We humans – maybe even all things on this planet – are governed by cycles, responding to light and darkness. With the sun’s rising, we awaken our souls, and with the sun’s setting, we slip into the ambiguity of dreaming. We change, but it’s the same everyday.
Until it’s not.
Letitia VanSant, one of Baltimore’s greatest songwriters and a rising star in the roots and americana world, just released her album Circadian, celebrating it with local champions WTMD live and in their studio. It sold out months ago, a handful of people turned away at the door assuming they could buy a ticket or two. Maybe they found a way in, the ever-gracious Baltimore community endlessly welcoming. As the song goes, there’s always room for one more.
The air bounced buoyantly, a kind of energy transferring from person to person. An eclectic crowd – again, representative of Baltimore – shuffled in, finding seats or standing spots. Conversation lit up the room, everyone together, in truth and in space.
Sam Sessa, WTMD’s intrepid and beloved music coordinator, introduced the night’s opening act, QueenEarth alongside Blackroot (Jamaal Collier). Blackroot beatboxed (and made other sounds, all in the service of storying) while QueenEarth sang songs and explained truths. She’s a singer and a songwriter, but by day, she also runs a community-focused studio and Queer Core, an educational concert series that highlights queer stories through art.
That sense of inclusivity and willingness to discuss hard ideas permeated the QueenEarth set, though they certainly let loose and had fun. Highlights included every time Blackroot dug deep into a beat or when QueenEarth let her voice soar almost to a shout, like the song “Collard”. Definitely artists to watch.
Sam returned to announce Letitia, the band already onstage as she walked onstage to a quietly riotous crowd, beaming a wide smile. They rippled quickly into “The Notion”, a off her first album, Breakfast Truce (released way back in 2012). She introduced the band, which included David McKindley-Ward on guitar (and bouzouki, I think?), Ahren Buchheister on pedal steel, EJ Shaull-Thompson behind the kit, Laura Wortman on supporting vocals, and Alex Lacquement on upright bass (and harmonica!).
She introduced the next song – and the new album itself – by telling the story of fireflies failing to find their mates, bogged down by artificiality, noting that the solution is simple: turn off the lights. And maybe many of our other solutions are also simple. The song itself follows a beautiful strand, twinkling like twilight, and contains an explosive verse that acts as almost a mission statement and call for interconnection: “Just below the surface is a song / Waiting for us to sing along/ The music the world made before we / Drowned it all out with these machines.”
So much of Circadian explores the varying textures of what it means to be human in the current age, trying to find a way to exist in this world. There are ongoing reminders that some thread connects us all, always.
Letitia transitioned the band with a little dedication to anyone who has ever experienced the terror of starting a new business. It showcases her gift for creating memorable songs that stick to your thoughts, but also features evocative imagery of “bright balloons” and “full-color flyers”, of supportive father’s with thrown-out backs and broken hearts. But still, throughout, she cuts the most mournful moments with hope, “There’s no shortcuts on this road you chose so hang on another mile.”
Throughout the show, Letitia made sure to recognize anyone who supported her art and activism, including the band behind her, Missy from QueenEarth, the photographer who shot the album cover (Alyssa Stokes), as well as shouting out Betty Garman Robinson, a member of the SNCC Legacy Project, one of Baltimore’s (and America’s) most important figures battling for social justice. When she mentioned Betty, Letitia exhorted the audience and all listeners on the radio to make a genuine effort to connect to others, to build true and genuine relationships, to participate actively in making the world a better place – not just online, not just by donating money. True change only happens in the real world.
Letitia and the band then played “Spilt Milk”, a hard song about not paying close enough attention to how we love and if we love well enough. It serves as a reminder to show your love clearly and carefully with actions, with steady and consistent behaviors.
Musically, the band may be characterized as a kind of folk/country band, and maybe that’s not exactly wrong; but it fails to capture the dynamic nature of the songs, the way they rise and fall like sonic plots, building to a climax and followed by a powerful denouement (or maybe a second explosion!). “Spilt Milk” is the perfect example of this dynamism, with its fiery eruptions, its dips and valleys.
They switched gears following “Spilt Milk”, Letitia sharing that she and Laura have a side project together and wanted to share one of those. They settled into a stunning duet of “Foreign Lander”, an American classic first recorded by Lomax (I think?) in an apartment, though it’d been sung for some time before that.
Following the duet, Letitia introduced “Tin Man”, mentioning NPR’s “The Lonely American Man” podcast (please please please listen to this for a little insight into the men and boys in your lives). It’s a song that tears at my heart and often, it feels a little too familiar. It’s a song that everyone needs to hear.
Another such song followed in “You Can’t Put My Fire Out,” a song that holds a candle to the sky and eventually lights a wild conflagration, written in the wake of Brett Kavanaugh’s hearings, an anthem for reclaiming one’s power, one’s control. She moved the audience visibly, some with tears, others with rage, and even a few with a kind of joy in solidarity. Radio cannot adequately capture that moment, but neither can words or photos. Something wild and visceral settled over the audience.
Letitia tamed it with “Something Real”, the final song of the night, reminding the audience that we’re all in this together and we might as well enjoy what’s real and true.
She greeted everyone after that, immediately walking to the back of the studio to say hello, goodbye, thank you. To hug, smile, and sign. To connect.
