'What else could she have done?' Kaitlin Butts returns to Oklahoma's Gypsy Café with new album
Glowing under a blood-red moon and a crimson neon diner sign, the classic Ford Thunderbird convertible parked on the cover of Kaitlin Butts' long-awaited new album comes loaded with subtle cinematic clues.
"I like to tie 'Thelma & Louise' into some of the things that I do ... because it's one of my favorite movies," Butts said.
"Towards the end T— spoiler alert — they go off the side of the cliffs in their car, and even with Thelma and Louise, you could ask 'What else could she have done?' They really didn't have any other choice within the time that they were in.
"So, I wanted to slide that in there just for my own good. With these songs ... I feel like I see myself in all of them."
Pointedly titled "What Else Can She Do," the Tulsa native's long-awaited sophomore album speeds onto the country music scene April 15, and she will be traveling back to her home state for performances later this month.
"I feel like I'm in between Christmas and New Year's. I'm in that weird ... zone where I don't really know what to do with myself, because I've done the work ... but I'm so pumped," Butts said by phone from her Nashville, Tennessee, home a few days before the album's release.
Oklahoma native tells women's stories on new album
"What Else Can She Do" isn't a long album, but it's an eventful trip through bumpy stories about women who are angry, scared or struggling.
"It's only seven songs, but I wrote five of them in a very specific time frame, where my life was just kind of in shambles. Everything was chaotic, and I just felt terrible, honestly. So, I had this frame of songs that I that I wanted to release as a project, and I didn't want to disrupt it. ... I could have put 'How Lucky Am I' or 'Marfa Lights' on this album, but it really didn't tell the story that I wanted to," Butts said, referencing a pair of her perkier recent standalone singles.
"Then in 2020, I wrote 'What Else Can She Do,' and I realized, as that was done, each of these songs really does ask that question. ... A lot of them have to do with leaving a not-so-great situation, where these women are left with these choices due to their circumstances. Sometimes they make good decisions, sometimes they don't ... but most of the time, it's hard to blame them."
With her signature twang and old-school country sound, Butts' sophomore collection winds through a bleak yet colorful sonic landscape that's well-matched by Pecos McCool's striking cover art.
"Some of these are autobiographical ... but with others, it was stories of people that were around me. I think certain subjects are kind of hush-hush. ... Like 'She's Using' or even 'Blood,' it's things we haven't talked about," Butts said.
"I think all we want to be is seen, and I really, through these songs, want people to know that they're not alone if they've felt these situations."
Tulsan finding her way on Nashville's music scene
A 2011 Tulsa Union High School graduate, Butts went to college at the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma in Bricktown. In 2019, she relocated to Nashville to advance her music career, but she moved back to her mom's house in Ardmore when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020.
"In February of 2021, we moved back here, and after 48 hours of living here in Nashville, I recorded this project and also put out a single, 'How Lucky Am I.' So, I had a busy first week coming here, but it felt very Nashville of me to do all that just right off the bat," Butts said.
She recorded her sophomore album at Nashville’s Sound Emporium Studios, penning the lead single, "Blood," with Angaleena Presley of the hitmaking trio Pistol Annies.
"I was just terrified going into her house and sitting down on her couch, just trying to sound smart. But she made me feel so comfortable and right at home. We right off the bat started talking about our family dynamics, or as my therapist likes to call it, generational trauma," Butts said. "I really opened up to her ... and we came to the conclusion that sometimes we dismiss certain behaviors from our family members that we would not accept from our friends."
Singer-songwriter settles down with fellow musician Cleto Cordero
Although the songs from "What Else Can She Do" came out of a grim time for Butts, her life is now much more like her lovestruck ballad "How Lucky Am I." She wed Cleto Cordero, frontman of the country band Flatland Cavalry, in October 2020 in a cowgirl chic ceremony at the Junk Gypsy‘s Wander Inn in Round Top, Texas.
The couple actually met making music: Cordero heard Butts' song "Gal Like Me" on a Texas radio station and invited her to sing with him on the Flatland Cavalry ballad “A Life Where We Work Out.” So far, the musicians' married life is working out.
"Our life has always been long distance, going off on our own path and then joining up occasionally or even just crossing paths on the road. It's really nice when we collaborate sometimes, but it's also good that we both have our own direction, too," Butts said. "
"It's definitely wild, but we're just used to it. It probably looks chaotic and abnormal, but it feels normal to us. We do enjoy writing with each other occasionally. But whenever we're home, I like to say we also have 'normal person days' ... and go to Ikea or something like that."
Growing musician returning to home state for Gypsy Cafe
"What Else Can She Do" is debuting seven years after Butts' first album, 2015's "Same Hell, Different Devil."
"All those songs I wrote when I was 18 years old — 18 to 20 — and I'm 28 now, about to turn 29," she said. "I think everything has just completely changed and grown."
After an Oklahoma City stop April 21 at the new Beer City Music Hall, where she will open for Ian Munsick, Butts will make a fitting return to Stillwater April 27 for the Bob Childers’ Gypsy Café, which will come back as an in-person event after going virtual the past two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Billed as Oklahoma’s largest homegrown songwriter festival, the event raises money for the nonprofit Red Dirt Relief Fund.
"We consider her a friend of the festival and a friend of Red Dirt Relief Fund. I first met her when she was maybe 19 or 20. She was still a student at ACM@UCO the first time she came to play Gypsy Café. She just walked in ... with her guitar and sat down right next to Rick Reiley and started playing her music. She was fearless," recalled Red Dirt Relief Fund Executive Director Katie Dale.
"It's really awesome that she continues to make this festival a priority and continues to say yes. I hope she will forever because, aside from being so talented, she is just a blast."
With an open invitation like that, "What Else Can She Do" but trek back to her home state and the Gypsy Café.
"My first Gypsy Café, I didn't even realize what I was walking up to. ... I'm trying to observe and just kind of get to know everyone that's sitting in that circle, and they welcomed me with open arms. That one night that I was there, I met Mike McClure back at the hotel lobby where everyone was swapping songs. ... A couple days later, he was posting on Facebook about having some studio time, and I hit him up about that. And we made 'Same Hell, Different Devil.' From there, I was sending things to Texas radio, and that's how I met my husband," Butts said.
"I really do trace everything that has ever happened to the Gypsy Café. ... I just love all the people out there, and it's just really cool to come back and, hopefully, show them that I've gotten better."
KAITLIN BUTTS IN CONCERT
Opening for Ian Munsick
When: 8 p.m. April 21.
Where: Beer City Music Hall, 1141 NW 2.
Information and tickets: https://beercitymusichall.com.
Bob Childers’ Gypsy Café
When: 4 p.m. April 27.
Where: Grand Casino Stage at Eskimo Joe’s, 501 W. Elm St.; Oklahoma Film + Music Office Stage at Newbar, 115 S. Knoblock St.; and George’s Stables, 502 W. Elm St., Stillwater.
Information and tickets: https://www.reddirtrelieffund.org/gypsycafe.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Country singer Kaitlin Butts returns to Gypsy Café and a new album
