In Memphis, music and family are often thought of in the same breath; the through-line of talent crossing generations within the Selvidge, Gales, and Hodges families, among others, is legendary here. But musical families spawning future stars are not exclusive to Memphis by any means, as will be clear enough this Saturday, November 14th at the Bartlett Performing Arts and Conference Center (BPACC), when Hannah Harper takes the stage.
Casual listeners may know her from her big win during the 24th season of American Idol this year, but her story is far deeper and richer than that suggests. In fact, she began writing songs long after performing for years with her parents’ gospel and bluegrass band, The Harper Family, later The Harper Collective, inspired by what she did after leaving that family ensemble: starting a family of her own. As her website puts it, during her musical youth, she “honed her musical talents.” Then, “taking a position as worship leader at a small church in Missouri brought a new chapter in her life — it’s where she met her husband, Devon.”
Nowadays, she somehow juggles all of the above, from being a mother and wife to being an in-demand country star — even while continuing to live in small-town Missouri. To better understand how she manages it, I spoke with her on the phone recently.
Memphis Flyer: You grew up in a small town. Is that where you’re living now?
Hannah Harper: No, but nearby. I like to say that I married into Willow Springs, Missouri. It’s a community closer to where my husband is from.
How do you balance raising kids in a small town and a music career? It must be a challenge.
It definitely is. We are weekend warriors, so the bus leaves out on Thursday, and we usually get home either on Saturday night or Sunday morning, and then that gives us, you know, Monday through Thursday to continue to have a normal life. My kids do an online school, and so we all come home during the week, trying to have a little bit of normalcy. My mom is the nanny. So when I’m on stage, my mom’s the one watching my boys. I know who’s taking care of them, and my husband’s always out on the road with us as well, so the normalcy is something we try to keep consistent for them.
It seems like your kids have plenty of family around.
Yes! I have a crew of 14, and all but two of them are related to me. Both of my brothers are in my band, Dalton and Dillon, and my dad plays banjo and he drives the bus. He’s been a truck driver, and he was our bus driver back in 2009 when we traveled as The Harper Family. So he has lots of experience there. My mom’s the nanny. My uncle Bob, my mom’s brother, plays fiddle, and then my sister-in-law does my hair and makeup. I also have two cousins on the road. One runs sound, the other one runs merch. There’s a lot of family that we’ve chosen from, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that my kids are on the bus with me. It’s kind of hard to bring your kids on the bus with a bunch of people you’re not comfortable with. We kind of have a convoy when we go places.
Family looms large in your songs, and your first single dealt with the demands of motherhood. Have you always written songs?
Not really. After I had my first son when I was 19, I went back to college to become a physical therapist, and I took a class on interpersonal communications that unlocked a part of my brain, like a coping thing. Something about the class trained my brain how to actually put my thoughts onto paper. My first single, “String Cheese,” was probably the third song that I had ever written.
And I’m still very new to the writing world. I’ve probably only been writing music for about two years, but I don’t really know how to write surface-level things. Everything I write, I want it to be deep and personal — because that’s how I learned to write.
