After living in Oakland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, Barth took up a permanent troubadour’s lifestyle, traveling the country and getting to know the different artists and musicians she encountered along the way. Eventually, she stopped in Tulsa, and began the process of creating Forager, Recorded in Little Rock, Arkansas at Fellowship Hall Sound with Jason Weinheimer and Jesse Aycock (Hard Working Americans). Throughout Forager, California-born songwriter Lauren Barth weaves tales of adventure, history, rebellion, and love. The title track “Forager” is a dark ballad of traveling through time and different lives.
“Mama Don’t Cry” is just one of the 11 standout tracks on Barth’s album, Forager, due out on May 5th, on Horton Records. With a nod to J.J. Cale, Leon Russell, and other pioneers of the signature sounds of Tulsa, The Bluegrass Situation’s Marissa R. Moss says of the track/video, “Barth tackles a lot of… imperfect and uncomfortable ideas on “Mama Don’t Cry” and in the video that accompanies it with its spiraling, psychedelic twist: far too many guns, one too many funerals, people who belong in their mother’s arms, not jail cells. As for its other tunes, “Want It Back,” the album’s stick-in-your-head opening track, is reminiscent of Jenny Lewis and Liz Phair, among others, indicative of the delicate, but well-negotiated balance Barth strikes on Forager. “This Old Heart” is Dolly/Emmylou, plaintive and powerful. “Getting High (Is Getting Me Down)” is world-weary Lucinda. And on it goes. As classic as it gets.
