Today we’d like to introduce you to Meredith Crawford.
Meredith, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My name is Meredith Crawford and I’ve been playing the East Texas/Dallas music scene since 2015. I started venturing into music when I was 11 by singing in choir, which led to singing old classic country through my early teen years on the Opry circuit, which eventually led to songwriting and guitar in my later teen years.
So my story starts out pretty standard for an East Texas gal. I was born and raised in East Texas with a hard-working mom and dad and a baby sister, whom I often sing with. I graduated from high school in 2008. I was in the top 10 percent of my class, with a GPA of about 3.8, journals full of drawings and songs, and five months pregnant. My graduation night I left East Texas on a Greyhound bus going to Nashville as a last hoo-rah before my son was born and wound up in Missouri for about a year nursing the hard adjustments my mind was trying to succumb to with the newness of being a mother to a baby boy, and understanding the true mechanics of a good ol heartbreak. A lot of songs started pouring out of a strange, foreign place that I had never written from before.
Eventually, I moved back home to East Texas and gave birth to a daughter. With two little ones, I knew that I needed to get to college like I had previously intended. All the while, I kept writing songs. My goal in writing songs was to write to reach others. I wanted to find what no one was writing about, dig into that subject and spring out with something that no one was saying.
I never really started playing shows until 2016. I joined up with a band and began writing songs with them and had a good year of successful, hard learning. We even won the “iPhone Film Festival Contest” with a song I wrote called “Say I Won’t”. When 2017 turned, I started playing solo shows. And writing, even more heavily. I played about 95 shows in 2017, and around 120 in 2018, all the while working full time, raising kids, and finishing up my Accounting Degree at UT Tyler. Sooooo glad to have graduated now. Those were very busy, busy years.
In 2017, I met Chris Rasco. Right from the start of meeting Chris Rasco, I could tell he was weird, BUT…. the good kind of weird. Really, the fun kind of weird. We started playing shows together, and through these shows, I started to really discover and identify a sound. A musical identity, more or less. Chris immediately played notes that were NOT the obvious. He colored the songs in a way that I could not.
The more and more we played together, the tighter the ideas became, the more clear the vision became, and the stronger the songs became. He inspired me to write in a fashion that I really wanted to when I was younger but didn’t have the years of learning behind me to do so. Roughly around the same time, I started incorporating a lot more song swap shows with local songwriters. I had the privilege of meeting Heather Little and doing several shows with her in 2017.
Later on, in that same year, Heather and I were approached by Chase Glover & Kevin Tinney of Winnsboro, TX to start a song swap at a sweet little place in Pickton, TX called Foster’s Place. Almost once every Sunday, starting in mid-2017 to present, we have played “The Song Swap” once every month on a Sunday at Foster’s Place, and life has been even sweeter ever since. This one day of the month has been almost therapeutic to Chase, Kevin, Heather, & I. Every month brings new songs written and even more memories. We have created quite the tribe at Foster’s as more and more people come to the restaurant for the swap and turn out lifelong friends for all of us.
With both musical sides of me being fed by the music I was able to cultivate with Chris Rasco, and the inspirational song-writing facets I was able to be a part of with Chase, Kevin, & Heather, we started incorporating more full band shows and found with the powerhouse rhythm duo of Jeff Gafford & Chris Gafford (Father & son) on bass and drums, respectively, the whole project started taking on more and more color dynamically. We finished the album, “Transit”, in 2019, shortly after I graduated college in December of 2018. I attribute the record’s strengths to the people that made it possible, notably Darrell Edwards and Chris Rasco.
