The Wildflowers embrace their musical sisterhood.

Members Kandy Fredrick, Shannon Lee, and Hilary Finchum-Sung don’t hesitate to acknowledge it either.

“We have a strong bond, and we enjoy each other’s company,” said Fredrick about her bandmates in the country trio from Washtenaw County.

Fredrick instantly clicked with Lee and Finchum-Sung last year when they performed together during a songwriters in the round show at Ann Arbor’s Moon Winks Cafe.

“We’ve only been together a year,” Lee said. “We had so much fun at that show that we decided to keep doing it and gave ourselves a name.”

They named themselves The Wildflowers after the “Wildflowers” song from the album Trio, which features Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris.

“People love the harmonies, and that’s a draw,” said Finchum-Sung, who also performs with Lee in J. Michael & The Heavy Burden. “It’s a special thing to have this group.”

I recently spoke with The Wildflowers ahead of an April 3 show at Ann Arbor’s Crazy Wisdom Bookstore.

Q: How have The Wildflowers evolved over the past year?

Kandy Fredrick (KF): We have a lot of shows, and we’re doing them about once a month.

Hilary Finchum-Sung (HFS): For our first show, the goal was to play some songs together, but the rest of it was just us playing our individual songs. We started playing along with each other’s songs, and then we said, “Let’s do this again.” Then, we got our first gig and said, “We have to do this!”

Q: You perform locally around Washtenaw County a lot. What are your live shows like?

Shannon Lee (SL): In a way, our sets are harder to come up with because we have so much music. At Ypsi Alehouse, we’ve been doing the same set that we did not too long ago at Water Tower [Distilling Co.], but we have a different crowd. Plus, we’re really gelling with this particular set of songs. It’s nice to keep that going, but for North Star [Lounge], we pare it down and choose our favorite ones.

KF: We ask each other, “Which [songs] do you really want to do?” And then, we line them up accordingly, as we alternate and take turns leading.

Q: Shannon, you’ve recently started playing mandolin for The Wildflowers. Why did you pick it up?

SL: As we were playing, at first I was thinking of picking up bass because Kandy plays guitar, I play guitar, and Hilary sometimes plays guitar—she mostly plays fiddle. But I wanted to do something different in this trio, so I borrowed a bass for a little while. It’s harder than it looks, and then I remembered, “I have this mandolin.”

It was given to me by a friend years ago, and it was something I’ve always wanted to learn. I already knew some old fiddle stuff that I had learned; it just came to me so easily. I just picked it up for this band, and I’m still very much a beginner mandolin player. I’ve been playing for less than a year.

Q: What do you want people to take away from The Wildflowers’ music?

HFS: We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. We really appreciate people who come out and enjoy our music. Because for me, and all of us, too, there’s something special about playing music and having people come to hear a song you’ve written. We want them to enjoy it and relate to it, but also to be out and enjoy the moment. We’re happy to provide that soundscape for somebody’s Friday or Saturday night.

To me, that is the most special thing that we can do. The people who are supporting us are beginning to follow us on social media, but they’re also showing up at our shows and cheering us on. We’re so thankful, and we feel like we’re part of this community. 

Q: “The Saddest Kind of Blue” examines the demise of a relationship and the struggle to end it. Shannon, what was it like to write from that perspective for the song?

SL: I haven’t recorded that one yet, and it’s one of my oldest songs. This is one of the few songs that’s not personal. It’s a character role that I stepped into, and I gave myself a homework assignment. I wanted to write a tear-in-your-beer waltz about a woman who was lonely in her relationship.

I ended up making it a story: She’s been sitting there waiting for him to come home, and he’s been out with the guys. She thinks that maybe he’s lying to her, and she can’t really tell. He comes home early in the morning after having been out all night, and he’s drunk and weaving around.

The chorus says, “Alone with you / And that’s the saddest kind of blue.” It was also one of the first songs I wrote a bridge for, which says: “How can I tell / What you’re trying to say / When you won’t let me know / I’m tired of waiting / Please tell me your truth / And I’ll go.”

I love Hilary’s fiddle playing on this song, and I think it has always needed a fiddle. Once she started playing it, I said, “Oh my god, this is what this song has been needing.”

Q: “Bitches & Witches” depicts the images, emotions, and experiences of strong, independent women. Kandy, how did female relatives inspire this song?

Kandy Fredrick (KF): My aunt and my mom had to think about it for a minute before they were going to be OK with me doing it. I’m from Kentucky, and all the women in my life are bitches. There is no doubt; if anybody came after their kids, they were out the door, and they were on top of them on the ground. I grew up like that, and I think we’re all witches in our own right as women.

This song took me 20 minutes to write, and it’s two chords. It’s super simple, and it just came right out. I feel like a lot of it is very true—the campfires and dancing around the fires. It’s very witchy, but that’s normal for me.

It also has a tanpura in the song, and Dave Roof had one of those when we recorded the song for Goldie May. I told Dave, “I need a didgeridoo,” and he said, “I don’t have that, but I got this.” He sat down, and he added that to it. It was very light, and I told him, “You need to turn that up!”

We play the song out live every time, and Shannon does this scream at the end. It’s so high! And Hilary adds a fiddle to that song on top of that.

Q: “2nd Fiddle” examines taking a relationship to the next step. Hilary, how did that song help you hone your songwriting skills?

HFS: For me, I’m not a natural songwriter. I started writing songs out of necessity. I wrote a song for my daughter when she got married, and I sang it at our house. That song took me four months to write, and I kept coming up with lyrics that sounded cheesy. That wasn’t what I wanted to say, and eventually somebody wrote me a message on Facebook. And I thought, “That’s what I wanted to say.”  

Some songs take months, and I had been writing one song that took me almost a year. I finally took it to my teacher, and I said, “Help me! I can’t get out of this hamster wheel.” But “2nd Fiddle” came like that … and some songs come quickly, and some don’t. For me, it has to be personal, or it has to be something that I’m experiencing. I feel it, and then I want to express that musically.

Q: What’s up next for the band?

SL: We’re just excited that, between the three of us, we can easily do a two-to-three-hour show with mostly original material. We have some covers that we do, too, but it’s mostly originals.

HFS: It would be fun to [write a song] together. Most of the time, there’s an idea for a song and an arrangement. We’re so new at this, and it’s only been a year.

There’s something about playing with people for an extended period of time because you anticipate what they’re going to do. That, to me, is really gelling and growing together as musicians. We would like to do an EP, and we’ve been talking about it.

KF: We’re thinking about that right now, too. We all have newer songs, and I know I have newer stuff since my album that we could bring in.

The Wildflowers perform April 3 at Crazy Wisdom Bookstore, 114 South Main Street, Ann Arbor. The show starts at 7:30 pm. The event is free, but tips are welcome. Other events include: May 9 at Ypsi Alehouse and June 12 at the Dixboro Farmers’ Market.