Rebekah Rolland is about to release her debut solo album, a record born during a stint as an artist in residence in a rustic, beautiful slice of Nebraska wilderness.
Two years ago, Rolland, a fiddler and vocalist with Tucsonโs nationally feted folk/Americana quartet Run Boy Run, landed a spot on the National Park Service Centennial Artist in Residence program. Most of the participants were sculptors, writers or painters; Rolland was the lone songwriter.
Guidelines for the program required that participants actually have some concrete accomplishment at the end: a painting, a sculpture.
โIn my case, and I actually found out Iโm a rarity, I just wanted to go and write music, so itโs a little less concrete,โ said Rolland, who will celebrate the release of โSeed & Siloโ with a show at 191 Toole on Saturday, May 12.
Rolland arrived at Nebraskaโs Homestead National Monument in tiny Beatrice (population about 12,500) with a plan โ to write moving stories based on the characters from Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and pride of Nebraska Willa Cather.
Cather, one of the first female editors of a major American publication, had written a trilogy based on the prairie lands of Nebraska, where she spent most of her childhood and early adulthood.
โI found her characters so compelling ... because they are sort of ultimately these humble people that she represents with such nobility and beauty and complexity,โ said Rolland. โI wanted to sort of speak to that in the writing.โ
Rolland finished writing the album and recorded it in Tucson with her husband and Run Boy Run bandmate Matt Rolland and a handful of guest artists from Tucson and Nashville.
โIโm really happy with it. It was important for me to represent the stories in a fair and unique way, and I think it accomplishes that,โ she said. โIโm really proud of it.โ
Saturday’s show, a co-bill with Peter Dalton Ronstadt y Los Tucsonenses, begins at 8 p.m. at 191 Toole, 191 E. Toole Ave. Tickets are $12 in advance at ticketfly.com or $15 at the door.
Rolland will share the stage with her husband and bass player Thoger Tetens Lund โ who regularly performs with Howe Gelb โ and other guest artists.
