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World Cafe Nashville: Birdtalker

The members of Birdtalker project balance and warmth in a way that only true friends can.
Gavin Nutt
/
Courtesy of the artist
The members of Birdtalker project balance and warmth in a way that only true friends can.

Birdtalker's music arises at the point where intimate exchange connects with community. Zack and Dani Green were a newly married couple when, one afternoon, the guitarist and singer asked his spouse for input on a song he was writing. Within hours, they realized that Dani's background as a student of literature and inherent talent as a harmonizer brought Zack's music to another level. Soon, the Greens reached out to several close friends who'd attended Nashville's Lipscomb University with Zack and a band was born.

There's a beautiful reflectiveness within Birdtalker's song that comes from Zack Green's soul-searching and Dani Green's skill with story and metaphor. And the band project balance and warmth in a way that only true friends can. Birdtalker found extraordinary success before ever embarking on a national tour — its song "Heavy," featured on the recently released debut album ONE, has 24 million streams on Spotify. Now a full-time endeavor for the Greens, Birdtalker is winning fans and selling out clubs across the country. Birdtalker joined me for a conversation about faith, doubt, love and listening at Sound Stage Studios in Nashville. Hear it in the player.

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Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.