Jolie Holland has a unique vision that pushes the boundaries of Americana. It draws on what Greil Marcus called “the old weird America,” a strange land filled with ghosts that continues to haunt the present. Her songwriting is literary, influenced by poets like WB Yeats, and it’s married to a distinctive sound that includes elements of jazz and the avant-garde. 

All of these things that make her such a special artist were on full display in her recent performance at Jammin’ Java.

While she’s a native Texan — a heritage she infuses into her songs — Holland has also been a traveler. Briefly, she was a member of the Canadian roots trio the Be Good Tanyas, though she left quite early to launch her solo career. She remains close with another member of the group, Samantha Parton. At Jammin’ Java on Sept. 17, Jolie played one of the songs they wrote together, “Little Birds,” which expands on lyrics from Syd Barret. She also played a song she wrote for Samantha. 

Watch Jolie Holland play “Little Birds” live for Wolfgang’s Vault on YouTube:

Jolie has since lived in San Francisco, New Orleans, and now Los Angeles. There, she told the audience, she has an enormous black widow spider who, despite all efforts to evict it, continues to live on her porch. It’s a bit worrisome, as the spider lurks just above the dog door; one of her “trippy” friends, Jolie said, insists that the dog and the spider have come to an “agreement.”

For this show, Holland play with one accompanist, who variously played synths and autoharp. I’m not normally a fan of synths, but Jolie’s tasteful companions make the instrument enjoyable for me. We got some interesting discussion of the instruments: a discussion of the unusual tuning of the autoharp proved a bit difficult for me to completely follow, as I lack the technical background to understand all the vocabulary that was used. The upshot was that the instrument is tuned to make it more complicated to play.

Holland and her accompanist also talked about the almanac they had for sale, and how it can be used to synch up an instrument — such as the synthesizer — with the sun. We got a demonstration of how, throughout the day, the tone might change as the sun rises, then falls, then rises again.

The movements of celestial bodies also came up in relation to one of the songs, which was about when you’re falling in love with someone, and you want to talk to them about how cute the moon is, but you’re unsure if that’s too heavy a topic. She dedicated that one to the moon, because there was a partial eclipse that night.

Last year, Holland released the album Haunted Mountain, which takes its name from the track of the same name. She wrote it with Big Thief’s Buck Meek, though “my publisher would tell you I wrote 87.5% of it.” Buck also recorded the track, and he also named his latest album Haunted Mountain. The two thought it would be hilarious to do that. (On hearing this story, I recalled how recently, on the Outlaw tour, John Mellencamp covered Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower,” only for Dylan himself to open with the same song later in the evening.)

Stream Haunted Mountain by Jolie Holland on Spotify:

Jolie opened with a couple songs from the new album, starting with “Highway 72.” She then moved on to play songs, as she had promised, from all over her catalog, “with “On and On” and “First Sign of Spring.” The later part of the set included “Sascha” and “Mexico City.” She closed by taking a request from earlier in the evening, “Goodbye, California.”

Throughout the set, Holland wore a mask, as she recently was sick. It’s definitely going around: I’m hearing about a lot of people getting colds early this season, and I recently came down with my first chest cold in more than five years. Fortunately, the mask didn’t interfere with her singing, and her distinctive twang was clear and beautiful, as were her songs. A real highlight of the show was the stories and the interaction with the crowd; at one point, she talked about Link Wray, the Native American guitarist who invented distortion by puncturing a speaker and playing power chords through it. The songs themselves were brilliant and unique; Holland is a singular talent who stands out as a true original.