A lot can happen in five years, and for the husband-and-wife duo Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion, the time between Exploration, their first album together in 2005, and Bright Examples (Ninth Street Opus Records, Feb. 22, 2011), their new, full-length collaborative project featuring producers Andy Cabic(lead singer/songwriter in the band Vetiver) andThom Monahan (Devendra Banhart, Vetiver), has been one nonstop whirlwind of activity. Not only has the couple toured extensively both as a duo and as part of the "Guthrie Family Rides Again" tour (with Sarah Lee's dad, Arlo Guthrie), they've also released the children's album Go Waggaloo (Smithsonian Folkways), a live DVD entitled Folk Song, a solo album by Johnny (Ex Tempore), parented their two young daughters and moved from South Carolina to the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, near where Sarah Lee was raised.
"We've been working really hard," confirms Guthrie. "We even built a house. We felt very creative in South Carolina but we're in a totally different space now. We had started another album together before we moved but it just wasn't right. This one is."
They first met briefly in Raleigh, N.C., then, via a mutual friend, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, they ran into each other again in Southern California, where both Irion and Guthrie had gone to live. Johnny had gone to L.A. to join a band called Freight Train after his stint with Dillon Fence, a band who toured with the Crowes, and Sarah Lee was working in a record shop. Irion had also previously spent several years as an influential member of the nationally known act Queen Sarah Saturday. Upon Sarah Lee moving to California, a series of events led to her becoming first her father's tour manager and then discovering her own latent musical talents. During a conversation one time, Irion recalls, they realized that despite an earlier shared interest in punk rock, they were now both drawn to the music of the late country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons and his band the Flying Burrito Brothers. Johnny taught Sarah Lee a few chords and one thing soon led to another.
"Sarah Lee and I tried to do a Gram song and we did it pretty good," Irion says. "Then we decided to get married, which brought us to the South. Then there was a year of doing solo stuff and we did a show together, just kind of an impromptu thing, and it went really well. We decided to take it on the road. Then we had a baby and..."
But now, their focus is squarely on Bright Examples and beyond. "We're not going to wait another five years for the next record," says Guthrie. "We're on a roll now. We can't wait to get back in the studio."

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