‘Iced Cherries’: Joe D. Nelson’s take on modern folk and age old tropes

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It may be unusual for a musician to refer to his own music as a trope. But that’s what Birmingham singer-songwriter Joe D. Nelson does with his latest album Iced Cherries. 

Nelson has spent decades playing the guitar and writing music. Even while being interviewed in his basement/music studio, he effortlessly plucked the strings of one of his 1960s Yamahas absentmindedly. Between chords, he explained how his latest album, Iced Cherries, came into existence as his tribute to folk music.

“I tried to write a record for each modern folk song trope,” Nelson said. 

It was a challenge for himself. 

“There’s going to be railroad tracks in the cover,” Nelson said. “That’s something I would never do if it weren’t obvious.” 

The most classic trope out of all the ones he drew inspiration from is the singular man playing a lone guitar. 

“I knew I just wanted it to be guitar and vocal because that’s all I was working with,” Nelson said.

This is fitting, since he is surrounded by guitars. They sit in and around his music studio, which also features a forest of recording equipment and one lonely piano amongst the six strings. 

“I have a bunch of them because they’re each in different tunes,” Nelson said. 

He finds and fixes guitars regularly. He said even the instruments in the worst shape can be used to make some kind of music.

Iced Cherries is his solo debut and one that he has been working on since the beginning of 2022. Still, he said he has been songwriting ever since his musical curiosity first drove him to pick up a guitar around age 10. He teaches the instrument himself at the Firehouse Community Center in Birmingham’s Avondale neighborhood. 

Nelson described Iced Cherries like he discovered, rather than wrote, each song. He said he listened to the music as he was playing it and followed it where it wanted him to go.

“You kind of get a hold of an instrument and get inspired by whatever sound the instrument is making that day,” Nelson said. 

Nelson fiddled with guitar picking patterns and offered examples of how small changes can organically grow into a new song. One of the songs he “discovered” came about by a mistake that he kept making while working on a picking pattern. This song ”The Lion and the Lamb” is intended as  a gospel trope. Its lyrics are reminiscent of worship music and biblical storytelling. 

There is peace in the valley, between the darkness and the light

There is peace all devouring, in the corners of your eyes 

I hope you find it, hope you find it soon, 

I hope you find it, before it finds you

There is peace in the valley, you know the one 

You know the one, you know the one

There is peace everlasting, it’s on the tip of your tongue 

“A lot of it was absurd, in a fun way, or a productive way,” Nelson said, of his creative process, with a chuckle. 

The song ‘Always Endlessly’ is part of that absurd fun. Its lively energy makes it one of his favorites to play. Nelson says many songs on the album came out of his search for magic in everyday life. 

And I’ll be on your doorstep

Always, endlessly

To walk you through the cornfields 

To an endless golden beam

…Always, Endlessly…

Everything will be fine too 

With just enough sadness

To see us through 

Everything will be fine too

“It’s the same as when you let a park get overgrown and a baseball field has knee high grass and you just let it be that and not second guess it,” Nelson said.