TOKENS PODCAST: S5E15
Hymns are often sentimentalized in the American church, cast aside as merely retired songs with dated language, bearing no real appeal or relevance. But of course it may be that our old hymnals have some crucial things to say to us in our current cultural moment. This is the challenge I posed to Odessa Settles, Phil Madeira, and Leslie Jordan: find and perform some old hymns which might be both indicting and encouraging to the modern church, and to the world at large. Beautiful conversation and moving performances, taped at Nashville’s Sound Emporium.
ABOUT THE GUESTS
With his heart ever on his sleeve, Madeira’s latest record reveals the joy of finding a soul mate. The musical influences are all over the map: To be sure, his jazz-blues influences are still present, but the record swings back to the Americana genre that has provided his launch pad; there are traces of Prine and the Beatles, and even Steely Dan.
“Always a bridesmaid, never a bride”, Phil jokes about his journey. Madeira came to Nashville in the 80s to be an artist, but wound up writing songs and playing all manner of instruments on the records of other artists, and still enjoys serving the art of others. That tribe includes a diverse group of artists including Mavis Staples, Keb’ Mo, Taj Mahal, Alison Krauss, Amy Grant, Little Big Town, Garth Brooks, Emmylou Harris, Vanessa Williams, Buddy Miller, Solomon Burke, and dozens more.
After producing two critically acclaimed multi-artist projects called “Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest Of Us”, Madeira realized it was now or never, and in 2014 released “PM”, his first record since 1996. But it was 2018’s “Providence”, a piano-driven tour de force, that garnered exceptional reviews and visibility as a songwriter’s songwriter. His albums took on an autobiographical mantle that has continued with “Open Heart”, “Hornet’s Nest”, and now, “Bliss”.
Madeira continues to tour with Emmylou Harris & Her Red Dirt Boys, while touring as a trio, and as The Red Dirt Boys sans Ms. Harris.
“Bliss” releases early 2022 on Mercyland Records, via Soundly Music.
Leslie is a Tennessee native, songwriter and artist. She has called the Nashville area home for fifteen years. From 2010-2018, Leslie wrote and recorded as one-half of the Grammy-nominated band, All Sons & Daughters. The band released five studio albums, one live album and one compilation with Integrity Music.
Since the band’s conclusion in 2018, Leslie has been serving as a staff-writer on Integrity Music Publishing and as the co-founder and Executive Director of the Nashville-based non-profit, The Fold. She spends most of her days co-writing with artists in and around the Nashville area and running The Fold!
In 2017, Leslie and her husband Thomas began the process of expanding their family through the miracle of adoption. Their son, Judah was born in November 2017 and came home in March of 2018.
After a hiatus from recording and releasing her own music, there will be three independent single releases in 2020. For other information and inquiries, please email hello@lesliejordanmusic.com.
Odessa Settles, born and raised in Nashville TN, the only sister of eight, has been on stage most of her life thanks to her singing father. Odessa has served as a multi-genre artist referral entity in Nashville for many years in the areas of vocal and instrumental music, acting, modeling, spoken word, recording projects and short films. Odessa considers herself a folk singer and novice songwriter, a lover of ukuleles and anything she can beat on (percussions, sticks, paddles, cans, buckets, tambourines, etc.). Her gifted mission in life is to minister to the sick, listen, learn, bridge gaps, sing, record, and perform with as many people possible, and teach to others the great lessons she has learned from those who have allowed her to share their space.
Odessa is a founding member of The Princely Players, an A cappella music and drama group well-known throughout the country who chronicles African American history from mid 19th Century through today via staged productions. Odessa is the coordinator and manager of the Nashville Symphony Let Freedom Sing Celebration Chorus who come together yearly to celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Odessa is currently collaborating with Roy “Futureman” Wooten on the Black Mozart Project, which chronicles the life of Joseph Boulogne, Le Chevalier de St. George.
Odessa, now considered “a piece of the furniture”, has been performing with the TOKENS Radio Show series since the first show. Odessa says “I feel quite honored and blessed each time I am invited to share my musical experiences with Lee Camp, the Most Outstanding Horeb Mountain Boys and the Tokens Radio Players, what a treat and very humbling experience.”
ABOUT TOKENS SHOW & LEE C. CAMP
Tokens began in 2008. Our philosophical and theological variety shows and events hosted throughout the Nashville area imagine a world governed by hospitality, graciousness and joy; life marked by beauty, wonder and truthfulness; and social conditions ordered by justice, mercy and peace-making. We exhibit tokens of such a world in music-making, song-singing, and conversations about things that matter. We have fun, and we make fun: of religion, politics, and marketing. And ourselves. You might think of us as something like musicians without borders; or as poets, philosophers, theologians and humorists transgressing borders.
Lee is an Alabamian by birth, a Tennessean by choice, and has sojourned joyfully in Indiana, Texas, and Nairobi. He likes to think of himself as a radical conservative, or an orthodox liberal; loves teaching college and seminary students at Lipscomb University; delights in flying sailplanes; finds dark chocolate covered almonds with turbinado sea salt to be one of the finest confections of the human species; and gives great thanks for his lovely wife Laura, his three sons, and an abundance of family and friends, here in Music City and beyond. Besides teaching full-time, he hosts Nashville’s Tokens Show, and has authored three books. Lee has an Undergrad Degree in computer science (Lipscomb University, 1989); M.A. in theology and M.Div. (Abilene Christian University, 1993); M.A. and Ph.D. both in Christian Ethics (University of Notre Dame, 1999).
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