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After each energized performance, Abi Tapia always hears the same question: “What does your guitar strap say?” The answer is a word that describes not only her music, but also a big part of her personality: “Wanderlusty.”
Abi Tapia happily calls Austin home, but to say she’s simply a Texas songwriter wouldn’t give the whole story. The daughter of musicians, Abi was born in Alabama and lived until she was fifteen in various towns around the Southeast and Texas. She has since lived in the Midwest (where she was a Sociology major at Grinnell College) and New England (where she began her professional music career). Characteristics of all of these regions inspire Abi’s songwriting: The inviting warmth of the South, the expansiveness of the Midwestern Plains, and the pluck and determination of a New England Yankee are all mixed up with a nomadic restlessness.
Everybody knows the stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas, and the celestial has always been proudly represented in Lone Star culture, be it bands (Explosions in the Sky), sports (Houston Astros) or the state nickname itself. Amy Cook also sees something unique up there, but the alt-folk singer-songwriter isn’t content simply marveling at the enormity of what lies beyond earth. On The Sky Observer’s Guide—written in a prolific four-week gush—she tells simple, bittersweet, earthbound stories, refracted through the panoramic scope of the heavens. Things like this happen when you leave the industrial clamor of L.A. for a humble, weirdly-named West Texas town like Marfa.
