Country singer credits unlikely inspiration
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Gotricities.com 4/7/07

Her country-based sound draws from such influences as Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris and the Carter Family.

But Angela Easterling’s main musical inspiration isn’t a country artist.

It’s Judy Garland.

“She’s why I wanted to be a singer in the first place,” said Easterling, who will perform at Acoustic Coffeehouse on Saturday. “I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love Judy Garland. A lot of things that I do with my voice that people think come from country music comes from listening to her.”

The daughter of a Baptist minister, Easterling was captivated by movie musicals while growing up on her family’s farm in Taylors, S.C. Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled as a musical theater major at Emerson College in Boston, later winding up at the school’s satellite campus in Los Angeles.

Somewhere between Boston and L.A., her country music influences started to come together.

“The first country music I started listening to when I was in college was Johnny Cash,” Easterling said. “But I didn’t think of myself as someone who wanted to write and sing country music until I started listening to Emmylou Harris. I was really influenced by some of her albums from the ‘70s, where she would get into so many various styles of songwriting with the songwriters she was covering.”

Harris’ influence can be heard on Easterling’s self-released “Earning Her Wings” album. Backed by a fleet of Los Angeles musicians, she sings with conviction on the disc’s 11 songs, 10 of which she wrote.

From Appalachian-styled ballads like the Carter Family-inspired “River Jordan” and the achingly beautiful title track to more uptempo songs such as the steel guitar-driven “Feel Like Drinking” and the rockabilly-flavored “Toy,” Easterling glides through a wide range of material.

The lone non-original is the gospel sing-along “When I Wake Up To Sleep No More,” a 1944 song written by distant relative Marion Easterling. Having known the song from her early days singing in church, Easterling was unaware that it was written by a relative. She learned of the family connection after noticing that Marion Easterling had written “When He Reached Down,” a song from Johnny Cash’s “My Mother’s Hymn Book” album. After doing some research, she learned that she was related to the song’s writer. She then rediscovered “When I Wake Up To Sleep No More” on Ralph Stanley’s “Clinch Mountain Country” album.

“I decided to put it on my CD in lieu of another song that I had written,” Easterling explained. “I thought that it was really neat that I was related to this guy.”

Another song with a family history is “The Accordion,” which tells the true story of Easterling’s father trading a truck for a turn-of-the-century squeezebox.

“Some people in our church were having a hard time,” Easterling explains. “Their car broke down, so my father gave them an old truck and [a man in the family] gave him his mother’s accordion. I thought there was such humility in that — the fact that he wanted to give my dad this family heirloom.”

After living in Los Angeles for several years, Easterling returned to South Carolina last fall. Upon her return, she wanted to investigate the Carter Family influence on her music. Prior to an Acoustic Coffeehouse gig in November, she and a friend stopped off in Hiltons, Va., where they were given a tour of A.P. Carter’s cabin by Carter’s granddaughter, Rita Forrester.

“She was really nice,” Easterling said. “She invited us in and made a fire in the cabin. Then she showed us around and talked about the family a whole lot. It was just an amazing experience.”

The trip inspired “A.P. Carter's Blues,” a yet-to-be-recorded Easterling original song.

“If there’s one person in the Carter Family I can identify with, it would be A.P.,” Easterling said, “how hard he worked and the rambling spirit that he had.”

Saturday’s show starts at 9 p.m. Easterling will perform first, followed by Charlotte, N.C., trio the New Familiars at 10:15.