Though it’s based in Charleston, SC, the story of foot-stomping folk duo Shovels & Rope begins right here in Athens. “We were both opening up a show… at the Georgia Theatre, which is the worst place to start your music career,†singer and guitarist Cary Ann Hearst laughs, recalling the first time she laid eyes on her husband and bandmate, Michael Trent. “You play to 500 [or] 700 people there, and then go to a shitty bar where no one is there to see you. We played the amazing Georgia Theatre and became friends that day.â€
That was 2003, and though a romance started not long thereafter—Hearst and Trent have been married for three years—it took them nearly seven years to start making music together full-time.
“When Mike moved to Charleston, I was playing the bars there with a band called Fire of Angels. I was going to college, and when I got done I decided to focus on music as much as possible… writing kinda country music,†Hearst says. “I started trying to do some touring but could never keep a band together because I couldn’t afford to pay people. But [the] next thing I know, we’re playing together as Shovels & Rope.“
It wasn’t just a financial decision that brought the two together as musical partners. Though both are gifted artists in their own right, neither seemed to drum up the same excitement as solo performers that they inspired by playing together. Though it took them some time to see it, the pair’s rollicking, joyful take on the great tradition of American storytelling music was far more potent than what either was able to do alone.
“Before my second solo record, Cary and I had made the first Shovels & Rope record, just for kicks,” Trent says. “It was like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a little bit of time, why don’t we make a record in this house for fun, see what happens?’… Eventually, we started getting calls to open for bigger acts, with the duo [people] saw in the bars. No one was calling us for solo gigs.â€
So, in 2010, they took the Shovels & Rope show on the road, and they’ve stayed there for the better part of two years. Racking up more than 200 shows a year, the band has built a following around the South and beyond. A glimpse of its live show reveals why. Live, armed with Hearst’s muscular voice—like a less twangy, more robust Lucinda Williams—and Trent’s adept work on guitar, harmonica, drums and vocals, the duo heeds the advice of their debut album’s title: O’ Be Joyful.
Shovels & Rope’s love of what it does is palpable. But after winding down this year of nonstop touring, Hearst and Trent hope to stay a little closer to home.
“We are going to scale touring back a bit, starting out 2013 with a cruise, which sounds like a pretty sweet way to tour—on a boat with a bunch of other artists, like Lyle Lovett and Jason Isbell,†Trent says.
The two are also looking forward to writing more, expanding upon the ideas they’ve been shoring up on the road. “[T]he last record, [which we wrote on the road], was really influenced by the geography of the land we were traveling,” Hearst says. “I am trying to break away and write about things that aren’t about a place, [that tell] more of a story.â€
“We’re in the beginning stages, and we can’t divulge too much information,†Trent adds coyly.
Well, OK. Every good story needs a little mystery. And if, as they say in the writing world, the first chapter is a promise, then this story is shaping up to be a good one, indeed.
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