The Maybe Sometimes have assembled a stellar new album with rich harmonies, superb string work, and authentic woody themes that take you on a trip down recollection roads to the place you want to be.
- Kyle Coroneos, Saving Country Music

The Maybe Sometimes album review
Kyle Coroneos
Saving Country Music

​On a whim, with a 30 day turnaround, and on a budget that could be scrounged in between the couch cushions, Ashland’s newest band, The Maybe Sometimes, have assembled a stellar new album with rich harmonies, superb string work, and authentic woody themes that take you on a trip down recollection roads to the place you want to be.
 
The band is a collaboration between Ashland music’s first couple: Sage Meadows and Dave Hampton (The New Autonomous Folksingers), Jeremy Hickman (Stoney Point, Craig Wright’s Horsefeathers), and SOU Grad and Ashland’s best unknown songwriter, Bekkah McAlvage. Every member of the Maybe Sometimes has a big enough bag of tricks to build their own band around, and just the idea of a collaboration of these talents is enough to make your music pants go crazy. Sage Meadows and Bekkah McAlvage harmonize like they are joined at the hip and ate the same breakfast, Jeremy Hickman’s can pick the guitar quicker than a chicken can do the pick dance on top of a hot tin roof, and Dave Hampton work on the signature washtub bass is smooth and solid. Hampton was also responsible for the twisting and tweaking during the recording of the album, and by just giving it a listen, you would never imagine it was recorded in a living room. The sound is crisp, authentic, clean, but still loyal to the live aspects of the Maybe Sometimes’ sound, and the production is intelligent, allowing every note, every tone to come across unabated so it can reach its full potential and convey its full impact.
 
This album is full of songs that you will feed your ears but never get full of, like Vitamin D, High Country, and Sarah. It is also full of those moments that steal your heart, like the harmonic dance that Sage and Bekkah do on Train Song, and the chicken pickin’ roller coaster ride Jeremy takes you on with ‘John Hardy.’ At the end of the album, I noticed myself yearning for more of Sage Meadows magnanimous vocals or Jeremy Hickman’s guitar work. But all great works leave you yearning, and possibly the greatest feat of this album was to pack all of this musical talent in, without any hint of any elbows being bumped. And moreover, I came to the conclusion that in many aspects, this is a band and an album that has the Bekkah McAlvage stamp on it, highlighting her strengths and her songs, and this is not a bad thing at all, and it is about time.
 
So just in case you are wondering, yes, I am drinking the Maybe Sometime’s Kool-Aid.
 
Yum yum.

The Maybe Sometimes strum for fun
 By Teresa Thomas
The Mail Tribune

Ukulele, guitar and original lyrics comprise the majority of The Maybe Sometimes’ set list.
The Ashland duo includes Bekkah McAlvage, 29, and Sage Meadows, 32. Both women sing, play the guitar and the ukulele and do harmonies on every song.
Their music incorporates sounds of Americana, folk and country, “and 90 percent of the music we do is original music,” Meadows said.
The women will perform on four occasions this week: at 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 12, at Avalon Bar and Grill, 105 W. Valley View Road, Talent; at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 13, at Downtowne Coffeehouse, 200 Talent Ave., Talent; at 7p.m. Monday, Dec. 14, at Liquid Assets, 96 N. Main St., Ashland; and at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 16, at Wild Goose Café, 2365 Highway 66, Ashland.
Meadows and McAlvage met through a mutual friend in 1997 when they were both students at Southern Oregon University. Meadows majored in music, and McAlvage in art. About four years later, McAlvage approached Meadows with some songs she had written.
“She always wrote poetry and then she wrote songs, and they were really good,” Meadows said.
“I said, ‘I guess we better teach you guitar.’”
The duo began performing regularly three years ago. They can often be heard at Evo’s Coffee Lounge, Downtowne Coffee, Liquid Assets, festivals and benefit events.
“It turns out we sounded really good together, and we kept playing together,” Meadows said.
Besides performing, both women teach music, Meadows is a mom and McAlvage also works for Kids Unlimited and the U.S. Forest Service.
“It’s more than a hobby, but it’s hard to make it our one and only profession, but we would love that,” Meadows said.
Both women share a knack for writing music and lyrics and each has written about 50 songs. Some of their most faithfully played songs include: “Bellingham Boys,” “Settle Down” and “Sarah.”
Last year, the duo released their first album, The Maybe Sometimes, comprising 17 of their newest songs. The CD also featured lead guitarist Jeremy Hickman and “Washtub” David Hampton.
The Maybe Sometimes are already compiling songs for a new album to be released before next spring, which will feature only the duo, their ukuleles, their guitars and their voices.
“We find that playing in a duo is more versatile and makes it more simple — clean and intentional,” McAlvage said.
The pair take turns playing ukulele and guitar in order to keep the music fresh.
“The ukulele is easy to transfer your knowledge from the guitar, and I really liked the sound,” McAlvage said. “I feel like it added some texture to our sound.”
Although the duo will stay based in Southern Oregon, they will tour through Eugene and Portland in March.
The women also share a mutual respect for American roots musicians such as Lefty Frizzell and Emmylou Harris, as well as contemporary artist, Jolie Holland.
“We both had very similar tastes in music,” Meadows said. “It was really easy to mesh our styles together.