The Mastersons - It's Always About Serving the Song!

I caught up with singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalists Chris Masterson and Eleanor Whitmore at the 2020 Folk Alliance International Conference in New Orleans. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we were booted out of the Media Room I had reserved so that NPR’s Anne Powers could do an impromptu interview with Ani DiFranco. No worries, The Mastersons went with the flow and we conducted our conversation in my hotel room while they were perched on my bedside with my lavalier mic attached to my water bottle handle. They could not have been more gracious and accommodating. When they're not touring the world as valued longtime members of Steve Earle's band the Dukes, the musical and marital twosome make inspired albums of their own emotionally vivid, deeply humanistic songs.

Experience is something they have aplenty. Prior to coming together as a musical duo (they married in 2009), Masterson and Whitmore were both seasoned veterans of the Americana and Texas music scenes. Masterson spent his teens playing the blues in Houston clubs before landing hired-gun gigs with acts as varied as Jack Ingram and Son Volt, while the Denton-born Whitmore grew up performing in a family band with her folk- singer dad, Alex, and sister Bonnie (now a solo singer-songwriter) before playing fiddle and violin on dozens of album sessions for the likes of Bruce Robison, Slaid Cleaves, and Shooter Jennings. By their own admission, they are here to “serve the songs.”

The Mastersons, who now call Los Angeles home after stints in Austin, Brooklyn and Terlingua, Texas; recorded their soon to be released “No Time for Love Songs” at L.A.'s legendary Sunset Sound Recorders with Shooter Jennings; it was engineered and mixed by five-time Grammy Award-winning engineer, Ryan Freeland. Shooter had recruited The Mastersons to play on his albums Family Man (2012) and The Other Life (2013), and they’d recently reunited to work on the now Grammy award winning Tanya Tucker's comeback album While I'm Livin', which Jennings co-produced with Brandi Carlile.

As our country becomes more divided," Chris observes, "it makes it harder to connect with loved ones and friends that disagree. Fundamentally we all want the same things, but we're pitted against each other by extreme rhetoric on both sides. If we can lead with kindness and empathy, there is a way out."

"Only by cataloging and acknowledging loss and grief can we move forward with gratitude for what we have." I agree 100%. Enjoy this conversation with Chris Masterson and Eleanor Whitmore, The Mastersons!