I don't know about you, but back when I was a much younger person, my friends and I used to have this game where we would sit around and think up names for our band. It's not that we had a band, or even had the inkling of a band, it was more of a thought exercise trying to come up with clever names for this fictitious band.
It makes you wonder a little bit how many band names out there actually have meaning and how many were created exactly as I indicated above. Just a group of friends drunk or high on a Friday night sitting around throwing out the most outrageous combination of words they can think of to see if it sticks.
Then you have those other bands like I mentioned above where the band name has a much deeper meaning. It might simply allude to some event, or it may be something deeply personal like and inside joke that the members of the band share. I'm sure if you wanted to do a deep dive, you could likely find most anything with a quick Google search. At some point in their career most bands have probably been asked about their name in an interview. Thanks to the Internet, most of that content is available to the masses at any given moment.
You might recall just about a month ago, @mrsbozz and I made a trip to the shores of beautiful Duck Lake in Interlochen Michigan. As I mentioned in that post, there is a institute of the arts right across the street from the campground and in the summer they have various acts there to perform. Due to the Facebook algorithm being what it is, it realized we were in Interlochen, so it started advertising some of the acts that were on the schedule for the 2025 season.
I noticed this band called I'm With Her, and I immediately opened up my Spotify app so I could check them out and see what they were like. Thus, my #threetunetuesday post this week sponsored by @ablaze is all about the band I'm With Her.
From the moment I heard I'm With Her, I was immediately drawing parallels to another band I love named the Indigo Girls. Now, I know that is a bit of a loaded statement. Personally, I don't have a problem with it, but for whatever reason the Indigo Girls have gathered a rather large following over the years from the lesbian population. There are a lot of reasons for why I say that and if you want to know more, feel free to do a quick Google search. Nonetheless, me expressing my love for the Indigo Girls is bound to draw a few chuckles from those who are less refined.
I stand by my statement though and I think "Wild and Clear and Blue" is a perfect example of just how similar to the Indigo Girls I'm With Her is. I think another part of the reason I like this band is because they have some serious folk roots and skills to boot. I'm a bit of a sucker for a fiddle in a song, so throw that in and you usually have me hooked.
Besides the fact that the main singer of I'm With Her has a voice that shares a striking similarity with the one singer in the Indigo Girls, the trio also has a way of layering harmonies that can easily be compared to the Indigo Girls. I'm actually a bit sorry I keep bringing them up but the similarities are just too obvious to ignore. If there was an interview with I'm With Her and they denied that the Indigo Girls was one of their influences I would cry BS from the highest point I could find for all the world to hear.
"Ancient Light" is just another great example of their skills as musicians and their ability to harmonize and blend their voices in an almost magical way.
I'm With Her is actually a lot older than you might imagine. It all started when Sarah Jarosz met Sara Watkins at a festival when she was nine years old. They both grew up listening to Bluegrass music which "Pretty Fair Maid in the Garden" highlights really well. When Jarosz was fifteen, she got noticed by Aoife O'Donovan and eventually they started collaborating at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.
They were writing in Vermont in 2015 when they started using the phrase I'm With Her and thus history was made. I got all this from Wikipedia by the way.
The band has two albums out now and I have to be honest, I am pretty bummed that we are not heading back to Interlochen this Summer to catch them because I would love to see this band live. In 2018 and 2020 they were nominated for three Grammy awards, they won one in 2018 and one in 2020 and also missed out on one in 2020.
If you are a fan of folk music, I highly recommend you check out I'm With Her. Even if you are not, maybe give them a shot because the harmonies alone are nothing short of angelic. If you really dig them, and you have never listened to the Indigo Girls, be sure to check out them as well.
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