Texas-born singer-songwriter Jaimee Harris plays Little Rock's White Water Tavern for the first time tonight, and she's getting a little help from a friend. Harris will appear with Searcy native Bonnie Montgomery.
"I'm really grateful Bonnie will be sharing the night with me," Harris said earlier this month from Winter Haven, Fla., the first stop of her current tour.
She was a fan of Montgomery's singing and the pair met a few years ago when they performed a show at the Continental Club in Austin, Texas, that was presented by mutual friend Rosie Flores.
"Once I heard her sing, I was like 'Oh, my God,'" Harris said.
The two collaborated through a program at the House of Songs in Bentonville.
"We finally wrote together in May, and I really want to do more," Harris said. "She is really fun to write with."
Montgomery is just as effusive when asked about Harris.
"I love Jaimee. She is a quality songwriter, singer and guitar picker. She's the real deal. We really enjoy working together, and I think that will translate when we're onstage."
[RELATED: Live Music in Arkansas for the Weekend of Jan. 26]
Harris is on the road ahead of the release of her sophomore LP, "Boomerang Town," which comes out Feb. 17 via Thirty Tigers. The record is a poignant collection of Americana-folk character studies and sketches inspired by life in small-town America and digs into themes of loss, addiction and religion.
The title cut is a seven- minute-long story of a pair of teenagers, an unplanned pregnancy and their hopes to someday leave their hometown. It's like listening to a novella, as Harris skillfully brings to life these two young people and the obstacles they face.
"After her shift she lights a smoke up on the bridge, /under the billboard painted 'Jesus lives,'/Julie steps over the rail/thinks about salvation ... ," she sings.
Harris grew up in Hewitt just outside of Waco.
"Even though I was able to leave, I was not able to escape the generational cycle of addiction and mental illness," she said in the press materials about the album. "I had to deconstruct my Evangelical upbringing, keeping the good things I took from it (the importance of service and loving my neighbor), and rejecting the bigotry and brainwashing — then find faith again, my own way, outside of religion, through recovery, fellowship and the alchemy of songwriting."
She sings about the death of a loved one in "How Could You Be Gone," one of those ballads that produces goosebumps every time one hears it. With restrained acoustic guitar, piano, fiddle and cello, the song builds slowly and powerfully as the narrator comes to grips with an overwhelming grief. Loss is also at the center of "Fall Devin's Song," sung from the point of view of a grieving parent.
"The Fair and Dark Haired Lad," co-written with Dirk Powell and Katrine Noel, is a minor-key examination of the overpowering grip of alcoholism and the destruction it brings; it sounds like something a young Nick Cave might have sung. "Missing Someone," which closes the album, is a joyous, sweet ode to Harris' partner, singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier.
"It wasn't like I set out to write this record about my hometown and my upbringing," Harris said from Florida. "It was more that over the course of several years, starting with some songs I wrote in 2015, that a common theme started to emerge."
She has also called upon fellow songwriters Seela, Emma Swift, Neilson Hubbard, Lauren Balthrop and others to direct videos for each the album's songs. The most recent is for "The Fair and Dark Haired Lad," directed by Anana Kaye and Irakli Gabriel.
"That's been really cool because songwriters are great storytellers. It's a piece of the project that's also allowed me to collaborate, which I really love."
Harris was about 5 years old when she discovered her dad's copy of Emmylou Harris' 1979 Christmas album "Light at the Stable." She played it obsessively, and soon got her first guitar.
"In my hometown there wasn't an independent record store, and there wasn't an independent radio station. A lot of the music I got into was through my dad. He was my gateway."
She was also awed by a partial download her father had of Patti Griffin's "Forgiveness."
"I was just hypnotized by that song, and I listened to this 45-second segment over and over again."
Her father took her to see Harris and Griffin along with Julie and Buddy Miller at an early edition of the Austin City Limits music festival.
"It blew my mind," she says. "I think I was about 12 years old, and I said, 'Oh, this is what I want to do.'"
As for her first visit to the White Water, Harris says she's ready to finally play the place her friends have long been praising.
"I'm excited because so many people that I love also love the White Water Tavern. I've heard about it for years, and I'm really grateful to Bonnie for making this happen."
Jaimee Harris with Bonnie Montgomery
- 8 p.m. today, White Water Tavern, 2500 W. Seventh St., Little Rock
- Admission: $12
- Information: (501) 375-8400 | whitewatertavern.com