Singer-songwriter SG Goodman’s new, sophomore album ‘Teeth Marks’ will be released June 3rd via Verve Forecast. Goodman co-produced the album with Drew Vandenberg at Chase Park in Athens, GA.
With influences ranging from garage rock to post-punk to Appalachian folk, the Kentucky-raised indie rocker landed onto the music scene in 2020 with her critically acclaimed debut studio album, Old Time Feeling.
Produced by Grammy-nominated solo artist and member of My Morning Jacket, Jim James, Old Time Feeling is a compelling introduction that showcases her distinctive vocals, powerful songwriting and staunch commitment to her native stomping grounds of rural western Kentucky.
The latest single from the album “All My Love Is Coming Back to Me” on her forthcoming album is an optimistic reorientation from previous framings of trauma, heartbreak, and loss.
Watch “All My Love Is Coming Back to Me” by SG Goodman.
A self-described slow worker, Goodman has always liked to take her time songwriting — and sometimes, that means that a song takes months or even years to finish. She told theAmerican Songwriter, there’s no need to hurry a song into its finished form; in her career as a songwriter, she’s found that a good lyric or melody will usually stick around, while the ones that float away probably weren’t worth pursuing.
“Trust it left for a reason,” she encourages other songwriters, if portions of their songs fade away over time. “Some of my songs started years before they came to fruition. A good song will go about its business.”
“When I first heard her, I was spellbound,” James, who discovered S.G after she was introduced by a mutual friend, said. “It was amazing working with someone whose main goal was for me to be myself,” he said.
S.G. Goodman was raised in Western Kentucky with a family of row crop farmers on the Mississippi River Delt and went from singing in church three times a week to becoming a prominent member of the Murray, KY Punk DIY scene.
And even as Goodman emphatically embraces the place from which she is from, she also confronts some of the more painful, hidden elements of life in small towns and rural communities, many of which are governed by good old boys who exploit their neighbors for profit.
She explored the plight of the rural working class is a subject which she explores on her intense debut song and its accompanying video, “The Way I Talk.”
Watch “The Way I Talk” by SG Goodman.
“The song is inspired by the plight of the farming community in Kentucky where I grew up, where big business and the laws that protect them have vast control over my community, “ she said.
Goodman is an active, vocal progressive leader in Kentucky politics. In 2020, she and Jim James encouraged voter registration among their fanbase with an online festival allied, “Which Side Are You On: Voices for Kentucky and Beyond.”
The festival featured performances from Goodman and James as well as Jason Isbell, Bright Eyes, Phoebe Bridgers, Nappy Roots, Chris Thile, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Durand Jones, Leyla McCalla, James Lindsey and many more.
In 2019, she canvassed for Gov. Andy Beshear.
“Andy Beshear, who I would say is not my kind of Democrat — and I canvassed for him,” Goodman reflects. “I’m very glad I was here, because I believe him being in office has saved a lot of lives [during the COVID-19 pandemic]. Someone could argue that, ‘Well, there’s such a conservative agenda in Kentucky, so if your vote really making a difference?’ In that case, it did.”
As a gay woman from rural Kentucky, S.G. has the unique perspective of feeling like “the insider who is also the outsider“.
“It is a scary thing calling into question the very thing that put food on my family’s table and is putting food on my family’s table,” Goodman told the Fader, which premiered the song. “Isn’t that the case for every person working a factory line who is afraid to unionize? Of a fast-food employee afraid to take sick leave to care for her kid? We are all expected to be thankful, not question, and shut our mouths.”
“Old Time Feeling” debunks rural stereotypes, while exploring mental health and living with OCD, as well as her sexuality and the notion that you can still love your family and community even though you might disagree with them.
“I think she could play an important role in the healing we need to see happen right now.” James said in 2020. “She’s living proof that we can be whoever we want to be, no matter where we come from.”
