Brandi Carlile & Maren Morris
Photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images
Maren Morris & Brandi Carlile Talk Empowering Women In Music & Collaborating Together
Today, GRAMMY winners Maren Morris and Brandi Carlile dove deep during an hour-long conversation on Apple Music's Beats 1 "Visionary Women" series. Their inspirational discussion included Morris sharing her lingering awe over Carlile's stunning performance of "The Joke" at the 61st GRAMMY Awards, sharing in their love of Janelle Monáe and encouraging more collaboration and support among women in music.
They also talked about their duet on Morris' latest album, GIRL, and on their new project Highwomen, a female-led country supergroup aimed at creating the gender equality and positive change they hope to see in music.
Will be talking visionary women with my friend @MarenMorris plus playing songs we wish we wrote on @Beats1 @AppleMusic tonight at 11pm LA/2am NY/6am LDN.
Listen live free: https://t.co/vwLIaaOtgI
Anytime: https://t.co/KbC12R95nQ pic.twitter.com/dTzPBGqOKN— Brandi Carlile (@brandicarlile) March 8, 2019
The pair talked in depth about collaboration; on their work together, in their work with other artists and in the larger scope of the industry. Carlile touched on what she sees as a "really quiet movement of women" in the country and Americana space that finally joining together as they realize they can't—and don't need to—keep competing with each other.
"There's a wave of this unity coming, and it's coming from the women that are your age, actually, they're kind of leading the way on it. I see it coming, I see it happening and I find it really exciting. And I notice you have the spirit of collaboration in you," Carlile said to Morris. "You're not worried to stand next to somebody that looks different than you, or is more famous than you, or less famous than you…You don't see other women as competition and I've always had that same tendency."
Morris released her sophomore album GIRL today, which includes two featured artists, one of whom is Carlile, on the soulful girl power track, "Common." She shares how she was so touched when, after returning to Nashville from a songwriting session for the album in L.A., she came home to a vinyl copy of Carlile's By The Way I Forgive You on her doorstep.
They also spoke about their latest project together, dubbed Highwomen, where the pair plus country singer/songwriter Amanda Shires, who Carlile explains first inspired the project, will work with a rotating crew of fellow powerhouse country-leaning artists.
Carlile described the story behind the project, explaining how a conversation with Shires about activism gave her a brilliant idea. She thought; "Maybe we should start a musical movement, like a Trojan horse of love, where we get inside the mechanism and fix it from inside."
Highwomen will include women in country and folk, and, as Carlile put it, "our men, our adjacent feminists," with songs in the vein of "really classic country." She added:
"It's turning into a movement in Nashville to very kindly, but insistently, say, 'Women need to be included.' Women need to experience representation in country and Western music and Americana and that starts in Nashville. It starts with us."
Morris' and Carlile's conversation aired this morning on Beats 1 as the second episode for their month long "Visionary Women" series to celebrate women in music and is available to stream on demand for Apple Music subscribers.
