Dolly Parton once said, “Storms make trees take deeper roots.”
Those words ring true for Nashville-based singer/songwriter, Tammi Rhoton, whose rich, nomadic roots are stitched all over the country – from her native Appalachia, a region thick with musical and folk storytelling tradition, to the experiences and inspiration etched on her years living in and feeding off the metropolitan rhythms of Seattle and New York City.
As Rhoton recalls her east tennesse childhood, her first musical influences came from the church. “To this day, hymns are still my favorite. It was what inspired me in 7th grade to lock myself in my room to write, dance, and sing at the top of my lungs. “ In college, she was introduced to the soulful songs of Joni Mitchell and Shawn Colvin, bought her first Dolly Parton records and discovered Johnny Cash. She soaked up some jazz while waiting tables at Birdland in New York City and performing her own show around town and shortly after arriving in Seattle she landed the lead role in “Singin’ in the Rain,” a part she’d play for six months. A stint traveling with the National Theater of Performing Arts rounded out those years.
Although her love for theatre remains, it was songwriting that was calling to her. Melodies and lyrics churned in her head and spilled out onto paper. One of those songs, written with a college friend, landed on contemporary Christian artist Michael W. Smith’s platinum-selling CD, Worship.
But there was plenty more she wanted to say, and in her own voice. In 2002 she moved back to Nashville, where a chance meeting with John Mock, who’s known for adding percussion, pennywhistle and mandolin to the Dixie Chicks’ sound, set her solo career in motion. He lived in the apartment above Rhoton, heard her rehearsing and was impressed enough to offer to his help with a demo, giving her use of his studio.
“It was encouraging and overwhelming for him to do that for me,” Rhoton says of Mock’s generosity.
Later that year, she also sang on a children’s record, The Big Kid Band. During the recording sessions she heard producer Dave Henry (Cowboy Junkies, David Mead) play cello and it blew her away. Soon he was producing Rhoton’s first full album. Henry also played seven instruments on the project, joining talented musicians that included Will Sales (Ginny Owens), Rob Mitchell and Sean Kelly (Sixpence None the Richer), Chris Carmichael and Eric Fritsch.
Inside Paper Walls is a portrait of a life in process, a vulnerable collection that is part diary, part poetry. In an age of computers and gadgets, Rhoton’s world revolves around paper. Loose sheets are scattered around her bedroom and scraps litter her house, her purse, her life.
“I write on everything,” she says. “In the car, on my hand.”
And it’s those notes -- some monumental, some seemingly inconsequential -- that document the events and feelings that shape all of our lives. Relationships and heartbreak, faith and hope, love and loneliness -- they all make up the fragile paper walls that each of us live inside. As a testament to the creative, organic process of making music, Inside Paper Walls shines and aches with an honesty and vulnerability, showcasing a collection of songs that echo down the avenues of the human heart.
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