If you go
› What: Nightfall concert series featuring Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line.› When: 8 p.m. Friday, July 22; Earl Brackin Band opens at 7 p.m.› Where: Miller Plaza, 850 Market St.› Admission: Free.› Phone: 423-265-0771.› Series website: nightfallchattanooga.com.› Artist website: norajanestruthers.com.
Discography
2010: “Nora Jane Struthers”2011: “American Story”2013: “Carnival”2015: “Wake”
The opener
Earl Brackin is an Americana/folk singer/songwriter born in Dalton, Ga., and now based in Calhoun, Ga. In 2014, he and his band were invited to tour Russia as part of a bluegrass-based musical ministry. For more information, visit Facebook.com/Earl-Brackin-Band-205351216166832.
Before she entered the Nashville fray to try her hand at writing songs, Nora Jane Struthers spent three years teaching English at a charter school in Brooklyn, N.Y.
As they say, you can take the teacher out of the school, but...
"I give every song I write a grade," the roots rock/bluegrass singer/songwriter says. "I try not to put anything on the record that's lower than a B-plus.
"I think a lot about literary devices [when I write a song]. I'm huge on alliteration and near rhymes and personification - all these things, all these tools. They sound really nerdy, but if you employ them well, they're very powerful. I try to use those."
Now 32 years old, Struthers moved to Nashville in 2008 to escape New York City's sky-high cost of living and to fulfill a lifelong desire to pursue her art.
"I thought, 'If I'm working this hard and there's still some piece of me that's deeply unfulfilled, I should just go somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper and try to be a musician. I can work hard at that and be broke,'" she laughs. "So that's what I did."
Struthers had a lifetime of training to support her decision. Growing up, she learned to play largely at the hands and fretboards of her father, who played banjo and guitar. The same year she moved to Nashville, Struthers and her father released the album "I Heard the Bluebirds Sing" under the name Dirt Road Sweetheart.
Growing up, father and daughter made frequent sojourns south from their home in New Jersey to play in fiddling conventions in Virginia and North Carolina. Those experiences, along with a reverence for artists such as Tim O'Brien, Gillian Welch, Hazel Dickens and Doc Watson, combined in Struthers to create a sound that's deeply rooted in Americana traditions while embracing the energy of more mainstream genres.
"Those American folk and roots artists are such a deep part of my musical foundation that even though my peers weren't into them, it really didn't matter," she says. "It was so much a part of who I was."
Within two years of leaving New York, Struthers released her self-titled, full-length debut album, which featured guest appearances by O'Brien and celebrated bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan. AllMusic praised the record for its backwoods authenticity despite its creator's urban roots.
"When she sings about life in rural and small-town America, she does so without the slightest trace of irony," wrote reviewer Alex Henderson.
Since then, Struthers and her band, The Party Line, have traveled the country, including winning the band contest at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2010, a feat previously achieved by artists such as Nickel Creek and Dixie Chicks.
Last year, Struthers released her fourth studio album, "Wake," and is working on a fifth, set for release early next year. Friday, July 22, she and her band will take the stage at Miller Plaza as the headliners of this week's Nightfall concert.
There, Struthers says, she hopes listeners find a little comfort by losing themselves in the music.
"That's the goal: for us all to be so present in the moment," she says. "That is something that can be hard to achieve, but when achieved, it is the best space to be living in."
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.