With the wry, evocative opening lines of “Woman in Between”—“Call me tender, call me weathered, call me green / Call me shifter, I’m a woman in between”—Asheville singer-songwriter and Americana artist Julia Sanders distills both the spirit and sound of her upcoming record Morning Star.
Produced by John James Tourville of New West Records band The Deslondes, Morning Star unfolds a meticulously arranged musical landscape, anchored by Sanders’ transfixing vocals and a compact but thoughtful narrative style that calls to mind forebears like Gillian Welch and Emmylou Harris. Much of it autobiographical, Morning Star finds Sanders exploring the complexities of transitions: from woman to mother, partners to parents, and freewheelin’ musician to an adult with roots and responsibilities. The result is a poetic, often dark, yet silver-lined portrait of transformation and growth. “We’re used to thinking of adolescence as the only big transition, from child to adult, and it's full of intense emotions, changes, angst and searching,” Sanders says. “But as a mother, I discovered you go through a second adolescence, and Morning Star reflects that.”
After the birth of her first child, a daughter, Sanders began seeking out songs about the complicated, often contradictory feelings she was experiencing, but save for Brandi Carlile’s “The Mother,” she kept coming up empty. "For a long time, when I sat down to write it felt like I had nothing to say anymore, but that was because writing songs about partnership, or being a mother and raising kids felt like something I wasn't allowed to do,” Sanders says. “It’s not seen as ‘cool’ enough or ‘rock & roll’ enough.”
Pushing back against this mentality, Sanders began creating her own soundtrack to the experience of matrescence—that physical, emotional, hormonal and social transition into motherhood. With each track on Morning Star, she explores different facets of her life—her career, her partner, her children—and the range of emotions they carry with them, from pure joy and fulfillment to less acknowledged feelings that walk hand in hand with the bliss of having kids; feelings like struggle, loneliness and self-doubt. “Woman in Between"—a wide-open Americana ballad dusted with dreamy wurlitzer & synth flourishes, atmospheric electric guitar and some beautiful harmonies courtesy of singer-songwriter Erika Lewis—is a perfect example of this. The song serves as the thematic cornerstone of the new album, wrestling with the loss of autonomy and the fracturing of identity.
"All of a sudden, you have an enormous responsibility to this other being," Sanders explains, "and you can't fathom caring about anyone as much as you care about them. That said, your sense of identity is simultaneously being shredded, and you do have this grief over losing your former life, which can be sort of taboo to talk about. There’s this sense that parenthood has to be all sweet gentle magic, and it is, but the times when it isn’t— you feel like you need to push that away or you feel guilty about it. The question is, 'How do you hold on to yourself and your creative spirit and still work within this new normal?'"
Sanders was born in Philadelphia, raised in New Jersey and attended art school in New York. But it wasn’t until later, in New Orleans—immersed in the Big Easy’s gritty alt-country and R&B scenes—that she found her sound and her voice. “I’ve been playing music since I was 9, but it was mostly other people’s music,” she says. “In New Orleans, that all changed. Sitting around a fire trading songs, seeing them evolve—it made me realize that writing songs for myself was possible. It no longer seemed like a foreign thing that only happens in recording studios far away.”
In New Orleans Sanders met future collaborator and producer Tourville, along with fellow Americana artist Esther Rose, an early supporter in whom she found a kindred spirit and plenty of encouragement. “Esther always showed genuine excitement in what I was doing,” Sanders says. “She pushed me to keep writing. To this day, she’s still the first person I’ll send a new song to.”
Her confidence bolstered, Sanders continued to grow as a songwriter, eventually leaving New Orleans behind for her current home of Asheville, N.C. A picturesque city of less than 100,000 nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, it’s a fitting home for a folk singer. Sanders’ 2018 debut album, On the Line—which drew inspiration from the classic country of Hank Williams and Patsy Cline—was recorded there in three days in a wooden chapel on the outskirts of town. A couple years later, amidst the claustrophobic pandemic winter of 2020, a follow-up began brewing. Spurred by the solitude, her Jersey roots, and Bruce Springsteen’s austere Americana classic Nebraska, she cut a lo-fi, home-recorded EP of Springsteen covers called Jersey Girl.
Now, with multi-instrumentalist Tourville at the helm for sophomore LP Morning Star, Sanders’ honest, unadorned self-reflection sounds as refreshing as an autumn breeze. Supported by Tourville’s empathetic arrangements—acoustic and pedal-steel guitars intertwining beneath her wistful vocals—she paints an alternately glowing and desolate portrait of new motherhood. “I knew that JJ could help me create the sound I wanted for this record,” Sanders says. “He has this unique way of listening. I really trust his ear.”
Working out of Tourville’s home studio in Asheville, they were able to take their time with Morning Star, slowly developing the songs over weeks and months, taking breaks to reflect and reevaluate; adding, subtracting and layering as they went. Tourville employs a vast collection of sounds on the record, from the traditional instrumentation of country and folk (acoustic guitars, pedal steel, banjo, mandolin) to more unexpected additions, including synthesizers, organs, Wurlitzer, vibraphone and strings, adding musical depth on par with Sanders’ contemplative, bittersweet lyrics.
In the end, Morning Star emerges as an act of self-reconciliation. By finding creative rebirth and rejuvenation in the experience of its making, Sanders seems to make peace with the conflicting fragments of her identity, finding a path forward for herself as both a mother and a musician. “This album is about learning to elevate everyday experiences into art,” she says. “That’s what captures my attention—art that takes everyday moments and transforms them into something poignant and beautiful, and helps me to see my world in a different way.”