The eyes of Margo Price will be firmly fixed on the audience assembled at the second annual Evanston Folk Festival this weekend, as the Illinois native certainly expects to see some family and friends in the crowd as she headlines the last day of the two-day event.
“I have so many cousins and people [I know] that still live back home, and I’m always happy when I can get in touch with them. We’ll see who shows up,” Price said with a laugh in a recent interview with the Sun-Times. “You just never know.”
“You just never know” could also be the philosophy that has guided both the personal and professional journey of the girl from the tiny town of Aledo in western Illinois — from her college days at Northern Illinois University to her time in Nashville — all in the hopes of making her musical dreams come true.
But while it is in Nashville that Price has written her songs and won her awards, her heart remains firmly planted in the state she will always consider as home.
“I love Illinois,” said Price, who hit it big in 2016 with her debut album “Midwest Farmer’s Daughter.” “The Midwest will always be my home. It was such a big piece of who I am, and I feel like I meet Midwesterners all around the world and in every city and every state. [They are] some of the hardest working, best people on the face of the earth.”
It’s this sort of work ethic that Price continues to demonstrate as one of country music’s most powerful players. The 42-year-old creative phenom who received a Grammy nomination back in 2019 for “Best New Artist” recently released her fifth studio album, “Hard Headed Woman,” a rambunctious pillow fight between 12 tracks that may seem playful at first but ultimately deliver listeners some of her most powerful views on the chaotic world around us.
“The subject matter in the lyrics [has] a serious tone at times, but I do want everything to still feel fun and funky,” Price said, pointing to the juxtaposition of songs on “Hard Headed Woman” such as “I Just Don’t Give a Damn” and “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down.” “You’ve got to at least keep positive because you never know when everything’s going to change and even be worse.”
She’s thrilled to bring a fresh album of songs to share at the Evanston Folk Festival.
“I know people want to hear things that they’re already familiar with, but I’ve just been too excited about the new stuff,” said Price, who collaborated with Tyler Childers on the agonizingly truthful “Love Me Like You Used to Do.” “Even last year, when we were opening up for Tedeschi Trucks Band, I was playing some of these new songs. But now, they’re all pretty much worked into the set list.”
And if Price gets her way, she will soon work a trip to Aledo into her crowded schedule. “Christmas was the last time I was back,” recalled Price, who will spend the majority of the fall on her Wild At Heart Tour. “We had a big party for my mom’s 70th [birthday], and I was bartending in one of the small bars near my hometown, and it was a great time. I don’t get to do it nearly enough.”
That’s why her performance at the Evanston Folk Festival will be extra special.
“There is just something about coming together and making music, and as a music fan myself, there is just something about getting to see live music,” she concludes. “I feel like it’s a release to play and it feels that way for fans too. It is one of the last things that we have to hold onto.”
The switch from analog ways of listening to music, from records and tapes to CDs, to digital has made the experience “very impersonal,” Price said, highlighting the significance of seeing a show live.
“Everything is just floating out there in the ether in some sort of way. And so, I think the live show feels like something that has been able to outlast it all. It can still be a form of community and [bring] people together.”