I got a chance to sit down with Nashville duo Sam and Ruby who performed at the closing party for the Nashville Film Festival (NaFF) on Thursday evening. Two songs from their most recentl album The Here And The Now were featured on the soundtrack of the documentary "Westbound," which premiered at the festival.
"Westbound" tells the story of Adolph Vandertie, "Duke of the Hobos," who led an extraordinary life during the Great Depression as a woodworking/whittling artist. He is remembered for his uniquely beautiful pieces that have served to perpetuate the tramp art culture. Sam and Ruby contributed the songs "Heaven’s My Home" and "What Do I Do Now," which were impressively perfect for the movie. It is somewhat freakish how accurately they tapped into the variety of emotions that seemed to arise as a result of hearing Adolph Vandertie’s story. This is probably because they both related to Adolph and the hobo culture, as well as the shared sentiment of "doing the best we can" regardless of the circumstances, (which was pretty apparent after they had the experience of meeting Adolph, playing the songs for him in the nursing home and seeing the finished product). Now that they have been travelling the country and making music together for the past several years, it is interesting to witness how they’ve come full cirucle and ended up back in Nashville.
It was also cool to hear that they still try to "keep it local" and stay involved in the music community with their work. They mentioned being fans of Andy Davis and Tyler James (of course), but also used a number of other notable Nashville musicians on their soundtrack recordings, including Katie Herzig (who actually co-wrote "Heaven’s My Home" with Ruby), Jeremy Lister, Rachel Lampa, Jamelle Fraley, Michael Inge and even a Fisk Jubilee singer. On the "not-so-local" side of things, they are going to be opening for Delbert McClinton (my hero) for several tour dates in the northeast, so hats off to them for scoring a gig with a badass.
It seems that Sam and Ruby are doing quite well, and will only continue to explore new areas of the music industry and spread their creativity within and beyond Nashville. When asked if anything else has come specifically as a result of being involved with "Westbound," Ruby’s answer was, "…[A]s musicians, you write your songs, but you have to figure out how you want to get them out there, and we really feel the sense of community most in the film world. This has really been kind of a pivotal thing for us. We did Sundance this year for the first time, and now the NaFF, which is like the ‘be all, end all’ for us, and we feel like this is where we want to be. This is how we want to get our music out there." – Erin Manning