The album doesn’t really sit in the country box, nor the rock box, folk box, or blues box. It basically was created to serve many tastes. Hopefully, there’s something for everyone in the record. That’s what we hope at least! We’ve made some amazing friends along the way, some amazing memories, and we wanted the record to reflect all of those that helped me by allowing me to be a part of their lives, and them a part of mine. I’d die a happy gal if I never made another record in my life. Every song helped me grow as a person, and every person that took part in bringing the song to its musical fruition I wouldn’t trade for the world. This record exists only because of them.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It’s never a smooth road. A smooth road would drive any natural human being insane. Smooth roads are boring and encourage complacency. Gotta keep moving and learning. Smooth roads aren’t made of that.
I would say one of the biggest struggles of being involved in music, however, is the constant struggle to appeal to people. You really have to make people believe in you. That’s difficult when you’re three hours into a gig at a smoky bar and the drunk man in the back only wants you to play what he knows and doesn’t care to hear what he doesn’t know. By hour 4, your mouth starts salivating for whatever fast food you’ll be stuck with at 3 AM, or you can just keep drinking to get out of your head. The choice is yours, but it’s something you’ve got to deal with. It’s something you can’t get upset about on stage, even though you’ll have several close calls. I sure have. Stay humble and know how to show love across all kinds of people, BUT realize that if you’re really proud of your songs, truly truly truly proud, there’s a reason why they made it paper and then eventually, song. And THAT should be kept close to your soul.
Another struggle is creating something that is truly original. A good buddy of mine, John Grigsby, said that it’s almost like trying to create a color that no one has ever seen. It’s very defeating at times. If you’re an overthinker, like I am, you’ll never feel happy with anything you create until you travel enough out of your own mind to not judge yourself and what gets to make it to paper. Those really good songs that you don’t have to work for, to sweat for, they come like a thief in the night. I find myself starving for those songs. The times in between those songs can really get you down, but that’s a good thing I believe. It keeps you, patient, well…. some times.
Advice I would give to other women, especially young women, is to treat yourself and hold yourself as a musician. It’s difficult to explain, but I don’t feel like it’s necessary for girls to isolate themselves from male musicians by promoting themselves as female to display empowerment. Granted my scope of surroundings isn’t the largest to scrape an opinion off of, but I don’t really see male musicians doing that. Just treat them and yourself as equals. And also, be mysterious. There’s no reason for everybody to know everything about you. Create time for good, solid decisions to be made. Read the fine print and don’t let anyone rush you. If you get a gut feeling or a hair of a peculiar thought that’s not your norm, don’t ignore it.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
Music has several facets for strengths and weaknesses. I definitely have my share of weaknesses, but I do believe that I’m stronger at songwriting. I’m not much of an arranger or a producer, but I feel like I can create a decent blueprint or mood for a producer to come in and develop.
I’ve been told that my words are very relatable to both men and women, but especially women. I to try to appeal to both as best as I can. I focus a lot of my writing on saying the unsaid or promoting awareness of the unsaid.
I’ve also been told by other musicians that I have worked with that my songs are fun to play. I think that’s because I try to make chord progressions as unique as possible, although it’s proven more and more of a challenge to me over the years to really capture that.
I think my voice helps me to create unique melodies where I am lacking in melodic content through the guitar or piano. I think my voice is more of an instrument than any instrument I play. I understand my voice better. I’ve been through too much with it at this point. From nearly losing it last Summer to it somewhat dropping in register over the last five years, I’ve had to learn to shape it as a strength even when it feels it is not.
What advice would you give to someone at the start of her career?
Keep your expectations in balance with reality. Be humble. Pay attention to your music scene. Always be challenged. Never stop growing. Be confident. Have a backbone. Don’t be like everybody else.
Contact Info:
- Email: meredithcrawfordmusic@gmail.com
- Instagram: @meredithcrawfordmusic
- Facebook: @meredithcrawfordmusic
Image Credit:
Floral hat w/mic pic: Allayna Driggs
Yellow shirt w/guitar pic: Raymond Hyatt
Meredith & Chris on the dock: Heather Little
Horizantal pic laughing: Ana Hernandez
Album Art for Transit: Eric Orange (photo) & Robert Woodward (Graphics)
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