The Nashville-based artist plays GR Ballet’s Peter Martin Wege Theatre on Friday with Ralston Bowles, part of a limited Midwest tour. The Local Spins interview.
Telling Stories in Concert: Amy Speace makes Michigan tour stops this week. (Courtesy Photo/Nielson Hubbard)
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Coping with depression and the COVID-19 pandemic, Nashville-based songwriter, poet and Americana artist Amy Speace concedes that tracks on her 2022 album, “Tucson,” took a different tack with a “very acoustic and very personal” milieu compared to the rest of her work.
“The songs were directed at mental health issues and I was pretty transparent in the record. Usually, I pull songs from my life, but I usually mask them,” she says.
“I’m a pretty confessional songwriter, but that was as confessional as I’ve been.”
Fast forward to 2024, and Speace describes her newest songs and upcoming studio album, “The American Dream,” a change in approach.
“It’s a little different, more of an uptempo feel,” she suggests, noting that the record was inspired, in part, by the music of Tom Petty. “Most of my records have a lot of ballads; this one has an equal amount of ballads and uptempo numbers.”
When Speace plays Grand Rapids on Friday as part of a brief Midwest tour, fans will hear compelling songs from both of those albums as well as acclaimed music from earlier releases in her 20-plus-year career, including fan favorites “The Sea and the Shore” and “There Used to be Horses Here.”
A New Album and Poetry Book on the Way: Speace (Photo/Neilson Hubbard)
Tickets, $20, for the 7:30 p.m. Friday concert at the Grand Rapids Ballet’s Peter Martin Wege Theatre, 341 Ellsworth Ave. SW, are available online here.
(Speace also plays The Ark in Ann Arbor on Thursday; get details and tickets for that show here.)
“Amy has an ability to infuse her lyrics with a warmth and vocal phrasing that engages the audience,” says Grand Rapids singer-songwriter Ralston Bowles, who’s known Speace for years and will open Friday’s show.
“Each song carries its own unique richness and leaves the listener with the sense of being a part of the song’s landscape.”
Fellow Nashville tunesmith Mary Gauthier raves that Speace has reached “the level of absolute mastery. Folk music doesn’t get any better than this.”
Speace – who’s from Baltimore and spent years in New York before relocating to Music City – says she adores Nashville, which she calls “the center of songwriting in the world” and an inspirational place to create music.
“It’s like the richest musical territory I’ve ever known,” insists the guitarist and piano player.
As such, she’s not only recorded all of her recent albums at East Nashville’s Skinny Elephant Studios with producer Neilson Hubbard, but also has been teaching online songwriting classes.
In addition, she recently completed a new book of poetry, with hopes of having it published in the fall.
As for performing, she tends to tour for two weekends a month, noting she’s also the mother of a 6-year-old and doesn’t “do long tours anymore.” Even with that less rigorous touring regimen, she’ll still crisscross the country this spring, from Texas to New York.
“I perform solo. I’m a folk singer and I tell stories,” she says. “No dancing girls, no pyro.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Congratulations to reader and email subscriber Lisa Oldham, who won two tickets to see Amy Speace on Friday. Email subscribers get first crack at concert ticket giveaways via Local Spins’ weekly ‘Amplified’ newsletter. Sign up here.
VIDEO: Amy Speace, “There Used to Be Horses Here”
VIDEO: Amy Speace, “Why I Wake Early”
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