William Elliott Whitmore: Home in America, Where Nothing’s From | Feature Interview

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Talking to folk/country singer William Elliott Whitmore, there's a moment of cultural dissonance when some of his ideas blend with what most jumps out about him. 

Any press release or short concert review would point out Whitmore's gravel grinding voice, his minimalistic strum of the guitar or banjo, his love of his rural family farm in Lee County, Iowa. 

Here is an Americana singer/songwriter who sounds like he was made of the plains' driest dust and most entrenched rural sensibilities, but Whitmore is not such an essentialist. For one, in interviews he's no stranger to pointing out that the "heartland" he holds so dear — both personally and in his work, as in his most recent album Field Songs — was built on a national genocide and the theft of land from Native Americans. In talking about art for art's sake, he points not to Woody Guthrie or the pioneers, but to ancient cave painters. 

When asked about his prized instrument the banjo, which was passed down from his grandfathers, he says he's fond of its American-ness as a sort of construction, not as some sort of mythical symbol. 

It's from Africa, he says, just like the whole of humanity. Like most things the majority of Americans consider to be American, that only happens via adoption and appropriation. 

Whitmore will perform Saturday at The Waiting Room with Austin Lucas, the last stop on his current tour, so he says they plan to "whoop it up." RSVP here

Listen to our full interview with William Elliott Whitmore here: 

Chance Solem-Pfeifer is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. Reach him at chancesp@hearnebraska.org