Songwriter Maya de Vitry Still Loves To Jam

Maya de Vitry has a great relationship with her mom.

The singer/songwriter who performs Mother’s Day (Sunday) on Mountain Stage at the Culture Center theater, said, “I’m lucky that she’s still here.”

De Vitry called her mother a hero and an undeniable influence.

“I’m the oldest of four kids,” she said. “She was, like, such a force growing up. She was a hands-on parent with taking us to music lessons and all of that. She was like the shuttle bus driver.”

Parents do that kind of monotonous chore every day, but de Vitry’s mom filled the drive time with music, but she wasn’t much of a radio listener.

“She loved Iris DeMent and Gillian Welch,” de Vitry said. “So, she played a lot of CDs by songwriters who really influenced me. I can remember riding around and listening to those vividly.”

If her mom had been more interested in 80s pop or 90s grunge rock, de Vitry might’ve gone in a different direction, but her parents loved bluegrass, folk and old-time. So, de Vitry did, too.  

“There was always a lot of acoustic music happening in our lives,” she said. “They loved music and they loved to play music.”

Growing up in Pennsylvania, de Vitry remembered friends coming over to pick out bluegrass tunes on guitars and banjos. Sometimes, they went outside and played old country songs around the campfire with friends.

“It all felt very connected to life. It was inseparable to me,” de Vitry said. “Who knows what might have happened.”

She laughed and said, “Gosh, what if they’d really been into tennis?”

Now, based out of Nashville, de Vitry is pretty happy with how things have worked out. Music is more than an occupation. It’s a great love of her life.

Not every musician can say the same.

Touring musicians and recording artists often begin the same way. They love music to begin with and then fall in love with playing. They get good at it. Success leads to an occupation, but performance is work. After a while, professional musicians may only play when they’re in front of an audience or while they’re working on a new record.

At home, away from the crowd, some of them will hardly touch their instruments or even sing.

De Vitry said she saw that in her own career. About a year ago, she came to the realization that she wasn’t really playing just for fun anymore.

She said it made her sad.

“I don’t want to have to travel 1000 miles to some festival just to play during the special late-night jam that you get to play with other musicians,” she said. “That’s great. I want to do all that stuff as part of my life, but if I lose that part where I sit at home playing just for myself or with friends, then I’ve kind of lost the whole thing for me.

So, she and her boyfriend, Ethan, decided to do something about it.

“My boyfriend is also a musician,” she said. “Toward the end of last summer, he and I decided we were going to start hosting ‘Gospel Hour” at our place.”

“Gospel Hour” was what de Vitry’s dad called the family’s Sunday jam sessions with friends.

“So, we decided to just invite people over for supper on Sunday and then just play together in our living room,” she said. “People could go around the circle, share songs, leave a tune or just jam.”

Their friends include other touring musicians like Phoebe Hunt and Lindsay Lou.

“And then we started passing it around to different houses,” she said.

It was a good time and reminded de Vitry of when she first moved to Nashville 10 years ago.

“That was something that happened a whole lot,” de Vitry said. “You know, there was a lot of playing for fun and jamming and playing outside, having fires and stuff like that, but then as everybody buckled down and was so focused on touring and recording, some of those jams dried up –at least, in the circles I was part of.”

With touring and travel, the singer said she can’t always make the jams she helped to start, but that’s OK. Others can also host the sessions, and she joins in whenever she can.

It might be difficult to get to those jams regularly over the coming months. She has a busy summer ahead. There are festivals and shows planned out west, plus a little adventure.

“I get to go on a rafting trip in Utah,” de Vitry said.

It’s part of a four-day excursion that also includes other musicians.

“We ride in the raft and then play around the campfire at night,” she said. “It’s very unplugged, acoustic entertainment, totally off the grid.”

Floating down the river by day and playing at night, de Vitry could hardly wait.

WANT TO GO?

“Mountain Stage” with Medium Build, Susan Werner, The Arcadian Wild, Maya de Vitry and Them Coolee Boys

WHEN: 7 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: Culture Center Theater

TICKETS: Starting at $25

INFO: mountainstage.org