Chapter 11 Jasmine #2
The three of them worked well together. Celine was older and had grown up in the music industry, with her dad being half of the Walker Williams Band, of course.
Wilder was closer to Ryan’s age. He was also a bit of a gamble in Skip’s eyes, I think, as a kid from out east with minimal industry experience, but for his audition he played this incredible remix of Joe Maphis’s “Flying Fingers”—the kind of song that’s just pure showing off.
His guitar was like an extension of his own body. He was completely at ease with it.
I remember I sat in on one of their sessions, and the three of them were jamming together, creating this free flow of music that was just so cool. They came to a natural pause, and Ryan said, “That felt a little more like pop, didn’t it?”
Wilder shrugged and said, “Did you like the way it sounded?”
She said, “Yeah.”
“So go with it. Who cares what it is if it sounds good?” Wilder said.
And to my surprise, Ryan grinned and went with it.
That was the beginning of what ended up being “Mine All Mine.”
Mari
I really liked Wilder. He just seemed like someone who was excited about life.
And that big mop of hair he had back then .
. . he was a sweetheart. There are a million examples I could give you.
He organized a surprise birthday party for Ryan that summer, and we all went up to Big Sur.
He remembered everyone’s coffee orders and favorite ice-cream flavors.
He always had a joke ready when you needed it.
I remember thinking that Ryan and Wilder would make a cute couple. I kept waiting for it to happen, honestly.
But for some reason . . . it ended up being Justin who caught Ryan’s eye after she and Evan Henderson broke up.
I’m convinced she was rebounding. Justin came with us to Big Sur, because why not?
Everyone was inviting their friends and family, it was a big group.
Ben came too—although we’d started to have some arguments about how we hung out more with my friends than his.
I made an effort to spend time with his buddies even though I didn’t have much in common with them—I really did.
But there’s only so much discussion about World of Warcraft that a girl can take.
We rented this lodge on Carmel Bay, and I swear, Ryan and Wilder had been sitting with their heads together talking in the back of the car the whole drive up. But when she said she was going for a walk down to the beach that evening and I said, “Ooh, with who?” she shrugged and said, “With Justin.”
I remember sort of frowning at her and being like, “Justin? Why?”
She got red. She said, “What do you mean? I invited him on the trip. It’s just . . . nice to see him again. We’ve been catching up.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But a walk down to the beach sounds kind of . . . romantic.”
Ryan made a face, but I could tell I’d hit on something. “It’s just Justin,” she said.
I took a chance and said, “From what I saw today, I thought you’d rather do something like that with Wilder.”
I thought I saw her flinch. She’d been open with me about all the other guys she’d been going around with, so I wasn’t sure why she was being so cagey now. It was like our roles had reversed.
“Of course not,” Ryan said. “He’s like a brother or something, I don’t know. Plus, I’m sort of his boss.”
I snorted. “Skip is his boss.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but we have to work together, and there’s a weird power dynamic, isn’t there? He’s just—he’s off-limits.”
“Does he know that?” I asked. “He planned this whole thing for you.”
“Of course,” she said again, and I could tell she was getting irritated with me. “He’s just a really nice guy.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Well, have a nice moonlit walk with Justin, then.”
“Shut up,” she said. But she was trying not to grin.
Skip
I was never worried about Ryan’s new sound.
Jas and I encouraged it, if I haven’t already made that crystal clear.
There was one afternoon I walked past the studio lounge and heard this new, complex pop-bluegrass fusion.
Ryan’s and Wilder’s voices came from inside, laughing and singing, and I just stood outside the door and smiled to myself.
That was it. That was what Ryan would be known for from here on out.
Of course there was chatter. I tried to shield her from that.
We released three singles in early 2012 ahead of the full album: “Count Your Days,” “White Lace,” and “Angeline.” I remember I saw an old country buddy of mine at a happy hour in downtown LA, a very down-home Texan who was real into the old outlaw ballad days.
No hate to him—I was too. That’s what got me into this career.
But he said, “Another country producer turned pop, huh? Los Angeles will do that even to the best of us.”
I was like, “Man, what are you going on about?”
“Those singles ain’t country,” he said. “And I won’t be the only one to tell you that.”
I just laughed. “But are they good?” I said.
He grumbled something into his drink and didn’t have much to say back to me.
Mari
The pushback was there, but it wasn’t as bad as I had expected.
Sure, I came across some rants online—Ryan’s abandoning her original fans, these songs aren’t country, I don’t recognize this music anymore.
There were a few opinion essays in smaller publications saying that she was selling out on the music tradition that had brought her her fame, and that the move to LA and the slippery slope of more alternative country pop-rock would dilute her into another Hollywood clone. They used a lot of big scary words.
But the genuine fan base that Ryan had built, the Ryde-or-Dies and even more casual listeners who just liked her style . . . they weren’t swayed at all. They liked her for her. They appreciated what she was doing and wanted to see more.
And it didn’t hurt that her technical skill was rock solid either.
Rolling Stone, published March 2012
A New Sound for a New Era?
Young bluegrass aficionado Ryan Holding has worked hard to establish herself as a fresh new fixture in a genre overwhelmingly composed of young bucks and old crooners.
With an innocent charm and a glittering stage presence that’s supported by fretwork that would make Earl Scruggs proud, some have gone so far as to call this young banjoist a prodigy.
Holding built an ironclad reputation for herself both on the South and Northeast bluegrass circuits that was ratified by her signing to Austin, Texas’s Madcap label, a partnership that skyrocketed her to the top of the charts.
And country stood supportively behind this little lady like a proud parent.
But Holding is growing up. Madcap’s expansion to Los Angeles has sparked rumors about whether the bluegrass star will cut ties with her country roots, and the concern isn’t without basis.
This month, Madcap released “Angeline,” Holding’s third single ahead of her forthcoming Diatribe album—and it’s number three in a line of tracks that have sounded decidedly more pop than country.
Rolling Stone has reviewed each single independently: “Count Your Days,” a fiery hell-hath-no-fury tirade of a scorned woman, almost approaching metal at times; “White Lace,” a soulful lament that the singer may never find true love, accentuated by a ’60s-style jazz organ; and now “Angeline,” a ballad-length exploration of a complex romantic relationship accompanied by equally complex electric guitar riffs—and, most notably, very little banjo—courtesy of Holding’s newest backup virtuoso, Wilder James.
These are a far cry from the sweet, clear-eyed “June Bug” or “Shoes on the Dash” of Holding’s debut album.
It’s a grittier sound, born of an increasingly complicated musical identity and plain-old growing up; still young at 22, Holding already has more than seven years of industry experience under her belt.
It’s this critic’s prediction that Diatribe will be reflective of Holding’s nuanced development. Her background provides a depth that artists trained strictly in pop or rock can’t match, an unusual flavor for which listeners seem to be hungry. She won’t stick with bluegrass forever.
Nor should she, if “Angeline’s” number one spot on the charts for the third week in a row is any indication.