Natalie Schlabs

Natalie Schlabs hails from one of the windiest places in North America, a land where the perpetual bluster gives a sense of impermanence to all things. “There’s a toughness that’s innate to the Texas Panhandle,” she explains. “It’s normal to work your butt off and not ask for help from anyone. There’s a steadiness that I’m comforted by. Four generations of men on my dad’s side have farmed in Hereford, Texas. You have to be real tough and real patient to do that in the kind of climate we have.”

You can hear that same steadfast quality in Natalie’s songs. When she takes up her guitar and sings, the atmosphere grows heavier, thicker, fogged with echoes of other times. Her haunting melodies bring to mind a whispering wind across the moonlit plains. Heartfelt and melancholic—but shot through with a buoyant desire—these songs are like a rain shower after a drought. Music runs deep in Natalie’s kin. Her mother sings, and her brothers have played from an early age; she grew up singing alongside them. But her biggest influence was her grandfather, a singer, stunt pilot, crop duster, and sometimes-actor known for his sly sense of humor. Listening to the scratchy recordings that remain of her grandfather’s Western songs, one hears echoes of Natalie’s lonesome sound.