JOHN COFFELTEditor

Album, ‘Jubilee,’ debuts #1 on Billboard’s top bluegrass album chart

Manchester singer/songwriter Becky Buller’s new album “Jubilee” has earned the top spot on Billboard’s top bluegrass album chart for the week of June 1.

“Jubilee,” the Dark Shadow Recording album that released May 17 is a deeply personal work that details Buller’s lifelong struggles with depression and anxiety. An album hitting number one on a Billboard chart is a career first for Buller and also for her label.

“I and my entire team, including the band are just gobsmacked because it’s a big deal to get on a Billboard chart at all, let alone to debut on the chart at number one,” Buller said.

The album is a departure from Buller’s usual work. It’s a song cycle, a concept album, that is meant to be listened to in sequence in its entirety.

The origins of the album are equally significant; the work was commissioned by famed FreshGrass Foundation to debut at the 2023 Bentonville (Arkansas) Festival.

“We all liked it so much that we decided to record it,” Buller said.

She reached out to FreshGrass for permission to record the songs that the foundation technically owned. The foundation agreed and gave Buller studio time at their studio in North Adams, Massachusetts, facility in the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.

Over a day and a half, the Becky Buller Band recorded “Jubilee” live.

“We tracked just about all of it,” Buller said. “We just had a few vocal harmonies to record when we got back to Nashville.”

“Jubilee” is more than a journey of self-discovery; it is a way for Buller to reach out to others who face mental health issues and hopes to help dispel the stigma attached to mental illness.

“There are people dying with their struggles with mental health. I want to do what I can to help end the stigma around our conversations dealing with mental health,” she said.

Buller had written the song that was to become the title track with fellow Grammy winner Aoife (pronounced “eeFa”) O’Donovan just before the pandemic.

The two didn’t realize when they wrote the song that describes the longing for physical and spiritual rest how much that message would resonate in the coming months.

“I was definitely longing for that in 2019 when I presented the idea to Aoife, and it resonated with her too. She has a little girl too and we’re both touring mommas. ”

Buller said that her career was at a good place, performing with the First Ladies of Bluegrass at the 2019 Newport Folk Festival, sitting in with Steve Martin and Martin Short on one their comedy tours.

“Just crazy stuff was happening, but in the midst of all of that, I was falling apart,” Buller said.

And then the pandemic hit and exposed the cracks in Buller’s foundation. In that really dark place Buller had the strength to move forward.

“I had always had that typical musician’s mercurial personality. I’d go up and down, but then as I got older the highs got higher but the lows got lower. When the pandemic hit…I couldn’t do what I normally do,” Buller said.

“I lost half of my band, I could sell my new record the way a normally do. It just through me down into a pit,” she said.

Luckily Jeff (Buller’s husband, Jeff Haley) was very kind, compassionate. He took me to get help,” Buller said.

Buller had been seeing a Christian counselor to deal with the stress of leading a band. At her crisis point, that was not enough. She began medication to start the healing process.

Buller was fortunate to find a physician who was also a musician and would understand how medication could affect Buller’s ability to play.

The doctor told her that if any of the medication impedes her dexterity and she couldn’t play to return and he would prescribe something else.

After some trial and error, they hit on a combination of meds that worked. Shortly thereafter, Buller appeared on the Grand ole Opry, a huge step in the healing process.

In the video related to that appearance, Buller said “you all don’t know what all I went through to be here. Now, with the release of “Jubilee” Buller shares what that statement meant.

At first it was hard for Buller to talk about the content of the album because it is so very personal. As time has passed, Buller found that the discomfort she felt at sharing the intimacies of her darkest days, has turned to joy.

“To have so many people come up to me and say, ‘I’m living that right now. Would you pray with me?’ ” Buller said.

“As soon as a got to feeling better I immediately said I want to do something to help people because I get it now. I’m just grateful that this music was given to me,” she said.

“I just want to help people not feel ashamed to talk about this. We have no idea how many people around us are struggling and are quiet because they don’t want to be looked down upon. But when we talk about it – it helps. It helps to know that someone else is going through it and is on the same wavelength. I want folks to know that they should not be ashamed to seek medical help.”

Buller compared mental illness to heart disease.

“If you’re experiencing heart issues, you don’t tell yourself to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, have faith and it’s going to get better. You go to a cardiologists. This really isn’t any different,” Buller said.

“Jubilee,” produced by Stephen Mougin and engineered by Dave Sinko is available at the Manchester First Baptist Church Bookstore, Baker Brothers Pharmacy and at beckybuller.com.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.