album, Long has used Goshen as a place to draw inspiration.
“I wrote a song on the Ferris wheel at the Elkhart County Fair about a carnival,” she said with a chuckle.
Show Thursday
Long and Shannon LaBrie will perform at Ignition Garage, 120 E. Washington St. in Goshen Thursday night. Long said she is excited about playing such an intimate venue. “Playing at bigger venues when it’s full of people talking to their friends it can be a bit tougher,” Long said. “A place like Ignition gives me a chance to showcase my lyrics. People in Goshen seem to really appreciate music. That’s so rewarding as an artist and songwriter.”
Tickets are $20 and the show starts at 7:30 p.m.
The album
“I’m dying to record in Welcome to 1979 in Nashville,” Long said of the highly regarded retro studio. “It’s all analog.”Already on board for the album is Charlie McCoy, legendary harmonica and session player. Long hopes to surround herself with session musicians that can help her make that perfect record. Long said she hopes to experiment with some blues on this record.
Though the process for this album has taken longer than usual, it’s because Long said she’s learned from her mistakes.
“I wasn’t patient before,” she explained. “That’s why I’m taking so long. I had some stuff before that kept me going. But it was taking. And I know I didn’t write my best material.”
And Long isn’t holding herself back when it comes to what she wants to achieve.
“I know artists say this a lot, but I believe it,” she said. “I do want to change the world. I want to write some political songs. I want to promote love.” - Daniel Riordan of Goshen News

Betsey Long was listening to “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” by Jerry Reed on vinyl at her home in East Nashville before taking a call from The Tribune last week.
She had a couple good reasons to play the record.
One, it’s a good song.
And two, her maternal grandfather, Bobby Dyson, played bass on the 1971 country crossover hit.
“I am sitting in my room next to his record player,” Long says. “I have been listening to that like crazy lately. I am trying to pull inspiration from it.”
Dyson, who died in 1996, played bass on such songs as Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” and Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” as well as records by Kris Kristofferson, Porter Wagoner and Waylon Jennings.
“He played on so many amazing records,” Long says. “He was just a staple bass guy in Nashville who really made a name for himself. I am really grateful to have his name and legend going through my veins. It is inspiring and makes things a little more hopeful.”Long also inherited some of her musical talent from her parents, Jim and Cherrill.
Jim Long is a guitarist specializing in gospel, jazz and R&B, performing with Aretha Franklin, Shirley Caesar and Patty Austin, among others.
“There is so much I could say about my dad,” Long says. “He is an incredible guitar player. I didn’t know. When I was a kid, I thought everybody could just play that well. I would see him play at shows and he was amazing. Then, I would see other guitar players, and it was like, ‘Wait a second.’ I didn’t realize that my dad was a rock star.”
Cherrill Long is not a professional musician, but Long says her mother has the singing chops in the family.
“I strive to reach her level of talent, but I don’t think it will ever happen,” she says. “She’ll sing at the blues jams here in Nashville and people would throw money from the balcony at her, screaming her name. She is that good. She is ridiculous. She has definitely made a name for herself on the level of being respected as a vocalist.”
Betsey Long is making a name for herself as a singer and a songwriter.
She was the featured background vocalist on Miranda Lambert’s 2012 hit single “Fastest Girl in Town” and has written songs featured in several movie and television productions.
Long remembers the first song she wrote.
“I was in the van on the way to school with my dad and my sister,” she says. “I was in the back seat, and I said, ‘Dad, I wrote a song.’ This was when I decided I wanted to be a singer. It was like, ‘I like boys, boys like me,’ and I just kept singing that over and over. After that, I had a little Lillian Vernon guitar and my friend and I would run around the neighborhood and I would sing a song called ‘Peaches and Bananas.’ It was actually a well-crafted song for being an elementary student.”
Long says she actually wrote her first serious songs when she was a teenager.
“When I was 15, I wrote a song called ‘Let Me Go,’” she says. “It was about the struggles that teenagers go through, wanting to escape from that angst. That was my first moment of, ‘Oh wait, I just wrote a song. I think I can do this.’ From then, it was just growth and experience.”
Long had a spell of songwriting in Los Angeles. She says it was similar to a nine-to-five job.
“It was more like midnight-to-midnight, to be honest,” Long says. “It was session after session, going all over LA and writing to a track or with producers or other writers. We would just pop out these songs because the A&R people would be asking for a certain type of song. You would just keep doing it, like the lottery, until something hits.”
Long released her debut album, “Gemini,” in 2013. A double-disc set, it features singer/songwriter-type songs on “Blue” and dance-pop tunes on “Pink.”
“I love the classic songs,” Long says. “But I am also a sucker for cheesy pop music.”
Long is working on her next album, but she’s trying not to rush the project.
“I have started digging into other songwriters and listening to artists I knew of but never really listened to,” she says. “I have been listening to more Bob Dylan, Fleetwood Mac and classic blues. First, I started with Muddy Waters and went back to Lightnin’ Hopkins.”
Long says the new album will be recorded“analog, live, no Auto-Tune, no doctoring,” and feature some iconic Nashville musicians, including Charlie McCoy, who coincidentally recorded with her grandfather.
“Charlie has become a good friend of mine,” Long says. “The guy is a legend. My family and I have gotten to know him and his wife through church. It was so special for my mom because that is her father. Charlie has all of these cool stories about him. He knew my Grandpa Bobby really well. They had done a lot of work together. Charlie has become someone very special in my life. He is very close to me.”
Long will also appear on McCoy’s next album.
“We wrote a blues song and he is going to play harmonica because he loves Little Walter and I love Muddy Waters,” Long says. “So I am going to get him on my record, which is going to be an honor. I wrote a duet with him that is going to be on his record coming out soon. It is so beautiful. It is like a father-daughter story. That, to me, is really cool that I get to be on his record.” - Tom Conway of South Bend Tribune