Margaret Glaspy – The Golden Heart Protector
Margaret Glaspy is excited to share news of the September 12 release of The Golden Heart Protector.
The project comprises 7 cover songs and collaborations with friends including James Bay, Julian Lang, Madison Cunningham, Andrew Bird, and Alam Khan. Today she shares the lead-single, her take on Wilco’s “Jesus, Etc” which features Norah Jones.
Of today’s song Glaspy shares:
Norah Jones has informed so much of the music I make and to sing a Wilco song with her was a total dream come true.
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy said:
Holy shit! That’s all I’ve ever wanted my whole life—somebody else to sing my songs in a way that allows me to hear them as something new. So beautiful. Made me cry quite a bit.
Glaspy on The Golden Heart Protector:
I made this record out in LA almost by accident. My dear friend Ryan Lerman and I hung out for a weekend in Los Angeles at his studio and I just kept playing songs and wonderful people kept showing up to sing and play them with me. He was the dream producer for a project like this because he just let it all happen. James Bay just happened to be in town from London on the day we were tracking, Madison Cunningham had a day off, Alam Khan is a childhood friend of my husband’s and happened to be in LA; It really was the most organic and wonderful thing. I’m such a lover of a good song and to have the opportunity to sing and celebrate all these well written tunes with all of my dear friends is really enchanting. All of the songwriters that we cover are either friends or heroes of mine and it feels special to pay homage to the legends of our time.
The tracklisting for The Golden Heart Protector is rounded out by also six other cover songs reinterpreted through Glaspy’s singular lens, including tracks from Magnetic Fields, Lucinda Williams, Rufus Wainwright , Blake Mills, Credence Clearwater Revival, and Nico. Each offering a fresh emotional texture while honoring the original’s spirit.
“Jesus, Etc” marks the first bit of music Glaspy has shared since last year’s EP The Sun Doesn’t Think (ATO), which followed her critically acclaimed 2023 album Echo The Diamond which drew attention from the likes of The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, among many others. That LP emerged from a deliberate stripping-away of artifice to reveal life for all its harsh truths and ineffable beauty. Like the precious gem of its title, the result is an object of startling luminosity, one capable of cutting through the most elaborately constructed façades. The albums’ singles “Act Natural,” “Memories,” and “Get Back” saw support from The New York Times, NPR, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Spin, and others. “Act Natural” reached the top 20 at AAA Radio, marking Glaspy’s highest chart position of her career. The album was labeled a “notable release of the week” by both NPR and American Songwriter and Pitchfork included it in their “8 New Albums You Should Listen To” list around release and The New York Times’ Jon Pareles included “Memories” in his in Best Songs of 2023 list noting “Over a waltz of simple guitar chords, Margaret Glaspy blurts out unvarnished grief in a torn voice, bereft yet struggling to go on.”
Originally from the Northern California town of Red Bluff, Glaspy began writing songs at age 15 and quickly developed a style marked by raw sensitivity and razor-sharp insight. She began her solo career with the self-released Homeschool EP in July 2012. After signing to ATO Records in 2015, she released a 7-inch in early 2016 featuring “You and I” and “Somebody to Anybody”—songs that would later appear on her debut full-length Emotions and Math, a bold and bracing album that introduced her as a major new voice in indie rock.
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