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My Roots Grow Deeper was produced by up and comer Matt Stanfield, known for working with textured acoustic pop artists.  Creative chemistry developed, and Stanfield was a pitch-perfect foil to help the roots-based band take their music in a different sonic direction. “We wanted it to be a fusion – using our traditional bluegrass instruments but in a modern way,” says Radford. “Matt is very precise,” adds Johnson, “Instead of fishing around for a good idea, he knows exactly what he wants, waiting for THE take, the performance.” The results bear out in everyone’s favor.

My Roots Grow Deeper is a full and textured record, thoroughly modern yet absent of any cliché studio trickery or gimmicky hybrids. Led by Radford’s clear-as-a-bell vocals, and complemented by Johnson’s smoky harmonies, the song cycle delivers an emotional and atmospheric ride as dynamic as the mountain view they glimpse from their East Tennessee cabin.

Alathea (the Greek word for “truth”) was formed in 1997 in Johnson City, TN. Radford, Johnson and Carrie Theobald met in college and embarked on their musical journey soon after. After two independent recordings handled on their own, the trio’s third album, What Light Is All About, was subsequently picked up by Nashville-based independent Rocketown Records in 2003.

The label deal brought with it myriad new opportunities, but the vagaries of the record business and the slow-burn approach to growth led the two parties to part ways in 2005.

That same year, the trio that had recorded three albums and toured hundreds of dates hit a monumental crossroads as instrumentalist / singer Carrie Theobald announced her intent to leave the group, and Alathea was suddenly a duo.

Also in 2005, the group went on a trip to Honduras with child sponsor / community development agency Compassion International, with whom they have worked for years (they sponsor a child in Honduras). Upon their return, Radford became violently ill, and the sickness had legs, causing Alathea to cancel concerts and wrestle with how to maintain their livelihood.  

After extensive treatments, multiple hospital stays, and eventual surgery, Radford comments, “The doctor the other day said you’ll probably never get back to normal, but I like to think, what is normal anyway?”

In the midst of the medical scavenger hunt, Alathea set out to record My Roots Grow Deeper. For the indie-minded duo, who have learned and handled every bit of their music and business from day one, the process was not so much letting go as having no option but to open themselves to the collaboration with Stanfield and see the results surpass their expectations. As Johnson explains, “We’ve always tried to have a say in every studio decision, and this time, we were in a position where we couldn’t do that because we were focused on Mandee’s health.”

Radford continues, “We somehow ended up with a project that we would have worked really hard to try to make happen, the project we would have wanted, but we just had to go along for the ride. I’m way less intense than I used to be because I don’t have the energy to question or worry about things.  With the new recording, it was wonderful to just trust Matt with everything.”

While Stanfield worked with the arrangements in the studio, Radford and Johnson poured time and energy into reworking their live show to reflect one less voice and a third less accompaniment. Radford incorporated resonator guitar and greater use of banjo in addition to her regular guitar work while Johnson added more mandolin, dulcimer, and harmonica and thoroughly reworked the harmonies. The vacated space has been elegantly re-imagined to allow for the purity of the songs and vocals to move front and center.

An evening with Alathea also includes a master class in story telling, as Radford adroitly weaves down-home tales of friends and experiences in rural East Tennessee with profound insights into the deeper matters of the human condition. All of this is accomplished while busting audience guts with laughter, as wit and delivery frame the hilarious stories.

My Roots Grow Deeper abounds with themes of a stubborn determination to continue with what one is supposed to do throughout the setbacks. Parallels can be seen to any number of circumstances, not the least of which could be the changing tides of a music business tempted to obsess over image and perception as prime motivators, rather than the pursuit of an authentic artistic life. And while that can sound naïvely idealistic, few can relate to the tangible struggles of living an artistic life more than working artists searching for diesel for the truck, food for the day and safe shelter at night.

Says Radford in explanation of the title song, “A friend was telling us that if you look at a tree you see how tall it is, but the root system you don’t see is sometimes double the length of the tree. And most of what’s supporting and feeding that tree is hidden, and you often can’t see the results of that. For us the bottom line is we want to keep making music. It doesn’t have to blow up and be this huge thing – we just want to keep doing it.”

Adds Johnson, “I think this idea also parallels personal faith. A lot of the circles we find ourselves in, there’s this way your faith is supposed to look – a comparative evaluation based on where you go, what book you’re reading, what political agenda you align with – all of those things can be decent, but they’re measuring something that isn’t accurate. So it’s having the determination to say, ‘I’m going to figure out what my faith is about outside of the measuring stick – regardless of how that comes across.’ That’s becoming more and more of what we’re talking about and thinking through – just figuring out what is significant and what does matter, and how can we live in a way that we won’t miss everything good that’s happening because we’re trying to look good, to measure up.”

The album is filled with sharp insights and a steely purpose that is integrated in the musical and lyrical result. The dynamic range is broad, showing the duo’s deft ability to compose roiling, blues-based songs (“Hurricane”), written, hauntingly enough, several months before Katrina struck the gulf coast, upbeat, pop-inflected material (“Morning Birds”; “Feels Like A Million Miles”), emotional ballads (“One More Angel”; “Farthest Shore”) and even flexing their interpretive muscles on a cover of Gillian Welch’s classic “Orphan Girl.” “One More Angel” was written out of several experiences of loss within their community of friends, and none felt more sharply than the death of their long time friend, collaborator and musical mentor Ted Francisco, a local East Tennessee musician who succumbed to cancer in 2005. My Roots Grow Deeper is dedicated to Francisco’s memory.

Another thing that is sensed whenever one spends time in the presence of Radford & Johnson is that people feel invited and included in their music and lives. The group’s per-capita fans to friends ratio could well be a leader in any genre.

Explains Radford, “Jesus was about inclusion and acceptance and freedom. And I think in our country we’ve made Jesus about exclusion and guilt and a lot of things that are opposite of what he was about. I don’t want to perpetuate that lie anymore. I don’t want to be a part of that lie, I want to be a part of the truth of what he was.”

That spirit allows Alathea to connect to anyone, anywhere, simply by being invitational in the way they approach their craft and their lives. And while their lyrics display a sharp intellect and grounding in the work of influential artists, it is the unresolved honesty of how the songs are conveyed that marks Alathea’s work. Says Johnson, “we hope these songs resonate as true – that people feel something familiar and close to home because we’ve been honest.”


Click here to read a biography for "What Light is All About"