Buck Meek’s Found Family Reflected in The Mirror

Calling from the road, Buck Meek rattles off a laundry list of guitar heroes that could double as an in-your-dreams Kerrville Folk Fest lineup: Django Porter, Slim Richey, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Butch Hancock, Steve Fisher, Brandon Gist, Grace Rowland. Both old and new, the Big Thief guitarist – and Wimberley native – draws inspiration from Texas greats, even as he updates his sound.

For the first time, Meek layers electronics with his usual acoustics on his latest album, The Mirror. With help from Big Thief drummer, producer, and ambient musician James Krivchenia, tasteful synth makes its way into Meek’s mix. 

“It feels like the way that we perceive the world in a way … through our emotional filters and through our biases,” he says. “For instance, our eyes are capturing light on a physical level, but also it’s being filtered through all of our personal, subjective, emotional experiences and memories. And so, there’s something to an acoustic sound being captured by a microphone, and then modulated by an electronic instrument, that almost feels more like real life to me.”

Though the process was new, the tradition felt familiar; some of Meek’s favorite folk music exists on the fringe. Although you probably wouldn’t have heard keyboards in a Wimberley ice house in 1970, swing trailblazer Django Porter and his La Pompe guitar exposed a high school-aged Meek to the Hill Country’s underground innovators.

Despite treading new sonic waters, the songwriter falls back on lyrical familiarity. His vulnerable musings pull from the outlaw tradition, as encapsulated in the song “Heart in the Mirror”: “So I’ll try to dive and breathe underwater/ And I’ll try to write a song/ That is not for others,” he trumpets halfway through.

In writing the lyrics, Meek says, he challenged himself to write down the words he was most afraid to say. Even though it felt a little embarrassing, he was compelled to get it all on the page.

“Something that I really admire about folk songs is their simplicity, and this kind of universality to them,” he says. “It’s kind of like a shared language musically, but then it just feels so relatable.”

Meek is a contemporary collaborator as much as he is a product of his Texas guitar heroes. His partner Germaine Dunes – whose band Kisser opens for the songwriter on his ongoing tour – joins Big Thief leader Adrianne Lenker and fellow Hill Country native Staci Foster as a backup vocalist on rambling The Mirror track “Gasoline,” while indie harpist Mary Lattimore offers up her cascading notes on “Heart in the Mirror.” Meek’s brother joins the found family with keys, folky genre bender Jolie Holland’s whistle weaves in and out of the track list, and a rotating cast of four drummers layers beats throughout.

The credits list runs deep, but each aspect is singular and highlights the collaborative yet vulnerable spirit that Meek has been developing over his career. 

“There’s nothing like working with someone who you really know and trust. When I work with Adrianne, I have such an in-depth understanding of what kind of music she likes, and what kind of songs she’s drawn to … I have so much to go on before I even present something to her,” he says. “But then, working with new people is also really deep and exciting, too, because they’re bringing this whole world to the table that you know nothing about.”

The Mirror is Meek’s fourth solo album, he’s put out six with Big Thief, and has worked on a myriad of projects within his community. With all of that, a little personal growth is inevitable.

“The older I get, the more I work with people, the more I learn to let go, and to trust my instincts, and to not be driven by fear and the pursuit of what I’m told is clean and good,” he says. “But then also, trust the people that I’m working with to see my blind spots, and to make space for their ideas, and trust the process of getting to the point where it’s greater than the sum of its parts – something greater than what we could do alone.”

Buck Meek performs at 29th Street Ballroom on Wednesday, July 22. 

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