Colorado
songwriter Emily Scott Robinson beckons to those who are lost, lonely, or
learning the hard way with American Siren,
her first album for Oh Boy Records. With hints of bluegrass, country, and folk,
the eloquent collection shares her gift for storytelling through her pristine
soprano and the perspective of her unconventional path into music.
“I
think that the thread running through the album is those things that call to
us, and how we can't resist that call,” she says. “It’s about the siren songs
that come up through our lives.”
Though
not fully autobiographical, American
Siren gracefully blends imagined characters with meaningful people she’s
encountered on her journey. Showcasing her ability as a storyteller, “If
Trouble Comes a Lookin’” invents a scene where a vulnerable priest and an
unhappy wife meet in an Arkansas hotel bar. “Hometown Hero” is an emotional
tribute to her cousin, a veteran lost to suicide. “Lost Woman’s Prayer” stems
from the words of a sage friend she met while traveling abroad, while “Every
Day in Faith” is a personal testament to seeing things through.
As
the album’s lead track, “Old Gods” carries the siren concept to its fullest
potential with beautiful three-part female harmony; she originally wrote it for
a community production of Macbeth.
Meanwhile, “Things You Learn the Hard Way” was completed after asking for
relevant scenarios from her social media followers. Yet there’s a part of her
own life in every song, too. That’s especially true in “Cheap Seats,” about a
distracted waitress who’s bound (someday) to realize her dreams. Robinson wrote
it after seeing John Prine and Bonnie Raitt sing together at the Ryman
Auditorium in Nashville in 2019.
“If
you make music that you love that tells the truth, or that tells a story, everything
emanates from what you have inside,” she says. “I knew at the core that I love
writing, I love telling stories and I love performing. I knew if I just kept
doing that, even when I didn't always know what the next step was, that it
would continue to grow and that the people who were meant to be a part of that
would find me.”
Robinson
grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and turned toward guitar at age 13,
after a summer camp counselor closed out the nights by playing songs by Joni
Mitchell, Cat Stevens, and Dar Williams every night. She taught herself to play
in the early 2000s by printing guitar tabs from the internet and singing to CDs
by Indigo Girls and James Taylor. But she didn’t pursue songwriting until after
seeing Nanci Griffith perform in Greensboro in 2007.
“I
went home and I wrote a really sad, beautiful country song,” Robinson
remembers. “I was like, ‘Wow, that was easy.’ And then I kept trying to write
through college and I realized, ‘This is not actually that easy.’”
Graduating
from Furman University with degrees in history and Spanish, Robinson took a job
as a social worker and translator in 2011. “I moved to Telluride when I was 24
to work as a victim's advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual
assault,” she says. “I fell in love with Telluride. That's really where my
dream started to be born of doing music.”
In
2013, she found kindred spirits at Planet Bluegrass’ The Song School, a
songwriting retreat in Lyons, Colorado, where other participants encouraged her
talent, and just as importantly, showed her that being a touring musician could
be a viable financial option. Before temporarily moving away from Telluride,
Robinson went into town and sat on the empty stage where the city’s annual
bluegrass festival is staged, promising herself that she’d be singing on it
someday.
Bolstered
by the positive response of her 2016 debut album, Magnolia Queen, Robinson and her husband packed everything into an
RV and hit the road, with Robinson booking her own shows along the way. That
same year, her songwriting landed her among the Kerrville New Folk Winners at
the esteemed Texas festival. The winners embarked on an eight-city tour of
Texas that fall, introducing Robinson to an audience that remains invested in
her career.
“That
was my first time touring,” she says. “It was so much more fun than I thought
it would be. I'm a homebody and I was anxious about it because I hadn't done
it. I thought it would run me ragged. What I didn't account for was how much
energy I would get from it and how great it would feel to get in touring shape
and be singing every night and have my stories be super on-point and loving the
experience of finding an audience.”
Robinson
received significant acclaim for her 2019 album, Traveling Mercies. And her long-held dream came true later that
year when she sang on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival stage as the winner of
the Telluride Troubadour Contest. A poignant standalone single in 2020, titled
“The Time for Flowers,” prompted a private Instagram message from Oh Boy
Records’ Jody Whelan, letting her know how meaningful the song was to his
family. They struck up a fast friendship, then decided to partner for a release
of American Siren.
“It
is bigger and riskier and more expansive than my last collection,” Robinson
says. “It feels like I wrote some songs that I'm going to grow into as I
continue to perform them. I actually cried after I finished every one of them.
I was so relieved that I was able to write them. I carved out a little more of
my own experiences into these songs. They're excavating some deeper stuff than
I've touched on before. I think they will have a healing quality for people who
listen.”
For her fans and for
herself, this revealing collection proves that heeding the call to make music
was the right decision. "Ever since this dream was born, I don't think
it's ever left my mind," Robinson says. "I've worked toward it every day,
even when I felt like I was stumbling in the dark. Now I can look back and see
how beautifully it all knits together."