Rita Hosking and Cousin Jack were one of the first acts at the Strawberry Music Festival last year, the semi-annual hoedown and family camp-fest in the Sierras. Hosking and her band blew past most of the other acts, including Keb’ Mo’, who seemed overly mellow for a headliner gig at this major bluegrass and Americana festival. With an of-the-earth, gnarled voice that ranges from high and sweet to down-home and ferocious, Hosking had the audience in the palm of her hand, and the line to buy her CD’s snaked through the Sierra meadows.
Hosking lives in Davis with her daughters and husband Sean Feder, who backs her up on banjo, dobro, bass and percussion. Working as a teacher until recently, Her last two CD’s were solo titles, though most of her band (which also includes Andy Lentz on fiddle and Bill Dakin on bass and guitar) plays on her just-released Burn, produced in Austin by Rich Brotherton, producer for Robert Earl Keen. Her previous album, Come Sunrise, won the audience vote for “Best Country Album” at the 2010 Independent Music Awards. We caught up with her ahead of her Sept. 25 show at Don Quixote’s and appearance on KPIG’s Please Stand B.
SCW: You come from a California background that a lot of Bay Area folks are not so familiar with: logging, mining, a rural, hardworking culture that your songs reflect.
RITA HOSKING: I grew up on Hatchett Mountain, halfway between between Lassen and Shasta. It was a logging community, like most places up there then. My father worked at a lumber mill and most of the families were in logging crews. My great grandfather, Tom Hosking, came from Cornwall, England and worked the Empire Mine in Grass Valley … Cousin Jack refers to Cornish immigrants who had to stand in line for work, and were very clannish. They were always asking, “And how ‘bout some work for my Cousin Jack?” The Cornish were singers and they liked to sing underground, and miners would sing underground. My great grandfather had a beautiful tenor and played the bagpipes. Grass Valley is still known for its Cornish choirs. When my father would make us sit down and shut up and listen, and he and his father would sing, they would have tears in their eyes. It all felt extremely important and moving to me … My father also loved country music, so we listened to Loretta Lynn and Emmylou Harris. We always had the record player going; we’d have it out on the front porch.
It seems your last two albums, both professionally produced, mark a jumping-off point, an elevation in your career as a singer/songwriter. Does that feel true to you?
Everything changed after Sunrise. I got booking help and not one but three booking agents. So I’ve been traveling and getting a lot of nice shows. Sunrise was a jumping-off point because I went to Austin and we used some of Rich’s musicians and some of mine. Before that, I had been looking around for a producer. I wasn’t really sure what a producer did, but everyone else that I admired, career-wise, had one. Rich had produced Caroline Herring. When I heard her album Lantana, I loved it, and I thought, “I want the guy who produced this.” Then I met Caroline at Strawberry. A lot of things happen at Strawberry! … I also liked the idea of Austin, even more than Nashville. It’s known as friendlier, funkier.
You made some comments at Strawberry about singing alone being “good for your guts,” and although you are a shy person, it seems you are “coming out” now.
There’s been a lot of growth for me in the last several years, not just artistically, but I am also just more confident [being] in the world. That all has to do with music, because music is how I express myself, and once you express yourself truly, you feel better.
RITA HOSKING AND COUSIN JACK
Sunday 10am-12pm, live on “Please Stand By,” KPIG 107.5-FM
Sunday 7pm at Don Quixote’s
$10
