Photo by Craig Kief
There’s a disconnect between the public perception of Sam Beam, largely formed by his solitary first couple of records as Iron & Wine, and the real guy. Those early recordings created an impression of a wounded troubadour hiding from the world behind a bushy beard, but in truth he’s not nearly so hermetic. On the contrary, from his ever-fuller Iron & Wine albums to his easygoing recordings with Califone and Band of Horse’s Ben Birdwell, he’s revealed himself to be a social creature who thrives on collaboration. “I like working with the other people; I think that’s the only real way to grow,” Beam says, speaking from the road. “I think most of the things that have been the most affecting on me musically have come from other people, and from opening myself to those outside influences.”
Beam’s latest record is his most truly collaborative yet, Love Letter for Fire, a duets record written with singer/songwriter Jesca Hoop. If you’re the kind of person who follows indie music, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of Hoop. There’s also a good chance you’ve never heard her music. Beam himself was in that camp. “I found her music just randomly on the Internet; I guess I missed the boat on her music,” he says. “By the time I discovered her, she already had three or four records. And I thought, ‘Wow, this is a really talented songwriter with a great voice.’”
A fan of classic country and R&B duets, Beam had long considered recording his own homage to that lost art form. “I’d spoken to several people over the years but never made any progress on it,” he says. In Hoop, though, he found a fitting candidate: a seasoned artist with a similar aesthetic but an unmistakable songwriting voice of her own. To see if they had chemistry, he invited her on tour with Iron & Wine as an opener, a gig that involved singing together each night. And sure enough, they clicked.
Love Letter for Fire covers a good deal of ground, with forays into country, jazz and indie-pop, but it does so quietly, with a sense of easygoing understatement. It’s truer to the simple, naturalistic spirit of those early, most cherished Iron & Wine records than just about anything else he’s released in the last decade, though Hoop’s sweet, rangy voice gives it a character unlike anything else in the Iron & Wine canon.
Having two singers on a record, Beam explains, “disperses the focus. When you have one singer, it’s really all about them, talking about what they think about their world or relationships or their relationships with the outside, trying to get that across to the listener. When you have duets, it becomes more like a play. And plays with ensemble casts are much more fun … I mean I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble, but single person plays are hard for a reason. We like the drama. And all the good drama has multiple people and conflicts.”
And if Love Letter for Fire feels more vulnerable than any Iron & Wine record since Our Endless Numbered Days, there’s a reason for that. Working with an outside songwriter for the first time required Beam to show his process in a way he’d never had to before. “As songwriters, you get to present a finished project that you’ve sat and polished,” Beam explains. “You don’t have to show your sketches to many people, because they’re not very fun. When you present yourself, you want to present the best you can do, not something less. So it was an interesting process, learning how to share those sketches with someone else.”
Sam Beam and Jesca Hoop play Turner Hall Ballroom on Friday, June 10 at 8 p.m. with opener Marlon Williams.
